That Hideous Strength Page 4

  “I see,” said Feverstone. “In order to keep the place going as a learned society, all the best brains in it have to give up doing anything about learning.”

  “Exactly!” said Curry. “That’s just-” and then stopped, uncertain whether he was being taken quite seriously. Feverstone burst into laughter. The Bursar, who had up till now been busily engaged in eating, wiped his beard carefully and spoke.

  “All that’s very well in theory,” he said, “but I think Curry’s quite right. Supposing he resigned his office as sub-warden and retired into his cave. He might give us a thundering good book on economics.”

  “Economics?” said Feverstone, lifting his eyebrows.

  “I happen to be a military historian, James,” said Curry. He was often somewhat annoyed at the difficulty which his colleagues seemed to find in remembering what particular branch of learning he had been elected to pursue.

  “I mean military history, of course,” said Busby.

  “As I say, he might give us a thundering good book on military history. But it would be superseded in twenty years. Whereas the work he is actually doing for the College will benefit it for centuries. This whole business, now, of bringing the N.I.C.E. to Edgestow. What about a thing like that, Feverstone? I’m not speaking merely of the financial side of it, though as Bursar I naturally rate that pretty high. But think of the new life, the awakening of new vision, the stirring of dormant impulses. What would any book on economics . . .”

  “Military history,” said Feverstone gently, but this time Busby did not hear him.

  “What would any book on economics be, compared with a thing like that?” he continued. “I look upon it as the greatest triumph of practical idealism that this century has yet seen.”

  The good wine was beginning to do its good office. We have all known the kind of clergyman who tends to forget his clerical collar after the third glass: but Busby’s habit was the reverse. It was after the third glass that he began to remember his collar. As wine and candlelight loosened his tongue, the parson still latent within him after thirty years’ apostasy began to wake into a strange galvanic life.

  “As you chaps know,” he said, “I make no claim to orthodoxy. But if religion is understood in the deepest sense, I have no hesitation in saying that Curry, by bringing the N.I.C.E. to Edgestow, has done more for it in one year than Jewel has done in his whole life.”

  “Well,” said Curry modestly, “that’s rather the sort of thing one had hoped. I mightn’t put it exactly as you do, James.”

  “No, no,” said the Bursar. “Of course not. We all have our different languages; but we all really mean the same thing.”

  “Has anyone discovered,” asked Feverstone, “what, precisely, the N.I.C.E. is, or what it intends to do?” Curry looked at him with a slightly startled expression.

  “That comes oddly from you, Dick,” he said. “I thought you were in on it yourself.”

  “Isn’t it a little naive,” said Feverstone, “to suppose that being in on a thing involves any distinct knowledge of its official programme?”

  “Oh well, if you mean details,” said Curry, and then stopped.

  “Surely, Feverstone,” said Busby, “you’re making a great mystery about nothing. I should have thought the objects of the N.I.C.E. were pretty clear. It’s the first attempt to take applied science seriously from the national point of view. The difference in scale between it and anything we’ve had before amounts to a difference in kind. The buildings alone, the apparatus alone!-think what it has done already for industry. Think how it is going to mobilise all the talent of the country: and not only scientific talent in the narrower sense. Fifteen departmental directors at fifteen thousand a year each! Its own legal staff! Its own police, I’m told! Its own permanent staff of architects, surveyors, engineers! The thing’s stupendous!”

  “Careers for our sons,” said Feverstone. “I see.”

  “What do you mean by that, Lord Feverstone?” said Busby, putting down his glass.

  “God!” said Feverstone, his eyes laughing. “What a brick to drop. I’d quite forgotten you had a family, James.”

  “I agree with James,” said Curry, who had been waiting somewhat impatiently to speak. “The N.I.C.E. marks the beginning of a new era-the really scientific era. Up to now everything has been haphazard. This is going to put science itself on a scientific basis. There are to be forty interlocking committees sitting every day and they’ve got a wonderful gadget-I was shown the model last time I was in town-by which the findings of each committee print themselves off in their own little compartment on the Analytical Notice-Board every half hour. Then that report slides itself into the right position where it’s connected up by little arrows with all the relevant parts of the other reports. A glance at the board shows you the policy of the whole Institute actually taking shape under your own eyes. There’ll be a staff of at least twenty experts at the top of the building working this notice-board in a room rather like the Tube control rooms. It’s a marvellous gadget. The different kinds of business all come out in the board in different coloured lights. It must have cost half a million. They call it a Pragmatometer.”

  “And there,” said Busby, “you see again what the Institute is already doing for the country. Pragmatometry is going to be a big thing. Hundreds of people are going in for it. Why, this Analytical Notice-Board will probably be out of date before the building is finished!”

  “Yes, by Jove,” said Feverstone, “and N.O. himself told me this morning that the sanitation of the Institute was going to be something quite out of the ordinary.”

  “So it is,” said Busby sturdily. “I don’t see why one should think that unimportant.”

  “And what do you think about it, Studdock?” said Feverstone.

  “I think,” said Mark, “that James touched on the most important point when he said that it would have its own legal staff and its own police. I don’t give a fig for Pragmatometers and sanitation de luxe. The real thing is that this time we’re going to get science applied to social problems and backed by the whole force of the state, just as war has been backed by the whole force of the state in the past. One hopes, of course, that it’ll find out more than the old free-lance science did: but what’s certain is that it can do more.”

  “Damn,” said Curry, looking at his watch. “I’ll have to go and talk to N.O. now. If you people would like any brandy when you’ve finished your wine, it’s in that cupboard. You’ll find balloon glasses on the shelf above. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’re not going, James, are you?”

  “Yes,” said the Bursar. “I’m going to bed early. Don’t let me break up the party for you two. I’ve been on my legs nearly all day, you know. A man’s a fool to hold any office in this College. Continual anxiety. Crushing responsibility. And then you get people suggesting that all the little research-beetles who never poke their noses outside their libraries and laboratories are the real workers! I’d like to see Glossop or any of that lot face the sort of day’s work I’ve had to-day. Curry, my lad, you’d have had an easier life if you’d stuck to economics.”

  “I’ve told you before-” began Curry, but the Bursar, now risen, was bending over Lord Feverstone and telling him a funny story.

  As soon as the two men had got out of the room Lord Feverstone looked steadily at Mark for some seconds with an enigmatic expression. Then he chuckled. Then the chuckle developed into a laugh. He threw his lean, muscular body well back into his chair and laughed louder and louder. He was very infectious in his laughter and Mark found himself laughing too-quite sincerely and even helplessly, like a child. “Pragmatometers-palatial lavatories-practical idealism,” gasped Feverstone. It was a moment of extraordinary liberation for Mark. All sorts of things about Curry and Busby which he had not previously noticed, or else, noticing, had slurred over in his reverence for the Progressive Element, came back to his mind. He wondered how he could have been so blind to the funny side of them.

  “It really is
rather devastating,” said Feverstone when he had partially recovered, “that the people one has to use for getting things done should talk such drivel the moment you ask them about the things themselves.”

  “And yet they are, in a sense, the brains of Bracton, said Mark.

  “Good Lord, no! Glossop and Bill the Blizzard and even old Jewel have ten times their intelligence.”

  “I didn’t know you took that view.”

  I think Glossop etc. are quite mistaken. I think their idea of culture and knowledge and what not is unrealistic. I don’t think it fits the world we’re living in. It’s a mere fantasy. But it is quite a clear idea and they follow it out consistently. They know what they want. But our two poor friends, though they can be persuaded to take the right train, or even to drive it, haven’t a ghost of a notion where it’s going to, or why. They’ll sweat blood to bring the N.I.C.E. to Edgestow: that’s why they’re indispensable. But what the point of the N.I.C.E. is, what the point of anything is-ask them another. Pragmatometry! Fifteen sub-directors!”

  “Well, perhaps I’m in the same boat myself.”

  “Not at all. You saw the point at once. I knew you would. I’ve read everything you’ve written since you were in for your Fellowship. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Mark was silent. The giddy sensation of being suddenly whirled up from one plane of secrecy to another, coupled with the growing effect of Curry’s excellent port prevented him from speaking.

  “I want you to come into the Institute,” said Feverstone.

  “You mean-to leave Bracton?”

  “That makes no odds. Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s anything you want here. We’d make Curry warden when N.O. retires and”

  “They were talking of making you warden.”

  “God!” said Feverstone, and stared. Mark realised that from Feverstone’s point of view this was like the suggestion that he should become Headmaster of a small idiots’ school, and thanked his stars that his own remark had not been uttered in a tone that made it obviously serious. Then they both laughed again.

  “You,” said Feverstone, “would be absolutely wasted as warden. That’s the job for Curry. He’ll do it very well. You want a man who loves business and wire-pulling for their own sake and doesn’t really ask what it’s all about. If he did, he’d start bringing in his own-well, I suppose he’d call them ‘ideas.’ As it is, we’ve only got to tell him that he thinks so-and-so is a man the College wants, and he will think it. And then he’ll never rest till so-and-so gets a fellowship. That’s what we want the College for: a drag net, a recruiting office.”

  “A recruiting office for the N.I.C.E . . . you mean?”

  “Yes, in the first instance. But it’s only one part of the general show.”

  “I’m not sure that I know what you mean.”

  “You soon will. The home side, and all that, you know! It sounds rather in Busby’s style to say that humanity is at the cross-roads. But it is the main question at the moment: which side one’s on-obscurantism or order. It does really look as if we now had the power to dig ourselves in as a species for a pretty staggering period; to take control of our own destiny. If Science is really given a free hand it can now take over the human race and recondition it; make man a really efficient animal. If it doesn’t-well, we’re done.”

  “Go on.”

  “There are three main problems. First, the interplanetary problem.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Well, that doesn’t really matter. We can’t do anything about that at present. The only man who could help was Weston.”

  “He was killed in a blitz, wasn’t he?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  “I’m pretty sure of it, and I’ve a shrewd idea who the murderer was.”

  “Good God! Can nothing be done?”

  “There’s no evidence. The murderer is a respectable Cambridge don with weak eyes, a game leg, and a fair beard. He’s dined in this College.”

  “What was Weston murdered for?”

  “For being on our side. The murderer is one of the enemy.”

  “You don’t mean to say he murdered him for that?”

  “Yes,” said Feverstone, bringing his hand down smartly on the table. “That’s just the point. You’ll hear people like Curry or James burbling away about the ‘war’ against reaction. It never enters their heads that it might be a real war with real casualties. They think the violent resistance of the other side ended with the persecution of Galileo and all that. But don’t believe it. It is just seriously beginning. They know now that we have at last got real powers: that the question of what humanity is to be is going to be decided in the next sixty years. They’re going to fight every inch. They’ll stop at nothing.”

  “They can’t win,” said Mark.

  “We’ll hope not,” said Lord Feverstone. “I think they can’t. That is why it is of such immense importance to each of us to choose the right side. If you try to be neutral you become simply a pawn.”

  “Oh, I haven’t any doubt which is my side,” said Mark.

  “Hang it all-the preservation of the human race-it’s a pretty rock-bottom obligation.”

  “Well, personally,” said Feverstone, “I’m not indulging in any Busbyisms about that. It’s a little fantastic to base one’s actions on a supposed concern for what’s going to happen millions of years hence; and you must remember that the other side would claim to be preserving humanity too. Both can be explained psycho-analytically if they take that line. The practical point is that you and I don’t like being pawns, and we do rather like fighting-specially on the winning side.”

  “And what is the first practical step?”

  “Yes, that’s the real question. As I said, the interplanetary problem must be left on one side for the moment. The second problem is our rivals on this planet. I don’t mean only insects and bacteria. There’s far too much life of every kind about, animal and vegetable. We haven’t really cleared the place yet. First we couldn’t; and then we had aesthetic and humanitarian scruples: and we still haven’t short-circuited the question of the balance of Nature. All that is to be gone into. The third problem is man himself.”

  “Go on. This interests me very much.”

  “Man has got to take charge of man. That means, remember, that some men have got to take charge of the rest-which is another reason for cashing in on it as soon as one can. You and I want to be the people who do the taking charge, not the ones who are taken charge of. Quite.”

  “What sort of thing have you in mind?”

  “Quite simple and obvious things, at first-sterilisation of the unfit, liquidation of backward races (we don’t want any dead weights), selective breeding. Then real education including pre-natal education. By real education I mean one that has no ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ nonsense. A real education makes the patient what it wants infallibly: whatever he or his parents try to do about it. Of course, it’ll have to be mainly psychological at first. But we’ll get on to biochemical conditioning in the end and direct manipulation of the brain.”

  “But this is stupendous, Feverstone.”

  “It’s the real thing at last. A new type of man: and it’s people like you who’ve got to begin to make him.”

  “That’s my trouble. Don’t think it’s false modesty: but I haven’t yet seen how I can contribute.”

  “No, but we have. You are what we need: a trained sociologist with a radically realistic outlook, not afraid of responsibility. Also, a sociologist who can write.”

  “You don’t mean you want me to write up all this?”

  “No. We want you to write it down-to camouflage it. Only for the present, of course. Once the thing gets going we shan’t have to bother about the great heart of the British public. We’ll make the great heart what we want it to be. But in the meantime it does make a difference how things are put. For instance, if it were even whispered that the N.I.C.E. wanted powers
to experiment on criminals, you’d have all the old women of both sexes up in arms and yapping about humanity: call it re-education of the mal-adjusted and you have them all slobbering with delight that the brutal era of retributive punishment has at last come to an end. Odd thing it is-the word ‘experiment’ is unpopular but not the word ‘experimental.’ You mustn’t experiment on children: but offer the dear little kiddies free education in an experimental school attached to the N.I.C.E. and it’s all correct!”

  “You don’t mean that this-er-journalistic side would be my main job?”

  “It’s nothing to do with journalism. Your readers in the first instance would be committees of the House of Commons, not the public. But that would only be a side line. As for the job itself why, it’s impossible to say how it might develop. Talking to a man like you, I don’t stress the financial side. You’d start at something quite modest: say about fifteen hundred a year.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that,” said Mark, flushing with pure excitement.

  “Of course,” said Feverstone, “I ought to warn you, there is the danger. Not yet, perhaps. But when things really begin to hum it’s quite on the cards they may try to bump you off, like poor old Weston.”

  “I don’t think I was thinking about that either,” said Mark.

  “Look here,” said Feverstone. “Let me run you across to-morrow to see John Wither. He told me to bring you for the week-end if you were interested. You’ll meet all the important people there, and it’ll give you a chance to make up your mind.”

  “How does Wither come into it? I thought Jules was the head of the N.I.C.E.” Jules was a distinguished novelist and scientific populariser whose name always appeared before the public in connection with the new Institute.

  “Jules! Hell’s bells! “said Feverstone. “You don’t imagine that little mascot has anything to say to what really goes on? He’s all right for selling the Institute to the great British public in the Sunday papers and he draws a whacking salary. He’s no use for work. There’s nothing inside his head except some nineteenth-century socialist stuff, and blah about the rights of man. He’s just about got as far as Darwin!”