Tyranopolis, p.18
Tyranopolis, page 18
‘Lilgin has no excuse. He did it because he’s a rat.’
Orlo shook his head. ‘He did it after it finally dawned on him that he could do as he pleased because he would never be called to account, and, so long as he did most of it secretly, it would never diminish his public image.’
He saw that Megara was straining to speak; and he paused courteously. The man slashed forth this time. He said, ‘Sir, you are trying to promote the biggest murderer in all history. I tell you this monster was born with rage and murder in his heart. Gentlemen, I figured it out once. Lilgin has ordered the death of 5,000 people a day every day of the last 190 years.’
The figure had its own impact. Orlo, who was standing, could see the effect of the total (presented in that fashion) on just about every face that he looked at. At once, there was no question. He was losing this argument.
He said hastily, ‘Of that daily total, how many death orders did you, personally, transmit to the people who did the actual killing, Mr. Megara?’
The question, instead of eliciting an immediate reply, evoked an exchange of glances between Number Two and Number Three. The baby face had an appeal on it. The heavy jowls were grim.
Finally: ‘Between the two of us,’ said Jodellin a sardonic tone, ‘I would say we transmitted about 98 per cent.’
Megara said shrilly, ‘Every one of them under orders. Never by personal whim. I abhorred the whole thing. And each evening, when I sat at that table, and those images of dead women’s faces, and dead men came up in my mind, I was glad Lilgin is a drunkard. Because then I could get drunk, also, and wash it all out of my mind for another night.’
‘Liquor and drugs,’ commented Orlo, ‘were the most ancient psychotherapy. And, notice, he does it, also.’
‘That bastard sat there every night, watching us, trying to loosen our tongues.’
‘You said he sat there drunk.’
‘Look, damn it - he didn’t have to kill people to save his own rotten neck. I did - until today.’
Orlo had been flicking his gaze from face to face, as he pursued his argument. And there was no change. Megara’s heated answers uttered in that deep baritone were still winning … Okay, okay, he thought. And changed the subject slightly.
‘Mr. Megara, when you had me captured this morning, what was the procedure?’
The baby face grew calm. ‘Just a form of chemical hypnosis. I wanted to make sure that Higenroth’s programming was utilized properly. And so we put you under a-sodium pentathol-n. With that we brought Higenroth’s signal system to the surface. And, at the key moment, when Lilgin was in that deep sleep he goes into after he has sex, I had Odette (she hates him) let us in. Whereupon, you looked at him, got the emotion, and whispered the signal - and got him on all those walls right then. So then I had the boys bring your unconscious body down here. No harm done you’ll notice. Just direct action, and proper usage of the method.’
‘I want to thank you for all of that,’ said Orlo, ‘and to tell you that your wife has been transferred to a hospital for rehabilitation, and should be in good health again in about a month.’
As he spoke those words, he saw that the blue eyes were misting again. Instead of waiting, which would have given the man time to recover, Orlo being young and still not entirely wise, plunged on. He said, ‘Mri Megara, if you replaced Lilgin, is there any basic way in which you would change the system?’
As he asked the question, it seemed as if everyone in the room except Megara stopped breathing. Megara started to answer and started to cry at the same instant. ‘The details are too long to go into,’ the man sobbed. ‘But basically the change needed is not in the system but in administration.’
The tears were spurting wildly now. Orlo said hurriedly, ‘You can prove to us that your method would not involve one man’s domination?’
‘Absolutely.’ It was a flood of total victory.
Thank you.’ Orlo smiled a strained smile. ‘You understand, gentlemen, we’re just flailing at air here, so far. The most powerful dictator in the history of human existence is still sitting up there at his desk, thinking his way through all this. And I gather from those who know him that, if he comes up with a solution, it will take all factors into account, including our little conspiracy.’
His smile faded. ‘So I’d better get a move on, and see if I can rescue my true mother and her husband, before one of those written death orders gets out there.’
He started for the door. ‘Mr. Bylol has my jet waiting for me. I hope to be back in time to hear that four o’clock revelation … Yuyu, please come along this time …’
The battle -
The visible adversaries there in the Glucken home were a crying woman, and a tall, slender man, with Orlo slightly off to one side, and the other scientists just inside the door, waiting. There was no sign yet that Glucken was reacting to his wife’s sense of doom.
The ‘enemy’ was a field phenomenon that had been set up to be triggered inside of the brains of two disturbed people when they heard Orlo’s voice. Instantly, there would flow from them to him - something dark. (That was as much as Orlo knew.)
The super-scientist, who understood such matters, seemed to be listening, and at the same time making a tiny adjustment on a finger ring. At last, wearily - it was as if he had been working hard - the man nodded at Orlo, and said, ‘When I raise my hand, then you speak - say anything. We just want your voice. There’ll be a momentary shock feeling inside your brain, and then a series of thoughts and impulses. Ready?’
Orlo nodded, not exactly happy with his role. And not knowing what to expect, because . .. what kind of brain shock could they be anticipating?
The scientist, whose name was Camper, moved his hand.
Orlo said, ‘Mrs. Glucken, please calm yourself, and have no fear -‘
He could almost not get the final words out. His tongue started to twist in his mouth. The thought that came was like an echo of an incredibly primitive feeling: an acceptance of doom and of utter disaster. The feeling was total misery and despair. And the thought said, ‘All right, I give up. Devour me!’
Almost immediately, there was a second, more distant, weaker feeling-thought (Glucken’s) which said, ‘To hell with all this! I don’t care any more what they do. Okay, kill us.’ … It was the same reaction, but with anger in it, not apathy.
Camper was shaking his head, wonderingly, ‘I keep being amazed at these early evolutionary images. That, my friend, was the cry of an animal that has been pounced on, and is being torn to pieces; and at the ultimate moment before death is actually craving to be eaten.’
He broke off, hastily, said, ‘Listen, I’ve had to do a reversal to save you. The cycle in a field like this has to complete. As it was set up, the power of it would have been so great it would have reached into your brain, and you would have felt the compulsion to do as their thought required: kill and eat the woman, and kill the man, violently. In order to phase out the very powerful energy flows we have here, I want you to decide in what mental state you wish to leave these two. That’s the way they’ll be from now on. Remember, the feelings involved in you will also be quite basic. Do the best you can for them, sir. As soon as you’re ready, raise your hand; and I’ll let the flow go through. But be quick, or automatic things will start to happen.’
Amazingly, a sense of personal confusion . .. The first thought: that incredible madman, Lilgin. So utterly vindictive. Twice, he’s tried to get me to act against my own mother. That first day, to unknowingly place her under arrest. And now - this!
It occurred to Orlo, fleetingly, that the reaction of the two people had been singularly normal. What was happening against them had finally broken through their defences and demolished hope. And they gave up, she in her way and he in his.
Standing there, Orlo realized that his own impulses were not that normal. Worse, there was no way in these rapid moments that he could alter the intense … feeling … that was swelling up his insides. It was almost as if he felt physically bloated by it; so strong it was.
Involuntarily, he raised his hand. Instantly, he was startled by his action, and tried to lower it. And saw, shuddering, that it was too late. The deed was done.
Out of his brain had flowed a fantasy.
A child’s dream.
Mother loves father, loves me. Mother will devote the rest of her life to me and to the memory of my father, Professor Higenroth.
There was an afterthought about Glucken’s role: he will dedicate himself to the Higenroth ideas and theories. He will make the study that solves all this stuff in my brain about that. And will take it out of me and bring it to practical reality.
These two people, Dr. and Mrs. Glucken, she a living embodiment of a woman’s timeless love for the dead genius, her first husband; he cherishing her for it, and doing everything to promote the work and genius of her murdered Higenroth …
TWENTY-FIVE
As the jet came down a second time, Orlo and’the eleven scientists (of his original team of twelve - one man refused to fly) peered out of the small portholes - the youth had come forward to sit with the older men in the smoking compartment.
Below was another isolated house like that of the Gluckens.
Though perhaps this one was a little more sumptuous: The yard was larger. More glass glinted up at them.
‘Look!’ pointed one of the scientists suddenly. His speciality was a relatively obscure branch of physics having to do with an aspect of plasma relating to primitive elements - matter in an earlier form. His name was Holod.
What he pointed at alerted everybody. A long line of vehicles had emerged from a clump of trees a mile from the house. And they were now streaming along a narrow, paved road at over a mile a minute. At that speed they would arrive before anyone could get off the jet.
Orlo took one long evaluative look - and grabbed his hand mike. ‘Pilot!’ he yelled.
‘Yes sir?’ The answering voice came over the speaker system.
‘Intercept those cars! Fly low! And land on the road in front of them!’
‘Very well, sir.’
The jet rose, and drifted sideways. In the air its speed was unmatchable by ground machines. It spun over, and up, and around. And then floated from behind the cars, glided over them almost scraping their tops, and plunged down onto the pavement. It rolled yards only. And stopped.
Most of the cars screamed with the sounds of skidding rubber. And what happened to them in detail was never that clear to the watchers from the jet. Their attention was snatched by two automobiles that veered off the road, bounced madly, but made it around and past the great flying machine. The whole operation was so finely timed that the cars were in the yard at almost the same instant that they swerved back onto the pavement.
As they slid to a stop, doors were flung open. Several men leaped out of each vehicle, and ran toward, and into, the house.
During those moments the jet’s doors were opening; and the ramps were sliding out; and there was a surge of men from many sections down each one.
But the empty feeling had come to Orlo: they were too late. Somebody had had a belated memory: what about that dumpy little grey-haired woman whom the public believes to be Lilgin’s wife? … And so, after some talking back and forth between Megara and jodell, waiting back in his private office, and Orlo on the jet, the great machine had changed course and flown eight hundred miles in thirty-eight minutes.
And now here it was … Really, he thought wearily, so little time has gone by; and so many of these orders have been transmitted by Lilgin’s teenage dupes in uniform -
This might turn into a day of being one minute too late, as here, or, perhaps in other places just in time.
The sad part was that they had very little idea where most of the death orders had been sent; or why they were being sent out at all at this time.
Killing the erstwhile Mrs. Lilgin — if that’s who she was -did of course have a rationale. One of the scientists had said jokingly, ‘Sir -‘ to Orlo ‘- if what you say is true: that Lilgin is now going to have to settle down and behave himself. That means he’s going to have to marry one of those passionate beauties and an end forever to the debauched, drunken existence that has really been his way of life.’
It had taken a moment for that to sink in; and for the memory to come: ‘Hey, what about that ugly little female that -?’ Long pause then: ‘Listen, we’d better locate that dame. If it ever sinks in to Lilgin that he is going to have to settle down, the thought will also come that his great, duped public will expect him to settle down with her.’
Evidently, that thought had come. Whereupon, the assassins were dispatched. What was so deadly about it was that her absence would have to be explained. Therefore her murder would have to be pinned on someone. Who? And what would be the overall plot behind that?
It seemed to Orlo that he was having his first faint glimpse of the counterattack that Lilgin was mounting.
And it was already too late to stop it.
Beside Orlo, Peter Rosten said softly, ‘Look at this, my friend. We’ve got a fix.’
He held up a shining, slightly curved metal plate about eight by ten inches. What was shining on it was a coloured picture. It was of an interior scene, very vivid and clear. In the background of a rather pretty living room stood a thickset, older woman. Facing her were seven men, all of them with drawn guns.
Orlo stared at the tableau, almost petrified. What mentally staggered him was the awful realization that the scientists had evidently tuned into the interior of that house bare moments before the kill.
He waited, holding his breath.
And then - another awareness.
The tableau was exactly that. No one in it moved. It was like a still picture, with everyone in it frozen.
A pause. And another thought. The feeling came that what he was looking at was, in its way, a parallel to a photograph that had been taken, and developed, many minutes ago. And that whatever had subsequently transpired was over and done with. He changed his question: ‘What happened?’ he asked.
Rosten was smiling in a pleased way. ‘I have to hand it to old Doje. These Italians are sometimes hard to get along with. But he got that time stasis in there as perfect as anything I’ve ever seen.’
With that, he reached over. His fingers took hold of the shiny plate that Orlo held. They tugged gently. Orlo let go, silently.
‘These time things can only hold so long before they get awfully sticky. We’d better get in there, and rescue, uh, she who is accepted as Mrs. Lilgin, whom that great mindless public will be expecting to see in his bedroom every night from now on,’
He finished, ‘Now, is there anybody else we know about that we should rescue or let know what is happening?’
Orlo couldn’t think of anyone.
But there was one individual.
TWENTY-SIX
Success raises.
Orlo glittered as he re-entered his office at exactly four minutes to four.
His question to the men waiting there produced a blank. Who else should be rescued? Obviously, everyone who had been sentenced to death. But no one knew who they were.
Jodell said, with a certain satisfaction, ‘Right now, twenty-three members of the Supreme Praesidium are sitting on the floor out in the hall. The others are off on missions, and glad to be away I can tell you. Megara, any thoughts?’
The baby-faced man shook his head. He had a sour expression on that puffy face. He said unhappily, ‘I have the impression, Mr. Thomas, that you’re still pursuing your fantasy of maintaining Lilgin chairman.’
Orlo said breathlessly, ‘It’s four o’clock. I’ll answer that later .
Four p.m.
A smiling Lilgin looked up from his desk. If he had been shocked when his guards, a few minutes before, allowed the dumpy woman to walk in on him, it didn’t show.
She was sitting, now, in a chair a few yards away. The pervasive field that had him as its centre reached out to approximately eighteen feet radius. And so, there she was, the woman who he, personally, had, long ago, after much consideration, cynically selected as the most acceptable, unenvied, middle-aged, vaguely motherly - or grandmotherly - female type. He had believed, then, that her presence would once more (as others like her had done in the past) delude all those stupes out there in the great world. Delude the men into feeling tolerantly sorry for him; and bemuse the women into something far more complex, but equally, contemptuously, tolerant.
In fact, her coming had changed his plan. Suddenly, he badly needed information before uttering a single word … What happened? How had she escaped the assassins?
But that great smile remained on the small handsome face, as Lilgin said, ‘My friends, I’ve been getting a few reports over my ear receiver about this experiment. Despite all the assurances that were given me - that the technology had been perfected at last - it now seems that an unexpected side effect may mean that we shall have to shut off all entertainment television tomorrow, or maybe even later on this evening. Frankly, I’m not sure what’s going on. If somebody comes on TV later to tell you that my statement is not so, or makes some qualifying statement, you’ll have to draw your conclusions. This is what I have been told.’
The smile again. ‘Maybe it will all work out. In time perhaps I will sec you while you’re looking at me. But I’m delaying comment until later, perhaps even until tomorrow. As you will all have observed, my wife - who has been away in her country place - is back. Right now, I want to escort her to our apartment. Naturally -‘ the smile widened ‘- you will see me do so. Such a total intimate view as you are all being allowed is a part of the experiment, which I hope you are all appreciating as much as I do …’
… Orlo said, ‘So now we know. Tomorrow, he takes away their free entertainment. And he’s already hinted that the technicians have mishandled this matter. Mr. Megara, do you have any analysis for us?’
‘My guess is that by morning you’re going to lose some of those people out there in the corridor. And by noon Jodell and I may be departing. You have the look of a sinking ship, Mr. Thomas.’
