The Winds of Limbo

CHAPTER FIVE

MISERABLY, unsure of his direction, Alan let his feet carry him aimlessly.

He was sure that the riot marked some important change in the course of Earth's history, but knew with equal certainty that it would be twenty years before he could look back and judge why it had happened.

Helen, I love you, he thought, Helen I love you. But it was no good. They were completely separated now. He had picked an old scab. He should have left it well alone.

He looked up and found that he was approaching the building which housed his grandfather's apartment. He realized at the same time that he needed someone to talk to. There had been no one since he and Helen had parted. The stern old man would probably refuse to listen and would almost certainly refuse to give him any advice or help, but there was nothing else for it.

He did not have a sonarkey for the matterlift, so he climbed the stairs very slowly and went to the main door of the big apartment.

A servant answered and showed him in. Simon Powys was sitting in his lounge intently watching the laservid relaying scenes of the riots outside. He turned his great head and Alan saw that his brooding eyes held a hint of triumph.

"So the Fireclown was uninterested in power, was he?" Simon Powys smiled slightly and pointed at the set. "Then what's that, Alan?"

"A riot," Alan said hollowly. "But though it's in the name of the Fireclown he didn't encourage it."

"That seems unlikely. You were mixed up in it for a while, weren't you? I saw you on that"-he pointed again at the screen. "And Helen, too, is taking an active part."

"Very active," Alan kept his tone dry.

"You disapprove?"

"I tried to stop her."

"So you've changed your opinion of the Fireclown. You realize I was right. If I had my way, every one of those rioters would be flung into prison-and the Fireclown exiled from the planet!"

Slightly shocked by the savagery of his grandfather's last remark, Alan remained silent. Together they watched the laservid. The police seemed to be coping, though their numbers had had to be increased.

"I haven't changed my opinion, Grandfather," he said quietly. "Not really, anyway."

His grandfather also paused before replying: "I wish you knew what I knew-then you'd fight the Fireclown as strongly as I'm attempting to. The man's a criminal. Perhaps he's more than that. Perhaps this is the last night we'll be able to sit comfortably and watch the laservid."

"We both seemed to underestimate the Fireclown's popularity," Alan mused. "Are you going to continue your campaign against him?"

"Of course."

"I should have thought you would spend your time better trying to find out why the public is attracted to him?"

"The Fireclown's a menace…"

"Why?" Alan said grimly.

"Because he threatens the stability of society. We've had equilibrium for two hundred years…"

"Why does he threaten the stability of society?"

Simon Powys turned round in his chair. "Are you trying to be impertinent, Alan?"

"I'm trying to tell you that the Fireclown himself means nothing. The public is in this mood for another, a deeper, reason. I was down there in the cavern on the first level. I saw the Fireclown try to stop them from doing this but they wouldn't listen to him. Why?"

But the old man stubbornly refused to get drawn into an argument. And Alan felt a hollow sense of frustration. His urge to try to clarify his thoughts by means of conversation was unbearably strong. He tried again:

"Grandfather!"

"Yes?"

"The Fireclown pleaded with the crowd not to make this demonstration. I saw him.

But the crowd wasn't interested in what he said. They're using him, just as you and Helen are using him for your own reasons. There is something deeper going on. Can't you see that?"

Again the old man looked up at him. "Very well. The Fireclown symbolizes something-something wrong in our society, is that it? If that's the case we cannot strike at the general, we must strike at their particular, because that is what is tangible. I am striking at the Fireclown."

Alan wasn't satisfied. His grandfather's words were reasonable, yet he suspected that no thought or sensibility lay behind them. His answer had been too pat.

"I intend to do everything possible to bring the Fire-clown's activities to a halt," Simon Powys continued. "The public may be too blind to see what is happening to them, what dangerous power the Clown wields over them, but I will make them see, I will make them see!"

Alan shrugged. It seemed to him that the blind were accusing the blind.

"Politicians!" he said, suddenly angry. "What hollow individuals they are!"

Suddenly, his grandfather rose in his chair and got up, his back to the laservid, his face taut with suppressed emotion.

"By God, I brought you up as a Powys in spite of your mother's shaming me. I recognized you. I refused to take the easy way out and pay some woman to call you her own. You received the name of Powys and the benefits of that name. And this is how you reward me, by coming to my own house and insulting me! I fostered a bastard-and now that bastard reverts to type! You have never understood the responsibilities and the need to serve which mark our family. We are not power-seekers, we aren't meddlers in the affairs of others! We are dedicated to furthering civilization and humanity throughout the Solar System!

What do you understand of that, Alan whatever-your-name-is?"

"I think it most noble," Alan sneered, trying to hold back the tears of pain and anger in his eyes. His body trembled as it had done when, as an adolescent, he had been told the story of his birth. "Most noble, Grandfather, all you and the Powys clan have done for me! But you could not keep my mother alive with your high sentiments! You would not let her marry the man who fathered me! I know that much from Grandmother. Some rough spaceman, wasn't it? Could you kill him by shame, the way you killed my mother?"

"Your mother killed herself. I did everything for her…"

"And judged her for everything!"

"No…"The old man's face softened.

"I’ve always given you the benefit of every doubt, Grandfather. I've always respected you. But in this business of the Fireclown I've seen that you can be unreasoningly dogmatic, that perhaps what I've heard about you was true! Your attack on me was unfair-just as your attack on the Fireclown is unfair!"

"If you knew, Alan. If you knew just what…" The old man straightened his back.

"I apologize for what I said to you. I’m tired-busy day-not thinking properly.

I'll see you tomorrow, perhaps."

Alan nodded wordlessly and left, moved to an emotion towards his grandfather which, he decided, could only be love. Love? After what they had both said? It seemed to him that everything was turning upside down. The chaos of the mob, the chaos of his own moods, the chaos of his private life-all seemed to point towards something. Some remedy, perhaps, for his own and the world's ills?

On the roof of the building he looked around for a car which would carry him above the riot below to North Top, where he could probably use one of the small private elevators. Above the dome the sky was clear and the moon rode the sky in a casual arc. Near the edge of the roof he saw Junnar.

The Zimbabwean was also watching the distant rioters.

"You're too late," he said cheerfully. "You missed the best of it. They're dispersing now."

"I was in the best of it." Alan joined him and saw that a much smaller crowd continued to demonstrate, but that most of the people were moving slowly back towards the elevator-cone.

"Did you see any arrests?" Junnar asked.

"No. Did you?"

"The police didn't seem too keen. I think they took a couple in-probably examples."

"What does all this mean, Junnar? What's happening to the world?"

"I’m not with you?" Junnar stared at Alan in curiosity.

"Nobody is, I guess. I’m sure that these riots are not just the result of the Fireclown's speeches in his cavern. I'm sure they've been brewing for ages. Why are the people so frustrated they have to break out like this suddenly? What do they want? What do they lack? You may know as well as I do that mass demonstrations in the past often had nothing to do with the placards they waved and the cant they chanted-it was some universal need crying out for satisfaction, something that has always been in man, however happy and comfortable his world is. What is it this time?"

"I think I know what you mean." Junnar offered Alan a marijuana but he refused.

"That down there-the Fire-clown-the impatience to expand to the new Earth-type planets-the bitter arguments in the Solar House-individual frustration-the 'time for a change' leaders in the news-sheets and laservid programs. All threatening to topple society from its carefully maintained equilibrium. You mean it's some kind of-Junnar groped for a word- "force that's entered the race, that we should be doing something, changing our direction in some way?"

"I think that's roughly what I mean. I'm finding it hard to put it into words myself."

"Well, this is perhaps what the Fireclown means when he says we're turning our backs on the natural life. With all our material comfort, perhaps we should look inward at ourselves instead of looking outward at the new colony planets. Well, what do we do about it, Mr. Powys?"

"I wish I knew."

"So do I." Junnar exhaled the sweet smoke and leaned back against the rail.

"You seem to understand what the Fireclown's getting at. You must believe that he's innocent of causing these riots. Can't you tell my grandfather that?"

Junnar’s manner changed. "I didn't say the Fireclown was innocent, Mr. Powys. I agree with your grandfather. He's a menace!" He spoke fiercely, almost as fiercely as Simon Powys had done earlier.

Alan sighed. "Oh, all right. Goodnight, Junnar."

" 'Night, Mr. Powys."

As he climbed into an automatic car and set the control, he caught a final glimpse of the Negro's sad face staring up at the moon like a dog about to bay.

To Alan, the world seemed suddenly sick. All the people in it seemed equally sick. And it was bad enough today. What would it be like tomorrow? he wondered.

Next morning he breakfasted late, waiting for Carson to call him if he was wanted at the office'. Both laservid and news-sheet were full of last night's rioting. Not only had the City Council building been attacked but others, taking advantage of the demonstration, had indulged in sheer hooliganism, smashing shop-fronts in the consumer corridors, breaking light globes, and so on. Damage was considerable; arrests had been made, but the Press didn't seem to complain.

Instead, they had a better angle to spread:

C.A. MAN GRAPPLES PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE! Alan Powys attacks Fireclown supporters!

A picture showed him wrenching Helen's banner from her grasp. In the story he was described as an angry spokesman for the establishment and Helen as the heroine of the hour, going among the people to stand or fall with them. Maybe she had been playing her game better than he had at first thought, he decided.

On the laservid a commentator's voice was heard over the noise of the riot:

"Last night, beautiful would-be President, Miss Helen Curtis, led a peaceful party of demonstrators to the City Council building on Top. They were there to protest against the abuse of Council power which, as everyone knows now, was to take the form of a secret closing of ten of the lowest levels of the City of Switzerland. Miss Curtis and her supporters saw this as a deliberate move to stop free speech, an attempt to silence the very popular figure known as the Fireclown, whose harmless talks have given many people so much comfort and pleasure.

"The peaceful demonstration was savagely broken up by the large bodies of policemen who forced themselves through the crowd and began making random arrests almost before the people could lodge their protest.

"It is not surprising that some of the less controlled elements among the demonstrators resisted arrest."

Shot of demonstrator kicking a policeman in the behind.

"Reliable witnesses attest to police brutality towards both men and women.

"In the van of the police bully-boys came Alan Powys, grandson of Miss Curtis's rival in the forthcoming Presidential elections-and Assistant Director of City Administration, who had already begun work on closing off the lower levels."

Shot of Alan grappling with Helen.

"But even Mr. Powys couldn't silence the demands of the crowd!"

Shot of him walking away. He hadn't realized laservids were tracking him the whole time.

"And he went back to report his failure to his grandfather, Simon Powys."

Shot of him entering the apartment building.

The cameras panned back to the riot, and the commentary continued in the same vein. He was horrified by the lies-and helpless against them. What could he do?

Deny them? Against an already prejudiced public opinion?

"Obviously someone Up There," the commentator was saying, "doesn't like the Fireclown. Perhaps because he's brought a bit of life back into our drab existence.

"This program decries the totalitarian methods of the City Council and tells these hidden men that it will oppose all their moves to encroach further upon our liberties!"

Fade-out and then fresh shots of a surly-looking man talking to a laservid reporter.

Reporter: "This is Mr. Lajos, who narrowly escaped wrongful arrest in yesterday's demonstration. Mr. Lajos, tell the viewers what happened to you."

Lajos: "I was brutally attacked by two policemen."

Lajos stood staring blankly into the camera and had to be prodded by the reporter.

Reporter: "Did you sustain injuries, Mr. Lajos?"

Lajos: "I sustained minor injuries, and if I had not been saved in time I would have sustained major injuries about my head and body."

Lajos's head seemed singularly free from any obvious injuries.

Reporter: "Did the police give you any reason for their attack?"

Lajos: "No. I was peacefully demonstrating when I was suddenly set upon. I was forced to defend myself…"

Reporter: "Of course, of course. Thank you, Mr. Lajos."

Back in the studio, a smiling reporter bent towards the camera.

"It's victory for Miss. Curds and her supporters, folks. The Fireclown won't be bothered by the Council-not so long as we keep vigilant, anyway-for the Council told the people a few minutes ago that…"

The picture faded and Carson's face appeared in its place. That was the one irritation of combining communication and entertainment in the single laservid set.

"Sorry if I butted in, Alan. Have you heard the news?"

"Something about me-or about the Council?"

"The Council-they've backed down. They've decided not to close off the levels, after all. Maybe now we can get on with some work. Will you come to the office as soon as you can?"

Alan nodded and put down the news-sheet. "Right away," he said, and switched out.

As he took the fastway to the elevators, he mused over the manner in which the riot had been reported. He was certain that the police had tried not to use violence. Yet, towards the end, they might have lost their patience. These days the police force required superior intelligence and education to get into it, and modern police weren't the good-for-nothing-else characters of earlier times.

Still, it could have been that because one side ignored established law and order, so did the other. Violence tended to breed violence.

Violence, he thought, is a self-generating monster. The more you let it take control, the more it grows.

He didn't know it, but he was in for a taste of it.

Two muscular arms suddenly shot out to each side of him. His face slammed against them and he lost his balance on the fastway, falling backwards and sliding along. Two figures rushed along beside him and yanked him onto the slowway.

"Get up," one of them said.

Alan got up slowly, dazed and wary.

He stared at the tall, thin-faced man and his fatter, glowering partner. They were dressed in engineers' smocks.

"What did you do that for?" Alan said.

"You're Alan Powys, aren't you?"

"I am. What do you want?"

"You're the man who attacked Helen Curtis yesterday."

"I did not!"

"You're lying." The man flicked his hand across Alan's face. It stung. "We don't like Council hirelings who attack women!"

"I attacked no one!" Alan prepared, desperately, to defend himself.

The fat man hit him, fairly lightly, in the chest.

On the fastway people were passing, pretending not to notice.

Alan punched the fat man in the face and kicked the thin man's shins.

Neither had expected it. Alan himself was surprised at his own bravery. He had acted instinctively. He was also shocked by his own violence.

Now the pair were pummeling him and he struck back at random. A blow in his stomach winded him, a blow in his face made him dizzy. His own efforts became weaker and he was forced to confine himself to protecting his body as best he could.

Then it was over.

A new voice shouted: "Stop that!"

Breathing heavily, Alan looked up and saw the slightly ashamed face of Tristan B'Ula.

He noticed, too, that all three were wearing a Sun emblem on their clothing-a little metal badge.

The thin-faced man said: "It's Powys-the man who wanted to close the levels. The one who attacked Miss Curtis last night."

"Don't be a fool," B'Ula said angrily. "He didn't want to close the levels; he was taking orders from the Council. I know him-he isn't likely to have attacked Helen Curtis, either."

B'Ula came closer.

"Hello, Tristan," Alan said painfully. "You've started something haven't you?"

"Never mind about that. What were you doing last night?" As B'Ula approached, the two men stepped back.

"I was arguing with Helen, telling her she was stupid. Just as you're stupid.

None of you knows what you're doing!"

"You got a lot of Press cuttings this morning. If I were you I’d stay off the public ways." He turned to the two engineers. "Get going. You're nothing better than hoodlums. You pay too much attention to what the Press says."

Alan tried to smile. "The pot calling the kettle black. You started all this, Tris. You should have thought for a while before you began shouting the news about."

"You're damned ungrateful," B'Ula said. "I just saved you from a nasty beating.

I did what I had to-I wasn't going to let the Fireclown be shoved around."

"This way, he may get worse," Alan said.

B'Ula grimaced and walked away with the two engineers. Alan looked around for his briefcase but couldn't find it. He got onto the fastway again and took the elevator to the Top, but when he arrived he didn't go to City Administration.

He'd heard two people talking in the elevator. There was going to be a debate in the Solar House on last night's riots.

Careless of what Carson would think when he didn't turn up, Alan took a car towards the majestic Solar House where representatives from all over the Solar System had gathered.

He wanted very badly to see his grandfather and his ex-mistress in action.

Solar House was a vast, circular building with tall, slender towers at intervals around its circumference. Each tower was topped by a gleaming glass-alloy dome.

The center of the circle housed the main hall containing many thousands of places for members. Each nation had, like the City of Switzerland, its own councils and sub-councils, sending a certain number of candidates, depending on its size, to the Solar House.

When Alan squeezed his way into the public gallery the House was almost full.

Many representatives must have just arrived back in their constituencies after the debate on the outgoing President's policies only to hear the news of the riot, and returned.

Politics hadn't been nearly so interesting for years, Alan thought.

The debate had already opened.

In the center of the spiral was a small platform upon which sat the President, Benjosef, looking old and sullen; the Chief Mediator, Morgan Tregarith, in ruby-red robes and metallic Mask of Justice; the Cabinet Ministers, including Simon Powys in full purple. In the narrowest ring of benches surrounding the platform were the leaders of the opposition parties-Helen Curtis in a dark yellow robe, belted at the waist, with fluffs of lace at bodice and sleeves; ancient Baron Rolf de Crespigny, leader of the right-wing reactionary Democratic Socialists; John Holt, thin-lipped in black, leader of the Solar Nationalists;

Bela Hakasaki, melancholy-faced Hungarian-Japanese leader of the Divisionists;

Luis Jaffe of the New Royalists, and about a dozen more, all representing varying creeds and opinions, all comparatively weak compared with the Solrefs, RLMs, or even the Demosocs.

Behind the circle comprising the opposition leaders all the other Solar representatives sat, first the minor lights in the Solref Cabinet-Denholm Curtis, Under-Secretary for Hydro-Agriculture, was there-then the members of the RLM shadow cabinet; de Crespigny’s shadow cabinet shared a tier with John Holt's; behind them were four smaller groups; behind them again six or seven, until, finally, the rank-and-file, split into planets and continents and finally individual nations.

There were probably five thousand men and women in the Solar House, and they all listened carefully as Alfred Gupta, Minister for Police Affairs, answered a charge made by Helen Curtis that the police had used violence towards last night" s crowd.

"Miss Curtis has accused Chief of Police Sandai of exercising insufficient control over his officers; that the men were allowed to indulge in offensive language towards members of the public, attacked these members in a brutal manner and did not allow them to lodge a protest which they had prepared for the City Council. These are all grave charges-charges which have also appeared in the Press and on our laservid screens-and Miss Curtis mentions 'proof of police violence having appeared on those media. If the charges are true, then this is a matter of considerable magnitude. But I suggest that the charges are fabrication, a falsification of what actually happened. I have here a statement from Chief Sandai." He held up a piece of paper and then proceeded to read from it-a straightforward account of what had actually happened, agreeing that some police officers had been forced to defend themselves against the mob, having been pressed beyond reasonable endurance.

Alan had seen one or two of the policemen attack with very little provocation but he felt, from his own observation of the previous night's trouble, that the chief's statement was fairly accurate, although painting his officers a trifle too white to ring true.

The House itself seemed fairly divided on the question, but when Helen got up to suggest that the paper contained nothing but lies she was loudly cheered. She went on, in an ironical manner, to accuse the Solar Referendum Government of deliberately provoking the riot by allowing the City Council to close off the levels. Minister for Civil Affairs, Ule Bengtsson, pointed out that it was not the Government's policy to meddle in local politics and that if this matter had been discussed in the Solar House in the first place, then it might have been possible to veto the Council. But no such motion, he observed cynically, had been placed before the House.

This was indisputable.

Alan saw that Helen had decided to change her tactics, asking the President point-blank if it was not the Solar Referendum Party* s fixed intention to silence and get rid of the Fireclown who, though he represented no political threat, was in his own way revealing the sterility of the Government's policies in all aspects of life on Earth and beyond it?

Benjosef remained seated. His expression, as it had always been, was strangely affectionate, like an old patriarch who must sometimes chide his children. He spoke from his chair.

"You have heard Miss Curtis accuse my Government of underhand methods in an attempt to rid ourselves of this man who calls himself the Fireclown. I speak in honesty for myself, and for the majority of my Cabinet, when I say we have no interest whatsoever in the Fireclown or his activities so long as they remain within the law. Already"-he glanced at Helen with a half-smile on his face-"it is doubtful whether his supporters have kept within the law, though I have heard that the Fireclown did not encourage last night's riot."

Alan, looking down on the old man, felt glad that someone, at least, seemed to be keeping things in fair perspective.

Then, surprisingly, the House was shaken by a tremendous verbal roar and he saw that several thousand representatives had risen to their feet and were, for the second time in forty-eight hours, shouting the President down.

He saw his grandfather glance towards the Chief Mediator. His features hidden behind his mask, the Mediator nodded. Simon Powys got up and raised his hands, shouting to be heard. Very gradually, the noise died down.

"You do not disbelieve President Benjosef, surely?"

"We do!" Helen Gurus' voice was shrill, and it was echoed by hundreds of others.

"You think the Government is deliberately seeking to outlaw the Fireclown?"

"We do!" Again Helen Curtis' statement was taken up by many of the others.

"And you also think the Fireclown wanted last night's riot?"

There was a slight pause before Helen Curtis replied:

"It was the only way his friends could help him. Personally, he is an ingenuous man, unaware of the forces working against him in the Solar House and elsewhere!"

"So you think the rioters were justified?"

"We do!"

"Is this democracy?' Simon Powys said quietly. "Is this what my family and others fought to establish? Is this Law? No-it is anarchy. It is anarchy which the Fireclown has inspired, and you have been caught up in the mood. Why?

Because, perhaps, you are too unintelligent, too impatient, to see how mankind may profit from this Law we have created! The Fireclown's babblings are meaningless. He talks of our speech having no meaning and turns sensible individuals into a maddened mob with the choice of a few emotional phrases that say nothing to the mind and everything to the belly! The Fireclown has caught popular fancy. That much is obvious." He sighed and stared around the House.

"I am speaking personally now. For some time I have been aware of the Fireclown's potential ability to whip up the worst elements in human nature. I have seen him as a very great threat to the Solar nation's stability, to our progress, to our development and to individual liberty. And I note from last night's events that I was right…"

Alan saw in astonishment that his grandfather's level words had calmed the assembly, that they seemed to be having some effect. He had to admit that the old man seemed to be right, as he'd said. Yet, in a way, his words were too convincing. It was still a feeling he had-a feeling that no one in the assembly had as yet discussed anything.

Alan thought that, for them, the Fireclown had ceased to exist. He was witnessing a clash between different ways of thought, not a debate about the Clown at all. He remembered the old Russian technique of choosing a vague name for their enemies and then using it, specifically, to denounce them-attacking the Albanians instead of the Chinese had been one example. Everyone had known who the real enemies were, but there was never a direct reference to them.

Still, that had been a calculated technique, rather a good one for its purpose.

But Simon's angry relatives were now using it unconsciously. They were attacking and defending something they were unable to verbalize but which, perhaps wrongly, they were identifying with the Fireclown.

He looked down at the great assembly and for a moment felt pity, then immediately felt abashed by his own arrogance. Perhaps he misjudged them-perhaps they were not less aware but more hypocritical than he thought.

Helen Curtis was speaking again, staring directly into her uncle's eyes as he remained standing up on the platform.

"I have never doubted Minister Powys' sincerity in his denunciation of the Fireclown. But I do say he is a perfect example of the reactionary and conservative elements in the House who are unable to see a change as progress.

They see their kind of progress, a progress which is inherent in their policies.

I see a different kind. Theirs leads to sterility and decay. Ours, on the other hand, leads to an expansion of man's horizons. We wish to progress in many directions, not just one! That is why I see the Fireclown as a victim of the Solref Government. He offers scope and life and passion to human existence. The Solrefs merely offer safety and material comfort!"

"If Miss Curtis had studied the Solar Referendum manifesto in any detail," Simon Powys exclaimed, addressing the assembly, "she would have noted that we are pledged first to forming a strong basis upon which future society might work and expand. Evidently, from the mob-worship of this disgusting monster, the Fireclown, we have yet to succeed!"

"You see the Fireclown as a threat! You see him as a monster! You hound this man because, in his naive and simple manner, he has reawakened mankind's spirit!"

Helen spoke directly to Powys, her finger pointing up at him. "Then you are a hollow man with no conception of the realities!"

"So the Fireclown, Miss Curtis tells me, is a happy innocent, bereft of schemes or ambition, a prophet content only to be heard." Powys smiled at the assembly.

"I say the Fireclown is a tangible threat and that this madman intends to destroy the world!"

Alan craned forward. His grandfather would not possibly have made so categorical a statement without evidence to back it up.

"Prove it!" Helen Curtis sneered. "You have gone too far in your hatred-senseless and unfounded hatred-of the Fireclown! Prove it!"

Simon Powys' face took on a sterner expression as he turned to speak to the President.

"I have already alerted the City Police," he said calmly, "so there is no immediate danger if they work quickly. There is no question of it-I have been supplied with full proof that the Fireclown is planning to destroy the world by flame. In short, he intends to blow up the planet!"