“Why?”
Coldly, but with a kind of repressed vehemence, General Kaplan said: “So they can see the living proof. You and I together – the killer and his victim. Standing side by side, exposing the whole sinister fraud which the police have been operating.”
“Gladly,” Anderton agreed. “What are we waiting for?”
Disconcerted, General Kaplan moved toward the platform. Again, he glanced uneasily at Anderton, as if visibly wondering why he had appeared and what he really knew. His uncertainty grew as Anderton willingly mounted the steps of the platform and found himself a seat directly beside the speaker’s podium.
“You fully comprehend what I’m going to be saying?” General Kaplan demanded. “The exposure will have considerable repercussions. It may cause the Senate to reconsider the basic validity of the Precrime system.”
“I understand,” Anderton answered, arms folded. “Let’s go.”
A hush had descended on the crowd. But there was a restless, eager stirring when General Kaplan obtained the briefcase and began arranging his material in front of him.
“The man sitting at my side,” he began, in a clean, clipped voice, “is familiar to you all. You may be surprised to see him, for until recently he was described by the police as a dangerous killer.”
The eyes of the crowd focused on Anderton. Avidly, they peered at the only potential killer they had ever been privileged to see at close range.
“Within the last few hours, however,” General Kaplan continued, “the police order for his arrest has been cancelled; because former Commissioner Anderton voluntarily gave himself up? No, that is not strictly accurate. He is sitting here. He has not given himself up, but the police are no longer interested in him. John Allison Anderton is innocent of any crime in the past, present, and future. The allegations against him were patent frauds, diabolical distortions of a contaminated penal system based on a false premise – a vast, impersonal engine of destruction grinding men and women to their doom.”
Fascinated, the crowd glanced from Kaplan to Anderton. Everyone was familiar with the basic situation.
“Many men have been seized and imprisoned under the so-called prophylactic Precrime structure,” General Kaplan continued, his voice gaining feeling and strength. “Accused not of crimes they have committed, but of crimes they will commit. It is asserted that these men, if allowed to remain free, will at some future time commit felonies.”
“But there can be no valid knowledge about the future. As soon as precog-nitive information is obtained, it cancels itself out. The assertion that this man will commit a future crime is paradoxical. The very act of possessing this data renders it spurious. In every case, without exception, the report of the three police precogs has invalidated their own data. If no arrests had been made, there would still have been no crimes committed.”
Anderton listened idly, only half-hearing the words. The crowd, however, listened with great interest. General Kaplan was now gathering up a summary made from the minority report. He explained what it was and how it had come into existence.
From his coat pocket, Anderton slipped out his gun and held it in his lap. Already, Kaplan was laying aside the minority report, the precognitive material obtained from “Jerry.” His lean, bony fingers groped for the summary of first, “Donna,” and after that, “Mike.”
“This was the original majority report,” he explained. “The assertion, made by the first two precogs, that Anderton would commit a murder. Now here is the automatically invalidated material. I shall read it to you.” He whipped out his rimless glasses, fitted them to his nose, and started slowly to read.
A queer expression appeared on his face. He halted, stammered, and abruptly broke off. The papers fluttered from his hands. Like a cornered animal, he spun, crouched, and dashed from the speaker’s stand.
For an instant his distorted face flashed past Anderton. On his feet now, Anderton raised the gun, stepped quickly forward, and fired. Tangled up in the rows of feet projecting from the chairs that filled the platform, Kaplan gave a single shrill shriek of agony and fright. Like a ruined bird, he tumbled, fluttering and flailing, from the platform to the ground below. Anderton stepped to the railing, but it was already over.
Kaplan, as the majority report had asserted, was dead. His thin chest was a smoking cavity of darkness, crumbling ash that broke loose as the body lay twitching. Sickened, Anderton turned away, and moved quickly between the rising figures of stunned Army officers. The gun, which he still held, guaranteed that he would not be interfered with. He leaped from the platform and edged into the chaotic mass of people at its base. Stricken, horrified, they struggled to see what had happened. The incident, occurring before their very eyes, was incomprehensible. It would take time for acceptance to replace blind terror.
At the periphery of the crowd, Anderton was seized by the waiting police. “You’re lucky to get out,” one of them whispered to him as the car crept cautiously ahead.
“I guess I am,” Anderton replied remotely. He settled back and tried to compose himself. He was trembling and dizzy. Abruptly, he leaned forward and was violently sick.
“The poor devil,” one the cops murmured sympathetically.
Through the swirls of misery and nausea, Anderton was unable to tell whether the cop was referring to Kaplan or to himself.
Four burly policemen assisted Lisa and John Anderton in the packing and loading of their possessions. In fifty years, the ex-Commissioner of Police had accumulated a vast collection of material goods. Somber and pensive, he stood watching the procession of crates on their way to the waiting trucks.
By truck they would go directly to the field – and from there to Centaurus X by inter-system transport. A long trip for an old man. But he wouldn’t have to make it back.
“There goes the second from the last crate,” Lisa declared, absorbed and preoccupied by the task. In sweater and slacks, she roamed through the barren rooms, checking on last-minute details. “I suppose we won’t be able to use these new atronic appliances. They’re still using electricity on Centten.”
“I hope you don’t care too much,” Anderton said.
“We’ll get used to it,” Lisa replied, and gave him a fleeting smile. “Won’t we?”
“I hope so. You’re positive you’ll have no regrets. If I thought- ” “No regrets,” Lisa assured him. “Now suppose you help me with this crate.”
As they boarded the lead truck, Witwer drove up in a patrol car. He leaped out and hurried up to them, his face looking strangely haggard. “Before you take off,” he said to Anderton, “you’ll have to give me a break-down on the situation with the precogs. I’m getting inquiries from the Senate. They want to find out if the middle report, the retraction, was an error – or what.” Confusedly, he finished: “I still can’t explain it. The minority report was wrong, wasn’t it?”
“Which minority report?” Anderton inquired, amused.
Witwer blinked. “Then that is it. I might have known.” Seated in the cabin of the truck, Anderton got out his pipe and shook tobacco into it. With Lisa’s lighter he ignited the tobacco and began operations. Lisa had gone back to the house, wanting to be sure nothing vital had been overlooked.
“There were three minority reports,” he told Witwer, enjoying the young man’s confusion. Someday, Witwer would learn not to wade into situations he didn’t fully understand. Satisfaction was Anderton’s final emotion. Old and worn-out as he was, he had been the only one to grasp the real nature of the problem.
“The three reports were consecutive,” he explained. “The first was ‘Donna.’ In that time-path, Kaplan told me of the plot, and I promptly murdered him. ‘Jerry,’ phased slightly ahead of ‘Donna,’ used her report as data. He factored in my knowledge of the report. In that, the second time-path, all I wanted to do was to keep my job. It wasn’t Kaplan I wanted to kill. It was my own position and life I was interested in.”
“And ‘Mike’ was the third report? That came after the minority report?” Witwer corrected himself. “I mean, it came last?”
” ‘Mike’ was the last of the three, yes. Faced with the knowledge of the first report, I had decided not to kill Kaplan. That produced report two. But faced with that report, I changed my mind back. Report two, situation two, was the situation Kaplan wanted to create. It was to the advantage of the police to recreate position one. And by that time I was thinking of the police. I had figured out what Kaplan was doing. The third report invalidated the second one in the same way the second one invalidated the first. That brought us back where we started from.”
Lisa came over, breathless and gasping. “Let’s go – we’re all finished here.” Lithe and agile, she ascended the metal rungs of the truck and squeezed in beside her husband and the driver. The latter obediently started up his truck and the others followed.