Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (110 page)

“Another informed mind has been tossed into oblivion,” Graham commented, bitterly. “The hundredth or the thousandth, for all we know!” He spread dramatic arms. “We eat, but we do not roam haphazardly around seeking wild potatoes. We grow them, and in growing them we improve them according to our notions of what potatoes ought to be. Similarly, our emotional tubers are not enough to fill higher and mightier bellies; they must be grown, stimulated, bred according to the ideas of those who do the surreptitious cultivating.”

“That,” he shouted, bunching a strong fist and shaking it at his wide-eyed hearers, “is the sole reason why human beings, otherwise rational enough, ingenious enough to amaze themselves with their own cleverness, cannot conduct world affairs in a way that does justice to their intelligence. That is the reason why, in this present day and age, we can build glories greater than history has ever held, yet live among the miserable monuments to our own destructive powers, and cannot build peace, security, tranquility. That is the reason why we advance in science, and all the emotion-producing arts, and all the exciting graces, but not in sociology, which has been hamstrung from the beginning.”

Expressly, he rolled wide an imaginary sheet of paper, and said, “If I were showing you a microphotograph of the edge of an ordinary saw, its peaks and valleys would be a perfect graph representing the waves of emotion which have upset this world with damnable regularity. Emotion—the crop! Hysteria—the fruit! Rumors of war, preparations for war, accusations of preparations for war, actual wars, ferocious and bloody; religious revivals, religious riots; financial crises; labor troubles; color rivalries; ideological demonstrations; specious propaganda; murders, massacres, so-called natural disasters, or slaughter in any emotion-arousing form; revolutions and more wars.

His voice was loud, determined as he went on. “Despite the fact that the enormous majority of ordinary men of all colors and every creed instinctively yearn for peace and security above all else, this world of otherwise sane, sensible people cannot satisfy that yearning.
They are not allowed to satisfy it!
Peace, real peace, is a time of famine to those higher than us in the scale of life. There must be emotion, nervous energy, great, worldwide crops of it, brought into being, somehow, anyhow.”

“It is atrocious!” swore Carmody.

“When you see this world riddled with suspicion, rotten with conflicting ideas, staggering beneath the burden of preparation for war, you can be certain the harvest time is drawing near—a harvest for others. Not for you, not for you—you are only the poor, bleeding suckers whose lot it is to be pushed around.
The harvest is for others!”

He bent forward, his jaw jutting aggressively, his eyes burned into theirs. “Gentlemen, I am here to give you Bjornsen’s formula that you may test it for yourselves. Maybe there are one or two among you who think I’ve been no more than making noises. God knows, I really wish that I’m deluded! So, soon, will you!” His grin was hard and completely humorless. “I ask, I demand that the truth be given the world before it becomes too late. Humanity will never know peace, never build a heaven upon earth while its collective soul bears his hideous burden, its collective mind is corrupted from birth. Truth must be a weapon, else these creatures would never have gone to such drastic lengths to prevent it from becoming known. They fear the truth, therefore the world must learn the truth. The world
must
be told!”

Sitting down, he covered his face with his hands. There were things he could not tell them, things he did not want to tell them. Before morning some of them would have gained the ability to test the facts, they would gaze into the dreadful skies—and some of them would die. They would die screaming the guilty knowledge that filled their minds, the fear that stuffed their leaping hearts. They would fight futilely, run uselessly, babble the dying protests of the damned, and expire helplessly.

Dimly, he heard Colonel Leamington addressing the audience, telling the scientists to go their separate ways with care and circumspection, to take with them mimeographed copies of the previous formula, to test it as soon as possible and inform him of the results immediately they were obtained. Above all, they were to exercise mental self-control, keeping well apart so that at worst their minds could betray them only as individuals and not as a group. Leamington, too, appreciated the danger. At least, he was taking no chances.

The governmental experts went out one by one, each accepting his slip of paper from Leamington. All looked at the seated Graham, but none spoke. Their faces were grim, and ominous thoughts already were burgeoning in their minds.

When the last of them had gone, Leamington said, “We’ve prepared sleeping quarters farther below this level, Graham. We must take good care of you until the facts have been checked, because Beach’s death means that you’re now the only one with first-hand information.”

“I doubt it.”

“Eh?” Leamington’s jaw dropped in surprise.

“I don’t think so,” asserted Graham, wearily. “Heaven alone knows how many scientists have had private information about Bjornsen’s discovery. Undoubtedly, some dismissed it on sight, as manifestly ridiculous—or so they thought. They never bothered to test it for themselves, and their omission saved their lives. But there may be others who have confirmed Bjornsen’s claims and have been fortunate enough to have escaped detection up to the moment. They will be terrified, haunted men, driven half-mad by their own knowledge, afraid to risk ridicule, or precipitate their own end, or even cause a major holocaust by shouting from the housetops. They’ll be down, way down somewhere out of sight, skulking silently around, like sewer-rats. You’d have hell’s own job finding them!”

“You think that general dissemination of the news will cause trouble?”

“Trouble is putting it mildly,” Graham declared. “The word for what will happen isn’t in the dictionary. The news will be broadcast only if the Vitons fail in their positive attempts to prevent it. If they deem it necessary, they’ll have no compunctions about wiping out half the human race to preserve the blissful ignorance of the other half.”

“Supposing that they can do it,” Leamington qualified.

“They’ve organized two world wars and have kept us emoting in suspense for the last twenty years over the possibility of a third and even bigger one.” Graham rubbed powerful hands together, felt dampness oozing between the pores. “What they could do before they can do again.”

“You’re not suggesting that they’re so all-powerful that it’s futile to struggle against them, are you?”

“Most definitely not! But I don’t underestimate the enemy. That’s a mistake we’ve made too many times in the past!” He noted Leamington’s wince without commenting upon it. “Their numbers and strength still remain a matter of speculation. Pretty soon they’ll be swarming all over the place, looking for ringleaders of mutinies, dealing with them quickly, thoroughly—and finally. If they discover me, and remove me, you’ll have to seek some other survivor. Bjornsen told his friends, and there’s no telling just how far the news has spread through purely personal channels. Dakin, for instance, got it from Webb, who got it from Beach who got it from Bjornsen. Reed got it from Mayo and back to Bjornsen by another route. Dakin and Reed got it third-hand, or fourth-hand or maybe tenth-hand, but it killed them just the same. There may be a few others who, more by luck than anything else, have managed to keep alive.”

“It is to be hoped so,” said Leamington, with a touch of gloom.

“Once the news does get out, those of us who know it now will all be safe. The motive for removing us will then have ceased to exist.” There was pleased anticipation in his tones, the glee of one who looks forward to ridding himself on an intolerable burden.

“If the results gained by these scientists bear out your statements,” interjected Senator Carmody, “I, personally, shall see to it that the President is informed without delay. You can depend upon all the action of which the government is capable.”

“Thanks!” Nodding gratefully, Graham arose, went out with Leamington and Wohl. They conducted him to his temporary refuge many levels deeper beneath the War Department Building.

“Say, Bill,” spoke Wohl; “I collected a mess of reports from Europe that I’ve not had a chance to tell you about. There have been autopsies on Sheridan, Bjornsen and Luther, and the results were exactly the same as in the cases of Mayo and Webb.”

“It all ties up,” remarked Colonel Leamington. He patted Graham on the shoulder, performing the action with an amusing touch of paternal pride. “Your story is one that is going to strain the credulity of the world, but I believe you implicitly.”

They left him to the much-needed sleep he knew he would not get. It was impossible to slumber with the crisis so near to hand. Mayo had gone, and he had seen him go. He had seen Dakin flee from a fate that was fast, determined, implacable, and he had anticipated and heard Corbett’s similar end. Tonight—Beach! Tomorrow—who?

In the cold, damp hours of early morning, the news burst wide over a startled planet, broke with breathtaking suddenness and with a violence that transcended everything. The whole world howled in horror.

It was three o’clock in the morning of June the ninth, 2015, and the seldom-mentioned but superbly efficient United States Department of Propaganda was working overtime. Its two huge floors in Home Affairs Building were dark, deserted, but half a mile away, hidden in a two-acre basement comprising a dozen great cellars, slaved the department’s complete staff augmented by eighty willing helpers.

One floor above them, held by an immense thickness of concrete and steel, rested the mammoth weights of several old-fashioned presses, clean, bright, oiled, kept for years on constant readiness against the time when there might be a nationwide breakdown in the television news-reproduction system. One thousand feet higher soared the beautifully slender pile that was the home of the semi-official
Washington Post.

Into the hands of the bustling four hundred, jacketless, perspiring, were being drawn the threads of communication over an entire world. Television, radio and cable systems, stratplane couriers, even the field—signaling sections of the fighting forces were theirs to command.

For all the intense activity, there was no sign of it at ground-level. The Post Building stood apparently lifeless, its mounting rows of windows reflecting a multitude of sallow moons. Unconscious of the frantically active battalion far below him, a patrolling police officer stamped his lonely way along the sidewalk, his eyes on a distant illuminated clock, his mind occupied with nothing more damning than the cup of coffee at the end of the beat. A cat ran daintily across his path, vanished into the shadows.

But down, down, down, far underneath the brooding monoliths, buried amid a million unsuspecting sleepers, the four hundred toiled in preparation for the awful dawn. Morse keys and high-speed autotypers rattled brief, staccato messages or longer, more ominous ones. Teletypers chattered furiously through chapters of information. Telephones shrilled and emitted metallic words while, in one corner, a powerful multi-channel shortwave transmitter forced impulses through its sky-high antenna and out to faraway ears.

News flowed in, was dissected, correlated, filed. Bleeker has completed the test, reports that he is watching two spheres gliding over Delaware Avenue. Okay, tell Bleeker to forget it
—if he can!
Here’s Williams on the phone, saying he’s made his test and can see luminescent spheres. Tell Williams thanks, and to go bury himself fast! Tollerton on the wire, saying test comes out positive and that he’s now observing a string of blue globes moving high across the Potomac. Tell him to go underground and take a sleep.

“That you, Tollerton? Thanks for the information. No, sorry, we’re not permitted to tell you whether other tests have produced reports confirming your own. Why? For your own sake, of course! Now stop thinking about it and go bye-bye!”

It was a noisy but systematic hurly-burly in which incoming calls squeezed their way between outgoing messages and every long-distance talker yearned for priority over every other. Here, a man clung desperately to a phone during his twentieth attempt to raise station WRTC in Colorado. Giving it up, he made a contact request to the police department in Denver. Over there, in one corner, a radio operator recited into his microphone in a patient monotone, “Calling aircraft-carrier Arizona. Calling aircraft-carrier Arizona.”

In the middle of it all, exactly at the hour of four, two men arrived through the tunnel which for a decade had provided swift means of egress for thousands of still-damp newspapers being rushed to the railroad terminus.

Entering, the first man respectfully held the door open for his companion. The second man was tall, heavily built, with iron-gray hair, light gray eyes that looked calmly, steadily from a muscular confident face.

While this last one stood appraising the scene, his escort said, simply, “Gentlemen, the President!”

There followed a momentary silence while every man came to his feet, looked upon the features they knew so well. Then the chief executive signed them to carry on, permitted himself to be conducted to an enclosed booth. Inside, he adjusted his glasses, arranged some typewritten sheets in his hand, cleared his throat and faced a microphone.

The signal lamp flashed. The President spoke, his delivery assured, convincing, his voice impressive. Two blocks away, hidden in another basement, delicate machinery absorbed his voice, commenced to reproduce it two thousand times.

Long after he had departed, the machinery sped on, pouring forth tiny reels of magnetized wire which were snatched up, packed in airtight containers, and rushed away.

The New York-San Francisco stratplane left at five o’clock with a dozen canned reproductions of the President’s speech hidden in its cargo. It dropped three of them en route before its pilot lost control of his thoughts—whereupon it disappeared forever.