It was only after I had successfully (1 think) managed this particular tour de force and had had the story published, that I realized that my interest in technique had for once blinded me to content. Somehow this particular story, "In a Good Cause-," doesn't quite reflect my own feelings.
Groff Conklin, the late perceptive science fiction critic, once said that he liked this story, even though he disagreed with its philosophy, and to my embarrassment, I find that that is exactly how I myself feel.
First appearance-New Tales of Space and Time, 1951. Copyright, 1951, by Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
In a Good Cause
In the Great Court, which stands as a patch of untouched peace among the fifty busy square miles devoted to the towering buildings that are the pulse beat of the United Worlds of the Galaxy, stands a statue.
It stands where it can look at the stars at night. There are other statues ringing the court, but this one stands in the center and alone.
It is not a very good statue. The face is too noble and lacks the lines of living. The brow is a shade too high, the nose a shade too symmetrical, the clothing a shade too carefully disposed. The whole bearing is by far too saintly to be true. One can suppose that the man in real life might have frowned at times, or hiccupped, but the statue seemed to insist that such imperfections were impossible.
All this, of course, is understandable overcompensation. The man had no statues raised to him while alive, and succeeding generations, with the advantage of hindsight, felt guilty.
The name on the pedestal reads "Richard Sayama Altmayer." Underneath it is a short phrase and, vertically arranged, three dates. The phrase is: "In a good cause, there are no failures." The three dates are June 17, 2755; September 5, 2788; December 32, 2800;-the years being counted in the usual manner of the period, that is, from the date of the first atomic explosion in 1945 of the ancient era.
None of those dates represents either his birth or death. They mark neither a date of marriage or of the accomplishment of some great deed or, indeed, of anything that the inhabitants of the United Worlds can remember with pleasure and pride. Rather, they are the final expression of the feeling of guilt.
Quite simply and plainly, they are the three dates upon which Richard Sayama Altmayer was sent to prison for his opinions.
1. June 17, 2755
At the age of twenty-two, certainly, Dick Altmayer was fully capable of feeling fury. His hair was as yet dark brown and he had not grown the mustache which, in later years, would be so characteristic of him. His nose was, of course, thin and high-bridged, but the contours of his face were youthful. It would only be later that the growing gauntness of his cheeks would convert that nose into the prominent landmark that it now is in the minds of trillions of school children.
Geoffrey Stock was standing in the doorway, viewing the results of his friend's fury. His round face and cold, steady eyes were there, but he had yet to put on the first of the military uniforms in which he was to spend the rest of his life.
He said, "Great Galaxy!"
Altmayer looked up. "Hello, Jeff."
"What's been happening, Dick? I thought your principles, pal, forbid destruction of any kind. Here's a book-viewer that looks somewhat destroyed." He picked up the pieces.
Altmayer said, "I was holding the viewer when my wave-receiver came through with an official message. You know which one, too."
"I know. It happened to me, too. Where is it?"
"On the floor. I tore it off the spool as soon as it belched out at me. Wait, let's dump it down the atom chute."
"Hey, hold on. You can't-"
"Why not?"
"Because you won't accomplish anything. You'll have to report."
"And just why?"
"Don't be an ass, Dick."
"This is a matter of principle, by Space."
"Oh, nuts! You can't fight the whole planet."
"I don't intend to fight the whole planet; just the few who get us into wars."
Stock shrugged. "That means the whole planet. That guff of yours of leaders tricking poor innocent people into fighting is just so much space-dust. Do you think that if a vote were taken the people wouldn't be overwhelmingly in favor of fighting this fight?"
"That means nothing, Jeff. The government has control of-"
"The organs of propaganda. Yes, I know. I've listened to you often enough. But why not report, anyway?"
Altmayer turned away.
Stock said, "In the first place, you might not pass the physical examination."
"I'd pass. I've been in Space."
"That doesn't mean anything. If the doctors let you hop a liner, that only means you don't have a heart murmur or an aneurysm. For military duty aboard ship in Space you need much more than just that. How do you know you qualify?"
"That's a side issue, Jeff, and an insulting one. It's not that I'm afraid to fight."
"Do you think you can stop the war this way?"
"I wish I could," Altmayer's voice almost shook as he spoke. "It's this idea I have that all mankind should be a single unit. There shouldn't be wars or space-fleets armed only for destruction. The Galaxy stands ready to be opened to the united efforts of the human race. Instead, we have been factioned for nearly two thousand years, and we throw away all the Galaxy."
Stock laughed, "We're doing all right. There are more than eighty independent planetary systems."
"And are we the only intelligences in the Galaxy?"
"Oh, the Diaboli, your particular devils," and Stock put his fists to his temples and extended the two forefingers, waggling them.
"And yours, too, and everybody's. They have a single government extending over more planets than all those occupied by our precious eighty independents."
"Sure, and their nearest planet is only fifteen hundred light years away from Earth and they can't live on oxygen planets anyway."
Stock got out of his friendly mood. He said, curtly, "Look, I dropped by here to say that I was reporting for examination next week. Are you coming with me?"
"No."
"You're really determined."
"I'm really determined."
"You know you'll accomplish nothing. There'll be no great flame ignited on Earth. It will be no case of millions of young men being excited by your example into a no-war strike. You will simply be put in jail."
"Well, then, jail it is."
And jail it was. On June 17, 2755, of the atomic era, after a short trial in which Richard Sayama Altmayer refused to present any defense, he was sentenced to jail for the term of three years or for the duration of the war, whichever should be longer. He served a little over four years and two months, at which time the war ended in a definite though not shattering Santannian defeat. Earth gained complete control of certain disputed asteroids, various commercial advantages, and a limitation of the Santannian navy.
The combined human losses of the war were something over two thousand ships with, of course, most of their crews, and in addition, several millions of lives due to the bombardment of planetary surfaces from space. The fleets of the two contending powers had been sufficiently strong to restrict this bombardment to the outposts of their respective systems, so that the planets of Earth and Santanni, themselves, were little affected.
The war conclusively established Earth as the strongest single human military power.
Geoffrey Stock fought throughout the war, seeing action more than once and remaining whole in life and limb despite that. At the end of the war he had the rank of major. He took part in the first diplomatic mission sent out by Earth to the worlds of the Diaboli, and that was the first step in his expanding role in Earth's military and political life.