American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58

by Gary K. Wolfe

  I shook my head and tried to put the nightmares out of my mind. “But he’s going to recover?”

  “Doc says that the drug does not alter the brain structure; it just paralyzes it. He says that eventually the blood stream picks up and carries away all of the dope; it reaches the kidneys and passes out of the body. But it takes time.” Dak looked up at me. “Chief?”

  “Eh? About time to knock off that ‘Chief ’ stuff, isn’t it? He’s back.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Would it be too much trouble to you to keep up the impersonation just a little while longer?”

  “But why? There’s nobody here but just us chickens.”

  “That’s not quite true. Lorenzo, we’ve managed to keep this secret awfully tight. There’s me, there’s you.” He ticked it off on his fingers. “There’s Doc and Rog and Bill. And Penny, of course. There’s a man by the name of Langston back Earthside whom you’ve never met. I think Jimmie Washington suspects but he wouldn’t tell his own mother the right time of day. We don’t know how many took part in the kidnaping, but not many, you can be sure. In any case, they don’t dare talk—and the joke of it is they no longer could prove that he had ever been missing even if they wanted to. But my point is this: here in the Tommie we’ve got all the crew and all the idlers not in on it. Old son, how about staying with it and letting yourself be seen each day by crewmen and by Jimmie Washington’s girls and such—while he gets well? Huh?”

  “Mmm . . . I don’t see why not. How long will it be?”

  “Just the trip back. We’ll take it slow, at an easy boost. You’ll enjoy it.”

  “Okay. Dak, don’t figure this into my fee. I’m doing this piece of it just because I hate brainwashing.”

  Dak bounced up and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re my kind of people, Lorenzo. Don’t worry about your fee; you’ll be taken care of.” His manner changed. “Very well, Chief. See you in the morning, sir.”

  But one thing leads to another. The boost we had started on Dak’s return was a mere shift of orbits, to one farther out where there would be little chance of a news service sending up a shuttle for a follow-up story. I woke up in free fall, took a pill, and managed to eat breakfast. Penny showed up shortly thereafter. “Good morning, Mr. Bonforte.”

  “Good morning, Penny.” I inclined my head in the direction of the guest room. “Any news?”

  “No, sir. About the same. Captain’s compliments and would it be too much trouble for you to come to his cabin?”

  “Not at all.” Penny followed me in. Dak was there, with his heels hooked to his chair to stay in place; Rog and Bill were strapped to the couch.

  Dak looked around and said, “Thanks for coming in, Chief. We need some help.”

  “Good morning. What is it?”

  Clifton answered my greeting with his usual dignified deference and called me Chief; Corpsman nodded. Dak went on, “To clean this up in style you should make one more appearance.”

  “Eh? I thought——”

  “Just a second. The networks were led to expect a major speech from you today, commenting on yesterday’s event. I thought Rog intended to cancel it, but Bill has the speech worked up. Question is, will you deliver it?”

  The trouble with adopting a cat is that they always have kittens. “Where? Goddard City?”

  “Oh no. Right in your cabin. We beam it to Phobos; they can it for Mars and also put it on the high circuit for New Batavia, where the Earth nets will pick it up and where it will be relayed for Venus, Ganymede, et cetera. Inside of four hours it will be all over the system but you’ll never have to stir out of your cabin.”

  There is something very tempting about a grand network. I had never been on one but once and that time my act got clipped down to the point where my face showed for only twenty-seven seconds. But to have one all to myself——

  Dak thought I was reluctant and added, “It won’t be a strain, as we are equipped to can it right here in the Tommie. Then we can project it first and clip out anything if necessary.”

  “Well—all right. You have the script, Bill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me check it.”

  “What do you mean? You’ll have it in plenty of time.”

  “Isn’t that it in your hand?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then let me read it.”

  Corpsman looked annoyed. “You’ll have it an hour before we record. These things go better if they sound spontaneous.”

  “Sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation, Bill. It’s my trade. I know.”

  “You did all right at the skyfield yesterday without a rehearsal. This is just more of the same old hoke; I want you to do it the same way.”

  Bonforte’s personality was coming through stronger the longer Corpsman stalled; I think Clifton could see that I was about to cloud up and storm, for he said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Bill! Hand him the speech.”

  Corpsman snorted and threw the sheets at me. In free fall they sailed but the air spread them wide. Penny gathered them together, sorted them, and gave them to me. I thanked her, said nothing more, and started to read.

  I skimmed through it in a fraction of the time it would take to deliver it. Finally I finished and looked up.

  “Well?” said Rog.

  “About five minutes of this concerns the adoption. The rest is an argument for the policies of the Expansionist Party. Pretty much the same as I’ve heard in the speeches you’ve had me study.”

  “Yes,” agreed Clifton. “The adoption is the hook we hang the rest on. As you know, we expect to force a vote of confidence before long.”

  “I understand. You can’t miss this chance to beat the drum. Well, it’s all right, but——”

  “But what? What’s worrying you?”

  “Well—characterization. In several places the wording should be changed. It’s not the way he would express it.”

  Corpsman exploded with a word unnecessary in the presence of a lady; I gave him a cold glance. “Now see here, Smythe,” he went on, “who knows how Bonforte would say it? You? Or the man who has been writing his speeches the past four years?”

  I tried to keep my temper; he had a point. “It is nevertheless the case,” I answered, “that a line which looks okay in print may not deliver well. Mr. Bonforte is a great orator, I have already learned. He belongs with Webster, Churchill, and Demosthenes—a rolling grandeur expressed in simple words. Now take this word ‘intransigent,’ which you have used twice. I might say that, but I have a weakness for polysyllables; I like to exhibit my literary erudition. But Mr. Bonforte would say ‘stubborn’ or ‘mulish’ or ‘pigheaded.’ The reason he would is, naturally, that they convey emotion much more effectively.”

  “You see that you make the delivery effective! I’ll worry about the words.”

  “You don’t understand, Bill. I don’t care whether the speech is politically effective or not; my job is to carry out a characterization. I can’t do that if I put into the mouth of the character words that he would never use; it would sound as forced and phony as a goat spouting Greek. But if I read the speech in words he would use, it will automatically be effective. He’s a great orator.”

  “Listen, Smythe, you’re not hired to write speeches. You’re hired to——”

  “Hold it, Bill!” Dak cut in. “And a little less of that ‘Smythe’ stuff, too. Well, Rog? How about it?”

  Clifton said, “As I understand it, Chief, your only objection is to some of the phrasing?”

  “Well, yes. I’d suggest cutting out that personal attack on Mr. Quiroga, too, and the insinuation about his financial backers. It doesn’t sound like real Bonforte to me.”

  He looked sheepish. “That’s a bit I put in myself. But you may be right. He always gives a man the benefit of the doubt.” He remained silent for a moment. “You make the changes you think you have to. We’ll can it and look at the playback. We can always clip it—or even cancel completely ‘du
e to technical difficulties.’” He smiled grimly. “That’s what we’ll do, Bill.”

  “Damn it, this is a ridiculous example of——”

  “That’s how it is going to be, Bill.”

  Corpsman left the room very suddenly. Clifton sighed. “Bill always has hated the notion that anybody but Mr. B. could give him instructions. But he’s an able man. Uh, Chief, how soon can you be ready to record? We patch in at sixteen hundred.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be ready in time.”

  Penny followed me back into my office. When she closed the door I said, “I won’t need you for the next hour or so, Penny child. But you might ask Doc for more of those pills. I may need them.”

  “Yes, sir.” She floated with her back to the door. “Chief?”

  “Yes, Penny?”

  “I just wanted to say don’t believe what Bill said about writing his speeches!”

  “I didn’t. I’ve heard his speeches—and I’ve read this.”

  “Oh, Bill does submit drafts, lots of times. So does Rog. I’ve even done it myself. He—he will use ideas from anywhere if he thinks they are good. But when he delivers a speech, it is his, every word of it.”

  “I believe you. I wish he had written this one ahead of time.”

  “You just do your best!”

  I did. I started out simply substituting synonyms, putting in the gutty Germanic words in place of the “intestinal” Latin jawbreakers. Then I got excited and red in the face and tore it to pieces. It’s a lot of fun for an actor to mess around with lines; he doesn’t get the chance very often.

  I used no one but Penny for my audience and made sure from Dak that I was not being tapped elsewhere in the ship— though I suspect that the big-boned galoot cheated on me and listened in himself. I had Penny in tears in the first three minutes; by the time I finished (twenty-eight and a half minutes, just time for station announcements) she was limp. I took no liberties with the straight Expansionist doctrine, as proclaimed by its official prophet, the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte; I simply reconstructed his message and his delivery, largely out of phrases from other speeches.

  Here’s an odd thing—I believed every word of it while I was talking.

  But, brother, I made a speech!

  Afterwards we all listened to the playback, complete with full stereo of myself. Jimmie Washington was present, which kept Bill Corpsman quiet. When it was over I said, “How about it, Rog? Do we need to clip anything?”

  He took his cigar out of his mouth and said, “No. If you want my advice, Chief, I’d say to let it go as it is.”

  Corpsman left the room again—but Mr. Washington came over with tears leaking out of his eyes—tears are a nuisance in free fall; there’s nowhere for them to go. “Mr. Bonforte, that was beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Jimmie.”

  Penny could not talk at all.

  I turned in after that; a top-notch performance leaves me fagged. I slept for more than eight hours, then was awakened by the hooter. I had strapped myself to my bunk—I hate to float around while sleeping in free fall—so I did not have to move. But I had not known that we were getting under way so I called the control room between first and second warning. “Captain Broadbent?”

  “Just a moment, sir,” I heard Epstein answer.

  Then Dak’s voice came over. “Yes, Chief? We are getting under way on schedule—pursuant to your orders.”

  “Eh? Oh yes, certainly.”

  “I believe Mr. Clifton is on his way to your cabin.”

  “Very well, Captain.” I lay back and waited.

  Immediately after we started to boost at one gee Rog Clifton came in; he had a worried look on his face I could not interpret —equal parts of triumph, worry, and confusion. “What is it, Rog?”

  “Chief! They’ve jumped the gun on us! The Quiroga government has resigned!”

  VII

  I was still logy with sleep; I shook my head to try to clear it.

  “What are you in such a spin about, Rog? That’s what you were trying to accomplish, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, of course. But——” He stopped.

  “But what? I don’t get it. Here you chaps have been working and scheming for years to bring about this very thing. Now you’ve won—and you look like a bride who isn’t sure she wants to go through with it. Why? The no-good-nicks are out and now God’s chillun get their innings. No?”

  “Uh—you haven’t been in politics much.”

  “You know I haven’t. I got trimmed when I ran for patrol leader in my scout troop. That cured me.”

  “Well, you see, timing is everything.”

  “So my father always told me. Look here, Rog, do I gather that if you had your druthers you’d druther Quiroga was still in office? You said he had ‘jumped the gun.’”

  “Let me explain. What we really wanted was to move a vote of confidence and win it, and thereby force a general election on them—but at our own time, when we estimated that we could win the election.”

  “Oh. And you don’t figure you can win now? You think Quiroga will go back into office for another five years—or at least the Humanity Party will?”

  Clifton looked thoughtful. “No, I think our chances are pretty good to win the election.”

  “Eh? Maybe I’m not awake yet. Don’t you want to win?”

  “Of course. But don’t you see what this resignation has done to us?”

  “I guess I don’t.”

  “Well, the government in power can order a general election at any time up to the constitutional limitation of five years. Ordinarily they will go to the people when the time seems most favorable to them. But they don’t resign between the announcement and the election unless forced to. You follow me?”

  I realized that the event did seem odd, little attention as I paid to politics. “I believe so.”

  “But in this case Quiroga’s government scheduled a general election, then resigned in a body, leaving the Empire without a government. Therefore the sovereign must call on someone else to form a ‘caretaker’ government to serve until the election. By the letter of the law he can ask any member of the Grand Assembly, but as a matter of strict constitutional precedent he has no choice. When a government resigns in a body— not just reshuffling portfolios but quits as a whole—then the sovereign must call on the leader of the opposition to form the ‘caretaker’ government. It’s indispensable to our system; it keeps resigning from being just a gesture. Many other methods have been tried in the past; under some of them governments were changed as often as underwear. But our present system insures responsible government.”

  I was so busy trying to see the implications that I almost missed his next remark. “So, naturally, the Emperor has summoned Mr. Bonforte to New Batavia.”

  “Eh? New Batavia? Well!” I was thinking that I had never seen the Imperial capital. The one time I had been on the Moon the vicissitudes of my profession had left me without time or money for the side trip. “Then that is why we got under way? Well, I certainly don’t mind. I suppose you can always find a way to send me home if the Tommie doesn’t go back to Earth soon.”

  “What? Good heavens, don’t worry about that now. When the time comes, Captain Broadbent can find any number of ways to deliver you home.”

  “Sorry. I forget that you have more important matters on your mind, Rog. Sure, I’m anxious to get home now that the job is done. But a few days, or even a month, on Luna would not matter. I have nothing pressing me. But thanks for taking time to tell me the news.” I searched his face. “Rog, you look worried as hell.”

  “Don’t you see? The Emperor has sent for Mr. Bonforte. The Emperor, man! And Mr. Bonforte is in no shape to appear at an audience. They have risked a gambit—and perhaps trapped us in a checkmate!”

  “Eh? Now wait a minute. Slow up. I see what you are driving at—but, look, friend, we aren’t at New Batavia. We’re a hundred million miles away, or two hundred million, or whatever it is. Doc Capek will have
him wrung out and ready to speak his piece by then. Won’t he?”

  “Well—we hope so.”

  “But you aren’t sure?”

  “We can’t be sure. Capek says that there is little clinical data on such massive doses. It depends on the individual’s body chemistry and on the exact drug used.”

  I suddenly remembered a time when an understudy had slipped me a powerful purgative just before a performance. (But I went on anyhow, which proves the superiority of mind over matter—then I got him fired.) “Rog—they gave him that last, unnecessarily big dose not just out of simple sadism—but to set up this situation!”

  “I think so. So does Capek.”

  “Hey! In that case it would mean that Quiroga himself is the man behind the kidnaping—and that we’ve had a gangster running the Empire!”

  Rog shook his head. “Not necessarily. Not even probably. But it would indeed mean that the same forces who control the Actionists also control the machinery of the Humanity Party. But you will never pin anything on them; they are unreachable, ultrarespectable. Nevertheless, they could send word to Quiroga that the time had come to roll over and play dead—and have him do it. Almost certainly,” he added, “without giving him a hint of the real reason why the moment was timely.”

  “Criminy! Do you mean to tell me that the top man in the Empire would fold up and quit, just like that? Because somebody behind the scenes ordered him to?”

  “I’m afraid that is just what I do think.”

  I shook my head. “Politics is a dirty game!”

  “No,” Clifton answered insistently. “There is no such thing as a dirty game. But you sometimes run into dirty players.”

  “I don’t see the difference.”

  “There is a world of difference. Quiroga is a third-rater and a stooge—in my opinion, a stooge for villains. But there is nothing third-rate about John Joseph Bonforte and he has never, ever been a stooge for anyone. As a follower, he believed in the cause; as the leader, he has led from conviction!”