"Yes," murmured the knight, "unfortunately."
"What is unfortunate about it?"
"The more thoughtful you people are, the worse you get. Why is that?"
"What do we do that is wrong, Casimir Radon?" said Krupp quietly.
The mask rose and gleamed at S. S. Krupp, and then its owner lifted off the helmet to reveal his shaven head and permanently consternated face.
"Lie a hell of a lot. Fire people when you don't have to. Createcreate a very complicated web of lies, to snare a simple, good ideal."
"I don't think it's a hell of a lot of fun," said Krupp, "and it hurts sometimes, more than you can suppose. But great goals aren't attained with ease or simplicity or pleasantry, or whatever you're looking for. If we gave into the MegaUnion, we would tip our hand and cause ruination. As long as we're putting on this little song-and-dance, we've got to make it a complete song-and-dance, because if the orchestra's playing a march and the dancers are waltzing, the audience riots. The theater burns."
"At least you could be more conciliatory."
"Conciliatory! Listen, son, when you've got snakes in the basement and the water's rising, it's no time to conciliate. Someone's got to have some principles in education, and it might as well be us. If this country's educators hadn't had their heads in their asses for forty years, we wouldn't have a faculty union, and more of our students might be sentient. I'll have strap marks on my ass before I conciliate with those medicine men down there on the picket lines."
"You're trying to fire everyone. That's a little extreme." "Not if we're to be consistent," said Heimlich. "We can use the opportunity to rearrange our financial platform, and hire new people. There are many talented academics desperate for work these days, and the best faculty members here won't let themselves be taken out en masse anyway."
"You're going to do it, aren't you!"
"It's evident that we have no choice."
"Don't you think" Casimir looked out at the clear blue sky.
"What?"
"That if the administration gets to be as powerful as you, you have killed the university?"
"Look, son," said Ralph Priestly, rolling forward. "We never claimed this was an ideal situation. We're just doing our best. We don't have much choice."
"We're rather busy, as you can imagine," said Heimlich finally. What do you want? Something for the railgun?" He sat up abruptly. How is the railgun?"
"Safe."
Heimlich smiled for the first time in a week. "I'd like to know what a 'safe' railgun is."
"Maybe you'll find out."
Everyone looked disturbed.
"We are prepared to remove the Terrorists from the waste disposal site," said Casimir crisply, "as a public service. The estimated time will be one week. Beforehand, we plan to evacuate the Plex. We require your cooperation in two areas.
"First, we will need control of the Plex radio station. One of our group has developed a scheme for evacuating the Plex which makes this necessary.
"The second requirement is for the consideration of you, Ralph Priestly. What we want, Ralph, is for some person of yours to sit by the switch that controls the Big Wheel sign. When we phone him and say, 'Fiat lux,' he is to turn it on, and when we say, 'Fiat obscuritas,' off.
"That commando team you tried to send in through the sewers last night was stopped by a RAT, or Rodent Assault Tactics team associated with us. Well be releasing them soon, we can't do much more with first aid. The point is that only we can get rid of the Terrorists. We just ask that you do not interfere."
Finished, Casimir sat back, hands clasped on breastplate, and stared calmly at a skylight. The Board of Trustees moved down to the far end of the table. After they had talked for a few minutes, S. S. Krupp walked over and shook hands with Casimir.
"We're with you," Krupp said proudly. "Wish I knew what the hell you had in mind. What's your timetable?"
"Don't know. You'll have plenty of warning."
"Can we supply men? Arms?" asked Heimlich.
"Nope. One gun is all we need." Casimir let go of Krupp's hand and walked down the table, unclipping himself from the rope and throwing it out to dangle there. A forest of pinstripes rushed up the other side, trying to circumnavigate the table and shake Casimir's hand too. Casimir stopped by the exit.
"I probably won't see you again. Bear in mind, after the university starts running again, two things: we control the rats. And we control the Worm. You no longer monopolize power in this institution."
The Trustees stopped dead at this breach of pleasantness and stared at Casimir. Krupp looked on as though monitoring a field of battle from a high tower. Casimir continued. "I just mention this because it makes a difference in what is reasonable for you to do, and what is not. Good-bye." As he reached for the doorknob, he found the door briskly opened by a guard; he nodded to the man and strode out into an anteroom.
"Soldier," said Septimius Severus Krupp, "see that that man receives safe passage back to his own sphere of influence."
Night fell, and Towers A, B, C, D, H and G began to flash on and off in perfect unison. Every tower except for E and Fhomes of the Axis was blinking in and out of existence every two seconds. As the Axis people saw it, the entire Plex was disappearing into the night, then re-igniting, over and over. It was much closer than the Big Wheel; it was far larger; it surrounded them on three sides. The effect was stupefying.
Dex Fresser ran to his observation post. In the corridors of E13S, Terrorists wandered like decapitated chickens. Some were hearing voices telling them to look, some not to look, to run or stay, to panic or relax. The SUBbie who was supposed to guard the lounge-headquarters had dropped his gun on the floor and disappeared. Fresser burst into the lounge to consult with Big Wheel.
Big Wheel had gone dark.
He turned on the Little Wheelthe Go Big Red Fan.
"Big Wheel must be mad at you or something. What the fuck did you do wrong?" shouted the Fan, loud, omnipresent and angry. Dex Fresser shrank, got on his knees and snuffled a little. Outside, a bewildered stereo-hearer was playing with the knobs on his ghetto blaster, desperate for advice.
"The stereo! The stereo, dipshit, find that frequency! Find the frequency," said the Fan in the voice of Dex Fresser's old scoutmaster. Dex Fresser tumbled over a chair in his haste to reach the stereo. The only light in the room was cast by the glowing LEDs on his stereo that looked out like feral eyes in the night. All systems were go for stereo energize. As Dex Fresser's hands played over the controls, dozens of lights kicked in with important systems data, and green digits glowed from the tuner to tell him his position on the FM dial. Only dense static came from the speakers, meaningless to anyone else; but he could hear Big Wheel guiding him in the voice of his first-grade ballroom dance teacher.
"A little farther down, dear. Keep going right down the dial. You're certain to get it eventually."
Dex Fresser punched buttons and a light came on, saying: "AUTO DOWNWARD SCAN." He now heard many voices from the dark cones of the speakers: funky jazz-playing fascists, "great huge savings now Neil Young wailing into his harmonica, a call-in guest suggesting that we load the Mexicans on giant space barges and hurl them into the sun, a base hit by Chambliss, an ad for rat poison, a teen, apoplectic about his acne and then the voice he was looking for.
"On. Off. On. Off. On. Off." It was a woman's voice, somehow familiar.
"It's Sarah, dumbshit," said the Go Big Red Fan. "She's on the campus station."
Indeed. The other towers were going on and off just as Sarah told them to. He knelt there for ten minutes, watching their reflection in the glassy surface of the Big Wheel. On. Off. On. Off. "On," she said, and paused. "Most of you did very well! But we've got some holdouts in E and F Towers. I'm sorry to say that Big Wheel won't be showing up this evening. He will not be here to give us his advice without cooperation from the E and F tower hearers. We'll try later. I'll be back in an hour, at midnight, and by then I hope that you SUBbies and Terrorists will have submitted to Big Wheel's will." Sarah was replaced by Ephraim Klein, who started in with another solid hour of pre-classical keyboard selections.