‘Grenade launchers or thermotropic missiles,’ Nick said. ‘A warning shot. Turn on your radio to the police band.’ He reached toward the control board, but she savagely grabbed his hand and pushed it back.
‘I’m not going to talk to them,’ she said. ‘And I’m not going to listen to them.’
Nick said, ‘They’ll destroy us with the next shot. They have the authority to do it; they will.’
‘No,’ Charley said. ‘They’re not going to shoot down the Cow. Denny, I promise you.’
The Cow ascended, did an Immelmann, did one again, then a barrel roll… and the cruisers remained on their tail.
‘I’m going — do you know where I’m going?’ Charley said. ‘To Times Square.’
He had been waiting for this. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re not letting any ships into that area; they have it sealed off. You’d run into a solid phalanx of black-and-whites.’
But she continued on. He saw searchlights ahead, and several military vehicles circling. They were almost there.
‘I’m going to go to Provoni,’ she said, ‘and ask him for sanctuary. For both of us.’
‘For me, you mean,’ he said.
Charley said, ‘I’ll ask him straight-out to let us into his protective web. He will; I know he will.’
‘Maybe,’ Nick said, ‘he will.’
Abruptly, a shape loomed ahead. A slow army vehicle, carrying ammunition for hydrogen warhead-firing cannon; it had its warning lights lit from end to end.
Charley said, ‘Oh, God I can’t—’ And then they hit.
TWENTY-FIVE
Light flashed in his eyes. He heard — felt — movement about him. The light hurt and he reached to put his hand up, to shut away the light, but his arm would not move. But I feel nothing, he said to himself. He felt completely rational. We’re on the ground, he said to himself. It’s a PSS occifer shining his flashlight into my eyes, trying to see if I’m unconscious or dead.
‘How is she?’ he asked.
‘The girl in the ship with you?’ A leisurely, calm voice. Too calm. Uncaring.
He opened his eyes. A green-clad PSS occifer stood over him with a flashlight and gun. Wreckage, mostly from the ammunition carrier, lay spread out everywhere; he saw an ambulance, white-clad men working.
‘The girl is dead,’ the PSS occifer said.
‘Can I see her? I have to see her.’ He struggled, trying to get to his feet; the occifer helped him, then brought out a notebook and pen.
‘Your name?’ he asked.
‘Let me see her.’
‘She looks bad.’
Nick said, ‘Let me see her.’
‘Okay, buddy.’ The PSS occifer led him, by the use of his flashlight, through the mounds of debris. ‘There she is.’
It was the Purple Cow. Charlotte was still inside. There had never been a doubt from the first as to whether she was alive: her skull had been neatly halved by the tiller, into which she had fallen with enormous force when the Cow hit the big tub of an ammunition ship.
Someone had, however, dragged the tiller away from her, leaving the opening the tiller had made. The cerebral cortex could be seen, wet with blood, convoluted, pierced in half. Pierced, he thought, as in the Yeats poem; pierced by my glad singing through.
‘It had to happen,’ he said to the cop. ‘If not this way, then some other way. Some fast way. Maybe someone on alcohol.’
‘Her ID cards,’ the cop said, ‘say she’s only sixteen.’
‘That’s right,’ Nick said.
A tremendous boom sounded, shaking the ground under them. ‘H-head cannon,’ the cop said, busy with his pad and pen. ‘More firing at that Frolixan thing.’ He braced himself. ‘It won’t do any good. It’s into people’s mind all over the planet. Your name?’
‘Denny Strong,’ Nick said.
‘Let me see your mandatory ID.’
Nick turned and ran, as best as he could.
The cop called after him, ‘Slow down. I won’t take a shot at you. What do I care any more? I’m just sorry about the girl.’
Slowing to a halt, Nick looked back. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why do you care about her? You didn’t know her. Why don’t you care about me? I’m on a black pisser snuff list; does that matter to you?’
‘Not really. Not since I got a look at my boss over the v-fone; not since I saw him. A New Man, you know. Like a baby. He was playing with things on his desk, stacking them up in piles, according to color, I guess.’
‘Could you give me a ride?’ Nick asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘The Federal Building,’ Nick said.
‘But that’s a nuthouse, now. All those New Men in their cubicles, stay out of there.’
‘I want to see Council Chairman Gram.’
‘He’s probably like the others, the other Unusuals and New Men.’ Thoughtfully, the occifer said, ‘However, I don’t know if it has done anything to the Unusuals, actually. It’s the New Men.’
‘Take me there,’ Nick said.
‘Okay, buddy, but you’re hurt — you’ve a broken arm and possibly, very possibly, internal injuries. Wouldn’t you rather go to City Hospital?’
‘I want to see Council Chairman Gram.’
The occifer said, ‘Okay, I’ll fly you there. And just leave you off on the roof field. I don’t want to get mixed up with what’s going on — I don’t want it to start affecting me.’
‘You’re an Old Man?’ Nick asked.
‘Yeah, sure. Like you. Like most people. Like this whole city, except in places like the Federal Building where New Men—’
‘It won’t start affecting you,’ Nick said. He walked shakily, but unassisted, toward the nearby parked PSS skunk car. Walking — and trying not to pass out. Not now, he said to himself. Gram comes first; then it doesn’t matter anyhow. Maybe he was spared; as the cop said, it seems mostly directed at New Men, not Unusuals.
The cop leisurely got into the car, waited for him, then started up into the sky.
‘That really is a shame about the girl,’ the cop said. ‘But I noticed what sort of mill it had, souped up like crazy. Was it hers?’
Nick said nothing, he held his right arm, his mind empty of thoughts. Merely feeling the buildings pass below as the squib-cruiser headed for the Federal Building, fifty miles outside of the city of New York, in the satrapy of Washington, D.C.
‘Why was she going so fast?’ the cop asked.
‘For my sake,’ he said. ‘That’s why she went so fast. That’s what killed her.’
The squib wheezed on, making its familiar vacuum cleaner sound.
TWENTY-SIX
The roof field of the Federal Building was alive with light as vehicles came and went. Only official squibs could be seen, however; the field was obviously closed to the public… God knew for how long.
The PSS occifer said, ‘I have clearance to land.’ He pointed to a pulsing green light on the intricate instrument panel of his squib.
They settled to a landing; Nick, with the occifer’s help, managed to get out, to stand up unsteadily.
‘Good luck, buddy,’ the occifer said, and in an instant he had gone; his squib became invisible in the sky above, its red blinking lights blending with the stars.
At the entrance ramp, at the far end of the field, a line of black pissers barred his way. All carried carbines with feather-point bows. And all of them looked at him as if he were offal.
‘Council Chairman Gram—’ he began.
‘Lose yourself,’ one of the black pissers said.
Nick said, ‘—asked me to come here and see him.’
‘Don’t you know there’s a forty thousand ton alien that’s—’
‘I’m here because of the emergency,’ Nick said.
One of the black pissers spoke into a wrist mike, waited in silence, listening to his ear speaker, then nodded. ‘He can go on in.’
‘I’ll escort you there,’ another of the black pissers said. ‘The whole fucking place
is in a shambles.’ He led the way, and Nick followed, moving as best he could.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ the occifer said. ‘You look like you’ve been in a squib accident.’
‘I’m all right,’ Nick said.
They passed, then, a New Man who stood with a written directive in his hands, obviously trying to read it. Some residual sense told him that he should read it, but there was no comprehension in his eyes, only frightened confusion.
‘This way.’ The black-clad PSS occifer led him through a series of cubicles; Nick caught glimpses of New Men here and there, some seated on the floor, some trying to do things, to handle objects, others merely sitting or lying, staring emptily forward. And some, he saw, were having violent rages; evidently, flown in for the emergency, Old Men employees were trying to keep them under control.
The final door opened; the occifer stepped aside, said, ‘Here,’ and strode off, back the way they had come.
Willis Gram was not in his big, rumpled bed. He sat, instead, on a chair at the far end of the room, evidently at peace; his face seemed composed and tranquil.
‘Charlotte Boyer,’ Nick said, ‘is dead.’
‘Who?’ Gram blinked, turned to focus his attention on Nick. ‘Oh. Yeah.’ He lifted his hands, palms up. ‘They took away my telepathic ability. I’m just an Old Man now.’
An intercom on his desk said suddenly, ‘Council Chairman, we have installed the second laser system, this one on the roof of the Carriager Building, and twenty seconds from now it will have focused its beam on the same spot as the Baltimore laser system.’
Gram said loudly, ‘Provoni’s still standing there?’
‘Yes. The Baltimore beam is directly on him. When we add the Kansas City beam, we will virtually double the power at function-level.’
‘Keep me informed,’ Gram said. ‘Thanks.’ He turned to Nick. Today, Gram was fully dressed: business pantaloons, silk blouse with frilly sleeves, pie-plate shoes. He was groomed, nattily dressed, and calm. ‘I’m sorry about the girl,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but not really sorry — not if you really get down to the bottom of it — as I might have been if I’d known her better.’ He rubbed his face wearily, it had been freshly powdered, and a white layer came off on his hands; he slapped them together irritably. ‘I’m not wasting any tears for the New Men,’ he said, his lips twisting. ‘It’s their fault. You know about a man, a New Man, called Amos Ild?’
‘Of course,’ Nick said.
‘“Absolutely no possibility,”’ Gram said, ‘“That he’s brought an alien back with him.” Neutrologics, which the rest of us, Old Men and Under Men and Unusuals, can’t understand. Well, there’s nothing to understand, it doesn’t work. Amos Ild was just an eccentric, fiddling with millions of components for his Great Ear project. He was insane.’
‘Where is he now?’ Nick said.
‘Off somewhere playing with paperweights,’ Gram said. ‘Setting up intricate balance-systems for them, using rulers as the support bars.’ He grinned. ‘And he’ll be doing it the rest of his life.’
‘How far has the destruction of neurological tissue spread, geographically speaking?’ Nick asked. ‘Over the whole planet? To Luna and Mars?’
‘I don’t know. Most communications circuits aren’t being manned; there’s nobody, just plain nobody, on the other end. Which is eerie.’
‘You’ve called Peking? Moscow? Sumatra One?’
‘I’ll tell you who I’ve called,’ Gram said. ‘The Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety.’
Nick said, ‘And they no longer exist.’
Nodding, Gram said, ‘He — it — killed them. Scooped out their skulls, left them empty. Except for the diencephalon, for some reason. They left that.’
‘The vegetative functions,’ Nick said.
‘Yeah, we could have kept them alive like vegetables. But it wasn’t worth it; I told the different doctors to let them die, once I knew the extent of brain damage. That applies only to the New Men, however. There are two Unusuals on the Public Safety Committee, a precog and a telepath. Their talents are gone, same as mine. But we’re alive. For a while.’
‘It won’t do anything more to you,’ Nick said. ‘Now that you’re an Old Man, you’re in no more danger than I.’
‘What did you want to see me about?’ Gram asked, turning to face him. ‘To tell me about Charlotte? To make me feel guilty? Christ, there’re a million little bitches like her slinking around in the world; you can get yourself another in half an hour.’
Nick said, ‘You sent three black pissers to kill me. They killed Denny Strong instead, and because of his death we couldn’t handle the Sea Cow; hence the crash. Hence her death. You set up the train of circumstances; it all emanated from you.’
‘I’ll call off the black troopers,’ Gram said.
‘That’s not enough,’ Nick said.
The intercom burbled into life. ‘Council Chairman, both laser beams are now directed at the target spot, Thors Provoni.’
‘What results?’ Gram asked, standing rigidly, supporting his great bulk by holding onto the desk.
‘They’re being passed to me now,’ the intercom said.
Gram, silently, waited.
‘No visible change. No, sir, no change.’
‘Three laser systems,’ Gram said huskily. ‘If we brought in the one from Detroit—’
‘Sir, we can’t really operate what we have properly. The mental illness that’s attacking the New Men means we lack—’
‘Thanks,’ Gram said, and shut the intercom off. ‘“Mental illness,”’ he said, in ferocious mockery. ‘If only that’s what it was. Something you could cure in a sanitarium. What do they call that? Psychogenic?’
Nick said, ‘I’d like to see Amos Ild. Balancing paperweights on rulers.’ The greatest intellect produced so far by the race of man, he thought. Neanderthal, homo sapiens, then New Men — evolution. And using the New Man neutrologics, he had struck out; he had batted 000. But maybe Gram is right, he thought. Maybe Amos Ild was always insane… but we had no way of measuring a unique brain like his, no standard by which to judge.
It’s a good thing we’re rid of Ild, he thought. It’s a good thing we’re rid of all of them, he thought. Maybe all the New Men, in one sense or another, were insane. It’s just a question of degree. And their neutrologics — the logic of the insane.
‘You look lousy,’ Gram said. ‘You better get medical help; I can see that your arm’s broken.’
‘To your infirmary?’ Nick said. ‘As you call it?’
‘They’re competent medically,’ Gram said. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, half to himself, ‘I keep listening for your thoughts and they never come. I have only your words to go on.’ He cocked his shaggy head, studied Nick. ‘Did you come here to—’
‘I wanted you to know about Charlotte,’ Nick said.
‘But you’re unarmed; you’re not going to try to snuff me. You were searched; you didn’t know it but you passed five checkpoints. Are you?’ With unusual swiftness for a man of his bulk, he spun deftly, touched a stud on his desk. Instantly, five black troopers were in the room; they did not seem to have come there; they just were. ‘See if he’s armed,’ Gram said to the black troopers. ‘Look for something small, like a knife made of plastic, or a microtab of germs.’
Two of them searched Nick. ‘No sir,’ they informed the Council Chairman.
‘Stay where you are,’ Gram instructed them. ‘Keep your tubes pointed at him and kill him if he moves. This man is dangerous.’
‘Am I?’ Nick asked. ‘Is 3XX24J dangerous? Then six billion Old Men are dangerous, too, and your black pissers aren’t going to be able to hold them back. They’re all Under Men, now; they’ve seen Provoni; they know he’s back, as he promised; they know your weapons can’t hurt him; they know what his friend, the Frolixan, can do — has done — to the New Men. My broken arm is paralyzed; I couldn’t pull a trigger anyhow. Why couldn’t you have let us alone? Why couldn’t you let her
come to me, and be together? Why did you have to send those black pissers after us? Why?’
‘Jealousy,’ Gram said quietly.
‘Are you going to resign as Council Chairman?’ Nick asked. ‘You have no special qualifications. Will you let Provoni rule? Provoni and his friend from Frolix 8?’
After a pause, Gram said, ‘No.’
‘Then they’ll kill you. The Under Men will. They’ll be coming here as soon as they understand what’s happened. And those tanks and weapons-squibs and black squads aren’t going to stop more than the first few thousand of them. Six billion, Gram. Can the military and the black pissers kill six billion men? Plus Provoni and the Frolixan? Do you have any real chance of any sort? Isn’t it time to pass control of the government, the whole establishment apparatus, to someone else? You’re old and you’re tired. And you haven’t done a good job. Snuffing Cordon — that alone should, by a constituted court of law, hang you.’ And very well may, he thought. For that and other decisions Gram had made during his tenure.
Gram said, ‘I’m going to go and talk with Provoni.’ He nodded to the black-clad troopers. ‘Get me a police squib; get it all ready.’ He pressed a button on his desk. ‘Miss Knight, ask communications to try to establish voice contact between me and Thors Provoni. Tell them to start on it right now. Top priority.’
He rang off, stood, then said to Nick, ‘I want—’ He hesitated. ‘Have you ever tasted Scotch whiskey?’
‘No,’ Nick said.
‘I have some twenty-four-year-old Scotch, a bottle I’ve never opened, a bottle for a special occasion. Wouldn’t you say this is a special occasion?’
‘I guess it is, Council Chairman.’
Going to the bookshelf on the right-hand wall, Gram lifted several volumes out, reached behind those that remained, came out holding a tall bottle of amber fluid. ‘Okay?’ he said to Nick.
‘Okay,’ Nick said.
Gram seated himself at his desk, tore the metal seal from the top of the bottle, removed the stopper, then looked around and among the clutter until he found two paper cups. He dumped their contents into a nearby wastebasket, then poured Scotch into each of the cups. ‘What’ll we drink to?’ he asked Nick.