He sat back. "Now we believe this could be done, and once it got started, the freemen would never be able to put a stop to it. We could float those kits from balloons and just let them loose. We could even make the process automatic -- set up a big Gismo, in some place in the mountains that would be hard to locate, and just put it to work automatically turning out those kits and floating them away on the wind." He paused.
Dick could see the picture in his mind; it was vicious and clever, and he knew instinctively that the Old Man was right -- once started, you could never stop it, never in the world ... "But we decided against that, too," said the Old Man. "Our reason was this. If you study your history you'll see that the whole set of injustices, and all the bloodshed of the first twenty years after Turnover, came from just such a plan as that. Somebody, we don't know who, distributed Gismos through the government mails they had then. What happened? If one man took advantage of the anarchic conditions to get himself a slave army, you couldn't defend yourself against him unless you had an army too. Now we believe that a similar process would inevitably take place if we were to follow that plan again. The slave-holding big houses we have at present would break up, and that would be desirable from our point of view, but at the same time we would create such conditions of anarchy again, that there would have to be a time of bloodshed, and then of little wars, and then big wars all over, before things would settle down into a new pattern of mister and slave.
"Now you remember I said that first of all the injustice of slavery must be ended. That is our aim. We want to see the time come when nobody will be a slave, anywhere, to any man. So we can't drive out our freemen, and we can't disseminate Gismos at random. What does that leave?"
He held up a third finger. "It leaves just one way: for us to learn to live peacefully together, to get along and respect each other as equals -- those who were freemen, and those who were slaves."
Dick tried to keep his expression impassive, but some of his revulsion and contempt must have shown in his face. The Old Man said, "You think that could never happen. Why not? Is there an intrinsic difference between a freeman and a slave?"
Dick said, "Certainly."
"Then what about the lady beside you now? Is she slave or free?"
He said thickly, "She's free. She was married to the Boss -- that is -- " He stopped in confusion.
Elaine's hand tightened on his arm. "Dick, that isn't right." She thought he meant Oliver, he realized; she still didn't understand that she was not the original Elaine.
"I know, you mean she has free status. That's true. But she was bought and sold, both her parents were slaves, and moreover, she is a dupe. Now isn't it true, that, according to your way of thinking, a dupe must be a slave?"
Dick shot a glance at Elaine's face; she was bewildered and uncomprehending -- it hadn't soaked in yet: but it would. He turned back to the Old Man with a look of resentment. "It's a different case," he said shortly. "Things were different then -- they hadn't settled down."
"But now they have?" said the Old Man. "All right: now just suppose that while you were sleeping, I had you taken to the Gismo Room and duped. That could have happened, couldn't it? ... And suppose I then had your own body destroyed -- suppose I killed the original Dick Jones, and let the dupe live on ... Now I want you to look at me and tell me: do you have any way of knowing, inside yourself, whether I did that or not?
His grim face stared into Dick's. Suddenly it seemed like a very real possibility.
The sweat broke out on his forehead and he began to feel dizzy. Was he a dupe, without knowing it? He searched his memory, his physical sensations. He felt just the same as he always had, but that did not comfort him: he knew dupes always thought they were the originals, until told differently.
"I'll tell you the answer, sometime," the Old Man said. "Not now. I want you to think about it."
"If you did -- " said Dick, in a choked voice.
"If I did, what difference does it make? That's what I want you to think about." The Old Man rose, and without haste left the room. Dick caught a glimpse of a Frankie on guard as the door closed.
He hunched over in furious thought, chin on his fists. "Dick?" said the girl, squeezing his arm.
He moved away. "Let me alone, just now." After a moment, he felt her withdrawing in a hurt silence. Time enough to apologize for that later: he had to think.
Down in the gulf of the Concourse, a few people were straggling out into view. At this distance he could not recognize any faces, but they were all dressed in the fashion and it might have been any normal gathering -- except that there were so few, and that they moved so hesitantly.
After a while there were more of them, gathering in small groups to talk, some moving aimlessly. The Frankies and other slobs passed among them oh various errands. When there was not enough room, it was the freemen who moved aside, as if trying to avoid contamination.
Suppose he was a dupe -- a slave, then, or some horrible mixture, a quasi-slave. It was one thing to fall in love with a dupe, but it was another to imagine that you might be one.
What difference would it make? Why, all the difference. Between freedom and slobbery -between all the good, decent, proud things and all the abased, slovenly, subhuman things. If he was still Dick Jones of Buckhill, that was something in itself, no matter how bad things got: he was a man, able to look out for himself, with a name and a place to fight for.
He had to find out -- but how? Suppose the Old Man should come back and say, "I lied to you," or "I told the truth." Either way, he might be lying, and Dick would be left to guess, as before.
He shivered. Down in the Concourse, the few brightly-robed people were moving with maddeningly dull slowness. The world had grown dim and hateful, all the colors were flat, and time seemed to be dragging endlessly.
What could the Old Man's motive have been? He must want something, or he wouldn't bother. If he wanted some lever to use on Dick, then he might have had him duped -- but what for, actually, since he could say he had done it just the same? Dick's spirits rose a trifle, then fell again. Suppose the Old Man was planning to produce some proof, later on, that the thing had been done ...
Now what had he said, exactly? "Suppose I then had your own body destroyed -- " He had emphasized that; and then, "Do you have any way of knowing, inside yourself, whether I did that or not?"
Well, no, of course not. A dupe couldn't tell. And then, just before he left, the Old Man had said, "If I did, what difference does it make?" What difference -- ?
Suppose he was a dupe. He let himself frame the thought with the tense hesitancy of a man stepping close to a dangerous edge. If no one knew it, or could prove it, or even accuse him of it -- in short, if he was a freeman in the eyes of the world -- then effectively he was a freeman.
He shook his head in bewilderment. It all seemed perfectly reasonable even when it was most paradoxical. It was a side of things that had always been there, waiting to be seen, but he had never seen it before. That in itself was matter for thought.
Eagles had made a realist of him. He believed in facts, and in altering your viewpoint to fit them, no matter what they were. That was the way you survived and stayed sane; it was hard, it meant sacrifices -- he had already lost many things that he valued deeply -- but it was the only way.
Now, if the only essential difference between a freeman and a slave was an arbitrary distinction -- Dick's world rocked on its foundations.
He looked down thoughtfully at the two gnome-like Frankies who happened to be on the Concourse at the moment. They were uneducated, short-sighted, vulgar and simple -- typical of the lowest kind of house slob. But the Old Man himself was a Frankie -- a Frankie grown to middle age, self-trained and educated into a personality of extraordinary depth and power. If you could make that out of such material, then there was no real, intrinsic difference -- no reason why a Frankie should not be a freeman, or a freeman a servant.