dejected.'
'We've got no business to conduct with Sal Heim,' George said, with anger.
Tell him to go back to Earth,' Walt added. 'And from now on the satellite is closed to him; he can't visit any of our girls - at any price. Let him die a miserable, lingering death of frustration; it'll serve him right.'
George reminded him acidly, 'Heim won't need us any more, if Briskin is telling the truth.'
'He is,' Walt said. 'He's too simple a horse's ass to lie; Briskin doesn't have the ability.' His call had been put through on the private circuit, now. On the vidscreen appeared the miniature image of one of Verne Engel's gaudily-uniformed personal praetorian flunkies, the green and silver outfit of the CLEAN people. 'Let me talk directly to Verne,' Walt said, making use of their common mouth just as George was about to address a few more remarks to Thisbe. 'Tell him this is Walt, on the satellite.'
'Run along,' George said to Thisbe, when Walt had finished. 'We're busy.'
Thisbe eyed him momentarily and then shut the office door after her.
On the screen Verne Engel's pinched, wabble-like face materialized. 'I see you - at least half of you - are following Briskin's rabble-rousing,' Engel said. 'How did you decide which half was to call me and which half was to listen to the Col ?' Engel's distorted features twisted in a leer of derision.
'Watch it - that's enough,' George Walt retorted simultaneously.
'Sorry. I don't mean to offend you,' Engel said, but his expression remained unchanged. 'Well, what can I do for you ? Please make it brief; I'd like to follow Briskin's harangue too.'
'You're going to require help,' Walt said to Engel. 'If you're going to stop Briskin now; this speech will put him across, and I don't think even concerted transmissions from our satellite - as we discussed - will be sufficient. It's just too damn clever the speech he's making. Isn't it,
George ?'
'It certainly is,' George said, eye fixed on the TV screen. 'And getting better each second as he goes along. He's barely getting; started; it's a genuine spellbinder. Whacking fine.'
His eye on the vidscreen, Walt continued, 'You heard Briskin come out against us; you must have heard that part - everyone else in the country certainly did. Planet-wetting with Bruno Mini isn't enough, he's also got to take us on. Big plans for a Col, but evidently he and his advisors feel he can handle it. We'll see. What do you plan to do, Engel ? At this very crucial point ?'
'I've got plans, I've got plans,' Engel assured him.
'Still no-violence stuff ?'
There was no audible answer, but Engel's face contorted oddly.
'Come up here to the Golden Door,' Walt said, 'and let's talk. I think my brother and I can see our way clear to make a donation to CLEAN, say in the neighborhood of ten or eleven mil. Would that help ? You ought to be able to buy what you need with money like that.'
Engel, white with shock, stammered, 'S-sure, George or Walt, whichever you are.'
'Get up here as soon as you can, then,' Walt instructed him, and rang off. 'I think he'll do it for us,' he said to his brother.
'A gorp like that can't handle anything;,' George said sourly.
"Then for pop's sake, what do we do ?' Walt demanded.
'We do what we can. We help out Engel, we prompt him, shove him if necessary. But we don't pin our hopes on him, at least not entirely. We go ahead with something on our own, just to be certain. And we have to be certain; this is too serious. That Col actually means to shut us down.'
Both their eyes, now, turned toward the TV screen, and both George and Walt sat back in their special wide couch to listen to the speech.
In the luxurious apartment which he maintained in Reno, Dr Lurton Sands sat raptly listening to the television set, the Col candidate James Briskin delivering his Chicago speech. He knew what it meant. There was only one place that Briskin could have happened across a 'lush, virgin world'. Obviously Cally had been found.
Going to his desk drawer, Lurton Sands got out the small laser pistol which he kept there and thrust it into his coat pocket. I'm amazed he'd do it, Sands thought. Capitalize off my problems -
evidently I misjudged him.
Now so many lives which I could have saved will be forfeited, Sands realized. Due to this. And
Briskin is responsible ... he's taken the healing power out of my hands, darkened the force working for the good of man.
At the vidphone Sands dialed the local jet'ab company. 'I want an 'ab to Chicago. As soon as possible.' He gave his address, then hurried from his apartment to the elevator. Those that are hounding Cally and me to our deaths, he thought, Myra and her detectives and the homeopapes ... now they've been joined by Jim Briskin. How could he align himself with them ?
Haven't I made clear to everyone what I can do in the service of human need ? Briskin must be aware; this ain't be merely ignorance on his part.
Frantically Sands thought. Could it possibly be that Briskin wants the sick to die ? All those waiting for me, needing my help ... help which no one else, after I've been pushed to my death, can possibly provide.
Touching the laser pistol in his pocket, Sands said aloud, glumly, 'It certainly is easy to be mistaken about another person.' They can take you in so easily, he thought. Deliberately mislead you. Yes, deliberately!
The jet'ab swept up to the curb and slid open its door.
6
When he had finished his speech Jim Briskin sat back and knew that this time he had done, at last, a damn good job. It had been the best speech of his political career, in some respects the only really decent one.
And now what ? he asked himself. Sal is gone, and along with him Patricia. I've offended the powerful and immensely wealthy unicephalic brothers George Walt, not to mention Thisbe herself ... and Terran Development, which is no small potatoes, will be furious that its breakthrough has been made public. But none of this matters. Nor does the fact that I'm now committed to naming a well-known private operator as my Attorney General; even that isn't important. My job was to make that speech as soon as Tito Cavelli brought me that information.
And - that's exactly what I did. To the letter. No matter what the consequences.
Coming up to him, Phil Danville slapped him warmly on the back. 'A hell of a good fuss, Jim.
You really outdid yourself.'
'Thanks, Phil,' Jim Briskin murmured. He felt tired. He nodded to the TV camera men and then, with Phil Danville, walked over to join the knot of party brass waiting at the rear of the studio.
'I need a drink,' Jim said to them as several of them extended their hands, wanting to shake with him. 'After that.' I wonder what the opposition will do now, he said to himself. What can Bill
Schwarz say ? Nothing, actually. I've taken the lid off the whole thing, and there's no putting it back. Now that everyone knows there's a place we can emigrate to, the rush will be on. By the multitudes. The warehouses will be emptied, thank god. As they should have been long ago.
I wish I had known about this, he thought abruptly, before I began publicly advocating Bruno
Mini's planet-wetting technique. I could have avoided that - and the break with Sal as well.
But anyhow, he said to himself, I'll be elected.
Dorothy Gill said quietly to him, 'Jim, I think you're in.'
'I know he is,' Phil Danville agreed, grinning with pure delight. 'How about it, Dotty ? It's not like it was a little while ago. How'd you get hold of that info about TD, Jim ? It must have cost you ...'
'It did,' Jim Briskin said shortly. 'It cost me too much. But I'd pay it two times over.'