“Where so-called free enterprise ended and government began was moot. High-ranking officials in both seemed interchangeable. A cabinet secretary, one day, would be president of a major corporation the next, or vice versa. Many of the larger corporations were subsidized in one way or the other. Oil and mining companies were allowed fabulously large tax deductions for depletion; billionaires such as Paul Getty sometimes paid no taxes at all. The subsidizing of shipping, both building ships and running shipping lines, was another example. If the socioeconomic system had been classical capitalism, it would have been a matter of sink or swim. If shipping couldn’t compete with foreign lines, it would have gone under and the cheaper carriers of foreign countries would have been utilized. There are many other examples. Somewhat after the time you were, ah, put to sleep, Lockheed, one of the big airplane manufacturers, faced bankruptcy. The government loaned them hundreds of millions of dollars. Under classical capitalism, they would have been allowed to go under and more efficient competitors, such as Boeing, would have taken over that corporation’s markets. No, I’m afraid that free enterprise in your time was a thing of the past. Even the farmers were subsidized, especially the very big ones.”
“Okay, okay,” Tracy said impatiently. “As usual, we’ve gotten sidetracked. From what you say, this International Congress of Guilds is all you’ve got in the way of government. Now, how does somebody like you vote for a representative in it?” He looked at Walter Stein.
“Me?” theothersaid. “I’m not a member of a guild. The computers decided I wasn’t needed by the Medical Guild. So I have no vote.”
“Oh, great,” Tracy said. “Nobody but members of a guild get to vote, and less than two percent of the population work, and hence, are members of guilds. Whatever happened to democracy?”
Jo Edmonds put down his napkin and said, “We seem to be defending a system that we’re trying to eliminate, however… ” He came to his feet and went into the living room and to the phone screen there. He dialed and then dialed again.
Finally, he came back and reseated himself and said to Tracy, “What was the last presidential election you experienced in America?”
Tracy scowled. “1956.”
“That’s what I thought. What was the population at that time?”
Tracy thought before saying, “Pushing two hundred million, as I recall.”
“Yes, not quite but almost. Eisenhower won the election. He got thirty-five million votes. Between one out of five and one out of six of the population voted for him, in short. This is democracy? Once again, the term is somewhat elastic. Supposedly, Athens, during the Golden Age, achieved one of the greatest democracies of all time. But check back. Only male Athenian citizens were allowed the franchise. Slaves, and other noncitizens, who outnumbered the Athenians at least eight to one, were not allowed the vote. Neither were women. This is democracy?”
Tracy sighed. “Sidetracked again,” he said. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. I want to know something about this underground of yours, your outfit for overthrowing things as they are and getting the human race back on the good old treadmill.”
The three of them looked at each other with an almost apprehensive manner.
Tracy poured himself still more coffee and said impatiently, “How does your underground plan to overthrow the present system and what does it expect to take its place?” He sighed again and added, “I’m in, I suppose. After what I saw last night, I’d have to be in. I don’t believe even you realize some of the ramifications of those programmed Dream Palaces.”
“How do you mean?” Betty said.
“They’ve been developing for something like five years, Jo told me, so you’ve gotten used to the idea a step at a time. But they came on me like a slap in the face. The way things are now, you’re only allowed eight hours at a time, of dreams, on the theory that for health’s sake you’ve got to spend the other sixteen hours eating, exercising and getting some real sleep. Well, your wisenheimer computers have to figure out only one problem, getting real rest during the programmed dreaming. Then a dream addict could spend all his time at it.”
Jo said worriedly, “But exercise and food—”
“Surely they could build something like an automatic massage machine to cover the exercise and the dreamers could be fed intravenously.”
“Good God,” the academician blurted. “You’re right.”
“Yes,” Tracy said, sipping away at the coffee. “But we’re off on a tangent again. What’s your underground’s program?”
There was a pause before the academician said, “The fact is, we don’t have one.”
Tracy stared at him unbelievingly. “What do you mean? I want to know how you expect to get from here to there, and what it will look like when we reach it.”
“I know,” the other nodded, “but we don’t have a program. That’s exactly why we brought you into this century, Tracy Cogswell. We want you to help us work out a plan of action and the new society of the future.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Tracy said. He put down his cup and stared around at the three of them, one by one. He rubbed a weary hand over his face before saying, “Do I look like Thomas Jefferson, or Tom Paine, or Karl Marx, or whoever? I was a field man, not a theoretician. Sure, I’ve read a lot of the books, the classics of political economy, but I’m no scholar in the field. I followed orders and suggestions; I didn’t think them up.”
“You know more about such things than any of the rest of us,” Jo Edmonds said mildly.
“I doubt it. I’m not even very clear as yet on just how this system of yours works.”
Betty said, “That’s no problem, Tracy. We can give you several courses on the autoteacher to bring you up to date on details.”
He grunted in resignation and said, “Let’s get back to this underground organization, though why you call it an underground I don’t know. From what you say it’s perfectly legal to be above ground and in the open. It’s international, I assume.”
“Well, yes,” Stein nodded. “Though, of course, we no longer have nations in the old sense. But Betty and I were born in North America, and Jo, here, in England.”
“How about the other members? Do they come from all parts of the world?”
“What other members?” Betty said.
Chapter Fourteen
If she had thrown her coffee into his face, Tracy couldn’t have been more taken aback. He said finally, “That can’t possibly mean what I think it means.”
The three of them looked embarrassed.
He pressed on. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re the only members of this revolutionary underground organization you’ve been telling me about?”
Walter Stein said placatingly, and somewhat hurriedly, “There are a good many others who feel the same as we do, but without a program and a goal there is nothing about which to coalesce. Given a program, they would rally around and we could form a strong organization.”
“Oh, good Jesus Christ,” Tracy said in disgust. “You bring me across a century of time at the risk of my life and after ripping off twenty thousand dollars from me, to join an organization composed of three persons… ”
“Four, now,” Jo said mildly. “You declared yourself in.”
“… and without a program or any clear idea of what it wants.”
Stein said, “We know what we want. We want to get the human race back on the road to progress. I repeat, it’s turned to mush.”
“Mush,” Tracy said in disgust, and throwing his napkin to the table top as he came to his feet. “From what I saw last night, it’s turning to gruel. I’m going in to study my Interlingua.”
Betty looked up at him and said anxiously, “But how do you stand now?”
“I’m beginning to think I can stand anything,” he said. “I don’t know. Let me think about it. One of you come in later and help me out with getting that historic rundown on the past century. From now on, I’ll spend half the day on Interlingua and the other half on trying to find out what has gone on, and what’s going on.”
He turned and left, not bothering to hide his feelings.
