WAR GAME

BY BRYCE WALTON

The playing of war games should not be forbidden; but rather viewed as a natural outlet for emotional tensions.—DR. L. M. STOLTZ, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The Minister of Peace asked the United States President if he had heard from the Secretary of State. "Yes," the President said. "I heard from Mr. Thompson only a few minutes ago."

"How's their final conference coming, Mr. President?"

"Inevitably. Operation Push Button within the hour."

The Minister of Peace blinked out the window at Washington, D.C. "So they're going to blow up the world?"

"Inevitably."

"Shall we watch it?" asked the Minister of Peace.

The President nodded, spoke to master control through the intercom box on his desk, and switched on the TV screen. They had a special pipe-line into the United Nations Cellar. They sat back, had martinis, and watched the interior of the Cellar come to life on the screen.

Three thousand miles from New Washington, under a natural camouflage of tundra and wintry hills, the U.N. Cellar was thought by its occupants to be thoroughly resistant to any offensive weapons. It was three miles underground, protected by lead, concrete and steel. Its location was known only to the U.N. Security Division that was supposed to be strictly neutral in international affairs, or so the Cellar occupants assumed. The engineers and workmen who had planned and constructed the Cellar were supposed to have been brain-washed and therefore had no memory of the great project. An occasional caribou drifted over the Cellar with the North Wind, and wolves that always follow the caribou.

In his suite, Chandler Thompson, Secretary of State, prepared himself for the global diplomacy game's final hand in which it is never so important what hand you play, as the way you play it. After years of negotiation, full agreement on Operation Push Button had been attained, and Thompson took some pride in having played a leading role in the ingenious idea.

Morten, his valet, finished shaving Thompson's pale face, helped him dress in striped trousers, cut-away, and white gardenia.

"Thank you, Morten," said the Secretary of State.

"You seem calm enough, sir. Frankly, I'm ill at ease."

"You may leave the Cellar if you wish," Thompson said, skimming through his notes. "You've served graciously. I appreciate it. But it is your privilege to return to your family outside now. I might remind you that your chance of survival if you remain here is practically 100 percent."

"It isn't that, sir. It just seems incredible that so many must die." He felt of his wallet, the pictures of his family in it.

"It's hardly a matter of principle," Thompson said. "Nor a question of ideology. It's simply a question of firmness and realistic practicality, and getting the job done once and for all. That has been my stand from the beginning and naturally it cannot be changed."

"But billions of people dying—"

"Death before dishonor, Morten."

"Yes, sir." Morten knew that in every suite in the Cellar every diplomat was saying practically the same thing. Thompson looked up from his neat notes. "People, Morten, have been properly prepared for violent death. Indeed there has been a feeling of security in numbers. The Ministry of Education working with the War Department has done such a splendid job. Now every child has grown up fully prepared to die in the holocaust. And every individual still a child regards violent death as casually as a game of marbles. The required attitude has been thoroughly conditioned in the populace. The idea was to make violence, savagery, and sudden death, an every day affair. And we have done it. Sad, but a necessary task."

Morten said nothing. Thompson looked at the neon map coruscating on the wall. "Our country is not unique in this, Morten. Annihilation will come as a shock only to the misinformed anywhere in the world."

Morten sat down. He remembered how his kids used to come home from school laughingly playing war games, manipulating toy atomic cannons and the like. They received additional marks in school for being good and cooperative during atomic bomb drills and preparations for thermonuclear disasters. They had been so proud of their dogtags that came with boxes of cereal. In the evenings out back they used to have bury-the-dead games.

Thompson was saying, "Remember juvenile delinquency? It was necessary. Millions had to be conditioned psychologically for Operation Killer. An insensitive, fatalistic attitude had to be engendered. For their own good."

Morten flicked a speck of lint from Thompson's stooped shoulder.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Maybe it will be humane, in the long run."

"One must face the hard, materialistic facts," Thompson said. "Oh, that reminds me." He went to his private switchboard and got a secret outside line to the Office of Civilian Defense. "Hello, Donnelson. Yes, I'm fine. I haven't talked with you for some time now, and I was wondering about that suggestion of mine. Yes, the household pets thing. That's right, particularly dogs. They're big morale factors in the lives of children and there may be some survivors. Well, then, issue another bulletin on that immediately. Things are reaching a head here in the Cellar. Yes, dogs should be lashed firmly to heavy pieces of furniture, away from windows. Put water where they can reach it. Hysteria under the bombing attacks can be avoided by giving sodium bromide tablets to the dogs. That's right. Survivors will need pets. Morale...."

After Thompson was through talking to Donnelson, Morten said. "You know, sir, the end will be a relief to some people. They've been blitzed by a non-stop barrage of fear bombs so long, I think they'll be glad to get it over with."

"Very perceptive, Morten. That has been one of Psychological Warfare's primary aims in preparation." Thompson got another outside line. Dawson, Civilian Defense. As he waited for Dawson to come in, he said to Morten, "Get the dueling pistols out of the cabinet, please." Morten nodded.