“Depends. Try me.”
“What do you pull in for this like three hours a day job?”
“Ah … Oh, it’s a matter of record, if you know where to look, and I guess it’s nothing to be ashamed of. A hundred thousand a month, gross. Mark you, that has to spread over rental and maintenance for the computers, this office, Lionel’s salary, my informers’ fund which about two or three times a year turns me up a beat which I couldn’t have deduced without access to confidential sources, miscellaneous expenses like buying computer security codes, the whole shtick.”
“And—my salary now, as well?”
“I doubt if I could afford you!” Flamen gave a humorless chuckle. “No, like you said, you wanted the letter of the Blackbury contract adhered to, so you’re a charge on Federal funds. As a matter of interest, though, what were they paying you in Blackbury?”
“Two thousand,” Diablo said after a brief hesitation.
“Two thousand?” Prior almost fell off his chair. “Oh—but I guess that’s net, isn’t it?”
“Of course. I didn’t have to pay anyone or rent any equipment. I had a city-subsidized apt with a rent of only a hundred, no office costs, nothing else.”
“Sounds as though, all things considered, you might have been better off than I am,” Flamen said, and glanced at his watch. “Well, shall we say the same time tomorrow?”
“There’s a flag up on your comweb,” Prior said. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“Damn. So there is.” Flamen dropped back into his chair and pulled the fax paper out of its slot. “Ah, that doctor at the Ginsberg wanting to get in touch. I guess I’d better take it.”
“Shall we—?” Prior suggested, starting to leave the room.
“Darl, several million people are about to see Celia in a hospital oversuit, aren’t they? Want I should pretend with you and Mr. Diablo around?”
“If it’s something personal, I certainly don’t want to intrude,” Diablo said, also half-rising.
“No, it’s another matter of record and I don’t much care.”
“As you like.” Diablo hesitated yet again. “While I think of it, though … Forgive me, but people do behave differently out here and I don’t want to make any faux pas. Is your mistering me a bit of Crow Jim?”
“What?” Hand poised to punch the comweb code for the Ginsberg, Flamen looked up. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“I’ve been wondering,” Diablo said doggedly, “whether you’ve been calling me Mister Diablo all the time because I’m a knee.”
“What else would I—? Oh, now I catch. You have this ‘soul brother’ thing in the enclaves, don’t you? Call people all the time by their first names?”
“Well … more or less. I mean anyone I was going to be working with regularly, at least,” Diablo qualified. “And I thought blank society was equally informal.”
“Used to be, I think. Like in my father’s day I believe we had the same thing.” Flamen frowned, withdrawing his hand from the comweb board. “Yes, I recall him joking about how well you had to know someone before you found out his last name and could look him up in a directory. But I read something about this once … Of course! A piece by Xavier Conroy; I remember now. He said something about the need to assert individuality and surnames being more numerous than given names. Stuck in my mind because there are several hundred thousand Matthews around nowadays but all the people named Flamen in the entire United States are relatives of mine in one way or another—just a single family. Scattered to hell and gone, of course, but if you checked the records you could tie them all together. At that I don’t suffer from one of the really common first names, either: Michael, David, John, William …”
“So you call people mister automatically?”
“You’d be better advised to than not. Lionel, how long was it before I started calling you by your first name?”
“After you married Celia, I guess,” Prior said. “But I didn’t mind you calling me just ‘Prior’ when we were working together before that.”
“You want to know what to call us?” Flamen said, glancing back at Diablo. “Hell, personally I don’t mind what people call me—I’m not looking for reassurance about my status. But I guess for safety’s sake, for the time being at least, you’d better stick by the formal custom: Flamen, Prior. No mister except to a third party. Okay?”
“Thanks,” Diablo nodded. “I—uh … Well, I hadn’t realized that leaving Blackbury would be so much like going to a foreign country.” His eyes roved the room. “Everything seems so strange,” he added in a burst of frankness. “I guess I swallowed the propaganda about the enclaves really still being part of the United States, just enjoying a bit more self-determination than they used to. Say, can I ask you a favor?”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Could you sort of—uh—isolate that computer which makes up reconstructions out of stock shots? It’s the kind of gadget I’ve been dreaming of all my life without realizing. I feel like a back-country boy with a banjo made of cowhide and baling wire who hears a guitar for the first time.”
Flamen exchanged a questioning glance with Prior, who resolutely refrained from offering any kind of answer.
“You want to see if you can put it through hoops too?” he said. “I guess we could arrange that, but I doubt if it can be today. I’d have to ask for someone to drop by from IBM and wire in the proper code—I was already used to similar equipment before I had this particular one installed. You could probably have a dummy delivered to your apt, though, to practice on and learn the codes before tackling a full-sized machine.”
“That’s a great idea,” Diablo nodded. “I certainly ought to do that. But I’m sorry—I held you up from making your call with all these questions, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. I doubt if it’s anything urgent.” Flamen turned back to the comweb.
Prior fidgeted a little, with repeated glances at Diablo, clearly unhappy at this exposure of a private matter to someone who was a stranger, a knee and a professional rival. His thought processes were almost audible: suppose Diablo were to be readmitted to Blackbury and decided to exploit what he’d learned to discredit Flamen …?
His relief was evident when the comweb said, “Dr. Spoelstra has been called to attend to an emergency admission and can only be interrupted for the most urgent—”
But another voice broke in: “Dr. Reedeth, Mr. Flamen!” The screen lit with his image, and he was not alone. Behind him, looking extremely miserable, Lyla Clay was sitting on the very edge of a chair with her hands pressed tightly together between her knees.
“If you don’t mind speaking to me instead of Dr. Spoelstra,” he went on, “she briefed me fully, I believe. It’s quite a simple matter, actually. You may recall that when you were here yesterday you voiced—ah—a certain opinion regarding your wife’s treatment.”
He waited. Flamen at length gave a wary nod.
“As a result of your comments we re-processed Mrs. Flamen’s psychoprofile today”—Reedeth was choosing his words very carefully—”and we found that there had indeed been a flattening of the therapy-response curve. In lay terms, you might say that from now on hospitalization can do little or nothing for her and a gradual re-acclimatization to the everyday world is indicated. In principle, bearing in mind your remarks yesterday, we wondered whether you’d be willing to waive the premature discharge penalty if we gave you an assurance that it was in her best interests …?”
Flamen was silent for a moment. Then he gave a sudden harsh laugh. “Do I take it that you wouldn’t have noticed she was better unless I’d turned up yesterday?”
“Of course not,” Reedeth said stiffly. “You’ll recall that she went to green yesterday morning as a result of the regular weekly review of her condition. The point I just mentioned would have come to light at the full-scale monthly checkup in about two weeks’ time, but since you’d just made some rather—ah—intemperate comments …” He shrugged. “We carried ou
t an extra examination, that’s all.”
“It wouldn’t have something to do with the heavy intake of rioters pleading insanity which you must have been hit with earlier today?” Flamen suggested.
“Considering we had to deal with seven hundred commitments or suspected commitments, I think it surprising that Dr. Spoelstra did manage to have the extra examination of your wife fitted in,” Reedeth countered. It was a non-answer, but Flamen didn’t bother to pursue the matter.
“In principle, then, the answer’s yes. On one condition. What happens—do you want me to come and take her home?”
Reedeth looked uncomfortable. “Not exactly. She’s been asked whether she’s willing to be discharged, and she is, and she’s fit enough provided that she suffers no undue strain in the near future and continues to take the drugs we prescribe, but … Well, frankly she’s refused to be discharged into your care.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid so, and we can’t really argue, because of the background to her breakdown. But she has agreed to accept her brother as guardian, so if you have no objection and he has none …?”
“He’s right here,” Flamen said curtly. “I’ll ask him.” He killed the sound pickup for a moment and looked at Prior. “Well?”
“I—” Prior swallowed enormously. “I suppose so. I am her brother, after all It’s a responsibility, isn’t it?” On the last word his eyes flicked very swiftly towards and past Diablo. Flamen reflected cruelly that there might have been a different reply had a stranger not been present.
“He says yes,” he relayed to the waiting Reedeth. “Set the wheels in motion, then, and I’ve no doubt my brother-in-law will be over to collect Celia this afternoon. But I did say I was going to waive the premature-discharge penalty on one condition only, didn’t I? I’ll do so subject to her being independently packled to determine whether she has benefited or suffered from the treatment she’s been accorded at the Ginsberg. Is it a bargain? If the packling shows that she’s not better, as you claim she is, I not only stand by the premature discharge clause—I’ll sue.”
He waited. At length Reedeth said, “It’ll have to be comped, naturally, but … Yes, I’m sure we have sufficient confidence in our methods to accept that proviso. In principle, we agree.”
For an instant Flamen’s assurance wavered. Trying to slip a packle program through to the Federal computers in the guise of an attempt to eliminate the sabotage on the show was going to be risky—should he save his unexpected resources for some other target, such as the Gottschalks? But Mogshack was a far more accessible victim and there had been that ninety-plus reading.
Also a zero reading, sniggered the little demon at the corner of his mind.
That, though, had to be an error! A zero reading was effectively impossible; the lowest he’d ever had before was three.
Best, he concluded, to stick by his original plan for the time being. With excessive heartiness he said, “That’s fine, Dr. Reedeth! I’m very reassured by your willingness to commit yourself—in principle. I’ll make a point of calling on Celia at my brother’s this evening, to congratulate her on her recovery. By the way, isn’t that Miss Clay I see in the background?”
At the mention of her name Lyla looked up, but she didn’t say anything.
Reedeth glanced at her and back at the camera. “Yes—ah—I’m afraid something rather dreadful happened.”
“A backfire from one of those pills she takes for her trances?” Flamen gibed, and at once felt apologetic. But before he had time to say so, Reedeth had replied.
“No. Mr. Kazer got caught up in last night’s riots and … Well, he died from his injuries.”
“Christ, that’s awful,” Flamen said slowly.
“So Miss Clay is here being treated for shock, mainly. But there’s been another damned legal snarlup, and I can’t just let her go. Some fool of a busy mistook her state for full-scale mental disorder, and by the time I found out about it the commitment papers were too far gone in the mill for me to haul them out.”
“Doesn’t anything in this country work properly any more?” Flamen sighed.
All of a sudden Lyla sat up straight, releasing her hands from their imprisonment between her legs. “Say, Mr. Flamen! I know we only met yesterday, but could you get me out of here?”
Flamen blinked. “How do you mean?”
“It’s a guardianship problem,” Reedeth said after a pause. “She has to be discharged into an adult’s care, and all her relatives are out of state.” To Lyla he added in a soothing tone, “There’s no real need for that, Miss Clay. We’ll have it straightened out by this evening at the latest, if I have to go clear to the Governor to fix it. But—”
He broke off abruptly. Clapping his hand to his forehead in a parody of astonishment at his own short-sightedness, he went on, “Why in the world did I never think of that before? Mr. Flamen, would you have any use for an absolute genius at the repair and maintenance of electronic circuitry?”
Prior tensed. “Find out what he means, Matthew,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’m going to,” Flamen assured him, puzzled. And, louder: “I’m afraid I don’t quite catch you, doctor.”
“Well, you see, we have a man here who’s long overdue for release, but for reasons I can’t go into because they’re so complicated he’s been stuck here months past the proper date. Meanwhile he’s been looking after our automatics for us—and you probably know we have one of the largest cybernetic systems in the world. All our patients are packled as a matter of course. His gift for electronics is—oh, I can’t find the right word. Brilliant!”
“Matthew, we did get that zero reading,” Prior whispered. “Someone like that might be very damned useful!”
Flamen hesitated. “What would you want me to do?”
“Accept guardianship, that’s all. You wouldn’t even have to pay him more than a token if you used his services—he has an Army pension which has been stacking up interest all the time he’s been in hospital. He should be worth a couple of hundred thousand by now.”
“Where did he get his training?”
“In the Army, as far as I know. But I do assure you, you can’t fault his ability. He’s done things here, to my own desketary, which I didn’t think were possible.”
“I’ll consider it very seriously,” Flamen said. “Can you let me have some documentation, perhaps? I ought to know something about him before Committing myself.”
“I’ll make sure it’s sent to you within an-hour,” Reedeth beamed. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am, Mr. Flamen! I’ve been looking for a way to secure his release for ages. It simply isn’t fair to—Oh.” His smile vanished. “I guess there’s one point I forgot to mention. He’s a kneeblank.”
There was a long silence. During it, Flamen was acutely aware of Diablo’s dark eyes on him.
“That’s irrelevant,” he said at last. “I’d be concerned about two things if I agreed to your proposal: his sanity, and his usefulness to my company. It does so happen that we have a short-term vacancy for an electronicist, and I guess if he’s as good as you tell me he’ll suit us fine. So send me that documentation and I’ll call you back. Okay?”
“Definitely okay,” Reedeth said warmly and cut the connection.
Flamen leaned back, scowling at Prior. “So my dear wife doesn’t care to be discharged into my care!” he grunted. Prior bridled.
“Matthew, I really do think you’re embarrassing—ah—Diablo here by discussing these very private subjects!”
“Yesterday it was a pythoness, today it’s a spoolpigeon—hell, Lionel, there are some people you don’t try and keep secrets from because you can’t survive in either line of business unless you know how to keep your mouth shut! I’ll bet Diablo knew about Celia’s trouble anyway, didn’t you?” he concluded, turning to the kneeblank.
“Ladromide,” Diablo said after a pause. “I thought of using it to pin a program on. Slant would have been here’s this alleged di
sciple of the hard cold truth who drove his wife into a world of illusions. I watched your show for a week while I was making up my mind, and decided in the end it was worth having you around on the public scene whatever the hell had gone wrong privately.” He looked and sounded uncomfortable, as though he were not used to praising people.
Flamen laughed. “That was a narrow escape,” he said. “I’ve seen what happened to one or two of the targets you’ve used. What’s your score on sassies up to now?”
“On-what?”
“Sassies. Suicides After Spoolpigeon Investigation.”
“Oh. We call them eewoes. Easy way out.” Diablo cogitated. “I guess around forty,” he said at last. “I don’t keep tally, though.”
“Really?” Prior said, impressed. “Ours isn’t much over half that.”
Diablo looked at him, then at Flamen again. Deliberately fixing the latter with his dark stern gaze, he said, “I could suggest a reason. Blanks are harder to make feel deep-down guilty.”
“I don’t think I like your tone of voice,” Prior said frigidly.
“I don’t think I much like gauging the success of a vushow by the number of deaths it’s caused,” Diablo answered. “That evens it.”
“Freeze it,” Flamen snapped. “I mean both of you! Diablo’s a stranger, Lionel, and there are things they feel differently about in places like Blackbury. I look forward to working with our new colleague because having him around is going to sharpen my wits. I’ve been getting stale. Maybe I should try a twelve-hour day too, see if that gets my imagination back in shape. But right now I have some loose ends to tie up, and so have you. Suppose you arrange for Diablo to have his own area of the office—move some walls around a bit, have a comweb put in, anything that’s necessary. And arrange to go pick up Celia, too.”