Chapter 3
Navvy let Movius out of the car half a block from the apartment. “You understand, sir. No sense rubbing their noses in it.”
“Yes. Good opps, Navvy.” Movius stood a moment on the curb, watching the car grow smaller, finding it difficult to realize that had been the last ride. His watch showed almost eleven. He turned, hurried toward the grill and glass front of the apartment building. In the lobby there was an atmosphere of refined gloom, thick carpet underfoot, a whirring of air-conditioning fans.
The manager had been notified. He darted across the lobby as Movius entered. “Oh, Movius?”
Now it’s just plain Movius, he thought. It used to be Mr. Movius. That glorified janitor!
“You no longer live here, Movius.” The manager’s face reminded him of a rabbit, a particularly gloating rabbit. “I have your new address right here.” He handed Movius a narrow strip of paper torn from a notepad.
Movius glanced at it, read: “Roper Road, 8100-4790DRB.” A Warren! Well, he’d expected that. DR for downstairs rear, B for bachelor. No tick rug in the lobby there; bare to the hard tiles. No isolation there; turmoil. A Warren.
The manager stood looking at him, obviously enjoying his discomfiture. “Your effects already have been moved.”
Already moved! he thought. Scarcely two hours and already moved. As though they wanted to cover him up, like an unsightly mistake.
“Was there any mail for me?” asked Movius.
“No, but I believe there was a tele-message on the printer. Just a moment.” He walked around a corner, returned with another piece of paper.
The note was brief:
“Dan,
“Just got the word. Comp Section still needs good hands. We could put through a special request—Phil Henry.”
Movius put the note in his pocket. Phil Henry. How long had it been? With a feeling of guilt, Movius realized he had not seen Phil Henry for almost a year. He remember the bushy-browed eager look of the man when they’d worked together back in Comp. Almost a year. Movius shook his head, turned to the manager.
“Is Miss Lang in her apartment? I’d like to see her.”
“Miss Lang?”
The anger came out in his voice. “Yes, Miss Lang. She wasn’t at work. I’d like to know if she’s home.”
“I’ll see if Miss Lang wishes to see you,” said the manager. He went into his cubbyhole. Movius heard him talking on the phone.
One of the privileges of Upper Rank quarters, thought Movius. No unauthorized visitors. Ergo: he had to ask permission to visit his fiancée. He wondered what would happen to her now. Probably a quick shift into another section. Only the top felt the heavy blow of a low-opp. Trained underlings were always needed somewhere.
The manager spent a long time on the phone, finally emerged, grinned at Movius before speaking. “You may go up.” The grin was a positive smirk.
Movius went to the elevator, punched for the thirty-third floor. Why hadn’t Cecelia been at the office? She seldom failed to report on time, often rode down with him. Movius thought of all the effort he had put out to get her this apartment next to his, the favors he had promised, the extra credits spent. And Cecelia only a twelfth ranker. That had made it difficult.
The elevator stopped, the door snicked back. Movius turned left, passed his own door, 3307, saw it was open and a cleaning crew working inside. The urge to pause and have a last look around the rooms swept over him. But he couldn’t face the thought of explaining to the cleaning crew, accepting their smiles of superiority. He turned away, noticed two men loitering in the doorway opposite ’07, Cecelia’s apartment. One of the men looked familiar. He had seen the fellow somewhere. The two men showed interest in Movius as he knocked on Cecelia’s door. One moved across the hall, hand in pocket. “Just a . . .”
The door opened, revealing Cecelia—chic, blonde, wearing dress coveralls the color of her hair. Her mouth was startling with a wild orange lipstick. The effect was a gold statue come to life.
Movius stepped forward to take her in his arms, ignored the man behind him. “Cecie, I . . .”
She put him off, extending her right hand as though for him to kiss. With her other hand she waved away the man in the hall. “Dan, how nice you could come by. Come in, won’t you? I’ve a guest.” She took his hand.
There’s something wrong with her voice, thought Movius. He said, “Who was that in the hall?”
“Nobody important; come along.” She led him into the apartment.
A wide-bodied man with crew-cut iron-grey hair and a face like a square-hewn plank stood up from the couch. He was putting a handkerchief into a side pocket. The handkerchief showed orange stains the color of Cecelia’s lipstick. Movius paused. Now he knew the reason for the men in the hall. Bodyguards. This was Helmut Glass, Coordinator of All Bureaus: The Coor. Although the directors of the top bureaus shared nearly equal powers, this man was titular head of government, the top of the pyramid.
“Sorry about your job,” said Glass. His left eye squinted, the muscles of the cheek rippling with a nervous tic. “I just heard about it a couple of hours ago.”
On the tip of Movius’ tongue was the urge to say, “Then my driver knew it before you did.” But his thoughts skipped a beat. It was now eleven o’clock. Two hours subtracted from eleven left nine o’clock, about the same time Navvy had been making the prediction. The Coor could not have known two hours ago unless his information came from a source similar to Navvy’s or from foreknowledge. But how could he predict the Opp?
“Just about two hours ago,” repeated Glass. “I was shocked.”
He’s emphasizing the point, thought Movius. It’s a calculated lie. And how could Glass be shocked at the knowledge? He and the other top bureau chiefs—Com-Burs—had framed the question. The man wants me to lose my temper, thought Movius. He wants me to call him a liar. Sorry, Mr. Glass.
In an even tone, Movius said, “That gave you just enough time to get over here and comfort Cecie, didn’t it?”
The Coor’s eyes widened, narrowed. “Cecelia . . .” He turned toward her.
Cecelia stepped to one side, said, “Helmut has transferred me to his department. Isn’t that lucky? Now I won’t lose my apartment.”
Not The Coordinator has transferred me . . . Isn’t this cozy? And dear Helmut received a big kiss when he made the announcement.
Glass put a lighter flame to the cigaret, looked at Movius through a blue cloud of smoke—distant, untouchable. “We can always use a good secretary. When I heard your department was low-opped and Cecelia out of a job, I snapped her up.” A streamer of cigaret smoke blew toward Movius. “Don’t know what we’re going to do about you, Dan. Something will probably turn up, though.” Again the tic rippled the Coor’s cheek, squinted his eye.
So it’s Helmut and Cecelia, thought Movius. He looked at Cecelia, wondering how he could get her away alone to talk to her. Something about the way she was looking at him—half laughing, superior—reminded him of a fact buried far down in his memory. Cecelia Lang had been engaged to another man once. What was the fellow’s name? Brownley or something like that. He’d been the head of the now defunct Department of Antiquities and had gone out and gotten himself into one of the penalty services for failure to report the discovery of an ancient library. And now that he thought about it, Movius recalled that Cecelia had been transferred to Liaison the day after what’s-his-name Brownley was low-opped.
Looking at Cecelia with her cream-washed skin and eyes he could never see past, Movius thought, I inherited her.
He said, “I was wondering if I could see you tonight.”
A perfectly formed look of disappointment came onto her face. He had the sudden disquieting picture of Cecilia practicing that look before her mirror. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “but Helmut has asked me . . .”
“Tonight is Summer Festival,” said Glass. “Had you forgotten? Cecelia said you hadn’t asked her; so I invited her.”
It wasn’t what they said nor even their actions—taken singly. It was a combination of things more subtle than gross perception is accustomed to noting. Movius felt a wall descend between himself and these two. So this was how Brownley had felt. Sorry, Brownley. I didn’t know. For a moment, Movius failed to recognize the feelings inside himself—the tension like hunger. Then he knew it—hate, a boiling hurt, struggling for expression. He thrust his hands into his pockets, clenched his fists.
“You do see, don’t you?” asked Cecelia. Again that vague hint of superior laughter.
“I see,” said Movius, startled to find his voice high-pitched. Glass looked up sharply, smiled. “I’ll be going now,” said Movius.
Cecelia turned away. Glass grinned at him, insolent, assured. Only the tic, briefly touching the man’s cheek hinted at something less than assurance.
Movius whirled, almost ran from the room, not seeing, moving by memory. He was in the Common Transport headed for his new address in the Warrens before he could calm his nerves.
Without using a word that could be challenged, Cecelia had just given him the gate. He recognized that she had done the job with a masterful touch. It was typical of her, typical of the way she had always handled him, holding him a tantalizing arms-length away even after they were engaged.
A maddening woman. And what did he really know about her? The name—Cecelia Lang. The lovely, enticing body. But he didn’t know that except from looking at her and longing. Many men had enjoyed that privilege. What else did he know about her? Now that he put it to the question, he realized there was little else he knew about Cecelia Lang. She had never talked about her parents except to say that once her mother had possessed the morals of a slum goat. Maybe she’d never known her father. From all Cecelia had ever said about herself, she might well have started life at the age of twenty-one. Or perhaps at nineteen. He seemed to remember hearing somewhere that she’d known Brownley two years. Brother Brownley.
Chalk up another averted face; a lovely, cleverly averted face. Cecelia Lang.
His new address was so far back in the Warrens of the river flat that the Transport was almost empty when they neared it. Movius watched the corner numbers, stood up when they passed 8,000. A man’s voice whispered hoarsely behind him, “I’ll bet he has a cute little LP out here he doesn’t want his driver to know about.”
Movius became acutely conscious of the color of his clothing, the T above his lapel number. Even without these things he knew there would be something in his manner to brand him High-Opp. How long would it take for that to wear off?
The Transport stopped. Movius stepped down. Forty-seven was four blocks away along a curving street filled with screeching LP children who grew quiet as he approached, stared silently as he passed. An occasional woman sat on a doorstep staring at nothing. Where the privileged sections rarely heard loud noises, quiet was the exception here—until the workers came home and fell into weary sleep. Even then sounds filtered through the night: giggles, screeches, curses. And the smell. A fetid notice of unwashed closeness. Movius walked through it as though in a dream, hearing his heels click against the concrete, remembering his childhood in a Warren such as this, conscious of the eyes which followed him.
It was a building like all the others—lifeless windows and a door like a gaping mouth. A Warren. How long had it been? Eleven years? No. Twelve years. Great Gallup! Twelve years! Since the day he’d made the Calculation Corps, that breeding ground of the middle ranks. That was where he’d met Phil Henry. They had been two eager beginners. Eager to learn. Eager to believe anything good about a system which gave them this tremendous opportunity. He wondered how much Phil Henry still believed. Then there was Phil’s offer. The Computer Section; it was only four stages above LP and fourteen ranks from the top. A few privileges. Better housing. Pride held him back, the memory that he’d not seen Phil for almost a year, had ignored an old friend. Yes, Phil was a friend. No face averted there. Later on he’d look up Phil. Not now.
A thought came back to him: Comp Section, fourteen ranks from the top. Had he been aiming for the top? He realized with a shock that something in him had been doing just that, something unconscious and driving. And all the while his conscious self had moved along placidly like a passenger in a commuter tube deep under the earth.
A gang of children raced between Movius and the Warren, ran off down the street shouting.
There was the Warren. His Warren. He was back to the beginning now; nothing to do but wait until his various talents went through the sorter, came up with an open job. That took time. Maybe a month; maybe more. He didn’t look forward to wearing the LP’s on his lapels, having old acquaintances appear not to notice. Well, inside then; off the streets.
He found room ninety, paused outside the door. He could picture it, identical to the one in his memory—seven by nine feet, narrow bed, standard bedding, a bathroom three and one-half feet square (shower opposite toilet, washbasin under shower, just enough room to stand erect), beside the bathroom a closet of the same size. Three and one-half goes into seven twice and seven feet is the Opinion-prescribed width of a standard bachelor room. The plastic walls with their memorized pipes and conduits subtracted perhaps three-quarters of an inch.
May the Majority rule!
Movius opened the door, drew back when he saw a strange woman sitting on the bed, a small grey mouse of a woman with sallow complexion and hair drawn back tightly in a worker’s bun. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought this was my room. The door . . .”
She jumped up, held out a sheet of paper, said, “Darling, I couldn’t stay away any longer. I had to see you.”
This is a joke, thought Movius. He noted a stack of Transport Department moving boxes in a corner, one on the bed. His?
“Please come in. Don’t be mad at me.” She beckoned to him frantically.
Movius put down the briefcase, closed the door. The click of the door roused him and he started to re-open it. She shook her head violently, waved the paper at him. “Darling, what’s wrong?” she demanded. “Are you tired of me already?”
He moved forward, accepted the paper, read it. The words took a while coming through because the woman went on rambling about her passion for him and the cruelty of men. It was neat block printing; “Do not say a word aloud. We may be overheard. You are in terrible danger. Come to the bed, pretend you are making love to me.”
When she was certain he had read the entire message, she grabbed it from him, crammed it into her mouth, chewed it and swallowed it with a convulsive gulp. She took his hand, dragged him to the bed, put her mouth close to his ear. “Say something, you fool,” she whispered. “Don’t you know what to say to a woman?”
He found the anger inside him where shock had hidden it. More people pushing him around! He jerked her to him, hissed in her ear, “Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?”
“I’m Grace London, Navvy’s sister. He sent me as soon as he found out. Pay close attention. You’re to be transferred to the Arctic Labor Pool for weather survey.”
Her eyes made him uncomfortable, staring at him so queerly. This obviously was more grapevine poppycock! But he remembered the accuracy of Navvy’s other prediction. It was as though the thought opened a door on the Arctic, letting in a blast of icy air. “That’s penalty service,” he whispered, subdued. “High mortality.” Roper’s name! Had they read his angry thoughts?
“Oh, darling, I’m so happy you’re not mad at me,” she said. “Kiss me again.” She made a low smacking around with her lips, bent and whispered, “It will be discovered too late. A big mistake. So sorry. Eulogies for poor dead Mr. Movius. Posthumous restoration of rank.”
A dead High-Opp, he thought. Her mood of urgency began to creep through his numbness. He muttered, “Darling, I’ve missed you, too.” He moved to make the bedsprings squeak, whispered, “Why?”
“No time for explanations,” she whispered and blushed as he again squeaked the springs. “Do exactly what I say. After I’ve gone, wait for darkness, then go out and catch a Commerce Transport. Ride it to the end of the line and go into the Carhouse. Find Clancy in the office. He’ll give you the keys to his locker, a change of clothes and instructions where to go from there.” She squeezed his hand, said in a loud, clear voice, “Darling, why don’t you come to my place tonight? This is too open here.” The springs protested as she stood.
Still in a semi-fog, he arose, watched her open the door, glance up and down the hallway, duck out.
The air held the charged feeling of static electricity after she had gone. As the mood of it melted away, he felt let down, unsure. Pop-mag pap! he thought. Who’d want to spy on a bachelor room in a Warren? And that nonsense about the Arctic Labor Pool. Mistakes like that just weren’t made.
But he had been low-opped. And the official question, when put to closer scrutiny, appeared to have been phrased toward that end. “For tax economy reasons!” But who would want to spy on . . . Then he remembered. A privilege of the top five ranks was an apartment in a building where freedom from spy beams was maintained by a master scrambler on the roof. A High-Opp phone could not be tapped for the same reason. He’d been living away from this sort of thing for too long. Bu-Con was always spying on the Warrens, looking for Sep activity.
Movius cleared the box off the corner of his bed, lay back. Navvy had sent his sister. Sometimes drivers were unaccountably loyal. He’d had more freedom than most drivers, too. Birthdays off, personal trips. Now, maybe Navvy was returning the favor.
The bed felt hard, uncomfortable beneath him, more like a gymnasium mat than a bed. Gymnasium! He’d lost his privilege card for the gymnasium. No more sessions on the mat with Okashi, no more steam baths, no masseuse. No more of anything that had made his life bearable. They’d even take his library permit for the reserved stacks. Back to the apathy of the Warrens.
What have I come to? he wondered. Climbing up through the bureaus and departments was enough once. The competitive game. In fact, as he thought about it, that was all there had been. Pay attention to the game, live by the rules, believe the rules. Looking at his world now was like awakening after the loss of a pair of dark glasses which had obscured his vision.
Cecelia and Helmut!
He pounded a fist against the bed until it hurt. Cecelia had been an expensive trinket, a badge of office.
The Red Slip. Opinion SD22240368523ZX.
Almighty Opinion!
The full import of his loss began to come through to his consciousness. He caught himself sighing, felt like a shell vacuumed of everything but weary resentment.
Navvy had sent his sister. Navvy was right this morning. Is he right this time? What am I going to do? The question conjured up a vision of Movius’ father. “Never ask what you’re going to do, son. Ask how you’re going to do it.” Ah, yes. His positive father, full of history, discipline and good intentions gone astray. A history teacher in an age which sought to forget its own past, living out his life as a common laborer in the LP Warrens, ladling the knowledge of remembering contraband books into his son.
His father had started him on this road. The old man had died when Movius was twenty, the year he’d made the Calculation Corps. He couldn’t remember his mother. She had died in the educator purges. “The people must have a scapegoat, Dan. Give them their own knowledge to fight. Laugh while they destroy their salvation!” That was his father again; his father in the bitter mood, showing the growing son how to adopt protective coloration: “Act dumb when you’re with the dumb; act smart when you’re with the smart. But never act more intelligent than the man above you.”
The old man had taught too well.
Movius twisted on the bed. Damned low-opp mattress!
Where had it all begun? Ah, the history books again, the forbidden, hate-provoking history books. Low-opped all! It had started in the Twentieth Century with polls to predict the outcome of the crude elections of that era. Sampling methods were improved for almost a century during which emphasis on the sample poll became greater and greater.
Then along came Julius Stackman, born in the Twenty-First Century, following the wars which ended in world government. Stackman and his queer mind which linked a series of electronic relays into the Brownian Movement Regulator. Absolute random.
Give the machine a job: Supply a nine-digit code number for every responsible adult of age sixteen or over. Next, select three numbers. Every person in the world with those three numbers repeated in his code and in that series step up to a registration kiosk. Give code number, name and thumbprint. Click, click, click, click. Answer the question, please. If you don’t register and answer and you haven’t an adequate excuse, off you go the Arctic Labor Pool or the Sewer Maintenance Gangs. Who wants to be in the ALP or the SMG? Better to get up from your sickbed, answer the question. Register your opp.
Unless you happen to know somebody in the Very-High-Opp.
“Bill was with me. Official business.”
You might also know somebody in the Seps, too, who could get you a rubber stamp of your thumbprint. Then a friend could register your opp. But this method wasn’t well known.
Give the machine a job!
“What would be an absolute formalization of randomness?”
Out of this came the Mathematics of Impellation, reducing the so-called “laws of chance” to a set of usable factors and reducing the correlative error in a sample-poll to something negligible.
All of this from the square root of minus one.
And more, too. For a time there was a boom in small hand computers for games such as chess. The computers showed the optimum move under any set of conditions. With both players using them, it became evident that the person making the first move always won. A few purists barred the computers, but they were always running into flashy winners with hidden computers. Interest died. Almost fifty years passed before the invention of a new type of game based on Rorschach cards. The ink blots elicited strictly personal reactions under which the rules of the game changed. Formalization was loose. Some people still played these games. Nathan O’Brien of Bu-Psych was an expert.
They gave the machine the job and the machine became the government.
There developed around the poll-taking function a hierarchy of bureaus—The Bureau of the Census (Bu-Sen), The Bureau of Opinions (Bu-Opp), The Bureau of Questionnaires (Bu-Q), The Bureau of Control (Bu-Con), The Bureau of Information (now Bu-Blah even in its own halls), The Bureau of Psychology (Bu-Psych), The Bureau of Transportation (Bu-Trans), The Bureau of Communication (Bu-Comm) and on top of the pyramid, The Bureau of Coordination (The Bureau).
All were handmaidens to the Stackman Selector.
Not to mention Com-Burs, the committee made up of the chiefs of the twenty-five top bureaus. Com-Burs framed the questions. Bu-Q passed on the questions. BIG RUBBER STAMP. Bu-Opp filed away the answers which were then laws.
May the Majority rule.
Always spell Majority with a capital M.
Strange how the top jobs became family property. Helmut Glass was the fourth of his family to be The Coor. Occasionally he stepped down for another bureau chief, allowed the man to serve a year. Even The Coor has to have a vacation.
At the Bureau of Communication, in a small room just under the transmission tower, a man would punch out the code numbers and question.
“Code 449:
“Is compulsory teaching of any subject an invasion of privacy?”
A straightforward question. Speaks right out like a man. But look at those pushbuttons: “compulsory” and “invasion of privacy.”
“No man’s going to tell me to do something I don’t want to do!”
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick into the Computer Section of Bu-Opp. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no (kick out his number for investigation; lotta Seps around Paris), yes, yes, yes, undecided, yes, yes . . .
File it away in the master retainers. It’s a law now. Opinion RE40407770877TX: No education subject may be compulsory.
Compulsory teaching of Semantics? Low-opp!
“Well then we’ll just offer the classes for whoever wants them.”
Semantics teaches that words can dispose a man to think in a certain manner, that they can compel his thinking. Low-opped.
“We’ll set up a counseling service: How to Keep People From Influencing You.”
This is Semantics under another name. Negative compulsion. Low-opped.
Sixty-one thousand new recruits for the penalty services. A few escaped by public denunciation of their teachings. Quilliam London was one of these. When the carefully prepared riots came, his wife and older daughter did not escape.
Side effects crept into the system—forced conformity. If the Majority rules, there must be standardization. Standard clothing, standard buttons, standard decorations, standard cosmetics, standard housing, standard entertainment, standard foods.
Portland, Maine, to Peshwar. STANDARD.
And there were some slip-ups. The year the Bureau of Research tried to get a grant for the development of space flight they ran into a Coor who was a religious fanatic. A great uncle of Helmut Glass.
“If the Lord wanted us gallivanting all over the universe, he’d have given us wings. We’ll put it to the question.”
And there was a big row, but the question had spoken of bringing back strange diseases, of calling down the wrath of God.
There it was in the Bu-Opp files. Opinion CG819038331BX: It is forbidden that man may plan, devise or manufacture any machine intended for transporting humans to any other heavenly body.
“See the mail rocket, Junior. With about thirty days of work it could take ten men to the moon and back.”
“Why don’t they do it then?”
“Low-opped.”
“Oh.”
Standard gravitational attraction of the planet Earth.
Only the people were not standard. In their standard beds they continued to produce humans of odd shapes and sizes and colors. The last stronghold of non-conformity: the standard bed.
Perhaps there was another holdout, too. The language.
High-Opp and Low-Opp were part of the lexicon and all of the derivations thereof. The terms were not always complimentary. A High-Opp could be a person who held a position he didn’t deserve. To High-Opp a person could mean to take advantage of him. A Low-Opp was a person of little worth. To Low-Opp a man could mean to do a man an evil turn or to reduce him in rank. And always in this definition was the implication that the low-opp was by foul means.
Then there were the statuettes. They seemed to appear out of nowhere. Obscene statuettes labeled High-Opp and Low-Opp. Bu-Con was always making raids, uncovering stores of them, sending someone off to the ALP. Still the evil little plastic objects kept appearing.
“Where do they get the materials? Why do they do these things? The State takes care of their needs. (The barren demands of survival.) They have everything they could possibly want. (Their dreams, their Festivals, their two percentum beer, their standard beds. Not to forget the plastic with which to make obscene statuettes.) It’s just perversity!”
Let them eat cake!
But she got her head chopped off.
“What do they want now?”
Let them read the ancient books.
“Don’t be a fool!”
The scramble in the middle ranks was for privileges, for extra personal possessions, symbols of power. An extra rung on the ladder and what went with it.
Meet Daniel Movius, scrambler. Listen to him.
Low-opped.
Low-opped.
Low-Opped!
Movius pounded his pillow. It was the sense of drabness, eternal drabness. Already he wished for something different. Anything at all, as long as it was different. This was the attraction of the secret Thrill Parlours, the scattered, clandestine schools of the outlawed Separatist Party and their philosophy of Individualism.
Each Man A Separate Individual.
EMASI!
“Individualism in a standardized world? Impossible!”
But the initials blossomed on sidewalks, on walls. EMASI! Scrawled inside a stylized side view of a skunk with its tail raised. Stamped in the middle of a sheet of paper which a Com-Burs secretary picked from the fresh stack in the box. Carved on the underside of a toilet seat. And once, just once, painted with an evil-smelling, sticky, tarry substance on The Coor’s bedroom walls.
They were still investigating that one.
There were times when the world seemed full of Seps.
Movius wondered if Navvy was a Sep. He turned on his back, stared up at the ceiling. So close. The walls. So close. A cell after his Upper Rank apartment. A brown-walled cell. A Warren.
Was Navvy a Sep? It would make sense. It wasn’t difficult to imagine Navvy scrawling EMASI! Somewhere, on a wall. On the seat of the Liaitor’s new suit.
Movius sat bolt upright. Great Roper! Could that have been Navvy? Slowly, thoughtfully, he eased himself back to the pillow.
The afternoon wore on, a grey progression of bitter thoughts and unanswered questions. Who did this to me? Glass?
He became aware of a new sensation, one he had to think far back in memory to recall. Hunger. He glanced at his wristwatch. Six. Serving time. The bed creaked as he stood up. He felt stiff, as though he’d spent a full hour on the wrestling mat with Okashi.
The Warren dining room was a place of droning conversation, clattering crockery, steaming odors of pallid foods. His tray was shoved back to him with the Standard Thursday Evening Meal. Movius carried the food to an isolated table in the corner. Fried mush, mashed potatoes with synthetic gravy containing vegetable minerals and vitamins. Something that passed for coffee and in a cracked cup. A bowl of pale green jelly substance for dessert.
Movius was aware of the eyes following him, of the unasked questions. The little silences. He picked up his fork. The first bite brought back another memory of his father, the bitter father. “Swill! Make a man’s world flat and insipid enough and he won’t care if you send him to an early grave!”
In spite of his hunger, Movius had to force himself to eat. He told himself it was the lack of spices to which he had become accustomed in the privileged dining rooms, that the food was the same. He knew it wasn’t true. In spite of all the Bu-Blah shouting to the contrary, he knew it wasn’t the same food. The Upper Ranks might be eating mashed potatoes and gravy tonight, but there’d be butter in the potatoes, real meat in the gravy. The fried mush might contain chicken and fresh vegetables. The coffee would be real coffee and the dessert would have fresh fruit in it.
Privileges.
How many generations had counted good food a privilege?
He was finishing the mashed potatoes when a man bent over his table. The man exuded a steaming odor of perspiration.
“New here, ain’t you?” He touched Movius’ lapel. “What’s a Third Ranker doing eating in a Warren Dining Room? Get caught out late?”
They were never as bold as this in the streets. Only among their own, with that solid feeling of approval, of common hate behind them.
“I live here,” said Movius.
“Oh?” The man’s eyes were two tiny ink dots, bird eyes, unwinking. “What’s a Third Ranker doing living in a Warren?”
“I’m back where I started,” said Movius.
The man reached out, grasped Movius’ lapel, jerked it. “Then get rid of that damn’ T, mister. An’ put some dye on that fancy color. You ain’t no bettern’ the rest of us!”
“Leave him alone, Mike.”
Movius looked up to his left. The speaker was a giant of a woman in a cook’s uniform and carrying a long cleaver. “He just come in today,” she said. “Low-opped this morning.”
“Keep your nose out of this, Marie Cotton,” said the man. “We know he was just low-opped.”
She leaned toward him. “You want a little something extra in your mashed potatoes? Some glass, maybe?” She held the cleaver under his chin. “Some of your own gore?”
The man drew back.
The cook stared at him, pressing him back with her eyes until he returned to his seat, face red. She turned to Movius. “Our seamstress is just down the hall from you. She’ll do that job on your lapels for some extras from your rations or some loose credits.” The woman turned, marched toward the kitchen, suddenly stopped and announced to the room, “We got a peaceful Warren here. We ain’t never had no trouble and we ain’t gonna have none.”
Memory came back to Movius out of his childhood. The cooks ran the Warrens. District Housing appointed managers, of course, but tenants laughed at a manager’s orders. A manager was just one step above an LP. Look at ’im puttin’ on airs! A cook, though—she could make your food bitter, put something in it to make you sick, give you short portions. You didn’t cross a cook.
Just one element of the situation bothered Movius. Why had the cook defended him? A fresh low-opp should have been fair game. He took his tray to the wash dump, returned to his room. The question about the book was put out of his mind. It was almost time to follow the instructions given by Navvy’s sitter. If he was going to follow them. What was her name? Gladys? No. Grace. That was it, Grace. He remembered Navvy talking about her and about their father. The old man had a peculiar first name. Quilliam, Quilliam London. He’d been a professor of some kind once until his classes were low-opped.
Her instructions said he was to go to the Carhouse, see this Clancy. Well, why not? At least it was something different. And Navvy was right this morning. (Damn his secretive manner.)
The dusk flowed with after-dinner noises of children, giggling couples, cat-calls. A man standing across the street watched Movius’ retreating back, threw down a cigaret, turned and followed. Soon he picked up a companion. They strolled along, not talking like the other strollers.
Movius turned a corner, saw a long car facing him, dim in the gathering darkness. The car headlights turned on, blinding him and in that instant something sharp bit into his arm. A needle! Unconsciousness swept over his mind. He didn’t even feel the hands support him, ease him into the car. Just time for one brief thought: I should have been more caref . . .
It was a cell, barren of everything except a hard pallet. Movius opened his eyes, felt the pallet beneath him, absorbed a first awareness of his surroundings. The memory came back slowly—the street, the headlights, the stinging in his arm. He jerked upright, stared around him. The cell was about eight feet long, six wide, eight high. No doors or windows. That was odd. And the walls, a disturbing shade of red. He swung his feet to the floor, rubbed his arm where the needle had punctured it. Who?
The answer came almost immediately. An end wall swung back, admitting a pinch-faced man carrying a canvas chair. Movius recognized him immediately: Nathan O’Brien, chief of Bu-Psych. What does Bu-Psych want with me? And O’Brien? Movius remembered him as a man who always held something in reserve, never fully committing himself.
O’Brien opened his canvas chair, sat down opposite Movius, calculated, deliberate movements. The dark eyes snapped up at Movius. “Hello, Dan.”
What does he expect me to say? Hello, Nate? Movius stared back silently, waiting.
“Sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you in any way.”
“I’ll bet you are,” said Movius. He decided he had enough hate left over for O’Brien, another part of the system that had degraded him.
“We had to do it that way,” said O’Brien. “Two of the Coor’s men were following you. No time to explain. They were waiting for a quiet stretch in which to pick you up.”
Movius jerked his head around, looked into O’Brien’s eyes. “Pick me up? Why would the Coor want me? I thought he was just going to send me off to the ALP.”
O’Brien rubbed at a greying temple. “I see you already know. And why is he doing it? Let’s say that he likes to demonstrate that he can do away with a person and he doesn’t want you running out on his plans. You happen to be a . . . well, an inconvenience. It’s a much greater demonstration of power when you use violent methods on a mere inconvenience.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That’s your privilege, Dan.”
Movius felt the anger rising in him. He raised his voice. “How could he do it? Can he predict the opp? And if so, how?” He almost shouted the last words.
O’Brien spoke in a quiet, even voice. “The Coor could predict the opp several ways. He and the rest of Com-Burs—myself included—can frame the question to make the answer practically a foregone conclusion. When The Coor wants to be absolutely certain, he sends the question out with a code number held only by a selection of people who know how to answer things his way.”
“He can’t bypass the Selector,” said Movius, his voice more subdued.
“Do you really believe that?” asked O’Brien.
Movius shrugged. What could he believe? As sure as Roper, Glass had made a point of telling him the answer to the question was known before it should have been known.
O’Brien said, “You ought to see my list of district governors, city mayors, managers, their assistants and the families of all of them, who have special numbers manually filed in the Selector. Who ever questions the operator of the Selector when he comes back and says, ‘This is the code number?’”
“I suppose the question on my department was sent through on one of those numbers.”
O’Brien nodded. “Number 089. In view of the question, it was hardly necessary, but The Coor evidently wanted to be certain.”
Movius caught himself taking short, jerky breaths, fought to control his nerves. “How do they keep a secret like that? So many people!”
“There are two answers,” said O’Brien. “They don’t keep it a secret. I’ll wager you’ve heard it and . . .”
“Yes, but just a rumor.”
“What else is a good secret? It’s no secret. I know it. Lots of other people know it. You know it. The other answer is that they do keep it a secret. They . . .”
Movius held up his hand. “You just said . . .”
“I know. But it is kept a secret from the main body of the LP. The Seps try to spread the word, but who believes the Seps? Those harebrains! Besides, believing Seps can be dangerous. How are you going to believe something when you don’t listen to it in the first place?”
Movius rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. How indeed? He said, “I believe it.”
“But look what it took to make you believe it,” said O’Brien. He sounded exasperated, like a teacher with a dense student. “It’s the flaw in their armor, of course. Get a man angry enough, bitter enough, he’ll believe almost anything.”
Movius said, “But if you keep him from getting angry—keep him apathetic and his stomach filled, he won’t even listen. He’ll be too tired.”
In a pedantic voice, O’Brien said, “Hunger elicits the first anger response of the baby. So, as you say, keep him from being hungry.”
“Or convince him he knows everything already,” said Movius.
“That, too.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” said Movius.
“Oh, yes, our little visit.” O’Brien’s attitude became more brisk. “Movius, The Coor wanted your fiancée and he needed to demonstrate to . . . uh, others that he has the power of life and death. That is why you were low-opped.”
“That’s still no answer to my question.”
“One moment,” said O’Brien. “Today, you saw Glass with your fiancée.”
Movius pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. How did O’Brien know who I saw today? “You haven’t answered my question,” Movius repeated.
“Please be patient. As you know, an order will go out tomorrow morning for you to report to the ALP. This is mostly to demonstrate that such . . . uh, accidents can be arranged. And also gets you out of the sight of the lovely Miss Lang. Not that I imagine such drastic measures were needed to gain the same end. There are other reasons.”
Now we’re getting to it, thought Movius. He said, “Such as?”
“You were a Third Ranker. Were you aware that you were the only man in government above the Fifth Rank who started from the LP? You climbed up there in twelve years. Under this form of government, with so many more places needed for the large families of the . . . uh, High-Opps, that is a dangerous rate of climb. Dangerous to the men it might displace. I believe some of them voiced their fears.”
“The same opportunity open to all!” said Movius. Just some more of the old official pap. Eat your vitalac, little dear, if you want to grow up and be Coordinator. Dangerous rate of climb. Watch out you don’t eat too much vitalac, dear. You might become dangerous. “So they send me off to die in the ALP,” he said.
“Mortality rate of seventeen point four,” said O’Brien in his precise manner. “With a little pushing in the right place, a promise of reprieve to someone else in the penalty service, the mortality rate becomes one-hundred percentum for one Daniel Movius.”
He still hasn’t answered my question, thought Movius. Mr. Bu-Psych wants something from me. He said, “What do I do now?”
“That depends on several things,” said O’Brien. “In about six weeks a second work order will come through. This will be the legal one and it will put you in Bu-Trans.”
“Why bother with a work order for a dead man?”
“To cover up the false order. That . . . uh, accidental order would be turned up, somebody in Bu-Labor, somebody inconvenient, would be low-opped.”
Movius thought, If I could hide until that one comes through, wouldn’t that be embarrassing to them? Wouldn’t it, though? He said, “Is there a way to hide me?”
“Perhaps.”
What does he mean perhaps?
“The second work order is for Bu-Trans,” said O’Brien as though he had not already made that point. “Warren Gerard put some special requirements into the sorter today. He’s prepared to wait because he half suspects the order can’t be filled. He doesn’t know that your card already has come out of the sorter, fitting his demands more precisely than he could have expected.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” said Movius. He stood up, looked down on O’Brien.
“Sit down,” said O’Brien. “You have to hear me out.”
“Oh, I have to hear you out.” Movius felt himself breathing too rapidly. He thought, I’ve been swallowing everything this little pipsqueak says. How do I know what his game is?
“Would you prefer the ALP?” asked O’Brien.
“You haven’t told me what your game is,” said Movius.
“I will, though. Sit down and hear what I have to say. Believe me, it’s important.”
Movius returned to the pallet. “All right, but shorten it.”
“As briefly as possible.” O’Brien scratched at the corner of an eye. “Gerard is in a very shaky position at the top of Bu-Trans. His Achilles heel is his Department CR-14, Confidential Routing as it is listed in the table of organization. This department is the government’s top secret spying group.”
“In Bu-Trans?” Movius’ whole face showed his disbelief.
“Who ever looks at a Bu-Trans truck?” asked O’Brien. “It goes about its business and no one notices. For that matter, who ever gives a second glance to the workmen with such a vehicle?”
“What’s worrying Gerard?”
“The Coor’s nephew, Rafe Newton, is director of CR-14. The Coor and Loren Addington . . .”
“Mr. Police?”
“The same. Only we call him Mr. Bu-Con. These two are set to replace Gerard with Newton.”
“What does this mean to me?”
O’Brien acted like a man about to unfold a masterpiece. He spread out his hands. “Gerard’s requirements are for a man to clean out the vipers in CR-14.”
“And I fit this billing?”
“That’s right.”
“Why are they after Gerard?”
“Next to The Coor, Gerard is the most powerful man in government. At least potentially. He has the biggest organization, larger even than Bu-Con, but not larger than Bu-Con and several of the others upon whom The Coor is depending. It is what was once known as a ‘balance of power’. It is a very delicate . . .”
“All right, let’s get to the point.” Again Movius lifted himself to this feet. “What is it that you want, O’Brien?”
O’Brien looked up at Movius, put a finger to a greying temple, scratched. “You are the direct type, aren’t you, Dan? That’s good. I want you to spy on the spies . . . for me.”
Movius found himself chuckling without humor. “Up here at the top you’re just one big happy family.”
“You could say that.” O’Brien got to his feet. “Do you need time to come to a decision?”
“What choice do I have? If I don’t throw in with you, I go to the ALP.” Movius shrugged. “Where do I hide?”
“Good Gallup!” said O’Brien. “I’m not going to hide you.”
“But you . . .”
“There was a woman waiting for you at the Warren today. She . . .”
“Is she another of your spies?”
“Her? Oh, my, no. She’s a Separatist. For precisely the same reasons which make you valuable to Gerard and myself and dangerous to the government, the Separatists are seeking to enlist your services. They are in a better position to hide you since I will be suspect.”
“This woman will hide me?”
“She and her friends.”
“Does she have many friends?”
“Grace London? She’s a nurse at the district infirmary in the Warren where she lives. Whole building’s subversive. Good Seps all.”
“I suppose I repay them by spying on them.”
“You needn’t bother.” O’Brien moved toward the wall which had opened to admit him.
“You already had spies in their organization?”
“Let us say that the Seps don’t worry me half as much as The Coor.” O’Brien spoke without turning. “I presume Miss London gave you instructions on how to meet her?”
“Yes.”
The wall swung back ahead of O’Brien. “Then I’ll have you dropped off where you may follow those instructions.”
You fatuous, self-satisfied low-opp, thought Movius. Got me right where you want me, haven’t you? You and your big head full of intricate thoughts! We’ll see, damn you!