“Stability” c. 1947

Robert Benton lives in a dystopian future state where the main concern is stability, and a machine with that name and a group of Controllers help to insure it by disappearing recalcitrant or “backsliding” citizens. A German had stated that mankind had reached its peak; there could be no more progress, so society opted for stabilization.

In the City of Lightness, people don wings and fly around for entertainment. It seems to be what we would call an information economy where people actually do very little.

Benton is called to the Controller’s Main Office and told his invention was rejected. But he does not remember having invented anything. He takes the model and plans and returns home.

The invention turns out to be a time machine that takes Benton to the past where a glass-globed city calls out to him. He picks up the small globe despite warnings from a “guardian” against evil things. The globe tells him how to operate the time machine to return, which he does, stopping just early enough before the time he left to drop off “his invention” at the Controller’s Office; thus his second visit to the office is actually his first and vice versa.

The Controllers figure out what is happening and they go to Benton’s house to find the threat to stability. One Controller recalls a story of an evil city encased in glass and tries to take the globe from Benton. Benton breaks it, releasing the evil city.

In the end, he becomes a slave to machines, feeding them and servicing them. But is this really that different from the society it replaced?

Photo Credit: Martin Kimeldorf’s Pixel Playground