The Pritcher Mass

  Red Rover nodded slowly. For a moment his face shifted and became faintly savage, then smoothed out, again.

  "Yes," he said, "that was about it." He looked up at Chaz. "But that still doesn't explain the how of this . . ." He waved at the slips of paper.

  "There was a way open your mind could use to keep you alive, if it wanted to," Chaz said. "As I was telling Eileen earlier, the survival in­stinct's a pretty primitive mecha­nism. It doesn't much care about at­titudes, or ideas, or really about anything at all, except not dying. When your mind saw a way to keep alive, the survival instinct made it take that way."

  "Which was what?"

  "You had to believe that you had the paranormal power to defy the Rot," said Chaz. "That's what used to puzzle me. The Rot's not like a mi­crobe or a virus. It's simply a mechani­cal thing. The spore finds human lungs a good place to flourish; and it keeps growing until it strangles the person it's inside. Of course, there couldn't be any kind of natural resis­tance to being choked to death. The Rot had to mean one hundred percent deaths following spore inhalation—there couldn't be any immunes."

  "But there are," said Red Rover.

  Chaz nodded. "Myself, the witches—there'd probably be others around in the sterile areas who'd show they were immune if they were ever exposed to the Rot—but they take care not to be, just like everyone else, because they don't know yet that they're immune," Chaz said. "The point is, though, both the witches and myself know we've got paranormal powers. The four buried downstairs didn't, or didn't believe they had. But obviously you must have, whether you knew it or not. The paranormal powers must have a way of killing or destroying any spores inhaled. You were probably concentrating pretty hard on killing somebody, I'd guess, that first year or so you were outside."

  "Yes," said Red Rover. He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. "But now that we know about me and those powers, where do we go from here?"

  "We'll get to that," said Chaz. "But first you've got a few things to tell us. To start off with, how did you happen to come here hunting Ei­leen?"

  "I was working for the Citadel," said Rover. "I didn't know she was an immune, of course, or I'd never have taken the job—either that, or I'd have let her know right away what I was doing. But they hired me to tail her until she was dead, then come back and tell them about it."

  He looked over at Eileen.

  "Sorry . . . Eileen, isn't it?" he said. "But one of the ways I've made a go of it out here has been doing jobs for the Citadel. If you knew—"

  "It happens I do know about working for them," said Eileen. "Don't apologize."

  "Just how have you been making a go of it?" Chaz asked. "And how much of a go was it?"

  Rover told them. He had been a member of a trade rare in present times—a high-rise construction worker. As a result, he had been re­quired to work outside of the sterile areas on those rare occasions when construction or repair was being done in the Chicago area. When he had come back inside from work one day, a routine check had shown his sterile suit to have a leak in it. He had not even been allowed back through the inner air lock to gather his possessions. He had simply been turned loose as he was.

  He had been filled with fury at the people who had locked him out. For a year he had lived any way he could outside, with only one thing on his mind—getting back in and getting his hands on the inspector who had or­dered him left outside. At the end of that year, he had suddenly realized that he knew nobody else who had survived the Rot more than a few months once they had been exiled.

  At that time, there were other exiles who had some idea of how long he had been outside; since he had never made any particular secret of it. He got word that some of these were be­ginning to wonder about him. There were rumors that he was a spy from in­side, who had some secret drug to keep him safe from the Rot. He learned there was talk of torturing him until he shared the drug and its secret with the rest of them.

  He slipped away and holed up, kept out of sight of anyone else for three months to make sure all who knew him were dead. Then he painted himself with imitation neck-ulcers and began to mingle with the new crop of exiles that had grown up.

  There were no further questions about him; until one day when he ran into a pack of Rovers—as the loose associations of exiles were called—those who banded together to make easier the search for food and shelter until the Rot got them. The leader of this particular pack, however, was a man Red Rover rec­ognized from a year before—and who recognized him in return. They got together privately and there was a grim moment in which Red Rover thought it was a case of kill or be killed. But he learned then that while immunes were rare, they were not unknown—to other immunes, that was. Only, it was unwise for them to band together, for fear of being identified by the other exiles for what they were. Also, there was an advantage in each leading his own Rover pack and getting the best of what the pack could provide.

  Nonetheless, the immunes kept in touch with each other. It was through the others that Red Rover had learned that the Citadel had jobs for exiles willing to work for it, and would pay for that work in food or comforts impossible to find outside. Most of the work involved transporting stolen or illegal goods by outside routes from one sterile area to another. Nearly all the exiles working for the Citadel at any one time, Red Rover told Chaz and Ei­leen, were immunes—although the Citadel was never allowed to find this out. The immune exiles were bitter about all the people still safely in the sterile areas—but most of all they hated the Citadel representa­tives, who treated them like men and women already dead.

  "All right," said Red Rover, wind­ing up his story. "What about you two?"

  Chaz told him. It took the better part of an hour to cover the whole story with explanations, from the day of the train wreck until now. Chaz wound up by showing the other the diary of the four dead men. When he had skimmed through it, Red Rover sat for a moment with his legs still outstretched, then gave a long whistle and got to his feet.

  "So. Four ordinary dead, instead of one immune; and I helped keep the place untouched for whoever came next. Well, so long friends," he said. "The best of luck to you both."

  "You're leaving?" cried Eileen.

  "Right!" said Red Rover. "You people are in too deep with too many large-sized enemies for me. I just want to keep alive—I don't even hate that inspector that put me outside, anymore."

  "Just walking out isn't going to cut you free of us now," Chaz said.

  "Hm-m-m," said Rover. "Maybe you're right. I'm sorry, friends—" His hand slipped in underneath his sweater at his waist and came out holding a hand laser, pointed at Chaz. "If it's got to be a choice be­tween you or me, maybe I better just turn your bodies in."

  Chaz' spine prickled; but he kept his voice steady and did not move from where he sat.

  "Don't throw away the best chance you've had in years," he said. "You need us a lot worse than we need you. Don't tell me you like liv­ing outside that much. I'm ready to bet you'd do just about anything for the chance to get back and be part of human society again."

  Rover stood holding the gun, but he did not move his finger on the fir­ing button.

  "All right," he answered. "Tell me how I can do that. But it's going to have to be something good. As I see it, you're both right up against the Citadel; and the Citadel's the most powerful thing there is, nowadays."

  "No, it isn't," Chaz said. "The Pritcher Mass is. Whoever controls that, controls everything."

  "Thought you told me the Citadel already has control of the Mass?"

  "It does," Chaz said. "That's why the Citadel's got to go."

  "Go? There's nothing that can touch the Citadel," said Rover.

  "Yes, there is," replied Chaz. "The same thing that can always touch whoever's in power, and bring them down."

  "Oh?" Red Rover looked at him sardonically.

  "People," explained Chaz. "Lots of people. All or most of the people, in fact. Tell me something, Red Ro­ver. Suppose the people in the sterile
areas of just the Chicago district were given a choice—face the outside and the Rot, or get rid of the Citadel. Which do you think they'd take?"

  Red Rover put his laser away.

  "Man," he said to Chaz, "you pushed the right buttons. If you're talking about what I think you're talking about—which is facing all those meditating, prayer-pushing fat hypocrites in the sealed areas with the same sort of thing I've been fac­ing for five years—you've made your point. I want to see that happen no matter what comes, if I have to die for it."

  XIII

  Red Rover came back and sat down.

  "All right, then," he said. "Now tell me how you're going to shove a choice like that on the insiders—and that better be good, too. Because if anyone else out here knew how to do it, it would have been done by now."

  "That's one of the things I'm counting on," Chaz said. "Do you think you could round up enough Rover packs to give us a couple of hundred men who feel the same way you do about the people inside?"

  "Depends what you want them for," Rover said. "Anyway, they wouldn't all be led by immunes. There aren't that many of us."

  "They don't all have to have im­mune leaders," Chaz said. "Just so they're willing to do some fighting if they have to."

  "You aren't going to be able to raid the sterile areas, and scare the people there into choosing between the Citadel and the outside, with two hundred men," Rover said. "Even if two hundred men could handle about three thousand police—which is about what they've got, inside."

  "I don't want most of the two hun­dred inside at all," said Chaz. `They're just to guard things outside while the action inside is going on."

  "Just guard? What about weap­ons?"

  "We'll get them," said Chaz. "Any that are needed."

  "You will, will you? You seem pretty sure of yourself," said Red Rover. "All right, if most of the Ro­ver packs are just going to guard, what are you going to use to scare insiders into dumping the Citadel?"

  "Explosives," said Chaz. He turned and went over to the table for a sheet of paper which he brought back and handed to Rover. "I'm no artist, but that's a rough sketch of the sealed areas of Chicago as I know them. It looks to me as if eight large holes blown in the walls and tunnels I've marked would open up better than half the city to the outside and the Rot spores."

  "It might," said Rover, studying the sheet. "But you've got to be talking about big holes. Holes you could walk a whole marching band through. And that's going to take something like you've never seen in the way of explosives. The few sticks of old dynamite or blasting powder we can scrounge up here on the out­side won't begin to open even one of your holes."

  "Don't worry," Chaz said. "We'll get the explosives from inside. All we need, just like with the weapons."

  "From where?"

  Chaz nodded at Eileen.

  "The covens will help."

  "Covens?" Rover echoed, looking at her.

  "Witches get together in covens," Eileen said from the bed. She was beginning to get some normal color back in her face, after the drawn look that the fever had given her. "Something like Rovers get together in packs. I'm a witch."

  "Witch?" said Rover. He blinked at her. "You don't mean…witch?"

  "Why not?" said Eileen, smiling a little wickedly at him. "You're a witch, too—or as good as. Remember what you did with those pieces of pa­per just now? Otherwise you'd never have been immune to the Rot. Why? You aren't prejudiced against witches, are you?"

  "Well . . . of course not," said Rover. "I was just thinking, that's all. It's the other Immunes. What I mean is, maybe we better not rush them. Suppose I just start talking about some people inside who're against putting out every poor wonker who might have breathed unsterile air for a minute." He became brisk. "Now, how do you plan to do this?"

  He turned his back to Chaz.

  "Eileen knows where the Citadel people are—in a building actually called the Embry Tower," said Chaz. "Some of us attack that at the same time as one hole is blown in a single sterile area, as a warning. Mean­while, another bunch—the witches, maybe—have gotten their hands on the city's emergency channel on the viz-phones. They cut in on the gen­eral alert following the explosion, and broadcast a warning that the rest of Chicago gets opened up un­less the Citadel people are handed over to the outsiders. Then they switch to phoning pictures of us taking over the Citadel building and also to filming the mobs that form to help us."

  "And what," said Red Rover, "will the Chicago District Government and police be doing while all this is going on?"

  "You ought to know better than that," Eileen put in from the bed. "The Citadel owns the Chicago Dis­trict Government. The District Di­rector, the General of Police, and nearly everyone else that counts, are Citadel members—just like with ev­ery other large city district in the world. In fact it's not just Chicago. The whole world, more or less, is run from that Citadel building."

  Red Rover grunted, as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

  "Want to back out?" Chaz asked, watching him closely.

  Rover shook his head.

  "I guess you want our Rover packs to guard the explosive positions out­side the walls and tunnels then," he said.

  "That's right," Chaz said. "And set them off only when ordered—if or­dered—by you. We can't trust anyone else outside."

  "That's true enough." Without ac­tually moving, Rover gave the im­pression of shaking himself off, like someone coming up into the air after a deep dive underwater. "Now what?"

  "Next," Chaz said, "we get to­gether with the covens. Eileen con­tacted one of the witches in her own coven, this afternoon. The whole coven will get us inside and meet with us, as soon as we can come in. What's the closest air lock to the Chicago District?"

  "About five miles east," Rover said. `There is a trash disposal lock. We can walk it in a couple of hours. Night's the safe time to move around—if Eileen there's up to it. I've got a portable limpet light."

  "I'm up to it," said Eileen.

  It was actually closer to four hours before they all sat together in a witches' hole in the sterile areas with those members of Eileen's coven who could be gathered together on such short notice. Noticeably among the missing were the Gray Man and one or two others not trusted by the coven.

  Chaz introduced Red Rover and once more explained his plan.

  "You know," said a white-haired man among the witches, "we're not fighters; and we've got a responsi­bility to protect the sisterhood and the brotherhood. But we could get your Rovers anything they need—it's our people, not the Citadel's, who control the supply tunnels. And we can probably dig up some of us who know something about the use of ex­plosives for demolition and things like that."

  "How about people to man the phones and get what we're doing on the viz-screens?" Chaz asked. The white-haired man hesitated.

  "Maybe some of the younger ones might want to take an active part in that end of it," he said. "We'll know after we check with the other Chi­cago covens. That'll take several days. Now, about payment for our part in this—"

  "Payment!" said Red Rover. The word came out of him with the abrupt, brutal sound of an obscenity.

  "I'm sorry," said the witch, look­ing from Rover to Chaz. "But as I say we've got to protect ourselves and the next generations of witches. That's been our rule down the centuries."

  "Damn you," said Red Rover. "This isn't the Middle Ages any­more. You're some sort of psycho­logical types it says in the textbooks, not bogeymen."

  "I'm sorry," the white-haired man said again. "But we can't suddenly scrap the rules that we've lived by this long." He kept his gaze on Chaz. "When the Citadel's influence is cleaned out of the Pritcher Mass, we want the witches to take over control of it. I don't mean control out on the Mass itself; I mean the Earth end of it, the policy and decision-making authority back here. We can't risk having the Mass used against us."

  "You sure you can speak for all your friends?" demanded Rover, be­fore Chaz could answer.
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  "Sure enough so that I know there's no use going to them for help unless you can promise what I'm asking," the witch answered without taking his eyes off Chaz. "Well?"

  "Well . . ." said Chaz, slowly. "I'll agree—provided one thing. No one with paranormal talents is to be ex­cluded from the witch group that gets control of the Earth end of the Mass."

  "That's reasonable enough," said the witch. "All right. We'll get busy." Arrangements were made for de­livery of explosives and other sup­plies to the Rovers by the witches; and the meeting broke up. Chaz, Ei­leen and Red Rover were let back outside by the same way they had entered, through the service air lock by a waste-disposal outlet. With dawn only a few hours away, they headed back to the house.

  "What makes you think you can deliver control of the Mass to any­one, once this is over?" Red Rover asked Chaz bluntly. Chaz looked at him in the illumination from the limpet light the other man was carry­ing.

  "Do you trust me?" Chaz asked. "Or don't you?"

  "Oh, I trust you," Rover said. "I'll also look you up afterwards and kill you, if it turns out trusting you was the wrong thing to do."

  It took better than a week—both inside and outside the sterile areas of Chicago—to set things up. In the meantime, Red Rover left a note just outside the air lock that was his con­tact point with the Citadel, saying that Eileen had died of the Rot. Two days later, checking the point from under cover, he saw the red piece of cloth lying on the ground that was the signal that he was wanted. He waited until after dark, went in with­out a light and found an answering note. He took it a safe distance away over a hill to use a light on it, and read that he was to produce Eileen's body and bring word of the location of a man answering Chaz' descrip­tion. Dousing his light, he carefully took the note back and left it where he had found it, by the red cloth. From then on he stayed clear of the contact point.