think? That your little cadre of nuclear physicists is fooling with the hydrogen-helium cycle and getting hotter than the rotor in a turbo-jet. You're scared you'll figure out that one-thousand-times-more-powerful-than-Nagasaki bomb. The atomic cloudmaker. The continental broom. The universal gene-mangler. Or crack light metals or separate isotopes by heat. Don't tell me if I've read your mind, doctor. I would rather be calm in my surmises than fearful I might say something in my sleep that could be checked. Do you guys really think it is smart to cause officials to go around positively announcing that the number of bombs we have in our beloved stockpile is smaller than anybody who knew the prewar radium production could figure out? When you discuss atomic
'weapons' in the press--without specifying--doesn't it seep into the dull heads of us laymen that, for instance, hot isotopes would make a nifty charge for ordinary high-explosive bombs--against warships, for example? And can't anybody make a pile, now--
and start the isotopes flowing? Crop-dust cities? And don't you incessantly talk too much about how long it will be before you can do thisa and thata? Remember when your spokesmen were telling us of the inutility of thorium? Cannot we, the plain people, add and subtract neutrons in our heads? Aren't you protesting too much now about how long it will be before you can push a couple of hydrogen atoms into one helium, with great and beneficial new release of energy?"
Paul was unamused. "Someday G2 is going to walk in here and walk out with you."
"Thought control," I said. "Never worked. Never will. Whenever a nation uses it, you can know that nation's washed up." The coffee came in--and the highball. I signed the check and tipped Karl. "Danke schoen," I said, and turned to Paul again. "G2 came after me long ago. I wrote a story before the war about uranium bombs and how they would be made and what they'd do--and it wasn't accepted until 1945. It went to censorship automatically--and when the censors read it--they hit the ceiling. Thought there was a leak in the Manhattan District. The only leak was in their heads. They sent a major out after me--like the hounds on the tail of Uncle Tom--"
"I recall the escapade," Paul said wearily. "You lead such a harrowing life, Mr.
Wylie. And tell about it over and over."
Nobody likes that one. I said, "Sorry," and carried Paul his drink. He was sitting in one of my chairs; he had his legs on another; his elbow rested on my coffee table. I saw in my mirror that I was flushing a little: I felt embarrassed.
But Paul had already forgotten chiding me. "Phil," he said, jiggling his glass to cool his psyche with the ice-clink, "it gets worse and worse. It is beyond horrible. Past hideous. More than unthinkable. And it surpasses the unbearable."
"How about--tiresome?"
He remembered again--and grinned. "Quid pro quo? Okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"It," I said. "You. Any damned thing you please."
Paul sipped his highball. And that was another difference. At his age, I hadn't sipped. I had guzzled. He appeared to be thinking over what he would like to discuss--as if it were a scientific problem. Finally he said, "Phil, what's the matter with us?"
"Us who?"
"Physicists."
"Religion," I said.
"The faith of skepticism?" He leered at me. "If all you've got on it is that old chapter about the law of opposites, never mind."
"Lack of skepticism," I answered.
Paul chuckled. "Goody! Go ahead."
"The religion of a physicist is his belief in pure reason.
He has done so well with it that he regards it as the whole of consciousness. He is like a man who has discovered the shovel. It digs so much better than his hands that he never looks for--"
"--the steam shovel?"
"Dynamite."
"Ouch!"
I laughed. "Take the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This journal has been coming to me ever since you guys got frightened by What-Hath-God-Wrought-Now. I've been reading it for
'weapons' in the press--without specifying--doesn't it seep into the dull heads of us laymen that, for instance, hot isotopes would make a nifty charge for ordinary high-explosive bombs--against warships, for example? And can't anybody make a pile, now--
and start the isotopes flowing? Crop-dust cities? And don't you incessantly talk too much about how long it will be before you can do thisa and thata? Remember when your spokesmen were telling us of the inutility of thorium? Cannot we, the plain people, add and subtract neutrons in our heads? Aren't you protesting too much now about how long it will be before you can push a couple of hydrogen atoms into one helium, with great and beneficial new release of energy?"
Paul was unamused. "Someday G2 is going to walk in here and walk out with you."
"Thought control," I said. "Never worked. Never will. Whenever a nation uses it, you can know that nation's washed up." The coffee came in--and the highball. I signed the check and tipped Karl. "Danke schoen," I said, and turned to Paul again. "G2 came after me long ago. I wrote a story before the war about uranium bombs and how they would be made and what they'd do--and it wasn't accepted until 1945. It went to censorship automatically--and when the censors read it--they hit the ceiling. Thought there was a leak in the Manhattan District. The only leak was in their heads. They sent a major out after me--like the hounds on the tail of Uncle Tom--"
"I recall the escapade," Paul said wearily. "You lead such a harrowing life, Mr.
Wylie. And tell about it over and over."
Nobody likes that one. I said, "Sorry," and carried Paul his drink. He was sitting in one of my chairs; he had his legs on another; his elbow rested on my coffee table. I saw in my mirror that I was flushing a little: I felt embarrassed.
But Paul had already forgotten chiding me. "Phil," he said, jiggling his glass to cool his psyche with the ice-clink, "it gets worse and worse. It is beyond horrible. Past hideous. More than unthinkable. And it surpasses the unbearable."
"How about--tiresome?"
He remembered again--and grinned. "Quid pro quo? Okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"It," I said. "You. Any damned thing you please."
Paul sipped his highball. And that was another difference. At his age, I hadn't sipped. I had guzzled. He appeared to be thinking over what he would like to discuss--as if it were a scientific problem. Finally he said, "Phil, what's the matter with us?"
"Us who?"
"Physicists."
"Religion," I said.
"The faith of skepticism?" He leered at me. "If all you've got on it is that old chapter about the law of opposites, never mind."
"Lack of skepticism," I answered.
Paul chuckled. "Goody! Go ahead."
"The religion of a physicist is his belief in pure reason.
He has done so well with it that he regards it as the whole of consciousness. He is like a man who has discovered the shovel. It digs so much better than his hands that he never looks for--"
"--the steam shovel?"
"Dynamite."
"Ouch!"
I laughed. "Take the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This journal has been coming to me ever since you guys got frightened by What-Hath-God-Wrought-Now. I've been reading it for
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