Nick turned and ran, as best as he could.
The cop called after him, “Slow down. I won’t take a shot at you. What do I care any more? I’m just sorry about the girl.”
Slowing to a halt, Nick looked back. “Why?” he asked. “Why do you care about her? You didn’t know her. Why don’t you care about me? I’m on a black pisser snuff list; does that matter to you?”
“Not really. Not since I got a look at my boss over the v-fone; not since I saw him. A New Man, you know. Like a baby. He was playing with things on his desk, stacking them up in piles, according to color, I guess.”
“Could you give me a ride?” Nick asked.
“Where do you want to go?”
“The Federal Building,” Nick said.
“But that’s a nuthouse, now. All those New Men in their cubicles, stay out of there.”
“I want to see Council Chairman Gram.”
“He’s probably like the others, the other Unusuals and New Men.” Thoughtfully, the occifer said, “However, I don’t know if it has done anything to the Unusuals, actually. It’s the New Men.”
“Take me there,” Nick said.
“Okay, buddy, but you’re hurt—you’ve a broken arm and possibly, very possibly, internal injuries. Wouldn’t you rather go to City Hospital?”
“I want to see Council Chairman Gram.”
The occifer said, “Okay, I’ll fly you there. And just leave you off on the roof field. I don’t want to get mixed up with what’s going on—I don’t want it to start affecting me.”
“You’re an Old Man?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, sure. Like you. Like most people. Like this whole city, except in places like the Federal Building where New Men—”
“It won’t start affecting you,” Nick said. He walked shakily, but unassisted, toward the nearby parked PSS skunk car. Walking—and trying not to pass out. Not now, he said to himself. Gram comes first; then it doesn’t matter anyhow. Maybe he was spared; as the cop said, it seems mostly directed at New Men, not Unusuals.
The cop leisurely got into the car, waited for him, then started up into the sky.
“That really is a shame about the girl,” the cop said. “But I noticed what sort of mill it had, souped up like crazy. Was it hers?”
Nick said nothing, he held his right arm, his mind empty of thoughts. Merely feeling the buildings pass below as the squib-cruiser headed for the Federal Building, fifty miles outside of the city of New York, in the satrapy of Washington, D.C.
“Why was she going so fast?” the cop asked.
“For my sake,” he said. “That’s why she went so fast. That’s what killed her.”
The squib wheezed on, making its familiar vacuum cleaner sound.
Chapter 26
The roof field of the Federal Building was alive with light as vehicles came and went. Only official squibs could be seen, however; the field was obviously closed to the public . . . God knew for how long.
The PSS occifer said, “I have clearance to land.” He pointed to a pulsing green light on the intricate instrument panel of his squib.
They settled to a landing; Nick, with the occifer’s help, managed to get out, to stand up unsteadily.
“Good luck, buddy,” the occifer said, and in an instant he had gone; his squib became invisible in the sky above, its red blinking lights blending with the stars.
At the entrance ramp, at the far end of the field, a line of black pissers barred his way. All carried carbines with feather-point bows. And all of them looked at him as if he were offal.
“Council Chairman Gram—” he began.
“Lose yourself,” one of the black pissers said.
Nick said, “—asked me to come here and see him.”
“Don’t you know there’s a forty thousand ton alien that’s—”
“I’m here because of the emergency,” Nick said.
One of the black pissers spoke into a wrist mike, waited in silence, listening to his ear speaker, then nodded. “He can go on in.”
“I’ll escort you there,” another of the black pissers said. “The whole fucking place is in a shambles.” He led the way, and Nick followed, moving as best he could.
“What’s the matter with you?” the occifer said. “You look like you’ve been in a squib accident.”
“I’m all right,” Nick said.
They passed, then, a New Man who stood with a written directive in his hands, obviously trying to read it. Some residual sense told him that he should read it, but there was no comprehension in his eyes, only frightened confusion.
“This way.” The black-clad PSS occifer led him through a series of cubicles; Nick caught glimpses of New Men here and there, some seated on the floor, some trying to do things, to handle objects, others merely sitting or lying, staring emptily forward. And some, he saw, were having violent rages; evidently, flown in for the emergency, Old Men employees were trying to keep them under control.
The final door opened; the occifer stepped aside, said, “Here,” and strode off, back the way they had come.
Willis Gram was not in his big, rumpled bed. He sat, instead, on a chair at the far end of the room, evidently at peace; his face seemed composed and tranquil.
“Charlotte Boyer,” Nick said, “is dead.”
“Who?” Gram blinked, turned to focus his attention on Nick. “Oh. Yeah.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “They took away my telepathic ability. I’m just an Old Man now.”
An intercom on his desk said suddenly, “Council Chairman, we have installed the second laser system, this one on the roof of the Carriager Building, and twenty seconds from now it will have focused its beam on the same spot as the Baltimore laser system.”
Gram said loudly, “Provoni’s still standing there?”
“Yes. The Baltimore beam is directly on him. When we add the Kansas City beam, we will virtually double the power at function-level.”
“Keep me informed,” Gram said. “Thanks.” He turned to Nick. Today, Gram was fully dressed: business pantaloons, silk blouse with frilly sleeves, pie-plate shoes. He was groomed, nattily dressed, and calm. “I’m sorry about the girl,” he said. “I’m sorry, but not really sorry—not if you really get down to the bottom of it—as I might have been if I’d known her better.” He rubbed his face wearily, it had been freshly powdered, and a white layer came off on his hands; he slapped them together irritably. “I’m not wasting any tears for the New Men,” he said, his lips twisting. “It’s their fault. You know about a man, a New Man, called Amos Ild?”
“Of course,” Nick said.
“ ‘Absolutely no possibility,’ ” Gram said, “ ‘That he’s brought an alien back with him.’ Neutrologics, which the rest of us, Old Men and Under Men and Unusuals, can’t understand. Well, there’s nothing to understand, it doesn’t work. Amos Ild was just an eccentric, fiddling with millions of components for his Great Ear project. He was insane.”
“Where is he now?” Nick said.
“Off somewhere playing with paperweights,” Gram said. “Setting up intricate balance-systems for them, using rulers as the support bars.” He grinned. “And he’ll be doing it the rest of his life.”
“How far has the destruction of neurological tissue spread, geographically speaking?” Nick asked. “Over the whole planet? To Luna and Mars?”
“I don’t know. Most communications circuits aren’t being manned; there’s nobody, just plain nobody, on the other end. Which is eerie.”
“You’ve called Peking? Moscow? Sumatra One?”
“I’ll tell you who I’ve called,” Gram said. “The Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety.”
Nick said, “And they no longer exist.”