IT WAS to be a usual busy-busy day in the Stronghold, I thought, as I seated myself at the switch panel and glanced at the first part of my day-circle graphed and racing on the wall. I had sent some of the “boys” down to Lower Quarters to hack away at Special Worries, others were due for “replacements” and must be scheduled to Operations for the sawing out of the flesh and the fusing in of the “replacement” new-metal alloy, and still others, who had completed their “replacement” course and had hacked away at Special Worries for enough time to be thinking clean, must pack little Go-Now bags for departure into Middle Moderan.
Out of no sense of duty, and for the amusement of it all—in case you’re wondering—I’m using my Stronghold now as a training and “replacement” depot for lucky refugees from the Old Life in Far Wide. When they flee the Moral Know and blast in all flesh-blood-eagerness for their Joy and the forever-life of Automatics I set up their program straight away; standing no nonsense I let them know right off that they will be “replaced” with new-metal alloy right down to a minimum of flesh-strip holding them in shape. (The whole idea of our behavior and endurance in Moderan, it seems to me, is workable only through our great “replacement” program. I can think of no other way.) Should they show a conscience trend or come complete with moral-sense mental block trailing them like a black anchor dragging sand from the Old Life, I arrange for a Special Worries and a Slogans Course to set them thinking clean. In other words, I change these flesh-humpy, moral-quibbler slobs from Far Wide into lean clean citizens who can pack a Go-Now bag and slip into Middle Moderan to be part of the Program.
Mid-morning I lounged at the panel, very relaxed, and watched my day-circle still racing its schedule on the wall. I pulled a bit of air into my flexy-flex new-metal lungs and heaved a little gasp of utter satisfaction. Hard work, I thought, this changing slobs into lean clean citizens for the Program, but worth it. What a Joy to be in Moderan away from the mental clutter of the Moral Know and the heavy sand-drag anchor of conscience. And what an added Joy to be able to contribute to the Program and send my lean disciples into the middle of Joy Land, knowing that they, conscience-freed and moral-cleared, can blast a Wall down or hammer a neighbor’s head flat with the best of them.
But it must not be all work for the master. No! He must have his Joy too each day or he cannot stay properly moral-cleared for his conscience cutting and the block blasting. When the thin wedge of my day-circle colored up Rllax-Time Special-Joys Period, I swiftly ran a mental thumb through my range of choices. Among other things, I could match-fight the new-metal kitten and the diamond-tooth tiger cub again for my Rllax-Time amusement. What a contest that usually made! I could destroy a piece of a new neighbor’s Wall, perhaps, and desk fight him till all the “limited” destruction buttons of my Stronghold were thumbed to ON and all the air was filled with ugly shrieking havoc and the walking missiles were racing for his moat. What Joy! Or I might take the Statue Woman out from under the bed—the blonde and blue-eyed Miss Statue Woman out from under the bed!!!
Just as I had about settled on the latter as the top choice for my Joys, and the pale green blood in my flesh-strips was just starting to thicken and sing, as it always does when I think closely of the curves and hinges of the blue-eyed blonde Miss Statue Woman, who is my new-metal mistress, I, with the instinctive caution of the successful long-term refugee from destruction, turned to my viewer. Because once I am with my blue-stared lady and have thumbed her life switch to ON there is no turning back for me. Not even to save my Stronghold am I sure I could stop once my pale green blood has thickened and she is looking at me—blue eyes, dear blue metal eyes!
But blast; oh, ultimate Big Wreck irritating Joy-killer blast! A last sweep of the viewer before I could turn to Joys caught an Approach. The plains of Far Wide were dormant and safe, oh true; all White Witch Valley lay quietly sleeping with no movement at all breaking the patterns of sparkles emptying constantly skyward from that iron and plastic place. But the corridors of Folly Man! From there was bloomed a shape! It came on as I put the Miss Statue Woman completely out of my mind and settled to the grim business of survival. I thumbed all my weapons to Alert-Ready, put my weapons men on Stand-By. And I stood there trembling; in the middle of my eleven walls I died the little fright-deaths, as I always do when something is coming in to get me.
It was a vague shape. It walked upon the screen; it danced upon the screen. It struggled at times, it seemed, to be a shape at all. I worked with the tuner; I tried to sharpen him in; I tried to get dimensions. He came on, dancing, disappearing, appearing, but ever nearing in down the tight corridor between White Witch Valley and the blue-mist plains of Far Wide. My flesh-strips were raining cold sweat, my Warner was on and off, my weapons men were vibrating where they stood in doubt and I was clanking and tinkling against everything that I touched. My blood was so thin and watery now with apprehension, and I was so bent on saving myself at all costs, that I’m sure if the Miss Blue-Eyes could somehow have risen out from under the bed and turned her life switch full to ON and kissed me I would have remained as cold as old graves. But my Stronghold stood, all eleven Walls of it, high and adamant-thick, like a great iron-stone arsenal in the midst of threats wavering in.
I lost him completely. I swept the perimeter; I tuned again and again through the full range; I sent my Ultimate Contingency antennas high-skyward on their balloons. I tried everything; he was not there. And finally I did all that I knew to do. My “boys” were out there, some of them, with their little Go-Now bags, headed for their place in Middle Moderan. I knew that. But finally I did all that I knew to do. And when I am my real true self, normal and thinking clean, I would do this thing to forestall danger to me even if my blonde blue-eyed Miss Statue Darling were out there, all her charms flash-dazzling, her life switch full to ON, in front of my first blasting gun. With me, it’s survival first, then Joys.
I rushed to that little room of thick-wall steel and lead, and there, amidst the rubber pads and the walls lined with cork-and-velvet puffs I handed the big orange switch to ON. It was, of course, the end for everything—my “boys” out there, birds, vegetation, stray mutants wandering the homeless plastic, spring-metal “wild” flowers bloomed by Season Control to soften the barren truce land—everything within a hundred miles and more swept clean, destroyed, unless behind the defenses of a Stronghold or in White Witch Valley. When I arose from the cork-and-velvet couch, where I had flung myself face-downward with steel fingers in my ears to lessen the shock from the weapons, and came out into the living space, I felt a great exhilaration. I always feel toned up after a Maximum Fire. It seems to me the ultimate great accomplishment of man, this release of great forces he has learned to control for his protection, to safekeep himself from his enemies, all other men. What else has man—?
And then I saw him! Standing over by the control bank of one of my Little Wrecks, a light missile of limited range, but almost ultimate destruction (I use it in war games with my toughest near neighbors), he was not looking at any of the dials. He was looking at—well—have you ever gone down a long tight corridor of mirrors in the Old Life after a long time of Special Bad? If you have, you will know. He was looking at me! Strange-eye-balled, evaluating, staring, he seemed to accuse. I was looking back, straight into his look, and suddenly knew, like knowing the signs of a flesh-strip dying, that nothing would do any good. I thought of Big Din, when I press buttons and a hell of noise breaks out all over my Stronghold; I thought of Sweet Sing, when I flip switches and for awhile it seems that one time there must really have been the angels and this is their sweet captured speech; I thought of Last-Go, when I’ll say the secret word to the concealed holes in the ceiling, the floor and the sides of the inmost room of my Stronghold and that will signal the demolition box in the mountain of the Last Hope Stand and my Stronghold will BLOW!!! I rejected all these ideas.
“Hello!?”
He didn’t say anything. He came on closer, still looking, staring.
“You’re that little wavering thing,” I shrieked, for suddenly I knew. “You’re out of the corridor of Folly Man!”
I thought he smiled a little. He didn’t say anything, I was sure of that. But he moved, came nearer, until he almost touched me.
“How did you get in through all that firing? Through the Walls? My guards and devices?” By now I was not only yelling, scared to death, I was curious as I could be. I thought I heard a tinkly bubbling laugh. Or perhaps it was but the clanking of my metal in great fear. “WHO ARE YOU?” I cried.
When he gave only a smile for reply and stared at me with his hard no-quarter eyes, I suddenly trembled so with my flesh-strips that I lost control of my brain and fell down. I saw he was sitting atop my chest bouncing up and down to the piston blasts of my heart when I regained some control of my mind and looked out. And I seemed to hear several voices chirping like tiny new-metal beetles sound from far, and then nearer, “I’m your conscience, Your Conscience, YOUR CONSCIENCE. You left me, thought you left me in Folly Man, ON THE ROAD TO MODERAN.” Voices like that scared me so much that I leaped to my feet and sent the vague blurred shape tumbling toward a Wall. He landed right-side-up and stared at me straight-on. He kept staring. . . .
“Listen,” I said, because my brain ached around its flesh-strips so much and at the roots of the joins that I knew I couldn’t go on like this, “I’ll make a deal. You say you’re my conscience. O.K. I don’t more than half believe you here in Moderan at this late year. But O.K. And I KNOW I can kill anything I don’t like. I KNOW—” He stood there grinning. “O.K.” I hastened to say, “I’ll let you stay if you’ll promise to let me tie you up and put you under the bed. I’ll use you then, whenever I need to. Like I do the Miss Statue Woman. And I won’t need you,” I muttered under my breath. “I won’t, I won’t.”
I thought he agreed. I remember trussing something up with chains and a big wire. And then I must have collapsed and lay there several days while the Stronghold ran on Automatic, the way it does when I sleep . . . the way it does. . . .
Sometimes, thinking it all over, I could almost decide that nothing had happened at all.
At other times I’d feel sure Someone was there, watching me, evaluating me. And then I’d have that weird crazy feeling, like I didn’t even want to go blast down one of my neighbor’s Walls or enjoy the discomforts of the new-metal kitten and the diamond-tooth tiger child. And ever since I’d made that agreement about putting him under the bed, I had left the Miss Blue-Eyes strictly alone, though I had wanted her madly. But the plain truth was we were not wed.
Then came the day I shut my eyes and was thinking clean and I “knew” it had all been a strange dream. He couldn’t have got through that Max Fire, and past all my guards and devices. With the relief of knowing again that the ways of Moderan were safe and right I felt my blood lose its thinness and I thought again of my work—and my Joys! I raced to the bed under which lay my darling one and I unfolded down on my hinges, and the eagerness flooding my flesh-strips made me tinkle in all my new-metal parts. But as I was pulling her toward me, breathing hard and fumbling for her life switch madly, something hit me, hit me with hard baffling fact. My Miss Statue Woman, my Blonde Blue-Eyes, my Darling One, somehow had got herself trussed up . . .with chains and a big wire . . . And between me and a couple of Little Wrecks something wavered and smiled and started up talking, like new-metal beetles, like voices from far . . .“I’m your conscience, YOUR CONSCIENCE . . .”
Well, it’s Last-Go, I may as well tell you, Ultimate Contingency and Final Fire. Unless something can be done. Something strange is in this Stronghold and I can’t go on with it thus. Before I’ll live with conscience I’ll say the secret word! I’ll signal the demolition box in the mountain of the Last Hope Stand. I’ll blow my Stronghold, me, him, Everything, into the uncountable skies, into all the eternities—I who had hoped to live forever with my Stronghold and my Joys.