Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 4

“One moment, please,” said the vision, and disappeared, to be replaced instantly by another, even more composed, even lovelier, who said, “I.F. Telethon.”

“Heri Gonza.”

“Yes, of course. Your name?”

“I-Iris Barran. Dr. Iris Barran.”

The girl looked up sharply. “Not the—”

“Yes, I won the Nobel prize. Please—let me speak to Heri Gonza.”

“One moment, please.”

The next one was a young man with curly hair, a belllike baritone, and an intensely interested face. He was Burcke of the network. He passed her to a jovial little fat man with shrewd eyes who was with Continuity Acceptance. Iris could have screamed out loud. But a worldwide appeal for calls would jam lines and channels for hours, and obviously a thorough screening process was essential. She was dimly aware that her name and face, only today in all the news, had already carried her to the top. Consciously, she thought of none of this; she held on and drove, wanting only to help . . . help ... A snatch of the conversation she had had with Dr. Otis drifted across her mind: I guess you’d trade it all for ... and then a heart-rending picture of Billy’s face, trying to smile with half a mouth. I’d trade it all for a reasonable hope . . . and suddenly she was staring into the face of Heri Gonza. Reflexively she glanced over her shoulder at the trideo wall; Heri Gonza was there too, with a solidophone pillar in center stage, its back to the audience so that only the comedian could see its cave. Light from it flickered on his face.

“I’d know that face anywhere!” he said raspingly.

“Oh,” she said faintly, “Mr. . . . uh . . .” and then remembered that one of his public affectations was never to permit anyone to call him Mister. She said, “Heri Gonza, I . . . I’m Iris B-Barran, and I—” She realized that her voice could not be heard over the trideo. She was grateful for that.

He said, just as stridently, “I know who you are. I know the story of your life too.” Switching to a comic quack, he said, “So-o-o?”

“You know I just won the Nobel award. M—uh, Heri Gonza, I want to help, more than anything in the world, I want to help. My brother has it. W-would you like me to give the award money to you ... I mean, to the Foundation?”

She did not know what she expected in exchange for this stunning offer. She had not thought that far ahead. What she did not expect was . . .

“You what?” he yelled, so loud she drew her head down, gracelessly, turtlelike. “Listen, you, I got along without you before and I can get along without you now. You’re getting from me, see, and I’m giving. What you got I don’t want. I’m not up here to do you no good. I tell you what you got, you got a wrong number, and you are, s-s-s-s-so,” he hissed in a hilarious flatulent stutter, “s-s-so long.” And before she could utter another sound he waved her off and her phone cave went black.

Numb with shock, she slowly turned to the trideo wall, where Heri Gonza was striding downstage to the audience. His expressionless face, his gait, his posture, the inclination of his head, and his tone of voice all added to an amused indignation, with perhaps a shade more anger than mirth. He tossed a thumb at the phone and said, “Wits we got calling, can you imagine? At a time like this. We got dim wits, half wits, and—” exactly the right pause; there was one bleat of laughter somewhere in the audience and then a thousand voices to chorus with him—”horowitz!”

Iris sank back in the phone chair and covered her face, pressing so hard against her tired eyes that she saw red speckles. For a time she was shocked completely beyond thought, but at last she was able to move. She rose heavily and went to the divan, arrested her hand as she was about to click off the trideo. Heri Gonza was back at the stage phone talking eagerly to someone, his voice honey and gentleness. “Oh, bless you, brother, and thank you. You may have an idea there, so I tell you what you do. You call the I.F. at Johannesburg and arrange a meeting with the doctors there. They’ll listen. . . . No, brother, collect of course. What’s-amatta, brother, you broke? I got news for you, for you-ee are-ee a-ee good-ee man-ee yes-ee indeedy-dee: you ain’ta broka no mo. A man like you? I got a boy on the way this very minute with a bag o’ gold for the likes of you, brother. . .. Oh now, don’t say thanks, you mak-a me mad. ‘By.”

He waved off, and turned to the audience to intone, “A man with an idea—little one, big one, who knows? But it’s to help ... so bless him.”

Thunderous applause. Iris let her hand finish the gesture and switched off.

She went and washed her face, and that gave her strength enough to shower and change. After that she could think almost normally. How could he?

She turned over impossible alternatives, explanations. His phone was a dummy: he couldn’t see her, didn’t know who was on the phone. Or: it was his way of being funny, and she was too tired to understand. Or ... or ... it was no use: it had really happened, he had known what he was doing, he had a reason.

But what reason? Why? Why?

In her mind she again heard that roar from the audience: Horowitz. With difficulty, because it still stung, she pieced together the conversation and then, moving her forefinger toward her phone and the trideo, back and forth, puzzled out what had gone out over the air and what had not. Only then did she fully understand that Heri Gonza had done what he had done to make it seem that his first call was from Dr. Horowitz. But if he needed that particular gag at that time, why didn’t he fake it to a dead phone? Why actually converse with her, cut her down like that?

And he hadn’t let her help. That was worse than any of the rudeness, the insult. He wouldn’t let her help.

What to do? Making the gesture she had made had not been hard; having it refused was more than she could bear. She must help; she would help. Now of all times, with all this useless money coming to her; she didn’t need it, and it might, it just might somehow help, and bring Billy back home.

Well then, expose Heri Gonza. Give him back some of his own humiliation. Call in the newsmen, make a statement. Tell them what she had offered, tell them just who was on the line. He’d have to take the money, and apologize to boot.

She stood up; she sat down again. No. He had known what he was doing. He had known who she was; he must have a telltale on his phone to get information on his callers from that screening committee. She knew a lot about Heri Gonza. He seemed so wild, so impulsive; he was not. He ran his many enterprises with a steel fist; he took care of his own money, his own bookings. He did not make mistakes nor take chances. He had refused her and the Foundation would refuse her: the Foundation was Heri Gonza. He had his reasons, and if she had any defense at all against “ what he had done, he would not have done it.

She wasn’t allowed to help.

Unless—

She suddenly ran to the phone. She dialed 5, and the cave lit up with the floating word DIRECTORY. She dialed H, O, R, and touched the Slow button until she had the Horowitzes. There were pathetically few of them. Almost everyone named Horowitz had filed unlisted numbers: many had gone so far as to change their names.

George Rehoboth Horowitz, she remembered.

He wasn’t listed.

She dialed Information and asked. The girl gave her a pitying smile and told her the line was unlisted. And of course it would be. If Dr. Horowitz wasn’t the most hated man on earth, he was the next thing to it. A listed phone would be useless to him, never silent.

“Has he screening service?” Iris asked suddenly.