Our Friends From Frolix 8 (3 page)

‘I think so,’ Nick said. ‘They’ll notify us by mail within the next week. If we had failed they would have told us right away.’

Bobby said remotely, ‘I failed.’

‘Do you remember me?’ Darby Shire asked Nick. ‘After so much time has passed?’ The two men surveyed each other. ‘I recognize you,’ Darby said in a hopeful tone of voice, as if inviting Nick to recognize him, too. ‘Fifteen years ago. In Los Angeles. The county hall of records; we were both clerical assistants to Horse Faced Brunnell.’

‘Darby Shire,’ Nick said. He held out his hand; they shook.

This man, Nicholas Appleton thought, is deteriorated. What a dreadful change – but fifteen years is a long time.

‘You look exactly the same,’ Darby Shire said. He held his tattered book towards Nick. ‘I’m recruiting. For example, I tried just now to recruit your wife.’

Seeing the book, Bobby said, ‘He’s Under Man.’ The boy’s voice held excitement. ‘Can I see it?’ he asked, reaching for the book.

‘Get out of here,’ Nick said to Darby Shire.

‘You don’t think you could–’ Shire began, but he cut him off savagely.

‘I know what you are.’ Nick grabbed Darby Shire by the shoulder of his ragged coat; he propelled him forcibly towards the door. ‘I know you’re hiding from the Public Security people. Get out.’

Kleo said, ‘He needs a place to stay. He wanted to stay here with us for a while.’

‘No,’ Nick said. ‘Never.’

‘Are you afraid?’ Darby Shire asked.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. Anyone caught circulating Under Man propaganda – and anyone associated with him in any way – was automatically deprived of his right to take future Civil Service tests. If the PSS caught Darby Shire here, Bobby’s life would be destroyed. And, in addition, they all might be fined. And sent to one of the relocation camps for an indefinite period. Subject to no real judicial review.

Darby Shire said quietly, ‘Don’t be afraid. Have hope.’ He drew himself up – how short he is, Nick thought. And ugly. ‘Remember Thors Provoni’s promise,’ Darby Shire said. ‘And remember this, too: your boy isn’t going to get a Civil Service rating anyhow. So you have nothing to lose.’

‘We have our freedom to lose,’ Nick said. But he hesitated. He did not quite push Darby Shire out of the apartment and into the public hallway. Suppose Provoni does come back, he said to himself, as he had pondered many times before. I don’t believe it; Provoni is being captured right now. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Ruin your own life; keep it to yourself. And – go away.’ He propelled the smaller man out into the hall, now; several doors had popped open and the various inhabitants, some of whom he knew, some of whom he did not, gawked with interest at what was happening.

Darby Shire eyed him, then, calmly, reached into an inner pocket of his shabby coat. He seemed taller, now, and more in command of himself… and the situation. ‘I’m glad, Citizen Appleton,’ he said as he brought forth a slim, flat, black case and snapped it open, ‘that you have taken the
attitude you have. I am making spot checks in this building, random selections, so to speak.’ He showed Nick his official identab: it glowed dully, enhanced by artificial fire. ‘PSS occifer Darby Shire.’

Inside him, Nick felt coldness at work, numbing him. Making him silent. He could think of nothing to say.

‘Oh, god,’ Kleo said in dismay; she came up beside him, and so, after a pause, did Bobby. ‘But we said the right thing, didn’t we?’ she asked Darby Shire.

‘Exactly right,’ Shire said. ‘Your responses were uniformly adequate. Good day.’ He returned his flat-pak of identification back to his inner coat pocket, smiled momentarily, and, still smiling, flowed through the ring of gawking people. In a moment he had gone. Only the ring of nervous bystanders remained. And – Nick and his wife and son.

Nick shut the hall door, turned to face Kleo. ‘You can never rest up,’ he said thickly. How close it had been. In another moment… I might have told him to stay, he realized. For old time’s sake. After all, I did know him. Once.

I suppose, he thought, that’s why they picked him to make a spot loyalty check on me and my family. Good lord, he thought. It left him terrified and shaking; with unsteady steps he made his way towards the bathroom, to the medicine cabinet in which he kept his supply of pills.

‘A little fluphenazine hydrochloride,’ he murmured, reaching for the reassuring bottle.

‘That’s three of those you’ve taken today,’ Kleo said, wife-wise. ‘Too many. Stop.’

Nick said, ‘I’ll be okay.’ Filling the bathroom water glass, he rapidly, mutely took the round tablet.

And, inside him, felt dull anger. He experienced a transitory flash of rage, at the system, at the New Men and the Unusuals, at the Civil Service – and then the fluphenazine hydrochloride hit him. The anger ebbed away.

But not completely.

‘Do you think our apartment is bugged?’ he asked Kleo.

‘“Bugged”?’ She shrugged. ‘Evidently not. Or we’d have
been called in a long time ago because of the awful things Bobby says.’

Nick said, ‘I don’t think I can take much more.’

‘Of what?’ Kleo said.

He did not say. But he knew, down inside himself, who and what he meant. And his son knew, too. They now stood together – but how long, he wondered, will I feel this way? I will wait and see if Bobby passed his Civil Service test, he said to himself. And then I’ll decide what to do. God forbid, he thought. What am I thinking? What’s happening to me?

‘The book’s still here,’ Bobby said; bending, he picked up the torn, creased paperback which Darby Shire had left behind. ‘Can I read it?’ he asked his father. Thumbing through it he said, ‘It looks like it’s real. The police must have gotten it off an Under Man they caught.’

‘Read it,’ Nick said savagely.

Two days later, a letter from the government made its appearance in the Appletons’ mail box. Nick opened it at once, his heart vibrating with expectation. It was the test results, all right; he scanned through the several pages – a Xerox copy of Bobby’s paper was included – and came at last to the determination.

‘He failed,’ Nick said.

‘I knew I would,’ Bobby said. ‘That’s why I never wanted to take it in the first place.’

Kleo began to snivel.

Nick said nothing, thought nothing; he was empty and numbed. A hand, colder than that of death itself, gripped his heart, killing off all emotion.

Picking up his line-one fone, Willis Gram, Council Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee For Public Safety, bantering said, ‘How’s the capture of Provoni coming, Director? Any new news?’ He chuckled. God knew where Thors Provoni was. Probably dead long ago, on some airless planetoid far away.

Police Director Lloyd Barnes said stonily, ‘Are you speaking of media releases, sir?’

He laughed. ‘Tell me what the TV and the papers are blabbing about now.’ He could, of course, turn his own TV set on, without having even to get out of bed. But he enjoyed raking his stuffed-shirt Police Director over the coals re the Thors Provoni situation. The color of Barnes’ face usually proved interesting in a morbid sort of way. And, being an Unusual of the highest order, Gram could enjoy firsthand the chaos in the man’s mind when it came to anything dealing with the topic of the runaway traitor.

After all, it had been Director Barnes who had released Thors Provoni from a Federal prison ten years ago. As rehabilitated.

‘Provoni is going to narrowly slip through our fingers again,’ Barnes said gloomily.

‘Why don’t you say he’s dead?’ It would have enormous psychological consequences on the population – and along the lines he would have liked to see.

‘If he shows up here again, the basis of our situation would be jeopardized. By merely showing up—’

‘Where’s my breakfast?’ Gram asked. ‘Tell them to bring it in.’

‘Yes sir,’ Barnes said, nettled. ‘And what do you want? Eggs and toast? Fried ham?’

‘Is there really ham available?’ Gram asked. ‘Make it ham, with three chicken eggs. But make sure nothing’s ersatz.’

Not enjoying his servant-role, Barnes muttered, ‘Yes sir,’ and got off the line.

Willis Gram lay back against the pillows; one of his personal men immediately manifested himself and expertly propped the pillows up exactly as they should have been. Now where’s the damn paper? Gram asked himself, and held out his hand to receive it; another of his personal staff-members noted his gesture and adroitly produced the current three editions of the
Times.

For a time, he leafed through the first sections of the great old newspaper – now government-controlled. ‘Eric Cordon,’ he said at last, making a motion with his right hand to show that he wished to dictate. At once a scribe appeared, portable transcriber in hand. ‘To all council members,’ Gram said. ‘We cannot claim Provoni’s death – for reasons which Director Barnes has pointed out – but we can deliver Eric Cordon. I mean we can execute him. And what a great relief that will be.’ Almost, he thought, like getting Thors Provoni himself. Throughout the Under Men network, Eric Cordon was the most admired organizer and speaker. And there were, of course, his many books.

Cordon was a true Old Man intellectual, a theoretical physicist who could inspire a great group-response among other disenchanted Old Men who longed for the ancient days. Who would, if he could, put the clock back fifty years. Cordon, however, despite his unique forensic ability, was a thinker, not a doer – as was Provoni: Thors Provoni the man of action who had roared off to ‘get help’, as Cordon, his onetime friend, had reported in endless speeches, books and grubby tracts. Cordon was popular, but – unlike Provoni – Cordon was not a public menace. With his execution, he would leave a void which he had really never properly filled. He was, despite his public appeal, strictly small-fry.

But much of the Old Men population did not understand that. Hero worship surrounded Eric Cordon. Provoni was an abstract hope; Cordon existed. And he worked and wrote and spoke here on Earth.

Picking up the line-two fone he said, ‘Get me Cordon on the big screen, Miss Knight.’ He hung up, settled back in his
bed and once again snooped into the articles in the newspaper.

‘Further dictation, Council Chairman?’ the scribe inquired, after an interval of time.

‘Oh yes.’ Gram pushed the newspaper aside. ‘Where was I?’

‘“I mean we can execute him. And what a—“’

‘To continue,’ Gram said, clearing his throat. ‘I want all department heads – are you getting this? – to grasp and understand the reasons behind my desire to finish off whats-hisname.’

‘Eric Cordon,’ the scribe said.

‘Yes.’ Gram nodded. ‘Why we must destroy Eric Cordon is as follows. Cordon is the link between the Old Men of Earth and Thors Provoni. As long as Cordon is alive, people feel the presence of Provoni. Without Cordon they have no contact, real or otherwise, with that ratty space bastard out there somewhere. In a sense, Cordon is the voice for Provoni while Provoni is gone. I admit that this might backfire; the Old Men might riot for a time… but on the other hand this might bring the Under Men out of hiding where we could get at them. In a sense, I’m about to deliberately spark a premature show of force by the Under Men; there will be wild waves as soon as Cordon’s death is announced, but ultimately—’

He broke off. On the big screen, which comprised the far wall of his great bedroom, a face had begun to ignite. A thin, esthetic face with hollows about the jaw: a weak jaw, Gram reflected as he saw the jaw move with speech. Rimless glasses, meager hair in the form of carefully combed strands across an otherwise bald head.

‘Sound,’ Gram instructed, as Cordon’s lips continued to move inaudibly.

‘… pleasure,’ Cordon boomed, as the sound came on too loudly. ‘I know how busy you are, sir. But if you wish to speak to me—’ Cordon gestured elegantly. ‘I am ready.’

To one of his bedside aides, Gram said, ‘Where the hell is he now?’

‘In Brightforth Prison.’

‘You getting enough to eat?’ Gram asked the image on the big screen.

‘Very much so, yes.’ Cordon smiled, showing teeth so even as to seem – and probably were – false.

‘And you’re free to write?’

Cordon said, ‘I have the materials.’

‘Tell me, Cordon,’ Gram said energetically, ‘why do you write and say those damn things? You know they’re not true.’

‘Truth is in the eye of the beholder.’ Cordon chuckled in his thin, humorless way.

‘You know that trial a few months ago,’ Gram asked, ‘where you were sentenced to sixteen years in prison for treason? Well, goddam it, the judges have gone back and eradicated the specifications of your punishment. They’ve now decided on the death penalty.’

No expression appeared on Cordon’s bleak face.

‘Can he hear me?’ Gram asked an aide.

‘Oh yes, sir. He hears you, all right.’

Gram said, ‘We’re going to execute you, Cordon. You know, I can read your mind; I know how afraid you are.’ It was true; inside Cordon quaked. Even though their contact remained purely electronic, with Cordon himself actually two thousand miles away. Psionic capacities like this always baffled the Old Men – and, frequently, the New Men as well.

Cordon said nothing. But it was obvious that he grasped the fact that Gram had begun to feel him out telepathically.

‘Down underneath,’ Gram said, ‘you’re thinking, “Maybe I should bolt. Provoni is dead—“’

‘I don’t think Provoni is dead,’ Cordon broke in, showing outrage: his first genuine facial expression.

‘Subconsciously,’ Gram said. ‘You’re not even aware of it.’

‘Even if Thors were dead—’

‘Oh, come off it,’ Gram said. ‘You know and I know that if Provoni were dead you’d drop your agitation and propaganda enterprises and creep off out of public sight for the rest of your damn ineffectual life.’

A buzzer in the communications apparatus to Gram’s
right all at once squeaked into life. ‘Pardon me,’ Gram said, and pressed a switch.

‘Your wife’s attorney is here, Council Chairman. You left word that he was to be let in no matter what you were doing. Shall I send him on in, or—’

‘Send him in,’ Gram said. To Cordon he said, ‘We’ll notify you – Director Barnes, most probably – an hour before your scheduled death. Goodbye, I’m busy now.’ He made a motion and the wall-size screen dribbled into opaqueness.