“I didn’t bring this up to justify Al’s glass of rye,” Pelazi added. “This is all part of what I’ve been thinking, and all part of what led to my scheme. I’ve discovered, for example, that seventy-four percent of the Ree population are heavy smokers. As a matter of fact, most cigarette purchases are made by Rees — and not by Vikes, as you would suppose.”
“Are you sure these figures are accurate, Dino?”
“International Statistics, Incorporated,” Pelazi said.
“That’s a Vike outfit.”
“What difference does it make? Can you think of a comparable Ree outfit that could give as accurate a report?”
“I suppose not.”
“All right, then. Here’s the worst part. I’ve learned that approximately four percent of all paperback purchases are made by Rees. That’s a gain of three point four over last year’s statistics. The same rough increase applies to tri-dim and stereoshow attendance. Luckily, it hasn’t spread to the sensory medium — as yet.” Pelazi paused. “Given time, it will.”
Corona sipped at his rye. “You mean, Dino, that we’re losing.”
“We’re not only losing, we’re losing fast. Unless we do something and do it soon, we’ll have lost.”
“I can’t believe it,” Schultz said.
“These are facts,” Pelazi insisted. “They made me start thinking about our means of combatting the Vikes: Bad reviews of the paperbacks, speeches, pamphlets. That is like a fly gnawing an elephant’s tail, and just about as effective. There was a time when the Vicarion Movement was the upstart group, when a speech or a bad review was a real blow. That time has passed. The Vikes are now the power; the Realists are the ‘movement.’ ”
The room was silent for a moment. Miss Dvorak looked up from her pad expectantly.
“Figure it out for yourself,” Pelazi said. “The Vikes control every propaganda outlet in the nation. They’ve got the entertainment industry in the palm of their hands. The publishing business is theirs. They control most of the press, and the news outlets. Luckily, the public and private communicators are government-owned or we’d never get to air an opinion. The advertising field is in their back pocket, and they’ve got money. Tons of the stuff. Money.”
“We know all this, Dino,” Schultz said. His voice was oddly gruff.
“Sure, we know it. We’ve known it for a long time, but we’ve deliberately closed our eyes to it. We’ve talked ourselves into thinking that the Vikes were a passing fad. Well, they’re not so passing. They’re damned permanent — or at least they will be, unless we wake up fast.”
“Who could have imagined...” O’Donnell started.
“You’re right, Sean, who could have? Who could have ever in a lifetime imagined that their stupid ideas would catch on? When a man says that eating is a savage thing, an animal act to be practiced in private, to be ashamed of, to be shielded from other eyes, who could have imagined? You’d call him insane; you’d say he should be put away. But how many Vikes are there now? And how many people are there who believe just that? How many won’t put a morsel of food into their mouths if anyone is within ten miles of them? How many? You count them.”
“Dino...”
“And sex? How many people feel that...”
“That was the start of it,” Schultz said, nodding his head vigorously. “It all started with that. Goddamnit, it all started with that. If we’d have...”
“There’s no sense going back to the beginning, Herman. That was a long, long time ago. It would have taken a prophet to forecast the present situation. And unfortunately when the Vikes were first gaining strength, there was no prophet around.”
“I said we should have taken them more seriously,” O’Donnell said. “I said that from the very start. Right when the eating business first popped up.”
“I said it, too,” Corona almost whispered. “But we didn’t do anything about it.”
“And now we’re ruined!” Schultz screamed. “Now they’re running everything, and decency had just gone down the drain!”
“Not yet!” Pelazi snapped. “Not yet, my friend.”
“Yes, yes,” Schultz insisted. “You know it as well as I do, Dino; there’s no beating them now.”
“Not the way we’ve been fighting them, no. But there is another way.”
“I don’t know if I care any more,” O’Donnell said. “You see people degenerating all around you, and you begin to wonder if you’re not the one who’s insane. Everybody’s out of step but Johnny.” He shook his head, and his crab-hands worked nervously in his lap.
“But we are,” Pelazi said, a thin smile on his face.
“We are what?”
“Out of step.”
Schultz and O’Donnell said nothing. They stared disconsolately at the floor.
“I think I know what you mean, Dino,” Corona said. He took a healthy swig of rye, swallowed it instantly.
“There’s no way,” Schultz said. “Let’s admit it.”
“But there is a way,” Pelazi answered.
“No, No.”
A heavy silence shouldered its way into the room.
Corona was the first to speak. “Dino’s right.”
“So what do we do about it? What’s the way?”
“What’s your plan, Dino?”
“My plan is so damned simple, it’s ridiculous. But if it works, the Vikes will be shattered within a year. If it works.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“If it doesn’t, you’d better buy yourself a tin of heroin and a hypodermic needle, because that’s the way things are going to be from then on.”
There was another silence. O’Donnell’s fingers worked nervously on his tie. Schultz coughed.
“Let’s hear it,” Corona said softly.
The musichron turned itself on at 1030; wafting a new Vike tape into the room. The sax section murmured whisperingly, soft reeds vibrating. Deborah Dean did not stir.
Her golden-red hair was spread out on the pillow in a shimmering fan. The blinds were tilted upward, casting sunlight away from the bed, reflecting it harmlessly. The chron persisted, saxaphones giving way to the deep rumble of a bass piano. The piano modulated skillfully, and the trumpet section started its chorus in a higher key.
Deborah stirred, stretched. “Damn,” she murmured. “Morning.”
She sat up, the sheet falling to her waist. Tonight is the party. That, at least, was a good thought. There’d be the preparations, and the stint at the cosmets, and the new stuff should be arriving. There was still a lot to do. She tried to remember if there was anything she’d forgotten.
Tapes.
The new Senso. That would fix them. Oh yes, that would fix them. She thought of the preview she’d seen.
The tape on the musichron persisted, and she rose abruptly, swinging her long legs over the side of the bed, touching her feet to the rug. She walked quickly to the blinds, stabbed viciously at the button in the sill. The blinds tilted downward, splashing sunlight into the room. She felt the warmth cover her body.
Damnit, was she going to have to look at a new Senso every morning? Was that what she’d have to do?
“Something’s psyched-up,” she said aloud. She walked quickly to her dressing table, opened the top drawer, and found her kit. Nothing like a fix to send the blues. Nothing like a fix to stab the Ree inside. What Ree, she wondered. What the hell am I thinking?
She unsnapped the lid, selected a vial, looked at the chrono on the case’s cover. Well, hell, no wonder; she’d overslept. It was twenty minutes past happy time. That would throw her whole day off — and with the party tonight.
“Damn,” she said softly.
She ran the silver vial on the inside of her thigh until the score gauge clicked. She fired then and felt the drug take her blood. The other thing within her died, stabbed by the narcotic daggers that raced through her body. God, this was it. Father, this was doom.