Philip Dick - The Science Fiction Anthology

“Hello, Don,” said a quiet voice beside him. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Dr. Crandon!” he heard his own voice reply. “ You’re the Grand Chairman of POSAT?”

He felt betrayed and sick at heart. The very voice with which Crandon had spoken conjured up visions of quiet lecture halls and his own youthful excitement at the masterful and orderly disclosure of scientific facts. To find him here in this mad and treacherous place—didn’t anything make sense any longer?

“I think we have rather abused you, Don,” Dr. Crandon continued. His voice sounded so gentle that Don found it hard to think there was any evil in it. “I can see that you are suspicious of us, and—yes—afraid.”

Don stared at the scene below him. After his initial glance to confirm his identification of Crandon, Don could not bear to look at him.

Crandon’s voice suddenly hardened, became abrupt. “You’re partly right about us, of course. I hate to think how many laws this organization has broken. Don’t condemn us yet, though. You’ll be a member yourself before the day is over.”

Don was shocked by such confidence in his corruptibility.

“What do you use?” he asked bitterly. “Drugs? Hypnosis?”

Crandon sighed. “I forgot how little you know, Don. I have a long story to tell you. You’ll find it hard to believe at first. But try to trust me. Try to believe me, as you once did. When I say that much of what POSAT does is illegal, I do not mean immoral. We’re probably the most moral organization in the world. Get over the idea that you have stumbled into a den of thieves.”

Crandon paused as though searching for words with which to continue.

“Did you notice the paintings in the waiting room as you entered?”

Don nodded, too bewildered to speak.

“They were donated by the founder of our Organization. They were part of his personal collection—which, incidentally, he bought from the artists themselves. He also designed the atomic reactor we use for power here in the laboratory.”

“Then the pictures are modern,” said Don, aware that his mouth was hanging open foolishly. “I thought one was a Titian—”

“It is,” said Crandon. “We have several original Titians, although I really don’t know too much about them.”

“But how could a man alive today buy paintings from an artist of the Renaissance?”

“He is not alive today. POSAT is actually what our advertisements claim—an ancient secret society. Our founder has been dead for over four centuries.”

“But you said that he designed your atomic reactor.”

“Yes. This particular one has been in use for only twenty years, however.”

Don’s confusion was complete. Crandon looked at him kindly. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said, and Don was back again in the classroom with the deep voice of Professor Crandon unfolding the pages of knowledge in clear and logical manner. “Four hundred years ago, in the time of the Italian Renaissance, a man lived who was a super-genius. His was the kind of incredible mentality that appears not in every generation, or even every century, but once in thousands of years.

“Probably the man who invented what we call the phonetic alphabet was one like him. That man lived seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and his discovery was so original, so far from the natural course of man’s thinking, that not once in the intervening seven thousand years has that device been rediscovered. It still exists only in the civilizations to which it has been passed on directly.

“The super-genius who was our founder was not a semanticist. He was a physical scientist and mathematician. Starting with the meager heritage that existed in these fields in his time, he began tackling physical puzzles one by one. Sitting in his study, using as his principal tool his own great mind, he invented calculus, developed the quantum theory of light, moved on to electromagnetic radiation and what we call Maxwell’s equations—although, of course, he antedated Maxwell by centuries—developed the special and general theories of relativity, the tool of wave mechanics, and finally, toward the end of his life, he mathematically derived the packing fraction that describes the binding energy of nuclei—”

“But it can’t be done,” Don objected. “It’s an observed phenomenon. It hasn’t been derived.” Every conservative instinct that he possessed cried out against this impossible fantasy. And yet—there sat the reactor, sheathed in its strange shield. Crandon watched the direction of Don’s glance.

“Yes, the reactor,” said Crandon. “He built one like it. It confirmed his theories. His calculations showed him something else too. He saw the destructive potentialities of an atomic explosion. He himself could not have built an atomic bomb; he didn’t have the facilities. But his knowledge would have enabled other men to do so. He looked about him. He saw a political setup of warring principalities, rival states, intrigue, and squabbles over political power. Giving the men of his time atomic energy would have been like handing a baby a firecracker with a lighted fuse.

“What should he have done? Let his secrets die with him? He didn’t think so. No one else in his age could have derived the knowledge that he did. But it was an age of brilliant men. Leonardo. Michelangelo. There were men capable of learning his science, even as men can learn it today. He gathered some of them together and founded this society. It served two purposes. It perpetuated his discoveries and at the same time it maintained the greatest secrecy about them. He urged that the secrets be kept until the time when men could use them safely. The other purpose was to make that time come about as soon as possible.”

Crandon looked at Don’s unbelieving face. “How can I make you see that it is the truth? Think of the eons that man or manlike creatures have walked the Earth. Think what a small fraction of that time is four hundred years. Is it so strange that atomic energy was discovered a little early, by this displacement in time that is so tiny after all?”

“But by one man,” Don argued.

Crandon shrugged. “Compared with him, Don, you and I are stupid men. So are the scientists who slowly plodded down the same road he had come, stumbling first on one truth and then the succeeding one. We know that inventions and discoveries do not occur at random. Each is based on the one that preceded it. We are all aware of the phenomenon of simultaneous invention. The path to truth is a straight one. It is only our own stupidity that makes it seem slow and tortuous.

“He merely followed the straight path,” Crandon finished simply.

Don’s incredulity thawed a little. It was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

But if it were true! A vast panorama of possible achievements spread before him.

“Four hundred years!” he murmured with awe. “You’ve had four hundred years head-start on the rest of the world! What wonders you must have uncovered in that time!”

“Our technical achievements may disappoint you,” warned Crandon. “Oh, they’re way beyond anything that you are familiar with. You’ve undoubtedly noticed the shielding material on the reactor. That’s a fairly recent development of our metallurgical department. There are other things in the laboratory that I can’t even explain to you until you have caught up on the technical basis for understanding them.

“Our emphasis has not been on physical sciences, however, except as they contribute to our central project. We want to change civilization so that it can use physical science without disaster.”

For a moment Don had been fired with enthusiasm. But at these words his heart sank.