The Penultimate Truth

  "Yes, Mr. Brose," Robert Hig said, and nodded obediently.

  Brose said, "I certainly would like to see Louis Runcible's face when you show him those finds." His rubbery old eyes were wet with anticipation.

  "You will," Lindblom reminded him. "Since Hig will have one of those shirt-button cameras going, complete with aud track. So when the litigation begins we can supply proof that Runcible was not ignorant of either the discoveries or their scientific value." His voice was faintly edged with contempt—contempt for an aging brain which could not retain all the facts, which had already forgotten this vital part of the pcoject. To Joseph Adams, Lindblom said, "You know those little action cameras. Gottlieb Fischer always used them in his documentaries; that's how all the 'blurred fuzzy secret espionage shots' were obtained."

  "Oh yes," Adams said somberly. "I know." How little chance there was that he would forget the existence of the famous shirt-button camera. Circa 1943, he thought acidly, according to Fischer. "Are you sure," he said, "you haven't made these finds too valuable? Of such fantastically great scientific worth that even Runcible—"

  "According to the Berlin psychiatrists," Brose said, "the more the scientific worth the more fear he'll have of losing his land. So the more he'll be inclined to hide the find."

  "You'd have gone to a lot of work for nothing," Adams said, "if your Berlin psychiatrists have guessed wrong." And he felt within him the hope that they had. The hope that Runcible would do the reputable thing, would at once proclaim the finds to the world—instead of delivering himself over to his enemies via his weaknesses, his fears and lusts, his greed.

  But he had a feeling that the Berlin psychiatrists were right.

  Unless someone—and god knew who that might be—came to Louis Runcible's aid, the man was doomed.

  CHAPTER 14

  In the sun that filtered through the vine-entangled latticework of the patio of his Capetown villa, Louis Runcible lay prone, listening to the report by the Footeman, the abstract-carrier representative from the international private police corporation originating in London, Webster Foote, Limited.

  "On Monday morning," the Footeman said, reading from his compiled documents, "our monitoring devices picked up a vidcall between two Yance-men, Joseph Adams who is in Ideas and Verne Lindblom who is in Construct, that is, a builder for Eisenbludt, generally speaking, although of late Brose has had him at the Agency in New York."

  "And this conversation," Louis Runcible said. "It mentioned me?"

  "No," the Footeman admitted.

  "Then for chrissake—"

  "We feel—that is, Mr. Foote himself personally feels that you should be given this data. Allow me to summarize it."

  Dully, Runcible said, "Okay. Summarize." Hell, he thought; I know they're out to get me. I better be receiving something from you for my money besides just knowing that. Because I don't need Webster Foote to tell me that.

  The Footeman said, "Adams and Lindblom discussed the next visual project which Eisenbludt will film at his Moscow studios; it will be the destruct of San Francisco. Adams mentioned a new speech which he had written to be 'vacked and then programmed to the sim. 'Hand done,' he described it."

  "And for this I'm paying you—"

  "A moment please, Mr. Runcible," the Footeman said frostily in his English manner. "I will now quote the direct words of the Yance man Lindblom, as our monitors picked them up. 'I heard a rumor.' He was speaking, you understand, to his friend. 'You're going to be pulled off speeches and put onto a special project. Don't ask me what; my source didn't know. A Footeman told me.' " The Footeman was silent, then.

  "What next?"

  "Then," the Footeman said, "archeology was mentioned."

  "Hmm."

  "They joked about the destruct of ancient Carthage and the war fleet of Athens. It was amusing, but of no relevance. Allow me, however, to make this point. What the Yance-man Lindblom said was untrue. No one from our corporation informed him of any 'special project.' He undoubtedly told Adams that so that Adams would not press him for details. Obviously his source came from within the New York Agency. However—"

  "However," Runcible said, "we know there's a special project being inaugurated and that an idea man and one of Eisenbludt's fake city builders are involved, and that it's top secret. Even within the Agency."

  "Correct. This is indicated by Lindblom's unwillingness to—"

  "What's Webster Foote's theory about it?" Runcible asked. "What's he think might be going on?"

  "Since this vidphone conversation on Monday the builder Verne Lindblom has been perpetually at work; he has slept either at the Agency or at Eisenbludt's studios in Moscow—he has not had time to return to his demesne and take his leisure. Second. No speech by Adams has been 'vacked this week. In other words, before he could 'vac the speech which he—"

  "And that," Runcible said, "is all you guys have found out? That's it?"

  "We know only one more item which might pertain. Brose left Geneva several times and flew by high-velocity flapple to the Agency. And at least once—and possibly twice—conferred with Adams, Lindblom, and possibly one or two others; we're not sure, frankly. As I say, Mr. Foote believes that this 'special project' is connected with you in some manner, and, as you know, Mr. Foote relies on his mild but quite helpful parapsychological hunches, his precog ability to foresee coming events.

  "He does not, however, in this instance, foresee anything clearly. But he wants to emphasize this point; please notify him of anything unusual that occurs in your business operations. No matter how trivial. And contact Mr. Foote immediately, before you do anything else; Mr. Foote is quite frankly, on an extrasensory level, concerned as to your welfare."

  Runcible said tartly, "I wish Webster's concern had brought more actual data to light."

  With a deprecatory, philosophic gesture the Footeman said, "No doubt so does Mr. Foote himself." He shuffled and reshuffled his documents, in an effort to conjure up something more. "Oh. One item. Not related that we know of, but interesting. A Yance-man, female, named Arlene Davidson, who has a demesne in New Jersey; the Agency's top draftsman. Died of a massive coronary during the past weekend. Late Saturday night."

  "Any effort made to obtain an artiforg heart for her?"

  "None."

  "The skunk," Runcible said, meaning Brose. Hating him—if it were possible to hate Brose any more than he did already.

  "She was known," the Footeman said, "to have a weak heart. Enlarged, from childhood, due to rheumatic fever."

  "In other words—"

  "She may have been given a deadline for something major; overworked. But that's conjecture. It is not usual, however, for Brose to go so often out of Geneva to New York; he is, after all, in his eighties. This 'special project'—"

  "Yeah," Runcible agreed. "It must really be something." Again he pondered, and then he said, "Brose has, of course, penetrated deep into my enterprise."

  "Correct."

  "But I don't know and you don't know—"

  "We have never been able to tag the Brose agent or agents in your operations. I'm sorry." He looked, too, genuinely unhappy; it would have been a major coup of Webster Foote, Limited, to have unearthed the Brose-creatures on Runcible's payroll.

  "What I'm wondering about," Runcible murmured, "is Utah."

  "Pardon?"

  "I'm all ready to give the signal to my auto-rigs and leady teams near what used to be St. George to go ahead." This was pretty widely known.

  "Mr. Foote is aware of that, but he has no recommendation; at least none he passed on to me."

  Raising himself up, then turning over and getting to his feet, Louis Runcible said, "I guess there's no use in waiting. I'll vid them to go ahead and start digging. And hope."

  "Yes sir." The Footeman nodded.

  "Fifty thousand people," Runcible said.

  "Yes, it'll be large."

  "Who will be living where they ought to be, under the sun. Not down in a septic tank. Like a salamander at the bott
om of a dried-up well."

  Still shuffling his documents, trying to come up with something of use, trying and unhappily failing, the abstract-carrier Footeman said, "I wish you good luck. Maybe next time . . ." And he wondered if, for Runcible, there would be a further report. This inadequate— admittedly so—one today might well be the last, if his employer Webster Foote's extrasensory intimation were at all correct.

  And generally they proved to be.

  CHAPTER 15

  From the mangled, badly distributed chunks that once had been high buildings, streets, the intricate, strong structures of a major city, four men rose to intercept Nicholas St. James. "How come," the first of them said, and all were bearded, ragged, but evidently healthy, "no leadies detected you?"

  Utterly weary, Nicholas stood for a time and then he seated himself on a broken stone, fished futilely in his coat pocket for a cigarette— the pack had been ripped away by the leady—and then said, "Two did. When I broke through. They must have picked up the vibrations of the scoop."

  "They're very sensitive to that," the leader of the group agreed. "To any machinery. And any radio signals, if you for instance—"

  "I was. An intercom to below. They recorded the whole thing."

  "Why'd they let you go?"

  "They were destroyed," Nicholas said.

  "Your fellow tankers came up after you and got them. That's what we did: there were five of us originally, and they got the first one up. They weren't killing him; they were going to drag him off to one of those—you wouldn't know. Runcible's conapts. Those prisons." He eyed Nicholas. "But we got them from behind. Only, they killed that first man, or actually what happened was he got killed when we fired on the leadies. I guess it was our fault." The man paused. "My name's Jack Blair."

  One of the other bearded men said, "What tank are you from?"

  "The Tom Mix," Nicholas said.

  "And that's near here?"

  "Four hours' walk." He was silent. They, too, seemed not to know what to say; it was awkward, and all of them stared at the ground and then at last Nicholas said, "The two leadies who had me were destroyed by Talbot Yancy."

  The bearded men stared at him fixedly. Unwinkingly.

  "It's god's truth," Nicholas said. "I know it's hard to believe, but I saw him. He hadn't intended to come out; he didn't want to, but I got him to. I got a good close look at him. There was no doubt." Around him the four bearded men continued to stare. "How could I not recognize him?" Nicholas said, then. "I've seen him on TV for fifteen years, three or four and even five nights a week."

  After a time Jack Blair said, "But—the thing is, there is no Talbot Yancy."

  One of the other men spoke up, explaining. "See, what it is, is that it's a fake; you know?"

  "What is?" Nicholas said, and yet he did know; he sensed the enormity of it in a flash: a fake so vast that it could not even be described. It truly beggared description; it was hopeless for these men to try and he was going to have to see, to experience it, for himself.

  Jack Blair said, "What you're looking at on your TV screen every night, down there in—what'd you say? The Tom Mix?—down in your tank, what you call 'Yancy,' the Protector, that's a robot."

  "Not even a robot," one of the other bearded men corrected. "Not even independent, or what they call intrinsic or homeo; it's just a dummy that sits there at that desk."

  "But it talks," Nicholas said, reasonably. "It says heroic things. I mean, I'm not arguing with you. I just don't understand."

  "It talks," Jack Blair said, "because a big computer called Megavac 6-V or something like that programs it."

  "Who programs the computer?" Nicholas asked presently. The whole conversation had a slow, dreamlike, heavy quality to it, as if they were trying to talk under water; as if a great weight filled them all. "Someone," he said, "would have to feed those speeches to it; the computer didn't—"

  "They have a lot of trained guys," Jack Blair said. "Yance-men, they're called. The Yance-men who are idea men, they write the speeches and feed them to Megavac 6-V and it does something to the words, adds the right intonations and gestures for the dummy to do. So it looks authentic. And it all goes on tape, and it's reviewed in Geneva by the top Yance-man who runs it all, a jerk named Brose. And when he approves the tape then it's put over the coaxial cable and transmitted to all the ant tanks in Wes-Dem."

  One of the other men added, "There's one in Russia, too."

  Nicholas said, "But the war."

  "It's been over for years," Jack Blair said.

  Nodding, Nicholas said, "I see."

  "They share film studios in Moscow," Blair said. "Just like they share the New York Agency. Some talented Commie producer named Eisenbludt; he stages all the scenes of destruct you see on your TV screen. Usually it's in mm—done in scale. Sometimes, though, it's life-size. Like when they show leadies fighting. He does a good job. I mean, its convincing; I remember and sometimes, when the TV set we have up here is working, we manage to catch it. We were fooled, too, when we were below. He, that Eisenbludt, and all the Yancemen; they've fooled everybody almost, except sometimes tankers do come up anyhow. Like you did."

  Nicholas said, "But I didn't come up because I guessed." Carol began to, he said to himself; Carol was right. She's smarter than I am; she knew. "Is all the world like this?" He gestured at the ruins of Cheyenne around them. "Radioactive? Just rubble?"

  "Oh hell no," Blair said agitatedly. "This is a hot-spot; there now aren't very many left. The rest is a park. They've made the world into a great park and it's split up into their demesnes, their estates; they, the Yance-men—they each have entourages of leadies. Like Medieval kings. It's sort of interesting." His voice died away. "But I mean, it's not fair. At least I don't think so."

  The other bearded men nodded vigorously; they agreed. It was not fair. No doubt of that.

  Nicholas said, "How do you people live?" He pointed at the four of them. "Where do you get food?" And then he thought of something else. "Are there more of you?"

  "In our bunch there's two hundred ex-tankers," Blair said. "Living here in the ruins of Cheyenne. We're all supposed to be in prisons, in huge condominium apartment buildings that this guy I mentioned named Runcible builds; they're not bad, not like the tanks—I mean, you don't feel like a rat trapped in a tin box. But we want—" He gestured. "I can't explain it."

  "We want to be able to come and go," one of the other bearded men explained. "But actually we can't, living this way. We can't risk leaving the Cheyenne area, because then leadies would catch us."

  "Why don't they come here?" Nicholas said.

  "They do," Blair said, "but they sort of don't—try very hard; you know what I mean? They just go through the motions. Because see, this is part of a new demesne that's being formed; the villa, the building, isn't finished yet or anything, and it's still hot. But a Yance-man has moved in here, taking a chance. Trying to live, and if he does, if the r.a. fails to kill him, then this is his; it becomes his demesne and he's the dominus."

  Nicholas said, "David Lantano."

  "Right." Blair stared at him oddly. "How'd you know?"

  "It was two of his leadies," Nicholas said, "that hooked me."

  "And they were going to kill you?"

  He nodded.

  The four bearded men exchanged apprehensive, disconcerted glances. "Was Lantano at his villa? Did he okay it?"

  "No," Nicholas said. "They tried to contact him but they weren't able to. So they decided on their own."

  "The dumb saps," Blair said, and cursed. "Lantano wouldn't have let them; I'm positive. He'd have been sore. But they were built to kill; I mean, a lot of leadies are veterans of the war: they have the reflex to destroy life. Unless their dominus tells them otherwise. But you're lucky to get away; that's dreadful—I mean, that gets me. It does."

  "But," one of the other men said, "what he said about Yancy; how can that be?"

  "I saw him," Nicholas repeated. "I know it was him."

  Jack Blair s
aid, quoting an obscure text, " 'I saw God. Do you doubt it? Do you dare to doubt it?' What kind of weapon did he, this guy who saved you, use? A laser pistol?"

  "No. The leadies were pulverized. Into dust." He tried to make it clear, how violent and sudden an abolition of the two leadies it had been. "Just mounds," he said. "Of old dry flakes, like rust. Does that make any sense?"

  "That's a Yance-man advanced type weapon, all right," Blair said, nodding slowly. "So it was a Yance-man who saved you; no extankers have that weapon; I don't even know what it's called but it's left over from the war I suppose—they've got a lot, and every now and then a couple of Yance-men who're neighbors get into a beef over the property line, you know, where one's land ends and the next guy's starts. And they make a dive for the open section of the weapons archives at the Agency in New York—that's where all that reading matter is put together—and they come flying back to their demesnes as fast as hell aboard those little flapples. And they lead their retinues of leadies into battle; it's really funny—they plug away at each other, potshot like mad, destroy a dozen or so leadies or maim them, and even a Yance-man now and then gets it. And then they send the maimed leady down below to the nearest tank to fix it up in its shops. And they're always sequestering the brand-new leadies made down below, to add to their retinues."

  Another of the bearded men chimed in, "Some Yance-men at their demesnes have like two thousand leadies. A whole army."

  "Brose for instance," Blair said, "he's supposed to have ten or eleven thousand, but technically all the leadies in Wes-Dem are under the military command of General Holt; he can pre-empt, you know: supersede the orders of any Yance-man, any dominus of a demesne, and call for its leadies. Except of course Brose." His voice sank. "No one can supersede Brose. Brose is above them all, like for instance he's the only one who has access to the weapons archives where the advanced types, the ones that never saw action, the really terrible prototypes are, that if they had used there'd be no planet. The war just barely stopped in time. Another month and—nothing." He gestured.