So every night before the sleep bells sounded, he would go over the whole thing in minute detail, remembering 5274’s every word and gesture, the details of his appearance. He told the plan over to himself every night, and told everyone about it who came in to the indoctrination ward.
Swimming up through the pain of resurrection, he had been a little mad at 5274 at first, and then he had realized that at least the plan had enabled one man to beat the game.
“He will always be alive to me. Maybe, in a way, he’s part of me. Nobody knows. But his memory will live. He succeeded in a kind of ultimate dying—no trace of him anywhere. But the memory of him and what he did will be alive when the New System and the Managers are dead. That spirit will assure the Underground of victory—someday. And meanwhile, I’ll keep 5274 alive.
“He even knew the psychology of these Managers and their System. That they can’t afford to make an error. He knew they’d still have that identification punch-plate of him. That they would have one more plate than they had prisoners. But he anticipated what they would do there too. To admit there was one more identification plate than there were prisoners would be to admit a gross error. Of course they could dissolve one of the other prisoners and use 5274’s plate and resurrect 5274. But they’d gain nothing. There would still be an extra plate. You see?
“So they destroyed the plate. He knew they would. And they also had to go back through the records, to Earth, through the security files there, through the birth records, everything. And they destroyed every trace, every shred of evidence that No. 5274 ever existed.”
So he kept the memory alive and that kept 4901 alive while the other prisoners become automatons, hearing, feeling, sensing nothing except the bells. Remembering nothing, anticipating nothing.
But 4901 could remember something magnificent, and so he could anticipate, and that was hope, and faith. He found that no one really believed him but he kept on telling it anyway, the story of the Plan.
“Maybe this number didn’t exist,” someone would say. “If there’s no record anywhere—”
4901 would smile. “In my head, there’s where the record is. I know. I remember.”
And so it was that 4901 was the only one who still remembered and who could still smile when sometime after that—no one in the prison colony knew how long—the Underground was victorious, and the Managerial System crumbled.
THE HUDDLERS
By William Campbell Gault
Illustrated by Ernie Barth
He was a reporter from Venus with an assignment on Earth. He got his story but, against orders, he fell in love—and therein lies this story.
That’s what we always called them, where I come from, huddlers. Damnedest thing to see from any distance, the way they huddle. They had one place, encrusting the shore line for miles on one of the land bodies they called the Eastern Seaboard. A coagulation in this crust contained eight million of the creatures, eight million.
They called it New York, and it was bigger than most of the others, but typical. It wasn’t bad enough living side by side; the things built mounds and lived one above the other. Apartments they called them. What monstrosities they were.
We couldn’t figure this huddling, at first.
All our attention since Akers’ first penetration into space had been directed another way in the galaxy, and though I’ll grant you unified and universal concentration may be considered unwise in some areas, it’s been our greatest strength. It’s brought us rather rapidly to the front, I’m sure you’ll agree, and we’re not the oldest planet, by a damned sight.
Well, by the time we got to the huddlers, Akers was dead and Murten was just an old man with vacant eyes. Jars was handling the Department, though you might say Deering ran it, being closer to most of the gang. Jars was always so cold; nobody ever got to know him really well.
They divided on the huddling. Fear, Jars said, and love, Deering said, but who could say for sure?
As Deering said to me, “What could they fear? They’ve got everything they need, everything but knowledge and their better specimens are getting closer to that, every day.”
In the laboratory, Deering said this, and how did we know old Jars was in a corner, breaking down a spirigel?
“They fear each other,” Jars said, as though it was an official announcement, as though any fact is permanent. “And they fear nature. It’s the most fear ridden colony of bipeds a sane mind could imagine.”
Deering looked at me, and winked.
Jars went back to the spirigel.
Deering said, “Love, love, love. All they sing about, all they write about, all they talk about, love, love, love.”
Jars was just tracing a z line on the spirigel and he put down his legort at that. “Rather superficial thinking, from a scientist,” he said quietly. “Surface manifestations to be considered as indicative. Oral and verbal camouflage to be accepted as valid. Deering, old thing, please—”
Deering shrugged. “So I am—what do they call it, a Pollyanna. Isn’t that a pretty word? So, I’m a Pollyanna.”
“I rather think that describes you partially,” Jars said, “and with this particular planet we’re discussing, it can be a dangerous attitude.”
“So?” Deering said, nudging me. “And could I ask why?”
“Ask it.”
“I ask.”
“You’ve recorded the state of their development. They have, among other things, achieved nuclear fission.”
“So? In the fourth grade we are teaching nuclear fission.”
“We are a scientific people. They haven’t been, until very, very recently. You have noted, I hope, their first extensive use of this new discovery?”
“Hero—Helo—” Deering shrugged. “My memory.”
“Hiroshima,” Jars supplied. “Love—, my friend?”
“I have noted it,” Deering said. “We spoke, a while ago, of surface manifestations.”
“We shall continue to. You have witnessed the mechanical excellence of their machines, in some ways beyond ours, because of their greater element wealth. You have noted the increased concentration of their better minds, their scientific minds. How long do you think it will be, friend, before they are ready for us?”
“Ready, ready—? In what way, ready?”
“The only way they know, the only thing they seem to have time for—ready for war.”
“War—,” Deering said, and sighed. “Oh, Jars, they will be beyond war, certainly, before they are cognizant of us. They are no tribe of incompetents; they grow each day.”
“They—?” Jars’ smile was cynical. “Their scientists grow. Are their scientists in command, sir?”
That “sir” had been unnecessary; Jars was the senior mind, here. Deering didn’t miss it, and he flushed.
Jars said softly, “I apologize. It was not a thing to say. I have spent too much time in the study of these—monsters.”
They had gone to school, together, those two, and the bond was there and the respect, but they were different, mentally, and each knew it.
“You have a sharp tongue,” Deering said, “but a sharper mind. I believe I can stand it.” He smiled. “Love, fear, hate—what does it matter to us, except as phenomena?”
“It matters to us, believe me, please. It concerns us very much, Arn.”
When Jars got to first names, he was emotionally wrought. I looked at him in surprise. And so did Deering. We weren’t ever going to warm up to him, but he was our best mind and there wasn’t a man in the department who didn’t appreciate that.