Рэймонд Джоунс: The school

But Mr. Carling made certain they would never see. With his steady bumbling, that was in itself the peak of efficiency, he blinded their eyes beyond all recovery. And that was his purpose, Eugene Montgomery thought in sudden agonizing fury. Everyone knew it. Principal Martin, the School Board, everyone in the community — there was no one who was not aware of what little suit-salesman Carling was doing. And they did nothing about it.

Homeostat. He fastened down efficiently and tightly his little homeostat that said you mustn’t see this beauty — it leads along too many strange paths to too many strange worlds. It’s an ugly thing that you must hate forevermore.

Montgomery had known what was happening even as his own vision closed, and he was helpless to do anything against it. If he had tried to oppose them, even in his private thoughts, he would have been a prey to panic. Now, with the help of the Mirror, he could watch it creeping up on him, feel it flowing through his veins — and not succumb to it. Rather, he felt a strength rising up in him for having dared look upon this hidden nightmare, and slowly the dark lapping waves receded until they were all gone.

He sat there for a long time, waiting for something more. But he knew that was all for the present. He had seen himself for what he was and he had to live with it and understand it. Obsequiously, he had knuckled under to every whim of dogma handed out, never daring to question or propose a radically different thought of his own.

He was a coward. But he could look upon that naked, unpleasant fact now without flinching because he knew that somewhere in the Mirror he would find the means of changing it.

He called at the office where Don Wolfe was waiting for him, to let the counselor know he was leaving, but he didn’t feel talkative and Wolfe let him go without pressing him for conversation about what he had found.

He ignored the call which the desk clerk said had come through from Dodge. He had reported once today; that was enough. He requested that he be not disturbed by calls of any kind during the night.

It seemed impossible to sleep and he lay for a long time looking down at the rocky shore and the narrow strip of sand at the base of the jutting cliffs nearby. His mind was swarming with confused, tormenting thoughts, and yet he seemed almost able to stand aside, viewing them objectively and without panic.

He seemed to have come a far way from the Firestone Aviation Corporation and the XB-91, where all this had begun. He wondered how Soren Gunderson was making out, if the designer’s experiences were as rough as his. He didn’t see how they could be. Gunderson was successful and creative.

It seemed to Montgomery that he had almost forgotten the original purpose of his coming. But he had to remember it and evaluate it anew. Was the work of the Institute a hoax and a menace for Dodge and Spindem to bring to a halt? He thought of the Norcross demonstrations with fresh excitement. There was nothing phony about them, he was certain now. He had no positive evidence to support it. His own experience had convinced him. Years of unrecognized but ever-present tension and fear were gone. He could look upon the reality of his own failings without shrinking from the sight.

His position was reversed. He was no longer an agent of Dodge to find a legitimate excuse to close up the Institute. He was an Institute agent who had to find means of persuading Dodge that something of value existed here.

He didn’t know how this was going to be done. Perhaps he ought to go to Nagle and Berkeley and confess why he had come. But it wasn’t as easy as all that. He was still under orders from Colonel Dodge.

Soren Gunderson was in a foul mood when Montgomery found him the next morning. He was sitting on the lawn near one side of the court, talking with a younger man. His face was dark and unpleasant in a way that Montgomery had never seen before in all the years of their association. Gunderson was ordinarily placid and easygoing.

He motioned to a seat. “This is another of the new supermen. Major Eugene Montgomery of the United States Air Force; Mr. Mahlon Rockwood recently of Acme Refrigerators, Incorporated.”

The two men shook hands, smiling at each other a trifle uneasily in Gunderson’s dour presence.

“Mr. Rockwood has some interesting observations on this matter we’re all interested in,” said Gunderson. “He thinks our friend Nagle is pretty much off the beam in laying so much blame on the schools for the widespread technological stupidity.”

Montgomery grinned sympathetically. It was obvious that Gunderson was trying to unload something extremely potent, and hadn’t succeeded yet. He turned inquiringly to the younger engineer.

“I was just saying that most new engineering graduates can’t take the risk,” said Rockwood. “As in my case, most of the fellows are working at a place where sales are doing nicely on the old lines. They’re buying a twenty thousand dollar home in somebody’s development — which will have cost them twice that before it’s paid for in thirty or forty years. They’re expecting to send their own kids to college — they’ve got one or two now and expect more. They can’t risk badgering the chief engineer or the factory manager or the sales chief to come out with something new that might upset the whole refrigeration business, for example.

“So for the new model they decide to hang a butter softener in the door. Or maybe put the coils in the walls — and take them out next year. Then if they feel real daring they’ll do something drastic like revolving shelves — produce a real contribution to the science of food preservation!”

Montgomery laughed. “Almost as good as the calico doors we had a year or two back.”

Rockwell nodded. “But that’s the situation we’re in, and I wonder if it doesn’t extend even into the aircraft industry in a different form. Nobody in any kind of business wants to change his model as long as the old one sells. That’s the basic fact that everybody’s overlooking. And when a change is made it must be a minimum — not a maximum — change. Every engineering professor in the country seems determined to keep this a deep, dark secret.”

Gunderson snorted. “Wouldn’t it be nice if it really were that simple?” He turned to Montgomery. “I’m kind of sorry I got you to come up here with me, Jack. I really thought these guys had something. I guess maybe they still think they do. But they just don’t know what they’re bucking.”

“What are they — and we — bucking?”

“Ever hear of ‘steam-engine time’?”

“No. What’s that?”

“Some mystic named Fort thought up the term. It means that when a culture has reached a point when it’s time for the steam engine to be invented the steam engine is going to be invented. It doesn’t matter who’s alive to do the inventing, whether it’s Hero of Greece, or Tim Walt of England, or Joe Doakus of Pulaski — the steam engine is going to get invented by somebody. Conversely, if it’s not steam-engine time nobody under the sun is going to invent it no matter how smart he is.

“Others have put it a little more elegantly by saying that it is impossible for one to rise above his culture. That’s the thing we’re trying to buck — and we can’t do it.”

“If that were true, there would be nothing but stagnation. Somebody has to rise and draw the culture up with him.”

“No, no —” Gunderson looked almost angry. “Take mathematics for example. A mathematician does his building on the foundation that’s already there. Nobody in Pythagoras’ time was going to invent tensors or quaternions. The culture for it wasn’t there. Suppose Einstein had been born in a Polynesian tribe. Do you think he would have produced his work on Relativity in that culture?