Alternating Currents (3 page)

‘Of anti-semitism, you mean. Of course not. But if one candidate is Jewish, and if it turns up that fifteen years ago he tried to square a parking ticket - and there’s always something that turns up, Connick, believe me - then they’ll vote against him for fixing parking tickets. That’s what I mean by “attitudes”. Your voter - oh, not all of them; but enough to swing any election - goes into the booth pulled this way and that. We don’t have to change his mind. We just have to help him decide which part of it to operate on.’ I let him refill my glass, and took a pull at it. I was aware that I was beginning to feel the effects. ‘Take you, Connick,’ I said. ‘Suppose you’re a Democrat and you go in to cast your vote. We know how you’re going to vote for president, right? You’re going to vote for the Democratic candidate.’

Connick said, not unbending much, ‘Not necessarily. But probably.’

~ * ~

‘Not necessarily, right. And why not necessarily? Because maybe you know this fellow who’s running on the Democratic ticket - or maybe somebody you know has a grudge against him, couldn’t get the postmaster’s job he wanted, or ran against his delegates for the convention. Point is, you have something
against
him just because your first instinct is
for
him. So how do you vote? Whichever way happens to get dominance
at the moment of voting.
Not at any other moment. Not as a matter of principle. But right then. No, we don’t have to change any minds ... because most people don’t have enough mind to change!’

He stood up and absentmindedly filled his own glass - I wasn’t the only one who was beginning to feel the liquor. ‘I’d hate to be you,’ he said, half to himself.

‘Oh, it’s not bad.’

He shook his head, then recollected himself and said, ‘Well, thanks for the lesson. I didn’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing you’ll never do. You’ll never get me to vote on the Arcturan side on
any
question.’

I sneered, ‘There’s an open mind for you! Leader of the people! Takes an objective look at every question!’

‘All right, I’m not objective. They stink.’

‘Race prejudice, Connick?’

‘Oh, don’t be a fool.’

‘There is,’ I said, ‘an Arcturan aroma. They can’t help it.’

‘I didn’t say “smell”. I said “stink”. I don’t want them in this town and neither does anybody else. Not even Schlitz.’

‘You don’t have to ever see them. They don’t like Earth climate, you know. Too hot for them. Too much air. Why, Connick,’ I said, ‘I’ll bet you a hundred bucks you won’t set eyes on an Arcturan for at least a year, not until the base is built and staffed. And then I doubt they’ll bother to— What’s the matter?’

He was looking at me as though I were an idiot, and I almost began to think I was.

‘Why,’ he said, again in that tone that was more to himself than to me, ‘I guess I’ve been overrating you. You think you’re God, so I’ve been accepting your own valuation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Inexcusably bad staff work, Mr Gunnarsen,’ he said, nodding judgematically. ‘It ought to make me feel good. But you know, it doesn’t. It scares me. With the kind of power you throw around, you should always be right.’

‘Spit it out!’

‘It’s just that you lose your bet. Didn’t you know there’s an Arcturan in town right now?’

~ * ~

3

When I got back to the car the phone was buzzing and the ‘Message Recorded’ light blinked at me. The message was from Candace:

‘Gunner, a Truce Team has checked into the Statler-Bills to supervise the election and get this. One of them’s an Arcturan!’

The staff work wasn’t so bad, after all, just unpardonably slow. But there wasn’t much comfort in that.

I called the hotel and was connected with one of the Truce Team staff - the best the hotel would do for me. The staff man was a colonel who said, ‘Yes, Mr Knafti is aware of your work here and specifically does not wish to see you. This is a Truce Team, Mr Gunnarsen. Do you know what that means, exactly?’

And he hung up on me. Well, I did know what it meant -strictly hands-off, all the way - I simply hadn’t known that they would interpret it that rigidly.

It was a kick in the eye, any way I looked at it. Because it made me look like a fool in front of Connick, when I kind of wanted him scared of me. Because Arcturans do, after all, stink - not good public relations at all, when your product smells like well-rotted garlic buds a few hundred feet away. I didn’t want the voters smelling them.

And most of all because of the inference that I was sure any red-blooded, stubborn-minded, confused voter would draw. Jeez, Sam, you hear about that Arcturan coming to spy on us? Yeah, Charley, the damn bugs are practically accusing us of rigging the election. Damn right, Sam, and you know what else? They stink, Sam.

Half an hour later I got a direct call from Haber. ‘Gunner, boy! Good God! Oh, this is the reeking end!’

I said, ‘It sounds to me like you’ve found out about the Arcturan on the Truce Team.’

‘You know? And you didn’t tell
me?’

Well, I had been about to ream him for not telling
me,
but obviously that wasn’t going to do any good. I tried anyway, but he fell back on his fat ignorance. ‘They didn’t clue me in from Chicago. Can I help that? Be fair now, Gunner, boy!1’

Gunner boy very fairly hung up.

I was beginning to feel very sleepy. For a moment I debated taking a brisk-up pill, but the mild buzz Connick’s liquor had left with me was pleasant enough, and besides it was getting late. I went to the hotel Candace had reserved for me and crawled into bed.

It only took me a few minutes to fall asleep, but I was faintly aware of an odour. It was the same hotel the Truce Team was staying at.

I couldn’t really be smelling this Arcturan, Knafti. It was just my imagination. That’s what I told myself as I dialled for sleep and drifted off.

~ * ~

The pillow-phone hummed and Candace’s voice said out of it, ‘Wake up and get decent, Gunner, I’m coming up.’

I managed to sit up, shook my head and took a few whiffs of amphetamide. As always, it woke me right up, but at the usual price of feeling that I hadn’t had quite enough sleep. Still, I got into a robe and was in the bathroom fixing breakfast when she knocked on the door. ‘It’s open,’ I called. Want some coffee?’

‘Sure Gunner.’ She came and stood in the doorway, watching me turn the Hilsch squirt to full boil and fill two cups. I spooned dry coffee into them and turned the squirt to cold. ‘Orange juice?’ She took the coffee and shook her head, so I just mixed one glass, swallowed it down, tossed the glass in the disposal hamper and took the coffee into the other room. The bed had stripped itself already: it was now a couch, and I leaned back on it, drinking my coffee. ‘All right, honey,’ I said, ‘What’s the dirt on Connick?’

She hesitated, then opened her bag and took out a photofax and handed it to me. It was a reproduction of an old steel-engraving headed, in antique script,
The Army of the United States,
and it said,

Be it known to all men that

DANIEL T. CONNICK

ASIN Aj-32880515

has this date been separated from the service of the United States for the convenience of the government; and

Be it further known to all men that the conditions of his discharge are

DISHONOURABLE

‘Well, what do you know,’ I said. *You see, honey? There’s always something.’

Candace finished her coffee, set the cup down neatly on a windowsill and took out a cigarette. That was like her: she always did one thing at a time, an orderly sort of mind that I couldn’t match - and couldn’t stand, either. Undoubtedly she knew what I was thinking because undoubtedly she was thinking it too; but there wasn’t any nostalgia in her voice when she said: ‘You went and saw him last night, didn’t you? ... And you’re still going to knife him?’

I said, ‘I’m going to see that he is defeated in the election, yes. That’s what they pay me for. Me and some others.’

‘No, Gunner,’ she said, ‘that’s not what M&B pay
me
for, if that’s what you mean, because there isn’t that much money.’

I got up and went over beside her. ‘More coffee? No? Well, I guess I don’t want any either. Honey—’

Candace stood up and crossed the room, sitting in a straight-backed chair. ‘You wake up all of a sudden, don’t you? Don’t change the subject. We were talking about—’

‘We were talking,’ I told her, ‘about a job that we’re paid to do. All right, you’ve done one part of it for me, you got me what I wanted on Connick.’

I stopped, because she was shaking her head. ‘I’m not so sure I did.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, it’s not on the fax, but I know why he got his DD. “Desertion of hazardous duty.” On the Moon, in the UN Space Force. The year was 1998.’

I nodded, because I understood what she was talking about. Connick wasn’t the only one. Half the Space Force had cracked up that year. November. A heavy Leonid strike of meteorites and a solar flare at the same time. The Space Force top brass had decided they had to crack down and asked the US Army to court-martial every soldier who cut and ran for an underground shelter, and the Army had felt obliged to comply. ‘But most of them got presidential clemency,’ I said. ‘He didn’t?’

Candace shook her head. ‘He didn’t apply.’

‘Um. Well, it’s still on record.’ I dismissed the subject. ‘Something else. What about these Children ?’

Candace put out her cigarette and stood up. ‘Why I’m here, Gunner. It was on your list. So - get dressed.’

‘For what?’

She grinned. Tor my peace of mind, for one thing. Also for investigating the Children, like you say. I’ve made you an appointment at the hospital in fifty-five minutes.’

~ * ~

You have to remember that I didn’t know anything about the Children except rumours. Bless Haber, he hadn’t thought it necessary to explain. And Candace only said, ‘Wait till we get to the hospital. You’ll see for yourself.’

Donnegan General was seven storeys of cream-coloured ceramic brick, air-controlled, wall-lighted throughout, tiny asepsis lamps sparkling blue where the ventilation ducts opened. Candace parked the car in an underground garage and led me to an elevator, then to a waiting room. She seemed to know her way around very well. She glanced at her watch, told me we were a couple of minutes early and pointed to a routing map that was mural with coloured lights showing visitors the way to whatever might be their destination. It also showed, quite impressively, the size and scope of Donnegan General. The hospital had twenty-two fully equipped operating rooms, a specimen and transplant bank, X-ray and radiochemical departments, a cryogenics room, the most complex prosthesis installation on Earth, a geriatrics section. OT rooms beyond number ...

And, of all things, a fully-equipped and crowded pediatric wing.

I said, ‘I thought this was a VA facility.’

‘Exactly. Here comes our boy.’

A Navy officer was coming in, hand and smile outstretched to Candace. ‘Hi, good to see you. And you must be Mr Gunnarsen.’

Candace introduced us as we shook hands. The fellow’s name was Commander Whitling; she called him ‘Tom’. He said, ‘We’ll have to move. Since I talked to you there’s been an all-hands evolution scheduled for eleven - some high brass inspection. I don’t want to hurry you, but I’d like it if we were out of the way... this is a little irregular.’

‘Nice of you to arrange it,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

We went up a high-rise elevator and came out on the top floor of the building, into a corridor covered with murals of Disney and Mother Goose. From a sun deck came the tinkle of a music box. Three children, chasing each other down the hall, dodged past us, yelling. They made pretty good time, considering that two of them were on crutches. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ asked Commander Whitling sharply.

I looked twice, but he wasn’t talking to me or the kids. He was talking to a man with a young face but a heavy black beard, who was standing behind a Donald Duck mobile looking inconspicuous and guilty.

‘Oh, hi, Mr Whitling,’ the man said. ‘Jeez. I must’ve got lost again looking for the PX.’

‘Carhart,’ said the commander dangerously, ‘if I catch you in this wing again you won’t have to worry about the PX for a year. Hear me?’

‘Well, jeez. All right, Mr Whitling.’ As the man saluted and turned, his face wearing an expression of injury, I noticed that the left sleeve of his bathrobe was tucked, empty, into a pocket.

‘You can’t keep them out,’ said Whitling and spread his hands. ‘Well, all right, Mr Gunnarsen, here it is. You’re seeing the whole thing.’

I looked carefully around. It was all children - limping children, stumbling children, pale children, weary children. ‘But what am I seeing, exactly?’ I asked.

‘Why, the Children, Mr Gunnarsen. The ones we liberated. The ones the Arcturans captured on Mars.’

~ * ~

And then I connected. I remembered about the capture of the colony on Mars.

Interstellar war is waged at the pace of a snail’s crawl, because it takes so long to go from star to star. The main battles of our war with Arcturus had been fought no farther from Earth than the surface of Mars and the fleet engagement around Orbit Saturn. Still, it had taken eleven years, first to last, from the surprise attack on the Martian colony to the armistice signed at Washington.