Difference between revisions of "Talk:XVI: Balance of Madness"

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XVI: Balance of Madness

SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1987

“Horrible!” cried Clarissa. Ed sat paralyzed, his face a frozen mask.

“Never realized what it could mean in a populated area.” Lucy wiped her eyes as if to erase the images: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rest.

“They purpose doing that to us?” Deejay trembled with anger as the films showed buildings, automobiles, ships resting innocently at anchor, vaporized beneath the mushroom cloud.

“Only if you don’t knuckle under. It’s pretty simple. An old game where I come from. They finish their Broach, bring in troops and weapons, and the Hamiltonians are suddenly in charge—under SecPol supervision, of course.”

Lucy emitted a disgusted grunt.

“That Broach is a pretty narrow bottleneck,” Captain Forsyth observed. “We could close it off with a couple ounces of Hercules’ No. 6.”

Ed stirred. “It isn’t that simple, Cap. These people have developed mass-warfare into a science.”

“To the neglect of everything else,” said Lucy.

“Perhaps so. At any rate, all they need is a hole the size of—what did you estimate, Win?”

“A typewriter case—or an automotive fusion reactor.”

“Yes, and they don’t need it more than a few minutes. Once they have weapons like these, we’ll have to leave them alone. They’ll be holding the entire city for ransom.”

“And with a secure base,” I added, “there’s nothing to stop them setting up Broaches everywhere. Give them a week and they’ll own this world. With the resources and the technology available here, they’ll own mine, too.”

“But why, Win? Would they do something like this for money?”

“Clarissa, they have all the money they need—they own the printing presses. They want power: utter control over the populations of two worlds—more, counting your colonies.”

“Many more,” Deejay said, “if there are other worlds the Broach can reach—we haven’t begun to explore that possibility yet.” She shuddered.

The six of us were gathered in Ed’s living room. It had been time-consuming but not particularly difficult to hand-crank film from reel to reel past a recording pickup. The Telecom had done the rest, we were watching the result. The actual films were back in their cans, stashed in the deepest recesses of Mulligan’s Bank and Grill.

Before we’d done anything else, Deejay had insisted on seeing my recordings of Madison’s basement, and pronounced, to our tremendous if temporary relief, that Bealls was weeks from sustaining even a microBroach. “He’s a subcompetent,” she’d added, scanning his jury-rigged assemblies, “working from third-hand information. On his own, he could putter away till Doomsday without making a dent in the continuum.”

Now we watched the last of the government films, this one on occupying areas that have been H-bombed into submission. It was terrifying; I kept imagining Deejay raped at bayonet-point; Ed shot for resistance; Forsyth’s fur falling out; Lucy vanishing in a cloud of incandescence.

“I don’t understand! These people have shot me, attacked Ed and the captain, murdered their own hitman, and now this latest outrage on Clarissa! Why don’t we just round up some muscle and—”

Lucy sighed. “Winnie, ain’t a body in this room—least of all me—wouldn’t do that in a minute, ’specially after what happened to Clarissa last night, but it can’t be done that way! Think, and you’ll understand why.”

“Go ahead, Your judgeship, this I’ve got to hear.”

“Well first, nobody’s gonna break into that fortress of theirs twice.”

“That’s right,” the captain said. “My dispatcher says they’ve ordered three squads from Brookstone’s, and a weapons specialist. That means lasers—big ones.” He wrinkled his upper lip and bared his teeth—definitely not an expression of good humor among his people.

“Why not get four squads, then, and even bigger lasers? Once everybody understands, every security company in Laporte will—”

“Companies don’t fight each other.” He shook his bandaged head. “Nobody’d last five minutes in this business—wouldn’t deserve to—if all justice amounted to were ‘My thugs’re tougher’n yours!’ We’re supposed to preserve the peace—otherwise, we’d just go back to your arrangement, and have some real wars.”

“What the captain isn’t saying,” Ed added, “is that there’s simply no profit in smashing one another to pieces. That was settled, long ago.”

Lucy nodded. “Little village off the East Coast—one gang decided they’d try running things, four or five other companies objected. Before the dust settled, they’d nearly wiped each other out. Manhattan, if I recall correct. Ever since, security outfits—and their insurance companies—have been big supporters of adjudication.”

“Well, I won’t take what they did to Clarissa! If I have to—”

“Calm down, boy! Give an old lady a little credit—and about fifteen more minutes. I got a connection or two, and one of my best is about to pay off. Wait and see!”

Clarissa crossed the room, laid a hand on my shoulder. “Win, I’m all right—really. Just frightened, and they didn’t do me any lasting harm.”

I looked up, seeing unshed tears quivering in her eyes. “Sweetheart, if I believed that, I’d be a great prospect for Florida real estate. If I ever get my hands on those …”

She patted my shoulder again and went back over to sit by Ed. If only she’d come to me … Well, no point thinking about it—always a bridesmaid, etc. At least she was alive, reason enough to rejoice.

The doorbell chose that moment to ring. I loosened my forty-one in its holster. A little paranoid, perhaps, but considering last night’s events—

“Ladies and gentlemen …” Lucy announced from the hallway, “The President of the North American Confederacy!”

The president entered, pausing a moment to commiserate with Forsyth, expressing pleasure at meeting Deejay, nodding grimly over the news while being introduced to Clarissa, greeting Ed like an old friend. Under the peculiar circumstances, I had to be introduced to the president, too. But no one had to introduce her to me.

I know Jenny Noble when I see her.

“I MADE SOME stupid assumptions last night,” Ed told the president, “as Win tactfully pointed out later. One of them was that Burgess would attend Madison’s lecture, just because he left at the same time.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Clarissa argued. “What else could you assume?”

“That’s right, dummy,” I said. “I ought to know that bastard myself by now. He’s haunted my worst nightmares for thirty years.”

Jenny was sitting next to Ed, a truly presidential bourbon in her pretty hand. Clarissa’d made room by sitting at his knee. I don’t know what Ed’s got, but logically, I should have it too, shouldn’t I?

Only it wasn’t Jenny Noble here. My counterpart shares a common name with me, we’re lucky having different nicknames to avoid confusion. Jenny Noble’s opposite number calls herself Jenny Smythe.

“Who’s telling this story?” Clarissa protested. “The person it happened to, or the Two Bears?”

“Well tell it, then, Goldilocks!” Ed answered.

“All right, I’d stayed late with a client who’s having a rough regeneration—geriotic complications to be cleared up before the limb can replace itself … Anyway, I went home and freshened up, intending to come over here and see what mischief these two had accomplished at Madison’s. Just as I was starting out the front door, a couple of huge men smashed it in. I ran back through the house, but someone was there with a machine gun, shattering my windows.”

“How many were there?” Jenny examined Clarissa’s pistol, leaned over, and handed it to me.

“Two in the front, and the one out by the pool, with the hideous scars—I turned around again and practically ran into them. I had my Webley out, and sort of waved it around with the trigger held back.”

Lucy chuckled. “Walked right into it, the jerks.” She held one of the wicked little projectiles, eleven caliber, an inch or so long. “A thousand of these a minute, ten thousand feet a second. It’d ruin your whole day, wouldn’t it?” I examined the pistol with considerably more respect. Its barrel was a single massive coil, driving little steel needles by linear induction. There were hundreds in its magazine.

“I stepped over the bodies, ran out front, and drove away. There was a blinding flash in my rear viewscreen and a huge ball of fire”—she shook her head sadly—“pointless destruction for its own sake. They’ll pour me a new house, and my professional records are transmitted every day to the insurance company, but my furniture, clothes—everything is gone.”

“Least you got a couple of the bugsuckers!” Lucy said. “Bunk at my place. I got some togs might fit you—used t’ carry more meat on my bones. Pete liked ’em well rounded.”

“Thank you, Lucy.” That girl just wouldn’t cry. I handed back her pistol and patted her arm. “It won’t be more than a couple of days, they—”

“Plan on staying a couple of weeks,” Ed stated. “That wasn’t just vandalism last night. Burgess was there for a purpose!”

“Second the motion,” I said. “Madison couldn’t get to us, so he decided to pick on you, probably as a threat to hold over our heads. As far as I’m concerned, it would have worked, too—A-bombs or no A-bombs.”

“Why, Win, do you mean that?”

“Oh hell, Clarissa, I don’t know what I mean any more. Deejay, we’d better think about precautions for you, too. They won’t be long figuring out the connection.”

“I’ll be all right,” the scientist said. “I’ve got a cot in the lab, and nobody’s going to get through Campus Security.”

“Who’s got the contract now?” Ed asked, with an appraising look. “You’ve aroused my professional interest.”

The son of a bitch. That wasn’t the only thing she’d aroused.

“Griswold’s, I believe.”

“Brr! Well, that’s settled: Griswold’s can take care of Deejay—”

“And the Broach equipment,” I added. “Bealls would love to get his hands—”

“With all due respect for Deejay,” Ed replied, “that’s half the reason I asked. I’m never going to live down last night, am I?”

“Shit, we all learn by mistakes, Ed. If I weren’t such a hot-dog, I’d be eating lunch at Colfax and York, right now.”

“That’s better?” he asked. “Captain, double the guard and throw the perimeter around Lucy’s place, too.”

“Right.” The captain started giving orders into the lapels of his jacket.

“Hey! Who’s paying for this? If I gotta be wetnursed by a bunch of uniformed babysitters, I wanna—”

“With any luck—” the president said.

“Lucy,” Ed answered, “this was my party to start with, and it’s still—”

“With any luck—” the president said.

“You stay out of this, Ed Bear!” retorted Clarissa. “As long as I’m staying with Lucy, I’ll—”

“With any luck—” the president said.

“Hold on, now! I started this whole thing by getting shot, without invitation, on Ed’s front—”

“Shut up, you guys! My gosh, how does a person get listened to around here? I’ve been trying to tell you that, with any luck, the Confederacy’s going to pay for everything!”

Lucy narrowed suspicious eyes. “How y’figure that, girl?” I was interested, too, since there didn’t seem to be enough government on the whole planet to buy Forsyth a box of ammunition.

Jenny laughed. “It’s really very simple. In a week or so, there’ll be people standing in line to contribute. You see, I’ve decided there’s only one way to deal with the Hamiltonians. I’m calling a session of the Continental Congress.”

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1987

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d had more hair. As it was, Lysander tended to slide off my head. Add trying to balance a teacup on one knee, a plate of pie on the other, and you can see the kind of afternoon I was having.

In the three days since the Confederacy’s rusty political wheels had begun groaning to a start, life had achieved a kind of routine: Ed had a case to pursue for Paratronics, Ltd.; Clarissa had her patients; Deejay and Ooloorie continued their scientific efforts.

One project was a means of detecting someone else’s Broach work—to keep tabs on Bealls’s progress. Another, something they called a dirigible Broach—nothing to do with airships—was simply a machine you wouldn’t have to lug physically to the point in this world coextant with wherever in mine you want to do things.

Forsyth guarded houses, provided escorts, and kept a careful eye on Madison. In addition, Griswold’s Security received a little unobtrusive supervision.

As Jenny flitted about the continent persuading balky Con-gresspersons into their first parley in three decades, Lucy acted as anchor, relaying messages, confirming “crazy” stories, arranging tickets and travel schedules.

So what did Lieutenant Bear do to make himself feel useful? Zilch. Well, I had some minor value as Exhibit A: the Barbarian from the Land of the Bomb. Wonderful.

I’d have preferred bodyguarding Clarissa. With clients to attend, she couldn’t be cooped up. But as Forsyth conveyed diplomatically, I was a greenhorn here, needed protection myself (that did hurt!) and when Congress finally got its stuff together, I’d be a key witness against the Federalists.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t really prepared to spend time listening to Clarissa tell me all about Ed. I didn’t know exactly what they were to each other—I’d filed under “Peculiar” the datum that she was sleeping over at Lucy’s—but I knew what we’d be if I were in Ed’s shoes.

So here I was, at a low point in a life that wasn’t much to write home about anyway, a fifth wheel—alone and unemployed in a land right out of Freud—sipping Lucy’s “tea” out of politeness. And marijuana’s never done anything but get me more depressed.

Lucy rang off and joined me in the parlor. “Winnie, you look like the Before model in a cocaine commercial. Been watchin’ you the last week, sinkin’ lower’n lower. Before I get to thinkin’ it’s my company, you wanna tell me what’s ailin’ you?”

I put down my cup and pried Lysander off my lacerated scalp. “Lucy, I feel about as useful as a Cracker Jack prize in a box of diamonds. All I’ve accomplished this week is finding out that, even with fifteen hundred channels, there’s still nothing decent on afternoon TV.”

She sighed. “Bad as that? Well, you’re helpin’ me. That ain’t useless.”

“Bullshit! I’d do better if I wore green hides and stuck a bone through my nose. That’s what half these delegates of yours seem to expect anyway!”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m sorry about that, son. Rudeness is rudeness, no matter what world you’re from. What would you like to be doing?—Lysander! Stay down from there, hear?”

“That’s okay,” I said, extracting a paw from my eye. “Lucy, that’s the worst of it. I can’t think of a damn thing. Captain Forsyth’s right—I’m a liability. I don’t have to like it, though!”

She sipped her tea, made a face, and put it down again. “You sure don’t. Boils and blisters! If I’d listened to one percent of the people who’ve told me to siddown and stay outa the way, I wouldn’ta done anything with my life so far! Why not help Ed with this warehouse thing?”

“He’s winding it up—identifying some of the goods. Anyway, it sounded like a one-man job.” I took out a cigar and lit it without much appreciation. “You’ve done a lot, at that—Prussia, South America, Antarctica, Mars—a hell of a lot, judging by all the pictures of your husbands around here!”

“Oh, carbuncles! A girl hasta have companionship. Do seem to pick ones who die off young—always liked ’em adventurous.” She gazed fondly at the portrait of “Pete”—Crown Prince Piotr Kropotkin—she kept beside her favorite chair. There were other husbands in other rooms, including one poor fellow hanging over the fixture in the bathroom. She wouldn’t say why, but conceded it was her second husband, “—or was it my third?”

“If I’m not getting too personal, Lucy, exactly how many husbands—”

“Not more’n six or seven. Figured out one time, I was married to each an average of seventeen-point-something years—ain’t one of these gay divorcees, y’know.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “No, but you’d have to be at least a serial trigamist, or a hell or a lot older than you look—mind you, I’m not asking …”

“But elevatin’ your eyebrows that way is downright obscene. I was tryin’ t’spare you the shock.”

“Lucy, you don’t think I’m a barbarian, do you?”

“‘Course not. But I’d hate for that bone in your nose t’drop right out in your lap. Son, I was born in 75 A.L. Don’t count your fingers, you ain’t got enough. Besides, I already figured it out: 1851—sounds more romantical that way, don’t it?”

“You’re—er—a hundred and thirty-six years old? I, uh, I remember some Russians back home who claimed—”

“Them Georgians always was liars. But somethin’ tells me you haven’t got to what’s really on your mind, Winnie.”

“I’m not sure I—It makes me feel like an adolescent all over again, and I always hated—”

“Sonny, compared t’me, you are an adolescent. Clarissa—can’t say you been subtle about it. Somebody mentions her name, you look like a camel with three kinds of stomachache.”

“Thanks a lot, Lucy, should I take out an ad, or—”

“Touchy! You ain’t been obvious, either. ’Cepting to someone like myself, with refined sensibilities and suchlike.” She brushed a cat off her lap, went to the sideboard, poured two battery jars full of whiskey, and slapped one into my hands.

“Tell you a story: Seems like when I was younger—maybe better lookin’—there was this fella. But he was a stuck-up little cockroach, seemed like, so I just sorta pined away until I forgot him. Forty years later, by odd circumstance, he married one of my sisters, and one day—I was happily married to my third, or was it fourth … Anyway, I braced him about it, and he told me that back then—we were workin’ in the Dodge City General Merchandise, as I recall—he was painfully shy, plain frozen scared of everybody. Especially me, he said, ‘cause I was the prettiest girl working there. ’Course I was the only girl working there, but the point’s the same, I hope.”

“I think I see what you mean, but where does Ed fit in?”

She laughed suddenly. “Tell me, boy, you planning to stick around? I mean after Deejay’s thingamajig’s back in working order?”

That caught me by surprise. “Haven’t thought about it much.” I’d been thinking about very little else. “I guess I just assumed—”

“All you talk about’s ‘back-home-this’ and ‘back-home-that’ —what in lumbago’s a girl gonna assume?”

“I just never imagined—besides, I have obligations back home.” I gulped my drink. Suddenly my throat felt like half a yard of fiery steel wool.

“Who says you’re obligated to attend the funeral of your own civilization or get buried with it? Pretty obvious that’s what’s going on back there. Wanna go back where there’s no cigars like that one, no fine liquor like this, no real money or clean air? No Clarissa?”

I squirmed in my seat. “I hadn’t looked at it that—”

“Well, that tears it!” Ed broke in, slamming a stack of hard copies down where they slid and scattered on the floor, went to the sideboard, and charged a glass. “That lying, no-good anal-extrusion. Know how I spent my day? Going over those vids you made at Madison’s with a fine-tooth microscope. Know what I found?”

“Come on in, Eddie,” Lucy said. “Why not pour yourself a drink?”

He stopped, looked down at the glass in his hand, and grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Lucy. Anyway, that basement’s got every dial and gauge, every coil, transistor, and interociter that’s missing from Bertram’s warehouse, that’s what!”

“What?” Lucy and I both sat up.

“My friends, you’re looking at the System’s number one, platinum-plated, grand champion idiot! Edward William Bear, Consulting Defective! Win, my apologies. From now on, you do the deducing, I’ll stay home where somebody can fasten my gunbelt for me and wipe the drool off my chin!”

I had an idea. “Now we can take Madison to court—here’s the evidence!” Two of the cats were batting at the copies and rolling around in the resultant mess. “He can’t plead ignorance with a basement full of stolen parts!”

“Sorry,” Lucy said, “That information was obtained un-ethic—”

“But I thought that could be taken care of! Don’t keep changing the rules!”

Ed sat on the floor with his drink, gathering papers and finger-fencing with the cats. “More to it than that, Win. Oh, if we retrieved Bertram’s property, it’d delay Madison, but he’d acquire what he needs eventually, and we’d be right back where we are now. But what really makes me mad is that, in order to sue, you need a victim, a complainant. Once I’d done the analysis, I called Bertram.”

“And?” I said, not liking where this was headed.

“And he was very upset. I found out why later on—he’d flown the coop. Forsyth’s team watched Madison greet him at the door, and they weren’t exactly acting like enemies.”

“So Bertram’s been stealing from his own company,” I said. “For the Cause, no doubt. Say—why steal the stuff, some insurance angle?”

“He probably wanted them kept out of it. Anyway, it’s only his company in the sense that he’s president and chairman. There are thousands of stockholders who aren’t going to be fond of him in a few days.”

“You boys want something to eat? I’m gonna punch up a few nice overstuffed chickens. Clarissa oughta be back in half an hour, hungry.”

“Thanks, Lucy. Ed, were you serious about me doing some deducing? I’ve been going bananas around here. You know I can take care of myself, and I’m tired of being on exhibition.”

Ed frowned. “Well, Captain Forsyth’s a good old ape, but you’re right: nobody’s going to outshoot you in a fair fight, even with that archaeologist’s wonder on your hip. I’ve been making all the mistakes, so far. Might as well have someone else to pin the blame on.”

I grinned so hard it hurt.

“Don’t blame Forsyth, Win. He thinks all of us nakes are a little bit helpless.”

“Okay then, what do we do next, partner?”

Ed got up and shook my hand. “How about dinner with the ladies?” He looked down where Lysander had his head inside the whiskey glass, lapping happily at the hundred-proof liquor. “And we could always join the cats in another drink!”