He nodded his head vaguely. “We should have seen this coming, Lois. We should have...”
“We didn’t,” she said blankly.
“It still doesn’t mean the end. We can still submit material. We can...”
“No,” she said dully. And then a pain knifed her sharply, and she doubled over and screamed, “Oh, God! Oh God, Van, this is awful.” She gasped an then shouted, “Van, Van!”
“Easy,” he told her. “Get a grip.”
“I can’t take it; I can’t take it. It’s too much. It’s death, Van. It’s the worst things I ever imagined, all rolled into one; I can’t take it.”
“We’ll come back,” he said. “We’ll shake this, and then we’ll start submissions again, and...”
“No. I told you, no.” She shook her head, her arms still wrapped around her middle. “Look at the signature, Van. At the bottom of the page. Look at it.”
He looked.
“No!” he said. “No, this can’t...”
“It is, Van! It’s the end, I say. The end of everything. Of you and me and all the Vikes. Not just the drugs, Van. Everything!”
Her voice rose hysterically; he looked at the signature once more, and a hopeless feeling of defeat washed over him.
The notice was signed: Dino Pelazi, President.
It was easy to see now, of course — the same way a cancer is easy to detect once the entire system has been invaded. Dino Pelazi and Pall Associates. A dummy corporation backed by the Rees, quietly eating up the field, cautiously and stealthily taking control of the entertainment and publishing mediums, the strongest Vike weapons.
And the Ree weapon — money.
As simple as that. God knew how they got it, but it still spoke, and it spoke loudly. It had spoken loudly enough to buy a drug legislation lobby, had spoken loudly enough to shove the law through. It had spoken loudly enough to buy shares and more shares, and finally controlling interests, until the Vikes woke up — too late.
Too late, and why? Because of Pelazi’s clever cover plan. The cover plan, a tactic as old as Methuselah. Years and years of cover plans in the history of the world, and the Vikes hadn’t tumbled to one as simple as Pelazi’s had been.
If you want to invade Sicily, your cover plan indicates you’re going to invade Indo-China. You plant letters and documents, and bodies and false communiques; you allow your phones to be tapped, your radio messages to be decoded, your personnel to be loose-lipped. You plant a plot to invade Indo-China: This is your cover plan. You mass a few troops, poised to attack Indo-China, while your real force is poised to attack Sicily. If the enemy fall for your cover plan, he’ll concentrate his defensive forces in Indo-China; he’ll leave Sicily comparatively undefended. You can breeze right in with your troops.
Pelazi had pulled the same stunt. His real invasion was a big one, it thrust to the heart of the Vike world, the important publishing and entertainment fields. He planned his invasion well, gathering his forces — money — and slowly massing them for the attack. At the same time, his cover plan had gone into action. His cover plan was the trial and Statute 431, the Belly thing. He’d steamed up the entire Vike citizenry over the coming trial, tied them up in preparations for the trial, forced them to devote their entire energy toward winning that trial. And the Vikes, concentrating on the trial, missed the importance of the bigger things that were happening all around them. The real invasion had moved upon them like a case of leprosy, eating away their organs while they worried about a common cold.
Van Brant had contributed to the big invasion; he’d sold most of his shares to Pall Associates long ago. Money, the Vike’s own weapon, poured into the hands of the Ree. How many stupid Rees had contributed to Pelazi’s death fund? How many grubby peasants had scraped up their last dollar for the cause of destroying the Vike? How many Ree millionaires had Pelazi duped into contributing?
It made Brant a little ill. He felt almost personally responsible for the defeat, as if — by selling out to Pall — he had contributed vastly to the death blow. He became morose and moody, and he went into the third day of the cold turkey with Liz hovering over him guardedly. He snapped at her, and he even slapped her once; but she stood by, hanging on his moods, putting up with his ranting.
The call came at 0600 on the morning of the third day.
Liz took it, and when she came back, she said, “Walt Alloway, Van. He seems excited.”
“Tell him I’m out.”
“He...”
“I’ve got enough worries without scribes in my hair. Tell him all work has stopped on the Senso, and tell him the agency is closed temporarily. Tell him...”
“He looked frantic, Van.”
“Oh, for godsakes, where is he?” He stood up and walked to the vid. “Hello,” he growled.
“Van, you’ve got to help me. Lois...”
“Look, Walt...”
“Please, Van; she’s ready to jump! Please, Van come over. Please.”
“Who? What?”
“Lois. She’s outside on the balcony. She’s locked the doors, and she’s ready to...”
“What?”
“Van, it’s twelve up from the level below. She’ll...”
“I’ll be right over.” He clicked off, wiped his hand across his running nose. “Come on, Liz.”
They grabbed a pneumotube, and were at Alloway’s place in five minutes. A sizable crowd had already gathered on the level. Van paused on the sidewalk, looked up the twelve stories to Walt’s apartment. He spotted the balcony, and saw the glint of Lois’ red hair in the sunlight. He led Liz into the lobby, and they took the lift up together.
Walt met them at the door. The absence of narcotics had taken its toll on his face and his eyes. He took Van’s hand tightly, and almost pulled him into the apartment. “Van, I don’t know what to do. She’s out there, and I know she’s going to jump. I know it, Van. This thing has hit her hard; she’s been a walking ghost. Van, what...”
“Have you called the police?”
“They were here. They’re getting nets now, but I’m afraid she’ll go before...”
“Why don’t we break down the doors?” Brant asked.
He took a step toward the balcony, and Walt shouted, “No! Good God, no!” He grasped Van’s arm, swung him around. “She’ll jump the moment we touch those doors. Stay away from them.”
“Well, what the hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He ran his fingers through his hair, shook his head.
“Have you tried talking to her?” Liz asked.
“Yes, no. I mean yes. Yes, I have.”
“And what happened?”
“She didn’t answer. Liz, she’s going to jump; I know that. She’s had enough. You haven’t seen her; you don’t know what it’s like, or how badly she was hooked. This is killing her. She’s just a kid, Liz; she can’t take it any more.”
“Talk to her again,” Liz said.
“What good will it do? I’m afraid she’ll...”
“Talk to her,” Liz repeated.
“All right. All right, I will.”
He walked to the balcony doors, paused just inside them, and then turned to look back at Brant and Liz. He wet his lips, faced the closed doors again, and said, “Lois? Lois, can you hear me?”
They could not see through the duraloid doors. Lois did not answer.
“Lois? Honey, this is Walt. Honey, can you hear me?”
They waited a long moment, and then her voice came, muffled by the thickness of the doors. “Go away, Walt.”
“Lois, Van and Liz are here. Van wants to tell you about a new show for us. A real fine one, this time. A real good one, Lois; you’ll like it. He... he wants us to get started right away on it. Why... why don’t you unlock the doors, Lois? Van would like to talk to you.”