“Ahsh’d lookun-at asswiper?” Josh grunted. He meant it. The Chronicle was a Navy paper, always carried dozens
of pictures of Prexy, and admirals, and turds like that. But fat on Sundays, lasted a whole week in a toilet.
“Na front! Seeth’addle cock ‘narleq’in?”
Josh started, and bent to look at the caption. “Shite,” he said, having painfully puzzled out the words. “Say, she dottuv Turpin, VGI Pissun shit!”
Shark Bance craned over his shoulder. He read nearly as well as Josh and never missed- a chance to prove it. After a moment he said, “Heyl Week’dad ransom fo’ her -lahk million bucks!”
Josh gave him a wordless snarl. “Yeal An’ lookun nexter inna pic, Pegdun? Hm?”
“Sho’1” Potatohead said. “Howsee call’?”
“Dan,” Josh worked out. “Tee. Wah-nah shit. Ward.” He straightened, and put on an evil grin. “So, hey! Tha’ blabbo dundus hurt, nah? Nextahm seeyum, weena hurtum histunl”
1 s
The Chronicle, the Navy paper; the Bulletin, the Army paper; the TV tuned to WSA; hangover cure, juice, coffee . . . . Comforting, familiar, the landmarks that located Lewis Raymond Turpin at Sunday morning. Naturally, he had learned far more last night than he could expect to from the day’s formal news. About a thousand people:, decided what the modern American public ought to think, and over fifty of them had been at his party. Prexy not being one of course.
Only the second year of his term, and already the faceless mass was beginning to hear bad rumors! How much longer would Army let things ride? Would there be a coup and an impeachment, or just a diplomatic illness and “voluntary” relinquishment of office?
It would be good for Energetics General, whichever way, Navy detested EG; so many of its top brass recalled the proud days of Polaris submarines. Then EG had introduced the Nightsticks, and . . .
The process had already been under way when he arrived a quarter-century ago. By then, the ten biggest corporations in the country were being sustained on tax- ,j payers’ money-aircraft, chemicals, computers, transportation services, virtually all the key industries were being regularly transfused with government funds. Naturally, because any other form of federal investment was castigated as “creeping socialism,” it had to be via the Defense .~ Department that the money passed. A generation of ingenious public-relations work had convinced the public that this aspect of government activity was sacrosanct, never to be questioned by a loyal citizen.
The percentages crept up. Energetics General, back in those far-off days, had drawn only some 18 per cent of its budget from the DOD. Currently the figure was closer to ninety, and since ‘Iurpin was a senior vice-president now -a mere eleven steps below the pinnacle of the EG hierarchy-the President came to his parties. So did the Chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs, even though he was an admiral. So did everybody who really counted.
Now suppose, just suppose, there was going to be a coup against Prexy-what they called in the history texts a “palace revolution,” because of course the faceless mass would never be allowed to learn the details. Would that bring about the long-desired collapse of this over-blown, top-heavy, out-right dangerous economic cancer?
He feared not. Perhaps in another decade. Right now, there were still too many clever, dedicated, and insulted men in positions of influence, who remembered how they had been shot at in Viet-Nam, bombed in the Philippines, and ultimately spat upon in Panama. It wasn’t their fault, they maintained, that they’d been dragged home under orders to quell insurrection, and that the other side had been waiting to pounce, so that when their house was set in order they had nothing else to do but squabble for power.
There had been a great weariness, a vast sense of futility. Everything they had undertaken with the best intentions had turned sour. Like an injured porcupine, exposing its spiny back to the attacker and pressing its soft belly to the ground, the nation had abandoned its outside commitments one by one and planted automatic missile sites along its coasts. The grandiose space program decayed, and for fifteen years or more no American had been launched into space except to service the orbiting missile-detectors -there were thousands. Meantime, .not from courtesy but a sense of self-preservation, the space-going powers duly notified every launching-for fear it might be mistaken for an attack-to the DOD.