‘Yes,’ said the Bursar. ‘I’m going to bed early. Don’t let me break up the party for you two. I’ve been on my legs nearly all day, you know. A man’s a fool to hold any office in this College. Continual anxiety. Crushing responsibility. And then you get people suggesting that all the little research-beetles who never poke their noses outside their libraries and laboratories are the real workers! I’d like to see Glossop or any of that lot face the sort of day’s work I’ve had today. Curry, my lad, you’d have had an easier life if you’d stuck to economics.’
‘I’ve told you before,’ began Curry, but the Bursar, now risen, was bending over Lord Feverstone and telling him a funny story.
As soon as the two men had got out of the room, Lord Feverstone looked steadily at Mark for some seconds with an enigmatic expression. Then he chuckled. Then the chuckle developed into a laugh. He threw his lean, muscular body well back into his chair and laughed louder and louder. He was very infectious in his laughter and Mark found himself laughing too–quite sincerely and even helplessly, like a child. ‘Pragmatometers–palatial lavatories–practical idealism,’ gasped Feverstone. It was a moment of extraordinary liberation for Mark. All sorts of things about Curry and Busby which he had not previously noticed, or else, noticing, had slurred over in his reverence for the Progressive Element, came back to his mind. He wondered how he could have been so blind to the funny side of them.
‘It really is rather devastating,’ said Feverstone when he had partially recovered, ‘that the people one has to use for getting things done should talk such drivel the moment you ask them about the things themselves.’
‘And yet they are, in a sense, the brains of Bracton,’ said Mark.
‘Good Lord no! Glossop and Bill the Blizzard, and even old Jewel, have ten times their intelligence.’
‘I didn’t know you took that view.’
‘I think Glossop, etc., are quite mistaken. I think their idea of culture and knowledge and what not is unrealistic. I don’t think it fits the world we’re living in. It’s a mere fantasy. But it is quite a clear idea and they follow it out consistently. They know what they want. But our two poor friends, though they can be persuaded to take the right train, or even to drive it, haven’t a ghost of a notion where it’s going to, or why. They’ll sweat blood to bring the NICE to Edgestow: that’s why they’re indispensable. But what the point of the NICE is, what the point of anything is–ask them another. Pragmatometry! Fifteen sub-directors!’
‘Well, perhaps I’m in the same boat myself.’
‘Not at all. You saw the point at once. I knew you would. I’ve read everything you’ve written since you were in for your fellowship. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
Mark was silent. The giddy sensation of being suddenly whirled up from one plane of secrecy to another, coupled with the growing effect of Curry’s excellent port, prevented him from speaking.
‘I want you to come into the Institute,’ said Feverstone.
‘You mean–to leave Bracton?’
‘That makes no odds. Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s anything you want here. We’d make Curry Warden when NO retires and–’
‘They were talking of making you Warden.’
‘God!’ said Feverstone and stared. Mark realised that from Feverstone’s point of view this was like the suggestion that he should become Headmaster of a small idiots’ school, and thanked his stars that his own remark had not been uttered in a tone that made it obviously serious. Then they both laughed again.
‘You,’ said Feverstone, ‘would be absolutely wasted as Warden. That’s the job for Curry. He’ll do it very well. You want a man who loves business and wire-pulling for their own sake and doesn’t really ask what it’s all about. If he did, he’d start bringing in his own–well, I suppose he’d call them “ideas”. As it is, we’ve only got to tell him that he thinks so-and-so is a man the College wants, and he will think it. And then he’ll never rest till so-and-so gets a fellowship. That’s what we want the College for: a drag net, a recruiting office.’
‘A recruiting office for the NICE, you mean?’
‘Yes, in the first instance. But it’s only part of the general show.’
‘I’m not sure that I know what you mean.’
‘You soon will. The Home Side, and all that, you know! It sounds rather in Busby’s style to say that Humanity is at the cross-roads. But it is the main question at the moment: which side one’s on–obscurantism or Order. It does really look as if we now had the power to dig ourselves in as a species for a pretty staggering period, to take control of our own destiny. If Science is really given a free hand it can now take over the human race and re-condition it: make man a really efficient animal. If it doesn’t–well, we’re done.’
‘Go on.’
‘There are three main problems. First, the interplanetary problem–’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Well, that doesn’t really matter. We can’t do anything about that at present. The only man who could help was Weston.’
‘He was killed in a blitz, wasn’t he?’
‘He was murdered.’
‘Murdered?’
‘I’m pretty sure of it, and I’ve a shrewd idea who the murderer was.’
‘Good God! Can nothing be done?’
‘There’s no evidence. The murderer is a respectable Cambridge don with weak eyes, a game leg, and a fair beard. He’s dined in this College.’
‘What was Weston murdered for?’
‘For being on our side. The murderer is one of the enemy.’
‘You don’t mean to say he murdered him for that?’
‘Yes,’ said Feverstone, bringing his hand down smartly on the table. ‘That’s just the point. You’ll hear people like Curry or James burbling away about the “war” against reaction. It never enters their heads that it might be a real war with real casualties. They think the violent resistance of the other side ended with the persecution of Galileo and all that. But don’t believe it. It is just seriously beginning. They know now that we have at last got real powers: that the question of what humanity is to be is going to be decided in the next sixty years. They’re going to fight every inch. They’ll stop at nothing.’
‘They can’t win,’ said Mark.
‘We’ll hope not,’ said Lord Feverstone. ‘I think they can’t. That is why it is of such immense importance to each of us to choose the right side. If you try to be neutral you become simply a pawn.’
‘Oh, I haven’t any doubt which is my side,’ said Mark. ‘Hang it all–the preservation of the human race–it’s a pretty rock-bottom obligation.’
‘Well, personally,’ said Feverstone, ‘I’m not indulging in any Busbyisms about that. It’s a little fantastic to base one’s actions on a supposed concern for what’s going to happen millions of years hence; and you must remember that the other side would claim to be preserving humanity, too. Both can be explained psycho-analytically if they take that line. The practical point is that you and I don’t like being pawns, and we do rather like fighting–specially on the winning side.’
‘And what is the first practical step?’
‘Yes, that’s the real question. As I said, the interplanetary problem must be left on one side for the moment. The second problem is our rivals on this planet. I don’t mean only insects and bacteria. There’s far too much life of every kind about, animal and vegetable. We haven’t really cleared the place yet.