by Jerry
Pearson had raised an interesting, if familiar, question, though. Why the hell was he in the SPS? Why, for that matter, was he a cop at all?
He hated to think the main reason was a silly argument with Grandpa Conway six years ago—but every time he thought the question over, he had a harder time avoiding the conclusion that he’d joined to prove his grandfather wrong.
When he’d first brought up the possibility of police work to the old man he’d merely mentioned it casually. But his grandfather had chewed him out good. He thought cops were bullies, one and all. His argument was simple: people gravitate to the positions for which they are best suited, and what better position for a bully than government-approved good? There must be something wrong with Conway to even think of such a thing. If he didn’t start out twisted, he’d wind up that way.
Well, Grandpa had been wrong. The force had many gentle, conscientious people on it who joined with the idea of protecting the underdog. But there were a surprisingly large number of bullies.
Hell—face it, Conway told himself, Pearson’s one of them.
And Pearson was right about his chances of rising high. That was the real problem with government work—it was the bullies who found their way to the top. The Chief was a bully, the lieutenant was a bully—even the Mayor was, in his own way. So even though Grandpa’s warning wasn’t quite accurate, it turned out that Conway should have listened to it anyway.
The warning might turn out to be a prophecy, though, as the bullies hung on and the others passed on . . .
His reverie was interrupted by Roth’s voice rattling at them through the radio.
“I finally got one for you,” he said. “Good Neighbor Report.”
“It took you long enough,” Pearson said.
“Hey! I’m not the only one! It’s been quiet all over the monitor room—downright spooky. Something funny’s going on . . .”
“Spare me the theories,” Pearson said. “What’s the report?”
“A good, neighborly apartment manager thinks some woman in his complex has a heaven set. He’s afraid she’ll croak herself and leave him with the disposal problem.”
Roth gave the address and Conway turned the flyer around and punched it in. While looking in the rear-view mirror he noticed that they’d picked up a few mobile cameras and happy faces. They seemed to like to follow flyers. It was almost as if—ridiculous as it sounded—they couldn’t quite shake their military habits.
On the other hand, they were shirking their duty—ignoring the NCPS directives. So, in a sense, it was an exercise of free will. And more and more happy faces seemed to be doing it every day. Conway wondered if the one he’d encountered on the way to work was among them. He hoped not.
“Hell,” Pearson said. “Even if she doesn’t try to kill herself—heaven sets are the cause of all this damn trouble and it’s against the law to own one. Should have been reported before now.”
“Let’s not go busting the apartment manager, too!” Conway protested. “Leave the little stuff alone.”
“Little!” roared Pearson. “If you ask me, having one of those damned things around ought to pull the death penalty!”
Pearson realized suddenly what he’d said and blushed. Conway laughed—inwardly—all the way to the scene of the crime.
It was a first floor flat. The manager said the woman, though young, was a sickly type who had trouble with stairs. The door was unlocked. They knocked, there was no answer, they walked in.
It was dark in there, but Conway made out a pale oval suspended in the shadows, lit by the feeble glow of the heaven set. He thought it might be a face and he stepped towards it, not thinking that would put him in the set’s field.
Conway had to sit on the floor, fast, to settle himself. He’d only experienced a heaven set once before—not enough to train himself to avoid the nausea that came when he tried to move while watching two worlds at once. He realized that the second scene was all in his mind—that no physiological laws were really being broken—but that didn’t help. Only being still helped.
He still saw, as dimly as ever, the ill-lit room, but he also saw sunlight sparkling in the dew on a grassy hill, and a young man sitting on a tree stump a little way up the hill, talking.
“. . . isn’t really that much different, Miss Hensley. Like I said, the main difference is that you completely control your own body. You could get sick if you wanted to, but who’d . . .”
Conway looked the young man over carefully. He thought he recognized him—the small, sharp nose, the squint, the collapsed chin all reminded him of someone he’d met . . . oh, maybe two years ago . . . back in the relatively relaxed days when he was on Homicide, long before there was such a thing as the SPS.
The voice was familiar, too, but changed since Conway knew the guy. The tenseness had gone out of it—only to be expected from a man who’d gone to Heaven, or wherever it was. Might as well call it Heaven. Indeed, what else could you call it?
“. . . claimed he picked up a few tricks here and there in the capacity of His Majesty King George the Third’s personal—and all that implies—lickspittle . . .”
He had it. The man was Gerald Parker, the rapist and murderer who’d caused such a panic in the city two years ago. Conway had been instrumental in his arrest and ultimate frying.
“Gerry?” Conway croaked. “Excuse me, Miss Hensley,” Gerry said, and turned to Conway. “Hi there! I had a feeling you’d show up at this set at about this time, so I volunteered to talk to Miss Hensley. I always meant to thank you for catching me and getting me electrocuted.”
“It was nothing . . .”
“Nothing! Man, this place is wonderful! Everybody loves it here—every moment’s like the moment when a part catches fire and . . . hey, you look stunned.”
“I’m just surprised to see you there,” Conway said.
“Why? It’s been four months since Kirchner invented the heaven set. Surely you must have heard by now that everybody comes here when they die—no matter what.”
“I heard it and I thought I believed it. But I guess seeing is really believing. So how are you doing, Gerry?”
“Great—same as everybody. Getting laid a lot—but you know, I had these sexual hang-ups. I lost them when I got here, and sex became truly important to me.”
“I don’t think I get that . . . wait a minute, maybe I do understand it after all!”
“Yeah. And the rejuvenation keeps you interested in the physical pleasures, too. My body was pretty rotten before I got here. Having a body in tip-top condition is very important to human happiness. While your body’s wearing out on Earth you tend to fool yourself on that subject . . . you should see the old folks caper!”
Conway became aware of all the tiny pains he usually ignored. He could feel them growing, slowly, inexorably.
“What about God?” Pearson’s voice asked abruptly.
Conway’s head jerked toward the sound and he discerned Pearson’s form, also sitting on the floor. He’d completely forgotten about him, and why they were there. “Who’s that?” Gerry asked.
“My partner.”
“No, I meant . . . never mind, it was a bad joke. God is still an open question, I’m afraid. If there’s a Somebody responsible for things being this way, then He hasn’t chosen to reveal Himself yet.”
“Who’s in charge, then?” Pearson said.
“Nobody.”
“I’ll put it another way. Who sees that things get done?”
“Nobody,” Gerry repeated, shrugging. “I lost my need to push people around when I got here—everybody does. There’s not much strife. People basically do what they want. So there’s no reason for anybody to be in charge.”
“The same doubletalk,” Pearson said darkly.
“It’s no doubletalk . . .”
Conway decided to change the subject. “What else are you doing with your time?” he asked.
Gerry grinned. “Studying English history. Right now I’m learning Anglo-Saxon from t
his old guy named Aelffic. History always interested me on Earth, but you know I didn’t have much of a brain. Your mind gets a lot sharper after you die, though. I mean—I’m no Einstein now, but Aelfric and some of the other long-timers tell me that when I really need to get smarter again, it’ll happen. When are you coming to join us, Conway?”
“Uh . . . not right away. In fact, I’m supposed to be stopping that kind of thing. I don’t know how much news you get from Earth, but you must have heard of the SPS.”
Gerry laughed and dismissed the SPS with the wave of a hand.
“You guys can’t do anything,” he said. “Don’t you know that? Once Earth got a really effective way to communicate with us, the rules all changed. The End Is Nigh, Conway—can’t you tell? In a few more months . . .”
The second vision disappeared and Conway was once again fully in the dark apartment—really dark, now. He could just barely make out the body of Pearson leaning over the heaven set. He’d switched it off.
Conway pushed himself from the floor and fumbled around the wall until he hit a working light switch. Then he saw that Pearson was still bent over the set, staring at it, panting, and trembling violently.
“Pearson?” Conway called gently.
Pearson grunted, turned to stare with frightened eyes at Conway. Then he raised a boot high and smashed the set.
“A goddam rapist!” Pearson said. “I don’t believe it. The whole thing’s a fraud, and when we prove it . . .”
“You know it’s not a fraud,” Conway said.” Don’t go off the deep end on me, Pearson.”
“Gerry?” a weak female voice called from where Conway had thought he’d seen a face.
It was a face floating in a sea of blankets on the couch by the far wall. An ugly face, twisted with pain, eaten away, spitting blood. When they unwrapped her they saw that the rest of the body looked even worse.
“Cancer,” Conway guessed.
She had an old Mauser .32 in her right hand. Pearson pried it loose, pocketed it, and said. “Let’s take her in.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Conway said. “She’ll be dead in a couple days anyway!”
“I’ve had about all the shit I can take off of you, Conway. The law’s the law and we take her in.”
The law also required that they cuff her hand to foot, so she couldn’t make the attempt while they flew her to the Life Center. Pearson didn’t bother. Conway thought about congratulating him on that small display of humanity, but decided he’d better not. Maybe Pearson just forgot.
Life Center 35 was another limestone building—the mayor’s brother owned a quarry in Indiana—in the shape of a cereal box—the Chiefs cousin was a bad architect—with barred windows underlined by empty planters. It looked more or less like a prison hospital and that was more or less what it was. Force-feeding for those who could take it, and the Drip for the rest. Straight jackets. Leg chains. Rough hemp rope when they ran out of those. There were very few successful suicides in the Life Centers.
The roof, Conway thought as they hovered preparing to land, looked strangely empty. Life Centers had been the government’s main interest since the war with Tarawa ended with the islanders escaping to Heaven en masse and the military was dismantled; the lot was usually jammed.
He turned to check Miss Hensley in the back. She thrashed around, delirious, still calling for Gerry occasionally. As he reached for a pulse, the flyer’s radio came alive.
“Don’t land!” a voice—not Roth’s—said. “We’ve got a bomb threat!”
Pearson grabbed the mike. “Is this the Life Center?” he asked.
“Right. Now get off this channel. We’re trying to contact the police.”
“We are the police,” Pearson said, landing the flyer. “And we’ve got a customer for you.”
“Thank God!” the voice said. “Why can’t we raise the station?”
“What do you mean, you can’t raise the station?”
“We can’t raise the station!”
Pearson whitened. “Hang on,” he said. “I’ll try to raise them myself.” He fiddled with the radio, yelling, “Roth! Roth!”
There was no answer. Pearson called the Life Center. “Are you still there?”
“Yes. Did you get them?”
“No. What’s going on?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I suspect they may have bombed the station before hitting the Life Centers. Our informant claims they’re going to send human bombs into all thirty-five tonight.”
“They’ve never tried anything like that before.”
“Haven’t you noticed that in the past four months most people have started hating our guts? This is the night they make the big attempt to free all the suicides. Don’t tell me you haven’t been expecting it.”
“What can they do? You’ve still got your picket around the building, haven’t you?”
“A weak one. Some of the guards have deserted. One slit his throat at roll call, in front of everybody. And I don’t know what they can do, unless—hold on, I’m getting a report from the guards now . . . Jesus! Listen, can you help us?”
“Name it.”
“Take off again. I think you can help us most by sniping for us from the flyer. You’ll understand when you get in the air and can see what’s going on.”
Pearson shrugged and took the flyer back up. Conway pressed his face to the window and gasped.
At every street corner around the hospital there were crowds carrying torches. In the center of every crowd there was a large cannon and a banner. THE GREAT BLAMMO. THE GREAT SPLOTTO. T.&T., THE EXPLODING TWINS . . .
Conway pushed his needle gun through the little port designed for it and carefully aimed at those nearest the Great Blammo’s cannon, but the flyer swooped unpredictably as Pearson screamed with rage and shook the stick.
Conway thought about past “creative” fads as he aimed again. Crucifixions had been an early favorite of the more masochistic types. There had even been another circus motif once—diving from a great height into a thimblefull of water. But there had never been a fad as quick to catch on as this. Past the Great Blammo he could see, far down the street, that Life Centers 17 and 3 were also surrounded by hazy clumps of torchlight. No doubt about it, this was going to be the night.
What was really discouraging was that the crowds were making a carnival—a joke—out of the whole thing.
He squeezed off a shot and one of the men sitting on the cannon slumped. At the same time, Splotto’s cannon fired and Splotto, whooping, arms and legs flailing-, sailed into Life Center 35’s front wall. There was an explosion, then a smoky hole.
“Looks like these missiles are armed,” Conway said.
“What the hell are the guards doing?” Pearson growled.
“There are a lot more people then needles,” Conway said. “What can they do?”
There were more explosions from the back side. The building shook. Conway breathed out, aimed at the Great Blammo again, then jerked back straight in his seat as he noticed where the cannon was pointed.
It was too late to do anything about it. There was an enormous thick whack and the windows on Conway’s side were completely smeared. Conway and Pearson ducked and covered their faces, the bomb went off, the windows shattered, and the flyer spun wildly. Pearson swore and shook the controls, and gradually the spinning stopped. But they were losing altitude.
“Can you land us?” Conway said.
“Yeah. And we should land anyway. Those guards need some sort of leadership. I’m a natural leader of men.”
All things considered, Pearson did a good job landing. He put the flyer down with a wrenching thump, but he put it right where he wanted it—directly in front of the ragged line of guards. Then he jumped out.
“Why aren’t you men firing?” he yelled.
Conway turned to check their passenger again and found that the trip had been too rough for her. She’d been released. He sighed with relief and hopped out of the flyer to join Pearson.
>
Pearson had rounded up five of the guards, impressed them with his SPS uniform, and was now herding them into position to shoot at the men behind the cannon. Another cannon went off, a body sailed over their heads, and they all looked up and turned to follow it into the Life Center wall. The explosion was bigger than usual and one side of the building seemed to sag. The crowds of cannoneers cheered.
To his surprise, Conway found himself cheering inwardly, too.
The guard’s were interrupted again—this time by a large, airborne TV screen with the mayor’s face on it, sailing over no man’s land.
“Return to your homes!” the major boomed. “The city is now under martial law and . . .”
The rioters roared with laughter.
“. . . will not be prosecuted if you’re home by ten o’clock. I repeat, a general amnesty for those keeping the curfew, but severe penalties for those . . .”
“Fire!” Pearson yelled. The guards fired. A few men dropped. Others took their place.
Another body tumbled over Conway’s head, but he no longer found the sight discouraging. In fact, he was exhilarated. Why bother sticking around in a world with Pearsons in it?
So this is how they feel, he thought. I wonder why it took me so long.
One of the guards apparently had the same revelation, for he pushed himself up from the prone position and started to walk away. Pearson grabbed him, spun him around, pulled Miss Hensley’s .32 from his pocket and waved it in the guard’s face.
“Go ahead,” the guard said, smiling. “Do me a favor.”
Conway stepped in front of Pearson.
“Go on home, guys,” he said. “This is pointless.”
“What are you talking about!” Pearson yelled. “We’ve got a job to do!”
The guards were all walking away now. Pearson watched them for a minute, then turned back to Conway and smashed his fist into Conway’s face.
As Conway lay on the ground, listening to his head pound and feeling the blood from his cut forehead trickle into his eye, he looked with his other eye at Pearson standing over him, panting and quaking as he had over the heaven set he’d smashed. The sight made Conway feel strangely gleeful.