Leisurely, Zeta snapped on his neck radio. Cheap and noisy music—of a sort—blurred out of the seven or eight speaker-systems spread over the heavy man’s bulging body.
The music ceased. A pause, and then an announcer’s voice, speaking in professionally disinterested tones. “PSS spokesmen, representing Director Lloyd Barnes, announced a short while ago that police prisoner Eric Cordon, long imprisoned for acts hostile to the people, has been transferred from Brightforth Prison to the termination facilities in Long Beach, California. When asked if this meant that Cordon is to be executed, PSS spokesmen avowed that no decision as to that has been reached. Well-informed sources outside the PSS are openly saying that this heralds Cordon’s execution, pointing out that of the last nine hundred PSS prisoners transferred at various times to the Long Beach detention facilities, almost eight hundred were eventually executed. This has been a bulletin from—”
Convulsively, Earl Zeta clutched at the switch of his body radio; he missed it, clenched his fist spasmodically, shutting his eyes and rocking back and forth. “Those bastards,” he said between his teeth. “They’re murdering him.” His eyes opened; he grimaced, his face showing violent and deep pain . . . then, by degrees, he obtained control over himself; his anguish seemed to ease. But it did not go away; his tubby body remained tensed as he stared at Nick.
Nick said, “You’re an Under Man.”
“For ten years you’ve known me,” Zeta grated. He got out a red handkerchief and carefully mopped his forehead. His hands were shaking. “Listen, Appleton,” he said, managing to make his voice more natural, now. More steady. Yet the shaking continued down deep in the man, out of sight. Nick sensed it, knew it was there. Hidden and buried, out of fear. “They’re going to get me, too. If they’re executing Cordon they’ll just go on and wipe all of us out, all the way down to minnows like me. And we’ll go into those camps, those damn, lousy, rotten detention camps on Luna. Did you know about them? That’s where we’re going. We—my people. Not you.”
“I know about the camps,” Nick said.
“Are you going to turn me in?”
Nick said, “No.”
“They’ll get me anyway,” Zeta said bitterly. “They’ve been compiling lists for years. Lists a mile long, even on microtapes. They’ve got computers; they’ve got spies. Anyone could be a spy. Anyone you know or have ever talked to. Listen, Appleton—Cordon’s death means we’re not just fighting for political equality, it means we’re fighting for our actual physical lives. Do you understand that, Appleton? You may not like me very much—God knows we don’t get along with each other—but do you want to see me murdered?”
“What can I do?” Nick said. “I can’t stop the PSS.”
Zeta drew himself up, his dumpy body rigid with the agony of despair. “You could die along with us,” he said.
“Okay,” Nick said.
“ ‘Okay’?” Zeta peered at him, trying to understand him. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Nick said. He felt numbed by what he was saying. Everything was gone, now: the chance for Bobby had been effectively voided, and a race of tire regroovers would go on forever.
I should have waited, he thought. This just simply happened to me; I didn’t expect it—I don’t really understand it. It must be because Bobby failed. And yet I’m here saying this, telling Zeta this. It’s been done.
“Let’s get over to my office,” Zeta said hoarsely, “and open a pint of beer.”
“You have liquor?” He could not imagine it, the penalty was so terribly great.
“We will drink to Eric Cordon,” Zeta said, and led the way.
Chapter 6
“I have never drunk alcohol before,” Nick said as they sat facing one another across the table. He had begun to feel terribly odd. “You read in the papes all the time that it causes people to go berserk, to suffer complete changes of personality, suffer brain damage. In fact—”
“Scare stories,” Zeta said. “Although, it’s true you should go easy at first. Take it slow; let it just slide down.”
“What’s the penalty for drinking alcohol?” Nick asked. He found himself having trouble forming words.
“A year. Mandatory, without possibility of parole.”
“Is it worth it?” The room, around him, seemed unreal; it had lost its substantiality, its concreteness. “And isn’t it habit-forming? The papes say once you start, you can never—”
“Just drink your beer,” Zeta said; he sipped his, downing it without apparent difficulty.
“You know,” Nick said, “what Kleo would say about my having alcohol?”
“Wives are like that.”
“I don’t think so. She’s like that, but some aren’t.”
“No, they’re all that way.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Zeta said, “their husband is the source of all their financial money.” He belched, grimaced, leaned back in his swivel chair, the beer bottle gripped in one large hand. “To them—well, look at it this way. Suppose you had a machine, a very complex delicate machine, which when it was working properly it pumped out, fed out, a line of pops. Now, supposing that machine—”
“Is that really how wives feel about their husbands?”
“Sure.” Zeta burped again, handed Nick the bottle of beer.
“It’s dehumanization,” Nick said.
“Sure it is. Bet your purple and green ass it is.”
“I think Kleo worries about me because her father died when she was very young. She’s afraid all men are—” He searched for the word but could not find it; by now his thought-processes were erratic, filmed over and peculiar. He had never experienced anything like this before, and it frightened him.
“Just be calm,” Zeta said.
Nick said, “I think Kleo is vapid.”
“ ‘Vapid’? What’s ‘vapid’?”
“Empty.” He gestured. “Maybe I mean passive.”
“Women are supposed to be passive.”
“But it interferes—” He stumbled over the word and felt his face redden with embarrassment. “It interferes with their maturing.”
Zeta leaned toward him. “You’re saying all this because you’re scared of her disapproval. You say she’s ‘passive’ and yet that’s exactly what you want, now, in regard to this. You want her to go along; I mean, approve of what you’re doing. But why tell her at all? Why does she need to know?”
“I always tell her everything.”
“Why?” Zeta said loudly.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Nick said.
“When we finish this beer,” Zeta said, “you and I are going somewhere. I won’t say where—it’s just a place. Where, if we get lucky, we can pick up some material.”
“You mean Under Men material?” Nick asked, and felt coldness tug at his heart; he felt himself being steered into risky waters. “I already have a booklet a friend posing as a—” He broke off, unable to construct his sentence. “I’m not going to take any risks.”
“You already have.”
“But it’s enough,” Nick said. “Already. Sitting here drinking this beer and talking the way we’ve been talking.”
Zeta said, “There is only one ‘talking’ that matters. The talking of Eric Cordon. The real stuff; not the forgeries that are being circulated around on the street, but what he does say, what it’s all about. I don’t want to tell you anything: I want him to tell you. In one of his booklets. I know where we can pick one up.” He rose to his feet. “I’m not talking about the ‘words of Eric Cordon’. I’m talking about the true words of Eric Cordon, his admonitions, parables, the plans, known only to those who are truly members of the world of free men. Under Men in the truest sense; the real sense.”