Donald came to a decision. There was something underlying Norman’s earlier unprecedented desire to confide in his roomie. One more slight shock might shake loose the last of his defensive barriers and open him up completely.
“I think you’d better come here and listen to this,” he said.
Puzzled, Norman complied, accepting the headphones Donald handed him.
“You want me to put them on?”
“No, just hold one to your ear. Now listen.” Donald pressed down a single key and a pure musical tone sounded.
“That seems to be—”
“Wait a second.” Donald pushed his knee hard against the vibrato control. The pure tone began to waver frantically until it was cycling a semitone up and down from its basic pitch. Harder still—
The musical tone ceased. A voice said, faintly but distinctly, “—precisely what I was wondering! You wouldn’t expect a man like Masters to be thinking of—”
Donald released the secret switch and the wavering tone returned, continuing until he took his finger off the key.
For long seconds Norman remained statue-still. Then, beginning with his hands, his whole frame began to tremble, more and more violently until he could barely stand upright. Donald rescued the headphones from his nerveless grasp one moment before he let them fall, and guided him sympathetically to a chair.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “But I thought you should know right away. Let me get you a trank, shall I?”
Eyes wide, fixed on nothing, Norman gave an abbreviated nod.
Donald fetched the pill and a cup of water to wash it down. He stood by until, from the cessation of the trembling, it was clear the drug had taken effect. Then he said, “Come now—they’re not going to hold it against you at GT, surely! They must know that anyone in your position is a prime target for indesp, and a gadget that clever isn’t something you’d stumble on except by accident, the way I did it.”
“I’m not worried about GT,” Norman said stonily. “GT is big enough and bastardly enough to look after its sheeting self. Leave me alone, will you?”
Warily Donald drew back, watching Norman with taut concentration. He ventured, “Two major shocks in the same day is—”
“Is none of your drecky business!” Norman snapped, and jumped to his feet. He had taken three strides towards the door before Donald found his voice again.
“Norman, you’re not going after Victoria, for goodness’ sake! There’s no point in—”
“Oh, shut up,” Norman said over his shoulder. “Of course I’m not going after that sheeting shiggy. If she has the gall to show her face here again I can shop her for industrial espionage, can’t I? And it’ll do my heart good, believe me.”
“Where are you going, then?”
On the threshold, Norman spun around to face Donald squarely. “What’s it to you? You’re a bloodless featureless zombie, as measured as a yardstick and colder than liquid air! You’ve never bought the right to know what I’m doing—with your dilettante’s detachment and your nonstop paleass politeness!” He was breathing in violent gasps despite the impact of the tranquilliser he had swallowed.
“But I’ll tell you anyway—I’m going to try and track down Masters so I can put right some of the damage I’ve done today!”
And he was gone.
* * *
Eventually Donald discovered that the pain he could feel in his palms was due to the way he was digging his nails into the flesh. He straightened his fingers with deliberate slowness.
That dirty son of a bleeder—what right has he to…?
The anger paled like a dying fire, and left behind a sour feeling of self-contempt. He swallowed his new drink at a gulp, hardly tasting it.
It couldn’t just be the revelation of Victoria’s treachery that had shifted Norman off his gyros so violently. He must have known that his invariable habit-pattern of bringing in three or four new shiggies a year to the apartment—and always the same physical type—was setting him up for industrial espionage. It was risky for a company shiggy to accept such assignments, but when the target was a VP of General Technics the pay was bound to be tempting.
I wonder what corporation hired her.
But that was irrelevant. Somehow, everything seemed irrelevant, except one wholly incongruous central point: Norman had been on the verge of making a confidant of his roomie for the first time ever, and instead he had been driven into a shouting rage and gone storming away in search of one of his fellow Aframs.
Donald stood in the empty room and thought of the thirteen million people all around him, the population of Greater New York. The idea made him feel fearfully, intolerably alone.
the happening world (4)
SPOKEN LIKE A MAN
Confidentiaclass="underline" Cases have been reported of the term “little red brother” being used by units of the marine and naval forces deployed from Isola. Officers are instructed to remind their men that the officially-approved terms are “chink”, “slit-eye”, “yellowbelly” and “weevil.” Use of softass civilian terms is to be severely punished.
“What they could not hold by force of arms they are trying to win back by the power of their foreign money! We must drive out these parasites, these immoral bloodsuckers who corrupt our womanhood, mock our sacred traditions and scoff at our prized national heritage!”
KEEP OUT!
Allships urgentest allships urgentest following storm Thursday night mines are loose and drifting at approaches to Bordeaux Roads stand by till daylight and await go signal from units of Common Europe Navy.
“What I want to know is, how much longer is that damned government of ours going to take this lying down?”
PRIVATE!
“Our enemies skulk on every side, waiting for us to relax our vigilance. But we shall not give them the chance they seek to fall on and devour us. We shall stand firm, and our nation shall be purged of dross in the pure fire of self, sacrifice.”
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
To all Party bureaux: Revisionism and backsliding has been noted with concern in the following Departments …
“Yeah, but what I mean, even if he does have a clean genotype a guy with a proper sense of social responsibility just doesn’t have five kids in this day and age! I don’t care if he does get the Populimit Bulletin in his mail—that could be a cover, couldn’t it? No, I say he must be one of these Right Catholic bleeders. And I want him out!”
BEWARE OF THE DOG
“What rightfully, legally and historically belongs to us lies groaning under the heel of a foreign tyrant!”
THESE PREMISES PROTECTED BY SAFE-T-GARD INC.
“It is not enough that we ourselves should enjoy freedom. We shall not be truly free until everyone alive can make the same sincere and honest claim.”
NO RIGHT OF WAY
“It is not enough that we ourselves should enjoy freedom. There are those in our very midst who extol the virtues of an alien way of life which we know to be evil, hateful and wrong!”
NIGGER DON’T LET THE SUN SHINE ON YOUR HEAD
“Dirty Reds—”
My country ’tis of thee
NATIONALS RIGHT LANE ALIENS LEFT LANE
“Capitalist hyenas—”
There’ll always be an England
BLANKES NIEBLANKES
“The wogs begin at Calais—”
Vive la France!
FLEMING WALLOON
“Bloody nignogs—”
Deutschland über Alles
YORUBA IBO
“Goddamn people next door—”
Nkosi Sikelele Afrika
YOURS MINE
“They’re all mad bar thee and me and thee’s a little queer—”
MINE!
MINE!!
MINE!!!
(PATRIOTISM A great British writer once said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and betraying a friend he hoped he would have the decency to betray his country.