Closing
his eyes, Hamilton hugged McFeyffe tightly,
refusing to let go. Bruised, missing teeth, dribbling blood
from a cut over his eye, his clothing in tatters,
he hung
on like a dilapidated rat. A kind of religious frenzy
overcame him; clutching McFeyffe in an ecstasy of
loath
ing, he began systematically battering the noble head against the
wall. Fingers tore and pried at him, but he
could
not be ripped loose.
It
was virtually over; his fitful little assault had dissi
pated itself
uselessly. Laws lay stretched out with a cracked skull, not far from the
crumpled, abandoned
figure of Marsha
Hamilton. She lay where he had dis
carded
her. Hamilton himself, still on his feet, identified
the gathering rifle butts; his time had come.
“Come
right in,” he invited them, panting. “It doesn’t
make a bit of difference. Even if you batter us
to splint
ers. Even if you grind us
up and build barricades out of
us. Even if you use us for mortar. This
isn’t Marsha’s
world, and that’s all I—”
A
rifle butt crashed down on him; closing his eyes, he
huddled against the
pain. One of the Party workmen
kicked him in
the groin; another methodically smashed
in his ribs. Dimly, Hamilton
felt the massive body of
McFeyffe melt away
from him. From the swirls of dark
ness, the shapes of workmen came and
went; then he was down on all fours, grunting and creeping, trying
to find McFeyffe through the haze of his own
blood. And
trying to get away from
the attackers.
Shouts.
The hammering rifle butts against his skull. He
shuddered, pawed at the
confusion around him, made out the form of a sprawled, inert figure and dragged
himself toward it.
“Let go of him,” they were
saying. He ignored them and went on pawing for McFeyffe. But the inert and
damaged figure was not McFeyffe; it was Joan
Reiss.
After
an interval he located McFeyffe. Weak, feeble,
he searched among the
litter for something to kill him with. As his hands closed over a chunk of
concrete, a stunning kick sent him sprawling. The unmoving form of McFeyffe
receded; he was alone, floundering in the
debris
and chaos, lost in the drifting particles of random
ash that were settling everywhere.
The
litter around him was the strewn wreckage of the
Bevatron. The cautiously advancing figures making their way forward were
Red Cross workers and technicians.
In
the indiscriminate hail of rifle butts, McFeyffe had
been knocked down.
In the general murder he had not received special dispensation. Fine nuances
had not
been observed.
To Hamilton’s right lay the inert
body of his wife, clothes smoking and singed. One arm was bent under
her; knees drawn up, she was a small, pathetic
bundle on
the charred concrete surface. And, not far off, lay Mc
Feyffe. Reflexively, Hamilton crawled toward him.
Half
way there, a medical team pushed
him back and tried to
get a stretcher under him. Numbed, bewildered, but
still grimly motivated, Hamilton shoved the men off and pulled himself up to a
sitting position.
McFeyffe,
knocked senseless by his own Party hatchet-
men, wore an expression of
outraged fury. His lumpy,
battered face was
contorted with anger and dismay. The
expression
had not faded as he returned painfully to consciousness. His breathing came
hoarsely, unevenly. Mut
tering, he flopped and struggled, thick fingers
closing
over nothing.
Half-buried in
rubble, Miss Reiss was already be
ginning to
stir. Rising unsteadily to her knees, she groped
feebly for the shattered remains of her glasses. “Oh,” she
said
faintly, weak eyes blind, blinking, streaming tears of fright “What—”
Defensively, she gathered her torn, charred coat and hugged it around her.
A group of technicians had reached
Mrs. Pritchet; rapidly, they scooped aside the rubbish spread across her
heaving, smoking body. Struggling painfully to his
feet, Hamilton crept over to his wife and began beating
out the
smouldering line of sparks traveling across her
tattered, carbonized dress. Marsha shuddered and
twitched reflexively.
“Don’t
move,” he warned her. “You may have broken
something.”
She lay obediently still, eyes shut,
body rigid. In the distance, lost in the swirling clouds of fire-darkened
cement ash, sounded the frightened wail of David
Pritch
et. All of them were stirring; all of them were returning
to life. Bill Laws groped aimlessly as
white-faced work
men collected around him. Yells, shouts, the blare of
emergency alarms …
The
harsh din of the real world. Acrid fumes of burn
ing, half-mined
electronic equipment. The clumsy attempts at first aid by the nervous medical
teams.
“We’re back,” Hamilton
told his wife. “Can you hear
me?”
“Yes,”
Marsha said. “I hear you.”
“Are
you glad?” he demanded.
“Yes,”
Marsha said quietly. “Don’t shout, darling. I’m
very glad.”
* * * * *
Colonel T. E. Edwards listened patiently, without
comment, while Hamilton gave his statement. After the
resum
e
of Hamilton’s charges, the long, efficient confer
ence
room was quiet. The only sounds were the dull rhythm of cigars being smoked and
stenographic notes
being taken.
“You’re
accusing our security officer of being a mem
ber of the Communist Party,” Edwards said, after a per
iod
of frowning contemplation. Is that it?”
“Not exactly,” Hamilton
said. He was still a little shaky; slightly over a week had passed since the
accident at the Bevatron. “I’m saying McFeyffe is a disci
plined Communist who’s using his position to
further the
aims of the Communist Party. But whether that disci
pline is internal or external—”
Turning
briskly to McFeyffe, Edwards said, “What do
you say to this, Charley?”
Without
looking up McFeyffe answered, “I’d say it’s a fairly obvious smear.”
“You maintain Hamilton is
merely trying to impugn
your motives?”
“That’s
right” Mechanically, McFeyffe rattled the
phrases off. “He’s seeking to cast doubt on the validity of
my
motives. Instead of defending his wife he’s attacking me.”
Colonel
Edwards turned back to Hamilton . “I’m afraid
I’ll have to agree. It’s your wife, not Charley
McFeyffe,
who’s under fire. Try to
keep your defense pertinent.”
“As you realize,” Hamilton
said, “I cannot now and could under no circumstances prove that Marsha
isn’t a
Communist. But I can show you why
McFeyffe brought
those charges
against her. I can show you what he’s doing
and what this whole business
is really about. Look at
the position he’s
in; who would suspect him? He has free
access to security files; he can
bring charges against anybody he wants
…
an ideal position for a Party thug. He can pick off anybody the Party dislikes,
anybody who stands in its way. Systematically, the Party
weeds out its opponents.”
“But this is all so
indirect,” Edwards pointed out. “A hatful of logic—where’s the proof?
Can you prove that
Charley’s a Red? As you
said yourself, he’s not a member
of
the Communist Party.”
“I’m
not a detective agency,” Hamilton said. “I’m not
a police
force. I have no way to gather information
against
him. I presume he has some kind of contact with
the CP-USA or with Party
front organizations
…
he
must get his instructions somewhere. If the FBI
will take
him into surveillance—”
“No proof, then,” Edwards
broke in, chewing on his
cigar.
“Correct?”
“No proof,” Hamilton
admitted. “No proof of what
goes on in
Charley McFeyffe’s mind. Any more than he had proof of what goes on in my
wife’s mind.”
“But there was all that
derogatory material against your wife. All those petitions she signed; all the
pinko meetings she showed up at. You show me one petition Charley has signed.
One front meeting he’s been at.”
“No
real Communist is going to expose himself,” Ham
ilton said, realizing, as he said it, how absurd
it sounded.
“We
can’t fire Charley on grounds like that. Even you
must see how tenuous
all this is. Fire him because he
hasn’t
gone to pinko meetings?”
The trace of a smile
appeared on Colonel Edwards’
face. “I’m sorry, Jack. You
just
haven’t got a case.”
“I
know,” Hamilton agreed.
“You
know?” Edwards was astonished. “You
admit
it?”
“Of course I admit it. I never
thought I had.” Without particular emotion, Hamilton explained, “I
merely thought I’d bring it to your attention. For the record.”
Sullen and pudgy, sunk down in his
chair, McFeyffe said nothing. His stumpy fingers were knotted tensely
together; concentrating on them, he didn’t look
directly
at Hamilton.
“I’d like to help you,”
Edwards said uneasily. “But hell, Jack. We’d have everybody in the country
classed
as a security risk, using your
logic.”
“You
will anyhow. I just wanted the method extended
to McFeyffe. It seems a
shame that he’s exempt”
“I
think,” Edwards said stiffly, “that the integrity and
patriotism of Charley McFeyffe is beyond reproach.
You
understand, don’t you, that this man fought in the Second World War
in the Army Air Corps? That he’s a
devout
Catholic? That he’s a member of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars?”
“And
probably a Boy Scout,” Hamilton agreed. “And he probably decorates a
tree every Christmas.”
“Are
you trying to say Catholics and Legionnaires are disloyal?” Edwards
demanded.
“No, I’m not. I’m trying to say
that a man can be
all those things and still
be a dangerous subversive. And
a woman can sign peace petitions and
subscribe to
In Fact,
yet love the very dirt this country is made
of.”
“I
think,” Edwards said coldly, “that we’re wasting our
time. This is errant nonsense.”
Pushing back his chair, Hamilton got
to his feet
“Thanks for hearing me
out, Colonel.”
“Not at all.” Awkwardly,
Edwards said, “I wish I could do more by you, boy. But you see my
situation.”
“It’s not your fault,”
Hamilton agreed. “In fact, in a sort of perverse way, I’m glad you won’t
pay any attention to me. After all, McFeyffe is innocent until
proven guilty.”
The
meeting had broken up. The Directors of Califor
nia Maintenance began
strolling out into the corridor, glad to return to their routines. The trim
stenographer collected her stenotype machine, cigarettes and purse.
McFeyffe, with a cautiously malevolent glance at
Hamil
ton, pushed brusquely past him and disappeared.
In the doorway, Colonel Edwards
stopped Hamilton.
“What are you going
to do?” he inquired. “Going to take
a run up the peninsula?
Give Tillingford and EDA a try? He’ll take you on, you know. He and your Dad
were good friends.”
In this, the real world, Hamilton
hadn’t yet approached Guy Tillingford. “He’ll take me on,” he said
thoughtfully, “partly for that reason, and
partly because
I’m a top-notch electronics expert.”
Embarrassed,
Edwards began to bluster. “Sorry, boy.
I didn’t mean to insult you;
I meant merely—”
“I understand what you
meant” Hamilton shrugged, being careful of a cracked and tightly-taped
rib. In
his mouth, his two new front teeth
felt loose and odd, as
did the bald
patch above his right ear, where two stitches
had been taken in his
scalp. The accident, the ordeal, had, in many ways, made an old man out of him.
“I’m not trying out Tillingford,” he stated. “I’m striking out
on my own.”
Hesitating,
Edwards asked, “You feel any resentment
toward us, here?”
“No. I’ve lost this job, but it
doesn’t matter. In a way it’s a relief. I probably would have gone on here indefinitely
if this hadn’t happened. Completely unbothe
red
by the security system, hardly aware that it existed.
But now my nose
has been rubbed in it; I’ve been forced to face it. I’ve had to wake up,
whether I like
it or not.”
“Now, Jack—”
“I always had it pretty easy.
My family had plenty of money and my father was well-known in his field.
Normally, people like me aren’t touched by people like McFeyffe. But times are
changing. The McFeyffes are out to get us; we’re beginning to meet head on. So
it’s
time we started noticing their
existence.”