The sound of it echoed. 'Makes plans public!'
All these years, Dr Superb thought. We've worshipped a dummy. A being inert and devoid of life.
Opening his eyes, he saw Wilder Pembroke, bent grotesquely as he strained to hear the departing racket of the news machine; Pembroke took a few steps after it, as if hypnotized by it.
Pembroke, as he departed, dwindled as before. I've got to go after him, Dr Superb realized. Make him full-sized, real again so I can do to him what I have to. The jack handle became more slippery, so drenched that he could hardly hold on to it.
'Pembroke!' he called.
The figure halted, bleakly smiling. 'So now you know both of them. You're uniquely informed, Superb.' Pembroke walked back up the sidewalk towards him. 'I have some advice. I suggest that you call a reporting machine and give it your news, too. Are you afraid to?'
Superb managed to say, 'It's -- too much, all at once. I have to think.' Confused, he listened to the yammer of the news machine; it's voice was still audible.
'But you will tell,' Pembroke said. 'Eventually.' Still smiling, he brought out his service pistol and aimed it, expertly, at Superb's temple. 'I order you to, doctor.' He walked slowly along the sidewalk, up to Dr Superb. 'There's no time left, now, because Karp und Sohnen has made its move. This is the moment, doctor, the Augenblick -- as our German friends say. Don't you agree?'
'I'll -- call a reporting machine,' Superb said.
'Don't give your source, doctor. I'll come back inside with you, I think.' Pembroke urged Dr Superb back up the steps of the building, to the front door of his office. 'Just say that one of your patients, a Ge, revealed it to you in confidence, but you feel it's too important to be kept quiet.'
'All right,' Superb said, Nodding.
'And don't worry about the psychological effect on the nation,' Pembroke said. 'On the masses of Bes. I think they'll be able to withstand it, once the initial shock has worn off. There will be a reaction, of course; I expect it to demolish the system of government. Wouldn't you agree? By that I mean there will be no further der Altes and no more so-called "Nicole," and no more division into Ge and Be. Because we'll all be Ges, now. Correct?'
'Yes,' Superb said, as step by step he walked through the outer office, past Amanda Conners who stared speechlessly at him and Pembroke.
Half to himself Pembroke murmured, 'All I'm worried about is Bertold Goltz's reaction. Everything else seems to be in order but that's the one factor I can't quite seem to anticipate.'
Superb halted, turned to Amanda. 'Get The New York Times reporting machine for me on the phone, please.'
Picking up the phone, Amanda numbly dialled.
Ashen-faced, Maury Frauenzimmer swallowed noisily, put down the newspaper and mumbled to Chic, 'Do you know which of us leaked the news?' His flesh hung in wattles, as if death were creeping over him.
'I -- '
'It was your brother Vince. Whom you just brought in here from Karp. Well, this is the end of us. Vince was acting for Karp; they never fired him -- they sent him.' Maury crumpled up the newspaper with both hands. 'God, if only you'd emigrated. If you'd gone he never would have managed to get in here; I wouldn't have hired him without your say-so.' He raised his panic-filled eyes and stared at Chic.
'Why didn't I let you go?'
Outside the Frauenzimmer Associates factory building a news machine shrilled,' ... vast government secret! Der Alte a simulacrum! New one already being built!' It began all over again, then, mechanically controlled by its central circuits.
'Destroy it,' Maury croaked at Chic. 'That -- machine out there. Make it leave, in the name of god.'
Chic said thickly, 'It won't go. I tried. When I first heard it.' The two of them faced each other, he and his boss Maury Frauenzimmer, neither of them able to speak. Anyhow, there was nothing to say. It was the end of their business. And perhaps of their lives.
At last Maury said, 'Those Loony Luke lots. Those jalopy jungles. The government closed all of them down, didn't it?'
Chic said, 'Why?'
'Because I want to emigrate,' Maury said. 'I have to get out of here. So do you.'
'They're closed,' Chic agreed, nodding.
'You know what we're seeing?' Maury said. 'This is a coup. A plot against the government of the USEA, by someone or a lot of someones. And they're people inside the apparatus, not outsiders like Goltz. And they're working with the cartels, with Karp, the biggest of them all. They've got a lot of power. This is no street fight. No vulgar brawl.'
He mopped his red, perspiration-soaked face with his handkerchief. 'I feel ill. Goddamit, we've been brought into it, you and me; the NP boys will be here any minute.'
'But they must know we didn't intend -- '
'They know nothing. They'll be arresting everybody. Up and down.'
Far off a siren sounded. Maury, wide-eyed, listened.
CHAPTER 14
As soon as she understood the situation Nicole Thibodeaux gave the order for the Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, to be killed.
It was necessary. Very possibly the revolutionary clique had ties with him; in any case she could not take the risk.
Far too much was involved.
In a hidden courtyard of the White House a squad of soldiers from the nearby Army base did the required job; she listened absently to the faint, almost inaudible sound of their high-powered laser rifles, thinking to herself that this -- the death of this man -- proved how little power he had held in the Third Reich. For his death caused no alteration in her time, in the present; the event did not produce even a ripple of alteration. It was a commentary on the governmental structure of Nazi Germany.
Next, she called in NP Commissioner Wilder Pembroke.
'I want a report,' she informed him, 'as to exactly what support the Karps are drawing from. In addition to their own resources. Obviously, they wouldn't have gone ahead with this unless they felt they could count on allies.' She eyed the top NP official with deliberate, rigorously calculated intensity. 'How do the National Police stand?'
Wilder Pembroke said calmly, 'We're ready to deal with the plotters.' He did not seem disturbed; in fact, she thought, he was even more self-possessed than usual. 'As a matter of fact we've already begun rounding them up. Karp employees and executives, and the personnel of the Frauenzimmer outfit. And anyone else who's involved; we're working on that aspect, using von Lessinger's equipment.'
'Why weren't you prepared for this by means of the von Lessinger principle?' Nicole asked sharply.
'Admittedly, this was there. But only as the most meagre possibility. One in a million, of the possible alternative futures. It never occurred to us -- '
'You've just lost your job,' Nicole said. 'Send in your staff. I'll choose a new police commissioner from among them.'
Colouring, incredulous, Pembroke stammered, 'But at every given moment there's a raft of dangerous alternatives so malign that if we -- '
'But you knew,' Nicole said, 'that I was under attack. When that thing, that Martian animal, bit me it should have warned you. From then on you should have been expecting an all-out attack, because that was the beginning.'
'Shall -- we pick up Luke?'
'You can't pick up Luke. Luke is on Mars. They all got away, including the two that were here in the White House. Luke came and got them.' She tossed that report to Pembroke. 'And anyhow, you no longer have any authority.'
There was a strained, unpleasant silence.
'When that thing bit me,' Nicole said, 'I knew we were in for a time of difficulty.' But in one respect it was a good thing it had bitten her; it had made her alert. Now she could not be taken by surprise -- she was ready, and it would be a long time before something, or someone -- would bite her again.
Metaphorically or literally.
'Please, Mrs Thibodeaux -- ' Pembroke began.
'No,' she said. 'Don't whine. You're out. That's it.'
There's something about you I don't trust, she said to herself. Maybe it's b
ecause you let that papoola animal get to me. That was the beginning of your decline, of your career downfall. From then on I was suspicious of you.
And, she thought, it was almost the end of me.
The door of the office opened and Richard Kongrosian appeared, beaming. 'Nicole, ever since I moved that A.G. Chemie psych-chemist down to the laundry room I've become fully visible. It's a miracle!'
'Fine, Richard,' Nicole said. 'However, we're having a closed conference in here, at this moment. Come back later.'
Now Kongrosian made out Pembroke. The expression on his face at once changed. Hostility ... she wondered why.
Hostility -- and fear.
'Richard,' she said suddenly. 'How would you like to be NP Commissioner? This man -- ' She pointed at Wilder Pembroke. 'He's out.'
'You're joking,' Kongrosian said.
'Yes,' she agreed. In a way, at least. But in a way, no.' She needed him, but in what fashion? How could she make use of him and his abilities? At the moment she simply did not know.
Pembroke said stiffly, 'Mrs Thibodeaux, if you change your mind -- '
'I won't,' she said.
'In any case,' Pembroke said in a measured, prepared tone of voice, 'I'll be glad to return to my position and serve you.'
Thereupon he left the room; the door shut after him.
At once Kongrosian said to her, 'He's going to do something. I'm not sure what it is. Can you tell who's loyal to you at a time like this? Personally, I don't trust him; I think he's part of the planet-wide network of conspiracy scheming against me.' Hastily he added, 'And against you, too, of course. They're after you, too. Isn't that right?'
'Yes, Richard.' She sighed.
Outside the White House a news machine squalled; she could hear it vending details about Dieter Hogben. The machine possessed the entire story. And it was exploiting it for all it was worth. She sighed again. The ruling council, those shadowy, ominous figures who stood directly behind every move she made, were undoubtedly thoroughly aroused, now, as if wakened from their sleep. She wondered what they would do. They had a lot of wisdom; collectively, they were quite old. Like snakes they were cold and silent, but very much alive. Very active and yet always obscured from sight.
They never appeared on TV, never gave guided tours.
At the moment she wished she could trade places with them.
And then all at once she realized that something had happened. The news machine was vending something about her.
Not about the next der Alte, Dieter Hogben, but some other Ge entirely.
The news machine -- she went to the window to hear better -- was saying that ... She strained to hear.
'Nicole dead!' the machine shrilled. 'Years ago! Actress Kate Rupert in her place! Entire governing apparatus a fraud, according to ... ' And then the news machine moved on. She could no longer hear it, no matter how hard she tried.
His face wrinkled with confusion and uneasiness, Richard Kongrosian asked, 'Wh-what was that, Nicole? It was saying you're dead.'
'Do I look dead?' she asked tartly.
'But it said an actress was taking your place.' Kongrosian, bemused, stared at her, his face working with incomprehension. 'Are you just an actress, Nicole? An impostor, like der Alte? He continued to stare, looking as if he were about to burst into grief-stricken baffled tears.
'It's merely a sensational newspaper story,' Nicole said firmly. She felt, however, frozen all over. Numbed with dark, somatic dread. Everything was out now; some highlyplaced Ge, someone even more an intimate of the White House circle than the Karps, had leaked this last, great secret.
There was now nothing left to conceal. Hence there was no longer a distinction between the many Bes and the few Ges.
There was a knock at the door and without waiting Garth McRae entered, looking grim. He held a copy of The New York Times.
'That psychoanalyst, Egon Superb, informed a reporting machine,' he said to Nicole. 'How he found out I don't have the slightest idea -- he's hardly in a position to know first-hand about you; obviously someone must have deliberately spilled it to him.' He studied the newspaper, his lips moving. 'A patient. A Ge patient confided in him and for reasons that we may never know he called the newspaper.'
Nicole said, 'I suppose there's no use arresting him now. I'd like to find out who's using him; that's what I'm interested in.' It was no doubt a hopeless wish, doomed to disappointment. Probably Egon Superb would never say; he would take the pose that it was a professional secret, something given him in sanctified privacy. He would pretend he did not want to get his patient into jeopardy.
'Even Bertold Goltz,' McRae said, 'didn't know that. Even though he roams around here at will.'
'What we're going to see a demand for now,' Nicole said, 'is a general election.' And it would not be she who would be elected, not after this disclosure. She wondered if Epstein, the Attorney General, would consider it his job to take action against her. She could count on the Army, but what about the High Court? It might rule that she was not legally in power. Actually it could be doing that at this very moment.
The council would have to emerge, now. Admit in public that it and no one else held the actual governmental authority.
And the council had never been voted into office of any sort. It was paralegal entirely.
Goltz could say, and truthfully, that he had as much right to rule as the council.
Perhaps even more so. Because Goltz and the Sons of Job had a popular following.
She wished, suddenly, that over the past years she had learned more about the council. Knew who comprised it, what they were like, what their aims were. As a matter of fact she had never even seen it in session; it had dealt with her indirectly, through elaborate screening devices.
'I think,' she said to Garth McRae, 'that I had better go before the TV cameras and address the nation. If they actually see me perhaps they'll take this news less seriously.'
Perhaps the potency of her presence, the old magical power of her image, would prevail. After all, the public was accustomed to seeing her. They believed in her, from decades of conditioning. The tradition-sanctified whip and carrot might still function, at least to a limited extent. At least partially.
They'll believe, she decided, if they want to believe. Despite the news being hawked by the news machines. Those cold, impersonal agencies of 'truth.' Of absolute reality, without human subjectivity.
'I'm going to keep on trying,' she said to Garth McRae.
All this time Richard Kongrosian had continued to stare at her. He did not seem able to take his eyes from her. Now he said hoarsely, 'I don't believe it, Nicole. You're real, aren't you? I can see you, so you must be real!' He gaped at her piteously.
'I'm real,' she said, and felt sad. A lot of people were in Kongrosian's position, trying desperately to maintain their view of her undamaged, unaltered from that which they were accustomed to. And yet -- was this enough? How many people, like Kongrosian, could break with the reality principle? Believe in something they knew intellectually was an illusion? Few people, after all, were as sick as Richard Kongrosian.
To stay in power she would have to rule a nation of the mentally ill. And the idea did not very much appeal to her.
The door opened and Janet Raimer stood there, small, wrinkled and businesslike. 'Nicole, please come along with me.' Her voice was dry and faint. But authoritative.
Nicole rose. The council wanted her. As was customary with them they were operating through Janet Raimer, their spokesman.
'All right,' Nicole said. To Kongrosian and Garth McRae she said, 'I'm sorry; you'll have to excuse me. Garth, I want you to act temporarily as NP Commissioner; Wilder Pembroke has been busted -I did that just now before you came in. I trust you.' She passed by them, then, and followed after Janet Raimer, out of the office and up the corridor. Janet moved briskly and she had to hurry to keep up.
Flapping his arms miserably, Kongrosian called after her, 'If you don't exist I'm going to become invisible ag
ain or even worse!'
She continued on.
'I'm afraid,' Kongrosian shouted, 'of what I might do! I don't want it to happen!' He came a few steps out into the corridor after her. 'Please help me! Before it's too late!'
There was nothing she could do. She did not even look back.
Janet led her to an elevator. 'This time they're waiting two levels down,' Janet said. 'They've assembled, all nine of them. Because of the gravity of the situation this time they'll talk to you face to face.'
The elevator slowly descended.
She stepped out, following Janet, in what had been in the previous century the H-bomb shelter for the White House.
Its lights were on and she saw, seated at a long oak table, six men and three women. All but one of them were strangers to her, blank and totally unfamiliar faces. But in the centre she made out to her disbelief a man whom she knew. He appeared, from the seating, to be the chairman of the council.
And his manner was a trifle more imposing, a little more confirmed than that of the others.
The man was Bertold Goltz.
Nicole said, 'You. The street brawler. I never would have anticipated this.' She felt weary and frightened; across from the nine members of the council she hesitantly seated herself in a wooden straight-backed chair.
Frowning at her, Goltz said, 'But you knew I had access to von Lessinger equipment. And all time-travel equipment constitutes a monopoly of the government. So obviously I had some form of contact at a very high level. However, that doesn't matter now; we have more urgent business to discuss.'
Janet Raimer said, 'I'll go back upstairs again.'
'Thank you,' Goltz said, nodding. To Nicole he said sombrely, 'You're a rather inept young woman, Kate. However, we'll try to pick up and go on with what we have. The von Lessinger apparatus shows one highly distinct alternative future in which Police Commissioner Pembroke rules as an absolute dictator. This leads us to infer that Wilder Pembroke is involved with the Karps in their effort to unseat you. I think you should have him taken out immediately and shot.'