The Sensitive Man Read online

too."

  "It doesn't make me very popular," he agreed. "Everybody says to elmwith me. But, as they say in France, ve are alo-o-one now, mon cherry,and tree's a crowd."

  "Don't get ideas," she snapped.

  "Oh, I'll get plenty of ideas, though I admit this isn't the place tocarry them out." Dalgetty folded his arms behind his head and blinkedup at the sky. "Man, could I use a nice tall mint julep right now."

  Elena frowned. "If you're trying to convince me you're just a simpleAmerican boy you might as well quit," she said thinly. "That sortof--of emotional control, in a situation like this, only makes youless human."

  Dalgetty swore at himself. She was too damn quick, that was all. Andher intelligence might be enough for her to learn....

  _Will I have to kill her?_

  He drove the thought from him. He could overcome his own conditioningabout anything, including murder, if he wanted to, but he'd never wantto. No, that was out. "How did you get here?" he asked. "How much doesthe FBI know?"

  "Why should I tell you?"

  "Well, it'd be nice to know if we can expect reinforcements."

  "We can't." Her voice was bleak. "I might as well let you know. TheInstitute could find out anyway through its government connections--thedamned octopus!" he looked into the sky. Dalgetty's gaze followed thecurve of her high cheekbones. Unusual face--you didn't often see such anoddly pleasing arrangement. The slight departure from symmetry....

  "We've wondered about Bertrand Meade for some time, as every thinkingperson has," she began tonelessly. "It's too bad there are so fewthinking people in the country."

  "Something the Institute is trying to correct," Dalgetty put in.

  Elena ignored him. "It was finally decided to work agents into hisvarious organizations. I've been with Thomas Bancroft for about twoyears now. My background was carefully faked and I'm a usefulassistant. But even so it was only a short while back that I gotsufficiently into his confidence to be given some inkling of what'sgoing on. As far as I know no other FBI operative has learned asmuch."

  "And what have you found out?"

  "Essentially the same things you were describing in the cell, plusmore details on the actual work they're doing. Apparently theInstitute was onto Meade's plans long before we were. It doesn't speakwell for your purposes, whatever they are, that you haven't asked usfor help before this.

  "The decision to kidnap Dr. Tighe was taken only a couple of weeksago. I haven't had a chance to communicate with my associates in theforce. There's always someone around, watching. The set-up's wellarranged, so that even those not under suspicion don't have muchchance to work unobserved, once they've gotten high enough to knowanything important. Everybody spies on everybody else and submitsperiodic reports."

  She gave him a harsh look. "So here I am. No official person knows mywhereabouts and if I should disappear it would be called a deplorableaccident. Nothing could be proved and I doubt if the FBI would everget another chance to do any effective spying."

  "But you have proof enough for a raid," he ventured.

  "No, we haven't. Up till the time I was told Dr. Tighe was going to besnatched I didn't know for certain that anything illegal was going on.There's nothing in the law against like-minded people knowing eachother and having a sort of club. Even if they hire tough charactersand arm them the law can't protest. The Act of Nineteen Ninety-nineeffectively forbids private armies but it would be hard to prove Meadehas one."

  "He doesn't really," said Dalgetty. "Those goons aren't much more thanwhat they claim to be--bodyguards. This whole fight is primarily ona--a mental level."

  "So I gather. And can a free country forbid debate or propaganda? Notto mention that Meade's people include some powerful men in thegovernment itself. If I could get away from here alive we'd be able tohang a kidnapping charge on Thomas Bancroft, with assorted charges ofthreat, mayhem and conspiracy, but it wouldn't touch the main group."Her fists clenched. "It's like fighting shadows."

  * * * * *

  "You war against the sunset-glow. The judgment follows fast my lord!"quoted Dalgetty. _Heriots' Ford_ was one of the few poems he liked."Getting Bancroft out of the way would be something," he added. "Theway to fight Meade is not to attack him physically but to change theconditions under which he must work."

  "Change them to what?" Her eyes challenged his. He noticed that therewere small gold flecks in the gray. "What does the Institute want?"

  "A sane world," he replied.

  "I've wondered," she said. "Maybe Bancroft is more nearly right thanyou. Maybe I should be on his side after all."

  "I take it you favor libertarian government," he said. "In the pastit's always broken down sooner or later and the main reason has beenthat there aren't enough people with the intelligence, alertness andtoughness to resist the inevitable encroachments of power on liberty.

  "The Institute is trying to do two things--create such a citizenry andsimultaneously to build up a society which itself produces men of thatkind and reinforces those traits in them. It can be done, given time.Under ideal conditions we estimate it would take about three hundredyears for the whole world. Actually it'll take longer."

  "But just what kind of person is needed?" Elena asked coldly. "Whodecides it? _You_ do. You're just the same as all other reformers,including Meade--hell bent to change the whole human race over to yourparticular ideal, whether they like it or not."

  "Oh, they'll like it," he smiled. "That's part of the process."

  "It's a worse tyranny than whips and barbed wire," she snapped.

  "You've never experienced those then."

  "You _have_ got that knowledge," she accused. "You have the data andthe equations to be--sociological engineers."

  "In theory," he said. "In practice it isn't that easy. The socialforces are so great that--well, we could be overwhelmed beforeaccomplishing anything. And there are plenty of things we still don'tknow. It will take decades, perhaps centuries, to work out a completedynamics of man. We're one step beyond the politician's rule of thumbbut not up to the point where we can use slide rules. We have to feelour way."

  "Nevertheless," she said, "you've got the beginnings of a knowledgewhich reveals the true structure of society and the processes thatmake it. Given that knowledge man could in time build his ownworld-order the way he desired it, a stable culture that wouldn't knowthe horrors of oppression or collapse. But you've hidden away the veryfact that such information exists. You're using it in secret."

  "Because we have to," Dalgetty said. "If it were generally known thatwe're putting pressure on here and there and giving advice slantedjust the way _we_ desire, the whole thing would blow up in our faces.People don't like being shoved around."

  "And still you're doing it!" One hand dropped to her gun. "You, aclique of maybe a hundred men...."

  "More than that. You'd be surprised how many are with us."

  "You've decided _you_ are the almighty arbiters. Your superior wisdomis going to lead poor blind mankind up the road to heaven. I say it'sdown the road to hell! The last century saw the dictatorship of theelite and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This one seems to bebirthing the dictatorship of the intellectuals. I don't like any ofthem!"

  "Look, Elena." Dalgetty leaned on one elbow and faced her. "It isn'tthat simple. All right, we've got some special knowledge. When wefirst realized we were getting somewhere in our research we had todecide whether to make our results public or merely give out selectedless important findings. Don't you see, no matter what we did it wouldhave been us, the few men, who decided? Even destroying all ourinformation would have been a decision."

  His voice grew more urgent. "So we made what I think was the rightchoice. History shows as conclusively as our own equations thatfreedom is not a 'natural' condition of man. It's a metastable stateat best, all too likely to collapse into tyranny. The tyranny can beimposed from outside by the better-organized armies of a conqueror, orit can come from within--through the will of the people themselv
es,surrendering their rights to the father-image, the almighty leader,the absolute state.

  "What use does Bertrand Meade want to make of our findings if he canget them? To bring about the end of freedom by working on the peopletill they themselves desire it. And the damnable part of it is thatMeade's goal is