An Enemy of the State

by Wilson, F. Paul

  Houghton was standing behind him and tugging angrily on his beard as Orz replaced the last screw. “Are you quite through, Ratman?”

  Orz stood and faced him. “Awful big computer you've got there, Mr. Houghton,” he said matter-of-factly. He was chagrined, but refused to show it.

  “That's the computer for my whole operation. I found it easier to centralize the system: Instead of installing new units all the time, I just add to the central unit and feed it into the new buildings as they are built. It's much more convenient.”

  “More economical, too, I'll bet,” Orz added laconically.

  “Why, yes,” Houghton replied. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  JESSICA WAS WAITING for him back at the ship. “Don't bother telling me you didn't find anything,” she said as he collapsed in a chair. “That look on your face tells me the whole story.”

  “I was so sure it was Houghton! The way he objected to the League retaining me, the way he tried to rake me over the coals at the meeting last night, the way he blew up this morning, I was sure he had something to hide. Turns out he's only a cheapskate with a centralized computer.”

  “What makes you so sure he hasn't got it stashed somewhere else?” Jessica asked, coming over and handing him a drink.

  He accepted it gratefully and took a long slow swallow before answering. “I'm not sure of anything right now. But, if that transmitter's here—and we know it is—it's got to be in one of those warehouses. Which reminds me…” He got to his feet slowly and trudged to the rat room.

  Jessica didn't follow, but glanced out into the corridor when she heard the clang of cage doors. Furry gray and brown shapes were scurrying toward the hatch.

  “What are you up to?” she asked as Orz reappeared.

  “I had a brainstorm on my way back to the ship. We'll find out if it worked tomorrow.”

  ORZ NOTICED JESSICA IN THE CROWD outside Rabb's main warehouse. She smiled and winked mischievously, knowing he couldn't acknowledge her. The crowd was waiting to see if Ratman could live up to his claims and watched intently as he and Rabb disappeared inside. An uncertain cheer began and died as he reappeared dragging—with little help from Rabb—a cageful of clawing, squealing, snarling, snapping space rats. Having retreated to what it considered a safer distance, the crowd applauded.

  Lesno strode forward, beaming. “Well, Ratman, I knew you could do it. But what are you going to do with the little monsters now that you've caught them?”

  “Most of them will have to be gassed and killed, but I'll save a few of the best for breeding purposes…I like to keep my working stock as strong as possible.”

  They completed the rounds of Rabb's buildings, then moved on to Lesno's. The novelty had worn off and the crowd was beginning to thin by the time they got around to Lesno's third warehouse, but interest was renewed at the sound of Orz's voice calling from within.

  “Mr. Lesno! There's something you ought to see in here.”

  Lesno went in. Rabb, Houghton, and some of the braver members of the crowd—Jessica among them—followed him.

  It looked as if a bomb had gone off inside. Every crate, every package had been torn open. Even some of the computer paneling had been torn away.

  “What happened?” Lesno cried, staggered by the destruction.

  Orz shrugged and pointed to the full cage. “I don't know. There's your community, caged and ready to go. But I've never seen anything like this before.”

  Houghton was looking over the ravaged computer. “Never seen a computer that looked like this,” he muttered. “Is this some new model, Aaron?” he asked Lesno.

  Rabb came up. “Looks like part of a subspace radio!”

  “Ridiculous!” Lesno sputtered. “What would I be doing with—”

  “You're a spy!” Houghton declared. “A Federation spy!”

  A blaster suddenly appeared in Lesno's hand. “Don't insult me by linking me to the Federation!”

  Houghton shrugged. “So you're a Restructurist spy, then. Just as bad. You get twenty years either way.”

  “I'm not going to argue with you, Malcomb. Just stay where you are.”

  “You can't escape, Aaron!” Rabb warned.

  Lesno smiled. “Of course I can,” he said and pointed the blaster at Orz. “Ratman is going to volunteer the use of his ship. He's even going to come along for the ride to make sure no one gets trigger-happy.”

  Orz caught Jessica's eye. She was readying to make a move, but he shook his head. They had succeeded in destroying Lesno's effectiveness as a spy. It didn't matter if he escaped. And so, with a blaster at the back of his head, Orz preceded the little man to the truck.

  “You work for the Federation, don't you?” Lesno said as Orz drove them toward the spaceport.

  “I'm afraid I don't have time to work for anyone other than Sam Orzechowski.”

  “Come now, Ratman. I was suspicious yesterday when I saw the way you gave Houghton's computer a going over and this morning's revelation confirmed it. Why deny it?”

  Orz shrugged. “O.K., I occasionally do some snooping for the Federation.”

  “How did you get on to me?” Lesno asked earnestly. “I thought I had a foolproof arrangement.”

  “Well, I wasn't sure, but Houghton's centralized setup started me on a new approach. I figured that if one man could centralize his computers, another could decentralize a subspace transmitter. Then it struck me that you'd have to take the transmitter apart in order to sneak it into town. And since it was already in pieces, why not leave it that way? At least that's what I would have done. So the next thing to do was to look for the man with the slightly larger computers. You fit the bill.”

  “But how did you manage to tear the place apart?”

  “That was easy. If you could go back to that warehouse now, you'd find a tiny, high-frequency labeler attached to the door. I have a number of vandal rats trained to be specialists in making a mess out of a building. The labeler told them where to go to work.”

  Shaking his head in admiration, Lesno remarked, “You should be working for us.”

  “But I don't want a restructured Federation,” Orz replied. “I sort of like it the way it is.”

  “But there are such inequalities in the galaxy! Some planets are drowning in their surpluses while other planets are starving, and the Federation does nothing.”

  “The Federation doesn't think such matters are within its scope.”

  “They will be when we win,” he replied righteously.

  Orz knew argument was futile and allowed a shrug to be his only reply. Once on the ship, it was evident to Orz that Lesno knew his way around freighters. He retracted the ramp, secured the hatch, and then followed Orz to the bridge.

  He gestured to the extra seat. “You just sit there and keep out of the way, Mr. Ratman, and you won't get hurt. I'm not a murderer. If all goes well, I'll drop you off at the first neutral port we reach. But I won't hesitate to shoot you if you try anything.”

  “Don't worry,” Orz told him. “My mission was to stop you, not capture you. I really don't care if you get away.”

  Lesno's eyes narrowed. This lack of chauvinism did not fit his conception of a Fed man. Something was up. His suspicions were reinforced when he found the console inoperable.

  “Where's the lock?” he demanded.

  Orz pointed across the room. “By the speaker.” But Lesno made no move. Instead his eyes roved the room until they came to rest on the red lever. His face creased into a smile.

  “You didn't think anyone would be fooled by that, did you?”

  Orz nearly leaped from his seat as the Restructurist reached for the lever. “Don't touch that!”

  “Sit down!” Lesno warned, pointing the gun at Orz's chest. “I told you before, I'm not a killer but—”

  “I know you're not.” Orz said frantically. “Neither am I. That's why you've got to leave that lever alone!”

  Lesno merely smiled and kept him covered while he rel
eased the first two safety catches. “Listen to me, Lesno! That lever sets off a special tone stimulus and releases every one of my rats! They've all been trained to attack anyone and everyone but me when they hear that tone…I installed it for use in a situation when it was either kill or be killed! This is not one of those situations!”

  Lesno was having some trouble with the third catch, but it finally yielded. “A good try, Ratman,” he said and, ignoring Orz's cry of protest, pulled the lever.

  Faintly, from far down the corridor, came a metallic clang. A loud, wailing tone filled the ship. Lesno paled and turned anxiously toward his captive.

  “Why didn't you listen to me, you fool!” Orz yelled.

  Lesno suddenly believed. Horror-stricken, he began to push and pull the lever back and forth but with no effect. He was still working at it when the squealing, gray-brown carpet swept through the door.

  Orz turned away and tried unsuccessfully to block out the screams and sickening sounds of carnage that filled the bridge. He had trained the rats too well…there would be no stopping them.

  And when all was quiet again, Orz congratulated himself on having kept his stomach in place. But then 62 leaped up to his accustomed spot on his shoulder and began with great contentment to clean his reddened claws and jowls.

  ONLY JESSICA CAME to see him off. Orz had cleaned up the rat problem and the people were appreciative, but they had either seen the corpse that had been removed from his ship, or they had heard about it. It hadn't been easy to identify it as Aaron Lesno.

  “I see the red lever's been removed,” Jessica remarked. She hadn't been near the ship since the incident.

  Orz avoided her gaze. “Yeah. I took it out…can't quite look at it.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Well, now that this thing's been cleared up, what'll you be doing with yourself?”

  “I've no intention of settling down and becoming a good Neekan citizen, you can be sure of that,” she replied. “I'm putting in for an assignment as soon as possible. There's too much going on out there for me to get tucked away on this rock.”

  Orz smiled for the first time in several days. “That's funny. I was thinking of taking on an assistant. This business is getting a little too complicated for me to handle alone.”

  He paused as Jessica waited eagerly.

  “You like rats?” he asked.

  LIPIDLEGGIN’

  Butter. I can name a man's poison at fifty paces. I take one look at this guy as he walks in and say to myself, “Butter.” He steps carefully, like there's something sticky on the soles of his shoes. Maybe there is, but I figure he moves like that because he's on unfamiliar ground. Never seen his face before and I know just about everybody around.

  It's early yet. I just opened the store and Gabe's the only other guy on the buying side of the counter, only he ain't buying. He's waiting in the corner by the checkerboard and I'm just about to go join him when the new guy comes in. It's wet out—not raining, really, just wet like it only gets up here near the Water Gap—and he's wearing a slicker. Underneath that he seems to have a stocky build and is average height. He's got no beard and his eyes are blue with a watery look. Could be from anywhere until he takes off the hat and I see his hair. It's dark brown and he's got it cut in one of those soup-bowl styles that're big in the city.

  Gabe gives me an annoyed look as I step back behind the counter, but I ignore him. His last name is Varadi—sounds Italian but it's Hungarian—and he's got plenty of time on his hands. Used to be a Ph.D. in a philosophy department at some university in Upstate New York till they cut the department in half and gave him his walking papers, tenure and all. Now he does part-time labor at one of the mills when they need a little extra help, which ain't near as often as he'd like.

  About as poor as you can get, that Gabe. The government giraffes take a big chunk of what little he earns and leave him near nothing to live on. So he goes down to the welfare office where the local giraffes give him food stamps and rent vouchers so he can get by on what the first group of giraffes left him. If you can figure that one out…

  Anyway, Gabe's got a lot of time on his hands, like I said, and he hangs out here and plays checkers with me when things are slow. He'd rather play chess, I know, but I can't stand the game. Nothing happens for too long and I get impatient and try to break the game open with some wild gamble. And I always lose. So we play checkers or we don't play.

  The new guy puts his hat on the counter and glances around. He looks uneasy. I know what's coming but I'm not going to help him out. There's a little dance we've got to do first.

  “I need to buy a few things,” he says. His voice has a little tremor in it and close up like this I figure he's in his mid-twenties.

  “Well, this is a general store,” I reply, getting real busy wiping down the counter, “and we've got all sorts of things. What're you interested in? Antiques? Hardware? Food?”

  “I'm not looking for the usual stock.”

  (The music begins to play)

  I look at him with my best puzzled expression. “Just what is it you're after, friend?”

  “Butter and eggs.”

  “Nothing unusual about that. Got a whole cabinet full of both behind you there.”

  (We're on our way to the dance floor)

  “I'm not looking for that. I didn't come all the way out here to buy the same shit I can get in the city. I want the real thing.”

  “You want the real thing, eh?” I say, meeting his eyes square for the first time. “You know damn well real butter and real eggs are illegal. I could go to jail for carrying that kind of stuff.”

  (We dance)

  Next to taking his money, this is the part I like best about dealing with a new customer. Usually I can dance the two of us around the subject of what he really wants for upwards of twenty or thirty minutes if I've a mind to. But this guy was a lot more direct than most and didn't waste any time getting down to the nitty-gritty. Still, he wasn't going to rob me of a little dance. I've got a dozen years of dealing under my belt and no green kid's gonna rob me of that.

  A dozen years…doesn't seem that long. It was back then that the giraffes who were running the National Health Insurance program found out that they were spending way too much money taking care of people with diseases nobody was likely to cure for some time. The stroke and heart patients were the worst. With the presses at the Treasury working overtime and inflation getting wild, it got to the point where they either had to admit they'd made a mistake or do something drastic. Naturally, they got drastic.

  The president declared a health emergency and Congress passed something called the National Health Maintenance Act which said that since certain citizens were behaving irresponsibly by abusing their bodies and thereby giving rise to chronic diseases which resulted in consumption of more that their fair share of medical care at public expense, it was resolved that, in the public interest and for the public good, certain commodities would henceforth and hereafter be either prescribed or strictly rationed. Or something like that.

  Foods high in cholesterol and saturated fats headed the list. Next came tobacco and any alcoholic beverage over 30 proof.

  Ah, the howls that went up from the public. But those were nothing compared to the screams of fear and anguish that arose from the dairy and egg industry which was facing immediate economic ruin. The Washington giraffes stood firm, however—it wasn't an election year—and used phrases like “bite the bullet” and “national interest” and “public good” until we were all ready to barf.

  Nothing moved them.

  Things quieted down after a while, as they always do. It helped, of course, that somebody in one of the drug companies had been working on an additive to chicken feed that would take just about all the cholesterol out of the yolk. It worked, and the poultry industry was saved.

  The new eggs cost more—of course—and the removal of most of the cholesterol from the yolk also removed most of the taste, but at least the egg farmers had something to sell.
>
  Butter was out. Definitely. No compromise. Too much of an “adverse effect on serum lipid levels,” whatever that means. You use polyunsaturated margarine or you use nothing. Case closed.

  Well, almost closed. Most good citizen-type Americans hunkered down and learned to live with the Lipid Laws, as they came to be known. Why, I bet there's scads of fifteen-year-olds about who've never tasted real butter or a true, cholesterol-packed egg yolk. But we're not all good citizens. Especially me. Far as I'm concerned, there's nothing like two fried eggs—fried in butter—over easy, with bacon on the side, to start the day off. Every day. And I wasn't about to give that up.

  I was strictly in the antiques trade then, and I knew just about every farmer in Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. So I found one who was making butter for himself and had him make a little extra for me. Then I found another who was keeping some hens aside and not giving them any of the special feed and had him hold a few eggs out for me.

  One day I had a couple of friends over for breakfast and served them real eggs and toast with real butter. They almost strangled me trying to find out where I got the stuff. That's when I decided to add a sideline to my antique business.

  I figured New York City to be the best place to start so I let word get around the antique dealers there that I could supply their customers with more than furniture. The response was wild and soon I was making more money running butter and eggs than I was running Victorian golden oak. I was a lipidlegger.

  Didn't last, though. I was informed by two very pushy fellows of Mediterranean stock that if I wanted to do any lipid business in Manhattan, I'd either have to buy all my merchandise from their wholesale concern, or give them a very healthy chunk of my profits.

  I decided it would be safer to stick close to home. Less volume, but less risky. I turned my antique shop up here by the Water Gap—that's the part of New Jersey you can get to without driving by all those refineries and reactors—into a general store.

  A dozen years now.