Now the entrance once again gaped. The professional work of the no longer extant leadies had been undone. But it had taken hours.
Setting it on auto, Joseph Adams dispatched the flapple; it rose, disappeared into the gray, early morning light. Left here it would have acted as a clear giveaway. And the problem still remained of resealing the tunnel's entrance after them in such a manner that it would not even with instruments be detected.
For this purpose he and Adams had composed a plug. A section of hard dirt, weed-covered, sheared to fit the tunnel-mouth exactly. This, in actuality, was relatively a simple aspect of the job; he and Adams now squeezed down into the tunnel, and then, by means of a series of small-link chains attached to steel stakes driven into the underside of the plug, they dragged the piece of hard earth and weeds after them and over them; all at once the gray light of morning vanished and they had only their lanterns. By pulling the chains taut they wedged the plug securely in place.
And then, with great care, they detached all metal pieces from the plug, the stakes and the chains . . . detectors, used later on, would have registered the presence of the metal; that would have been the tropism that would have distinguished their trail of escape, for the hounds who would one day be coming.
Five minutes later Nicholas, with his boots, kicked loose the seal at the base of the tunnel; the tank's committee of activists, acting under Jorgenson's expert direction, had carefully made the seal susceptible to easy removal from above—after all, if Nicholas returned, with or without the artiforg, he would have to come by this route.
Squeezed into the small storeroom of floor one the entire leadership of the committee, Hailer and Flanders and Jorgenson, all of them waited with their strange little hand-made laser pistols which they had turned out in the ant tank's shops.
"We've been listening to you for an hour," Jorgenson said. "Banging and rattling around up there, reopening the tunnel. Naturally we have a full-time alarm system rigged; it woke us at exactly four a.m. How did you make out?" He saw then, in Nicholas' hands, the aluminum cylinder.
"He got it," Hailer said.
Nicholas said, "I got it." He handed the cylinder to Jorgenson, turned then to help Adams out of the tunnel and into the crowded storeroom. "What about Dale Nunes? Did he file a report up to—"
"Nunes," Jorgenson said, "is dead. An industrial accident. In the bottom-floor shops; he was—you know. Exhorting us to greater productivity. And he got too near a power cable. And for some reason—I forget now—but anyhow the cable wasn't properly shielded."
Hailer said, "And some oaf pushed Nunes backward so that he fell onto the cable. And it wiped him out." He added, "We already buried him. It was either that or have him report to up above on your absence."
"And in your name," Jorgenson said, "like you were still here, we sent an official report to the surface, to Estes Park. Asking for another pol-com to replace Commissioner Nunes, and of course expressing our regrets."
There was silence.
Nicholas said, "I'll take the artiforg to Carol." And then he said to them all, "I didn't bring this back so we could make our quota. I brought it for Souza' s sake as such. For his life. But the quota is over."
"How come?" Jorgenson said, perceptively. "What is it, up there?" He saw Adams, then, realized all at once that Nicholas had not returned alone. "Who's this? You better explain."
Nicholas said, "I will when the mood strikes me."
"He's still President of the tank," Flanders reminded Jorgenson. "He can wait as long as he wants; chrissakes, he brought the pancreas; I mean, does he have to deliver a speech in addition?"
"I was just curious," Jorgenson, backing down, said lamely.
"Where's Carol?" Nicholas said, as with Joseph Adams, he passed through the gang of committee members toward the door of the storeroom. He reached the door, took hold of the knob—
The door was locked.
Jorgenson said, "We can't leave here, Mr. President. None of us."
"Who says so?" Nicholas said, after a pause.
"Carol herself," Haller said. "Because of you. The Bag Plague or the Stink of Shrink or any other bacterial contamination that you—" He gestured at Adams. "—and this fella may have on you. And we're all of us we're stuck, too, because we said, christ, we got to be at the bottom of the tunnel. In case it isn't Nick that we heard, that set off the alann. And if it was—" He hesitated. "Well, we felt we ought to be here. To sort of, you know; officially be on hand. To greet you." He glanced down in embarrassment. "Even if you didn't have the artiforg. Because after all you tried."
"You risked your life," Jorgenson said, in agreement.
Nicholas said acidly, "Under the threat of being blown up by you shop boys; and my wife and brother along with me."
"Maybe so," Jorgenson said, "but you did go, and you got it, so you didn't just poke your head out, then slide back down again and say, 'Sorry, fellas; no luck.' As you could have done. Hell, we couldn't have disproved it. Proved you hadn't tried." They all seemed embarrassed, now. Guilty, Nicholas thought; that was more it. Ashamed of the terror tactic they had used to get him to go. Now, he realized their President has returned, with the artiforg; old Maury Souza will be revived, restored to his position. Our production of leadies will resume and we will meet our quotas. Except that their ant tank President knows the truth, now. Which he did not when he originally left, climbed the tunnel, emerged on Earth's surface—to learn what Commissioner Dale Nunes had known all the time.
No wonder Nunes had insisted everyone act solely through channels— that is, through Nunes. Make no direct contact with the world above.
No wonder a pol-com in each ant tank was essential.
It had always been obvious the the pol-com performed a vital function for somebody—presumably for the Estes Park Government. But only by journeying to the surface himself—and coming back here again— had he seen just how vital, and for whose benefit, that function had been.
"Okay," Nicholas said to the committee; he let go of the doorknob, gave up. "And what did Carol intend next? A decontamination process of some sort?" To 'cide bacteria, microbes and viruses which he knew to be nonexistent; it was a temptation to tell them now—but he refrained. The time, he knew; it has to be exactly right. This must not be mishandled, because if it is there will be too great a reaction. Too much—justified—anger. They will burst up, through the large chute, the leady chutes, break out, carrying their handmade laser pistols . and the veteran, expert leadies will massacre them as they emerge. And, for us, it will be over.
Jorgenson said, "We've already notified Carol by intercom that it is you; she ought to be here any second. Be patient. Souza's deep in the freeze; he can wait another hour. She'll graft in the pancreas sometime around midday. Meanwhile we're all supposed to take off all our clothes, pile them up, then outside the door there's this chamber we built down in the shops; we'll pass through it, naked, one by one, and jets of 'cide of different types will—"
To Nicholas, Adams said, "I never, I just never realized. How completely they accept it. It's incredible." He seemed dazed. "We thought of it I guess as an intellectual acceptance. But this." He gestured.
"All the way," Nicholas said, nodding. "In every emotional level. Down to the basic phobic animal level; to the very deepest layer." He began to remove his clothes, resignedly. Until the time arrived to tell them, there was no choice; the ritual had to be gone through.
At last, as if prodded by a remote reflex of some dim, uncertain source, Adams, too, began unbuttoning his shirt.
CHAPTER 29
At one o'clock that afternoon Carol Tigh performed—successfully—the pancreas insertion operation on the still-frozen dead Maury Souza, and then, using the tank's most precious medical equipment, the old man's circulation, heartbeat, respiration were artificially, externally restored; the heart began to pump blood, then, on its own, and following that one the artificial function stimulators were cautiously and expertly detached from him.
&
nbsp; The EEG and EKG records, during the next, critical hours, indicated that body processes were occurring normally; old Souza had a good chance—a very good chance—of recovering and living out a few more good, important years.
So that was that. Nicholas, after standing at the bedside of the old mechanic for a long time, watching the monitoring machinery spill out their ribbons of tape, at last turned away, satisfied.
It was time at last for him once again to face his little overcrowded, jammed-together family in their adjoining cubbies with their shared, quarreled-over-daily bathroom. Once more he would resume the old life of the tank.
For a while.
And then, he said to himself as he walked alone down the clinic corridor and to the terminal ramp which led to his own floor, his residential floor, the trumpet shall sound and—not the dead—but the deceived shall be raised. And not incorruptible, sad to say, but highly mortal, perishable, and—mad.
A nest of hot, scorched wasps, rising to attack. This tank first, but by then we will have established contact with our neighboring tanks, will have told them, too. Pass it on, we'll say, he said to himself. Until everyone knows. And finally a worldwide network of angry wasps; and if they all swarm simultaneously, no army of leadies can get them. Just some of them. A third, perhaps. But no more.
However, it all depended on the TV transmissions during the next twenty-four hours. What Talbot Yancy, either real or imaginary, had to say to them.
He would wait, first, on that.
And which would it be, Brose or Lantano? Who, at this hour, lived and held power, and who had died?
The next Yancy speech, the next dose of reading matter, would tell him. Probably within the first ten words uttered by the face on the screen.
And which, he asked himself as he arrived at the door of his little cubby, do we want to see emerge? Adams would know better than I; David Lantano was good to me, made it possible for me to obtain the artiforg. But David Lantano's leadies before that, began the act of killing me . . . would have, if the man himself, in his older, artificially lighter skinned Yancy phase, hadn't intervened. Or perhaps something else had emerged up there or will emerge in time; neither Lantano nor Brose but a combination—Joseph Adams, as they had worked together to reopen the tunnel, had conjectured about this—a new alignment, of Webster Foote and his worldwide police corporation with Louis Runcible and his unwieldy economic supergigantic overgrown satrapy. Pitted against the Agency and its army of leadies, many of them wise old tomcats with kinks in their tails, left over from the war and ready at any pretext to fight again . . . whether commanded by Stanton Brose or David Lantano.
He opened the door of his cubby.
There sat Rita, composed, waiting. "Hi," she said quietly.
"Hi." He stood awkwardly in the doorway, not knowing whether to enter or not, trying to read her attitude.
Rising, Rita said, "It's nice to have you back. To see you. How are you?" She came toward him, then, hesitantly, also uncertain, as he was. "You didn't get the Bag Plague, then. That's what I was most afraid of. From what I've heard and seen on TV and what Dale Nunes said before he—disappeared."
He put his arms around her, hugged her.
"This is fine," Rita said, hugging him fiercely back. "But Nick, an all-points came through just a few seconds ago; we're supposed to be in Wheeling Hall right now, listening to the Protector, but I'm not going—Nunes, as you know, is dead, and so right now there's nobody to make us go. So I'll stay here. With you." She held him against her; however, he very swiftly disengaged her arms. "What is it?" she said, then, bewildered.
"I'm going to Wheeling Hall." He strode to the door.
"What does it matter—"
He did not take time to answer; he sprinted down the hall, to the ramp.
A moment later, with perhaps no more than a fifth or sixth of the citizens of the tank, Nicholas St. James entered Wheeling Hall. Catching sight of Joseph Adams he made his way over to him, seated himself rapidly beside him.
The giant floor-to-ceiling TV screen was lit and active; it pulsed but showed nothing.
Adams, briefly, said, "We're waiting. There has been what the announcer just now called a 'delay.' " His face was pale, stark. "He, that is, Yancy—he started to appear; then the image was cut off. As if—" He glanced at Nicholas. "the coax had been cut."
"Jesus," Nicholas said, and felt his heart beat, retrieve its rhythm, at last continue to labor on after a fashion. "So they're still fighting it out."
"We'll know," Adams said, speaking coolly, professionally. "It won't be long." His tension seemed deliberately technical. And kept so.
"Was he at his big oak desk? With the flag behind?"
"Couldn't tell. Too fragmentary; it lasted—they were able to keep it on—just a split second. I think—" Adams' voice was low but quite clearly audible as, around them, tankers leisurely, with no particular concern, took their seats, yawned, murmured, chatted. They did not know; they just did not know what this meant, to them, to their future collective and intimate, personally lived, individual lives. "—to tell you the truth, the showdown evidently did not come at nine o'clock a.m. New York Time. Apparently it's just coming now." He examined his watch. "It's six p.m. at the Agency. So something, god knows what, has been going on all day long." He turned his attention back to the big TV screen, then. And became silent. Waiting.
"The dart," Nicholas said, "missed, then."
"Perhaps. But that wouldn't be the end. Lantano wouldn't give up and die. Let's take this step by step. First of all, that particular weapon assembly, if it fails to meet its target, so notifies its installer owner. So no matter where he may be say a thousand miles away, Lantano would know instantly the bad news. And Foote—he'd be up to something in the meantime anyhow; I hope at Capetown. If he has the brains I know he has, definitely at Capetown. And would have disclosed to Runcible the whole business about the special project. And remember this: there are, in those conapts of Runcible's, thousands upon thousands of ex-tankers who Runcible might already have trained, armed, prepared for—" He broke off.
On the screen appeared the enormous, three-dimensional, full-color familiar ruddy but tanned, healthy, hard-cut features of Talbot Yancy.
"My fellow Americans," Yancy said, in his grave and firm, momentous yet considerate, even gracious voice. "I am humble before the sight of God to announce to you a matter of such infinite significance that I can only pray to the Almighty and thank Him that we, you and I together, have lived to see this day. My friends—" The voice, now, had choked with emotion; contained, however, by the iron, military inspired stoicism of the man. Masculine always, yet nonetheless overwhelmed; that was Talbot Yancy at this instant, and Nicholas simply could not fathom this that he saw: was this the simulacrum which had always confronted them from the TV screen, or was this—
The camera retreated. Now the oak desk. The flag. As always.
Nicholas said to Joseph Adams, "Brose got them. Before they got him." He felt leaden, dulled. It was over.
Well, that was that. And—maybe for the better. Who knew? Who would ever know? And still the great real task lay ahead, for him, for all the tankers. Nothing less than a total, absolute war to the end, to try to break through and stay broken through to the Earth's surface.
On the screen in a trembling, overcome voice Talbot Yancy said, "Today I can inform you, every one of you down beneath the ground where you have for so long labored, year in, year out—"
Adams grated, "Get to it."
"—without complaint, enduring and suffering, and always having faith . . . now, my friends, that faith which has so long been tested can be justified. The war, my friends, is over."
After a moment—Wheeling Hall and the people scattered here and there in it were dead-still—Nicholas turned; he and Adams looked at each other.
"And soon, my friends," Yancy continued in his heavy, solemn way, "you shall come up to your own sunlit world once again. You will be shocked, at first, by what you see; it
will not be easy, and this will be slow, I must tell you; slow in coming; it must be done bit by bit. But it is here now. All fighting has ceased. The Soviet Union, Cuba, all members of Pac-Peop, has as an entitey resigned itself, agreed, at last, to—"
"Lantano," Adams said, unbelievingly.
Getting to his feet, Nicholas walked up the aisle, out of Wheeling Hall.
In the corridor, alone, he stood in silence, thinking. Evidently Lantano, with or without Webster Foote, had after all gotten Brose, either early in the morning with the high velocity dart, or, if not then and by that weapon, later on. And in some other but absolutely professional, equally serviceable way. Aimed, of necessity, at the old brain itself, because that alone could not be replaced. When that organ was gone it was over. And it is over.
Brose, he realized, is dead. There is no doubt of it. This was the proof—what we were waiting for. The one, the only sign we down here would receive. The reign of the Yance-man, the fraud of thirteen years, or forty-three if you start with Fischer's documentaries—all over.
For better or worse.
Appearing beside him Adams stood for a moment; neither of them spoke and then Adams said, "It all depends on Runcible and Foote, at this point. Maybe they can drag Lantano into a stalemate. Moderate him. What in the old U.S. Government was called 'balance of power.' Possibly through an appearance before the Recon Dis-In Council; insist on—" He gestured. "God knows. I hope they do. It's a mess, Nick; honest to god—I know without being up there and seeing; it's a terrible mess and it'll be a mess for a long time."
The Penultimate Truth Page 21
