Darby Shire eyed him, then, calmly, reached into an inner pocket of his shabby coat. He seemed taller, now, and more in command of himself . . . and the situation. “I’m glad, Citizen Appleton,” he said as he brought forth a slim, flat, black case and snapped it open, “that you have taken the attitude you have. I am making spot checks in this building, random selections, so to speak.” He showed Nick his official identab: it glowed dully, enhanced by artificial fire. “PSS occifer Darby Shire.”
Inside him, Nick felt coldness at work, numbing him. Making him silent. He could think of nothing to say.
“Oh, god,” Kleo said in dismay; she came up beside him, and so, after a pause, did Bobby. “But we said the right thing, didn’t we?” she asked Darby Shire.
“Exactly right,” Shire said. “Your responses were uniformly adequate. Good day.” He returned his flat-pak of identification back to his inner coat pocket, smiled momentarily, and, still smiling, flowed through the ring of gawking people. In a moment he had gone. Only the ring of nervous bystanders remained. And—Nick and his wife and son.
Nick shut the hall door, turned to face Kleo. “You can never rest up,” he said thickly. How close it had been. In another moment . . . I might have told him to stay, he realized. For old time’s sake. After all, I did know him. Once.
I suppose, he thought, that’s why they picked him to make a spot loyalty check on me and my family. Good lord, he thought. It left him terrified and shaking; with unsteady steps he made his way towards the bathroom, to the medicine cabinet in which he kept his supply of pills.
“A little fluphenazine hydrochloride,” he murmured, reaching for the reassuring bottle.
“That’s three of those you’ve taken today,” Kleo said, wife-wise. “Too many. Stop.”
Nick said, “I’ll be okay.” Filling the bathroom water glass, he rapidly, mutely took the round tablet.
And, inside him, felt dull anger. He experienced a transitory flash of rage, at the system, at the New Men and the Unusuals, at the Civil Service—and then the fluphenazine hydrochloride hit him. The anger ebbed away.
But not completely.
“Do you think our apartment is bugged?” he asked Kleo.
“ ‘Bugged’?” She shrugged. “Evidently not. Or we’d have been called in a long time ago because of the awful things Bobby says.”
Nick said, “I don’t think I can take much more.”
“Of what?” Kleo said.
He did not say. But he knew, down inside himself, who and what he meant. And his son knew, too. They now stood together—but how long, he wondered, will I feel this way? I will wait and see if Bobby passed his Civil Service test, he said to himself. And then I’ll decide what to do. God forbid, he thought. What am I thinking? What’s happening to me?
“The book’s still here,” Bobby said; bending, he picked up the torn, creased paperback which Darby Shire had left behind. “Can I read it?” he asked his father. Thumbing through it he said, “It looks like it’s real. The police must have gotten it off an Under Man they caught.”
“Read it,” Nick said savagely.
Chapter 3
Two days later, a letter from the government made its appearance in the Appletons” mail box. Nick opened it at once, his heart vibrating with expectation. It was the test results, all right; he scanned through the several pages—a Xerox copy of Bobby’s paper was included—and came at last to the determination.
“He failed,” Nick said.
“I knew I would,” Bobby said. “That’s why I never wanted to take it in the first place.”
Kleo began to snivel.
Nick said nothing, thought nothing; he was empty and numbed. A hand, colder than that of death itself, gripped his heart, killing off all emotion.
Chapter 4
Picking up his line-one fone, Willis Gram, Council Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee For Public Safety, bantering said, “How’s the capture of Provoni coming, Director? Any new news?” He chuckled. God knew where Thors Provoni was. Probably dead long ago, on some airless planetoid far away.
Police Director Lloyd Barnes said stonily, “Are you speaking of media releases, sir?”
He laughed. “Tell me what the TV and the papers are blabbing about now.” He could, of course, turn his own TV set on, without having even to get out of bed. But he enjoyed raking his stuffed-shirt Police Director over the coals re the Thors Provoni situation. The color of Barnes” face usually proved interesting in a morbid sort of way. And, being an Unusual of the highest order, Gram could enjoy firsthand the chaos in the man’s mind when it came to anything dealing with the topic of the runaway traitor.
After all, it had been Director Barnes who had released Thors Provoni from a Federal prison ten years ago. As rehabilitated.
“Provoni is going to narrowly slip through our fingers again,” Barnes said gloomily.
“Why don’t you say he’s dead?” It would have enormous psychological consequences on the population—and along the lines he would have liked to see.
“If he shows up here again, the basis of our situation would be jeopardized. By merely showing up—”
“Where’s my breakfast?” Gram asked. “Tell them to bring it in.”
“Yes sir,” Barnes said, nettled. “And what do you want? Eggs and toast? Fried ham?”
“Is there really ham available?” Gram asked. “Make it ham, with three chicken eggs. But make sure nothing’s ersatz.”
Not enjoying his servant-role, Barnes muttered, “Yes sir,” and got off the line.
Willis Gram lay back against the pillows; one of his personal men immediately manifested himself and expertly propped the pillows up exactly as they should have been. Now where’s the damn paper? Gram asked himself, and held out his hand to receive it; another of his personal staff-members noted his gesture and adroitly produced the current three editions of the Times.
For a time, he leafed through the first sections of the great old newspaper—now government-controlled. “Eric Cordon,” he said at last, making a motion with his right hand to show that he wished to dictate. At once a scribe appeared, portable transcriber in hand. “To all council members,” Gram said. “We cannot claim Provoni’s death—for reasons which Director Barnes has pointed out—but we can deliver Eric Cordon. I mean we can execute him. And what a great relief that will be.” Almost, he thought, like getting Thors Provoni himself. Throughout the Under Men network, Eric Cordon was the most admired organizer and speaker. And there were, of course, his many books.
Cordon was a true Old Man intellectual, a theoretical physicist who could inspire a great group-response among other disenchanted Old Men who longed for the ancient days. Who would, if he could, put the clock back fifty years. Cordon, however, despite his unique forensic ability, was a thinker, not a doer—as was Provoni: Thors Provoni the man of action who had roared off to “get help”, as Cordon, his onetime friend, had reported in endless speeches, books and grubby tracts. Cordon was popular, but—unlike Provoni—Cordon was not a public menace. With his execution, he would leave a void which he had really never properly filled. He was, despite his public appeal, strictly small-fry.