Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

That takes time, plenty of time if you don’t want to cooperate. And even if it is granted, which I by no means guarantee, you’ll have to sue infringers; and do you know how crowded court calendars are? And how expensive a series of appeals can make such a suit?”

“Okay,” said Elizabeth sweetly. “Go ahead and make it. You just got through telling us why you can’t.”

Gilmer looked out the window. “This is a great country,” he said, with more sincerity than Arch had expected. “No country on earth has ever been so rich and happy. Do you know how it got that way?”

“By progressing,” said Arch. “For your information, I am not a leftist; I’ll bet I’m far to the right of you. So far, that I still believe in full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.”

Gilmer rose, with a certain dignity. “I’m afraid tempers are getting a little short,” he said quietly. “I beg of you to reconsider. We’ll fight for the public interest if we must, but we’d rather cooperate. May I leave my card? You can always get in touch with me.”

He made his farewells and left. Arch and Elizabeth looked somewhat blankly at each other.

“Well, Killer,” said the girl at last, “I hope we haven’t taken too big a chaw to swallow.”

Culquhoun dropped over in the evening and listened to their account. He shook his head dubiously. “You’re up against it, laddie,” he said. “They’ll defend their coffers to the bitter end.”

“It isn’t that.” Arch stared moodily into the darkness. “I don’t think they’re a bunch of monsters⁠—no more than anybody else. They just believe in the status quo. So do you, you know.”

“How?” Culquhoun bristled. “I’ll admit I’m not the hellfire revolutionary of my undergraduate days, but I still think a basic change is called for.”

“Not basic,” said Arch. “You just want to change part of the mechanism. But you’d keep the same ant-heap industrial society. I believe the heart went out of this land after the Civil War, and the death warrant was signed about 1910. Before then, a man was still an individual; he worked for himself, at something he understood, and wasn’t afraid to stand up and spit in the eye of the world. Now he spends his daily routine on an assembly line or behind a desk or counter, doing the same thing over and over for someone else. In the evening he watches the same pap on his television, and if something goes wrong he whines his way to the apartment superintendent or the VA or the Social Security office.

“Look at the progress of euphemism. Old people are Senior Citizens. Draft becomes Selective Service. Graveyard to cemetery to memorial park. We’ve become a race of dependents. And we can’t break away: there isn’t any frontier left, there isn’t any alternative society, one man can’t compete with a corporation. Or with a commissar, for that matter.

“What we need is not to go back to living in log cabins, but to make the means of sustenance and the sources of energy so cheap that every man can have them in sufficient quantity to live and work. I don’t know⁠—maybe I’m being vainglorious, but it does seem as if capacitite is a long step in that direction.”

“I warn you, you’re talking good Marxism,” said Culquhoun with a grin. “The means of production determine the type of society.”

“Which is pure hogwash,” answered Arch. “Egypt and Assyria had identical technologies. So did Athens and Sparta. So do America and Russia. The means of production only determine the possible societies, and there are always many possibilities.

“I’d like to see the possibility of individualism available again to the American people. If they’re too far gone to accept it, to hell with them.”

The government can work fast when it wants to. It was just the following afternoon when the phone rang again. Elizabeth came out to the lab, where Arch and Bob Culquhoun were preparing a batch of capacitite, with a strained look on her face. “Come inside, dear,” she said thinly. “I’ve got some bad news.” When he was in the house, she added: “Two F.B.I. men are on their way here.”

“What the devil?” Arch felt a gulp of fear. It was irrational he told himself. The F.B.I. was no Gestapo; on the whole, he approved of it. Maybe some friend had given his name as a security reference. “All right. We’ll see what they want.”

“I’m going to start some coffee,” said Elizabeth. “Lucky we’ve got a cake too.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll see.” She patted his cheek and managed a smile. “You’re too innocent, sweetheart.”

Sagdahl and Horrisford turned out to be hard young men with carefully expressionless faces. They introduced themselves very politely, and Arch led the way into the living room. Horrisford took out a notebook.

“Well,” said Arch a little huskily, “what can I do for you?”

“You can answer some questions, if you please,” said Sagdahl tonelessly. “You don’t have to answer any, and whatever you say can be used in evidence.”

“I haven’t broken any laws that I know of,” said Arch feebly.

“That remains to be seen. This is an investigation.”

“Whatever for?”

“Dr. Arch,” said Sagdahl patiently, “yesterday you published an article on a discovery of potential military importance. It has upset a great many plans. Worse, it has been released with no discretion whatsoever, and the consequences aren’t easy to foresee. If we’d had any inkling, it would never have been published openly. As it is, you went outside regular channels and⁠—”

“I didn’t have to go through channels,” said Arch. “I’ve never gotten any confidential data, or even applied for a clearance. I work for myself and⁠—” He saw Horrisford busily writing, and his words dried up.

The realization was appalling. The military applications of capacitite had crossed his mind only vaguely and been dismissed with an escapist shrug.

“Let’s get down to business,” said Sagdahl. “Everything will be a lot easier if you cooperate. Now, where were you born?”

Arch hadn’t imagined anyone could be so thorough about tracking