Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

60 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION a Samet NM ll MO Cody sat alone at the control panel of the electronic calculator. For there was no time at all now. In a moment the emergency telecast would begin, the last appeal to the group of non- telepaths. They would be offered the Inductor—conditionally. For they could not use it. Only their children could. If they were willing to accept the Inductor and halt the pogrom, the Baldies would know very quickly. The most secret thoughts of men cannot be hidden from telepaths. But if they would not accept—the Baldies would know that, too, and then Cody would touch acertain button on the panel before him. Operation, Apocalypse would begin. In six hours the virus would be ready. In a week or two, ninety per cent of the world’s population would be dead or dying. The pogrom might go on until the last, but telepaths could hide efficiently, and they would not have to remain hidden long. The decision was man’s. Cody felt Allenby come in behind him. ‘“‘What’s your guess?” he asked. “I don’t know. It depends on egotism—paronoia in a way. Maybe man has learned to be a social animal; maybe he hasn’t. We’ll soon find out.” ““Yes. Soon. It’s the end now, the end of what started with the Blowup.”’ “No,” Allenby said, “it started a long time before that. It started when men first began to live in groups and the groups kept expanding. But before there was any final unification, the Blowup came along. So we had de- centralization, and that was the wrong answer. It was ultimate disunity and control by fear. It built up the walls between man and man higher than ever. Aggression is punished very severely now—and in a suspicious, worried, decentralized world there’s a ~ tremendous lot of aggression trying to explode. But the conscience re- presses it—the criminal conscience of a fear-ruled society, built up in every person from childhood.. That’s why no nontelepathic adult today can let himself receive thoughts—why Lucy and the others couldn’t.”’ **She’ll . . . never be able to?’’ ‘“Never,”’ Allenby said quietly. “It’s comnicloooks.c© nl