Jack Finney - Time and Again

" — incalculable benefit," Esterhazy interjected.

Rube nodded. " — of incalculable benefit to the United States. It has been considered and unanimously passed by this board, and then cleared in Washington with the highest authorities; we were on a scramble phone with Washington for nearly an hour this morning."

Esterhazy had his forearms lying on the desk top, hands clasped together in what looked like a relaxed position. But now he leaned far forward over the desk top toward me, and when he spoke I turned to him and saw that his hands were so tightly clenched the fingertips were white. He couldn't keep himself from interrupting Rube. "We want you to go back one more time. Then if that's what you want, your resignation will be instantly accepted, and with great thanks by a grateful government, I can promise you. When the time comes — not in our lifetime, I think, but eventually — when the time comes that this is no longer secret, you will have a place of distinction and honor in your country's history. Your findings, Si, have made this next step possible, and now we want you to use those findings. You're to go back, and do just one thing: You are to reveal 'Carmody's' secret. You're to expose him as what he really is; namely, a clerk named Pickering — responsible for Carmody's death, responsible for the World Building fire. You won't have proof, of course; he won't be imprisoned, tried, or even charged. But he'll be discredited. As he deserves. Can you do that, Si?" I was slow, baffled. "But… why? What for?" Esterhazy grinned with the pleasure of explaining. "Don't you see? This is the logical next step, Si, a very small and very carefully controlled experiment… in slightly altering the course of past events. We've avoided doing that till now, scrupulously avoided it, as well as we possibly could, and rightly so. Until we learned from experience that the accidental risk of altering the course of past events is negligible. And that even when it does happen, the actual effect seems trivial. Now it's time for the next slow advance, a slight and very careful change of events in the past… for the benefit of our own time and country. Think about it! We can prevent Carmody — or Pickering, as we know him to be now — from becoming an adviser, minor though he was, to Cleveland. And there is obvious reason to think that this may actually result in a change in the course of our history. If Cuba became a permanent American possession in the 1890's…" He grinned. "Well, I don't have to spell out the benefit of that. The name Castro will remain what it was, unheard of. The man himself remaining whatever he was, a worker in the sugar fields, I suppose, forever unknown. That's the next step, Si, if it works, a clear immediate benefit — and, even more important, a guide to even greater ones. My God…" His voice dropped in awe. "To correct mistakes of the past which have adversely affected the present for us — what an incredible opportunity."

We sat in absolute silence then. I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decisions of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician's who made a decision of profound consequence. Some of that childhood awe and acceptance of authority remained, and while I was sitting before Esterhazy's desk — the room silent, everyone watching me, waiting — it seemed presumptuous that ordinary Simon Morley should question the judgment of this board. And of the men in Washington who agreed with it. Yet I knew I had to. And was going to.

I stumbled, though. I spoke badly and in confusion. I even began with what I suppose was the least important aspect of the entire decision. I said, "Go back and deliberately discredit Jake? Destroy his life? I, ah… does anyone have the right to do that?"

"The man's long dead, Si," Esterhazy said gently, as though to a simpleton he didn't want to offend. "We're what counts now."

"He won't be dead where I'll be seeing him."

"Well, yes. But, Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country."

"But he wouldn't even be consulted about it!"

"Neither are they; they're drafted into the army."

"Well, maybe they should be asked, too."

He genuinely didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe it's wrong to force a man to join an army and kill other people against his own wishes."

They just looked at me. What I was saying was really incomprehensible to them, and I realized I'd been arguing the wrong point. I said, "Colonel, Rube, Mr. Fessenden and Professor Messinger — listen. Would it be — right to alter past events? I mean who knows it's a good thing to do? Who can be sure of it, I mean."

"Why, dammit, we can be sure!" Esterhazy said. "Do you deny that it would be one hell of a lot better if Cuba were long since a U.S. possession instead of a Communist country ninety miles from our mainland?"

I shrugged uneasily. "No, it isn't that I deny it. The point is it doesn't matter what I think; because I might be wrong. Who can be sure Cuba will ever do us any harm? It's awfully tiny, and hasn't hurt us yet."

"They tried, didn't they?" Esterhazy very nearly shouted.

Gently, trying to calm things down, Fessenden said, "The missile crisis," as though politely reminding me of something that might have slipped my mind.

I said, "Well, yeah. Though according to Robert Kennedy it was the military who tried to make JFK think the danger was greater than perhaps it might have been. But I don't want to bog down into a debate about Cuba. Whatever the truth there, I just don't think anyone has the godlike wisdom to actually rearrange the present by altering the past. It's going too far! My God, look what has already happened. The scientists make fantastic new discoveries which are immediately taken over by a group, almost a breed of men, who always know what's best for the rest of us. Science learns how to split the atom, and they immediately know that the best thing to do with that new knowledge is blow up Hiroshima!"

"Don't you think it was?" Esterhazy said coldly. "Or should we have allowed hundreds of thousands of American troops to die on the shores of Japan?"

"I don't know! Who does know? I think the most enormous kinds of decisions are being made by people who don't know either. Only in their own opinions do they know. They know it's right and necessary to poison the atmosphere with radioactivity. They know we should use our scientists' genetic discoveries to breed new and terrible kinds of disease. And that they don't even have to ask the consent of the ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the rest of us. And now that still another scientist, Dr. Danziger, has made this enormous discovery, he sits at home, squeezed out, unfit to decide what should be done with it. But you aren't. Once again you know that the best thing to do with his discovery is eliminate Castro Cuba. Well, how do you know? Who's given this new little breed of men who've polluted the entire environment and who may actually wipe out the human race — who gave them the power of God to control the lives and futures of the rest of us? Most of them we never heard of, and we sure as hell didn't elect them!" I sat looking from one to the other, then lowered my voice. "Even if you're right about Cuba, as you may be, look what it leads to. It leads directly to bigger and bigger changes, with a handful of military minds rewriting the past, present, and future according to their ideas of what's best for the rest of the entire human race. No, sir, gentlemen; I refuse."