The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (5 page)

His eyes filled; his body was young, but he was an old man, an old man. Another thirty-five years of this? Never. He had said all this before, centuries before. Nearly a half century condemned
to saying it all over again, in a weaker and still weaker voice, aware that even this debased century would come to recognize in him only the burnt husk of greatness? – no, never, never.

He was aware, dully, that the opera was over. The audience was screaming its joy. He knew the sound. They had screamed that way when
Day of Peace
had been premiered, but they had been
cheering the man he had been, not the man that
Day of Peace
showed with cruel clarity he had become. Here the sound was even more meaningless: cheers of ignorance, and that was all.

He turned slowly. With surprise, and with a surprising sense of relief he saw that the cheers were not, after all, for him.

They were for Dr. Barkun Kris.

Kris was standing in the middle of the bloc of mind sculptors, bowing to the audience. The sculptors nearest him were shaking his hand one after the other. More grasped at it
as he made his way to the aisle and walked forward to the podium. When he mounted the rostrum and took the composer’s limp hand, the cheering became delirious.

Kris lifted his arm. The cheering died instantly to an intent hush.

“Thank you,” he said clearly. “Ladies and gentlemen, before we take leave of Dr. Strauss, let us again tell him what a privilege it has been for us to hear this fresh example
of his mastery. I am sure no farewell could be more fitting.”

The ovation lasted five minutes and would have gone another five if Kris had not cut it off.

“Dr. Strauss,” he said, “in a moment, when I speak a certain formulation to you, you will realize that your name is Jerom Bosch, born in our century and with a life in it all
your own. The superimposed memories which have made you assume the mask, the
persona
, of a great composer will be gone. I tell you this so that you may understand why these people here share
your applause with me.”

A wave of asserting sound.

“The art of mind sculpture – the creation of artificial personalities for aesthetic enjoyment – may never reach such a pinnacle again. For you should understand that as Jerom
Bosch you had no talent for music at all; indeed, we searched a long time to find a man who was utterly unable to carry even the simplest tune. Yet we were able to impose upon such unpromising
material not only the personality, but the genius, of a great composer. That genius belongs entirely to you – to the
persona
that thinks of itself as Richard Strauss. None of the
credit goes to the man who volunteered for the sculpture. That is your triumph, and we salute you for it.”

Now the ovation could no longer be contained. Strauss, with a crooked smile, watched Dr. Kris bow. This mind sculpturing was a suitably sophisticated kind of cruelty for this age, but the
impulse, of course, had always existed. It was the same impulse that had made Rembrandt and Leonardo turn cadavers into art works.

It deserved a suitably sophisticated payment under the
lex talionis:
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – and a failure for a failure.

No, he need not tell Dr. Kris that the “Strauss” he had created was as empty of genius as a hollow gourd. The joke would always be on the sculptor, who was incapable of hearing the
hollowness of the music now preserved on the 3-V tapes.

But for an instant a surge of revolt poured through his bloodstream.
I
am I
, he thought.
I
am Richard Strauss until I die, and will never be Jerom Bosch, who was utterly
unable to carry even the simplest tune
. His hand, still holding the baton, came sharply up, through whether to deliver or to ward off a blow he could not tell.

He let it fall again, and instead, at last, bowed – not to the audience, but to Dr. Kris. He was sorry for nothing, as Kris turned to him to say the word that would plunge him back into
oblivion, except that he would now have no chance to set that poem to music.

Michael Shaara (1929–88) was one of the bright young SF writers of the early 1950s, who left the genre in 1957 after producing a number of fine short
stories, and later wrote a boxing novel and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Civil War novel,
The Killer Angels
(1974). Most of his short stories are collected in
Soldier Boy
(1982), along with an afterword reminiscing about his early days in science fiction, the excitement of selling to John W. Campbell’s
Astounding
, the frustrations of dealing with genre
markets. Algis Budrys remembers that Robert Sheckley, Michael Shaara and he were the hot new writers of 1952–3.

After the generally positive editorial reaction to
Soldier Boy
, Shaara completed an SF novel,
The Herald
(1981 – actually published before the collection,
which was delayed, but not published as a genre novel, since Shaara had won the Pulitzer and his publisher was certain that a genre label would compromise his, and their, reputation).
The
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
praises his writing for its “quick, revelatory ironies about the human condition.” I recall joking with him in 1982 that this, of all his stories,
was predictive and that it had already come true. It is still coming true.

Early that afternoon Professor Larkin crossed the river into Washington, a thing he always did on Election Day, and sat for a long while in the Polls. It was still called the
Polls, in this year
A.D.
2066, although what went on inside bore no relation at all to the elections of primitive American history. The Polls was now a single enormous
building which rose out of the green fields where the ancient Pentagon had once stood. There was only one of its kind in Washington, only one Polling Place in each of the forty-eight states, but
since few visited the Polls nowadays, no more were needed.

In the lobby of the building, a great hall was reserved for visitors. Here you could sit and watch the many-colored lights dancing and flickering on the huge panels above, listen to the weird
but strangely soothing hum and click of the vast central machine. Professor Larkin chose a deep soft chair near the long line of booths and sat down. He sat for a long while smoking his pipe,
watching the people go in and out of the booths with strained, anxious looks on their faces.

Professor Larkin was a lean, boyish-faced man in his late forties. With the pipe in his hand he looked much more serious and sedate than he normally felt, and it often bothered him that people
were able to guess his profession almost instantly. He had a vaguc idea that it was not becoming to look like a college professor, and he often tried to change his appearance – a loud tie
here, a sport coat there – but it never seemed to make any difference. He remained what he was, easily identifiable, Professor Harry L. (Lloyd) Larkin, Ph.D., Dean of the Political Science
Department at a small but competent college just outside of Washington.

It was his interest in Political Science which drew him regularly to the Polls at every election. Here he could sit and feel the flow of American history in the making, and recognize, as he did
now, perennial candidates for the presidency. Smiling, he watched a little old lady dressed in pink, very tiny and very fussy, flit doggedly from booth to booth. Evidently her test marks had not
been very good. She was clutching her papers tightly in a black-gloved hand, and there was a look of prim irritation on her face. But
she
knew how to run this country, by George, and one of
these days
she
would be President. Harry Larkin chuckled.

But it did prove one thing. The great American dream was still intact. The tests were open to all. And anyone could still grow up to be President of the United States.

Sitting back in his chair, Harry Larkin remembered his own childhood, how the great battle had started. There were examinations for everything in those days – you could not get a job
streetcleaning without taking a civil-service examination – but public office needed no qualification at all. And first the psychologists, then the newspapers, had begun calling it a national
disgrace. And, considering the caliber of some of the men who went into public office, it
was
a national disgrace. But then psychological testing came of age, really became an exact science,
so that it was possible to test a man thoroughly – his knowledge, his potential, his personality. And from there it was a short but bitterly fought step to – SAM.

SAM. UNCLE SAM, as he had been called originally, the last and greatest of all electronic brains. Harry Larkin peered up in unabashed awe at the vast battery of lights which
flickered above him. He knew that there was more to SAM than just this building, more than all the other forty-eight buildings put together, that SAM was actually an incredibly enormous network of
electronic cells which had its heart in no one place, but its arms in all. It was an unbelievably complex analytical computer which judged a candidate far more harshly and thoroughly than the
American public could ever have judged him. And crammed in its miles of memory banks lay almost every bit of knowledge mankind had yet discovered. It was frightening, many thought of it as a
monster, but Harry Larkin was unworried.

The thirty years since the introduction of SAM had been thirty of America’s happiest years. In a world torn by continual war and unrest, by dictators, puppet governments, the entire world
had come to know and respect the American President for what he was: the best possible man for the job. And there was no doubt that he was the best. He had competed for the job in fair examination
against the cream of the country. He had to be a truly remarkable man to come out on top.

The day was long since past when just any man could handle the presidency. A full century before men had begun dying in office, cut down in their prime by the enormous pressures of the job. And
that was a hundred years ago. Now the job had become infinitely more complex, and even now President Creighton lay on his bed in the White House, recovering from a stroke, an old, old man after one
term of office.

Harry Larkin shuddered to think what might have happened had America not adopted the system of “the best qualified man.” All over the world this afternoon men waited for word from
America, the calm and trustworthy words of the new President, for there had been no leader in America since President Creighton’s stroke. His words would mean more to the people, embroiled as
they were in another great crisis, than the words of their own leaders. The leaders of other countries fought for power, bought it, stole it, only rarely earned it. But the American President was
known the world over for his honesty, his intelligence, his desire for peace. Had he not those qualities, “old UNCLE SAM” would never have elected him.

Eventually, the afternoon nearly over, Harry Larkin rose to leave. By this time the President was probably already elected. Tomorrow the world would return to peace. Harry Larkin paused in the
door once before he left, listened to the reassuring hum from the great machine. Then he went quietly home, walking quickly and briskly toward the most enormous fate on Earth.

“My name is Reddington. You know me?”

Harry Larkin smiled uncertainly into the phone.

“Why . . . yes, I believe so. You are, if I’m not mistaken, general director of the Bureau of Elections.”

“Correct,” the voice went on quickly, crackling in the receiver, “and you are supposed to be an authority on Political Science, right?”

“Supposed to be?” Larkin bridled. “Well, it’s distinctly possible that I – ”

“All right, all right,” Reddington blurted. “No time for politeness. Listen, Larkin, this is a matter of urgent national security. There will be a car at your door –
probably be there when you put this phone down. I want you to get into it and hop on over here. I can’t explain further. I know your devotion to the country, and if it wasn’t for that I
would not have called you. But don’t ask questions. Just come. No time. Good-bye.”

There was a click. Harry Larkin stood holding the phone for a long shocked moment, then he heard a pounding at the door. The housekeeper was out, but he waited automatically before going to
answer it. He didn’t like to be rushed, and he was confused. Urgent national security? Now what in blazes –

The man at the door was an Army major. He was accompanied by two young but very large sergeants. They identified Larkin, then escorted him politely but firmly down the steps into a staff car.
Larkin could not help feeling abducted, and a completely characteristic rage began to rise in him. But he remembered what Reddington had said about national security and so sat back quietly with
nothing more than an occasional grumble.

He was driven back into Washington. They took him downtown to a small but expensive apartment house he could neither identify nor remember, and escorted him briskly into an elevator. When they
reached the suite upstairs they opened the door and let him in, but did not follow him. They turned and went quickly away.

Somewhat ruffled, Larkin stood for a long moment in the hall by the hat table, regarding a large rubber plant. There was a long sliding door before him, closed, but he could hear an argument
going on behind it. He heard the word “SAM” mentioned many times, and once he heard a clear sentence: “. . . Government by machine. I will not tolerate it!” Before he had
time to hear any more, the doors slid back. A small, square man with graying hair came out to meet him. He recognized the man instantly as Reddington.

“Larkin,” the small man said, “glad you’re here.” The tension on his face showed also in his voice. “That makes all of us. Come in and sit down.” He
turned back into the large living room. Larkin followed.

“Sorry to be so abrupt,” Reddington said, “but it was necessary. You will see. Here, let me introduce you around.”