“Do you know about the proud role of the Moscow Sanitation Department in the Revolution?” The Admiral was surprised to hear himself blurting out the question.
“They cleaned the streets?” Ivan Relevant guessed.
“Da! Da! Of all the czarist trash!” Admiral Churkov’s eyes were moist. “My father was a leader in the struggle!”
“He must have been quite a man.”
“He was! He was! You resemble him. . . . There is an aura about you . . . you are a Russian!” The admiral’s voice rang with conviction. “You are a communist! I know it!”
“Am I?” Ivan Relevant patted his small, round Russian tummy. “Am I?”
And so the “Galactic View” was left unconfirmed like all the other theories. All had logical weaknesses. All were attacked for these weaknesses.
The scientific community polarized itself and sniped away. The nit-picking was complex and the general public soon became skeptical of all the learned hypotheses. Most people sought a simpler explanation of Jonathan Relevant.
“Most people are a helluva lot smarter than most people think most people are.” Jonathan Relevant was learning. Jonathan Relevant also sought a simpler explanation of Jonathan Relevant.
One was supplied by a syndicated columnist who’d never been any closer to the polar regions than a vanilla Eskimo pie. But Percy Pander had other qualifications. He had a creative imagination, a memory like an IBM elephant bank, a top-notch research staff, and a flair for the dramatic that held the interest of eight-point-six million newspaper readers five days a week. All of which added up to the following column under the Pander by-line:
Who is Johnny Relevant? The whole world is asking. The eggheads’ answer is gobbledygook. The true story is even stranger.
It begins about 25 years ago with a man and a woman. The man was Christopher Benson Relevant, inventor of the SEVEN-OH-SIX Computer, the most highly developed mechanical brain of that era. The woman was Elizabeth Huntley Relevant, his wife, Professor of Humanities at a famous University. They had an infant son.
They had love. They had success and fame and fortune. But there was a snake in their Eden. The Mushroom Cloud! It threatened their son.
And so the Relevants opted for out.
They were wealthy, which helped. They outfitted a small yacht, stocked it with provisions, and loaded a SEVEN-OH-SIX Computer aboard. This was a teaching machine for their son. Into its memory banks had been crammed all of the knowledge of man.
One tiny ferrite core bank contained the entire linguistic curriculum of Berlitz. Another held every philosophy ever conceived. A third covered mathematics from Euclid to Einstein. And so on.
The Relevants set sail, heading north. They thought the polar regions would be least likely to be affected by the nuclear madness of mankind. It was a logical mistake.
Their next-to-last radio transmission reported the sighting of a small land mass in the Arctic Ocean. Not an iceberg, but an island of land. There was vegetation, and the Relevants were so impressed by its beauty that they gave it a very special name. They called it “Charisma.”
The next day they radioed that they had run into a severe storm. Their small ship was buffeted by gale winds and in danger of being pulled apart. Their only hope was to make it to the Island of Charisma.
That was the last message. The Relevants were never heard from again. It was presumed that all three were dead.
But did all three perish? Might not the Relevants have managed to save their infant son? Isn’t it possible that he landed on Charisma with that master computer and survived?
We say it is possible! We say that infant lived and grew to be a man! A very special man raised by a machine! Perhaps the best-educated man in the world! A man trained above all for survival! And we say that the proof of this is Johnny Relevant himself! Who is Johnny Relevant? He’s the Man from Charisma! We challenge the eggheads to prove otherwise!
Science and Reason both balked at the Percy Pander column. Nevertheless, acceptance spread out from his eight-point-six million readership to include rank-and-file yahoos around the world.
Why did they buy it?
"At the gut level”—Jonathan Relevant had a revelation — “fairy tales make more sense than Science and Reason."
It was at the gut level— or below—that the President of the United States reacted to the “Man from Charisma” piece. The emotional impact went straight to the seat of power. Thus the President was gingerly perched on his private White House toilet when the hot-line call from the Russian premier was put through.
“Good day, Mr. President,” the premier greeted him. “Your hemorrhoids are better, I trust?”
Security was going to hear about this! “A baseless rumor, Mr. Premier.” A sudden twinge brought tears to the President’s eyes, but he managed not to wince aloud. “Not worthy of discussion.”
“And the matter of Ivan Relevant? Is that worthy of discussion?”
“Ah. Then you are prepared to negotiate?” The President shifted his weight and breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
“I am prepared to offer you full custody of Ivan Relevant if all United States troops leave West Germany immediately.”
“Ridiculous! Our commitments to our allies—”
“Commitments? Allies? Vietnam?”
The President checked for bleeding. “I’ll make you a counterproposition,” he offered. “Get out of the Middle East and stay out, and you can have Jonathan Relevant.”
“I’ll give you the same deal, Mr. President.”
“Stalemate. All right. What about Vietnam then?”
“Withdraw unilaterally and Ivan Relevant is yours.”
“If it were that simple, I might not have these damn hem-— No, Mr. Premier. The Saigon involvement is too complex.” The President bit his lip against a particularly painful spasm. “However, if you can get the North Vietnamese to formally recognize Saigon in the negotiations, you can have Jonathan Relevant.”
The Soviet premier’s mind raced. There were advantages to such a proposal. It would enrage China and further alienate her from North Vietnam. It would have propaganda value. North Vietnam might not like it, but with Russia supplying the hardware and picking up the major portion of the tab, it shouldn’t be too hard to twist their arm.
“Agreed!” The premier accepted the President’s offer. They worked out the details, and then hung up. The President felt a lot better. The President reached for the toilet paper. . . .
Within twenty-four hours, the Relevant transfer was made. The crews of both ships stood by as he crossed the iceberg and boarded the U.S.S.R. Glubtub. To the men of the Wartoy, Jonathan Relevant seemed to go most unwillingly, a martyr. To the Russians, Ivan Relevant strode on deck with the jubilation of a just liberated man.
The Glubtub proceeded to Ambarchik. A Russian transport plane was warmed up and waiting to take Ivan Relevant to Moscow. Dr. Ludmilla Skivar was to make the journey with him. Admiral Churkov walked out to the plane with Ivan Relevant to bid him farewell.
“If you have a chance, look in on the Sanitation Department while you’re in Moscow,” the admiral suggested in a choked voice.
“I will.”
“The men of the Sanitation Department - such men are the backbone of Russia!”
“And men like you.” Ivan Relevant patted his shoulder.
“That is the highest compliment I have ever received.” The admiral couldn’t stop the tear trickling down his cheek. “And coming from you! . . . This is a moment I shall never forget!”