“Who authorized this?”
“It comes from the highest levels.”
“All right, just for curiosity, what does this tell us about our beloved leader?”
His name was Charles Wilson. He was a bald, unfinished-looking young man with a silly smile. He had been hospitalized for schizophrenia in 1990 and again in 1997. At the moment he was employed as an orderly in a nursing home.
Kroger and a helper misted him as he was walking down a dark street to the bus stop. They got him into the car and took him to a temp. There Kroger put a controller on Wilson’s head, like an aluminum chaplet. The controller was an in-house project, not refined enough for even limited distribution—it sometimes killed the subject. Kroger told Wilson that he hated the three- and four-year-olds on CV, that children of other ages were all right, that he hated the three- and four-year-olds, they were monsters who would destroy him if they got older, it was safe to kill them now, but later it would be impossible to kill them, he would be given the means of killing them, he would be given a job where he could kill them, he would forget all this until it was time to kill them, and after it was done he would forget it again.
In a later session Kroger said, “This ring I’m going to give you has a sliding catch in it, right here. Put out your hand. Feel the catch? All right, slide it over and look at the front of the ring. That little black thing is a plastic patch saturated with poison. When you shake hands with somebody, the patch sticks. Slide the catch back, and it’s ready for another dose.
“Now put the ring on your right hand, see if it fits. Okay. Now when the time comes, here’s what you do. When you see a child who looks about three or four, you turn the ring around so the front of it is inside your hand. Do that now. All right. Then you ask the child how old he is, or she is. If the answer is three or four, you push the catch over. Do that now. Then you ask the child’s name. Suppose the child says, ‘Billy.’ Then you say, ‘I’m glad to meet you, Billy,’ and you shake hands. Let’s pretend this doll is the child. Say the words and shake hands.”
In the little room under the humming fluorescent light, Charles Wilson said, “I’m glad to meet you, Billy,” and squeezed the doll’s cold hand.
Wilson quit his job in Washington and flew to Manila. He sincerely believed this was his own idea, and he also believed that the ring on his finger was a gift from his mother, that he had had it for years, and that it would be bad luck to take it off. He went to the employment agency the next day and got a referral to CV, where, as it happened, a position had just opened up.
The man was walking behind a floor polisher in D corridor when a woman and a little girl approached. He turned off the robot and smiled. “How old are you, little girl?”
“I’m four.”
“What’s your name?”
“Melissa. What’s yours?”
“My name is Charlie. I’m glad to meet you, Melissa.” They shook hands solemnly.
Hours later, on the way back from perm, her mother noticed that she was trying to pick something off her hand. “What’s the matter?”
“Itches.” The child got her fingernail under the thing and pulled it off. “Ow.” She began to cry.
“Missy, what is it?” There was a little bloody spot on her palm. “Oh, that’s nothing,” her mother said. “We’ll put a Band-Aid on it when we get home, and you know what? I’ll give you a lollipop.”
Eva Dean was on her way to the cafeteria with her son Tony when they passed a man with a cleaning robot. The' machine stopped whirring and settled to the floor; the man smiled and said, “How old are you, son?”
Something about him alarmed her, and she slipped out, across the grey space and in again, hearing Tony’s answer: “Three.” And he felt the man’s purpose as he moved the little sliding catch on the ring. “What’s your name?” He saw the knotted place in the energy pattern, tried to untangle it, but it was too late even to begin. “Tony,” said the child.
“Glad to meet you, Tony.” A fierce hating joy as he clasped the child’s hand, felt the ring press home. And he was out again, into the child, feeling the irritation under the little plastic patch, of which the child himself was not aware. What was to be done?
At the next intersection he slipped out and into a Wackenhut guard, but that was no use: then into a middle-aged woman on her way to the mall, then into a clerk, and it was all useless. Ever since San Francisco there had been only three of her on the Main Deck; the others had all been flushed out by the Wacks with their detect-and-destroy machines. Perhaps there were others on other decks, but there was no way to find out; d&d machines guarded all the elevators.
She could not destroy the madman, there were not enough of her. But she must, or he would kill all the babies.
18
His Holiness Clement XV, the Bishop of Rome, Defender of the Faith, etc., etc., formerly Clarence Cardinal Morphy of Chicago, was a worried man. All over the world, the faithful were flaking away. Church attendance was down, in some places by almost half; contributions were down by more than that. Number of seminarians, down; nuns and lay brothers, down. Birthrate of Catholic families, down. Resignations of priests, up. It looked to the Pope as if he had been called to preside over the dissolution of the Church. What a hell of a thing to be remembered for! But it could happen; in the nature of things, there would be a last pope sometime, just as there had been a last Emperor of Austria.
Morphy kneaded his stomach, fetched up a belch, and felt a little better. These banquets were giving him the fits, and he was putting on too many pounds; he would have to sweat them off when he got home, and if there was anything he hated more than sin, it was exercise.
It was not to the point, he thought now, that other religions were suffering as well; he had a fraternal sympathy for them, but they were not his lookout. He must save as much of the Church as he could. He knew he could not save it all.
This world tour— The travel and the speeches were exhausting, the crowds scanty. He was getting good media attention, but always in the context of crisis. He had been to Mexico and South America, pleading with the faithful not to turn their backs; now he was going to the Philippines on his way to Japan. The ocean habitat Sea Venture was docked at Manila; a visit had been arranged. That should be interesting, at least. Was the rest of the trip doing any good? He didn’t know.
“Let’s see,” Owen said, “the Pope will get here about three, but he’s sometimes unpunctual, so we’ll have to keep this a little loose. Whenever he does get here, I’ll meet him and take him around to the labs and whatever else he wants to see, and when I get the feeling he’s had enough, I’ll call the computer and have it broadcast the announcement about going up to the Sports Deck. It ought to take about half an hour to get everybody up there, Captain Trilling?”
“I’d say just about that.”
“You’ll have to leave a few people down here, of course.”
“I’ll pick the Protestants,” Trilling said. There was a little laughter.
“And I really don’t like leaving the lab and office sections absolutely empty, either. Jim has already said he will stay in the office and watch on holo. Is there a volunteer for the lab section?”
“I’ll stay,” Italiano said. “I’ve seen a pope.”
“All right, that’s decided, and thank you.”
His name was Arthur Bannerjee, and he had been an experimental subject in Dr. Italiano’s laboratory, an experience he thought of as interesting but which he had no desire to repeat. He remembered the laboratory and its location: it was right down at the bottom on the left side, frontward from the working section where the kitchens were: he had often smelled the aromas in the corridor.