At least, nothing to fear yet.
Taking out a request form, Barris began carefully to wrote. He wrote slowly, studying each word. The form gave him space for ten questions; he asked only two:
a) are the healers of real significance?
b) why don't you respond to their existence?
Then he pushed the form into the relay slot and sat listening as the scanner whisked over its surface. Thousands of miles away, his questions joined the vast tide flowing in from all over the world, from the Unity offices in every country. Eleven Directorates-divisions of the planet. Each with its Director and staff and subdirectorate Unity offices. Each with its police organs under oath to the local Director.
In three days, Barris' turn would come and answers would flow back. His questions, processed by the elaborate mechanism, would be answered-eventually. As with everyone else in T-class, he submitted all problems of importance to the huge mechanical computer buried somewhere in the sub-surface fortress near the Geneva offices.
He had no other choice. All policy-level matters were determined by Vulcan 3; that was the law.
Standing up, he motioned to one of the nearby secretaries who stood waiting. She immediately came toward his desk with her pad and writing stick. "Yes, sir," she said, smiling.
"I want to dictate a letter to Mrs. Arthur Pitt," Barris said. From his papers he gave her the address. But then, on second thought, he said, "No I think I'll write it myself."
"In handwriting, sir?" the secretary said, blinking in surprise. "You mean the way children do in school?"
"Yes," he said.
"May I ask why, sir?"
Barris did not know; he had no rational reason. Sentimentality, he thought to himself as he dismissed the secretary. Throwback to the old days, to infantile patterns.
Your husband is dead in the line of duty, he said to himself as he sat at his desk meditating. Unity is deeply sorry. As Director, I wish to extend my personal sympathy to you in this tragic hour.
Damn it, he thought. I can't do it; I never can. I'll have to go and see her; I can't write a thing like this. There have been too many, lately. Too many deaths for me to stand. I'm not like Vulcan 3. I can't ignore it. I can't be silent.
And it didn't even occur in my region. The man wasn't even my employee.
Clicking open the line to his sub-Director, Barris said, "I want you to take over for the rest of today. I'm knocking off. I don't feel too well."
"Too bad, sir," Peter Allison said. But the pleasure was obvious, the satisfaction of being able to step from the wings and assume a more important spot, if only for a moment.
You'll have my job, Barris thought as he closed and locked his desk. You're gunning for it, just as I'm gunning for Dill's job. On and on, up the ladder to the top.
He wrote Mrs. Pitt's address down, put it in his shirt pocket, and left the office as quickly as he could, glad to get away. Glad to have an excuse to escape from the oppressive atmosphere.
CHAPTER 2
Standing before the blackboard, Agnes Parker asked, "What does the year 1992 bring to mind?" She looked brightly around the class.
"The year 1992 bring to mind the conclusion of Atomic War I and the beginning of the decade of international regulation," said Peter Thomas, one of the best of her students.
"Unity came into being," Patricia Edwards added. "Rational world order."
Mrs. Parker made a note on her chart. "Correct." She felt pride at the children's alert response. "And now perhaps someone can tell me about the Lisbon Laws of 1993."
The classroom was silent. A few pupils shuffled in their seats. Outside, warm June air beat against the windows. A fat robin hopped down from a branch and stood listening for worms. The trees rustled lazily.
"That's when Vulcan 3 was made," Hans Stein said.
Mrs. Parker smiled. "Vulcan 3 was made long before that; Vulcan 3 was made during the war. Vulcan 1 in 1970. Vulcan 2 in 1975. They had computers even before the war, in the middle of the century. The Vulcan series was developed by Otto Jordan, who worked with Nathaniel Greenstreet for Westinghouse, during the early days of the war..."
Mrs. Parker's voice trailed off into a yawn. She pulled herself together with an effort; this was no time to be dozing. Managing Director Jason Dill and his staff were supposed to be in the school somewhere, reviewing educational ideology. Vulcan 3 was rumored to have made inquiries concerning the school systems; it seemed to be interested in knowing the various value biases that were currently being formulated in the pupils' basic orientation programs. After all, it was the task of the schools, and especially the grammar schools, to infuse the youth of the world with the proper attitudes. What else were schools for?
"What," Mrs. Parker repeated, "were the Lisbon Laws of 1993? Doesn't anybody know? I really feel ashamed of you all, if you can't exert yourselves to memorize what may well be the most important facts you'll learn in your entire time of school. I suppose if you had your way you'd be reading those commercial comic books that teach adding and subtracting and other business crafts." Fiercely, she tapped on the floor with her toe. "Well? Do I hear an answer?"
For a moment there was no response. The rows of face were blank. Then, abruptly, incredibly: "The Lisbon Laws dethroned God," a piping child's voice, came from the back of the classroom. A girl's voice, severe and penetrating.
Mrs. Parker awoke from her torpor; she blinked in amazement. "Who said that?" she demanded. The class buzzed. Heads turned questionably toward the back. "Who was that?"
"It was Jeannie Baker!" a boy hollered.
"It was not! It was Dorothy!"
Mrs. Parker paced rapidly down the aisle, past the children's desks. "The Lisbon Laws of 1993," she said sharply, were the most important legislation of the past five hundred years." She spoke nervously, in a high-pitched shrill voice; gradually the class turned toward her. Habit made them them pay attention to her-the training of years. "All seventy nations of the world sent representatives to Lisbon. The world-wide Unity organization formally agreed that the great computer machines developed by Britain and the Soviet Union and the United States, and hitherto used in a purely advisory capacity, would now be given absolute power over the national governments in the determination of top-level policy-"
But at that moment Managing Director Jason Dill entered the classroom, and Mrs. Parker lapsed into respectful silence.
This was not the first time she had seen the man, the actual physical entity, in contrast to the synthetic images projected over the media to the public at large. And as before, she was taken by surprise; there was such a difference between the real man and his official image. In the back of her mind she wondered how the children were taking it. She glanced toward them and saw that all of them were gazing in awe, everything else forgotten.
She thought, He's actually not so different from the rest of us. The highest ranking human being ....nd he's just a plain man. An energetic middle-aged man with a shrewd face, twinkling eyes, and a genial smile of confidence. He's short, she thought. Shorter than some of the men around him.
His staff had entered with him, three men and two women, all in the businesslike- T-class gray. No special badges. No royal gear. If I didn't know, she thought, I wouldn't guess. He's so unassuming.
"This is Managing Director Dill," she said. "The Coordinating Director of the Unity system." Her voice broke with tension. "Managing Director Dill is responsible only to Vulcan 3. No human being except Director Dill is permitted to approach the computer banks."