Four Unpublished Novels Page 6

  “What kind of an organization do you have?” asked Movius.

  London put his thick-veined hands on his knees. “We don’t have anything worthy of the name.”

  “But the Separatist …”

  “A great many disjointed, bitter people from Cairo to Kalamazoo, but without any binding force.”

  Movius let a glance flick over the people around him. “What do you do?”

  “These are my students,” said Quilliam London. “I have a class in semantics. I teach people how to avoid the controlling influences of others. It’s largely a matter of discovering what the other person actually wants.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  A kind of fire came into London’s eyes, like the moving orange light from the boiler room behind him. The other people in the room stirred restlessly. Grace London coughed.

  “I’m going to beat them,” said the old man. “Now we’re a herd following the whim of their loaded questions. When we start seeing through their questions to the things they secretly want, their days are numbered.”

  “And I can help in this?”

  London permitted a slight touch of scorn to creep into his voice. “That should be obvious from the trouble we’ve taken on your behalf.”

  “How do I fit into this?”

  “You’re an expert at influencing people,” said London.

  It was not the answer Movius had expected. “Me?”

  “Yes. The Liaitor. You smoothed the way between differing groups. You influenced people who were themselves experts at influencing people. You made people see things your way, somewhere between their two opposed stands. You influenced them.”

  “I’d never thought of it that way.”

  London’s eyes widened. “Then how did you operate?”

  “I’d just sit down and listen to what the people had to say and, somehow, a compromise they’d accept always occurred to me.”

  “I see.” The way Quilliam London said it made it plain he didn’t see, but that he would let it go. “What do you know about Bu-Psych?”

  Did he imagine it or did the room suddenly become tense. Maybe they had seen O’Brien’s driver let him out. Perhaps this was the point to tell them about the visit with O’Brien. Yes, this was the place. He told them.

  “And he knew I’d seen you in the Warren?” asked Grace London, her voice flat.

  Movius looked at her. She didn’t seem surprised. “That’s right.”

  Quilliam London’s voice broke in, too eager. “We’ve a spy of our own to find.” He looked around at Navvy. “Get on that right away, Navvy.”

  “Yes.” Navvy didn’t look at his father.

  “Perhaps some planted information,” said Movius. “Trace it out the other end.”

  “What I had in mind,” said London.

  They didn’t seem very concerned, thought Movius. It’s no wonder they’ve never made any progress. All theory and no action. They need someone to pull things together. With some good organization, O’Brien would never be able to get a line on them.

  He said, “And you’ve no master coordination at all?” Still it seemed almost unbelievable.

  “None.”

  Again Movius thought they became tense.

  Quilliam London said, “The Separatist movement is contained in the massive unrest of the populace. There are other schools such as mine. I’ve heard rumors. Auckland, Berlin, Paris … But it is well for one person not to know too much. Bu-Con has sharp eyes and large ears.”

  This could be pulled together into a tight organization, thought Movius. He stood up, went to the door of the boiler room, turned. “Navvy.” How different the name sounded here in the car.

  “Yes, sir.” Still the air.

  “Could your friends smuggle my things out of the other Warren?”

  “Is it necessary?”

  Was it necessary? Movius clenched, unclenched his firsts. “I’ve personal papers, reports, notes and other things I’ll be needing.”

  “Right.” Another silence. Navvy pulled at his lower lip. “Needing for what?”

  Movius ignored the question, returned to his chair. “How could I have remained so blind.”

  “Protective coloration,” said London.

  “What?”

  “In a world where seeing too much is dangerous, blindness is a virtue.”

  In that moment, the old man reminded Movius of his own father. Too bad they’d never met. Movius stood up, pounding a fist into the palm of his hand. No coordination. No organization. Nothing with which to strike back. He felt angry with these people. So much they could have done and they’d done absolutely nothing. “Why don’t you have an organization?”

  “We’ve never had anyone with the drive and ability to lead us,” said Quilliam London.

  Again that tense stillness in the room.

  No one to lead them. It was as though they were asking him to take over. Movius returned to the boiler room door, looked at the dancing flame. I’d have to play it delicately, more delicately than anything I met as Liaitor. In the orange flame he seemed to see an image of Helmut Glass. It brought a quick knotting of hate. Movius turned slowly, strode back to Quilliam London. “All right, London.” His voice had the old commanding power of the Liaitor, but with overtones of violence he’d never suspected were in him. “I’ve just put the question, cast the opp and polled myself into your job.”

  The old man nodded. “Good.”

  “Under my own conditions,” said Movius.

  “Yes?” The hunter’s eyes seemed to be watching him, ready to pounce.

  “We’ll run things my way. No organization! I’m going to organize. No coordination! I’m going to coordinate. I’m the new Sep coordinator. And maybe …”

  Quilliam London leaned toward him. “Maybe what?”

  “Nothing. We’re going to blast those High-Opps right out of their seats!”

  “That’s what we had in mind,” said London.

  “You accept?” He had expected an argument.

  The old man’s smile was reserved. “You leave us no choice.”

  Movius looked away, turned back to Navvy. “Where are you going to hide me?”

  Navvy looked down at his father.

  “Best get him settled,” said Quilliam London.

  “Right away, father.” To Movius, “This way, sir.”

  Still that damned sir, thought Movius.

  It was a hidden room a few feet into the tunnel. They had to squirm over the tops of pipes, wriggle sideways through an opening hardly more than a crack. Navvy dropped a black curtain, clicked a switch. A single light illuminated an oblong cell about fourteen feet by eight. The shadow of an alcove was a black square at the opposite end of the room.

  “We tapped the conduits for power,” said Navvy. “There’s a washroom of sorts in the alcove down there.” He held back the entrance curtain. “See you tomorrow.” Before Movius could protest, he was gone.

  There was a canvas cot with two blankets. Movius turned off the light, undressed in the dark, put the stolen gun atop his clothes and placed the pile of them beside the cot. The blankets were rough against his skin, not like the smooth sheets of his apartment. His apartment!

  Low-opped!

  There still were so many unanswered questions. Well, tomorrow. He put a hand to his jaw where the man had kicked him. With a fierce vindictiveness, he hoped he’d hit the gunman too hard above the bridge of the nose. Okashi had said it would kill a man.

  Something had gone out of him about the time of the flight. The last of the numbness had been replaced by an electric tension. Active hate. Not the standard brand at all.

  I’m going to get your job, Glass! From now on things are going to be run for Daniel Movius!

  He let his hand drop to the floor beside the cot, felt the outline of the gun he had taken from the fallen thuggee. It gave him a sense of power and recalled something he’d read in one of his father’s books.

  “To make a revolution one must have monst
rous inequality, suppression of freedom until the people think of little else. Then there must be someone with that vital spark needed to unify a movement. With that person there must be a belief that nothing is of importance except his cause.”

  Nothing else of importance.

  He fell asleep on the thought, hand touching the gun.

  Chapter Five

  Helmut Glass—The Coor—reclined on a couch in his apartment, one hand touching a frosted drink on the floor beside him. An atmosphere of Romanesque indolence hovered about him. Part of it was the way he spoke to the two men standing about ten feet from the couch; spoke to them, but never looked at them while he spoke.

  “So you missed him.” It was a statement, not a question.

  One of the standing men stirred. “He walked around the corner from the Warren and when we got there this car was just pulling away. We couldn’t catch the number of it. Something was over the number.”

  “And you didn’t recognize the people in the car?” The Coor lifted his head, took a sip of his drink, still not looking at the two men.

  “Couldn’t even see them.”

  Glass replaced his drink on the floor, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “What happened when he came to the Warren?”

  The man who had been speaking, looked to his companion, back to The Coor. “He met a woman.”

  “He what?” Now Glass looked at his men. He sat up. “And what did he and the woman do?”

  “They made love,” said the man. “We had a peeper on the apartment, a little portable job, so we couldn’t make out their whispering, but they got on the bed and …”

  “Spare me the details,” said Glass. “Did you have the woman followed or is that too much to hope for?”

  “Ourran trailed her, but he lost her in the Lascadou District. He said he thinks she ducked into the tunnels.”

  “That’s Ourran’s excuse for inefficiency,” said Glass. “Did you recognize the woman?”

  “She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.” The man looked at the floor.

  “And I presume you had no camera to get a picture of her?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of assignment.”

  Glass showed signs of restlessness, chewed at his lip. The nervous tic rippled across his cheek. “A badly bungled job. All I asked you to do was to pick him up, hold him overnight and send him off to the ALP in the morning. It seems you can’t do a simple little job like that.” He drained his drink.

  The men shuffled their feet. “I think he has friends in the High-Opp,” said the one who had been doing the talking.

  The Coor rattled the ice in his glass. “Yes, that’s a possible explanation.” He looked toward his bedroom where someone could be heard stirring about. “Put a watch on the Warrens. Get Addington to send out search squads.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on the transports, too, sir.”

  “Do that.” Glass suddenly glared up at the man who had been speaking. “And listen to me, Pescado! No more bungling!”

  The man lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir. What’ll we do with Movius when we find him?”

  Glass lifted himself to his feet, again looked toward the bedroom. “Kill him.”

  “You don’t want us to question …”

  “Good night,” said The Coor. “I have some business which requires my attention.”

  “Kill him it is, sir.”

  Glass escorted them to the door, returned, mixed two drinks at a portable bar, took them into the bedroom.

  Chapter Six

  Nathan O’Brien, his back to the night-filled window, stared at Quilliam London for a moment. The old man had just entered the top floor office in the Bu-Psych Building. “Well?”

  London took his time sitting down, settled back in the chair, suddenly looked up at O’Brien with those sharp hunter’s eyes. “He’s the one, all right.”

  O’Brien relaxed. “I take it you approve?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Oh?”

  Silence fell between them. London turned, stared at a chart on the wall. It was the chart which had been on the table. The single red line had been moved perhaps a quarter of an inch farther along its mysterious crossing.

  “The loyalty index thing?” asked O’Brien.

  London nodded. “He moves too quickly. Snap decisions. He made some fool statement about not thinking out things. The right solution always comes to him. I’m afraid he may turn ruthless.”

  “That makes a good revolutionary.”

  “Depends on the revolution.”

  O’Brien looked at the red line on the chart. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

  “I know he’s dangerous.” London leaned forward, tapped a yellowed fingernail against the table top. “Give him a taste of the power that goes with an absolute commander and he’ll be dangerous to anyone or anything that crosses him.”

  “No one is proof against a bullet,” said O’Brien.

  “That is exactly what I mean,” said London. “You and I are mortal.”

  O’Brien’s eyes widened.

  “One way thinking is dangerous,” said London. “If Movius found out any of the basic elements of our plans—say he discovered that Cecelia Lang deliberately vamped The Coor to get Movius low-opped …” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a sound surprisingly like that of a fap-gun.

  “Who’d do his dirty work?”

  “Movius is the kind to do his own dirty work.”

  “The things which make him ideal for our purposes also make him extremely dangerous to us,” said O’Brien. He rubbed a greying temple, sat down across from London. “I guess we anticipated that. Nothing to do but look sharp and do away with him once he’s served his purpose.”

  “Afraid so,” said London. “We wouldn’t dare let him assume control of the government. I’ll alert the others. Any one of us may be called upon to put him out of the way.”

  “It would be criminal to see our groundwork wasted,” said O’Brien. “I presume Grace got across to him the great mystery of it all.”

  London leaned back in his chair, tipped his head down. “I’m not certain that was such a good idea. Grace was followed, had to lead them clear out of Lascadou before she could shake them.”

  “Movius does have the idea he’s an important figure, though?” asked O’Brien.

  “As far as I can see, he has always had that idea.”

  O’Brien shook his head. “The reports would indicate that he has not been extremely ego-conscious. This business of leading him through the tunnels, mysterious organization, the sudden attention, all of these things are designed to …”

  “That’s another thing,” said London. “Navvy and Movius almost got knocked off on the way in tonight. Someone spotted Movius with Clancy and they blanketed the Richmond and Riverside Warrenates. They tortured the information out of Clancy, but he didn’t know much.”

  “What happened?” asked O’Brien.

  “Three of The Coor’s hoods picked them up coming out of a sewer service dome. Navvy said Movius is an unexpectedly deadly man in a fight or they’d have been done for. Navvy could hardly get Movius away. He stopped and took a shot at Addington.”

  “Addington? What was he doing …”

  “After they picked up Clancy, Addington came down to supervise the … uh, interrogation himself. Clancy only knew Navvy and Movius were meeting two of our men near that service dome.”

  “I presume they dropped Clancy in the river?”

  “Yes.”

  O’Brien pulled a stylus from his pocket, scratched the palm of his hand with it. “We’re pretty ruthless and callous ourselves, Quilliam.”

  “In a good cause.”

  “And we are the judges of how much worth our cause has,” said O’Brien. He put the stylus back in his pocket, looked up at the other chart on the wall, his eyes traveling down over the multi-colored lines. “We’re going to have a bad time. Crisis is near. Maybe two months, maybe less.”


  “About the time of The Coor’s Fall poll,” said London.

  “Anything else on your mind, Quilliam? It’s been a long day.”

  London rested his bony elbows on the table. “Guarding Movius when he goes out to answer the Bu-Trans work order.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” said O’Brien. “The Bu-Trans starting clerk is a man named Bailey. He has a sister who …”

  Chapter Seven

  Movius awoke with the sure knowledge that someone was coming along the tunnel, a slow rustle of movement. The luminous dial on his watch showed five minutes to seven. He scooped up the gun from the floor beside his cot, slipped from the cot, tip-toed to the light switch, waited. He heard the curtain open, clicked the switch. The wide, staring eyes of Janus Peterson, the Bu-Trans driver he had met the night before, stared back at him. The big man’s barrel-shaped body just fitted through the narrow doorway.

  “Ready for business, ain’t you?” said Peterson, looking at the gun. The man’s eyes began their rapid blinking. “Sure are ready.” In Peterson’s husky voice it was a flat statement, much as a man might say “Not today.”

  Movius returned to the cot, tossed the gun onto it while he dressed. “Sorry. I couldn’t know who it was. I just woke up.”

  Peterson and another man began bringing in boxes. “Your stuff,” said Peterson. “Had to cart it out through the garbage disposal tube.” He placed a box on the floor. “Great Gallup! What a stench!” His glance went to the gun on the cot. “Guy you took that off of died. Two more of The Coor’s boys in the hospital, a Bu-Con bull’s there, too, with a hole in his side.” He grinned at Movius, the action giving his face a mask-like appearance. “Must’ve been some night!”

  The LP grapevine, thought Movius. He said, “Do they know who did it?”

  “They didn’t recognize who was with you, but they must’ve spotted you. They’re hopping mad and looking all over for you.”

  “What’s the order?”

  “I hear it’s shoot on sight,” said Peterson.

  That does it, thought Movius. If it’s a war they want, they’ll get one. Damn them! He said, “We’re going to need recruits, Mr. Peterson. Know of any?”