The Worlds Of Robert A. Heinlein Part 16

"No. Food isn't basically a power industry - although we do supply a certain percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point, and will go on and concede that transportation - that is to say, distribution of food - could get along without us. But, good heavens, Doctor, you can't stop atomic power without causing the biggest panic this country has ever seen. It's the keystone of our whole industrial system."

"The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the oil shortage safely."

"Yes - because atomic power came along to take the place of oil. You don't realize what this would mean, Doctor. It would be worse than a war; in a system like ours, one thing depends on another. If you cut off the heavy industries all at once, everything else stops, too."

"Nevertheless, you had better dump the bomb." The uranium in the bomb was molten, its temperature being greater than twenty-four hundred degrees centigrade. The bomb could be dumped into a group of small containers, when it was desired to shut it down. The ma.s.s in any one container was too small to maintain progressive atomic disintegration.

King glanced involuntarily at the gla.s.s-inclosed relay mounted on his office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump the bomb, if need be. "But I couldn't do that - or rather, if I did, the plant wouldn't stay shut down. The Directors would simply replace me with someone who would operate the bomb.''

"You're right, of course." Lentz silently considered the situation for some time, then said, "Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to Chicago?"

"You're going, Doctor?"

"Yes." He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for once, the smile of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner was sober, even tragic. "Short of shutting down the bomb, there is no solution to your problem-none whatsoever!

"I owe you a full explanation," Lentz continued, at length. "You are confronted here with recurring; instances of situational psychoneurosis.

Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as anxiety neurosis or some form of hysteria. The partial amnesia of your secretary, Steinke, is a good example of the latter. He might be cured with shock technique, but it would hardly be a kindness, as he has achieved a stable adjustment which puts him beyond the reach of the strain he could not stand.

"That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause of your sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was eliminated from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a close watch on his friend, Erickson -

"However, it is the cause, and prevention, of situational psychoneurosis we are concerned with here, rather than the forms in which it is manifested.

In plain language, psychoneurosis situational simply refers to the common fact that, if you put a man in a situation that worries him more than he can stand, in time he blows up, one way or another.

"That is precisely the situation here. You take sensitive, intelligent young men, impress them with the fact that a single slip on their part, or even some fortuitous circ.u.mstance beyond their control, will result in the death of G.o.d knows how many other people, and then expect them to remain sane. It's ridiculous - impossible!"

"But good heavens, Doctor, there must be some answer! There must!" He got up and paced around the room. Lentz noted, with pity, that King himself was riding the ragged edge of the very condition they were discussing.

"No," he said slowly. "No. Let me explain. You don't dare intrust the bomb to less sensitive, less socially conscious men. You might as well turn the controls over to a mindless idiot. And to psychoneurosis situational there are but two cures. The first obtains when the psychosis results from a misevaluation of environment. That cure calls for semantic readjustment.

One a.s.sists the patient to evaluate correctly his environment. The worry disappears because there never was a real reason for worry in the situation itself, but simply in the wrong meaning the patient's mind had a.s.signed to it.

"The second case is when the patient has correctly evaluated the situation, and rightly finds in it cause for extreme worry. His worry is perfectly sane and proper, but he can not stand up under it indefinitely; it drives him crazy. The only possible cure is to change the situation. I have stayed here long enough to a.s.sure myself that such is the condition here. Your engineers have correctly evaluated the public danger of this bomb, and it will, with dreadful certainty, drive all of you crazy!

"The only possible solution is to dump the bomb - and leave it dumped."

King had continued his nervous pacing of the floor, as if the walls of the room itself were the cage of his dilemma. Now he stopped and appealed once more to the psychiatrist. "Isn't there anything I can do?"

"Nothing to cure. To alleviate - well, possibly."

"How?"

"Situational psychosis results from adrenaline exhaustion. When a man is placed under a nervous strain, his adrenal glands increase their secretion to help compensate for the strain. If the strain is too great and lasts too long, the adrenals aren't equal to the task, and he cracks. That is what you have here. Adrenaline therapy might stave off a mental breakdown, but it most a.s.suredly would hasten a physical breakdown. But that would be safer from a viewpoint of public welfare - even though it a.s.sumes that physicists are expendable!

"Another thing occurs to me: If you selected any new watch engineers from the membership of churches that practice the confessional, it would increase the length of their usefulness."

King was plainly surprised. "I don't follow you."

"The patient unloads most of his worry on his confessor, who is not himself actually confronted by the situation, and can stand it. That is simply an ameliorative, however. I am convinced that, in this situation, eventual insanity is inevitable. But there is a lot of good sense in the confessional," he added. "It fills a basic human need. I think that is why the early psychoa.n.a.lysts were so surprisingly successful, for all their limited knowledge." He fell silent for a while, then added, "If you will be so kind as to order a stratocab for me - "

"You've nothing more to suggest?"

"No. You had better turn your psychological staff loose on means of alleviation; they're able men, all of them."

King pressed a switch and spoke briefly to Steinke. Turning back to Lentz, he said, "You'll wait here until your car is ready?"

Lentz judged correctly that King desired it And agreed.

Presently the tube delivery on King's desk went ping! The Superintendent removed a small white pasteboard, a calling card. he studied it with surprise and pa.s.sed it over to Lentz. "I can't imagine why he should be calling on me," he observed, and added, "Would you like to meet him?"

Lentz read:

THOMAS P. HARRINGTON.

CAPTAIN (MATHEMATICS).

UNITED STATES NAVY.

DIRECTOR,.

U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY.

"But I do know him," he said. "I'd be very pleased to see him."

Harrington was a man with something on his mind. He seemed relieved when Steinke had finished ushering him in, and had returned to the outer office.

He commenced to speak at once, turning to Lentz, who was nearer to him than King. "You're King? . . . Why, Dr. Lentz! What are you doing here?"

"Visiting," answered Lentz, accurately but incompletely, as he shook hands.

"This is Superintendent King over here. Superintendent King - Captain Harrington."

"How do you do, Captain - it's a pleasure to have you here.

"It's an honor to be here, sir."

"Sit down?"

"Thanks." He accepted a chair and laid a briefcase on a corner of King's desk. "Superintendent, you are ent.i.tled to an explanation as to why I have broken in on you like this - "

"Glad to have you." In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an anodyne to Kings frayed nerves.

"That's kind of you, but - That secretary chap, the one that brought me in here, would it be too much to

ask you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seems strange - "

"Not at all." King was mystified, but willing to grant any reasonable request of a distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the interoffice visiphone and gave him his orders.

Lentz stood up and indicated that he was about to leave. He caught Harrington's eye. "I think you want a private palaver, Captain"