Cogswell took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the way Dan Whiteley would have ended. In action. Could I have another drink?”
Stein said, “You’re not overdoing, are you?”
“No, of course not. Look, how about cancer, and space flight, and how about interracial problems and juvenile delinquency?”
“Hold it!” Jo Edmonds told him. Somehow there was a strained quality in the laugh that Cogswell couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Stein said, “You can imagine how long any of the old diseases lasted once we began to devote the amount of time to them that our scientists had formerly put into devising methods of destroying man.”
Betty said, “About the space program. We have a few observatories and some laboratories on the moon, and orbiting communications satellites.”
Edmonds brought the drink and Tracy took a long swallow and then shook his head.
Walter Stein was quickly on his feet. “See here,” he said, “you’re pale. We’ve allowed you to push yourself too far.” He clucked unhappily. “Betty was premature, this morning. We hadn’t expected to allow you so much excitement for several days yet. Now, back to bed for you. We can talk further, in the morning.”
Tracy nodded. “I feel a little tired and a little tight,” he admitted.
He went back to the room they had assigned him and undressed, his mind still in a whirl. In bed, just before dropping off into sleep, he gazed up at the ceiling. What did he feel like? He felt something like he had as a kid, back there in Cincinnati, when tomorrow was going to be Christmas, when tomorrow was going to be the best day that ever was.
He was drifting off into sleep before a worrying thought wriggled up from below. He never quite grasped it all. He remembered once when his father had been unemployed and Christmas had been bleak. He never quite grasped it all. However, his subconscious worked away.
They were waiting for him on the terrace, which they had set up for breakfast, when he emerged in the morning. He was dressed, as they were, in most imaginative clothes. Cogswell had already come to the conclusion that fashions and styles were a thing of yesteryear; people dressed in the most comfortable way they damn well pleased. He supposed that followed; fashion had largely been a matter of sales promotion, and he assumed that sales promotion was in the doldrums these days. His own Bermuda shorts, sports shirt and sandals had been beside his bed when he had awakened.
And for the first time since his being brought out of hibernation, or whatever you could call it, he felt really fit, both mentally and physically alert. He felt that he was ready for anything.
After they’d exchanged the standard good mornings and questioned him on his well being, Tracy came immediately to the point.
“See here,” he told them. “Yesterday, I was pretty well taken up with enthusiasm. I doubt if many men live to see their own ideas of Utopia achieved. In fact, looking back, I can’t think of a single example. But, anyway, now I’d like to get some basic matters cleared up. I’d like to get down to the nitty-gritty.”
Jo Edmonds finished his cup of coffee, leaned back in his chair, fished his piece of jade from a pocket, and began fiddling with it. He said, “Fire away, old chap,” but he, like the other two, seemed to have a faint element of tension.
Cogswell took his chair and said, “All right now. As I understand it, through a method devised by the academician, here, you were able to send his mind back in time to my age, hypnotize me, or whatever you want to call it, and force me to take the steps that resulted in my being, well, deep-frozen.”
Walter Stein shrugged. He still reminded Cogswell of Paul Lucas playing the part of an anxious scientist. “That’s a sufficient explanation,” he said. “At least as near as I would expect a layman to get.”
Cogswell looked at him questioningly. “What was all that jazz about the monument, and that cave or grotto or whatever it was beneath it?”
Stein said, “We had to have some place to leave your body where it wouldn’t be discovered for a period of nearly a century. A cave beneath a holy man’s tomb was as good a bet as any. Even today, such monuments are respected by the local people.”
“I see,” Cogswell said, pouring some coffee into his cup. “I’ve got some mind-twisting questions I want to ask about what seem to me some really far out paradoxes, but they can wait. First, what happened after I’d gone? What do the records say about my disappearance? What did the International Executive Committee do? What kind of a report was given out about me to the membership of the movement?” As he spoke, his face tightened.
Betty took up the ball. She said, very softly, “Remember, Tracy, when I told you yesterday that Dan Whiteley had been killed by the Chinese communists and had become a martyr, known to any student of the period?”
He waited for her to go on.
She said, still softly, “You are also so known. Tracy Cogswell, the dependable, the incorruptible, the organization man
She took a deep breath before going on. “Captured by Franco’s espionage-counterespionage agents and smuggled into Spain. Died under torture without betraying any members of the organization.”
Tracy spilled his cup of coffee as he came to his feet. His voice was strained. “But… but Dan Whiteley was there, at the end. He knew that last wasn’t true. I appropriated almost twenty thousand dollars of the movement’s money. It must have been practically the whole international treasury, and that’s why he had been sent to find out what in the hell was going on.”
Jo Edmonds said with sour humor. “It would seem that your organization needed a martyr more than it needed a traitor or even the money. You’ve gone down in history as Tracy Cogswell, the incorruptible, the dependable, the perfect organization man.”
Cogswell slumped back into his chair. At least in this fashion a hundred friends and comrades had never known his final act of betrayal. He hadn’t been able to resist, but still it had been betrayal. Those friends and comrades he had fought shoulder to shoulder with to make a better world.
He said wearily, “All right. Now we come to the question that counts.” He looked from one face to the other. They obviously knew what he was about to ask. He asked it: “Why?”
Jo Edmonds, for once, slipped his piece of jade back into a pocket. He opened his mouth to speak, but Academician Stein quieted him with a shake of his head.
He said, “Let me do this, Jo. We’re at the crux of the matter. How we put this now means success or failure of the whole project.”
Tracy Cogswell was beginning to come to a boil. “What project, damn it?” he snapped.
“Just a minute,” Stein said, flustered a bit, obviously not used to dealing with persons in extreme anger. “Let me give you some background.”
Tracy Cogswell snapped, “I’ve been getting background for days. Tell me why I’m here!”
The other was upset. “A moment please, Tracy… I’m going to call you Tracy… man was an aggressive, hard-fighting animal from the time he first emerged from the mists of antiquity. Physically weak, as predatory animals go, he depended on brains and cunning to subjugate his fellow beasts. Only those clever enough to outwit the sabertooth, the cave bear, the multitude of other beasts more dangerous physically than man, survived.”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t need this,” Cogswell protested.
“A moment, please. You will see my reasons. Even when his fellow beasts were conquered, man still had nature to combat. He still had to feed, clothe, and shelter himself. He had to adjust to the seasons, protect himself during the cold and the night, floods and storms, of droughts and pestilences. And step by step he beat out his path of progress. It wasn’t always easy, Tracy.”
“It was never easy,” Cogswell growled impatiently.
“All along the way,” Stein continued, “man fought not only as a species but as an individual. Each man battled not only nature, but his fellow man as well, since there was seldom enough for all. Particularly when we get to the historic period and the emergence of the priest and the warrior and finally the noble: Man was pitted against his fellows for a place at the top. There was room there for only a small number.”
The academician shook his head. “Survival of the fittest,” he said. “Which often meant, under the
