Fifty feet.
The graveled rooftop of the factory building expanded beneath his soles just as a flock of startled pigeons arose all around him. Ignoring the birds, he alighted with practiced ease, shut the power off—the display read straight zeroes anyway—and stepped out of the yoke, carrying it in one hand like the tire of a bicycle.
Pushing through a steel door which led to a short stairwell, he was met by Mrs. Singh carrying his pistol belt.
“Well, how’d it go, Junior Birdman?” Tipping her head down toward him, she ran a hand through her hair. “See any new gray ones? I swear I could feel ’em sprouting one by one. I sure wish you’d taken some kind of walkie-talkie with you.”
“It would have to be a ‘flyie-cryie,’ or something like that, wouldn’t it?” He grinned at her affectionately, set the hoop against a wall, strapped on his Grizzly, checked both magazine and chamber beneath her approving gaze, picked up his flying yoke again, and started down the stairs. “Anyway, I couldn’t afford the extra weight. I made it, though—just barely—and I found another mascon on the way down. Let’s go to the office and I’ll show you on the map.”
Almost everyone knew that the gravity of Pallas varied from spot to spot, from a tenth of the pull of Earth to about a twentieth, due to its varying geological composition. A big man like Aloysius Brody “weighed” somewhere between ten and twenty pounds, depending on where he was standing. Emerson wasn’t a big man himself and never would be, “weighing” somewhere between five and ten pounds.
He was willing to bet the map they needed had already been made long ago, probably from orbit during an initial survey, and was sitting in some filing cabinet or computer memory back on Earth, inaccessible because it had been lost and ultimately forgotten in the bureaucratic jumble generated by any large organization, even a relatively benign one like Curringer’s Two Lions Corporation.
As they reached the ground floor, Mrs. Singh shook her head. “I’m afraid it’ll have to wait, Emerson. I heard from Aloysius just before you landed, and he’s still on the line, waiting to confer with you. It seems our friendly neighborhood dictator’s raising hell about your plan to hire people from the Project.”
Emerson laughed.
He’d been expecting this. It was only the latest development in what was turning out to be a prolonged conflict. This particular phase had begun with his campaign to “persuade” the reluctant operators of KCUF—principally by threatening to start his own radio station—to dramatically increase their broadcast range. Despite their frequent, grandiose promises of improvement, they’d been content for years with a low-power transmitter and an antenna mast that was no more than a bit of heavy-gauge copper wire thrust up a few feet above the roof of His Master’s Voice, the bar in which their studio was located. He was still surprised that he’d been able to receive their signal almost seventy miles away, probably because most of it was across the open space over Lake Selous.
As usual, Emerson had a public reason and a personal reason for what he’d done. Publicly, he’d wanted his workers to be able to keep in touch with the radio voice of Curringer at his new factory site and along the road running to it, where he anticipated that development and population were now likely to expand. Also, a higher antenna could be used for private communications over the same distance.
Personally, never having forgotten his principle of revenge-only-at-a-profit, he’d been experimenting lately with a prototype receiver even simpler than his first handmade crystal set, a tiny, unpowered device permanently tuned to one frequency, designed to be manufactured almost for nothing, which could be given away at a minimal loss, greatly enlarging the listenership of KCUF all over this hemisphere of Pallas, especially among the peasants at the Project, who, one way or another, would be the very first recipients of his free radios.
He still hadn’t figured out how to persuade somebody—he had the owners of KCUF in mind again, but that would have to wait until they’d gotten over being annoyed with him about the mile-high antenna he’d “inspired” them to build—to back the manufacture of his little receivers. It was certain that he couldn’t afford to do it himself, not with every spare ounce of gold his little company was earning from making and selling guns going to pay for the factory building or being plowed back into development and eventual production of flying yokes. It often frightened him how much Cherry, Mrs. Singh, Nails, and Aloysius trusted him.
Nor had he figured out how to get his radios efficiently distributed to the inhabitants of the Project, but he’d already done a fair amount of damage by giving away dozens of semiproduction prototypes to the rollabout drivers who made weekly deliveries to Curringer. Doubtless, since Emerson went to a great deal of trouble to make the supply of free receivers seem endless, they bartered them away inside the Project for food or sexual favors or something else.
And naturally, from the first day the new antenna had been operational, the Ngu Departure Company had run advertisements offering jobs to anyone—but especially to Project peasants—willing to train and work hard for an honest day’s payment in cold, hard cash. All they had to do was find a way out the front gate (or some other convenient exit) and down the five miles of road—at an average of one-tenth of a gravity, that was practically next door—separating the two establishments. Transportation would eventually be provided, in the form of even more “lunchbox specials,” but Emerson didn’t advertise that.
Nor did he add that permanent defections would be rewarded as his own had been, with warmth and friendship and as much help as possible toward starting a new life on the Outside.
It wasn’t a plan that could be concealed for very long, nor had it been calculated to please the Chief Administrator of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, which was why Emerson wasn’t surprised to be hearing, just about now, from Aloysius. It seemed a long time since he’d struggled so hard to understand that, in a free world anyway, kindness and good business amounted to the same thing. It was natural for any Outsider to sympathize with the Project’s victims, to cheer when they broke free, and to welcome them as new neighbors. New neighbors, of course, were new customers, as well, as long as they became self-sufficient (and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t last long, but would have to whimper their way back into the Senator’s good graces). For the most part, everybody won—if not a full-fledged example of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work, it was, at least, a sign from one of its friendlier fingers.
With Mrs. Singh behind him, he pushed through the open door of his tiny, cluttered office, leaned his flying yoke against a bookcase, and sat down at his desk.
Aloysius and the Senator were already there, in electronic spirit, manifesting themselves in the middle of his blotter as a pair of six-inch leprechauns.
“What can I do you for, Aloysius?”
A tiny, not-quite-transparent three-dimensional replica of Emerson stood at the center of Brody’s corner table in the Nimrod. Bent over it were Brody himself and Gibson Altman, both of whom were similarly displayed to Emerson, three hundred miles away, thanks to the equivalent electronics at his end of the conversation. Brody suspected that his old friend Henrietta was there, too, somewhere in the background, but the narrowly focused device wasn’t picking up her image.
“Not a thing fer me, but fer the Senator here, me boy.” The tavern keeper turned over a broad, hairy hand, indicating Altman. He was trying hard not to appear to be taking sides, but it was difficult. “I’m afraid he’s after suin’ ye agin.”
Emerson’s miniature image turned, as if he’d been occupied with other matters until just this moment and was only giving them his full attention now. Perhaps Henrietta had said something to him. He looked the Senator in the eye and smiled, his unshaven upper lip making him look even younger than he was,
“What for this time?”
“I have just traveled four hundred miserable kilometers, young man,” Altman complained, “in a good-faith attempt to accomplish things in the manner you people seem to regard as
customary. The least you can do is to expend an equal effort. I expect—no, I demand—to see you here in this...er, courtroom, immediately.”
Emerson smiled again. The picture of Gibson Altman being stuck overnight in a town he hated, among people he hated, with the prospect of an equally arduous return voyage ahead of him—all for nothing, if it could possibly be arranged—appealed to the boy. “Now let me get this straight, Senator: you actually believe that wasting your time and energy in a stupid gesture that was entirely your own idea creates some sort of obligation on my part to—”
“A moment, if y’please.”
Brody had held up a hand, interrupting Emerson before things went too far. He turned to Altman.
“It’s a long way indeed from there to here, Senator darlin’, as ye yerself can attest. It’s also possible that this matter can be resolved here an’ now. Young Mr. Ngu could give up without a fight, simply t’save himself the inconvenience. Why don’t y’let me read him this here bill of particulars that y’brought along with ye, and we’ll see what’s what before we formally summon him.”
Both parties knew that Brody, as an adjudicator under the Stein Covenant, had no power to coerce. He was not like an Earthside magistrate in that respect. But among Pallatians, in a dispute of real substance, the failure to appear in court to answer a charge could result in lost business, even in ostracism.
Altman nodded grudgingly. “Very well, but if—”
“Now let’s just look...” Brody settled his glasses on the end of his nose and held Altman’s sheaf of paper up before them at arm’s length, shuffling through the many pages. “Ah, here it is. Emerson, the good Senator here wants ye t’stop all radio broadcastin’ into the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, as he asserts that this violates the privacy of the inhabitants therein.”
Emerson said nothing. The assertion and the accusation were so absurd that he probably didn’t know what to say. Brody didn’t either, at first. Finally, he turned again to the other man, squinting at him over his spectacle rims. “Now it seems t’me that ye’ll be needin’ t’take that up with the proprietors of KCUF, Senator darlin’. But we’ll let it pass fer the moment an’ get on.”
All three knew what the station owners would have to say to Altman, if he were foolish enough to confront them. The Stein Covenant strictly forbade any interference with the right to free speech, and, unlike the native country of all three, on Pallas that right extended to broadcast media, which required no license to operate. Altman had nothing either to offer them or threaten them with.
To Emerson: “He also wants ye t’stop transmittin’ private or commercial messages to the Project inhabitants intended, as it says here, to incite their disaffection.”
The tiny simulacrum shrugged. “I haven’t broadcast any personal messages yet—although it’s a good idea and I’ll certainly give it due consideration. Anything else, Aloysius?”
“Indeed.” Brody sighed and shook his head. “He demands that ye refrain immediately an’ henceforward from employin’ the inhabitants of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project at occupations unauthorized by said Project’s Chief Administrator...”
Emerson grinned.
“Particularly,” the innkeeper continued, “manufacturin’ by what he calls the exploitive, wasteful, an’ ecologically irresponsible process of mass production...”
Emerson chuckled.
“An’ most particularly,” Brody plowed onward, “the manufacturin’ of clandestine communications devices, personal vehicles, an’ deadly weapons intended fer individual use.”
Emerson laughed out loud.
Brody sighed, feeling the mounting fury and frustration of the man beside him as a tangible force. “He further demands that ye refrain from sellin’, givin’ away, or allowin’ the Project’s inhabitants t’steal any an’ all such manufactured goods.”
“Excuse me, Your Honor,” interjected Altman. The man was barely under control, speaking between clenched teeth. “That’s a bit more general than I intended. For the time being, I only ask that he keep these things out of the hands of my people.”
“There y’have it,” Brody finished.
“I see,” Emerson replied.
Old Business
Shall we debate it, does a girl have to be stirred before she’ll let a man take her? Of course not. Some of them are, but only a minority; most of them let the apron up because they’ve been curious about it so long...curiosity is often so strong that no man or woman can resist it.
—Rex Stout, Death of a Dude
“What,” asked Emerson, “am I supposed to do now, Alo—Your Honor?”
Brody massaged his beard in thought. “Well, I told the Senator here y’might be willin’ t’give in without botherin’ t’travel all the long two hundred miles—pardon me, three hundred sixty kilometers—t’Curringer. Otherwise, he wants a public hearin’ like before.”
Emerson laughed and shook his head. Brody had watched the boy mature and become increasingly self-possessed since the Ngu Departure Company had been created, but something else was elevating his spirit today. “Not exactly like before, I’ll bet.”
Altman waved Brody aside. “See here, young man, this is a serious business. I demand that you treat it—and me—with the respect it deserves!”
“You’re just full of demands, aren’t you, Senator?” Emerson shrugged. “But that’s what I’m doing, believe me, giving this business—and you—all the respect they deserve.”
“Talk to him, Brody!” Altman’s hands shook and he sprayed little gobbets of spit as he hissed the words between his teeth. Another half hour of this, Brody calculated, and Emerson won’t have any legal problems because the plaintiff will have keeled over.
Before he could intervene, Emerson asked, “What’s the matter, has KCUF’s antenna made it wasteful and ecologically irresponsible to jam their signals the way you did when I was one of your serfs?”
Altman was stiff with fury. Idly watching a vein pulse on the man’s forehead, Brody decided that Henrietta must have left the room, forcing Emerson to fend for himself. He’d never known her to remain quiet when an argument was going on.
“I’ve been doing some reading,” Emerson told Altman, visibly dizzying the man with the change of subject. “Reading you’d never have authorized. We could argue all day over freedom of communication, or the individual right to the means of self-defense, but I doubt it would get us anywhere. So let’s discuss something else.”
“Such as?” The Senator was wary. Brody had watched him recover in only a few seconds and was impressed. The cost would be high—blood pressure, gastric problems, perhaps ultimately cancer—but it was nothing short of miraculous. No wonder he’d been successful, up to a point, in politics. The tavern keeper remained silent. This was not a formal hearing, and if it came to that, Altman was going to accuse him again of conflict of interest. It was true enough, his interests were in conflict. And this time, as a principal investor and director of Emerson’s company, he doubted whether he could shrug it off—or wanted to.
He was aware that, to one degree or another, everything Emerson did these days was motivated by a long-held, deeply felt desire for retribution. On the other hand, the boy was within his rights and if anyone ever deserved to exact retribution...The Senator wasn’t just wrong in each of his nasty little authoritarian demands, he was wrongheaded—all of which, naturally enough, disqualified Brody as an impartial adjudicator. Perhaps the best thing was to let them talk it out.
“Such as the flying yoke you seem to resent so much, even before it’s on the market, and the fact that your former country and mine started with the most efficient mass-transport system in history—the private automobile—which took the individual from precisely where he happened to be to precisely where he wanted to go, at precisely any time he wished, in comfort, privacy, and comparative safety.”
Altman started to reply, but Emerson didn’t let him.
“That didn’t suit people like you, Senator, politic
ians and planners who nurture a profound, unwavering hatred for private transportation because they see individual comfort and privacy as a threat—and personal safety as a lamentable lack of opportunity. It didn’t give you the control you wanted and needed so badly.”
That hadn’t sounded like Emerson at all. The phrasing and vocabulary were wrong. Brody suspected that Henrietta was still beside him after all, silently coaching him.
“What can you possibly know about it?” the Senator demanded. “You were only a child—you’re still only a child! The nation wanted and needed public transportation! The people voted for it time and time again! The private automobile was selfish, wasteful, dirty—and the highways were falling apart!”
“Eventually you believed your own propaganda.” Emerson shook his head. “And the results of the endless referenda you rigged so carefully. So you spent billions, maybe even trillions, of tax-extorted dollars on expensive, complicated, failure-prone systems that only shifted power consumption and pollution somewhere else—“
“It’s not true!”
Now Brody was certain Henrietta was helping, probably scribbling notes as fast as her fingers could fly. He’d heard her on this subject too many times to doubt it.
“Systems,” Emerson was saying, “that ran mostly empty because they were inconvenient, uncomfortable, and dangerous in terms of the crime they bred and the fact that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of innocents died whenever some bureaucrat, usually safe in his office or control booth, screwed up. The fact that it would actually have been cheaper to give everyone a car never told you that you were screwing up. Nor did it ever occur to you to use it to keep the roads repaired—or hand them over to private parties willing and able to do it.”
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