Critical Mass (short story)
Encyclopedia
Critical Mass is a science fiction
short story, technically a novelette
, written by Frederik Pohl
and Cyril M. Kornbluth
. It was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction
magazine in February 1962, almost four years after Kornbluth's death. The tone may reflect a view of American society from even earlier than 1962, depending on how much Pohl updated it before publication. According to a foreword by Pohl in a collection also called "Critical Mass", the story was assembled from notes Kornbluth made for three story ideas, plus one of Pohl's own from 1954. After Kornbluth's death, his widow turned over his story notes and drafts to Pohl. Pohl completed a dozen or so stories based on this material, most of which were eventually collected in the volume "The Wonder Effect" which contained most of the same stories as the later "Critical Mass" collection.
Arthur C. Clarke
also wrote a short story with this title. It is included in his collection of tall tales
of unlikely inventions, Tales from the White Hart
.
has continued for about 50 years. America is in a state of constant readiness for nuclear attack. Shelter drills are an everyday occurrence. They are accompanied by military exercises which rehearse destroying attacking aircraft and missiles. Despite this, life goes on as it always has. People gripe about the drills, but would far rather talk about political issues or, better yet, baseball.
The lives of three people, a newly minted civil engineering graduate, a statistician and a magazine editor, intersect. This starts a chain reaction
which leads to the overturning of the status quo.
An important character in the story is the President of the United States
. A former New Jersey
accountant, state senator and Governor, who nonetheless thinks of himself as a "hard riding, hard drinking Southern gentleman", he is a front for an army of advisers and fixers who tell him what to say through a wireless earphone. He leads the "Middle Roaders", apparently a Republican faction. The opposition are the "Nationalists" who favor a sudden first strike
, or "sneak punch" against the Communists. The Democratic party is despised, being routinely referred to as the "Party of Treason".
The burning political issue in Congress and the nation is the "Civilian Shelters Bill", or "C.S.B.", a plan to build deep air-raid shelters capable of housing the entire nation. So disconnected is the President that he knows nothing about this. The other obsession, the Baseball All-Star Game, is something he knows all about, and is looking forward to watching. This is the man who, at the end of the story, has to pick up the pieces and move the nation forward.
of fissionable material, one random event will lead to a complete transformation. The metaphor is extended by the story explicitly likening one character to a neutron
, another to a nucleus
, and the President to a neutron moderator
. The accidental collision of the characters initiates the chain reaction.
Arturo Denzer, whom we first encounter bracing himself to face the day with the aid of vitamins, aspirin, thyroid extract, caffeine, nicotine and amphetamine, is ironically the editor of Nature's Way Magazine, specializing in reviews of "natural" food products. Getting to work is a matter of negotiating robotic elevators and taxis, all of whom attempt to draw him into unwanted conversations about the All-Star Game and the Civilian Shelters Bill. The worst is the taxi, which being a "Black and White hack", addresses him as "Mac". Arriving at his office in Washington D.C., he finds that a crucial lab report is missing, so he and his assistant, Maggie Frome, have to personally travel to the labs to collect it. On the way, they stop the taxi bothering them by pretending to be lovers "making out" in the back seat. The taxis are programmed simply to wink and chuckle at this. In reality they are discussing the upcoming edition of the magazine.
At the Nature's Way labs Arturo Denzer and Maggie Frome encounter the scientist Valendora, who prepared the report they came to collect. Valendora is disgusted when his boss at the lab decides that certain harmful side-effects of the product, Aztec Cocawine, can be overlooked. At this point an air-raid drill throws everything into confusion. Denzer and Maggie have to spend time in the shelter where everyone around them wants to discuss, as loudly as possible, the upcoming All-Star Game or the C.S.B. Frustrated beyond measure, Maggie yells at those near her to shut up, uttering the rude "P-word" (politics), much to Denzer's dismay.
President Braden appears at the daily White House press briefing, where it becomes apparent that he simply parrots what he hears in his earphone. The assembled correspondents likewise pretend that he is talking "off the cuff". Asked about C.S.B. the President delivers a formulaic speech about moving it forward, even though he knows nothing about it. He then has a meeting with Senator Horton, who almost has a meltdown in the Oval Office, so frustrated is he with the lack of progress of the bill. After Horton leaves, Braden tries to find out about C.S.B., only to be told by Senator Jim Harkness, who chairs the committee Horton sits on, that the whole thing is just an issue that has to be kept on the boil for as long as possible, there being no other significant political issues to use as a platform for re-election. Harkness is contemptuous of Horton, regarding him as a makeweight on the committee and a loose cannon politically. He recommends that the President "put some money" in Horton's district before the next election.
Emerging from the air-raid shelter, Denzer and Maggie are arrested because they are not wearing mandatory dosimeter
s. Tossed into a holding cell with other miscreants and drunks, they encounter Valendora and Chase, who are similarly inconvenienced. Valendora has a statistics article he needs to get to a reputable journal. Chase has a thesis that requires Senator Horton's urgent attention. Denzer has his own deadline to worry about. Fortunately at their arraignment Maggie spots a friend, another journalist who is covering the court for her newspaper. They retrieve what they think is Denzer's envelope from a pile, hand her the material to take to Nature's Way with instructions to the magazine compositor to rush it into print. Then they settle down to wait their turn to make bail.
To their horror, when they emerge to get a copy of the magazine, instantly printed on the sidewalk by yet another robot, they find that the materials they sent were Chase's thesis and Valendora's journal article. Digested by the magazine's computer they announce to the world that, according to Valendora, the All-Star Game is the most likely time for a "sneak punch" attack by the Communists, and according to Chase, the planned Civilian Shelters will be ineffective even against chemical explosives, let alone nuclear bombs. Valendora offers another, less scientific, prediction.
The story continues "But he was wrong. It was actually less than three."
The final act takes place in the President's office during the All-Star Game, with Senator Horton explaining why the four of them, then sitting meekly on a couch nearby, have just saved the country. Publishing Valendora's article not only caused the armed forces to check their own data and go on alert, it caused the Communists to hold back because the element of surprise had been lost. The nation's obsession with the All-Star Game would have caused everyone to be "looking the other way" as the attack commenced. Horton notes that Nazi Germany
used a similar tactic of scheduling attacks for holidays and long weekends. At the same time as Valendora's analysis deflected the attack, Chase's thesis effectively deflated C.S.B. This removed the issue platform that the President's party had intended to milk for all it was worth, aiming to re-elect him in 2000.
Here the President finds himself cast adrift. The voice in his ear is silent. His aides cannot help him. Looking at his clean desktop, where once Harry S. Truman
had a sign saying "The buck stops here", he sees that even without a sign, this is the place where decisions have to be made, for better or worse. He tells Horton about his days at West Point, when he wrote what, to him, was a revelatory history paper about societal obsessions, such as monarchy and slavery, that got bigger and more all-consuming until they collapsed. His hopes for distinction were dashed when his tutor pointed out that Arnold J. Toynbee
had already covered the same ground. Still, he realizes that he has been witness to just such a collapse. Summoning what leadership he can muster, he decides that he and only he can take the next step. He explains this to Horton.
Back on the street, Chase, Valendora and Denzer face their own futures. Chase may be able to salvage his former college relationship. Valendora has to get to his journal's office to update his article. And Denzer begins to realize that Maggie Frome may be more than just an assistant to him. He flags down a taxi and they climb into the back seat. The taxi chuckles and winks on cue, but this time the couple are not pretending.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short story, technically a novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
, written by Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
and Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a notable member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner and Jordan Park...
. It was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
magazine in February 1962, almost four years after Kornbluth's death. The tone may reflect a view of American society from even earlier than 1962, depending on how much Pohl updated it before publication. According to a foreword by Pohl in a collection also called "Critical Mass", the story was assembled from notes Kornbluth made for three story ideas, plus one of Pohl's own from 1954. After Kornbluth's death, his widow turned over his story notes and drafts to Pohl. Pohl completed a dozen or so stories based on this material, most of which were eventually collected in the volume "The Wonder Effect" which contained most of the same stories as the later "Critical Mass" collection.
Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
also wrote a short story with this title. It is included in his collection of tall tales
Tall Tales
Tall Tales may refer to:* Tall Tales , 2004* Tall Tales , by American band The Hot Club of Cowtown* "Tall Tales" , an episode of the television series Supernatural-See also:...
of unlikely inventions, Tales from the White Hart
Tales from the White Hart
Tales from the White Hart is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in the "club tales" style.Thirteen of the fifteen stories originally appeared across a number of different publications. "Moving Spirit" and "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" were first...
.
Plot introduction
The story takes place in 1998. The Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
has continued for about 50 years. America is in a state of constant readiness for nuclear attack. Shelter drills are an everyday occurrence. They are accompanied by military exercises which rehearse destroying attacking aircraft and missiles. Despite this, life goes on as it always has. People gripe about the drills, but would far rather talk about political issues or, better yet, baseball.
The lives of three people, a newly minted civil engineering graduate, a statistician and a magazine editor, intersect. This starts a chain reaction
Chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events....
which leads to the overturning of the status quo.
An important character in the story is the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. A former New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
accountant, state senator and Governor, who nonetheless thinks of himself as a "hard riding, hard drinking Southern gentleman", he is a front for an army of advisers and fixers who tell him what to say through a wireless earphone. He leads the "Middle Roaders", apparently a Republican faction. The opposition are the "Nationalists" who favor a sudden first strike
First strike
In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing...
, or "sneak punch" against the Communists. The Democratic party is despised, being routinely referred to as the "Party of Treason".
The burning political issue in Congress and the nation is the "Civilian Shelters Bill", or "C.S.B.", a plan to build deep air-raid shelters capable of housing the entire nation. So disconnected is the President that he knows nothing about this. The other obsession, the Baseball All-Star Game, is something he knows all about, and is looking forward to watching. This is the man who, at the end of the story, has to pick up the pieces and move the nation forward.
Explanation of the title
As is revealed in the story, society has attained a state where, like a critical massCritical mass
A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The...
of fissionable material, one random event will lead to a complete transformation. The metaphor is extended by the story explicitly likening one character to a neutron
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of...
, another to a nucleus
Atomic nucleus
The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...
, and the President to a neutron moderator
Neutron moderator
In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving uranium-235....
. The accidental collision of the characters initiates the chain reaction.
Plot summary
Walter Chase, a fresh graduate of Civil Engineering from "Eastern University", is a man on the make. Having been skillfully steered into his education with the promise of a guaranteed job on the Shelter programs to come, he regards all the people he meets as potential stepping stones on his way up the ladder. Those who do not look like good prospects he efficiently discards, an example being his college girlfriend whose father is only a passed-over Federal bureaucrat. Leaving college behind, he heads towards his destiny, the first stop being the staff of Senator David Horton, of Indiana, a passionate and slightly unstable advocate of the Civilian Shelters Bill.Arturo Denzer, whom we first encounter bracing himself to face the day with the aid of vitamins, aspirin, thyroid extract, caffeine, nicotine and amphetamine, is ironically the editor of Nature's Way Magazine, specializing in reviews of "natural" food products. Getting to work is a matter of negotiating robotic elevators and taxis, all of whom attempt to draw him into unwanted conversations about the All-Star Game and the Civilian Shelters Bill. The worst is the taxi, which being a "Black and White hack", addresses him as "Mac". Arriving at his office in Washington D.C., he finds that a crucial lab report is missing, so he and his assistant, Maggie Frome, have to personally travel to the labs to collect it. On the way, they stop the taxi bothering them by pretending to be lovers "making out" in the back seat. The taxis are programmed simply to wink and chuckle at this. In reality they are discussing the upcoming edition of the magazine.
At the Nature's Way labs Arturo Denzer and Maggie Frome encounter the scientist Valendora, who prepared the report they came to collect. Valendora is disgusted when his boss at the lab decides that certain harmful side-effects of the product, Aztec Cocawine, can be overlooked. At this point an air-raid drill throws everything into confusion. Denzer and Maggie have to spend time in the shelter where everyone around them wants to discuss, as loudly as possible, the upcoming All-Star Game or the C.S.B. Frustrated beyond measure, Maggie yells at those near her to shut up, uttering the rude "P-word" (politics), much to Denzer's dismay.
President Braden appears at the daily White House press briefing, where it becomes apparent that he simply parrots what he hears in his earphone. The assembled correspondents likewise pretend that he is talking "off the cuff". Asked about C.S.B. the President delivers a formulaic speech about moving it forward, even though he knows nothing about it. He then has a meeting with Senator Horton, who almost has a meltdown in the Oval Office, so frustrated is he with the lack of progress of the bill. After Horton leaves, Braden tries to find out about C.S.B., only to be told by Senator Jim Harkness, who chairs the committee Horton sits on, that the whole thing is just an issue that has to be kept on the boil for as long as possible, there being no other significant political issues to use as a platform for re-election. Harkness is contemptuous of Horton, regarding him as a makeweight on the committee and a loose cannon politically. He recommends that the President "put some money" in Horton's district before the next election.
Emerging from the air-raid shelter, Denzer and Maggie are arrested because they are not wearing mandatory dosimeter
Dosimeter
Dosimeters measure an individual's or an object'sexposure to something in the environment — particularly to a hazard inflicting cumulative impact over long periods of time, or over a lifetime...
s. Tossed into a holding cell with other miscreants and drunks, they encounter Valendora and Chase, who are similarly inconvenienced. Valendora has a statistics article he needs to get to a reputable journal. Chase has a thesis that requires Senator Horton's urgent attention. Denzer has his own deadline to worry about. Fortunately at their arraignment Maggie spots a friend, another journalist who is covering the court for her newspaper. They retrieve what they think is Denzer's envelope from a pile, hand her the material to take to Nature's Way with instructions to the magazine compositor to rush it into print. Then they settle down to wait their turn to make bail.
To their horror, when they emerge to get a copy of the magazine, instantly printed on the sidewalk by yet another robot, they find that the materials they sent were Chase's thesis and Valendora's journal article. Digested by the magazine's computer they announce to the world that, according to Valendora, the All-Star Game is the most likely time for a "sneak punch" attack by the Communists, and according to Chase, the planned Civilian Shelters will be ineffective even against chemical explosives, let alone nuclear bombs. Valendora offers another, less scientific, prediction.
- "I estimate that within five minutes we will all be back in the calabazo" (i.e. jail).
The story continues "But he was wrong. It was actually less than three."
The final act takes place in the President's office during the All-Star Game, with Senator Horton explaining why the four of them, then sitting meekly on a couch nearby, have just saved the country. Publishing Valendora's article not only caused the armed forces to check their own data and go on alert, it caused the Communists to hold back because the element of surprise had been lost. The nation's obsession with the All-Star Game would have caused everyone to be "looking the other way" as the attack commenced. Horton notes that Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
used a similar tactic of scheduling attacks for holidays and long weekends. At the same time as Valendora's analysis deflected the attack, Chase's thesis effectively deflated C.S.B. This removed the issue platform that the President's party had intended to milk for all it was worth, aiming to re-elect him in 2000.
Here the President finds himself cast adrift. The voice in his ear is silent. His aides cannot help him. Looking at his clean desktop, where once Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
had a sign saying "The buck stops here", he sees that even without a sign, this is the place where decisions have to be made, for better or worse. He tells Horton about his days at West Point, when he wrote what, to him, was a revelatory history paper about societal obsessions, such as monarchy and slavery, that got bigger and more all-consuming until they collapsed. His hopes for distinction were dashed when his tutor pointed out that Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
had already covered the same ground. Still, he realizes that he has been witness to just such a collapse. Summoning what leadership he can muster, he decides that he and only he can take the next step. He explains this to Horton.
- "We've had our obsessive period. Now we move on to something else. And Senator, Congress is going to have to help move; and I'm warning you, you're going to help me move it."
Back on the street, Chase, Valendora and Denzer face their own futures. Chase may be able to salvage his former college relationship. Valendora has to get to his journal's office to update his article. And Denzer begins to realize that Maggie Frome may be more than just an assistant to him. He flags down a taxi and they climb into the back seat. The taxi chuckles and winks on cue, but this time the couple are not pretending.