But much of the Old Men population did not understand that. Hero worship surrounded Eric Cordon. Provoni was an abstract hope; Cordon existed. And he worked and wrote and spoke here on Earth.
Picking up the line-two fone he said, “Get me Cordon on the big screen, Miss Knight.” He hung up, settled back in his bed and once again snooped into the articles in the newspaper.
“Further dictation, Council Chairman?” the scribe inquired, after an interval of time.
“Oh yes.” Gram pushed the newspaper aside. “Where was I?”
“ ‘I mean we can execute him. And what a—‘”
“To continue,” Gram said, clearing his throat. “I want all department heads—are you getting this?—to grasp and understand the reasons behind my desire to finish off whats-hisname.”
“Eric Cordon,” the scribe said.
“Yes.” Gram nodded. “Why we must destroy Eric Cordon is as follows. Cordon is the link between the Old Men of Earth and Thors Provoni. As long as Cordon is alive, people feel the presence of Provoni. Without Cordon they have no contact, real or otherwise, with that ratty space bastard out there somewhere. In a sense, Cordon is the voice for Provoni while Provoni is gone. I admit that this might backfire; the Old Men might riot for a time . . . but on the other hand this might bring the Under Men out of hiding where we could get at them. In a sense, I’m about to deliberately spark a premature show of force by the Under Men; there will be wild waves as soon as Cordon’s death is announced, but ultimately—”
He broke off. On the big screen, which comprised the far wall of his great bedroom, a face had begun to ignite. A thin, esthetic face with hollows about the jaw: a weak jaw, Gram reflected as he saw the jaw move with speech. Rimless glasses, meager hair in the form of carefully combed strands across an otherwise bald head.
“Sound,” Gram instructed, as Cordon’s lips continued to move inaudibly.
“ . . . pleasure,” Cordon boomed, as the sound came on too loudly. “I know how busy you are, sir. But if you wish to speak to me—” Cordon gestured elegantly. “I am ready.”
To one of his bedside aides, Gram said, “Where the hell is he now?”
“In Brightforth Prison.”
“You getting enough to eat?” Gram asked the image on the big screen.
“Very much so, yes.” Cordon smiled, showing teeth so even as to seem—and probably were—false.
“And you’re free to write?”
Cordon said, “I have the materials.”
“Tell me, Cordon,” Gram said energetically, “why do you write and say those damn things? You know they’re not true.”
“Truth is in the eye of the beholder.” Cordon chuckled in his thin, humorless way.
“You know that trial a few months ago,” Gram asked, “where you were sentenced to sixteen years in prison for treason? Well, goddam it, the judges have gone back and eradicated the specifications of your punishment. They’ve now decided on the death penalty.”
No expression appeared on Cordon’s bleak face.
“Can he hear me?” Gram asked an aide.
“Oh yes, sir. He hears you, all right.”
Gram said, “We’re going to execute you, Cordon. You know, I can read your mind; I know how afraid you are.” It was true; inside Cordon quaked. Even though their contact remained purely electronic, with Cordon himself actually two thousand miles away. Psionic capacities like this always baffled the Old Men—and, frequently, the New Men as well.
Cordon said nothing. But it was obvious that he grasped the fact that Gram had begun to feel him out telepathically.
“Down underneath,” Gram said, “you’re thinking, ‘Maybe I should bolt. Provoni is dead—‘”
“I don’t think Provoni is dead,” Cordon broke in, showing outrage: his first genuine facial expression.
“Subconsciously,” Gram said. “You’re not even aware of it.”
“Even if Thors were dead—”
“Oh, come off it,” Gram said. “You know and I know that if Provoni were dead you’d drop your agitation and propaganda enterprises and creep off out of public sight for the rest of your damn ineffectual life.”
A buzzer in the communications apparatus to Gram’s right all at once squeaked into life. “Pardon me,” Gram said, and pressed a switch.
“Your wife’s attorney is here, Council Chairman. You left word that he was to be let in no matter what you were doing. Shall I send him on in, or—”
“Send him in,” Gram said. To Cordon he said, “We’ll notify you—Director Barnes, most probably—an hour before your scheduled death. Goodbye, I’m busy now.” He made a motion and the wall-size screen dribbled into opaqueness.
The central bedroom door opened and a slim, tall, well-dressed gentleman with a short beard strode briskly into the room, briefcase in hand. Horace Denfeld, who always dressed this way.
“Do you know what I read in Eric Cordon’s mind just now?” Gram said. “Subconsciously, he wishes he’d never joined the Under Men, and here he is, the leader of it—to the extent that they have a leader. I’m going to obliterate their existence, starting with Cordon. Do you approve of my ordering Cordon’s execution?”
Seating himself, Denfeld unzipped his briefcase. “According to Irma’s instructions, and my professional advice, we have changed several clauses—minor ones—in the separate maintenance agreement. Here.” He handed a folio, a document, to Gram. “Take your time, Council Chairman.”
“What will happen when Cordon is gone?” Gram asked as he unfolded the legal size sheets of paper and began reading here and there; in particular he scanned the passages marked in red.
Denfeld said offhandedly, “I couldn’t even manage to guess, sir.”
“ ‘Minor clauses’,” Gram mocked with bitterness as he read. “Jeez Christ, she’s upped the child support from two hundred pops a month to four.” He shuffled among the pages, feeling the edges of his ears glow with wrath—and with stunned dismay. “And the alimony up from three thousand to five. And—” He reached the last sheet; it was strewn with red lines and sums penciled in. “Half my travel expenses—she gets that. And all of what I make for paid speeches.” His neck had become grimy and soggy with warm, stinging sweat.
“But she’s allowing you to keep all your earnings from written material which you—”
“There isn’t any written material. Who do you think I am, Eric Cordon?” He tossed the papers brusquely onto the bed; for a time he sat steaming . . . partly from what he had just now read and partly because of the attorney, Horace Denfeld, who was a New Man; low as he was in the general New Man standings, Denfeld considered all Unusuals—including the Council Chairman—merely a pseudo evolvement. Gram could pick it up from Denfeld’s mind: that low, constant level of superiority and contempt.
Gram said, “I’ll have to think it over.” I’ll show it to my own attorneys, he said to himself. The best government attorneys there are: those in the tax branch.
“I want you to consider one thing, sir,” Denfeld said. “In a way, it may seem to you that it’s unfair of Mrs. Gram to ask so—” He searched for the word. “So large a share in your property.”
“The house,” Gram agreed. “And the four apartment buildings in Scranton, Pa. All that, and now this.”
“But,” Denfeld pointed out smoothly, his tongue flitting about his lips like a paper streamer dancing in the wind, “it is essential that your separating from your wife must at all costs be kept secret—for yourself. For the fact that a Council Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee For Public Safety cannot let a breath of . . . well, shall we say la calugna—”