Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

by Christopher Stasheff

  The telephone rang. Ben snatched it up, snapped, “I know. I’m working on it,” put down the receiver, and ran to the window. One glance at the dish showed him why; it was still set for the horizontal transponder. He hit the manual key to rotate the great bowl to the vertical. Usually he would be able to hear the chain drive clanking, but not with that backhoe’s roar, so he looked—and saw the chain stock-still. It didn’t move, so neither did the bowl. It stayed set on horizontal. The dish was frozen in the wrong position.

  Why?

  Then he saw the backhoe swinging its shovel around for another bite at the ground—right between the power company’s transformer and the dish. “St. Vidicon, protect us from Finagle!” he called on his way to the door. He yanked it open and pelted out into the summer heat, yelling and waving his arms. Of course the backhoe was making so much noise that it drowned out his yelling, but the driver saw his frantic signals and cut the motor. “What is it?” he called.

  “You cut the cable!” Ben called back.

  The driver stared, then looked back at the trench and swore.

  “Didn’t you see sparks?” Ben panted as he came up to the backhoe.

  “Thought my shovel had hit flint,” the driver answered.

  “Good thing you have a padded chair,” Ben said, “or you would have found out the hard way. I’ll go call the power company.” He ran back inside, but before he called, he was going to have to figure out a way to get the three o’clock feed up to Interworld Three. He suffered a brief vision of soap opera fans all over the country staring at the snow on their screens and cursing. He would have indulged in it himself, but he prayed to St. Vidicon instead.

  Satellite communications weren’t exactly Tony’s forte, but he certainly knew the basics of circuit design, so it only took him a glance or two, and a little eavesdropping on Ben’s frantic thoughts, to realize that if you can’t get a signal where it’s supposed to go by its usual route, all you have to do is figure out a different path. However, that meant he was going to have to put his thoughts into Ben’s head—well, not into, exactly, just around his head where he could pick them up. He hovered unseen next to the racks of equipment, focusing his thoughts on Ben.

  They coruscated off like a meteor shower, and a small ugly flat head lifted from Ben’s hair, hissing, “Avaunt, interloper! This brain is not yours.”

  Tony froze, staring as the creature’s skin opened to spread a hood behind its head—and conveniently over Ben’s, blocking him from Tony’s thoughts. “What manner of creature are you?” he demanded.

  “I am the Serpent of the Single Mind,” the cobra hissed, “and I have filled hisss with one thought and that one thought only—that he must find a way to make the great sssky-facing bowl rotate. Begone, interloper—I’ll not have you dissstracting him.”

  “Distracting is scarcely the term,” Tony said. He had already figured out another solution to the problem—but how to get it through to Ben, with the cobra’s hood blocking the way? “St. Vidicon, I could do with a little inspiration here!”

  Obligingly, the idea surfaced from his subconscious. Grinning, Tony asked the snake, “How did you get here?”

  “Why, by hisss choice,” the cobra answered. “From hisss youth, thisss man ssought to avoid dissstractions when he concentrated his thoughtsss upon a problem—and out of that wish, I grew to sshield hisss mind from any other influence.”

  “But only when he’s solving a problem,” Tony reminded the snake. “When he is not, don’t you think you should be letting alternative solutions in?”

  “It isss hisss choice,” the snake returned. “If he had wished for solutions that did not follow from a train of thought, each step in its proper order, I would not have arisen.”

  “But you know he’s not going to be able to solve this problem by logic.”

  “I know nothing of the sssort.”

  “Well, take my word for it.” Tony began to move to his right, heading toward Ben’s face. “He’s going to have to think outside the terms of the problem, or he won’t find a solution.”

  “What iss that to me?”

  Tony stared; then, still sidestepping, he asked, “You don’t care whether or not he solves the problem?”

  “Not a bit,” the snake answered. “I exissst to ssshield his mind from distractionss while he thinksss, nothing more. I care only if an unwanted thought should enter hisss mind.”

  “How about if the thought is wanted?’

  “It issss not.”

  “But if it’s an alternative solution to the problem, he will want it.”

  “I sssee no evidence of that,” the snake answered. “Ssstop sssidewalking, man! Do you think it will do you any good to ssstand before his eyesss? I assssure you it will not!”

  Tony stood in front of Ben. The snake reared up above his forehead, its hood spread, making him look for all the world like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Tony reached out to touch the control panel, reached into it, and jiggled a contact.

  Ben frowned as the tally light that showed the transponder link from the Japanese news agency blinked. All he would need right now would be for that link to go dead too! The Japanese network paid well to keep a transponder illuminated to carry the signal from its New York bureau to its Tokyo headquarters twenty-four hours a day whether there was any program to carry or not, just to make sure they weren’t late with a story. Ben didn’t want to think about the rebate Interworld would have to pay if that link went dead. A second’s disruption in the signal now and then wouldn’t be a tragedy; it could be sunspot interference or even just . . .

  The tally blinked again; then the dark one next to it blinked on for a second but went dark.

  Ben frowned. How could the tally for Interworld Four’s number six transponder light up? It wasn’t scheduled for now. In fact, the dark jewel showed that it wasn’t in use; how could the tally have . . .

  His eyes widened as the thought penetrated, and he whirled to check the schedule.

  “Wicked man, you have bypasssed me!” the snake hissed, and struck at Tony, fangs dripping.

  Chapter 17

  Tony leaped out of the way and the snake crashed into the panel—well, not crashed, really, since it went right through, being only an idea. The lights on the panel went crazy for a second before the cobra slithered back out. “You have defeated me in my duty! You must pay!” It reared up, hood spread, fangs gaping.

  “But you’ve deserted your post,” Tony pointed out. “What kind of alien thoughts are entering his mind while you’re here trying for revenge?”

  “Then I shall slay you quickly!” the snake hissed, and struck again.

  Tony sprang high, and the scaly body swished past—only this time, he landed on Ben’s head. “I’m going to put a thought into his brain,” Tony said, “a thought of a pretty girl!”

  The snake hissed in rage and struck.

  Tony leaped aside, but not quite fast enough; fire scored his ribs. Then he was down on the panel again, the snake was coiling protectively around Ben’s head, and Tony found himself puzzling how to rid Tony of the serpent for once and for all. Then he remembered that wasn’t what St. Vidicon had sent him here to do and watched anxiously as Ben frantically punched buttons.

  The signal was still coming through from Manhattan and transponder six wasn’t due to be illuminated for four more hours. Ben only had to receive that signal, not send it, and its link was one of the smaller dishes. That might be time enough to restore power to the main dish. One way or another, it was the only way to get this program through to its destination. Ben punched buttons, routing the signal from Manhattan through to transponder six; the tally glowed, confirming the connection, then Ben picked up the phone and dialed the number for the earth station in California. “Hi, this is Ben from the New York link . . . Yes, I know you’ve lost The Guided World; we’ve had a disruption here. No time to explain—just look to Interworld Four, transponder six vertical . . . yeah, it’s there, okay, take it. I’ll send a full report a
s soon as we’re done.” Then he sat back and blew out a long shuddering breath, nearly limp with relief. The crisis was past.

  But only temporarily. Reviving, he picked up the phone again and called the power company.

  Tony paced the maroon corridor beside Father Vidicon. “Okay, the country is now receiving their favorite soap opera. Tell me I did the right thing.”

  “You did the right thing,” Father Vidicon said, amused. “If they hadn’t watched that soap opera, they would have watched another, and at least The Guided World isn’t glorifying premarital sex or organized crime.”

  “I suppose there’s that,” Tony admitted. “Of course, it could be more important that I saved Ben’s job.”

  “Yes, we do have to balance society’s needs against the individual person’s,” Father Vidicon agreed, “say—Sandy’s.”

  Tony looked up, startled. “You don’t mean I’m ignoring her needs!”

  “It may seem that way to her at the moment,” St. Vidicon said. “You made a good beginning sending roses, Tony. Be sure you follow it up.”

  “I will,” Tony said, then realized that he had said it out loud to a computer monitor. He glanced around, face burning, but no one seemed to have heard him—no faces were prairie-dogging over the partition to see what he was talking about. He turned back to the screen just in time to see Father Vidicon wink before the screen cleared.

  Tony glanced at the clock, remembering Sandy and wondering if it was time for the next step in his campaign to win her back.

  Sandy waited in an agony of impatience before she left the building; she knew it would take five minutes to walk to Nepenthe, and she didn’t want to get there first.

  She needn’t have worried; Tony was sitting at their usual table against the wall, staring morosely into a cup watching the foam settle. Sandy felt her self-confidence renewing and sauntered over to him. “Hi, hacker.”

  His head snapped up, his eyes locked on hers. His mouth moved once before sound came out, and it was hoarse and strained. “Hi.” Then, a bit stronger, “Hi, beautiful.”

  Sandy tried to hide her glow. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “No, not at all! I mean, please! Uh . . . what can I get you? Raspberry mocha?”

  He’d remembered. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Coming right up.” Tony darted away.

  Sandy sat by herself, realizing that she was in a stronger negotiating position than she’d thought. Well, actually, she hadn’t thought—she’d just been ready to agree to anything he wanted so long as they were dating again.

  Even marriage.

  Now, though, it looked as though she could make a few demands, such as not accepting a ring yet.

  She suddenly realized that wasn’t a priority. Maybe the folklore she’d grown up hearing was true, maybe she should find out how good a lover he was first.

  The mocha appeared in front of her. She looked up from it to see Tony’s anxious gaze as he sat. “You, uh . . . have a good week?”

  From anybody else that would have been a probe, but she knew Tony was only trying to make small talk. “Things have been pretty quiet. Yours?”

  “Just the usual.” He thought of telling her that “the usual” had included a company of actors that was about to self-implode and a frantic earth station operator, but decided against it. Honesty didn’t mean answering questions she hadn’t asked, after all—especially if they might make her think he was delusional.

  “So life as usual, huh?” Sandy lifted her cup.

  “I can hope,” Tony said softly. “I’d like ‘usual’ to include going out with you—except that life is never ‘usual’ when you’re in it.”

  Sandy took a breath; the boy was definitely improving. “I think that could be arranged,” she said carefully, “but there’d have to be some after-show activity.”

  “Anything you want!”

  He was so earnest, so forlorn, that Sandy realized she could make whatever demands she wanted—and that made her realize she should keep them moderate. It would be wrong, very wrong, to take advantage of the poor guy.

  But it was wrong to take advantage of her, too.

  “All I want is for nature to take its course,” she said slowly.

  “And hope that it passes?” Tony asked, heartened.

  Sandy looked up at him in surprize, then smiled with affection. Tony might have been callow and naive, but he was so real.

  Cute, too.

  And he was the only guy who hadn’t dated her just because he wanted sex. “Let’s hope nature gets an ‘A,’ ” she said.

  “Even if it has to plagiarize?”

  Sandy stared in surprize, then felt her smile grow into a grin. “I have no objection to your reading the occasional book,” she said. “Found any good ones lately?”

  The topic shifted into literary gear without a tremor—and that easily, the relationship was back on.

  Even as he climbed into bed—his own, and alone—Tony was still marvelling that the evening had gone so much better than his usual dates. The conversation hadn’t lagged, not a single awkward pause, and Sandy had actually seemed to enjoy his company. Must be her generous nature.

  Then another possible explanation occurred to him, and he stiffened, staring up at the lights on the ceiling. Thank you, St. Vidicon, he thought.

  There was no answering admonition, no booming voice, but he did feel an aura of amusement and satisfaction that quickly passed but left in its wake the conviction that he wasn’t alone.

  Tony dreamed, of course—dreamed that he was walking down that humid hallway that was beginning to feel more and more organic, and Father Vidicon was saying, “So I’ve faced three of them now, and can only wonder when I’ll confront Finagle himself.”

  “Sounds pretty busy.” Tony frowned. “How can there be people claiming you’ve worked miracles to protect them from things going wrong?”

  “There’s time for the occasional rescue while I’m walking down this hallway waiting for the next ambush,” Father Vidicon said, “though I must admit you have helped considerably.”

  “Quid pro quo.” Tony grinned. “Thanks for helping me with Sandy.”

  “Me?” Father Vidicon said with exaggerated innocence, but when Tony chuckled, he admitted, “Well, I might have put a thought or two into your mind. Which reminds me—how are the dance lessons going?”

  “Me? The original two-left-feet fool? I tried to learn when I was twelve and tried again when I was sixteen, and the best I can say of it was that I didn’t trip anybody else.”

  “Perhaps, but your midteens are ten years in the past, aren’t they? You may find your coordination has improved considerably—and I asked how you’re doing now.”

  Tony sighed and confessed.

  “Don’t think of your legs as having to hold up your body,” the dancing teacher advised. “Think of it as supported by invisible wires from above you—that’s it! Back straight, shoulders square—posture is very important. Now, step, rock, back, and step!”

  The music started, and neither Tony nor his partner spoke, concentrating fiercely on getting the steps right. He felt vaguely disloyal to Sandy, dancing with another woman even if it was just a dance class. He consoled himself with the thought that she wasn’t very pretty. None of the girls here were.

  But, truth to tell, neither were the women he passed on the street, which was strange, since only a few months ago, he had been amazed how many beautiful women there were on his way to work. The traitorous thought crossed his mind that having met Sandy, only the most dazzling of women would seem beautiful to him, but of course that couldn’t be true.

  “Step - rock - back - step!”

  Tony did.

  Gail stepped into the studio to wave before she left the radio station. “See you, Gordon.”

  Gordon looked up in surprize. “You’re leaving early. It’s scarcely drive time.”

  “Came in early, too,” Gail said. “My little girl’s in a grade-school pageant, so I knew I’d have to bow ou
t at four.”

  Gordon shuddered. “Better you than me. Good luck.”

  “You too, Gordon. Station’s all yours. See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, Gail.” Gordon gave a quick wave, then hit the program button and began talking into the mike. “That was the Everly Brothers with ‘Wake Up, Little Susie.’ We’ll have another twelve in a row up for you in just a minute here on Rollin’ Oldies One-oh-one, but first, let’s check the traffic report. How’re things at Twelfth and C, Carmen?” He toggled the “remote” and eased in the sound of helicopter rotors. After all, everyone knew Carmen prowled the back streets in a Bug-mobile and hiked to the intersections from a parking place, and they hadn’t actually said she was in a helicopter, so what was the harm?

  “Well, Gordon, we’ve hit a snarl here,” Carmen’s voice said. “Only a fender-bender, fortunately, and the officers are here taking the accident report, but it’s slowing westbound traffic to a snail’s pace. I’d recommend you homebound people try Church Street all the way to Eighth Street, then double back to Avenue C after the snarl. I’ll talk to you from Second and Avenue K in ...”

  A raw, monotonous beat crashed in, bass drum and snare with some sort of string, and a driving nasal voice chanted,

  “School’s a waste

  And job’s a paste,

  And cops’ll watch

  Your every move.

  So leave . . .”

  Gordon made a frantic dive for the studio monitor and yanked it down to a bare mumble. “What the hell?”

  The phone rang. Gordon grabbed it and pasted on the smile. “Rollin’ Oldies One-oh-one! Sorry, no requests just now, gotta little problem . . .”