Something’s working against me, he decided suddenly. Something too subtle for even Federal computers to root out!
But that felt like paranoia on the way. One had to believe in something, even if it were only a fallible government god.
Maybe Prior had been right to buy a Lar after all. The fortunes of the knee enclaves certainly seemed to be on the ascendant; perhaps letting oneself believe in supernormal powers enabled the subconscious to guess correctly more often than if one was convinced of being defeated from the start. Ask Conroy-?
And here he was, a man with a grizzled beard, thin, above average height, marching from the immigration barrier with a deep-etched scowl and carrying a light travel-bag on a sling. Recognizing him from the tapes he had played over before deciding to invite him to New York, Flamen jumped up and framed an effusive welcome.
Conroy undermined that after the first three words.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before I scream,” he said. “Got a skimmer or something?”
“Sure-uh, yes, of course.”
“Then take me to the hotel or wherever you’ve arfor me to stay. Can you smell the atmosphere here? Can you sense the hate those bastards are genera
Memory reeled back and Flamen heard Lyla talking about her reaction to the atmosphere at the Ginsberg.
“How do you mean?”
Conroy jerked his thumb towards the barrier. “There’s a squeeze on today. Everyone who’s been out of the country for longer than a week’s visit to relatives is being grilled. What’s caused that-the Lenigo affair?”
“I suspect so,” Flamen agreed.
“Aren’t you sure? I thought you spoolpigeons knew the inside data on everything.”
Nettled, Flamen said, “I know why he was let in, and so would you if you’d been watching my show yester
“I was in class. A noon slot here isn’t a noon slot in the west.” Seeming more to lead the way than to be escorted, Conroy marched ahead at such a pace Flamen was hard put to keep up. “But I presume one of the knee enclaves finally got around to blackmailing him in-correct?”
Well, here’s a patronizing son-of-a-bitch, Flamen thought resentfully. Nonetheless he said, with what politehe could summon, “It was a well-kept secret until I broke it yesterday.”
“Ah, that’s because people don’t take the trouble to use their minds any more. They rely on computers so much they’re forgetting how to ask questions. Getting a knee enclave to blackmail him into the country is squarein line with Lenigo’s standard tactics-and I’m flathim by calling them ‘his’ tactics. They go way way back to the industrial unrests of the nineteenth century, at least, and probably a good deal further. What he did in Britain followed exactly the same pattern. He exploited the long-standing truth that if you can get five percent of the population behind any movement whethit’s pro or anti you can bring down governments. There aren’t enough knees in the whole of Britain even today to take and hold a multi-million city the size of Birmingham. Yet it’s knee-run now, and so’s Manchester, and so’s Cardiff, and there are half a dozen other large cities where blanks are moving out so fast you can hardly see them leave whenever five or six knee families buy into the neighborhood. He didn’t do that with overmanpower-he didn’t have the manpower. It was a matter of leverage in the right place. So what was the right place here-Detroit?”
They had reached the skimmer by now, and Flamen was glad of the distraction caused by getting aboard. Conroy’s manner suggested that he was prepared to treat computers on the some footing as an abacus, and he wasn’t used to that sort of attitude.
Once aloft and being directed by Ninge traffic conhowever, Conroy resumed exactly as though no time had passed. “Speaking of leverage, by the way, what leverage are you hoping to exert on the wind
“Windmill?” For the moment Flamen had forgotten the metaphor employed in their exchange of cables. “Oh! Yes, of course: Mogshack?”
“Mogshack!” Conroy snapped, and grimaced. “Lord, I’d never have thought that after such a long time away I could still react so strongly to that man’s name! I guess it’s because even though Canada is still a relatively civicountry-because it has large empty areas people can expand into without rubbing elbows all the time, like Russia-we’re still not immune from the pernicious influence of his doctrines. Do you realize that in my class at the university there are still two ox three girls whose faces I haven’t seen since the beginning of the year because they keep their street yashes on in class and even turn up to tutorials wearing them? And I can’t order them to take the things off because they’d most likely complain to their parents and have me disciby the faculty. As though I were some horny teenager with indecent designs on their virtue!”