Beyond Control Read online

  “Why not?” demanded Potterley at once.

  Foster stared. It was the kind of rude curiosity about another man’s professional status that was always irritating. He said, with the edge of his own politeness just a trifle blunted, “A course in neutrinics wasn’t given at my university.”

  “Good Lord, where did you go?”

  “M.I.T.,” said Foster quietly.

  “And they don’t teach neutrinics?”

  “No, they don’t.” Foster felt himself flush and was moved to a defense. “It’s a highly specialized subject with no great value. Chronoscopy, perhaps, has some value, but it is the only practical application and that’s a dead end.”

  The historian stared at him earnestly. “Tell me this. Do you know where I can find a neutrinics man?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Foster bluntly.

  “Well, then, do you know a school which teaches neutrinics?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Potterley smiled tightly and without humor.

  Foster resented that smile, found he detected insult in it and grew sufficiently annoyed to say, “I would like to point out, sir, that you’re stepping out of line.”

  “What?”

  “I’m saying that, as a historian, your interest in any sort of physics, your professional interest, is—” He paused, unable to bring himself quite to say the word.

  “Unethical?”

  “That’s the word, Dr. Potterley.”

  “My researches have driven me to it,” said Potterley in an intense whisper.

  “The Research Commission is the place to go. If they permit—”

  “I have gone to them and have received no satisfaction.”

  “Then obviously you must abandon this.” Foster knew he was sounding stuffily virtuous, but he wasn’t going to let this man lure him into an expression of intellectual anarchy. It was too early in his career to take stupid risks.

  Apparently, though, the remark had its effect on Potterley. Without any warning, the man exploded into a rapid-fire verbal storm of irresponsibility.

  Scholars, he said, could be free only if they could freely follow their own free-swinging curiosity. Research, he said, forced into a predesigned pattern by the powers that held the purse strings became slavish and had to stagnate. No man, he said, had the right to dictate the intellectual interests of another.

  Foster listened to all of it with disbelief. None of it was strange to him. He had heard college boys talk so in order to shock their professors and he had once or twice amused himself in that fashion, too. Anyone who studied the history of science knew that many men had once thought so.

  Yet it seemed strange to Foster, almost against nature, that a modem man of science could advance such nonsense. No one would advocate running a factory by allowing each individual worker to do whatever pleased him at the moment, or of running a ship according to the casual and conflicting notions of each individual crewman. It would be taken for granted that some sort of centralized supervisory agency must exist in each case. Why should direction and order benefit a factory and a ship but not scientific research?

  People might say that the human mind was somehow qualitatively different from a ship or factory but the history of intellectual endeavor proved the opposite.

  When science was young and the intricacies of all or most of the known was within the grasp of an individual mind, there was no need for direction, perhaps. Blind wandering over the uncharted tracts of ignorance could lead to wonderful finds by accident.

  But as knowledge grew, more and more data had to be absorbed before worthwhile journeys into ignorance could be organized. Men had to specialize. The researcher needed the resources of a library he himself could not gather, then of instruments he himself could not afford.

  More and more, the individual researcher gave way to the research team and the research institution.

  The funds necessary for research grew greater as tools grew more numerous. What college was so small today as not to require at least one nuclear micro-reactor and at least one three-stage computer?

  Centuries before, private individuals could no longer subsidize research. By 1940, only the government, large industries and large universities or research institutions could properly subsidize basic research.

  By 1960, even the largest universities depended entirely upon government grants, while research institutions could not exist without tax concessions and public subscriptions. By 2000, the industrial combines had become a branch of the world government and, thereafter, the financing of research and therefore its direction naturally became centralized under a department of the government.

  It all worked itself out naturally and well. Every branch of science was fitted neatly to the needs of the public, and the various branches of science were co-ordinated decently. The material advance of the last half century was argument enough for the fact that science was not falling into stagnation.

  Foster tried to say a very little of this and was waved aside impatiently by Potterley, who said, “You are parroting official propaganda. You’re sitting in the middle of an example that’s squarely against the official view. Can you believe that?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “Well, why do you say time viewing is a dead end? Why is neutrinics unimportant? You say it is. You say it categorically. Yet you’ve never studied it. You claim complete ignorance of the subject. It’s not even given in your school—”

  “Isn’t the mere fact that it isn’t given proof enough?”

  “Oh, I see. It’s not given because it’s unimportant. And it’s unimportant because it’s not given. Are you satisfied with that-reasoning?”

  Foster felt a growing confusion. “It’s in the books.”

  “That’s all. The books say neutrinics is unimportant. Your professors tell you so because they read it in the books. The books say so because professors write them. Who say it from personal experience and knowledge? Who does research in it? Do you know of anyone?”

  Foster said, “I don’t see that we’re getting anywhere, Dr. Potterley. I have work to do—”

  “One minute. I just want you to try this on. See how it sounds to you. I say the government is actively suppressing basic research in neutrinics and chronoscopy. They’re suppressing application of chronoscopy.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Why not? They could do it. There’s your centrally directed research. If they refuse grants for research in any portion of science, that portion dies. They’ve killed neutrinics. They can do it and have done it.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know why. I want you to find out. I’d do it myself if I knew enough. I came to you because you’re a young fellow with a brand-new education. Have your intellectual arteries hardened already? Is there no curiosity in you? Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want answers?”

  The historian was peering intently into Foster’s face. Their noses were only inches apart, and Foster was so lost that he did not think to draw back.

  He should, by rights, have ordered Potterley out. If necessary, he should have thrown Potterley out.

  It was not respect for age and position that stopped him. It was certainly not that Potterley’s arguments had convinced him. Rather, it was a small point of college pride.

  Why didn’t M.I.T. give a course in neutrinics? For that matter, now that he came to think of it, he doubted that there was a single book on neutrinics in the library. He could never recall having seen one.

  He stopped to think about that.

  And that was ruin.

  Caroline Potterley had once been an attractive woman. There were occasions, such as dinners or university functions, when, by considerable effort, remnants of the attraction could be salvaged.

  On ordinary occasions, she sagged. It was the word she applied to herself in moments of self-abhorrence. She had grown plumper with the years, but the flaccidity about her was not a matter of fat entirely. It was as though her muscles had given up a
nd grown limp so that she shuffled when she walked, while her eyes had grown baggy and her cheeks jowly. Even her graying hair seemed tired rather than merely stringy. Its straightness seemed to be the result of a supine surrender to gravity, nothing else.

  Caroline Potterley looked at herself in the mirror and admitted this was one of her bad days. She knew the reason, too.

  It had been the dream of Laurel. The strange one, with Laurel grown up. She had been wretched ever since.

  Still, she was sorry she had mentioned it to Arnold. He didn’t say anything; he never did any more; but it was bad for him. He was particularly withdrawn for days afterward. It might have been that he was getting ready for that important conference with the big government official (he kept saying he expected no success), but it might also have been her dream.

  It was better in the old days when he would cry sharply at her, “Let the dead past go, Caroline! Talk won’t bring her back, and dreams won’t either.”

  It had been bad for both of them. Horribly bad. She had been away from home and had lived in guilt ever since. If she had stayed at home, if she had not gone on an unnecessary shopping expedition, there would have been two of them available. One would have succeeded in saving Laurel.

  Poor Arnold had not managed. Heaven knew he tried. He had nearly died himself. He had come out of the burning house, staggering in agony, blistered, choking, half blinded, with the dead Laurel in his arms.

  The nightmare of that lived on, never lifting entirely.

  Arnold slowly grew a shell about himself afterward. He cultivated a low-voiced mildness through which nothing broke, no lightning struck. He grew puritanical and even abandoned his minor vices, his cigarettes, his penchant for an occasional profane exclamation. He obtained his grant for the preparation of a new history of Carthage and subordinated everything to that.

  She tried to help him. She hunted up his references, typed his notes and microfilmed them. Then that ended suddenly.

  She ran from the desk suddenly one evening, reaching the bathroom in bare time and retching abominably. Her husband followed her in confusion and concern.

  “Caroline, what’s wrong?”

  It took a drop of brandy to bring her around. She said, “Is it true? What they did?”

  “Who did?”

  “The Carthaginians.”

  He stared at her and she got it out by indirection. She couldn’t say it right out.

  The Carthaginians, it seemed, worshiped Moloch, in the form of a hollow, brazen idol with a furnace in its belly. At times of national crisis, the priests and the people gathered, and infants, after the proper ceremonies and invocations, were dextrously hurled, alive, into the flames.

  They were given sweetmeats just before the crucial moment, in order that the efficacy of the sacrifice not be ruined by displeasing cries of panic. The drums rolled just after the moment, to drown out the few seconds of infant shrieking. The parents were present, presumably gratified, for the sacrifice was pleasing to the gods

  Arnold Potterley frowned darkly. Vicious lies, he told her, on the part of Carthage’s enemies. He should have warned her. After all, such propagandistic lies were not uncommon. According to the Greeks, the ancient Hebrews worshiped an ass’s head in their Holy of Holies. According to the Romans, the primitive Christians were haters of all men who sacrificed pagan children in the catacombs.

  “Then they didn’t do it?” asked Caroline.

  “I’m sure they didn’t. The primitive Phoenicians may have. Human sacrifice is commonplace in primitive cultures. But Carthage in her great days was not a primitive culture. Human sacrifice often gives way to symbolic actions such as circumcision. The Greeks and Romans might have mistaken some Carthaginian symbolism for the original full rite, either out of ignorance or out of malice.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can’t be sure yet, Caroline, but when I’ve got enough evidence, I’ll apply for permission to use chronoscopy, which will settle the matter once and for all.”

  “Chronoscopy?”

  “Time viewing. We can focus on ancient Carthage at some time of crisis, the landing of Scipio Africanus in 202 B.C., for instance, and see with our own eyes exactly what happens. And you’ll see, I’ll be right.”

  He patted her and smiled encouragingly, but she dreamed of Laurel every night for two weeks thereafter, and she never helped him with his Carthage project again. Nor did he ever ask her to.

  But now she was bracing herself for his coming. He had called her after arriving back in town, told her he had seen the government man and that it had gone as expected. That meant failure, and yet the little telltale sign of depression had been absent from his voice and his features had appeared quite composed in the teleview. He had another errand to take care of, he said, before coming home.

  It meant he would be late, but that didn’t matter. Neither one of them was particular about eating hours or cared when packages were taken out of the freezer or even which packages, or when the self-warming mechanism was activated.

  When he did arrive, he surprised her. There was nothing untoward about him in any obvious way. He kissed her dutifully and smiled, took off his hat and asked if all had been well while he was gone. It was all almost perfectly normal. Almost.

  She had learned to detect small things, though, and his pace in all this was a trifle hurried. Enough to show her accustomed eye that he was under tension.

  She said, “Has something happened?”

  He said, “We’re going to have a dinner guest night after next, Caroline. You don’t mind?”

  “Well, no. Is it anyone I know?”

  “No. A young instructor. A newcomer. I’ve spoken to him.” He suddenly whirled toward her and seized her arms at the elbow, held them a moment, then dropped them in confusion as though disconcerted at having shown emotion.

  He said, “I almost didn’t get through to him. Imagine that. Terrible, terrible, the way we have all bent to the yoke; the affection we have for the harness about us.”

  Mrs. Potterley wasn’t sure she understood, but for a year she had been watching him grow quietly more rebellious; little by little more daring in his criticism of the government. She said, “You haven’t spoken foolishly to him, have you?”

  “What do you mean, foolishly? He’ll be doing some neutrinics for me.”

  “Neutrinics” was trisyllabic nonsense to Mrs. Potterley, but she knew it had nothing to do with history. She said faintly, “Arnold, I don’t like you to do that. You’ll lose your position. It’s—”

  “It’s intellectual anarchy, my dear,” he said. “That’s the phrase you want. Very well. I am an anarchist. If the government will not allow me to push my researches, I will push them on my own. And when I show the way, others will follow . . . And if they don’t, it makes no difference. It’s Carthage that counts and human knowledge, not you and I.”

  “But you don’t know this young man. What if he is an agent for the Commission of Research.”

  “Not likely and I’ll take that chance.” He made a fist of his right hand and rubbed it gently against the palm of his left. “He’s on my side now. I’m sure of it. He can’t help but be. I can recognize intellectual curiosity when I see it in a man’s eyes and face and attitude, and it’s a fatal disease for a tame scientist. Even today it takes time to beat it out of a man and the young ones are vulnerable.

  . . . Oh, why stop at anything? Why not build our own chronoscope and tell the government to go to—”

  He stopped abruptly, shook his head and turned away. “I hope everything will be all right,” said Mrs. Potterley, feeling helplessly certain that everything would not be, and frightened, in advance, for her husband’s professorial status and the security of their old age.

  It was she alone, of them all, who had a violent presentiment of trouble. Quite the wrong trouble, of course.

  Jonas Foster was nearly half an hour late in arriving at the Potterleys’ off-campus house. Up to that very evening, he had not qui
te decided he would go. Then, at the last moment, he found he could not bring himself to commit the social enormity of breaking a dinner appointment an hour before the appointed time. That, and the nagging of curiosity.

  The dinner itself passed interminably. Foster ate without appetite. Mrs. Potterley sat in distant absentmindedness, emerging out of it only once to ask if he was married and to make a deprecating sound at the news that he was not. Dr. Potterley himself asked neutrally after his professional history and nodded his head primly.

  It was as staid, stodgy—boring, actually—as anything could be.

  Foster thought: He seems so harmless.

  Foster had spent the last two days reading up on Dr. Potterley. Very casually, of course, almost sneakily. He wasn’t particularly anxious to be seen in the Social Science Library. To be sure, history was one of those borderline affairs and historical works were frequently read for amusement or edification by the general public.

  Still, a physicist wasn’t quite the “general public.” Let Foster take to reading histories and he would be considered queer, sure as relativity, and after a while the Head of the Department would wonder if his new instructor was really “the man for the job.”

  So he had been cautious. He sat in the more secluded alcoves and kept his head bent when he slipped in and out at odd hours.

  Dr. Potterley, it turned out, had written three books and some dozen articles on the ancient Mediterranean worlds, and the later articles (all in “Historical Reviews”) had all dealt with pre-Roman Carthage from a sympathetic viewpoint.

  That, at least, checked with Potterley’s story and had soothed Foster’s suspicions somewhat . . . And yet Foster felt that it would have been much wiser, much safer, to have scotched the matter at the beginning.

  A scientist shouldn’t be too curious, he thought in bitter dissatisfaction with himself. It’s a dangerous trait.