I saw the famous Science Temple with its constant streamof worshippers.]
A Problem in Communication
_By Miles J. Breuer, M.D._
PART I
_The Science Community_
(This part is related by Peter Hagstrom, Ph.D.)
"The ability to communicate ideas from one individual to another," saida professor of sociology to his class, "is the principal distinctionbetween human beings and their brute forbears. The increase andrefinement of this ability to communicate is an index of the degree ofcivilization of a people. The more civilized a people, the more perfecttheir ability to communicate, especially under difficulties and inemergencies."
[Sidenote: _The delivery of his country into the clutches of amerciless, ultra-modern religion can be prevented only by Dr. Hagstrom'sdeciphering an extraordinary code._]
As usual, the observation burst harmlessly over the heads of most of thestudents in the class, who were preoccupied with more immediatethings--with the evening's movies and the week-end's dance. But upon twoyoung men in the class, it made a powerful impression. It crystallizedwithin them certain vague conceptions and brought them to a consciousfocus, enabling the young men to turn formless dreams into concreteacts. That is why I take the position that the above enthusiastic wordsof this sociology professor, whose very name I have forgotten, were theprime moving influence which many years later succeeded in savingOccidental civilization from a catastrophe which would have been worsethan death and destruction.
* * * * *
One of these young men was myself, and the other was my lifelong friendand chum, Carl Benda, who saved his country by solving a tremendouslydifficult scientific puzzle in a simple way, by sheer reasoning power,and without apparatus. The sociology professor struck a responsive chordin us: for since our earliest years we had wigwagged to each other asBoy Scouts, learned the finger alphabet of the deaf and dumb so that wemight maintain communication during school hours, strung a telegraphwire between our two homes, admired Poe's "Gold Bug" together anddevised boyish cipher codes in which to send each other postcards whenchance separated us. But we had always felt a little foolish about whatwe considered our childish hobbies, until the professor's words suddenlyroused us to the realization that we were a highly civilized pair ofyoungsters.
Not only did we then and there cease feeling guilty about our secretciphers and our dots and dashes, but the determination was born withinus to make of communication our life's work. It turned out that both ofus actually did devote our lives to the cause of communication; but thepassing years saw us engaged in widely and curiously divergent phases ofthe work. Thirty years later, I was Professor of the Psychology ofLanguage at Columbia University, and Benda was Maintenance Engineer ofthe Bell Telephone Company of New York City; and on his knowledge andskill depended the continuity and stability of that stupendously complextraffic, the telephone communication of Greater New York.
* * * * *
Since our ambitious cravings were satisfied in our everyday work, andsince now ordinarily available methods of communication sufficed ourneeds, we no longer felt impelled to signal across the house-tops withsemaphores nor to devise ciphers that would defy solution. But we stillkept up our intimate friendship and our intense interest in our belovedsubject. We were just as close chums at the age of fifty as we had beenat ten, and just as thrilled at new advances in communication: attelevision, at the international language, at the supposed signals fromMars.
That was the state of affairs between us up to a year ago. At about thattime Benda resigned his position with the New York Bell TelephoneCompany to accept a place as the Director of Communication in theScience Community. This, for many reasons, was a most amazing piece ofnews to myself and to anyone who knew Benda.
Of course, it was commonly known that Benda was being sought byUniversities and corporations: I know personally of several temptingoffers he had received. But the New York Bell is a wealthy corporationand had thus far managed to hold Benda, both by the munificence of itssalary and by the attractiveness of the work it offered him. That theScience Community would want Benda was easy to understand; but, that itcould outbid the New York Bell, was, to say the least, a surprise.
Furthermore, that a man like Benda would want to have anything at all todo with the Science Community seemed strange enough in itself. He hadthe most practical common sense--well-balanced habits of thinking andliving, supported by an intellect so clear and so keen that I knew ofnone to excel it. What the Science Community was, no one knew exactly;but that there was something abnormal, fanatical, about it, no onedoubted.
* * * * *
The Science Community, situated in Virginia, in the foothills of theBlue Ridge, had first been heard of many years ago, when it was alreadya going concern. At the time of which I now speak, the novelty had wornoff, and no one paid any more attention to it than they do to Zion Cityor the Dunkards. By this time, the Science Community was a city of amillion inhabitants, with a vast outlying area of farms and gardens. Itwas modern to the highest degree in construction and operation; therewas very little manual labor there; no poverty; every person had all thebenefits of modern developments in power, transportation, andcommunication, and of all other resources provided by scientificprogress.
So much, visitors and reporters were able to say.
The rumors that it was a vast socialistic organization, without privateproperty, with equal sharing of all privileges, were never confirmed. Itis a curious observation that it was possible, in this country of ours,for a city to exist about which we knew so little. However, it seemedevident from the vast number and elaboration of public buildings, theperfection of community utilities such as transportation, streets,lighting, and communication, from the absence of individual homes andthe housing of people in huge dormitories, that some different, lessindividualistic type of social organization than ours was involved. Itwas obvious that as an organization, the Science Community must also bewealthy. If any of its individual citizens were wealthy, no one knew it.
I knew Benda as well as I knew myself, and if I was sure of anything inmy life, it was that he was not the type of man to leave a fiftythousand dollar job and join a communist city on an equal footing withthe clerks in the stores. As it happens, I was also intimatelyacquainted with John Edgewater Smith, recently Power Commissioner of NewYork City and the most capable power engineer in North America, who,following Benda by two or three months, resigned his position, andaccepted what his letter termed the place of Director of Power in theScience Community. I was personally in a position to state that neitherof these men could be lightly persuaded into such a step, and thatneither of them would work for a small salary.
* * * * *
Benda's first letter to me stated that he was at the Science Communityon a visit. He had heard of the place, and while at Washington onbusiness had taken advantage of the opportunity to drive out and see it.Fascinated by the equipment he saw there, he had decided to stay a fewdays and study it. The next letter announced his acceptance of theposition. I would give a month's salary to get a look at those lettersnow; but I neglected to preserve them. I should like to see them becauseI am curious as to whether they exhibit the characteristics of thesubsequent letters, some of which I now have.
As I have stated, Benda and I had been on the most intimate terms forforty years. His letters had always been crisp and direct, andthoroughly familiar and confidential. I do not know just how manyletters I received from him from the Science Community before I notedthe difference, but I have one from the third month of his stay there(he wrote every two or three weeks), characterized by a verbosity thatsounded strange for him. He seemed to be writing merely to cover thesheet, trifles such as he had never previously considered worth writingletters about. Four pages of letter conveyed not a single idea. YetBenda was, if anything, a man of ideas.
There followed sev
eral months of letters like that: a lot of words,evasion of coming to the point about anything; just conventionalletters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter. Yet, itwas Benda writing them: gruff little expressions of his, clear ways oflooking at even the veriest trifles, little allusion to our common past:these things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor writtenunder compulsion from without. Something had changed Benda.
* * * * *
I pondered on it a good deal, and could think of no hypothesis toaccount for it. In the meanwhile, New York City lost a third technicalman to the Science Community. Donald Francisco, Commissioner of theWater Supply, a sanitary engineer of international standing, accepted aposition in the Science Community as Water Director. I did not knowwhether to laugh and compare it to the National Baseball League'strafficking in "big names," or to hunt for some sinister danger sign init. But, as a result of my ponderings, I decided to visit Benda at TheScience Community.
I wrote him to that effect, and almost decided to change my mind aboutthe visit because of the cold evasiveness of the reply I received fromhim. My first impulse on reading his indifferent, lackadaisical commenton my proposed visit was to feel offended, and determine to let himalone and never see him again. The average man would have done that, butmy long years of training in psychological interpretation told me that acharacter and a friendship built during forty years does not change insix months, and that there must be some other explanation for this. Iwrote him that I was coming. I found that the best way to reach theScience Community was to take a bus out from Washington. It involved adrive of about fifty miles northwest, through a picturesque section ofthe country. The latter part of the drive took me past settlements thatlooked as though they might be in about the same stage of progress asthey had been during the American Revolution. The city of my destinationwas back in the hills, and very much isolated. During the last ten mileswe met no traffic at all, and I was the only passenger left in the bus.Suddenly the vehicle stopped.
"Far as we go!" the driver shouted.
I looked about in consternation. All around were low, wild-lookinghills. The road went on ahead through a narrow pass.
"They'll pick you up in a little bit," the driver said as he turnedaround and drove off, leaving me standing there with my bag, very muchastonished at it all.
* * * * *
He was right. A small, neat-looking bus drove through the pass andstopped for me. As I got in, the driver mechanically turned around anddrove into the hills again.
"They took up my ticket on the other bus," I said to the driver. "Whatdo I owe you?"
"Nothing," he said curtly. "Fill that out." He handed me a card.
An impertinent thing, that card was. Besides asking for my name,address, nationality, vocation, and position, it requested that I statewhom I was visiting in the Science Community, the purpose of my visit,the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have aplace to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It lookedfor all the world as though they had something to conceal; CzaristRussia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying intotheir business. Sign here, the card said.
It annoyed me, but I filled it out, and, by the time I was through, thebus was out of the hills, traveling up the valley of a small river; I amnot familiar enough with northern Virginia to say which river it was.There was much machinery and a few people in the broad fields. In thedistance ahead was a mass of chimneys and the cupolas of iron-works, butno smoke.
There were power-line towers with high-tension insulators, and, farahead, the masses of huge elevators and big, square buildings. Soon Icame in sight of a veritable forest of huge windmills.
In a few moments, the huge buildings loomed up over me; the bus entereda street of the city abruptly from the country. One moment on a countryroad, the next moment among towering buildings. We sped along swiftlythrough a busy metropolis, bright, airy, efficient looking. The trafficwas dense but quiet, and I was confident that most of the vehicles wereelectric; for there was no noise nor gasoline odor. Nor was there anysmoke. Things looked airy, comfortable, efficient; but rathermonotonous, dull. There was a total lack of architectural interest. Thebuildings were just square blocks, like neat rows of neat boxes. But, itall moved smoothly, quietly, with wonderful efficiency.
* * * * *
My first thought was to look closely at the people who swarmed thestreets of this strange city. Their faces were solemn, and their clotheswere solemn. All seemed intently busy, going somewhere, or doingsomething; there was no standing about, no idle sauntering. And lookwhichever way I might, everywhere there was the same blue serge, on menand women alike, in all directions, as far as I could see.
The bus stopped before a neat, square building of rather smaller size,and the next thing I knew, Benda was running down the steps to meet me.He was his old gruff, enthusiastic self.
"Glad to see you, Hagstrom, old socks!" he shouted, and gripped my handwith two of his. "I've arranged for a room for you, and we'll have agood old visit, and I'll show you around this town."
I looked at him closely. He looked healthy and well cared-for, allexcept for a couple of new lines of worry on his face. Undoubtedly thatworn look meant some sort of trouble.
PART II
_The New Religion_
(This part is interpolated by the author into Dr. Hagstrom's narrative.)
Every great religion has as its psychological reason for existence themission of compensating for some crying, unsatisfied human need.Christianity spread and grew among people who were, at the time,persecuted subjects or slaves of Rome; and it flourished through theMiddle Ages at a time when life held for the individual chiefly pain,uncertainty, and bereavement. Christianity kept the common man consoledand mentally balanced by minimizing the importance of life on earth andoffering compensation afterwards and elsewhere.
A feeble nation of idle dreamers, torn by a chaos of intertribal feudswithin, menaced by powerful, conquest-lusting nations from without,Arabia was enabled by Islam, the religion of her prophet Mohammed, tounite all her sons into an intense loyalty to one cause, and to turn herdream-stuff into reality by carrying her national pride and honor beyondher boundaries and spreading it over half the known world.
The ancient Greeks, in despair over the frailties of human emotion andthe unbecomingness of worldly conduct, which their brilliant mindsenabled them to recognize clearly but which they found themselvespowerless to subdue, endowed the gods, whom they worshipped, with all oftheir own passions and weaknesses, and thus the foolish behavior of thegods consoled them for their own obvious shortcomings. So it goesthroughout all of the world's religions.
In the middle of the twentieth century there were in the civilizedworld, millions of people in whose lives Christianity had ceased to playany part. Yet, psychically--remember, "psyche" means "soul"--they werejust as sick and unbalanced, just as much in need of some compensationas were the subjects of the early Roman empire, or the Arabs in theMiddle Ages. They were forced to work at the strained and monotonouspace of machines; they were the slaves, body and soul, of machines; theylived with machines and lived like machines--they were expected to _be_machines. A mechanized mode of life set a relentless pace for them,while, just as in all the past ages, life and love, the breezes and theblue sky called to them; but they could not respond. They had to drivemachines so that machines could serve them. Minds were cramped andemotions were starved, but hands must go on guiding levers and keepingmachines in operation. Lives were reduced to such a mechanical routinethat men wondered how long human minds and human bodies could stand therestraint. There is a good deal in the writings of the times to showthat life was becoming almost unbearable for three-fourths of humanity.
* * * * *
It is only natural, therefore, that Rohan, the prophet of the newreligion, found followers more rapidly than he could organize t
hem.About ten years before the visit of Dr. Hagstrom to his friend Benda,Rohan and his new religion had been much in the newspapers. Rohan was aSlovak, apparently well educated in Europe. When he first attractedattention to himself, he was foreman in a steel plant at Birmingham,Alabama. He was popular as an orator, and drew unheard-of crowds to hislectures.
He preached of _Science_ as God, an all-pervading, inexorably systematicBeing, the true Center and Motive-Power of the Universe; a Being who sawmen and pitied them because they could not help committing inaccuracies.The Science God was helping man become more perfect. Even now, men weremuch more accurate and systematic than they had been a hundred yearsago; men's lives were ordered and rhythmic, like natural laws, not likethe chaotic emotions of beasts and savages.
Somehow, he soon dropped out of the attention of the great mass of thepublic. Of course, he did so intentionally, when his ideas began tocrystallize and his plans for his future organization began to form. Atfirst he had a sort of church in Birmingham, called The Church of theScientific God. There never was anything cheap nor blatant about him.When he moved his church from Birmingham to the Lovett Branch Valley innorthern Virginia, he was hardly noticed. But with him went seventhousand people, to form the nucleus of the Science Community.
* * * * *
Since then, some feature writer for a metropolitan Sunday paper hasoccasionally written up the Science Community, both from its physicaland its human aspects. From these reports, the outstanding bit ofevidence is that Rohan believes intensely in his own religion, and thathis followers are all loyal worshippers of the Science God. Theyconceive the earth to be a workshop in which men serve Science, theirGod, serving a sort of apprenticeship during which He perfects them tothe state of ideal machines. To be a perfect machine, always accurate,with no distracting emotions, no getting off the track--that was theideal which the Great God _Science_ required of his worshippers. To be aperfect machine, or a perfect cog in a machine, to get rid of allindividuality, all disturbing sentiment, that was their idea of supremehappiness. Despite the obvious narrowness it involved, there wassomething sublime in the conception of this religion. It certainly hadnothing in common with the "Christian Science" that was in vogue duringthe early years of the twentieth Century; it towered with a noblegrandeur above that feeble little sham.
The Science Community was organized like a machine: and all men playedtheir parts, in government, in labor, in administration, in production,like perfect cogs and accurate wheels, and the machine functionedperfectly. The devotees were described as fanatical, but happy. Theycertainly were well trained and efficient. The Science Community grew.In ten years it had a million people, and was a worldwide wonder ofcivic planning and organization; it contained so many astonishingdevelopments in mechanical service to human welfare and comfort that itwas considered as a sort of model of the future city. The common manthere was provided with science-produced luxuries, in his daily life,that were in the rest of the world the privilege of the wealthy few--buthe used his increased energy and leisure in serving the more devotedly,his God, Science, who had made machines. There was a great temple in thecity, the shape of a huge dynamo-generator, whose interior was workedout in a scheme of mechanical devices, and with music, lights, and odorsto help in the worship.
* * * * *
What the world knew the least about was that this religion was becomingmilitant. Its followers spoke of the heathen without, and were horrifiedat the prevalence of the sin of individualism. They were inspired withthe mission that the message of God--scientific perfection--must becarried to the whole world. But, knowing that vested interests,governments, invested capital, and established religions would opposethem and render any real progress impossible, they waited. They studiedthe question, looking for some opportunity to spread the gospel of theirbeliefs, prepared to do so by force, finding their justification intheir belief that millions of sufferers needed the comforts that theirreligion had given them. Meanwhile their numbers grew.
Rohan was Chief Engineer, which position was equal in honor and dignityto that of Prophet or High Priest. He was a busy, hard-worked man, blackhaired and gaunt, small of stature and fiery eyed; he looked ratherlike an overworked department-store manager rather than like a prophet.He was finding his hands more full every day, both because of theextraordinary fertility of his own plans and ideas, and because theScience Community was growing so rapidly. Among this heterogenous massof proselyte strangers that poured into the city and was efficientlyabsorbed into the machine, it was yet difficult to find executives,leaders, men to put in charge of big things. And he needed constantlymore and more of such men.
* * * * *
That was why Rohan went to Benda, and subsequently to others like Benda.Rohan had a deep knowledge of human nature. He did not approach Bendawith the offer of a magnanimous salary, but came into Benda's officeasking for a consultation on some of the puzzling communication problemsof the Science Community. Benda became interested, and on his owninitiative offered to visit the Science Community, saying that he had tobe in Washington anyway in a few days. When he saw what the conditionswere in the Science Community, he became fascinated by its advantagesover New York; a new system to plan from the ground up; no obsoleteinstallation to wrestle with; an absolutely free hand for the engineerin charge; no politics to play; no concessions to antiquated cityconstruction, nor to feeble-minded city administration--just a dream ofan opportunity. He almost asked for the job himself, but Rohan wastactful enough to offer it, and the salary, though princely, was hardlygiven a thought.
For many weeks Benda was absorbed in his job, to the exclusion of allelse. He sent his money to his New York bank and had his family move inand live with him. He was happy in his communication problems.
"Give me a problem in communication and you make me happy," he wrote toHagstrom in one of his early letters.
He had completed a certain division of his work on the ScienceCommunity's communication system, and it occurred to him that a fewdays' relaxation would do him good. A run up to New York would be justthe thing.
To his amazement, he was not permitted to board the outbound bus.
"You'll need orders from the Chief Engineer's office," the driver said.
* * * * *
Benda went to Rohan.
"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded with his characteristic directness.
"An embarassing situation," the suave Rohan admitted, very calmly and athis ease. "You see, I'm nothing like a dictator here. I have noarbitrary power. Everything runs by system, and you're a sort ofexception. No one knows exactly how to classify you. Neither do I. But,I can't break a rule. That is sin."
"What rule? I want to go to New York."
"Only those of the Faith who have reached the third degree can come andgo. No one can get that in less than three years."
"Then you got me in here by fraud?" Benda asked bluntly.
Rohan side-stepped gracefully.
"You know our innermost secrets now," he explained. "Do you supposethere is any hope of your embracing the Faith?"
Benda whirled on his heel and walked out.
"I'll think about it!" he said, his voice snapping with sarcasm.
Benda went back to his work in order to get his mind off the matter. Hewas a well-balanced man if he was anything; and he knew that nothingcould be accomplished by rash words or incautious moves against Rohanand his organization. And on that day he met John Edgewater Smith.
"You here?" Benda gasped. He lost his equilibrium for a moment inconsternation at the sight of his fellow-engineer.
Smith was too elated to notice Benda's mood.
"I've been here a week. This is certainly an ideal opportunity in myline of work. Even in Heaven I never expected to find such a chance."
By this time Benda had regained control of himself. He decided to saynothing to Smith for the time being.
*
* * * *
They did not meet again for several weeks. In the meantime Bendadiscovered that his mail was being censored. At first he did not knowthat his letters, always typewritten, were copied and objectionablematter omitted, and his signature reproduced by the photo-engravingprocess, separately each time. But before long, several letters cameback to him rubber-stamped: "Not passable. Please revise." It took Bendatwo days to cool down and rewrite the first letter. But outwardly no onewould have ever known that there was anything amiss with him.
However, he took to leaving his work for an hour or two a day andwalking in the park, to think out the matter. He didn't like it. Thiswas about the time that it began to be a real issue as to who was thebigger man of the two, Rohan or Benda. But no signs of the issueappeared externally for many months.
John Edgewater Smith realized sooner than Benda that he couldn't getout, because, not sticking to work so closely, he had made the attemptsooner. He looked very much worried when Benda next saw him.
"What's this? Do you know about it?" he shouted as soon as he had comewithin hearing distance of Benda.
"What's the difference?" Benda replied casually. "Aren't you satisfied?"
Smith's face went blank.
Benda came close to him, linked arms and led him to a broad vacant lawnin the park.
"Listen!" he said softly in Smith's ear. "Don't you suppose thesepeople who lock us in and censor our mail aren't smart enough to spy onwhat we say to each other?"
"Our only hope," Benda continued, "is to learn all we can of what isgoing on here. Keep your eyes and ears open and meet me here in a week.And now come on; we've been whispering here long enough."
* * * * *
Oddly enough, the first clue to the puzzle they were trying to solve wassupplied by Francisco, New York's former Water Commissioner. Why werethey being kept prisoners in the city? There must be more reason forholding them there than the fear that information would be carried out,for none of the three engineers knew anything about the ScienceCommunity that could be of any possible consequence to outsiders. Theyhad all stuck rigidly to their own jobs.
They met Francisco, very blue and dejected, walking in the park a coupleof months later. They had been having weekly meetings, feeling that morefrequent rendezvous might excite suspicion. Francisco was overjoyed tosee them.
"Been trying to figure out why they want us," he said. "There issomething deeper than the excuse they have made; that rot about aperfect system and no breaking of rules may be true, but it has nothingto do with us. Now, here are three of us, widely admitted as having goodheads on us. We've got to solve this."
"The first fact to work on," he continued, "is that there is no real jobfor me here. This city has no water problem that cannot be worked out byan engineer's office clerk. Why are they holding me here, paying me aprofligate salary, for a job that is a joke for a grown-up man? There'ssomething behind it that is not apparent on the surface."
The weekly meetings of the three engineers became an establishedinstitution. Mindful that their conversation was doubtless the object ofattention on the part of the ruling powers of the city through spiesand concealed microphones, they were careful to discuss trivial mattersmost of the time, and mentioned their problem only when alone in theopen spaces of the park.
* * * * *
After weeks of effort had produced no results, they arrived at theconclusion that they would have to do some spying themselves. The greattemple, shaped like a dynamo-generator attracted their attention as thefirst possibility for obtaining information. Benda, during his work withtelephone and television installation, found that the office of somesort of ruling council or board of directors were located there. Laterhe found that it was called the Science Staff. He managed to slip inseveral concealed microphone detectors and wire them to a privatereceiver on his desk, doing all the work with his own hands under thepretense of hunting for a cleverly contrived short-circuit that hissubordinates had failed to find.
"They open their meeting," he said, reporting several days of listeningto his comrades, "with a lot of religious stuff. They really believethey are chosen by God to perfect the earth. Their fanaticism has theMohammedans beat forty ways. As I get it from listening in, this city isjust a preliminary base from which to carry, forcibly, the gospel ofScientific Efficiency to the whole world. They have been divinelyappointed to organize the earth.
"The first thing on the program is the seizure of New York City. And, itwon't be long; I've heard the details of a cut-and-dried plan. When theyhave New York, the rest of America can be easily captured, for citiesaren't as independent of each other as they used to be. Getting the restof the world into their hands will then be merely a matter of routine;just a little time, and it will be done. Mohammed's wars weren't in itwith this!"
Francisco and Smith stared at him aghast. These dull-faced,blue-sergeclad people did not look capable of it; unless possibly onenoted the fiery glint in their eyes. A worldwide Crusade on a scientificbasis! The idea left them weak and trembling.
"Got to learn more details before we can do anything," Benda said. "Comeon; we've been whispering here long enough; they'll get suspicious."Benda's brain was now definitely pitted against this marvelousorganisation.
* * * * *
"I've got it!" Benda reported at a later meeting. "I pieced it togetherfrom a few hours listening. Devilish scheme!
"Can you imagine what would happen in New York in case of a break-downin water-supply, electric power, and communication? In an hour therewould be a panic; in a day the city would be a hideous shambles ofsuffering, starvation, disease, and trampling maniacs. Dante's Infernowould be a lovely little pleasure-resort in comparison.
"Also, have you ever stopped to think how few people there are in theworld who understand the handling of these vital elements of our moderncivilized organization sufficiently to keep them in operation? There youhave the scheme. Because they do not want to destroy the city, butmerely to threaten it, they are holding the three of us. A littleskilful management will eliminate all other possible men who couldoperate the city's machinery, except ourselves. We three will be placedin charge. A threat, perhaps a demonstration in some limited section ofwhat horrors are possible. The city is at their mercy, and promptlysurrenders.
"An alternative plan was discussed: just a little quiet violence couldeliminate those who are now in charge of the city's works, and the panicand horrors would commence. But, within an hour of the city'scapitulation, the three of us could have things running smoothly again.And there would be no New York; in its place would be Science CommunityNumber Two. From it they could step on to the next city."
The other two stared at him. There was only one comment.
"They seem to be sure that they could depend on us," Smith said.
"They may be correct," Benda replied. "Would you stand by and see peopleperish if a turn of your hand could save them? You would for the moment,forget the issue between the old order and the new religion."
They separated, horrified by the ghastly simplicity of the plan.
* * * * *
Just following this, Benda received the telegram announcing theprospective visit of his lifelong friend, Dr. Hagstrom. He took it atonce to Rohan.
"Will my friend be permitted to depart again, if he once gets in here?"he demanded with his customary directness.
"It depends on you," Rohan replied blandly. "We want your friend to seeour Community, and to go away and carry with him the nicest possiblereports and descriptions of it to the world. I wonder, do I make myselfclear?"
"That means I've got to feed him taffy while he's here?" Benda askedgruffly.
"You choose to put it indelicately. He is to see and hear only suchthings about the Science Community as will please the world and impressit favorably. I am sure you will understand that under no othercircumstances will he be permitted
to leave here."
Benda turned around abruptly and walked out without a word.
"Just a moment," Rohan called after him. "I am sure you appreciate thefact that every precaution will be taken to hear the least word that yousay to him during his stay here? You are watched only perfunctorily now.While he is here you will be kept track of carefully, and there will bethree methods of checking everything you do or say. I am sure you do notunderestimate our caution in this matter."
Benda spent the days intervening between then and the arrival of hisfriend Hagstrom, closed up in his office, in intense study. He figuredthings on pieces of paper, committed them to memory, and scrupulouslyburned the paper. Then he wandered about the park and plucked at leavesand twigs.
PART III
_The Cipher Message_
(Related by Peter Hagstrom, Ph.D.)
Benda conducted me personally to a room very much like an ordinary hotelroom. He was glad to see me. I could tell that from his grip of welcome,from his pleased face, from the warmth in his voice, from the eager wayin which he hovered around me. I sat down on a bed and he on a chair.
"Now tell me all about it," I said.
The room was very still, and in its privacy, following Benda'sdemonstrative welcome, I expected some confidential revelations.Therefore I was astonished.
"There isn't much to tell," he said gaily. "My work is congenial,fascinating, and there's enough of it to keep me out of mischief. Thepay is good, and the life pleasant and easy."
I didn't know what to say for a moment. I had come there with my mindmade up that there was something suspicious afoot. But he seemedthoroughly happy and satisfied.
"I'll admit that I treated you a little shabbily in this matter ofletters," he continued. "I suppose it is because I've had a lot of newand interesting problems on my mind, and it's been hard to get my minddown to writing letters. But I've got a good start on my job, and I'llpromise to reform."
I was at a loss to pursue that subject any further.
"Have you seen Smith and Francisco?" I asked.
He nodded.
"How do they like it?"
"Both are enthusiastic about the wonderful opportunities in theirrespective fields. It's a fact: no engineer has ever before had suchresources to work with, on such a vast scale, and with such a free hand.We're laying the framework for a city of ten millions, all thoroughlysystematized and efficient. There is no city in the world like it; it'san engineer's dream of Utopia."
* * * * *
I was almost convinced. There was only the tiniest of lurking suspicionsthat all was not well, but it was not powerful enough to stimulate me tosay anything. But I did determine to keep my eyes open.
I might as well admit in advance that from that moment to the time whenI left the Science Community four days later, I saw nothing to confirmmy suspicions. I met Smith and Francisco at dinner and the four of usoccupied a table to ourselves in a vast dining hall, and no one paid forthe meal nor for subsequent ones. They also seemed content, and talkedenthusiastically of their work.
I was shown over the city, through its neat, efficient streets, throughits comfortable dormitories each housing hundreds of families asluxuriously as any modern hotel, through its marvelous factories whereproduction had passed the stage of labor and had assumed the conditionof a devoted act of worship. These factory workers were not toiling:they were worshipping their God, of Whom each machine was a part.Touching their machine was touching their God. This machinery, whileinvolving no new principles, was developed and coordinated to a degreethat exceeded anything I had ever seen anywhere else.
I saw the famous Science Temple in the shape of a hugedynamo-generator, with its interior decorations, paintings, carvings,frescoes, and pillars, all worked out on the motive of machinery; withits constant streams of worshippers in blue serge, performing theirconventional rites and saying their prayer formulas at altars in theforms of lathes, microscopes, motors, and electron-tubes.
"You haven't become a Science Communist yourself?" I bantered Benda.
There was a metallic ring in the laugh he gave.
"They'd like to have me!" was all he said.
* * * * *
I was rather surprised at the emptiness of the large and well-kept parkto which Benda took me. It was beautifully landscaped, but only a fewscattering people were there, lost in its vast reaches.
"These people seem to have no need of recreation," Benda said. "They donot come here much. But I confess that I need air and relaxation, evenif only for short snatches. I've been too busy to get away for long at atime, but this park has helped me keep my balance--I'm here every dayfor at least a few minutes."
"Beautiful place," I remarked. "A lot of strange trees and plants Inever saw before--"
"Oh, mostly tropical forms, common enough in their own habitats. Theyhave steam pipes under the ground to grow them. I've been trying tolearn something about them. Fancy _me_ studying natural history! I'venever cared for it, but here, where there is no such things asrecreation, I have become intensely interested in it as a hobby. I findit very much of a rest to study these plants and bugs."
"Why don't you run up to New York for a few days?"
"Oh, the time will come for that. In the meanwhile, I've got an idea allof a sudden. Speaking of New York, will you do me a little service? Eventhough you might think it silly?"
"I'll do anything I can," I began, eager to be of help to him.
"It has been somewhat of a torture to me," Benda continued, "to find somany of these forms which I am unable to identify. I like to bescientific, even in my play, and reference books on plants and insectsare scarce here. Now, if you would carry back a few specimens for me,and ask some of the botany and zoology people to send me their names--"
"Fine!" I exclaimed. "I've got a good-sized pocket notebook I can carrythem in."
"Well then, please put them in the order in which I hand them to you,and send me the names by number. I am pretty thoroughly familiar withthem, and if you will keep them in order, there is no need for me tokeep a list. The first is a blade of this queer grass."
I filed the grass blade between the first two pages of my book.
"The next is this unusual-looking pinnate leaf." He tore off a dryleaflet and handed me a stem with three leaflets irregularly disposed ofit.
"Now leave a blank page in your book. That will help me remember theorder in which they come."
* * * * *
Next came a flat insect, which, strangely enough, had two legs missingon one side. However, Benda was moving so fast that I had to put it awaywithout comment. He kept darting about and handing me twigs of leaves,little sticks, pieces of bark, insects, not seeming to care much whetherthey were complete or not; grass-blades, several dagger-shapedlocust-thorns, cross-sections of curious fruits, moving so rapidly thatin a few moments my notebook bulged widely, and I had to warn him thatits hundred leaves were almost filled.
"Well, that ought to be enough," he said with a sigh after his livelyexertion. "You don't know how I'll appreciate your indulging my foolishlittle whim."
"Say!" I exclaimed. "Ask something of me. This it nothing. I'll take itright over to the Botany Department, and in a few days you ought to havea list of names fit for a Bolshevik."
"One important caution," he said. "If you disturb their order in thebook, or even the position on the page, the names you send me will meannothing to me. Not that it will be any great loss," he addedwhimsically. "I suppose I've become a sort of fan on this, like thebusiness men who claim that their office work interferes with theirgolf."
We walked leisurely back toward the big dormitory. It was while we werecrossing a street that Benda stumbled, and, to dodge a passing truck,had to catch my arm, and fell against me. I heard his soft voice whisperin my ear:
"Get out of this town as soon as you can!"
I looked at him in startled amazement, but he was walking along
, shakinghimself from his stumble, and looking up and down the street for passingtrucks.
"As I was saying," he said in a matter-of-fact voice, "we expect toreach the one-and-one-quarter million mark this month. I never saw aplace grow so fast."
* * * * *
I felt a great leap of sudden understanding. For a moment my musclestightened, but I took my cue.
"Remarkable place," I said calmly; "one reads a lot of half-truths aboutit. Too bad I can't stay any longer."
"Sorry you have to leave," he said, in exactly the right tone of voice."But you can come again."
How thankful I was for the forty years of playing and working togetherthat had accustomed us to that sort of team-work! Unconsciously weresponded to one another's cues. Once our ability to "play together" hadsaved my life. It was when we were in college and were out on across-country hike together; Benda suddenly caught my hand and swung itupward. I recognized the gesture; we were cheerleaders and workedtogether at football games, and we had one stunt in which we swung ourhands over our heads, jumped about three feet, and let out a whoop. Thiswas the "stunt" that he started out there in the country, where we wereby ourselves. Automatically, without thinking, I swung my arms andleaped with him and yelled. Only later did I notice the rattlesnake overwhich I had jumped. I had not seen that I was about to walk right intoit, and he had noticed it too late to explain. A flash of geniussuggested the cheering stunt to him.
"_Communication_ is a science!" he had said, and that was all thecomment there was on the incident.
So now, I followed my cue, without knowing why, nor what it was allabout, but confident that I should soon find out. By noon I was on thebus, on my way through the pass, to meet the vehicle from Washington. Asthe bus swung along, a number of things kept jumbling through my mind:Benda's effusive glee at seeing me, and his sudden turning and bundlingme off in a nervous hurry without a word of explanation; his lined andworried face and yet his insistence on the joys of his work in TheScience Community; his obvious desire to be hospitable and play the goodhost, and yet his evasiveness and unwillingness to chat intimately anddiscuss important thing as he used to. Finally, that notebook full ofodd specimens bulging in my pocket. And the memory of his words as heshook hands with me when I was stepping into the bus:
"Long live the science of communication!" he had said. Otherwise, he wasrather glum and silent.
* * * * *
I took out the book of specimens and looked at it. His caution not todisturb the order and position of things rang in my ears. The Science ofCommunication! Two and two were beginning to make four in my mind. Allthe way on the train from Washington to New York I could hardly, keepmy hands off the book. I had definitely abandoned the idea of hunting upbotanists and zoologists at Columbia. Benda was not interested in thenames of these things. That book meant something else. Some message. TheScience of Communication!
That suddenly explained all the contradictions in his behavior. He wasbeing closely watched. Any attempt to tell me the things he wanted tosay would be promptly recognized. He had succeeded brilliantly ingetting a message to me. Now, my part was to read it! I felt a suddensinking within me. That book full of leaves, bugs, and sticks? How couldI make anything out of it?
"There's the Secret Service," I thought. "They are skilled in readinghidden messages. It must be an important one, worthy of the efforts ofthe Secret Service, or he would not have been at such pains to get it tome--
"But no. The Secret Service is skilled at reading hidden messages, butnot as skilled as I am in reading my friend's mind. Knowing Benda, hisclear intellect, his logical methods, will be of more service in solvingthis than all the experts of the Secret Service."
I barely stopped to eat dinner when I reached home. I hurried to thelaboratory building, and laid out the specimens on white sheets ofpaper, meticulously preserving order, position, and spacing. To be onthe safe side I had them photographed, asking the photographer to varythe scale of his pictures so that all of the final figures would beapproximately the same size. Plate I. shows what I had.
* * * * *
I was all a-tremble when the mounted photographs were handed to me. Thefirst thing I did was to number the specimens, giving each blank spacealso its consecutive number. Certainly no one could imagine a moremeaningless jumble of twigs, leaves, berries, and bugs. How could Iread any message out of that?
Yet I had no doubt that the message concerned something of far moreimportance than Benda's own safety. He had moved in this matter withastonishing skill and breathless caution; yet I knew him to be recklessto the extreme where only his own skill was concerned. I couldn't evenimagine his going to this elaborate risk merely on account of Smith andFrancisco. Something bigger must be involved.
I stared at the rows of specimens.
"Communication is a science!" Benda had said, and it came back to me asI studied the bent worms and the beetles with two legs missing. I wasconfident that the solution would be simple. Once the key idea occurredto me I knew I should find the whole thing astonishingly direct andsystematic. For a moment I tried to attach some sort of heiroglyphicsignificance to the specimen forms; in the writing of the AmericanIndians, a wavy line meant water, an inverted V meant a wigwam. But, Idiscarded that idea in a moment. Benda's mind did not work along thepaths of symbolism. It would have to be something mathematical, rigidlylogical, leaving no room for guess-work.
No sooner had the key-idea occurred to me than the basic conceptionunderlying all these rows of twigs and bugs suddenly flashed into clearmeaning before me. The simplicity of it took my breath away.
"I knew it!" I said aloud, though I was alone. "Very simple."
I was prepared for the fact that each one of the specimens represented aletter of the alphabet. If nothing else, their number indicated that.Now I could see, so clearly that the photographs shouted at me, thateach specimen consisted of an upright stem, and from this middle stemprojected side-arms to the right and to the left, and in variousvertical locations on each side.
The middle upright stem contained these side-arms in various numbersand combinations. In five minutes I had a copy of the message,translated into its fundamental characters, as shown on Plate II.
Plate I]
The first grass-blade was the simple, upright stem; the second, threeleaflets on their stem, represented the upright portion with two arms tothe left at the top and middle, and one arm to the right at the top; andso on.
That brought the message down to the simple and straightforward matterof a substitution cipher. I was confident that Benda had no object inintroducing any complications that could possibly be avoided, as hissole purpose was to get to me the most readable message without gettingcaught at it. I recollected now how cautious he had been to hand me nopaper, and how openly and obviously he had dropped each specimen into mybook; because he knew someone was watching him and expecting him to slipin a message. He had, as I could see now in the retrospect, beenconspicuously careful that nothing suspicious should pass from his handsto mine.
Plate II]
Substitution ciphers are easy to solve, especially for those having someexperience. The method can be found in Edgar Allen Poe's "Gold Bug" andin a host of its imitators. A Secret Service cipher man could have readit in an hour. But I knew my friend's mind well enough to find ashort-cut. I knew just how he would go about devising such a cipher, infact, how ninety-nine persons out of a hundred with a scientificeducation would do it.
If we begin adding horizontal arms to the middle stem, from top tobottom and from left to right, the possible characters can be worked outby the system shown on Plate III.
Plate III]
It is most logical to suppose that Benda would begin with the first signand substitute the letters of the alphabet in order. That would give usthe cipher code shown on Plate IV.
It was all very quick work, just as I had anticipated, once the key-ideahad occurred to
me. The ease and speed of my method far exceeded thatof Poe's method, but, of course, was applicable only to this particularcase. Substituting letters for signs out of my diagram, I got thefollowing message:
AM PRISONER R PLANS CAPTURE OF N Y BY SEIZING POWER WATER AND PHONES THEN WORLD CONQUEST S O S
Plate IV]
PART IV
_L'Envoi_
(By Peter Hagstrom, M.D.)
My solution of the message practically ends the story. Events followedeach other from then on like bullets from a machine-gun. A wild drive ina taxicab brought me to the door of Mayor Anderson at ten o'clock thatnight. I told him the story and showed him my photographs.
Following that I spent many hours telling my story to and consultingwith officers in the War Department. Next afternoon, photographic mapsof the Science Community and its environs, brought by airplanes duringthe forenoon, were spread on desks before us. A colonel of marines and acolonel of aviation sketched plans in notebooks. After dark I sat in atransport plane with muffled exhaust and propellers, slipping throughthe air as silently as a hawk. About us were a dozen bombing planes, andabout fifty transports, carrying a battalion of marines.
I am not an adventure-loving man. Though a cordon of husky marines aboutme was a protection against any possible danger, yet, stealing alongthrough that wild valley in the Virginia mountains toward the darkmasses of that fanatic city, the silent progress of the long, dark linethrough the night, their mysterious disappearance, one by one, as weneared the city, the creepy, hair-raising journey through the darkstreets--I shall never forget for the rest of my life the sinkingfeeling in my abdomen and the throbbing in my head. But I wanted to bethere, for Benda was my lifelong friend.
I guided them to Rohan's rooms, and saw a dozen dark forms slip in, oneby one. Then we went on to the dormitory where Benda lived. Bendaanswered our hammering at his door in his pajamas. He took in theCaptain's automatic, and the bayonets behind me, at a glance.
"Good boy, Hagstrom!" he said. "I knew you'd do it. There wasn't muchtime left. I got my instructions about handling the New York telephonesystem to-day."
As we came out into the street. I saw Rohan handcuffed to two bigmarines, and rows of bayonets gleaming in the darkness down the streets.Every few moments a bright flare shot out from the planes in the sky,until a squad located the power-house and turned on all the lights theycould find.