For a moment he grabbed frantically at nothing. Then he realized they were not falling and his eyes began to trace the hint of walls and ceiling and floor and, immediately below them, the ghost of a shaft.
Phy nodded. “That’s all there is to it,” he assured Carrsbury casually. “Just another of those charmingly odd modem notions against which you have legislated so persistently—like our incomplete staircases and roads to nowhere. The Buildings and Grounds Committee decided to extend the range of the elevator for sightseeing purposes. The shaft was made air-transparent to avoid spoiling the form of the original building and to improve the view. This was achieved so satisfactorily that an electronic warning system had to be installed for the safety of passing airjets and other craft. Treating the surfaces of the cage like windows was an obvious detail.”
He paused and looked quizzically at Carrsbury. “All very simple,” he observed, “but don’t you find a kind of symbolism in it? For ten years now you’ve been spending most of your life in that building below. Every day you’ve used this elevator. But not once have you dreamed of these fifty extra stories. Don’t you think that something of the same sort may be true of your observations of other aspects of contemporary social life?”
Carrsbury gaped at him stupidly.
Phy turned to watch the growing speck of an approaching aircraft. “You might look at it too,” he remarked to Carrsbury, “for it’s going to transport you to a far happier, more restful life.”
Carrsbury parted his lips, wet them. “But—” he said, unsteadily. “But-”
Phy smiled. “That’s right, I didn’t finish my explanation. Well, you might have gone on being World manager all your life, in the isolation of your office and your miles of taped official reports and your occasional confabs with me and the others. Except for your Institute of Political Leadership and your Ten-Year-Plan. That upset things. Of course, we were as much interested in it as we were in you. It had definite possibilities. We hoped it would work out. We would have been glad to retire from office if it had. But, most fortunately, it didn’t. And that sort of ended the whole experiment.”
He caught the downward direction of Carrsbury’s gaze.
“No,” he said, “I’m afraid your pupils aren’t waiting for you in the conference chamber on the hundredth story. I’m afraid they’re still in the Institute.” His voice became gently sympathetic. “And I’m afraid that it’s become. well. a somewhat different sort of institute.”
Carrsbury stood very still, swaying a little. Gradually his thoughts and his will power were emerging from the waking nightmare that had paralyzed them. The cunning of the insane—he had neglected that trenchant warning. In the very moment of victory-No! He had forgotten Hartman! This was the very emergency for which that counterstroke had been prepared.
He glanced sideways at the chief member of his secret police. The black giant, unconcerned by their strange position, was glaring fixedly at Phy as if at some evil magician from whom any malign impossibility could be expected.
Now Hartman became aware of Carrsbury’s gaze. He divined his thought.
He drew his dark weapon from its holster, pointed it unwaveringly at Phy.
His black-bearded lips curled. From them came a hissing sound. Then, hi a loud voice, he cried, “You’re dead, Phy! I disintegrated you.”
Phy reached over and took the weapon from his hand.
“That’s another respect in which you completely miscalculated the modern temperament,” he remarked to Carrsbury, a shade argumentatively. “All of us have certain subjects on which we’re a trifle unrealistic. That’s only human nature. Hartman’s was his suspiciousness—a weakness for ideas involving plots and persecutions. You gave him the worst sort of job—one that catered to and encouraged his weaknesses. In a very short time he became hopelessly unrealistic. Why for years he’s never realized that he’s been carrying a dummy pistol.”
He passed it to Carrsbury for inspection.
“But,” he added, “give him the proper job and he’d function well enough—say something in creation or exploration. Fitting the man to the job is an art with infinite possibilities. That’s why we had Morgenstern in Finance—to keep credit fluctuating in a safe, predictable rhythm. That’s why a euphoric is made manager of Extraterrestial Research—to keep it booming. Why a catatonic is given Cultural Advancement—to keep it from tripping on its face in its haste to get ahead.”
He turned away. Dully, Carrsbury observed that the aircraft was hovering close to the cage and sidling slowly in.
“But in that case why—” he began stupidly.
“Why were you made World manager?” Phy finished easily. “Isn’t that fairly obvious? Haven’t I told you several tunes that you did a lot of good, indirectly? You interested us, don’t you see? In fact, you were practically unique. As you know, it’s our cardinal principle to let every individual express himself as he wants to. In your case, that involved letting you become World manager. Taken all in all it worked out very well. Everyone had a good time, a number of constructive regulations were promulgated, we learned a lot—oh, we didn’t get everything we hoped for, but one never does. Unfortunately, in the end, we were forced to discontinue the experiment.”
The aircraft had made contact.
“You understand, of course, why that was necessary?” Phy continued hurriedly, as he urged Carrsbury toward the opening port. “I’m sure you must. It all comes down to a question of sanity. What is sanity— now, hi the twentieth century, any time? Adherence to a norm. Conformity to certain basic conventions underlying all human conduct. In our age, departure from the norm has become the norm. Inability to conform has become the standard of conformity. That’s quite clear, isn’t it? And it enables you to understand, doesn’t it, your own case and that of your proteges? Over a long period of years you persisted in adhering to a norm, in conforming to certain basic conventions. You were completely unable to adapt yourself to the society around you. You could only pretend—and your proteges wouldn’t have been able to do even that. Despite your many engaging personal characteristics, there was obviously only one course of action open to us.”
In the port Carrsbury turned. He had found his voice at last. It was hoarse, ragged. “You mean that all these years you’ve just been humoring me?”
The port was closing. Phy did not answer the question.
As the aircraft edged out, he waved farewell with the blob of green gasoid.
“It’ll be very pleasant where you’re going,” he shouted encouragingly. “Comfortable quarters, adequate facilities for exercise, and a complete library of twentieth century literature to while away your time.”
He watched Carrsbury’s rigid face, staring whitely from the vision port, until the aircraft had diminished to a speck.
Then he turned away, looked at his hands, noticed the gasoid, tossed it out the open door of the cage, studied its flight for a few moments, then flicked the downbeam.
“I’m glad to see the last of that fellow,” he muttered, more to himself than to Hartman, as they plummeted toward the roof. “He was beginning to have a very disturbing influence on me. In fact, I was beginning to fear for my”—his expression became suddenly vacuous —“sanity.”
Wanted-An Enemy
THE bright stars of Mars made a glittering roof for a fantastic tableau. A being equipped with retinal vision would have seen an Earthman dressed in the familiar coat and trousers of the twentieth century standing on a boulder that put him a few feet above the rusty sand. His face was bony and puritanic. His eyes gleamed wildly from deep sockets. Occasionally his long hair flopped across them. His lips worked vociferously, showing big yellowed teeth, and there was a cloud of blown spittle in front of them, for he was making a speech —in the English language. He so closely resembled an old-style soapbox orator that one looked around for the lamp-post, the dull-faced listeners overflowing the curb, and the strolling cop.