The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (46 page)

‘G'day,' said Humdinger. They stopped. They hadn't come to look at his boilers.

‘What's going on?' said the Python.

‘The sight glasses are gone on the boilers.' He pointed up.

‘You've got panel indication.'

‘Yes. There's a level here.' Pointing to the instrument.

‘OK, then,' said the inspector.

‘But I can't operate a boiler without a gauge glass.'

‘Who said?'

‘You did.'

‘Me?'

‘You did. You tested me for my ticket.'

‘This is different. You've got instruments.'

‘But you said I must know exactly. These have been wrong before.'

‘You've got instruments. What more d'you want? You men get everything these days. When I was young we had nothing.' The Humdinger was licked. He thought he had a cast-iron case.

‘Can I have that in writing?' But his superiors turned away.

‘No action required,' smiled the Python. And the men holding up the visitor laughed and laughed and steered him outside where he looked up at the dizzying tangle of steel, then helped him back to the car. On top of the structure Far Away Places relaxed the grip of his finger and thumb and resumed his pee. He'd had to cut off the flow halfway through in case the Python spotted him.

 

CRISIS MAN The new man's initials were SK. It was the work of only a few seconds for the Two Pot Screamer to christen him SKlation. Escalation was a new word then.

And it came true. No one knew if the man was like it before he was christened or if the new name forced him into this mould, but whatever was going when he came on the scene got rapidly worse. If the boilers were playing up and SK came through the rear door as the bosses always did, the trouble developed into a crisis very quickly. Things just naturally went bad when he was around.

He was brought in to make up the number. A revision of the establishment figures in Melbourne showed that One Eye need not have been dismissed, but it was too late. The new figures were to take account of expansion. After a week he went up to the Python and complained he didn't have enough to do and everyone else sat round all day doing nothing. He left shortly after the other prisoners heard of this.

 

WORDS UNDER THE SKIN The Congo Kid had been going on for quite a time in the amenities about English atrocities during the '39 to '45 war. His listeners had no facts and his fire and ferocity on the subject were such that no one was arguing with him, but waiting for him to run out of steam. While he was going well, the Gypsy Fiddler was quietly getting up his head of steam; he had seen the bombing of Berlin from the ground and was always particularly impressed by his memories of the unfortunates splashed by phosphorus bombs; he had seen old men and children running round like chickens with their heads cut off, too much in agony to scream, taking refuge in fountains when they could find them. Water covering their burns took the pain away, but the moment they got into the air the phosphorus burned into their flesh. Living fire. And the rooms and cellars full of jellied, roasting children, their flesh and fat running together in the fire; he himself shot children who were nearly in halves, not yet dead and still screaming. Weeping as he fired. At age sixteen he shot dying women; the one he remembered most took his burst in the chest and gave birth to two babies in the last moments of dying. They were extruded from the woman's body into the street and dried where they lay on the concrete.

He was ready to talk. He had never burst out with this to British ears, but he was heartened by having another man attack them. He was aware he would be met with the charge that his own people were first to use phosphorus and the argument would be futile, nothing but a balancing of one horror against another. But sometimes futility doesn't count. If it did, they wouldn't have stopped to worry about Puroil's new repressive measures that threatened their peace of mind and their pay packets: they would have kept their heads down and their mouths shut, like better slaves in worse parts of the world.

The hunter in us that seems blooded from birth, and, lacking a weapon, uses stones or words to kill, was hot on the scent in these two men.

The Glass Canoe was upset. His temporary emotional revival had passed. His naval experience had not prepared him for this sort of attitude to the war he'd been in or to the nation that suckled him. He was an Australian to the backbone but British at heart. He was trained not to look too closely at individual deaths and the details of dying. A man bought it or he survived: you didn't make a song and dance, about each little wound. You should aspire to higher things and do whatever you thing is right. Bad things were done, but not by our side. God's with us after all and He can do what He likes. The country goes to war for the good of the people: running away never solved anything. The flags had been blessed in church and the padres held services every week. They would have known if we were fighting wrong. They weren't nongs; they would have refused to use the words God, duty and freedom. We always win for the reason that God and right are on our side. That is our British faith, everything is lost when that's lost. These people are not like us. What's Congo? A Belgian, a European. Not the same, they don't have our training. It's not healthy to linger over details. War is war. You try not to think of it but you must make decisions.

He was right at the bottom of a trough. He had taken some pills without caring which sort they were. Any pills would do.

Suddenly he was no longer depressed. His great heart lifted, his strong will bent towards them. He looked round at their childlike faces. Compassion glinted in his eyes.

‘I'm one of the guilty race, Congo,' the Glass Canoe said.

The lucid tone, the calm voice got the attention of every prisoner. With the right approach they could be spoken to like reasonable adults. There was a lot to explain to them, such a lot they needed to know. He shifted his great buttocks eagerly on the metal chair. Before he spoke his hands sketched vigorous, inarticulate plans in the air. All his great energy showed in the smallest motions of his hands.

‘It's easy enough to curse England. Leaving us out here like a shag on a rock, but I don't apologize for being British.'

‘Australian, you mean,' a voice said. It didn't matter who it was.

‘British,' he insisted, intense and determined, but with the kindliness of absolute conviction. He could speak now. Words had been conquered; they were plastic, usable. ‘Where else in the world but in a British country can a man get an education that makes him a writer better than Shakespeare and speak all languages—'

‘You can, can't you?' Another voice interrupted. He didn't bother to look; he knew there was nothing behind the voice.

‘Of course. It's never popular to display that sort of accomplishment. That's why I never mention it. But it's silly having other languages. Look at you, Congo. Belgian. What's a Belgian? Why not one language? All we need is a sort of brain-washing educational machine to convert everyone to English. I'm working on the details now.' He saw the wonder in their faces. ‘I got the Wandering Jew to help me, but although he's a great engineer, he's put me in charge of the project.'

‘He put you?' Another voice. He was surrounded by leafless, branchless trees; words issued from stumps.

‘Actually I forced my way to the top. He didn't know I was an engineer.' He was grandly silent. The others waited, not sure when the violence would start. He spoke on, knowing his was the one voice that could save them. ‘People have no imagination. No genius. I ordered a million copies—'

‘Only a million?'

He showed no resentment at the interruptions, only a vast patience. The others began to get the idea and waited for a chance to hit him with a question.

‘—a million each day, of
How to Win Over Friends and Influence
, to be distributed to every human on earth. You see, wrong ways of thinking are really symptoms of mental disease and this can be controlled by controlling the words fed in to the brain. Words are the great stumbling block.' He nodded, satisfied with himself. The fight against words had been worth winning. His hands pledged their loyalty: they must be rewarded.

‘Look how pleasant the air here will be when we cover the refinery with a plastic dome and pipe gases and smoke out to atmosphere. It will be so good you'd want to live here and never leave.'

‘So the smoke goes out to poison the rest of Sydney,' said the Humdinger, offering him a cigarette to take the edge off his words.

‘Oh no. We'll be moving the refinery to the top of the Blue Mountains. One of my projects is to build the tallest distillation column in the world, so all processes can be done in the one spot.'

‘There'll be money in this.' Even the Gypsy Fiddler was game to have a go, now there were other bodies to hide behind.

‘Ah, yes, millions. But it's all for charity.' They were all with him now, he could feel the strong bonds of his words pulling their wills, making them show mateship. Waiting for his words.

‘Did I tell you about my operation? You'll never guess how heavy I am. Forty stone. Don't look it, do I? I've had all the bones in me replaced by steel. This arm. There's steel in it. Nothing can hurt me. I've got plans for a machine to do the operation on applicants I select and soon we'll have the steel for their bones reduced in weight. I don't mind being the heaviest, it's no weight for me to carry, but the ordinary man would be weighed down by forty stone.' This was living. He had reached his rightful place in the world and they acknowledged it naturally.

‘I'd like to have the operation,' said Dutch Treat. ‘Where can I get it done?'

‘You'll have to wait till you're selected.' He blew out smoke calmly, with precision. He was no man: he was a god. ‘I've had my age adjusted, you know. I'm twenty-five now and always will be.'

‘Any other inventions?' They felt closer to each other now there was a fool to bait.

‘There's my car. I run it without gasoline.'

‘That's tough for the refinery.'

‘We're switching to plastics to make houses that never need painting. Never need cleaning, either; all dirt drops through the mesh floor.'

‘How do you do all this? All this genius must come from somewhere.' Even as he said it the Humdinger wanted to step back to duck a fist, but the Glass Canoe didn't turn a hair.

‘The clinic. I go back to get shots of power. Actually it's a lubricant for the steel, too. Special nurses give me the shots in the backside. Pretty, too, those nurses.'

‘I'll bet.'

‘Yes, I wouldn't have any ugly ones touching my backside. Trouble is, they take my blood at the same time.'

‘What, steal it?'

‘For the blood bank. I have a sort of composite blood that can be used by all blood types; they fill their blood bank from my bum and they think I don't know.' He chuckled. ‘I let them go. It's for the sick and those not as fortunate as I am. I don't mind giving it away, just like the Great White Father gives grog away.'

‘I wouldn't mind having some of the money you give to charity.'

‘I've thought of that. I'm having a fund set up so everyone in the refinery will have his wages made up to a thousand dollars a week.'

‘I wish every millionaire was generous like you,' said Bubbles.

‘That's the trouble.' He was serious. ‘They can get away with all sorts of wrong doing and wrong thinking. But I've fixed that. I'm having a new surgical law passed. The law is too literary, too many words. There'll be a little operation, a small capsule in the head of each citizen. No second chance—there's far too many people on earth. The first wrong doing and the head blows up, immediately. No fuss. No formalities.'

‘There'll be bodies everywhere.'

‘Won't matter. Seeing automatic punishment will help others to be intelligent and do the right thing.' They tried not to look at each other. The first one to laugh might snap him out of it.

‘How are you getting on, batching? You going to get married again?' The Humdinger tried to get him back to ordinary things.

‘I've got it all teed up. Marrying a young girl who's never seen a man before. She holds a VC from the World Health Organization.'

‘VC? For Valour?'

‘Virginity Certificate. I don't want a woman whose personality has been warped by contact with other men.'

‘How about your boy?'

‘He's written a pop song called “My Dad”. The revenue it's bringing in for Australia is so huge he's getting a knighthood.'

‘With all your money you could buy Sydney,' said Bubbles. ‘I'm the agent for it, actually. Interested?' The man was harmless. Off his head. Someone ought to make a phone call.

‘Sydney belongs to me. Whoever sold you the agency put one over you.'

‘When do you go for training? In the throwouts,' said Congo. Any idea of sympathy for a sick man was over his head. The cruelty had started. Some edged towards the door. But the phone rescued them.

‘Hey,' called Cheddar, smiling greenly. He never quite forgot his own woes. ‘There's a phone message from the main gate. People waiting to see you. Trucks full of crates of champagne.'

‘It's OK to let them in.'

‘Champagne?'

‘For the whole refinery. Just a little gesture of appreciation to the workers.'

‘They'll nail your hide to the blue gates for this,' said Congo with relish.

‘They can't touch me. I could jump from up there'—he pointed to the top of the reactor—‘and not feel it. These steel rods are powerful as any of the steel out there.' He pointed to the steel structures as if they were rivals he had surpassed. ‘And I can see from what you say about the British that we should go and jump off the top. So I'll jump for all the rest.' He was Christ.