peoples of Russia andthe other peoples of the world.
Somehow she had been accepted as part of a trade mission to SouthAmerica, and with that first trip out of her own country her horizonshad broadened. Carefully she had nurtured that which pleased others insuch a way that she had been recommended to other, similar tasks. Andeventually she had gone to the U.N. on an extended tour of duty. Itwas here for the first time that she had heard of the recruitment of astaff for the new U.N. Space Lab project, and here she had made abasic decision: To seek a career, not in her own country or back amongthe peoples of her own clan, but in the U.N. itself, where she couldbetter satisfy the urge to know more of all people.
She had, of course, been educated in a time of change. As a child shehad attended compulsory civilian survival classes, as had nearly everyperson in the vast complex of the Soviet Union. She had learned aboutatomic weapons; and that other peoples for unknown reasons as far asshe could determine, might declare her very safety and life forfeit tocauses she did not understand.
Later, as she had made her way westward seeking reasons and causes forthese possible disasters, and more knowledge in general, her countryhad undergone what amounted to a revolutionary change. Not only hercountry, but the entire world had moved during her lifetime from anarmed camp or set of camps with divided interests and the ability fortotal annihilation, towards a seeking of common goals--towards aseeking of common understandings.
The catastrophe that had threatened to engulf the entire world andclaim the final conquest had occurred while she was a very juniorstudent in Moscow, when the two major nations that were leaders--orhad thought themselves to be leaders, so far as atomic weaponry andsuch were concerned--had stood almost side by side in horror, andattempted to halt the conflagration that had been sparked by a singlebomb landed on the mainland of China by Formosa.
While Russia and the United States had stood forth in the U.N. andrenounced any use of atomic weapons, the short and bitter strugglewhich reached its termination in a mere five days had brought theworld staggering to the ultimate brink of atomic war, as the FormosanChinese made their final bid for control of mainland China.
The flare of atomic conflict had been brief and horrible. Where thebombs had come from had been the subject of acrimonious accusations onthe floor of the U.N. The United States had forsworn knowledge, andfor a time no one had been able to say from whence they had come.Later, shipping records had proven their source in the Belgian Congoas raw material, secretly prepared and assembled on Formosa itself,and it became obvious to the entire world that an atomic weapon wasnot something that could be hidden in secrecy from the desires ofdesperate men.
* * * * *
The Chinese mainland had responded with nuclear weapons of its own;weapons they, too, had not been known to possess, but had possessed.
That the rest of the world had not been sucked into the holocaust wasa credit to the statesmen of both sides. That disarmament was agreedto by all nations was a matter of days only from the parallel butunilateral decisions of both Russia and the United States, thatdisarmament must be accomplished while there was yet time.
Under the political pressures backed by the human horror of allnations, the nuclear disarmament act of the U.N. had given to the U.N.the power of inspection of any country or any manufacturing complexanywhere in the world; inspection privileges that overrode nationalboundaries and considerations of national integrity, and a policeforce to back this up--a police force comprised of men from everynation, the U.N. Security Corps.
The United Nations, from a weak but hopeful beginning, had now steppedforth in its own right as an effective world government. There was nopolitical unity at a lower echelon amongst the states orsub-governments of the world. To each its own problems. To each itsown ideologies. To each, help according to its needs from the variousbureaus of the U.N. And from each the necessary taxes for the supportof the world organization.
In Russia the ideology of Marx-Lenin was still present. And in othercountries other ideologies were freely supported. But the world couldno longer afford an outright conflict of ideologies, and U.N. Securitywas charged not only with the seeking out and destruction of possiblehoards of atomic weapons, but also with the seeking out and muzzlingof those who expressed an ideology at all costs, even the cost of thefinal suicide of war, to their neighbors.
No hard and fast rules could be drawn to distinguish between a casualremark made in another country as to one's preference for one's owncountry, and an active subversion design to subvert another country toone's own ideology. But nevertheless, the activity of subversion hadbecome an illegal act under the meaning of "security." And individualgovernments had recalled agents from their neighboring countries--notonly agents, but simple tourists as well. For the stigma of having anagent arrested in another country and brought to trial at the U.N. wasa stigma that no government felt it could afford.
Over the world settled a pall. The one place outside of one's owncountry, where one's ideology could be spoken of with impunity, waswithin the halls of the U.N. Assembly itself, under the aegis ofdiplomatic immunity. Here the ideologies could rant and rave againsteach other, seeking a rendering of a final decision in men's age-oldarguments; but elsewhere such discussions were _verboten_, and subjectto swift, stiff penalties.
There were some who thought quietly to themselves that perhaps in thereaction to horror they had voted too much power to a small group ofmen known as Security, but there were others, weary of the insecurityof world power-politics, who felt that Security was a blessing, andwould for all time protect all men in the freedom of their ownbeliefs. The pressures had been great, and the pendulum of politicalweight had swung far in an opposite direction. In fact, man hadachieved that which he would deny--in a reach for freedom, he had madethe first turn in the coil that would bind him--in the coil that wouldbind the mass of the many to the will of the very few.
* * * * *
In school in Moscow, these things touched Bessandra's life onlyremotely. The concepts, the talk, the propaganda from Radio Moscow,these she heard, but they were not her main interests.
Her main interests were two--one, the fascination which the giantcomputer at Moscow University held for her; and two, the studentsaround her. People, she had noted, had behavior patterns very similarto the complex computer; not as individual units, though as individualunits they could also be as surprisingly obtuse as the literal-mindedreaction of the computer; but in statistical numbers they had an evengreater tendency to act as the computer did.
The information fed them and their reactions to it had a logic all itsown; not a logic of logic, but a logic of reaction. And the reactioncould be controlled, she noted, in the same self-corrective mannerthat was applied to logic in the interior of the computer--thefeedback system.
It was obvious that with a statistical group of people, the net resultof action could be effectively channeled by one person in an obscureposition acting as a feedback mechanism to the group, and withselective properties applied to the feedback.
At one point she had quietly, and for no other reason than to testthis point to her own satisfaction, sat back and created a riot of thewomen students at the University, without once appearing either as thecause or the head or leader in the revolt. The revolt in itself hadbeen absolutely senseless, but the result had been achieved withsurprisingly little effort on the part of one individual.
Computers and people had from that day become her tools, whenever shedecided to bend them to her will.
Even earlier in her career, she had managed to put her rebelliousnature under strict control, never appearing to be a cause in herself;never appearing as a leader among the students; merely a quiet studentintent upon the gain of knowledge and oblivious to her surroundings.
Later as she realized her abilities, she had sought council withherself and her Buddhist ancestry, to determine what use her knowledgeshould serve. And to her there was but one answer: Men were easilyen
slaved by their own shortcomings; but men who were free producedmore desirable results; and if she were to use their shortcomings atall, it must be to bend them in the path of freedom that she might besurrounded by higher achievements rather than sheeplike activitieswhich she found to be repugnant.
Gradually she had achieved skill in the manipulation of people; alwaystowards the single self-interest of creating a better and morepleasant world in which she herself could live.
* * * * *
In rim sector A-9, Dr. Claude Lavalle was having his troubles. Freefall conditions that were merely inconvenient to him were provingnear-disastrous to the animals in the cages around him.
Many and various were the difficulties that he had had with animalsduring his career, but never before such trifles that built _peu apeu_--into mountains.
Claude Lavalle had originally planned to leave his stock of animals,which contained sets of a great many of the species of the smallanimals of Earth, on