22 chapters
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22 chapters
ILLUSTRATED BY SUSSMAN
ILLUSTRATED BY SUSSMAN
"It was not until February 14th that the Government declared a state of unlimited emergency. The precipitating incident was the aerial bombardment and destruction of B Company, 27th Armored Regiment, on Fort George Hill in New York City. Local Syndic leaders had occupied and fortified George Washington High School, with the enthusiastic co-operation of students, faculty and neighborhood. Chief among them was Thomas 'Numbers' Cleveland, displaying the same coolness and organizational genius which
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I
I
Charles Orsino was learning the business from the ground up—even though "up" would never be very high. He had in his veins only a drop or two of Falcaro blood: enough so that room had to be made for him; not enough for it to be a great dearth of room. Counting heavily on the good will of F. W. Taylor, who had taken a fancy to him when he lost his parents in the Brookhaven Reactor explosion of '83, he might rise to a rather responsible position in Alky, Horsewire, Callgirl, recruitment and Retire
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III
III
Charles Orsino squirmed in the chair. "Uncle—" he pleaded. "Yes," F. W. Taylor chuckled, "Old Amadeo and his colleagues were called criminals. They were called bootleggers when they got liquor to people without worrying about the public debt or excise taxes. They were called smugglers when they sold cheap butter in the south and cheap margerine in the north. They were called counterfeiters when they sold cheap cigarettes and transportation tickets. They were called high-jackers when they wrested
11 minute read
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IV
IV
A family council was called the next day. Orsino, very much a junior, had never been admitted to one before. He knew why the exception was being made, and didn't like the reason. Edward Falcaro wagged his formidable white beard at the thirty-odd Syndic chiefs around the table and growled: "I think we'll dispense with reviewing production and so on. I want to talk about this damn gunplay. Dick, bring us up to date." He lit a vile cigar and leaned back. Richard W. Reiner rose. "Thomas McGurn," he
12 minute read
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V
V
Max Wyman shoved his way through such a roar of voices and such a crush of bodies as he had never known before. Scratch Sheet Square was bright as day—brighter. Atomic lamps, mounted on hundred-story buildings hosed and squirted the happy mob with blue-white glare. The Scratch Sheet's moving sign was saying in fiery letters seventy-five feet tall: " 11:58 PM EST ... December 31st ... Cops say two million jam NYC streets to greet New Year ... 11:59 PM EST ... December 31st ... Falcaro jokes on TV
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VI
VI
Max Wyman woke raving with the chuck horrors. There was somebody there to hand him candy bars, sweet lemonade, lump sugar. There was somebody to shove him easily back into the pallet of rags when he tried to stumble forth in a hunt for booze. On the second day he realized that it was an old man whose face looked gray and paralyzed. His name was T. G. Pendelton, he said. After a week, he let Max Wyman take little walks about their part of Riverside—but not by night. "We've got some savage people
7 minute read
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VII
VII
It had begun when the girl led him through the conference room door. Naturally one had misgivings; naturally one didn't speak up. But the vault-like door far downstairs was terrifying when it yawned before you and even more so when it closed behind you. "What is this place?" he demanded at last. "Who are you?" She said: "Psychology lab." It produced on him the same effect that "alchemy section" or "Division of astrology" would have on a well-informed young man in 1950. He repeated flatly: "Psych
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VIII
VIII
The submarine surfaced at dawn. Orsino had been assigned a bunk and, to his surprise, had fallen asleep almost at once. At eight in the morning, he was shaken awake by one of the men in caps. "Shift change," the man explained laconically. Orsino started to say something polite and sleepy. The man grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto the deck, snarling: "You going to argue ?" Orsino's reactions were geared to hot-rod polo—doing the split-second right thing after instinctively evaluating the r
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IX
IX
The submarine docked at an indescribably lovely bay in the south of Ireland. Orsino asked Grinnel whether the Irish didn't object to this, and was met with a blank stare. It developed that the Irish consisted of a few hundred wild men in the woods—maybe a few thousand. The stupid shore-bound personnel couldn't seem to clean them out. Grinnel didn't know anything about them, and he cared less. Ireland appeared to be the naval base. The government proper was located on Iceland, vernal again after
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X
X
It took minutes only. He had headed back to the waterfront, afraid to run, with some vague notion of stealing a boat. Before he reached the row of saloons and joints, a smart-looking squad of eight tall men overtook him. "Hold it, mister," a sergeant said. "Are you Orsino?" "No," he said hopelessly. "That crazy woman began to yell at me that I was Orsino, but my name's Wyman. What's this about?" The other men fell in beside and behind him. "We're stepping over to O.N.I.," the sergeant said. "The
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XI
XI
She felt the power of the goddess working in her, but feebly. Dark ... so dark ... and so tired ... how old was she? More than eight hundred moons had waxed and waned above her head since birth. And she had run at the head of her spearmen to the motor sounds. A motor meant the smithymen from the sea, and you killed smithymen when you could. She let out a short shrill chuckle in the dark. There was a rustling of branches. One of the spearmen had turned to stare at the sound. She knew his face was
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XII
XII
Commander Grinnel, after reporting formally, had gone straight to a joint. It wasn't until midnight that he got The Word, from a friendly O.N.I. lieutenant who had dropped into the house. "What?" Grinnel roared. "Who is this woman? Where is she? Take me to her at once!" "Commander!" the lieutenant said aghast. "I just got here!" "You heard me, mister! At once!" While Grinnel dressed he demanded particulars. The lieutenant dutifully scoured his memory. "Brought in on some cloak-and-dagger deal, C
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XIII
XIII
Kennedy turned out to have been an armorer-artificer of the North American Navy, captured two years ago while deer-hunting too far from the logging-camp road to New Portsmouth. Fed on scraps of gristle, isolated from his kind, beaten when he failed to make his daily task of spear heads and arrow points, he had shyly retreated into beautifully interminable labyrinths of abstraction. Now and then, Charles Orsino got a word or two of sense from him before the rosy clouds closed in. When attempted c
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XIV
XIV
"Leave the fire alone," Charles said sharply to Kennedy. The little man was going to douse it for the night. There was a flash of terrified sense: "They beat you. If the fire's on after dark they beat you. Fire and dark are equal and opposite." He began to smile. "Fire is the negative of dark. You just change the sign, in effect rotate it through 180 degrees. But to rotate it through 180 degrees you have to first rotate it through one degree. And to rotate it through one degree you first have to
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XV
XV
Commander Grinnel was officer of the day, and sore as a boil about it. O.N.I. wasn't supposed to catch the duty. You risked your life on cloak-and-dagger missions; let the shore-bound fancy dans do the drudgery. But there he was, nevertheless, in the guard house office with a .45 on his hip, the interminable night stretching before him, and the ten-man main guard snoring away outside. He eased his bad military conscience by reflecting that there wasn't anything to guard, that patrolling the shor
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XVI
XVI
It was a dank fog-shrouded morning. Sometime during the night the quill of the dead reckoner had traced its fine red line over the 30th meridian. Roughly half-way, Charles Orsino thought, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. But the line was straight as a string for the last four hours of their run. The damn girl must have fallen asleep on watch. He glared at her in the bow and broke open a ration. Blandly oblivious to the glare, she said: "Good morning." Charles swallowed a mouthful of chocolate, h
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XVII
XVII
"Here?" Charles demanded. " Here? " "No possible mistake," she said, stunned. "When you're a Falcaro you travel. I've seen 'em in Duluth, I've seen 'em in Quebec, I've seen 'em in Buffalo." The bull-horn voice roared again, dead in the shroud of fog; "Come into the wind and cut your engines or we'll put a shell into you." Charles turned the wheel and wound in the moderator rod; the boat pitched like a splinter on the waves. There was a muffled double explosion and two grapnels crunched into the
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XVIII
XVIII
They were too sick with gasoline fumes to count the passing hours or days. Food was brought to them from time to time, but it tasted like avgas. They could not think for the sick headaches that pounded incessantly behind their eyes. When Lee developed vomiting spasms that would not stop, Charles Orsino pounded on the bulkhead with his fists and yelled, his voice thunderous in the metal compartment, for an hour. Somebody came at last—Regan. The light stabbed Charles' eyes when he opened the door.
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XIX
XIX
It hadn't been easy to get time off from the oil-painting factory. Ken Oliver was a little late when he slid into the aseptic-smelling waiting room of the Michigan City Medical Center. A parabolic mike in the ceiling trained itself on the heat he radiated and followed him across the floor to a chair. A canned voice said: "State your business, please." He started a little and said in the general direction of the mike: "I'm Ken Oliver. A figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils and Etching
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XX
XX
Lee swore and said: "I can get up if I want to." "You'll stay in bed whether you want to or not," Charles told her. "You're a sick woman." "I'm a very bad-tempered woman and that means I'm convalescent. Ask anybody." "I'll go right out into the street and do that, darling." She got out of bed and wrapped Oliver's dressing gown around her. "I'm hungry again," she said. "He'll be back soon. You've left nothing but some frozen—worms, looks like. Shall I defrost them?" "Please don't trouble. I can w
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XXI
XXI
Charles walked down the street and ran immediately into a challenge from a police sergeant. "Where you from, mister?" the cop demanded, balanced and ready to draw. Charles gulped and let Lee Falcaro's drilling take over. "Oh, around, sergeant. I'm from around here." "What're you so nervous about?" "Why, sergeant, you're such an exciting type, really. Did anybody ever tell you you look well in uniform?" The cop glared at him and said: "If I wasn't in uniform, I'd hang one on you sister. And if th
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XXII
XXII
"I didn't like his reaction," Charles told her in the anteroom of F. W. Taylor's office. "I didn't talk to him long on the phone, but I don't like his reaction at all. He seemed to think I was exaggerating. Or all wet. Or a punk kid." "I can assure him you're not that," Lee Falcaro said warmly. "Call on me any time." He gave her a worried smile. The door opened then and they went in. Uncle Frank looked up. "We'd just about written you two off," he said. "What's it like?" "Bad," Charles said. "Wo
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