Sam Hall II

We are not finished discussing Poul Anderson's short story, "Sam Hall" (Going For Infinity, New York, 2002). No way.

In this story, Anderson accurately portrays how three different groups of people respond when living under a dictatorship to which there is armed resistance.

(i) "...he laid no blame. The tragedy of civil war was that it turned brother against brother. Millions of decent people were with the government because they had pledged themselves to be, or simply because they didn't believe in the alternative." (p. 107)

(ii) "Most citizens were passive. They always are. Probably no more than one-fourth of the population was ever in earshot of an engagement. ...provisional councils...rarely met cheers and flowers. Nobody knew how the war would end... As nearly as possible, the average American continued his average life." (p. 103) But, in this case, the rebels, unlike the government, avoid total war. They do not slaughter the population that they are trying to free.

(iii) How can undergrounders inside the state apparatus contact or communicate with each other? Thornberg, chief of the Technical Division, Central Records, acts alone when he fakes the records of Sam Hall who is, according to the (faked) records, guilty of murdering policemen. Thus, when the police hunt for Sam Hall, they do not find anyone, although rebels start using the name. Eventually, Major Sorensen of Security Investigation tells Thornberg, "'Sam Hall is a shadow...We have not been able to find a single individual who remembers him...No undergrounder or foreign operative we've caught had any knowledge of him, which defies probability. The whole business seems impossible.'" (p. 97) You might expect Sorensen then to ask, "Might someone on your staff have faked the records of Sam Hall?"

Instead, claiming to follow the Holmesian principle that, when the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, he asks all his psychologists and also Thornberg of Central Records to research whether the underground could have found a way to erase memories and fool personality testers! Thornberg finds that such an invention is not currently possible but takes his time to submit a long report saying that it just might be possible...

Before leaving after their first meeting, Sorensen presented a very succinct summary of rebel propaganda, then commented:

"'Devilishly clever propaganda, Major Thornberg. Watch out for it.'" (p. 99)

Thornberg found that odd, as well he might. It turns out, of course, that Sorensen, an undergrounder, having suspected that Thornberg had created Sam Hall, devised the psychological research as a blind and then becomes sure of Thornberg's position when the latter submits his nonsensical report.

Let us be thankful that we do not live in a society where we have to communicate with each other like that all the time.