Poul Anderson

“ She gave him a strange glance. "Don't you feel weak?"
"Not now," he said. He had blocked off the sensations.
"They—Simon!" She grabbed his arm. "A boat—hear?"
The murmur of jets drifted to him through the beating waves. "Yeah. Quick—underneath!"
They scrambled over the hogback and slid down its farther side. The sea clawed at Dalgetty's feet and foam exploded over his head. He hunched low, throwing one arm about her as she slipped. The airboat murmured overhead, hot gold in the sunset light. Dalgetty crouched, letting the breakers run coldly around him. ”

“ At his feet, a sheer cliff dropped nearly a hundred feet to a white smother of surf.
Dalgetty gulped air, working his lungs like a bellows. A long jump down, he thought dizzily. If he didn't crack his skull open on a reef he might well be clawed under by the sea. ”

“ A few stars twinkled to life in the east. The goons finished their search and settled in a line along the beach.
"Oh-oh," muttered Dalgetty. "I get the idea. Bancroft's had the land beaten for me so thoroughly he's sure I must be somewhere out to sea. If I were he I'd guess I'd swum far out to be picked up by a waterboat. So—he's guarding every possible approach against a landing party."
"What can we do?" whispered Elena. "Even if we can swim around their radius of sight we can't land just anywhere. Most of the island is vertical cliff. ”

“ Bancroft opened his lips and shut them again. The massive head shook in denial.
"He is—from Tau Ceti," said Elena. "They're way beyond us. It's the thing people have been speculating about for the last hundred years."
"Longer, my girl," said Tighe. There was no emotion in his face or voice save a dry humor, but Dalgetty knew what a flame must suddenly be leaping up inside him. "Read Voltaire's Micromegas."
"I've read such fiction," said Bancroft harshly. "Who hasn't? All right, why are they here, what do they want?"
"You could say," spoke Dalgetty, "that we favor the Institute." ”

“ History shows as conclusively as our own equations that freedom is not a 'natural' condition of man. It's a metastable state at best, all too likely to collapse into tyranny. The tyranny can be imposed from outside by the better-organized armies of a conqueror, or it can come from within—through the will of the people themselves, surrendering their rights to the father-image, the almighty leader, the absolute state.
"What use does Bertrand Meade want to make of our findings if he can get them? To bring about the end of freedom by working on the people till they themselves desire it. ”

“ One of the modern type, thought Dalgetty. A flesh-and-blood machine, trying to outmale men, frustrated and unhappy without knowing it and all the more bitter for that.
Briefly there was sorrow in him, an enormous pity for the millions of mankind. They did not know themselves, they fought themselves like wild beasts, tied up in knots, locked in nightmare. Man could be so much if he had the chance.
He glanced at Bancroft. "I know you," he said, "but I'm afraid the lady has the advantage of me."
"My secretary and general assistant, Miss Casimir." ”

“ He had his knowledge and abilities but they wouldn't stop a bullet. Nor did they include education for this kind of warfare. War that was not war, politics that were not politics but a handful of scrawled equations and a bookful of slowly gathered data and a brainful of dreams.
Bancroft had Tighe—somewhere. The Institute could not ask the government for help, even if to a large degree the Institute was the government. It could, perhaps, send Dalgetty a few men but it had no goon squads. And time was like a hound on his heels. ”

“ The horizonless world within himself was a glorious thing to explore. And that had oriented him outward to the real world—he had felt wind and rain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings and the surge of a galloping horse, thresh of waves and laughter of women and smooth mysterious purr of great machines, with a fullness that made him pity those deaf and dumb and blind around him. ”

“ A belief in reason is growing up even in the popular mind, a spirit of moderation and tolerance. There's a wait-and-see attitude toward everything, including the sciences and particularly the new half-finished science of psychodynamics. The world wants to rest for awhile.
"Well, such a state of mind has its own drawbacks. It produces wonderful structures of thought but there's something cold about them. There is so little real passion, so much caution—the arts, for instance, are becoming ever more stylized. ”

“ Bancroft: "It educates a dozen different kinds of psychotechnicians, yes. It does research. It gives advice. It publishes findings and theories. But believe me the Psychotechnic Institute is like an iceberg. Its real nature and purpose are hidden way under water. No, it isn't doing anything illegal that I know of. Its aims are so large that they transcend law altogether."
Man: "What aims?"
Bancroft: "I wish I knew. We've only got hints and guesses, you know. One of the reasons we've snatched Tighe is to find out more. I suspect that their real work requires secrecy." ”

“ One hand dropped to her gun. "You, a clique of maybe a hundred men...."
"More than that. You'd be surprised how many are with us."
"You've decided you are the almighty arbiters. Your superior wisdom is going to lead poor blind mankind up the road to heaven. I say it's down the road to hell! The last century saw the dictatorship of the elite and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This one seems to be birthing the dictatorship of the intellectuals. I don't like any of them!"
"Look, Elena." Dalgetty leaned on one elbow and faced her. "It isn't that simple. ”

“ You can't face the truth that man is a lonely creature and that his purpose must come from within himself."
Bancroft scowled. "I didn't come here to be lectured," he said.
"Have it your way," answered Dalgetty. "I thought you wanted to know what I knew of Actionism. That's it in unprecise verbal language. Essentially you want to be a Leader in a Cause. Your men, such as aren't merely hired, want to be Followers. Only there isn't a Cause around, these days, except the common-sense one of improving human life."
The woman, Casimir, leaned over the desk. ”

“ There was a curious intensity in her eyes. "You just pointed out the drawbacks yourself," she said. "This is a decadent period."
"No," said Dalgetty. "Unless you insist on loaded connotations. It's a necessary period of rest. Recoil time for a whole society—well, it all works out neatly in Tighe's formulation. The present state of affairs should continue for about seventy-five years, we feel at the Institute. In that time, reason can—we hope—be so firmly implanted in the basic structure of society that when the next great wave of passion comes it won't turn men against each other. ”

“ And the new science of human behavior, mass and individual, is achieving rigorous formulation. It's becoming the most powerful tool man has ever had—for whoever controls the human mind will also control all that man can do. That science can be used by anyone, mind you. If you'll read between the lines you'll see what a hidden struggle is shaping up for control of it as soon as it reaches maturity and empirical useability."
"Ah, yes," said the man. "The Psychotechnic Institute."
Dalgetty nodded, wondering why he had jumped into such a lecture. ”

“ I'd have neither the time nor the strength to use it.
"The situation is similar with regard to human dynamics, both mass and individual. It takes months or years to change a man's convictions and when you have hundreds of millions of men...." He shrugged. "Social currents are too large for all but the slightest, most gradual control. In fact perhaps the most valuable results obtained to date are not those which show what can be done but what cannot."
"You speak with the voice of authority," said the man.
"I'm a psychologist," said Dalgetty truthfully enough. ”

“ Dalgetty thought he could make out a skeptically lifted brow. He didn't reply directly but said, "There's a foggy notion in the public mind that a group equipped with a complete science of man—which the Institute hasn't got by a long shot—could 'take over' at once and, by manipulations of some unspecified but frightfully subtle sort, rule the world. The theory is that if you know just what buttons to push and so on, men will do precisely as you wish without knowing that they're being guided. ”

“ While we catch our breath we can begin to understand ourselves. When the next synthetic—or creative or crusading period, if you wish—comes, it will be saner than all which have gone before. And man can't afford to go insane again. Not in the same world with the lithium bomb."
Bancroft nodded. "And you in the Institute are trying to control this process," he said. "You're trying to stretch out the period of—damn it, of decadence! Oh, I've studied the modern school system too, Dalgetty. ”

“ A maintenance man, a computerman, a tank pilot, a diver, a sea rancher, a bevy of stenographers, a bunch of very obvious tourists, more chemists and metallurgists—the sensitive man dismissed them all. There were others he couldn't classify with any decent probability but after a second's hesitation he decided to ignore them too. That left only the group with Thomas Bancroft.
They were sitting in one of the coral grottos, a cave of darkness to ordinary vision. Dalgetty had to squint to see in and the muted light of the tavern was a harsh glare when his pupils were so distended. ”

“ Bancroft sighed. "Bring him in," he said.
One of the guards went out. Dalgetty's heart stumbled. Dad, he thought. It was anguish in him. Casimir walked over to stand in front of him. Her eyes searched his.
"Don't be a fool," she said. "It hurts worse than you know. Tell us."
He looked up at her. I'm afraid, he thought. God knows I'm afraid. His own sweat was acrid in his nostrils. "No," he said.
"I tell you they'll do everything!" She had a nice voice, low and soft, but it roughened now. Her face was colorless with strain. "Go on man, don't condemn yourself to—mindlessness!" ”

“ Your kind of man needs something big. And mere concrete bigness isn't enough. You could give your lives to the sciences or to inter-planetary colonization or to social correction, as many people are cheerfully doing—but those aren't for you. Down underneath you miss the universal father-image.
"You want an almighty Church or an almighty State or an almighty anything, a huge misty symbol which demands everything you've got and gives in return only a feeling of belonging." Dalgetty's voice was harsh. "In short, you can't stand on your own psychic feet. ”

“ The first bullet spun the goon on his heels and sent him lurching across sand and rock. Dalgetty worked the trigger, spraying around his victim, a storm of lead that must ruin the sender.
Chaos on the beach! If that spotlight went on with his eyes at their present sensitivity, he'd be blind for hours. He fired carefully, smashing lens and bulb. The machine-gun opened up, stuttering, wildly into the dark. If someone elsewhere on the island heard that noise—Dalgetty shot again, dropping the gunner over his weapon.
Bullets spanged around him, probing the darkness. One down, two down, three down. ”

“ Elena's slugged guard was stirring and groaning. Tighe bound and gagged him with strips torn from his tunic. Under the submachine-gun the other submitted meekly enough. Dalgetty rolled them behind a sofa with the one he had slain.
Bancroft was wakening too. Dalgetty located a flask of bourbon and gave it to him. Clearing eyes looked up with the same terror. "Now what?" mumbled Bancroft. "You can't get away—"
"We can damn well try. If it had come to fighting with the rest of your gang we'd have used you as a hostage but now there's a neater way. On your feet! ”

“ It would end in a welter of propaganda, counter-propaganda, social and economic manipulations, corruption, competition for the key offices—and so, ultimately, there would be violence.
"All the psychodynamic tensors ever written down won't stop a machine-gun. Violence riding over a society thrown into chaos, enforced peace—and the peace-makers, perhaps with the best will in the world, using the Institute techniques to restore order. Then one step leads to another, power gets more and more centralized and it isn't long before you have the total state back again. ”

“ Dalgetty paused. The wind flowed and muttered beyond the wall.
"There is no sharp division between conscious and subconscious or even between those and the centers controlling involuntary functions," he said. "The brain is a continuous structure. Suppose, for instance, that you become aware of a runaway car bearing down on you.
"Your heartbeat speeds up, your adrenalin output increases, your sight sharpens, your sensitivity to pain drops—it's all preparation for fight or flight. ”