Sidney's Comet Read online

  “Oh?”

  “Javik,” Colonel Peebles said. “He’s a ruffian.”

  “Funny thing though,” Munoz said. ‘This Javik is sharp, maybe the best we can find. He knows the Akron class space cruiser and has exceptional reaction times.” Munoz lifted a manila folder from the coffee table, handed it to Hudson.

  Hudson thumbed through Javik’s dossier file. “He’s had mass-driver mechanics training, too. Odd that he’d know Malloy. They went to high school together. . . . ”

  “Javik is bull-headed and quick-tempered!” Peebles said.

  Hudson nodded. “Poor attitude quotient,” he said, reading from the report. “Gets in fights all the time.”

  Munoz shook his head in exasperation, spoke tersely to Peebles: “His bull-headedness . . . as you call it . . . was actually independent decision-making. He took out an entire enemy fighter squadron with one star class cruiser—”

  “And a Major’s jaw with one punch,” Peebles said. “I saw him knock Neil Smalley down. In fact, it was my testimony that got Javik tossed out of the service.”

  “The decisions he made were absolutely correct,” Munoz insisted. “His only error was in striking an officer. Major Smalley shouldn’t have pressed him about procedures.”

  “It won’t matter anyway,” Peebles said, raising his blond eyebrows. “He’s on a six-day pass and is nowhere to be found . . . I’ll bet he’s shacked up.”

  “You’re going to send Javik and Malloy on this mission together?’ Hudson asked, looking at Munoz.

  Munoz nodded, then glanced at Peebles. “You’ll find Javik, Allen,” Munoz said, smiling knowingly, “ . . . when you hear what I have in store for him.”

  Peebles did not reply, stared at the General impertinently.

  “The ejection pods on his ship will be disconnected, and the rocket engines will have a certain . . .” Munoz paused, glanced at Hudson with a mischievous smile.

  Hudson returned the smile. “I believe planned obsolescence is the term for which you were searching, General,” he said. “The radio has been prepared similarly.”

  Peebles brightened. “That sounds pretty good. . . . ”

  “And no rescue craft anywhere in the vicinity,” Munoz said. ‘The world will never know that a comet really threatened us, or that he stopped it.”

  “What about an enforcer?” Peebles asked.

  The General raised an eyebrow. “An enforcer?”

  “Yessss,” Peebles said, his voice a cruel purr. “Conceivably, Javik could repair anything you disconnect. And we don’t want any chance of him getting off a distress call.”

  “True.”

  “Let’s send along Madame Bernet.” An evil, purse-lipped smile danced along Peebles’s mouth.

  “Ahh!” Munoz caressed his mustache. “The Montreal Slasher!” He turned to Hudson. “The meckie is available?’

  “Yes,” Hudson said. “Just back from a mission. Madame Bernet silenced eight guys on that one . . . permanently.”

  “This will be delicious,” Peebles said, smiling like a death’s head. “But alas,” he added sadly, “it will be the last mission for our finest killer meckie.”

  Munoz rubbed his temple. “Bring Malloy and Javik to me,” he said.

  Four hours later, inside the Black Box of Democracy . . .

  With his ankles crossed beneath his body, the tall fat man known as Onesayer Edward sat naked on a blue and gold prayer rug with one hand resting on each knee. Soft morning rays of sunlight from an overhead skylight warmed his bare shoulders and the back of his shaved head. Flicking a downward glance at his pendulous stomach and at the great folds of flesh which cascaded to the rug from every part of his body, he imagined that he must resemble a wallowing hippopotamus. Onesayer grimaced at a surge of pain from one ankle, tried to think the things he was supposed to think.

  The prayer rug was on a loft of Onesayer’s private Black Box of Democracy penthouse, and in the background he heard the soft, lilting notes of the Hymn of Freeness. Uncle Rosy had written that tune. It was the theme song of the Sayerhood.

  Gazing at a burnished bust of Uncle Rosy which rested on the leading edge of the rug in a pool of sunlight, he noted the floating red arrow at the sculpture’s base pointed straight ahead and sharply down. This indicated the precise location of Uncle Rosy’s immense chair on the main level of the building. An inscription on all four sides of the bust’s pedestal carried the admonition: “Keep The Faith.”

  I cannot get into this, Onesayer thought. And it used to be so easy! He sighed twice, causing his flabby chest to rise and fall like an undulating wave, then stared at the sculptured, cherubic face of Uncle Rosy.

  He thought back to his boyhood on the asteroidal sayer’s retreat of Pleasant Reef, and upon the two hundred eighty-seven years he had spent in the Black Box. Remembering the first day he had seen Uncle Rosy sitting upon the great chair, he recalled being in awe of the Master’s presence. To Onesayer, Uncle Rosy seemed godlike, always sitting in the shadows and never revealing his face.

  Flicking a fly off his leg, he thought, I was one of the original sixty-six. . . . the Master brought me from Three-Sevensayer to Onesayer in ninety-three years, skipping me ahead of others, putting me in slots that became available. . . .

  Onesayer glanced at his onyx class ring angrily, recalling Uncle Rosy’s exact words to him, spoken nearly two centuries before: “I will step down within fifty years, Onesayer Edward. You will become Master. Be patient, and all will come to you.”

  Be patient! Onesayer thought bitterly, looking up at the ceiling in dismay. How long do I have to wait? I know all about Freeness and Sharing For Prosperity. . . . I have served on twenty-seven bureau monitoring teams—

  Uncle Rosy’s words came back once again: “You will be the Protector . . . the Chosen One. . . . ” Onesayer lowered his gaze. Ha! he thought, glaring at the bust of Uncle Rosy. He is always coming up with new excuses for not stepping dawn, saying I have much to learn. . . .

  His thoughts were interrupted by an intercom buzzer whose rapid-fire tones told him the Master was calling. Onesayer mentoed the circuit to open it, replied aloud, “Yes, Master?”

  “The new Bu-Industry Tower, Onesayer. You are prepared for our ten A.M. dedication?”

  “Yes, Master. There is plenty of time.”

  “See that you are prompt.”

  “I have never been otherwise, Master.”

  There was a long silence at the other end of the line, followed by, “Our new Lastsayer will meet you at the helipad.”

  “I am aware of this, Master. He will be trained properly.”

  “Very well, Onesayer. And do not forget to show him the Bureau Monitoring Room afterward.”

  Onesayer Edward rose wearily after the conversation ended and short-stepped across a hardwood floor. He rode the escalator downstairs, then made his way across the cool blue slate of his dining room module to the bedroom module. There he looked at a row of identical friar brown robes in the closet and said to himself mockingly, “Let me see now. . . . Whatever shall I wear today?”

  Mayor Nancy Ogg stood at the Hub Control Room viewing window, watching as two space tugs pulled containers of raw materials to a loading dock near the newly enlarged double doors leading to Hub Sections A and B. It was midmorning Friday, and she had supervised all night as meckie and human workcrews enlarged the doors, tore out partition walls and removed work in progress to make room for assembly of the mass drivers.

  It’s going well so far, she thought, yawning as she stared at a box of sleep-sub pills on the console. A hunger pang shot across her midsection.

  Mayor Nancy Ogg glanced to her left at a tap-tap-whining sound, watched a floor-mounted electronic mail terminal spew out a letter. One of three electronic mail terminals, this unit was reserved for classified correspondence. A flashing blue light on the machine indicated it was a Priority One transmittal.

  Gliding gracefully to the terminal, she tore the letter off and examined it.

 
From Dick, she thought angrily, reading the heading. Well I don’t care to hear from him! She rolled the letter into a ball and hurled it across the room.

  Mayor Nancy Ogg returned to the viewing window, watched through tear-glazed eyes as the space tugs released their containers on the loading platform and then left via the docking tunnel to retrieve additional containers.

  She turned to stare at the ball of paper as it lay on the floor near the Control Room’s bank of C.R.T. screens. I’d better look at it. Duty before personal matters.

  She knew this was a rationalization. Actually, the personal aspect interested her more than any professional message the letter might contain.

  Mayor Nancy Ogg unrolled the ball of paper and pulled at the sides to flatten crinkles. This is what she saw:

  CONRDENTIAL—FOR EYES ONLY

  TO: HON. N. OGG, ST. ELBA MAYOR, L,. EARTH QUADRANT

  FROM: DR. R. HUDSON, BU TECH MINISTER, NEW CITY, EARTH

  HAVE M.D. SHELLS READY TUES NOON STED POLL FRI—ASSIGN DISPENSABLE CAPPY CREWS TO FIN INT WORK IN FLIGHT. PERSONAL—DO NOT REPEAT—EXTREME DANGER—KILLER MECKIE ON SH V. WILL SILENCE CREW AFTER MISSION. KEEP PATIENCE. CHANGES SOON. TOLD YOUR BRO HE IS BIGOT. LOVE YOU.—DICK

  Mayor Nancy Ogg wiped tears from her cheeks, mentoed this response via the same terminal:

  CONFIDENTIAL—EYES ONLY

  TO: DR. R. HUDSON, BU-TECH MINISTER, NEW CITY. EARTH

  FROM: HON. N. OGG, ST. ELBA MAYOR, L5, EARTH QUADRANT

  WILL DO BEST. AVOID CHANCES-WELCOME HERE IF MISSION ABORT. BRING BIGOT WITH YOU. I FEEL SAME!—NANCY

  * * *

  Ninety-three years later, these electronic letters would be reprinted in a Sayers’ history primer. . . .

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti held the volume after reading from it and gazed around the Great Temple ordinance room at youngsayermen who eagerly awaited the continuance of his reading.

  It was late fall on the domed asteroid of Pleasant Reef, and through a tiny northeast window Lin-Ti could see golden brown leaves dropping one at a time from a gnarled old oak. Already, he had read the new history primer twice—so he knew what came next.

  “I will skip the following section,” Lin-Ti said, touching a button on the book to flip several pages. “Nothing of note occurred at the meeting demanded by the Alafin of Afrikari. He sent a projecto-image of himself to the oval office on the morning of Garbage Day minus seven. You can read details of the meeting if you wish on your own time. Suffice to say that President Ogg and the council ministers denied the projected Alafin’s charge of a comet heading toward Earth along the same path as the AmFed deep space garbage shots. A malfunction of the Alafin’s telescope was suggested.”

  Lin-Ti glanced up at the ceiling as he recalled the story: “A confrontation occurred during the meeting when a projectoimage of the Atheist Premier demanded inclusion in the meeting, fearful that the other two nations of Earth were plotting against him. His projection was permitted to enter. After learning of the alleged comet, the Premier made his customary complaints, alleging that the AmFeds had overcharged the Union of Atheist States for E-Ceils. As usual, the Premier felt the AmFeds were sabotaging his nation’s energy development programs for the purpose of keeping them economically captive. We will discuss the ‘Economics of Freeness’ next week. For the present, we will pick up our studies immediately after the meeting. . . . ”

  * * *

  Hudson and Munoz moto-shoed across Technology Square after the meeting with the Alafin of Afrikari. Deep in thought, Hudson scarcely noticed bits of paper from the prior day’s doomie demonstration which swirled in a gentle breeze at his feet. “Have you spoken with that office worker yet?” Hudson asked. “What’s his name?”

  “Malloy. No. We’re waiting for them to find Javik. The guy’s a real carouser—we lost his trail at the pleasure domes.”

  Hudson focused upon the giant Uncle Rosy meckie perhaps twenty-five meters to his left, saw it rise and stand with its hands clasped in front. “It’s time for the hourly address,” Hudson said, slowing his shoes. He glanced right at the much smaller Munoz.

  “Keep rolling,” Munoz said irritably. “Another minute of horse—”

  “Arturo!” Hudson rasped in a low tone, catching Munoz by the arm. “Remember appearances!”

  General Munoz scowled, stopped reluctantly with Hudson to watch the meckie. The meckie spoke loudly in the kindly voice of Uncle Rosy, recorded three centuries earlier.

  “Right living means consumption, citizens. It means buying and using the fruits of another person’s labor. As you use what another man has wrought, keep in mind that he also uses what you have wrought. This is a wonderfully balanced system, but it depends upon YOU.”

  With these words, the meckie pointed a bulky forefinger down at the people who stood in the square. It closed with an appeal for all to report shirkers to the Anti-Cheapness League, then resumed its seat.

  “I’m skeptical about the comet intercept plan,” Hudson said, glancing down at Munoz. “Two mass drivers with fire probes on each side of the nucleus, attempting to shift a comet’s direction. . . . ”

  “We’ve done it before,” Munoz replied, staring at the Uncle Rosy meckie. He resumed moto-shoeing. Hudson fell in at his side.

  “Sure,” Hudson said, “In the lab and on seventeen small comets that followed predictable courses. But this thing’s huge and jumps all over the place. I wouldn’t bet on it being cooperative.”

  Munoz shook his head. “You’re a chronic worrier, Dick. Comp six-oh-two worked it all out.”

  “A computer. We know why the six-oh-one was scrapped.”

  “Uh huh,” Munoz said, rolling around a pebble. “The trajectory error on our garbage shots. But we don’t know for sure that this error caused a pile of junk to come back at us. We used it as an excuse.”

  “And don’t forget the E.T.A. miscalculation by the Willys computer,” Hudson said ominously.

  “Freaky errors that will never happen again. The odds have to be in our favor now.”

  “You’re an expert on odds, Arturo . . . at the Knave Table. But this is no card game.”

  “I have a feeling,” Munoz said. “Call it the intuition of a winner.”

  Hudson rubbed an itchy eyelid and fixed his gaze with the other eye on a woman in a red taffeta dress who stood in the motopath ahead feeding pigeons from a package of vendo-crumbs. “I wish to hell we had more time to figure this out,” Hudson said. “Everything’s too damned rushed.”

  “I agree with you there.”

  “Consider this, Arturo. We know a great deal . . . can control voting patterns, even the world’s weather and economy. But stop to think. What don’t we know?”

  “I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

  “Start with the comet—and those strange voices that give you commands.”

  “Commands?” Munoz said, haughtily.

  “Suggestions, then.”

  “It’s true we don’t know the comet’s origin,” Munoz said, slowing to roll around the woman in the red dress.

  Hudson followed, again falling in at the General’s side. “Or why it follows an erratic path,” Hudson said.

  They looked up at the sound of thumping rotors, watched an auto-heliwagon as it landed in front of the new Bu-Industry Tower several hundred meters ahead of them. “More security monitors from the Black Box of Democracy,” Munoz said.

  “How do they work?” Hudson asked. All we know is that they come from the Black Box and are required at the entrances to all buildings.”

  “You’re the scientific whiz,” Munoz said, scornfully. Penetrate the Black Box . . . or get one of those monitors into your lab.”

  “One doesn’t go about tearing into Uncle Rosy’s creations indiscriminately. They’re sacred, you know.”

  Munoz spit on a plastic petunia garden beside the motopath. That’s what I think of Uncle Rosy,” he said. Dr. Hudson glanced around nervously. “You shouldn’t do that,” he said in a low tone.

&nb
sp; “You told me they use indoor surveillance units the size of a pin tip,” Munoz said. “If that’s true, I can say anything I please outside!”

  “I said I thought they were doing it that way. I have no proof! A beam might be trained on us right now, picking up every word. We don’t know how it’s being done.”

  “Or IF it’s being done. This whole Black Box thing smacks of bluffery to me.”

  The card game expert again . . .”

  “Well, find out, dammit! You can check anyplace for bugging equipment . . . on the premise that an enemy of the state might have put it there.”

  “We shouldn’t talk this way,” Dr. Hudson said. He rolled along silently, and as he watched, four security monitor units slid off the rear of the heliwagon and rolled to positions at the building entrances. Dr. Hudson glanced at Munoz and mentoed: We’ve taken hundreds of specks to the lab. All have turned out to be paint or dirt. They could color the micro-units to match any paint color . . . and with today’s signal camouflage technology. . . .

  “Jesus!” Munoz said.

  Hudson glared down at him, mentoed: And add Uncle Rosy’s disappearance to the list.

  “Suicide,” Munoz said. He picked up Hudson’s glare, mentoed reluctantly to finish his statement: He didn’t want to grow old; he arranged for someone to hide the body.

  Maybe, Hudson mentoed. And maybe not.

  They took a narrow side motopath toward the Bu-Mil and Bu-Tech towers, watched through widely spaced plastic poplar trees as two men in brown friar robes touched a security monitor unit and then raised their hands heavenward.

  Hudson shook his head, looked away. He had seen the ceremony many times and had no idea what it meant.

  “They don’t speak,” Munoz said, feeling his words were safe. “Rumor has it they’re mute.”

  “Impossible,” Hudson said. “Uncle Rosy would never permit cappies to remain on Earth.”

  Munoz picked at a front tooth with his forefinger. He nodded without saying anything.

  They watched as the robed men rolled up a ramp to enter the heliwagon. When the men were inside, the heliwagon rose swiftly into the air, banked and flew off in the direction of the Black Box of Democracy.