The Probability Broach, chapter 17

En route to the capitol of the North American Confederacy, Win and Ed are exploring the amenities on their enormous, luxurious airship, while their female companions are off entertaining themselves. That’s when they receive an unwelcome message:

Scattered through the ship like potted palms, Telecoms posted announcements, public and private. I’d started keeping an eye out for Clarissa or Lucy trying to find us, so I wasn’t altogether surprised to see my name on a screen:

LT. WIN BEAR: MR. VON RICHTHOFEN REQUESTS CONFERENCE, SUITE 1919, WITH YOU & YOUR COMPANIONS. KINDLY RING FIRST. MESSAGE ENDS.

While L. Neil Smith accurately anticipated some future technologies, he missed this one. Even though cell phones were just starting to become commercially available in the 1980s, he didn’t predict that they’d become as common as they are now.

Ed and Win find a videophone booth and give their enemy a call:

The screen rearranged itself into John Jay Madison, reclining in his smoking jacket, Oscar Burgess glowering in the background. I pushed past Ed.

“Ah,” breathed the Hamiltonian, “I wasn’t expecting so prompt a reply.”

“Can it, Madison. What do you want—before you’re shipped out to Pluto, that is?”

… “I’d like to offer you fellows a truce, an essentially friendly meeting to discuss exchanging certain ‘valuable considerations.’ As you might surmise, I’m attending the Continental Congress to speak for my society. However, there’s no reason we can’t do business along the way, and it might render this whole Gallatinopolis affair unnecessary.”

Ed interjects that they already know Madison’s intentions are evil, since they saw the military training films from Win’s world that they stole from his house. They know that he wants to import atomic bombs and use them to force the NAC to submit to his rule. Win tells him to cut the crap and tell them what he really wants from them:

He looked squarely into the camera. “Very well, to begin with, the films, immediately—and I want this Congress nonsense called off. Also, you will cease harassing me, either by further intrusions or by means of the thugs you have placed around my property.”

“Anything else—while we’re talking about it?”

“Since you ask, I want Paratronics to turn over its technology in full and at once. I confess to growing impatience with Dr. Bealls’s flounderings. Both of you will permanently absent yourself from North America—that’s quite a concession, considering the desires of Mr. Burgess.”

(As you’ll remember, villains in libertarian novels are always incompetent, so Madison’s scientists can’t figure out the dimensional-travel technology and want to steal it from the smart capitalists who invented it.)

Win asks Madison why they should even entertain these outrageous demands:

Madison searched for the proper euphemism. “This is rather delicate. I’d rather not discuss it over the—”

“Spill it!”

“As you will: wouldn’t even a pair of perfectly capable ladies be found at some disadvantage, under a hair-dryer or in a darkened theater? I leave you to draw your own inferences and to consider my generous offer while you have time. Good day, gentlemen.” His image vanished.

Suddenly realizing the danger their friends are in, they split up. Ed goes to find Lucy, while Win goes after Clarissa. He asks an attendant where the nearest salon is, then dashes madly through the crowded concourse, with no time to be polite:

I charged up an escalator, shoving riders aside. Eight, nine, down corridors in a wake of angry shouts and cursing, past tennis courts, bowling alley, and shooting range, out into the mall.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Everyone in the NAC is armed, remember. Why would it stop at “angry shouts and cursing” when a stranger rudely shoves you aside? In a gun-nut fever-dream world like this, wouldn’t bowling through a crowd be a great way to get shot or stabbed?

Somehow, that doesn’t happen, and Win makes it safely to the salon where Clarissa was getting her hair styled. The staff tell him she went next door, to a clothing boutique. But when he gets there, he’s too late. Her purse is on the seat, but she’s nowhere to be found:

I grabbed a clerk. “Where’s the lady who belongs to this bag?”

“Bag? Oh—she left her bag.”

“You mean she’s gone?”

… “Well, she came in, tried on a few things. Then, while she was changing, her husband—”

“Her husband?”

“Yes, a very tall man with an accent and almost no hair. He came in to wait. Next thing I knew, the lady had collapsed. Fainted. He said it was her ‘condition.’ Practically had to carry her out.”

It’s comically oblivious of L. Neil Smith to include this scene, since it contradicts one of the central premises of his anarchist society.

Remember, in the North American Confederacy, there are no police to call on. Everyone carries weapons at all times, including children, because everyone is responsible for their own safety. Smith insists that this makes everyone safer, because no rational mugger or rapist would dare try their luck knowing their intended victim is armed.

In a grand irony, Clarissa – the character who just got kidnapped! – argued strenuously for this in an earlier chapter. These were her words at the time:

“Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out.”

In fact, she repeated this assertion in this chapter, just a few pages prior to this scene:

“Come on, you’re stalling! What happens if I take a hostage?”

“The hostage kills you,” Clarissa said, and that seemed to be that.

But when it comes time to show this principle in action, rather than lecture the readers about it, the exact opposite thing happens. Clarissa was kidnapped easily, without bloodshed, without resistance. With so little fuss, in fact, that no bystanders realized anything criminal had happened.

This point bears repeating: The gun nut’s own story shows that his ideal society doesn’t work.

For the sake of argument, I’ll grant that an armed person might be able to defend against a random crime of opportunity. But even if you carry a gun at all times, you can’t hope to protect yourself against someone who wants to harm you specifically. No one can be that vigilant 24/7.

A determined stalker or hitman in this society would have an easy time. They can watch and wait until their intended victim is asleep, or in the shower, or any other situation where they’re distracted or unprepared to defend themself with a split-second’s notice. Madison says so – and he’s right. Whether or not it’s accidental, the plot agrees with the villain of the story.

Now, you might object that the police in our world aren’t very good at dealing with stalking either. They often don’t take it seriously, and they rarely take effective action even when they do. This much is sadly true. But at least there is a justice system that exists, and that can (not often enough, but sometimes) be motivated to act to protect victims. In Smith’s anarcho-capitalist world, you’d have no chance at all.

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Other posts in this series:

• The Probability Broach