His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"You think," he spat, "that the incredible, contorted caverns of the mind can be unraveled by base-born apes of your caliber? Forget it. I'm going to show you things about behavior you won't believe even after you see them. I'm going to make you say that you love the Optimus Party and that you'll fight to the death anybody who doesn't.

"I'm going to leave you in such a state of cringing, gibbering bestality that you're going to betray your friends and cut your children's throats and know that you're doing a noble thing."

"Hypnotism won't work that far," said Pepper matter-of-factly.

"I don't use hypnotism," grunted Fersen. "I'm turning to the classics.

What good would an isolated case or so be? We've got to have a mass movement, a movement that will spread like wildfire. Look at that!" He held up a book.

"Odes of Anacreon," read Pepper from the title-page. "So what?"

Fersen grinned slowly. "I know," he said irrelevantly, "an arrangement of lines that would make you beat your brains out in despair. I know a sound that will make you so angry that you'll tear your own flesh if there's nobody else around. I know a certain juxtaposition of colored masses that would turn you into a satyr—drive you mad with insatiable lust."

"I see," said Marty slowly. "I see that you weren't quite finished with the engram in Oslo."

"I had barely begun. I am now able—once I've sized up the psyche of the subject—to deliver complex commands in a compulsion-language that cannot possibly be disobeyed."

"Go on," snapped Pepper, catching Fersen's eye. He had seen something at the edge of his vision that made his heart pound. He relaxed deliberately. "Go on!"

"This book," said Fersen, smiling again, "will be released to the general public very shortly—as soon as I've completed copy for a definitive edition. Picture this scene:

"A bookseller receives a shipment of the Odes. 'How now!' says bookseller. He is amazed. He is distressed. He did not order the Odes.

He does not want to pay for them; they look like a slow-moving item. He picks up a copy from the crate so as to get a better idea of what they are.

'What's this?' demands bookseller excitedly. For it seems to be a foreign tongue which he does not understand. Printed plainly on every page in large type is a brief message. Always the same, always legible.

"Bookseller than scans one page, very briefly. Some strange compulsion holds him; he reads further and the mysterious language is as plain as day. The message says: 'You are loyal to the Optimus Party. You will always be loyal to the Optimus Party. You will show the Odes to everybody you see. Everybody must read the Odes. You will always be loyal to the Optimus Party.'

" 'How now!' says bookseller again. 'Uncanny!' And he sees a woman on the street. He seizes her. She screams. He twists her arm and shoves her into his shop. She sits quietly while the Odes are shoved under her nose. She reads, lest this madman damage her. They then join forces and distribute copies of the book far and wide. It's like a prairie fire—

people read and make others read.

"Pepper, there are twelve thousand booksellers in New York Sector. As soon as I've probed somewhat into your minds to determine whether a vowel or a diphthong would serve better to break down the resistance of a determined spirit opposed to the Optimus, I shall give orders to the printers, who've been immunized by a temporary hypnosis.

"Pepper, two hours after I have sent in copy the crates of books will arrive simultaneously in every one of the twelve thousand shops. Now relax. You're going to be investigated."

He turned to select instruments from a cluttered board. With a faint intake of breath Marty slid from the chair in which he had been strapped, from which he had been working himself free with desperate speed while Pepper held the psychologist's gaze.

Marty launched himself at Fersen's back, snapping an arm about his throat. The psychologist snatched a scalpel from the board before the two reeled away into the center of the cluttered room. With his other hand Marty grabbed frantically at the wrist that held the blade, closed with crushing force about it. The knife dropped, tinkling, to the floor.

The two of them fell; Marty, shoving a knee into the small of Fersen's back, wrenched at his arm.

The psychologist collapsed shuddering in a heap. Marty warily broke away from him and picked up a casting, then clubbed Fersen carefully on the side of the head.

As he unbuckled Pepper he snapped: "Thank God that door's locked.

Thank God he didn't make enough noise to get the guard. Thank God for so damned many things, Pepper. This is the chance of a lifetime!"

"I don't understand," said Pepper.

"You will," smiled Marty airily. "You probably will. Now where in the bloody dithering hell does he keep his notes—?"

Jay Morningside, bookseller, wearily said: "I'm sorry, ma'am; I'm in trade. I can't afford to have any political opinions."