Robert Silverberg - Shadrach in the Furnace

“And meanwhile,” Avogadro says, “suspects will be rounded up, minds will be pried into, the innocent will suffer, my staff will be wasting its energies on a foolish pursuit of a nonexistent assassin—”

“Can’t you delay the purge a few days, then?”

“He ordered us to start at once, Doctor.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“He ordered us to start at once. We’ve done so.”

“Already?”

“Already. I understand the meaning of an order from the Chairman. Within the past ten minutes the first arrests have taken place. I can try to stretch out the process of interrogation so that as little harm as possible will come to the prisoners before I can bring my findings on Mangu’s death to the Chairman, but I have no authority to sidetrack his instructions altogether.” Quietly Avogadro adds, “I wouldn’t want to risk it, either.”

“Then there’ll be a purge,” Shadrach says, shrugging. “I regret that as much as you do, I suppose. But there’s no way to stop it now, eh? And no real hope that you’ll persuade Genghis Mao to swallow the suicide theory, not this afternoon or tomorrow or next week, not if he wants to think Mangu was murdered. I’m sorry.”

“I am also,” Avogadro says. “Well. Thanks for your time, Doctor.” He begins to move away; then, pausing, he gives Shadrach a deep, uncomfortably appraising look, and says, “Oh, one more thing. Doctor. Is there any reason you might know of for Mangu to have wanted to kill himself?” Shadrach frowns. He considers things.

“No,” he answers after a moment. “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

He goes on into Surveillance Vector One. The big room is crowded with high staff personnel. He begins to feel a little odd, wandering around headquarters without a shirt. General Gonchigdorge sits at Genghis Mao’s ornate throne, jabbing with stubby fingers at the enormous keyboard that controls the whole vast spy-eye apparatus. As the general pounds the buttons, images of life out there in the Trauma Ward swing jerkily in and out of focus, zooming into view and vanishing rapidly. The scene on the screens looks just as dizzyingly random as when the machine is left to its own whims; not surprising, for Gonchigdorge really does seem to be tapping the keys without system, without purpose, in a kind of sullen petulance, as though he hopes to uncover a revolutionary cadre ouf there by some stochastic process of nondirected scoops — dipping down into the world here and there until he comes upon a band of desperados waving a banner, we are conspirators. But the screens reveal only the usual human story, people working, walking, suffering, quarreling, dying.

Horthy, appearing silently at Mordecai’s left elbow, says, with a certain glee, “The arrests have already begun.”

“I know. Avogadro told me.”

“Did he tell you that they have a prime suspect?”

“Who?”

Horthy delicately prods his thumbs into the corners of his bulging, bloodshot eyes. A psychedelic effluvium still hovers about him. “Roger Buckmaster,” he says. “The microengineering man, you know.”

“Yes. I know. I’ve worked with him.”

“Buckmaster was heard making wild statements at Karakorum last night,” Horthy says. “Calling for the overthrow of Genghis Mao, yelling subversion at the top of his lungs. The Citpols picked him up, finally, but they decided he was just drunk and let him go.”

In a low voice Shadrach says, “Is that what happened to you?”

“Me? To me? I don’t understand what you mean.”

“At the tube-train station. I saw you there, remember? While they were running the tape of Mangu’s speech. You made some remarks about the Antidote distribution program, and then the Citpols—”

“No,” Horthy says. “You must be mistaken.” His eyes fix on Shadrach’s and lock there. They are intimidating eyes, cold and hostile, despite all their dissipated bleariness. With great precision Horthy says, “It was someone else you saw at Karakorum, Dr. Mordecai.”

“You weren’t there last night?”

“It was someone else.”

Shadrach chooses to take the crude hint, and decides not to press the issue. “My apologies. Tell me about Buckmaster. Why do they think he’s the one?”

“His eccentric behavior last night was suspicious.”

“Is that all?”

“You’ll have to ask the security people for the rest.”

“Was he found near Mangu’s apartment at the time of the murder?”

“I couldn’t say. Dr. Mordecai.”

“All right.” On the surveillance screens, in repellent close-up, the image of a girl vomiting. It is the crimson puke of organ-rot, in glistening lifelike color. Horthy seems almost to smile at the sight, as though nothing horrid is alien to him. Shadrach says, “One more thing. You saw Mangu fall, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And then you notified Genghis Mao?”

“I notified the guards in the lobby first.”

“Of course.”

“And then I went to the seventy-fifth floor. The security people had already sealed it, but I was able to enter.”

“Going straight to the Chairman’s bedroom?”

Horthy nods. “Which was under triple guard. I obtained admittance only by insisting on my ministerial privileges.”

“Was Genghis Mao awake?”

“Yes. Reading PRC reports.”

“What would you say was his general state of health?”

“Quite good. He looked pale and weak, but not unusually so, considering that he had just had a major operation. He greeted me and saw from my expression that something was wrong, and asked me, and I told him what had happened.”

“Which was?”

“What else?” Horthy says snappishly. “That Mangu had fallen from his window, naturally.”

“Is that how you put it? ‘Mangu has fallen from his window’?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you talk about his being pushed, maybe?”

“Why are you interrogating me. Dr. Mordecai?”

“Please. This is important. I need to know whether the Khan arrived at the idea that Mangu was assassinated by himself, or if you inadvertently put the suggestion in his mind.”

Horthy stares balefully up at Shadrach Mordecai. “I told him exactly what I saw: Mangu falling from the window. I drew no conclusions about how it had happened. Even if someone had thrown him, how much could I have seen, four hundred meters below? At that distance Mangu himself was no bigger man a speck against the sky, a doll. I didn’t recognize him until he had nearly reached the ground.” A disconcerting gleam appears in Horthy’s eyes. He leans close to Shadrach and says, almost crooning, “He looked so serene. Dr. Mordecai! Floating there above me — his eyes wide open, his hair straight out behindhim, his lips drawn back — he was smiling, I think. Smiling! And then he hit.”

Ionigylakis, who has evidently been eavesdropping, interjects abruptly, “That’s strange. If someone had just flung him from the window, would he have looked so cheerful?” Shadrach shakes his head. “I doubt that Mangu was conscious at all by the time Horthy could see his face. That serene expression was probably just acceleration stupor.”

“Perhaps,” Horthy says crisply.

“Go on,” Shadrach tells him. “You informed the Khan that Mangu had fallen. Then what happened?”

“He sat up so sharply that I thought he would break the medical machinery all around him. He turned red in the face and began to perspire. His breath came in gasps. Oh, it was very bad, Dr. Mordecai. I thought he would die from overexcitement. He started to wave his arms, to shout about assassins — suddenly he sank back against the pillow, he put his hands to his chest—”

“You thought he would die from overexcitement,” Shadrach says. “But it never occurred to you beforehand that it might be unwise to trouble him with news like that, in his state of health.”