Prologue to an Analogue Part 4

"I trust," he said formally, "that your antidote is an efficient one."

Oswald's voice sounded smug, and not at all disgruntled. "Try this on for size," he said. "First, Witch is known far and wide as nothing less could have made it known--"

"Yes, and if the churches ban the use of Witch, we'll wish we weren't."

"O.K., O.K. Tonight we explain carefully that the 'miracle' was a miracle of cleanliness, and that carpenters and contractors and all that did the miracle. You know, American technology and ma.s.s production in operation, something to be proud of. Tie Witch right in to the whole picture of the United States as the leader of mechanical--stress mechanical--miracles.

"Then--what's the most appealing thing in the world?" He didn't wait for an answer. "A child. A small, crippled child, for whom Witch can provide the funds to make her walk." Oswald hurried on, knowing that Randolph had to go through a bit of lip chewing before he could interrupt, and taking advantage of the fact to ride over objections.

"We've got a kid that an expensive operation will save from being a cripple. I've consulted two top surgeons already, and they say it's nearly positive.

"We don't do any hocus-pocus. We just say that Witch is going to pay for the operation. She leaves the broadcast and goes straight to the hospital. We get a movie of the operation, and we do movies on her convalescence, and we play it for weeks until she walks on stage cured--weeks later."

Now Oswald waited. It was a long wait, an unusually long wait, even for Randolph. Finally, he said:

"All right. But if anything unusual occurs you will answer for it in court."

"Nothing unusual could occur. I admit I still don't know what happened last time, but we'll find out.

"Meantime, we'll take a week to build this one up," Oswald continued.

"The buildup will stress that this is a cure being bought by money. No miracle, except the miracle of American medical know-how. No miracles meantime. Just keep Witch clean and stay well, and Witch buys the operation the kid needs. She's pretty, too," he added as an afterthought. "Ten years old."

That night Bill Howard leaned across the desk toward the TV audience, and tiny droplets of sweat stood on his forehead. His voice was calm, though. A big map of New York City hung on the wall behind him.

The big news that night was a dope raid. He described the dope traffic in the nation, the efforts of the FBI and every law enforcement body in the country, to track it down, clean it out. He described what it did to the young, who got caught and were slaves for life, unless they could be cured--and he spoke of the meagerness of the cures that were known.

Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from his desk and he outlined how the raid had been staged, and he pointed out the location of the building where it had occurred. Then he followed with his pointer the route to the precinct jail where the victims were being held.

"Cannot our best researchers find a cure for this addiction?" he asked in his husky voice. "Cannot our best law-enforcement agencies find the real perpetrators of these crimes? The perpetrators are the fiends who import dope and create addicts to peddle it for them. These who are confined are the victims. If no way can be found to cure them, they must be confined again and again and again, for that addiction will force them to ever-increasing crime to satisfy it.

"If no way can be found to cure them, these are potential slaves for life--"

As he ended the station break came, and the camera s.h.i.+fted to the Witches, dancing on stage, crying their chant.

"Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean--NOW!

"Which soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent--"

The announcer's voice, when it came in over the muted jingle "explained" the miracle of the slum-clearance again--a miracle of American technology. Then he outlined the next "miracle" the Witch Corporation would promote. This, he said, would be a miracle of American Medical know-how. Witch would pay for the expensive operation needed to make a little girl walk again after a crippling disease several years before. Bone would be grafted, new muscles would be grafted, American medical know-how in its full extent would be put at her service.

Keep healthy by keeping clean with Witch, the announcer suggested.

Witch would pay for the expensive operation to undo the effects of one disease. Meanwhile, Witch's customers could use the preventive medicine of cleanliness to help them in their fight against disease, while the researchers of American medicine "seek to find you real protection."

It was 10:30 the next morning when the doorbell rang.

A big man was standing outside in a topcoat, hat in hand. Randolph stood in the door, waiting.

The man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside, gesturing him in.

"I didn't look at your badge close enough," Randolph said as he closed the door behind his visitor. "Who are you?"

"Narcotics squad," the man said briefly. "I was on the raid last night."

"Oh? The one Bill Howard was talking about in his newscast?"

"Yes. That one. I don't figure there's any connection, and my boss just laughed when I suggested there was a connection."

"Connection?"

"You see, I took a break from questioning those boys we pulled in.

Trying to get a lead to the higher-ups. They were doped to the ears, and sometimes you can get info from them right quick. I took a break for a cup of coffee across the street, and there was a TV in the place, and I watched your Bill Howard.

"I left just when your witches came on, shouting that thing about make it clean NOW. I went right back and started in on the questioning again, but the guy they brought in for me to question next was--not dopey. He was ... well, there's a difference between boys with the monkey on their back, and when there's no monkey. There was no monkey, but the kid began giving me everything he knew would take us to the higher-ups. It was being taped, of course, and I asked him when he'd had his last shot. Not twenty minutes before the raid, he said, calm as you please.

"I had the guys brought back that I'd talked to before and they were--different. Only way I can describe it is, no monkey. The monkey had been there before. I don't know. They each gave us all they had in leads--they'd been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries.

"I checked and n.o.body'd done anything to 'em to bring 'em off their jazz. If there's anything can be done to pull a guy out of a jazz, anyhow, I've never heard of it, and I've been in the narcotics squad since the year One. I couldn't figure it. I'd been hearing stories about Witch Products and that miracle at the Battery, sort of as a joke, and I thought, just maybe, just possibly, you know....

"Anyhow, I took the tapes to my boss, and spoke my bit, but he just laughed.

"Maybe you'll just laugh, too, but I thought I'd ask."

At the same time in Was.h.i.+ngton, the cabinet was in full session.

Reports coming in from Formosa were worse than even the most pessimistic had dreamed. The bacteria hit at the nerves and the brain, and the victims--excruciating was a word being used.

"It's. .h.i.t everywhere on the island at once. I a.s.sume it is contagious as well as having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcast methods were used," the CIA chief reported.

"Any word from their emba.s.sy?"

State answered that one. "No word at all. Phone calls to the Amba.s.sador only elicit reports that he is not available. I can't reach anybody higher than a fourth a.s.sistant undersecretary."

"At least it's not been on the air or in the press."

"I don't know how long we can hold them in leash. Most of your leading papers know there's a twenty-four hour alert on--that was bound to leak--but I've kept them quiet. We'll have to give them something soon, though. They won't take a muzzle too long without at least knowing why."

"Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's this important, and the consequences of leakage this apparent?"

"I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen--but there's always a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a right to know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect--and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel it would not be good for them."

"Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before it breaks."

"If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking."