«Eh? Do you have a brig in the ship?»
«No. But it would not be hard to jury-rig one.»
I looked at him sharply, trying to figure what went on inside that bony head. «Would you actually put Bill in the brig if I asked for it?»
He looked up, cocked a brow and grinned wryly. «No. A man doesn't get to be a captain operating on any such basis as that. I would not take that sort of order even from him.» He inclined his head toward the room Bonforte was in. «Certain decisions a man must make himself.»
«That's right.»
«Mmm — I hear you've made one of that sort.»
«That's right.»
«So. I've come to have a lot of respect for you, old son. First met you, I figured you for a clotheshorse and a facemaker, with nothing inside. I was wrong.»
«Thank you.»
«So I won't plead with you. Just tell me: is it worth our time to discuss the factors? Have you given it plenty of thought?»
«My mind is made up, Dak. This isn't my pidgin.»
«Well, perhaps you're right. I'm sorry. I guess we'll just have to hope he pulls out of it in time.» He stood up. «By the way, Penny would like to see you, if you aren't going to turn in again this minute.»
I laughed without pleasure. «Just “by the way,” eh? Is this the proper sequence? Isn't it Dr. Capek's turn to try to twist my arm?»
«He skipped his turn; he's busy with Mr. B. He sent you a message, though.»
«Eh?»
«He said you could go to hell. Embroidered it a bit, but that was the gist.»
«He did? Well, tell him I'll save him a seat by the fire.»
«Can Penny come in?»
«Oh, sure! But you can tell her that she is wasting her time; the answer is still “No.”»
So I changed my mind. Confound it, why should an argument seem so much more logical when underlined with a whiff of Jungle Lust? Not that Penny used unfair means, she did not even shed tears — not that I laid a finger on her — but I found myself conceding points, and presently there were no more points to concede. There is no getting around it. Penny is the worldsaver type and her sincerity is contagious.
The boning I did on the trip out to Mars was as nothing to the hard study I put in on the trip to New Batavia. I already had the basic character; now it was necessary to fill in the background, prepare myself to be Bonforte under almost any circumstances. While it was the royal audience I was aiming at, once we were at New Batavia I might have to meet any of hundreds or thousands of people. Rog planned to give me a defense in depth of the sort that is routine for any public figure if he is to get work done; nevertheless, I would have to see people — a public figure is a public figure, no way to get around that.
The tightrope act I was going to have to attempt was made possible only by Bonforte's Farleyfile, perhaps the best one ever compiled. Farley was a political manager of the twentieth century, of Eisenhower I believe, and the method he invented for handling the personal relations of politics was as revolutionary as the German invention of staff command was to warfare. Yet I had never heard of the device until Penny showed me Bonforte's.
It was nothing but a file about people. However, the art of politics is «nothing but» people. This file contained all, or almost all, of the thousands upon thousands of people Bonforte had met in the course of his long public life; each dossier consisted of what he knew about that person from Bonforte's own personal contact. Anything at all, no matter how trivial — in fact, trivia were always the first entries: names and nicknames of wives, children, and pets, hobbies, tastes in food or drink, prejudices, eccentricities. Following this would be listed date and place and comments for every occasion on which Bonforte had talked to that particular man.
When available, a photo was included. There might or might not be «below-the-line» data, i.e. information which had been researched rather than learned directly by Bonforte. It depended on the political importance of the person. In some cases the «below-the-line» part was a formal biography running to thousands of words.
Both Penny and Bonforte himself carried minicorders powered by their body heat. If Bonforte was alone he would dictate into his own when opportunity offered — in rest rooms, while riding, etc.; if Penny went along she would take it down in hers, which was disguised to look like a wrist watch. Penny could not possibly do the transcribing and microfilming; two of Jimmie Washington's girls did little else.
When Penny showed me the Farleyfile, showed me the very bulk of it — and it was bulky, even at ten thousand words or more to the spool — and then told me that this represented personal information about Mr. Bonforte's acquaintances, I scroaned (which is a scream and groan done together, with intense feeling). «God's mercy, child! I tried to tell you this job could not be done. How could anyone memorize all that?»
«Why, you can't, of course.»
«You just said that this was what he remembered about his friends and acquaintances.»
«Not quite. I said that this is what he wanted to remember. But since he can't, not possibly, this is how he does it. Don't worry; you don't have to memorize anything. I just want you to know that it is available. It is my job to see that he has at least a minute or two to study the appropriate Farleyfile before anybody gets in to see him. If the need turns up, I can protect you with the same service.»
I looked at the typical file she had projected on the desk reader. A Mr. Saunders of Pretoria, South Africa, I believe it was. He had a bulldog named Snuffles Bullyboy, several assorted uninteresting offspring, and he liked a twist of lime in his whisky and splash. «Penny, do you mean to tell me that Mr. B. pretends to remember minutiae like that? It strikes me as rather phony.»
Instead of getting angry at the slur on her idol Penny nodded soberly. «I thought so once. But you don't look at it correctly, Chief. Do you ever write down the telephone number of a friend?»
«Eh? Of course.»
«Is it dishonest? Do you apologize to your friend for caring so little about him that you can't simply remember his number?»
«Eh? All right, I give up. You've sold me.»
«These are things he would like to remember if his memory were perfect. Since it isn't, it is no more phony to do it this way than it is to use a tickler file in order not to forget a friend's birthday — that's what it is: a giant tickler file, to cover anything. But there is more to it. Did you ever meet a really important person?»
I tried to think. Penny did not mean the greats of the theatrical profession; she hardly knew they existed. «I once met President Warfield. I was a kid of ten or eleven.»
«Do you remember the details?»
«Why, certainly. He said, “How did you break that arm, son?” and I said, “Riding a bicycle, sir,” and he said, “Did the same thing myself, only it was a collarbone.”»
«Do you think he would remember it if he were still alive?»
«Why, no.»
«He might — he may have had you Farleyfiled. This Farleyfile includes boys of that age, because boys grow up and become men. The point is that top-level men like President Warfield meet many more people than they can remember. Each one of that faceless throng remembers his own meeting with the famous man and remembers it in detail. But the supremely important person in any one's life is himself — and a politician must never forget that. So it is polite and friendly and warmhearted for the politician to have a way to be able to remember about other people the sort of little things that they are likely to remember about him. It is also essential — in politics.»
I had Penny display the Farleyfile on King Willem. It was rather short, which dismayed me at first, until I concluded that it meant that Bonforte did not know the Emperor well and had met him only on a few official occasions — Bonforte's first service as Supreme Minister had been before old Emperor Frederick's death. There was no biography below the line, but just a notation, «See House of Orange .» I didn't — there simply wasn't time to plow through a few million words of Empire and pre-Empire history and, anyhow, I got fair-to-excellent marks in history when I was in school. All I wanted to know about the Emperor was what Bonforte knew about him that other people did not.