Checking his watch, he added, “So for the past four, four and a half minutes Haflinger has been behind that stretch one-way mirror, seeing and hearing everything in this room. As I say, he must be very pleased.”
EXCERPT FROM A NEWS BULLETIN
“… a blow dealt to the hopes of those who were confidently forecasting this academic year would be relatively free of student unrest. Convinced that one of their number, missing since a week ago, has been kidnaped by government agents, a mob of fifteen hundred students today tribaled more than half of the thirty-nine police fireposts on campus at UMKC. As yet no count of casualties came to hand, but …”
ATAVISM
Facing Rico Posta, Ina felt her cheeks grow pale. But she maintained her voice at normal pitch and volume.
“Rico, whatever you and the rest of the board may say, Kate is my daughter. You punch for a double-check on those phony reports about her using her code at Interim.”
“Who says they’re phony?”
“Our own computers say so!”
“Uh-uh. A program written by one Sandy Locke says so, and he turned out to be a twitch and—”
“While he was saving us a couple of million a year you didn’t think he was a twitch. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been among the first to say he should be permed.”
“Well, I …”
She leaned earnestly forward.
“Rico, something muddy’s going on. You know it, though you haven’t admitted it to yourself. Did you try asking for data about Sandy recently?”
“As a matter of fact—yes.”
“And there aren’t any, are there? Not even a report of his death!”
“I guess he could have left the country.”
“Passport?”
There was a silence that crackled like the harbinger of an electrical storm.
Ina said at last, “Ever read a book called 1984?”
“Sure, in a college literature class.” Rico pursed his lips and gazed into nowhere. “I get what you mean. You think he’s been—uh—declared an unperson.”
“Right. And I think they’ve done the same to Kate.”
“I …” He had to swallow. “I guess I wouldn’t put it past them, knowing what one does about that gang in Washington. Say, you know something? I get nightmares now and then. About how I punch my code into a board and the signal comes back: deeveed!”
Ina said, “Me too. And I can’t believe we’re the only ones.”
STARTING TO GROW AGAIN
Since they quit shaving his scalp daily it had begun to itch. So far he had resisted the temptation to scratch, but he was compelled to rub now and then. To the onlookers, whom he knew to exist though he was not aware of their identity, he imagined that he might perhaps give the impression of being puzzled by the information he was taking in. He was watching a three-vee news broadcast. He’d spent much of his time catching up with the world since he was transferred to these more comfortable quarters.
In fact he was not in the least disoriented by what he learned. There were different items to report—another realignment of alliances in Latin America, a fresh outburst of unauthorized jehad in the Yemen, a new product about which the FDA was expressing doubts, something called an A-C Group Granulyser used in upgrading vegetable protein to compete with meat …
But the habit patterns, inevitably, had survived. To the air, with a wry grin, he murmured, “How long, O Lord? How long?”
In his private estimation: not long now.
And, as though on cue, the lock of the door clicked. He glanced around, expecting one of the usual armed men in white come to take him elsewhere.
To his surprise, however, the visitor was Freeman. And alone.
He carefully closed the door before speaking; when he did so, it was in a perfectly neutral tone.
“You probably noticed that I authorized the delivery of some refreshments to your quarters last night. I need a stiff drink. Make it whisky on the rocks.”
“I take it you’re not here?”
“What? Oh!” Freeman gave a hideous grin; his facial skin stretched so tight over his bones that it threatened to tear. “Quite correct. The monitors are being fed a wholly convincing set of lies.”
“Then—congratulations.”
“What do you mean?”
“This took a lot of courage on your part. Most people lack the guts to disobey an immoral order.”
Slowly, over several seconds, Freeman’s grin transformed into a smile.
“Goddamn,” he said. “Haflinger or whatever you’d rather call yourself. I fought like hell to stay objective, and I didn’t make it. Turns out I kind of like you. I can’t help it.”
Angrily he kicked around a chair and slumped into it.
A few moments later, over full glasses:
“Tell me something. What reflex got punched by whom to trigger this reaction?”
Freeman bridled. “No need to gibe at me. You can’t take credit for everything that’s happened inside my head.”
“At least you say credit, not blame … I suspect you found out you hate the people who give you your orders.”
“Ah … Yes. I got loaded with my final straw when they decided to bring Kate here. You were right about it not being my idea. So I did as I was told, neither more nor less.”
“So Hartz blasted you for not being smarter than he is. Galling, isn’t it?”
“Worse. Much worse.” Cradling his glass in bony fingers, Freeman leaned forward, staring at nothing. “All argument aside, I do believe that we need wisdom. Need it desperately. I have a conception of how it would be manifest. Hartz doesn’t have it. I think you do. And as to Kate …” The words trailed away.
“Kate Lilleberg is wise. No question of it.”
“I’m obliged to agree.” With a trace of defiance. “And because of it—well, you’ve seen.”
“What else would you expect? I don’t mean that sarcastically, by the way. Just as my recruitment to Tarnover was predictable once they learned of my existence, so her arrest was predictable when I led them to her.”
After a fractional hesitation Freeman said, “I get the idea you stopped classing me as one of them.”
“You absconded, didn’t you?”
“Hah! I guess I did.” He emptied his glass and waved aside the offer of a refill. “No, I’ll fix it. I know where … But it isn’t right, it can’t be right! What the hell did she do to deserve indefinite detention without trial, being interrogated until her soul is as naked as her body? We went off the track somewhere. It shouldn’t have turned out this way.”
“You think I may have notions about a different way?”
“Sure.” This response was crisp and instant. “And I want to hear them. I’ve lost my bearings. Right now I don’t know where in the world I am. You may find it hard to believe, but—well, I’ve always had an article of faith in my personal universe to the effect that maximizing information flow is objectively good. I mean being frank, and open, and candid, telling the truth as you see it regardless of the consequences.” A harsh laugh. “A shrink I know keeps insisting it’s overcompensation for the way I was taught to hide my body as a kid. I was raised to undress in the dark, sneak in and out the bathroom when nobody was looking, run like hell when I flushed the can for fear someone would notice me and think about what I’d done in there … Ah, maybe the poker’s partly right. Anyhow, I grew up to be a top-rank interrogator, dedicated to extracting information from people without torture and with the least possible amount of suffering. Phrase it that way and it sounds defensible, doesn’t it?”
“Of course. But it’s a different matter when the data you uncover are earmarked for concealment all over again, this time becoming the private property of those in power.”
“That’s it.” Freeman resumed his chair, fresh ice cubes tinkling in his refilled glass. “I took on the assignment to interrogate you like any other assignment. The list of charges against you was long enough, and there was one in particular tha
t touched me on a sore spot. Feeding false data into the net, naturally. On top of which I’d heard about you. I moved here only three years ago—from Weychopee, incidentally, the place you know as ‘Electric Skillet’—and even then there was vague gossip among the students about some poker who once faded into the air and never got caught. You’ve become a sort of legend, did you know?”
“Anybody copying my example?”
Freeman shook his head. “They made it tougher to bow out. And maybe no one since your day has turned up with the same type of talent.”
“If so, doubtless he or she would have been drawn to your notice. You’re a person of considerable standing, aren’t you, Dr. Freeman? Or is it Mr. Freeman? I seem to have your measure pretty accurately. I’ll stab for ‘mister.’ ”
“Correct. My degrees are scholarates, not mere doctorates. I’ve always been very proud of that. Like surgeons over in Britain, taking offense at being called Dr. So-and -so. … But it’s irrelevant, it’s superfluous, it’s silly! Know what hit me hardest when I listened to your account of Precipice?”
“Tell me.”
“The dense texture of people’s lives. Filled out instead of being fined down. I’m trained in three disciplines, but I haven’t broadened out as a person from that base. I’ve fined down, focusing all I know along one narrow line.”
“That’s what’s wrong with Tarnover, isn’t it?”
“I—I half see what you mean. Amplify, please.”
“Well, you once defended Tarnover with the argument that it’s designed to provide an optimal environment for people so well adjusted to the rapid change of modern society that they can be trusted to plan for others as well as for themselves. Or words to that effect. But it’s not happening, is it? Why? Because it’s still under the overriding control of people who, craving power, achieved it by the same old methods they used in—hell, for all I know, in predynastic Egypt. For them there’s only one way to outstrip somebody who’s overtaking you. Go faster. But this is the space age, remember. And the other day I hit on a metaphor that neatly sums my point.”
He quoted the case of two bodies each in circular orbit.
Freeman looked faintly surprised. “But everybody knows—” he began, and then checked. “Oh. No, not everybody. I wish I’d thought of that. I’d have liked to ask Hartz.”
“I’m sure. But think it through. Not everybody knows. In this age of unprecedented information flow, people are haunted by the belief they’re actually ignorant. The stock excuse is that this is because there’s literally too much to be known.”
Freeman said defensively, “It’s true.” And sipped his whisky.
“Granted. But isn’t there another factor that does far more damage? Don’t we daily grow more aware that data exist which we’re not allowed to get at?”
“You said something about that before.” Freeman’s forehead creased with concentration. “A brand-new reason for paranoia, wasn’t that it? But if I’m to accept that you’re right, then … Damnation, it sounds as though you’re determined to deevee every single course of action we’ve taken in the past half century.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s out of the question!” Freeman straightened in dismay.
“No, that’s an illusion. A function of a wrongly chosen viewpoint. Take it by steps. Try the holist approach, which you used to decry. Think of the world as a unit, and the developed—the over-developed—nations as analogous to Tarnover, or better yet to Trianon. And think of the most successful of the less-rich countries as akin to those P-A communities which began under such unpromising circumstances yet which are turning out to be more tolerable places to live than most other cities on the continent. In short, what I’m talking about is Project Parsimony writ large: the discontinuation of an experiment that cost far too much to set up and hasn’t paid off.”
Freeman pondered for a long while. At last he said, “If I were to agree that you’re right, or even partly right, what would you expect me to do?”
“Well—ah … Well, you could start by letting me and Kate go.”
This silence was full of struggle. Eventually, with abrupt decision, Freeman drained his glass and rose, feeling in the side pocket of his jacket. From it he produced a flat gray plastic case, the size of his palm.
“It’s not a regular portable calculator,” he said in a brittle voice. “It’s a veephone. Screen’s under the lid. Flex and jack inside. There are phone points there, there and there.” Pointing to three corners of the room. “But don’t do anything until you get a code to do it with.”
AT THE DISSOLUTION
What was I saying about overcompensation?
There had been a lot of whisky, of course, and he was unused to drinking.
But am I drunk? I don’t feel I am. More, it’s that without being partly stonkered I couldn’t endure the torrent of dreadful truth that’s storming through my brain. What Hartz said to me. What Bosch almost said, only he managed to check himself. But I know damn well what he substituted with “nonspecialist.” Why should I spend the rest of my life knuckling under to liars like Bosch? Claiming the dogs they have at Precipice can’t exist! And blockheads like Hartz are even worse. Expecting the people they lord it over to think of things they aren’t smart enough to think of themselves, then denying that the fault is theirs!
Carefully Freeman locked his apartment, setting the don’t-disturb signs: one on the door, one on each of the veephones.
Now if I can just find my way to the index of reserved codes activated when they surpled 4GH … From Tarnover if from anywhere it should be possible to pull one out and upgrade it to status U-for-unquestionable. That’s the best trick of all. If Haflinger had latched on to it he need never have been caught.
Owlishly, but with full command of his not inconsiderable faculties—more important, not obliged to make do with the limited and potentially fallible input of a pocket veephone such as the one with which doubtless Haflinger would shortly be performing his own personal brand of miracle—he sat down to his data console. He wrote, then rewrote, then rewrote, a trial program on tape that could be tidily erased. As he worked he found himself more and more haunted by a tantalizing idea.
I could leech three codes as easily as two. ….
Eventually the program was status go, but before feeding it he said to the air, “Why not?” And checked how many codes were currently on reserve. The answer was of the order of a hundred thousand. Only about five depts would have dug into the store since it was ordained, so …
Why the hell not? Here I am pushing forty, and what have I done with my life? I have talents, intelligence, ambition. Going to waste! I hoped I’d be useful to society. I expected to spend my time dragging criminals and traitors into the light of day, exposing them to the contumely of honest citizens. Instead the biggest criminals of all escape scot-free and people like Kate who never harmed anybody … Oh, shit! I stopped being an investigator years ago. What I am now is an inquisitor. And I’ve lost all faith in the justice of my church.
He gave a sudden harsh laugh, made one final tiny amendment to his tape, and offered it up to the input.
THE INFLUENCE OF AFFLUENCE
“For the convenience of the lazy plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn were converted into a daily allowance of bread … and when the popular clamor accused the dearness and scarcity of wine … rigid sobriety was insensibly relaxed; and although the generous design of Aurelian does not appear to have been executed in its full extent, the use of wine was allowed on very easy and liberal terms … and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. … But the most lively and splendid amusement of the idle multitude depended on the frequent exhibition of public games and spectacles … the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race.”
Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?
LET NOT THY WRONG HEAD KNOW WHAT
THY RIGHT HEAD DOETH
Having completed his preparations, he disconnected the phone that had proved so invaluable, folded it, concealed it tidily in the inside pocket of his issue jacket. Then he hung that over a chair back, completed undressing normally, and went to bed at approximately his regular time.
What followed was a miniature—a microcosm—of his life, condensed into a span of no more than thirty-five minutes.
At an unidentifiable time of night one of the silent anonymous white-garbed escorts roused him and instructed him to dress quickly and come along, unperturbed by this departure from routine because for him routine might be expected to consist in unpredictability. It was, had been for centuries, a cheap and simple means of deranging persons under interrogation.
He led the way to a room with two doors, otherwise featureless apart from a bench. That was as far as his orders told him to go; with a curt command to sit down and wait, he departed.
There was a short period of silence. Finally the other door opened and a dumpy woman entered, yawning. She carried clothing in a plastic sack and a clipboard with a form on it. Grumpily she requested him to sign it; he did so, using the name she was expecting, which was not his own. Satisfied, yawning more widely than ever, she went out.
He changed into the garments she had brought: a white jersey shirt, blue-gray pants, blue jacket—well-fitting, unremarkable, unmemorable. Bundling up what he had worn in the sack, he went out the same way she had gone, and was in a corridor with several doors leading off it. After passing three of them, two to right and one to left, he arrived at a waste-reclamation chute and rid himself of his burden. Two doors farther along was an office, not locked. It was equipped with, among other things, a computer terminal. He tapped one key on its input board.
Remotely locked, a drawer slid open in an adjacent file stack. Among the contents of the drawer were temporary ID cards of the type issued to visitors on official business.