“That’s a good question.” Prestonby hastily assessed the circumstances and their implications. “I’d suggest that you ask it of my superior, Literate Lancedale, however.”
The Literate in the screen blinked; that was the equivalent, for him, of anybody else’s jaw dropping to his midriff.
“Well! A pleasure, Literate. Good day.”
“Miss Pelton!” The man in the blue-and-orange suit was still trying to catch her attention. “Where are we going to put that stuff? Russ Latterman’s out in the store, somewhere, and I can’t get in touch with him.”
“What did you say it was?” she replied.
“Fireworks, for the Peace Day trade. We want to get it on sale about the middle of the month.”
“This was a fine time to deliver them. Peace Day isn’t till the Tenth of December. Put them down in the fireproof vault.”
“That place is full of photographic film, and sporting ammunition, and other merchandise; stuff we’ll have to draw out to replace stock on the shelves during the sale,” the Illiterate objected.
“The weather forecast for the next couple of days is fair,” Prestonby reminded her. “Why not just pile the stuff on the top stage, beyond the control tower, and put up warning signs?”
The man—Hutschnecker, Prestonby remembered hearing Claire call him—nodded.
“That might be all right. We could cover the cases with tarpaulins.”
A buzzer drew one of the Illiterates to a handphone. He listened for a moment, and turned.
“Hey, there’s a Mrs. H. Armytage Zydanowycz down in Furs; she wants to buy one of those mutated-mink coats, and she’s only got half a million bucks with her. How’s her credit?”
Claire handed Prestonby a black-bound book. “Confidential credit-rating guide; look her up for us,” she said.
Another buzzer rasped, before Prestonby could find the entry on Zydanowycz, H. Armytage; the Illiterate office worker, laying down one phone, grabbed up another.
“They’re all outta small money in Notions; every son and his brother’s been in there in the last hour to buy a pair of dollar shoestrings with a grand-note.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Hutschnecker said. “Wait till I call control tower, and tell them about the fireworks.”
“How much does Mrs. H. Armytage Zydanowycz want credit for?” Prestonby asked. “The book says her husband’s good for up to fifteen million, or fifty million in thirty days.”
“Those coats are only five million,” Claire said. “Let her have it; be sure to get her thumbprint, though, and send it up here for comparison.”
“Oh, Claire; do you know how we’re going to handle this new Literate crew, when they get here?”
“Yes, here’s the T.O. for Literate service.” She tossed a big chart across the desk to him. “I made a few notes on it; you can give it to whoever is in charge.”
It went on, like that, for the next hour. When the new Literate crew arrived, Prestonby was delighted to find a friend, and a fellow-follower of Lancedale, in charge. Considering that Retail Merchandising was Wilton Joyner’s section, that was a good omen. Lancedale must have succeeded to an extraordinary degree in imposing his will on the Grand Council. Prestonby found, however, that he would need some time to brief the new chief Literate on the operational details at the store. He was unwilling to bring Claire too prominently into the conference, although he realized that it would be a matter of half an hour, at the outside, before every one of the new Literate crew would have heard about her Literate ability. If she’d only played dumb, after opening that safe—
Finally, by 1300, the new Literates had taken over, and the sale was running smoothly again. Latterman was somewhere out in the store, helping them; Claire had lunch for herself and Prestonby sent up from the restaurant, and for a while they ate in silence, broken by occasional spatters of small-talk. Then she returned to the question she had raised and he had not yet answered.
“You say Frank Cardon’s a Literate?” she asked. “Then what’s he doing managing the Senator’s campaign? Fifth-columning?”
He shook his head. “You think the Fraternities are a solid, monolithic, organization; everybody agreed on aims and means, and working together in harmony? That’s how it’s supposed to look, from the outside. On the inside, though, there’s a bitter struggle going on between two factions, over policy and for control. One faction wants to maintain the status quo—a handful of Literates doing the reading and writing for an Illiterate public, and holding a monopoly on Literacy. They’re headed by two men, Wilton Joyner and Harvey Graves. Bayne was one of that faction.”
He paused, thinking quickly. If Lancedale had gotten the upper hand, there was likely to be a revision of the Joyner-Graves attitude toward Pelton. In that case, the less he said to incriminate Russell Latterman, the better. Let Bayne be the villain, for a while, he decided.
“Bayne,” he continued, “is one of a small minority of fanatics who make a religion of Literacy. I believe he disposed of your father’s medicine, and then deliberately goaded him into a rage to bring on a heart attack. That doesn’t represent Joyner-Graves policy; it was just something he did on his own. He’s probably been disciplined for it, by now. But the Joyner-Graves faction are working for your father’s defeat and the reelection of Grant Hamilton.
“The other faction is headed by a man you’ve probably never heard of, William R. Lancedale. I’m of his faction, and so is Frank Cardon. We want to see your father elected, because the socialization of Literacy would eventually put the Literates in complete control of the government. We also want to see Literacy become widespread, eventually universal, just as it was before World War IV.”
“But wouldn’t that mean the end of the Fraternities?” Claire asked.
“That’s what Joyner and Graves say. We don’t believe so. And suppose it did? Lancedale says,
