Mack Reynolds

“ A distant finger of cold traced designs in Henry Kuran's belly. He had never heard the United States referred to as the Old World before. It had a strange, disturbing quality.
Loo, who was now reclined on his bunk, said, "That's approximately the same reason I visit the Soviet Union."
Hank said quietly, "Who's sending you, Paco? Or are you on your own?"
"No, my North American friend. My lips are sealed but I represent a rather influencial group. All is not jest, even though I find life the easier if one laughs often and with joy." ”

“ The alien grunted. "To the contrary, what you should have done was try to excel Russian science, technology and industry. Had you done that you might have continued to be the world's leading nation, until, at least, some sort of world unity had been achieved. By deciding to combat Russian progress you became a retarding force, a deliberate drag on the development of your species, seeking to cripple and restrain rather than to grow and develop. The way to win a race is not to trip up your opponent, but to run faster and harder than he."
Hank stared at him. ”

“ But the world is changing like crazy. Science, technology, industrial production, education, population all are mushrooming. For us to claim that sweeping and basic changes aren't taking place in the Western nations is just nonsense. Our own country's institutions barely resemble the ones we had when you and I were children. And certainly the Soviet Union has changed and is changing from what it was thirty or forty years ago."
"Listen, Char," Hank said in irritation, "you still haven't come up with any sort of an answer to the cold war." ”

“ Hank Kuran hadn't spent eight years of his life as a field man working against the Soviet countries in the economic sphere without running into every argument both pro and con in the continuing battle between Capitalism and Communism. Now he chuckled to himself at getting into tiffs over the virtues of Russian black bread versus American white, or whether Soviet jets were faster than those of the United States. ”

“ Hank complained. "All set for another riding."
Loo laughed softly, his perfect white teeth gleaming in his black face.
Paco said, "You seem to have the fictional good guys and bad guys outlook. And, in this world of controversy, you assume that you are the good guys, the heroes, and since that is so then the Soviets must be the bad guys. And, as in the movies, everything the good guys do is fine and everything the bad guys do, is evil. I sometimes think that if the Russians had developed a cure for cancer first you Americans would have refused to use it." ”

“ If the extraterrestrials throw their weight, their scientific progress, into the balance on the side of the Soviet complex, the West will have lost the cold war. Every neutral in the world will jump on the bandwagon. ”

“ Hank groaned. "There you are. If a railroad company at home suggested you spend the night in a compartment with a strange man, you'd sue them. But here in the promised land it's O.K."
After a short silence Char said, "Hank, why do you dislike the Soviet Union so much?"
"Why? Because I'm an American!"
She said so softly as to be almost inaudible, "I've known you for a week now. Somehow you don't really seem to be the type who would make that inadequate a statement."
Hank said "Look, Char. There's a cold war going on between the United States and her allies and the Soviet complex. ”

“ Char said, "Ever since I was about ten years of age I've been reading about the Russian people starving to death and having to work six months before making enough money to buy a pair of shoes. So I've decided to see how starving, barefooted people managed to build the largest industrial nation in the world."
"Here we go again," Hank said, taking up his glass. He toasted her silently before saying, "The United States is still the largest single industrial nation in the world." ”

“ Leningrad came as only a mild surprise to Henry Kuran. With his knowledge of Russian and his position in Morton Twombly's department, he had kept up with the Soviet progress though the years.
As early as the middle 1950s unbiased travelers to the U.S.S.R. had commented in detail upon the explosion of production in the country. By the end of the decade such books as Gunther's "Inside Russia Today" had dwelt upon the ultra-cleanliness of the cities, the mushrooming of apartment houses, the easing of the restrictions of Stalin's day—or at least the beginning of it. ”

“ He noticed Hank Kuran's expression, and shook his head. "No, it's not farfetched. These other intelligent life forms must be familiar with what it takes to progress to the point of interplanetary travel. It takes species aggressiveness—besides intelligence. And they must have sense enough not to want the wrong kind of aggressiveness exploding into the stars. They don't want an equivalent of Attila bursting over the borders of the Roman Empire. They want to channel us, and they're willing to help, to direct our comparatively new science into paths that won't conflict with them. ”

“ Socialism presupposes a highly industrialized economy. It's not possible in a primitive nor even a feudalistic society. So our Communist bureaucracy remained in the saddle through a period of transition. The task was to industrialize the Soviet countries in a matter of decades where it had taken the Capitalist nations a century or two."
Georgi shrugged. "I've never heard of a governing class giving up its once acquired power of its own accord, no matter how incompetent they might be."
Hank said, "I wouldn't call the Soviet government incompetent." ”

“ His eyes went to Hank's. "You're an American. Do you know why you have fallen behind in the march of progress?"
"I'm not sure we have," Hank said flatly. "Do you mean in comparison with the Soviet complex?"
"Exactly. And if you don't realize it, then you've blinded yourself. You've fallen behind in a score of fields because a decade or so ago, in your years between 1957 and 1960, you made a disastrous decision. In alarm at Russian progress, you adopted a campaign of combating Russian science. You began educating your young people to combat Russian progress." ”

“ One of the younger boys, the ham who had first approached Hank, smiled and said, "Perhaps we can talk a bit more of radio?"
"Yeah," Hank muttered, "Swell."
The next development came sooner than Henry Kuran had expected. In fact, before the others returned from their afternoon tour of the city. Hank was sprawled in one of the king-sized easy-chairs, turning what little he had to work on over in his mind. The principal decisions to make were, first, how long to wait on the assistance of the stilyagi, and, if that wasn't forthcoming, what steps to take on his own. The second prospect stumped him. ”

“ Out in the corridor a voice, heavy with Britishisms, complained plaintively, "Did you ever hear the loik? They put men and women into the same compartment. Oim expected to sleep with a loidy in the bunk under me."
Hank cleared his throat, didn't allow himself the luxury of a smile. He said, "I'll see what I can do, Char. Seems to me I did read somewhere that the Russkies see nothing wrong in putting strangers in the same sleeping compartment."
Char Moore stood there, saying nothing but breathing deeply enough to express American womanhood insulted. ”

“ Prices were remarkably low and people were buying. In fact, he'd never seen a country so full of people reading and studying. The park benches were loaded with them, they read as the rode on streetcar and bus, they read as they walked along the street. He had an uneasy feeling that the jet-set kids were a small minority, that the juvenile delinquent problem here wasn't a fraction what it was in the West.
He'd expected to be followed. In fact, that had puzzled him when he first was given this unwanted assignment by Sheridan Hennessey. ”

“ We've conquered all the major diseases. We have the wonders of eternity before us—and look at us."
"Tell that to the Russkies and their pals. They're out for the works."
"Well, haven't we been?"
"The United States isn't trying to take over the world."
"No? Possibly not in the old sense of the word, but aren't we trying desperately to sponsor our type of government and social system everywhere? Frankly, I'm neither pro-West nor pro-Soviet. I think they're both wrong."
"Fine," Hank said. "What is your answer?" ”

“ Paco and Loo, the only single bachelors on the tour besides himself, were again quartered with him at the Astoria.
Paco said, "My friend, there I agree with you completely. America has the best plumbing in the world. And the most."
Hank was pulling off his shoes after an arch-breaking day of sightseeing. "Well, I'm glad I've finally found some field where it's agreeable that the West is superior to the Russkies." ”

“ Aloud he said, "Very well, in a couple of days we'll be in the promised land, I contend that free enterprise performs the greatest good for the greatest number."
"Free enterprise," somebody down the table snorted. "That means the freedom for the capitalists to pry somebody else out of the greatest part of what he produces."
By the time they'd reached Leningrad aside from Paco and Loo, his cabinmates, Hank had built an Iron Curtain all of his own between himself and the other members of the Progressive Tours trip. ”

“ In the Soviet complex the labor unions were in no position to block the introduction of ultra-efficient methods, and featherbedding was unheard of. If a Russian worker's job was automated out from under him, he shifted to a new plant, a new job, and possibly even learned a new trade. The American worker's union, to the contrary, did its best to save the job. ”

“ Hank learned little that he hadn't already known. The Kremlin had all but laughingly declined a suggestion on the part of Switzerland that the extraterrestrials be referred to that all but defunct United Nations. The delegates from the Galactic Confederation had chose to land in Moscow. In Moscow they should remain until they desired to go elsewhere. The Soviet implication was that the alien emissaries had no desire, intention nor reason to visit other sections of Earth. They had contacted the dominant world power and could complete their business within the Kremlin walls. ”

“ In spite of their sterility, the military machines still claimed their million masses of men, still drained a third of the products of the world's industry.
One of the C.I.A. men was saying urgently, "So we're going to send you in as a tourist. As inconspicuous a tourist as we can make you. For fifteen years the Russkies have boomed their tourist trade—all for propaganda, of course. Now they're in no position to turn this tourist flood off. If the aliens got wind of it, they'd smell a rat."
Hank Kuran brought his attention back to them. "All right. So you get me to Moscow as a tourist. ”

“ The skirt she was wearing was probably Russian, it looked sturdy and durable, but the sweater was one of the new American fabrics. Her shoes were probably western too, the latest flared heel effect. A typical stilyagi or metrofanushka girl, he assumed. Except for one thing—her eyes were cool and alert, intelligent beyond those of a street pickup.
Paco said, "What do you think, Hank? This one will come back to the hotel with me."
"Romeo, Romeo," Hank sighed, "wherefore do thou think thou art?"
Paco shrugged. "What's the difference? Buenos Aires, New York, Moscow. Women are women." ”

“ Hank said, "I wouldn't know I'm not up on my Marxism. I'm afraid that when I went to school academic circles weren't inclined in that direction." He returned the Russian's wry smile.
Which only set the other off again. "Academic circles!" he snorted. "Sterile in both our countries. All professors of economics in the Soviet countries are Marxists. On the other hand, no American professor would admit to this. Coincidence? Suppose an American teacher was a convinced Marxist. ”

“ All eyes were turned to him now, so Hank said, "It's a big country and there are exceptions. But on the average the United States has the highest standard of living in the world."
Paco said interestedly, "What do you use for a basis of measurement, my friend? Such things as the number of television sets and movie theaters? To balance such statistics, I understand that per capita your country has the fewest number of legitimate theaters of any of—I use Miss Moore's term—the civilized countries."
A Londoner, two down from Hank, laughed nastily. "Maybe schooling is the way he measures. ”

“ You speak Russian like a native. Morton Twombly says you're his best man. Your records show that you can think on your feet, and that's what we need above all."
Hank Kuran said flatly, "You might have asked for volunteers."
"We did. You, you and you. The old army game," Hennessey said wearily. "Mr. Kuran, we're in the clutch. We can lose, forever—right now. Right in the next month or so. Consider yourself a soldier being thrown into the most important engagement the world has ever seen—combating the growth of the Soviets. We can't afford such luxuries as asking for volunteers. ”

“ Hank said, "In the hall outside the Sobstvennaya Plovina of the Bolshoi Kremlevski Dvorets. The czar's private apartments. And how did you get here?"
"The hard way," Loo said softly. His eyes darted up and down the corridor. "I can't figure out why there aren't more guards. I don't like this. You're armed?" ”