  I am sorry that I do not remember my name. I have been employed a long time in the Classified Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and have been under security orders to speak to no one except in answer to official queries. As I am the only scholar in my field—the polarity of the positron—I have never been asked for information. If I had been, perhaps I would not have forgotten my name, but I cannot be sure. I don't know whether the replies are signed. I could have prevented the Calamity. I tried. I risked my life in the attempt. But at the moment when it seemed I might succeed, something happened which I must try to explain. First let me tell you why I knew what would happen. My studies of minute particles led me to believe that machines might exert some form of choice. Simply because aggregates have always behaved predictably, I could not assume they always would. Even though the masses of men behaved as expected, I remember that, in my grandfather's time, individual persons frequently departed from established courses. What the individual could do, I felt the mass or the machine might do. As you know, these were subversive views, running directly counter to the cult of the Statisticians, which was based entirely on the predictability of mass behavior. The cult of the Statisticians was strong because it produced results. By employing Statisticians, the contending armies in the Peripheral Wars predicted each other's movements so accurately that they eliminated the possibility of surprise. Thus the Statisticians produced the military impasse which destroyed the prestige of political leadership. From that time on, Statisticians filled the posts of government. The success of the Statisticians proved their undoing. They claimed that they could create a perfect system without conflict or accident. They fondly believed that with the feedback in the electron brain, they could anticipate and correct all deviations in behavior, human or mechanical. They might have succeeded, if not for a fundamental error. I discovered this error as soon as the plans for the fiscal century were published. The design of the electron brain had completely ignored the polarity of the positron. In the total fiscal complex, this factor permits any aggregate to choose its own course. But the error was not immediately obvious to the Statisticians. It remained subtle and concealed until multiplied beyond control. N aturally, I prepared a report to predict to my chiefs the dangers embedded in this plan for a perfect world. I predicted that the machines would make their own decisions, even though most men long ago had lost that power. I even warned them that the ancient concept of "free will," now forbidden, would return to destroy them. These were the facts I offered. The report was never delivered. I'd hardly put my seal on the document when the automatic security guard closed in. The document was seized and I was bound gagged and thrown onto a conveyor belt. I saw myself on the way to the eraser. Only the polarity of the positron saved me. Desperately, on my way out of the laboratory, I kicked a single switch. Instead of taking me to my punishment, the conveyor belt converted itself into a joy ride. The gag fell out. My bonds dissolved. The Calamity had begun. The joy ride carried me to witness many of the events reported to this Commission. And then it tossed me directly into the center of the office of the Chiefs. I had one more opportunity to tell my story, to save the system. Given a second choice, I reconsidered. Had a perfect system been to my taste, I'd have died cheerfully to save it. But the Calamity excited me. I relished its surprises and adventures, even its hazards. I remember the old peasant proverb, "When life is perfect, it is time to die." And I decided I'd rather live. historian's note: At this point, the Commission abruptly closed its hearings. The unnamed physicist was charged with treason and ordered executed on the spot. His life was saved, however, by Rioters representing the New Disorder, which, upon seizing power, decreed that the Calamity should henceforth be called the Blessing. The physicist was rewarded by being made head of the government. He served two distinguished terms as President Nameless, which was the origin of the Presidential title of address, "Your Namelessness." The Commission, of course, was sent to Erasure. —MARK MEADOWS |
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