Garomma’s face immediately lost its bleakness. “In that case, by all means. But get back before the ceremony is over. I want us to leave together.”
The tall man nodded and rose. He turned to face his leader. “Serve us, Garomma,” he said with outstretched arms. “Serve us, serve us, serve us.” He backed out of the room, always facing the Servant of All.
Out in the corridor, he strode rapidly through the saluting Center of Education guards and into his private elevator. He pressed the third-floor button. And then, as the door swept shut and the car began to rise, he permitted himself a single, gentle, mouth-curling smile.
The trouble he had taken to pound that one concept into Garomma’s thick head: the basic principle in modern scientific government is to keep the government so unobtrusive as to appear nonexistent, to use the illusion of freedom as a kind of lubricant for slipping on invisible shackles—above all, to rule in the name of anything but rulership!
Garomma himself had phrased it in his own laborious fashion one day when, shortly after their great coup, they stood together—both still uncomfortable in the rags of greatness—and watched the construction of the new Hovel of Service in the charred place where the old one had stood for almost half a century. A huge, colorful, revolving sign on top of the unfinished building told the populace that FROM HERE WILL YOUR EVERY WANT AND NEED BE ATTENDED TO, FROM HERE WILL YOU BE SERVED MORE EFFICIENTLY AND PLEASANTLY THAN EVER BEFORE.
Garomma had stared at the sign which was being flashed on the video receivers of the world—in the homes as well as in factories, offices, schools and compulsory communal gatherings—every hour on the hour.
“It’s like my father used to say,” he told Moddo at last with the peculiar heavy chuckle he used to identify a thought he felt was entirely original; “the right kind of salesman, if he talks long enough and hard enough, can convince a man that the thickest thorns feel as soft as roses. All he has to do is keep calling them roses, hey, Moddo?”
Moddo had nodded slowly, pretending to be overcome by the brilliance of the analysis and savoring its complexities for a few moments. Then, as always, merely appearing to be conducting an examination of the various latent possibilities in Garomma’s ideas, he had proceeded to give the new Servant of All a further lesson.
He had underlined the necessity of avoiding all outward show of pomp and luxury, something the so-recently dead officials of the previous administration had tended to forget in the years before their fall. He had pointed out that the Servants of Mankind must constantly appear to be just that—the humble instruments of the larger mass will. Then anyone who acted contrary to Garomma’s whim would be punished, not for disobeying his ruler, but for acting against the overwhelming majority of the human race.
And he had suggested an innovation that had been in his mind for a long time; the occasional creation of disasters in regions that had been uninterruptedly loyal and obedient. This would accentuate the fact that the Servant of All was very human indeed, that his tasks were overwhelming and that he occasionally grew tired.
This would intensify the impression that the job of co-ordinating the world’s goods and services had almost grown too complex to be handled successfully. It would spur the various Districts on to uncalled-for prodigies of frantic loyalty and self-regimentation, so that they at least would have the Servant of All’s maximum attention.
“Of course,” Garomma had agreed. “That’s what I said. The whole point is not to let them know that you’re running their lives and that they’re helping you do it. You’re getting the idea.”
He was getting the idea! He, Moddo, who ever since his adolescence had been studying a concept that had originated centuries ago when mankind had begun to emerge from the primitive chaos of self-rule and personal decision into the organized social universe of modern times… he was getting the idea!
He had smirked gratefully. But he had continued applying to Garomma himself the techniques that he was teaching Garomma to apply to the mass of men as a whole. Year in, year out, seemingly absorbed in the immensities of the project he had undertaken on behalf of the Service of Education, he had actually left its planning in the hands of subordinates while he concentrated on Garomma.
And today, while superficially acquiring complete control over the minds of an entire generation of human beings, he had tasted for the first time complete control over Garomma. For the past five years, he had been attempting to crystallize his ascendancy in a form that was simpler to use than complicated need-mechanisms and statement-patterns.
Today, for the first time, the weary hours of delicate, stealthy conditioning had begun to work out perfectly. The hand-signal, the touch-stimulus that he had organized Garomma’s mind to respond to, had resulted in the desired responses every single time!
As he walked down the third-floor corridor to Loob’s modest office, he searched for an adequate expression. It was like, he decided, being able to turn a whole vast liner by one touch on the wheel. The wheel activated the steering engine, the steering engine pushed against the enormous weight of rudder, and the rudder’s movements eventually forced the great ship to swing about and change its course.
No, he reflected, let Garomma have his glorious moments and open adulation, his secret palaces and multitudes of concubines. He, Moddo, would settle for the single, occasional touch… and complete control.
The anteroom to Loob’s office was empty. He stood there impatiently for a moment, then called out: “Loob! Isn’t anyone taking care of this place? I’m in a hurry!”
A plump little man with a tiny pointed beard on his chin came scurrying out of the other room. “My secretary—everyone had to go downstairs when the Servant of All entered—things are so disrupted—she hasn’t returned yet. But I was careful,” he went on, catching up to his own breath, “to cancel all my appointments with other patients while you were in the building. Please come in.”
Moddo stretched himself out on the couch in the Healer’s office. “I can only spare about—about fifteen minutes. I have a very important decision to make, and I have a headache that’s gouging out my—my brains.”
Loob’s fingers circled Moddo’s neck and began massaging the back of his head with a serene purposefulness. “I’ll do what I can. Now try to relax. Relax. That’s right. Relax. Doesn’t this help?”
“A lot,” Moddo sighed. He must find some way of working Loob into his personal entourage, to be with him whenever he had to travel with Garomma. The man was invaluable. It would be wonderful to have him always available in person. Just a matter of conditioning Garomma to the thought. And now that could be handled with the same suggestion. “Do you mind if I just talk?” he inquired. “I don’t feel very much—very much like free association.”
Loob sat down in the heavily upholstered chair behind the desk. “Do whatever you want. If you care to, go into what’s troubling you at the moment. All we can hope to do in fifteen minutes is help you relax.”
Moddo began to talk.
This was the day of complete control…
Loob, the Healer of Minds, the Assistant to the Third Assistant Servant of Education, threaded his fingers through the small, triangular beard that was his professional badge and allowed himself to luxuriate in the sensation of ultimate power, absolute power, power such as no human being had ever dared to dream of before this day.
Complete control. Complete …
It would have been extremely satisfying to have handled the Servant of Security matter directly, but such pleasures would come in time. His technicians in the Bureau of Healing Research had almost solved the problem be had set them. Meanwhile he still had revenge and the enjoyment of unlimited dominion.