The Mighty Dead Part 5

The original was a short-short tale about a wrestler and a cowboy and a video comedian, a s.p.a.ce-farce. There was a piece headed _Editorial_ by Martha Klein. It had a sub-heading--_For Those Who Are Willing To Fight_.

It was a stirring and vigorous call to arms against the Arnold Law. It was as subversive as anything Doak had seen in his Department career.

He folded the magazine, and put it into an upper jacket pocket. He went to the third room and saw the paper stacked there and the bottles of ink and new stencils.

He went back to the stairs, and quietly down them. From the living room, he heard--

"'... From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d!'"

This was more like it, except for that last line the bard had borrowed. This was the true giant, and who was quoting him? It was not the contralto voice. Who?

He moved out to the kitchen and back to his vantage point. He took off the infra-scope and looked into the living room. It was the old gent, with the beard. And who else could it be? For wasn't he the cream of the lot, the most obvious scholar, the most evident gentleman?

Scholarship and breeding seemed to flow from every hair in his beard.

"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

From whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blessed with health and peace and sweet content!

And, O, may heaven their--"

Doak felt a stirring in him and tears moved down his cheeks and he turned, quickly and silently, and went out the back door. He was no child at his mother's knee, he was no mewling kitten--he was a Security Officer and this was subversion.

Outside the stars were bright in a black sky. He stood in the back yard, breathing heavily, ashamed at the sudden surge of feeling that had moved through him. Some streak of adolescence, he thought, stirred by the words he had remembered from his mother's lips.

He walked slowly back toward town. He could call in local help and round up the gang back there in the house. He could wash this up tonight and be back in Washington tomorrow morning. With June.

The prospect of being with June had lost its flavor somehow. And if this was a widely published magazine, he had a larger duty than merely apprehending the gang. All of the magazine's readers were breaking the law and a real operative comes in with a complete, clean case.

Mrs. Klein still sat on her front porch. "Any luck?" she asked, as he came up to sit on the glider near her chair.

"Some. I'll see him again tomorrow."

Her voice was dry. "One of our most prominent citizens, the Senator.

The other's Glen Ryder. I guess you know who he is."

He stiffened, trying to see her face in the dark. "Ryder? Oh, yes, in the Security Department."

"That's right. Glen isn't anything to be ashamed of really. But that Senator Arnold--my, the stories my mother told me about him!"

"I've heard," Doak said, "he was pretty wild as a young man."

"Wild?" Mrs. Klein sniffed. "Degraded would be a better word. If his father didn't have all the money in the county he'd have gone to jail more than once, that man. And then the people of this state sending him to the Senate."

Doak said nothing, staring out at the quiet night.

"Would you like a little snack?" Mrs. Klein asked. "I've some baked ham and rolls out in the kitchen."

"No thanks," Doak said. "I'm not very hungry. Was Glen Ryder a friend of Senator Arnold's?"

"Not until Glen went to work for the government. I don't think the Senator had any friends except those who could profit by it."

"This Ryder was something of an--opportunist?"

"If that means what it sounds like, I guess that would describe Glen.

He wasn't one to overlook any opportunity to better himself and he cut it pretty thin at times."

Doak looked over but could not see her face in the darkness. He said slowly, "I guess we all have to look out for ourselves and the devil take the hindmost."

"I suppose," she said placidly. "Though it would depend on what you wanted out of life. Here in Dubbinville I think we're a little more neighborly than that."

"It's a nice town," Doak said. "A real nice town."

In front a car was stopping on the other side of the road. Someone got out from the door on the far side and the car moved on.

"That would be Martha, I guess," Mrs. Klein said. "She'll want some of that ham, I know. You may as well have a cup of coffee with us anyway."

IV

Doak had some coffee and some rolls and ham. And some talk with both of them in the bright comfortable kitchen. They talked about the ridiculous price of food in the city and how cool the house was after the heat of the day and what was it like on Venus?

Neither of the women had ever been to Venus. Doak told them about the lakes, the virgin timber, the glareless warmth that came from the generative earth.

And about the lack of communication facilities.

"There isn't enough commerce to make any video installations worthwhile," he explained, "and the only information transmission is by amateur radio operators. But n.o.body seems to miss it. It's got enough vacation facilities without video."

Martha looked at him evenly. "The--Arnold Law applies there, too, doesn't it?"

Doak met her gaze. "Of course." And then, "Why do you ask?"

She smiled. "I was thinking it would be a good place to curl up with a book." Her chin lifted. "Or establish a newspaper."

He didn't answer. He took another roll and b.u.t.tered it.

Mrs. Klein said, "Martha's too young to know what a newspaper is--or a book. And so are you, Mr. Parker. I say we're not missing much."

He grinned at her. "Bad, were they?"

"There was a paper in Chicago so bad you'd think I was lying if I tried to describe it to you. And all the books seemed to be concerned with four-letter words."

He carefully put a piece of ham between the broken halves of the roll.

"Even Bobbie Burns? From what my mother told me he was quite a lad."

"He was dead before your mother was born," Mrs. Klein said. "All the good ones were, all the ones who tried to entertain instead of shock or corrupt."

Martha said lightly, "Mama's an admirer of Senator Arnold, the way it sounds."

"I'll thank you not to mention his name while I'm eating," Mrs. Klein said acidly. "And I'm not forgetting why _he_ hated the printed word.

But that's looking a gift horse in the mouth."