Bryce Walton

“ Lewis grabbed the intercom, dialed the Commander's office. No answer. He got through the exchange and got the Commander's apartment. He heard a drunken whine and behind that the drunken depraved laughter of officers and their wives and the sound of bongo drums.
"The Monster's breaking out of the Pit," Lewis said. "It's shooting out more than enough deadly radioactivity to kill all of you if you don't get the hell out and get out fast." ”

“ You couldn't mix it up with security and cut off communication, because communication is the essence of science. An idea is universal, and how can you go on thinking when you're no longer a part of the world?
Whatever the decision arrived at in Lewis' own heart might otherwise have been, he was never to know. His decision was made for him by an hysterical laugh, the sound of scuffling on boards, and another laugh. He came around the corner of the barracks and saw the Guard manhandling Betty Seton down the steps of her apartment building. ”

“ The Monster was part of a general plan to compensate for the out-lawing of A- and H-bombs. The most deadly conceivable compromise. The Pit was a deadly sea of radioactivity in which only a mechanical robot monster could work. Outside the Pit, Lewis directed the Monster whose duty was the construction of drone planes. A few had been built, but they weren't quite effective, and now it was impossible to go on with the experimentation. The parts were all there. Everything was there except certain vital classified documents that could not be cleared into this particular Project. ”

“ Nemerov said as the jeep started up again. "You could walk within fifty feet of that fence and never know there was any Project there."
Later a hot wind came up and they ran into the Monster lying dead on its face with dust devils dancing over it.
An old prospector leading a burro came around the wall of sandstone and looked at the Monster, then at the occupants of the jeep.
"Howdy, folks," he said.
"Hello," Lewis said. "We're lost. Where are we and which way do we go to get to civilization?" ”

“ The line of camouflaged barracks on one side, the grounds including the lab buildings, all loomed up darkly under the starlight. He took a deep breath.
Now, he asked himself, have you the guts to get out, tell them off, make the gesture? It won't do any good. Nobody else will care or understand. They're too numb and resigned. You'll never get past the fence. The Guards will haul you in to the Wards and work you over. They'll work over what's left until what's left won't be worth carrying over to the incinerator with the other garbage in the morning. ”

“ Could a man know the truth and continue to deny it, and still remain sane? You could go on living that way. You could take happy pills, sleeping pills, dream-pills and stay lushed-up on government liquor. ”

“ Lewis went to the robotic barkeep and started drinking. This time, however, he didn't feel any effects. He stood looking around, ashamed, made sicker by what he saw: some of the world's finest minds, top scientists, reduced to shallow burbling buffoons.
Dave Nemerov, Nobel Prize Winner in physics, weaved up to Sam and looked at him out of bleary eyes. "Hi, Sammy. All full of gloom again, boy?"
Nemerov, a chubby little man dressed in shorts and nothing else, frowned with drunken exaggeration. "Easy does it, Sammy. You might find the security boys giving you a lobotomy rap." ”

“ Thousands of drone planes were to have been built, and perhaps were being built in some other Project, but not in this one. Thousands of drone planes with raw, un-shielded atomic engines, light and inordinately powerful with an indefinite cruising range, remote controlled, free of fallible human agency, loaded with bacteriological bombs, the terrible gas known as the G-agent, and in addition, loaded 'spray' tanks that would spew deadly gamma rays and neutrons over limitless areas of atmosphere. ”

“ Nemerov said. "It can't last forever. We'll soon get the word. The war will be over."
"What war?" Lewis whispered.
"Ssshhh, Sammy, for God's sake!" Nemerov moistened his lips and looked around, but there weren't any Guards at the party. There never were. The Guards had a barracks of their own in the Commander's private sector. They never talked to civilians. They never attended parties. They kept strictly to themselves. So did the Commander. For almost a year now, as far as Lewis knew, no civilian in the Project had seen the Commander. His reports were issued daily. ”

“ And yet, Lewis thought, how do I know that I know the truth? I'm cut off. No info, no communication. For all I know we're the only people left in the world. An oasis of secrecy surrounded by desert.
Lewis walked back up to the first floor, and out into the night, heading for Betty Seton's apartment. Maybe she was sober enough now to talk this thing over. The hell with security regulations. ”

“ For security. Psychological murder in the name of Security.
The Guard walked on and disappeared around the corner of the end barracks building.
Lewis started walking aimlessly in the dark, up and down in front of the barracks, past the blacked out windows and doors and the shadowy hulks of the lab buildings, and beyond that the camouflaged entrances to other subterranean labs, the synthetic food plants, the stores, and supplies. The Project was self-sustaining; in complete, secure and sterile isolation from the world, from all of humanity. ”

“ Is that clear, Lewis?"
"Forget it," Lewis said.
"That's what I intend to keep on doing," Cardoza said. "Meanwhile, my little robotic barkeep is only the beginning. I'm working on other even more ingenious automata. One will do card tricks. Another is a tight-wire artist. And one can even tell fortunes."
"How about one that can drag humans out of a hat?" Lewis asked.
"Come on, ladies," Cardoza said as he moved away. "Let's go play Dr. ”