The Push of a Finger - (1)

--or a careless word, for that matter, can wreck the entire universe. Think not? Well, if it happened this way--
    By Alfred Bester
    I think it's about time someone got all those stories together and burned them. You know the kind I mean--X, the mad scientist, wants to change the world; Y, the ruthless dictator, wants to rule the world; Z, the alien planet, wants to destroy the world.
    Let me tell you a different kind of story. It's about a whole world that wanted to rule one man--about a planet of people who hunted down a single individual in an effort to change his life, yes, and even destroy him, if it had to be. It's a story about one man against the entire Earth, but with the positions reversed.
    They've got a place in Manhattan City that isn't very well known. Not known, I mean, in the sense that the cell-nucleus wasn't known until scientists began to get the general idea. This was an undiscovered cell-nucleus, and still is, I imagine. It's the pivot of our Universe. Anything that shakes the world comes out of it; and, strangely enough, any shake that does come out of it is intended to prevent worse upheavals.
    Don't ask questions now. I'll explain as I go along.
    The reason the average man doesn't know about this particular nucleus is that he'd probably go off his nut if he did. Our officials make pretty sure it's kept secret, and although some nosy-bodies would scream to high heaven if they found out something was being kept from the public, anyone with sense will admit it's for the best.
    It's a square white building about ten stories high and it looks like an abandoned hospital. Around nine o'clock in the morning you can see a couple of dozen ordinary looking citizens arriving, and at the end of the workday some of them leave. But there's a considerable number that stay overtime and work until dawn or until the next couple of dawns. They're cautious about keeping windows covered so that high-minded citizens won't see the light and run to the controller's office yawping about overtime and breaking down Stability. Also they happen to have permission.
    Yeah, it's real big-time stuff. These fellas are so important, and their work is so important they've got permission to break the one unbreakable law. They can work overtime. In fact as far as they're concerned they can do any damned thing they please, Stability or no Stability--because it so happens they're the babies that maintain Stability. How? Take it easy. We've got plenty of time--and I'll tell you.
    It's called the Prog Building and it's one of the regular newspaper beats, just like the police courts used to be a couple of hundred years ago. Every paper sends a reporter down there at three o'clock. The reporters hang around and bull for a while and then some brass hat interviews them and talks policy and economics and about how the world is doing and how it's going to do. Usually it's dull stuff but every once in a while something really big comes out, like the time they decided to drain the Mediterranean. They--
    What?
    You never heard of that? Say, who is this guy anyway? Are you kidding? From the Moon, hey, all your life? Never been to the home planet? Never heard about what goes on? A real cosmic hick. Baby, you can roll me in a rug. I thought your kind died out before I was born. O.K., you go ahead and ask questions whenever you want. Maybe I'd better apologize now for the slang. It's part and parcel of the newspaper game. Maybe you won't be able to understand me sometimes, but I've got a heart of gold.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Anyway--I had the regular three o'clock beat at the Prog Building and this particular day I got there a little early. Seems the Trib had a new reporter on the beat, guy by the name of Halley Hogan, whom I'd never met. I wanted to get together with him and talk policy. For the benefit of the hermit from the Moon I'll explain that no two newspapers in any city are permitted to share the same viewpoint or opinion.
    I thought all you boys knew that. Well, sure--I'm not kidding. Look. Stability is the watchword of civilization. The world must be Stable, right? Well, Stability doesn't mean stasis. Stability is reached through an equipoise of opposing forces that balance each other. Newspapers are supposed to balance the forces of public opinion so they have to represent as many different points of view as possible. We reporters always got together before a story, or after, and made sure none of us would agree on our attitudes. You know--some would say it was a terrible thing and some would say it was a wonderful thing and some would say it didn't mean a thing and so on. I was with the Times and our natural competitor and opposition was the Trib.
    The newspaper room in the Prog Building is right next to the main offices, just off the foyer. It's a big place with low-beamed ceiling and walls done in synthetic wood panels. There was a round table in the center surrounded by hardwood chairs, but we stood the chairs along the wall and dragged up the big deep leather ones. We all would sit with our heels on the table and every chair had a groove on the table in front of it. There was an unwritten law that no shop could be talked until every groove was filled with a pair of heels. That's a newspaper man's idea of a pun.
    I was surprised to find almost everybody was in. I slipped into my place and upped with my feet and then took a look around. Every sandal showed except the pair that should have been opposite me, so I settled back and shut my eyes. That was where the Trib man should have been parked, and I certainly couldn't talk without my opposition being there to contradict me.
    The Post said: "What makes, Carmichael?"
    I said: "Ho-hum--"
    The Post said: "Don't sleep, baby, there's big things cookin'."
    The Ledger said: "Shuddup, you know the rules--" He pointed to the vacant segment of table.
    I said: "You mean the law of the jungle."
    The Record, who happened to be the Ledger's opposition, said: "Old Bobbus left. He ain't coming in no more."
    "How come?"
    "Got a Stereo contract. Doing comedy scenarios."
    I thought to myself: "Oi, that means another wrestling match." You see, whenever new opposition reporters get together, they're supposed to have a symbolic wrestling match. I said supposed. It always turns into a brawl with everybody else having the fun.
    "Well," I said, "this new Hogan probably doesn't know the ropes yet. I guess I'll have to go into training. Anybody seen him? He look strong?" They all shook their heads and said they didn't know him. "O.K., then let's gab without him--"
    The Post said: "Your correspondent has it that the pot's a-boilin'. Every bigwig in town is in there." He jabbed his thumb toward the main offices.
    *       *       *       *       *
    We all gave the door a glance, only, like I always did, I tried to knock it in with a look. You see, although all of us came down to the Prog Building every day, none of us knew what was inside. Yeah, 's' fact. We just came and sat and listened to the big shots and went away. Like specters at the feast. It griped all of us, but me most of all.
    I would dream about it at night. How there was a Hyperman living in the Prog Building, only he breathed chlorine and they kept him in tanks. Or that they had the mummies of all the great men of the past which they reanimated every afternoon to ask questions. Or it would be a cow in some dreams that was full of brains and they'd taught it to "moo" in code. There were times when I thought that if I didn't get upstairs into the Prog Building I'd burst from frustration.
    So I said: "You think they're going to fill up the Mediterranean again?"
    The Ledger laughed. He said: "I hear tell they're going to switch poles. North to south and vice versa."
    The Record said: "You don't think they could?"
    The Ledger said: "I wish they would--if it'd improve my bridge."
    I said: "Can it, lads, and let's have the dope."
    The Journal said: "Well, all the regulars are in--controller, vice con and deputy vice con. But there also happens to be among those present--the chief stabilizer."
    "No!"
    He nodded and the others nodded. "Fact. The C-S himself. Came up by pneumatic from Washington."
    I said: "Oh, mamma! Five'll get you ten they're digging up Atlantis this time."
    The Record shook his head. "The C-S didn't wear a digging look."
    Just then the door to the main office shoved open and the C-S came thundering out. I'm not exaggerating. Old Groating had a face like Moses, beard and all, and when he frowned, which was now, you expected lightning to crackle from his eyes. He breezed past the table with just one glance from the blue quartz he's got for eyes, and all our legs came down with a crash. Then he shot out of the room so fast I could hear his rep tunic swish with quick whistling sounds.
    After him came the controller, the vice con and the deputy vice con, all in single file. They were frowning, too, and moving so rapidly we had to jump to catch the deputy. We got him at the door and swung him around. He was short and fat and trouble didn't sit well on his pudgy face. It made him look slightly lop-sided.
    He said: "Not now, gentlemen."
    "Just a minute, Mr. Klang," I said, "I don't think you're being fair to the press."
    "I know it," the deputy said, "and I'm sorry, but I really cannot spare the time."
    I said: "So we report to fifteen million readers that time can't be spared these days--"
    He stared at me, only I'd been doing some staring myself and I knew I had to get him to agree to give us a release.
    I said: "Have a heart. If anything's big enough to upset the stability of the chief stabilizer, we ought to get a look-in."
    That worried him, and I knew it would. Fifteen million people would be more than slightly unnerved to read that the C-S had been in a dither.
    "Listen," I said. "What goes on? What were you talking about upstairs?"
    He said: "All right. Come down to my office with me. We'll prepare a release."
    Only I didn't go out with the rest of them. Because, you see, while I'd been nudging the deputy I'd noticed that all of them had rushed out so fast they'd forgotten to close the office door. It was the first time I'd seen it unlocked and I knew I was going to go through it this time. That was why I'd wheedled that release out of the deputy. I was going to get upstairs into the Prog Building because everything played into my hands. First, the door being left open. Second, the man from the Trib not being there.
    Why? Well, don't you see? The opposition papers always paired off. The Ledger and the Record walked together and the Journal and the News and so on. This way I was alone with no one to look for me and wonder what I was up to. I pushed around in the crowd a little as they followed the deputy out, and managed to be the last one in the room. I slipped back behind the door jamb, waited a second and then streaked across to the office door. I went through it like a shot and shut it behind me. When I had my back against it I took a breath and whispered: "Hyperman, here I come!"
    *       *       *       *       *
    I was standing in a small hall that had synthetic walls with those fluorescent paintings on them. It was pretty short, had no doors anywhere, and led toward the foot of a white staircase. The only way I could go was forward, so I went. With that door locked behind me I knew I would be slightly above suspicion--but only slightly, my friends, only slightly. Sooner or later someone was going to ask who I was.
    The stairs were very pretty. I remember them because they were the first set I'd ever seen outside the Housing Museum. They had white even steps and they curved upward like a conic section. I ran my fingers along the smooth stone balustrade and trudged up expecting anything from a cobra to one of Tex Richard's Fighting Robots to jump out at me. I was scared to death.
    I came to a square railed landing and it was then I first sensed the vibrations. I'd thought it was my heart whopping against my ribs with that peculiar bam-bam-bam that takes your breath away and sets a solid lump of cold under your stomach. Then I realised this pulse came from the Prog Building itself. I trotted up the rest of the stairs on the double and came to the top. There was a sliding door there. I took hold of the knob and thought: "Oh, well, they can only stuff me and put me under glass"--so I shoved the door open.
    Boys, this was it--that nucleus I told you about. I'll try to give you an idea of what it looked like because it was the most sensational thing I've ever seen--and I've seen plenty in my time. The room took up the entire width of the building and it was two stories high. I felt as though I'd walked into the middle of a clock. Space was literally filled with the shimmer and spin of cogs and cams that gleamed with the peculiar highlights you see on a droplet of water about to fall. All of those thousands of wheels spun in sockets of precious stone--just like a watch only bigger--and those dots of red and yellow and green and blue fire burned until they looked like a painting by that Frenchman from way back. Seurat was his name.
    The walls were lined with banks of Computation Integraphs--you could see the end-total curves where they were plotted on photoelectric plates. The setting dials for the Integraphs were all at eye level and ran around the entire circumference of the room like a chain of enormous white-faced periods. That was about all of the stuff I could recognize. The rest just looked complicated and bewildering.
    That bam-bam-bam I told you about came from the very center of the room. There was a crystal octahedron maybe ten feet high, nipped between vertical axes above and below. It was spinning slowly so that it looked jerky, and the vibration was the sound of the motors that turned it. From way high up there were shafts of light projected at it. The slow turning facets caught those beams and shattered them and sent them dancing through the room. Boys--it was really sensational.
    *       *       *       *       *
    I took a couple of steps in and then a little old coot in a white jacket bustled across the room, saw me, nodded, and went about his business. He hadn't taken more than another three steps when he stopped and came back to me. It was a real slow take.
    He said: "I don't quite--" and then he broke off doubtfully. He had a withered, faraway look, as though he'd spent all his life trying to remember he was alive.
    I said: "I'm Carmichael."
    "Oh yes!" he began, brightening a little. Then his face got dubious again.
    I played it real smart. I said: "I'm with Stabilizer Groating."
    "Secretary?"
    "Yeah."
    "You know, Mr. Mitchel," he said, "I can't help feeling that despite the gloomier aspects there are some very encouraging features. The Ultimate Datum System that we have devised should bring us down to surveys of the near future in a short time--" He gave me a quizzical glance like a dog begging for admiration on his hind legs.
    I said: "Really?"
    "It stands to reason. After all, once a technique has been devised for pushing analysis into the absolute future, a comparatively simple reversal should bring it as close as tomorrow."
    I said: "It should at that"--and wondered what he was talking about. Now that some of the fright had worn off I was feeling slightly disappointed. Here I expected to find the Hyperman who was handing down Sinai Decrees to our bosses and I walk into a multiplied clock.
    He was rather pleased. He said: "You think so?"
    "I think so."
    "Will you mention that to Mr. Groating? I feel it might encourage him--"
    I got even smarter. I said: "To tell you the truth, sir, the Stabilizer sent me up for a short review. I'm new to the staff and unfortunately I was delayed in Washington."
    He said; "Tut-tut, forgive me. Step this way, Mr. ... Mr. Ahh--"
    So I stepped his way and we went weaving through the clock-works to a desk at one side of the room. There were half a dozen chairs behind it and he seated me alongside himself. The flat top of the desk was banked with small tabs and push buttons so that it looked like a stenotype. He pressed one stud and the room darkened. He pressed another and the bam-bam quickened until it was a steady hum. The octahedron crystal whirled so quickly that it became a shadowy mist of light under the projectors.
    "I suppose you know," the old coot said in rather self-conscious tones, "that this is the first time we've been able to push our definitive analysis to the ultimate future. We'd never have done it if Wiggons hadn't developed his self-checking data system."
    I said: "Good for Wiggons," and I was more confused than ever. I tell you, boys, it felt like waking up from a dream you couldn't quite remember. You know that peculiar sensation of having everything at the edge of your mind so to speak and not being able to get hold of it--I had a thousand clues and inferences jangling around in my head and none of them would interlock. But I knew this was big stuff.
    Shadows began to play across the crystal. Off-focus images and flashes of color. The little old guy murmured to himself and his fingers plucked at the keyboard in a quick fugue of motion. Finally he said: "Ah!" and sat back to watch the crystal. So did I.
    *       *       *       *       *
    I was looking through a window in space, and beyond that window I saw a single bright star in the blackness. It was sharp and cold and so brilliant it hurt your eyes. Just beyond the window, in the foreground, I saw a spaceship. No, none of your cigar things or ovate spheroids or any of that. It was a spaceship that seemed to have been built mostly in after-thoughts. A great rambling affair with added wings and towers and helter-skelter ports. It looked like it'd been built just to hang there in one place.
    The old coot said: "Watch close now, Mr. Muggins, things happen rather quickly at this tempo."
    Quickly? They practically sprinted. There was a spurt of activity around the spaceship. Towers went up and came down; the buglike figures of people in space armor bustled about; a little cruiser, shaped like a fat needle, sped up to it, hung around a while and then sped away. There was a tense second of waiting and then the star blotted out. In another moment the spaceship was blotted out, too. The crystal was black.
    My friend, the goofy professor, touched a couple of studs and we had a long view. There were clusters of stars spread before me, sharply, brilliantly in focus. As I watched, the upper side of the crystal began to blacken. In a few swift moments the stars were blacked out. Just like that. Blooey! It reminded me of school when we added carbon ink to a drop under the mike just to see how the amoebae would take it.
    He punched the buttons like crazy and we had more and more views of the Universe, and always that black cloud crept along, blotting everything out. After a while he couldn't find any more stars. There was nothing but blackness. It seemed to me that it wasn't more than an extra-special Stereo Show, but it chilled me nevertheless. I started thinking about those amoebae and feeling sorry for them.
    The lights went on and I was back inside the clock again. He turned to me and said: "Well, what do you think?"
    I said: "I think it's swell."
    That seemed to disappoint him. He said: "No, no--I mean, what do you make of it? Do you agree with the others?"
    "With Stabilizer Groating, you mean?"
    He nodded.
    I said: "You'll have to give me a little time to think it over. It's rather--startling."
    "By all means," he said, escorting me to the door, "do think it over. Although"--he hesitated with his hand on the knob--"I shouldn't agree with your choice of the word 'startling.' After all, it's only what we expected all along. The Universe must come to an end one way or another."
    Think? Boys, the massive brain practically fumed as I went back downstairs. I went out into the press room and I wondered what there was about a picture of a black cloud that could have upset the Stabilizer. I drifted out of the Prog Building and decided I'd better go down to the controller's office for another bluff, so I didn't drift any more. There was a pneumatic pick-up at the corner. I caught a capsule and clicked off the address on the dial. In three and a half minutes I was there.
    As I turned the overhead dome back and started to step out of my capsule, I found myself surrounded by the rest of the newspaper crowd.
    The Ledger said: "Where you been, my friendly, we needed your quick brain but bad."
    I said: "I'm still looking for Hogan. I can't cover a thing until I've seen him. What's this need for brains?"
    "Not just any brains. Your brain."
    I got out of the capsule and showed my empty pocket.
    The Ledger said: "We're not soaping you for a loan--we needed interpolation."
    "Aha?"
    The Record said: "The dope means interpretation. We got one of those official releases again. All words and no sense."
    "I mean interpolation," the Ledger said. "We got to have some one read implications into this barren chaff."
    I said: "Brothers, you want exaggeration and I'm not going to be it this time. Too risky."
    *       *       *       *       *
    So I trotted up the ramp to the main floor and went to the deputy vice's office and then I thought: "I've got a big thing here, why bother with the small fry?" I did a turnabout and went straight to the controller's suite. I knew it would be tough to get in because the controller has live secretaries--no voders. He also happens to have four receptionists. Beautiful, but tough.