"There has been no public election," Field said, "for twenty years. Do they teach that to the little kids in your schools?"
"There should be," Barris said.
Fields said, "Mr. Barris-" His voice was tense and husky. "How'd you like to be the first Director to come over to us?" For an instant Barris detected a pleading quality; then it was gone. The man's voice and face became stern. "It'll make you look good as hell in the future history books," he said, and laughed harshly. Then, once more picking up the light fixture, he resumed work on it.
He ignored Barris; he did not even seem to be waiting for a reply.
Coming over to Barris, Rachel said in her sharp, constricted fashion, "Director, he's not joking. He really wants you to join the Movement."
"I imagine he does," Barris said.
Fields said, "You have a sense of what's wrong. You know how wrong it is. All that ambition and suspicion. What's it for? Maybe I'm doing you people an injustice, but honest to God, Mr. Barris, I think your top men are insane. I know Jason Dill is. Most of the Directors are, and their staffs. And the schools are turning out lunatics. Did you know they took my daughter and stuck her into one of then: schools? As far as I know she's there now. We never got into the schools too well. You people are really strong, there. It means a lot to you."
"You went to a Unity school," Rachel said to Barris. "You know how they teach children not to question, not to disagree. They're taught to obey. Arthur was the product of one of them. Pleasant, good-looking well-dressed, on his way up-" She broke off.
And dead, Barris thought.
"If you don't join us," Fields said to him, "you can walk out the door and up the street to your appointment with Jason Dill."
"I have no appointment," Barris said.
"That's right," Fields admitted.
Rachel screamed, pointing to the window.
Coming across the sill, through the window and into the room, was something made of gleaming metal. It lifted and flew through the air. As it swooped it made a shrill sound. It changed direction and dropped at Fields.
The two men at the card table leaped up and stared open-mouthed. One of them began groping for the gun at his waist.
The metal thing dived at Fields. Covering his face with his arms, Fields flung himself to the floor and rolled. His striped bathrobe flapped, and one slipper shot from his foot and slid across the rug. As he rolled he grabbed out a heat beam and fired upward, sweeping the air above him. A burning flash seared Barris; he leaped back and shut his eyes.
Still screaming, Rachel Pitt appeared in front of him, her face torn with hysteria. The air crackled with energy; a cloud of dense blue-gray matter obscured most of the room. The couch, the chairs, the rug and walls were burning. Smoke poured up, and Barris saw tongues of flame winking orange in the murk. Now he heard Rachel choke; her screams ceased. He himself was partly blinded. He made his way toward the door, his ears ringing.
"It's okay," Father Fields said, his voice coming dimly through the crackling of energy. "Get those little fires out. I got the goddam thing." He loomed up in front of Barris, Grinning crookedly. One side of his face was badly burned and part of his short-cropped hair had been seared away. His scalp, red and blistered, seemed to glow. "If you can help get the fires out," he said to Barris in an almost courtly tone, "maybe I can find enough of the goddam thing to get into it and sec what it was."
One of the men had found a hand-operated fire extinguisher outside in the hall; now, pumping furiously, he was managing to get the fires out. His companion appeared with another extinguisher and pitched in. Barris left them to handle the fire and went back through the room to find Rachel Pitt.
She was crouched in the far corner, sunk down in a heap, staring straight ahead, her hands clasped together. When he lifted her up, he felt her body trembling. She said nothing as he stood holding her in his arms; she did not seem aware of him.
Appearing beside him, Fields said in a gleeful voice, "Hot dog, Barris-I found most of it." He triumphantly displayed a charred but still intact metal cylinder with an elaborate system of antennas and receptors and propulsion jets. Then, seeing Rachel Pitt, he lost his smile. "I wonder if she'll come out of it this time," he said. "She was this way when she first came to us. After the Atlanta boys let her go. It's catatonia."
"And you got her out of it?" Barris said.
Fields said, "She came out of it because she wanted to. She wanted to do something. Be active. Help us. Maybe this last was too much for her. She's stood a lot." He shrugged, but on his face was an expression of great compassion.
"Maybe I'll see you again," Fields said to him.
"You're leaving?" Fields said. "Where are you going?"
"To see Jason Dill."
"What about her?" Fields said, indicating the woman in Barris' arms. "Are you taking her with you?"
"If you'll let me," Barris said.
"Do what you want," Fields said, eying him thoughtfully. "I don't quite understand you, Director." He seemed, in this moment, to have shed his regional accent. "Are you for us or against us? Or do you know? Maybe you don't know; maybe it'll take time."
Barris said, "I'll never go along with a group that murders."
"There are slow murders and fast murders," Fields said. "And body murders and mind murders. Some you do with evil schools."
Going past him, Barris went on out of the smoke-saturated room, into the hall outside. He descended the stairs to the lobby.
Outside on the sidewalk he hailed a robot cab.
At the Geneva field he put Mrs. Pitt aboard a ship that would carry her to his own region, North America. He contacted his staff by vidsender and gave them instructions to have the ship met when it landed in New York and to provide her with medical care until he himself got back. And he had one final order for them.
"Don't let her out of my jurisdiction. Don't honor any request to have her transferred, especially to South America."
The stag member said acutely, "You don't want to let this person get anywhere near Atlanta."
"That's right," Barris said, aware that without his having to spell it out his stag understood the situation. There was probably no one in the Unity structure who would not be able to follow his meaning. Atlanta was the prime object of dread for all of them, great and small alike.
Does Jason Dill have that hanging over him, too? Barris wondered as he left the vidbooth. Possibly he is exempt- certainly from a rational viewpoint he has nothing to fear. But the irrational fear could be there anyhow.
He made his way through the crowded, noisy terminal building, headed in the direction of one of the lunch counters. At the counter he ordered a sandwich and coffee and sat with that for a time, pulling himself together and pondering.
Was there really a letter to Dill accusing me of treason? he asked himself. Had Rachel been telling the truth? Probably not. It probably had been a device to draw him aside, to keep him from going on to Unity Control.
I'll have to take the chance, he decided. No doubt I could put out careful feelers, track the information down over a period of time; I might even know within a week. But I can't wait that long. I want to face Dill now. That's what I came here for.
He thought, And I have been with them, the enemy. If such a letter exists, there is now what would no doubt be called "proof." The structure would need nothing more; I would be tried for treason and convicted. And that would be the end of me, as a high official of the system and as a living, breathing human being. True, something might still be walking around, but it wouldn't really be alive.
And yet, he realized, I can't even go back now, to my own region. Whether I like it or not I have met Father
Fields face-to-face; I've associated with him, and any enemies I might have, inside or outside the Unity structure, will have exactly what they want-for the rest of my life. It's too late to give up, to drop the idea of confronting Jason Dill. With irony, he thought, Father Fields has forced me to go through with it, the thing he was trying to prevent.