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Slave Planet

<h2>9</h2> "You will not tell me how to run my own division." The words were spaced, like steel rivets, evenly into the air. Dr. Haenlingen looked around the meeting-room, her face not even defiant but simply assured. Willis, of Labor, was the first to recover. "It's not that we'd like to interfere—" he began. She didn't let him finish. "That's a lie." Her voice was not excited. It carried the length of the room, and left no echoes. "Now, Dr. Haenlingen—" Rogier, Metals chairman and head of the meeting, began. "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." "That's exactly the point," Willis began in his thin, high voice. "It's because we all appreciate that fact—" "That you want to tamper," the old woman said. "Precisely." The others were seated around the long gleaming table of native wood. Dr. Haenlingen stood, her back rigid, at one end, facing them all with a cold and knowing eye. "But I won't allow tampering in my department. I can't allow it." Rogier took a deep breath. The words came like marshmallow out of his overstuffed body. "I would hardly call a request for information 'tampering'," he said. "I would," Dr. Haenlingen told him tartly. "I've had a very good reason, over the years, to keep information about my section in my own hands." Rogier's voice became stern. "And that is?" "That is," Dr. Haenlingen said, "fools like you." Rogier opened his mouth, but the old woman gave him no chance. "People who think psychology is a game, or at any rate a study that applies only to other people, never to them. People who want to subject others to the disciplines of psychology, but not themselves." "As I understand it—" Rogier began. "You do not understand it," the old woman said flatly. "I understand it because I have spent my life learning to do so. You have spent your life learning to understand metals, and committees. Doubtless, Dr. Rogier, you understand metals—and committees." Her glance swept once more round the table, and she sat down. There was a second of silence before Dward, of Research, spoke up. Behind glassy contact lenses his eyes were, as always, unreadable. "Perhaps Dr. Haenlingen has a point," he said. "I know I'd hate to have to lay out my work for the meeting before I had it prepared. I'm sure we can allow a reasonable time for preparation—" "I'm afraid we can't," Rogier put in, almost apologetically. "Of course we can't," the old woman added. "First of all, I wasn't asking for time for preparation. I was asking for non-interference. And, second, we don't have any time at all." "Surely matters aren't that serious," Willis put in. "Matters," the old woman said, "are a good deal more serious than that. Has anyone but me read the latest reports from the Confederation?" "I think we all have," Rogier said calmly. "Well, then," the old woman asked, "has anyone except myself understood them?" The head turned, the eyes raked the table. "Dr. Willis hasn't, or he wouldn't be sounding so hopeful. The rest of you haven't, or you wouldn't be talking about time. Rogier, you haven't, or you'd quit trying to pry and begin trying to prepare." "Preparations have begun," Rogier said. "It's just for that reason that I want to get some idea of what your division—" "Preparations," she said. The word was like a curse. "There's been a leak, and a bad leak. We may never know where it started. A ship's officer, taking metals back, a stowaway, anything. That doesn't matter: anyone with any sense knew there had to be a leak sooner or later." "We've taken every possible precaution," Willis said. "Exactly," Dr. Haenlingen told him. "And the leak happened. I take it there's no argument about that—given the figures and reports we now have?" There was silence. "Very well," she went on. "The Confederation is acting just as it has always been obvious they would act: with idealism, stupidity and a gross lack of what is called common sense." She paused for comment: there was none. "Disregarding the fact that they need our shipments, and need them badly, they have begun to turn against us. Against what they are pleased to call slavery." "Well?" Rogier asked. "It is slavery, isn't it?" "What difference do labels make?" she asked. "In any case, they have turned against us. Public opinion is swinging heavily around, and there isn't much chance of pushing it back the other way. The man in the street is used to freedom. He likes it. He thinks the Alberts ought to be free, too." "But if they are," Willis said, "the man in the street is going to lose a lot of other things—things dependent on our shipments." "I said they were illogical," Dr. Haenlingen told him patiently. "Idealism almost always is. Logic has nothing to do with this—as anyone but a fool might know." She got up again, and began to walk back and forth along the end of the table. "There are still people who are convinced, God knows why, that minds work on logic. Minds do not work on anything resembling logic. The laws on which they do work are only now beginning to be understood and codified: but logic was thrown out the window in the days of Freud. That, gentlemen, was a long time ago. The man in the Confederation street is going to lose a lot if he insists on freeing the Alberts. He hasn't thought of that yet, and he won't think of it until after it happens." She paused, at one end of her walk, and put her hands on her hips. "That man is suffering from a disease, if putting it that way makes it easier for you to see. The disease is called idealism. Its main symptom is a disregard for consequences in favor of principles." "But surely—" Willis began. "Dr. Willis, you are outdoing yourself," the old woman cut in. "You sound as if you are hopeful about idealism resting somewhere even in us. And perhaps it does, perhaps it does. It is a persistent virus. But I hope we can control its more massive outbreaks, gentlemen, and not attempt to convince ourselves that this disease is actually a state of health." She began to pace again. "Idealism is a disease," she said. "In epidemic proportions, it becomes incurable." "Then there is nothing to be done?" Dward asked. "Dr. Rogier has his preparations," the old woman said. "I'm sure they are as efficient as they can be. They are useless, but he knows that as well as I do." "Now wait a—" Rogier began. "Against ships of the Confederation, armed with God alone knows what after better than one hundred years of progress? Don't be silly, Dr. Rogier. Our preparations are better than nothing, perhaps, but not much better. They can't be." Having reached her chair again, she sat down in it. The meeting was silent for better than a minute. Dr. Rogier was the first to speak. "But, don't you see," he said, "that's just why we need to know what's going on in your division. Perhaps a weapon might be forged from the armory of psychology which—" "Before that metaphor becomes any more mixed," Dr. Haenlingen said, "I want to clear one thing up. I am not going to divulge any basic facts about my division, now or ever." "But—" "I want you to listen to me carefully," she said. "The tools of psychology are both subtle and simple. Anyone can use a few of them. And anyone, in possession of only those few, will be tempted to put them to use. That use is dangerous, more dangerous than a ticking bomb. I will not run the risk of such danger." "Surely we are all responsible men—" Rogier began. "Given enough temptation," Dr. Haenlingen said, "there is no such thing as a responsible man. If there were, none of us would be here, on Fruyling's World. None of us would be masters, and none of the Alberts slaves." <hr class="tb" /> "I'll give you an example," she said after a little time. "The Psych division has parties, parties which are rather well-known among other divisions. The parties involve drinking and promiscuous sex, they get rather wild, but there is no great harm done by these activities. Indeed, they provide a useful, perhaps a necessary release." She paused. "Therefore I have forbidden them." Willis said: "What?" The others waited. "I have forbidden them," she said, "but I have not stopped them. Nor will I. The fact that they are forbidden adds a certain—spice to the parties themselves. My 'discovery' of one of them does shake the participants up a trifle, but this is a minor damage: more important, it keeps alive the idea of 'forbidden fruit'. The parties are extremely popular. They are extremely useful. Were I to permit them, they would soon be neither popular nor useful." "I'm afraid I don't quite see that," Dward put in. Dr. Haenlingen nodded. For the first time, she put her arms on the table and leaned a little forward. "Many of the workers here," she said, "are infected by the disease of idealism. The notion of slavery bothers them. They need to rebel against the establishment in order to make that protest real to them, and in order to release hostility which might otherwise destroy us from the inside. In my own division this has been solved simply by creating a situation in which the workers fear me—fear being a compound of love, or awe, and hatred. This, however, will not do on a scale larger than one division: a dictatorship complex is set up, against which rebellion may still take place. Therefore, the parties. They serve as a harmless release for rebellious spirits. The parties are forbidden. Those who attend them are flouting authority. Their tension fades. They become good workers, for us, instead of idealistic souls, against us." "Interesting," Rogier said. "May we take it that this is a sample of the work you have been doing?" "You may," the old woman said flatly. "And—about the current crisis—your suggestions—" "My suggestion, gentlemen, is simple," Dr. Haenlingen said. "I can see nothing except an Act of God which is going to stop the current Confederation movement against us. The leak has occurred: we are done for if it affects governmental policy. My suggestion, gentlemen, is just this: pray." Unbelievingly, Willis echoed: "Pray?" "To whatever God you believe in, gentlemen," Dr. Haenlingen said. "To whatever God permits you to remain masters on a slave world. Pray to him—because nothing less than a God is going to stop the Confederation from attacking this planet." <hr class="tb" /> <div class="blockquot"> PUBLIC OPINION TWO Being an excerpt from a conversation between Mrs. Fellacia Gordon, (Citizen, white female, age thirty-eight, occupation housewife, residence 701-45 West 305 Street, New York, U. S. A., Earth) and Mrs. Gwen Brandon (Citizen, oriental female, age thirty-six, occupation housewife, residence 701-21 West 313 Street, New York, U. S. A., Earth) on a Minimart bench midway between the two homes, in the year of the Confederation two hundred and ten, on May sixteenth, afternoon. </div> <div class="blockquot2"> MRS. GORDON: They've all been talking about it, how those poor things have to work and work until they drop, and they don't even get paid for it or anything. MRS. BRANDON: What do you mean, don't get paid? Of course they get paid. You have to get paid when you work, don't you? MRS. GORDON: Not those poor things. They're slaves. MRS. BRANDON: Slaves? Like in the olden times? MRS. G.: That's what they say. Everybody's talking about it. MRS. B.: Well. Why don't they do something about it, then, the ones that are like that? I mean, there's always something you can do. MRS. G.: They're just being forced to work until they absolutely drop, is what I hear. And all for a bunch of people who just lord it over them with guns and everything. You see, these beings—they're green, not like us, but they have feelings, too— MRS. B.: Of course they do, Fellacia. MRS. G.: Well. They don't have much education, hardly know anything. So when people with guns come in, you see, there just isn't anything they can do about it. MRS. B.: Why are they let, then? MRS. G.: Who, the people with guns? Well, nobody lets them, not just like that. It's just like we only found out about it now. MRS. B.: I didn't hear a word on the news. MRS. G.: You listen tonight and you'll hear a word, Gwen dear. MRS. B.: Oh, my. That sounds like there's something up. Now, what have you been doing? MRS. G.: Don't you think it's right, for these poor beings? I mean, no pay and nothing at all but work, work, work until they absolutely drop? MRS. B.: What have you been doing? I mean, what can any one person do? Of course it's terrible and all that, but— MRS. G.: We talked it over. I mean the group I belong to, you know. On Wednesday. Because all of us had heard something about it, you see, and so we brought it up and discussed it. And it's absolutely true. MRS. B.: How can you be sure of a thing like that? MRS. G.: We found out— MRS. B.: When it isn't even on the news or anything. MRS. G.: We found out that people have been talking from other places, too. Downtown and even in the suburbs. MRS. B.: Oh. Then it must be—but what can you do, after all? It's not as if we were in the government or anything. MRS. G.: Don't you worry about that. There's something you can do and it's not hard, either. And it has an effect. A definite effect, they say. MRS. B.: You mean collecting money? To send them? MRS. G.: Money won't do them any good. No. What we need is the government, to do something about this. MRS. B.: It's easy to talk. MRS. G.: And we can get the government to do something, too. If there are enough of us—and there will be. MRS. B.: I should think anybody who hears about these people, Fellacia— MRS. G.: Well, they're not people, exactly. MRS. B.: What difference does that make? They need help, don't they? And we can give them help. If you really have an idea? MRS. G.: We discussed it all. And we've been writing letters. MRS. B.: Letters? Just letters? MRS. G.: If a Senator gets enough letters, he has to do something, doesn't he? Because the letters are from the people who vote for him, you see? MRS. B.: But that means a lot of letters. MRS. G.: We've had everybody sending postcards. Fifteen or twenty each. That mounts up awfully fast, Gwen dear. MRS. B.: But just postcards— MRS. G.: And telephone calls, where that's possible. And visits. And starting even more talk everywhere. Just everywhere. MRS. B.: Do you really think it's going to work? I mean, it seems like so little. MRS. G.: It's going to work. It's got to. MRS. B.: What are they working at? I mean the—the slaves. MRS. G.: They're being forced, Gwen dear. Absolutely forced to work. MRS. B.: Yes, dear, but what at? What do they do? MRS. G.: I don't see where that makes any difference. Actually, nobody has been very clear on the details. But the details don't matter, do they, Gwen dear? The important thing is, we have to do something. MRS. B.: You're right, Fellacia. And I'll— MRS. G.: Of course I'm right. MRS. B.: I'll start right in with the postcards. A lot of them. MRS. G.: And don't forget to tell other people. As many as you can manage. We need all the help we can get—and so do the slaves. </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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