Albert Teichner

“ Hart, we are engaged in an activity of so-called subversion for a positive reason, not merely to avoid insufficient work load. Your reason shows you are still being moved by the values that you despise. We want to cut the work-production load on people. We want them to face the problem of leisure, not flee it."
"There's a heart-warming paradox here," Burnett explained. "Every excess eventually undermines itself. Everybody in the movement starts by wanting to act for their beliefs because work appears so attractive for its own sake. ”

“ Burnett exploded. "Credit me with a little understanding. All right, Hart, what you say is true. But why? Because most men have always worked too hard to achieve the fruits of curiosity."
"I hate to keep being a spoil-sport, but what does that prove? Some men who had to work as hard as the rest have been interested in things beyond the end of their nose." ”

“ All he had needed to say at the library was that his work in sociology required investigation of some twentieth century files. The librarian, a tall, gaunt man, had given him a speculative glance. "Of course, you don't have government clearance.... But we get so few inquiries in sociology that I'm willing to offer a little encouragement." He sighed. "Don't get many inquiries altogether. Most people just can't stand reading. You might be interested to know this—one of the best headings to research in sociology is Conspicuous consumption."
Then it was Wendell's turn to glance speculatively. ”

“ Preliminary Rites were part of the emotion-stoking that preceded the Highest Holy Day. Each Rite was greater and more destructive than those that had gone before. As tokens of happy loyalty, viewers threw hats and watches and stickpins onto the pile just prior to the entry of the slaggers. What better way could be found for each man to manifest his common humanity?
After a while doubt started assailing him again, and Hart found himself returning almost against his will to the Library Building. Burnett greeted him cordially. "To-day's visit is completely legal," he said. ”

“ Hart sat down, deeply troubled. "Look, I deplore destroying equipment that is still perfectly useful as much as any of you do. But there is a problem. If the destruction were stopped there would be so much leisure people would rot from boredom."
urnett pounced eagerly on the argument. "Instead they're rotting from artificial work. Boredom is a temporary, if recurring phenomenon of living, not a permanent one. If most men face the difficulty of empty time long enough they find new problems with which to fill that time. ”

“ But Hart knew instantly what had caused it. Some high-level servo mechanisms had not been thoroughly disconnected. They had repaired their damages, then imposed their patterns on the material at hand.
A second slagger came rushing into the square. It discharged immediately; and the pile finally collapsed and disintegrated as it was supposed to.
The crowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for, but Hart could not share their horror. Burnett eyed him. "Better look indignant," he said. "They'll be out for blood. Somebody must have sabotaged the setup." ”

“ Most people don't mind thought if it's concentrated in a narrow range. But if they have to think in a broad range to keep boredom away—no, that's too high a price for most of them! They avoid it when they can. And under present circumstances they can." He stopped. "Of course that's a purely hypothetical fiction I'm constructing."
Hart shook his head. "It sounds awfully real to be purely—" He, too, caught himself up. "Of course, you're only positing a fiction."
Burnett started putting his desk papers away. ”

“ Some tapes had been prepared earlier, so it was possible to put everything in the cryotron box before Marie returned, as well as to attach the tiny contact that would reach out from the box until it reached its first external scrap of wire or metal.
"You poor darling," she pouted. "You missed the most wonderful thing! They demolished a whole thirty-story building!"
His blood, atavistically effected, pulsed faster until his new creed came to grips with his old emotions. "They usually don't bother with buildings for the Rites." ”

“ When it comes to getting things done you're the best we have!"
The little man grinned. "But you're the one who knows how to pick recruits and organize our concepts. This is how it worked. I re-fed the emptied cryotron memory box of a robot discard with patterns to deal with anything it was likely to encounter in a destruction pile. I kept the absolute-freeze mechanism in working order, but developed a shield that would hide its activity from the best pile detector." ”

“ Everything's going to be all right. Now I'd like to be alone in the study for a while. I've been through an exhausting time."
"Aren't you going to eat?"
The last word triggered the entry of Eric, the domestic robot, pushing the dinner cart ahead of him. "No food to-night," Hart insisted. The shining metal head nodded its assent and the cart was wheeled out.
"That's not a very humane thing to do," she scolded. "Eric's not going to be serving many more meals—"
"Good grief, Marie, just leave me alone for a while, will you?" ”

“ He slammed down the off button and went out to the librarian's desk. "Do people want to work all the time," he said, "for the sake of work alone?"
He immediately regretted the question. But Burnett did not seem to mind. "You've only stated the positive reason, Mr. Hart. The negative one could be stronger—the fear of what they would have to do if they did not have to work much over a long period." ”

“ Hart found his wife's grief easy to bear. The day after tomorrow she would join in the general exultation of High Holy Day, with Eric well forgotten. He methodically began smashing the surface of the limbs and torso; the greater the visible damage, the greater the honor redounding to the sacrifice donor. "This will be our gift to the general pile," he said.
"I thought we could keep him for our garden sacrifice," Marie protested meekly. "Most people do." ”

“ Marie exploded. "My husband struggles all night on secret work, studying to find ways to stop the anti-socials, and you treat him like one of them!"
"You're working on the problem?" the Inspector said respectfully. "What are you doing?"
Frying pan to fire. Hart preferred the pan and pulled open a drawer. "It's too complicated, too much time needed to explain!" ”

“ He spread a large tissue schematic out on the floor and they all gathered around it to study the details. "Now, the important thing was to have an external element that could resume contact with a wider circuit, which could in turn start meshing with the whole robot mechanism and then through that mechanism into the pile. This little lever made the contact at a pre-fed time."
Miss Wright was enthusiastic. "That contact is half the size of any I've been able to make. It's crucially important," she added to Hart. "A large contact can look suspicious." ”

“ When she had gone he started to work on new instruction tapes for activating the servo-cryotron. Nothing could be surrendered to chance. Every possible circumstance in the pile had to be anticipated. There had to be instructions for action if Eric was crushed below fifty feet of metal, for assembling any kind of scrambled wiring, for adapting all types of parts in its immediate surroundings, for using these parts to absorb parts further away and for timing the operation to the start of the Highest Rite. ”

“ Then he set up the instruction tapes to make the miniature contacts. Production then would be a simple job, only taking a few minutes, and during a working day there were always many periods longer than that when he was alone on the production floor.
But thinking the matter out without computers was much more difficult. Human beings ordinarily filled their time on a lower abstracting level.
When he unlocked the study door in the morning he was startled to see Marie bustling down the corridor, pushing the food service cart herself. ”

“ Remain vigilant and you have nothing to fear!"
"You are sentenced to five years isolation from general society," said the officer, in a voice dulcet enough to sell advance orders for replacement products that had not yet been made. "Our intention is to protect you from bad influences. ”

“ Our hope is that others will take your lesson to heart."
"God bless you," said the woman and her brothers joined in effusive thanks.
"Makes you proud to be a human being," Marie said. "I was getting some stupid doubts myself, dear. I must admit it. But that's all past. I can hardly wait for the Highest Holy Day."
"Neither can I," sighed her husband.
III
he next day at noon Eric came to him, functioning on the final set of servo instructions that had been installed in him at the factory of his birth eight years before. ”