London eased himself into a chair. “Does her sister know yet?”
O’Brien tipped his head to one side while he tugged at an ear lobe. “I told Marie. All she’d say was that it was long overdue.”
“No love lost there.”
“None at all, evidently.”
“How did Janus get that list?”
“I gave it to him.”
“And the eight-one on the list?”
O’Brien shrugged. “They’ll be reported as evading work order.”
“They’re probably already working in Bu-Con.”
“Certainly.” O’Brien shook his head. “But look at the beauty of the way Movius operates.”
London assumed a sour expression. “How much of this deviousness is aimed at us? What’s he doing today?”
“He’s out with Janus. I don’t quite get the significance of it. Janus called in shortly before you arrived. Movius has been picking up electronics techs, talking with them in the rear of the Bu-Trans van while Janus drives around. One of the men he’s met is an old friend from Comp Section named Phil Henry. We don’t have a single line on this Henry. An apparently insignificant person.”
“Did you alert Janus to the fact he may have to knock off Movius?”
“Yes. That was really why I had him call.”
London sat back in his chair, staring out from under his heavy brows at O’Brien. “you’re been saving some little morsel, Nathan. I know the signs.”
O’Brien smiled. “I’ve a report from Cecelia Lang. Glass is ready to make a deal with Gerard in return for Movius’ hide. Glass is really frightened.”
“What if Gerard goes along with it?” London became thoughtful, answered his own question. “That would save us the trouble, give us a martyr. Martyrs have been valuable to other revolts—Nathan Hale … Juarez … Lenin …”
Chapter Twenty
Janus Peterson sat across from Movius and Grace in their apartment. He seemed uncomfortable, kept looking out the window at the dusk settling over the city. “I had to come back and tell you. I’ve been thinking for two days now.”
Movius sat on the arm of Grace’s chair, a hand loosely across her shoulders. “What else, Janus?”
“That’s most of it, Dan. I’ve been working for O’Brien eight years now. I guess I’ve always held your opinion of him—a cold-blooded fish thinking of nothing but his charts.”
“He never got things really unified and moving, though,” said Movius.
“Not the way you’re doing. He always kept putting us off, saying the time wasn’t yet, be patient.”
“When did you run out of patience?”
“When he explained how I might have to pull the trigger, that he was going to get rid of you when you’d served your purpose. I started wondering if I’d wake up some day and find out I’d served my purpose.”
“A lot of people feel that way,” said Movius.
“Revolution is a mean business,” said Peterson.
“Not that mean,” said Grace. She looked up at Movius. “If you destroy all human values, you wind up right where you started. That’s why I’m backing Dan instead of my father.”
“And brother shall be turned against brother and the child against the father,” said Movius.
“What’s that?” asked Peterson.
“Something I heard a pastor say once.”
Peterson hauled his thick bulk out of the chair. “I’ll be shoving off.” He grinned at Movius. “I’ve a little of your work that needs doing.”
“Did you get the word to Phil Henry?”
“I sent a man right after I left you before.”
Movius got to his feet. “Thanks for coming clean with me, Janus. Will you explain to the others that I understand how it is?”
“We knew you would,” said Peterson. “We talked it over before I came back here.”
“He does understand,” said Grace. “That’s why we need him.”
Peterson gave Grace a piercing look. “Just see that nobody,” he emphasized the word, pausing after it, “gets in here who don’t belong in here.” He propelled his huge body toward the door, opened it as the chimes rang.
Over Peterson’s shoulder, Movius caught a glimpse of Navvy’s face. Peterson suddenly thrust himself against Navvy, there was a short scuffle; Peterson pulled away, exposing Navvy, who was rubbing his wrist. “Don’t try them tricks on the man who taught ’em to you,” said Peterson. He pocketed a fap gun.
Navvy’s face was flushed. “I came to find out.”
Peterson took Navvy by the collar, hauled him inside, shut the door. “Find out what?”
“If she is.” He looked at his sister. Grace was standing beside Movius.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “O’Brien loaned us a car today and I let Navvy bring me in the building, the basement driveway, with it. I assumed he’d got right on out. He’s been waiting to come up here instead.”
Movius nodded.
“You want to find out if your sister is what?” demanded Peterson.
“Like O’Brien said.”
“What did O’Brien say?”
“That she was pregnant and had gone back on us.”
“O’Brien’s a cold potato who needs more time in the fire,” said Peterson. “Dan knows all about him and your father and about you and Grace, too!” He propelled Navvy roughly into the room. “I got a question for you, Navvy London.”
Navvy didn’t look at him, stared from Movius to Grace, back to Movius.
“How long you figure it’ll be before your father or O’Brien tosses you into some hot spot that suits their high and mighty convenience?” demanded Peterson.
A pouting look came onto Navvy’s face. It was unlike him and it surprised Movius.
In a stiff manner, Navvy said, “I’m ready to serve wherever I’m needed.”
Peterson curled his lip. “All self-sacrifice. Now ain’t that pretty?” He raised his voice to a near bellow. “And what kind of government do you think their kind’d set up? I’ll tell you what kind! One where you or me wouldn’t count, where everybody’d be expected to give in to the needs of whoever was running things.” Peterson grabbed Navvy’s shoulder, shook him. “You dumb head! What kind of a Sep do you think you are? That’s the kind of government we got now!” He pushed Navvy farther into a chair.
“I never thought,” said Navvy, sinking into a chair.
“Of course you never thought!” growled Peterson. “That’s the trouble with us. We never thought because we believed that smart thinking could solve everything—somebody else’s thinking.”
Chapter Twenty-one
O’Brien’s male secretary opened the door softly, peered in at his boss. The Bu-Psych chief stood at the table which served him as a desk, working with a circular slide rule, pausing to jot notations onto a sheet of paper. Beads of perspiration went unnoticed on his cheeks below the greying temples.
“Movius is downstairs,” said the secretary.
O’Brien looked up. “Movius?” It was as though he didn’t know the name. Then, “Movius!”
The secretary nodded. “His driver just let him out. He walked right in and asked to see you.”
O’Brien moved around to his chair, sat down, tugged at his ear. “Well, send him up then.” He managed to look surprised when the secretary ushered Movius into the room. “Something special to report?”
Movius looked down at O’Brien. “No remarks about coming to you openly like this? No recriminations?”
“Who needs to know why you’re here?”
“Perhaps Quilliam London,” said Movius. He sat down across from O’Brien, enjoying the way the man glowered at him. “You rather upset Quilliam the other night. You should be more considerate.” He stared at O’Brien until the latter looked away. “That’s often the trouble with psychological people—so much logic that they have no human feelings.”
“Why are you here?” asked O’Brien.
“For advice. My informants tell me Glass is r
eady to make a deal with Gerard. I’m the price.”
“Your infor—”
“Some of them used to be your informants,” said Movius. “I want to know how desperately you feel about this crisis?”
O’Brien sighed. “You really want to know, do you?” He stood up, went to the big chart. “Look at this.” He pointed. “This blue line is the course of civilization. Here’s the Greeks. This bump’s the Romans. Back here’s the Chinese. Here are the Mongols. Genghis Khan here … Kublai Khan on this slope. This is the Anglo-American. Over here is Motojai, pre-Unity.”
“I’m familiar with the history,” said Movius.
O’Brien glanced at him. “Yes, of course. Your father.” He turned back to the chart. “Now follow this yellow line. It’s a little faint against the white paper, but you can see that it coincides most remarkably with the rise and fall of civilization. The red line also is of interest and the brown one on top. Lines of cultural ascension. The others down at the bottom are individual surge lines.”
Movius bent to peer more closely. “Individual?”
“Persons who influenced the course of history.”
Movius straightened. “What is the yellow line?”
“It’s a blending of many things—economic activity, sun spots, lunar influences, atmospheric electrical changes, gravitational flow, magnetronic fluctuations on the earth’s surface, random impellation interpreted by charting cosmic rays …”
“It slopes down here,” said Movius, pointing to the right. He looked back along the undulant course of the line. “Farther down than it’s ever been before. Is that the present crisis?”
“Yes. Something special in the way of crises. We are in the bottom of the curve now. That means conditions are ripe for an upheaval. It will only take a catalyst.”
“The Fall poll.”
“I believe so. Many people are bitter about the polling. Your activity has a great deal to do with this, showing people how the Selector is by-passed, how the questions forecast the answers, how the whole thing is maneuvered. When they are asked to participate again in that day-long activity which they now consider farcical—that may be the push that’s needed.”
“How bad will the crisis be?”
“We can only guess. The mathematics and knowledge by which we made this prediction were centuries in gestation.”
Movius smiled. “Now you need a midwife.”
O’Brien appeared surprised, tugged at his ear, head cocked to one side. “Why, yes, I guess we do. I’d never quite thought of it in that way.”
“How precious is the midwife?”
O’Brien turned away. “I’ve been aware for some time that we’ve very much underestimated you, Movius.”
“No.” Movius shook his head. “You’ve misestimated me.”
“How is that?”
“Is this business important enough to see me as Coordinator?”
O’Brien whirled on him. “Are you trying to make a deal with me?”
Movius stared down at him. “No. The fact is, I’ve come to a decision.”
“What decision?” O’Brien bristled. He looked like a small hen demanding of a rooster where he had been until this hour.
“You want to save the world from a catastrophe which would lose this valuable knowledge.” Movius pointed toward the chart. “That’s a laudable ambition, although of questionable value. I want to save the world from the cold brutality of such as you.”
O’Brien’s eyes blazed. “Brutality! Is it brutal to …”
“Oh, be quiet,” said Movius, his tone disgusted. “Who’s to be the judge of who we might argue here? Each of us thinks he knows his motives. The truth is, we actually know very little about our motivations and probably care less. The difference between us, O’Brien, is a matter of distance—the distance from our racial roots at which we operate. You’re far away; I’m close.”
“Mmmmm,” said O’Brien.
“And this loyalty index. I’ve been studying that. It really has damned little to do with loyalty.”
“True,” said O’Brien. “The index could be said more truthfully to measure the degree of compassion a person feels for his fellow humans. Loyalty index is a popular catch phrase tacked onto the measurement because the higher the index the greater degree of loyalty to a cause or person.”
“Much of your business is a sham,” said Movius. “I’ve decided that—”
“Ah, yes, the decision,” O’Brien interrupted him. “When did you come to this decision, if I may ask?”
Why would he want to know that? Movius wondered. He shrugged, said, “The other night … in bed.”
“Ahhhh.” O’Brien made the sound as though he had seen a great light.
“More of your stock in trade,” said Movius. “Ahhhhh. The witch doctor’s mysterious incantation.” He raised his hand as O’Brien started to speak “I just about have you figured, O’Brien. You set me up for this business. You picked me up when I came along, way back before I was Liaitor. You decided that here was something you could use. You …”
“Just a moment.” O’Brien sounded bored. “Why should we want you?”
“In a moment,” said Movius. He turned, marched to the chart which he knew plotted some element of his life. “You want to ride the tiger, O’Brien?” Movius reached up, ripped the chart from the wall. “Then wake up to the fact that your tiger is no longer tame. Prepare yourself for some scratches.”
“You will not leave here alive,” said O’Brien.
Movius smiled at him. “Don’t be rash, O’Brien. Find out your tiger’s strength first. A wounded tiger is much more dangerous than an unwounded tiger.”
“So?”
“This is a fallacy.” Movius kicked the chart on the floor. “No man can be reduced to a line on a chart with any hope that predictions from that line will be infallible. You cannot know what will stimulate a man’s awareness from minute to minute. The person you’ve charted here is many people—the son of a frustrated ex-teacher, a rising executive, a blind young man who lived in a world of his own projections, then the low-opped seeker after revenge, the focus point of a revolution.”
“And now he’s the great lover,” said O’Brien tauntingly. “Movius, you’ve outlasted your usefulness.”
“Is that your latest prediction?”
“Yes. Primarily, because you’ve become aware of your position. We needed you for the figurehead of the revolution. You were valuable as long as you were ignorant of that fact. A man conscious of his own importance to such a movement does not have the reckless courage this job requires.”
“You informed me yourself, you know,” said Movius. He put his hands in his pockets, watched O’Brien.
The Bu-Psych head turned away. “That was my mistake. But it isn’t irreparable. There are other …”
Movius interrupted him with an abrupt, barking laugh. “I warned you, O’Brien, not to do anything rash. Listen carefully. I have a dozen men in your organization. They will kill you if you harm me. You have no way of …”
“How could you? You haven’t had the time!”
“Time? What is time? Rather, say I’ve had the opportunity. Now I’m going to tell you my decision. I’m taking over, O’Brien. You’ll listen to how you fit into my plans and you’ll do what I say or else.”
O’Brien sounded more hesitant. “Oh?”
“Today, I started a chain of events which will eventuate in by-passing the master opinion controls.”
“That’s impossible!”
“I’m happy to hear you say that, O’Brien. I’m hoping The Coor et al feel the same way.”
“It is a known scientific fact that the control beam cannot be …”
“Will you shut up?” Movius glowered at the man. “Save your double talk for someone you can impress. Nine years ago in the Comp Section another fellow and I figured out a way to tap the beam. We did it as an exercise for the very reason that people said it couldn’t be done. Then we dropped it because we didn’t see any
value in it and knew it would cause a lot of trouble for us. People would want to know why we did it.”
O’Brien’s mouth was open. He closed it with a snap.
“I am about to demonstrate the danger of fixed-pattern thinking. The proper moves have been right in front of your nose for so long you haven’t been able to see them. You see through them.”
O’Brien leaned back against his table. “Do go on.” His tone was patronizing.
“The registration kiosks of the world are controlled from this city,” said Movius. “The small percentage of the population which constitutes a sample is called …”
“If you mean that the questions are formulated here, transmitted from here and computed here, yes, that’s true. But what does that have to do with …”
“What would happen if The Coor’s transmitter fed its questions into a relay station? Let us say that relay station is equipped with a staff of about four of your best semantic analysts, who then take his carefully prepared question and distort it to obtain precisely the answer The Coor does not want. Then this relay station puts the new question back on the beam. Say a three minute delay.”
“It couldn’t be done!”
“Couldn’t it? It’s going to be done. I’ve a crew working on it right this minute.”
O’Brien shrugged. “All right then. You do it. Your interference would work once—maybe twice; then Glass would stop putting questions until he’d smoked you out. And what would you have accomplished?”
“You have it figured the way I figure it,” said Movius. “But you miss the essential point.” He held up a hand, bent down a finger. “We wish to stage a revolution.” Another finger bent down. “One of the government’s strongest points is the inertia—the ‘Oh, what the hell?’ attitude of so many people who don’t feel they have cause to revolt. They’re a millstone around the neck of our revolution. Potential informers, potential enemies every one.” Another finger bent down. “And why? Because the government operates behind a mask of legality which they feel has the semantic label correct.”
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