The Junkmakers Read online

more work."

  Burnett gave him a hearty handshake of congratulation ... but wasfrowning as he did so. "You're doing the right thing--for the wrongreason. Every member of this group could tell you why. Miss Wright,since you feel like talking, explain the matter."

  "Certainly. Mr. Hart, we are engaged in an activity of so-calledsubversion for a positive reason, not merely to avoid insufficientwork load. Your reason shows you are still being moved by the valuesthat you despise. We _want_ to cut the work-production load on people.We want them to _face_ the problem of leisure, not flee it."

  "There's a heart-warming paradox here," Burnett explained. "Everyexcess eventually undermines itself. Everybody in the movement startsby wanting to act for their beliefs because work appears so attractivefor its own sake. I was that way, too, until I studied the dead artof philosophy."

  "Well--" Hart sat down, deeply troubled. "Look, I deplore destroyingequipment that is still perfectly useful as much as any of you do. Butthere _is_ a problem. If the destruction were stopped there would beso much leisure people would rot from boredom."

  * * * * *

  Burnett pounced eagerly on the argument. "Instead they're rotting fromartificial work. Boredom is a temporary, if recurring phenomenon ofliving, not a permanent one. If most men face the difficulty of emptytime long enough they find new problems with which to fill that time.That's where philosophy showed me the way. None of its fundamentalmysteries can ever be solved but, as you pit yourself against them,your experience and capacity for being alive grows."

  "Very nice," Hart grinned, "wanting all men to be philosophers. Theynever have been."

  "You shouldn't have brought him here," growled the short man. "He'snot one of us. Now we have a real mess."

  "Johnson, I'm leader of this group!" Burnett exploded. "Credit me witha little understanding. All right, Hart, what you say is true. Butwhy? Because most men have always worked too hard to achieve thefruits of curiosity."

  "I hate to keep being a spoil-sport, but what does that prove? _Some_men who had to work as hard as the rest have been interested in thingsbeyond the end of their nose."

  They all groaned their disapproval.

  "A good point, Hart, but it doesn't prove what you think. It justshows that a minority enjoy innate capacities and environmentalvariations that make the transition to philosopher easier."

  "And _you_ haven't proven anything about the incurious majority."

  "This does, though: whenever there was a favorable period the majoritywho could, as you put it, see beyond the ends of their nosesincreased. Our era is just the opposite. We are trapped in a viciouscircle. Those noses are usually so close to the grindstone that menare afraid to raise their heads. We are breaking that circle!"

  "It's a terribly important thing to aim for, Burnett, but--" Hebrought up another doubt and somebody else answered it immediately.

  For the next half hour, as one uncertainty was expressed afteranother, everybody joined in the answers until inexorable logic forcedhis surrender.

  "All right," he conceded, "I will do anything I can--not to make workfor myself, but to help mankind rise above it."

  * * * * *

  Except for a brief, triumphant glance in Johnson's direction, Burnettgave no further attention to what had happened and plunged immediatelyinto practical matters.

  To halt the blind worship of work, the Rites had first to bediscredited. And to discredit the Rites, the awe inspired by theirinfallible performance had to be weakened. The sabotage of thePreliminary had been the first local step in that direction. There hadbeen a few similar, if smaller, episodes, executed by other groups,but they had received as little publicity as possible.

  "Johnson, you pulled one so big this time that they can't hide it.Twenty thousand witnesses! When it comes to getting things done you'rethe best we have!"

  The little man grinned. "But you're the one who knows how to pickrecruits and organize our concepts. This is how it worked. I re-fedthe emptied cryotron memory box of a robot discard with patterns todeal with anything it was likely to encounter in a destruction pile. Ikept the absolute-freeze mechanism in working order, but developed ashield that would hide its activity from the best pile detector." Hespread a large tissue schematic out on the floor and they allgathered around it to study the details. "Now, the important thing wasto have an external element that could resume contact with a widercircuit, which could in turn start meshing with the whole robotmechanism and then through that mechanism into the pile. This littlelever made the contact at a pre-fed time."

  Miss Wright was enthusiastic. "That contact is half the size of anyI've been able to make. It's crucially important," she added to Hart."A large contact can look suspicious."

  While others took miniphotos of the schematic, Hart studied thecontact carefully. "I think I can reduce its size by another fifty percent. Alloys are one of my specialties--when I get a chance to work atthem."

  "That would be ideal," said Burnett. "Then we could set up many morediscarded robots without risk. How long will it take?"

  "I can rough it out right now." He scribbled down the necessaryformulas and everyone photographed that too.

  "Maximum security is now in effect," announced Burnett. "You willdestroy your copies as soon as you have transferred them to ediblebase copies. At the first hint of danger you will consume them. Usehome enlargers for study. In no case are you to make permanentblowups that would be difficult to destroy quickly." He consideredthem sternly. "Remember, you are running a great risk. You're not onlyopposing the will of the state but the present will of the vastmajority of citizens."

  "If there are as many other underground groups as you indicate," saidHart, "they should have this information."

  "We get it to them," answered Burnett. "I'm going on health leave frommy job."

  "And what will be your excuse?" Wright demanded anxiously.

  "Nervous shock," smiled their leader. "After all, I did see today'sevents in the Plaza."

  * * * * *

  When Hart reached home his wife was waiting for him. "Why did you takeso long, Wendell. I was worried sick. The radio says anti-socials areturning wild servos loose. How could human beings do such a thing?"

  "I was there. I saw it all happen." He frowned. "The crowd was sodense I couldn't get away."

  "But what happened? The way the news was broadcast I couldn'tunderstand anything."

  He described the situation in great detail and awaited Marie'sreaction. It was even more encouraging than he had hoped for. "Iunderstand less than before! How could anything reactivate thatrubble? They put everything over five years old into the piles, andthe stuff's supposed to be decrepit already. You'd almost think wewere destroying wealth before its time, because if those disabledmechanisms reactivate--" She came to a dead halt. "That's madness! Oh,I wish High Holy Day were here already so I could get back to work andstop this empty _thinking_!"

  Her honest face was more painfully distorted than he had ever seen itbefore, even during the universal pre-Rite doldrums. "Only a few moredays to go," he consoled. "Don't worry, honey. Everything's going tobe all right. Now I'd like to be alone in the study for a while. I'vebeen through an exhausting time."

  "Aren't you going to eat?"

  The last word triggered the entry of Eric, the domestic robot, pushingthe dinner cart ahead of him. "No food to-night," Hart insisted. Theshining metal head nodded its assent and the cart was wheeled out.

  "That's not a very humane thing to do," she scolded. "Eric's not goingto be serving many more meals--"

  "Good grief, Marie, just leave me alone for a while, will you?" Heslammed the study door shut, warning himself to display lessnervousness in the future as he listened to her pacing outside. Thenshe went away.

  The projector gave him a good-sized wall image to consider. He spentmost of the night calculating where he could place tinyself-activators in the "obsolescent" robots that were to be do
nated byhis plant. Then he set up the instruction tapes to make the miniaturecontacts. Production then would be a simple job, only taking a fewminutes, and during a working day there were always many periodslonger than that when he was alone on the production floor.

  But thinking the matter out without computers was much more difficult.Human beings ordinarily filled their time on a lower abstractinglevel.

  When he unlocked the study door in the morning he was startled to seeMarie bustling down the corridor,