“He’s crazy!” Snick said.
A few people, Duncan saw, had walked over to listen to Cab-tab. The rest had not heard or were ignoring him. If he was doing what most of them were doing, he would not want to stop it to listen to a preacher.
“Crazy or not,” Duncan said to Snick, “the ganks’ll take him in when they come. You know what that means. They’ll spray him, and they’ll find out about us.”
Duncan would rather have taken less violent and public action. There seemed at the moment nothing else to do. He stepped toward Cabtab, his arm raised, his hand formed to chop with the edge against the padre’s lionlike neck. But Cabtab, as if warned by a voice heard only by him, wheeled. He was still babbling nonsense, but his eyes showed that he was completely aware of Duncan. His fist shot out against Duncan’s chin. Duncan reeled, flailed his hands for support that was not there, and glimpsed a vast darkness in the middle of which a tiny but slowly ballooning sun flamed. The next he knew, he was face down on the pavement, and Snick, kneeling by him, was asking him if he was all right.
Helped by Snick, Duncan got to his feet. He shook his head as if trying to clear it, though his mind was not clouded, and he said, “There’s nothing we can do except get out of here.”
Snick, pale under her dark skin, said, “What do you mean we can’t do anything?”
“I wish I knew what I mean. Take my word for it. There’s nothing we can do unless you want to kill him.”
Snick was too astonished to say anything. She was still wordless while Duncan pulled her along by her hand through the crowd.
22
After they had showered in Duncan’s apartment, they went to the living room and drank some wine. He had put on fresh clothes; she had cleaned the robe she had taken from the unconscious woman. They sat silent for a while. Panthea watched the screen covering the wall opposite her, a scene from the great Chinese novel All Men Are Brothers. It depicted a marketplace in ancient China; soldiers with spears and swords were moving through the crowd looking for the hero, Ling Ch’ung, who was~ disguised as an old peasant. From Snick’s expression, she was not really seeing the scene.
At last, after swallowing some wine, she said, “What do you think happened out there?”
She waved her hand at the door.
“The ganks released some kind of mental-emotional-de-inhibiting gas in the tower’s air-conditioning system,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s the only explanation I can think of.”
“How could they get away with it?” she said. Obviously, she did not believe him.
“They will be conducting the investigation. Other departments will also be in on it. What difference does that make? The government’s behind the mess-up. It caused it, and it’ll issue the results of the investigation. There won’t be any mention of a gas or whatever it was that drugged all those people, including us. The government will blame the whole thing on the license caused by the absence of surveillance. It’ll conclude that too much freedom is dangerous, and it’ll back up its conclusions with statistics on the damage and the injuries and deaths in L.A. Not to mention the other cities where the experiment took place. The government will fill the news stations with the reports for a long time. It won’t let the citizens forget about it. I don’t doubt that it will also press for even more surveillance.”
“Maybe,” she said slowly, “you’re wrong. Maybe the people should be monitored closely for their own good. It’s possible that the idea of so much freedom went to their heads, and they reverted…no, reverted isn’t the right word, they exploded. They became like the pre-New Era citizens. You know how much crime there was in the old days.”
“For God’s sake!” Duncan said. “You were a gank. So was I. We’re both very disciplined. Do you think that just the idea of being unobserved would affect us like that? We did things we wouldn’t normally do; so did most of those people. We had to be drugged. There’s no other explanation. Why do you think all the experiments were run in closed cities like L.A.? Because they’re the only ones where the gas could be used effectively! The gas would be ineffectual in open cities like Manhattan. It would dissipate too quickly in the outside air, and the buildings there have their own air-conditioning.”
Snick began weeping. Duncan understood why her tears were flowing. Despite what the government had done to her, she had believed that it was a mistake made by the officials. They had misjudged her; they had not condemned her because of secret policy. She had been a faithful servant and had not done anything wrong. They had been wrong in thinking that she was a danger to the state, and surely, some day they would find out that they had made a mistake and would right the wrong. She had joined the outlaws because it was her only way to stay destoned and do something to make the officials see the light. Just how she was going to do that, she did not know. But as long as she was living, acting, not a frozen statue, she had hope.
He waited until she had quit sobbing before telling her what he thought. She said nothing in reply; she just nodded several times.
“You realize what would happen to you if RAT found out what you really believe?” he said. “You’d be stoned or killed.”
She looked wide-eyed at him and said, “You…?”
He shook his head. “I won’t betray you. Besides…”
She waited a few seconds, then said, “Besides…what?”
“Surely you don’t believe that anymore. You have to be convinced now that the government doesn’t reflect the will of the people. Except where the government’s brainwashed the people so that the people’s will reflects what the government wants them to believe.”
She wiped the tears and the makeup from her face, blew her nose, and said, “No. But…”
“But?”
“RAT wants an absolute minimum of surveillance. It also wants to ensure that all information, all data, all statistics, everything, is free to the public. It wants to make certain that there is no distortion in the data, that all is given out, that there are no excisions, no half-truths, that the results of votes are truly given, that—”
“Who told you that?” Duncan said. “Nobody told me that.”
“It wasn’t anything specific I was told. I just got the idea from what he or she said when I was being interviewed. It was implied. Didn’t you get the same idea that that’s what the organization wants?”
“I had to surmise it. But so far, there’s been very little definite said about the aims of RAT. We’re swimming around in the dark with no idea of where the shore is or how deep the waters are. I think it’s a hell of a bad situation we’re in. The need for secrecy is so great, the organization is so vulnerable and fragile, and the system of cells is carried to such ludicrous extremes, you and I don’t even know if we’re in a truly revolutionary body. We’re detached organs in the body, you might say. Unanchored livers floating around; uprooted kidneys trying blindly to find our proper place in a body we’re not sure even exists. Maybe it’s a mass of protoplasm trying to find a structure. I don’t know. It’s very frustrating!”
He looked at the screen over the front door.
“They’re here.”
Snick turned her head and said, “Oh!”
The front end of a green patrol car showed on the right side of the screen. In front of it three ganks wearing gas masks were spraying the faces of four citizens. These crumpled slowly to the floor of the courseway. Then a man and a woman jumped on the backs of two ganks and bore them to the floor. The other two officers shot spray from their cans at the struggling couples. The citizens became motionless.
Duncan laughed and said, “The gas must have residual effects. Otherwise, they would’ve submitted meekly. The ganks want to be resisted.”
“Oh, God, what a mess!” Snick said.
Duncan told a wall screen to switch on the local news. He and Snick, sipping more wine, listened to the announcer and watched the scenes transmitted in from all over the city. Now and then, scenes from other cities where the experiments
had taken place were shown. The same thing had happened there. Organics from San Francisco and cities in Oregon and Washington were being flown in to assist the L.A. forces.
“They’ll have a hell of a time cleaning up just the litter before midnight,” Duncan said. “Wednesday is really going to be pissed off. Oh, the reverberations of this will never cease.”
“And the government will have its way,” Snick said. “Still…”
“Yes?”
“I’m still not sure that we need a revolution. Just reform, that’s all we really need, don’t you think? If there was only some way to guarantee that voting was on the up-and-up and that the officials the people want were elected, what else really needs changing?”
Duncan shook his head again. “You’d better keep those ideas to yourself. And you’d better hope, devoutly, that your RAT superior doesn’t ask you what you truly believe about its ideals the next time you’re given truth spray.”
“If there is a next time.”
He did not have to ask her what she meant by that. The organics would take advantage of this opportunity to question everyone arrested. Stock Question Three would be: Do you belong to any subversive organization? If any member of RAT was picked up, and there were bound to be some—Padre Cab-tab, for instance—Duncan and Snick would be exposed. They would not be able to tell the ganks much about the RAT’s next higher up in the organization. These would be safe—for a while, anyway. But three would be certain to be caught.
“Unless,” he murmured.
“What?”
He told her what he had been thinking, then said, “Our only chance, and it’s slight, is that RAT has someone high up in the government and that person will somehow suppress the information. The RAT would have to be present during the interrogation, would have to do the questioning, in fact. If somebody else does it, it’ll be reported, and my hypothetical RAT wouldn’t be able to block it. Those odds are too high against us. No, we have to ~1o something now. What? I wish to hell I knew!”
It was then that the newsperson announced that martial law had been declared in Los Angeles. All citizens were to stay in their apartments if they were already there. All not at home were to go there at once. The only ones exempt were public servants whose positions were vital. While a part of the screen rolled these positions, the newsperson read them. During the next hour, except for some news about the process of the cleanup, the channel repeated only the same information. Duncan turned on other channels and found that all had been usurped for the same broadcast.
“Looks like you’ll have to stay here until next Tuesday,” he told Snick.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“You mean about going to bed with you?”
She nodded, got up from the chair, and went toward the kitchen. He called after her, “I’ve got more important things to think about.”
That was true, but if she had invited him to make love to her, he would not have hesitated to sidetrack the “important.”
Trapped, he thought. Ensnared by love and by the government. The difference between the two is that my passion for her won’t kill me. I don’t feel just now that I’ll ever get over loving her, but I know from my own experiences and those of others that I will. I may carry the pain in me, as I would an encysted tuberculosis bacteria, but I’ll be able to function fully and healthily. More or less, anyway. But there is nothing now and probably never will be that I can do about her. She is only one person, but I’m incapable of solving my problem with her. On the other hand, the government is an entity, and it’s arrayed thousands against me just in this area. But I may be able to do something about it.
He watched the news screen while he mentally scanned all the possibilities for escape. He could not go into the courseways today nor did he entertain long the fantastic idea of letting himself down a rope from the window or gliding—somehow—down to the harbor waters. He had to stay in the apartment until midnight, no witching hour but certainly stoning time. He did have the choice of going into his cylinder then or of staying out of it.
If he selected the latter, then what?
Whatever he did, he would have to talk Snick into doing it with him. If she got picked up and questioned, she would betray him because she could not help herself. That reasoning was logic-tight. But he knew that most people followed, not classical or symbolic logic, but that unanalyzable and invalid system of logic deriving from their emotions. First, the feelings; then, the rationalization. He rose to go to the kitchen; it looked as if Snick was going to stay in it. Just as he did, he saw the scene on the screen change. Now the camera was in front of the Level 20, Third Organic Precinct. The ganks were working hard and swiftly to unpile and carry the never-ceasing influx of bodies into the station. These were people who had been sprayed and brought in for later questioning, probably next Tuesday. The newscaster was saying that the number of “detainees” was far too large to be handled speedily. Most of them would be stoned in the precinct facility, their IDs would be recorded, and they would be transported to a warehouse. However, since there were too many for the precincts to handle, the emergency stoning stations scattered throughout the city were being used. The hospitals had already been filled, so all injured and dead, whether they were arrestees or unaccused, would be put into “suspension” until their turn came to be destoned. That, the newscaster said, might take until Tuesday after next. Or perhaps the time might extend until the third Tuesday.
“This metropolis has never experienced such a catastrophe,” the newscaster said. “Not since the last great earthquake.”
“Oh, hell!” Duncan said. There, among the bodies, was that of Padre Cabtab. A lift-robot had shoved its broad arms under the padre, who was lying face-up on the flatbed of a long many-wheeled trailer with many other unconscious people. Now it was raising the limp figure, whose arms dangled over the sides of the robot arms, was turning on its wheels and moving toward the twenty-foot-wide entrance. The camera zoomed in on Cab-tab’s profile, showing in detail the gaping mouth and the wide-open eyes.
“As I was saying,” the newscaster, Henry Kung Horrig, said, “we’ve been unable to get many specifics about any of those brought in for questioning. I was lucky to get some data about the detainee you are now viewing. According to a high organic official, the detainee, whose ID has not been checked yet, but whose robustness is apparent, gave the arresting officers a very hard time. He knocked two officers unconscious, broke the arm of a third, and battered two more about the face and body before being subdued. The detainee was apparently preaching in the courseway, which is in itself a second-degree misdemeanor if the first offense and a third-degree felony if a second offense. He was exhaling a very liquorous breath, and, since he was apprehended outside the Snorter, a tavern, he may be one of those who looted its liquor supply. In which case…”
Duncan did not wait to hear more. Calling, “Panthea! Panthea!” he strode to the kitchen. She was sitting at the table by a big window and staring down at the harbor. Hearing him, she looked up alarmed. “What’s the matter?”
He told her, then said, “Unless we’re very lucky, we’re done for. We have to do something, do it fast.”
He noticed then that she had quit drinking wine. A large mug of steaming coffee was on the table before her. That was a good idea. This was not the time to scramble ones wits with alcohol.
“Let’s not do anything foolish,” she said. He sat down on the other side of the table, glancing out of the window while he did so. There were large freighters down there and many sailboats, their canvases flashing in the late afternoon sun. They seemed to be keeping to the prescribed traffic patterns. Apparently, the explosive sense of freedom that the organics claimed had afflicted those within the city had not affected those outside it. How would the ganks explain that?
Easy. The sailors were few and far between. They had not been touched by the mass hysteria in the towers.
“I’m not acting rashly. I’ve been thinking this out. The only course open
for us, the only one with any chance at all, is to break day.”
“And get caught on Wednesday,” she said.
“I’m an experienced daybreaker. I doubt if anyone knows better than I do how to do it.”
Well, not me, really, he thought. But those other men down there, those who keep feeding me bits of their memories—they know.
Panthea Snick was no longer looking at him. Her gaze was again outward, toward the ocean beyond the harbor. Her face was cast in a very thoughtful expression. It seemed to him that it formed an aching longing for freedom underlaid with hopelessness. He ached with the longing to kiss her and to tell her that he would give her hope. Anything she wanted.
There was a silence that he did not know how to break without causing pain. Yet it was as tedious as waiting for sap to ooze from a tree; it made him fidget and burn slowly with impatience. He wanted desperately to speak, but he knew that if he did so now his words would slide off her mind.
Finally, she turned her head toward him, sighed, and spoke.
“There’s no use. We might as well turn ourselves in now and get the agony over with.”
“How the hell could I have ever loved a pathetic creature like you?” he said. “You’ve got the spine of a sponge, the spirit of an empty whiskey bottle! Even if you know you can’t win, you don’t surrender!”
“Bullshit,” she said tonelessly.
“It smells better than the dogshit you put out! You can’t give up! I didn’t, and I won’t! If I had, where’d I be! Long ago stoned in a warehouse!”
“So you put off the inevitable? What’s a few more days of living? What’s the gain? Once you’re stoned you won’t remember that extra time you fought for. Was it really worth it?”
They were silent again, though, if Duncan’s anger could have been expressed in radiation, he would have glowed white-hot, would have scorched her black.
After another silence, she said, “I don’t know! The trouble is I really think I’m in the wrong! I deserve stoning! There’s nothing essentially bad about our society. If the government lies or does a few things it shouldn’t because they’re illegal, it’s for the good of the people.”