Master of Life and Death, Robert Silverberg [ready player one ebook TXT] 📗

back," Walton promised. "With compound interest."

His next call was to a man he had once dealt with in his capacity of secretary to Senator FitzMaugham. He was Noel Hervey, a registered securities and exchange slyster.

Hervey was a small, worried-looking little man, but his unflickering eyes belied his ratty appearance. "What troubles you, Roy?"

"I want you to make a stock purchase for me, pronto. Within an hour, say?"

Hervey shook his head instantly. "Sorry, Roy. I'm all tied up on a hefty monorail deal. Won't be free until Wednesday or Thursday, if by then."

Walton said, "What sort of money will you be making on this big deal of yours, Noel?"

"Confidential! You wouldn't invade a man's privacy on a delicate matter like—"

"Will it be worth five million dollars for you, Noel?"

"Five million—hey, is this a gag?"

"I'm awfully serious," Walton said. "I want you to swing a deal for me, right away. You've heard my price."

Hervey smiled warmly. "Well, start talking, friend. Consider me hired."

A few other matters remained to be tended to hurriedly. Walton spent some moments talking to a communications technician, then sent out an order for three or four technical books—Basic Kaleidowhirl Theory and related works. He sent a note to Lee Percy requesting him to stop by and see him in an hour, and told his annunciator that for no reason whatsoever was he to be disturbed for the next sixty minutes.

The hour passed rapidly; by its end, Walton's head was slightly dizzy from too much skimming, but his mind was thrumming with new possibilities, with communications potentials galore. Talk about reaching people! He had a natural!

He flipped on the annunciator. "Is Mr. Percy here yet?"

"No, sir. Should I send for him?"

"Yes. He's due here any minute to see me. Have there been any calls?"

"Quite a few. I've relayed them down to Mr. Eglin's office, as instructed."

"Good girl," Walton said.

"Oh, Mr. Percy's here. And there's a call for you from communications."

Walton frowned. "Tell Percy to wait outside a minute or two. Give me the call."

The communications tech on the screen was grinning excitedly. He said, "Subspace message just came in for you, sir."

"From Venus?"

"No, sir. From Colonel McLeod."

"Let's have it," Walton said.

The technician read, "'To Walton from McLeod, via subspace radio: Have made successful voyage to Procyon system, and am on way back with Dirnan ambassador on board. See you soon, and good luck—you'll need it.'"

"Good. That all?"

"That's all, sir."

"Okay. Keep me posted." He broke contact and turned to the annunciator. Excitement put a faint quiver in his voice. "You can send in Mr. Percy now," he said.

XV

Walton looked up at the public relations man and said, "How much do you know about kaleidowhirls, Lee?"

"Not a hell of a lot. I never watch the things, myself. They're bad for the eyes."

Walton smiled. "That makes you a nonconformist, doesn't it? According to the figures I have here, the nightly kaleidowhirl programs are top-ranked on the rating charts."

"Maybe so," Percy said cautiously. "I still don't like to watch them. What goes, Roy?"

"I've suddenly become very interested in kaleidowhirls myself," Walton said. He leaned back and added casually, "I think they can be used as propaganda devices. My brother's reaction to one gave me the idea, couple days ago, at the Bronze Room. For the past hour or so, I've been studying kaleidowhirls in terms of information theory. Did you know that it's possible to get messages across via kaleidowhirl?"

"Of course," Percy gasped. "But the Communications Commission would never let you get away with it!"

"By the time the Communications Commission found out what had been done," Walton said calmly, "we wouldn't be doing it any more. They won't be able to prove a thing." Sarcastically he added, "After spending a lifetime in public relations, you're not suddenly getting a rush of ethics, are you?"

"Well ... let's have the details, then."

"Simple enough," Walton said. "We feed through a verbal message—something like Hooray for Popeek or I Don't Want War With Dirna. We flash it on the screen for, say, a microsecond, then cover it up with kaleidowhirl patterns. Wait two minutes, then flash it again. Plenty of noise, but the signal will get through if we flash it often enough."

"And it'll get through deep down," Percy said. "Subliminally. They won't even realize that they're being indoctrinated, but suddenly they'll have a new set of opinions about Popeek and Dirna!" He shuddered. "Roy, I hate to think what can happen if someone else gets to thinking about this and puts on his own kaleidowhirl show."

"I've thought of that. After the Dirna crisis is over—after we've put over our point—I'm going to take steps to make sure no one can use this sort of weapon again. I'm going to frame someone into putting on a propaganda kaleidowhirl, and then catch him in the act. That ought to be sufficient to wise up the Communications Commission."

"In other words," Percy said, "you're willing to use this technique now. But since you don't want anyone else to use it, you're willing to give up future use of it yourself as soon as the Dirna trouble is over."

"Exactly." Walton shoved the stack of textbooks over to the PR man. "Read these through first. Get yourself familiar with the setup. Then buy a kaleidowhirl hour and get a bunch of our engineers in there to handle the special inserts. Okay?"

"It's nasty, but I like it. When do you want the program to begin?"

"Tomorrow. Tonight, if you can work it. And set up a poll of some kind to keep check on the program's effectiveness. I want two messages kaleidowhirled alternately: one supporting Popeek, one demanding a peaceful settlement with the aliens. Have your pulse takers feel out the populace on those two propositions, and report any fluctuation to me immediately."

"Got it."

"Oh, one more thing. I suspect you'll have some extra responsibilities as of tomorrow, Lee."

"Eh?"

"Your office will have one additional medium to deal with. Telefax. I'm buying Citizen and we're going to turn it into a pro-Popeek rag."

Percy's mouth dropped in astonishment; then he started to laugh. "You're a wonder, Roy. A genuine wonder."

Moments after Percy departed, Noel Hervey, the security and exchange slyster, called.

"Well?" Walton asked.

Hervey looked preoccupied. "I've successfully spent a couple of hundred million of Popeek's money in the last half-hour, Roy. You now own the single biggest block of Citizen stock there is."

"How much is that?"

"One hundred fifty-two thousand shares. Approximately thirty-three percent."

"Thirty-three percent! What about the other eighteen percent?"

"Patience, lad, patience. I know my job. I snapped up all the small holdings there were, very quietly. It cost me a pretty penny to farm out the purchases, too."

"Why'd you do that?" Walton asked.

"Because this has to be handled very gingerly. You know the ownership setup of Citizen?"

"No."

"Well, it goes like this: Amalgamated Telefax owns a twenty-six percent chunk, and Horace Murlin owns twenty-five percent. Since Murlin also owns Amalgamated, he votes fifty-one percent of the stock, even though it isn't registered that way. The other forty-nine percent doesn't matter, Murlin figures. So I'm busy gathering up as much of it as I can for you—under half a dozen different brokerage names. I doubt that I can get it all, but I figure on rounding up at least forty-nine percent. Then I'll approach Murlin with a Big Deal and sucker him into selling me six percent of his Citizen stock. He'll check around, find out that the remaining stock is splintered ninety-seven different ways, and he'll probably let go of a little of his, figuring he still has control."

"Suppose he doesn't?" Walton asked.

"Don't worry," Hervey said confidently. "He will. I've got a billion smackers to play with, don't I? I'll cook up a deal so juicy he can't resist it—and all he'll have to do to take a flyer will be to peel off a little of his Citizen stock. The second he does that, I transfer all the fragmented stock to you. With your controlling majority of fifty-one percent, you boot Murlin off the Board, and the telefax sheet is yours! Simple? Clear?"

"Perfectly," Walton said. "Okay. Keep in touch."

He broke contact and walked to the window. The street was packed with people scrambling in every direction, like so many ants moving at random over the ground. Many of them clutched telefax sheets—and the most popular one was the Citizen. Many of them would gape and goggle at kaleidowhirl programs, come evening.

Walton suddenly tightened his fist. In just that way, he thought, Popeek was tightening its hold on the public by capturing the mass media. If Hervey's confidence had any justification in truth, they would own the leading anti-Popeek telefax sheet by tomorrow. With subtle handling over the course of several days, they could swing the slant of Citizen around to a pro-Popeek stand, and do it so surreptitiously that it would seem as though the sheet had never had any other policy.

As for the kaleidowhirl subterfuge—that, Walton admitted, was hitting below the belt. But he had resolved that all would be fair during the current crisis. There would be time enough for morality after war had been averted.

At about 1430 that day, Walton took advantage of a lull in activities to have a late lunch at the Bronze Room. He felt that he had to get away from the confining walls of his office for at least some part of the afternoon.

The Bronze Room had adopted cerise as its color scheme for the day. Walton selected a private room, lunched lightly on baked chlorella steak and filtered rum, and dialed a twelve-minute nap. When the alarm system in the foamweb couch stirred him to wakefulness, he stretched happily, some of the choking tension having been washed out of him.

Thoughtfully, he switched on the electroluminescent kaleidoscope and stared at it. It worked on the same principle as the kaleidowhirl programs beamed over the public video, except that the Bronze Room provided closed-channel beaming of its own kaleidoscopic patterns; tending more to soft greens and pale rose, they were on a higher esthetic plane, certainly, than the jagged, melodramatic purples and reds the video channels sent out for popular consumption.

But it was with a certain new apprehension that Walton now studied the kaleidoscopic pattern. Now that he knew what a dangerous weapon the flashing colors could be, how could he be certain that the Bronze Room proprietors were not flashing some scarcely seen subliminal command at him this very moment?

He turned the set off with a brusque gesture.

The ends justify the means. A nice homily, he thought, which allowed him to do almost anything. It brought to mind the rationale of Ivan Karamazov: without God, everything is permissible.

But both God and Dostoevski seem to be obsolete these days, he reminded himself. God is now a lean young man with an office on the twenty-ninth floor of the Cullen Building—and as for Dostoevski, all he did was write books, and therefore could not have been of any great importance.

He felt a tremor of self-doubt. Maybe it had been unwise to let kaleidowhirl propaganda loose on the world; once unleashed, it might not be so easily caged again. He realized that as soon as the Popeek campaign was over, he would have to make sure some method was devised for pre-checking all public and closed-channel kaleidoscopic patterns.

The most damnable part of such propaganda techniques, he knew, was that you could put over almost any idea at all without arousing suspicion on the part of the viewer. He wouldn't know he'd been tampered with; you could tell him so, after the new idea had been planted, and by then he wouldn't believe you.

Walton dialed another filtered rum, and lifted it to his lips with a slightly shaky hand.

"Mr. Ludwig of the United Nations called while you were out, sir," Walton was told upon returning to his office. "He'd like you to call him back."

"Very well. Make the connection for me."

When Ludwig appeared, Walton said, "Sorry I missed your call. What's happening?"

"Special session of the Security Council just broke up. They passed a resolution unanimously and shipped it on to the Assembly. There's going to be an immediate hearing to determine the new permanent head of Popeek."

Walton clamped his lips together. After a moment he said, "How come?"

"The Dirnan crisis. They don't want a mere interim director handling things. They feel the man dealing with the aliens ought to have full UN blessing."

"Should I interpret that to mean I get the job automatically?"

"I couldn't swear to it," said Ludwig. "General consensus certainly favors you to continue. I'd advise that you show up at the hearing in person and present your program in detail; otherwise they may stick some smooth-talking politico in your place. The noise is slated to start at 1100, day after tomorrow. The eighteenth."

"I'll be there," Walton said. "Thanks for the tip."

He chewed the end of his