"I don't believe in half-measures," Charlie said.
Immerman smiled and sat back, his fingers interlocked.
"Very good. A true Immerman. But this same intensity and drive in your personae-being should also be applied to your other role."
"What's that?" Ohm said after a long silence.
Immerman's finger pointed accusingly at Ohm.
"Being an immer!"
Ohm's head jerked back as if the finger was close to his eye. "But ... I am!"
His grandfather put his hands together again, the fingers of the left seeming to tap a code on the back of the right hand.
"Not enough. You've betrayed some hesitation about following orders. You've allowed your personal feelings, your revulsion against violence, admirable enough in other situations, to interfere with your sense of the higher duty."
"I think I know what that is," Charlie said, "but I'll ask anyway."
"You were ordered to go home immediately after Snick was questioned. Yet you stayed outside the apartment building. Obviously, you were thinking about trying to keep Snick from being killed. You failed to consider the danger in which we were placed because she was alive. Now, I don't think that in this case she really had to be killed. As it turned out, because of your interference, she wasn't killed."
"Has she been killed?" Ohm said.
"No. She's in a safe place. But she may have to be killed.
From time to time, we have to do things we don't like to do. We do that, Charlie, because we're working toward the greater good of all."
"Which is ... ?"
"Toward a greater freedom for all, toward a true democracy. A society where we're rid of this constant and close scrutiny by the government. It's bad enough now, but it's going to be far worse. The government has been considering for a long time doing something that would justify the actions of us immers if it was the only thing we opposed."
He sipped more tea. Charlie leaned forward, intent.
"Some of my colleagues and I have been fighting against this indecent and undignified proposal. But we're losing."
So, Charlie thought, he is a world councillor.
"The proposal is that every adult be implanted with a microtransmitter that will emit the individual's coded ID. Satellites and local stations will receive this whenever it's being transmitted, and that will be all the time except when the person is stoned. They'd like to have it transmitting then, but that's impossible.
"What this means is that the government can locate any person within a few inches of his position and can also identify that person immediately."
Charlie tried to rock mentally with the punch, but he was nevertheless partly stunned.
"Why, that means that no one can daybreak without being found at once!"
"That's true," Immerman said. "However, putting your personal problem aside for the moment, the proposal robs all human beings of any dignity whatsoever. Strips them, makes them ciphers, zeros with numbers, you might say. We don't want that, and we don't want the monitoring we now have. It's better for humanity that we have the dangers of democracy along with the benefits. You can't have one without the other.
"But this is only one of our goals. We believe, we know, that there is more room on this planet than the government says there is. The population can be increased without any loss of the comfort and well-being we now have. It should be a gradual process, of course. That radical Wang wants to stop all methods of birth control, but he's crazy. You know whom I mean?"
Charlie nodded and said, "He doesn't have a chance of being elected. He shouldn't be elected."
"There are others like him in all the days," Immerman said. "All, of course, working for the government and acting on its orders."
Charlie sat up and said, "What?"
"Wang and the others are agents provocateurs. They propose these radical measures just to anger the population and to make themselves look ridiculous. Thus, more moderate and quite reasonable proposals are rejected. The people classify the radical with the moderate. They're manipulated by the government for the government's purposes. The government wants a status quo."
"I shouldn't be surprised," Charlie said.
"We intend to establish a government that won't use such underhanded and unethical methods."
Immerman looked at the clock strip.
"We don't intend to do it through swift and violent means until the time is ripe for such means. We have been working slowly and subtly to get the family into high positions in the government. You'd be surprised if you knew how large the family is. But the bigger it becomes, the more danger there is of its being exposed. And the more danger there is, the tighter we have to control our members. It's unfortunate but necessary."
Charlie thought, That's exactly the excuse the government has used since the beginning.
Immerman stood up, and Charlie also rose from his chair.
"I know what you're thinking. We won't be any better than the government we now have and possibly we'll be worse. Don't believe it. We've been working on the best system of government possible, given the human situation. Someday, that plan will be revealed. Meanwhile, remember this. It was Thomas Jefferson who said that the best government is that which governs least. You were named after him. Or didn't you know that?"
Charlie shook his head.
"I must be going now," Immerman said.
"One thing," Charlie said. "I believe that there's only one situation in which killing is justified. That's when it's in self-defense."
"Ah, but what is self-defense? Aren't there many kinds?"
"I won't be confused by all that," Charlie said. 'My ethics are of being rather than of words. I know what's right."
"Very admirable," his grandfather said. "Which one of you is saying that?"
Ohm was surprised when his grandfather stepped up to him and embraced him. While hugging Immerman, Ohm looked over his shoulder at the seventeenth-century tableau. Yes. He had no doubt now, and he hated Immerman for what he had done.
On his way out, he picked up his shoulderbag. It was noticeably lighter, but he said nothing. Immerman would wonder why his grandson wished to keep the weapon when there was no logical reason to do so.
The trip back was almost a complete reversal of the trip up. However, Ohm did not go to his apartment. Instead, he walked into The Isobar. The usual uproar and odor of beer and liquor greeted him. He waved at various patrons in various stages of drunkenness and went into the manager's office. After getting a mild chewing-out (no sympathy for his supposedly hurt back), Ohm put on an apron and went to work behind a long curving oak bar on which stood the statuettes of three patron saints:
Fernand Petiot, creator of the Bloody Mary, W. C. Fields, and Sir
John Falstaff. Only half the customers were local weedies. The rest were slummers or organic agents. The latterwere hoping to catch someone making a barter deal for bootleg liquor.
Ohm was not a complete weedie in that he had not been satisfied to live off the minimum-income credit furnished by the government. His job, however, was not just to supply himself with extra goodies. He overheard much while behind the bar and in front of it after working hours. Sometimes, he picked up information that the immer council could use.
Today did not go as most. He drank very little, and he was so evidently wrapped in his thoughts that some of the patrons kidded him about it. Not sure that he was lying, he told them that he was in love. What he had seen on the screen in Immerman's room, the voices that shouted inside him, and his efforts to select the elements of a new personality beat at him like waves against a seawall. He was glad when quitting time came; he rushed out past his relief with a short good-bye and walked to his apartment. There he ate a light supper and then paced back and forth as if he would wear off the rug and reveal the coded answers to his problems on the floor beneath. He stopped when, at 7:35 P.M., Mudge came to the door.
Bearer of a scowling face and bad news, Mudge told him that Immerman had changed his mind abou
t his disposition of Ohm. It would be better, thus, imperative, that Ohm be stoned and shipped to Los Angeles in a box labeled as goods. The California city was due next week for an influx of ten thousand immigrants from Australia and Papua. Arrangements would be made so that Ohm would be listed among them. Tonight, Mudge and Ohm would work on the new ID. After Ohm got to Los Angeles, he could create the fine details of his persona.
Charlie sat down, breathed deeply, and said, "I suppose there's no use protesting?"
"None," Mudge said. "Hetman Immerman said that you must get far away from Manhattan."
"When?"
"Tomorrow night. A Sunday agent will take care of everything."
Ohm thought, What guarantee is there that I'll ever be destoned? The logic of the situation demands that I just disappear from the living, be stuck someplace where I won't be found.
Mudge removed a tape from his bag and handed the tiny cube to Ohm. "Here's the outline of the new persona, the really vital vital statistics and the outline of your background."
"Already?"
"The council members are old hands at this sort of thing. They must have these in stock. A few changes, and they're ready. Study it tonight and then erase it. You'll be given another one when the time's right."
Which may be never, Ohm thought. Or am I just too suspicious?
He needed a drink, but he would not allow himself to have one.
Mudge walked to the door and turned. Instead of saying good-bye and good luck, he said, "You've sure been a lot of trouble. I hope you stay out of it in L.A."
"I love you, too," Ohm said, and he laughed.
Mudge scowled even deeper and closed the door behind him. Ohm turned on the hail and outside monitor strips to make sure that Mudge was not hanging around. Then he went to bed, applied the electrodes of a sieepwavc machine to his temples, set and turned the unit on, and slept dreamlessly and compulsively. At 9:30 P.M., he was awakened by the unit alarm.
"I have to do it," he muttered. "Maybe I shouldn't. But I have to."
Chapter 26
The loud voices had become whispers, perhaps because the others had hope now that they would not die. The quieting of that part of the inner tumult allowed Ohm to concentrate. Sitting in a chair, a cup of coffee on the table by him, he gave orders to a strip. One after the other, appearing or disappearing at his command, the diagrams of the Tower of Evolution and of the area beneath and around shone on the screen. At 10:15, he ordered any evidence of his viewing of the diagrams to be erased. He did not know that it would be done. It was possible that the Department of Building Construction and Maintenance had programed a nonerasure command. However, he could think of no reason why the department should do that. Even if it had done so, the chances that anyone would note his request and ask for the identity of the requester were not high.
He left the apartment at 10:17 P.M. and walked as much under the tree cover as possible. The sky was clear, and it was still hot but cooler than in the daytime. The streets were almost empty of traffic, though the sidewalks were crowded with neighborhood residents. Most of them were going home from the empathoria, the bowling alleys, or the taverns. In fifteen minutes, few would be outside. That would make him more conspicuous, but that could not be helped. Fear of consequences and desperation did not go hand in hand.
Ohm turned onto West Fourteenth Street and walked to the northwest corner of the Tower of Evolution. Here, as on every night at this time, an oblong of light shone up from a hole in the sidewalk. Ohm looked down into the hole and saw two men standing there. They were in the kilted blue uniform of Saturday's Civilian Corps of Transportation and Supply. Ohm pressed the UP button on the mobile cylindrical machine by the hole. As the platform began moving, the men looked up. Ohm nodded at them, got onto the platform when it stopped level with the sidewalk and pressed the DOWN button. Twenty feet below the sidewalk, the platform stopped. Ohm got off and said, "How're things going?"
The two men looked at each other, and one said, "Fine. Why?"
Ohm bounced the tip of a finger off his ID disc as if he was indicating that it contained his authority. "I have to investigate a shipment. It's nothing illegal, just an error."
He was at the first obstacle, the foremost of several ticklish crossroads. If the workers doubted him and asked for his ID, he would have to improvise an explanation. The workers, however, were not concerned, and his air of knowing what he was about convinced them.
He walked past them and into a tunnel, and soon he was around a bend and out of their sight. Below the grating on which he walked were well-lit levels on which belts or elevators carried boxes of stoned or unstoned supplies. These were part of the vast underground system that transported goods and food to computer-assigned destinations from the unloading depots at the ports or the Thirteen-Principles Towers. The individual belts and elevators moved with little sound, but their aggregation caused a low rumble like that of a distant cataract.
Ohm took an elevator reserved for personnel to the third level down. From there he passed over a narrow catwalk to a bank of personnel elevators, chose number three, and sent himself swiftly up to Exhibit No. 17, EXTINCT TYPES OF HOMO SAPIENS. He went down a short but wide and high hall and stopped at a door. The next ticklish crossroads would be when he entered the room beyond the door. There were hundreds of monitor strips inside the Tower, all active during visiting hours. Was there any reason for them to be on now? Vandalism and burglary were such uncommon crimes, especially in public buildings, that it seemed to him that active monitor strips and personnel to watch them would not be required. However, there might be someone in Immerman's apartment who was viewing the exhibit display strips. Mudge was a likely candidate.
He breathed in deeply and pushed the door open. Stepping through, he found himself at the rear of the seventeenth-century French court tableau. The vast interior of the tower was silent, the sightseers gone, the circling escalator stopped, the information screens turned off, the sounds of the robot beasts quelled. The workers that he had feared might be repairing or altering exhibits were not there. Or, if they were, he could not hear them. Certainly, there were none in this recess.
He moved from around the back of the dais and thrones past the sitting figures of The King and The Queen. He zigzagged through The Courtiers, the gentlemen in their finery and powdered wigs, the ladies in their silk, brocades, hooped skirts, and high-piled wigs. They all looked very realistic. A smiling young woman displayed four teeth missing, the rest blackened by decay. A man's face was deeply scarred with smallpox. A fan held by a woman did not entirely conceal that part of her nose had been eaten away by syphilis. Missing, however, were other realistic elements. The stench of long-unwashed bodies and the perfume to cover the stench. The head lice infesting the wigs. Stains on the shoes spattered when their owners urinated in the corners of the palace halls.
He also noticed something that at another time would have made him laugh. Despite all the research and rechecking, the designer of these figures had forgotten that seventeenth-century people were much shorter than New Era people. Every one of these figures would have towered above all in the court of the real Louis XIII.
Near the middle of the throng, he stopped. The silent and motionless woman in a scarlet and yellow gown and golden-yellow wig stared at him with large brown eyes. Her face was thickly powdered and rouged.
He said, "God help us!"
He lifted the wig and saw, as he had expected, the short, straight, gleaming-brown hair that looked like the fur of a seal.
"The bastards! The old bastard! What arrogance!"
He stepped behind her and began dragging her backward toward the elevator. Her high-heeled shoes made a slight rubbing noise, then came off. He stopped, held her upright with one hand, and bent down to pick up the shoes. He must not leave any evidence that an exhibit figure was missing. It was possible that her absence might not be noticed for a long time. All he wanted was a relatively short time.
"Ohm!"
The vo
ice came from somewhere close, and it was Mudge's. Charlie dropped the shoes and the stoned body of Snick, which fell with a loud noise to the floor. He stared wildly around and saw two men, but he was so bewildered and surprised that he did not immediately recognize them. It took a second or two for him to bring them into the focus of reality. A dreamlike state washed over him, numbing him. Then he saw that the two cavaliers who had seemed to come to life were Mudge and a companion.
They had clad themselves in the clothes taken from two figures and had waited for him. They must have monitored him from the moment he entered the underground. They had assumed the stiffness of exhibit figures just before he came through the door.
"Traitor! Damn fool!" Mudge said as he walked slowly toward Ohm. "What do you care about the womhn? She's an organic, a danger to us! What in hell is wrong with you?"
Ohm slipped off his shoulderbag and let it fall to the floor. He crouched and looked around as if he were about to run. Let them think that.
The other man, a tall thin fellow with burning black eyes, circled around to cut Ohm off. He was drawing the rapier from the scabbard at his belt and would be in the path to the exit door before Ohm could get past him.
"I told Hetman ... the chief ... that you'd fall for it," Mudge said. He had stopped and was removing the long moustaches and the feathered hat and wig. His right hand was on the grip of the rapier at his left.
"Fall for it?" Ohm said.
Wyatt Repp's voice seemed to come faintly to him, telling him that this scene was right out of one of his dramatic-admittedly, corny-empathorium works. "You're the hero," the fading voice said.
"Yes. It wasn't any accident that you saw Snick. There was a subliminal flashing just above her head. You couldn't have missed her. Hetman 1mm- ... the chief ... put her there to test you. He wanted to find out if you really were mentally unstable, if you could be a traitor. Now we know!"
"I wanted to find out if you killed her," Ohm said. He moved toward a splendidly dressed male courtier on his right.
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