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Bova, Ben - Escape Plus

ESCAPE PLUS

Ben Bova

TOR

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and

any resemblance lo real people of incidents is purely coincidental.

ESCAPE PLUS

A TOR Book

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Bova, Ben - Escape Plus

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24 Street

New York, N.Y 10010

First Tor printing: December 1984

Cover art by Joe Bergeron

ISBN; 0-812-53212-0

CAN. ED.: 0-812-53213-

This book is dedicated to my Number-One Fan and good friend, David

Rosenfield.

Contents

Forecast: The Worlds Modeler

Escape!

A Slight Miscalculation

Vince's Dragon

The Last Decision

Men of Good Will

Blood of Tyrants

The Next Logical Step

The Shining Ones

Sword Play

A Long Way Back

Stars, Won't You Hide Me?

FORECAST: THE WORLDS MODELER

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It is called FORECASTS. It was created for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the generals and admiral

who head the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. It has cost more than a million

dollars to develop, and will cost still more before it is fully tested and operational.

FORECASTS is a computer model of the whole world. It is a highly complex program that

contains enormous amounts of data about global political trends, natural resources, and social

and economic factors, The Joint Chiefs will use FORECASTS to help them make the

predictions that go into their Joint Long Range Strategic Appraisal, in which the JCS evaluate

what the world in general, and certain nations in particular, will look like over the next thirty

years.

Science fiction writers have been making such predictions for generations now, and because

the accuracy of the forecast is only as good as the quality of the information being used, the

predictions of science fiction writers have generally been better than those of anyone else's—

including the complex computerized "world models" of the scientists who call themselves

futurists.

For example, futurists such as the late Herman Kahn have consistently missed the major

turning points in recent history. No futurist predicted the Arab oil embargo of and the

resulting panic of the energy crises which depressed the economies of the industrialized

nations for a decade. The Club of Rome's much-heralded study, The Limits to Growth, failed

utterly to understand that the Earth is not the only body in the universe from which the

human race can extract energy and natural resources. The Presidential commission which

produced Report on the Year 2000 was equally medieval in its view, and failed even to see the

vigorous growth of living standards in the small industrializing nations of the Far East,

nations such as Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Science fiction's record of predicting the future is much better. Atomic power, space flight,

organ transplants, population explosions, the changes in social mores that we now call "the

sexual revolution," genetic engineering—all these changes in human capabilities were

described in science fiction stories at least thirty years before they took place in reality. What

is more important, science fiction writers also predicted the social consequences of such

changes: the Cold War stalemate that has resulted from atomic weapons; the urban sprawl

that came from increased mobility and growing population; the breakdown of traditional

family values and morality that has accompanied the new sexual freedoms.

Why is it that science fiction writers have seen farther into the future than all others—and

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more clearly? Is it because they are trained in the sciences? Hardly. Although many writers of

science fiction have degrees in the physical or social sciences, very few of them are actually

practicing scientists. Isaac Asimov, for example, has not engaged in scientific research for

nearly three decades, despite his doctorate in chemistry and his title of professor of

biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine. Ray Bradbury, on the other hand, has

no scientific training at all. Yet both Asimov and Bradbury are world-class science fiction

writers, and both have graced the literature with scores of powerful and predictive stories.

The thing that makes a science fiction writer better at predicting the future than anyone else is

not scientific knowledge, although an understanding of science is very helpful, even

necessary. Nor is it a mystical, arcane extrasensory perception of the future. No writer that I

know of claims to be in contact with the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come.

The science fiction writer's secret can be told in two words: freedom and imagination.

The professional scientists who try to predict the future with computerized accuracy always

fail because they are required to stick to the facts. No futurist is going to predict that a semi-

accidental discovery will transform the entire world. Yet the invention of the transistor did

just that: without the transistor and its microchip descendants, today's world of computers

and communications satellites simply would not exist. Yet a futurist's forecast of

improvements in electronics technology, made around 1950, would have concentrated on

bigger and more complicated vacuum tubes and missed entirely the microminiaturization

that transistors have made possible. Science fiction writers, circa 1950, "predicted" marvels

such as wrist-radios and pocket-sized computers, not because they foresaw the invention of

the transistor but because they intuitively felt that some kind of improvement would come

along to shrink the bulky computers and radios of that day.

The professional futurists labor under this enormous handicap; they are not allowed to

consider the "wild cards," the crazy things that can and usually do happen. They are restricted

to making more-or-less straight-line extrapolations of the facts as we know them today.

Science fiction writers have the freedom to use more than the facts. They can use their

imaginations. They can ask themselves, "What would happen if…?" and then set out to write a

story that answers the question. They can use their knowledge of the human soul—for that is

what fiction is all about—not merely to describe the marvelous invention or the strange

discovery, but to portray how real people—you or I—might react to these new things.

That is science fiction's great advantage, the freedom to employ human imagination to its

fullest. The science fiction writer is not required to be accurate, merely entertaining. Although

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the writer need not have a professional knowledge of science, he or she should understand

the basics well enough to know what is impossible—and how to move at least one step

beyond that limit. The rule of thumb in good science fiction is that you are free to invent

anything you like, providing no one else can prove that it could never be. Even though

physicists are certain that nothing in the universe travels faster than the speed of light, they

cannot prove that it is utterly impossible for a starship to circumvent that speed limit;

therefore science fiction writers can create interstellar dramas, with merely a slight bow to

acknowledge that their faster-than-light starships are using principles that were unknown in

the 20th century. In creating such stories about some future times and places, the writer often

creates an inner reality that eventually comes true.

You don't need a million-dollar computer program or a team of Pentagon scientists. All you

need is that strange and elusive quality called talent, plus the fortitude to work long and

lonely hours, together with the freedom to let your imagination roam where it will.

The stories in this collection are examples of how my imagination and creative freedom has

led me to build worlds that do not exist—yet. From an electronically guarded prison that

could be built today to the farthest ultimate reaches of interstellar space, these stories present

eleven different answers to eleven different phrasings of that question, "What would happen

if…?" One of these tales, The Next Logical Step, deals with the kind of computer that the Joint

Chiefs of Staff might find themselves facing soon. Another, A Long Way Back, was my very

first published short story; it dealt, in a way, with the basic factors of both the energy crisis

that erupted a dozen years after the story was published and the aftermath of a nuclear war—

a subject very much in the forefront of everyone's thinking even today, a quarter-century after

the story was written.

Two of these tales are not really science fiction. One of them is a fantasy about a dragon, and

the other is a "straight" story about my favorite sport, fencing. Both of them come directly

from experiences in my younger years in South Philadelphia, that heartland of pop singers,

steak sandwiches, and Rocky Balboa.

None of these tales has "come true" as yet, but that is not important. Each of them examines a

reality of its own. Each of them places real people in strange and challenging situations. Each

of them tests the human spirit in one way or another. Each of them presents a "world model"

that forecasts a future that might come to pass.

Ben Bova

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West Hartford, Connecticut

ESCAPE!

We tell ourselves a lot of lies about prisons. The biggest lie is calling it "the criminal justice system;" it

is not a system, it has nothing to do with justice, and if there is anything criminal about it, it's the fact

that jails tend to make their inmates lifelong antisocial animals.

I started my writing career on newspapers, and spent a lot of those early years covering the police beat

in an upper-middle-class suburban area outside my native Philadelphia. As an investigative reporter

(we didn't know that term back in the Fifties, we just called it legwork) I spent a summer probing into

the problem of juvenile crime. The eventual result was Escape!, which was published originally as a

short novel.

Two other factors went into writing this story; both involved the idea of a "perfect" jail. One was the

notion that the lure of escape was the only thing that kept most inmates alive, especially the ones with

long or indeterminate sentences. I read somewhere about a prison chaplain saying that if the inmates

truly believed that they could never possibly escape from the jail they were in, they would go insane or

commit suicide. The other factor was the kind of idea that only a science fiction writer would think of:

suppose we made a jail that is as good as we can possibly imagine, a jail that actually works the way we

good citizens say we want our jails to work, a jail that helps its inmates to become honest, upright, tax-

paying citizens.

The result was the campus-like and absolutely escape-proof prison in Escape!, with its electronic

sentries and all-seeing computer, SPECS. But to make the prison work the way I wanted it to, there had

to be a human side to it. The machines can do only so much; the jail with its electronic marvels is

merely a box in which to hold prisoners. To make the jail work in a way that would transform those

prisoners into healthy, self-reliant, honest citizens required a human mind, a human soul, a human

purpose. Thus Joe Tenny entered the equation, and became the main force in the resulting story.

Joe is modelled very closely on a man I knew and worked with for several years. The real "Joe Tenny"

was a man of enormous talents and passions, a teacher, a scientist, a man who had worked himself too

hard for his own good. He died much too early. The world is poorer for that. A pale shadow of him lives

on in this story. That's not enough, but if this story shows you how we can use what's best in us to

make the world better, then Joe's vital spark of life is not completely extinguished.

Escape!, incidentally, has generated more mail from readers than any other single story I have ever

written. I credit "Joe Tenny's" indomitable spirit for that; he was the kind of man who made people feel

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good about themselves.

CHAPTER ONE

The door shut behind him.

Danny Romano stood in the middle of the small room, every nerve tight. He listened for the

click of the lock. Nothing.

Quiet as a cat, he tiptoed back to the door and tried the knob. It turned. The door was

unlocked.

Danny opened the door a crack and peeked out into the hallway. Empty. The guards who had

brought him here were gone. No voices. No footsteps. Down at the far end of the hall, up near

the ceiling, was some sort of TV camera. A little red light glowed next to its lens.

He shut the door and leaned against it.

"Don't lem 'em sucker you," he said to himself. "This is a jail."

Danny looked all around the room. There was only one bed. On its bare mattress was a pile of

clothes, bed sheets, towels and stuff. A TV screen was set into the wall at the end of the bed.

On the other side of the room was a desk, an empty bookcase, and two stiff-back wooden

chairs. Somebody had painted the walls a soft blue.

"This can't be a cell… not for me, anyway. They made a mistake."

The room was about the size of the jail cells they always put four guys into. Or sometimes six.

And there was something else funny about it. The smell, that's it! This room smelled clean.

There was even fresh air blowing in through the open window. And there were no bars on the

window. Danny tried to remember how many jail cells he had been in. Eight? Ten? They had

all stunk like rotting garbage.

He went to the clothes on the bed. Slacks, real slacks. Sport shirts and turtlenecks. And colors!

Blue, brown, tan. Danny yanked off the gray coveralls he had been wearing, and tried on a

light blue turtleneck and dark brown slacks. They even fit right. Nobody had ever been able

to find him a prison uniform small enough to fit his wiry frame before this.

Then he crossed to the window and looked outside. He was on the fifth or sixth floor, he

guessed. The grounds around the building were starting to turn green with the first touch of

early spring. There were still a few patches of snow here and there, in the shadows cast by the

other buildings.

There were a dozen buildings, all big and square and new-looking. Ten floors high, each of

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them, although there were a couple of smaller buildings farther out. One of them had a tall

smokestack. The buildings were arranged around a big, open lawn that had cement paths

through it. A few young trees lined the walkways. They were just beginning to bud.

"No fences," Danny said to himself.

None of the windows he could see had bars. Everyone seemed to enter or leave the buildings

freely. No guards and no locks on the doors? Out past the farthest building was an area of

trees. Danny knew from his trip in here, this morning, that beyond the woods was the

highway that led back to the city.

Back to Laurie.

Danny smiled. What were the words the judge had used? In… in-de-ter-minate sentence. The

lawyer had said that it meant he was going to stay in jail for as long as they wanted him to. A

year, ten years, fifty years…

"I'll be out of here tonight!" He laughed.

A knock on the door made Danny jump. Somebody-heard me!

Another knock, louder this time. "Hey, you in there?" a man's voice called.

"Y… yeah."

The door popped open. "I'm supposed to talk with you and get you squared away. My name's

Joe Tenny."

Joe was at least forty, Danny saw. He was stocky, tough-looking, but smiling. His face was

broad; his dark hair combed straight back. He was a head taller than Danny and three times

wider. The jacket of his suit looked tight across the middle. His tie was loosened, and his shirt

collar unbuttoned.

A cop, Danny thought. Or maybe a guard. But why ain't he wearing a uniform?

Joe Tenny stuck out a heavy right hand. Danny didn't move.

"Listen, kid," Tenny said, "we're going to be stuck together for a long time. We might as well

be friends."

"I got my own friends," said Danny. "On the outside."

Tenny's eyebrows went up while the corners of his mouth went down. His face seemed to say.

Who are you trying to kid, wise guy?

Aloud, he said, "Okay, suit yourself. You can have it any way you like, hard or easy." He

reached for one of the chairs and pulled it over near the bed.

"How long am I going to be here?"

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"That depends on you. A couple of years, at least." Joe turned the chair around backwards and

sat on it as if it were a saddle, leaning his stubby arms on the chair's back.

Danny swung at the pile of clothes and things on the bed, knocking most of them onto the

floor. Then he plopped down on the mattress. The springs squeaked in complaint.

Joe looked hard at him, then let a smile crack his face. "I know just what's going through your

mind. You're thinking that two years here in the Center is going to kill you, so you're going to

crash out the first chance you get. Well, forget it! The Center is escape-proof."

In spite of himself, Danny laughed.

"I know, I know…" Tenny grinned back at him. "The Center looks more like a college campus

than a jail. In fact, that's what most of the kids call it—the campus. But believe me, Alcatraz

was easy compared to this place. We don't have many guards or fences, but we've got TV

cameras, and laser alarms, and SPECS."

"Who's Specks?" Danny asked.

Joe called out, "SPECS, say hello."

The TV screen on the wall lit up. A flat, calm voice said, "GOOD MORNING DR. TENNY.

GOOD MORNING MR, ROMANO. WELCOME TO THE JUVENILE HEALTH CENTER."

Danny felt totally confused. Somebody was talking through the TV set? The screen, though,

showed the words he was hearing, spelled put a line at a time. But they moved too fast for

Danny to really read them. And Specks, whoever he was, called Joe Tenny a doctor.

"Morning SPECS," Tenny said to the screen. "How's it going today?"

"ALL SYSTEMS ARE FUNCTIONING WELL, DR. TENNY. A LIGHT TUBE IN CORRIDOR

SIX OF BUILDING NINE BURNED OUT DURING THE NIGHT. I HAVE REPORTED THIS

TO THE MAINTENANCE CREW. THEY WILL REPLACE IT BEFORE LUNCH. THE

MORNING CLASSES ARE IN PROGRESS. ATTENDANCE IS…"

"Enough, skip the details." Joe turned back to Danny. "If I let him, he'd give me a report on

every stick and stone in the Center."

"Who is he?" Danny asked.

"Not a he, really. An it. A computer. Special Computer System. Take the 's-p-e' from 'special'

and the 'c' and 's' from 'computer system' and put the letters together: SPECS. He runs most of

the Center. Sees all and knows all. And he never sleeps."

"Big deal," said Danny, trying to make it sound tough.

Joe Tenny turned back to the TV screen, which was still glowing. "SPECS, give me Danny

Romano's record, please."

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The reply came without an instant's wait: "DANIEL FRANCIS ROMANO. AGE SIXTEEN.

HEIGHT FIVE FEET TWO INCHES. WEIGHT ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN POUNDS.

SENTENCED TO INDETERMINATE SENTENCE IN THE JUVENILE HEALTH CENTER-

FOUND GUILTY OF ATTEMPTED MURDER, RIOTING, LOOTING, ATTACKING A

POLICE OFFICER WITH A DEADLY WEAPON. RESISTING ARREST. EARLIER

CONVICTIONS INCLUDE PETTY THEFT, AUTOMOBILE THEFT, ASSAULT AND

BATTERY. RESISTING ARREST, VANDALISM. SERVED SIX MONTHS IN STATE PRISON

FOR BOYS. ESCAPED AND RECAPTURED...

"That's enough," Joe said. "Bad scene, isn't it?"

"So?"

"So it's why you're here."

Danny asked, "What kind of place is this? How come I'm not in a regular jail?"

Joe thought a minute before answering. "This is a new place. This Center has been set up for

kids like you. Kids who are going to kill somebody—or get themselves killed— unless we can

change them. Our job is, to help you to change. We think you can straighten out. There's no

need for you to spend the rest of your life in trouble and in jail. But you've got to let us help

you. And you've got to help yourself."

"How… how long will I have to stay here?"

Tenny's face turned grim. "Like I said, a couple of years, at least. But it really depends on you.

You're going to stay as long as it takes. If you don't shape up, you stay. It's that simple."

CHAPTER TWO

Joe Tenny went right on talking. He used SPECS' TV screen to show Danny a map of the

Center and the layouts of the different buildings. He pointed out the classrooms, the cafeteria,

the gym and shops, and game rooms.

But Danny didn't see any of it, didn't hear a single word. All he could think of was: as long as

it takes. If you don't shape up, you stay.

They were going to keep him here forever. Danny knew it. Tenny was a liar. They were all

liars. Like that lousy social worker when he was a kid. She told him they were sending him to

a special school. "It's for your own good, Daniel." Good, real good. Some school. No teacher,

no books. Just guards who belted you when they felt like it, and guys who socked you when

the guards weren't looking.

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