circumstances, the most brutal, the most cunning, the conscienceless. But it also meant the strengthening of the race. When a ruling class was no longer the most aggressive and intelligent element of a people, it didn’t long remain the ruling class.”
Walter Stein hesitated for a long moment. “In short, Tracy, all through history man has had something to fight for… or against.” He twisted his mouth in a grimace of attempted humor. “It’s the nature of the beast.”
“Isn’t all this elementary?” Cogswell said. Some of the heat of his impatience was gone, but he still couldn’t understand what the other was building up to.
The other said, uncertainly, “I suppose the first signs of it were evident even in your own period. I recall reading of educators and social scientists who began remarking on the trend before the twentieth century was halfway through. Remarking on it and bewailing it.”
“What trend?” Cogswell scowled.
“In the more advanced countries of your period. The young people. They stopped taking the science and engineering courses in school; they considered them too difficult to bother with. A youngster didn’t have to fight to make his way; the way was greased. The important thing was to have a good time. Find an angle so that you could obtain the material things everyone else had, without the expenditure of much effort. Don’t be an egghead. Don’t stick your neck out. Conform. You’ve got cradle to the grave security. Take it easy. You’ve got it made.”
“Some went to the other extreme,” Tracy said unhappily. “They dropped out completely. Left school. Didn’t care about the material things. The boys grew beards and long hair, the girls didn’t give a damn what they looked like. Most of them used marijuana or even harder drugs. At first they were known as beats, or beatniks. Later they started calling them hippies. What was the term?… ‘Rebels without a cause’.”
Betty Stein, who had been silent for a long time, said softly. “And the most advanced countries… so far as social progress was concerned, countries like Denmark and Sweden… had the highest suicide rates in the world.”
“That’s the point,” Stein nodded. “They had nothing to fight against and man is a fighting animal. Take away something to work for, to fight for, and he’s a frustrated animal.”
A horrible understanding was growing within Tracy Cogswell. He looked from one to the other of them, almost desperately.
He said, “What did you bring me here for?” And his voice was hoarse.
Academician Stein ignored him and pressed on. “Since the success of your movement, Tracy Cogswell, there has been world government. Wars and racial tensions have disappeared. There is abundance for all, crime is a thing of the past. Government, if you can call it that, is so changed as hardly to be recognizable from the viewpoint of your day. There are no politics, as you knew them.”
Jo Edmonds said bitterly, “You asked about space flight yesterday. Sure, there are a couple of small bases on the moon, unmanned bases, automated bases, but nothing new has been done in the field for a generation. We have lots of dilettantes”—he flicked his beautifully carved bit of jade—“lots of connoisseurs, lots of gourmets… but few of us can bother to become scientists, builders, visionaries.”
“Why did you bring me here!” Cogswell repeated.
“Because we need your know-how,” Edmonds said flatly. He seemed a far cry from his usual easygoing self.
Cogswell’s eyes became tired-looking. “My know-how?”
Betty said gently, “Tracy, when we sought back through history for someone to show us the way, we found Tracy Cogswell, the incorruptable, the dependable, the lifelong, devoted organization man.”
Tracy Cogswell was staring at her. “Who are you people?” he said. “What’s your angle?”
It was Academician Stein who answered, and he said what Cogswell now already knew. “We’re members of a new underground. The human race is turning to mush, Tracy. Something must be done. For more than half a century we’ve had what every Utopian through history has dreamed of. Democracy in its most ultimate form. Abundance for all. The end of strife between nations, races, and, for all practical purposes, between individuals. And, as a species, we’re heading for dissolution. Tracy Cogswell, we need your experience to guide us. To overthrow the present socioeconomic system and form a new society.”
Edmonds leaned forward and put it in another way.
“You… and your movement… got us into this. Now get us out.”
Part Two
COUNTERREVOLUTION
Chapter One
Tracy Cogswell sent his disbelieving eyes from Academician Stein, to his daughter, to Jo Edmonds.
He said, “Are you all completely around the bend? You sit here and tell me you’ve pulled me through almost a century of time. You tell me that you suspended animation in me, or whatever you want to call it. That you, against my will, captured my brain, through some god-awful technique that you have developed, and made me steal some twenty thousand dollars, betray my friends, betray comrades who had many a time risked their lives for me. Betray everything I stood for. And now… ”
Academician Stein was distressed. “Please Tracy. You are still much too weak. Don’t strain yourself. We have been premature in allowing this to be brought up so soon.”
“Strain myself!” Tracy glared at him. “Here you tell me that everything I’ve fought for all my life has been achieved. The human race, at long last, has abundance, no war; disease is practically wiped out. No crime. No race problems… Now you ask me to join your organization to overthrow all this. The things I’ve always dreamed of.” His voice was so high it was all but shrill. “My father before me was a revolutionist. After he died, in a vicious mining strike, my mother raised me in his tradition. Now you want me to help tear down everything he stood for. My great grandfather was an abolitionist. He died in the Civil War thinking he was helping to free the slaves.” He laughed bitterly. “A hell of a lot of slave freeing was done. The poor bastards just went from one type of slavery to another.”
“Please, Tracy,” Betty said with anxiety in her voice. “You’re overwrought.”
He looked at her and there was a certain self-deprecation in his expression. He leveled his voice. “I suppose that I’m not being very coherent.”
Edmonds had his jade piece out and was flipping it, over and over again. He said in his usual mild way, “Hardly surprising under the circumstances, old chap.”
What was there about the guy that continually irritated Tracy? Well, it didn’t make much difference. There was no particular reason for him to like him.
Cogswell looked at Academician Stein. “I’m getting out of here. Because of you, I appropriated twenty thousand dollars which wasn’t mine, though it was in my name. I want it back, Stein. I’ll probably need it before I get organized in this new society of yours.”
Betty Stein said, “Tracy, Tracy. I told you. We simply don’t use money any more. If there was twenty thousand dollars, or twenty thousand of any other kind of currency for that matter, it would probably be in some museum where people would stare at it in amazement that there could ever have been such things.”
He was impatient with her. “Well, whatever the equivalent is. Credits, or whatever. You must have some sort of credit cards or whatever.”
Edmonds said, “Why?”
Tracy glared at him. “Suppose you want to go into a store and buy something.”
Edmonds flipped his piece of jade again and said mildly, “It’s fortunate that all three of us went to a lot of research on your period, I shouldn’t wonder. Otherwise, half of the time we wouldn’t know what you were talking about. You see, old chap, we don’t have stores any more. Not in the sense you’re talking about.”
Tracy closed his eyes momentarily. He opened them again and said. “No stores, eh? All right. Suppose I
