"Who do you condemn for pestilence and hunger in your hemisphere? The truth is, isn't it, that you consider them unavoidable—yet by the Deluge I avoid them here. And by preserving life within my brain, long after I have lost the joy of life, I do maintain these continents as they came to me.
"Anstruther calls this tyranny. I happen to call it my duty. But perhaps you think Anstruther is right about it. Perhaps I should summon him here and explain to him the working of the integrocalculators through this keyboard. He could destroy me then, and assume my functions. And he could continue, for the two years that remain to him, to try to awaken in the dead brains of the Sons the spark of their bred-out intelligence.
"Do you know his possibilities of success? If all atomic pollution of this Hemisphere were suddenly to end and decontamination were in time achieved, then in this pollution-free hemisphere Anstruther could breed a race of thinking men, starting with the Sons and the women of the masses—in time he could do it. If he could live five hundred thousand years he might accomplish it. But he has just two years.
"But let us suppose he had his five hundred thousand years. What do you think would happen to his youthful altruism in that time, when I, within a modest three centuries, have become such a callous tyrant?
"Now you must go into the library, O'Hara, and later I shall show you how the integrocalculators think for you, and still later you must see the City of New York, the restored city, duplicating to the last dirty tenement that city of the twentieth century that was ravaged in the Third World War. And I think then that you will begin to understand the broader aspects of a tyranny like mine. You will perhaps discover that from evil sometimes comes a little good.
"For I am granting now that the Atomic Curtain is an evil thing. It has brought this hemisphere the security we sought, both against aggression and want, but what has happened here is infinitely more tragic than war. Grant it—the Curtain is evil. But what do you think it is that keeps the peace for Europe and Asia and Africa? What unifies them, O'Hara? It is only the terror of what exists behind this Curtain. And if they of your hemisphere thought tomorrow that the Curtain could be pierced, what do you think would happen to that peace and unity? And if indeed this hemisphere were helpless, what do you think your continents would do to us?
"So in that respect, at least, the Curtain is not altogether evil. For all those that it has destroyed within this hemisphere, it has saved equally as many on your side of it.
"But as you observe the integrocalculators, notice that we are not really helpless. I can still enforce this peace. If I touch this little key, I release toward the major population areas of your hemisphere a barrage of rockets that would make the holocausts of the Third World War seem trivial. When you return home, O'Hara, if you must tell them that the Curtain can be pierced, also remind them that the piercing works both ways, and that what seems to be the possibility of conquering this hemisphere—breaching these centuries of peace—is in fact a terrible delusion.
"And observe, O'Hara, as you study the integrocalculators, that the charted position of the Atomic Curtain depends solely upon the adjustment of regulators for latitude and longitude. And were I now to touch this key—this one!—the Curtain would everywhere advance, crossing the seas, pushing through your helpless continents, but leaving in its wake as it progressed only the wastelands of radioactive pollution. Remember this, O'Hara, when you speak to your comrades of the International Patrol. With the quiver of my finger I can wipe their aircraft from the skies.
"And also observe, O'Hara, that the scintillometers of Washington are working perfectly. And were the scientists of your Eastern Hemisphere to set in action any new atomic ovens, I would know it instantly. I could release my rockets. I could advance the Curtain. They would have to move very swiftly to forestall me, O'Hara. And I do not believe they could do it soon enough.