Mack Reynolds - Code Duello

His cousin was fuming. “As you are aware, the Constitution is temporarily being held in abeyance during the emergency. Until the subversives have been brought under control, civil rights and some of our political guarantees must be sacrificed.” He turned to Dorn Horsten. “He speaks gibberish. His so-called wing of the Engelists which wishes to overthrow the government by vote isn’t even on the ballot.”

“No fault of mine,” Marconi said, trying another sip of the drink. He made a face. “This stuff is worse than grappa.” Then, “You keep everybody off the ballot but yourselves. However, in the long run it will do you no good. You can’t change the weather by fiddling with the thermometer, and you can’t prevent a revolution by miscounting, or not counting at all, the votes of the majority.”

“You think the Engelists a majority!” The other laughed.

“Not yet, not yet, but they will be.”

There was a gentle hum from some unknown source and the perturbed Florentine chief snapped, “Yes!”

Into the entrada came one of the highly uniformed members of the staff who had been about earlier. He said, “Your Zelenza, the meeting of the Council.”

“Eh? Oh, yes, of course.” The First Signore looked from his cousin to the otherworlders and back again, evidently came to a decision and snapped to Horsten, “He is the family… jester. You might keep it in mind.” Without further farewell, he marched to the entrada and the front door, which opened before him.

Helen looked at Cesare Marconi. “Tony thinks you’re a phony-baloney, Mr. The Great Marconi.”

“The feeling has long been reciprocated, Signorina,” the Florentine told her. He came to his feet again and made his way to the bar and scowled down at it. “He’s probably got it locked up,” he muttered.

The massive scientist came over to Helen and squint-eyed down at her. “Are you drenched?” he said accusingly.

“On that lilac-water?” She snorted.

The door through which the First Signore had just left had not closed behind him. Through it now, came Zorro Juarez, a harassed air upon him. Maggiore Verona brought up the rear. He looked at Cesare Marconi.

Marconi looked back, “Go away,” he said. “I’m burglarizing Antonio’s quarters and don’t want to be bothered.”

The maggiore quivered but momentarily held his ground.

The relative of the Firenze chief of state said nastily, “I’ll get my mother to tell my aunt you were seen talking to an Engelist Then you’ll be in the soup, Roberto old friend.”

“What Engelist? No member of the Marconi family-even you—would ever tell a deliberate falsehood.”

Cesare Marconi leered at him. “Me—that’s who. Do you deny you’re talking to me, right this minute? An admitted Engelist.”

The maggiore was indignant.

Helen said to him helpfully, “You go on. Me an’ Gertrude’ll keep an eye on him.”

Maggiore Verona came to unhappy decision, bowed, muttered, “Signorina, Signori,” and left.

The Great Marconi looked after him and sneered.

Jerry said to Zorro, “How’s the janitor accommodations in the cellar?”

Zorro glowered at him. “Shut up. You’re in luck, up here.”

“I’m always in luck,” Jerry said mildly. “And now I’m really in. I get the feeling the First Signore is going to try to sell me the local equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge.”

The Florentine was looking at the two of them.

Horsten quickly changed the subject. “I don’t believe. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you, uh, Mr. Marconi.”

Jerry said, to Zorro, as well as to Horsten, “This is the Florentine I told you about. We met this morning at the Florida Café!”

“I had guessed. Tell me, Signore Marconi, why didn’t the maggiore, just now, challenge you? I thought that on this world challenges were exchanged on the lightest of excuse.”

“And run the chance of killing a member of the First Signore’s immediate relations?” He had given up his attempt to locate his cousin’s favorite potable, and returned with his oversized drink of whiskey to his seat.

“Frankly,” Horsten said, “I was somewhat surprised that His Zelenza himself didn’t challenge you.”

The Florentine was at his full ease. “Doctor—you are Dr. Horsten, of course? You were on Tri-Di, you know. The cameras were on you there at the university with Academician Udine. Doctor, an example is the Old West of the historical fiction Tri-Di shows. Those final scenes, where the two top gunmen come down the main street and shoot it out. It never happened, you know. You must read up on it some time. Very educational. In actuality, men of the Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid gunman level took full care not to step on each other’s toes. Very professional about it. It was much easier to shoot unarmed men down in the O.K. Corral and later brand them rustlers, since you were a marshal and who could say you nay? Or to run up your score of twenty-one notches from ambush, like our famed juvenile delinquent.”

Zorro, his handsome face grimacing, said, “What’s all this about you being an Engelist? All we hear about on this screw-box world, is the Engelists, but you never see one.” The Vacamundo cattleman was absently pounding his tranca in the palm of his left hand.

“Now you have the exception that proves the rule,” the Florentine said. “In me, you meet an Engelist.”

Jerry said, “Do you mean to say you really think you’ve got a chance of overthrowing this government? Why, half the population spends its time sniffing out subversives. Look at that cabinet of the First Signore. Ten men and all but one of them working on internal security. Go to the library and ask for a book on Engelism, and they throw you in the jug. Open your mouth about the Engelists, and thirteen bystanders howl for the police.”

Cesare Marconi again let his mask slip momentarily, and there was the drawn seriousness. “Signore Rhodes, don’t be overly impressed by the efforts governments make to prevent their institutions from being subverted. Social revolution can be equated to the fundamental change involved in an egg becoming a chick. Let us say that there might be some elements who are desirous of having the egg remain an egg. To that end, they may paint the shell of the egg with crosses, angels and cherubs. Or they might paint it red, white and blue, or other patriotic colors of other ages. They might inscribe it with all sorts of speeches and slogans, dreamed up by the most competent speech writers and advertising men available. However, that chick cannot long be put off.”

“Gosh,” Helen said.

Cesare Marconi looked at her thoughtfully before going on. “So it is with social change. If one is pending—I am not speaking of mere military revolt, or of overthrowing one group of opportunists for the benefit of another, while basic institutions are retained—than those who oppose have their work cut out. You can spend endlessly, paying your educational system from school-marms to professors to teach the young why it’s no-go.

You can subsidize ministers of every denomination to thunder against it in church and synagogue, temple and black mass coven. Alleged great thinkers can write lengthily on why it is against human nature, or whatever, but if it’s pending, you’d best have it.”

Helen said, in her child’s treble, “Or what happens, Mr. Great Martini?”

“Marconi!”

“If the little chick doesn’t break the shell, huh? What happens?”

He took her in, an edge of bafflement there. “It either breaks the shell, when the breaking is due, Signorina, . or it dies.”

Jerry said, “How does that fit in with your analogy?”

“In comparison with society? In society, when a social revolution is pending and is put off, then reaction is the inevitable alternative—usually bloody reaction, Signore Rhodes.”