Chapter 13

"There's nothing to be done about it." Dr. Haenlingen delivered the words and sat down rigidly behind her desk. Norma nodded, very slowly.

"I know that," she said. "I started out—I started to do just what you wanted. To talk to him, draw him out, find out just what he did feel and what he planned."

"And then something happened," Dr. Haenlingen said tightly. "I know."

Norma paced to the window and looked out, but the day was gray: she saw only her own reflection. "Something happened," she murmured. "I—guess I had too much to drink. I wanted to talk."

"So I understand," Dr. Haenlingen said. "And you talked. And—whatever his situation—you managed to increase his tension rather than understand or lessen it."

Norma shook her head at the reflection. "I'm sorry."

"I have often found," Dr. Haenlingen said, "that sorrow following an action is worse than useless. It usually implies a request to commit the same action again."

"But I wouldn't—" Norma said, turning, and then stopped before the calm gaze of the old woman.

"No?" Dr. Haenlingen said.

"I'll try to—"

Dr. Haenlingen lifted a hand and brushed the words aside. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I am beginning to see that it doesn't matter."

"But—"

"All we can do now is wait," Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are—outplayed."

There was a little silence. Norma waited through it without moving.

"Would you like to have a lesson in psychology?" Dr. Haenlingen said in the graying room. "Would you like to learn a little, just a little, about your fellow man?"

Norma felt suddenly frightened. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Everything is moving along exactly as might have been predicted. If we had known what the Confederation planned, and exactly the timetable of their actions ... but we did not, and could not. Norma, listen to me."

The story she told was very simple. It took a fairly long time to tell.

Slavery takes a toll of the slaves (as the Confederation was beginning to find out, as the idealists, the do-gooders, were beginning, however slowly to realize). But it takes a toll of the masters, too.

The masters can't quite rid themselves of the idea that beings which react so much like people may really (in spite of everything, in spite of appearance, in spite of laws and regulations and social practices) be people, after all, in everything but name and training.

And it just wouldn't be right to treat people that way....

Slaves feel pain. In simple reciprocity, masters feel guilt.

And because (according to the society, and the laws, and the appearances, and the regulations) there was no need for guilt, the masters of Fruyling's World had, like masters anywhere and any time, buried the guilt, hidden it even from themselves, forbidden its existence and forgotten to mention it to their thoughts.

But the guilt remained, and the guilt demanded.

Punishment was needed.

"They're going to fight," Dr. Haenlingen said. "When the Confederation attacks, they're going to fight back. It's senseless: even if we won, the Confederation fleet could blockade us, prevent us getting a shipment out, bottle us up and starve us for good. But they don't need sense, they need motive, which is quite a different thing. They're going to fight—both because they need the punishment of a really good licking, and because fighting is one more way for them to deny their guilt."

"It seems complex," Norma said.

"Everything is complex," Dr. Haenlingen said, "as soon as human beings engage in it. The action is simple enough: warfare."

"We've got to stop them—"

Dr. Haenlingen went on as if she hadn't heard. "The action serves two different, indeed two contradictory purposes. If you think that's something rare in the actions of mankind, you must be more naive than you have any right to be."

"We've got to stop them," Norma said again. "Got to. They'll die—we'll all die."

"There is nothing to do," Dr. Haenlingen said. "We are outplayed—by the Confederation, by our own selves. We are outplayed: there are no moves left. There is nothing I can offer, nothing anyone can offer, quite as attractive as the double gift of punishment and denial." Shockingly, for the first time, the old woman sounded tired. Her voice was thin in the gray room. "Nothing we can do, Norma. You're dismissed: go back to work."

"But you can't just give up—you can show them there aren't any real reasons, show them they're not being rational—"

"Oh, but they'll be rational," Dr. Haenlingen said in the same still voice. "Wait for the rumors to start, Norma. Wait for them to begin telling each other that the Confederation is going to kill them all anyhow, take them back and hang them as war criminals—"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Perhaps."

"Then—"

"Rumors during a war are almost always ridiculous. That fact makes no difference at all. They'll be believed—because they have to be believed."

Norma thought. "We can start counter-rumors."

"Which would not be believed. They offer nothing, nothing that these people want. Oh, yes, people can be changed—" Dr. Haenlingen paused. "Given sufficient time and sufficient equipment, it is possible to make anyone into anything, anything at all. But to change these people, to make them act as we want—the time required is more than ten years, Norma. And we haven't got ten years."

"We've got to try," Norma said earnestly.

"What we have got," Dr. Haenlingen said, "is more like ten days. And there is nothing to do in ten days. The people have spoken. Vox populi...." The eyes closed. There was a silence Norma waited, astonished, horrified. "Perhaps it is necessary," Dr. Haenlingen's voice said. "Perhaps ... we must wait. Ich kann nicht anders...."

"What?" Norma asked.

"Martin Luther," Dr. Haenlingen's voice said, remote and thin. "It means: 'I can do nothing else.' He wrote it as his justification for a course of action that was going to get him excommunicated, perhaps killed."

"But—"

Dr. Haenlingen said nothing, did nothing. The body sat behind its desk in the gray room. Norma stared, then turned and fled.