"Without the Times" she said, "would we ever have guessed that such a political figure as Benny Cemoli existed? We owe a lot to the pape. They overlooked it or weren't able to get to it. Probably they were working in such haste; they couldn't think of everything, even in ten years. It must be hard to obliterate every surviving detail of a planet-wide political movement, especially when its leader managed to seize absolute power in the final phase."
"Impossible to obliterate," Hood said. A closed-off storeroom in the back of a Greek grocery store… that was enough to tell us what we needed to know. Now Dietrich's men can do the rest. If Cemoli is alive they will eventually find him, and if he's dead – they'll be hard to convince, knowing Dietrich. They'll never stop looking now.
"One good thing about this," Joan said, "is that now a lot of innocent people will be off the hook. Dietrich won't go around prosecuting them. He'll be busy tracking down Cemoli."
True, Hood thought. And that was important. The Centaurian police would be thoroughly occupied for a long time to come, and that was just as well for everyone, including CURB and its ambitious program of reconstruction.
If there had never been a Benny Cemoli, he thought suddenly, It would almost have been necessary to invent him. An odd thought… he wondered how it happened to come to him. Again he examined the picture, trying to infer as much as possible about the man from this flat likeness. How had Cemoli sounded? Had he gained power through the spoken word, like so many demagogues before him? And his writing… Maybe some of it would turn up. Or even tape recordings of speeches he had made, the actual sound of the man. And perhaps video tapes as well. Eventually it would all come to light; it was only a question of time. And then we will be able to experience for ourselves how it was to live under the shadow of such a man, he realized.
The line from Dietrich's office buzzed. He picked up the phone. "We have the Greek here," Dietrich said. "Under drug-guidance he's made a number of admissions; you may be interested."
"Yes," Hood said.
Dietrich said, "He tells us he's been a follower for seventeen years, a real old-timer in the Movement. They met twice a week in the back of his grocery store, in the early days when the Movement was small and relatively powerless. That picture you have – I haven't seen it, of course, but Stavros, our Greek gentleman, told me about it – that portrait is actually obsolete in the sense that several more recent ones have been in vogue among the faithful for some time now. Stavros hung onto it for sentimental reasons. It reminded him of the old days. Later on when the Movement grew in strength, Cemoli stopped showing up at the grocery store, and the Greek lost out in any personal contact with him. He continued to be a loyal dues-paying member, but it became abstract for him."
"What about the war?" Hood asked.
"Shortly before the war Cemoli seized power in a coup here in North America, through a march on New York City, during a severe economic depression. Millions were unemployed and he drew a good deal of support from them. He tried to solve the economic problems through an aggressive foreign policy – attacked several Latin American republics which were in the sphere of influence of the Chinese. That seems to be it, but Stavros is a bit hazy about the big picture… we'll have to fill in more from other enthusiasts as we go along. From some of the younger ones. After all, this one is over seventy years old."
Hood said, "You're not going to prosecute him, I hope."
"Oh, no. He's simply a source of information. When he's told us all he has on his mind we'll let him go back to his onions and canned apple sauce. He's harmless."
"Did Cemoli survive the war?"
"Yes," Dietrich said. "But that was ten years ago. Stavros doesn't know if the man is still alive now. Personally I think he is, and we'll go on that assumption until it's proved false. We have to." Hood thanked him and hung up.
As he turned from the phone he heard, beneath him, the low, dull rumbling. The homeopape had once more started into life.
"It's not a regular edition," Joan said, quickly consulting her wristwatch. "So it must be another extra. This is exciting, having it happen like this; I can't wait to read the front page."
What has Benny Cemoli done now? Hood wondered. According to the Times, in its misphased chronicling of the man's epic… what stage, actually taking placeyears ago, has now been reached. Something climactic, deserving of an extra. It will be interesting, no doubt of that. The Times knows what is fit to print. He, too, could hardly wait.
In downtown Oklahoma City, John LeConte put a coin into the slot of the kiosk which the Times had long ago established there. The copy of the Times' latest extra slid out, and he picked it up and read the headline briefly, spending only a moment on it to verify the essentials. Then he crossed the sidewalk and stepped once more into the rear seat of his chauffeur-driven steam car.
Mr. Fall said circumspectly, "Sir, here is the primary material, if you wish to make a word-by-word comparison." The secretary held out the folder, and LeConte accepted it.
The car started up. Without being told, the chauffeur drove in the direction of Party headquarters. LeConte leaned back, lit a cigar and made himself comfortable.
On his lap, the newspaper blazed up its enormous headlines.
CEMOLI ENTERS COALITION UN GOVERNMENT,
TEMPORARY CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES
To his secretary, LeConte said, "My phone, please."
"Yes sir." Mr. Fall handed him the portable field-phone. "But we're almost there. And it's always possible, if you don't mind my pointing it out, that they may have tapped us somewhere along the line."
"They're busy in New York," LeConte said. "Among the ruins." In an area that hasn 't mattered as long as I can remember, he said to himself. However, possibly Mr. Fall's advice was good; he decided to skip the phone call. "What do you think of this last item?" he asked his secretary, holding up the newspaper.
"Very success-deserving," Mr. Fall said, nodding.
Opening his briefcase, LeConte brought out a tattered, coverless textbook. It had been manufactured only an hour ago, and it was the next artifact to be planted for the invaders from Proxima Centaurus to discover. This was his own contribution, and he was personally quite proud of it. The book outlined in massive detail Cemoli's program of social change; the revolution depicted in language comprehensible to school children.
"May I ask," Mr. Fall said, "if the Party hierarchy intends for them to discover a corpse?"
"Eventually," LeConte said. "But that will be several months from now." Taking a pencil from his coat pocket he wrote in the tattered textbook, crudely, as if a pupil had done it:
DOWN WITH CEMOLI
Or was that going too far? No, he decided. There would be resistance. Certainly of the spontaneous, school boy variety. He added:
WHERE ARE THE ORANGES?
Peering over his shoulder, Mr. Fall said, "What does that mean?"
"Cemoli promises oranges to the youth," LeConte explained. "Another empty boast which the revolution never fulfills. That was Stavros's idea… he being a grocer. A nice touch." Giving it, he thought, just that much more semblance of verisimilitude. It's the little touches that have done it.
"Yesterday," Mr. Fall said, "when I was at Party headquarters, I heard an audio tape that had been made. Cemoli addressing the UN. It was uncanny; if you didn't know -"