Robert Silverberg - Shadrach in the Furnace

“Buckmaster isn’t innocent.”

“What’s he guilty of?”

“Guilty of bad judgment. Guilty of bad luck. His number’s up, Doctor.” Avogadro, rising, lays his hand lightly on Shadrach’s arm. “You’re a man of conscience, aren’t you, Dottore? Buckmaster thought you were a cynical fiend, a soulless servant of the Antichrist, but no, no, you’re a decent sort, caught in a nasty time, doing your best. Well, Doctor, so am I. I quote your own words of last night: Guilt is a luxury we can’t afford. Amen! Now go. Stop worrying about Buckmaster. Buckmaster’s done himself in. If you hear the bell tolling, remember, it tolls for him, and it doesn’t diminish you or me at all, because we’ve already diminished ourselves as much as possible.” Avogadro’s smile is warm, almost pitying. “Go, Doctor. Go and relax. I have work to do. I have a dozen more suspects to question before dinner.”

“And the real murderer of Mangu—”

“Was Mangu himself, nine to one. What’s that to me? I’ll continue to find his killer and interrogate him and ship him to the organ farms until I’m told to stop. Go, now. Go. Go.”

Word circulates, the next day, that thirteen conspirators have been sent to the organ farms, including Roger Buckmaster, the ringleader. Such rumors generally have a way of being accurate, but Shadrach Mordecai, still finding the idea unpalatable, goes to the extent of keying into the master personnel register to find out where Buckmaster is. He tries the engineering department code, but is told by the master computer that Buckmaster has been reassigned to Department 111. Shadrach tries that code next, though he knows what it is likely to be, and yes. Department 111 is the euphemism for the organ farms. Buckmaster has joined the human stockpile. Spike through the foramen magnum, zap. Poor silly red-faced fool.

Dr. Mordecai chooses not to bring up the subject of Buckmaster when he pays his morning call on the Chairman. Buckmaster’s fate seems beside the point now.

“The conspiracy is crushed!” Genghis Mao declares vehemently as Shadrach enters. “The guilty have been punished. The threat to our regime has been met. The principles of centripetal depolarization will not be challenged.” His eyes gleam with lunatic satisfaction. His ancient patchwork body throbs with triumphant good health, reverberating in Shadrach’s implants as furious freshets of resurgent energy.

Shadrach takes blood samples, administers medicines, checks reflexes; the Khan pays no more heed to him than if he were an orderly changing the bed linens. He is altogether preoccupied, it appears, with his proliferating schemes for the deification of Mangu. Already blueprints for Mangu monuments have been drawn up, and they are spread everywhere in rustling heaps across the Chairman’s bed, over his bony upjutting knees and on both sides of him and tumbling to the floor. Humming tunelessly, Genghis Mao turns the documents this way and that, nodding, scribbling marginal notes, muttering private observations. “Hah! I like this!” Genghis Mao exclaims sharply. “Patterned after the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, but twice the size, with statues of Mangu twenty meters high rising out of each of the four faces. What do you think?” He shoves the blueprint toward Mordecai. “It’s Ionigylakis’s idea. He’s trying to improve on antiquity, like everyone else. How do you like it, Shadrach?”

“The statues, sir. They — ah — tend to break the line of the pyramid, wouldn’t you say?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Pyramids are so graceful,” Shadrach says. “So compact.”

“The original pyramid is an exhausted concept,” the Chairman snaps. “What I like about this is the contrast in angles, the slope of the pyramid’s face versus the upright statue working against it, do you see? Mangu is rising upward, outward, away from the center — it’s centripetal, Shadrach! Do you see?”

“Centrifugal, I’d say, sir.”

Genghis Mao gapes as though his doctor has struck him. “Centrifugal? Centrifugal? Are you serious?” He breaks into frantic laughter. “A joke! My earnest Shadrach makes a joke! Tell me: do you think Mangu was in great pain?”

“He must have died instantly. I doubt that he was conscious as he fell. The acceleration—”

“Yes. Look at this one, will you? A helical spire, it says here, nine hundred meters high, a great metal coil through which a magnetic field flows, and a perpetual bolt of lightning flickering at the tip—”

“Sir, if you would, the tritetrazol injection—”

“Later, Shadrach.”

“The absorption levels are already slightly above optimum. If I could have your arm—”

“—and here, yes, I like this. A giant sarcophagus of alabaster, inlaid with onyx—”

“—clench your fist, sir—”

“—build a tomb worthy of—”

“—if you’d hold your breath, count to five—”

“—a scale befitting Alexander the Great, Tut-ankh-Amen, even Genghis Khan himself. Yes, why not? Mangu—”

“—and relax now, sir—”

“—Ch’in Shih Huang Ti! There’s our prototype! Do you know him, Shadrach?”

“Sir?”

“—Ch’in Shih Huang Ti.”

“I’m afraid I—”

“The First Emperor of China, the Unifier, the builder of the Great Wall. Do you know how they buried him?” Genghis Mao scrabbles through the documents on his bed and comes up with a sheaf of pale green printouts, which he brandishes wildly in Shadrach’s face. “Agreat hill of sand, south of the River Wei, at the foot of Mount Li. Or was it Mount Wei, River Li? Wei. Li. In the mound a palace, and the palace contained a relief map of China modeled in bronze, depicting the rivers, mountains, valleys, plains. The Yangtze and the Huang Ho had channels four meters deep, filled with quicksilver. Models of cities and palaces along their banks, and a great dome of bright copper overhead, yes, with the moon and the constellations engraved on it. The coffin of the First Emperor, then, floated on one of the quicksilver rivers, Shadrach! An endless journey across China. Silent, slippery — oh, bathe me in quicksilver, Shadrach, let me sleep on quicksilver! Do you see the coffin? And a powerful bow mounted at the coffin’s side, ready to hurl an arrow at any intruder. Trapdoors and hidden knives waiting for the grave-robbers, too, and thunder-making machines — and hundreds of slaves and artisans buried in the mound with Ch’in Shih Huang Ti to serve him, yes. Grandeur! What do you think? Should I build this for Mangu?” The Khan blinks, frowns, moistens his lips. Shadrach Mordecai perceives changes in skin temperature and blood pressure. “On the other hand — if I build such a tomb for Mangu, what could I provide for myself? Surely I deserve something finer. But what — what — ” Genghis Mao breaks into a broad grin. “There’s time to plan it! Twenty, fifty years! Why should I think now of tombs for Genghis Mao? It’s Mangu we bury. I’ll give him the finest!” The old man pushes the blueprints into a heap. “Forty-one guilty conspirators to the organ farms so far, Shadrach.”

“I had heard thirteen.”

“Forty-one, and we’re not finished. I’ve told Avogadro to bring in at least a hundred. Think of the livers going into storage! The kilometers of intestine. How beautiful the farms are, Shadrach. I hate waste of all kinds. You know that. To conserve. It’s a kind of poetry. Forty-one more tanks filled. And the threat to the government is put down.” Genghis Mao’s voice grows dark, hollow. “But Mangu — what have they done to Mangu? My other self — my self-in-waiting — my prince, my viceroy—”

“Sir, perhaps you’re becoming overexcited.”

“I feel fine. Shadrach.”