He stumbled his way through the prescribed salutation. The delegates were staring at him, some with curiosity, some in boredom. In the glare of the lights he managed to pick out the thick coarse face of Bullard, the Corporation’s first-level man. Bullard was leaning forward; his eyes seemed to have attained demonic intensity.
Kennedy said, “These papers I hold here give documentary proof of the most wide-scale hoax ever perpetrated in modern history. But before I distribute photostatic copies to you and let you judge for yourselves, let me briefly state my qualifications for the task I now undertake, and a summary of the charges I intend to make against the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation.
“I have been on Ganymede from July fifth to thirtieth of this year. I have seen the planet with my own eyes. I have also helped in the fabrication of this hoax.
“Point One: The Corporation is willfully deceiving the people of the world, making use of the Steward Dinoli agency as its means.
“Point Two: There is not and never has been a colony of men and women on Ganymede. There is a Corporation outpost which conisted of sixteen men in Corporation employ at the time I was there.
“Point Three: The natives of Ganymede are opposed to the exploitation of their world by the Corporation or by any other Earth people, and have declared this repeatedly to the members of the outpost there.
“Point Four: The Corporation, realizing that the natives of Ganymede do not wish their continued occupation of the planet to endure, have come to the decision that a full-scale war against the intransigent Ganymedeans will be necessary in order to subdue the planet and place it fully in their control. Not even the vast resources of the Corporation are equal to the task of waging this war, nor do they want to dissipate their capital and tie up men in what quite possibly would be a guerrilla campaign of great intensity.
“Point Five: Knowing these things, the Corporation engaged the agency for which I formerly worked, charging them with the task of so manipulating and controlling the sources of news that the true nature of events on Ganymede would be concealed and that the United Nations could ultimately be induced to carry out an armed intervention in the Corporation’s behalf on Ganymede. This campaign has been highly successful. I regret to confess that it was I who originated the central concept of a fictitious colony on Ganymede which would engage the sympathies of the people of Earth—a colony which is scheduled for a fraudulent annihilation on October eleventh to serve as provocation for a Corporation request for intervention by United Nations forces.”
Kennedy paused. He had spoken carefully and clearly, and as he looked around he saw a triple ring of shocked and unbelieving faces. They were starting to mutter; a moment more and there might even be jeers. But he was a master of his trade, and he had timed his speech carefully.
“Perhaps you feel that these charges of mine are the nightmares of a paranoiac, despite the fact that Ambassador Flaherty has given me his seal of approval. But I have prepared photostatic copies of documents which demonstrate amply the shrewd and calculating way in which the Corporation and my agency went about the business of hoodwinking an entire world. Members of the American delegation will now pass among you distributing them.”
He had waited just a moment too long. A fierce-looking delegate in bright velvet robes stood up and shouted in crisp British tones, “This is an outrage, and I protest! How can such arrant nonsense be tolerated in this hall? How can—”
Kennedy ignored him. He was staring, instead, at Builard—Bullard, whose face had grown increasingly more contorted during his speech; Bullard, who had listened in anger to the destruction of the Corporation’s plans; Bullard, who sat quivering with rage, shaking with the impact of each of Kennedy’s statements—
It was too late for Kennedy to duck. He could only stand and wait as he felt the bullet crash into his shoulder and heard an instant later the strange little pop of Bullard’s weapon; then the force of the shot knocked him backward, and as he fell he saw Security men swarming down over the struggling Bullard and heard the loud bewildered shouts of the delegates—delegates who in that moment had had all reality snatched from them, who now confronted the naked core of lies that had been cloaked so long.
20
Dizzily, Kennedy attempted to rise.
He lay sprawled behind his chair, ignored for a moment in the general confusion. His shoulder seemed to be burning.
He put one hand on the edge of the table and hoisted himself up. He knew Marge was in the gallery somewhere and he didn’t want her to worry. Delegates milled about in confusion; Hermanos was pounding the gavel and roaring for order. A flock of Security men surrounded Bullard and were dragging the Corporation man away; Bullard was white-faced with rage. Probably rage at having missed me, Kennedy thought.
A quiet voice said, “Are you all right?” The voice belonged to Ambassador Flaherty.
“I think so,” Kennedy said. His shoulder throbbed painfully. He glanced at it; the jacket had a round little hole in it, singed a bit about the edges, but he did not seem to be bleeding.
But suddenly he felt weak. His wobbly legs gave way and he groped for the nearest seat and sank into it. He saw the delegation aides moving down the aisles, distributing his photostats. A hum of light conversation replaced the previous agitated buzz.
Flaherty was speaking again.
“In view of the sudden attack upon Mr. Kennedy by the Corporation executive present here, I think we cannot hesitate to take action today. The shot fired at Mr. Kennedy was a tacit admission of guilt.
“I call, therefore, for a full investigation of the relationship between the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation and Steward and Dinoli. I ask, furthermore, that the charter of the Corporation be temporarily suspended pending full investigation, and that we consider possible ways and means of establishing direct United Nations control over space travel and interplanetary colonization, in view of the highly probable event that Mr. Kennedy’s evidence will prove authentic.”
Kennedy smiled despite the pain. What did a bullet in the shoulder matter, more or less, as the price for what he had done?
He turned to Flaherty and started to say something. Before he could get the first word out, though, a wave of pain rippled over him, and he struggled unsuccessfully to hold on to consciousness.
For the next few moments he heard dim voices speaking somewhere above him; then he was aware that someone was lifting him. He blanked again.
When he woke he was on a plump leatheroid couch in the inner office of Ambassador Flaherty. His jacket and his bloodstained shirt lay over the back of a nearby chair. He saw three or four people bending anxiously over him as he opened his eyes.
“Ah. He is awake.” A pale man in medical uniform bent over him, nodding. “I am Dr. Marquis of the United Nations Medical Staff. The bullet has been removed, Mr. Kennedy. It caused trifling damage. A few days’ rest until the soreness leaves, and you’ll be all right again.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He craned his neck until he saw Flaherty. “Well? What did I miss?”
“Plenty. Things have been popping all day. The Security men paid a visit to agency headquarters and impounded enough evidence to send your former boss and his friends to the psych-squad. Bullard’s in custody here for the attempt on your life. Security forces have taken positions around all Corporation buildings now, to head off the riots.”
“Riots?”
“We broke the story to the papers right after you passed out. It caused quite a stir.”
Kennedy smiled. “I’ll bet it did. Let me see.”
They brought him an afternoon edition of a newspaper. Splashed across the front page was the biggest headline he had ever seen:
GANYMEDE COLONY TERMED HOAX BY UNITED NATIONS!
On the inside pages was the story, capped by headlines of a size normally reserved for front-page news. He skimmed quickly through it.
A New York public relations executive today blew the
lid off the biggest and best-kept hoax in modern history. Testifying before the U.N. General Assembly, Theodore Kennedy, 32, of Steward and Dinoli, revealed to an astonished gathering that the colony supposedly planted on Ganymede was nothing but a public relations hoax fabricated by his agency. Kennedy charged that the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation had hired Steward and Dinoli last April to handle the project for them.
As a dramatic climax to the expose, W. Richardson Bullard, 53, an Executive First-Level of the Corporation, rose from his seat in the Assembly gallery and fired point-blank at Kennedy, wounding him in the shoulder. Bullard was taken into police custody.
Also rounded up were Louis Dinoli, 66, Executive First-Level of the public-relations firm, and the four second-level men of the firm, as well as ranking Corporation officials. Further investigation—”
Kennedy scanned the rest of the paper. There was a marvelous shot of Dinoli, eyes blazing satanically, being led from the S and D offices by Security men. There was a quote from him, too: A vile traitor has struck us a mortal blow. He has violated the sanctity of our organization. We nurtured a viper in our midst for eight years.
There was much more: pages and pages of it. Pictures of Kennedy and an amazingly accurate biography; a transcript of the entire U.N. session that day; photographs of the Corporation leaders. A long article covered the background of the Ganymede affair from the very first public release back in May, quoting significant passages from the pseudo-accounts of the pseudo-colony. An angry editorial called for prompt punishment of the offenders and more effective monitoring of the sources of news in the future to prevent repetitions of this flagrant deception.
“Dinoli never did things in a small way,” Kennedy said, looking up. “His model was the twentieth-century German dictator, Hitler. Hitler always said it’s harder to fool the people on the small things than on the big ones. You could always get them to believe that the continents on the other side of the world had been swallowed up by the ocean a lot easier than you could convince them that the price of meat would drop next week. So Dinoli set out to tell the world all about Ganymede. He nearly made it, too.”
He handed back the newspapers. He felt very tired, too tired to think, too tired to evaluate what he had done. All he knew was that it was over now, and he wanted to rest and plan his next move.
“Take me home,” he said to Marge.
He went home. Flaherty saw to it that there were U.N. people on hand to take care of him. The house hadn’t been lived in for weeks, and Marge couldn’t handle everything herself.
It had been a busy couple of days, he thought. The business of Gunther’s charges had been mostly cleared up, and he had been cleared of Spalding’s death as well.
He sent one of the U.N. people down the road to the Camerons to fetch the cat. He asked Marge to help him across the room to the sound system; he wanted to hear some music.
He wondered briefly about the consequences of what he had done. Certainly he had finished Steward and Dinoli; a lot of men who had been drawing fancy pay would be out scrambling for jobs tomorrow, if the psych-squads didn’t get them. He tried to picture old Dinoli going through Personality Adjustment, and laughed; Dinoli would be a thorn for the adjusters, a regular bramble bush!
But the others—Haugen, Cameron, Presslie. Probably they would get off easily, pleading that they were mere employees and did not set agency policy. They might draw minor sentences. After that, though, their careers in public relations were just as dead as—
As his.
What do I do now?
His name would fade from the front pages in a few days. He knew too much about communications media to believe that his current notoriety would last.
And then?
Few jobs would be open for him. Potential employers would always be aware that he had turned against Dinoli, had broken into his own office late at night to secure damning evidence. No, he would not be a safe man to employ.
One other thing troubled him. He had been through three months of torture since being assigned to the Ganymede contract. So had Marge. It showed on both of them.
He had had his eyes opened. He had learned to think. His brief exposure to the Ganny philosophy had given him an entirely new outlook on existence. He had developed a conscience. But a man with a conscience was useless in his line of work, and he wasn’t trained for any other profession. At thirty-two it was too late to start over. He had unemployed himself.
He looked at Marge and smiled.
“You forgive me, don’t you, darling?” she asked him.
“Of course I do. It wasn’t exactly all your fault, what you did.” Ganny words rolled through his head—words of forgiveness, words of love.
He realized that he longed to finish his conversation up there. He had just been beginning, just finding out that there was truth and wisdom somewhere in the universe . . . and he had been learning it from those strange, methane-breathing beings on snowswept Ganymede. That was what had changed him. That was what had impelled him to break faith with Dinoli and the Corporation—the higher call of Ganymede.
The U.N. man he had sent down the road to the Camerons returned. He shrugged apologetically and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy. The Camerons weren’t home, and the neighbors said they were away and wouldn’t be back for a long time. I couldn’t find the cat. The man in the next house says he thinks it ran away last week.”
“That’s all right,” Kennedy said. “Thanks.”
“Oh!” Marge said. “Poor old McGillicudy!”
Kennedy nodded, listening to the solemn marcia funebre coming from the audio speaker. Poor old cat, he thought; after a decade, nearly, of civilized life, he had to go back to the jungle. He probably had forgotten how to catch mice after all these years.
But it was just as well. The cat was part of the past, too, and the past was dropping away, sloughing off and vanishing down the river of time.
No cat, no job, no past. And fame was fast fleeting. Today he was “The Man Who Exposed The Corporation”; tomorrow he’d be just another jobless has-been, trying to coast through life on his old press clippings. He’d seen it happen to other heroes all too often.
His mind drifted back two months, to his short stay on Ganymede. Ganymede had served as the catalyst, as it were, for the change in his life. On Ganymede . . .
Yes. He knew what he wanted.
“Marge?”
“What is it, Ted?”
“How fond are you of living on Earth?”
Her bloodshot eyes lifted slightly. “You mean—go back to—”
He nodded. He waited a moment; she smiled.
“Will you be happy there?” she asked.
“Very.”
“I can’t say no, can I?”
“If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. But—”
She kissed his forehead lightly. “Did I say I didn’t want to go?”
It had been a fine scene, a memorable one, Kennedy thought, as he relived it in his mind once again three weeks after the blast-off. It had been Saturday, December 30, 2044—the final day of the old year, and the final day on Earth for Ted and Marge Kennedy.
Spacefield Seven in New Jersey was bright with snow— the soft, fluffy, sparkling snow of Earth, not the bleak, blue-flecked, forbidding snow of Ganymede. There had been a heavy fall on Christmas Eve, and most of it still remained on the ground in the rural areas. The Bureau of Weather Adjustment had never been too good at averting snow, and Kennedy was glad of it; few things were more beautiful, he thought, than the whiteness of falling snow against the black of a winter night.
The spaceship stood tall and proud in the center of the field. Once it had been a Corporation ship; now it belonged to the United Nations. The crew was a Corporation-trained crew, but they had a new loyalty now. The November trials had finished off the Corporation.
In his mind’s eye, three weeks later, Kennedy recreated the moment. Flaherty was there, and Secretary-General Isaacs, and most o
f the other United Nations delegates, as well as representatives from every news medium.
Kennedy stood between Flaherty and Isaacs. The Secretary-General was saying, “Your work will be terribly important to us all, Mr. Kennedy. And the peoples of the world may believe this—every word that comes to us from you will go out to humanity exactly as it is received.”
The pilots had signaled. The ship was ready. Kennedy made a neat little farewell speech and walked across the snow-bright field toward the waiting ship.
Flash bulbs went off. Cameras ground.
Now he thought back over those last minutes of his on Earth. They had waved to him, and he had waved back, and he had climbed aboard the ship. The crewmen showed him to his hammock with deference.
They supplied Marge and Kennedy with gravanol pills. He grinned, remembering his last experience with one, and swallowed it.
Tomorrow on Earth was going to be a day without a name, a day without a date—the Year-End World Holiday, a day of wild and frenzied joy. As he waited for blast-off, Kennedy’s mind went back six months to the Leap Year World Holiday—that day of black despair, half-forgotten now.
The day after tomorrow would see a new year on Earth. And for him, a new life.
Resident Administrator of the United Nations Commission to Ganymede. It was a big title, and an even bigger responsibility. In his hands would be the task of convincing the Ganymedeans that the people of Earth would treat them as brothers. That the Corporation was not representative of all Earth.
He would have to win the respect and the admiration of the Gannys. They remembered him as the man who had been different from the others; he hoped they would continue to trust him. He had asked for and received the job of teaching the Ganymedeans to forget their first bitter experiences with the invaders from Earth. Kennedy did not doubt he would succeed; the Gannys were wise, and would listen to him. There would be an exchange of knowledge —Ganny culture for Terran technology. Kennedy would help to bring all this about.
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