The Jagged Orbit (18 page)

Also a zero reading, sniggered the little demon at the corner of his mind.

That, though,
had
to be an error! A zero reading was effectively impossible; the lowest he'd ever had before was three.

Best, he concluded, to stick by his original plan for the time being. With excessive heartiness he said, "That's fine, Dr. Reedeth! I'm very reassured by your willingness to commit yourself—in principle. I'll make a point of calling on Celia at my brother's this evening, to congratulate her on her recovery. By the way, isn't that Miss Clay I see in the background?"

At the mention of her name Lyla looked up, but she didn't say anything.

Reedeth glanced at her and back at the camera. "Yes —ah—I'm afraid something rather dreadful happened."

"A backfire from one of those pills she takes for her trances?" Flamen gibed, and at once felt apologetic. But before he had time to say so, Reedeth had replied.

"No. Mr. Kazer got caught up in last night's riots and ... Well, he died from his injuries."

"Christ, that's awful," Flamen said slowly.

"So Miss Clay is here being treated for shock, mainly. But there's been another damned legal snarlup, and I can't just let her go. Some fool of a busy mistook her state for full-scale mental disorder, and by the time I found out about it the commitment papers were too far gone in the mill for me to haul them out."

"Doesn't anything in this country work properly any more?" Flamen sighed.

All of a sudden Lyla sat up straight, releasing her hands from their imprisonment between her legs. "Say, Mr, Flamen! I know we only met yesterday, but could
you
get me out of here?"

Flamen blinked. "How do you mean?"

"It's a guardianship problem," Reedeth said after a pause. "She has to be discharged into an adult's care, and all her relatives are out of state." To Lyla he added in a soothing tone, "There's no real need for that, Miss Clay. We'll have it straightened out by this evening at the latest, if I have to go clear to the Governor to fix it. But—"

He broke off abruptly. Clapping his hand to his forehead in a parody of astonishment at his own short-sightedness, he went on, "Why in the
world
did I never think of that before? Mr. Flamen, would you have any use for an absolute genius at the repair and maintenance of electronic circuitry?"

Prior tensed. "Find out what he means, Matthew," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"I'm going to," Flamen assured him, puzzled. And, louder: "I'm afraid I don't quite catch you, doctor."

"Well, you see, we have a man here who's long overdue for release, but for reasons I can't go into because they're so complicated he's been stuck here months past the proper date. Meanwhile he's been looking after our automatics for us—and you probably know we have one of the largest cybernetic systems in the world. All our patients are packled as a matter of course. His gift for electronics is—oh, I can't find the right word. Brilliant!"

"Matthew, we did get that zero reading," Prior whispered. "Someone like that might be very damned useful!"

Flamen hesitated. "What would you want me to do?"

"Accept guardianship, that's all. You wouldn't even have to pay him more than a token if you used his services—he has an Army pension which has been stacking up interest all the time he's been in hospital. He should be worth a couple of hundred thousand by now."

"Where did he get his training?"

"In the Army, as far as I know. But I do assure you, you can't fault his ability. He's done things here, to my own desketary, which I didn't think were possible."

"I'll consider it very seriously," Flamen said. "Can you let me have some documentation, perhaps? I ought to know something about him before committing myself."

"I'll make sure it's sent to you within an hour," Reedeth beamed. "I can't tell you how grateful I am, Mr. Flamen! I've been looking for a way to secure his release for ages. It simply isn't fair to— Oh." His smile vanished. "I guess there's one point I forgot to mention. He's a kneeblank."

There was a long silence. During it, Flamen was acutely aware of Diablo's dark eyes on him.

"That's irrelevant," he said at last. "I'd be concerned about two things if I agreed to your proposal: his sanity, and his usefulness to my company. It does so happen that we have a short-term vacancy for an electronicist, and I guess if he's as good as you tell me he'll suit us fine. So send me that documentation and I'll call you back. Okay?"

"Definitely okay," Reedeth said warmly and cut the connection.

Flamen leaned back, scowling at Prior. "So my dear wife doesn't care to be discharged into my care!" he grunted. Prior bridled

"Matthew, I really do think you're embarrassing—ah— Diablo here by discussing these very private subjects!"

"Yesterday it was a pythoness, today it's a spoolpigeon—hell, Lionel, there are some people you don't try and keep secrets from because you can't survive in either line of business unless you know how to keep your mouth shut! I'll bet Diablo knew about Celia's trouble anyway, didn't you?" he concluded, turning to the kneeblank.

"Ladromide," Diablo said after a pause. "I thought of using it to pin a program on. Slant would have been here's this alleged disciple of the hard cold truth who drove his wife into a world of illusions. I watched your show for a week while I was making up my mind, and decided in the end it was worth having you around on the public scene whatever the hell had gone wrong privately." He looked and sounded uncomfortable, as though he were not used to praising people.

Flamen laughed. "That was a narrow escape," he said. "I've seen what happened to one or two of the targets you've used. What's your score on sassies up to now?"

"On—what?"

"Sassies. Suicides After Spoolpigeon Investigation."

"Oh. We call them eewoes. Easy way out." Diablo cogitated. "I guess around forty," he said at last. "I don't keep tally, though."

"Really?" Prior said, impressed. "Ours isn't much over half that."

Diablo looked at him, then at Flamen again. Deliberately fixing the latter with his dark stern gaze, he said, "I could suggest a reason. Blanks are harder to make feel deep-down guilty."

"I don't think I like your tone of voice," Prior said frigidly.

"I don't think I much like gauging the success of a vushow by the number of deaths it's caused," Diablo answered. "That evens it."

"Freeze it," Flamen snapped. "I mean
both
of you! Diablo's a stranger, Lionel, and there are things they feel differently about in places like Blackbury. I look forward to working with our new colleague because having him around is going to sharpen my wits. I've been getting stale. Maybe I should try a twelve-hour day too, see if that gets my imagination back in shape. But right now I have some loose ends to tie up, and so have you. Suppose you arrange for Diablo to have his own area of the office—move some walls around a bit, have a comweb put in, anything that's necessary. And arrange to go pick up Celia, too."

"As you say," Prior muttered, rising and heading for the door.

On the threshold, poised to follow him, Diablo hesitated and glanced back.

"Say—uh—Flamen! I didn't mean to make like an uppity nigra, you know. When I think what you could do to pillory us knees with that equipment"—he jerked his head—"I'm kind of surprised at your restraint."

"Oh, sure," Flamen said indifferently. "I could show Mayor Black like in bed with three blank girls, or the Detroit city council in a daisy-chain around the committee table, detail correct down to the pubic hair. But that's not what it's for. It's for things that rate an eighty-plus probability reading, and up."

"Yeah," Diablo said. "Different approach, I guess." He seemed for a moment about to say something else, but finally shrugged and turned to go out with the impatiently waiting Prior.

Alone, Flamen tugged at his beard and cursed under his breath. Reaching a decision, he stretched out towards the main information board and punched for data about packling; he talked about it glibly enough, but he had very little idea how it was done. From the densely clotted verbosity of the article he had on file he managed to extract the broad outlines after five minutes' concentration; it was exactly what Prior had talked about when trying to describe the treatment accorded to patients in the Ginsberg, the construction of an optimum psychoprofile towards which the actual profile was gradually constrained.

Where there was room for maneuver was in the selection of the parameters for the optimum curve. Though the data on file didn't include a bald statement to that effect, it was dear on reading between the lines that choosing them was largely an arbitrary process. Flamen considered that for a while and at length rubbed his hands together, pleased.

Granted that no one else enjoyed quite the household reputation of Mogshack, who had once been called "the Dr. Spock of mental hygiene," there must surely be someone else in his field with considerable authority, whose views were diametrically opposed, and who could be relied on to set up an optimum curve for Celia's personality which offered the greatest possible chance of contradicting Mogshack's own proposals. He punched for the list of candidates, and at the very top he found a name appearing which made him almost tremble with excitement.

Who would have thought that the computers would immediately suggest Xavier Conroy?

SIXTY-FOUR
REPRINTED FROM THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN OF 4TH MARCH 1968

Danger of US 'apartheid with martial law'

From Alistair Cooke: New York

The country has had three days in which to absorb the shock of the first instalment, the official summary rather, of the report of the President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, shortly to be known as the Kerner Commission, after Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois who presided over the seven-months' investigation by nine whites and two Negroes.

Today, for those who hope for more light and a finer perspective on the Commission's findings, there fell the blockbuster of the whole report: 1,489 pages of exhaustive and exhausting investigation of riots in cities big and small. Riots that hardly materialised, riots that shook the social and economic life of the cities to their roots.

Very few people on the outside looking in are likely to stagger through this fascinating and depressing testament; and the fewer people on the inside of State and city government will be too busy trying to decide between the "three choices" which the Commission concludes now confront American society.

First, there is a continuation of present policies, with the same or a little more money going into the rehabilitation of the cities, and the same methods, bordering on suppression by arms, being used to hold the riots. This way, the Commission is convinced, will do little "to raise the hopes or absorb the energies" of the increasing population of young city Negroes; will lead to more violence; and "could lead to urban apartheid and the permanent establishment of two societies."

Little hope

The second choice would be to work at once for the "enrichment of the slums" and "a dramatic improvement" of the people's lives by substantial increases in public moneys for education, employment, housing and the social services. The Commission sees little hope of permanent improvement through this approach either . . .

The third choice, and in the Commission's view the only one that can save the United States from "two societies—separate and unequal" (probably maintained by martial law) is reinforced time and again in the report's detailed documentation of city grievances. These include the pervading bigotry of white attitudes, the rising numbers of young Negroes doomed never to be employed at all (one third of all employable young Negroes in the 20 biggest cities are today unemployed), the flight of the whites to the suburbs from which they are unlikely to vote more taxes for cities reduced to decaying ghettoes for Negroes only.

This third choice requires nothing less than "a massive national effort" to integrate the social and economic life of the two races and the officers of the law who must protect it...

SIXTY-FIVE
ASSUMPTION CONCERNING THE "MASSIVE EFFORT" REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING MADE FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS STORY

It didn't happen and that worked entirely too well.