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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Amazing Stories, March 1947, with "Warlord of Peace"
AS a rule, I'm not inclined to be a sorehead. In fact my position on United Viso-Features demands that I toss off tones of sweetness and light in all directions around the globe. Sometimes, though, I wish that people would get the cotton out of their ears, open their eyes and see what's going on about them in this world.
For example, last week we buried another "time-capsule." The International Guidance Council got the brilliant idea. Everyone went nuts over the thought of burying another collection of drivel in a big, metallic tube and sticking it into the ground for our ancestors to find and marvel over. It hasn't been long since the last "time-capsule" was found, and in it, a cross-section of drivel like that which can be found under several layers in any large city dump.
But we are burying another time-capsule amid great fanfare. There are several thousand micro-film records of our entire civilization, which are on record throughout the world, and for that matter, the planetary system. It isn't enough. We had to bury a "time-capsule", and people stood around and mourned as though we were putting a slice of our very life into the niches in the rock.
People—sentimental, believing children.
I sat in the large telo-screen booth over at United-Viso last night. I was reading a creation delivered by Senator Ripping. The Senator is a "friend of the peepul."
"This nation," Ripping's speech read, and I was delivering it second-hand with a straight face, "has come far on the road to peace. Never have we, as a people, been on more friendly terms with our brothers. My friends, unaccustomed as I am to delivering..."
There was a lot more of the stuff. It near strangled me. I hoped that my evening news fans couldn't see the tongue in my cheek. I would have liked to stick it out.
I knew that Chuck Lambert, my boss and owner of United-Viso, was seated in his booth upstairs, keeping all his little "viso-etchings" running in straight lines, and grinning at my misery.
"Foremost among all men, and loved by us all," Ripping's speech labored on, "is Professor Phillip Daggerman, Chief Scientist for the International Guidance Council. His burial today was a blow from which we will never quite recover. He is a hero who will never..."
I choked on that one. Too much of the junk in one dose. I hid my face behind a water-glass and gulped deeply. I felt a little better and managed to struggle through to the ending. I said: "This is Bob Farnum of United-Viso-Features, turning the broadcast over to Ben Wallace who waits for you at..."
CHUCK LAMBERT switched the broadcast over to Wallace, who was
waiting to cover the opera season down in the dim canyons of New
York. I got up and wandered out of the booth and leaned against
the water-cooler. Lambert came down from the control-room. He
grinned at me, and it cooled me off a little. Chuck Lambert isn't
a big-shot. He's just a guy with a million bucks, a powerful
transmitting station of his own, and a good nature. He stands
five-foot-seven and can play wicked poker. I couldn't stay mad at
him for long, at any given time. He was my brother-in-law, and he
was my boss.
"That's awful tripe to swallow, isn't it Bob?"
"It is," I said bitterly. "People who live in glasshouses—shouldn't. It seems to me that every politician around the globe was born in a glasshouse and has been heaving stones ever since."
Lambert put his hand on my shoulder. He wasn't soft about it. He knows how I feel.
"Mustn't go sour on the dear, dear 'peepul'," he cautioned me. "After all, it's a living."
"And a good one," I admitted. "I haven't any kicks coming. Wasn't I voted the dream-man of the House-Wive's Radio Club?"
That's a gag I've been fighting for three years, but my boyish appearance and curly black hair just arouses the mother instinct, and I can't keep them from howling like she-wolves.
"Look," Chuck suggested as calmly as possible, "you're getting plenty sour. I'm coming up for dinner. My sister should welcome me, even if you don't."
He made me feel silly, and like a small boy who's been griping about nothing.
"Sorry, Chuck," I said. "I get to thinking about Daggerman, and the stuff he pulled, and it burns me up. I keep remembering how it all started three years ago, in that same broadcasting booth I read Ripping's speech in tonight."
Three years ago? It had been a century, so far as my sour temper and its birth was concerned.
IT was in that same booth, during my usual morning broadcast.
I had just opened the morning session of news and views.
"Bob Farnum, ladies, bringing the news into your life and I hope, giving you a few moments rest away from your kitchen..."
Chuck Lambert passed a note through the door at my elbow, his arm out of range of the telo-screen. I looked down at it, and I'm afraid the pleasant look changed to bewilderment.
"Just a moment," I said over the screen, and picked up the note. "Ladies, a report of great interest has just been passed to me."
I gave them the winsome, toothy smile that I hate and they fall for, and started to read:
"The International Guidance Council has just announced the acceptance of a new protective system to be used throughout the world as a preventative against war. The services of Scientist Phillip Daggerman have been purchased. Daggerman has perfected a 'protecto-screen device' that will for all time, outlaw war."
I could picture all my housewife fans crawling away from the kitchen and coming to attention before the telo-screen, their dish-water hands and scrub-women's knees forgotten. Women love to hear that a new way has been found to prevent war.
There wasn't any more to that dispatch, but knowing that politics were once more on the loose, I was worried. Two days later I had managed to digest a fair percentage of the hokum that was being peddled to the "common peepul." I was thunderstruck to find out that they were swallowing Daggerman's scheme hook, line and sinker.
Chuck Lambert, his sister Mary, and I, sat up many a sleepless night discussing what had happened. I imagine that a number of scientific minds had absorbed what was going on, but they had no opportunity to fight Daggerman. He had sold himself cleverly, and for keeps.
"Daggerman is smart," Chuck said one night, when we were eating sausage and pancakes at my apartment, and Mary was dashing around with a pretty, flushed face and a neatly-tied apron. "Maybe he's got the right idea."
Mary, a slim brunette with all the needed special equipment and neat chassis, looked puzzled. She could look puzzled in a bright, attentive way. Something about the angle of her head, perched on one side when she asked a question.
"Just what is Daggerman's plan?"
"He's an old timer in politics," I told her. "He has the right background. Twenty years in the Government Atomic Research Lab, fifteen years at the Political College at New York. The way I get it, is this. Daggerman has been tossing theories at the International Guidance Council for years. Briefly, he says that no matter what treaties exist, one nation cannot trust another. Therefore, he will form a cooperation, accept a huge bounty from the Council and install complete atomic war machines in every nation on earth."
I TOOK a deep breath, and Chuck applauded lightly.
"Nice speech, Mr. Farnum," he said. "I'll take another helping of sausage, Mary."
I smiled at Mary.
"Chuck's jealous," I said. "Secretly, he's impressed by my knowledge."
"As though I didn't know that Daggerman says at present atomic bombs are being turned out underground. During the last war, back in 1950, we didn't have the courage to go 'all-out' with atomic offense. We fooled around with marble-size explosives and left the king-size stuff alone."
"Right," I agreed. "Now Daggerman says that when one nation gets the lead, they'll crack down first and give everything they have, including the atom-dust blanket which won't leave much to pick up."
Chuck looked grim.
"That's the way with the human animal," he said. "It will tear down its house and kill its family brutally, then start to rebuild all over again."
"And Daggerman is going to see it done right this time. He is going to place deeply buried control bunkers in every capitol city on the planet. There will be push-button controls in each bunker, with a military man on duty at all times. Also he will place carefully-aimed cannons in and about each capitol, with enough large atomic projectiles to blow every city off the map at a moment's notice."
Chuck swore softly, but I went on without paying any attention.
"Daggerman's theory is this. If we all have the same amount of war machinery, and we are all on the same basis so far as power to fight is concerned, then no one will dare start a war. We will be forever checkmated or stalled. A damned ticklish idea, but they've fallen for it."
Chuck went for a bottle of fire-water and we tried some of it. The stuff was too potent. Chuck made a return trip to the kitchen for some chaser, and I tried out Mary's new lipstick. It tasted wonderful.
"Then Daggerman is going to put all the cards on the table," Chuck said when he came back.
I nodded.
"He's getting several billion dollars for the idea, and the installations. Daggerman can't lose."
Mary sighed.
"I'm beginning to understand," she admitted. "A fortune for Daggerman. Sooner or later, someone will lose their temper and the buttons will be pressed. Then it's just a matter of time before we visit our honorable ancestors."
Chuck found a comfortable spot on the divan and tasted his drink.
"The thing that puzzles me," he said slowly, "is that Daggerman either expects his plan to work, or he thinks he can escape the general hell that's bound to result."
"You forget," I reminded him dryly, "that human nature has changed, if we are to believe Daggerman. Once we all have a chance to blow our neighbors sky-high, we'll each be frightened to start the idea. That's what Daggerman is planning on."
ON the way down to the studio, I brooded a lot over our
discussion. For several weeks I watched each news-dispatch
carefully, trying to read something behind the lines. There
wasn't anything to read. It all seemed on the up and up. I
remembered, so many times in history, when one leader had been
clever enough to convince his followers that he was a god. This
was exactly what had happened.
One thing troubled me in Daggerman's plan. He would gain in dollars and cents, yet what good would his money do when hell broke lose on earth? He would be destroyed with the others, or would he?
I sat upright in the rear of the cab and stared at the driver's head. He saw me through the rear-view mirror and grinned with his thick lips.
"You ain't Bob Farnum of United-Viso, are you?"
I nodded.
"My wife," he said. "She's nuts about you."
I told him thanks, and would he use the gasoline a little more freely. I was in a hurry.
When he let me out at the studio, I tossed him a buck and went to the office. I did a lot of thinking about Daggerman, and came to some pretty startling conclusions.
The more I worried about the thing, the more Daggerman seemed to be arguing against the logic that must be well mixed into his education. If you gave equal power to every nation, in the form of a lot of explosives it could dump into a neighbor's lap, sooner or later someone would lose his temper and do the dumping. Once it was started, there wasn't any possible answer but death for all.
I wondered if I could sell Chuck Lambert on the idea of doing a personal interview with Daggerman, over the facilities of United Viso-Features. It took a lot of convincing, but I finally sold Chuck on it.
There was a catch to it. Phillip Daggerman was a retiring cuss. He had built a small ranch house out in Arizona, hidden back in the Superstition Mountain Range. We had to ship a lot of stuff to Phoenix, and have it taken back into the hills by cat-track, that little donkey of the caterpillar-treads. I arranged a pass with the International Guidance Council, got an okay from Daggerman, and on April sixteenth, the interview took place.
It cost Chuck Lambert a cool million to cover expenses, the planet had a chance to look upon the small, narrow faced genius who had saved it from destruction, and the whole thing gave me a chance to look the angles over from the dry, hell-hot scenery of the Superstition Range.
Daggerman's home was a modest diggings, and it didn't show the effects of a fortune at all. It didn't click. It didn't click at all.
BACK at the home office, I gave a dozen accounts of bird's-eye
views of the Great Man Himself. I told what he ate for
breakfast, how he lounged about in pajamas and viewed the earth
as a good, safe place to be.
Meanwhile, I checked back with every damned wholesale house in and around Phoenix. There were stories of immense amounts of furniture, office equipment, power-plants, pipes, wiring, all consigned to Daggerman in the Superstitions. No one but myself, it seemed, wondered where he had hidden all this stuff in a ten room cottage without being a magician.
An unofficial check-up with "Bull" Bronson, a banking pal of mine, indicated that Daggerman had withdrawn fifteen million dollars from the International Bank at Berne, Switzerland, and had purchased all rights on the power trust controlling Boulder Dam.
Like the young man in ancient history who looked in that direction, I "went west." Two weeks work located the new set-up functioning under the Boulder Dam Trust. Daggerman had tried something new. Old timers said it wouldn't pay him a dime. Daggerman was sinking his money into an electro-cable, an offshoot of the main Boulder line, to be run across the desert and into Mexico. This cheap electro-power, Daggerman said, would give him the opportunity of selling cheap power south of the border, and actually making cash on the deal.
Old timers said there was plenty of power down there, and more wasn't needed.
The oddest part of it all, to me, was that the new cable detoured several hundred miles east of the direct route and passed directly across Phillip Daggerman's property.
IN June, I went prospecting. It took me two weeks of wandering
before I found a place along the new cable that wasn't patrolled
by guards. I worked with cutting tools and used the repair
materials later, to put the thing back in shape. There wasn't a
wire in that entire cable that was strong enough to carry
electro-units. One shot of juice would have burned them in
half.
There were fourteen small wires in the cable, of the same size and type used on the new atomic setup. I'm smart, but I put two and two together, and the answer wasn't very pleasant.
Backed by Lambert, and sinking deeper into my boots, I sat before President Charloff of the International Guidance Council, explaining my side of the story. We met in the secrecy of the Grand Council Chamber, a holy political spot where you feel like taking off your shoes before entering. I didn't. I told them everything I had found out through five months of hard work and worry. I demanded, as an American citizen, that they start an investigation.
The Chief Judge stared at me gravely when I had finished. His two companions looked a little pale. At first they shouted and told me I was crazy, and they would not insult Daggerman by asking him foolish questions.
"Suppose we are able to start such an investigation," the Chief Judge said at length. "If we are wrong...?"
"It's still a free country, and a free International World. Daggerman can't protest. If he's innocent, why should he worry?"
Chuck really swung the tide, though. I'll give him credit.
"Suppose you refuse to start the investigation?" he said with a file-edge on his voice. "We at United Viso-Features will blow the top off the whole dirty business. In five hours, you'll have more committees parked on your steps than you can get rid of in ten years."
The judges protested in unison.
"Daggerman is smart, gentlemen," Chuck said calmly. "Once hell breaks loose, he'll retire underground and watch the fireworks. He's going to sit tight until we kill ourselves off. Then he'll look out, smile and take over the nicest real-estate deal that any man ever claimed. With the cash he now has, he can establish credit anywhere in the planetary system, bring laborers here and build up an earth, all his own."
"But the atomic upheaval would destroy him."
Chuck shook his head.
"Daggerman sold you a bill-of-goods, gentlemen," he said gravely. "Sure, the old books say that such an atomic explosion would start a chain reaction that might destroy every living thing on earth. That's all right, as far as it goes. I'll make a bet that Daggerman hasn't overlooked a trick. It's a matter of power-screens to break up that chain reaction. With the money he has spent, and the equipment he has gathered, don't think that he hasn't fortified himself well."
THEY weren't convinced. I knew they weren't. But, give them
credit. They decided to take a chance. As I was able to pick up
the story from semi-secret sources, it went roughly like
this:
One night, International Guards, who watched over Daggerman, forgot to be good watch-dogs. Secret Service men got through the lines and turned Daggerman's ranch upside down, quietly. They found piles of earth, covered with fruit orchards and such to hide them from the air. The dirt was stacked up high enough to indicate huge chambers beneath the earth. A lot of stuff showed up that didn't look good for a genius to own. The cable, traced through my previous work, was spliced at the ranch and went underground at that point.
The International Council called Daggerman to New York. Before he was called, the cable was cut apart in the desert and a detachment of troops was put at that spot to see that it did not grow together again.
Before Daggerman, and much to his amazement, Secret Service men told more about his business than he knew himself. For Daggerman, that was quite a blow.
I remember the day Daggerman died. They gave him a choice. He could die in public, or do away with himself. They preferred it that way, because it might upset the people to learn that Daggerman wasn't a hero after all. He went back to his ranch, under heavy guard. He retired to his secret chamber, after warning the guards to get away from that bit of real-estate, and then he pulled the lever.
Daggerman pulled the lever... The explosion was terrific.
He preferred it that way, rather than face the "electro-squad."
The explosion was seen a hundred miles away, and it knocked guards flat on their backs, at fifty.
I READ a touching story over the "telo-screen," concerning the
death of our hero. The words they had made up about him gagged
me.
Two weeks later they placed a statue of Daggerman in the Central Square before the International Guidance Council chambers. The tablet in bronze read like this:
TO A HERO WHO LIVED AND DIED
IN THE SERVICE OF HIS PEOPLE.
For some reason, not made entirely clear to the followers of our Hero, Daggerman, the International Guidance Council decided a short time later to scrap the check-mate system of atomic bomb control. Someone might make the mistake of pushing a button release during a moment of anger. Daggerman would have done it if they had given him time. He had the button system almost ready, and he would have made mincemeat of us all, leaving only himself hidden under that screen-protected bunker in Arizona.
Life is a lot more simple now. The various nations go about their business again, secretly arming themselves and pretending to hope that nothing will come of it.
All in all, it isn't a bad idea. At least there is comfort in pretending that we love each other. None of that system Daggerman wanted, where we'd all sit and wait for the first—and last blow. This way, there is an element of surprise. With Daggerman, it was checkers, and he had all the Kings.
No, none of that "you press your button, and I'll press mine."
But you can understand why I hate so much mock sentiment. I hate this idea of burying another "time-capsule."
Nine chances out of ten we'll never live to dig it up again, anyhow. If someone does, they'll already have a complete history of us on microfilm, and the junk in the capsule will be—just junk.
WELL, as jobs go, mine isn't a bad one. I sit here before the
viso-screen, handing out lightness and warmth to those poor women
who believe everything I'm forced to tell them. It makes them
happier that way. A week after Daggerman died, I married Mary.
Chuck gave us a cottage for a wedding gift, and raised my wages
fifty a month. It isn't so much, but of course I don't have the
responsibilities that Phillip Daggerman had.
With any luck at all, I can get along without having to take the hard way out, like Daggerman did. I can live a pretty full life with Mary, at least until another Phillip Daggerman comes along. There is a lot more war talk right now. Mothers who listen to my broadcast are frightened and sending in letters. There's howling because they say, as their representative on the air waves, I should do something about keeping their sons at home.
Good Lord, I've heard that before somewhere. Well, if I get blown up, I guess I won't be alone. When I think of the International Guidance Council, batting its head against the wall, and Senator Ripping still giving his impassioned speeches for the greater good of "his peepul," I remember another guy who did a good job of pulling wool over our eyes, until his world blew up in his own face.
Yes, Daggerman was a smart guy. Too smart. People who live in glasshouses...
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.