Unwillingly to Earth (v1.0), page 12
That must have been a Recording we saw earlier, made at least ten minutes ago. The cloth noose has been loosened but is still lying on Tolly’s shoulders, his Hair is on end and his face is a yellowish color and one comer of his mouth Twitches; he keeps rubbing at it but it won’t stop.
Captain Franklin says “Nice timing, Mr. Tollinder. Just twelve minutes before your speech is due to begin.”
Nobody says anything at all for about half a minute. Then before our eyes Tolly Straightens up and squares his shoulders and his color comes back to normal. He rips the cloth off and stuffs it in his pocket and smooths his hair with the other hand: then he walks across to the Minister and murmurs into the diaphragm of his suit.
The head inside nods repeatedly; then I think the Minister says something to Captain Franklin over the suit radio, judging by the movement of his lips and the Captain’s expression which is now one of Disgust.
Meanwhile nobody is saying anything except the speaker in the Conference Hall: I catch the words Linder Valley and suddenly realize he is a New one. Then Tolly walks back to his seat.
The next five minutes are queer because Nothing happens at all; nobody speaks to Tolly, not even the lady who wanted to know Why he did that: the Speaker on the screen is still Boring away and his audience going on being Bored.
Then three people come in through the door nearest the back … Clarence, another man in an EF armband—this one has Rodent-style teeth but looks more like a Rabbit than a Rat—and the Supervisor lady, wheeling a cart with a lot of clinical apparatus on top.
Of course she does not know what has been happening: I rise to tell her this occasion is Not suitable for men with bad hearts but a nearby cop touches me on the shoulder and tells me firmly to sit Down again.
The Speaker in the Conference Hall now announces that the next Speaker will be that well known champion of the Conservationist cause, currently in Labsville but enabled to be present in all but Flesh by the technological kindness of the Lunar Gov: The Honorable Randolph Tollinder, Congressman, Discus.
One thing I never expected was that Tolly’s speech would turn out to be just another Bore.
I mean everybody who gives a damn must know the past history of the Linder Valley by heart, so why go over it now? Then I begin to recognize the note he is sounding, which is Inevitability. There are minerals under the green grass of the valley and men need them—one could almost say Mankind needs them—so how can a few farmers expect their own wishes to prevail? The Lamartine corporation have promised that when it has quite finished with what’s underneath it will put the Topsoil back and let the Valley be green again.
Then he starts talking about Generous Compensation; the final message is neither Loud nor Clear but has sort of seeped in: the Rape of the Linder Valley is going to happen and the inhabitants had better lie back and try to Enjoy it.
I twist round to look at Clarence but he is just sitting there: his companion is fidgeting and looking puzzled: I don’t know whether they have taken it in or not.
Tolly goes back to his seat amid scattered Applause.
The moderator rises and clears his throat: “Mr. Tollinder being the last Speaker on this Motion, Delegates will now record their votes.”
Here someone out of scan hands him a piece of paper. He reads it and nods.
“This is a message from the Lunar authorities. They fear that the transmission from Labsville may be interrupted before voting is complete. They ask that our colleagues stranded there be allowed to cast their votes first, rather than waiting for the turn of their particular Planet. Do I hear consent?”
Tolly has given a Galvanic jump that gets him half way out of his seat; but if he objects he does not say so, nor does anyone else.
“Very well. Delegates in Labsville will please come forward in alphabetical order to vote on the Motion; That in the opinion of this Conference the United Minerals Consortium of Lamartine has legal title to minerals underlying the Linder Valley on Discus and should be allowed to proceed without let or hindrance to the exploitation of the same. First delegate: the Congressman from Northland, Lamartine, the Honorable David Asante.”
Mr. Asante takes his place between the scanners and records one vote For the motion.
“The Senator from Exville, Cincinnatus, the Honorable George Gassett-Low. ”
Junior’s Uncle takes the spot, glares at Tolly and records one vote Against.
The alphabetical listing leaves Tolly last. The next eight Delegates go up and record their votes (Four in favor, four against). Then the Moderator on the screen announces the Representative from Euchre, Discus, the Honorable Randolph Tollinder.
Tolly walks between the scanners and now there are Three of him; one on the Monitor, one on the screen within the big screen and one just Standing there. None of him looks really life-like; his color is all right now but his face seems to have changed its shape, Tension I suppose, and his eyes have gone back behind it and looking through holes. His triple Presence stares at nothing and says “Randolph Tollinder, Discus, casting one vote For the motion” then he goes back to being Single and walks to his seat.
The stir here is immediate; on the big screen it starts a few seconds later and the Moderator does a double take and looks sideways as though to ask what Tolly really meant to say. Then there is a shout from the back of the room.
“EF Emergency! Get a powered stretcher, quick!”
I jump up to see, but Clarence is still sitting upright; it is the little rabbity man who has keeled over.
During the next ten minutes whenever there is a Lull I can hear some other damn Delegate in the Conference Hall recording his vote; the Monitor is blank so I suppose transmission from Labsville has stopped.
I wonder whether the lady who wanted to know realizes Why Mr. Tollinder Did That.
I wonder whether he was just trying to cheat the people in the Linder Valley, or the Lamartine Mining Consortium as well. Maybe when he sold out to them they agreed that he did not actually have to vote For them provided he could find a good enough excuse not to speak or vote Against.
Or maybe having sold his vote he was trying to get out of having to deliver, by staging the Sabotage: nobody could expect him to make a Speech when he was trapped in Labsville by Quarantine. So when Long Distance Participation was organized he tried to get out of it again: Nobody could expect him to make Speeches if he had been half strangled a few minutes before.
I wonder whether Captain Franklin knew it was Tolly all along, or not till he sneaked into the room where the Transmitters were, in the middle of the night.
At this point one of the cops comes and leans his diaphragm against my ear and says Clarence would like to speak with me. Elsewhere, please.
Junior rises to follow me and nobody objects.
Clarence is in a room that looks like a Hospital but he is not in bed, just sitting in a chair and looking Severe rather than Sick: I introduce Junior and he says he is glad I have found a friend in this place since he could not look after me himself, he did not know I had got Stuck here until a few hours ago.
He then looks at us both and says “Not much fun for you kids on this trip. I’m sorry.”
I say It was not his fault anyway.
He sighs, then checks it as though even too much Breathing might be bad for his Heart.
“It was my fault, Lizzie, in a way. I could have put a stopper on before it happened if I hadn’t believed that damn fool Fitzroy. I copped him about an hour before you got here, in the Antibody factory with a can of Silicosol. He hadn’t any business there and he looked as guilty as hell, so I took it away from him and read the label; but he swore he hadn’t used it yet. He’d only been there a few seconds, so I believed him. Actually he’d used the can the night before, and hidden it because somebody came. He was collecting it to sneak it back to Stores … I took it away and put it in my locker while I decided what to do. Didn’t want to get him into trouble if I could help it, poor fish …”
Junior said “Did he tell you what he was doing? And why? ’ ’
“Oh, yes. I said I’d report it at once if he didn’t … He thought the fella that put him up to it was going to herd twenty or thirty pro-Lamartine Delegates down into Level VII just before the tank was due to blow … Shouldn’t have swallowed that one—me, I mean. Or Fitz, but he hasn’t any brains …”
I say “Pro-Lamartine?”
“So they couldn’t vote to mess up the Valley. Fitz used to go there as a kid. Loved the place … He read some guff about Tollinder in the Lunar Times and wrote to him saying Carry on the Good Work … Then some fixer came here to see him. Put him up to the sabotage … When Fitz found he’d bagged Tollinder himself he damn near passed out. Would have done if he hadn’t been full of tranquilizers—we both were … When I caught him I made him clock in for full-time therapy all day—hell, he needed it after the shock of being caught—so he couldn’t tell anyone he hadn’t sprayed the production unit. I thought I’d neutralized the whole scheme; when the Alarm went off it never even occurred to me that Fitz was the cause …”
He sounds perfectly calm but the Supervisor arrives to say some Index or other has risen ten points and Junior and I are to Go.
We wish Clarence goodbye and start back the way we came.
I do not know what to say to Junior, he liked Tolly and admired him and Now look at him, shown up as a Phony and made to look Silly and now turns out he played the meanest trick I ever heard of on a man with a bad Heart.
However it is Junior starts the next conversation, he wants to know Do we have to tell Captain Franklin what Clarence said?
No need, I reply, he has obviously bugged the whole Level, not just the cameras that followed Tolly around: look how he always turns up at the Psychological moment.
At this Psychological moment a cop turns up and says Captain Franklin wants to see both of us please.
Judging by the Diagrams on the wall the Captain has taken over the office of a Xenophysiologist. I get the impression he has forgotten why he sent for us; but after a moment he fishes a Computer transcript out of a file.
“Here. Dalrymple’s statement. You sign as witnesses, then we needn’t bother him about it. Read it first.”
Junior says “So you have bugged every room on this Level!”
The Captain puts his gauntlets together on the desk and says “No.” Then he gives a kind of Shrug inside his suit. “I just used what’s there. The whole of Labsville’s monitored. Audio pickups every twenty-five meters, cameras every fifty. It’s because of the EFs. They wear cardio-rhythmic alarms, but transmission’s poor through rock walls. With the cameras, an EF who wanders off to have a heart attack in private can be located within thirty seconds … Have you read that yet?”
The Transcript is quite accurate. I sign and so does Junior. Captain Franklin sticks it back into the file and says dreamily, “We retuned all the cameras in the Immunization Bay to infrared. When you went and sprang the trap I’d have traded the pair of you for a bent milli-credit: but today was much, much better. For nearly half an hour Mr. Randolph Tollinder really thought his number was up. He-”
Junior says “Isn’t it?” and the Captain gives him a Look.
“Boy, you don’t think anything will really happen to him, do you? A distinguished visiting statesman like him? You don’t think we could ever be so crude as to bring him to court, say for damaging Lunar property and inconveniencing Lunar citizens and wasting the time of the Lunar Police?”
Junior says blankly “Why not? You’ve got all the evidence—”
“Evidence of what? Faking an attack on himself? No law against that.”
I say “Surely there must be one against Sabotage!”
The look Captain Franklin gives me is very, very tired.
“Miss Lee, the Silicosol was applied to that tank when Mr. Randolph Tollinder was quite certainly two hundred kilometers away.”
I say “Well, he—I forget the word—did something to that little man with the rabbit teeth—”
“He suborned him,” says Junior sternly.
“They never met. Fitzroy hasn’t left Labsville in six months and Mr. Randolph Tollinder never set foot in the place till the day you all came.”
“He has two aides and a secretary back in Lunarburg,” says Junior. “I can give you their names—”
“I’ve got ’em. I even know which one came here by train, the day it was decided to send a sightseeing group. I haven’t found anyone yet who saw him with Fitzroy—”
“But surely,” says Junior, “now he knows he was fooled, surely Fitzroy—”
“Fitzroy,” says the Captain, “is dead. Temporarily, at least. They got his heart going a couple of times but couldn’t keep it up. He may come out of the freezer alive in a few months’ time when his new heart is ready, or he may not. By that time Mr. Randolph Tollinder and entourage will be back on Discus. In fact they’re cutting their visit short. There’s a ship day after tomorrow. They’re booked on that.”
I say “You could stop him, couldn’t you?”
“Of course. All it takes is a warrant signed by the Minister of State for ExtraSolar Affairs. You saw how he reacted … No. Mr. Randolph Tollinder and entourage will be seen off with honors to get on with their political fence-mending back home. One thing I accomplished,” says Captain Franklin broodingly, “I made the bastard record his vote while the issue was still doubtful, so that he had to deliver in the way he’d been bribed to do. That’s one thing he’ll find hard to explain … No. What am I saying? He’ll get to whoever is due to feed that report into the printers back on Discus, and get it adjusted.”
“But the rest of the Delegates know!” says Junior.
“Of course. The ones who matter to him are the ones from Discus. They’ll have favors they want from him. Tomorrow they’ll all get together and trade. He’s doing it right now with the bunch here; none of them will mention that funny little act with the noose, when they get back to Lunarburg. Now if the other Discans at the Conference had seen that—”
“Why didn’t they?” said Junior angrily. “Why wasn’t that transmitted with the rest?”
“Because the officer in charge of the transmission chickened, that’s why. He said if / wanted to throw away my post and my pension I could do it some other way … Hell, I can’t blame it all on Levinson. I could have picked somebody who’d follow orders—if I put ’em in writing … But keeping foreign politicians honest is not my job.”
I say “But this one destroyed Lunar property—and wasted the time of the Lunar police.”
“If the Minister for ExtraSolar Affairs says to let him get away with it, who am I to argue?”
“But why?” says Junior. “Why does the Minister want him to get away with it?”
“Because interplanetary conferences are an important part of our tourist trade, that’s why. At least he thinks they could be, but not if prospective conferers get to know that we had the discourtesy to show up a Distinguished Visitor before his fellow Delegates in the act of making a fool of himself.”
I say “Did he really expect to get away with that act?”
“Course he did. It wasn’t really a bad performance. If you’d only heard it, the way he intended, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to you that it was a fake … He had a note in his pocket asking him to come to Room VII F 39 to learn who sabotaged that Unit, before making his speech. Thought of everything, he did. Except that we’d follow him by camera the whole way … The Minister took personal charge of that tape.”
I say “But you kept a copy, surely?”
“What for? To cheer my old age?” Captain Franklin leans back and sighs. “Sure I kept one, but Space knows why. Maybe I’ll wipe it after he’s gone.”
Junior is furious. “I witnessed everything. Nobody is going to silence me.”
“Uh-huh. You won’t get to talk to anybody, son. You’re going home too.”
“Who says I am?”
“Your uncle. First deal Tollinder cooked up was with him.”
Junior turns clay-colored. “But that means I’ll be on the same ship with that man. I won’t travel with him. 1 will not. If—if they make me I’ll tell everybody on board what he did.”
“Then he’ll make a fool of you some way. Man’s a politician. Convincing people is his trade, and he’s good at it. That’s because he believes it himself—not the words, but the doctrine behind them.”
“Doctrine? What do you mean?”
“His doctrine. What’s good for Randolph Tollinder is good for Mankind. ”
There has been a Thought struggling at the back of my head for some minutes; now it suddenly pushes to the front and I say “It wasn’t good for me.”
They both turn and stare.
Captain Franklin says, “You don’t look at it in the right way, Miss Lee.”
Hell, do I want to do this? It is not my job to keep Politicians honest, either: unless it is Everybody’s, maybe.
Tolly was kind to me and I liked him, and I don’t suppose he meant Fitzroy to have a Heart Attack; he may not have known he was an EF when he picked him as a Tool …
But there is Junior. It is very Bad for the young to see their elders Getting Away With It and the people who ought to prevent it just Sitting Back; they have to get cynical some time but it Warps you to do it too soon.
I say “Tollinder got me stuck here when I wanted to go back to my Hotel. He caused me to be drugged and confined and Suspected by the Police. Those were offenses against me personally and I ought to be able to Sue him.”
Captain Franklin gazes at me with wide-eyed wonder that changes to Hope, then back to Resignation.
“Stars, what a thought. Sue him, in the Piepowder Court. The Lunar Times would print that. Straight Court reporting, the Minister couldn’t do a thing. And once it’s in print …” He stops and sighs. “A lovely thought, Miss Lee, but it can’t be done. What the Handbook doesn’t tell you is that before the Bailiffs move they calculate the possible cost to the plaintiff if the case is lost; replacement tickets for defendant and witnesses, hotel bills, legal costs … on this case it could come to Cr. 10,000 you’d have to make available in escrow …”
Captain Franklin says “Nice timing, Mr. Tollinder. Just twelve minutes before your speech is due to begin.”
Nobody says anything at all for about half a minute. Then before our eyes Tolly Straightens up and squares his shoulders and his color comes back to normal. He rips the cloth off and stuffs it in his pocket and smooths his hair with the other hand: then he walks across to the Minister and murmurs into the diaphragm of his suit.
The head inside nods repeatedly; then I think the Minister says something to Captain Franklin over the suit radio, judging by the movement of his lips and the Captain’s expression which is now one of Disgust.
Meanwhile nobody is saying anything except the speaker in the Conference Hall: I catch the words Linder Valley and suddenly realize he is a New one. Then Tolly walks back to his seat.
The next five minutes are queer because Nothing happens at all; nobody speaks to Tolly, not even the lady who wanted to know Why he did that: the Speaker on the screen is still Boring away and his audience going on being Bored.
Then three people come in through the door nearest the back … Clarence, another man in an EF armband—this one has Rodent-style teeth but looks more like a Rabbit than a Rat—and the Supervisor lady, wheeling a cart with a lot of clinical apparatus on top.
Of course she does not know what has been happening: I rise to tell her this occasion is Not suitable for men with bad hearts but a nearby cop touches me on the shoulder and tells me firmly to sit Down again.
The Speaker in the Conference Hall now announces that the next Speaker will be that well known champion of the Conservationist cause, currently in Labsville but enabled to be present in all but Flesh by the technological kindness of the Lunar Gov: The Honorable Randolph Tollinder, Congressman, Discus.
One thing I never expected was that Tolly’s speech would turn out to be just another Bore.
I mean everybody who gives a damn must know the past history of the Linder Valley by heart, so why go over it now? Then I begin to recognize the note he is sounding, which is Inevitability. There are minerals under the green grass of the valley and men need them—one could almost say Mankind needs them—so how can a few farmers expect their own wishes to prevail? The Lamartine corporation have promised that when it has quite finished with what’s underneath it will put the Topsoil back and let the Valley be green again.
Then he starts talking about Generous Compensation; the final message is neither Loud nor Clear but has sort of seeped in: the Rape of the Linder Valley is going to happen and the inhabitants had better lie back and try to Enjoy it.
I twist round to look at Clarence but he is just sitting there: his companion is fidgeting and looking puzzled: I don’t know whether they have taken it in or not.
Tolly goes back to his seat amid scattered Applause.
The moderator rises and clears his throat: “Mr. Tollinder being the last Speaker on this Motion, Delegates will now record their votes.”
Here someone out of scan hands him a piece of paper. He reads it and nods.
“This is a message from the Lunar authorities. They fear that the transmission from Labsville may be interrupted before voting is complete. They ask that our colleagues stranded there be allowed to cast their votes first, rather than waiting for the turn of their particular Planet. Do I hear consent?”
Tolly has given a Galvanic jump that gets him half way out of his seat; but if he objects he does not say so, nor does anyone else.
“Very well. Delegates in Labsville will please come forward in alphabetical order to vote on the Motion; That in the opinion of this Conference the United Minerals Consortium of Lamartine has legal title to minerals underlying the Linder Valley on Discus and should be allowed to proceed without let or hindrance to the exploitation of the same. First delegate: the Congressman from Northland, Lamartine, the Honorable David Asante.”
Mr. Asante takes his place between the scanners and records one vote For the motion.
“The Senator from Exville, Cincinnatus, the Honorable George Gassett-Low. ”
Junior’s Uncle takes the spot, glares at Tolly and records one vote Against.
The alphabetical listing leaves Tolly last. The next eight Delegates go up and record their votes (Four in favor, four against). Then the Moderator on the screen announces the Representative from Euchre, Discus, the Honorable Randolph Tollinder.
Tolly walks between the scanners and now there are Three of him; one on the Monitor, one on the screen within the big screen and one just Standing there. None of him looks really life-like; his color is all right now but his face seems to have changed its shape, Tension I suppose, and his eyes have gone back behind it and looking through holes. His triple Presence stares at nothing and says “Randolph Tollinder, Discus, casting one vote For the motion” then he goes back to being Single and walks to his seat.
The stir here is immediate; on the big screen it starts a few seconds later and the Moderator does a double take and looks sideways as though to ask what Tolly really meant to say. Then there is a shout from the back of the room.
“EF Emergency! Get a powered stretcher, quick!”
I jump up to see, but Clarence is still sitting upright; it is the little rabbity man who has keeled over.
During the next ten minutes whenever there is a Lull I can hear some other damn Delegate in the Conference Hall recording his vote; the Monitor is blank so I suppose transmission from Labsville has stopped.
I wonder whether the lady who wanted to know realizes Why Mr. Tollinder Did That.
I wonder whether he was just trying to cheat the people in the Linder Valley, or the Lamartine Mining Consortium as well. Maybe when he sold out to them they agreed that he did not actually have to vote For them provided he could find a good enough excuse not to speak or vote Against.
Or maybe having sold his vote he was trying to get out of having to deliver, by staging the Sabotage: nobody could expect him to make a Speech when he was trapped in Labsville by Quarantine. So when Long Distance Participation was organized he tried to get out of it again: Nobody could expect him to make Speeches if he had been half strangled a few minutes before.
I wonder whether Captain Franklin knew it was Tolly all along, or not till he sneaked into the room where the Transmitters were, in the middle of the night.
At this point one of the cops comes and leans his diaphragm against my ear and says Clarence would like to speak with me. Elsewhere, please.
Junior rises to follow me and nobody objects.
Clarence is in a room that looks like a Hospital but he is not in bed, just sitting in a chair and looking Severe rather than Sick: I introduce Junior and he says he is glad I have found a friend in this place since he could not look after me himself, he did not know I had got Stuck here until a few hours ago.
He then looks at us both and says “Not much fun for you kids on this trip. I’m sorry.”
I say It was not his fault anyway.
He sighs, then checks it as though even too much Breathing might be bad for his Heart.
“It was my fault, Lizzie, in a way. I could have put a stopper on before it happened if I hadn’t believed that damn fool Fitzroy. I copped him about an hour before you got here, in the Antibody factory with a can of Silicosol. He hadn’t any business there and he looked as guilty as hell, so I took it away from him and read the label; but he swore he hadn’t used it yet. He’d only been there a few seconds, so I believed him. Actually he’d used the can the night before, and hidden it because somebody came. He was collecting it to sneak it back to Stores … I took it away and put it in my locker while I decided what to do. Didn’t want to get him into trouble if I could help it, poor fish …”
Junior said “Did he tell you what he was doing? And why? ’ ’
“Oh, yes. I said I’d report it at once if he didn’t … He thought the fella that put him up to it was going to herd twenty or thirty pro-Lamartine Delegates down into Level VII just before the tank was due to blow … Shouldn’t have swallowed that one—me, I mean. Or Fitz, but he hasn’t any brains …”
I say “Pro-Lamartine?”
“So they couldn’t vote to mess up the Valley. Fitz used to go there as a kid. Loved the place … He read some guff about Tollinder in the Lunar Times and wrote to him saying Carry on the Good Work … Then some fixer came here to see him. Put him up to the sabotage … When Fitz found he’d bagged Tollinder himself he damn near passed out. Would have done if he hadn’t been full of tranquilizers—we both were … When I caught him I made him clock in for full-time therapy all day—hell, he needed it after the shock of being caught—so he couldn’t tell anyone he hadn’t sprayed the production unit. I thought I’d neutralized the whole scheme; when the Alarm went off it never even occurred to me that Fitz was the cause …”
He sounds perfectly calm but the Supervisor arrives to say some Index or other has risen ten points and Junior and I are to Go.
We wish Clarence goodbye and start back the way we came.
I do not know what to say to Junior, he liked Tolly and admired him and Now look at him, shown up as a Phony and made to look Silly and now turns out he played the meanest trick I ever heard of on a man with a bad Heart.
However it is Junior starts the next conversation, he wants to know Do we have to tell Captain Franklin what Clarence said?
No need, I reply, he has obviously bugged the whole Level, not just the cameras that followed Tolly around: look how he always turns up at the Psychological moment.
At this Psychological moment a cop turns up and says Captain Franklin wants to see both of us please.
Judging by the Diagrams on the wall the Captain has taken over the office of a Xenophysiologist. I get the impression he has forgotten why he sent for us; but after a moment he fishes a Computer transcript out of a file.
“Here. Dalrymple’s statement. You sign as witnesses, then we needn’t bother him about it. Read it first.”
Junior says “So you have bugged every room on this Level!”
The Captain puts his gauntlets together on the desk and says “No.” Then he gives a kind of Shrug inside his suit. “I just used what’s there. The whole of Labsville’s monitored. Audio pickups every twenty-five meters, cameras every fifty. It’s because of the EFs. They wear cardio-rhythmic alarms, but transmission’s poor through rock walls. With the cameras, an EF who wanders off to have a heart attack in private can be located within thirty seconds … Have you read that yet?”
The Transcript is quite accurate. I sign and so does Junior. Captain Franklin sticks it back into the file and says dreamily, “We retuned all the cameras in the Immunization Bay to infrared. When you went and sprang the trap I’d have traded the pair of you for a bent milli-credit: but today was much, much better. For nearly half an hour Mr. Randolph Tollinder really thought his number was up. He-”
Junior says “Isn’t it?” and the Captain gives him a Look.
“Boy, you don’t think anything will really happen to him, do you? A distinguished visiting statesman like him? You don’t think we could ever be so crude as to bring him to court, say for damaging Lunar property and inconveniencing Lunar citizens and wasting the time of the Lunar Police?”
Junior says blankly “Why not? You’ve got all the evidence—”
“Evidence of what? Faking an attack on himself? No law against that.”
I say “Surely there must be one against Sabotage!”
The look Captain Franklin gives me is very, very tired.
“Miss Lee, the Silicosol was applied to that tank when Mr. Randolph Tollinder was quite certainly two hundred kilometers away.”
I say “Well, he—I forget the word—did something to that little man with the rabbit teeth—”
“He suborned him,” says Junior sternly.
“They never met. Fitzroy hasn’t left Labsville in six months and Mr. Randolph Tollinder never set foot in the place till the day you all came.”
“He has two aides and a secretary back in Lunarburg,” says Junior. “I can give you their names—”
“I’ve got ’em. I even know which one came here by train, the day it was decided to send a sightseeing group. I haven’t found anyone yet who saw him with Fitzroy—”
“But surely,” says Junior, “now he knows he was fooled, surely Fitzroy—”
“Fitzroy,” says the Captain, “is dead. Temporarily, at least. They got his heart going a couple of times but couldn’t keep it up. He may come out of the freezer alive in a few months’ time when his new heart is ready, or he may not. By that time Mr. Randolph Tollinder and entourage will be back on Discus. In fact they’re cutting their visit short. There’s a ship day after tomorrow. They’re booked on that.”
I say “You could stop him, couldn’t you?”
“Of course. All it takes is a warrant signed by the Minister of State for ExtraSolar Affairs. You saw how he reacted … No. Mr. Randolph Tollinder and entourage will be seen off with honors to get on with their political fence-mending back home. One thing I accomplished,” says Captain Franklin broodingly, “I made the bastard record his vote while the issue was still doubtful, so that he had to deliver in the way he’d been bribed to do. That’s one thing he’ll find hard to explain … No. What am I saying? He’ll get to whoever is due to feed that report into the printers back on Discus, and get it adjusted.”
“But the rest of the Delegates know!” says Junior.
“Of course. The ones who matter to him are the ones from Discus. They’ll have favors they want from him. Tomorrow they’ll all get together and trade. He’s doing it right now with the bunch here; none of them will mention that funny little act with the noose, when they get back to Lunarburg. Now if the other Discans at the Conference had seen that—”
“Why didn’t they?” said Junior angrily. “Why wasn’t that transmitted with the rest?”
“Because the officer in charge of the transmission chickened, that’s why. He said if / wanted to throw away my post and my pension I could do it some other way … Hell, I can’t blame it all on Levinson. I could have picked somebody who’d follow orders—if I put ’em in writing … But keeping foreign politicians honest is not my job.”
I say “But this one destroyed Lunar property—and wasted the time of the Lunar police.”
“If the Minister for ExtraSolar Affairs says to let him get away with it, who am I to argue?”
“But why?” says Junior. “Why does the Minister want him to get away with it?”
“Because interplanetary conferences are an important part of our tourist trade, that’s why. At least he thinks they could be, but not if prospective conferers get to know that we had the discourtesy to show up a Distinguished Visitor before his fellow Delegates in the act of making a fool of himself.”
I say “Did he really expect to get away with that act?”
“Course he did. It wasn’t really a bad performance. If you’d only heard it, the way he intended, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to you that it was a fake … He had a note in his pocket asking him to come to Room VII F 39 to learn who sabotaged that Unit, before making his speech. Thought of everything, he did. Except that we’d follow him by camera the whole way … The Minister took personal charge of that tape.”
I say “But you kept a copy, surely?”
“What for? To cheer my old age?” Captain Franklin leans back and sighs. “Sure I kept one, but Space knows why. Maybe I’ll wipe it after he’s gone.”
Junior is furious. “I witnessed everything. Nobody is going to silence me.”
“Uh-huh. You won’t get to talk to anybody, son. You’re going home too.”
“Who says I am?”
“Your uncle. First deal Tollinder cooked up was with him.”
Junior turns clay-colored. “But that means I’ll be on the same ship with that man. I won’t travel with him. 1 will not. If—if they make me I’ll tell everybody on board what he did.”
“Then he’ll make a fool of you some way. Man’s a politician. Convincing people is his trade, and he’s good at it. That’s because he believes it himself—not the words, but the doctrine behind them.”
“Doctrine? What do you mean?”
“His doctrine. What’s good for Randolph Tollinder is good for Mankind. ”
There has been a Thought struggling at the back of my head for some minutes; now it suddenly pushes to the front and I say “It wasn’t good for me.”
They both turn and stare.
Captain Franklin says, “You don’t look at it in the right way, Miss Lee.”
Hell, do I want to do this? It is not my job to keep Politicians honest, either: unless it is Everybody’s, maybe.
Tolly was kind to me and I liked him, and I don’t suppose he meant Fitzroy to have a Heart Attack; he may not have known he was an EF when he picked him as a Tool …
But there is Junior. It is very Bad for the young to see their elders Getting Away With It and the people who ought to prevent it just Sitting Back; they have to get cynical some time but it Warps you to do it too soon.
I say “Tollinder got me stuck here when I wanted to go back to my Hotel. He caused me to be drugged and confined and Suspected by the Police. Those were offenses against me personally and I ought to be able to Sue him.”
Captain Franklin gazes at me with wide-eyed wonder that changes to Hope, then back to Resignation.
“Stars, what a thought. Sue him, in the Piepowder Court. The Lunar Times would print that. Straight Court reporting, the Minister couldn’t do a thing. And once it’s in print …” He stops and sighs. “A lovely thought, Miss Lee, but it can’t be done. What the Handbook doesn’t tell you is that before the Bailiffs move they calculate the possible cost to the plaintiff if the case is lost; replacement tickets for defendant and witnesses, hotel bills, legal costs … on this case it could come to Cr. 10,000 you’d have to make available in escrow …”
