The Sheep Look Up (36 page)

"I believe it was because of Jacob's sad demise that you wanted to see me," he said.

Greenbriar studied the tip of his cigar with critical concentrated attention. He said, "Well-yes. It's no secret that this is the latest in a series of body-blows, as you might say. Even such an enormously wealthy organization as the Bamberley Trust has limits to the amount of punishment it can take. First the African business, then the Honduran affair, then the riot at the hydroponics plant, and now this-it's turned public opinion against us and practically wiped out confidence in our stock. So we're desperately in need of something, something dramatic, to improve our image. At our last Board meeting, I raised the matter of your-ah-precautionary program, and everyone felt that it had strong potential for this application. Is there any chance of putting the use of it on public offer in the immediate future?"

Grey hesitated. He had been half afraid of this. But…

"Well, actually, that brings to my mind a suggestion Anderson made the other week. That young programmer you assigned as my assistant, you know? I suspect he intended it as a pleasantry, but I've been pondering it during my confinement to bed. In effect he argued that we are less in need of extrapolatory analyses to prevent fresh mistakes being made, than of emergency solutions to problems already in existence. Not that he phrased it quite like that, of course."

"Then how did he phrase it?"

"What he in fact said," Grey replied, "was this." Not for the first time Greenbriar decided he totally lacked a sense of humor; the question had been put, he felt obligated to answer in detail. "He said, 'Doc, instead of looking for ways to avoid more and bigger messes, why not just look for ways out of the mess we're in right now? The way things are shaping, we may not be around long enough to make any more mistakes!' " Defensively he appended, "As I told you, I suspected him of being jocular."

"Joking or not, do you think he was right?"

"Well…You know, I have sometimes been accused of inhabiting an ivory tower, but I do keep up with the news even though my tastes incline toward the quiet life. I can't help believing that the public at large would welcome something similar to what Anderson proposed. I can't accept that our political leaders are correct in maintaining that concern about environmental deterioration was a fad, which now sounds stale if it's mentioned in a campaign speech and bores the listeners. My conclusion is rather that because the politicians appear to be bored with it, the public are resorting to more extreme measures. You've noticed how many acts of sabotage have been committed lately?"

"Damn it, of course!" Greenbriar spoke curtly. Many of the Trust's major holdings had suffered, being concentrated in growth industrials.

"Well, there's one thing to be said in defense of the saboteurs, isn't there? They are striking at industries with high pollution ratings. Oil, plastics, glass, concrete, products generally which don't decay. And of course paper, which consumes irreplaceable trees."

"I had the impression you were on the side of progress," Greenbriar muttered. "This morning you sound like an apologist for the Trainites."

"Oh, hardly." A thin smile. "Of course I had to reread Train's work for incorporation in my program data, along with every other thinker who's had a major influence on the modern world-Lenin, Gandhi, Mao and the rest. But what I'm driving at is this. We've had centuries of unplanned progress, and the result can justly be called chaotic.

Uninformed people, aware only that their lives may be revolutionized without warning, are naturally insecure. And they come to distrust their leaders, too, for reasons which might be exemplified by what happened at your hydroponics plant, when half a million dollars' worth of food, despite the government's insistence that it was perfectly edible, was destroyed against the background of starvation in Asia, Africa, even Europe. And, what is more"-he leaned forward intently-"against the depredations of these
jigras
throughout the agricultural states. A huge advertising campaign is being mounted, asking everyone to watch out for and report new outbreaks. But who's going to take it seriously when the government authorizes the burning of so much food purely to score a political point?"

Greenbriar nodded. Moreover, steaks in his favorite restaurant had gone up from $7.50 to $9.50 this summer.

"I suspect," Grey plowed on, "that young people in general want to believe in their leaders' good faith. After all, many of them are proud that the world's largest charitable organization is American. But instead of capitalizing on the fund of goodwill that exists, the government repeatedly tramples on it. Instead of exclaiming in horror at the fate of your friend's wife, Mrs. Thorne, they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility, they even try and deny the danger is a real one. And, reverting to the riot at your plant: wasn't it a terrible tactical error to use battle-lasers? There's been a considerable outcry over their employment in Honduras, and one must confess that the reports of their effect don't make for pleasant reading. One could imagine young people being deeply disturbed by descriptions of how a person standing at the fringe of the beam may instantly find that an arm or leg has been amputated and cauterized."

"You're beginning to remind me of Gerry Thorne," Greenbriar said slowly. Somewhere during that lengthy speech Grey had touched him on a raw nerve. "He put it more-more forcefully, of course. He said,

'There are madmen in charge and they've got to be stopped!' "

He looked at Grey, and the thin man gave a sober nod.

Yes, damned right. What would happen if someone didn't come up-and very soon-with a rational, scientific, practicable plan to cure this country's ills? You couldn't look to that straw dummy Prexy and his cabinet of mediocrities for anything more useful than pious platitudes.

Their attitude seemed to be, "Well, it didn't work last time but it damned well should have done, so we'll do it again!" Meantime, what had been uncommitted support drifted steadily toward the extremist axis of the Trainites, or the radical right, or the Marxists. It was as though the public was taking the stand which came handiest, just so long as there was a stand to be taken that put an end to bumbling along from day to day.

He said, looking down at his fat hands on the desk and noticing that they glistened with perspiration, "Do you think your program can be adapted to offer-uh-real-world solutions?"

Grey pondered. He said finally, "I'll be frank. Right from the beginning of my project I've proceeded on the assumption that what's done is done, and the best we could hope for was to avoid compounding our mistakes. Obviously, though, the data that are already accumulated can be employed for other purposes, though certain necessary and perhaps tune-consuming adjustments…"

"But you'd be willing to let us announce that Bamberley Trust is to finance a computerized study which may reveal some useful new ideas?

I'll guarantee to keep it down to 'may.' " Greenbriar was sweating worse than ever. "To be honest, Tom, we're throwing ourselves on your mercy. We're in terrible trouble. And next year can only be worse if we don't hit on something which will make the public feel more favorably disposed toward us."

"I'd need extra funds, extra staff," Grey said.

"You'll get them. I'll see to that."

"Yes?…Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that. Please convey him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. But the president did ask me to pass this message informally as soon as possible; I may say he feels very strongly about the matter. Of course, not knowing if the rumor is well founded, we didn't want to handle it on an official level…Yes, I would be obliged if you could make sure the ambassador is told at the earliest opportunity. Tell him, please, that any attempt to nominate Austin Train for the Nobel Peace Prize would be regarded as a grave and-I quote the president's actual word-calculated affront to the United States.

Petronella Page:…
and welcome to our new Friday slot where we break our regular habit and cover the entire planet! Later we shall be going to Honduras for interviews right on the firing line, and by satellite to London for in-person opinions concerning the food riots among Britain's five million unemployed, and finally to Stockholm where we'll speak direct to the newly appointed secretary of the

"Save the Baltic" Fund and find out how this latest attempt to rescue an endangered sea is getting on. But right now we have a very sad episode in focus, the kidnapping of fifteen-year-old Hector Bamberley. Over in our San Francisco studios-ah, I see the picture on the monitor now. Mr. Roland Bamberley! Hello!

Bamberley:
Hello.

Page:
Now everyone who follows the news is aware that your son vanished more than a week ago. We also know that a ransom demand of a very strange kind has been received. Are there any clues yet to the identity of the criminals?

Bamberley:
Some things have been obvious from the start. To begin with this is clearly a politically motivated crime. During the kidnapping a sleep gas grenade was employed, and those aren't found on bushes, so it's plain that we have to deal with a well-equipped subversive group. And no ordinary kidnappers would have fixed on such a ridiculous ransom.

Page:
Some people would argue that on the contrary such a grenade could have been obtained very easily, and that anybody annoyed with the notoriously poor quality of California water might have-Bamberley: Bunkum.

Page:
Is that your only comment?

Bamberley:
Yes.

Page:
It's been reported that a first delivery of forty thousand Mitsuyama water-filters destined for your company arrived yesterday. Are you intending to-?

Bamberley:
No, I am not reserving any of them for this disgraceful so-called ransom! I am neither going to yield to blackmail, nor am I going to connive at the plans of traitors. I've told the police that this kidnapping is the work of a highly organized subversive movement intent on defaming the United States, and if they're any damned good at their job they ought already to have the culprits on record down to their-their taste in liquor! But I decline to collaborate with them in any way.

Page:
How would ransoming your son amount to collaboration?

Bamberley:
During the late sixties and early seventies there was a massive smear campaign against the United States. The world was told that this country was hell on earth. We've won back some of our proper pride in ourselves, and we dare not waste the ground we've regained. If I gave in, our enemies would pounce on the act as an admission that we supply our own citizens with unwholesome water. Think of the political capital they could make out of that!

Page:
But you've already made that admission by arranging to import these purifiers.

Bamberley:
Nonsense. I'm a businessman. When a demand exists I take steps to supply it. There's a demand for these purifiers.

Page:
Wouldn't some people claim that the existence of the demand proves that the authorities aren't providing pure water? And that by ransoming your son you'd actually be improving the state of affairs?

Bamberley:
Some people will say anything.

Page:
With respect, that's no answer to my question.

Bamberley:
Look, any reasonable person knows there are occasions when you need ultrapure water-to mix a baby formula, for instance.

Usually you boil it. Using these filters I'm importing, you don't have to go to that trouble. That's all.

Page:
But when it's your only son who-Hello! Mr. Bamberley! Hello, San Francisco!…Sorry, world, we seem temporarily to have lost-Just one moment, let's pause for-uh-station identification.

(Breach in transcript lasting appx. 38 sec.)

Ian Farley:
Pet, you'll have to switch to the next subject. Someone's put out our Frisco transmitters. They think it may have been a mortar bomb.

There had been this endless-timeless-period of her life when everything looked flat, like a bad photograph. Nothing connected.

Nothing meant anything.

She was aware of facts, like: name, Peg Mankiewicz; sex, female; nationality, American. Beyond that, a void. A terrible vacuum into which, the moment she let down her guard, uncontrolled emotions rushed such as fear and misery.

She looked at a window. It was possible to see a small patch of sky through it. The sky was as gray and flat as the entire world had been for-how long? She didn't know. But it was shedding rain. It must just have started. It was as though someone out of sight were flipping the bowl of a tiny spoon laden with thin mud. Plop on the pane: an irregular elliptical darkish splodge. And another, a bit bigger. And another smaller. And so on. Each dirty drop causing runnels in the dirt already accumulated on the outside of the glass.

She didn't much care for the idea of dirty rain. She looked at the foreground instead, and discovered that certain things had rounded out.

There was a desk across which a black man of about forty was facing her. He reminded her of Decimus, but fatter. She said, "I ought to know who you are, oughtn't I?"

"I'm Dr. Prentiss. I've been treating you for a month."

"Oh. Of course." She frowned, and passed her hand across her forehead. There seemed to be too much of her hair. "I don't remember quite how I…"

Staring around the room, she sought for clues. Vaguely, she remembered this place, as though she'd seen it before on an old-fashioned TV set, in black and white. But the carpet was really green, and the walls were white, and there was a bookcase of natural pine in which there were blue and black and brown and red and multi-colored books, and behind this black desk sat-just a second-Dr.

Prentiss in a gray suit. Good. It all fitted together.

"Yes, I do remember," she said. "In the hotel."

"Ah." Prentiss made the single non-word sound like an accolade.

He leaned back, putting his long but chubby fingers together. "And-?"