“Nine days,” Van said incredulously.
“Cooler and cooler, and now I’m almost cold. It was rough, tough stuff, Van. I thought I was done a few days ago. I was ready to make out a will.”
“What about now? I mean...”
“Now?” Clark asked. “Now?” Van looked into his eyes. They were vacuous and lonely. Something of a smile played on his lips and then died there. “No mo, Van. Gone. From my body, anyway. In my mind... in my mind...” He sighed deeply, then changed the subject abruptly. “Have you sold anything of mine lately?”
“What?” Van asked, still a little dazed.
“My stuff. Any sales, any checks coming?”
“Oh. Well, it’s been rough, Clark. Lots of changes throughout the field. New owners, new policies. You know how these things work.”
“Yeah,” Clark said drily. “Well, without a habit, all I have to worry about is food. Think you can scrape up enough for that? I mean, in addition to what Lana Davis gets me.”
Van managed to laugh weakly. “Hell, Clark, stop talking like a...”
“Ree?” Clark asked. He began laughing then, continued to laugh until Van clicked off.
Van walked to the home bar, checked the vials there. He was almost out. These past two weeks of non supply had just about taken all he had. His hands were trembling when he pulled the lid shut. He felt like talking to someone, anyone. He thought of Hayden, realized he was out. The same applied to Walt. He picked up the Com report and looked at it again. He shook his head, threw the paper onto an end table. Where had Liz gone? The Imperial? Was that the name of the theatre? Imperial? It sounded right. He’d check the name of the show in the papers. He dressed quickly and left the apartment.
He was not prepared for what he found in the streets.
Chapter 14
All traffic had been stopped on the street levels. The robot policemen had their hands full as small cars piled up one behind the other, their horns blaring shrilly. Everyone seemed to be in the streets. There was swearing and shouting and cursing and singing and drunken revelry. The Rees commanded the night, and they reeled about everywhere, proclaiming their major victory to the neon skies. Every Vike he passed stared at Brant dejectedly, sharing silently the blow of their defeat.
He started for the sub garage, and then realized the folly of even attempting to use his own car. He fought his way to the curb, set the electronic hailing system and waited for a pneumotube car. He glanced at the box after waiting several moments, and saw the blue light that indicated the cars were not running.
But then, how could they possibly hope to run the system efficiently in all this confusion? He thought of Liz, stranded downtown at the legit, and he wondered how she’d ever get home. He was heading back for the apartment when a wave of Rees swept him along the sidewalk.
“Hey,” he shouted, “what the hell...”
The Rees didn’t hear him. They sang and they shouted, and they roared and bellowed to the night. They wore masks and costumes; they waved flags and banners; they threw confetti and blew horns and shook rattles. He tried to fight his way free of them, was carried halfway down the street until he broke loose.
“We’ll hang the Vikes
“As high as kites
“And teach the tykes
“The way that’s right!”
He was hemmed in on all sides, and the singing rang in his ears, loud, raucous, triumphant. He used his shoulders and his elbows, and he tried to push free of the jostling crowd.
“We’ll holler Ree
“And foller Ree
“And toler-ate
“No one but
“REE!”
He jabbed his elbow into a man’s side, and the man whirled, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth slack.
“Who the hell...”
“Get out of my way, you pig,” Van shouted.
“REE, REE, REE, REE!
“Free the Ree,
“And spike the Vike!
“REE, REE, REE, REE!’”
“You looking for trouble, you goddamn nudist?”
“Get out of my way!”
He pushed rudely, and the Ree stumbled backward, colliding with a Ree woman. The two embraced briefly, shouted at each other, and then began laughing. Van pushed another Ree aside and broke into a clearing on the sidewalk. He’d taken three steps when another group of Rees swept down the street. He felt himself spinning around, and then someone thrust a bottle at him.
“Here, you bastard, have a drink!”
He lashed out viciously in a back-handed sweep, knocking the bottle out of the Ree’s fist. Whiskey splashed into the air, soaking both himself and the Ree. The Ree began swearing, and the crowd swept past, carrying Van with it.
They screamed, and they laughed; the noise deafened Brant, and put a razor-sharp edge on his nerves. He felt like a man in a nightmare, a man striking out at inflated balloons that broke free of their strings and floated upward whenever he struck. There was no escape. The streets were thronged with Rees; they swept along like a fast-moving hurricane, victory in their beaming faces, and in their whiskey-slurred voices, and in their boisterous songs.
“Stop the Vike
“And mop the Vike
“And slap the map of the
“Goddamned Vike!”
These were the old songs, the songs that were in vogue when the Vike Movement first reached out for a tentative grip, the songs that were confident of victory then — the songs that Van Brant thought he’d never hear again. And with the words, a vibrant undercurrent — a dangerous undercurrent of tension, like a powderkeg with a short fuse. He heard the words, and he listened to the voices; he was shoved and pushed and jostled, and steered down the street to an open oval park squatting in the center of the city like a green frog. The revelers poured into the park, spilled onto the green lawns, climbed the rocks and the trees and overturned benches. They broke lamp post fixtures, kissed, and embraced, and danced, and jigged; they did handstands, and tore off their shirts. He watched all this, carried along in the tide of jubilant faces, and his mind groped for some familiar thing to which he could anchor his reeling reactions. There was none. The other Vikes were as bewildered as he; they floundered hopelessly, helplessly, in the Ree current. The park was overflowing with Rees now, crowded to capacity, threatening to burst its boundaries and spill over onto the concrete of the city.
The tide paused for a moment near the old band platform. Banners fluttered in the autumn breeze; pennants caught the wind and danced on the air, shouting colorfully from the platform railing. The crowd surrounded the platform, and a speaker there clenched his fists and opened his throat to the night, his hair blowing freely in the wind.
“This is the beginning!” he shouted. “This is only the beginning! The chains of bondage have been broken. The glorious golden age of the Ree is at our doorstep!”
The crowd shouted its approval, and the air rocked with the dissonant cries. The speaker tossed his head, opened his mouth, lifted his hands, and the crowd fell silent.
“We have crushed the insidious serpent of addiction, trampled it into the Vike-inspired mire! The golden bird of the Realist will spread its wings and soar, higher and higher into an unblemished sky!”
Again the cries of approval, the shouted encouragement, while the whiskey bottles were tipped, and breasts were cupped, and hips were fondled, and eyes kindled with almost fanatic enthusiasm. The spindly arms were raised, the thin fingers spread, the shaggy mane tossed back, and the crowd grew hushed in expectant waiting.