The Ganymede Takeover

SEVENTEEN

Gus Swenesgard blinked stupidly at the sudden light.

For a moment his sense of relief was so great that he simply lay there, saying a clumsy prayer to his fundamentalist God, a prayer of thanks; then a wave of panic swept over him. Am I, he asked himself, still alone?

He lurched from the bed and staggered to the window. Outside, in the evening darkness, he could see the dusty, familiar street, but nobody inhabited it. His terror increased by the second; hastily, he stumbled out into the hotel corridor and shouted, “Anybody there?”

“I’m here, boss.” The voice of one of his faithful Toms; it resounded from beyond a turn in the corridor. Gus broke into a run in the direction of the sound. “You’re fat and mean,” the Tom said, when they stood facing each other, seeing each other, “but you’re better than nothing.” His voice cracked with emotion.

Gus said, “You’re lazy as an old dog and ugly as a toad. But I never saw a better sight than your face this minute.” Both men exploded into near-hysterical laughter and other voices around them were laughing, too. One of the hotel rooms opened, then another; the occupants streamed shakily out, shouting greetings to one another.

In the center of the swirling mass of humanity, Gus shouted, “I’m gonna have all them doors taken off their hinges. This is gonna be the first hotel in the world with no doors!” They love me, Gus thought with awe. They really love me; see how they throw their arms around me. And that old lady just kissed me. It’s a miracle of love that’s happened. It’s God’s message of love to all mankind. “Hey,” Gus shouted above the hubbub, “how would you like for me to be king?”

One of the Toms shouted back, “You can be anything you damn well please, Mr. Gus. Just let me look at you!”

Other voices joined in. “Hooooray for King Gus! Long live King Gus! Gus the King!”

Gus broke away from the crowd and stumped puff-ingly down the hall to a vidphone. Shaking with excitement, coins sliding from his fingers and bouncing to the floor, he put through a call to the nearest TV network station. “This is Gus Swenesgard,” he declared. “I want to buy an hour of prime time on a worldwide satellite hookup for, say, tohnorrow night.” He got hold of the station manager, repeated this.

“On whose authority?” the station manager said.

“I’m the acting head of the bale of Tennessee,” Gus said sharply.

“Can you pay for it?” The station manager quoted an approximate price.

Blinking, Gus said, “S-s-ure.” It would break him financially—but it was worth it.

“You’ve made yourself a purchase,” the station manager said. “We might as well put you on the air as anybody else; at least you’re human. Since the lights went on all hell’s breaking loose around here. You know what’s going on now? Our head newscaster is in front of the cameras taking off his clothes and shouting ‘I love you.’ In a minute I expect he’ll start doing something really crazy, like telling the truth.”

“Then I’ve got the time slot?” Gus could hardly believe it.

“Sure. But payment has to be in advance of the telecast.”

“Worldwide?”

“You bet your sweet life.”

“Yippy!” Gus shouted.

“Hey,” the station manager said. “Say ‘yippy’ again. I love to hear a man sound so happy.”

“Yippy!” shouted Gus into the phone.

“Why don’t you and the wife come down and have dinner with us before the telecast?” the station manager asked. “I sure would like my family to meet the acting head of the bale of Tennessee.”

“I don’t have any wife,” Gus said. “You see—”

“Well, that’s okay. You can marry my eldest girl. I’m sure after what’s happened you’d appear pretty good to her no matter how you look.”

“I’ll take you up on the supper part, anyway,” Gus said, and, thanking the man, hung up. They love me, he thought again. Everyone in the world loves me.

The vidphone rang. Gus, being close to it, answered it.

“Gus Swenesgard?” inquired a voice. The screen remained blank. But sometimes this particular phone did that; he wasn’t surprised.

“Yes, this is Gus.” It seemed to him there was something familiar about the voice; he could not, however, place it. And in addition there was something frightfully strange about it, too; the voice raised goosebumps on Gus’ flabby flesh.

“So you want to be king.” The unidentified voice held contempt; cold, pitiless contempt.

“Sure,” Gus answered, suddenly not quite so sure of himself. Here, he realized with a sinking feeling, is at least one person who doesn’t love me.

“I know you, Gus Swenesgard,” the voice declared. “I know you better than you know yourself. You can’t even rule your own gluttony; how do you expect to rule others when you can’t rule yourself?”

“I’m no worse than the next—” Gus began defensively.

“Is that a reason to call yourself ‘king’? Just because you’re no worse than the next person?” The voice had become hard and ruthless. “You’re a clown, Gus; a redneck, ranting, second-rate clown.” The voice rolled on relentlessly. “You hypocrite. Egomaniac. Overstuffed racist slob with a rear-end like a hog’s snout.”

Frightened, Gus said, “W-w-who do you think you are, anyhow?”

“Don’t you know me?”

“Hell no.” Nobody talked to him that way; at least nobody had for a long time.

“You were present at my birth. Don’t you remember? In the great darkness, in the silence.”

“What are you, some kind of nut?” His voice shook.

“You would like to be able to reduce me to the stature of a mere nut, wouldn’t you? I know how you think, Gus, how you divide humans into good men and bad men, the saved and the damned. And you, of course, are one of the saved.”

“Fm a good Christian,” Gus muttered, rallying.

“You believe,” the voice continued implacably, “that the flesh is evil, but you can’t escape it. You’re helpless to stop the regular, persistent functions of your body, the functions you regard as dirty and sinful and unmentionable, and so you live in constant guilt. You are an abomination, Gus; to me and to everyone—to yourself most of all. You can never be king, Gus; you have a powerful enemy who will by step. As you build it up he will tear it down.”

“Who?” Gus shouted, now thoroughly terrified. “Who’ll do that to me?”

“I will,” the voice said. And the receiver clicked.

Gus, stepping unsteadily away from the dead vid-phone, heard the gales of laughter from down the hall; for a moment it seemed to him that the merrymakers were laughing at him, personally. But of course that couldn’t be.

Just some crank, he thought shakily. I mustn’t pay him no mind.

But the words on the phone had gone right through him, like a burning knife, and now they haunted him. Try as he would he couldn’t forget them.

I’ve got work to do, he told himself. And slunk off back to his room, to write his forthcoming TV speech—and finish off the bottle of Cutty Sark.

Joan still sat quietly in the waiting room when Paul Rivers emerged from the general practitioner’s office, both hands bandaged and all his fingers in organic splints. “You didn’t have to stay,” he said to her. “I can manage all right by myself.” However, he thought, I’m glad you did. In actuality he could not manage—and would not for some time. And both of them knew it.

Joan opened the door for him and accompanied him out into the hall. He realized that she had noticed his limp and tried to walk as naturally as possible. I don’t, he reflected, want her to feel sorry for me but that’s silly, of course; she feels nothing for me, one way or the other. It’s a part of her conditioning that she be indifferent to such matters.

Still, she had taken the trouble to drag his unconscious body into the ionocraft, give him first aid and bring him here to the doctor. She had not merely left him there in the cave to die, as she easily could have done.

As they stepped into the elevator, Joan said haltingly, “Paul, I—” She then stopped. The elevator door slid shut and they descended in silence. At last she continued, “It seemed so strange, up there in the mountains. Being you. Yet in another way not so strange being you. As if some part of me—this is how it felt—some part of me had always been you.”

The elevator door opened again, allowing them to exit into the main lobby of the medical building. Paul said, “I felt the same thing about you, when I became part of you.” They stepped out of the elevator and made their way through the crowd of milling, shouting, happy people, some of who now and then grabbed and hugged them. Paul did not object to their shoving him about, even though, because of his injuries, the experience was painful. The mob thinned out near the front entrance, and once again he and Joan could hear each other.

“In a way it felt good,” Joan said, “being you. A real, living, feeling, caring human being. Now, of course, it’s too late for me.”

Paul stopped and looked at her intently; her eyes had become moist and in the lights of evening they glistened. This has got to be an hallucination, he thought with astonishment. Joan Hiashi crying? Impossible.

“I have a problem,” Joan said wistfully; she looked away from him. “I have nothing and I want nothing; I’ve achieved the state that holy men have striven for down throughout centuries and now—I want out.”

“Joan,” he said, with an intensity he couldn’t conceal. “Don’t you see the contradiciton in what you just said? You do want something.”

“Something I can never have.” Her voice sagged with hopelessness.

“That’s not true.” He touched her shoulder gently with his bandaged right hand. “Just your wanting to reenter the world of the shared reality means the battle is half won. Now, because you want something, I can help you. If you’ll let me, of course.”

“You’ll teach me?” Her voice had lost a little of its gray overcast of hopelessness.

“I’ll teach you how to be with people. And you can teach me how to be alone.”

“Between us,” Joan said wonderingly, “we have it all. Don’t we?” Abruptly she stood on tiptoe to kiss.

Laughing recklessly, Paul trotted out onto the sidewalk, shouting, “Taxi! Taxi!”

All the taxis had been taken; they had to wait a long time, standing side by side. But that did not bother them; it struck both Joan and Paul as perfectly all right.

Most smells did not bother the not overly-sensitive nostrils of Gus Swenesgard, but for some obscure reason the relatively faint ordor of ozone, of electricity, in the TV studio did. They ought, he thought with annoyance, to air this place out once in a while. But maybe it was just that the prospect ahead of him made him tense.

Everything appeared to be in readiness for the telecast. Gus had personally supervised the installation of the idiot cards from which he would read his prepared speech. And he had, in addition, personally selected the heart-moving, patriotic music which would play softly in the background while he spoke.

He had even personally written the spot announcements that had been telecast at intervals throughout the day, preparing the world for the big moment.

Glancing toward the entrance of the studio Gus saw Dr. Paul Rivers just coming in, with Joan Hiashi on his arm. From Dr. Rivers’ bandaged hands and limping gait Gus gathered that he had met with a major accident, perhaps the result of too much celebrating. Putting on his best political smile Gus waddled over to greet them.

“Hey,” he said fondly, glad to see friends, “what do you think of the funny smell in here? Or maybe I’m just tense; is that it?” He peered at Paul Rivers nervously, awaiting his professional answer.

“I hadn’t noticed anything,” Paul Rivers said genially.

“Well, you don’t run a hotel,” Gus said, frowning. “I wouldn’t allow no smell like this in my hotel. Guests might complain.” He had, then, the sudden feeling that Paul Rivers might be silently laughing at him—and glanced suspiciously in the doctor’s direction. But Paul Rivers seemed perfectly straight-faced. I musty Gus thought, be getting stage-shy. He mopped his forehead, then; drops of greasy sweat had begun, as always, to stand out on his mottled flesh.

“You’re on in five minutes,” said a thin technician with glasses. “Five minutes, Mr. Swenesgard.” The technician hurried busily off.

“Would you like a tranquilizer?” Paul Rivers asked Gus.

“No, no; I’ll be okay,” Gus muttered. He wandered nervously off, found his way into the dressing cubicle which the studio people had assigned him and took a good, healthy drag on a bottle of Early Times bourbon. That, he told himself with satisfaction, is the only tranquilizer Gus Swenesgard needs.

The door opened; Gus hastily hid the bottle behind him. “Four minutes, Mr. Swenesgard,” the technician with the glasses said.

“Go ’way,” grumbled Gus. “You make me jumpy.”

The technician departed, but Gus knew with grim certainty that he would soon be back to say, “Three minutes, Mr. Swenesgard.” So he stumped out of his cubicle and took his place at the modern, large table before the TV cameras.

Behind him hung the old pre-war flag of the United Nations. This would be the first time since the Gany occupation that this flag had been publicly displayed. A nice touch, Gus said to himself.

“Three minutes, Mr. Swenesgard.”

A weird feeling came over Gus at that moment, an eerie sensation of being watched. Someone, he thought, is staring at me. He looked around the studio. Yes, a lot of individuals here and there, including Paul Rivers and the Jap girl, had their eyes on him—not to mention the cameramen. But it wasn’t that.

I know what it is, he said to himself. It’s the entire people of the world. The whole cottonpickin’ planet; that’s who’s watching me.

This answer satisfied him intellectually, but emotionally there still remained a nagging feeling of the uncanny, an uneasiness—even fear—that could not rationally be explained.

“Two minutes, Mr. Swenesgard.” The thin technician with glasses said, hovering.

Now Gus localized the feeling. It emanated from the general direction of the stand on which his idiot cards rested, neatly stacked and waiting.

But there was nobody there, nobody within ten feet of the cards.

“One minute, Mr. Swenesgard.”

Gus, suddenly, felt a powerful urge to get to his feet and walk out of the studio, an intuition that to go on would only be to court disaster. However, it had become too late; the cameras had already begun dollying in to focus on him, and a ghostly hush had fallen over the studio as the ON THE AIR sign became illuminated.

There’s someone, Gus thought in panic, or something in this studio, and it’s out to get me.

The announcer started his introduction. Next to the idiot cards stood the technician with the glasses, ready to turn the cards one by one . or was it the man with the glasses? Some peculiar variety of blackness had gathered in the area of the cards; one moment Gus could discern the man with the glasses and the next moment he could not.

Gus shook his head, trying to clear his vision, but it appeared to be no use. What, he thought quaveringly, if I cant see the cards? But, fortunately, the cards themselves seemed to remain clear enough. And as for the intermittent invisibility of the card-turner, well, it was kind of dim in the studio, of course, the bright lights being on so as to confront Gus; they blinded him nearly, making him blink and squint. Perhaps it was just a trick of the lighting.

Now, from beside one of the three cameras, a finger pointed starkly at Gus. He was on!

Staring at the cards like a man hypnotized he began slowly to speak. “Ladies and gents, good evening, or good morning or afternoon, as the case may be, depending on just where the heck you happen to live on this great, wonderful planet of ours that God has given us, and quite recently given back, thanks to Merciful Providence. I’m your neighbor, Gus Swenesgard, and I run a quiet little bale down here in the southern part of the U.S.A. that you might have heard of in connection with the trouble we’ve had with Neeg-parts, called Tennessee. I’m just coming on TV like this, informally, to sort of talk to you as neighbor to neighbor about the world situation which, thanks to in some measure my own efforts, we happen to find ourselves plunk in the middle of.”

The chief engineer in the control room glanced at the station manager and they both grinned. Gus, from where he sat, could see them. What in hell is so funny? he thought angrily.

“Now,” he continued doggedly, “that them worms has been chased out and the Neeg-parts cleared out of the hills, we got a big job to do cleaning up the mess that has collected around here during the occupation. Now, you might not think it to look at me, but I—”

In Paris a bearded cafe owner reached to turn off his set, which was presenting an instantaneous translation of Gus’ speech. “Merde” said the Frenchman.

In Rome the Pope changed channels, searching for a good Italian western.

In Kyoto, Japan, a Zen master laughed himself into a fit of hiccups.

In Detroit, Michigan, an ionocraft worker threw a can of beer through the picture tube.

But Gus, not knowing these things, continued. “—now you might think some high-flown military man is the one for the job. But our military failed us, and furthermore—”

Something had gone wrong. The speech was not exactly as he had written it. Or was it? Has someone edited it? he asked himself. Or maybe mixed up the cards?

“The man for the job is someone like me, a clown.”

Gus stopped in mid-sentence and reread the card. That’s what it said. “Clown.”

Now the card was being changed, but Gus could not see the hand which turned it. “Redneck, ranting, second-rate demagogue,” the next card read. The card turned again “Hypocrite, egomaniac, overstuffed racist slob,” the card said.

My God, Gus thought. That’s what the voice on the vidphone called me.

Hardly knowing what he did he sprang to his feet and shouted, “You there by the cards; who are you? What’s the matter with you?”

The blackness swept toward him, billowing in his direction like an evil wind, and a voice, the same voice which he had heard over the vidphone, said, “I am your interior self, liberated by my disgust for you and all that you stand for, struck off by the great darkness. I stand outside of space-time, and I judge you.” The darkness surrounded Gus, then, and he found himself back in the occult and hideous condition he had been in so recently, bodiless in the empty silence, the utter blackness, alone with the fading afterimage of his own reflection in the cracked, yellowing mirror. Of the hotel room.

He screamed but could not hear the sound of his scream.

Paul Rivers, however, could hear it.

And so could the staff of the TV station.

So could the world, or rather that miniscule portion of it that still continued to listen to Gus’ fiasco.

The producer cut Gus off the air and ran the only item he had ready, a commercial for a popular brand of marihuana cigarettes, filter-tip Berkeley Boo, “A little stick of California Sunshine.”

Paul sprang to his feet and limped to Gus’ side, ready to give what aid he could; he had seen the hazy black vortex flying at Gus, engulfing him and then disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared.

I’ll bet, Paul thought as he remembered the effects he had already seen resulting from the use of Balkani’s illusion projectors, that the phenomenon is some kind of aftereffect of the hell-weapon. “What is it?” he asked Gus, placing a steadying arm around the bulbous little man’s shoulders.

“Are you a doctor?” Gus mumbled, blinking dazedly.

“That’s right,” Paul said, aware that Gus could barely see him. “Leave everything to me,” he said, helping Gus to walk from the illuminated area before the cameras—and from Gus’ hoped-for political and military power.

In the lounge Dr. Choate and Ed Newkom waited. Seeing them, Gus said quaveringly, “H-h-how did I do tonight?”

The truth, Paul thought, will hurt vividly. But you’d never believe a lie. “You were awful,” Paul said to Gus Swenesgard. “The feedback systems register as follows: by the time you left the air only a handful of people, mostly from your own bale, were still watching. Though when you started you had the largest audience any one man has had in the entire history of television.”

Gus said to him, “You understand about psychology, don’t you, sir?”

“If anyone does,” Ed Newkom said, “Paul does.”

“Can you help me?” Gus asked, studying Paul’s face anxiously. “Can you write speeches for me that’ll make people change their minds and listen? Can you tell me what to do to get them back?”

Dr. Choate said, “Yes, as a matter of fact we were planning to offer you our collective professional services in that capacity.”

Paul, too, looked at Gus with admiration. You fall, he realized, but in a moment you’re up again, ready to try something else, ready to face the bitter pill of your mistakes. Never willing to give up. And the World Psychiatric Association will be only too glad to take control of your campaign , keeping you on as a figurehead, though of course you will always imagine that you are running things. We’re wise enough to offer you that. And we will be the strongest political force available in this disorganized reconstruction period—possibly strong enough to make you king after all, at least until normal democratic institutions can be set in motion again.

Now Gus Swenesgard had recovered his poise and had begun excitedly talking to Dr. Choate, planning, scheming, plotting, wildly guessing at the future, while Dr. Choate and Ed Newkom nodded, each with a professional medical smile, secure in their knowledge of where the real power lay.

Paul felt admiration for Gus at last, but then he turned and took a good look, perhaps for the first time, at Dr. Choate. Did he imagine it, or was there a certain calculating hardness in Dr. Choate’s eyes?

Shaking himself, Paul forced in place the same professional smile visible on the faces of his two colleagues. And thought, If we cant trust ourselves, who can we trust?

It seemed to him a good question. But unfortunately—at the moment—he could not readily think of an equally good answer.