“Dunno.” The cop added, “But if they did, it was a good idea. I don’t know why they’ve kept him at Brightforth all this time; why couldn’t they make up their minds? Well, that’s what you get when you have an Unusual as Council Chairman.” He continued on up the hall, Nick following.
“You know Thors Provoni is back?” Nick asked. “And with the help he promised?”
“We can handle them,” the cop said.
“Why do you think so?”
“Shut up and keep walking,” the cop said, his large head, his New Man expanded cranium, bobbing venomously. He looked angry and aggressive, looking for an opportunity to use his metal stick on someone, and Nick thought, he’d snuff me right here and now if he could. But he has orders to fulfill.
Nonetheless, the cop frightened him: the concentration of hate on the man’s face when Nick had mentioned Provoni. They may put up a hell of a fight, he realized. If this is representative of their collective feelings.
The cop stepped through a doorway; Nick followed . . . and saw, in a single glimpse, the nerve-center of the police apparatus. TV screens, small, hundreds and hundreds of them, with a cop monitoring each cluster of four screens. A cacophony of noise hummed and clicked and buzzed through the big chamber; people, both men and women, hurried here and there . . . performing little errands such as the one handed to this hate-ridden New Man cop escorting him. How damn busy it was. But the PSS was in the process of rounding up every Under Man they knew of; that alone would put a burden on their electronic-neurological equipment, and those operating it.
Just in that brief moment, he saw their fatigue. They did not look triumphant or happy. Well, he thought, doesn’t the murder of Eric Cordon cheer you up? But they were looking ahead, as were the Under Men. The internal part, the bombing and raiding of the plants, the rounding up of Under Men—it had to be done in a matter of, probably, three days.
Why three days? he asked himself. The two messages hadn’t permitted a fix on the ship—evidently—and yet it seemed to be everyone’s assumption: they had a few days and that was all. But suppose he’s a year out, Nick thought. Or five years.
“3XX24J,” his escort cop said, “I am turning you over to a representative of the Council Chairman. He will be armed, so don’t be heroic.”
“Okay, friend,” Nick said, feeling sheep-like at the rapid processes evolving all around him. A man in an ordinary business suit—purple sleeves, rings, turned-up-toes shoes—approached him. Nick scrutinized him. Tricky, devoted to his job—and a New Man. Above his body his great head wobbled; he was not using the customary neck support bracket in vogue among many New Men.
“You are 3XX24J?” the man asked; he examined a Xerox copy of some sort of document.
“I am Nick Appleton,” Nick said stonily.
“Yes, these number indent systems really don’t work,” the rep of the Council Chairman said. “You work—or worked—as a—” He frowned, then lifted his massive head. “A what? A ‘tire regroover’? Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And today you joined the Under Men via your employer, Earl Zeta, whom the police have been watching, I believe, for several months. This is you I’m talking about, isn’t it? I want to be sure I get the right man passed through. I have your fingerprints, here; we’ll shoot them on to the print archives. By the time the Council Chairman sees you, the prints will be—or will not be—verified.” He folded up the document and carefully placed it in his purse. “Come along.”
Once more, Nick gazed into the huge grotto-like chamber of the ten thousand TV screens. Like fish, he thought, the people gliding about; purple fish, both male and female, bumping together from time to time, like molecules of a liquid.
He had, then, a vision of hell. He saw them as ectoplasmic spirits, without real bodies. These police coming and going on their errands; they had given up life a long time ago, and now, instead of living, they absorbed vitality from the screens which they monitored—or, more precisely, from the people on the screens. The primitive natives in South America may be right, he thought, to believe that when someone takes a photograph of a person he steals the person’s soul. What is this, if not a million, billion, endless, procession of such pictures? Eerie, he thought. I’m demoralized; I’m thinking in superstitious terms, out of fear.
“That room,” the rep of the Council Chairman said, “is the data-source for the PSS all over the planet. Fascinating, isn’t it? All those monitoring screens . . . and you’re seeing just a fraction of it; strictly speaking, you’re seeing the Annex, established two years ago. The central nerve-complex is not visible from here, but take my word for it, it’s appallingly large.”
“ ‘Appallingly’?” Nick asked, wondering at the choice of words. He sensed, weakly, a sort of sympathy for him on the part of the Council Chairman rep.
“Almost one million police employees are maintained at the peep-peep screens. A huge bureaucracy.”
“But did it help them?” Nick asked. “Today? When they made their initial roundup?”
“Oh yes; the system works. But it’s ironically funny that it ties up so many men and man-hours, when you consider that the whole original idea was that—”
A uniformed police occifer appeared beside the two of them. “Get out of here and get this man to the Council Chairman.” His tone was nasty.
“Yes sir,” the rep said, and led Nick down a corridor to a wide, transparent plastic front door. “Barnes,” the rep said, half to himself; he frowned with disarrayed dignity. “Barnes is the closest man to the Council Chairman,” he said. “Willis Gram has a council of ten men and women, and who does he consult? Always Barnes. Does that indicate adequate cerebral processes to you?”
Another case of a New Man putting down an Unusual, Nick realized; he made no comment as they got into a shiny red squib, which had been decorated with the official government seal.
Chapter 16
In a small, modern office, with one of the new spider mobiles dangling above him, Nick Appleton listened listlessly to piped in music. Right now the damn thing was playing selections from Victor Herbert. Oh, Christ, Nick thought wearily; he sat hunched over, his head in his hands. Charley, he thought. Are you alive? Are you hurt, or are you okay?
He decided that she was okay. Charley wouldn’t get snuffed by anyone. She would live to a full life span: to well over one hundred and twelve years, the population average.
I wonder if I can get out of here, he thought. He found himself faced by two doors, one through which they had come, the other leading to inner, more esoteric offices. Cautiously, he tried the knob of the first door. Locked. So, with utter stealth, he approached the door leading to the inner offices; he turned the knob, held his breath, and found it locked, too.
And it set off an alarm. He could hear it clanging. Damn, he said savagely to himself.
The inner door opened; there stood Police Director Barnes, impressive in his well-decorated green uniform, the lighter green variation worn by top police circles only.
They stood staring at each other.
“3XX24J?” Director Barnes asked.
“Nick Appleton. ‘3XX24J’ is an apartment address, and not even my own. Or it was. Your men have probably looted it by now, looking for Cordonite material.” He thought, then, for the first time, about Kleo. “Where is my wife?” he demanded. “Was she hurt or killed? Can I see her?” And my son, he thought. Him especially.
Barnes twisted his head, called back over his shoulder, “Check 7Y3ZRR and see if the woman’s in good condition. The boy, too. Let me know at once.” He turned back to confront Nick. “You don’t mean that girl you had with you in that room at the 16th Avenue printing plant? You mean your legal wife.”