"What's going on?" LeMarr demanded nervously.
"Looking for webfoots," the man growled, a thick odor of garlic and perspiration steaming from his heavy canvas shirt. He darted quick, suspicious glances into the car. "Seen any around?"
"No," V-Stephens said.
The man ripped open the luggage compartment and peered in. "We caught one a couple minutes ago." He jerked his thick thumb. "See him up there?"
The Venusian had been strung up to a street lamp. His green body dangled and swayed with the early-evening wind. His face was a mottled, ugly mass of pain. A crowd of people stood around the pole, grim, mean-looking. Waiting
"There'll be more," the man said, as he slammed the luggage compartment. "Plenty more."
"What happened?" LeMarr managed to ask. He was nauseated and horrified; his voice came out almost inaudible. "Why all this?"
"A webfoot killed a man. An Earthman." The man pulled back and slapped the car. "Okay -- you can go."
V-Stephens moved the car forward. Some of the loitering people had whole uniforms, combinations of the Home Guard gray and Terran blue. Boots, heavy belt-buckles, caps, pistols, and armbands. The armbands read D.C. in bold black letters against a red background.
"What's that?" LeMarr asked faintly.
"Defense Committee," V-Stephens answered. "Gannet's front outfit. To defend Earth against the webfoots and crows."
"But --" LeMarr gestured helplessly. "Is Earth being attacked?"
"Not that I know of."
"Turn the car around. Head back to the hospital."
V-Stephens hesitated, then did as he was told. In a moment the car was speeding back toward the center of New York. "What's this for?" V-Stephens asked. "Why do you want to go back?"
LeMarr didn't hear him; he was gazing with fixed horror at the people along the street. Men and women prowling like animals, looking for something to kill. "They've gone crazy," LeMarr muttered. "They're beasts."
"No," V-Stephens said. "This'll die down, soon. When the Committee gets its financial support jerked out from under it. It's still going full blast, but pretty soon the gears will change around and the big engine will start grinding in reverse."
"Why?"
"Because Gannet doesn't want war, now. It takes a while for the new line to trickle down. Gannet will probably finance a movement called P.C. Peace Committee."
The hospital was surrounded by a wall of tanks and trucks and heavy mobile guns. V-Stephens slowed the car to a halt and stubbed out his cigarette. No cars were being passed. Soldiers moved among the tanks with gleaming heavy-duty weapons that were still shiny with packing grease.
"Well?" V-Stephens said. "What now? You have the gun. It's your hot potato."
LeMarr dropped a coin in the vidphone mounted on the dashboard. He gave the hospital number, and when the monitor appeared, asked hoarsely for Vachel Patterson.
"Where are you?" Patterson demanded. He saw the cold-beam in LeMarr's hand, and then his eyes fastened on V-Stephens. "I see you got him."
"Yes," LeMarr agreed, "but I don't understand what's happening." He appealed helplessly to Patterson's miniature vidimage. "What'll I do? What is all this?"
"Give me your location," Patterson said tensely.
LeMarr did so. "You want me to bring him to the hospital? Maybe I should --"
"Just hold onto that cold-beam. I'll be right there." Patterson broke the connection and the screen died.
LeMarr shook his head in bewilderment. "I was trying to get you away," he said to V-Stephens. "Then you cold-beamed me. Why?" Suddenly LeMarr shuddered violently. Full understanding came to him. "You killed David Unger!"
"That's right," V-Stephens answered.
The cold beam trembled in LeMarr's hand. "Maybe I ought to kill you right now. Maybe I ought to roll down the window and yell to those madmen to come and get you. I don't know."
"Do whatever you think best," V-Stephens said.
LeMarr was still trying to decide, when Patterson appeared beside the car. He rapped on the window and LeMarr unlocked the door. Patterson climbed quickly in, and slammed the door after him.
"Start up the car," he said to V-Stephens. "Keep moving, away from downtown."
V-Stephens glanced briefly at him, and then slowly started up the motor. "You might as well do it here," he said to Patterson. "Nobody'll interfere."
"I want to get out of the city," Patterson answered. He added in explanation, "My lab staff analyzed the remains of David Unger. They were able to reconstruct most of the synthetic."
V-Stephens' face registered a surge of frantic emotion. "Oh?"
Patterson reached out his hand. "Shake," he said grimly.
"Why?" V-Stephens asked, puzzled.
"Somebody told me to do this. Somebody who agrees you Venusians did one hell of a good job when you made that android."
The car purred along the highway, through the evening gloom. "Denver is the last place left," V-Stephens explained to the two Earthmen. "There're too many of us, there. Color-Ad says a few Committee men started shelling our offices, but the Directorate put a sudden stop to it. Gannet's pressure, probably."
"I want to hear more," Patterson said. "Not about Gannet; I know where he stands. I want to know what you people are up to."
"Color-Ad engineered the synthetic," V-Stephens admitted. "We don't know any more about the future than you do -- which is absolutely nothing. There never was a David Unger. We forged the i.d. papers, built up a whole false personality, history of a non-existent war -- everything."
"Why?" LeMarr demanded.
"To scare Gannet into calling off the dogs. To terrify him into letting Venus and Mars become independent. To keep him from fanning up a war to preserve his economic strangle-hold. The fake history we constructed in Unger's mind has Gannet's nine-world empire broken and destroyed. Gannet's a realist. He'd take a risk when he had odds -- but our history put the odds one hundred percent against him."
"So Gannet pulls out," Patterson said slowly. "And you?"
"We were always out," V-Stephens said quietly. "We were never in this war game. All we want is our freedom and independence. I don't know what the war would really be like, but I can guess. Not very pleasant. Not worth it for either of us. And as things were going, war was in the cards."
"I want to get a few things straight," Patterson said. "You're a Color-Ad agent?"
"Right."
"And V-Rafia?"
"She was also Color-Ad. Actually, all Venusians and Martians are Color-Ad agents as soon as they hit Earth. We wanted to get V-Rafia into the hospital to help me out. There was a chance I'd be prevented from destroying the synthetic at the proper time. If I hadn't been able to do it, V-Rafia would have. But Gannet killed her."
"Why didn't you simply cold-beam Unger?"
"For one thing we wanted the synthetic body completely destroyed. That isn't possible, of course. Reduced to ash was the next best thing. Broken down small enough so a cursory examination wouldn't show anything." He glanced up at Patterson. "Why'd you order such a radical examination?"
"Unger's i.d. number had come up. And Unger didn't appear to claim it."
"Oh," V-Stephens said uneasily. "That's bad. We had no way to tell when it would appear. We tried to pick a number due in a few months -- but enlistment rose sharply the last couple of weeks."
"Suppose you hadn't been able to destroy Unger?"
"We had the demolition machinery phased in such a way that the synthetic didn't have a chance. It was tuned to his body; all I had to do was activate it with Unger in the general area. If I had been killed, or I hadn't been able to set off the mechanism, the synthetic would have died naturally before Gannet got the information he wanted. Preferably, I was to destroy it in plain view of Gannet and his staff. It was important they think we knew about the war. The psychological shock-value of seeing Unger murdered outweighs the risk of my capture."
"What happens next?" Patterson asked presently.
"I'm supposed to join with Colo
r-Ad. Originally, I was to grab a ship at the New York office, but Gannet's mobs took care of that. Of course, this is assuming you won't stop me."
LeMarr had begun to sweat. "Suppose Gannet finds out he was tricked? If he discovers there never was a David Unger --"
"We're patching that up," V-Stephens said. "By the time Gannet checks, there will be a David Unger. Meanwhile --" He shrugged. "It's up to you two. You've got the gun."
"Let him go," LeMarr said fervently.
"That's not very patriotic," Patterson pointed out. "We're helping the webfoots put over something. Maybe we ought to call in one of those Committee men."
"The devil with them," LeMarr grated. "I wouldn't turn anybody over to those lynch-happy lunatics. Even a --"
"Even a webfoot?" V-Stephens asked.
Patterson was gazing up at the black, star-pocked sky. "What's finally going to happen?" he asked V-Stephens. "You think this stuff will end?"
"Sure," V-Stephens said promptly. "One of these days we'll be moving out into the stars. Into other systems. We'll bump into other races -- and I mean real other races. Non-human in the true sense of the word. Then people will see we're all of the same stem. It'll be obvious, when we've got something to compare ourselves to."
"Okay," Patterson said. He took the cold-beam and handed it to V-Stephens. "That was all that worried me. I'd hate to think this stuff might keep on going."
"It won't," V-Stephens answered quietly. "Some of those non-human races ought to be pretty hideous. After a look at them, Earthmen will be glad to have their daughters marry men with green skin." He grinned briefly. "Some of the non-human races may not have any skin at all..."
The Chromium Fence
Earth tilted toward six o'clock, the work-day almost over. Commute discs rose in dense swarms and billowed away from the industrial zone toward the surrounding residential rings. Like nocturnal moths, the thick clouds of discs darkened the evening sky. Silent, weightless, they whisked their passengers toward home and waiting families, hot meals and bed.
Don Walsh was the third man on his disc; he completed the load. As he dropped the coin in the slot the carpet rose impatiently. Walsh settled gratefully against the invisible safety-rail and unrolled the evening newspaper. Across from him the other two commuters were doing the same.
HORNEY AMENDMENT STIRS UP FIGHT
Walsh reflected on the significance of the headline. He lowered the paper from the steady windcurrents and perused the next column.
HUGE TURNOUT EXPECTED MONDAY
ENTIRE PLANET TO GO TO POLLS
On the back of the single sheet was the day's scandal.
WIFE MURDERS HUSBAND OVER POLITICAL TIFF
And an item that made strange chills up and down his spine. He had seen it crop up repeatedly, but it always made him feel uncomfortable.
PURIST MOB LYNCHES NATURALIST IN BOSTON
WINDOWS SMASHED - GREAT DAMAGE DONE
And in the next column:
NATURALIST MOB LYNCHES PURIST IN CHICAGO
BUILDINGS BURNED - GREAT DAMAGE DONE
Across from Walsh, one of his companions was beginning to mumble aloud. He was a big heavy-set man, middle-aged, with red hair and beer-swollen features. Suddenly he waded up his newspaper and hurled it from the disc. "They'll never pass it!" he shouted. "They won't get away with it!"
Walsh buried his nose in his paper and desperately ignored the man. It was happening again, the thing he dreaded every hour of the day. A political argument. The other commuter had lowered his newspaper; briefly, he eyed the red-haired man and then continued reading.
The red-haired man addressed Walsh. "You signed the Butte Petition?" He yanked a mentalfoil tablet from his pocket and pushed it in Walsh's face. "Don't be afraid to put down your name for liberty."
Walsh clutched his newspaper and peered frantically over the side of the disc. The Detroit residential units were spinning by; he was almost home. "Sorry," he muttered. "Thanks, no thanks."
"Leave him alone," the other commuter said to the red-haired man. "Can't you see he doesn't want to sign it?"
"Mind your own business." The red-haired man moved close to Walsh, the tablet extended belligerently. "Look, friend. You know what it'll mean to you and yours if this thing gets passed? You think you'll be safe? Wake up, friend. When the Horney Amendment comes in, freedom and liberty go out."
The other commuter quietly put his newspaper away. He was slim, well-dressed, a gray-haired cosmopolitan. He removed his glasses and said, "You smell like a Naturalist, to me."
The red-haired man studied his opponent. He noticed the wide plutonium ring on the slender man's hand; a jaw-breaking band of heavy metal. "What are you?" the red-haired man muttered, "a sissy-kissing Purist? Agh." He made a disgusting spitting motion and returned to Walsh. "Look, friend, you know what these Purists are after. They want to make us degenerates. They'll turn us into a race of women. If God made the universe the way it is, it's good enough for me. They're going against God when they go against nature. This planet was built up by red-blooded men, who were proud of their bodies, proud of the way they looked and smelled." He tapped his own heavy chest. "By God, I'm proud of the way I smell!"
Walsh stalled desperately. "I --" he muttered. "No, I can't sign it."
"You already signed?"
"No."
Suspicion settled over the red-haired man's beefy features. "You mean you're for the Horney Amendment?" His thick voice rose wrathfully. "You want to see an end to the natural order of --"
"This is where I get off," Walsh interrupted; he hurriedly yanked the stop-cord of the disc. It swept down toward the magnetic grapple at the end of his unit-section, a row of white squares set across the green and brown hillside.
"Wait a minute, friend." The red-haired man reached ominously for Walsh's sleeve, as the disc slid to a halt on the flat surface of the grapple. Surface cars were parked in rows; wives waiting to cart their husbands home.
"I don't like your attitude. You afraid to stand up and be counted? You ashamed to be a part of your race? By God, if you're not man enough to --"
The lean, gray-haired man smashed him with his plutonium ring, and the grip on Walsh's sleeve loosened. The petition clattered to the ground and the two of them fought furiously, silently.
Walsh pushed aside the safety-rail and jumped from the disc, down the three steps of the grapple and onto the ashes and cinders of the parking lot. In the gloom of early evening he could make out his wife's car; Betty sat watching the dashboard tv, oblivious of him and the silent struggle between the red-haired Naturalist and the gray-haired Purist.
"Beast," the gray-haired man gasped, as he straightened up. "Stinking animal!"
The red-haired man lay semi-conscious against the safety-rail. "God damn -- lily!" he grunted.
The gray-haired man pressed the release, and the disc rose above Walsh and on its way. Walsh waved gratefully. "Thanks," he called up. "I appreciate that."
"Not at all," the gray-haired man answered, cheerfully examining a broken tooth. His voice dwindled, as the disc gained altitude. "Always glad to help out a fellow..." The final words came drifting to Walsh's ears. "... A fellow Purist."
"I'm not!" Walsh shouted futilely. "I'm not a Purist and I'm not a Naturalist! You hear me?"
Nobody heard him.
"I'm not," Walsh repeated monotonously, as he sat at the dinner table spooning up creamed corn, potatoes, and rib steak. "I'm not a Purist and I'm not a Naturalist. Why do I have to be one or the other? Isn't there any place for a man who has his own opinion?"
"Eat your food, dear," Betty murmured.
Through the thin walls of the bright little dining room came the echoing clink of other families eating, other conversations in progress. The tinny blare of tv sets. The purr of stoves and freezers and air conditioners and wall-heaters. Across from Walsh his brother-in-law Carl was gulping down a second plateful of steaming food. Beside him, Walsh's fifteen year old son Jimmy was scanning a paper-bound e
dition of Finnegans Wake he had bought in the downramp store that supplied the self-contained housing unit.
"Don't read at the table," Walsh said angrily to his son.
Jimmy glanced up. "Don't kid me. I know the unit rules; that one sure as hell isn't listed. And anyhow, I have to get this read before I leave."
"Where are you going tonight, dear?" Betty asked.
"Official party business," Jimmy answered obliquely. "I can't tell you any more than that."
Walsh concentrated on his food and tried to brake the tirade of thoughts screaming through his mind. "On the way home from work," he said, "there was a fight."
Jimmy was interested. "Who won?"
"The Purist."
A glow of pride slowly covered the boy's face; he was a sergeant in the Purist Youth League. "Dad, you ought to get moving. Sign up now and you'll be eligible to vote next Monday."
"I'm going to vote."
"Not unless you're a member of one of the two parties."
It was true. Walsh gazed unhappily past his son, into the days that lay ahead. He saw himself involved in endless wretched situations like the one today; sometimes it would be Naturalists who attacked him, and other times (like last week) it would be enraged Purists.
"You know," his brother-in-law said, "you're helping the Purists by just sitting around here doing nothing." He belched contentedly and pushed his empty plate away. "You're what we class as unconsciously pro-Purist." He glared at Jimmy. "You little squirt! If you were legal age I'd take you out and whale the tar out of you."
"Please," Betty sighed. "No quarreling about politics at the table. Let's have peace and quiet, for a change. I'll certainly be glad when the election is over."
Carl and Jimmy glared at each other and continued eating warily. "You should eat in the kitchen --" Jimmy said to him. "Under the stove. That's where you belong. Look at you -- there's sweat all over you." A nasty sneer interrupted his eating. "When we get the Amendment passed, you better get rid of that, if you don't want to get hauled off to jail."