“What in the world?” He was half on his feet. Countermanding the impulse with an effort, he sank back. What could possibly underlie Diablo’s taking over? Ready to be angry all over again, he waited while the station ID played through, and the introductory commercial for imported skimmers.
“This week,” a sugary voice said over, “our noontide deep probe into the planet Earth is conducted by guest spoolpigeon Pedro Diablo!”
Crazy! Fantastic! Flamen’s mouth firmed into a bitter line. But Diablo was saying, “Friday, friends, and my last guest spot on this slot—next week back to your regular host, with whom I hope to have the privilege of collaborating for a while at least. So for the last solo time, here’s your view of the world through kneeblank eyes …”
Flick-flick, and on the screen the familiar fortress-like shape of the Ginsberg. Diablo over: “What lies behind the forced resignation of New York State Mental Hygiene Director Dr. Elias Mogshack?”
What?
And Mogshack, in his office, rock-still, eyes closed, a specimen of classic catatonia, every muscle frozen.
“Why, taking too seriously his own injunction about being an individual, it would seem,” Diablo said in a tone of slashing irony. Flick-flick and reconstructed scenes, as good as any Flamen himself had ever mounted—reluctant professional admiration began to drive away his resentment, his bewilderment at the passing reference to the slot being “back to normal” next week, and the shock of the news about Mogshack’s forced resignation. The director was seen and heard with Reedeth, screaming over a comweb that there was a plot to unseat him, threatening dismissal because Reedeth had allowed Xavier Conroy to enter the hospital.
“Sounds like Dr. Mogshack wanted to shut out the world an itsy bit too much,” Diablo said judiciously as the screen reverted to the monstrous concrete bastion of the entire hospital. “Rumor says …”
And Mogshack with a Gottschalk Blazer in his hand covering the door of his office while Ariadne Spoelstra attempted to enter; firing, turning the door into smoldering ash; Reedeth tackling Ariadne like a football linebacker and bringing her down a fraction of a second before the fan-shaped beam would have seared her in half.
“There’s that old bit about the physicians healing themselves,” Diablo said. “I predict a massive state investigation of the Ginsberg Hospitals operation for the past several years—”
The comweb buzzed, and Flamen shouted at it to refuse the call. But the command was overridden, and in the screen appeared the bland face of Eugene Voigt. Seeing him, Flamen changed his mind instantly and shut down the sound on the vuset instead. He blurted, “Mr. Voigt, what in hell is going on at Holocosmic?”
“It would be more appropriate to inquire what is going on in the Gottschalk cartel,” Voigt purred under the drooping screen of his walrus moustache. “I trust you’ll be able to counteract the instructions you’ve presumably given for the discontinuance of your operations?”
“Yes, of course—I haven’t done anything irrevocable, on the slim chance of being able to find work elsewhere. … You fixed this reversal of the decision?”
“Not precisely,” Voigt murmured. “But as you may or may not know, the order to buy out the majority holding in Holocosmic originated at a new and ultra-advanced data-processing center in Nevada, on which we have been keeping careful tabs since Mr. Anthony Gottschalk placed the contracts for it, and upon our discovering that a major malfunction was likely to develop we—ah—took steps to render repairs unusually difficult. To be exact, we made certain that virtually the entire skilled maintenance staff of IBM was reserved for a PCC contract, and it worked very nicely. I’ve just been notified by Mr. Marcantonio Gottschalk himself that the purchase of Holocosmic and the cancellation of your show was an unauthorized decision and was this morning revoked by a substantial majority at a family discussion on his estate in New Jersey.”
He paused, not smiling, but with his eyes narrowing in a network of pleased wrinkles. “Ah—I take it you are not displeased with the news?”
“Christ, it’s fantastic!” Flamen exclaimed. “You’re a sly bastard, Mr. Voigt, and I mean that as a compliment.”
Voigt gave a shrug and self-consciously adjusted the set of his right ear. “Our introverted epoch is not the happiest environment for a communications specialist, Mr. Flamen. One does what one can to reverse the trend away from person-to-person contact. It’s a necessary prerequisite for the continuation of one’s career. By the way, I take it you haven’t been watching the noon slot on Holocosmic this week?”
“I was so damned sick at the trick that had been played on me I couldn’t have brought myself to. I didn’t even know Diablo was taking over. Did you fix that?”
“Well, early last Monday morning a confidential request was filed by Mr. Marcantonio Gottschalk, who as titular head of the cartel was entitled to conduct informal negotiations concerned with the new diversified venture into vu-transmission, for someone to furnish an interim group of programs while a final decision on the content of the slot was being reached, and still being under the obligation imposed by the Washington-Blackbury contract we needed to find Mr. Diablo a suitable post pro tem.” Voigt made an all-embracing gesture. “We did not comp that you would feel—ah—slighted by having a replacement of such notorious talent.”
“Hell, no!” Flamen’s eyes were on the vuset, not the comweb screen, and there was another reconstructed scene, this time showing the well-known chairman of Lares & Penates Inc. walking around a kneeblank-staffed factory producing plastic Lars. It was galling to have lost the chance to break that particular story, but it was a wise choice to help hold the audience for the interim week. Besides, the detail was exceptional, perhaps because Diablo had actually been to the factory in question. “How’s he been doing, by the way?” he added.
“Very well, I understand. The blank audience has naturally been intrigued to see the celebrated knee spoolpigeon at work, and the figures are up by eight or nine percent. And, incidentally, a point which will no doubt interest you: there has been no interference on the show this week.”
“That means it was the old Holocosmic directorate sabotaging us!”
“You may comp it how you wish, Mr. Flamen. I’m simply stating the fact.”
Flamen hesitated. Reverting to the most important subject, he said, “But—but look: how did you manage to set the Gottschalks up? Or rather, the splinter group, I guess, who forced through the Holocosmic purchase.”
“I think they set themselves up, Mr. Flamen.” Voigt tugged absently at the lobe of his right ear again, detached it by mistake, and put it back with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. But this is all very peculiar, Mr. Flamen. I’m still trying to get some sense out of our own computers, because we’ve had some highly improbable additional data fed into our circuits overnight. You know about Dr. Mogshack’s breakdown?”
“Just saw about it on the vuset.”
“Well, this of course is a major scandal, and Federal mental hygiene experts have been called in. Among other things they opened the data-banks of the Ginsberg to the Federal data-processing network, and analysis of the information we’ve acquired is going to take a very long time. It looks as though—possibly because for some while one of the inmates has been doing the servicing there—some nonsensical notions have been plugged in as pure gospel. For instance …”
“What?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to make sense of this all morning and so far I’ve run into a brick wall. I asked about the cessation of interference on the Holocosmic noon slot, and I was referred to a block of data newly acquired from the Ginsberg.” Voigt checked. “Is something wrong, Mr. Flamen?”
“I—I don’t know.” Vivid in memory, the suppressed recollection of the automatics in Reedeth’s office telling him that Mrs. Celia Prior Flamen possessed the ability to interfere with electromagnetic radiation in the bands used for …
But it was absurd. It had to be absurd.
Yet he could hear Voigt contin
uing, while on the screen of the vuset a commercial was playing silently—not the one for Guardian traps which ordinarily filled this spot. Of course, one could hardly expect Diablo to put up with a clip that showed a fellow kneeblank being painfully done to death.
“It all led back eventually to a prognosis for your wife, Mr. Flamen, a statement to the effect that she could somehow—ah—interfere with your appearances on the vu-beams, and was resentful of her own ability because on the conscious level she knew how much you valued your work. It further said that when she found a way to employ this talent for, rather than against, you, she would be completely recovered.” Voigt gave a deprecating smile. “To think that something of that kind could actually be included in the data-banks of a major State hospital! If it’s typical of what will be turned up by the inquiry into Mogshack’s administration, it’s not too soon to get him out, in my view.”
But Flamen wasn’t listening. He was staring now at Celia, completely relaxed on the long lounge, eyes closed.
Effortfully, he said, “Mr. Voigt, will you do me a favor?”
“If possible,” Voigt agreed politely.
“Will you check the Federal computers about—?” He stopped. It was so ridiculous! He was going to make a fool of himself if he said one more word. And yet he couldn’t prevent his lips and tongue from finishing the sentence.
“Will you check them about Robert Gottschalk’s breakdown, see if by any outside chance what you’re told leads you back to the same block of data?”
“Ah … Yes, by all means, if you think it’s worth—” Voigt, in his turn, broke off short. “Mr. Flamen, I’m accustomed to thinking of you as a particularly well-informed person, but how in the world did you know that the Gottschalk computer was nicknamed ‘Robert’? Even members of the cartel were kept in ignorance of that fact unless they had already pledged their unquestioning support to the faction led by Anthony Gottschalk!”
I was told by a madman out of the Ginsberg.
But Flamen could not compel himself to that admission. He kept enigmatic silence, while his mind churned. If Madison was right about that, could he have been right about other things? And could the Ginsberg automatics …?
He stared at Celia, wondering if that was the truth—wondering if her cure had happened the moment she came to peer over the shoulder of her brother and was told that Holocosmic had been bought out by the Gottschalks and there would be no more Matthew Flamen Show.
That would be a way to make her talent work for, instead of against him: fouling up the ultra-complex computer. …
But he couldn’t convince himself. He could only put up with the ghost of the suspicion that it might have happened like that.
Voigt said with new briskness, “Well, that leaves just one further point, Mr. Flamen, apart from congratulating you on the restoration of your show to normal as of Monday next. Will you—ah—will you be willing to continue working in collaboration with Mr. Diablo? I sounded him out informally and he says he’s prepared to if you are. For some reason, in spite of the deposition of Mayor Black—”
“Him too?”
“You really have been hiding from the news, Mr. Flamen,” Voigt said with frank astonishment. “Yes, Mayor Black was found mentally unfit for office yesterday afternoon. But I’m waiting for my answer.”
“Yes, I’d like to,” Flamen said firmly. “I’ve been watching his work while talking to you. I like it. He’s very damned good. Why doesn’t he want to go home, though, if Mayor Black is being slung out?”
“There’s been some—ah—friction in kneeblank circles recently,” Voigt said. “It may possibly stem from Mayor Black’s invitation of Uys into the country. However that may be, we are no longer troubled by the presence of Morton Lenigo, thank goodness.”
Flamen put his hand giddily to his head. “I feel as though I haven’t even blinked, and the world is a different place!”
“It is,” Voigt said with unexpected sternness. “We have had a week’s relief from something I’d long hoped you might find the courage to attack.”
“What?”
“Gottschalk propaganda. I’d hardly have believed, myself, how efficient they had made it by now, had they not found themselves directly involved in communications last weekend, and had I not been able to slap injunctions on them to conform with the Charter which forbids corporations controlling public-service vu-transmission facilities to employ them for the promotion of their own products. I don’t know how long it will stick, but … Mr. Flamen, may I do something illegal, unethical and entirely personal? May I ask you to return the small favor I’ve been able to do you by devoting as much time as possible on your show from now on to
detailed analysis of Gottschalk techniques for fomenting discontent, hatred and suspicion?”
It was the first time in all their long acquaintance that Flamen had seen Voigt display such emotion. He was almost shaking.
“I can stall them for weeks at least, perhaps months, before they can break out of their obligations and sell their holding in Holocosmic. Until that time, we have a chance to fight back.”
“But they’ll still be my employers!”
“They’ll have to swallow anything you choose to put on the beams. The Charter also says that no news program—and yours counts as a news program—shall be censored because the owners of the network wish to protect an advertiser from unfavorable publicity connected with his products or services.” Voigt grinned like a fat cat. “We can switch from one to the other argument faster than they can follow us, Mr. Flamen. I’ve had it comped, and it will work. So perhaps you’ll perform the—ah—public service I suggested?”
“Yes,” Flamen said fervently.
“Thank you, very much indeed. I—Why, Mrs. Flamen!” Voigt’s eyes widened, and in the same moment Flamen realized Celia had got off her lounge and come to stand silently at his elbow. “We haven’t met in ages. I’m delighted to learn of your recovery.”
“You haven’t learned the half of it,” Flamen said, and put his arm around his wife’s waist.
“Perhaps the rest is—ah—not for publication?” Voigt said. He cocked one bushy eyebrow. “Well, I’ll go back to my own personal problems now and stop bothering you. And once again my thanks for falling in with the suggestion I made.”
“What suggestion?” Celia said as the screen cleared. “I was half-dozing, I’m afraid. I didn’t hear much of what you were saying.”
“I’m back in business!” Flamen said exultantly. “And what’s more I’ve got the chance to torpedo those bastards who tried to lose me. Believe me”—he clenched his fists—“I’m going to see them go the same way as Mogshack and Mayor Black!”
NINETY-EIGHT
FAR FROM BEING EXTRAORDINARY, THE IDIOT SAVANT WHO CAN PERFORM REMARKABLE FEATS OF MENTATION WITHOUT KNOWING EITHER HOW HE DOES THEM OR WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES ARE LIKELY TO BE IS EXCESSIVELY TYPICAL OF THE SPECIES MAN
In the pleasant, air-conditioned, antiques-furnished study he maintained on the campus of the University of North Manitoba Xavier Conroy sat at his ancient electric typewriter pondering the outline for the networked lecture series he had been invited to give during the coming academic year. He was still having trouble organizing his argument; it was one thing to address a group of captive students in a relatively undistinguished university, something else again to have to try and make himself clear to millions of viewers.
He suspected the contract had been signed out of mere panic—the scandal of discovering that the director of the hemisphere’s biggest mental hospital was himself suffering from advanced megalomania had jolted everyone, including the directors of the major vu-networks, into horrified awareness of the problem of mental hygiene which previously had been smoothed over by such facile doctrines as Mogshack’s about the changing nature of normality.
Due to panic or not, though, the opportunity was too good to let slip. How best to make it clear to viewers that—?
The comweb buzzed. Turning, he saw that the screen wa
s glowing the clear yellow indicating long-distance, and he agreed to accept the call.
To his astonishment, the face of Lyla Clay appeared: pretty as ever, bearing the traces of tiredness, but breaking into a smile on seeing him.
“Miss Clay! Good lord!” He spun his chair to face her directly. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I want to come and study under you this year,” Lyla said.
There was a moment of complete silence. Eventually Conroy said, “I’m—ah—very flattered, but. …”
“Professor, I’m getting much better at controlling my talent,” Lyla said. “I haven’t taken a sibyl-pill in over a month, and I’m sensing things which …” She bit her lip. “Well, I guess I’ll have to tell you an awful lot. Can you spare the time to listen? I mean, if you say no, I’ll understand, because last time we spoke things were kind of disorganized, and if you’d rather forget the whole episode, say so.”
Conroy looked blank for a moment. Suddenly he laughed. “Miss Clay, already you impress the hell out of me. I don’t remember ever doing anything sillier in my life than standing up to Mr. Flamen and pledging my belief in what Madison was telling us, when only moments later he collapsed into permanent insanity. Oh—I’m sorry. He’d become quite a friend of yours, hadn’t he?”
“Harry Madison was not only the sanest but one of the nicest people I ever met,” Lyla said firmly. “He got me out of a terrible mess just after Dan’s death, and in spite of him being carted back to the Ginsberg I’ve been behaving the way he showed me ever since, and I’m just getting the world to jump through hoops for me. I think you’re wrong, Professor—I mean, I think you’re wrong now and you were right then.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” Conroy said after a pause.
“I’m not sure I follow myself,” Lyla shrugged. “This is something which is so—so inside me that I can’t explain it. It has something to do with having tried to make a living as a pythoness—”