"Critical Mass" is a science fiction novelette by American writers 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. 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 Tales from the White Hart.
Plot introduction
The story takes place in 1998. The Cold War 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.
Explanation of the title
As is revealed in the story, society has attained a state where, like a critical mass 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.
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.