Assignment in Tomorrow Page 6

  The Director of the Budget was astonished. “Would he take it?”

  Treasury cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, I’ve asked him to stop by right about now.” He hurled a medicine ball into the budgetary gut.

  “Oof!” said the Director. “You bastard. Steiner would be perfect. He runs Standards like a watch.” He treacherously fired the medicine ball at the Secretary of Raw Materials, who blandly caught it and slammed it back.

  “Here he comes,” said the Secretary of Raw Materials. “Steiner! Come and sweat some oleo off!”

  Steiner ambled over, a squat man in his fifties, and said: “I don’t mind if I do. Where’s Willy?”

  State said: “The President unmasked him as a traitor. He’s probably been executed by now.”

  Steiner looked grim, and grimmer yet when the Secretary of the Treasury said, dead-pan: “We want to propose you for Defense.”

  “I’m happy in Standards,” Steiner said. “Safer, too. The Man’s father took an interest in science, but The Man never comes around. Things are very quiet. Why don’t you invite Winch, from the National Art Commission? It wouldn’t be much of a change for the worse for him?”

  “No brains,” the Secretary for Raw Materials said briefly. “Heads up!”

  Steiner caught the ball and slugged it back at him. “What good are brains?” he asked quietly.

  “Close the ranks, gentlemen,” State said. “These long shots are too hard on my arms.”

  The ranks closed and the Cabinet told Steiner what good were brains. He ended by accepting.

  The Moon is all Republic. Mars is all Soviet. Titan is all Republic. Ganymede is all Soviet. But lo and Callisto, by the Treaty of Greenwich, are half-and-half Republic and Soviet.

  Down the main street of the principal settlement on lo runs an invisible line. On one side of the line, the principal settlement is known as New Pittsburgh. On the other side it is known as Nishni-Magnitogorsk.

  Into a miner’s home in New Pittsburgh one day an eight-year-old boy named Grayson staggered, bleeding from the head. His eyes were swollen almost shut.

  His father lurched to his feet, knocking over a bottle. He looked stupidly at the bottle, set it upright too late to save much of the alcohol, and then stared fixedly at the boy. “See what you made me do, you little bastard?” he growled, and fetched the boy a clout on his bleeding head that sent him spinning against the wall of the hut. The boy got up slowly and silently—there seemed to be something wrong with his left arm—and glowered at his father.

  He said nothing.

  “Fighting again,” the father said, in a would-be fierce voice.

  His eyes fell under the peculiar fire in the boy’s stare. “Damn fool——”

  A woman came in from the kitchen. She was tall and thin. In a flat voice she said to the man: “Get out of here.” The man hiccupped and said: “Your brat spilled my bottle. Gimme a dollar.”

  In the same flat voice: “I have to buy food.”

  “I said gimme a dollar!” The man slapped her face—it did not change—and wrenched a small purse from the string that suspended it around her neck. The boy suddenly was a demon, flying at his father with fists and teeth. It lasted only a second or two. The father kicked him into a comer where he lay, still glaring, wordless and dry-eyed. The mother had not moved; her husband’s handmark was still red on her face when he hulked out, clutching the money bag.

  Mrs. Grayson at last crouched in the corner with the eight-year-old boy. “Little Tommy,” she said softly. “My little Tommy! Did you cross the line again?”

  He was blubbering in her arms, hysterically, as she caressed him. At last he was able to say: “I didn’t cross the line, Mom. Not this time. It was in school. They said our name was really Krasinsky. God-damn him!” the boy shrieked. “They said his grandfather was named Krasinsky and he moved over the line and changed his name to Grayson! God-damn him! Doing that to us!”

  “Now, darling,” his mother said, caressing him. “Now, darling.” His trembling began to ebb. She said: “Let’s get out the spools, Tommy. You mustn’t fall behind in school. You owe that to me, don’t you, darling?”

  “Yes, Mom,” he said. He threw his spindly arms around her and kissed her. “Get out the spools. We’ll show him. I mean them.”

  President Folsom XXIV lay on his death-bed, feeling no pain, mostly because his personal physician had pumped him full of morphine. Dr. Barnes sat by the bed holding the presidential wrist and waiting, occasionally nodding off and recovering with a belligerent stare around the room. The four wire-service men didn’t care whether he fell asleep or not; they were worriedly discussing the nature and habits of the President’s first-born, who would shortly succeed to the highest office in the Republic.

  “A firebrand, they tell me,” the A.P. man said unhappily. “Firebrands I don’t mind,” the U.P. man said. “He can send out all the inflammatory notes he wants just as long as he isn’t a fiend for exercise. I’m not as young as I once was. You boys wouldn’t remember the old President, Folsom XXII. He used to do point-to-point hiking. He worshipped old F.D.R.”

  The I.N.S. man said, lowering his voice: “Then he was worshipping the wrong Roosevelt. Teddy was the athlete.” Dr. Barnes started, dropped the presidential wrist and held a mirror to the mouth for a moment. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the President is dead.”

  “O.K.,” the A.P. man said. “Let’s go, boys. I’ll send in the flash. U.P., you go cover the College of Electors. I.N.S., get onto the President Elect. Trib, collect some interviews and background——”

  The door opened abruptly; a colonel of infantry was standing there, breathing hard, with an automatic rifle at port. “Is he dead?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the A.P. man said. “If you’ll let me past——”

  “Nobody leaves the room,” the colonel said grimly. “I represent General Slocum, Acting President of the Republic. The College of Electors is acting now to ratify——”

  A burst of gunfire caught the colonel in the back; he spun and fell, with a single hoarse cry. More gunfire sounded through the White House. A Secret Serviceman ducked his head through the door: “President’s dead? You boys stay put. We’ll have this thing cleaned up in an hour—” He vanished.

  The doctor sputtered his alarm and the newsmen ignored him with professional poise. The A.P. man asked: “Now who’s Slocum? Defense Command?”

  I.N.S. said: “I remember him. Three stars. He headed up the Tactical Airborne Force out in Kansas four-five years ago. I think he was retired since then.”

  A phosphorus grenade crashed through the window and exploded with a globe of yellow flame the size of a basketball; dense clouds of phosphorus pentoxide gushed from it and the sprinkler system switched on, drenching the room.

  “Come on!” hacked the A.P. man, and they scrambled from the room and slammed the door. The doctor’s coat was burning in two or three places, and he was retching feebly on the corridor floor. They tore his coat off and flung it back into the room.

  The U.P. man, swearing horribly, dug a sizzling bit of phosphorus from the back of his hand with a pen-knife and collapsed, sweating, when it was out. The I.N.S. man passed him a flask and he gurgled down half a pint of liquor, “Who flung that brick?” he asked faintly.

  “Nobody,” the A.P. man said gloomily. “That’s the hell of it. None of this is happening. Just the way Taft the Pretender never happened in ’03. Just the way the Pentagon Mutiny never happened in ’67.”

  “ ’68,” the U.P. man said faintly. “It didn’t happen in ’68, not ’67.”

  The A.P. man smashed a fist into the palm of his hand and swore. “God-damn,” he said. “Some day I’d like to—” He broke off and was bitterly silent.

  The U.P. man must have been a little dislocated with shock and quite drunk to talk the way he did. “Me too,” he said. “Like to tell the story. Maybe it was ’67 not ’68. I’m not sure now. Can’t write it down so the details get lost and then after a while it didn�
�t happen at all. Revolution’d be good deal. But it takes people t’ make revolution. People. With eyes ’n’ ears. ’N’ memories. We make things not-happen an’ we make people not-see an’ not-hear . . .” He slumped back against the corridor wall, nursing his burned hand. The others were watching him, very scared.

  Then the A.P. man caught sight of the Secretary of Defense striding down the corridor, flanked by Secret Servicemen. “Mr. Steiner!” he called. “What’s the picture?”

  Steiner stopped, breathing heavily, and said: “Slocum’s barricaded in the Oval Study. They don’t want to smash in. He’s about the only one left. There were only fifty or so. The Acting President’s taken charge at the Study. You want to come along?”

  They did, and even hauled the U.P. man after them.

  The Acting President, who would be President Folsom XXV as soon as the Electoral College got around to it, had his father’s face—the petulant lip, the soft jowl—on a hard young body. He also had an auto-rifle ready to fire from the hip. Most of the Cabinet was present. When the Secretary of Defense arrived, he turned on him. “Steiner,” he said nastily, “can you explain why there should be a rebellion against the Republic in your department?”

  “Mr. President,” Steiner said, “Slocum was retired on my recommendation two years ago. It seems to me that my responsibility ended there and Security should have taken over.” The President Elect’s finger left the trigger of the auto-rifle and his lip drew in a little. “Quite so,” he said curtly, and turned to the door. “Slocum!” he shouted. “Come out of there. We can use gas if we want.”

  The door opened unexpectedly and a tired-looking man with three stars on each shoulder stood there, bare-handed. “All right,” he said drearily. “I was fool enough to think something could be done about the regime. But you fat-faced imbeciles are going to go on and on and——”

  The stutter of the auto-rifle cut him off. The President Elect’s knuckles were white as he clutched the piece’s forearm and grip; the torrent of slugs continued to hack and plow the general’s body until the magazine was empty. “Bum that,” he said curtly, turning his back on it. “Dr. Barnes, come here. I want to know about my father’s passing.”

  The doctor, hoarse and red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had sagged drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke, in a confidential murmur.

  “Thank you, doctor,” the President Elect said at last, decisively. He gestured to a Secret Serviceman. “Take those traitors away.” They went, numbly.

  The Secretary of State cleared his throat. “Mr. President,” he said, “I take this opportunity to submit the resignations of myself and fellow Cabinet members according to custom.”

  “That’s all right,” the President Elect said. “You may as well stay on. I intend to run things myself anyway.” He hefted the auto-rifle. “You,” he said to the Secretary of Public Opinion. “You have some work to do. Have the memory of my father’s—artistic—preoccupations obliterated as soon as possible. I wish the Republic to assume a warlike posture—yes; what is it?”

  A trembling messenger said:

  “Mr. President, I have the honor to inform you that the College of Electors has elected you President of the Republic—unanimously.”

  Cadet Fourth Classman Thomas Grayson lay on his bunk and sobbed in an agony of loneliness. The letter from his mother was crumpled in his hand: “—prouder than words can tell of your appointment to the Academy. Darling, I hardly knew my grandfather, but I know that you will serve as brilliantly as he did, to the eternal credit of the Republic. You must be brave and strong for my sake——”

  He would have given everything he had or ever could hope to have to be back with her, and away from the bullying, sneering fellow-cadets of the Corps. He kissed the letter—and then hastily shoved it under his mattress as he heard footsteps.

  He popped to a brace, but it was only his roommate Ferguson. Ferguson was from Earth, and rejoiced in the lighter Lunar gravity which was punishment to Grayson’s lo-bred muscles.

  “Rest, mister,” Ferguson grinned.

  “Thought it was night inspection.”

  “Any minute now. They’re down the hall. Lemme tighten your bunk or you’ll be in trouble—” Tightening the bunk, he pulled out the letter and said, calfishly: “Ah-hah! Who is she—?” and opened it.

  When the cadet officers reached the room they found Ferguson on the floor being strangled black in the face by spidery little Grayson. It took all three of them to pull him off. Ferguson went to the infirmary and Grayson went to the Commandant’s office.

  The Commandant glared at the cadet from under the most spectacular pair of eyebrows in the Service. “Cadet Grayson,” he said, “explain what occurred.”

  “Sir, Cadet Ferguson began to read a letter from my mother without my permission.”

  “That is not accepted by the Corps as grounds for mayhem. Do you have anything further to say?”

  “Sir, I lost my temper. All I thought of was that it was an act of disrespect to my mother and somehow to the Corps and the Republic too—that Cadet Ferguson was dishonoring the Corps.”

  Bushwah, the Commandant thought. A snow job and a crude one. He studied the youngster. He had never seen such a brace from an Io-bred fourth-classman. It must be torture to muscles not yet toughened up to even Lunar gravity. Five minutes more and the boy would have to give way, and serve him right for showing off.

  He studied Grayson’s folder. It was too early to tell about academic work, but the fourth-classman was a bear—or a fool—for extra duty. He had gone out for half a dozen teams and applied for membership in the exacting Math Club and Writing Club. The Commandant glanced up; Grayson was still in his extreme brace. The Commandant suddenly had the queer idea that Grayson could hold it until it killed him.

  “One hundred hours of pack-drill,” he barked, “to be completed before quarter-term. Cadet Grayson, if you succeed in walking off your tours, remember that there is a tradition of fellowship in the Corps which its members are expected to observe. Dismiss.”

  After Grayson’s steel-sharp salute and exit the Commandant dug deeper into the folder. Apparently there was something wrong with the boy’s left arm, but it had been passed by the examining team that visited Io. Most unusual. Most irregular. But nothing could be done about it now.

  The President, softer now in body than on his election day, and infinitely more cautious, snapped: “It’s all very well to create an incident. But where’s the money to come from? Who wants the rest of Io anyway? And what will happen if there’s war?”

  Treasury said: “The hoarders will supply the money, Mr. President. A system of percentage-bounties for persons who report currency-hoarders, and then enforced purchase of a bond issue.”

  Raw Materials said: “We need that iron, Mr. President. We need it desperately.”

  State said: “All our evaluations indicate that the Soviet Premier would consider nothing less than armed invasion of his continental borders as occasion for all-out war. The consumer-goods party in the Soviet has gained immensely during the past five years and of course their armaments have suffered. Your shrewd directive to put the Republic in a warlike posture has borne fruit, Mr. President . . .”

  President Folsom XXV studied them narrowly. To him the need for a border incident culminating in a forced purchase of Soviet lo did not seem as pressing as they thought, but they were, after all, specialists. And there was no conceivable way they could benefit from it personally. The only alternative was that they were offering their professional advice and that it would be best to heed it. Still, there was a vague, nagging something . . .

  Nonsense, he decided. The spy dossiers on his Cabinet showed nothing but the usual One had been blackmailed by an actress after an affair and railroaded her off the Earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service. And so on. The Republic could not suffer at their
hands; the Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody—including the spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody knew who was who. The executions were literally no problem, for guilt or innocence made no matter. And mind-control when there were four newspapers, six magazines and three radio and television stations was a job for a handful of clerks.

  No; the Cabinet couldn’t be getting away with anything. The system was unbeatable.

  President Folsom XXV said: “Very well. Have it done.”

  Mrs. Grayson, widow, of New Pittsburgh, Io, disappeared one night. It was in all the papers and on all the broadcasts. Sometime later she was found dragging herself back across the line between Nizhni-Magnitogorsk and New Pittsburgh in sorry shape. She had a terrible tale to tell about what she had suffered at the hands and so forth of the Nizhni-Magnitogorsks. A diplomatic note from the Republic to the Soviet was answered by another note which was answered by the dispatch of the Republic’s First Fleet to Io which was answered by the dispatch of the Soviet’s First and Fifth Fleets to Io.

  The Republic’s First Fleet blew up the customary deserted target hulk, fulminated over a sneak sabotage attack and moved in its destroyers. Battle was joined.

  Ensign Thomas Grayson took over the command of his destroyer when its captain was killed on his bridge. An electrified crew saw the strange, brooding youngster perform prodigies of skill and courage, and responded to them. In one week of desultory action the battered destroyer had accounted for seven Soviet destroyers and a cruiser.

  As soon as this penetrated to the flagship Grayson was decorated and given a flotilla. His weird magnetism extended to every officer and man aboard the seven craft. They struck like phantoms, cutting out cruisers and battlewagons in wild unorthodox actions that couldn’t have succeeded but did—every time. Grayson was badly wounded twice, but his driving nervous energy carried him through.