 The Guardians by Irving Cox Jr. It's not always the truth shall set you free, sometimes it's want of the truth shall drive you to escape. And that can be dangerous. Mrenna Brill intended to ride the God-car above the rain mist, for a long time she had not believed in the taboos or the earth-god. She no longer believed she lived on earth. This paradise of green-floored forests and running brooks was sometimes called Rhythar. Six years ago, when Mrenna was fourteen, she first discovered the truth. She asked a question and the earth-god ignored it. A simple question, really. What is above the rain mist? God could have told her. Every day he answered technical questions that were far more difficult. Instead he repeated the familiar taboo about avoiding the old village because of the sickness. And consequently Mrenna, being female, went to the old village. There was nothing really unusual about that. All the kids went through the ruins from time to time. They had worked out a sort of charm that made it all right. They ran past the burned-out shells of the old houses and they kept their eyes shaded to ward off the sickness. But even at fourteen Mrenna had outgrown charms and she didn't believe in the sickness. She had once asked the earth-god what sickness meant and the screen in the answer house had given her a very detailed answer. Mrenna knew that none of the hundred girls and thirty boys inhabiting Rhythar had ever been sick. That, like the taboo of the old village, she considered a childish superstition. The old village wasn't large. Three parallel roads, a mile long, lined with the charred ruins of prefabs which were exactly like the cottages where the kids lived. It was nothing to inspire either fear or legend. The village had burned a long time ago. The grass from the forest had grown a green mantle over the skeletal walls. For weeks Mrenna poked through the ruins before she found anything of significance. A few scorched pages of a printed pamphlet buried deep in the black earth. The paper excited her tremendously. It was different from the film books photographed in the answer house. She had never touched anything like it and it seemed wonderful stuff. She read the pamphlet eagerly. It was part of a promotional advertisement of a world called Rhythar, the jewel of the Syrian solar system. The description made it obvious that Rhythar was the green paradise where Mrenna lived, the place she had been taught to call earth, and the pamphlet had been addressed to earthmen everywhere. Mrenna made her second find when she was fifteen, a textbook in astronomy. For the first time in her life she read about the spinning dust of the universe lying beyond the eternal rain mist that hid her world. The solid, stable earth of her childhood was solid and stable no more, but a sphere turning through a black void. Nor was it properly called earth, but a planet called Rhythar. The adjustment Mrenna had to make was shattering. She lost faith in everything she believed. Yet the clockwork logic of astronomy appealed to her ordinarily mind. It explained why the rain mist glowed with light during the day and turned dark at night. Mrenna had never seen a clear sky. She had no visual data to tie her new concept to. For six years she kept the secret. She hid the papers and the astronomy text which she found in the old village. Later, after the metalmen came, she destroyed everything so none of the other women would know the earth god was a man. At first she kept the secret because she was afraid. For some reason the man who played it being god wanted the kids to believe Rhythar was earth, the totality of the universe enveloped in a cloud of mist. She knew that because she once asked god what a planet was. The face on the screen in the answer-house became frigid with anger, or was it fear? And the earth god said, the word means nothing. But late that night a very large god-car brought six metalmen down through the rain mist. They were huge, jointed things that clanked when they walked. Four of them used weapons to herd the kids together in their small settlement. The two others went to the old village and blasted the ruins with high explosives. Vaguely Mrenna remembered that the metalmen had been there before when the kids were still very small. They had built the new settlement and they had brought food. They lived with the children for a long time, she thought, but the memory was hazy. As the years passed Mrenna's fear retreated and only one thing became important. She knew the earth god was a man. On the fertile soil of Rhythar there were one hundred women and thirty men. All the boys had taken mates before they reached seventeen. Seventy girls were left unmarried with no prospect of ever having husbands. A score or more became second wives in polygamous homes. But plural marriage had no appeal for Mrenna. She was firmly determined to possess a man of her own. And why shouldn't it be the earth god? As her first step toward escape Mrenna volunteered for duty in the answer-house. For as long as she could remember the answer-house had stood on a knoll some distance beyond the new settlement. It was a square one room building, housing a speaking box, a glass screen, and a console of transmission machinery. Anyone in the settlement could contact god and request information or special equipment. God went out of his way to deluge them with information. The simplest question produced voluminous data transmitted over the screen and photographed on reels of film. Someone had to be in the answer-house to handle the photography. The work was not hard, but it was monotonous. Most of the kids preferred to farm the fields or dig the sacrificial ore. A request for equipment was granted just as promptly. Tools, machines, seeds, fertilizers, packaged buildings, games, clothing—everything came in a god-car. It was a large cylinder which hissed down from the rain mist on a pillar of fire. The landing site was a flat charred field near the answer-house. Unless the equipment was unusually heavy, the attendant stationed in the house was expected to unload the god-car and pile aboard the sacrifice ores mined on Rhythar. God asked two things from the settlement—the pieces of unusually heavy metal, which they dug from the hills, and tiny vials of soil. In an hour's time they could mine enough ore to fill the compartment of a god-car, and God never complained if they sometimes sent the cylinder back empty. But he fussed mightily over the small vials of Earth. He gave very explicit directions as to where they were to take the samples, and the place was never the same. Sometimes they had to travel miles from the settlement to satisfy that inexplicable whim. For two weeks Myrna patiently ran off the endless films of new books, and unloaded the god-car when it came. She examined the interior of the cylinder carefully, and she weighed every possible risk. The compartment was very small, but she concluded that she would be safe. And so she made her decision. Tense and tight-lipped Myrna Brill slipped aboard the god-car. She sealed the locked door, which automatically fired the lunching-tubes. After that there was no turning back. The dark compartment shook in a thunder of sound. The weight of the escape-speed tore at her body, pulling her tight against the confining walls. She lost consciousness until the pressure lessened. The metal walls became hot, but the space was too tiny for her to avoid contact entirely. Four narrow light-tubes came on, with a dull red glow, and suddenly a gelatinous liquid emptied out of sealing-fence. The fluid sprayed every exposed surface in the cubicle, draining through the shipment of sacrifice ores at Myrna's feet. It had a choking antiseptic odor. It stung Myrna's face and inflamed her eyes. Worse still, as the liquid soaked into her clothing, it disintegrated the fiber, tearing away the cloth and long strips, which slowly dissolved in the liquid on the floor. Before the antiseptic spray ceased, Myrna was helplessly naked. Even her black boots had not survived. The red lights went out, and Myrna was imprisoned again in the crushing darkness. A terror of the taboos she had defied swept her mind. She began to scream, but the sound was lost in the roar of the motors. Suddenly it was over. The God-card lurched into something hard. Myrna was thrown against the ceiling, and she hung there, weightless. The pieces of sacrifice ores were floating in the darkness just as she was. The motors cut out, and the locked door swung open. Myrna saw a circular room, brightly lighted with a glaring blue light. The nature of her fear changed. This was the house of the Earth God, but she could not let him find her naked. She tried to run into the circular room. She found that the slightest exertion of her muscles sent her spinning through the air. She could not get her feet on the floor. There was no down and no up in that room. She collided painfully with the metal wall, and she snatched at a light bracket to keep herself from bouncing free in the empty air again. The God-card had landed against what was either the ceiling or the floor of the circular room. Myrna had no way of making a differentiation. Eight brightly lighted corridors opened into the side walls. Myrna heard footsteps moving toward her down one of the corridors. She pulled herself blindly into another. As she went farther from the circular room, a vague sense of gravity returned. At the end of the corridor she was able to stand on her feet again, although she still had to walk very carefully. Any sudden movement sent her soaring in a graceful leap that banged her head against the ceiling. Cautiously she opened a thick metal door into another hall, and she stood transfixed looking through a mica wall at the emptiness of space pinpointed with its billions of stars. This was the reality of the charts she had seen in the astronomy text. That knowledge alone saved her sanity. She had believed it when the proof lay hidden above the rain mist. She must believe it now. From where she stood she was able to see the place where the God-car had brought her, like a vast cartwheel spinning in the void. The God-car was clamped against the hub, from which eight corridors radiated outward like wheelspokes toward the rim. Far below the gigantic wheel Myrna saw the sphere of Rhythar, invisible behind its shroud of glowing mist. She moved along the rim corridor, past the mica wall, until she came to a door that stood open. The room beyond was a sleeping compartment, and it was empty. She searched it for clothing, and found nothing. She went through four more dormitory rooms before she came upon anything she could use. Brief shorts clearly made for a man, and a loose white tunic. It wasn't suitable. It wasn't the way she wanted to be dressed when she faced him. But it had to do. Myrna was pawing through a footlocker, looking for boots, when she heard a hesitant step behind her. She whirled and saw a small, stooped, white-haired man, naked except for trunks like the one she was wearing. The wrinkled skin on his waisted chest was burned brown by the hot glare of the sun. Thick lensed glasses hung from a chain around his neck. "'My dear young lady,' he said in a tired voice. "'This is a mens-wad.' "'I'm sorry, I didn't know.' "'You must be a new patient.' He fumbled for his glasses. Instinctively, she knew she shouldn't let him see her clearly enough to identify her as a stranger. She shoved past him, knocking the glasses from his hand. "'I'd better find my own ward.' Myrna didn't know the word, but she supposed it meant some sort of sleeping chamber. "'The old man,' said Chattaly. "'I hadn't heard they were bringing in any new patients today.' She was in the corridor by that time. He reached for her hand. "'I'll see you in the sun-room.' It was a timid, hopeful question. "'And you'll tell me all the news, everything they're going back on earth. I haven't been home for almost a year.' She fled down the hall. When she heard voices ahead of her, she pulled back a door and slid into another room. A storeroom piled with cases of medicines. Behind the cartons she thought she would be safe. This wasn't what she had expected. Myrna thought there might be one man living in a kind of prefab, somehow suspended above the rain mist. But there were obviously others up here. She didn't know how many. And the old man frightened her, more than the dazzling sight of the heavens visible through the mica wall. Myrna had never seen physical age before. No one on Ryther was older than she was herself. A sturdy, healthy, lusty twenty. The old man's infirmity disgusted her. For the first time in her life she was conscious of the slow decay of death. The door of the supply-room slid open. Myrna crouched low behind the cartons, but she was able to see the man and the woman who had entered the room. A woman here? Myrna hadn't considered that possibility. Perhaps the Earth God already had her made. The newcomers were dressed in crisp white uniforms. The woman wore a starched white hat. They carried a tray of small glass cylinders from which metal needles projected. While the woman held the tray, the man drove the needles through the caps of small bottles and filled the cylinders with a bright colored liquid. When are you leaving, Dick? The woman asked. In about forty minutes they're sending an auto pickup. Oh, no! Now, don't start worrying. They've got the bugs out of it by this time. The auto-pickups are entirely trustworthy. Sure, that's what the army says. In theory, they should be even more reliable than I wish you'd wait for the hospital shuttle. And miss the chance to address Congress this year? We've worked too long for this. I don't want to muff it now. We've all the statistical proof we need, even to convince those pinch-penny halfwits. Those pinch-penny halfwits. During the past eight years we've handled more than a thousand cases up here. On Earth they were pronounced incurable. We've sent better than eighty percent back in good health after an average day of fourteen months. No medical man has ever questioned the efficiency of cosmic radiation and a reduced atmospheric gravity dick. It's just our so-called statesmen always yapping about the budget. But this time we have the cost problem lit, too. For a year and a half the ore they send up from RYTHAR has paid for our entire operation. I didn't know that. We've kept it under wraps so the politicians wouldn't cut our appropriations. Their glass tubes were full and they turned toward the door. It isn't right, the woman persisted, for them not to send a pilot shuttle after you, dick. It isn't dignified. You're our assistant medical director and her words were cut off as the door slid shut behind them. Myrna tried to fit this new information into what she already knew, or thought she knew, about the Earth world. It didn't add up to a pretty picture. She had once asked for a definition of illness and it was apparent to her that this place, which they called the Guardian Wheel, was an expensive hospital for Earthmen. It was paid for by the sacrificial ores mined on RYTHAR. In a sense RYTHAR was being enslaved and exploited by Earth. True, it was not difficult to dig out the ore, but Myrna presented the fact that the kids on RYTHAR had not been told the truth. She had long ago lost her awe of the man called God. Now she lost her respect as well. Myrna was glad she had not seen him. Glad no one knew she was aboard the Guardian Wheel. She would return to RYTHAR. After she told the others what she knew, RYTHAR would send up no more sacrifice ores. Let the Earthmen come down and explain it for themselves. Very cautiously she pulled the door open. The rim corridor was empty. She moved toward one of the intersecting corridors. When she heard footsteps she hid in another dormitory room. This was different from the others. It showed more evidence of permanent occupation. She guessed it was a dormitory for the people who took care of the sick. Pictures were fastened to curved metal walls. Personal articles cluttered the shelves, hung beside the bunks. On a riding desk she saw a number of typed reports. Five freshly laundered uniforms, identical to the one she had lost in the antiseptic wash, hung on a rack behind the door. Myrna stripped off the makeshift she was wearing and put on one of the uniforms. She found boots under the desk. When she was dressed she stood admiring herself in the flushed surface of the metal door. She was a handsome woman, and she was very conscious of that. Her face was tanned by the mist-filtered sunlight of Rhyther. Her lips were red and sensuous. Her long, platinum-colored hair fell to her shoulders. She compared herself to the small, hard-faced female she had seen in the supply room. Was that a typical Earthwoman? Myrna's lips curled in a scornful smile, let the gods come down to Rhyther then, and discover what a real female was like in the lush green Rhytherian paradise. Myrna went to the desk and glanced at the typed reports. They had been written by a man who signed himself Commander-in-Charge Guardian Whale, and they were addressed to the Congress of the World Government. One typed document was a supply inventory. A second, still unfinished, was a budget report. You won't show a profit next time, Myrna thought vindictively, when we stopped sending you the sacrifice orer. Another report dealt with Rhyther, and Myrna read it with more interest. One paragraph caught her attention. We have asked for soil samples to be taken from an area covering 10,000 miles. Our chemical analysis has been thorough, and we find nothing that could be remotely harmful to human life. Atmospheric samples produce the same negative results. On the other hand, we have direct evidence that no animal life has ever evolved on Rhyther. The life cycle is exclusively botanical. The soil samples, Myrna realized, would be the vials of Earth, which the Earth God had requested so often. Were the Earthmen planning to move their hospital down to Rhyther? That idea disturbed her. Myrna did not want her garden world cluttered up with a lot of sick old men discarded by Earth. She turned to the second page of the report. The original colony survived for a year. The sickness in the old village developed only after the first harvest of Rhytherian ground food. It is more and more evident that the botanical cycle of Rhyther must be examined before we find the answer. To do that adequately, we shall have to send survey teams to the surface. That requires much larger appropriations for research than we have had in the past. The metal immunization suits, which must, of course, be destroyed after each expedition. And what may I ask is the meaning of this? Myrna dropped the report and swung toward the door. She saw a woman standing there, another hard-faced, Earth woman, with a starched white cap perched on her graying hair. I must have come to the wrong room, Myrna said in a small voice. Indeed, everyone knows this is Command Headquarters. Who are you? The woman put her hand on Myrna's arm and the fingers bit through the uniform into Myrna's flesh. Myrna pulled away, drawing her shoulders back proudly. Why should she feel afraid? She stood a head taller than this dried-up stranger. She knew the Earth woman's strength would be no match for hers. My name is Myrna Brill, she said quietly. I came up in a god-car from Rhyther. Rhyther, the woman's mouth fell open. She whispered the word as if it were profanity. Suddenly she turned and ran down the Rem Corridor, screaming in terror. She's afraid of me, Myrna thought, and that made no sense at all. Myrna knew she had to get back to the god-car quickly. Since the Earthmen had built up the taboos in order to get their sacrifice ores from Rhyther, they would do everything they could to prevent her return. She ran toward an intersecting, spoken corridor. An alarm bell began to clang, and the sound vibrated against the metal walls. An armed man sprang from a side room and fired his weapon at Myrna. The discharge burned a deep groove in the wall. So they would even kill her, these men who pretended to be gods. Before the man could fire again, Myrna swung down a side corridor, and at once the sensation of weightlessness overtook her. She could not move quickly. She saw the armed man at the mouth of the corridor. Frantically she pushed open the door of a room, which was crowded with consoles of transmission machines. Three men were seated in front of the speakers. They jumped and came toward her, clumsily fighting the weightlessness. Myrna caught at the door-jam and swung herself toward the ceiling. At the same time the armed man fired. The discharge missed her and washed against the transmission machinery. Blue fire exploded from the room. The three men screamed in agony. Concussion threw Myrna hopelessly toward the rim again. And the guardian whale was plunged into darkness. Myrna's head swam. Her shoulders seethe with pain where she had banged into the wall. She tried to creep toward the circular room, but she had lost her sense of direction, and she found herself back on the rim. The clanging bell had stopped when the lights went out, but Myrna heard the panic of frightened voices. Far away someone was screaming. Running feet clattered toward her. Myrna flattened herself against the outer wall. An indistinct body of men shot past her. From Rithar, one of them was saying, a woman from Rithar. And we've lasted the communication center. We've no way of sending the warning back to Earth. They were gone. Myrna moved back and to the spoken corridor. She felt her way silently toward the circular hub room and the God-car. Suddenly very close she heard voices which she recognized, the man and the woman who had been talking in the supply room. You're still all right, Dick, the woman said. She hasn't been here long enough, too. We don't know that. We don't know how it spreads or how quickly. We can't take the chance. Then we've no choice. Her voice was a small whisper choked with terror. None. These have been standing emergency orders for twenty years. We always face the possibility that one of them would escape. If we'd been allowed to use a different policy of education, but the politicians wouldn't permit that, the wheel has to be destroyed and we must die with it. Couldn't we wait and make sure? It works too fast. None of us would be able to do the job afterward. The voices moved away. Myrna floated toward the hub room. She found the airlock and pulled herself into the God-car. The metal lock hissed closed and light came on. Then she knew she had made a mistake. This ship was not the one she had used when she came up from Raitar. The tiny cabin was fitted with a sleeping lounge, a food cabinet, and a file of reading films. Above the lounge a mic of view-plate gave her a broad view of the sky. Myrna remembered that the man in the supply room had said he was waiting for an auto pickup. He was on his way back to earth. Myrna had taken his ship instead of her own. In panic she tried to open the door again, but she found no way to do it. Machinery beneath her feet began to hum. She felt a slight lurch as the pickup left the hub of the guardian wheel. It swung a wide arc. Through the view-plate she saw the enormous wheel growing small behind her, silhouetted against the mist of Raitar. Suddenly the wheel glowed red with the soundless explosion. Its flaming fragments died in the void. Myrna dropped weakly on the lounge. Nausea spun through her mind. The man had said they would destroy themselves, because Myrna had come aboard. But why were they afraid of her? What possible harm could she do to them? Myrna had left Raitar to discover the truth, and the truth was insanity. Was the truth always like this, a bitter disillusionment, and empty horror? She had something else to say to the people of Raitar now. Not that the gods were men, but that men were mad. Believe in the taboos. Send up the sacrificial oars. It was a small price to pay to keep that madness away from Raitar. And Myrna knew she could not go back. With the wheel gone she could never return to Raitar. The auto pickup was carrying her inexorably toward Earth. The scream of the machinery slowly turned shrill, hammering against her eardrums. The stars visible in the viewplate blurred and winked out. Myrna felt a twist of vertigo as the shuttle shifted from conventional speed into a time warp, and then the sound was gone. The ship was floating in an impenetrable blackness. Myrna had no idea how much time passed subjectively. When she became hungry she took food from the cabinet. She slept when she was tired. To pass the time she turned the reading films through the projector. Most of the film stored in the shuttle covered material Myrna already knew. The earthmen, clearly, had not denied any information to Raitar. Only one thing had been restricted, astronomy, and that would have made no difference if Myrna had not found the text in the ruins of the old village. The people on Raitar never saw the stars. They had no way of knowing or caring what lay above the rain-mest. Myrna was more interested in the history of Earth, which she had never known before. She studied the pictures of the great industrial centers and the crowded countryside. She was awed by the mobs in the city streets and the towering buildings. Yet she liked her own world more, the forests and the clear running brooks, the vast, uncrowded open spaces. It puzzled her that the people of Earth would give the Ritherian paradise to a handful of children when their own world was so overcrowded. Was this another form of the madness that had driven the people in the wheel to destroy themselves? That made a convenient explanation, but Myrna's mind was still logical to accept it. One film referred to the founding of the original colony on Rither, a planet in the Syrian system which had been named for its discoverer. Rither, according to the film, was one of a score of colonies established by Earth. It was unbelievably rich in deposits of uranium. That, Myrna surmised, was the name of the sacrificial ore they sent up in the god-cars. The atmosphere and gravity of Rither duplicated that of Earth. Rither should have become the largest colony in the system. The government of Earth had originally planned a migration of ten million persons. But after twelve months the survey colony was destroyed by an infection. Myrna read on the projection screen, which has never been identified. It is simply called the sickness. The origin of this plague is unknown. No adult in the survey colony survived. Children born on Rither are themselves immune, but are carriers of the sickness. The first rescue team sent to save them died within eight hours. No human being, aside from these native born children, has ever survived the sickness. Now Myrna had the whole truth. She knew the motivation for their madness of self-destruction. It was not insanity, but the sublime courage of a few human beings sacrificing themselves to save the rest of their civilization. They smashed the guardian whale to keep the sickness there. And Myrna had already escaped before that happened. She was being hurled through space toward Earth, and she would destroy that too. If she killed herself, that would in no way alter the situation. The ship would still move in its appointed course. Her body would be aboard. Perhaps the very furnishings in the cabin were now infected with the germ of the sickness. When the ship touched Earth, the fatal poison would escape. Dali Myrna turned up another frame on the film, and she read what the Earthmen had done to help Rither. They built the guardian whale to isolate the sickness. Seated in metal immunization suits, volunteers had descended to the plague world and reared the surviving children of the colonists until they were old enough to look out for themselves. The answer-house had been set up as an instructional device. As nearly as possible, the scientists in charge attempted to create a normal social situation for the plague carriers. They could never be allowed to leave Rither, but when they matured enough to know the truth, Rither could be integrated into the colonial system. Ritherian uranium is already a significant trade factor in the colonial market. An incidental byproduct of the guardian whale is the hospital facility, where advanced cases of certain cancers and lung diseases have been cured and reduced gravity or by exposure to cosmic radiation. Myrna shut off the projection. The words made sense, but the results did not, and she knew precisely why Earth had failed when they matured, and those three words she had her answer. And now it didn't matter. There was nothing she could do. Her ship was a poisoned arrow aimed directly at the heart of man's civilization. Myrna had slept twice when the auto pickup lurched out of the time-drive, and she was able to see the stars again. Directly ahead of her she saw an emerald planet, bright in the sun, and she knew instinctively that it was Earth. A speaker under the viewport throbbed with the sound of a human voice. Auto-shuttle SC-539. Attention, you are assigned landing slot 731, port Chicago. I repeat, 731. Dial that destination. Do you read me? Three times the message was repeated before Myrna concluded that it was meant for her. She found three small knobs close to the speaker and a plastic toggle labeled Voice Reply. She snapped it shut and found that she could speak to the Chicago spaceport. Her problem was easily solved then. She could say she came from Rither. Without hesitation Earth ships would be sent to blast her ship out of the sky before she would be able to land, but she knew she had to accomplish more than that. The same mistake must not be repeated again. How much time do I have? She asked. 34 minutes. Can you keep this shuttle up here any longer than that? Lady, the auto-pickups are on tape pilot. Come hell or high water, they land exactly on schedule. What happens if I don't dial the slot destination? We bring you in on an emergency and you fork over a thousand bucks fine. Myrna asked to be allowed to speak to someone in authority and the government. The Chicago port manager told her the request was absurd. For nine minutes Myrna argued with a mounting sense of urgency before he gave his grudging consent. Her trouble was that she had to skate close to the truth without admitting it directly. She could not, except as a last resort, let them kill her until they knew why the isolation of Rither had failed. It was thirteen minutes before landing when Myrna finally heard an older, more dignified voice on the speaker. By then the Green Globe of Earth filled the sky. Myrna could make out the shapes of the continents, turning below her. The older man identified himself as a senator elected to the planetary Congress. She didn't know how much authority he represented, but she couldn't afford to wait any longer. She told him frankly who she was. She knew she was pronouncing her own death sonnets, yet she spoke quietly. She must show the same courage that the Earthmen had when they sacrificed themselves in the guardian whale. Listen to me for two minutes more before you blast my ship, she asked. I rode the God-car up from Rither. I am coming now to spread the sickness on Earth, because I wanted to know the truth about something that puzzled me. I had to know what was above the rain mist. In the answer-house you would not tell us that. Now I understand why. We were children. You were waiting for us to mature. And that is the mistake you made. That blindness nearly destroyed your civilization. You will have to build another guardian whale. This time don't hide anything from us because we're children. The truth makes us mature, not illusions or taboos. Never forget that. It is easier to face a fact than to have to give up a dream. We've been taught to believe. Tell your children the truth when they ask for it. Tell us, please. We can adjust to it. We're just as human as you are. Merni drew a long breath. Her lips were trembling. Did this man understand what she had to say? She would never know. If she felled, Earth, in spite of its generosity and its courage, would one day be destroyed by children bred on too many delusions. I'm ready, Merni said steadily. Send up your warships and destroy me. She waited less than ten minutes were left. Her shuttle began to move more slowly. She was no more than a mile above Earth. She saw the soaring cities and the white waves twisting through green fields. Seven minutes left. Where were the warships? She looked anxiously through the viewport and the sky was empty. Desperately she closed the voice toggle again. Send them quickly, she cried. You must not let me land. No reply came from the speaker. Her auto-shuttle began to circle a large city which lay at the southern tip of an inlet lake. Three minutes more. The ship knows toward the spaceport. Why don't you do something? Merni screamed. What are you waiting for? The shuttle settled into a metal rack. The lock hissed open. Merni shrank back against the wall, looking out at what she would destroy, what she had already destroyed. A dignified, portly man came panting up the ramp toward her. No, she whispered, don't come in here. I am Senator Bryson, he said shortly. For ten years Dr. Jameson has been telling us, from the Guardian Whale, that we should adopt a different educational policy toward Wrythar. Your scare broadcast was clever, but we're used to Jameson's tricks. He'll be removed from office for this, and if I have anything to say about it. You didn't believe me? Merni gasped. Of course not. If a plague carrier escaped from Wrythar we would have heard about it long before this. The trouble with you scientists is you don't grant the rest of us any common sense. And Jameson's the worst of the lot. He's always contended that the sociologist should determine our Wrytharian policy, not the elected representatives of the people. Merni broke down and began to cry hysterically. The senator put his hand under her arm, none too gently. Let's have no more dramatics, please. You don't know how fortunate you are, young lady. If the politicians were as adult-witted as you scientists claim we are, we might have believed that nonsense and blasted your ship out of the sky. You scientists have to give up the notion that you're our guardians. We're quite able to look out for ourselves. Negumah, the Callisto uranium merchant, sat sipping a platinum mug of mullkeye with his guest, Sliss the Venusian. Nanlou, his wife, pushing before her the small serving cart with its platinum mullkeye decanter, paused for an instant as she entered the shell of pure vitriate which covered the garden, giving it the illusion of out-of-doorness. Negumah sat at his ease, his broad, merry, half-Oriental face, good-humored. His features given a ruddy tinge by the light of rising Jupiter, the edge of whose sphere was beginning to dominate the horizon. Sliss, the intelligent amphibian, squatted across from him in the portable tub of water, which he carried with him whenever absent from the swamps of his native Venus. The amphibian's popping eyes turned towards her, the wide frog face split in a smile of appreciation as Nanlou approached. She refilled their mugs deftly and withdrew, but before she re-entered the house she could not resist hesitating to glance towards rising Jupiter and the slim shaft of the rocket ship silhouetted now against its surface. The ship was the cargo rocket Vulcan, newest and swiftest of Negumah's freighter fleet. Fully fueled and provisioned, storage space jammed with refrigerated foods that in space the cold of the encompassing void would keep perfectly for generations were it necessary. She would take off in the morning from the close by landing port for Jupiter's other satellites, then go on to the Saturnian system, returning finally with full holds of uranium for Negumah's refineries on Callisto. She was a beautiful craft to the Vulcan, and one man could manage her, though her normal crew was seven. She had cost a great sum, but Negumah was wealthy. Nanlou's face, silk-like in its beauty, hardened. Negumah was wealthy indeed. Had he not bought her? And had she not cost him more, much more than the Vulcan? But no, it was not quite accurate to say that Negumah had bought her. However, since time immemorial, beautiful daughters had been, if not sold, yet urged into marriages to wealthy men, for the benefit of their impoverished families. And though science had made great strides, conquering the realms of the telescope and invading those below the level of the microscope, finding cures for almost every disease the flesh of man was heir to, there was one ailment it had not yet conquered, poverty. Nanlou's father had been a rocket-port attendant. Once he had been a pilot, but a crash had crippled him for life. Thereafter his wages had been quite insufficient to sustain him, his brood of half dozen children, and their hard-working mother. But Nanlou, growing up, had developed into a mature beauty that rivaled the exotic leveliness of the wild orchards of Io, and in debarking at the rocket-port on a business-tripped earth because hurricanes had forced him far south of New York, Negumah had seen her. Thereafter? But that is a story as ancient as history, too. It was a truth Nanlou conveniently overlooked now that she had not been unwilling to be Negumah's bride. It was true she had driven her bargain with him, her father's debts paid, and sufficient more to ease her parents' life and educate her brothers and sisters, plus a marriage settlement for herself and a summon escrow in the Earth Union Bank should she ever divorce him for cruelty or mistreatment. But that had been only innate shrewdness. She would still have married him if he had refused her demands for her family. For his wealth fascinated her, and the prospect of being a virtual queen, even of a distant outpost colony such as that on Callisto, Nanlou was very lenient to her, and she had thought that she was taking little risk. For if she were dissatisfied the law these days was very lenient towards unhappy marital relationships. It required only definite proof of misconduct, mistreatment, or oppression of any kind to win freedom from an unwanted partner. Nanlou had been confident that after a year or two she would be able to shake free of the bonds uniting her to Negumah and take flight for herself into a world made vastly more peaceful. But now she had been married and had lived on Callisto for a full five years, and her tolerance of Negumah had long since turned to bitter hate. Not because he was a bad husband, but because he was too good a one. There was an ironic humor in the situation, but Nanlou was not disposed to recognize it. Lenient as the law was, yet it required some grounds before it could free her, and she had no grounds whatsoever. Negumah was at all times the model of courtesy and consideration towards her. He granted every reasonable wish and some that were unreasonable, although when he refused one of the later it was with a firmness as unshakable as a rock. Their home was as fine as any on earth. She had more than adequate help in taking care of it. She had ample time for any pursuits that interested her, but she used it only to become more and more bitter against Negumah because she could find no excuse to divorce him. So great had her bitterness become that if she could have gotten off Callisto in any way she would have deserted him. This would have meant forfeiting her marriage settlement and the sum that was an escrow. It would have left her father in debt to Negumah for all that Negumah had given him. But Nanlou's passionate rebellion had reached such a state of ferment in her breast that she would have accepted all this to strike a blow at the plump smiling man who now sat drinking mulkai in their garden with their guest from Venus. The answer to that was Negumah would not let her leave Callisto. The journey to earth, he logically argued, was still one containing a large element of danger. There was no reason for her to visit any other planet and law and custom required that she look after their home while he himself was away on business. In this he was unshakable. There was a stern and unyielding side to him inherited perhaps from his eastern ancestors that left Nanlou shaken and frightened when it appeared. She had seen it the one time she had seriously gone into a tantrum in an effort to make him let her take a trip to earth. It had so startled and terrified her that she had never used those tactics again. But now, as she wheeled away the mulkai to canter and left Negumah and Slyst to themselves, joy and exultation was singing in her, doubly for she was going to run away from Negumah, run away with the man she loved and in their flight they were going to steal the Vulcan. Thus Negumah would be doubly punished. He would be hurt in his pride and in his pocket book. And all through the Jupiter and Saturn systems where his wealth, his and his beautiful wife were openly envied he would be laughed at and derided. Humming lightly under her breath Nanlou put the mulkai to canter away in a little pantry and hurried on to her own apartment. Mulkai was a powerful though non-habit forming drug. Under its influence one became talkative but disinclined to movement. Slyst and her husband would remain as they were for hours leaving her free to do as she would. The servants were asleep in another part of the building and there was no one as she changed her clothes swiftly for a light warm traveling suit. Caught up two small bags one holding her personal things the other her jewels and let herself out through her own private entrance into the darkness of the rear gardens. Where in the shadows the tall blonde young engineer Hugh Neils was waiting for her. Negumah, when his beautiful wife had left the garden, sighed and put to one side his mug of Mulkai. Slyst my friend he said to the Venusian who was regarding him with large and blinking pop eyes I am troubled in my mind tonight I must dispense justice justice to myself and justice to another. To be just is often to be terribly cruel. Slyst blinked once a film moving horizontally across his large eyes and retracting to show that he understood due to the difficulty of using his artificial speech mechanism he refrained from speaking until speech was necessary. My wife Nan Loh Negumah said heavily is unhappy. I have done all that is in my power to make her happy but I have failed. She has made some requests that I have denied namely to be permitted freedom to visit earth that I denied because I know the paths she intended to tread would not have led her to happiness either and I hoped that in the end here she would find contentment I have hoped in vain tonight she intends to take matters into her own hands. Slyst blinked again politely to indicate that he was interested if Negumah cared to tell him more. Negumah rose. My friend he said if you will come with me I will show you what I mean. Slyst grasped the edge of his tub with webbed hands and swung his webbed yellow skin feet free from the water which kept the sense of membranes from drying out and at the same time supplied his body tissues with liquid falling upon the floors like a great misshapen pet he waddled awkwardly after his host Negumah led him to an elevator within the house this took them to a higher floor and they followed a corridor to the rear of the building. Here Negumah without showing a light opened the door and in silence they moved out upon a small balcony overlooking the rear gardens which were shrouded in darkness because rising Jupiter was on the opposite side of the building. They had stood there only a moment when below them the door opened and a small figure slipped through. Another figure appeared from beneath the shadows of a cluster of slender purple necklowe trees and moved forward to greet the first. They met in the center of a tiny open space where a fountain spurting through holes and crystal made a sweet murmuring music and to the two watchers rose whispered words Nan-lo? Nan-lo my darling? Hugh, oh Hugh my love hold me close and tell me that everything is ready for us to leave. Hugh Neill's arms held her close and his lips were hot on hers. That he was here as they had planned meant that he had succeeded in the other plans they had agreed upon. Exultations soared higher in Nan-lo's breast. Then we can go? Go now? She asked eagerly as Hugh Neill released her. The crew was asleep. You were able to arrange it? The young engineer looked down at her his thin face a pale blur in the darkness. In five minutes just five minutes Nan-lo my own he whispered I left the guard half an hour ago drinking mul-kai into which I put a sleeping powder. Give him five more minutes to fall asleep then we can go to the ship unseen unchecked until then we can wait here in the garden. He led her towards the trilling fountain and they sat down upon a bench before it of rare Callisto crystal. They still were in darkness but the flame-like Jupiter light touched the tops of the Neclo tree above them with a runny light which brought faint feelings from the radioactive leaves. Hugh Neill's was a recent college graduate whom Negomah had hired as an assistant supervisor and the refining mills on Callisto where the precious uranium-235 was separated from the ordinary metals. It was not a desirable job but the best Hugh Neill's could get. His college record of reckless scrapes and entanglements with women had been against him. Indeed his position had only come to him because his home was in the same section as Nan-lo's and he thought that perhaps his company on occasion would help alleviate Nan-lo's restlessness. It had. But to an extent Negomah had not foreseen. In less than a quarter of an hour Nan-lo my darling, Hugh Neill's whispered now will be gone from here and you'll belong only to me. We'll leave this infernal barren satellite to spin itself dizzy out here in no place. We'll leave that humpty-dumpty husband of yours and his hypocritical good nature to whistle for his wife and his ship. Together, always together from now on and he'll never see us again. Nan-lo leaned against his shoulder the prospect that he painted seemed very sweet to her. You're sure you can manage the ship alone? she asked. But of course I can help a little anyway. You can teach me. Of course, Hugh Neill's answered confidently and bent to kiss her again. I've been studying her for a week asking questions, making friends with the crew. I can handle her one-handed. We'll take off and circle Jupiter first. They may think we landed on the other side in the outlaw crevice, or they may figure that we went on to Saturn and will hide somewhere in the system there. But we won't do either, and they won't know where to look for us. Instead of turning back to the other side of Jupiter, we'll make a tangential angle out into space. We'll hold it for a month for safety's sake. We could hold it for fifty years, or a hundred if we needed to. There's fuel and provisions meant for the mines, enough to last that long. At the end of the month, we'll swing back, cut into the path of the sun and pick up Mars as she comes in from behind Saul. On Mars, we can sell the Vulcan. There's an outfit in the equator zone, in the mountains west of the Great Canal that will buy her, and no questions asked. I learned about them from a fraternity brother when I was in college. He'd run into some hard luck, they gave him a job and he was making money hand over fist. They're asteroid miners. The work they do is illegal, but it's perfectly justified morally. What right have men with more money that they know what to do with to own everything in the solar system? Let us start any more, with corporations and rich old fogies own everything. Maybe I'll join up with this outfit after we've sold the ship, I'll see. How does that sound to you? Wonderful, Hugh, Nanlow whispered, but I don't care about all that. All I want is for us to be together, always, you and me, and our love together for eternity. That's all I want. That's all I want, too, darling Nanlow, Hugh Neils told her passionately and kissed her, together, forever, just you and me. Nanlow sighed with luxuriant happiness and peered at his radiomite wristwatch. The five minutes are up, she murmured. Can't we go now? Hugh Neils nodded. We've waited plenty long enough, he decided. The guard will be asleep by now. The crew were that way when I left them in the dormitory. I saw that they had plenty of spiked Mulcait dinner, pretended it was my birthday celebration, and the ship's already in waiting for the take-off. All we have to do is lock the port and close the switch. The two on the bench by the fountain rose, and for a long minute were locked in an embrace. Then they turned towards the dark shadowed trees and disappeared beneath them in the direction of the nearby spaceport. Neguma silently turned back into the house. Slyce shuffled after him. The uranium merchant led the way back to the vitriite-covered garden, and there, a little wearily, resumed his seat and picked up his mug again. Slyce climbed back into his tub of water, died gratefully at the comfort it gave him, and then turned his pop-eyes towards his host. He blinked once inquiringly, and Neguma understood that the intelligent amphibian was asking if he intended to do nothing to stop the pair who were running away. Neguma sipped pensively at his drink. If only she had told me, he murmured. If she had only come to me and said she desired her freedom, if they had only both come together and faced me, saying that it meant giving up all they had, they wanted each other. I would have been generous. I would have been indulgent. But they did not. They had not the courage. They were afraid of me, and they hated me. Neguma was silent for a moment. Both he and his guest stared towards the graceful shaft of the Vulcan, now fully silhouetted against the whole tremendous bulk of Jupiter, sitting like a titanic scarlet egg upon the horizon of Callisto. The Jupiter light flooded the Vitriite Garden, gave the plants there, chosen with his eye to this strange, exotic glowing colors, flushed Neguma and Slyse with a ruby radiance. Towards that dark waiting craft, the two they had watched were even now stealing, tense with the weight of their daring and their crime. In a moment they would reach her, enter her, actuate machinery that was miraculous in its complex simplicity, and be gone then on the wings it gave them into the concealing embrace of universal space. You see, my friend Slyse, Neguma said finally, Nanlou is beautiful, but there is nothing within. Her beauty deceived me. I thought that where such loveliness existed there must be a soul to animate it. I was wrong. She is like an imitation gem, beautiful on the surface, paced within. Yet the mistake was mine. I did not blame her. I indulged her and still hoped that something real would bloom within her. He drained them all kind his mug, one great gulp, then slumped back. The young man too. Hugh Neals I thought he would be a companion for her, but he too was weak. Yet they say they love each other. They swear, we heard them, that they want only each other and their love for all time. Slyse blinked twice and Neguma nodded. Yes? If they carry out their plans as we heard them, that feeling will soon go. The sale of the Vulcan even as stolen property would give them many credits after that luxury self-indulgence and their natures are too weak to withstand the ravages of such things, so I have been troubled to know what to do. You see my friend from Venus, though I would have let Nanlou go had she asked me, my own honor is at stake when she seeks to deal me an injury by slipping away in the street and stealing from me the Vulcan. She is doing evil and must be punished. The young man too indulgent as I am, I cannot let him dishonor me thus without paying any penalty. Slyse's eye, men brains, shut questioningly. Yet the Uranium merchant went on, I have a fondness for Nanlou. I will not prevent her from doing as she has chosen to do, for the intent would still be there, and knowing it as I do, all between us is over. I cannot aid her to fulfill her plans either, for that is to injure her and myself too, but there is another course. I have chosen that. He gestured with one plump hand towards the silhouetted ship. I believe they have entered the Vulcan, he announced. I saw light in the entrance-port opened then. The amphibian's great frog-head nodded with agreement. So, Negumah continued, I have decided to exercise what indulgence I can in the face of the injury they would do me. They shall have their chance. He fell silent again. Slyse leaned forward in his tub, both of them watching intently. A flare of greenish light had sprung up beneath the black pillar that was the Vulcan. For just an instant the freighter stood there, green radiance expanding around her. Then she leapt into the sky. With her leap she seemed to suck the radiance along. It became a great cone of glowing light that arrow-like raced away upwards. For a long instant the black length of the ship and the greenish fan of flame were outlined against the scarlet background of Jupiter. Then the freighter rocket, flinging itself upward at three gravities or better, passed the edge of the planet and vanished. Negumah sat very quiet for some moments, but at last he stirred again. Slyse's eyes turned towards him, immobile. Sometimes love transforms the weak. The Uranium merchant said slowly, like fire giving temper to soft metal, sometimes a mutual love will endure for all eternity and the two who share it will gain from it a soul they did not have before. Nan Lo and Yu Nils have this chance. Both said they wanted only the other and their love for all eternity. To gain this both were willing to cheat, to steal, to dishonor me and themselves. So Slyse, my understanding friend, they have paid the price. They shall have what they ask for. As the man Yu Nils said, there is food and fuel in the holds of the Vulcan to run the motors and last the lifetime of a man or a man and a woman. Indeed, two lifetimes or three for I was aware of their plans and secretly placed aboard the craft many additional supplies, fuel and food and books and tools and one additional thing that now there in space have not counted upon. Into the controls of the Vulcan one of my engineers has placed a small device. After 200 hours or when they are well beyond Jupiter this device will swing the Vulcan straight towards Proxima Centuri, the nearest star. In that position the controls will lock and for 20 years, a generation, it will be impossible either to alter the course of the Vulcan or to shut her blast motors off. At the end of that time the last tank of reserve fuel will be exhausted and they will cease automatically. Then once more the Vulcan may be controlled by those aboard. They may switch the motors on to the tanks of fuel and the cargo holds and continue onwards. If they were celestial navigators they might try to turn and seek Earth again. But they are not navigators and the Sun will be but a tiny spark in the limitless darkness, one with a million others not to be told apart. They will know that only Proxima Centuri in all space may the Vulcan hope to reach in their lifetimes or perhaps even in that of their descendants for a message to that effect they will find presently. So it may be that they will continue onward of their own choice. If they make no choice, momentum will carry them onward. Perhaps forever. But in any case, Nanlou and Hugh Niels will have exactly what they asked for. Each other. For all eternity. If truly that was what they wanted, a great destiny may be theirs. A lifetime of travel can bring them to the stars. They or their descendants can be the first humans to bridge the gap of nothingness that has thus far daunted the stoutest hearts. As they watched, the green dart of light dwindled and was gone and quite invisible at last in the arms of outer darkness, the Vulcan sped its two passengers onwards towards the stars. This is the end of The Diligence of Nigu Ma by Robert Arthur The Junk Makers by Albert Teichner This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Gregg Marguerite The Junk Makers by Albert Teichner Eric was the best robot they'd ever had. Perfectly trained, ever thoughtful. A joy to own. Naturally, they had to destroy him. Chapter 1 Wendell Hart had drifted rather than plunged into the underground movement. Later discussing it with other members of the Savers conspiracy, he found they had experienced the same slow, almost casual awakening. His own, though, had come at a more accurate time, just a few weeks before the great ritual sacrifice. The sacrifice took place only once a decade on High Holy Day, at dawn of the spring equinox. For days prior to it, joyous throngs of workers helped assemble old vehicles, machine tools and computers in the public squares. In the evening of the day they proudly made their private heaps on the neat green lawns of their homes. These traditionally consisted of household utensils, electric heaters, air conditioners and the family servant. The wealthiest, considered particularly blessed, even had two or three automatic servants beyond the public contribution which they destroyed in private. Their more average neighbors crowded into their gardens for the awesome festivities. The next morning everyone could return to work renewed by the knowledge that the festival of acute shortages had left them for months. Like everyone else Wendell had felt his sluggish pulse gaining new life as the time drew near. A cybernetics engineer and machine tender he was down to ten hours a week of work. Many others in the luxury gorged economy had even smaller shares of the purposeful activities that remained. At night he dreamed of the slagger moving from house to house as it burned, melted and then evaporated each group of junked labor-blocking devices. He even had glorious daydreams about it. Walking down the park side of his home block he was liable to lose all contact with the outside world and peer through the mind's eye alone at the climactic destruction. Why, he sometimes wondered, are all these things so necessary to our resurrection? Marie had the right answer for him, the one she had learned by rote in early childhood. While life moves in cycles, creation and progress must be preceded by destruction. In ancient times that meant we had to destroy each other, but for the past century our inherent need for negative moments has been sublimated. That's the word the news broadcasts use into proper destruction. His wife smiled, I'm only giving the moral reason of course, the practical one's obvious. It was, he had to concede. A man needed to work, not out of economic necessity anymore, but for the sake of work itself. Still, a man had to wonder. He had begun to visit the public library archives pouring over musty references that always led to maddeningly frustrating dead ends. For the past century nothing really informative seemed to have been written on the subject. You must have government authorization, the librarian explained when he asked for older references, which naturally made him add a little suspicion to his already large dose of wonder. You're tampering with something dangerous, Marie warned. It would make more sense for you to take long sleep pills until the work cycle picks up. I will get to see those early references, he said through clenched teeth. He did. All he had needed to say at the library was that his work in sociology required investigation of some twentieth century files. The librarian, a tall gauntman, had given him a speculative glance. Of course, you don't have government clearance, but we get so few inquiries in sociology that I'm willing to offer a little encouragement. He sighed. Don't get many inquiries altogether. Most people just can't stand reading. You might be interested to know this, one of the best headings to research in sociology is conspicuous consumption. Then it was Wendell's turn to glance speculatively. The older man, around a healthy hundred and twenty-five, had a look of earnest dedication about him that commanded respect as well as confidence. Conspicuous consumption and odd combination of words, never heard of that before, I will look it up. The librarian was nervous as he had his visitor into a reference booth. That's about all the help I can offer. If anything comes up, just ring for me. Burnets the name. Uh, you won't mention I put you on the file without authorization, I hope. Certainly not. As soon as he was alone, he typed conspicuous consumption into the query machine. It started grinding out long bibliographical sheets as well as cross references to obsolescence, natural, obsolescence, technological, obsolescence, planned, plus even odder items, such as wastemaking, comma, art of and production, comma, stimulated velocity of. How did such disparate subjects tie in with each other? By the end of the afternoon, he began to see, if only dimly, to what the unending stream of words on the viewer pointed. For centuries, ruling classes had made the habit of conspicuously wasting goods and services that were necessities for the mass of men. It was the final and highest symbol of social power. By the time of Louis XIV, the phenomenon had reached its first peak. The second came in the 20th century when mass production permitted millions to devote their lives to the acquisition and waste of non-essentials. Hart's 22nd century sensibilities were repelled by the examples given. He shuddered at the thought of such antisocial behavior. But a parallel development was more appealingly positive in its implications. As the technological revolution speeded up, devices were superseded as soon as produced. The whole last half of the 1900s was filled with instances where the drawing board kept outstripping the assembly line. Hart remembered this last change from early school days, but the latter, final development, was completely new and shocking to him. Advertising had pressured more and more people to replace goods before they wore out with other goods that were essentially no improvement on their predecessors. Eventually just the word new was enough to trigger buying panics. There had been growing awareness of what was happening, even sporadic resistance to it by such varied ideologies as conservative thrift, asocial beatnikism and radical inquiry. But strangely enough, very few people had cared. Indeed, anything that diminished consumption was viewed as dangerously subversive. And rightly so was his first instinctive reaction. His second reasoned one, though, was less certain. The contradiction started to give him a headache. He hurried from the scanning room over taxed eyes, blinking at the rediscovery of daylight. Burnett walked him to the door. Not feeling well, he inquired. I'll be all right. I just need a few days' real work. He stopped. Now, that's not why. I'm confused. I've been reading crazy things about obsolescence. They used to have strange reasons for it. Why, some people even said replacements were not always improvements and were unnecessary. Burnett could not completely hide his pleasure. You've been getting into rather deep stuff. Deep or nonsensical. True, true. Come back tomorrow and read some more. Maybe I will. But he was happy to get away from the library building. Marie was horrified when he told her that evening about his studies. Don't go back there, she pleaded. It's dangerous, it's subversive. How could people say such awful things? You remember that Mr. Johnson around the corner? He seemed such a nice man, too, until they arrested him without giving a reason. And how messed up he was when he got out last year. I'll bet that kind of talk explains the whole thing. It's crazy. Everyone knows items start wearing out and they have to be replaced. I realize that, honey, but it's interesting to speculate. Don't we have guaranteed freedom of thought? She threw up her hands as if dealing with a child. Naturally we have freedom of thought, but you should have the right thoughts, shouldn't you? Wendell, promise me you won't go back to that library. Well, reading's a very risky thing anyway. Her eyes were saucer round with fright. Please, darling, promise. Sure, you're right, honey. I promise. He meant it when he said it, but that night, tossing from side to side, I decide he felt less certain. In the morning, as he went out, Marie asked him where he was going. I want to observe the preparations for the preliminary rights. Now that, she grinned, is what I call healthy thinking. For a while he did stand around the central plaza, along with thousands of other idlers, watching the robot dump trucks assemble the piles of discarded equipment. The crowd cheered loudly and enormous crane was knocked over on its side. There's fifty millions worth out there, a bystander exalted. It's going to be the biggest preliminary I've ever seen. It certainly will be, he said, catching a little of the other man's enthusiasm despite his previous doubts. Preliminary rights were part of the emotion-stoking that preceded the highest holy day. Each right was greater and more destructive than those in the world. As tokens of happy loyalty viewers threw hats and watches and stickpins onto the pile just prior to the entry of the slaggers. What better way could be found for each man to manifest his common humanity? After a while doubt started assailing him again, and Hart found himself returning almost against his will to the library building. Burnett greeted him cordially. Anyone doing olden time research is automatically authorized if he has been here before. I hope my thought can be his legal. Hart blurted out. Well, that was just a joke. Oh, I can recognize a joke when I hear one, my friend. Hart went to his booth feeling the man's eyes measuring him more intently than ever. It was almost a welcome relief to start reading the reference scanner once more. But not for long. As the wider pattern unfolded, his anxiety stayed intensified. It was becoming perfectly obvious that many, many replacements used to be made long before they were needed. And it was still true. I should not be thinking such thoughts, he told himself. I should be outside in the plaza, being normal and human. But he could see how it had come about step by step. First there had been pressure from the ruling echelons, who had only maintained their status through excessive production. Then much more important there had been the willful blindness of the masses who wanted to keep their cozy, familiar treadmills going. He slammed down the off button and went out to the librarian's desk. Do people want to work all the time? He said. For the sake of work alone? He immediately regretted the question. But Burnett did not seem to mind. You've only stated the positive reason, Mr. Hart. The negative one could be stronger. The fear of what they would have to do if they did not have to work much over a long period. What would it mean? Why, they would have to start thinking. Most people don't mind thought if it's concentrated in a narrow range. But if they have to think in a broad range to keep boredom away, no. That's too high a price for most of them. They avoid it when they can. And under present circumstances they can. He stopped. Of course, that's a purely hypothetical fiction I'm constructing. Hart shook his head. It sounds awfully real to be purely he too caught himself up. Of course, you're only positing a fiction. Burnett started putting his desk papers away. I'm leaving now. The preliminary begins soon. The man's face was stolidly blank except for his brown eyes which burned like a zealots. Fascinated by them Hart agreed. It would be best to return anyway. Some of the bystanders had looked too curiously at him when he had left. Who would willingly leave a right when it was approaching its climax? Chapter 2 The plaza was now thronged and the sacrificial pile towered over a hundred feet in the cleared center area. Then as the first collective ah! arose a giant slagger lumbered in from the east the direction prescribed for such commencements. Long polarity arms glided smoothly out of the central mechanism and reached the length for total destruction. That's the automatic setting parents explained to their children. When the children demanded eagerly any moment now then the unforeseen occurred. There was a rumbling from inside the pile and a huge jagged patchwork of metal shot out smashing both arms. The slagger teetered swaying more and more violently from side to side until it collapsed on its side. The rumbling grew and then the pile like a mechanical cancer ripped the slagger apart and then absorbed it. The panicking crowd fell back somewhere a child began crying provoking more hubbub. Sabotage! People were crying. Let's get away! Nothing like this had ever happened before. But Hart knew instantly what had caused it. Some high level servomechanisms had not been thoroughly disconnected. They had repaired their damages then imposed their patterns on the material at hand. A second slagger came rushing into the square. It discharged immediately and the pile finally collapsed disintegrated as it was supposed to. The crowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for. But Hart could not share their horror. Burnett eyed him. Better looking dignit, he said. They'll be out for blood. Somebody must have sabotaged the setup. Catch the culprits! he shouted joining the crowd around him. Stop antisocial acts! Stop antisocial acts! roared Burnett and in a whisper. Hart Let's get out of here. As they pushed their way through the milling crowd, a loudspeaker boomed out. Return home in peace. The instincts of the people are good. Healthy destruction forever. The criminals will be tracked down if they exist. A terrible thing, friend, a woman said to them. A terrible friend, Burnett agreed, smashed the antisocial elements without mercy. Three children were clustered together crying. I wanted to set the right example for them, said the father to anyone who would listen. They'll never get over this. Hart tried to console them. Next week is High Holy Day, he said, but the balling only increased. The two men finally reached a side avenue where the crowd was thinner. Come with me, Burnett ordered. I want you to meet some people. He sounded as if he were instituting military discipline, but Hart still dazed willingly followed. It wasn't such a terrible thing, he said, listening to the distant uproar. Why don't they shut up? They will, eventually. Burnett marched straight ahead and looked fixedly in the same direction. The thing could have gobbled up the city if there hadn't been a second slagger, said a lone passer-by. Nonsense, Burnett muttered under his breath. You know that, Hart, any self-regulating mechanism reaches a check limit sooner than that. It has to. They turned into a large building and went up to the fiftieth floor. My apartment, said Burnett as he opened the door. There were about fifteen people in the large living room. They rose smiling to greet their host. Let's save these self-congratulations for later, snapped Burnett. The preliminaries were not out of the woods yet. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our newest recruit. He has seen the light. I have fed him basic data, and I'm sure we're not making a mistake with him. Hart was about to demand what was going on when a short man with eyes as intense as Burnett's proposed a toast to the fiasco in the plaza. Everyone joined in, and he did not have to ask. Burnett, I don't quite understand here, but aren't you taking a chance with me? Not at all. I've followed your reaction since your first visit to the library. Others here have also, when you were completely unaware of being observed. The gradual shift in viewpoint is familiar to us. We've all been through it. The really important point is that you no longer like the kind of world into which you were born. That's true, but no one can change that. We are changing it, said a thin-faced young woman. I work in a servo lab, and mis-write. Time enough for that later. Interrupted Burnett. What we must know now, Mr. Hart, is how much you are willing to do for your newfound convictions. It will be more work than you've ever dreamed possible. He felt as exhilarated as he did in the months after High Holy Day. I'm down to under ten hours labor a week. I'd do anything for your group to work. Burnett gave him a hearty handshake of congratulation, but was frowning as he did so. You're doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Every member of this group could tell you why. Mis-write, since you feel like talking, explain the matter. Certainly, Mr. Hart, we are engaged in an activity of so-called subversion for a positive reason, not merely to avoid insufficient workload. Your reason shows you are still being moved by the values that you despise. We want to cut the work production load on people. We want them to face the problem of leisure, not flee from it. There's a heartwarming paradox here, Burnett explained. Every excess eventually undermines itself. Everybody in the movement starts by wanting to act for their beliefs because work appears so attractive for its own sake. I was that way too until I studied philosophy. Well, Hart sat down deeply troubled. Look, I deplored destroying equipment that is still perfectly useful as much as any of you do, but there is a problem. If the destruction were stopped, there would be so much leisure people would rot from boredom. Burnett pounced eagerly on the argument. Instead, they're rotting from artificial work. Boredom is a temporary, if recurring, phenomenon not a permanent one. If most men face the difficulty of empty time long enough, they will find new problems with which to fill that time. That's where philosophy showed me the way. None of its fundamental mysteries can ever be solved, but as you pit yourself against them, your experience and capacity for being alive grows. Very nice, Hart grinned, wanting all men to be philosophers. They never have been. You shouldn't have brought him here, groud the short man. He's not one of us. Now we have a real mess. Johnson, I'm the leader of this group. Burnett exploded. Credit me with a little understanding. All right, Hart, what you say is true, but why? Because most men have always worked too hard to achieve the fruits of curiosity. I hate to keep being a spoil sport, but what does that prove? Some men who had to work as hard as the rest have been interested in things beyond the end of their nose. They all groaned their disapproval. A good point, Hart, but it doesn't prove what you think. It just shows that a minority enjoy innate capacities and environmental variations that make the transition to philosopher easier. And you haven't proven anything about the incurious majority. This does, though. Whenever there was a favorable period, the majority who could, as you put it, see beyond the ends of their noses, increased. Our era is just the opposite. We are trapped in a vicious circle. Those noses are usually so close to the grindstone that men are afraid to raise their heads. We are breaking that circle. It's a terribly important thing to aim for, Burnett, but he brought up another doubt and somebody else answered it immediately. For the next half hour, as one uncertainty was expressed after another, everybody joined in the answers until inexorable logic forced his surrender. All right, he conceded. I will do anything I can, not to make work for myself, but to help mankind rise above it. Except for a brief triumphant glance in Johnson's direction, Burnett gave no further attention to what had happened and plunged immediately into practical matters. To halt the blind worship of work, the rights had first to be discredited, and to discredit the rights, the awe inspired by their infallible performance had to be weakened. The sabotage of the preliminary had been the first local step in that direction. There had been a few similar, if smaller, episodes executed by other groups, but they had received as little publicity as possible. Johnson, you pulled one so big this time they can't hide it. Twenty thousand witnesses. When it comes to getting things done, you're the best we have. Little man grinned. But you're the one who knows how to pick recruits and organize our concepts. This is how it worked. I refed the emptied cryotron memory box of a robot discarded with patterns to deal with anything it was likely to encounter in a destruction pile. I kept the absolute freeze mechanism in working order, but developed a shield that would hide its activity from the best pile detector. He spread a large tissue schematic out on the floor, and they all gathered around it to study the details. Now, the important thing was to have an external element that could resume contact with a wider circuit, which could in turn start meshing with the whole robot mechanism and then through that mechanism into the pile. This little lever made the contact at a pre-fed time. Miss Wright was enthusiastic. That contact is half the size of any I've been able to make. It's crucially important," she added to Hart, a large contact can look suspicious. While others took many photos of the schematic, Hart studied the contact carefully. I think I can reduce its size by another fifty percent. Alloys are one of my specialties when I get a chance to work at them. That would be ideal, said Burnett. Then we could set up many more discarded robots without risk. How long will it take? I can rough it out right now. He scribbled down the necessary formulas, and everyone photographed that, too. Maximum security is now in effect, announced Burnett. You will destroy your copies as soon as you have transferred them to edible base copies. At the first hint of danger you will consume them. Use home enlargers for study. In no case are you to make permanent blow-ups that would be difficult to destroy quickly. He considered them sternly. Remember, you are running a great risk. You are not only opposing the will of the state, but the present will of the vast majority of citizens. If there are as many other underground groups as you indicate, said Hart, they should have this information. We'll get it to them, answered Burnett. I'm going on healthily from my job. What will be your excuse?" Wright demanded anxiously. Nervous shock, smiled their leader. After all, I did see today's events in the plaza. When Hart reached home, his wife was waiting for him. Why did you take so long, Wendell? I was worried sick. The radio says antisocials are turning wild servos loose. How could human beings do such a thing? I was there. I saw it all happen, he frowned. The crowd was so dense, I couldn't get away. But what happened? The way the news broadcast was, I couldn't understand anything. He described the situation in great detail, and awaited Marie's reaction. It was even more encouraging than he had hoped for. I understand less than before. How could anything reactivate that rubble? They put everything over five years old into the piles, stuff supposed to be decrepit already. You'd almost think we were destroying wealth before it's time, because if those disabled mechanisms reactivate, she came to a dead halt. That's madness. I wish I holy day were here already so I could get back to work and stop this empty thinking. Her honest face was more painfully distorted than he had ever seen it before, even during the universal times. Only a few more days to go, he consoled. Don't worry, honey, everything's going to be all right. Now, I'd like to be alone in the study for a while. I've been through an exhausting time. Aren't you going to eat? The last word triggered the entry of Eric, their domestic robot, pushing the dinner-cart ahead of him. No food to-night, hard insisted. The shining metal head nodded its assent, and the cart was wheeled out. That's not a very humane thing to do, she scolded. Eric's not going to be serving many more meals. Good grief, Marie. Just leave me alone for a while, will you? He slammed the study door shut, warning himself to display less nervousness in the future as he listened to her pacing outside. Then she went away. The projector gave him a good-sized wall-mage to consider. He spent most of the night calculating where he could place tiny self-activators in the obsolescent robots that were to be donated by his plant. Then he set up the instruction tapes to make the miniature contacts. Production, then, would be a simple job, only taking a few minutes, and during a work day there was always many periods longer than that when he was alone on the production floor. But thinking out the matter without computers was much more difficult. Human beings ordinarily filled their time on a lower, abstracting level. When he unlocked the study door in the morning he was startled to see Marie buffling down the corridor, pushing the food service cart herself. That did not make sense, especially considering last night's statement about Eric. I thought you'd want breakfast early, she coughed. You didn't have to bother, honey. Eric could have done it. If she had been prying, the cart might have been a prop to take up as soon as he came out. On the end, what could she and her technical ignorance make of such matters anyway? It was best not to rouse any deeper suspicions by openly noticing her wifely nosiness. At breakfast they pretended nothing had happened, devoting the time to mutually disapproved cousins. But all day long he kept wondering whether ignorant knowledge couldn't be as dangerous as the knowing kind. The next morning after a long sleep he went to the factory for the first weekly work periods. He sat before a huge console, surveying scores of dials at the end of a machine that was over five hundred yards long. Today it was turning out glass paper the color of watered blood, made only for ritual publications, packing it in sheets and dispatching them in automatic trucks. But the machine could be adjusted to everything from metal sheeting to plastic felts. At the far end sat another man, busily tending more dials that could really take care of themselves. After a while the man went out for a break. Hart ran a hundred yards to a section that was not working. He snapped it into the alloy supply and fed in the tape. In a minute several dozen tiny contacts came down a chute. He pocketed them and disconnected the section just before his fellow worker reappeared. The man walked down the floor to him looking curious. He asked, hopeful for some break and routine. Now just felt like a walk. Know what you mean? I feel restless too. Too bad this plant's only two years old. Boy, wouldn't she make a great disintegration? He grinned slapping a fender affectionately. Hart joined in the joke. Gives us something to look forward to in ten years. A good way to look at things, said the other man. At home he locked the contacts in a desk drawer. Tomorrow he would deliver most of them to Burnett's apartment. But the next morning an emergency letter came from his group leader, warning him not to appear there. I am going completely underground. I think they may suspect my activities. The dispersion plan must go into effect. You know how to reach Johnson and Wright and they each in turn can get to two others. Good luck. He had just put the letter in his pocket when Eric announced the arrival of his inspector. The man had nervous close-set eyes and seemed embarrassed by his need to make such a visit. Hart took the offensive as his best defense. I don't understand this inspector, he protested. You people should be busy with high-holy preparations. Are you losing your taste for work? Now, now, Mr. Hart, that's a very unkind remark. I dislike this nonsense as much as anyone. His square jaw hurt as he opened his scanning box. It's the anti-social sabotage. Do you mean to say I'm under suspicion? Marie was now loitering in the doorway. Worst luck. Oh no, nothing so insulting. This is strictly impersonal. The scanning center has picked apartments at complete random and were to make spot checks. The eye at one end of the box blinked wickedly, waiting for an information feed. Now, sir, if you'll pardon me, I'll just take the records from one of those desk drawers, any drawer, and put them in the box. Hart slid open a drawer. No, sir, I think I'll try the next one. It's regulation not to accept suggestions. With a hand made deft by practice he scooped out all the sheets and tapes and put them in the box. The scanner's fingers rapidly sorted them past the eye. Hart exhaled, relieved that an innocuous drawer had been selected, and the inspector handed back the material to him. Well, inspector, that's that. Not quite. The inspector selected another drawer at the other end of the desk and dumped everything before the scanner. His examination was speeding up and that was not good. He would have time to take more sample readings. Now, if you'll empty your left pocket. Oh, this is too much, Marie exploded. My husband struggles all night on secret work seeking to find ways to stop the antisocials and you treat him like one of them. You're working on the problem? The inspector said respectfully, what are you doing? Frying pan to fire. Hart preferred the pan and pulled open a drawer. It's too complicated, too much time needed to explain. The inspector glanced at his watch. I'm falling behind schedule. He closed up his box. Sorry, but I have to leave. It's a heavy time sheet today. As soon as he was gone, Hart breathed easier. Nothing incriminating would be fed into the central scanner. Marie became apologetic. I'm sorry I said it, Wendell, but I couldn't keep quiet. All I did last night was peek in once or twice. He shrugged. I'm just on a minor project. Every bit counts. She shook her head. Only you have to wonder. I mean, don't think I'm treasoning, but shopping an hour ago, a lot of women said you have to think. How come all that obsolescent junk could work so well after being thoroughly wrecked too? You almost wonder whether some of it was too good for disintegration. Wendell pretended to be shocked. Just a fluke of circumstance. If something like that happened again, you'd be right to wonder, but it could not ever happen again. Don't get me wrong, Wendell. None of the women attacked anything. It was more like what you just said. They said if it happened again, then you'd have to wonder. But of course it couldn't happen again. How well the tables had turned. Not only had Marie's ignorant knowledge proven helpful, but she had now given him a positive idea also. When he met Wright and Johnson at the latter's apartment that evening, he explained it to them. We can propagate dangerous thoughts and yet appear to be completely loyal. We can set up the reaction to next High Holy Day. How, demanded Johnson, that's having your cake and eating it. Nothing's impossible in the human mind, Wright said. Let's listen. Here's the point. Wherever you go there will be people tisking about the preliminary fiasco. Just reassure them. Say it meant nothing at all by itself. If it ever happened again, then there would be room for doubt. Perhaps it could not happen again. Wright smiled. That's almost feminine in its subtlety. He smiled back. My wife inspired it. Don't get nervous, it was unconscious, sheerly by accident. Whatever the cause, it's the perfect result Johnson conceded. We'll spread it through the net. Along with this, I hope, Wendell dumped the contacts on the tabletop. It's the smallest size possible. A lot should get by unnoticed. Find cell members who can set up cryotrons with the wide range of instructions to cope with anything in the piles. Some weirdly alive concoctions of obsolescent parts ought to result. Some day the world's going to know what you've done for it, said Johnson solemnly. That could happen too soon. Miss Wright's face, honest and open in its horse-like length broke into a wide grin. Amen, said Hart, adding with a private hope that Marie, blessed with superior looks, might be able to show as much superior wisdom some day. The hope was not immediately fulfilled. When he reached home, Marie was in a tizzy of excitement. You're just in time, darling. They just caught three subversives. One of them was a woman. She added as this were compounding an improbability with an impossibility. They're going to show them. A woman? That's right. There she is now. A uniformed officer was gently helping a pale, little old woman sit down before the camera, as if she were more an object of pity than of fear. Hart relaxed. Caught red-handed with the incriminating papers, shouted an offstage announcer. Handbills asserting objects declared obsolescent could actually last indefinitely. What do you have to say for yourself? The officer asked gently. You must realize, of course, that such irreligious behavior precludes your moving in general society for a long time to come. I don't know what came over me. She sobbed in a tired voice. Curiosity. Yes, curiosity. That's what it was. I saw these sheets of paper in the street and they said we should stop working so hard at compulsory tasks and start working to expand our own interests and personalities. Self-contradictory nonsense said the voice. Yes, I know that, but it made me curious and I took it home to read and it said our compulsory tasks were artificially manufactured and if you didn't believe that look at the pile that reactivated itself the other day. She stopped, reorganizing her thoughts. Of course, though that thing in the plaza was unique, you know, I don't think it could mean a thing unless it happened a few times and the fact is it won't ever happen again. Well, that much makes very good sense, said Marie. You said the same thing, Wendell. I don't think that poor woman knew what she was doing. Just a dupe for subversive propaganda. A dupe for subversive propaganda, the announcer was saying. See exactly what I said. Yes, dear. Swiftly the decentralized underground was working. Heart could not tell whether the old woman was an active member or just a passive responder but it did not matter. She was now spreading the seeds for future down across the land. Two old men were brought in and they mumbled the same disconnected story as their sister. We have intensively interrogated these prisoners, boomed the announcer and no, there is nothing more to the rumored anti-social plot than this stupid matter. Remain vigilant and you have nothing to fear. You are sentenced to five years isolation from general society, said the officer in a voice dulcet enough to sell advance orders for replacement products that had not yet been made. Our intention is to protect you from bad influences. Our hope is that others will take your lesson to heart. God bless you, said the woman and her brothers joined in effusive thanks. It makes you proud to be a human being, Marie said. I was getting some stupid doubts myself dear, I must admit it, but that's all past. I can hardly wait for the highest holy day. Neither can I, sighed her husband. Chapter 3 The next day at noon Eric came to him functioning on the final set of servo instructions that had been installed in him at the factory of his birth eight years before. He shook hands with the two of them and said now I am prepared for death. Marie was tearful. I will miss you, Eric. If you were only under five years old your span could be extended. Everything that happens is right, Eric said impassively. He clamored onto the operation table, instinctively knowing which flat surface was for him, and breaking all his major circuits gave up the ghost that only man could restore to him. Hart found his wife's grief easy to bear. The day after tomorrow she would join in the general exaltation of High Holy Day with Eric well forgotten. He methodically began smashing the surface of the limbs and torso. The greater the visible damage the greater the honor redounding to the sacrifice donor. This will be our gift to the general pile, he said. I thought we could keep him for our garden sacrifice, Marie protested neatly. Most people do. But the other way is the greater sacrifice. There was no reply because she knew he spoke for the deeper, more moving custom. But suddenly he began to act depressed himself. I know we say it every ten years but Eric was really the best companion we ever had. He gestured toward the table. I want to sit here with him for a while, alone. That's carrying things too far Wendell. A little grief is proper, but this much is actually morbid. It's all within my rights. She tossed her head petulently. Well, I've done my share. I can't stand anymore. It makes a person think and get depressed. I don't care what you're going to do, I'm going out to enjoy a preliminary. Can't blame you for that, he nodded. When she had gone he started work on new instruction tapes for activating the servo cryotron. Nothing could be surrendered to chance. Every possible circumstance in the pile had to be anticipated. There had to be instructions for action if Eric was crushed below 50 feet of metal for assembling any kind of scrambled wiring for adapting all types of parts in its immediate surroundings, for using these parts to absorb parts further away and for timing the operation to the start of the flight. Some tapes had been prepared earlier, so it was possible to put everything in the cryotron box before Marie returned as well as to attach the tiny contact that would reach out from the box until it reached its first external scrap of wire or metal. You poor darling, she pouted. You missed the most wonderful thing. They demolished a whole 30-story building. His blood, adivistically affected, pulsed faster until his new creed to grips with his old emotions. They usually don't bother with buildings for the rights. I know. That's what was so wonderful. The state had decided to make this one the biggest day of all time. We'll have enough work to fill the whole ten years. Everybody was so happy. I'm sure they were. He caught himself in mid-Sarcasm and said, I'm sorry I missed it. And I'm sorry I've been so selfishly self-centered, she frowned. I forgot about it, but there were people in the crowd boasting they had been assigned to fight antisocial movements. I had to boast back that my husband had been honored too. He tensed. Oh, what did they say to that? Frankly, they laughed. I should think so. The central scanner didn't pick up anything except a lot of ineffective propaganda. The sabotage business was all hysteria. That's just what they said. The assignments were an empty honor. She coldly considered Eric. I want to wreck him too. I've smashed the insides, he said. You better just work the surface. That's all I want to do. She answered starting to scratch traditional marks all over the dead robot. It gave her a full afternoon of happy busy labor. The next day a large open truck came around and the street echoed to the appeal for contributions. Most of all, Spirit was running high everywhere, and when the neighborhood crowd saw the young robot porters carry Eric out, there was a loud cheer of appreciation. My husband decided on a major contribution right away, Marie announced to them. It's the least we could do, he said modestly. Many onlookers swept away by their example rushed indoors to bring out additional items of sacrifice, but only two others gave up their robots. The rest went to them for private Holy Night ceremonies. Soon Eric disappeared under the renewed deluge of egg beaters and washers. The best collection I've seen today, said the inspector accompanying the truck. You people are to be congratulated for your exceptional patriotism. Destroy, they shouted back joyously, make work. At dawn the central plaza was already crowded and new hordes kept pouring in from the outlying windows. Wendell and his wife had been among the first to arrive. They waited impatiently in their separate ways on the borderline 500 yards from the ten-story pyre. Martial music roared from the loudspeakers, interrupted by the belifluous boom of a merchandising announcer. New product, better models, 100 years of high holy days. New, new, new. Destroy, came the returning shout. Make work, make work. All the sounds echoed back and forth until baffled away by the open areas across the plaza where one large structure had already been destroyed. Three others were slated for collapse today. The biggest holy day ever, a restless old woman said to Marie, I've seen all nine of them. Eric's in there. Marie chatted back superficially sad, deeply happy. Who? Our house robot. Imagine that. Did you hear that? People gathered round them and cheered. The good-natured jostling continued until someone said, five minutes to go. Wendell checked his watch. Somewhere in the pile at least one element was coming to life, a metal arm reaching out for brother metal to engulf in its cybernetic sweep. They're coming. A line of six shiny new slaggers came rumbling into the open with military precision. They moved along slowly, prolonging the pleasures of anticipation, then broke rank, each seeking its assigned point around the pile of appliances gathered for destruction. The latest improved models said the loudspeakers. They will first perform 15 minutes of automatic maneuvers. The military music resumed and each slagger turned as if circling a coin in clanking rhythm to it. A 360-degree turn. Next, making a box on the plaza floor. The voice stopped, appalled. An avalanche of metal slid down one side of the pile and the crowd gasped. The downward movement viscously slowed. Then the metal suddenly alive with the capacity to defy gravity circled upward. Jagged limbs started flailing about. Disintegrator attack screamed the loudspeakers. Attack! The maneuvers stopped. For one brief moment prior to the changeover, the plaza was dead still except for the deafening rumble in the pile. The slagers broke the spell, rushing full speed toward the pile. Evaporator beams working. One by one they faltered and were sucked into the destructive pile. The crowd fell further back. The whole pile came alive like a mineral octopus. Then the squirming thing collapsed. Every makeshift circuit irreparably broken and dead. Everything had been happening too fast for any pronounced reaction to accompany it. But now the world went crazy. Stand firm! pleaded the loudspeakers. We will get reinforcements as soon as celebrations are finished elsewhere. A barrage of enormous booze came from the disintegrating mob. Never again! Fakes! It's finished! Done for! Stand firm! But the break-up down side avenues continued. I don't understand, Marie shuddered. Everything's crazy. We've been deceived, Wendell. Who's been deceiving us? Nobody, unless it's ourselves. I don't understand that either. Sauceride she watched a great clump of disgruntled people push past. I have to think. Suddenly as they came around a corner they were facing Burnett. Hart tried to disregard him, but the group leader would have none of that. He rushed up to Hart. Good to see a friendly face. Shocking developments. His face was grim, but tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes betrayed an amusement that could only be discovered by those who looked for it. Mr. Burnett, he explained to Marie. A librarian at the main building. Mr. Burnett, my wife, Marie. I am most happy to meet you, Mrs. Hart. Have you heard the latest? The same things have been happening everywhere. They announced it on the radio and they're saying it's due to antisocial elements. Shocking. She shook her head stubbornly. I don't know what to think. Maybe we shouldn't be shocked. Maybe we should be. I just don't know, Mr. Burnett. I came to enjoy myself and look how it's ended. She bravely held back a sob. Maybe we'd have been better off if we'd never heard about holy days. Burnett looked about with feigned apprehension. You have to be careful what you say. The government says there's even talk, subversive hand-bills about trying to rehabilitate some of the stuff in the piles. The government ought to keep quiet. She exploded. They said this couldn't happen. You can't believe anything they say anymore. The people decide and the government will have to listen. That's what I say. And I'm a pretty typical person. One of your intellectual kind. No criticism of present company intended. None taken, Mrs. Hart. Our human future, said Burnett, exchanging a grin with his aide, remains as it always has really been. Interesting, to say the least. End of The Junk Makers by Albert Teichner.