L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (25 page)

Folks hereabouts
still
called the place by an older name. “Hell-on-Wheels.” Modem crabgrass pavin’d been passed over in favor of the original street-cobblin’, an’ the business-district was all nineteenth-century false-fronts an’ boarded sidewalks t’tickle the tourists.

Win’d found us a vet, who in turn’d looked up an electronics consultant. We’d all figured, right at the start, that savin’ Howell’s life might be as much a matter of cybernetics as medicine. Lookin’ for all the world like a TV repairman’s truck, the electronician’s hoverbuggy was parked out in front of the vet’s office, in a district usually accustomed t’real live horses.

I paced up an’ down the boardwalk, smokin’ one cigar after another an’ gnashin’ m’teeth. Probably resembled an expectant father, an’ considerin’ where I was an’ all, I drew a lotta weird looks from the passers-by.

The moon wasn’t up yet, but it’d never be able t’compete with the lightin’ afforded by a commercial satellite reflector parked overhead. Felt like three o’clock in the daytime insteada close on midnight. Spin paced forth an’ back in counterpoint, while Win sat on a wooden bench, matchin’ me cigar-for-cigar. Everybody else was crammed inside the tiny office; there hadn’t been a square foot left for the three of us.

I turned to the detective. “This here is just plain awful. We ain’t a millimeter closer t’findin’ Georgie, an’ we’re gettin’ carved up”—I fingered my damaged earlobe, indicated his bruised-up chest an’ the crack in Spin’s shell— “at an astoundin’ rate. What the hell we gonna do?”

He shook his head an’ spat out a bit of tobacco leaf. “Wait. Gregamer was driving a foreign hovercar, German by the looks of it, probably a Volkswirbel. There can’t be too many of them in this area. Griswold’s owes our Hamiltonian friends a debt or two, and they’ve got resources and manpower we don’t have. So I’ve got them working on it—I made an extra call or two from the car after I found the vet—they’ve also staked out Gregamer’s house and office at the extension.”

“Swell. An’ in the meantime, us ‘men-of-action’ can just sit an’—say, I been meanin’ t’tell you, Win, an’ everybody else, that Cromney an’ his gang ain’t really none of your Hamiltonians. No connection at all. They’re just a packa nondescript punk leftists who-—”

He grinned up at me in that odd always-aftemoon lightin’: “It wouldn’t matter if they were just a pack of nondescript punk right-wingers, Bernie. Hamiltonianism is more than just the not-so-secret society which manufactures those creepy cheap medallions. It’s become the generic term for any philosophy which holds that some individuals have a right to exercise authority over others. Let me tell you, friend, that wherever there’s some sonofabitch giving orders and another one taking them, whether those orders are the results of a Leader’s ulcerated nightmares or a ‘vote of the People,’ the spirit of Alexander Hamilton is hovering.”

The office door opened a crack. One of the other Freen-ies—hard t’tell in this light—squeezed out, gave us a “no-news-is-good-news” crook of his eyestalk, an’ let Spin through t’take his place for a while. He didn’t pace with me, but perched up on the bench beside Win an’ sucked on a teabag.

I got t’thinkin’ about what Win’d said. Put me in minda my Academy days, when I was a two-bit ensign, wet behind the ears.

Seemed like yesterday.

There’d been one prof I’d taken a likin’ to, mebbe outa the chance similarity in our names. Beraardine LaPacce was a plump, sixtyish, white-haired lady, looked like everybody’s grandma. I could see her classroom now as if I were still there, reflectin’ that one-sixth Lunar gee hadn’t made a plastic desk-seat easier t’take three hours at a time.

“You’re familiar with the view,” she said one momin’, “that the Soviet Union was critical to the survival of the United States government, that without the constant threat which Communism represented, federal expenditures, particularly for defense, would have been vastly smaller, taxes greatly decreased.

“This morning, we’re going to examine the phenomenon in more detail. Socialism served the twentieth century rul-ing-class in two ways: as a fundamentally nonworkable economic system, it assured that the bogey-man powers would remain impoverished and
manageable.
Burdened with a governing philosophy contrary to historic, economic, sociological, and political reality, they could only constitute a
psychological
threat. That is why they were
invented:
it’s fairly well known that Wall Street
financed
the Bolshevik Revolution. Mercantile fascist interests supported the Russian government for decades afterward, even shipping them whole factories.”

The professor bounced up an’ down on her heels, wavin’ the chalkboard pointer. At one-six gee, it seemed like any moment she’d fly up an’ finish lecturin’ from the ceilin’. Thank heaven—or Dupont, speakin’ of mercantile fascist interests—for Velcro.

“But, even more importantly, socialism served as a
domestic
safety-valve. Those intelligent enough to perceive the ugly truth—that America was
not
a capitalist economy but a variety of Mussolini’s system—those individuals were offered only socialism as an alternative, with all its ineffectual, wheel-spinning, Byzantine factionalism. Thus, any threat represented by young bright dissenters was diffused harmlessly. My most charitable feelings toward the Left are those of pitying contempt. They were
suckers,
taken in by the government-approved alternative philosophy, and used to serve the very interests they thought they opposed!”

Next momin’ there was an announcement that a suburban warren of the lunar city-complex’d been depressurized by an explosion in a methadone pipeline. Professor Bemardine LaPacce was one of sixty-thousand victims.

Always made me wonder, afterward, whose interests
that
had served.

“They needn’t have bothered,” Win said after I’d told him the story. He watched as—Color, I think it was, fidgeted in a most un-Freenielike manner, finally surrenderin’ to the pacin’ urge. “Nobody on the left would ever have believed her. They’ve always got too much invested emotionally, and the system provides too many opportunities to
hate—
industrialists, the middle class, even other leftists. It selects for a particular kind of stupidity which is immune to reason or logic or even historical fact.”

“Much the same as the right,” I observed, wonderin’ if it was Howell’s bein’ hurt or somethin’ else that was eatin’ the little aliens. The door swung open, an’ he practically jumped. Spin came out, an’ he went back inside.

“Well, I’m going to see what’s going on in there. Want to join me?”

I shook my head, watched him stub out his cigar. In a moment, Koko was sittin’ on the bench in Win’s place.

“Do you think he’s serious?” she asked.

“I dunno, kid. I seen a lotta funny things in a long an’ checkered career. I seen mobs gather when the calendar got straightened out so’s Christmas’d fall in the winter-time. I seen an elk, with its heart pulverized by a 7 mm magnum run three quarters of a mile an’ drop dead because its mus-cles’d stopped pumpin’ blood. I seen a whole planetfulla folks who’d blown themselves up over a disagreement about what kinda asparagus God wanted ’em t’eat. Could be How-ell’ll get better—I seen folks hurt worse—could be he won’t.”

“I wasn’t talking about that, Bernie. I was talking about Win Bear hiring me as his assistant. I never thought about being a detective before. Do you think I’d do all right?”

I looked her over real good. She was big, shaggy, with that little hint of reddish fur that seemed t’run in Olongo’s family. She was wearin’ a T-shirt that said, FOLLOW A PARANOID, a miniskirt with a poodle appliqued on it, a wide designer gunbelt in some kinda plastic. I thought about Hercule Poirot. I thought about Miss Marple an’ Nero Wolf. I thought about Mrs. Pollifax an’ Sherlock Holmes an’ that fella—what was his name?—who was a part-time detective an’ a full-time burglar. Rhodenbarr, somethin’ like that. Forgot the first name.

Me, I was just a part-time Sybarite an’ a full-time hedonist. What the hell did I know?

“Give it a whirl, kid. Give it your best shot. But don’t give up your day-job. What is it you’re studyin’, anyway?”

“Gee, Bemie, all kinds of things. I guess I’d really like to be a spaceship pilot, an explorer. Maybe somebody’ll invent a faster-than-light drive one of these days, and— Bemie,
your
civilization has a faster-than-light drive, doesn’t it?”

The door opened again, an’ Spin was replaced by one of his colleagues.

“Yeah, that it does. Shucks, I even know how it works, in a general sorta way. Trouble is, your culture’s invented somethin’ I didn’t even know could exist—travelin’ between worlds of alternate probability. We’re aheada you in some ways; you’re aheada us in others. Hard t’make sense of it.”

She sighed. “Yes, yes it is.” She was silent for a while, then: “Bemie, I didn’t mean
not
to be worried about Howell. I just don’t know him very well, and I was trying to keep my mind on other things.”

“I know, kid. Say, d’you suppose there might be a soda-fountain in this burg somewhere? I’ll bet you’d like a sundae, or even a—” Realizin’ what I’d been about t’say, I began t’blush.

She saw it an’ grinned. “A banana split? I’d be delighted!”

“Great—let’s—”

Spin was back on the boardwalk, an’ this time he was tuggin’ on m’leg, just like old times. “What is it, little fella?” “Bemie, we’ve got to get to a Telecom. Charm’s in trouble, and he needs our help!”

The nearest Com, outside the crowded vet’s office, was in Win’s car. I still hadn’t gotten the complicated hang of operatin’ the thing, so I shanghaied Koko.

It wasn’t necessary. His little image was there, waitin’ for us.

“Lord?” the alien said, this time without any undertones. “I have done as much as I could by myself. Now it is time for you to help—for any moment I may be discovered, and should that transpire, both Georgie and I are doomed.” “How’s that?”

“Can you not see? I followed Gregamer here, having attached myself to his vehicle and disguised myself.” He demonstrated, withdrawin’ his periscope an’ slowly chang-in’ the atrocious color of his carapace until it was a steely gray. Little guy had talents he hadn’t even used yet. “Now I have found Georgie—”

“You
what?"

“
Please
, Bemie, there is little time! I have found Georgie—this is
her
channel we’re communicating on.” The camera drew back until I could see that it was peekin’ out from underneath the fly in’ saucer’s fuselage.

“Georgie! Are you all right?”

No answer.

Charm was insistent. “She can’t communicate with you, Bemie. Gregamer and Cromney and the rest are on the control deck, and we’re taking risk enough just transmitting this. I’ll try to tell you where we are, but Bemie, you’ve got to be careful and you’ve got to act quickly.”

“What’s goin’ on, Your Ambassadorship?”

“Bemie, they know that Georgie’s a sapient being, and they’re torturing her until she admits it!”

20 A Freenie in the Works

How DO Y’TORTURE A FLYIN’ SAUCER?

In Georgie’s case, I could imagine all too well. Six or seven different ideas that curled what was lefta my hair. She was, indeed, a sapient bein’—one helluva lot sapienter than the crowd which presently had aholda her. I hadda
think!

An’ the gorilla breathin’ down m’neck wasn’t exactly helpin’.

“Koko, how good’re you at keepin’ a secret?”

She blinked an’ looked down unhappily at her toes, kinda self-consciouslike. “Not very good, I’m afraid. Uncle Olongo says—”

“Well, then, m’mind’s made up: I don’t need no fifty-eleven well-meanin’ friends jogglin’ m’elbow, an’ you don’t even trust yourself not t’blab—that, an’ the fact I ain’t got no Confederate driver’s license. You know how t’herd this thing?”

“A Neova? Sure—but... what’s a driver’s license?”

“Swell. Okay, there
ain’t
no alternative. Spin, you better stay here in case I flub things again. Gimme half an—make that twenty minutes, then tell Win an’ Will where we’ve gone. I’m relyin’ on you not t’spill the beans too soon. Also, apologize t’Win for me for stealin’ his car. You ready t’go, girl?”

The gorilla protested. “But Bernie, there aren’t even any keys in the ignition. How—”

“Kid, you gotta lot t’learn. I didn’t put in sixteen weeks as a phony JD in twentieth-century Passaic, New Jersey, for nothin’. Lemme in there under the dashboard.”

1954, it’d been. If you can imagine Mrs. Gruenblum’s little boy in a black leather jacket, ankle-pegged chinos, an’ a jelly-roll haircut. The things I do for the Academy. Makes me wanna take a shower every time I think of it.

The impellers caught on the second try. I slid out from under the instrumentation an’ onto the passenger seat t’make room for Koko, who climbed in reluctantly.

I addressed the Telecom: “Okay, Charm, we’re on our way, if you’ll tell us what t’do. An’ you can also tell me what all you’ve been up to. Spin I can identify now, right enough. But I guess I never did learn t’tell you an’ Color apart—I thought you were here with us all the time!”

The image on the screen seemed t’blush a little. Maybe it was just a glitch in the circuitry or sunspots. “That was as intended, Lord. We all beg your forgiveness for the deception and will humbly accept whatever penance you should—”

“Skip the crap—just tell Koko where t’point this jalopy.”

Head south, Miss Koko, for the intersection of Monroe and Slade, out by the old Overland Steamcoach bams. I’ll direct you from there.

Lord, there wasn’t time to consult with you. I barely had time to tell my fellows what I had in mind—disguising myself as a mechanical excrescence on Norrit Gregamer’s vehicle. I rode back into Cheyenne, that evil person none the wiser, clinging for dear life to the body of the hovercraft. Several hundred kilometers per hour tested severely even
my
holding power.

You’ll see for yourself, soon enough, what a dismal state our Georgie’s in. Naturally, she cannot move or properly defend herself—no, you mustn’t fault yourself for that, Bemie. You
had
to take that alignment device; she is as well aware of the alternatives as you are. But they have opened every service port, every access plate, looking for parts to cannibalize for a new field-density control and also, I believe, as an inducement to her cooperation. They’ve tom—