The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein

used a cousin of the old Kaiser as a symbol, the one that sued for peace.

  Then the trouble started.

  When the Prime Minister announced the terms of the private agreement he had

  had with our President, he was met with a silence that was broken only by

  cries of "Shame! Shame! Resign!" I suppose it was inevitable; the Commons

  reflected the spirit of a people who had been unmercifully punished for

  four years. They were in a mood to enforce a peace that would have made the

  Versailles Treaty look like the Beatitudes.

  The vote of no confidence left the Prime Minister no choice. Forty-eight

  hours later the King made a speech from the throne that violated all

  constitutional precedent, for it had not been written by a Prime Minister.

  In this greater crisis in his reign, his voice was clear and unlabored; it

  sold the idea to England and a national coalition government was formed.

  I don't know whether we would have dusted London to enforce our terms or

  not; Manning thinks we would have done so. I suppose it depended on the

  character of the President of the United States, and there is no way of

  knowing about that since we did not have to do it.

  The United States, and in particular the President of the United States,

  was confronted by two inescapable problems. First, we had to consolidate

  our position at once, use our temporary advantage of an overwhelmingly

  powerful weapon to insure that such a weapon would not be turned on us.

  Second, some means had to be worked out to stabilize American foreign

  policy so that it could handle the tremendous power we had suddenly had

  thrust upon us.

  The second was by far the most difficult and serious. If we were to

  establish a reasonably permanent peace?say a century or so?through a

  monopoly on a weapon so powerful that no one dare fight us, it was

  imperative that the policy under which we acted be more lasting than

  passing political administrations. But more of that later?

  The first problem had to be attended to at once?time was the heart of it.

  The emergency lay in the very simplicity of the weapon. It required nothing

  but aircraft to scatter it and the dust itself, which was easily and

  quickly made by anyone possessing the secret of the Karst-Obre process and

  having access to a small supply of uranium-bearing ore.

  But the Karst-Obre process was simple and might be independently developed

  at any time. Manning reported to the President that it was Ridpath's

  opinion, concurred in by Manning, that the staff of any modern radiation

  laboratory should be able to work out an equivalent technique in six weeks,

  working from the hint given by the events in Berlin alone, and should then

  be able to produce enough dust to cause major destruction in another six

  weeks.

  Ninety days?ninety days provided they started from scratch and were not

  already halfway to their goal. Less than ninety days?perhaps no time at

  all?

  By this time Manning was an unofficial member of the cabinet; "Secretary of

  Dust," the President called him in one of his rare jovial moods. As for me,

  well, I attended cabinet meetings, too. As the only layman who had seen the

  whole show from beginning to end, the President wanted me there.

  I am an ordinary sort of man who, by a concatenation of improbabilities,

  found himself shoved into the councils of the rulers. But I found that the

  rulers were ordinary men, too, and frequently as bewildered as I was.

  But Manning was no ordinary man. In him ordinary hard sense had been raised

  to the level of genius. Oh, yes, I know that it is popular to blame

  everything on him and to call him everything from traitor to mad dog, but I

  still think he was both wise and benevolent. I don't care how many

  second-guessing historians disagree with me.

  "I propose," said Manning, "that we begin by immobilizing all aircraft

  throughout the world."

  The Secretary of Commerce raised his brows. "Aren't you," he said, "being a

  little fantastic, Colonel Manning?"

  "No, I'm not," answered Manning shortly. "Im being realistic. The key to

  this problem is aircraft. Without aircraft the dust is an inefficient

  weapon. The only way I see to gain time enough to deal with the whole

  problem is to ground all aircraft and put them out of operation. All

  aircraft, that is, not actually in the service of the United States Army.

  After that we can deal with complete world disarmament and permanent

  methods of control."

  "Really now," replied the Secretary, "you are not proposing that commercial

  airlines be put out of operation. They are an essential part of world

  economy. It would be an intolerable nuisance."

  "Getting killed is an intolerable nuisance, too," Manning answered

  stubbornly. "I do propose just that. All aircraft. All."

  The President had been listening without comment to the discussion. He now

  cut in. "How about aircraft on which some groups depend to stay alive,

  Colonel, such as the Alaskan lines?"

  "If there are such, they must be operated by American Army pilots and

  crews. No exceptions."

  The Secretary of Commerce looked startled. "Am I to infer from that last

  remark that you intended this prohibition to apply to the United States as

  well as other nations?"

  "Naturally."

  "But that's impossible. It's unconstitutional. It violates civil rights."

  Killing a man violates his civil rights, too Manning answered stubbornly.

  "You can't do it. Any Federal Court in the country would enjoin you in five

  minutes."

  "It seems to me," said Manning slowly, that Andy Jackson gave us a good

  precedent for that one when he told John Marshall to go fly a kite." He

  looked slowly around the table at faces that ranged from undecided to

  antagonistic. "The issue is sharp, gentlemen, and?we might as well drag it

  out in the open. We can be dead men, with everything in due order,

  constitutional, and technically correct; or we can do what has to be done,

  stay alive, and try to straighten out the legal aspects later." He shut up

  and waited.

  The Secretary of Labor picked it up. "I don't think the Colonel has any

  corner on realism. I think I see the problem, too, and I admit it is a

  serious one. The dust must never be used again. Had I known about it soon

  enough, it would never have been used on Berlin. And I agree that some sort

  of world wide control is necessary. But where I differ with the Colonel is

  in the method. What he proposes is a military dictatorship imposed by force

  on the whole world. Admit it, Colonel. Isn't that what you are proposing?"

  Manning did not dodge it. "That is what I am proposing."

  "Thanks. Now we know where we stand. I, for one, do not regard democratic

  measures and constitutional procedure as of so little importance that I am

  willing to jettison them any time it becomes convenient. To me, democracy

  is more than a matter of expediency, it is a faith Either it works, or I go

  under with it."

  What do you propose?" asked the President.

  "I propose that we treat this as an opportunity to create a worldwide

  democratic commonwealth." Let us use our pre
sent dominant position to issue

  a call to all nations to send representatives to a conference to form a

  world constitution."

  "League of Nations," I heard someone mutter.

  "No!" he answered the side remark. "Not a League of Nations. The old League

  was helpless because it had no real existence, no power. It was not

  implemented to enforce its decisions; it was just a debating society, a

  sham. This would be different for we would turn over the dust to it."

  Nobody spoke for some minutes. You could see them turning it over in their

  minds, doubtful, partially approving, intrigued but dubious.

  "I'd like to answer that," said Manning.

  "Go ahead," said the President.

  "I will. I'm going to have to use some pretty plain language and I hope

  that Secretary Larner will do me the honor of believing that I speak so

  from sincerity and deep concern and not from personal pique.

  "I think a world democracy would be a very fine thing and I ask that you

  believe me when I say I would willingly lay down my life to accomplish it.

  I also think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to lie down with

  the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion would get up. If

  we try to form an actual world democracy, we'll be the lamb in the setup.

  "There are a lot of good, kindly people who are inter-nationalists these

  days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is

  ignorant. If we set up a world-wide democracy, what will the electorate be?

  Take a look at the facts: four hundred million Chinese with no more concept

  of voting and citizen responsibility than a flea; three hundred million

  Hindus who aren't much better indoctrinated; God knows how many in the

  Eurasian Union who believe in God knows what; the entire continent of

  Africa only semicivilized; eighty million Japanese who really believe that

  they are Heaven-ordained to rule; our Spanish-American friends who don't

  understand the Bill of Rights the way we think of it; a quarter of a

  billion people of two dozen different nationalities in Europe, all with

  revenge and black hatred in their hearts.

  "No, it won't wash. It's preposterous?to talk about a world democracy for

  many years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such a body,

  you will be arming the whole world to commit suicide."

  Larner answered at once. "I could resent some of your remarks, but I don't.

  To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you, Colonel

  Manning, is that you are a professional soldier and have no faith in

  people. Soldiers may be necessary, but the worst of them are martinets and

  the best are merely paternalistic." There was quite a lot more of the same.

  Manning stood it until his turn came again. "Maybe I am all those things,

  but you haven't met my argument. What are you going to do about the

  hundreds of millions of people who have no experience in, nor love for,

  democracy? Now, perhaps, I don't have the same conception of democracy as

  yourself, but I do know this: Out West there are a couple of hundred

  thousand people who sent me to Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by

  and let a course be followed which I think will result in their deaths or

  utter ruin.

  "Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of the

  atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some power

  makes a supply of the dust. They'll hit us first to try to knock us out and

  give them a free hand. New York and Washington overnight, then all of our

  industrial areas while we are still politically and economically

  disorganized. But our army would not be in those cities; we would have

  planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the first dusting wouldn't

  touch them. Our boys would bravely and righteously proceed to poison their

  big cities. Back and forth it would go until the organization of each

  country had broken down so completely that they were no longer able to

  maintain a sufficiently high level of industrialization to service planes

  and manufacture dust. That presupposes starvation and plague in the

  process. You can fill in the details.

  "The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and suicidal,

  of course, but it doesn't take brains to take a hand in this. All it takes

  is a very small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a supply of

  dust. It's a vicious circle that cannot possibly be stopped until the

  entire planet has dropped to a level of economy too low to support the

  techniques necessary to maintain it. My best guess is that such a point

  would be reached when approximately three-quarters of the world's

  population were dead of dust, disease, or hunger, and culture reduced to

  the peasant-and-village type.

  "Where is your Constitution and your Bill of Rights if you let that

  happen?"

  I've shortened it down, but that was the gist of it. I can't hope to record

  every word of an argument that went on for days.

  The Secretary of the Navy took a crack at him next. "Aren't you getting a

  bit hysterical, Colonel? After all, the world has seen a lot of weapons

  which were going to make war an impossibility too horrible to contemplate.

  Poison gas, and tanks, and airplanes?even firearms, if I remember my

  history."

  Manning smiled wryly. "You've made a point, Mr. Secretary. 'And when the

  wolf really came, the little boy shouted in vain.' I imagine the Chamber of

  Commerce in Pompeii presented the same reasonable argument to any arly

  vulcanologist so timid as to fear Vesuvius. I'll try to justify my fears.

  The dust differs from every earlier weapon in its deadliness and ease of

  use, but most importantly in that we have developed no defense against it.

  For a number of fairly technical reasons, I don't think we ever will, at

  least not this century."

  "Why not?"

  "Because there is no way to counteract radioactivity short of putting a

  lead shield between yourself and it, an airtight lead shield. People might

  survive by living in sealed underground cities, but our characteristic

  American culture could not be maintained."

  "Colonel Manning," suggested the Secretary of State, "I think you have

  overlooked the obvious alternative."

  "Have I?"

  "Yes?to keep the dust as our own secret, go our own way, and let the rest

  of the world look out for itself. That is the only program that fits our

  traditions." The Secretary of State was really a fine old gentleman, and

  not stupid, but he was slow to assimilate new ideas.

  "Mr. Secretary," said Manning respectfully, "I wish we could afford to mind

  our own business. I do wish we could. But it is the best opinion of all the

  experts that we can't maintain control of this secret except by rigid

  policing. The Germans were close on our heels in nuclear research; it was

  sheer luck that we got there first. I ask you to imagine Germany a year

  hence?with a supply of dust."

  The Secretary did not answer, but I saw his lips form the word Berlin.

  They came around. The President had deliberately let Manning bear the brunt

  of the argument, concerning his own stock of
goodwill to coax the obdurate.

  He decided against putting it up to Congress; the dusters would have been

  overhead before each senator had finished his say. What he intended to do

  might be unconstitutional, but if he failed to act there might not be any

  Constitution shortly. There was precedent?the Emancipation Proclamation,

  the Monroe Doctrine, the Louisiana Purchase, suspension of habeas corpus in

  the War between the States, the Destroyer Deal.

  On February 22nd the President declared a state of full emergency

  internally and sent his Peace Proclamation to the head of every sovereign

  state. Divested of its diplomatic surplusage, it said: The United States is

  prepared to defeat any power, or combination of powers, in jig time.

  Accordingly, we are outlawing war and are calling on every nation to disarm

  completely at once. In other words, "Throw down your guns, boys; we've got

  the drop on you!"

  A supplement set forth the procedure: All aircraft capable of flying the

  Atlantic were to be delivered in one week's time to a field, or rather a

  great stretch of prairie, just west of Fort Riley, Kansas. For lesser

  aircraft, a spot near Shanghai and a rendezvous in Wales were designated.

  Memoranda would be issued with respect to other war equipment. Uranium and

  its ores were not mentioned; that would come later.

  No excuses. Failure to disarm would be construed as an act of war against

  the United States.

  There were no cases of apoplexy in the Senate; why not, I don't know.

  There were only three powers to be seriously worried about, England, Japan,

  and the Eurasian Union. England had been forewarned, we had pulled her out

  of a war she was losing, and she?or rather her men in power?knew accurately

  what we could and would do.

  Japan was another matter. They had not seen Berlin and they did not really

  believe it. Besides, they had been telling each other for so many years

  that they were unbeatable, they believed it. It does not do to get too

  tough with a Japanese too quickly, for they will die rather than lose face.

  The negotiations were conducted very quietly indeed, but our fleet was

  halfway from Pearl Harbor to Kobe, loaded with enough dust to sterilize

  their six biggest cities, before they were concluded. Do you know what did

  it? This never hit the newspapers but it was the wording of the pamphlets

  we proposed to scatter before dusting.

  The Emperor was pleased to declare a New Order of Peace. The official

  version, built up for home consumption, made the whole matter one of

  collaboration between two great and friendly powers, with Japan taking the

  initiative.

  The Eurasian Union was a puzzle. After Stalin's unexpected death in 1941,

  no western nation knew very much about what went on in there. Our own

  diplomatic relations had atrophied through failure to replace men called

  home nearly four years before. Everybody knew, of course, that the new

  group in power called themselves Fifth Internationalists, but what that

  meant, aside from ceasing to display the pictures of Lenin and Stalin,

  nobody knew.

  But they agreed to our terms and offered to cooperate in every way. They

  pointed out that the Union had never been warlike and had kept out of the

  recent world struggle. It was fitting that the two remaining great powers

  should use their greatness to insure a lasting peace.

  I was delighted; I had been worried about the E. U.

  They commenced delivery of some of their smaller planes to the receiving

  station near Shanghai at once. The reports on the number and quality of the

  planes seemed to indicate that they had stayed out of the war through

  necessity, the planes were mostly of German make and poor condition?types