SECURITY
If you let a man learn, and study, and work—andclamp a lid on so that nothing he takes into his mind canbe let out—one way or another he'll blow a safety valve!
BY ERNEST M. KENYON
Illustrated by Freas
Suddenly Collins snapped the pencilbetween his fingers and hurledthe pieces across the lab, where theyclattered, rolled from the bench tothe floor, and were still. For a momenthe sat leaning against the desk,his hands trembling. He wasn't surejust when the last straw had beenadded, but he was sure that he hadhad enough. The restrictions, redtape, security measures of these governmentlaboratories seemed to closein on his mind in boiling, chaoticwaves of frustration. What was thegood of his work, all this great installation,all the gleaming expensiveequipment in the lab around him?He was alone. None of them seemed[Pg 54]to share his problem, the unctuous,always correct Gordon, the easy-mannered,unbearable Mason, all ofthem gave him a feeling of actualphysical sickness.
Gardner's “Nucleonics and NuclearProblems” lay open on the deskbefore him, but he looked insteadbeyond through the clear curvingglass windows toward the sweep ofgreen hills and darkening sky andthe shadows of the lower forests thatgave Fair Oaks its name. Beside himunfinished lay the summaries of theday's experiments, and the unorganized,hurriedly jotted notes for tomorrow'swork. The old intellectualalertness was gone. Delight inchanging theory, in careful experimentationno longer sprang from hiswork and were a part of it. Therewas a dull, indefinable aching in hishead and a dry, dissatisfied sensationin his mouth.
Along the ordered walks below hislaboratory windows workers andtechnicians streamed toward thegates, checking out for the daythrough the usual mass of red tape,passes, and Geiger tests. Lights wereflicking on in the long East WingDormitory across the quadrangle, andthe mess hall, where he had recentlyeaten a tasteless supper, was lighted.
Shortly after restrictions had reallybegun to tighten up last fall, he hadwritten to a worker who had publishedmaking a minor correction inhis calculations and adding some suggestionsarising from his own research.A week later his letter wasreturned completely censored, stamped“Security-Violation.” It was thatevasive Gordon's fault. He knew it,but he couldn't prove it. Collins suspectedthat the man was not a top-notchresearcher and so was in administration.Perhaps Gordon wasjealous of his own work.
Even the Journals were drying up.Endless innocuous papers recalculatingthe values of harmless constantsand other such nonsense were allthat was being published. They werehardly worth reading. Others werefeeling the throttling effects of securitymeasures, and isolated, loneresearchers were slowing down, listlessand anemic from the loss of thelife blood of science, the free interchangeof information.
The present research job he wasdoing was coming slowly, but whatdifference did it make? It wouldnever be published. Probably itwould be filed with a Departmentof Defense code number as ResearchReport DDNE-42 dash-dash-dash.And there it would remain, top-secret,guarded, unread, useless. Somewherein the desk drawers was thedirective worded i