Then who is it?’
‘It’s nobody. It’s a robant. General Robant Servant Enterprises made it up for me – this speech is its first appearance. Pretty good, like my old self, makes me feel young again just to watch it.’ And, Eric saw, the UN Secretary did seem more his old self; he had genuinely perked up as he sat watching the simulacrum on the screen. The Mole, above and beyond everyone else, was taken in by the ersatz spectacle; he was its first convert. ‘Want to see the thing? It’s top secret, of course – only three or four people know about it, besides Dawson Cutter of GRS Enterprises, of course. But they’ll keep it confidential; they’re used to handling classified material in the process of war-contract letting.’ He thumped Eric on the back. ‘You’re getting let in on one of the secrets of state — how does that feel? This is the way the modern state is run; there’re things the electorate doesn’t know, shouldn’t know for their own good. All governments have functioned this way, not just mine. You imagine it’s just mine? If you do you’ve got a lot to learn. I’m using a robant to make my speeches for me because at this point I don’t—’ He gestured ‘present quite the proper visual image, despite the make-up technicians who work me over. It’s just an impossible job.’ Now he had become dour, no longer joking. ‘So I gave up. I’m being realistic.’ He settled back in his chair, moodily.
‘Who wrote the speech?’
‘I did. I can still put together a political manifesto, depicting the situation, telling them how we stand and where we’re going and what we’ve got to do. My mind is still there.’ The Mole tapped his big bulging forehead. ‘However, I naturally had help.’
‘”Help,”‘ Eric echoed.
‘A man I want you to meet – a brilliant new young lawyer who acts as confidential adviser to me, without pay. Don Festenburg, a whiz; you’ll be as impressed as I was. He has a knack for remolding, condensing, extracting the substance and presenting it in a few distilled sentences… I always had a tendency to run on at excessive length; everybody knows that. But not any more, not with Festenburg around. He programmed this simulacrum – he’s really saved my life.’
On the screen his synthetic image was saying com-mandingly, ‘—and gathering up the collective eclat of our several national societies, we as Terrans present a formidable association, more than just a planet but admittedly less, at the moment, than an interplanetary empire on the order of Lilistar . .. although perhaps—.’
‘I – would prefer not to have a look at the simulacrum,’ Eric decided.
Molinari shrugged. ‘It’s an opportunity, but if you’re not interested or if it distresses you—’ He eyed Eric. ‘You’d rather retain your idealistic image of me; rather imagine that the thing talking up there on the screen is real.’ He laughed. ‘I thought a doctor, like a lawyer and a priest, could withstand the shock of seeing life as it is; I thought truth was your daily bread.’ He leaned toward Eric earnestly; under him his chair squeaked in protest, giving under his excessive weight. ‘I’m too old. I can’t talk brilliantly any more. God knows I’d like to. But this is a solution; would it be better just to give up?’
‘No,’ Eric admitted. That wouldn’t solve their problems.
‘So I use a robant substitute, speaking lines that Don Festenburg programmed. The point is: we’ll go on. And that’s what matters. So learn to live with it, doctor; grow up.’ His face was cold now, unyielding. ‘
‘Okay,’ Eric said after a moment.
Molinari tapped him on the shoulder and said in a low voice. The ‘Starmen don’t know about this simulacrum and Don Festenburg’s work; I don’t want them to find out, doctor, because I’d like to impress them, too. You understand? In fact I’m sending a print of this video tape to Lilistar; it’s already on the way. You want to know the truth, doctor? Frankly, I’m more interested in impressing them than I am our own population. How does that strike you? Tell me honestly.’
‘It strikes me,’ Eric said, ‘as an acute commentary on our plight.’
The Mole regarded him somberly. ‘Perhaps so. But what you don’t realize is that this is nothing; if you had any idea of—’
‘Don’t tell me any more. Not right now.’
On the screen the imitation of Gino Molinari boomed and expostulated, gesticulated to the unseen TV audience.
‘Sure, sure,’ Molinari agreed, mollified. ‘Sorry to have bothered you with my troubles in the first place.’ Downcast, his face more lined and weary than before, he turned his attention back to the screen, to the healthy, vigorous, completely synthetic image of his earlier self.
——————————————————————————–
In the kitchen of her conapt Kathy Sweetscent lifted a small paring knife with difficulty, attempted to cut a purple onion but found to her incredulity that she had somehow slashed her finger; she stood mutely holding the knife, watching the crimson drops slide from her finger to merge with the water sprinkled across her wrist. She could no longer handle even the most commonplace object. The damn drug! she thought with embittered fury. Every minute it’s making me more powerless. Now everything defeats me. So how the hell am I going to fix dinner?
Standing behind her, Jonas Ackerman said with concern, ‘Something has to be done for you, Kathy.’ He watched her as she went to the bathroom for a Band-Aid. ‘Now you’re spilling the Band-Aids everywhere; you can’t even handle that.’ He complained, ‘If you’d tell me what it is, what—’
‘Put the Band-Aid on for me, will you?’ She stood silently as Jonas wrapped her cut finger. ‘It is JJ-180,’ she blurted suddenly, without premeditation. ‘I’m on it, Jonas. The ‘Star-men did it. Please help me, get me off it. Okay?’
Shaken, Jonas said, ‘I – don’t know exactly what I can do, because it’s such a new drug. Of course we’ll get in touch with our subsidiary right away. And the whole company will back you up, including Virgil.’
‘Go talk to Virgil right now.’
‘Now? Your time sense, Kathy; you feel this urgency because of the drug. I can see him tomorrow.’
‘Damn it, I’m not going to die because of this drug. So you better see him tonight, Jonas; do you understand?’
After a pause Jonas said, ‘I’ll call him.’
‘The vidlines are tapped. By the ‘Starmen.’
‘That’s a paranoid idea. From the drug.’
‘I’m afraid of them,’ she said trembling. They can do anything. You go and see Virgil face to face, Jonas; calling isn’t enough. Or don’t you care what happens to me?’
‘Of course I care! Okay, I’ll go and see the old man. But will you be all right alone?’
‘Yes,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ll just sit in the living room and do nothing. I’ll just wait for you to come back with some kind of help. What could happen to me if I don’t try to do anything, if I just sit there?’
‘You might get yourself into a state of morbid agitation. You might be swamped by panic . .. start to run. If it’s true you’re on JJ-180—’
‘It’s true!’ she said loudly. ‘Do you think I’m kidding?’
‘Okay,’ Jonas said, giving in. He led her to the couch in the living room, sat her down. ‘God, I hope you’ll be all right – I hope I’m not making a mistake.’ He was sweating and pale, his face wizened with worry. ‘See you in about half an hour, Kathy. Christ, if something goes wrong, Eric’11 never forgive me and I won’t blame him.’ The apartment door shut after him. He did not even say good-by.
She was alone.
At once she went to the vidphone and dialed. ‘A cab.’ She gave her address and hung up.
A moment later, her coat over her shoulders, she hurried from the building and out onto the nocturnal sidewalk.
When the autonomic cab had picked her up she instructed it by means of the card which Corning had given her.
If I can get more of the drug, she thought, my mind will clear and I can reason out what I have to do; as I am now I can’t think. Anything I decide now, in this state, would be spurious. I owe it to myself to restore the normal functioning – or rather the desired functioning – of my faculties; without that I can’t plan or survive and I’m doomed. I know, she thought fiercely, that the only way out for me would be suicide; it’s just a matter of a few hours at the most. And Jonas couldn’t help me in that short a time.
The only way I could have gotten rid of him, she realized, is the way I chose; by telling him of my addiction. Otherwise he would have hung around me forever and I never would have had a chance to get to Corning for more. I gained the opportunity I need, but now the Ackermans understand what’s wrong with me and they’ll try even harder to keep me from going to Cheyenne and joining Eric. Maybe I should go there tonight, not even return to my apartment. Just take off as soon as I have the capsules. Leave everything I own behind, abandoned.