Title: The Dictator
Author: Marlowe, Stephen, 1928-2008
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Dictator" ***


                         Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and
    Fantasy January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
    that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.


                             THE DICTATOR


                                 _By_

                           _Milton Lesser_


     Ellaby's society was a perfect democracy, where all men were
     equal. But some still wanted more personal attention, and
     they got it,  like--

       *       *       *       *       *



Just looking at Ellaby, you could tell he was going places. He was
five feet nine inches tall and weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He
had an I. Q. of ninety-eight point five-seven, less than four
hundredths off the mode. His hair was mousey and worn slightly long
for a man, slightly short for a woman. Back in High Falls, where he
was born, he was physically weaker than sixty percent of the men but
stronger than sixty percent of the women.

He had been in training since his twentieth birthday to assassinate
the Dictator. Ellaby was now thirty years old.

Dorcas Sinclair met Ellaby at the pneumo-station. She was too big and
strapping for a woman, but otherwise not unattractive with her
lusterless hair, slightly thick-featured face, small sagging bosom and
heavy-calved legs.

"I'll take your bags," she told Ellaby, and led him from the station.
She walked quickly, but not too quickly. You always had to find the
happy medium, thought Ellaby. For Ellaby, finding the happy medium had
always come easy. Ten years ago, when Ellaby had been graduated from
the High Falls secondary school, the four words MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
had been printed under his picture in the yearbook. It was expected by
everyone: young Ellaby had learned his three R's--rules, rights,
responsibilities--satisfactorily. Ellaby had neither excelled nor
failed: he was by nature a first class citizen.

Running to keep up with the too big, too long-legged Dorcas Sinclair
who was carrying one of his suitcases in each hand, Ellaby was led
from the pneumo-station. The splendid, unimaginative geometric
precision of the Capitol stretched out before him in the dazzling
summer sunlight, the view serving as a leaven for Ellaby's usually
phlegmatic disposition. He could feel his spirits rise, his heart
thump more rapidly, speeding the sudden flow of adrenalin through his
body.

[Illustration]

This was the city. It was here where the fruits of whatever had gone
wrong in Ellaby's upbringing or whatever had gone wrong in the linear
arrangement of his genes would ripen. It was here where Ellaby, modal
Ellaby would pass his tests for top-secret work; unsuspected, average
Ellaby, would write his name in flaming letters across the pages of
history. It was here where Ellaby would kill the Dictator.

And after that--what? Chaos? A new order based not on modality but
something else? Ellaby wasn't sure. No one in the organization knew
for sure. The concept was staggering to Ellaby. It was the system--or
nothing. Well, let the others worry about it. They did the planning.
Ellaby was only the executioner.

       *       *       *       *       *

The house was like all the others on the block, all the others in the
Capitol, a grimly solid structure of lets-pretend brick fronting on a
street which faded into distant haze, straight as a ruled line, to
north and south, crossing the east-west avenues at precise right
angles every five hundred feet. The grid pattern city, Ellaby
remembered from his rights course in school, (every man has the right
to a room and bath in any city as long as he is employed) made the
best use of available space for houses. The strip city is unnecessary
in time of peace--was there ever, had there ever been any other time?
the radial city is preferred for rapid transportation, being the
accepted pattern in the great economic hubs and ports like Greater New
York and Hampton Roads.

"You will have to live here with me" Dorcas Sinclair told Ellaby,
"until you pass your tests for employment. I don't have to tell you
how much depends on the outcome of those tests, Ellaby."

"But I can't fail them. I thought you knew my record."

With an unnerving unmodal violence, Dorcas Sinclair's strong fingers
dug into the flabby muscle of Ellaby's upper arm. "Well, you had
better not," she said, her large teeth hardly parting to let the
sounds out.

Ellaby was suddenly alarmed. He had had very little truck with people
of this sort. They were as unpredictable as the weather in High Falls
which having a population under twenty-five thousand, had never
qualified for weather control. Unlike modal man, they had never been
exhaustively studied. Their likes and dislikes were not catered to,
but their passions couldn't be predicted, either.

"Ease up, Dorcas," a deep voice said from the doorway leading to the
kitchen.

Ellaby stared in that direction gratefully. It was indecent for a
woman, for anyone, to expose her emotions that way. Ellaby was almost
inclined to thank the stranger.

"Stranger, nothing!" Ellaby blurted aloud. Ellaby's face reddened and
he apologized. "I didn't mean to raise my voice," he explained. "You
surprised me."

"I guess you didn't expect to find me here, at that. You haven't
changed much, Ellaby."

Automatically, Ellaby mumbled his thanks for the compliment. Sam
Mulden, though, had changed. He'd always been a radical. He wore his
hair cropped too short. He was tall and thin, his elbows and knees
exposed by the tunic he wore like knots on gnarled, living wood.
Mulden looked older. He hadn't bothered to dye his graying hair, or
to smooth the premature wrinkles on his long-nosed, thin-lipped face.
He was smiling sardonically at Ellaby now, as if he could read
Ellaby's mind. "I might have known it would be you," he said. "As soon
as they said the assassin was coming from High Falls, I should have
guessed."

"Why?" asked Ellaby. It was a question which had nudged for ten years
at his docile patience. When people go out of their way to train you,
though, to spend ten years teaching you every inch of Capitol
territory without once taking you there, to make you proficient with
various deadly weapons although your reflexes are splendidly modal, to
teach you meaningless phrases like democratic inequality (?) and
individuality (?) and the right to live a self-directed (?) life, to
make your own decisions (?), when people act, in short, like a very
thorough government school, even if their motives seem strangely
misdirected, you don't question them.

"For two reasons," Mulden said. "You can understand the first, Ellaby.
If the second one bothers you, forget it. In the first place, you're
so perfectly modal, the government would never suspect you. In the
second place, you're so well adjusted you're bound to follow our
instructions."

"Or any instructions," Dorcas Sinclair said. "That's what I'm afraid
of, Mulden."

       *       *       *       *       *

Ellaby still couldn't get over it. He never expected to find poor,
unfortunate Sam Mulden in such a high position in the organization or
anywhere. He remembered Mulden clearly from their school days
together. Mulden was a character, a real character. Physically, he was
barely acceptable: more than eighty percent of the men and some
sixty-five percent of the women were able to knock Mulden down in the
High Falls gymnasium classes. But mentally Mulden was a misfit. His I.
Q. was in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty. His gangling,
ineffectual physique wasn't too far below the mode, but mentally he
soared intolerably above it.

Now Mulden told Dorcas Sinclair, "Don't worry about that. We've had
ten years to work on him. They can't undo it in a few days. Ellaby,
you are quite sure you know what you must do?"

"Oh, yes. Tomorrow morning I will take my security tests. According to
the record of my previous physical and mental testing, I should make
top secret classification. I will work here in the capitol. I will
find the Dictator and kill him. The only thing that bothers me is I
don't know who to look for. What does the Dictator look like?"

"Didn't they explain all of that to you in High Falls?" the woman
asked irritably, without even making an effort to poker her face.

"Ease off," Mulden told her for the second time. "He's confused.
Listen to me, Ellaby. Don't you remember? The Dictator never makes
public appearances."

"Yes. Yes, now I remember. No one knows what the Dictator looks like.
He keeps to himself. He issues orders which are instantly obeyed,
helping to maintain universal modality in the country. It almost seems
a shame I'll have to kill him."

"So we've pavloved him for ten years, have we?" Dorcas Sinclair raged.
Ellaby turned away in embarrassment. "Damn you, Mulden, he still
questions it!"

"He's supposed to," Mulden explained quietly. "If he accepted what we
told him, he'd go around talking about it naively. This way, he
understands the necessity for secrecy."

"He doesn't understand--"

"Well, then he realizes it. Let him get some sleep, will you?
Tomorrow's going to be a good day for us, a big day for him. Good
night, Ellaby. If you want anything, Sinclair will get it for you."

Ellaby assured them he would want nothing except a simple meal of
whatever most people in the Capitol ate on Wednesdays. It turned out
to be pork chops, which Ellaby neither particularly liked nor
disliked. He chewed his food with the proper lack of enthusiasm and
retired early.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next morning, Ellaby took his I. Q. test at the Capitol personnel
bureau. He was slightly above average in space perception but slightly
below average in comparisons. He hoped his anxiety didn't show on his
face. If anyone asked him why he had come to the Capitol he was ready
to blurt out the reason and have done with it. He wondered what Sam
Mulden would have thought if he knew. The Sinclair woman would have
been furious.

No one asked Ellaby. You came to the Capitol because you wanted to
work there. According to the mode, a man desired to change his
location every 3.7 years. Ellaby had been 6.3 years tardy, but High
Falls was an ideally modal community in which people tended to linger.

"I. Q., point seven under the mode," the personnel clerk told Ellaby.
The slight variation--due to his anxiety--was not enough to matter,
Ellaby realized with a faint sense of triumph. "Proceed to physical
testing," the girl told Ellaby.

Obediently, Ellaby followed the green arrow to the gymnasium. He was
given a locker, a towel, a pair of athletic shorts and a first-aid
kit. He stripped off his clothing, placing the tunic, underwear and
sandals in the locker, then climbed into his athletic shorts and fell
into line with the other men and women carrying their towels and
first-aid kits into the gymnasium.

The ten-over-mode male wrestling tester pinned Ellaby in less than two
minutes, a fact which was duly noted on his employment blank. He was
given fifteen minutes of rest, then squared off on the mat with a
skinny, five-under-mode male. Ellaby bested him in four minutes flat,
took another fifteen minute break, mopping the sweat from his body
with an already sodden towel, then defeated the ten-under-mode female
wrestler in two minutes and some seconds. It developed into a knock
down, drag out fight with the two-over-mode female, who finally forced
Ellaby's shoulders to the mat for the necessary five seconds after
half an hour.

Ellaby showered, ate a hot Thursday lunch and took his employment
blank to the emotion lab. His electroencephalogram revealed nine alpha
cycles to the second, but too much theta.

"Are you nervous?" the technician asked Ellaby. "You're thetaing all
over the place."

"I guess so. Yes, I'm nervous."

"Then let's try it again."

They did, the technician rubbing the greasy electrode salve on
Ellaby's forehead before the electrodes were fastened there for the
second time. The result was the same. "More than modal theta," said
the technician, writing something in code on his employment blank.
"See the personnel advisor, please."

For Ellaby, it came as a distinct shock. His heart pounded against his
temples, in his ears. He was emotionally unstable. Had the ten years
been for nothing?

       *       *       *       *       *

"Sit down, Ellaby," the personnel advisor said. He was a man of middle
age, irritatingly careless about his appearance. He had dyed his
graying hair, of course, but if you looked close you could see gray at
the roots. He wore a green Thursday tunic which was poorly starched.
Having had a full week to get it ready, that was naturally
inexcusable.

"You have a splendid record, Ellaby," the sloppy personnel clerk said.
"Mentally, within tenths of the mode. Physically, even closer.
Unfortunately your emotional--"

"That never happened to me before, not in High Falls, it didn't,"
Ellaby interrupted.

"This is not High Falls. Every community, you must realize, has its
own security testing center. And the capitol requires the tightest
security of all."

"I know but I was nervous. You're going to tell me my theta was too
high, aren't you?"

"That's correct. You needn't feel so bad about it. You're going to be
cleared for secret work. You're damn close to modal, Ellaby. You're a
good security risk. Incidentally, just why were you nervous?"

"Because I wanted top secret clearance. Because I wanted to work close
to the Dictator. You see--" Abruptly, Ellaby stopped talking, clasping
a hand over his mouth in sudden confusion. He wasn't supposed to talk
about this. Lying, of course, was as far from Ellaby's nature as it
was from anyone else's, assuming he were reasonably close to the mode.
But Ellaby hadn't been asked for all that information directly. "What
kind of job will I get?" he asked, trying desperately to change the
subject.

It was too late. The personnel clerk asked, "Just why did you want to
work close to the Dictator?"

Ellaby felt a single drop of sweat fall from his armpit under the
loose tunic and roll, itching, down the side of his body. He wanted
with all his soul to be back in High Falls. Anyplace but here.

"Why, Ellaby?"

"I can't answer that question. A man isn't forced to answer a question
unless he wants to."

"Certainly not," said the personnel advisor, staring blandly at
Ellaby. "This is a democratic country."

"Then--"

"But you've never known a man to refuse answering a question asked of
him officially, have you?"

"I'm not sure I understand, sir."

"You don't have to be so obsequious, Ellaby. I'm less modal than you
are, but I make the best of my divergencies. What I meant was this:
did you ever hear of a criminal _not_ confessing to his crime?"

"Well, no."

"I'll ask you the question again, Ellaby. Why did you want to work
near the Dictator?"

The man leaned close, peered at Ellaby. The room was small, almost a
cubicle, the bare walls seeming to close in on all four sides. Ellaby
stifled a wild impulse to scream and run out of there, run any place
as long as he could leave the room and the personnel advisor behind
him. "I'm sorry, but I can't answer that question," he said finally.

"Tell me, Ellaby, did you ever hear your own voice?"

What a strange question. "Why, certainly. All the time, when I speak."

"No, I mean your voice reproduced artificially. Your radio voice?"

"No, I never heard it."

"Well, you're about to."

While the personnel advisor busied himself setting up the radio
equipment, Ellaby had a few seconds in which to think. He could still
make a clean breast of the whole thing. They had chosen him--Mulden,
the Sinclair woman and the others in High Falls--for his modality.
Very well, he could use that modality to get out from under. He didn't
understand. He didn't know what they were leading him to, slowly, over
a period of ten years. _He_ didn't want to assassinate the Dictator.
What in the world would he want to do that for? He would gladly name
all the names he knew if the personnel advisor would only let him
forget the whole mad experience and return to High Falls. He could
attend Adjustment Academy if they thought he needed it. Anything.
Anything....

"Please slip these earphones over your head, over your ears. There. Is
the microphone close enough to your lips? I think so."

       *       *       *       *       *

A metal band running over the top of Ellaby's cranium held the
earphones in place. Another metal band curved around the side of his
cheek and chin, leading to a small microphone before his lips.

"Place your hands on the arms of your chair, please."

Ellaby did as he was told. _Click! Click!_ A pair of manacles sprang
up from the chair arms trapping Ellaby's wrists. Ellaby looked at the
personnel tester in unpokered alarm. "What did you do that for?" he
asked timidly.

"So you won't remove the earphones. Now, are we ready?" The personnel
advisor pressed a button on his desk. Ellaby thought he heard a faint
hum of power in the microphone. "I will ask you once more, Ellaby. Why
did you want to work near the Dictator?"

Ellaby shrugged. He was going to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't have to
answer that question." He said, and heard through the earphones: "I'm
sorry (I'm) but I (sorry don't have (but) to ans (I) wer that (don't)
question) (have to answer that question)."

"Again, please. I didn't hear you," the personnel tester said.

It was his own voice Ellaby had heard through the earphones. Playback,
with a fraction of a second lapse. Oddly, it un-nerved him. The
reproduced voice had no right lagging. He shouted, "I'm sorry (I'm)
but I (sorry) don't have (but) to ans (I) wer that (don't question!)
(have to) Shut up! (answer) SHUT UP! (that) PLEASE.... (question).
PLEASE! (please)."

"Once more, if you don't mind."

Ellaby's head was whirling. He blinked sweat from his eyes.
"I--please! (I--please!)"

"The law requires that you make some answer, even if answer is a
refusal."

Criminals confessed, Ellaby thought wildly. Is this why criminals
confessed? Did the sound of their own voices drive them mad? It seemed
such a simple device, and yet ... and yet ... but he could fool it. He
couldn't rush the words out in a quick torrent and: "I don't have to
(I don't answer that ques) (have to) tion (answer that question.)"
Ellaby--and Ellaby's echo. "Well, I (well) don't (I don't)!" Ellaby
blinked more sweat from his eyes. "Mumble (mumble). Sob. (Sob)."

"Relax, Ellaby. You seem upset. Will you read this, please?" the
personnel advisor held a card in front of Ellaby's face.

The words swam, blurred together, fused, were readable and then were
not. Ellaby read aloud: "A code (a) of eth (code) ics for (eth)
mankind (ethics for mankind)." It was, he realized, the preamble to
the constitution. "In the (in) nineteenth (the) centur (nine) y the
(nine) common (teenth)"--faster, faster!--"(century the common)
c-common man was defended (common man) by enlightened liberalism (man
was). In the t-twentieth century (in the t-twen) common man was
championed by (tieth century) enlightened liberalism (the common man
was). In the twenty-first century (championed by enlightened) the
common man assumed his proper place (liberalism) at the top of society
but (in the twenty-first cen) will protect the rights of the (tury the
common man) enlightened liberals or any other minority, (assumed his
proper) encouraging them to become (place at the top of) as common as
possible (society but will protect the rights of the enlightened
liberals or any other minority, encouraging them to become as common
as possible).

"Oh God (Oh)," shouted Ellaby. "Shut (God) it (shut) off (it) make
(off) it (make) stop (it) God (stop--God)!"

"Will you agree to answer my question?"

"Anything (anything)! ANYTHING (anything)." Now the playback was a
faint whisper. Ellaby found himself hysterically fascinated by it,
trying to guess the time-lapse, which varied, trying to guess the
volume, which varied. Ellaby's head slumped forward on his chest. The
unfamiliar wetness at the corners of his mouth was drool. Ellaby
didn't quite know it, of course, but he had given himself a very mild
and very temporary nervous breakdown.

Two hours later he was asked one question. He answered: "I want to be
near the Dictator so I can kill him."

       *       *       *       *       *

Later, Dorcas Sinclair asked: "What else happened at testing, Ellaby?"

"Take your time," Mulden cautioned. "He looks nervous."

"I know it. I want to find out why."

"After my EEG," said Ellaby softly, "they told me I had too much
theta."

"Damn you!" Dorcas Sinclair swore. "Then you weren't cleared for top
secret?"

"No, I wasn't. Not at first. Then a strange thing happened. They said
I was cleared only for secret and asked me why I wanted to be cleared
for top secret."

"You fool!" the woman cried.

"I told them it was because I wanted to work near the Dictator. I
didn't mean to tell them, but--"

The woman shook her head in despair. "Don't bother finishing," she
said. "You can clear out of here, Ellaby. You're through. Ten years.
Ten years wasted."

"If you wish," Ellaby said mildly. "But you're missing the most
interesting part. They asked me why I wanted to be near the Dictator."

Dorcas Sinclair sucked in her breath sharply. Even Mulden seemed
anxious. "You didn't tell them?" the woman asked in a frantic whisper.

"I'm afraid I did."

"We'll have to flee the city," the woman told Mulden, ignoring Ellaby
now. "If he told them that, he probably named names. I have friends in
Hampton Roads--"

"Let him finish," Mulden said. Mulden was looking strangely at Ellaby.

"They didn't ask me to name anyone in the conspiracy," Ellaby said.
"Unless they could poker very well, they seemed perfectly calm. They
said they would make an exception in my case. They would clear me for
top secret work. I start tomorrow."

"What's your job?" Mulden asked eagerly.

"Well, this is the strangest part. I'm to be the Dictator's
confidential assistant."

"Of course!" Mulden cried. "It makes sense. Don't you see, Sinclair?
We're not the only ones. There are others, inside the government, who
think it's time for a _coup_. With their help, Ellaby won't fail us."

Dorcas Sinclair wasn't convinced. "Doesn't it seem peculiar to you
that, purely by co-incidence, Ellaby happened to meet these people?"

But Mulden shrugged. "You know the old saw about the gift horse," he
said. "Ellaby will go ahead with the plan. Tomorrow, if all goes well,
we'll have a full-scale revolution on our hands. Don't you understand,
Sinclair? The Dictator--a figurehead. There are plenty of people
around like us, who don't want to do things just because everyone else
does them, who don't want to be stamped by the mold of conformity, who
don't want ... but I don't have to go on. The Dictator is a
figurehead, a symbol of power. Destroy him and the whole conforming
system comes tumbling down in chaos. You'll see tomorrow."

It was all beyond Ellaby, who was still weary from the playback
ordeals. He took the small, palm-sized blaster from Mulden and slipped
it into his tunic. Tomorrow he would assassinate the Dictator and
suffer the consequences. He almost had in mind to rebel. The people at
testing had been very nice--except for those earphones. But the
Sinclair woman and Mulden might be able to do as bad--or worse. He'd
go through with it.

Under the circumstances, he slept surprisingly well.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mulden's passionate parting words still ringing in his ears, Ellaby
entered the capitol building. "Someday you and your kind will
understand, Ellaby," Mulden had said. "Someday you'll know what banal
really means, and vulgar. Someday--I promise you, someday--the true
social perspective will be re-established. It should not be the role
in life of the common man, the mass, the mob, to make the uncommon man
as common as possible, but quite the other way around. The other way,
Ellaby! Common folk should be given the opportunity to become as
uncommon as possible. Otherwise, Ellaby, we've reached a dead end.

"Kill him and I promise you this: the whole warped system will come
tumbling. A man shouldn't be forced to conform, Ellaby. Mankind's
greatness stems from lack of conformity. For his own purposes, the
Dictator bows to the will of the mob. But he's surrounded himself,
with mediocrity. Without him, what can they do? Without him they'll go
down in weeks, Ellaby. In days!"

The guard, a tall blonde woman who looked like a twenty-over-mode to
Ellaby, led him down a long, well-lit corridor. No one had searched
him. It would have taken the guard a moment to reach within his tunic,
find the blaster and drag him off to the Academy. Other people,
nameless people on nameless errands, walked by in the corridor without
paying Ellaby any attention.

Was Mulden right? Were there people here, within the building, waiting
to help Ellaby?

Ellaby licked his dry lips and kept walking, finding it difficult to
keep his legs from trembling. It was as if a nimbus of terror dogged
his footsteps, ready to envelope him momentarily. The guard seemed
completely unconcerned. She was humming the melody of the latest
song-hit, a wonderfully liltingly banal tune which had been on
everyone's lips back in High Falls.

The blonde guard paused before a door in the long corridor. "Here we
are," she said.

Ellaby opened his mouth to speak, but gulped in air instead. He felt a
weak fluttering in his chest. He had never been so afraid in all his
life.

The guard, who was a head taller than Ellaby, glanced down at him.
"You don't have to be so nervous," she said in a perfectly normal
voice. "Everything's going to be all right."

"You see, it's a new job and all--"

"Oh, here! Let's see that blaster."

Ellaby's heart plunged. He wanted to bolt, to run. She knew. She
knew....

He stood there, too weak to move, while the guard reached inside his
tunic, found the blaster taped to his chest, wrenched it loose. She
took it out, held it up, flipping open the chamber and examined the
inside. "All right," she said. "I only wanted to make sure it was
loaded."

And she took out a key and opened the door. "He's inside," she said,
and strolled on down the hall.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ellaby clutched the doorframe for support. He was breathing raggedly
now, as if he'd run all the great length of the corridor, sprinting
with monsters behind him. He rubbed the shoulder of his tunic against
his damp brow and entered the room.

A man Ellaby's own size was sitting there, viewing a 3D. When he heard
Ellaby at the door he got up. He looked very unhappy as Ellaby
pointed the blaster at him. He said, "So soon?"

"They said you would try wiles, trickery, deceit," Ellaby recited.
"You won't fool me."

"You think I'm the Dictator? You're going to kill me? That's very
funny. I know, you see. I know."

"Stand back!" Ellaby screamed.

"I assure you, I am not the Dictator any more than you will be--"

The Dictator's face dissolved in a red, jelly-like smear as Ellaby
pulled this trigger of his blaster.

He spent the next ten minutes being very ill.

Afterwards, they were very efficient. They carted the body away and told
Ellaby all he had to do was ring for food or drink or anything he wanted.
Occasionally, he would sign some papers. Occasionally--masked--he might be
asked to review a parade.

And all at once, sitting alone in the room with its pleasant view, it
came to Ellaby. He passed no judgment, but he understood--and he was
afraid.

The masses ruled, thought Ellaby, hardly knowing what the phrase
meant. The system was self-perpetuating, and revolution couldn't
change it. The common man--men like Ellaby--had come into his own, for
once and for all time.

The man Ellaby had slain was no Dictator. He had tried to tell Ellaby
that before he perished. Now Ellaby had taken his place. Ellaby was no
Dictator, either.

But he would do until the next one came along.

THE END

       *       *       *       *       *





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