Part 17 (1/2)

Immerman looked at the clock strip.

”We don't intend to do it through swift and violent means until the time is ripe for such means. We have been working slowly and subtly to get the family into high positions in the government. You'd be surprised if you knew how large the family is. But the bigger it becomes, the more danger there is of its being exposed. And the more danger there is, the tighter we have to control our members. It's unfortunate but necessary.”

Charlie thought, That's exactly the excuse the government has used since the beginning.

Immerman stood up, and Charlie also rose from his chair.

”I know what you're thinking. We won't be any better than the government we now have and possibly we'll be worse. Don't believe it. We've been working on the best system of government possible, given the human situation. Someday, that plan will be revealed. Meanwhile, remember this. It was Thomas Jefferson who said that the best government is that which governs least. You were named after him. Or didn't you know that?”

Charlie shook his head.

”I must be going now,” Immerman said.

”One thing,” Charlie said. ”I believe that there's only one situation in which killing is justified. That's when it's in selfdefense.”

”Ah, but what is self-defense? Aren't there many kinds?”

”I won't be confused by all that,” Charlie said. 'My ethics are of being rather than of words.~ I know what's right.”

”Very admirable,” his grandfather said. ”Which one of you is saying that?”

Ohm was surprised when his grandfather stepped up to him and embraced him. While hugging Immerman, Ohm looked over his shoulder at the seventeenth-century tableau. Yes. He had no doubt now, and he hated Immerman for what he had done.

On his way out, he picked up his shoulderbag. It was noticeably lighter, but he said nothing. Immerman would wonder why his grandson wished to keep the weapon when there was no logical reason to do so.

The trip back was almost a complete reversal of the trip up. However, Ohm did not go to his apartment. Instead, he walked into The Isobar. The usual uproar and odor of beer and liquor greeted him. He waved at various patrons in various stages of drunkenness and went into the manager's office. After getting a mild chewing-out (no sympathy for his supposedly hurt back), Ohm put on an ap.r.o.n and went to work behind a long curving oak bar on which stood the statuettes of three patron saints: Fernand Petiot, creator of the b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, W. C. Fields, and Sir John Falstaff. Only half the customers were local weedies. The rest were slummers or organic agents. The latterwere hoping to catch someone making a barter deal for bootleg liquor.

Ohm was not a complete weedie in that he had not been satisfied to live off the minimum-income credit furnished by the government. His job, however, was not just to supply himself with extra goodies. He overheard much while behind the bar and in front of it after working hours. Sometimes, he picked up information that the immer council could use.

Today did not go as most. He drank very little, and he was so evidently wrapped in his thoughts that some of the patrons kidded him about it. Not sure that he was lying, he told them that he was in love. What he had seen on the screen in Immerman's room, the voices that shouted inside him, and his efforts to select the elements of a new personality beat at him like waves against a seawall. He was glad when quitting time came; he rushed out past his relief with a short good-bye and walked to his apartment. There he ate a light supper and then paced back and forth as if he would wear off the rug and reveal the coded answers to his problems on the floor beneath. He stopped when, at 7:35 P.M., Mudge came to the door.

Bearer of a scowling face and bad news, Mudge told him that Immerman had changed his mind about his disposition of Ohm. It would be better, thus, imperative, that Ohm be stoned and s.h.i.+pped to Los Angeles in a box labeled as goods. The California city was due next week for an influx of ten thousand immigrants from Australia and Papua. Arrangements would be made so that Ohm would be listed among them. Tonight, Mudge and Ohm would work on the new ID. After Ohm got to Los Angeles, he could create the fine details of his persona.

Charlie sat down, breathed deeply, and said, ”I suppose there's no use protesting?”

”None,” Mudge said. ”Hetman Immerman said that you must get far away from Manhattan.”

”When?”

”Tomorrow night. A Sunday agent will take care of everything.”

Ohm thought, What guarantee is there that I'll ever be destoned? The logic of the situation demands that I just disappear from the living, be stuck someplace where I won't be found.

Mudge removed a tape from his bag and handed the tiny cube to Ohm. ”Here's the outline of the new persona, the really vital vital statistics and the outline of your background.”

”Already?”

”The council members are old hands at this sort of thing. They must have these in stock. A few changes, and they're ready. Study it tonight and then erase it. You'll be given another one when the time's right.”

Which may be never, Ohm thought. Or am I just too suspicious?

He needed a drink, but he would not allow himself to have one.

Mudge walked to the door and turned. Instead of saying good-bye and good luck, he said, ”You've sure been a lot of trouble. I hope you stay out of it in L.A.”

”I love you, too,” Ohm said, and he laughed.

Mudge scowled even deeper and closed the door behind him. Ohm turned on the hail and outside monitor strips to make sure that Mudge was not hanging around. Then he went to bed, applied the electrodes of a sieepwavc machine to his temples, set and turned the unit on, and slept dreamlessly and compulsively. At 9:30 P.M., he was awakened by the unit alarm.

”I have to do it,” he muttered. ”Maybe I shouldn't. But I have to.”

The loud voices had become whispers, perhaps because the others had hope now that they would not die. The quieting of that part of the inner tumult allowed Ohm to concentrate. Sitting in a chair, a cup of coffee on the table by him, he gave orders to a strip. One after the other, appearing or disappearing at his command, the diagrams of the Tower of Evolution and of the area beneath and around shone on the screen. At 10:15, he ordered any evidence of his viewing of the diagrams to be erased. He did not know that it would be done. It was possible that the Department of Building Construction and Maintenance had programed a nonerasure command. However, he could think of no reason why the department should do that. Even if it had done so, the chances that anyone would note his request and ask for the ident.i.ty of the requester were not high.

He left the apartment at 10:17 P.M. and walked as much under the tree cover as possible. The sky was clear, and it was still hot but cooler than in the daytime. The streets were almost empty of traffic, though the sidewalks were crowded with neighborhood residents. Most of them were going home from the empathoria, the bowling alleys, or the taverns. In fifteen minutes, few would be outside. That would make him more conspicuous, but that could not be helped. Fear of consequences and desperation did not go hand in hand.

Ohm turned onto West Fourteenth Street and walked to the northwest corner of the Tower of Evolution. Here, as on every night at this time, an oblong of light shone up from a hole in the sidewalk. Ohm looked down into the hole and saw two men standing there. They were in the kilted blue uniform of Sat.u.r.day's Civilian Corps of Transportation and Supply. Ohm pressed the UP b.u.t.ton on the mobile cylindrical machine by the hole. As the platform began moving, the men looked up. Ohm nodded at them, got onto the platform when it stopped level with the sidewalk and pressed the DOWN b.u.t.ton. Twenty feet below the sidewalk, the platform stopped. Ohm got off and said, ”How're things going?”

The two men looked at each other, and one said, ”Fine. Why?”

Ohm bounced the tip of a finger off his ID disc as if he was indicating that it contained his authority. ”I have to investigate a s.h.i.+pment. It's nothing illegal, just an error.”

He was at the first obstacle, the foremost of several ticklish crossroads. If the workers doubted him and asked for his ID, he would have to improvise an explanation. The workers, however, were not concerned, and his air of knowing what he was about convinced them.

He walked past them and into a tunnel, and soon he was around a bend and out of their sight. Below the grating on which he walked were well-lit levels on which belts or elevators carried boxes of stoned or unstoned supplies. These were part of the vast underground system that transported goods and food to computer-a.s.signed destinations from the unloading depots at the ports or the Thirteen-Principles Towers. The individual belts and elevators moved with little sound, but their aggregation caused a low rumble like that of a distant cataract.

Ohm took an elevator reserved for personnel to the third level down. From there he pa.s.sed over a narrow catwalk to a bank of personnel elevators, chose number three, and sent himself swiftly up to Exhibit No. 1~7, EXTINCT TYPES OF h.o.m.o SAPIENS. He went down a short but wide and high hall and stopped at a door. The next ticklish crossroads would be when he entered the room beyond the door. There were hundreds of monitor strips inside the Tower, all active during visiting hours. Was there any reason for them to be on now? Vandalism and burglary were such uncommon crimes, especially in public buildings, that it seemed to him that active monitor strips and personnel to watch them would not be required. However, there might be someone in Immerman's apartment who was viewing the exhibit display strips. Mudge was a likely candidate.

He breathed in deeply and pushed the door open. Stepping through, he found himself at the rear of the seventeenthcentury French court tableau. The vast interior of the tower was silent, the sightseers gone, the circling escalator stopped, the information screens turned off, the sounds of the robot beasts quelled. The workers that he had feared might be repairing or altering exhibits were not there. Or, if they were, he could not hear them. Certainly, there were none in this recess.

He moved from around the back of the dais and thrones past the sitting figures of The King and The Queen. He zigzagged through The Courtiers, the gentlemen in their finery and powdered wigs, the ladies in their silk, brocades, hooped skirts, and high-piled wigs. They all looked very realistic. A smiling young woman displayed four teeth missing, the rest blackened by decay. A man's face was deeply scarred with smallpox. A fan held by a woman did not entirely conceal that part of her nose had been eaten away by syphilis. Missing, however, were other realistic elements. The stench of long-unwashed bodies and the perfume to cover the stench. The head lice infesting the wigs. Stains on the shoes spattered when their owners urinated in the corners of the palace halls.

He also noticed something that at another time would have made him laugh. Despite all the research and rechecking, the designer of these figures had forgotten that seventeenth-century people were much shorter than New Era people. Every one of these figures would have towered above all in the court of the real Louis XIII.

Near the middle of the throng, he stopped. The silent and motionless woman in a scarlet and yellow gown and goldenyellow wig stared at him with large brown eyes. Her face was thickly powdered and rouged.

He said, ”G.o.d help us!”

He lifted the wig and saw, as he had expected, the short, straight, gleaming-brown hair that looked like the fur of a seal.

”The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What arrogance!”

He stepped behind her and began dragging her backward toward the elevator. Her high-heeled shoes made a slight rubbing noise, then came off. He stopped, held her upright with one hand, and bent down to pick up the shoes. He must not leave any evidence that an exhibit figure was missing. It was possible that her absence might not be noticed for a long time. All he wanted was a relatively short time.

”Ohm!”

The voice came from somewhere close, and it was Mudge's. Charlie dropped the shoes and the stoned body of Snick, which fell with a loud noise to the floor. He stared wildly around and saw two men, but he was so bewildered and surprised that he did not immediately recognize them. It took a second or two for him to bring them into the focus of reality. A dreamlike state washed over him, numbing him. Then he saw that the two cavaliers who had seemed to come to life were Mudge and a companion.

They had clad themselves in the clothes taken from two figures and had waited for him. They must have monitored him from the moment he entered the underground. They had a.s.sumed the stiffness of exhibit figures just before he came through the door.

”Traitor! d.a.m.n fool!” Mudge said as he walked slowly toward Ohm. ”What do you care about the womhn? She's an organic, a danger to us! What in h.e.l.l is wrong with you?”