High-Opp

by Frank Herbert

O’Brien gave his ear a particularly sharp tug. “Revolution is always cold-blooded.”

  “I suppose so.” She looked at her hands, rubbed a finger against the glass. “Well, if we’re going to do it, let’s get it over with.” She turned, looked at O’Brien. “Can you get the marriage registry in so it won’t be found until we need it?”

  “All taken care of,” said O’Brien.

  “Maybe we’d better get someone else,” said London.

  Grace shook her head. “No. Nathan is right. I’m the obvious one for the job.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts, Father. It was your idea, remember?”

  “I was afraid you’d remind me of that.”

  Chapter 9

  It was altogether unlike what Movius had imagined his wedding ceremony would be. Navvy came for him at a quarter past seven in the cell-like room off the tunnel.

  “Pastor Dillon had to wait until after his regular rounds before he could come,” said Navvy. He sat down on the cot, slapped his knee.

  Movius almost told him to call it off. He felt a sudden weariness, realized he’d been working steadily since five that morning. So damned much to do, so many people to see and screen. Those tri-di recordings to make and ship off overseas and to the rest of the country.

  “You ready?” asked Navvy. He looked up at Movius, an impersonal, scanning look that made Movius uncomfortable.

  “Just a minute.” He went back to the washroom, washed ink stains off his hands. Again he wondered if it wouldn’t be simpler to smuggle him onto one of the skytrains. Personal appearances at the new organizations were much more effective. People liked to see a man before accepting him as a leader. The tri-di recordings were good, though, especially when magnified. Movius dried his hands, returned to Navvy.

  “Let’s go,” said Navvy. He lifted himself to his feet.

  Movius sought in his mind for something else to use as a delay. Nothing. “May as well,” he said.

  In the boiler room the flickering orange light gave an evil cast to the walls. It was almost unbearably hot in the room. Movius felt the perspiration start under his arms, knew he would be sticky and uncomfortable before this was finished.

  Pastor Dillon was a frail-bodied man with an angular head, glazed, remote eyes, sing-song voice. “And this is the bride/groom,” he said. He held a worn black book opened in his hands. The Bible. Another history book. They’d low-opp that, too, if they dared.

  Grace and her father were arguing in whispers. Movius heard her say, “It’s only a temporary . . .” She broke off as she saw Movius.

  “I understand how things are sometimes,” said Pastor Dillon, who also had overheard her. “If you’d like, I could pre-date the license and ceremony, make it appear that the little one was . . .”

  “Not necessary!” snapped Quilliam London. He glared at the pastor, patted Grace’s shoulder. “As you will, my dear.”

  Again Movius had the impulse to back out, get another woman for the role. He kept wanting to say something all the while Pastor Dillon intoned the ancient ceremony, but he couldn’t find his voice except to respond as directed.

  “God bless you and this holy union,” said Pastor Dillon in his strange sing-song. “May He watch over you and ever keep you in His holy grace . . . Amen.”

  Grace, thought Movius. Holy Grace. He felt a decidedly unholy impulse to comment on this, but the impulse was stifled when he turned and saw two tears running down her cheeks.

  “Kiss her,” said Pastor Dillon.

  “Wha . . . what?”

  “Kiss her. It’s customary.”

  London nodded for him. The hunter eyes had lost some of their directness. Stiffly, Movius took Grace in his arms, kissed her lips, surprised at the salt taste of tears. It was unlike any other kiss of his experience—tremulous, haunting.

  Pastor Dillon gave a final blessing, turned, labored up the stairs at the end of the boiler room. They heard a door open, close.

  “Well,” said Movius.

  London took his daughter’s arm. “Good night.”

  Grace did not look at him.

  Father and daughter followed the route taken by the pastor, leaving Navvy and Movius in the baleful orange light of the boiler room. It had never more reminded him of the Biblical hell. Low-opp that, too! he thought.

  Movius found himself unaccountably angry with Navvy. He said, “I can find my way back alone. Go on with them!”

  Navvy looked at him, shrugged, went up the stairs.

  The hidden room was a dank, cold place after the boiler room. Movius turned off the light, threw himself onto the cot. The memory of Grace’s low voice answering Pastor Dillon, the frightened look on her face, the tears, the tremulous kiss, all kept intruding on his other thoughts. He sat up, undressed in the dark, crawled between the blankets, feeling somehow cheated.

  In the days that followed, Movius found himself often brought up sharp as he looked at Grace. That’s my wife! Great Gallup!

  And Grace, when she saw him looking at her this way, blushed, went more quickly about her work.

  There wasn’t much time for personal thoughts, though. More cells were being organized, more recorded speeches made. The local organization passed the sixteen thousand mark.

  In one month, nine of Movius’ couriers were caught, but they destroyed their packages with their incendiaries, killed themselves with a quick poison in a false tooth.

  Chapter 10

  Helmut Glass, his square face set in an angry frown, paced his office atop the Com-Burs Building. It was a sybarite’s office—soft carpets, chairs with deep cushions, a bar in the corner, dark paneling. An aroma of some wood perfume mingled in the air with the smoky residue of rare tobacco.

  Across from Glass, on a coffee-brown leather couch, sat Loren Addington, director of the Bureau of Control. A fat man with puffy, sadistic eyes which he hid behind thick lenses. A red toupee, obvious in its false youthfulness, replaced his lost hair.

  Beside Addington sat Rafe Newton, whose youth fitted the pale reddish cast of his hair. Someday he might have eyes like his uncle, Helmut Glass—hard and unforgiving—and a fat body like his fifth cousin, Loren Addington. Now he had the look of a hungry wolf waiting for one of his pack mates to stumble.

  “It’s the biggest movement we’ve ever encountered,” said Glass. He dropped into the chair at his desk. “And we don’t have a single line into it. I can sense the size of it. Those couriers. Men have to be strongly indoctrinated to give up their lives.” He looked up into Addington’s owlish eyes. “What about the packages they carried?”

  Addington fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a pill which he popped into his mouth. “They appear to have been tri-di reels, but there wasn’t enough left to reconstruct.”

  “Where’d they get the incendiaries?” demanded Glass.

  “I don’t know.” Addington chewed placidly on his pill.

  “You don’t know.” Glass mimicked Addington’s tone. The fat man did not change expression. “Do you know anything?”

  Addington swallowed the pill. “A rumor.”

  “What, what is it?”

  “You call Movius?”

  Glass scowled. “And there’s another loose end. You haven’t found him yet.” He seemed at the breaking point of exasperation.

  “There’s a rumor going around the Warrens that he’s the new boss of the Sep movement.”

  “Well, trace the rumor,” said Glass.

  “Haven’t had any luck.”

  Glass turned to Newton. “What about you, Rafe?”

  Newton’s eyes took on a glaze of familial cordiality. “I’ve been too busy working on Gerard.”

  “I believe we’d better hold off on Gerard,” said Glass. “Let it ride for awhile and concentrate on the Seps. Make a few surprise raids at random. Shake down the Warrens. Haul in some people for special questioning. I don’t think we have much . . .”

  “But I’m almost ready to move on Gerard,” said Newton. His eyes had regained some
of their wolfish look.

  “Oh? How close?”

  “Another two weeks. We’re working on his male secretary now.”

  “Too long,” said Glass. He turned back to Addington, missed the quick light of anger in Newton’s eyes. “I want this thing smashed. Don’t bother checking that rumor about Movius. Just find him and dump him in the river. And don’t take . . .”

  A door at the end of the office opened. Cecelia Lang stood in the doorway. She wore a pair of shimmering black Top Rank coveralls cut to display her figure. “Helmut,” she said, her voice keyed to the tone she knew made Glass squirm.

  “Just a few minutes,” said Glass.

  “But you said you wouldn’t be long.”

  Newton’s lips twitched into a smile, quickly erased.

  “It’ll just be a few seconds now,” said Glass.

  Cecelia waited in the doorway.

  Glass turned back to the two men on the couch. “Find that man and get rid of him.” He stood up, strode toward Cecelia.

  “I don’t like to be kept waiting,” said Cecelia, taking his arm.

  “I know you don’t dear,” said The Coor. “I’m sorry, but it was some important business. Now let’s go to . . .”

  They passed out of sight and hearing. Newton turned a grin on fifth cousin Loren Addington, sobered when he received no response.

  Chapter 11

  On the forty-seventh day following his low-opp, Movius received orders to report to Bu-Trans. The orders came out in the District Circular without any special notice attached to them.

  Movius stood in the hidden room, the paper in his hands. “They want to bring me out in the open and knock me over,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

  Grace, working with the duplicator on the table they had installed in a corner of the room, missed catching a card as the machine disgorged it. The other cards piled up, jamming, until she shut down the machine.

  Quilliam London, who always seemed to make it a point to be present when Grace was in the room, sat on Movius’ cot, writing in a notebook. “We’ve made good preparations, he said. “Gerard has heard reports about you which make him practically drool. You’re the answer to his dreams.”

  Movius balled the District Circular into a crumpled wad, threw it into the corner.

  “It’s not the ALP,” said Quilliam. “It’s Bu-Trans.”

  “Target practice for The Coor’s thuggees,” said Movius.

  “It’s early yet,” said Quilliam London. “You and Grace had better go down to District Housing and ask for quarters.”

  Movius stared at him. “Why, I hadn’t . . .”

  “You’ll have to make it look good,” said London. “They won’t be expecting you to come right out there tonight.” There was a touch of grimness at the corners of his lean mouth. “The honeymoon is over.”

  The transport whined to a stop at the corner, waited while the morning’s human cargo jostled and pushed abroad, a mood of impatient anger about them. The standard aroma of the standard breakfast puffed out on their breaths. Another LP, Daniel Movius, allowed himself to be crushed into the transport, found a space as far back as he could push. Furtive glances at his companions showed nothing he could mark as unusual. He could only assume that Bu-Con and The Coor had not had men watching District Housing, that they had not expected a hunted man to come out openly and register.

  It had been a strange experience at District Housing. The clerk, with that nervous officiousness of those with petty powers, had grumbled about his paper work, assigned them quarters half a mile from Quilliam London’s apartment. Grace had held Movius’ arm as they’d stood there. When they were back in the street, she’d said, “We’d better go out there now. Get off the streets.”

  It was a standard Warren apartment—F5MC—floor 5, married couple. Two rooms nine by ten, double bed, sitting room with couch and chair, standard wall TV, collapsible table and a smoking stand. The bathroom was four by four, closet five by four. More space for the wedded; marriage had to have some advantages.

  Movius tested the springs on the couch. “It’ll do. You take the bedroom.”

  Grace opened the door between the rooms, suddenly fled into the bedroom. Movius caught a fleeting glimpse of her contorted face; he jumped up, followed. “What’s wrong?”

  She was drying her eyes on a corner of a blanket. “Nothing.”

  “Well, it’s obviously something.”

  “I guess it’s just that this is so different from what I’d imagined.” She looked around her with an empty expression.

  Movius found himself remembering the wedding ceremony, his desperate feeling of wrongness. “I’m sorry. I guess there are some things we didn’t consider.”

  “Such as?” She sniffled.

  “Human feelings maybe.” He shrugged. “But it can’t be helped. He felt like an executive telling his secretary he was sorry she couldn’t have the night off but there was all this work to do. He remembered all the hours Grace had worked beside him, ignoring obvious fatigue. Movius walked into the bedroom, patted her shoulder, “Believe me, if there was some other way . . .”

  She pulled away and suddenly, without warning, turned on him, eyes glittering with tears. “Of course there’s no other way as long as you’re filled with hate for that egotistical drive for revenge.” She fell silent, put a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .”and

  Again he had that feeling of being cheated, of missing something. Rather stiffly, he said, “I thought it was what you wanted, too.”

  Grace looked at the floor, turned her back on him. “Yes, of course.

  He stepped closer, disturbed, put his hands on her shoulders. Her hair gave off a faint fragrance. The memory of that tremulous kiss came back to him. She leaned back slightly against his hands, just a faint pressure. It was enough. He had an abrupt, glaring touch of insight, thought, Great Roper! She’s in love with me! The thought made him drop his hands, pull away. There she was, vital certainly, but really on the plain side, much too thing-featured and intense, like the ones he saw sitting in the parks on festival days, listening to ancient music. The wrong kind of fire inside to attract him. It was tragic when he thought about it.

  He said, “These aren’t times for anything but hate.”

  She sighed. “No. I guess not.”

  They had gone to their separate rooms, Movius to twist and turn on the too-short couch, tortured by one word in Grace’s accusation—egotistical. He thought, All I want is a clean government for everyone. And far back in his mind something sniggered and said, “With you at the top!”

  The transport turned on the parkway—Government Avenue—began making frequent stops to disgorge writhing blobs of workers. Movius saw his stop coming, worked his way forward, was squeezed out with the rest into the chill morning air.

  There was the building: Bu-Trans. A towering concrete hive, its tiled floors clicking to purposeful feet. A container for efficient scurrying hither and yon, papers clutched in hands. Machines clacking and buzzing, pneumo-tubes whacking out their cartridges with more bits of paper. A sum total of officiousness.

  Movius joined the inbound stream of workers, broke away in the cavernous lobby to go to the window labeled STARTING CLERK. The clerk’s tired eyes peered out of a steel wicket. “Name and number?”

  “Daniel Movius, 662843509, LP.”

  The clerk turned to check the records. Movius leaned on the counter to wait, became conscious of two men, one standing on either side of him. Something hard pressed against his left side. He looked down, saw a fap gun in the hand of the man on his left.

  “Daniel Movius?” asked the one of the right.

  “Yes.” Movius looked at the man, mind churning. This was what he had feared. He said, “Why?”

  “We’ll ask the questions.” The man began patting Movius’ pockets, stooped to feel along his legs. Presently, he stood up, said, “He’s not carrying it.”

  The pressure was removed from Movius’ left side.

&nbs
p; “Where’ve you been, Movius?” asked the man on the right.

  “With my wife,” said Movius, forcing his voice to remain even and questioning. “We’ve been on our honeymoon. I . . .”

  The starting clerk returned to the window. “You report to Department CR-14.” He suddenly noticed the two men beside Movius. “You must take your places in line,” he said. “We serve everybody in his proper turn.”

  The man on the right flashed a badge and identification card. “Bu-Con,” he said. “This man is a fugitive from work report.”

  The clerk gave a glance to the badge and card, glanced down to papers he held in his hand. “I don’t see how that can be. I have his work order here in my hand. It came through yesterday. He’s reporting well within the forty-eight-hour limit.” The clerk reached out, grasped Movius’ thumb, held thumb and papers under the facsimile-eye on his counter. “Same man.”

  “We’ll tell you if it’s the same man or not,” said the one on Movius’ right.

  The clerk leaned forward, said, “Look, bull-con, I’ve identified this man as one assigned to CR-14. I’m going to call them upstairs and report what’s going on.” He pulled a phone from beneath the counter, put it to his ear.

  The man on Movius’ left rested his fap-gun on the counter, said, “Put away the phone, sonny.”

  “If you pull that trigger, the guard in our tower will drop you in your tracks,” said the clerk. “We don’t trust you bull-con illegitimates over here in Bu-Trans.” He bent over the phone. “Get me Mr. Gerard, will you, beautiful? I’ll wait.”

  “Movius is going with us,” said the man on the right.

  “That may be,” said the clerk. “But I’m reporting this to the top all the same.” Again he moved the phone closer to his mouth. “Mr. Gerard?” He waited. “Mr. Gerard? This is Bailey downstairs. Daniel Movius, the new CR-14, just reported and there are a couple of bull-cons here threatening to take him away on a charge of failure to report.” A rasping sound issued from the phone. “Sure it’s a phony,” said the clerk.