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compete with your monopoly. I figure that once you start turning out the rods, all of us will benefit. And
you'll get even richer. Just leave me alone and my secret is yours."
Again Dobrynin laughed. And laughed. He all but fell out of his chair. Finally, he wiped the tears out of
his eyes and spoke, "You fool. I already have the formula. You don't understand how things work. Did
you ever wonder why we haven't circled the Earth with solar cells and beamed microwave energy down
to Earth? Or how about fusion power? If we took advantage of what we know, of our technology, your
anti-gravity wouldn't make a dent in things. Why are there steel shortages when we could mine the
Moon? Did you know we've closed our operations down there?"
I said nothing.
"Want to know why?"
"I'll bite."
"Because the operations would be successful. Our goal isn't to help the unwashed masses. Our goal is to
keep the peons poor. And it isn't easy to keep them poor so we can retain control of all the naughty girls
and boys on this planet."
"He's crazy," I said to Lincoln.
"No," Lincoln said. "And he isn't alone in his thinking. The industrial cartel agrees with him. More or less.
Listen to what he's saying. It makes sense."
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 "Yes," Dobrynin continued. "Think about history. When do you have revolts and uprisings?"
"Whenever the people don't have enough. When they're oppressed."
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong," Dobrynin whined, shaking his finger at me. " If you'd study
history--really study history, not this tripe we have them telling the school brats--you'll discover that
revolts and turmoil occur when people start to get a higher standard of living. Or when they see their
neighbors getting it and they aren't. During real times of hardship--the dark ages, the depressions,
hyper-inflation--people knuckle under. They look to their government to help them. They become
beggars--not fighters."
"And that's what you want?"
"You bet. By slowly lowering the standard of living, by letting them the peasants expect a price rise on
their utilities, we gradually gain control of everything. As long as they sit at home and watch the 3V or
come to my games... People like me retain our power and we all live in peace. Since we started
manipulating the government, there hasn't been anything other than border squabbles and on occasional
terrorist act."
"But..." It was so crazy, I didn't know what to say. Because in addition to being crazy it had a terrifying
ring of truth to it.
"You," Dobrynin continued, "would throw in a monkey wrench into things if you had your way with
releasing the technology of anti-gravity. Right away everyone is going to want a flying vehicle; but not
everyone can have one. The skies can't hold them all. And if even a few have them, my rocket system
will go broke. Next everyone is going to expect cheap energy; what happens to the people who work in
the power plants? Are they going to want to be on the public fares while their neighbors continue to
work? No. We'll just have more friction. Those who've lost their jobs to your new technology won't be
able to keep up with the others. We'll have protests and--finally--riots. And who finally loses? The
government. And who runs the government?"
"The people," I said. And felt instantly foolish as both Lincoln and Dobrynin laughed.
Dobrynin sneered. "You must think you're in the good-old-days. No wonder you want to give power
away. No, we can't let that happen. Now why don't you leave and let me watch my games?"
He turned back and watched the games. Lincoln sat still, having come to the end of his program. I stood
and fumed for what seemed like ten minutes, wondering if I might still be able to do something else. I
hadn't expected to be able to reason with Dobrynin; Yet I had hoped that perhaps we could get
everyone off our backs so that we could go about our work. And I had hoped against hope that we'd be
able to get my anti-gravity technology released to those on Earth who really needed it to raise their
standard of living.
But I did have a plan.
It was time to use our drug kit to program Dobrynin.
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 Chapter 20
"Nikki," I said, "get out your drug kit. Nikki?" She was nowhere around. I gave the room another look.
"Nikki!"
"Don't panic, Phil," she said from the room I'd tried to get into earlier. "Just a minute."
A few moments later she entered from the doorway leading to the communications room, She'd taken
off her bag lady mask and helmet/wig since it was so warm where we were. "I've been playing with
Dobrynin's computers. I could see you weren't going to reach a gentleman's agreement. I sent out the
press releases and public announcements we recorded earlier." She held up the mini-D we'd recorded
them on. "Before too long, the whole world will know about your anti-grav rods."
"That can be undone," Dobrynin said. "A few news broadcasts about the 'hoax' and everyone will be
laughing about the impossibility of any such thing. We have already got them conditioned to scoff at the
idea that there could be anti-gravity anyway. It will be a big joke." He dismissed us with a wave of his
hand and went back to watching the ball game.
I looked at him a moment. As the game became more violent, he started drooling. I turned back to
Nikki, " I think we're going to have to help him see things our way. Let's do for him what we did for
Lincoln. That drug worked pretty well."
Nikki handed me her shotgun and took the drug kit out of the large pocket in her bag-lady uniform.
Dobrynin was--I thought--engrossed in it as it seemed. But when the kit came out, he screamed, "No!"
and rose to his feet.
I glanced over as he rose, his face red with rage. Dobrynin was the first obese man I'd really ever seen.
Yes, they do have them in the 3V's but we all know those are just actors in fat suits. Maybe even a little
synthaskin. But not real flesh-and-blood, honest-to-goodness blubber. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]