8

Norvel's theory that the Dictator was a necessary evil and that the forces of progressive adaptation could live through and live down any Dictatorship, was losing its validity with every fresh aggression of Rud's. And Norvel was losing his temper. As one intrusion of the political police into his new universities and school organisations followed another, as he found even his best school teachers were being terrorised, his clearest thinkers silenced and his carefully planned instruction in biology, history and social science more or less systematically and ignorantly confused, revised or suppressed, he began, reluctantly enough at first and then without reluctance, to scheme for the restraint and elimination of Rud.

He was not a good conspirator. He had begun as a publisher and propagandist and he had grown into an educator; these are outspoken activities, and he did not know how to set about any secret plotting. He sounded several of his colleagues. Neither Bellacourt nor Holbank nor Roots seemed to be greatly stirred by the suppression of thought and discussion. They were entirely preoccupied by their own immense jobs, they were interfered with very little, as yet. It seemed a matter of secondary importance to them who was fed, clothed, carried about by their always more competent material organisations. They disliked the idea of any disturbance of this vast rationalisation of the general world economy. They wanted things to go on as they were going. But Heming, who was in control of the world's health, and Lacoste, who was a sort of Minister for a miscellany of biological services, wilderness conservation, deep sea conservation, genetic reorganisation, a service leading possibly to human eugenics, population regulation and the like, were in closer contact with the mental organisation of the world. Their work overlapped Norvel's at a number of contacts, and their general outlook was very similar to his. They disliked the systematic falsification of human relations by this new sort of absolute monarchy quite as much as Norvel.

So that when they found themselves in conference upon a project of Lacoste's for eliminating various infections, disease carriers and insect pests once and for all from human experience, it was natural and easy to fall into a discussion of the ever–intensifying World Dictatorship.

They had dismissed the assistants, secretaries and stenographers; they sat together at the end of the long table in the main conference chamber of the Education Office and their voices dropped to undertones. Now and then one or other of them would glance over his shoulder to be sure that they were still alone.

"Well?" said Lacoste, watching the departure of the last secretary.

"We did not mention all sorts of things," said Heming; "for various good reasons. We seem to go about our business in blinkers. I have been feeling all along that the gist of our discussion was unspoken."

Norvel sat with his arms folded on the table. "Can things go on much longer?" he asked, "as they are going?"

"Things are so secret," said Lacoste. "I only heard about Chiffan six days ago. I can get no particulars."

"Chiffan?" asked Heming. "What is this about Chiffan?" "Shot," said Norvel.

Heming shut his mouth tight, saying not a word. His astonishment was more eloquent than any outcry.

Norvel looked at him. "Something has to be done," said Norvel.

"And what do you think has to be done?" said Lacoste. "That is the riddle," said Heming.

"This new world of ours is merely a scaffolding—so far," said Norvel. "A struggle for the leadership might bring it all down. Can we bear to see this World Revolution lose its headway, as the Russian Revolution did when Stalin and Trotsky fell out? I would rather be boiled in oil than destroy the work that has been done already, that he as leader has done—the ending of war, peace throughout the world."

"But he himself is beginning to destroy it," said Heming.

"They are increasing the secret police," said Lacoste. "They have been interfering lately with the collection of our vital statistics. They want to inspect the confidential answers to our questionnaires in one or two places where they are after people. People who have been denounced."

"That infernal little weasel Rothberg wants to found a special college for detectives," said Norvel, "a spy and sneak factory."

"What will you do about those confidential answers?" asked Heming of Lacoste.

"Hold them as long as possible and then burn them if we're pressed."

"But then your people will get arrested."

Lacoste shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no prospect of an insurrection—anywhere?" speculated Heming.

"Do we want an insurrection?" said Norvel. "I don't think so. Partial insurrections are quite possible. They are probable. There's plenty of inflammatory stuff in Islam for example. But that sort of thing means disorder, disintegration. And as a matter of fact, and it's more a matter of fact every year, the young, the masses of young people, white, black, brown or yellow everywhere, believe in Rud, swear by him. They identify him completely with the new world…We must let them down gently. No one of us ever foresaw the tremendous power of modern mind–moulding. The old Nazi and Soviet methods have been developed now to a tremendous efficiency. From the infants' school on. The young don't understand how it is with us. They would not understand any move to limit or restrain him. The mischief's done. I do not see how we can disentangle ourselves from this—this Tyranny without a social disaster."

"How long may he live?" asked Lacoste. "He looks pretty ill at times. He keeps changing his doctors."

"He's a nervous wreck," said Heming. "But still he may live for years. It's mental strain with him far more than bodily. Quite possibly he'll go mad."

"That won't help us," said Norvel grimly.

"If he went quite obviously mad," said Lacoste. "So plainly mad that we could hustle him into a mental hospital—?"

Norvel turned to Heming with a new idea. "Even if he wasn't mad," he said, and left the suggestion at that.

"He chooses his own attendants. It would be impossible," said Heming, thinking it over.

"Some accident," said Lacoste.

"You mean, in one word, assassination?" said Norvel.

"Open assassination—unless it was done by an actual certifiable lunatic—on some personal score…No." Lacoste shook his head. "It would be a tremendous social shock. Rothberg might jump the situation. No, I mean an accident—an aeroplane, a car."

"I don't care a rap for Rud. I never did care for him," said Norvel. "And since this Chiffan affair I hate him. Simply and plainly I hate him. I think the original Group laid the foundation of all this trouble by letting him acquire this preposterous personal power. There was no need for it. He grabbed under their noses,—and with their consent. None of us three were in the original Group, and we know nothing of the magic of early associations. No. He has to go. I don't care how he goes, so far as he and I are concerned. Nevertheless I will consider no way of disposing of him that would subject this New World Order to stress and danger. That's the difficulty. That's the real problem."

"But how can men of our sort conspire?" said Lacoste. "It has been trained out of us. Which of us three would be the most incapable, if it came to dealing with the First Murderer, the Second Murderer, and so on? Which of us could deal with a Rothberg? We are not that sort of stuff. We could as soon go down on all fours to fight dogs. We are different animals."

"And so there is nothing to be done?" said Heming. "Chiffan dies and nothing can be done," said Lacoste. "My schools are shattered," said Norvel. "My universities are debased and nothing can be done…I won't stand that. And yet—how the devil—?"

He was pallid with impotent hatred. And with his hatred went a strong infusion of self–contempt.

"Oh! it is intolerable," he cried, "that the lives of hundreds of millions of people should be dishonoured beneath the vanity and folly of one single man. It is intolerable that Chiffan should be murdered and we do nothing. I more than anyone, am to blame. The worst sort of treason is the treason of the teacher. And I gave him the crowd. I. I let his propaganda go. I helped it. I, as much as anyone, am responsible for this servitude. Prospero slave to Caliban! Horrible!"

"But what can we do?" asked Heming. "What can men of our type do?"

(It might have been a echo, an third of a century later, of Father Whitlow's: "What can you do with a boy like that?")

"Protest, resist, disobey, suffer, carry on to the last moment," said Norvel. "We could at least do that. I intend to become more and more insubordinate—to take his pictures out of the schools, to drop his salutes, to teach history faithfully. Half my teachers are with me in that."

"And if he strikes you down?"

"I shall be struck down. Such things have to happen. Some of my teachers will certainly carry on."

Every characteristic of Norvel conspired to make him despise as well as hate Rud. He was a man of immense practical ability, as great or greater than Bodisham's, though he lacked the world co–ordinator's imagination; but he had nothing of the one commanding quality in Rud's composition, his rare flashes of social and political insight. So that he missed the one quality in Rud which had first attracted and bound the Group together. He despised his incapacity for detail and he would not recognise his occasional inspirations. Rud, Norvel thought, was just a needless accessory to the Revolution; he had not been necessary to its development; he would not even concede him the honour due to a foetal membrane. He jabbed his pen–nib into the table. "To hell with leaders," he said. "Why do we endure them? To hell with dictators and every form of monarchy. Why cannot we agree to kill this little beast and have done with him, and get on with our work?"

"How?" reiterated Heming. "How?"