Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

Chapter 6

Maybe we shouldn’t have started out with a full-dress press conference, especially since it was such a rousing success. The media showed up with cameras already rolling as I poured a fifth of no-longer-pure ethanol into Gadget’s enhanced jalopy (what better way to make the point that the fuel was alcohol, and any conventional car could use it with only a change in carburetor?). She started up, drove off northward, and turned the corner.

“She’ll come in from the south,” I said helpfully.

The cameras panned to follow my pointing hand and kept recording.

The jalopy rolled around the corner, pulled up to the curb, and stopped.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The first time we had tested the fuel, the engine wouldn’t stop; turning off the ignition had absolutely no effect. It dieseled, which would have been great for heavy equipment but not so great if you wanted to use it in a conventional car. We’d had to wait for it to run out of fuel—not hard, since I’d only put in a quart. Of course, we’d advertise the diesel fuel separately, but for the ordinary consumer, I’d had to put in another additive—which was great when it came to getting it past the FDA.

How about the American public?

They lined up at repair shops and the orders from mechanics skyrocketed—for a week. That’s how long it took the petroleum lobby to file charges with a federal court. The cease-and-desist order hit us on Thursday and the warrant hit us on Friday. Ms. Russe, Gadget’s lawyer, fought a valiant holding action but called us in for a warning.

“The law says no pure ethanol cars,” she told us.

“It isn’t pure anymore,” I said.

She nodded but told me, “The lobby’s lawyers will make it look as good as. After all, you’re only adding three-quarters of a percent of other chemicals.”

“Which make it undrinkable,” Gadget said, “and the whole purpose of the law is to prevent alcoholics from tanking up.”

“Right—but the law as written doesn’t say anything about ‘why.’ It just says, ‘No pure ethanol.’ Period.”

“Can’t we do something with the intent of the law?” I asked.

“I’ll try,” she said, “but I’m outgunned. They’ve got ten lawyers to my one, they’re all much more experienced than I am, and they can bring in enough expert witnesses to keep the jury in the box for a year.”

“So what do we do?” Gadget asked.

“Pray,” she said.

Gadget looked at me. I looked at Gadget.

There weren’t any fictitious churches for praying to fictitious saints—at least, none we could actually walk into—so we cobbled up a virtual chapel. We downloaded a 3-D image of the inside of Notre Dame de Paris, put on our goggles, and started down the nave, then swerved over to a side altar, where I had pasted a picture of St. Vidicon as I imagined him to be, complete with little yellow-handled screwdriver in the breast pocket of his monk’s robe—never mind that the story said all that had been invented after he died.

“St. Vidicon,” I intoned, “protect us from the petroleum lobby.”

“Amen,” Gadget said. “St. Vidicon, protect us from specious logic and rigid interpretations of the law.”

“Amen,” I said. “St. Vidicon, protect us from judges who want everything the way it was in 1928.”

“Amen,” Gadget agreed.

We took off our goggles, and Gadget said, “I don’t feel good about this. Isn’t it sacrilegious or something?”

“Only irreverent,” I assured her. “It may seem to be making fun of religion, but believe me, there’s a very real need underlying it.”

“Amen to that,” Gadget said fervently, then did a double-take at her own words.

“Besides, what harm can it do?” I shrugged. “And it might bring some good. St. Vidicon may be fictitious, but the saint who’s really in charge of lawyers and courtrooms could hear us.”

“We don’t believe in saints,” Gadget objected.

“Does that matter?”

“Father Vidicon,” Tony said hesitantly, “can the road to Hell really be so soft and squishy?”

“I came in through Hellmouth”—the priest sighed—“so I suppose this is its throat—and as you know, throats are notoriously . . .” He broke off, staring into midair.

“What is it?” Tony asked, then anxiously, “It isn’t Nick and Gadget again, is it?”

“The very ones,” Father Vidicon answered. “They’ve been indicted.”

Tony stared. “What for?”

“For manufacturing a car that burns pure alcohol.”

“Quick! You’ve got to save them! Inspire their lawyers! Talk to the judge!”

Father Vidicon threw his arms wide in bafflement. “Lawyers! Courts! They’re completely beyond my experience. As to the judge, if even God is always talking to us but can’t make us listen, how is a poor martyr to manage?”

“But you’re the expert on perversity!”

“Only in machines.”

“No, in systems, too,” Tony pointed out, “and the law is a system.”

Father Vidicon frowned, thinking that one over. Then he shook his head. “How am I supposed to know anything about the contrast between the precise language of the law and the twists and turns of people’s minds that could bend it out of its original purpose? How could I know anything about constructing a legal argument or talking forcefully in front of a panel of judges?”

Tony stared, at a loss—and stricken to see Father Vidicon confounded.

Then a bell seemed to chime inside his head; he grinned. “Don’t martyrs have an inside track when it comes to calling on other saints?”

Father Vidicon stared at Tony, then smiled as a feeling of warmth enfolded him, and he remembered that he wasn’t alone in the long struggle for the souls of humanity. “You’re right, Tony. It’s time to pray to a real saint.”

“That’s talking!” Tony grinned. “Which one?”

“St. Genesius.”

Tony frowned. “Isn’t he the patron saint of actors?”

“The very one.” Father Vidicon nodded. “He performed for the amusement of a Roman emperor in a play mocking Christians and collapsed, felled by an explosion of enlightenment—God talking to him, and he finally listened. He converted to Christianity and died a martyr’s death.”

Tony frowned. “Why is an actor going to help us?”

“Because,” said Father Vidicon, “he is also one of the patrons of lawyers.” Folding his hands, he prayed, “Oh Genesius, patron of performers, epileptics, and lawyers, hearken, I pray you, to the cries of these earnest younglings who seek, in their way, to better the lot of all people! Defend them, St. Genesius, from the casuistry and specious claims of those who would defeat their efforts in a court of law! “

”Enough, Father Vidicon! I hear you!”

Father Vidicon looked up in surprize and saw a round clean-shaven face with the close-cropped Roman haircut smiling upon him, as though a round window had opened in midair, showing the saint from the waist up.

Tony stared, awestruck.

“O holy one!” Father Vidicon cried, and would have fallen to his knees had not a hand stretched forth from that window to prevent him. “None of that, Father Vidicon! You lived a more holy life than I for much longer, and died a martyr’s death even as I did—and as for my being real and you not, bear in mind that actors are always closer to fiction than most.”

St. Vidicon straightened his legs, staring at the window in midair, then realized that a canonized saint could not, of course, step into the throat of Hell. “O Sainted One . . .”

“Yes, well, if I have the title of ‘saint,’ that goes without saying. Be done with your high-flown language, Father Vidicon, and address me as an ordinary mortal, or we shall take forever in this chat! Tell me in plain language what you want of me.”

“Why, that you inspire their lawyer, St. Genesius, with arguments to confound the opponents who want to use law as a shield while they loot the earth of its last treasures!”

“Rather broad, isn’t that? Remember, I knew little enough of physics or chemistry while I was alive and haven’t had occasion to ask the Almighty to enlighten me since! Exactly how would you suggest I help these two young people?”

“Ah, if I had the slightest notion, I would not have called upon you!” Father Vidicon protested. “How should I know the mind of a lawyer?”

“Because you’re a Jesuit and have learned the skills of logic and argumentation, of course! Still, I’ll admit I can probably advise more effectively on those points, since they require an impassioned delivery as much as clear thought. Now tell me for whom these lawyers will be arguing, and why.”

Father Vidicon gave him a summary of the motives and actions of the petroleum lobby and of the valor of the two young inventors who dared oppose them. As he finished, St. Genesius nodded. “The cause is clear, then, and the younglings’ ambition does not diminish the good they may do. But I cannot urge speech without thoughts to put into words, engineer! What facts can you tell me that I can urge upon this earnest lawyer?”

“Well!” St. Vidicon said, and decided to begin from the beginning. “The alcohol molecule is a string of a hydrogen atom, two oxygen atoms, a carbon, and a hydrogen, bonded by . . .”

He spoke on, and St. Genesius listened with rapt attention, fascinated by an aspect of existence he had never contemplated before. When Father Vidicon was done, the saint said, “I’ll have to think this over for a bit—but rest assured that I’ll inspire their lawyer as soon as I see the precedents they must cite. In the meantime, good priest, you might want to make sure the news of this lawsuit reaches an executive at the National Sugar Board.”

He disappeared, leaving Father Vidicon staring at the space where his window had been.

“Sugar?” Tony asked, bewildered.

The priest strove to flatten his forehead with the heel of his hand, crying, “How blind I am! Naturally the Board would encourage these inventors!”

He knew, of course, that the exploding popularity of artificial sweeteners had hurt the sugar industry badly and that it had sponsored a score of research projects to find other uses for sucrose. Gadget, however, had never thought to submit a proposal to them—if she had, she would surely have had strong allies in Congress.

As she would now.

Father Vidicon touched Tony’s arm so that the young man would know what he was doing as he turned his attention to the Americas, where they lay slumbering in the dark, scanning the sleeping people to discover executives of the Board. Finding the chairman, he inserted a thought into his sleeping mind ever so gently, then expanded it into a full-fledged dream, confident that when the man woke, he would attribute his insight to his subconscious and his newspapers, never to a saint.

That done, Father Vidicon sighed, and said, “That’s all we can do for tonight, Tony. Back to your body, now, and wake rested.”

“Wish you could rest.”

“Time enough for that when I reach Heaven. Besides . . .” Father Vidicon gave him a crooked smile. “Not having a body to haul about, my spiritual energy lasts a great deal longer. You, however, are still mortal, so back to sleep with you!” He raised a hand as if in blessing, and Tony sank into the depths of slumber.

Alone again, Father Vidicon turned to pace onward down the throat of Hell, whistling as he went.

Gadget hadn’t quit her day job, of course, though she wasn’t looking forward to another eight hours of advising mechanics by videophone. She was on her way out the door when her phone rang. Torn between the thought of worsening rush-hour crowds on the trolley and the chance that I might have woken up early with another brilliant idea, she hesitated, knowing how a call would slow her down, then pulled out the phone as she headed for the corner. She punched at the phone as she walked, scolding her pulse rate for picking up its tempo at the thought of me and my delightful ideas.

Hey, I know how conceited that sounds—but stop and figure out how I know. She told me herself, after things had really gotten going. No accounting for taste, as my mother said—but I’m not about to complain.

Her spirits were dashed by the sight of the mature man who looked out of the screen at her—another bill collector! Or maybe not—he sounded far too cultured as he asked, “Miss Farnum?”

“Yes,” Gadget said warily.

“I’m Hiram Mather and I chair the National Sugar Board. We’d like to talk to you about your lawsuit.”

Gidget stood frozen for a second while her engineer’s mind searched for possible correlations and hit on them. Of course! And here all along she’d been thinking of a boost for the grain farmers! “A pleasure to talk with you.”

“I hope so,” Mather said, with a smile of amusement. “We understand you’ve developed a carburetor that lets conventional cars run on ethanol.”

“Yes, but my colleague Nick Smith had to invent an additive that slows down ethanol’s combustion rate,” Gadget said. “It really works better as a diesel fuel.”

“Oh, we don’t mind appealing to the commercial market as well as the consumers.” Mather’s smile widened into a grin.

Gadget found she was smiling, too; the man’s good spirits were infectious. “I assume you know Congress passed a law outlawing ethanol as a sole fuel instead of as an additive.”

“Oh, we were quite well aware of that, I assure you.” Mather’s smile turned sardonic. “We also knew it was the patenting of your carburetor that triggered the petroleum lobby to push for that law. But we hadn’t known you had developed a way around . . . I mean, that you had modified your carburetor to comply with that law.”

Gadget was sure the slip had been deliberate. “Actually, it was mostly Nick’s doing. I just made a few modifications to accommodate his additives.”

“I think one of our companies might have a position that would interest him,” Mather said thoughtfully. “I’d like to discuss the issue with you in some detail, Ms. Farnum. Shall we say, lunch?”

When Gadget disconnected, it finally occurred to her to wonder where on earth Mather was. She hoped his jet wouldn’t run into any delays.

Then she punched another number into her phone as she started walking again, waited impatiently through the rings until she heard my voice say, “Hi!” She blurted, “Nick, you’ll never guess . . .”

“I’m probably sleeping right now,” my voice went on, ignoring hers, “so please leave a message at the tone, and I’ll call you when I wake up.”

Gadget cursed silently while she waited for the beep, then said, “Nick, the National Sugar Board called! I think they’re going to give Charlotte a lot of high-powered legal help! I’m talking to their chairman over lunch—call me before you go to work!” She pressed the disconnect button and hurried the rest of the way to the corner, arriving just in time to watch the trolley pull away.

The Coq d’Or was only a few blocks from her office. As she stepped through the door, the maître d’ came up to her, eyebrows raised as though to tell her she wasn’t rich enough for this place—so she said quickly, “I’m with a Mr. Mather.”

“Ah, yes, m’amselle.” The maître d’ nodded as though he’d expected someone dressed as she was all along, then led her to the best table in the house—no mean feat, since the Coq d’Or claimed all its seats were the best in the house, but this one was next to the fireplace. Mather stood, stretching out a hand as she came up. “Ms. Farnum, a pleasure to meet you.”

Gadget took his hand. “The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure.” At least she hoped it would be. She realized the maître d’ was holding out a chair for her and sat; he settled her, assured them their waiter would be with them when they’d had a chance to consult the menu, and vanished.

Gadget did and gasped with horror because there weren’t any prices listed. Apparently if you needed to know how much dinner would cost, you didn’t belong at the Coq d’Or.

“I understand the veal piccata is very good today,” Mather confided.

An image of a calf locked into a narrow stall flashed through Gadget’s mind. “It sounds wonderful, but I never have that much appetite in the middle of the day. I’ll just have a salad, if that’s all right.”

“Certainly,” Mather said as though he’d been expecting it. “Caesar?”

Gadget managed to keep herself from looking around for Julius’s statue. “Yes, thanks.”

When the waiter had brought the appetizers, Mather seemed to relax a little. “Now, Ms. Farnum,” he said, “what we would suggest is that your attorney consult with our defense team.”

Gadget managed to nod while she was catching her breath. “That would be fine.”

“We’ll underwrite all your defense costs, of course,” Mather said, “and since the news of your, ah, accomplishment seems to have already leaked to the press, I’d recommend you let us assign bodyguards to yourself and Mr. Smith.”

Gadget stared. “The news channels?”

“It will be on the Net tomorrow,” Mather assured her.

Gadget had a notion who had leaked the information and made sure it would be published.

“The bodyguards will be extremely discreet,” Mather assured her. “Neither of you will ever know they’re in place.”

Gadget relaxed a little. “That would be fine.” Then, quickly, “Of course, I can’t speak for Mr. Smith.”

“I would appreciate it if you’d discuss the situation with him,” Mr. Mather said. “Of course, we would be expecting something in return for our support.”

Gadget braced herself and tilted her head with an inquiring look.

“We would like to arrange rights to selling your carburetor, installed,” Mather said.

Gadget’s heart leaped, but she managed to hide it with a frown. “Isn’t that a little outside your ordinary line of work?”

“We have several subsidiaries that participate in other businesses,” Mather said, amused. “We were envisioning setting up another, to franchise filling stations all across the country selling Mr. Smith’s formula.”

Gadget let herself begin to imagine dollar signs. “That sounds wonderful, but I’m afraid you’ll have to talk with Mr. Smith about that.”

“We will, as soon as he wakes up.” Mather managed to say it without even a hint of irony. “Of course, we’ll ask our attorneys to discuss the terms with your attorney—if the basic concept is agreeable?”

Gadget’s heart leaped. “Oh yes, very agreeable.”

“Good.” Mather’s smile was warm, and if there was amusement in that warmth, it wasn’t offensive in the slightest. He raised a glass of water. “To partnership!”

“To partnership,” Gadget agreed, clinking her glass against his. She only managed a tiny sip, though.

My alarm went off at two and Gadget’s call came at two-fifteen. I hit the ACCEPT button, ready to chew back at the boss because I was nowhere near late yet—but it was Gadget, bright-eyed and breathless. “Nick, you’ll never guess! The most wonderful thing happened today!”

It was the glow in the eyes that made me catch my breath—no, the way excitement spread the glow to her whole face. “Tell me, tell me!”

She did.

I stared.

“Nick, isn’t that wonderful?”

“Absolutely fantastic,” I said, staring back at her, but I wasn’t talking about Mather.

The window opened only a few minutes after it had closed, and St. Genesius leaned out with a smile. “These Americans have let their laws develop in most amusing ways, Father Vidicon.”

“Have they really?” the priest asked. “I’m afraid I haven’t paid much attention to the law, except to make sure I don’t break it.”

“You’re hardly alone,” St. Genesius said with some irony. “Still, I’m going to need some explanation about this carburetor the lawyers will be arguing over. I have the facts, but I don’t understand why they’re a cause for debate. Explain why the ability to burn alcohol troubles them.”

“Ah, well—that’s more a matter of money than of mechanics,” Father Vidicon said, and explained.

When he was done, the saint smiled broadly. “Now I know what to tell the lawyers!”