Time Will Run Back (44 page)

“Let’s not speak slightingly or patronizingly of material or economic welfare,” said Peter. “It is this that makes all cultural progress possible. The highest scientific or spiritual achievements cannot be reached by anyone unless he has rather recently had something to eat.”

“I agree with all that,” Adams said. “And that is why I am asking you this question. Its enormous productivity is, as I see it, merely one of the consequences of your new system. But what do you consider to be the heart of it? What is its innermost secret?”

“Its secret?” said Peter. The question excited him. He got up and paced back and forth. “Let’s see.... Its secret, perhaps, is that it protects the right of everyone to keep what he has made. He is allowed to have and to hold the product of his labor... the amount of value he has contributed to production. He engages only in voluntary exchanges. This voluntary exchange implies giving value for equal value, or rather, it implies that no exchange need be made unless each party to the transaction feels that he gains by it. Under this system, then, all economic relations are
voluntary.”

“Including that of employer and employee?”

“Yes. Under this system the choice of one’s productive role is essentially a voluntary choice.”

“But if a man has no capital, chief?”

“The amount of capital a man has or can borrow, Adams, depends usually on his previous productive record—and in any case does not necessarily determine his choice of role. The hired salaried managers of great business firms, or our leading motion picture actors, get huge incomes, but are ‘only employees,’ whereas the man who sets up his own little cigarette stand or gasoline-filling station, or drives his own taxicab, is an ‘enterpriser,’ a ‘capitalist’ or perhaps an ‘employer,’ even though his income may be very low. I am driven to the conclusion that the Marxist separation of ‘employers’ and ‘workers’ into antagonistic and irreconcilable ‘classes’ is nonsensical. The relationship of the employer to the worker is essentially cooperative; it is basically a partnership in production.”

“But won’t the employer and the worker often disagree as to precisely how much each should get of the value of their joint production?”

“Of course they will; and so at times will all partners. But it is quite another thing to erect such individual disagreements into a theory of an irresolvable ‘class’ conflict.”

“Then am I to understand that the secret of your system, chief, is that productive relationships under it are essentially
voluntary?”

“That is certainly part of the secret,” Peter agreed, “and one of the great points of contrast with any collectivist system, whether it is called communism, socialism, central planning or what not. Under all these systems economic relationships are essentially
compulsory.
They are dictated from the center, from the top. Under them everyone must take the role assigned to him from the top, or the socialist planners cannot carry out their plans. But—”

He kept pacing back and forth. He was not quite satisfied with his answer. The secret? The secret? Why, of course!

“The secret of our new system,” he said suddenly, “if it has any secret, is
freedom!
Simple freedom! You set men free, and each turns to doing what he most wishes to do, or what he thinks he can do best, or what he thinks will bring him the greatest means to happiness. The secret is the freedom of each man to make a living in his own way; the freedom to produce what he wishes; the freedom to keep what he creates, or to share it or dispose of it in accordance with the dictates of his own and not some bureaucrat’s conscience; the freedom to associate with whom he wishes; the freedom to consume what he wishes; the freedom to make and to correct his own mistakes—”

“But if your great idea, chief, is at bottom simply
freedom
—”

“Our
great idea, Adams!
Freeworld’s
great idea!”

“But don’t you remember, chief, that night you ran through the deserted streets of the Kremlin to my rooms? You thought then that your great discovery was private ownership of the means of production!”

“Well, yes.... Private ownership of the means of production, Adams, is certainly
a
great idea. But that is because it is an inescapable corollary, an integral part, of
the
great idea, which is individual
freedom.
It is only when the means of production are privately owned that the individual can keep the fruits of his production. It is only when the individual is protected in his right to retain the fruits of his production that he has the incentive to produce. It is only when the individual has the right to own the means of production that he is free to make his living in his own way. And not unless he has
this
freedom—this economic independence, this liberty to earn his own livelihood without the favor of the state, and without licking the boots of the bureaucratic hierarchy—not unless he has
this
freedom can he have any freedom whatever. For freedom is indivisible. Freedom is like a living thing. Freedom
is
a living thing! You may say, if you please, that economic freedom is only the belly of the whole body of freedom. But remember that the belly carries the legs; remember that the belly feeds the heart; remember that unless the belly is there, unless the belly is alive and healthy and whole, the mind cannot think and the spirit cannot dream—”

“But if freedom is the central virtue of the new system,” asked Adams, “isn’t it also its central danger? Haven’t you granted
too much
freedom?”

“Too much?”

“Yes, chief. You have allowed people to say what they please in speeches, to print what they please in books and newspapers. And what is the result? They are using their freedom of speech continually to criticize your government, to criticize even the marvelous new system that you have made possible—the system that has made their very freedom of speech possible. You allow them to criticize without fear of punishment, without fear of losing their jobs or fortunes or means of livelihood or chance of promotion, and therefore they criticize.”

“It does seem a bit paradoxical,” Peter said. “Wonworld is a hell; but no one inside dares to criticize it, which is precisely one of the things that makes it a hell. Worse, everyone inside is compelled continually to praise it. And the result is that stupid people, hearing nothing but praise of the system, think they must be living in a heaven, though they are sick and terrorized and wretched. And in Freeworld we have created what is—at least by comparison—a heaven. And one of the very things that makes it a comparative heaven is the freedom to criticize it. But stupid people, when they hear so much criticism, begin to think they must be living in a hell, though no one in our recorded history was ever as well off in material and cultural resources as they are.... I confess I don’t know any answer to this paradox... except, perhaps, still more freedom....”

“Still more?”

“Yes, Adams. Still more. You know how futile, when we were still under the old communist-socialist system, were all my efforts to introduce freedom and political democracy. Now, I think, conditions are at last ripe for the introduction of a genuine and free representative government, in which the leaders will be freely selected by the people, and—”

Suddenly they heard the roar of planes. They rushed toward the window.

There was an explosion. Then another, still louder. Then the ack-ack of antiaircraft guns. Then a continuous roar.

“We’re being bombed!” shouted Peter. “Let’s go to the switchboard. The War Department must have been trying to reach me. I must call—-”

“That’s foolhardy now,” shouted Adams.

Peter started out of the room. He heard a terrific detonation. He felt the floor crunching under his feet. He looked up to sec the ceiling crack open and fall....

He lost consciousness.

HE had been deep under water, far down, and felt himself rising to the surface.... He opened his eyes reluctantly, from a sense of duty.

He was in bed, in a bare room flooded with sunshine. Standing at his side was a tall dark-haired girl, dressed in white, beautiful and smiling.

She stroked his head. “You had us all so worried, Your Highness.”

“Where am I?”

“You mustn’t talk. You’re in the Peter Uldanov Hospital. You’ve been unconscious for nearly three days.”

He started to say something, but she put her finger to his lips. “The air raid is all over. They did a lot of damage, but Secretary Adams says there was nothing fatal.... Yes, the Secretary is fine. The whole White House fell on you, chief, but Echo—I mean—Adams, was dug out without even a scratch. One of those freak things.... Secretary Adams is running the war. He says you’re not to worry about a thing.... The head doctor insists you’re not even to think about the war until he says you can.”

“How long... will that be?” His voice sounded strange to him. It tore his throat apart to talk.

She put her finger over his lips again. “You shouldn’t try to talk, chief. You’ll have to be a very good patient. Let
us
worry. All we want you to do is to relax, forget things, and get well.”

She turned away from the bed. His eyes followed her graceful movements.

“Now, we’ll try to get some nourishment into you. This is orange juice. Does that sound good?” All he could see distinctly was the front end of a bent glass tube that she deftly slid between his lips. His swallowing was painful, but the orange juice was wonderfully satisfying. “Now you’re to take a little sip of this.” It was some tasteless fluid. He fell asleep....

When he awoke the nurse was bending over him. What a wonderful smile she had!

“I dozed off for a few minutes....”

She laughed. “You’ve been asleep for fifteen hours! That medicine I gave you did it. The night nurse has been here and gone. We’ll get some breakfast into you right away.” She slipped the glass tube in his mouth again. He liked the soft touch of her fingers against his lips.

He glanced down at the bed. His whole body was in plaster casts—head, neck, back, legs. He was moved and turned by ropes and pulleys, like a marionette.

“I look ridiculous.”

“You look very nice.” She smiled. “And you
shouldn’t
talk for a while yet.... I’m your day nurse. You probably guessed that. My name is Edith Robinson—”

“Edith?”

“Yes... is there anything surprising...? “

He finished his liquid breakfast and dozed off again....

Everyone was in a conspiracy of silence. No one told him how the war was progressing. He was kept so continually doped with anesthetics and sleeping tablets that he couldn’t even keep track of his own pains. Every day the doctors, Edith Robinson and the other nurses told him he was doing fine. Every day Adams would call and tell him the war was going along fine and he was not to worry about a thing.

“Nurse Robinson!”

“Yes?”

“Do you mind if I call you Edith?”

“I should consider it an honor, chief.”

“You know, I’m usually addressed as ‘Your Highness.’ “

“I know.... I heard Echo—sorry, Secretary Adams—call you ‘chief,’ and it seemed much more friendly. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. You know we’re very fond of you, chief.”

“We?”

“Yes. All of us in Freeworld.”

“Oh.”

He was silent for a while.

“Did I hear you calling Secretary Adams ‘Echo’? “

“I’m sorry, chief. That’s a nickname. A newspaper gave it to him. I guess it’s only recently....”

“How did he ever get
that?”
“Well, it’s short for Secretary of
Eco
nomics. And then... a lot of people think he just echoes your opinions and policies and that he’s just acting for you now. I don’t really think most people intend to be unfriendly when they use it. Secretary Adams doesn’t mind. He jokes about it... he’s a darling.”

“Oh, he is?” He was surprised to hear a touch of resentment and jealousy in his own voice.

Three months went by before the last cast was taken off. He found himself gradually walking again, though with crutches. He was told he could leave the hospital if he agreed to take at least another three months for convalescence.

He consented to be taken back to his home in Bermuda, provided Nurse Robinson went with him. A doctor, two other nurses and three servants went along.

The island was even lovelier than he had remembered it, and the sea more incredibly blue.

His strength came back in little jumps. He found himself walking again, without crutches.

Edith Robinson read to him in the long evenings. He began to taste for the first time some of the cultural fruits of his new system. As his reforms had brought a lessening of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, a handful of old bourgeois books, saved by a few courageous ancestors and their descendants from the all-consuming bonfires, had emerged.

What had been uncovered so far were the works of only three of the ancient bourgeois authors—a William Shakespeare, a Jane Austen, and a Miguel Cervantes. The books were of course all in dead languages, but scholars had patiently deciphered them, and they were now available in Marxanto—or rather in the resemanticized Marxanto that was gradually taking its place. Edith Robinson and Peter first went through the novels of Jane Austen and found them fountains of pure delight. To save the works of these authors, Peter reflected, though they carried no particular political message, men and women had risked torture and the lives of themselves and their children, on the bare possibility that these works might one day again be brought to light. Men could not have shown their courage, he felt, in a better cause.

But sometimes, as she read to him, his mind would wander from the substance of what she read, and he would find himself listening to her voice itself, to its soft tone, or watching her graceful movements and her neat figure. He found himself making comparisons. This new Edith was so straightforward, so candid, so sure of herself. What he would have given to see that look of independence in the eyes of the shy, fearful Edith he had lost!

And then he thought: It is not really the difference between two women I am seeing; it is the difference between two worlds!