Cristopher Stasheff - Escape Velocity

Whitey muttered, “Lousy prose!”

Dar stared at him, appalled. “But he’s the top newsface! They’re hearing him all over the Solar System—and FTL liners will take this recording-cube to all the colonies within the month!”

“Yeah. ‘Nothing succeeds like excess.’ ”

“The villain may be your neighbor, your friend, your co-worker,” Loffer went on. “No one can know where the evil ones lurk—because, citizens, they are telepaths!”

Whitey stared Dar goggled.

“Insidious telepaths, their tendrils of thought snaking out to enfold your brains! All through the I.D.E. they are. How do we know? Because, for a month now. Security has been chasing a notorious telepath all the way from the marches, the outermost colonies, here to Luna itself! Time and again, they have almost caught him, only to have him whisked away into hiding, by local assistance!”

The “local assistance” swore under his breath.

“Who would aid a rogue telepath?” Loffer declaimed. “Who but another telepath? Wherever this monster goes, he finds help—so there must be telepaths spread throughout the I.D.E., helping him, working secretly, to undermine the foundations of our freedom and destroy our government—to take power themselves!”

“Uh—don’t I detect a few flaws in his logic?” Dar asked.

“Logic? What’s that?” Whitey snorted. “It feels right, doesn’t it? So it’s got to be true—doesn’t it?”

“But take heart, citizens!” Suddenly, Loffer fairly oozed calm strength. “Our noble Solar Patrol is pursuing this monster, and will not rest until they destroy him!”

“What does ‘right to fair trial’ mean?” Whitey wondered.

Smiling confidently, Loffer dissolved into a sea of plain blue, filling the screen. A voice said, “We now return you to ‘Starship Captain’s Wife.’ ”

Whitey pressed the button in the arm of his recliner, and the picture faded into an assortment of fruits in a basket; the wall-screen became only a three-dimensional still picture again.

“Uh—I thought reporting was supposed to be objective, just telling you the facts they’re sure of,” Dar said tentatively.

Whitey gave him a peculiar look. “No, you haven’t been to Terra before, have you?”

“But … why ?” Dar exploded. “Announcements like that are going to panic the public! Why get everybody into a state of terror about it?”

“I have a notion,” Whitey muttered, “but I hope I’m wrong.”

“It’s got to be because they want to make absolutely sure they catch me. But why? Am I that much of a threat to them? And how’d they get the idea I’m a telepath?”

“Maybe they didn’t. ‘Telepath’ is a nice scare word, conjuring up somebody poking into your most private affairs, somebody having a huge, unnatural advantage that makes everybody else feel inferior—and, therefore, all the more willing to go out and help hunt him down. Useful, if they want to make sure they catch you. And as to your being a threat, well—the answer is, you don’t have to be much of a threat. Conspirators tend to not want to take chances, no matter how small. The LORDS party in the I.D.E. Assembly want to restrict individual rights, and they’ve never been so strong. Their opposition has fractured into a dozen splinter groups. If there’s an opposition leader, it’s Tarn Urkavne, the chairman of the CPR—the Coalition for the Protection of Rights. At least he’s officially the Opposition speaker. But his ‘Coalition’ is pretty weak—its members spend their time arguing over policy, instead of trying to do something.”

“But the LORDS aren’t trying to overthrow the whole I.D.E. government, are they?”

Whitey shrugged. “If they are, they’re not saying—of course. That’s high treason, boy. No, you may be sure whoever’s behind the coup are keeping their lips well sealed, and want to make sure everybody else does, too.”

The bedroom door opened.

“Well, enough of politics.” Whitey craned around in his seat, looking back over his shoulder. “Hi, honey.”

Lona swayed out into the sitting room, and the sight of her made Dar decide to stay among the living. He decided Whitey’s hangover cure was working. But she had a kind of glassy look in her eyes, a sort of fevered brilliance. Was she ill?

“I told you, you shouldn’t have stayed up waiting for me to finish,” Whitey said, frowning. “You get to bed, honey; you can still catch about three hours sleep before we have to leave.”

“How can I, with this running through my head?” Lona shoved a sheaf of papers at him.

Whitey squared the sheets on his lap, smiling up at her, almost shyly. “Liked it, huh?”

Lona nodded, with a tight smile; she looked as though she were about to explode.

Whitey grinned and turned to Dar, holding out the sheaf. “First hard copy. See what you think.”

Dar took the script and began to scan it. His eyes locked in after the third line, tracking the print at speech-speed, words thundering in his head. “Whitey, this is …”

“… wonderful!” Father Marco breathed, looking up from the last page. Sam looked up from her copy with a numbed gaze and an awed nod.

“Rough,” Whitey grumbled, flushed with pleasure. “Needs polish. Lots of it.”

“It’s a masterpiece,” Sam whispered.

Whitey sat still a moment, then gave a brusque nod. “Good. Yes. Rough, but—it’s good. Thank you.”

Lona laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “9:30 hours, Grandpa.”

“Yeah.” Whitey heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “Time to go meet Stroganoff, children—the Knight of the Shining Laser, who will do battle with the Dragon of Commerce for us. Ready?”

Dar paced the lounge furiously, hands locked behind his back. “What’s he doing in there—reading them the whole script?”

“Calm down, Da … uh. Perry.” Whitey leaned back in his chair like a cat by a fire, a tall drink in his hand. “It means it’s going well. If the execs didn’t like his presentation, he’d’ve been out half an hour ago.”

The door opened, and Stroganoff shuffled in, holding the script in front of him as though it were a tray, eyes glazed.

Dar pounced on him. “Well? What’s the word? They like it? They gonna buy it? What?”

Stroganoff’s head swiveled toward him, but his gaze went right through Dar. Father Marco pried Dar away with a soothing murmur, and Whitey echoed him: “Calm down, Perry. They won’t finish deciding for a while yet … How’d it go, David?”

Stroganoff’s head turned toward Whitey, but his eyes still didn’t quite focus. “Tod … why didn’t you warn me?”

“Warn?” Whitey frowned. “About what?”

“About this !” Stroganoff held the script out reverently. “I gave ‘em the overview, and the audience potential, the cost-minimalization, and the company-image enhancement, and they sat there looking bored, so I started reading them the first few lines, just to give ‘em the idea—and I couldn’t stop! I just kept going, right through the whole thing—and they didn’t cut me off! Not a word! They actually listened !”

Whitey grinned and sat back. “Well. Nice to be appreciated.”

“Appreciated! My lord, Tod, that’s topping the Prize!” Dar heaved a silent sigh. He might make it to Earth, after all.

They were laughing and chattering as they came back into their hotel, riding high on a triumph—until a grave-faced major domo stepped up to Whitey and intoned, “Mr. Tambourin, sir?”

The laughter cut off as though it had been sliced with a razor blade. Whitey turned to the man in livery, frowning. “Yes?”

“There’s a call waiting, from Mr. Horatio Bocello, sir. He’s been quite insistent in his demands that he speak with you.”