Betty took up the ball. She said, very softly, “Remember, Tracy, when I told you yesterday that Dan Whiteley had been killed by the Chinese communists and had become a martyr, known to any student of the period?”
He waited for her to go on.
She said, still softly, “You are also so known. Tracy Cogswell, the dependable, the incorruptible, the organization man plus ultra, the indominable field man.” She spoke as though reciting. “Fought in Spain in the International Brigades as a boy. Friend of George Orwell. Spent three years in Nazi concentration camps before escaping. Active in overthrowing Mussolini. Fought on the side of the Freedom Fighters in the Hungarian tragedy of 1956. Helped Djilas escape from Tito’s dictatorship. Finally was given post of international secretary, coordinating activities from Tangier.”
She took a deep breath before going on. “Captured by Franco’s espionage-counterespionage agents and smuggled into Spain. Died under torture without betraying any members of the organization.”
Tracy spilled his cup of coffee as he came to his feet. His voice was strained. “But… but Dan Whiteley was there, at the end. He knew that last wasn’t true. I appropriated almost twenty thousand dollars of the movement’s money. It must have been practically the whole international treasury, and that’s why he had been sent to find out what in the hell was going on.”
Jo Edmonds said with sour humor. “It would seem that your organization needed a martyr more than it needed a traitor or even the money. You’ve gone down in history as Tracy Cogswell, the incorruptible, the dependable, the perfect organization man.”
Cogswell slumped back into his chair. At least in this fashion a hundred friends and comrades had never known his final act of betrayal. He hadn’t been able to resist, but still it had been betrayal. Those friends and comrades he had fought shoulder to shoulder with to make a better world.
He said wearily, “All right. Now we come to the question that counts.” He looked from one face to the other. They obviously knew what he was about to ask. He asked it: “Why?”
Jo Edmonds, for once, slipped his piece of jade back into a pocket. He opened his mouth to speak, but Academician Stein quieted him with a shake of his head.
He said, “Let me do this, Jo. We’re at the crux of the matter. How we put this now means success or failure of the whole project.”
Tracy Cogswell was beginning to come to a boil. “What project, damn it?” he snapped.
“Just a minute,” Stein said, flustered a bit, obviously not used to dealing with persons in extreme anger. “Let me give you some background.”
Tracy Cogswell snapped, “I’ve been getting background for days. Tell me why I’m here!”
The other was upset. “A moment please, Tracy… I’m going to call you Tracy… man was an aggressive, hard-fighting animal from the time he first emerged from the mists of antiquity. Physically weak, as predatory animals go, he depended on brains and cunning to subjugate his fellow beasts. Only those clever enough to outwit the sabertooth, the cave bear, the multitude of other beasts more dangerous physically than man, survived.”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t need this,” Cogswell protested.
“A moment, please. You will see my reasons. Even when his fellow beasts were conquered, man still had nature to combat. He still had to feed, clothe, and shelter himself. He had to adjust to the seasons, protect himself during the cold and the night, floods and storms, of droughts and pestilences. And step by step he beat out his path of progress. It wasn’t always easy, Tracy.”
“It was never easy,” Cogswell growled impatiently.
“All along the way,” Stein continued, “man fought not only as a species but as an individual. Each man battled not only nature, but his fellow man as well, since there was seldom enough for all. Particularly when we get to the historic period and the emergence of the priest and the warrior and finally the noble: Man was pitted against his fellows for a place at the top. There was room there for only a small number.”
The academician shook his head. “Survival of the fittest,” he said. “Which often meant, under the circumstances, the most brutal, the most cunning, the conscienceless. But it also meant the strengthening of the race. When a ruling class was no longer the most aggressive and intelligent element of a people, it didn’t long remain the ruling class.”
Walter Stein hesitated for a long moment. “In short, Tracy, all through history man has had something to fight for… or against.” He twisted his mouth in a grimace of attempted humor. “It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Isn’t all this elementary?” Cogswell said. Some of the heat of his impatience was gone, but he still couldn’t understand what the other was building up to.
The other said, uncertainly, “I suppose the first signs of it were evident even in your own period. I recall reading of educators and social scientists who began remarking on the trend before the twentieth century was halfway through. Remarking on it and bewailing it.”
“What trend?” Cogswell scowled.
“In the more advanced countries of your period. The young people. They stopped taking the science and engineering courses in school; they considered them too difficult to bother with. A youngster didn’t have to fight to make his way; the way was greased. The important thing was to have a good time. Find an angle so that you could obtain the material things everyone else had, without the expenditure of much effort. Don’t be an egghead. Don’t stick your neck out. Conform. You’ve got cradle to the grave security. Take it easy. You’ve got it made.”
“Some went to the other extreme,” Tracy said unhappily. “They dropped out completely. Left school. Didn’t care about the material things. The boys grew beards and long hair, the girls didn’t give a damn what they looked like. Most of them used marijuana or even harder drugs. At first they were known as beats, or beatniks. Later they started calling them hippies. What was the term?… ‘Rebels without a cause’.”
Betty Stein, who had been silent for a long time, said softly. “And the most advanced countries… so far as social progress was concerned, countries like Denmark and Sweden… had the highest suicide rates in the world.”
“That’s the point,” Stein nodded. “They had nothing to fight against and man is a fighting animal. Take away something to work for, to fight for, and he’s a frustrated animal.”
A horrible understanding was growing within Tracy Cogswell. He looked from one to the other of them, almost desperately.
He said, “What did you bring me here for?” And his voice was hoarse.
Academician Stein ignored him and pressed on. “Since the success of your movement, Tracy Cogswell, there has been world government. Wars and racial tensions have disappeared. There is abundance for all, crime is a thing of the past. Government, if you can call it that, is so changed as hardly to be recognizable from the viewpoint of your day. There are no politics, as you knew them.”
Jo Edmonds said bitterly, “You asked about space flight yesterday. Sure, there are a couple of small bases on the moon, unmanned bases, automated bases, but nothing new has been done in the field for a generation. We have lots of dilettantes”—he flicked his beautifully carved bit of jade—“lots of connoisseurs, lots of gourmets… but few of us can bother to become scientists, builders, visionaries.”
“Why did you bring me here!” Cogswell repeated.
“Because we need your know-how,” Edmonds said flatly. He seemed a far cry from his usual easygoing self.
Cogswell’s eyes became tired-looking. “My know-how?”