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

Walton said. He rose.

The delegates were staring at him with great interest ... and, somewhere behind them, obscured by the bright lights of the cameras, there were, he sensed, a vast multitude of onlookers peering at him from the galleries.

Onlookers who had seen Percy's kaleidowhirl last night, evidently. A thunderous wave of applause swept down on him. This is too easy, he thought. That kaleidowhirl program seems to have hypnotized everybody.

He moistened his lips.

"Mr. Secretary-General, members of the Assembly, friends: I'm very grateful for this chance to come before you on my own behalf. It's my understanding that you are to choose a permanent successor to Mr. FitzMaugham today. I offer myself as a candidate for that post."

He had planned a long, impassioned, semantically loaded speech to sway them, but the happenings thus far this morning convinced him it was unnecessary. The kaleidowhirl had done the work for him.

"My qualifications for the post should be apparent to all. I worked with the late Director FitzMaugham during the formative days of Popeek. Upon his death I succeeded to his post and have efficiently maintained the operation of the Bureau during the eight days since his assassination.

"There are special circumstances which dictate my continuation in office. Perhaps you know of the failure of our terraforming experiments—the destruction of our outpost on Venus, and the permanent damage done to that planet. The failure of this project makes it imperative that we move outward to the stars to relieve our population crisis."

He took a deep breath. "In exactly four hours," he said, "a representative of an alien race will land on Earth to confer with the director of Popeek. I cannot stress too greatly the importance of maintaining a continuity of thought and action within our Bureau. Bluntly, it is essential that I be the one who deals with this alien. I ask for your support. Thank you."

He took his seat again. Ludwig was staring at him, aghast.

"Roy! What kind of a speech was that? You can't just demand the job! You've got to give reasons! You have to—"

"Hush," Walton said. "Don't worry about it. Were you watching the kaleidowhirls last night?"

"Me? Of course not!"

Walton grinned. "They were," he said, gesturing at the other delegates. "I'm not worried."

XVIII

Walton left the Assembly meeting about 1215, pleading urgent Popeek business. The voting began at 1300, and half an hour later the result was officially released.

The 1400 Citizen was the first to carry the report.

WALTON ELECTED POPEEK HEAD

The General Assembly of the United Nations gave Roy Walton a healthy vote of confidence today. By a 95-0 vote, three abstaining, he was picked to succeed the late D. F. FitzMaugham as Popeek czar. He has held the post on a temporary basis for the past eight days.

Walton rang up Percy. "Who wrote that Citizen piece on me?" he asked.

"I did, chief. Why?"

"Nicely done, but not enough sock. Get all those three-syllable words out of it by the next edition. Get back to the old Citizen style of jazzy writing."

"We thought we'd brush it up a little now that you're in," Percy said.

"No. That's dangerous. Keep to the old style, but revamp the content. We're rolling along, now. What's new from the pollsters?"

"Fifty percent swing to Popeek. You're the most popular man in the country, as of noon. Churches are offering up prayers for you. There's a move afoot to make you President of the United States in place of old Lanson."

"Let Lanson keep his job," Walton chuckled. "I'm not looking for any figurehead jobs. I'm too young. When's the next Citizen due?"

"At 1500. We're keeping up hourly editions until the crisis is over."

Walton thought for a moment. "I think 1500's too early. The Dirnan arrives in Nairobi at 1530 our time. I want a big splash in the 1600 edition—but not a word before then!"

"I'm with you," Percy said, and signed off.

A moment later the annunciator said, "There's a closed-circuit call for you from Batavia, sir."

"From where?"

"Batavia. Java."

"Let's have it," Walton said.

A fleshy face filled the screen, the face of a man who had lived a soft life in a moist climate. A rumbling voice said, "You are Walton."

"I am Walton."

"I am Gaetano di Cassio. Pleased of making the acquaintance, Signor Director Walton. I own rubber plantation in the area here."

Walton's mind immediately clocked off the top name on the list of landed proprietors Lassen had prepared for him:

di Cassio, Gaetano. 57. Holdings estimated at better than a billion and a quarter. Born Genoa 2175, settled in Amsterdam 2199. Purchased large Java holding 2211.

"What can I do for you, Mr. di Cassio?"

The rubber magnate looked ill; his fleshy face was beaded with globules of sweat. "Your brother," he grunted heavily. "Your brother worked for me. I sent him to see you yesterday. He has not come back."

"Indeed?" Walton shrugged. "There's a famous phrase I could use at this point. I won't."

"Make no flippancies," di Cassio said heavily. "Where is he?"

Walton said, "In jail. Attempted coercion of a public official." He realized di Cassio was twice as nervous and tense as he was.

"You have jailed him," di Cassio repeated flatly. "Ah, I see. Jail." The audio pickup brought in the sound of stertorous breathing. "Will you not free him?" di Cassio asked.

"I will not."

"Did he not tell you what would happen if he would not be granted his request?"

"He told me," Walton said. "Well?"

The fat man looked sick. Walton saw that the bluff was going to be unsuccessful; that the conspirators would not dare put Lamarre's drug into open production. It had been a weapon without weight, and Walton had not let himself be cowed by it.

"Well?" Walton repeated inflexibly.

"You trouble me sorely," said di Cassio. "You give my heart pain, Mr. Walton. Steps will have to be taken."

"The Lamarre immortality serum—"

The face on the screen turned a leaden gray. "The serum," di Cassio said, "is not entered into this talking."

"Oh, no? My brother Fred made a few remarks—"

"Serum non esiste!"

Walton smiled calmly. "A nonexistent serum," he said, "has, unfortunately, nonexistent leverage against me. You don't scare me, di Cassio. I've outbluffed you. Go take a walk around your plantation. While you still have it, that is."

"Steps will be taken," di Cassio said. But his malevolence was hollow. Walton laughed and broke contact.

He drew Lassen's list from his desk and inscribed a brief memo to Olaf Eglin on it. These were the hundred biggest estates in the world. Within a week, there would be equalized Japanese living on all of them.

He called Martinez of security. "I've ordered my brother Fred remanded to your care," he said.

"I know." The security man sounded peeved. "We can't hold a man indefinitely, not even on your say-so, Director Walton."

"The charge is conspiracy," Walton said. "Conspiracy against the successful operation of Popeek. I'll have a list of the ringleaders on your desk in half an hour. I want them rounded up, given a thorough psyching, and jailed."

"There are times," Martinez said slowly, "when I suspect you exceed your powers, Director Walton. But send me the list and I'll have the arrests made."

The afternoon crawled. Walton proceeded with routine work on half a dozen fronts, held screened conferences with each of his section chiefs, read reports augmenting what he already knew of the Venus disaster, and gobbled a few benzolurethrin tranquilizers.

He called Keeler and learned that no sign of Lamarre had come to light yet. From Percy he discovered that Citizen had added two hundred thousand subscribers overnight. The 1500 edition had a lengthy editorial praising Walton, and some letters that Percy swore were genuine, doing the same.

At 1515 Olaf Eglin called to announce that the big estates were in the process of being dismembered. "You'll be able to hear the howls from here to Batavia when we get going," Eglin warned.

"We have to be tough," Walton told him firmly.

At 1517 he devoted a few minutes to a scientific paper that proposed terraforming Pluto by establishing synthetic hydrogen-fusion suns on the icy planet. Walton skimmed through the specifications, which involved passing a current of several million amperes through a tube containing a mixture of tritium and deuterium. The general idea, he gathered, was to create electromagnetic forces of near-solar intensity; a pulsed-reaction engine would supply a hundred megawatts of power continuously at 10,000,000 degrees centigrade.

Has possibilities, Walton noted, and forwarded the plan on to Eglin. It sounded plausible enough, but Walton was personally skeptical of undertaking any more terraforming experiments after the Venus fiasco. There were, after all, limits to the public relations miracles Lee Percy could create.

At 1535 the annunciator chimed again. "Call from Nairobi, Africa, Mr. Walton."

"Okay."

McLeod appeared on the screen.

"We're here," he said. "Arrived safely half a microsecond ago, and all's well."

"How about the alien?"

"We have him in a specially constructed cabin. Breathes hydrogen and ammonia, you know. He's very anxious to see you. When can you come?"

Walton thought for a moment. "I guess there's no way of transporting him here, is there?"

"I wouldn't advise it. The Dirnans are very sensitive about traveling in such a low gravitational field. Makes their stomachs queasy, you know. Do you think you could come out here?"

"When's the earliest?"

"Oh—half an hour?" McLeod suggested.

"I'm on my way," said Walton.

The sprawling metropolis of Nairobi, capital of the Republic of Kenya, lay at the foot of the Kikuyu Hills, and magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro towered above it. Four million people inhabited Nairobi, finest of the many fine cities along Africa's western coast. Africa's Negro republics had built soundly and well after achieving their liberation from colonial status.

The city was calm as Walton's special jet decelerated for landing at the vast Nairobi airport. He had left at 1547 New York time; the transatlantic trip had taken two hours and some minutes, and there was an eight-hour time zone differential between Kenya and New York. It was now 0313 in Nairobi; the early-morning rain was falling right on schedule as the jet taxied to a halt.

McLeod was there to meet him. "The ship's in the hills, five miles out of town. There's a copter waiting for you here."

Moments after leaving the jetliner, Walton was shepherded aboard the 'copter. Rotors whirred; the 'copter rose perpendicularly until it hung just above the cloud-seeders at 13,000 feet, then fired its jets and streaked toward the hills.

It was not raining when they landed; according to McLeod, the night rain was scheduled for 0200 in this sector, and the seeders had already been here and moved on to bring rain to the city proper. A groundcar waited for them at the airstrip in the hills. McLeod drove, handling the turboelectric job with skill.

"There's the ship," he said proudly, pointing.

Walton felt a sudden throat lump.

The ship stood on its tail in the midst of a wide, flat swath of jet-blackened concrete. It was at least five hundred feet high, a towering pale needle shimmering brightly in the moonlight. Wideswept tailjets supported it like arching buttresses. Men moved busily about in the floodlighted area at its base.

McLeod drove up to the ship and around it. The flawless symmetry of the foreside was not duplicated behind; there, a spidery catwalk ran some eighty feet up the side of the ship to a gaping lock, and by its side a crude elevator shaft rose to the same hatch.

McLeod drew efficient salutes from the men as he left the car; Walton, only puzzled glares.

"We'd better take the elevator," McLeod said. "The men are working on the catwalk."

Silently they rode up into the ship. They stepped through the open airlock into a paneled lounge, then into narrow companionways. McLeod paused and pressed down a stud in an alcove along the way.

"I'm back," he announced. "Tell Thogran Klayrn that I've brought Walton. Find out whether he'll come out to talk to him."

"I thought he had to breathe special atmosphere," Walton said. "How can he come out?"

"They've got breathing masks. Usually they don't like to use them." McLeod listened at the earpiece for a moment, then nodded. To Walton he said, "The alien will see you in the lounge."

Walton had barely time to fortify himself with a slug of filtered rum when a crewman appeared at the entrance to the lounge and declared ostentatiously, "His Excellency, Thogran Klayrn of Dirna."

The alien entered.

Walton had seen the photographs, and so he was partially prepared. But only partially.

The photos had not given him any idea of size. The alien stood eight feet high, and gave an appearance of astonishing mass. It must have weighed four or five hundred pounds, but it stood on two thick legs barely three feet long. Somewhere near the middle of the columnar body, four sturdy arms jutted forth strangely. A neckless head topped the ponderous creature—a head covered entirely with the transparent breathing mask. One of the hands held a mechanical device