Shark Bance craned over his shoulder. He read nearly as well as Josh and never missed– a chance to prove it. After a moment he said, “Heyl Week'dad ransom fo' her -lahk million bucks!”
Josh gave him a wordless snarl. “Yeal An' lookun nexter inna pic, Pegdun? Hm?”
“Sho'1” Potatohead said. “Howsee call'?”
“Dan,” Josh worked out. “Tee. Wah-nah shit. Ward.” He straightened, and put on an evil grin. “So, hey! Tha' blabbo dundus hurt, nah? Nextahm seeyum, weena hurtum histunl”
1 s
The Chronicle, the Navy paper; the Bulletin, the Army paper; the TV tuned to WSA; hangover cure, juice, coffee . . . . Comforting, familiar, the landmarks that located Lewis Raymond Turpin at Sunday morning. Naturally, he had learned far more last night than he could expect to from the day's formal news. About a thousand people:, decided what the modern American public ought to think, and over fifty of them had been at his party. Prexy not being one of course.
Only the second year of his term, and already the faceless mass was beginning to hear bad rumors! How much longer would Army let things ride? Would there be a coup and an impeachment, or just a diplomatic illness and “voluntary” relinquishment of office?
It would be good for Energetics General, whichever way, Navy detested EG; so many of its top brass recalled the proud days of Polaris submarines. Then EG had introduced the Nightsticks, and . . .
The process had already been under way when he arrived a quarter-century ago. By then, the ten biggest corporations in the country were being sustained on tax– ,j payers' money-aircraft, chemicals, computers, transportation services, virtually all the key industries were being regularly transfused with government funds. Naturally, because any other form of federal investment was castigated as “creeping socialism,” it had to be via the Defense .~ Department that the money passed. A generation of ingenious public-relations work had convinced the public that this aspect of government activity was sacrosanct, never to be questioned by a loyal citizen.
The percentages crept up. Energetics General, back in those far-off days, had drawn only some 18 per cent of its budget from the DOD. Currently the figure was closer to ninety, and since 'Iurpin was a senior vice-president now -a mere eleven steps below the pinnacle of the EG hierarchy-the President came to his parties. So did the Chair– man of the Joint Chiefs, even though he was an admiral. So did everybody who really counted.
Now suppose, just suppose, there was going to be a coup against Prexy-what they called in the history texts a “palace revolution,” because of course the faceless mass would never be allowed to learn the details. Would that bring about the long-desired collapse of this over-blown, top-heavy, out-right dangerous economic cancer?
He feared not. Perhaps in another decade. Right now, there were still too many clever, dedicated, and insulted men in positions of influence, who remembered how they had been shot at in Viet-Nam, bombed in the Philippines, and ultimately spat upon in Panama. It wasn't their fault, they maintained, that they'd been dragged home under orders to quell insurrection, and that the other side had been waiting to pounce, so that when their house was set in order they had nothing else to do but squabble for power.
There had been a great weariness, a vast sense of futility. Everything they had undertaken with the best intentions had turned sour. Like an injured porcupine, exposing its spiny back to the attacker and pressing its soft belly to the ground, the nation had abandoned its outside commitments one by one and planted automatic missile sites along its coasts. The grandiose space program decayed, and for fifteen years or more no American had been launched into space except to service the orbiting missile-detectors -there were thousands. Meantime, .not from courtesy but a sense of self-preservation, the space-going powers duly notified every launching-for fear it might be mistaken for an attack-to the DOD.
Not to the White House. What would be the point? Effective government in America was the DOD.
During the four years of training that had preceded his injection into the States as a man who had not previously existed, yet who sprang convincingly full-grown into a flawless background, he had been told, over and over, the orthodox analogies. Look at what happened to the Romans, they said, when internal discord prevented them from deploying their own forces to guard their frontiers. They hired barbarian mercenaries, and within a century or two those same mercenaries took over. For “barbarian mercenaries” read “corporations under contract to the Department of Defense,” and you have it right there.
Or else: look what happened to Spain and Portugal when they lost their empires in the New World. From world-power status both countries declined into poverty, intellectual underdevelopment, and dictatorship. Or, most graphically of all, consider the British: tricked into electing a right-wing government that forcibly deported black -but not white-immigrants; expelled in, consequence from their own Commonwealth of Nations, which fell apart; denied entry to the “rich man's club” of Europe because of this incredible display of perfidy . . . and now moaning in squalor about the cruel way the world had treated them.
He had half expected America to collapse following the black exodus, six years ago, when in response to a collective invitation issued by the member-states of the OAU tens of thousands of highly skilled black intellectuals and their families had emigrated-to the accompaniment of cries of, “Good riddance!” Unfortunately all that had accomplished was to drop off the heads of the black power movement, leaving an amorphous quarrelsome carcass that the government found infinitely easier to handle.
Some of those emigrants had been disillusioned. Swallowing their pride, they had applied for re-admission, and had been turned down.
“Told you sol”
So he was not very optirriistic about seeing the downfall of Fortress America in his lifetime.
On the other hand. . .
From the moment of Sheklov's arrival until now, he had been so on edge about successfully cementing the newcomer's cover that he had-paid little heed to the news he had brought. The notion that some alien species might trigger a nuclear holocaust was too far from his everyday preoccupations; he had been sweating and shaking and dosing himself with tranks for fear some petty error on Sheklov's part would alert the ever-watchful security force that never ceased its surveillance of Energetics General executives. Now the major obstacle was past-now that Sheklov had been photographed in company with Prexy, when everyone took it that Crashaw, Levitt, and the team at their backs were the ultimate court of appeal concerning security-he could coldly review what he had been told.
Amazing. He hadn't even realized that the Russians had ventured as far as Pluto; naturally, the American newsmedia did not carry details of such achievements, and his contacts with Russian agents in Canada were sporadic and too brief for mere gossip. And they'd been out there for three years! Fantasticl
A stir of half-forgotten pride in his native land rose at the fringe of his awareness. As always, he slapped it down. For a quarter-century he had been careful to ape the opinions of those around him. He said the proper things about terrorism, bomb-outrages, insurrections, rebs, those ungrateful devils overseas. He took his vacations in the right places: at home, and usually in Florida. Before he married, he bad travelled a little, but to the permissible allies, South Africa and Australia. Now and then, on business, he went to Canada-ostensibly to sound out projects that might bring in some desperately scarce foreign currency. He never enjoyed those trips, except in an upsidedown fashion. The Canadians made it plain that they too would prefer to sever relations with the States, but it was known in the way such matters are known that if they tried it they would be occupied, like Mexico; things were quiet enough at home for the troops to be spared. So they compromised by flagrantly favouring the East Bloc, and the most heavily patronised ocean cruises nowadays run by Canadian Pacific were to Vladivostok via Japan.