Sunset Highway offered the quickest, most direct route between downtown New Liverpool and the governor’s mansion. The highway traversed not only settled districts but also parklands - some green with irrigation, others the semi-desert scrub native to Upper California - and citrus groves whose shiny green leaves perfumed the air.
A patch of light in a dark doorway made Bushell’s head whip around as the steamer passed through an urban stretch. When he saw the doorway belonged to a tavern, he relaxed. “I was afraid that might have been a fire,” he said, “but it’s just a televisor screen.”
“Nothing like getting together with your chums after a hard day, soaking up a pint or two while you watch the cricket matches or rugby or tennis or whatever happens to be showing,” Samuel Stanley said.
“Keep your eyes on the screen and you don’t have to think about what ails you - or much of anything else, come to that.”
They passed a trafficator whose wigwag signs gave cars on the cross street the right of way. “Do you know,” Bushell remarked, “one of the airship passengers was boasting at supper last night that he had a televisor screen in his own home.”
His friend turned to stare at him, incredulous distaste on his face. “You are joking, I hope.”
Bushell raised his right hand, as if he were about to stand in the witness box. “Upon my solemn oath.”
The wigwag switched. He put the steamer back into gear.
“Why would anyone want such a thing?” Stanley said, not so much to Bushell as to the world at large.
“Wireless is one thing: you can read or talk or do anything else you care to while it’s on. But a televisor screen ... if it’s showing something, you bloody well have towatch it. Suppose you have guests? I’ve never heard of anything so, so vulgar in all my life, I don’t think. Besides, televisors don’t come cheap. What did this chap do, anyhow?”
“By what he said, he’s just made a killing in pork futures,” Bushell answered dryly. “What was that last street we just passed? Loring Drive? We should be very near now.”
The governor’s mansion occupied a great tract of land south of Sunset Highway and west of Hilgard Place. The grounds around the mansion were rolled billiard-table flat, the lawn a velvety coat of green as perfect as any in England itself - no mean feat, given New Liverpool’s hot, dry weather. That splendid lawn made the untouched chaparral rising from the north side of the highway all the more wild and impenetrable by comparison.
The view across the lawn, obstructed only by statuary of marble and bronze, let Bushell see the governor’s mansion clearly as soon as he passed Hilgard Place. It also let him clearly see the line of picketers in front of the mansion. One eyebrow rose. He turned to Samuel Stanley. “What the devil’s all that in aid of?”
His adjutant grimaced. “I just got word of them today. They’re a group of coal miners from the eastern provinces - Pennsylvania, Virginia, Franklin - here to protest the way the rest of the NAU treats them. They say the rest of the dominion can stay clean because they’re so dirty.”
“If they have complaints like that, why don’t they take them to their own provincial parliaments?” Bushell held up a finger before Stanley could answer. “Wait, don’t tell me. They came out here because New Liverpool has dirty air, too, and they figured they’d get more attention protesting far from home.”
“Right the first time,” Samuel Stanley said. As the steamer neared the entrance to the governor’s mansion, Bushell saw there were nearly as many reporters as picketers in front of the four-story, foursquare building. Flashbulbs popped like a fusillade of small-arms fire. He turned left onto the grounds of the mansion. A New Liverpool constable in dark blue, a billy club swinging from his belt, gestured with a red lantern to guide the steamer toward the carpark west of the building. “Just put it anywhere, gents,” he said. By the way he sounded, keeping an eye on where cars parked was the least of his worries tonight.
The picketers started a chant: “Clean air, clean water, clean work! Filthy air, filthy water, no work!
Clean air, clean water, clean - ”
The constable rolled his eyes. “God damn me to hell, gents, if one in three of those sons of bitches don’t belong to the Sons of Liberty.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Bushell said solemnly.
“Bloody fools,” Samuel Stanley said. “Some people are never satisfied, don’t know when they’re well off. What would North America be outside the British Empire? Alone and poor, if you ask me.”
“You’re right,” the constable said. “May you have a better time inside there with the nabobs than that rabble does outdoors. Go on and park your steamer, gents.” He pointed the way with his lantern once more.
“There should be a downstairs for buggies like this one, eh, Sam?” Bushell said as he looked at the big, gleaming vehicles crowding the carpark: British Rollses and Supermarines; a low, devilish-looking Franco-Spanish Peugeot; and the cream of the NAU’s automotive crop, Washingtons and Wrightmobiles and two or three battery-powered Lightnings. His own middle-aged, middle-class Henry was definitely below the salt here.
He found a space, turned the burner down, set the brake, and got out. So did Samuel Stanley. The captain grinned and pointed. “Look there, Chief, a couple of rows over. You should have parked by that one. Yours would look a hell of a lot classier by comparison.”
“You’re right about that.” Bushell wondered what the weatherbeaten little Traveler was doing here. Then the driver’s-side door to the old steamer opened. His jaw dropped. “Will you look at that?”
Stanley whistled softly. “I’ll be damned. It’s Tricky Dick, the Steamer King! I didn’t know he was still alive.”
“He must be past eighty by now,” Bushell agreed. “When we meet him inside, you’d better remember to call him Honest Dick, too.”
“I’ll call him whatever I choose,” his adjutant answered. “I remember the last car I bought off one of his lots - too bloody well, I do. How about you?”
“My luck with his machines hasn’t been too bad,” Bushell said. “I wonder how many people all over the NAU bought their first steamer secondhand off one of Tricky Dick’s - Honest Dick’s: there, you’ve got me doing it - lots.”
“About half the people who weren’t born to mansions of their own, is my guess,” Samuel Stanley said. Bushell nodded. For the past half-century, the only way to escape Honest Dick’s relentless promotion was to be blind and deaf. For most of that time, the man had been synonymous with secondhand cars. With its long, swooping nose, his profile was probably the second most recognizable in the NAU, after only the King-Emperor’s. Stanley went on, “No wonder he was invited tonight. He’s got more money than the Bank of England, or I’m a Dutchman.”
“That you’re not,” Bushell replied. “He really does drive one of his old coughboilers, though. I’d heard as much, but I hadn’t believed it.”
“No, no chauffeur for him, and Lord knows he could afford one,” Stanley said. “He’s pretty spry for an old fellow, too.” Although the Steamer King carried a cane and walked with a slight limp, he moved at a good clip as he made his way toward the front entrance to the governor’s mansion. Several of the picketers recognized him. They sent catcalls his way. He scowled at them from under thick, still-dark eyebrows. “Let me say this to you, young men,” he said in the deep, rather throaty voice Bushell had heard countless times on the wireless. “I think you should be ashamed of what you’re doing here this evening. The strength and prosperity of the North American Union depend on her coal. You have no business acting in any way that threatens our prosperity.” He shook the cane to emphasize his words.