Shadow of Heaven

Chapter Fifteen

Stirling rode down from Heaven in solitary splendor, sitting in the middle of a freight car, which had been sent up specially for him when the monitoring crews saw his appearance at the elevator head. As the car lost height he found himself having to adjust to seeing the dawn from below—the gun-metal mists of the Atlantic rose up on all sides like confining walls, and the oyster-colored sky became remote. He ignored the vague sense of loss and concentrated on the very real pains in his ears—brought about by the increasing air pressure—until the car had docked on the island station. Holding his head in both hands and grimacing like an idiot in an attempt to ease the torment in his ears, Stirling stepped off the car to meet a group of men in the whites of the Food Technology Authority.

He was rushed downstairs into a windowless office suite and away from the prying cameras of the bubblecraft which were still flitting at the minimum legal distance from the lie. During the following three hours he was interrogated by F.T.A. executives; police officials; civil servants; two generals and an admiral; a panel of gray men he recognized as being members of the Press Council; and a number of tight-lipped individuals whose background remained professionally obscure. Through it all he stuck to the formula he had agreed upon with Administrator Raddall: he was a journalist who had gone to foolish extremes to get a story; he had no real idea how many people were living on the He or how long they had been there; and he had sworn to the Administrator himself that, in the interests of social stability, he would keep quiet about the whole affair. The only information he gave freely and in full was an account of how Duke Bennett had arranged his trip to the He and had tried to ensure that he would arrive there dead.

Someone in Raddall’s office must have paved the way for him, Stirling decided, because at noon on the same day he was smuggled ashore on an F.T.A. skimmer. Before leaving the station he had showered and had been provided with fresh clothes and facilities for removing his conquistador’s beard. In spite of having spent most of the previous night stumbling through the length of the He in utter darkness, he felt relaxed and fit as he sat in the back of a closed truck that was taking him into downtown Newburyport.

“Where do you want to get out?” The security man who was traveling with him was unexpectedly polite and friendly. Stirling was momentarily surprised at the man’s attitude; then he became preoccupied with the realization that the basic facts of survival had not altered. He still had to earn money, eat, and provide shelter for himself—even though these considerations had not been so important on the He. ^;

“Drop me at the Record office. … I guess I better see if I still have a job there.”

“You will… . Don’t worry.” The security man smiled unctuously, and Stirling automatically opened a new data storage file in the back of his mind. He tentatively labeled it, F.T.A. —Isolated observations suggesting dirty work behind the scenes. The file was a ridiculously thin one, even when—after a moment’s hesitation—his mental librarian added an item about the uncanny speed of his release from the F.T.A. island. The Authority had as much power as the Government in some spheres; and, regardless of Raddall’s influence, they could have buried him out there in the shadow of Heaven.

“I wish I could be as certain of that as you seem to be.” Stirling probed very gently and saw the security man’s long face freeze into impassiveness. Uh-huh, the librarian said, item number three?

When the truck had reached the Record’s offices, the driver called back to Stirling through a sliding panel; and he opened the rear door and jumped out. The truck immediately moved away, caught up in the solid, creeping congestion of the fifth-level traffic arteries. Stirling went into the building, found a vacant elevator, and dropped himself to the floor occupied by the newspaper. By the time the elevator doors opened he was sweating gently, and his new shirt was developing the familiar stickiness under the collar which was something he had not experienced in a long time.

At the door to the main editorial office he paused for a moment, then went in as inconspicuously as possible. He ran into an almost palpable wall of warmth, smoke, and used air which made his lungs quail. The long office seemed to have shrunk to about half the size he remembered it. Walls clamped in on an incredible montage of desks, screens, columns, service cables, and an impossible number of people who were working, talking, crouching over machines, smoking, and threading their way through narrow aisles with eel-like speed. Stirling felt his breathing lapse into a ragged, uneasy rhythm.

“Say! There’s big Vic!”

A group of reporters surrounded him within seconds, some of them climbing over desks to get closer. He shook as many hands as possible and exchanged greetings with familiar faces to which he had a disquieting amount of difficulty in attaching names. The voices seemed to wrap him in a stifling blanket of sound.

“What was it like up there?”

“How did you lose so much weight? Didn’t they feed you up there?”

“Tell us about the gun battles, Vic.”

“Any women up there?”

“How much would it cost me to get a tan like that?”

“Did you bring any … ?”

In the middle of the confusion, a girl thrust a note into Stirling’s hand. He opened it and read: “PI. see me when you’ve finished—S. McL.”

Christ, Stirling thought in something approaching panic, McLeod is still sitting at his desk and sending notes to reporters who are all of fifteen feet away. The walls seemed to move in closer for an instant. He struggled free of the mob and worked his way across to the news desk. McLeod set down his plastic cup of synthejuice and stood up to shake hands.

“Welcome back, Victor.” He smiled painfully. “It’s good to see you again, Victor. Don’t worry about your contract—the company is overlooking the irregularities; so you’re still employed and have six months back salary to collect when you’re ready for it.”

Stirling prevented his jaw from dropping. “I didn’t expect this, Sam.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“But after the way I walked out . , .”

“The company is taking heed of the special circumstances, what with your brother being missing, and all that. It must have been pretty tough for you. And besides”—McLeod toyed with his cup—”we can’t afford to lose good reporters.”

Stirling almost burst out laughing. McLeod had not been able to look him in the eyes and come out with that one, not after four years of private warfare between them.

“Well, thanks a lot, Sam. I had no idea the paper thought so much of me.” Stirling allowed the faintest note of insincerity to creep into his voice and McLeod, a seasoned verbal skirmisher, looked at him thoughtfully from yellowed eyes.

“There is only one tiling, Victor. Obviously you’ll not be ready to start work right away, but Mr. Selig left word he would like to see you for a few minutes at the earliest opportunity. Could you go down to his office now?”

Stirling nodded noncommittally. As news editor McLeod was responsible to the Records s editor, who in turn, was answerable to the editor-in-chief of the company group of papers. Above him again was the general manager of the proprietary corporation, and then one reached Mr. Selig, a man very few of the reporters had ever even seen. The librarian in the back of Stirling’s mind opened up his brand new file and stood waiting.

“Well, Vic. You’ve been in the news lately.”

“Yes. I’m doing my best to get back out of it again though.” Stirling leaned back in his chair and watched Leon Selig across an expanse of cluttered desk. He was a thick, round man with an incongruously tiny hooked nose which reminded Stirling of a budgerigar’s beak.

“Yeah, but the point is, you got into it by yourself. I like that, Vic. It shows you’ve got initiative and imagination, two qualities that are pretty scarce in the Record these days. I’ve got some ideas for reorganizing things upstairs, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you, my boy. This is between us, of course—in the meantime, anyway.”

“Thank you, Mr. Selig.” Stirling put a carefully calculated amount of gratitude into his voice and wondered exactly what he was being set up for. Selig appeared not to hear. He spent a full minute tidying paperwork on his desk, while Stirling concentrated on forcing his lungs to accept the machine-cleaned, lifeless air. Selig’s office—although palatial for one man by Compression standards— was much more claustrophobic than the editorial room. He decided he would be able to sit in it for a maximum of five minutes, perhaps less, if nothing interesting happened soon.

“Now, Vic,” Selig’s voice was warmly confidential. “As you know, I never interfere in matters of editorial policy, but we’re dealing with exceptional circumstances here. So, what I would like you to do if you don’t mind, is to outline for me the kind of story you’re planning to write about your experience.”

“I’m not planning to write anything,” Stirling said bluntly. “I wasn’t on an assignment. I went up there for personal reasons.”

“That’s how a good story is written, Vic. When the reporter isn’t just an impartial observer, but is personally involved, we get a good story, something that’s worth reading. Now, look. Your salary for the whole six months is being paid into your account today, and I’m going to offer you a special rate for a series of feature stories about those people up there. A dollar a word. Write it to any length you like, at a dollar a word. How does that sound?”

“It sounds great, Mr. Selig, but I can’t do the story.”

Selig began tidying his desk for the second time around. “I understand that Lester Raddall talked to you up there?” “Yes, but I’m not writing about that either.”

“He can’t touch you, Vic. We can all see his point of view, of course. He fluffed the whole business, by knuckling in to those bums, and now he wants the whole thing buried. It’s understandable he should want it forgotten; and I admire the stand you’re making, Vic. But don’t get your loyalties misplaced.

“Your duty is to the people of this country, not to any individual or group.”

“That’s the way I feel about it,” Stirling said. “And that’s why I’m not going to write this story. I guess I’d better clean out my desk and start looking for another job.”

Selig gave a booming laugh. “How little you know me, Vic. If, in your judgment, a story should not be printed, would no amount of money make you change your mind?”

“No.” I don’t sound like myself, Stirling thought. Am I going to be subject to rushes of idealism to the head? If so, I’d better look for another job.

“That’s it, then. Integrity is too scarce a commodity in employees for me to try subverting it. I want you to know that the impressions I’ve formed in this private little talk will improve your promotion prospects, Vic.

“No, I don’t want you to clear out your desk.” Selig laughed again.

Stirling moved uneasily hi his chair as he tried to loosen the bonds of perspiration gripping his clothes. “If there’s nothing else …”

“Don’t rush away… I’ve ordered some coffee.” Selig pressed a button. “Let me confess something to you, Vic. I expect you’re wondering why I had you down here in person, instead of handling this matter through the usual channels?”

“Well, I … “

“Of course, you were. You’re not dumb. The truth is I wanted to talk to somebody who had been up there in person. I’m not claustrophobic; don’t get that idea; but those islands up there in the sky have always fascinated me, Vic.

“Tell me, what was it really like?”

Stirling hesitated, then gave a general description of the upper surface of International Land Extension, U.S. 23, in which he was careful to put very little more than would be found in a good reference work. A gray-haired woman with cylindrical shins brought in the coffee; and, while they were drinking it, Selig asked a number of questions about how the villagers lived. He seemed naively disappointed to hear they had not developed a separate tribal culture complete with initiation ceremonies and fertility rites.

“I’m afraid they were a pretty uninteresting bunch,” Stirling said as he stood up to drain the last of his coffee.

“They sound that way,” Selig twinkled. “I guess I’ve always been too much of a romantic anyway.”

When Stirling finally broke free of the Record office he went for a cold drink, but the bar’s dark and airless confines made him feel as though he had been sewn up in black velvet. The beer tasted of chemicals, and he kept imagining the intertwining of tanned limbs—Melissa’s and Johnny’s. He decided it was time to go and see his mother.

On the way out of the bar he noticed a newspaper vendor at the door; then he remembered the world had been getting along without him for six months, and he had no idea what had been happening. He put a coin into the machine and waited while it printed the hourly edition. The pre-rush hour lull was prevailing outside. He got a cab without any difficulty and settled down to read the paper during the trip. It was a single sheet and—being an electronic throwback to the coumntos of the Middle Ages— carried a temporally narrow slice of the world’s affairs.

It was the day of the full moon; and, as usual, there was a snide story about the billions of frustrated Chinese males who would be denied normal relations with their wives for the next four days, on pain of having their names displayed on wall posters as betrayers of the gloriously regulated and synchronized womanhood of China. There was news of the failure of TWEAK, the desperation project in which a multimillionaire had spent his whole fortune in launching a ship, which was all power plant and no pay-load, simply to find out, once and for all, if Einstein had been right and the stars really were unattainable. Crime and sports news filled out the bulk of the edition, and Stirling was throwing the sheet aside when his eyes picked out a familiar name, Mason Third.

The story contained no mention of the Receders. It simply stated that Senator Mason Third had announced he would ignore the Administrator’s ban on his public rallies and speak in Boston that night on the Land Extension scandal. Stirling was astounded both by the use of the title “Senator” and the generally respectful tone of the copy. A lot must have happened in six months. He settled back thoughtfully in his seat and waited for the taxi to carry him home.

Mary Considine was intent on building a bouquet of artificial ferns when he opened the door and walked into the cramped apartment. She looked up and studied him for a moment with baffled eyes. “Kill the fatted planktonburger,” Stirling said finally. “I’ve come back.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“Yes, if you can fit me in.”

His mother nodded casually, but he saw a furtive gleam of satisfaction in her eyes; and he wondered—for perhaps the thousandth time—what refinements of Twenty-first Century living had forced her withdrawal. Could it have been simply the sheer monotony of thirty-five years in a fam-apt? There was no way to find out, because her shell permitted no emotional communication in either direction. Mrs. Considine uttered words when they were absolutely necessary, but she never talked. Moving with heavy patience through furniture which nudged her at every step, she pulled her sleeves down over her mottled, red forearms and began to prepare his bed. This, Sterling thought, is what I offered Melissa.

He spent the rest of the day at the television set, switching from channel to channel, trying to re-orientate himself in the world’s affairs. The first thing he was able to confirm was that Mason Third really was a senator for Pop-mod 162, an area roughly corresponding to the seaboard of the old Georgia. Even under the streamlined electoral system introduced at the beginning of the century, Third had traveled far and fast—an indication that he had been preparing the ground carefully in advance. His ticket, from the tantalizing references Stirling caught, seemed to be a dressed-up version of the Receders’ anti-everything attitude. But the fact that a man could succeed in politics by being against the Food Technology Authority, the lies program, enforced population control—and apparently for nothing—carried alarming sociological implications for anybody who wanted to think about them. Stirling had no desire to think about anything at all, but it was necessary to numb his mind with information to prevent him noticing the slow inward creep of walls.

Another thing which immediately became apparent was that the F.T.A. political machine had gone into action against the Government because of its dismissal from the lie. Loaded connotations in straight newscasts, wisecracks by disc jockeys, heavily weighted magazine programs, all hammered home the point that Administrator Raddall had acted against the F.T.A., yet had given a bunch of squatters unlimited freedom to trample down the nation’s food voider their unwashed feet. The propaganda was good and it was effective.

Late in the evening, Stirling tired of watching the F.T.A. puppets dance on the ends of their all too visible strings. He tried to read and then to interest his mother in talking, but in the end decided to go out in search of air. At the bottom street level he stood on the sidewalk for several seconds, laboring desperately for breath, before he walked aimlessly towards the city center. Sometime later he began to notice people staring.

Stirling had covered several more blocks, consciously watching out for the signs of recognition in strangers’ eyes, before he saw his own face looking out from the bill-board screen of a Record news vendor. Beside it, the Special Edition sign was winking with its ruby light. Stirling had to join a short queue before he was able to drop in a coin for his own copy. The headline was:

HOBOES IN HEAVEN–––- THE FULL STORY

Underneath it, a lengthy subheading said: “On He 23 a group of men who have no respect for society live high and wide off the nation’s food supplies and thumb their noses at the American people. Victor Stirling, a Record reporter, was there! Here at last is the full story of the dropout society—the men who made suckers of YOU!”

Accompanying the story was a three-column, head-and-shoulders picture of Stirling from the Record’s stock files, and another showing him being rushed away from the elevator car by the F.T.A. men. The caption read, “After his six months’ imprisonment on He 23, Record reporter, Victor Stirling, is helped from the elevator by the F.T.A. officers who brought him down to safety.” In the photograph Stirling was stumbling and holding his head, but there was no way of knowing this was a result of earache —a fact which had lent itself to the production of one of the most heavily loaded pieces of copy he had seen in a long time. He had been a prisoner on the He, but anybody reading the paper would get the idea he had been rescued by the F.T.A.

Stirling bulled his way through the tide of people to a backwater in the entrance of a store and scanned the main story. It was written hi a luridly factual style for the most part, and the phrase “this reporter” occurred in passages expressing opinions. Nowhere was it actually stated that Stirling had written the story; yet, as far as the man in the street was concerned, this was an eyewitness account of life on the He. Stirling went through it, picking out echoes of descriptions he had given Selig earlier in the day. When he came to a paragraph telling how the villagers kept warm by burning tons of yellow grain, he screwed the paper up in a ball and began looking for a telephone. In the booth, he dialed the Record’s editorial number and got through to the nightman.

“Is McLeod there?” Stirling demanded.

“Not tonight. Who wants him?”

“When will he be back?”

“Eight-thirty in the morning. Who wants to know?”

Stirling dropped the receiver and walked back the way he had come. The reckoning with McLeod—and Selig, if he could be reached—would have to wait till morning. He forced himself to admit that the nightlong cooling off period was a good idea, because in his present mood he would have been capable of using one man as a club with which to beat the other to death. When he finally lay down in the coffin-like bedroom, he had to wait a long time before sleep came drifting down like black snow.

In the morning, while he was eating breakfast, came the news that Administrator Raddall had ordered complete evacuation of He 23.