The Second H. Beam Piper Omnibus

by H. Beam Piper

  Somebody rapped on the door. “Miss Pelton,” the sergeant's voice called. “Visiphone call from Literates’ Hall."

  Prestonby smiled. “I'll take it, if you don't mind,” he said. “I'm acting-chief-Literate here, now, I suppose."

  She followed him as he went out into Pelton's office. When he snapped on the screen, a young man in a white smock, with the Fraternities Executive Section badge, looked out of it. He gave a slight start when he saw Prestonby.

  "Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby, acting voluntarily for Pelton's Purchasers’ Paradise during emergency,” he said.

  "Literate First Class Armandez, Executive Section,” the man in the screen replied. “This call is in connection with the recent attack of Chester Pelton upon Literate First Class Bayne."

  "Continue, understanding that we admit nothing,” Prestonby told him.

  "An extemporary session of the Council has found Pelton guilty of assaulting Literate Bayne, and has fined him ten million dollars,” Armandez announced.

  "We enter protest,” Prestonby replied automatically.

  "Wait a moment, Literate. The Council has also awarded Pelton's Purchasers’ Paradise damages to the extent of ten million dollars, for losses incurred by suspension of Literate service, and voted censure against Literate Bayne for ordering said suspension without consent of the Council. Furthermore, a new crew of Literates, with their novices, guards, et cetera, is being sent at once to your store. Obviously, neither the Fraternities, nor Pelton's, nor the public, would be benefitted by returning Literate Bayne or any of his crew; he has been given another assignment."

  "Thank you. And when can we expect this new crew of Literates?” Prestonby asked.

  The man in the screen consulted his watch. “Probably inside of an hour. We've had to do some re-shuffling; you know how these things are handled. And if you'll pardon me, Literate; just what are you doing at Pelton's? I understood that you were principal of Mineola High School."

  "That's a good question.” Prestonby hastily assessed the circumstances and their implications. “I'd suggest that you ask it of my superior, Literate Lancedale, however."

  The Literate in the screen blinked; that was the equivalent, for him, of anybody else's jaw dropping to his midriff.

  "Well! A pleasure, Literate. Good day."

  * * * *

  "Miss Pelton!” The man in the blue-and-orange suit was still trying to catch her attention. “Where are we going to put that stuff? Russ Latterman's out in the store, somewhere, and I can't get in touch with him."

  "What did you say it was?” she replied.

  "Fireworks, for the Peace Day trade. We want to get it on sale about the middle of the month."

  "This was a fine time to deliver them. Peace Day isn't till the Tenth of December. Put them down in the fireproof vault."

  "That place is full of photographic film, and sporting ammunition, and other merchandise; stuff we'll have to draw out to replace stock on the shelves during the sale,” the Illiterate objected.

  "The weather forecast for the next couple of days is fair,” Prestonby reminded her. “Why not just pile the stuff on the top stage, beyond the control tower, and put up warning signs?"

  The man-Hutschnecker, Prestonby remembered hearing Claire call him-nodded.

  "That might be all right. We could cover the cases with tarpaulins."

  A buzzer drew one of the Illiterates to a handphone. He listened for a moment, and turned.

  "Hey, there's a Mrs. H. Armytage Zydanowycz down in Furs; she wants to buy one of those mutated-mink coats, and she's only got half a million bucks with her. How's her credit?"

  Claire handed Prestonby a black-bound book. “Confidential credit-rating guide; look her up for us,” she said.

  Another buzzer rasped, before Prestonby could find the entry on Zydanowycz, H. Armytage; the Illiterate office worker, laying down one phone, grabbed up another.

  "They're all outta small money in Notions; every son and his brother's been in there in the last hour to buy a pair of dollar shoestrings with a grand-note."

  "I'll take care of that,” Hutschnecker said. “Wait till I call control tower, and tell them about the fireworks."

  "How much does Mrs. H. Armytage Zydanowycz want credit for?” Prestonby asked. “The book says her husband's good for up to fifteen million, or fifty million in thirty days."

  "Those coats are only five million,” Claire said. “Let her have it; be sure to get her thumbprint, though, and send it up here for comparison."

  "Oh, Claire; do you know how we're going to handle this new Literate crew, when they get here?"

  "Yes, here's the TO for Literate service.” She tossed a big chart across the desk to him. “I made a few notes on it; you can give it to whoever is in charge."

  * * * *

  It went on, like that, for the next hour. When the new Literate crew arrived, Prestonby was delighted to find a friend, and a fellow-follower of Lancedale, in charge. Considering that Retail Merchandising was Wilton Joyner's section, that was a good omen. Lancedale must have succeeded to an extraordinary degree in imposing his will on the Grand Council. Prestonby found, however, that he would need some time to brief the new chief Literate on the operational details at the store. He was unwilling to bring Claire too prominently into the conference, although he realized that it would be a matter of half an hour, at the outside, before every one of the new Literate crew would have heard about her Literate ability. If she'd only played dumb, after opening that safe—

  Finally, by 1300, the new Literates had taken over, and the sale was running smoothly again. Latterman was somewhere out in the store, helping them; Claire had lunch for herself and Prestonby sent up from the restaurant, and for a while they ate in silence, broken by occasional spatters of small-talk. Then she returned to the question she had raised and he had not yet answered.

  "You say Frank Cardon's a Literate?” she asked. “Then what's he doing managing the Senator's campaign? Fifth-columning?"

  He shook his head. “You think the Fraternities are a solid, monolithic, organization; everybody agreed on aims and means, and working together in harmony? That's how it's supposed to look, from the outside. On the inside, though, there's a bitter struggle going on between two factions, over policy and for control. One faction wants to maintain the status quo-a handful of Literates doing the reading and writing for an Illiterate public, and holding a monopoly on Literacy. They're headed by two men, Wilton Joyner and Harvey Graves. Bayne was one of that faction."

  He paused, thinking quickly. If Lancedale had gotten the upper hand, there was likely to be a revision of the Joyner-Graves attitude toward Pelton. In that case, the less he said to incriminate Russell Latterman, the better. Let Bayne be the villain, for a while, he decided.

  "Bayne,” he continued, “is one of a small minority of fanatics who make a religion of Literacy. I believe he disposed of your father's medicine, and then deliberately goaded him into a rage to bring on a heart attack. That doesn't represent Joyner-Graves policy; it was just something he did on his own. He's probably been disciplined for it, by now. But the Joyner-Graves faction are working for your father's defeat and the re-election of Grant Hamilton.

  "The other faction is headed by a man you've probably never heard of, William R. Lancedale. I'm of his faction, and so is Frank Cardon. We want to see your father elected, because the socialization of Literacy would eventually put the Literates in complete control of the government. We also want to see Literacy become widespread, eventually universal, just as it was before World War IV."

  "But Wouldn't that mean the end of the Fraternities?” Claire asked.

  "That's what Joyner and Graves say. We don't believe so. And suppose it did? Lancedale says, if we're so incompetent that we have to keep the rest of the world in ignorance to earn a living, the world's better off without us. He says that every oligarchy carries in it the seeds of its own destruction; that if we can't evolve with the rest of the world, we're doomed in an
y case. That's why we want to elect your father. If he can get his socialized Literacy program adopted, we'll be in a position to load the public with so many controls and restrictions and formalities that even the most bigoted Illiterate will want to learn to read. Lancedale says, a private monopoly like ours is bad, but a government monopoly is intolerable, and the only way the public can get rid of it would be by becoming Literates, themselves."

  She glanced toward the door of Pelton's private rest room.

  "Poor Senator!” she said softly. “He hates Literacy so, and his own children are Literates, and his program against Literacy is being twisted against itself!"

  "But you agree that we're right and he's wrong?” Prestonby asked. “You must, or you'd never have come to me to learn to read."

  "He's such a good father. I'd hate to see him hurt,” she said. “But, Ralph, you're my man. Anything you're for, I'm for, and anything you're against, I'm against."

  He caught her hand, across the table, forgetful of the others in the office.

  "Claire, now that everybody knows—” he began.

  * * * *

  "Top emergency! Top emergency!” a voice brayed out of the alarm box on the wall. “Serious disorder in Department Thirty-two! Serious disorder in Department Thirty-two!"

  The voice broke off as suddenly as it had begun, but the box was not silent. From it came a medley of shouts, curses, feminine screams and splintering crashes. Prestonby and Claire were on their feet.

  "You have wall screens?” he asked. “How do they work? Like the ones at school?"

  Claire twisted a knob until the number 32 appeared on a dial, and pressed a button. On the screen, the Chinaware Department on the third floor came to life in full sound and color. The pickup must have been across an aisle from the box from whence the alarm had come; they could see one of Pelton's Illiterate clerks lying unconscious under it, and the handphone dangling at the end of its cord. The aisles were full of jostling, screaming women, trampling one another and fighting frantically to get out, and, among them, groups of three or four men were gathered back to back. One such group had caught a store policeman; three were holding him while a fourth smashed vases over his head, grabbing them from a nearby counter. A pink dinner plate came skimming up from the crowd, narrowly missing the wired TV pickup. A moment later, a blue-and-white sugar bowl, thrown with better aim, came curving at them in the screen. It scored a hit, and brought darkness, though the bedlam of sound continued.

  Cardon looked at his watch as he entered the Council Chamber at Literates’ Hall, smoothing his smock hastily under his Sam Browne. He'd made it with very little time to spare, before the doors would be sealed and the meeting would begin. He'd been all over town, tracking down that report of Sforza's; he'd even made a quick visit to Chinatown, on the off chance that “China” had been used in an attempt at the double concealment of the obvious, but, as he'd expected, he'd found nothing. The people there hardly knew there was to be an election. Accustomed for millennia to ideographs read only by experts, they viewed the current uproar about Literacy with unconcern.

  At the door, he deposited his pocket recorder-no sound-recording device was permitted, except the big audio-visual camera in front, which made the single permanent record. Going around the room counterclockwise to the seats of his faction, he encountered two other Lancedale men: Gerald K. Toppington, of the Technological Section, thin-faced, sandy-haired, balding; and Franklin R. Chernov, commander of the local Literates’ guards brigade, with his ragged gray mustache, his horribly scarred face, and his outsize tablet-holster almost as big as a mail-order catalogue.

  "What's Joyner-Graves trying to do to us, Frank?” Chernov rumbled gutturally.

  "It's what we're going to do to them,” Cardon replied. “Didn't the chief tell you?"

  Chernov shook his head. “No time. I only got here fifteen minutes ago. Chasing all over town about that tip from Sforza. Nothing, of course. Nothing from Sforza, either. The thing must have been planned weeks ago, whatever it is, and everybody briefed personally, and nothing on disk or tape about it. But what's going to happen here? Lancedale going to pull a rabbit out of his hat?"

  Cardon explained. Chernov whistled. “Man, that's no rabbit; that's a full-grown Bengal tiger! I hope it doesn't eat us, by mistake."

  Cardon looked around, saw Lancedale in animated argument with a group of his associates. Some of the others seemed to be sharing Chernov's fears.

  "I have every confidence in the chief,” Toppington said. “If his tigers make a meal off anybody, it'll be—” He nodded in the direction of the other side of the chamber, where Wilton Joyner, short, bald, pompous, and Harvey Graves, tall and cadaverous, stood in a Rosencrantz-Guildenstern attitude, surrounded by half a dozen of their top associates.

  The Council President, Morehead, came out a little door onto the rostrum and took his seat, pressing a button. The call bell began clanging slowly. Lancedale, glancing around, saw Cardon and nodded. On both sides of the chamber, the Literates began taking seats, and finally the call bell stopped, and Literate President Morehead rapped with his gavel. The opening formalities were hustled through. The routine held-over business was rubber-stamped with hasty votes of approval, even including the decisions of the extemporary meeting of that morning on the affair at Pelton's. Finally, the presiding officer rapped again and announced that the meeting was now open for new business.

  At once, Harvey Graves was on his feet.

  "Literate President,” he began, as soon as the chair had recognized him, “this is scarcely new business, since it concerns a problem, a most serious problem, which I and some of my colleagues have brought to the attention of this Council many times in the past-the problem of Black Literacy!” He spat out the two words as though they were a mouthful of poison. “Literate President and fellow Literates, if anything could destroy our Fraternities, to which we have given our lives’ devotion, it would be the widespread tendency to by-pass the Fraternities, the practice of Literacy by non-Fraternities people—"

  "We've heard all that before, Wilton!” somebody from the Lancedale side called out. “What do you want to talk about that you haven't gotten on every record of every meeting for the last thirty years?"

  "Why, this Pelton business,” Graves snapped back at him. “You know what I mean. Your own associates are responsible for it!” He turned back to face the chair, and, with a surprising minimum of invective, described the scene in which Claire Pelton had demonstrated her Literacy. “And that's not all, brother Literates,” he continued. “Since then, I've been receiving reports from the Pelton store. Claire Pelton has been openly doing the work of a Literate; going over the store's written records, checking inventories, checking the credit guide, handling the price lists—"

  "What's that got to do with Black Literacy?” Gerald Toppington demanded. “Black Literacy is a term which labels the professional practice of Literacy, for hire, by a non-Fraternity Literate, or Literate service furnished for criminal or politically subversive purposes, or the betrayal of a client by a Fraternity Literate. There's nothing of the sort involved here. This girl, who does appear to be Literate, is simply looking after the interests of her family's business."

  "She was taught by a Literate, a Fraternities-member, under, to say the very least, irregular circumstances, and without payment of any fee. Any fee, that is, that the Fraternities can collect any percentage on. And the Literate who taught her also taught her younger brother, Ray Pelton, and this Literate, who is known to be her lover—"

  "Suppose he is her lover, so what?” one of Lancedale's partisans demanded. “You say, yourself, that she's a Literate. That ought to remove any objection. Why, if she were to come forward and admit and demonstrate her Literacy, there'd be no possible objection from the Fraternities’ viewpoint to her marrying young Prestonby."

  "And as for Prestonby's action in teaching Literacy to her and to her brother,” Cardon spoke up, “I think he deserves the thanks and commendation of the Fraterni
ties. He's put a period to four generations of bigoted Illiterates."

  Wilton Joyner was on his feet. “Will Literate Graves yield for a motion?” he asked. “Thank you, Harvey. Literate President, and brother Literates: I yield to no man in my abhorrence of Black Literacy, or in my detestation for the political principles of which Chester Pelton has made himself the spokesman, but I deny that we should allow the acts and opinions of the Illiterate parent to sway us in our consideration of the Literate children. It has come to my notice, as it has to Literate Graves', that this young woman, Claire Pelton, is Literate to a degree that would be a credit to any Literate First Class, and her brother can match his Literacy creditably against that of any novice in our Fraternities. To show that we respect Literate ability, wherever we find it; to show that we are not the monopolistic closed-corporation our enemies accuse us of being; to show that we are not animated by a vindictive hatred of anything bearing the name of Pelton-I move, and ask that my motion be presented for seconding, that Claire Pelton, and her brother, Raymond Pelton, be duly elected, respectively, to the positions of Literate Third Class and Literate Novice, as members of the Associated Fraternities of Literates!"

  From the Joyner-Graves side, there were dutiful cries of, “Yes! Yes! Admit the young Peltons!” and also gasps of horrified surprise from the rank-and-filers who hadn't been briefed on what was coming up.

  Lancedale was on his feet in an instant. “Literate President!” he cried. “In view of the delicate political situation, and in view of Chester Pelton's violent denunciation of our Fraternities—"

  "Literate Lancedale,” the President objected. “The motion is not to be debated until it has been properly seconded."

  "What does the Literate President think I'm doing?” Lancedale retorted. “I second the motion!"

  Joyner looked at Lancedale in angry surprise, which gradually became fearful suspicion. His stooge, who had already risen with a prepared speech of seconding, simply gaped.