Farther away the reaction was even more shocked. To the Guardsmen, on the verge of battering down the door to the Administration Building, it seemed as if they were being fired upon. They scattered for cover and returned the fire.
It was this return fire which dispersed the paratroopers as they charged the institute. Combat veterans, they sought cover behind trees and bushes and the corners of buildings and fired back at anything that moved.
One of the things that moved was the police, since much of the crossfire was directed at the institute and they were on the front steps. The campus security cops dropped back into the shrubbery on one side of the entrance and the city police sought cover in the shrubberg on the other side. Both groups sent bullets flying back in the direction from which the bullets seemed to be coming.
One last Weathermen fanatic stood on the steps and bared his chest to the hail of lead. “Up the revolution!” he shouted. “Yay Ché! I hate my father!” Thanks to an invisible shield of lousy marksmanship, nothing hit him.
Jonathan Relevant observed the scene. Paratroopers and Guardsmen were blasting away at each other, at the cops, at the remnants of the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee, at the alumni sound truck which had been trapped in the crossfire, at the black students in the Administration Building and the SDS students in the institute, at the Greeks and jocks in the gymnasium building, at anything that moved and anything suspicious that didn’t move. Now the cops added to the barrage. Gunsmoke spread over the scene and almost hid the tanks and artillery as they started to move into action. A stray bullet whizzed past Jonathan Relevant’s ear.
This is ridiculous! he decided. Somebody’s going to get hurt!
“Where are you going?” Minerva Kaufman asked him from where she was lying on the floor as he stepped over her.
“I’ll be right back.”
“You’ll miss all the fun!” the CIA Indian semaphored.
Some fun! Jonathan Relevant ran down the corridor until he came to the entrance to the laboratories.
“Gynecocracy!” Dr. Handelquim greeted him.
“Woman’s place is in the home!” Jonathan Relevant kept going.
“Bloodshed!” Professor Tektodi bowed low. “The computer is always right. Is it not so?”
“Right! It is not so!” Jonathan Relevant continued on his path.
“One small factor . . .” Dr. Shpritzsvet was still bent over his calculations when Jonathan Relevant entered.
“Let me see your figures.” Jonathan Relevant elbowed him aside. “Here,” he said after a moment. “This is your error. You reversed these two elements.”
“Good God! You’re right!” Dr. Shpritzsvet eurekaed. “Wait! Wait! Let me make the substitutions and we’ll see—”
Jonathan Relevant stood by patiently while the scientist remixed his formula.
“Ready!” Dr. Shpritzsvet announced at last. “Now we shall see if we have the universal deodorant.” He reached into a drawer and came up with a stale, moldy, unappetizing chunk of Limburger cheese. “Smell this!” He shoved it under Jonathan Relevant’s nose.
“Ugh!” Jonathan Relevant gagged.
Dr. Shpritzsvet sprayed it with the new formula. “Now smell it.” Again he held the cheese under Jonathan Relevant’s nose.
“Nothing! No odor whatsoever!” Jonathan Relevant sniffed.
“It works! It works! It works!” Dr. Shpritzsvet danced a macabre jig.
“Does it?” Jonathan Relevant brought him back down to earth. “What about your other theory? That odors are the cause of all hostility and that this universal deodorant could stop all aggressiveness?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you want to test that too?”
"How?"
“With that!” Jonathan Relevant pointed to a wind machine in the corner of the laboratory. “You mix up a batch and I’ll set up the machine and we’ll spray it over the campus. The college, in case you don’t know it, is seething with aggression at this very moment. It’s a perfect opportunity to try it out. . . .”
A little while later one of the paratroopers paused to reload. He took a deep breath, careful not to raise his head too high with all that live ammo flying around. Then he put down his gun, got to his feet, bent over, picked a daisy, and waved it at the Guardsmen who were shooting at him.
Three of the Guardsmen waved back and then started playing leapfrog. A moment later the chief of the campus security police joined them. The game took them up the steps of the Administration Building, where Hardcore opened the door to admit them and graciously handed each of them a stick of grass.
At the institute, the CIA Indian was earnestly confessing his real identity to Minerva Kaufman, who kept telling him it wasn’t important. The chancellor strolled into the institute with some of the alumni and they beamed at the students and said they hoped everybody was having fun. A few moments later the chancellor was having a discussion about baseball with the leader of the Weathermen.
“Peace and love everywhere!” Dr. Shpritzsvet beamed as he and Jonathan Relevant toured the campus and surveyed the results of the experiment. “Peace and love everywhere!”
“Perhaps,” Jonathan Relevant replied. “But—”
“But what, my friend?”
“There’s something not quite right about all this euphoria. I can’t put my finger on it, but—”
Peace and love everywhere . . .
But there was something wrong! And then Jonathan Relevant realized what it was!
CHAPTER TEN
The President of the United States sat irnpatiently—and gingerly, as his condition required-—by the telephone and waited for news of the situation at Harnell. Things were becoming sticky at the UN. Pressure was mounting for the administration to produce Jonathan Relevant. The building of suspense is not a healthy psychological climate for hemorrhoids. But the President had no choice. He fidgeted and waited for the phone to ring.
It rang.
“Hello!” The President answered on the first ding-a-ling.
“Hello, Mr. President.” It was the number-two ding-a-ling.
“Oh. Hello, Mr. Vice President.” The President sighed with disappointment.. “Congratulations on that speech last night. I understand the silent majority really liked it.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. . . . Uh, but how could you tell?”
“By their silence, Mr. Vice President. How else?”
“Of course.”
“The way you tied up all those loose ends-—connecting the Quakers and the peaceniks and the commies in one great big anti-American conspiracy. It shows that patriotism isn’t extinct in this country. It was really quite ca feat.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.” The Veep’s voice snuggled cozily into the telephone. “Better a feat than a gnu, I always say.”
“Whatever that means.”
“Well, Mr. President, it means-—”
“Don’t explain it! I’m proud to have you for vice-president, Mr. Vice President. But when you start explaining things somehow it comes out sounding like Greek to me.”
“I’m proud of my heritage, Mr. President,” the Veep said stiffly.
“Aren’t we all.” The President’s tone was soothing. “Umm, listen, Mr. Vice President, I’m expecting a rather important call. Was there something particular you wanted?
“I was just wondering if you heard about the fire in my home last night, Mr. President.”
“No. I hadn’t. How did it start?”
“We’re not sure, but I’m very much afraid one of my children might have dropped an inflammatory remark.”
“Was there much damage?”