American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 (21 page)

He had me pull up a chair then and sit with him. I saw him glance at the wand, so I handed it to him. “The safety is on, sir.”

“I know how to use it.” He looked at it closely, then handed it back. I had thought perhaps he would keep it. Since he did not, I decided to turn it over to Dak to deliver to him. He asked me about myself and told me that he did not recall ever seeing me play, but that he had seen my father’s
Cyrano
. He was making a great effort to control the errant muscles of his mouth and his speech was clear but labored.

Then he asked me what I intended to do now. I told him that I had no plans as yet. He nodded and said, “We’ll see. There is a place for you. There is work to be done.” He made no mention of pay, which made me proud.

The returns were beginning to come in and he turned his attention to the stereo tank. Returns had been coming in, of course, for forty-eight hours, since the outer worlds and the districtless constituencies vote before Earth does, and even on Earth an election “day” is more than thirty hours long, as the globe turns. But now we began to get the important districts of the great land masses of Earth. We had forged far ahead the day before in the outer returns and Rog had had to tell me that it meant nothing; the Expansionists always carried the outer worlds. What the billions of people still on Earth who had never been out and never would thought about it was what mattered.

But we needed every outer vote we could get. The Agrarian Party on Ganymede had swept five out of six districts; they were part of our coalition, and the Expansionist Party as such did not put up even token candidates. The situation on Venus was more ticklish, with the Venerians split into dozens of splinter parties divided on fine points of theology impossible for a human being to understand. Nevertheless, we expected most of the native vote, either directly or through caucused coalition later, and we should get practically all of the human vote there. The Imperial restriction that the natives must select human beings to represent them at New Batavia was a thing Bonforte was pledged to remove; it gained us votes on Venus; we did not know yet how many votes it would lose us on Earth.

Since the nests sent only observers to the Assembly the only vote we worried about on Mars was the human vote. We had the popular sentiment; they had the patronage. But with an honest count we expected a shoo-in there.

Dak was bending over a slide rule at Rog’s side; Rog had a big sheet of paper laid out in some complicated weighting formula of his own. A dozen or more of the giant metal brains through the Solar System were doing the same thing that night, but Rog preferred his own guesses. He told me once that he could walk through a district, “sniffing” it, and come within two per cent of its results. I think he could.

Doc Capek was sitting back, with his hands over his paunch, as relaxed as an angleworm. Penny was moving around, pushing straight things crooked and vice versa and fetching us drinks. She never seemed to look directly at either me or Mr. Bonforte.

I had never before experienced an election-night party; they are not like any other. There is a cozy, warm rapport of all passion spent. It really does not matter too much how the people decide; you have done your best, you are with your friends and comrades, and for a while there is no worry and no pressure despite the over-all excitement, like frosting on a cake, of the incoming returns.

I don’t know when I’ve had so good a time.

Rog looked up, looked at me, then spoke to Mr. Bonforte. “The Continent is seesaw. The Americas are testing the water with a toe before coming in on our side; the only question is, how deep?”

“Can you make a projection, Rog?”

“Not yet. Oh, we have the popular vote but in the G.A. it could swing either way by half a dozen seats.” He stood up. “I think I had better mosey out into town.”

Properly speaking, I should have gone, as “Mr. Bonforte.” The party leader should certainly appear at the main headquarters of the Party sometime during election night. But I had never been in headquarters, it being the sort of a buttonholing place where my impersonation might be easily breached. My “illness” had excused me from it during the campaign; tonight it was not worth the risk, so Rog would go instead, and shake hands and grin and let the keyed-up girls who had done the hard and endless paperwork throw their arms around him and weep. “Back in an hour.”

Even our little party should have been down on the lower level, to include all the office staff, especially Jimmie Washington. But it would not work, not without shutting Mr. Bonforte himself out of it. They were having their own party of course. I stood up. “Rog, I’ll go down with you and say hello to Jimmie’s harem.”

“Eh? You don’t have to, you know.”

“It’s the proper thing to do, isn’t it? And it really isn’t any trouble or risk.” I turned to Mr. Bonforte. “How about it, sir?”

“I would appreciate it very much.”

We went down the lift and through the silent, empty private quarters and on through my office and Penny’s. Beyond her door was bedlam. A stereo receiver, moved in for the purpose, was blasting at full gain, the floor was littered, and everybody was drinking, or smoking, or both. Even Jimmie Washington was holding a drink while he listened to the returns. He was not drinking it; he neither drank nor smoked. No doubt someone had handed it to him and he had kept it. Jimmie had a fine sense of fitness.

I made the rounds, with Rog at my side, thanked Jimmie warmly and very sincerely, and apologized that I was feeling tired. “I’m going up and spread the bones, Jimmie. Make my excuses to people, will you?”

“Yes, sir. You’ve got to take care of yourself, Mr. Minister.”

I went back up while Rog went on out into the public tunnels.

Penny shushed me with a finger to her lips when I came into the upper living room. Bonforte seemed to have dropped off to sleep and the receiver was muted down. Dak still sat in front of it, filling in figures on the big sheet against Rog’s return. Capek had not moved. He nodded and raised his glass to me.

I let Penny fix me a scotch and water, then stepped out into the bubble balcony. It was night both by clock and by fact and Earth was almost full, dazzling in a Tiffany spread of stars. I searched North America and tried to pick out the little dot I had left only weeks earlier, and tried to get my emotions straight.

After a while I came back in; night on Luna is rather overpowering. Rog returned a little later and sat back down at his work sheets without speaking. I noticed that Bonforte was awake again.

The critical returns were coming in now and everybody kept quiet, letting Rog with his pencil and Dak with his slide rule have peace to work. At long, long last Rog shoved his chair back. “That’s it, Chief,” he said without looking up. “We’re in. Majority not less than seven seats, probably nineteen, possibly over thirty.”

After a pause Bonforte said quietly, “You’re sure?”

“Positive. Penny, try another channel and see what we get.”

I went over and sat by Bonforte; I could not talk. He reached out and patted my hand in a fatherly way and we both watched the receiver. The first station Penny got said: “—doubt about it, folks; eight of the robot brains say yes,
Curiac
says maybe. The Expansionist Party has won a decisive——” She switched to another.

“—confirms his temporary post for another five years. Mr. Quiroga cannot be reached for a statement but his general manager in New Chicago admits that the present trend cannot be over——”

Rog got up and went to the phone; Penny muted the news down until nothing could be heard. The announcer continued mouthing; he was simply saying in different words what we already knew.

Rog came back; Penny turned up the gain. The announcer went on for a moment, then stopped, read something that was handed to him, and turned back with a broad grin. “Friends and fellow citizens, I now bring you for a statement the
Supreme Minister!
”

The picture changed to my victory speech.

I sat there luxuriating in it, with my feelings as mixed up as possible but all good, painfully good. I had done a job on the speech and I knew it; I looked tired, sweaty, and calmly triumphant. It sounded ad-lib.

I had just reached: “Let us go forward together, with freedom for all——” when I heard a noise behind me.

“Mr. Bonforte!” I said. “Doc!
Doc!
Come quickly!”

Mr. Bonforte was pawing at me with his right hand and trying very urgently to tell me something. But it was no use; his poor mouth failed him and his mighty indomitable will could not make the weak flesh obey.

I took him in my arms—then he went into Cheyne-Stokes breathing and quickly into termination.

They took his body back down in the lift, Dak and Capek together; I was no use to them. Rog came up and patted me on the shoulder, then he went away. Penny had followed the others down. Presently I went again out onto the balcony. I needed “fresh air” even though it was the same machine-pumped air as the living room. But it felt fresher.

They had killed him. His enemies had killed him as certainly as if they had put a knife in his ribs. Despite all that we had done, the risks we had taken, in the end they had murdered him. “Murder most foul”!

I felt dead inside me, numb with the shock. I had seen “myself ” die, I had again seen my father die. I knew then why they so rarely manage to save one of a pair of Siamese twins. I was empty.

I don’t know how long I stayed out there. Eventually I heard Rog’s voice behind me. “Chief?”

I turned. “Rog,” I said urgently, “don’t call me that. Please!”

“Chief,” he persisted, “you know what you have to do now? Don’t you?”

I felt dizzy and his face blurred. I did not know what he was talking about—I did not
want
to know what he was talking about.

“What do you mean?”

“Chief—one man dies—but the show goes on. You can’t quit now.”

My head ached and my eyes would not focus. He seemed to pull toward me and away while his voice drove on. “. . . robbed him of his chance to finish his work. So you’ve got to do it for him. You’ve got to make him live again!”

I shook my head and made a great effort to pull myself together and reply. “Rog, you don’t know what you are saying. It’s preposterous—ridiculous! I’m no statesman. I’m just a bloody actor! I make faces and make people laugh. That’s all I’m good for.”

To my own horror I heard myself say it in Bonforte’s voice.

Rog looked at me. “Seems to me you’ve done all right so far.”

I tried to change my voice, tried to gain control of the situation. “Rog, you’re upset. When you’ve calmed down you will see how ridiculous this is. You’re right; the show goes on. But not that way. The proper thing to do—the
only
thing to do—is for you yourself to move on up. The election is won; you’ve got your majority—now you take office and carry out the program.”

He looked at me and shook his head sadly. “I would if I could. I admit it. But I can’t. Chief, you remember those confounded executive committee meetings? You kept them in line. The whole coalition has been kept glued together by the personal force and leadership of one man. If you don’t follow through now, all that he lived for—and died for—will fall apart.”

I had no answering argument; he might be right—I had seen the wheels within wheels of politics in the past month and a half. “Rog, even if what you say is true, the solution you offer is impossible. We’ve barely managed to keep up this pretense by letting me be seen only under carefully stage-managed conditions—and we’ve just missed being caught out as it is. But to make it work week after week, month after month, even year after year, if I understand you—no, it couldn’t be done. It is impossible. I
can’t
do it!”

“You
can!
” He leaned toward me and said forcefully, “We’ve all talked it over and we know the hazards as well as you do. But you’ll have a chance to grow into it. Two weeks in space to start with—hell, a month if you want it! You’ll study all the time—his journals, his boyhood diaries, his scrapbooks, you’ll soak yourself in them. And we’ll all help you.”

I did not answer. He went on, “Look, Chief, you’ve learned that a political personality is not one man; it’s a team—it’s a team bound together by common purposes and common beliefs. We’ve lost our team captain and we’ve got to have another one. But the team is still there.”

Capek was out on the balcony; I had not seen him come out. I turned to him. “Are you for this too?”

“Yes.”

“It’s your duty,” Rog added.

Capek said slowly, “I won’t go that far. I hope you will do it. But, damn it, I won’t be your conscience. I believe in free will, frivolous as that may sound from a medical man.” He turned to Clifton. “We had better leave him alone, Rog. He knows. Now it’s up to him.”

But, although they left, I was not to be alone just yet. Dak came out. To my relief and gratitude he did not call me “Chief.”

“Hello, Dak.”

“Howdy.” He was silent for a moment, smoking and looking out at the stars. Then he turned to me. “Old son, we’ve been through some things together. I know you now, and I’ll back you with a gun, or money, or fists any time, and never ask why. If you choose to drop out now, I won’t have a word of blame and I won’t think any the less of you. You’ve done a noble best.”

“Uh, thanks, Dak.”

“One more word and I’ll smoke out. Just remember this: if you decide you can’t do it, the foul scum who brainwashed him will win. In spite of everything they win.” He went inside.

I felt torn apart in my mind—then I gave way to sheer selfpity. It wasn’t fair! I had my
own
life to live. I was at the top of my powers, with my greatest professional triumphs still ahead of me. It wasn’t right to expect me to bury myself, perhaps for years, in the anonymity of another man’s role—while the public forgot me, producers and agents forgot me—would probably believe I was dead.

It wasn’t fair. It was too much to ask.

Presently I pulled out of it and for a time did not think. Mother Earth was still serene and beautiful and changeless in the sky; I wondered what the election-night celebrations there sounded like. Mars and Jupiter and Venus were all in sight, strung like prizes along the zodiac. Ganymede I could not see, of course, nor the lonely colony out on far Pluto.