Him by A. E. VAN VOGT

As all knew, everything came from Him.

* *

Josiah Him, dictator of Earth -- except for a few areas of resistance, consisting of a total of about eight hundred million scientific savages, a portion of whom were located in the western half of North America and the rest in the great mountain regions of Asia and elsewhere.

These barbaric remnants had, in their madness, declared a state of war on Him. As it developed, the counterattack from, Him had included an initial surprise invasion -- which was repelled. After the defeat, the word from Him was that every means of humanitarian warfare would be employed to defeat the savages, including -- in severe emergencies -- the planarian education plan.

This particular word from Him had come that morning to Edgar Maybank: ... Your assistants, hereinafter to be called students, have been selected for planarian accelerated education. ... Report July 12 ...'

That was next, day!

The man who had climbed onto the bar stool next to Edgar, and who had somehow drawn the anguished truth out of Edgar, was singularly unsympathetic. He was a big, gentle fellow, who jiggled a little to the music, but had all the correct attitudes instantly at the tip of his tongue.

'... The word from Him,' he said with quiet certainty, 'is that the planarian system should be used only in extreme emergencies. All truly patriotic educators should therefore be prepared for the supreme sacrifice. You are to be congratulated on this rare opportunity to serve Him, but, uh, don't you think that's rather an unusual get-up for an expert?'

He thereupon eyed Edgar's corduroys and formless shirt.

Edgar said, 'I came straight from work.'

'Oh, straight from the laboratory.'

'I guess you could call it that,' said Edgar absently.

He was admitting to himself, gloomily, that he had been very remiss in the past, when other people had been selected for the planarian program. In fact, his indignation against the plan had started belatedly that morning. What bothered him most was the feeling that he was the victim of a scheme.

'After all,' he said, 'we know that these decisions are not made by Him, but by administrators and subadministrators -- '

The older man interjected quickly: 'But always from the highest motives, solely in the name of Him, responsible to Him -- '

No question, that was the theory; and Edgar had given lip-service to it for so long that he was now briefly silenced.

While the dancers writhed around him, and his barmate kept time by moving one portion or another of his body, Edgar sipped his drink and grimly contemplated the entire planarian idea.

Long ago, it had been discovered that planarian worms could be trained in simple condition responses. When these trained worms were ground up and fed to other planarian worms, these latter learned the same responses faster than worms not so fed.

During the great rebellion, at the command of Him, the truths thus scientifically established were applied to human beings. University professors, scientists, and other experts were ground up and fed to their students in an accelerated education program.

Edgar's lean face took on a bitter expression. 'There's a certain subadministrator who's been trying to make time with my girl,' he said darkly, 'and it's significant to me that it's this sub who has now selected me.'

He added hastily, 'Don't get me wrong. I'll he the first to admit that I've always been proud of my special ability to brew beer. It's a rare talent I have, attested to by the undoubted fact that my company are the official brewers for Him. As a result, I am the highest-paid employee in the beer business. Still, there are other beers. So where's the emergency?'

He became aware that his companion had stopped his wiggling and was blinking at him. Something seemed to have sobered him.

'Beer!' said the man. He sipped from his glass, his heavy face oddly twisted. Then: 'It's an unusual emergency, as you say. What did you say was the name of this subadministrator?'

Edgar told him it was Ancil Moody. The man took out his card and handed it to Edgar with a decisive thrust. It read:

STACY PANGBORN

Chief of Administration

PalGlomHim

Government Center

Edgar gulped and almost. dropped the card; Everybody knew that PalGlomHim was -- well, it was tops.

'You're a VIP?' asked Edgar.

'Extremely so,' acknowledged the man quietly. He added, 'Write your name' on the back of that card and 'do not -- repeat, do not -- report to the Segmentation Plant tomorrow.' Edgar was weaving a little from the way something inside his head was singing. 'W-what do you think will happen?'

'Read the papers I' was the enigmatic reply.

Whereupon the VIP walked out, swaying in a dignified way.

Edgar was wore than a little disturbed next day when there was no report in the papers that seemed relevant. He began to feel unpatriotic. His conscience began to tug him toward his duty.

But before he could decide, the secret police roared down on him. '... Your failure to report ... gross sedition ... special hearing.'

At the hearing, held in a chamber deep in the bowels of the earth, Edgar was shown photographs. One was of the VIP.

'That's him,' he said.

Great excitement among his interrogators. '... The enemy leader himself. ... come down from the mountains ... in a bar.'

It was decided that the people in the bar must have been involved. Therefore ... extermination program. But first, anything to do with the opposition leader required a personal interview with Him.

And so there was Edgar in the Presence, surrounded by the private guards of the great man, and with one top official. All others were barred. Edgar lay face down on the glossy floor; a voice from above asked questions, and he answered from the corner of his mouth as best he could.

Presently the voice said, startled: 'Beer?' It asked querulously, 'My brand?'

'Apparently, your Super.'

Silence; then: 'Bring that subadministrator!'

The secret service had already embraced Ancil Moody in steel handcuffs, and he was brought in, pale, fleshy, anxious, and laid down on the floor at the feet of Him.

There was a pause; Edgar ventured a quick glance and saw that the eyes of Him were gazing at the cringing subadministrator. Abruptly, the voice of Him came: 'Is there any shortage of subadministrators of his class?'

The voice of the chief of protocol could not seem to say fast enough that the shortage was unquestionably acute.

Again, silence; but presently the judgment of Him was delivered: 'First, obtain a confession, then segmentation 'under the planarian plan.'

They were about to subject the unfortunate Ancil Moody, to a special type of humanitarian torture -- instant, extreme pain -- when he said hastily, 'I'm willing to confess. But first remove my disguise.'

That caused a murmur of wonderment and some tension.

The disguise -- a flesh mask -- came off in its gooey way, quickly.

The chief of protocol, who had knelt beside the prisoner's body while it was being unmasked, said in astonishment: 'Your Excellency, this creature's face bears a startling resemblance to you...'.

Something of the truth of this situation must have penetrated to the dictator's side at that instant. He surged to his feet from beside the bound man and looked around him, eyes wide and wild. He yelled hoarsely, 'Guards, your guns!'

Blasters glinted in response, in half a dozen hands. At that point, the head guard said, 'All right -- Dickenson -- Gray!'

'Two blasters flashed their purple flame, and the chief of protocol went down, skin blackened, clothes burning furiously.

A moment later -- while Edgar, still not daring to move, watched from the top of his eyes -- six blasters pointed at Him. The dictator had started to run, but now he stopped and slowly put up his hands.

The head guard walked over and removed the handcuffs from the subadministrator. That young man climbed to his feet, and said in a voice of command. 'That was good work. All right, disguise Him.'

Rough hands grabbed the tense Him. Handcuffs clicked.

A makeup box appeared, and an Ancil Moody mask was produced from it. In a few minutes, one of the guards had made up Him to resemble the subadministrator as he had been when he was brought into the room. The dead aide was dragged into a closet.

The voice of the new Him said to the old Him, 'We got our men in to be your guards long ago, but of course they couldn't just kill you. That would simply have started a struggle for power among your military and political commanders, with no real change. So our problem was to figure out how we could maneuver the man who resembled you superficially -- myself -- into, your presence, wary as you have always been. It took wild figuring -- as you can see -- including making sure that our bait' -- he indicated Edgar, who was beginning to stir -- 'did not became suspicious -- and, of course, taking it for granted that the planarian program was, on the one hand, a method of controlling the scientific community and, on the other, a way of getting rid of any important recalcitrant --'

He broke off, finished grimly, 'Since the method has such enormous propaganda acceptance, I order that the original sentence on Ancil Moody be carried out.'

Actually, what happened when the subadministrators gathered for their educational supplement, the segmentation machine accidentally -- it was said -- flushed the entire ground up body of the dictator into a sewer.

The new power group did not really believe that planarianism worked on human beings. But -- involved as its members were in a careful reintroduction of democratic procedures -- no one among them wanted to take the chance that the peculiar abilities possessed by Him might be passed on to any group of bright young executives.

As a substitute, these latter were given an ample ration from the private beer stock of Him. They were served by the brewmaster himself -- Edgar Maybank -- whose charming new bride assisted her in waiting on tables.

A real festive occasion, everyone agreed afterward.