The Jagged Orbit (26 page)

"No wonder you wanted to prevent that being recorded!" Reedeth said. He gave a thin smile. "Yes, I'd more or Jess figured that out. What are you trying to get me to do—bore from within to undermine him? Forget it. But I wouldn't weep if someone else took over who was—well—let's say less dogmatic than he is. It'd make working here a lot easier, and what's more I think we'd do a better job." He ended on a note of defiance, looking almost surprised at his own decisiveness.

"I'm sure Flamen wasn't asking you to turn traitor," Conroy said promptly. "But it shouldn't be necessary to tell you, Jim, that I work much more happily on the basis of personal reactions than computerized analyses. And every now and again .. ."

It was his turn to hesitate, and his hearers looked at him in puzzlement as he glanced from one to another of them, his gaze lingering longest of all on Lyla.

"I'd better declare my interest," he said eventually, and gave a wry grin. "Without intending the least disrespect to Flamen's position and influence, on reflection I can't believe that something as straightforward as independent packling of Mrs. Flamen is going to afford the lever to topple your boss off his pedestal, Jim. It could far too easily be discounted on grounds of personal pique—couldn't it? And yet on the flight down from Manitoba I was thinking just how
necessary
it is to get Mogshack out."

He leaned back in his chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and stared at them musingly.

"You see . . . like it or not, and frankly I don't like it, this city of New York has a prestige, a cachet, a quality of influence, left over from the days when America really was on top of the world. There's this curious kind of envy—I'm sure you've noticed it—which means that even people in Capetown and Accra and the capitals of Asia have a nostalgic regard for what's done in New York, much in the same way as the Goths and Franks venerated Rome even after Alaric had sacked the city and the Romans had ceased to be a major power. And here's Mogshack on top of the local heap, and I sincerely believe he's doing things which are going to be disastrous. But they're being imitated from Mexico to Moscow, and—and I'm getting worried. Jim, do you appreciate at all what I'm driving at?"

Reedeth had lowered himself into his chair again. He gave a wary nod.

"I do have to confess that I'm not happy about the system I work under," he said. "Whether you, Prof, or anyone, can produce something better, though . . ."

"Me, I'm old and tired, and reduced to teaching a handful of not overly bright students not even in the country of my birth," Conroy sighed. "But I think I might conceivably be able to shift a dead weight off the minds of the next generation, who will have to clear up the mess we leave behind. I'd like to try, anyhow, and what I'm proposing is this. During the past few days, it looks as though not just one but a whole complex of curious and questionable events have taken place here, which combined will furnish Flamen with what he wants. Excuse me," he added to the spoolpigeon. "But as I said, the case of your wife on its own isn't enough. On the other hand, maybe if we took everything together, we might come up with a concerted attack. Let's start with something which most people will find very strange—no disrespect, Miss Clay, but people do still mostly look on pythonesses with suspicion. How about this matter of calling in a pythoness and then acting on her oracles?"

"We didn't," Reedeth said. "Not exactly. As I said, it was what the automatics told us about the oracles which convinced us."

"Us?"

"Me and my colleague Ariadne Spoelstra. It was her idea to invite Miss Clay to perform here."

"And Mogshack approved?"

"Of course. Though I understand he needed a lot of persuading."

"Good, there's our first line of approach. Here's our second." Conroy turned to Madison. "I seem to be apologizing for my own phrasing every minute or two, don't I? But I've got to say that I'm sure people outside this hospital are going to be astonished to learn you were servicing the automatics here for several months while you were still officially a mental patient. And I'm certain that you don't feel too kindly disposed towards the man who kept you in long after you should have been discharged."

Madison turned one hand over as though spilling water from its cupped palm. He said, "Servicing the automatics is the job I'm good at, Mr. Conroy."

"You're not kidding," Reedeth said. He seemed to have recovered his self-possession. "What you did to this desketary of mine is almost unbelievable. And, come to think of it, I never thanked you."

"Yes, that's a point I was coming to," Conroy said. "You've told us about this desketary and how it's been modified—can you give us some examples of its new behavior?"

"I just did," Reedeth countered. "All this is being kept confidential, and it's just as well!"

"That's a negative kind of demonstration. How about a positive one? How about something which will prove that the entire resources of the Ginsberg cybernetic complex can be tapped through this single input? As I understand it, that's what you're claiming."

"I don't think there's any doubt of it!" Reedeth exclaimed. "I never thought I could—" He stopped abruptly.

"Never thought what?"

A faint beading of sweat had suddenly appeared on Reedeth's forehead. "I never thought I'd be able to make inquiries through my desketary about Dr. Mogshack himself," he muttered. "But I guess that's kind of an internal point, not one which visitors would appreciate."

"I appreciate it," Conroy said with some grimness. "I have a clear impression of what it must be to work under your boss, even though I've escaped that misfortune so far. I still want that demonstration, though. Hmmm! That's an idea." He turned to Flamen. "The automatics here are notoriously among the most advanced and elaborate in the world. Do you happen to have a problem on your mind they could solve for you?"

"Now just a—" Reedeth began, but Flamen had reacted instantly.

"Sure I do," he said. "Doctor, do regular vu-transmissions form part of the environment of your patients which your automatics take into consideration?"

"Oh, naturally," Reedeth said, a trifle puzzled. "As they go to green, we phase our patients back to the outside world, and vushows play a key role in the process."

"My God," Conroy said very softly; Flamen disregarded the comment

"So in that case let's ask your miraculous desketary why my own computers have assured me that unlimited free Federal computer time won't get rid of the interference which has been plaguing my show recently," Flamen said, and leaned back in his chair with a smug expression.

"I don't think I quite understand that," Reedeth said after a pause. "Ah ... I don't watch your show, I'm afraid. I'm always working when it comes on."

"It's perfectly straightforward," Flamen said. "My show, and only my show, has been suffering ridiculous amounts of interference literally every day for months past, and it's getting so bad people are switching off in droves. The Holocosmic engineers swear blind it's nothing they can fix. I want to know whether to believe them, or whether I'm being sabotaged, or whether I'm going out of my mind and developing a persecution complex. It seems like a reasonable question to put to the computers in a mental hospital. Especially since my own equipment seems to have a blind spot on the subject, and it this moment strikes me that maybe if I am being sabotaged the sabotage extends to my computers at the office!" He was growing heated as he ended the tirade.

With a suspicious glance, as though prepared to agree with the suggestion of paranoia, Reedeth summarized the question for his desketary, and waited for the most probable answer: insufficient data.

It didn't materialize. In its usual patronizing tone, the machine said, "Both Mr. Flamen and the Federal government's computers lack the data to evaluate this problem."

"Does that mean you have the data?" Reedeth said, confused.

"Yes."

Flamen was looking equally astonished; it was obvious that he hadn't expected to receive a serious reply to his query, but only meant to live up to the challenge implicit in Reedeth's claims about his desketary. Since this had been the key element in persuading him to accept responsibility for Madison after his release, it was logical that he should put maximum pressure on it. He was torn between disappointment at not scoring against Reedeth, and genuine desire to learn the answer.

"So get it to answer the question for me!" he rapped at Reedeth.

"I'll try," the psychologist muttered, and put the problem to the machine. Promptly the mechanical voice responded.

"Mrs. Celia Prior Flamen possesses the ability to interfere with electromagnetic radiations in the band used for three-vee transmissions, and this fact is not stored either at the offices of Matthew Flamen Inc. or at the Federal computation center at Oak Ridge. It was established upon her arrival at this hospital and has not subsequently been relayed to any other cybernetic system."

There was a stunned silence in the room. At length Flamen said faintly, "But . . . Reedeth, are your automatics as crazy as your patients?"

"It certainly sounds like it," Reedeth agreed. His cheeks had gone pale. "Unless . . . No, it's absurd. But—"

"But what?" Conroy cut in with enthusiasm instead of the scorn they had expected.

Reluctantly Reedeth said, "Well, it is true, now that I come to think of it—there were a hell of a lot of breakdowns in our internal comweb directly following Mrs. Flamen's commitment. Remember, Harry?" He turned to Madison.

"Ah . . . Yes, doctor, that's perfectly true," the knee said in a depressed tone.

"Even so," Reedeth said, appearing to regret his former reaction, "I don't see how one could—"

"Jim!" Conroy interrupted. "Do you trust the automatics you work with here?"

"Damn it, I put exactly the same question to Ariadne the other day," Reedeth sighed. "Prof, I literally don't know! That was such an incredible—"

The comweb buzzed, and in the screen there appeared the familiar face of Elias Mogshack, a smile parting his moustache from his beard, a cordial tone coloring the words he started to speak as the image of Reedeth appeared before him.

"Ah, Dr. Reedeth! I heard you were devotedly working out of normal hours to clear up some—"

And it stopped.

Silence.

Resuming, the voice was like a saw cutting into wet wood, the bite and rasp overlaid with a whine of petulance. "Aren't you Xavier Conroy?"

Completely unperturbed, Conroy nodded. "Good afternoon, Dr. Mogshack. It's a long time since we had the pleasure—"

"What the
hell
are you doing in my hospital?"

"Yours?" Conroy countered delicately. "Strange—I thought it belonged to the government and people of the State of New York."

"You son of a bitch," said Mogshack, and his lips folded together so tightly that when he parted them again they remained bloodlessly pale. "Get out. Get off the grounds of the Ginsberg Hospital
this minute
or I'll have you removed by the police."

Reedeth said, "Dr. Mogshack—"

"Did you invite this man into the hospital?" Mogshack thundered.

"What? Well, I guess I—"

"You speak to me on Monday the minute you arrive on the hospital premises'. I'll tell you then what I think of you—I wouldn't want Conroy to be able to gloat over my bad judgment in offering you a post at the Ginsberg. But I'd recommend you to start looking for other employment; that much I
will
say right now!"

The screen blanked. A few seconds went by; then the desketary said, "On the orders of the hospital director, this unit is inactivated until oh-nine-hundred Monday morning next"

And went dead.

"Well, if you want that fixed, Madison can presumably do it," Flamen said, curling his lip as he turned to glance at the knee.

"Stop it, Flamen," Conroy said quietly. "Yes, Madison very probably can override the inactivation, but do you want to give away your ace in the hole?"

He stood up. "All right, that settles it," he said. "Up till this very moment I had doubts. You too, Jim? But I think Flamen just had an example of the kind of person who's allegedly 'cured' his wife, and Madison just saw who it really was who kept him here after the due time, and you, Jim, had your marching orders. Let's get out of here like he told us to—in the state he's in, he's perfectly capable of keeping his word about having me dragged out by the busies. Isn't he, Jim?"

Reedeth drew a deep breath. He said, "You remember I mentioned a little while ago that I'd got data about Mogshack out of this desketary? Well, what it said . . ." He hesitated, but an access of fury carried him over his mental logjam. "It said he wanted to have the whole United States committed to his care! Well, he can damned well count me out!"

"I can't think," Conroy said glacially, "what better evidence you could offer Flamen here for the accuracy of your automatics' answer to his question than the perfect match between that diagnosis of your boss's mental condition and the behavior he just exhibited. Flamen, you have computers in your office?"

"Well-yes, naturally!"

"That's where we're going," Conroy said with authority. "I don't imagine you have a setup to match the Ginsberg's, but unless he objects I want to take along our highly recommended eleotronicist here: apart from anything else I only have until tomorrow night in this town and I'd like to be assured that when I head for home there's some capable engineer looking after the problem of this interference on your program, regardless of whether it is or is not your wife's" doing like the machines say. I'd also like to take you along, Miss Clay, unless you have something else to do. I get hunches sometimes. Right now I have a hunch that—"