The Ganymede Takeover

But there was nobody there, nobody within ten feet of the cards.

“One minute, Mr. Swenesgard.”

Gus, suddenly, felt a powerful urge to get to his feet and walk out of the studio, an intuition that to go on would only be to court disaster. However, it had become too late; the cameras had already begun dollying in to focus on him, and a ghostly hush had fallen over the studio as the ON THE AIR sign be­came illuminated.

There’s someone, Gus thought in panic, or some­thing in this studio, and it’s out to get me.

The announcer started his introduction. Next to the idiot cards stood the technician with the glasses, ready to turn the cards one by one . or was it the man with the glasses? Some peculiar variety of blackness had gathered in the area of the cards; one moment Gus could discern the man with the glasses and the next moment he could not.

Gus shook his head, trying to clear his vision, but it appeared to be no use. What, he thought quaver- ingly, if I can’t see the cards? But, fortunately, the cards themselves seemed to remain clear enough. And as for the intermittent invisibility of the card- turner, well, it was kind of dim in the studio, of course, the bright lights being on so as to confront Gus; they blinded him nearly, making him blink and squint. Perhaps it was just a trick of the lighting.

Now, from beside one of the three cameras, a finger pointed starkly at Gus. He was on!

Staring at the cards like a man hypnotized he began slowly to speak. “Ladies and gents, good evening, or good morning or afternoon, as the case may be, depending on just where the heck you happen to live on this great, wonderful planet of ours that God has given us, and quite recently given back, thanks to Merciful Providence. I’m your neighbor, Gus Swenesgard, and I run a quiet little bale down here in the southern part of the U.S.A. that you might have heard of in connection with the trouble we’ve had with Neeg-parts, called Tennessee. I’m just coming on TV like this, informally, to sort of talk to you as neighbor to neighbor about the world situation

which, thanks to in some measure my own efforts, we happen to find ourselves plunk in the middle of.”

The chief engineer in the control room glanced at the station manager and they both grinned. Gus, from where he sat, could see them. What in hell is so funny? he thought angrily.

“Now,” he continued doggedly, “that them worms has been chased out and the Neeg-parts cleared out of the hills, we got a big job to do cleaning up the mess that has collected around here during the occupation. Now, you might not think it to look at me, but I—”

In Paris a bearded cafe owner reached to turn off his set, which was presenting an instantaneous trans­lation of Gus’ speech. “Mm/e,” said the French­man.

In Rome the Pope changed channels, searching for a good Italian western.

In Kyoto, Japan, a Zen master laughed himself into a fit of hiccups.

In Detroit, Michigan, an ionocraft worker threw a can of beer through the picture tube.

But Gus, not knowing these things, continued. “—now you might think some high-flown military man is the one for the job. But our military failed us, and furthermore—”

Something had gone wrong. The speech was not exactly as he had written it. Or was it? Has someone edited it? he asked himself. Or maybe mixed up the cards?

“The man for the job is someone like me, a clown.”

Gus stopped in mid-sentence and reread the card. That’s what it said. “Clown.”

Now the card was being changed, but Gus could not see the hand which turned it. “Redneck, ranting, second-rate demagogue,” the next card read. The card turned again “Hypocrite, egomaniac, over- stuffed racist slob,” the card said.

My God, Gus thought. That’s what the voice on the vidphone called me.

Hardly knowing what he did he sprang to his feet and shouted, “You there by the cards; who are you? What’s the matter with you?”

The blackness swept toward him, billowing in his direction like an evil wind, and a voice, the same voice which he had heard over the vidphone, said, “I am your interior self, liberated by my disgust for you and all that you stand for, struck off by the great darkness. I stand outside of space-time, and I judge you.” The darkness surrounded Gus, then, and he found himself back in the occult and hideous condi­tion he had been in so recently, bodiless in the empty silence, the utter blackness, alone with the fading afterimage of his own reflection in the cracked, yel­lowing mirror. Of the hotel room.

He screamed but could not hear the sound of his scream.

Paul Rivers, however, could hear it.

And so could the staff of the TV station.

So could the world, or rather that miniscule por­tion of it that still continued to listen to Gus’ fiasco.

The producer cut Gus off the air and ran the only item he had ready, a commercial for a popular brand of marihuana cigarettes, filter-tip Berkeley Boo, “A little stick of California Sunshine.”

Paul sprang to his feet and limped to Gus’ side,

ready to give what aid he could; he had seen the hazy black vortex flying at Gus, engulfing him and then disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared.

I’ll bet, Paul thought as he remembered the effects he had already seen resulting from the use of Bal­kani’s illusion projectors, that the phenomenon is some kind of aftereffect of the hell-weapon. “What is it?” he asked Gus, placing a steadying arm around the bulbous little man’s shoulders.

“Are you a doctor?” Gus mumbled, blinking dazedly.

“That’s right,” Paul said, aware that Gus could barely see him. “Leave everything to me,” he said, helping Gus to walk from the illuminated area before the cameras—and from Gus’ hoped-for political and military power.

In the lounge Dr. Choate and Ed Newkom waited. Seeing them, Gus said quaveringly, “H-h-how did I do tonight?”

The truth, Paul thought, will hurt vividly. But you’d never believe a lie. “You were awful,” Paul said to Gus Swenesgard. “The feedback systems register as follows: by the time you left the air only a handful of people, mostly from your own bale, were still watch­ing. Though when you started you had the largest audience any one man has had in the entire history of television.”

Gus said to him, “You understand about psychol­ogy, don’t you, sir?”

“If anyone does,” Ed Newkom said, “Paul does.”

“Can you help me?” Gus asked, studying Paul’s face anxiously. “Can you write speeches for me that’ll make people change their minds and listen?

Can you tell me what to do to get them back?”

Dr. Choate said, “Yes, as a matter of fact we were planning to offer you our collective professional services in that capacity.”

Paul, too, looked at Gus with admiration. You fall, he realized, but in a moment you’re up again, ready to try something else, ready to face the bitter pill of your mistakes. Never willing to give up. And the World Psychiatric Association will be only too glad to take control of your campaign . keeping you on as a figurehead, though of course you will always imagine that you are running things. We’re wise enough to offer you that. And we will be the strongest political force available in this disorganized recon­struction period—possibly strong enough to make you king after all, at least until normal democratic institutions can be set in motion again.

Now Gus Swenesgard had recovered his poise and had begun excitedly talking to Dr. Choate, planning, scheming, plotting, wildly guessing at the future, while Dr. Choate and Ed Newkom nodded, each with a professional medical smile, secure in their knowledge of where the real power lay.

Paul felt admiration for Gus at last, but then he turned and took a good look, perhaps for the first time, at Dr. Choate. Did he imagine it, or was there a certain calculating hardness in Dr. Choate’s eyes?

Shaking himself, Paul forced in place the same professional smile visible on the faces of his two colleagues. And thought, If we can’t trust ourselves, who can we trust?

It seemed to him a good question. But unfortunately—at the moment—he could not readily think of an equally good answer.