MacAllister stood unseen in the doorway. Only a few steps away. He drew his sword. Now might I do it pat, he thought, now he is praying. And now I’ll do’t. He stepped out into the uncertain light. And paused. And so he goes to heaven: and so am I revenged. That would be scann’d; a villain kills my father; and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.
The king bowed his head. He was praying audibly, but MacAllister could not make out the words.
He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; and how his audit stands, who knows save heaven? But in our circumstance and course of thought, ’tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged, to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and season’d for his passage?
No. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid bent: when he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed…
Across the room, a red light winked on. Responses to the Beemer package were in. Another time, then. He stood several moments, then withdrew from the chamber, leaving the king deep in prayer.
ADVANCE COPIES OF the Henry Beemer hellfire story, which would appear in the upcoming issue of The National, had been sent to a number of media preachers for comment. He preferred media preachers to those who simply worked in churches because they were far more likely to overreact. And indeed, as he looked through their responses, he saw that he had exactly what he wanted. They called him an atheist and a godless sinner. He was all that was wrong with the country. He and his satanic publication should be banned. Burned.
To get some balance, he’d also sent copies to less fiery clerics. Their replies were also predictable: We don’t push damnation much, they said. We tend to believe hell is reserved only for special cases. That was reasonable, but MacAllister wasn’t looking for reasonable. He wanted the true believers.
While he read through the stack, selecting the most raucous for the letters column, he switched on Worldwide and was surprised to discover Michael Asquith appearing before the Senate Science Committee.
It was a mugging. The commissioner was being taken down by a gang of politicians. What did that say for the level of leadership at the Academy? He wondered how Hutch could tolerate working for the guy.
Meantime, it was Monday, his busiest day, the day he put The National together. But he was running ahead for a change. The layouts were done, the stories in place, all except the cover story, which he wasn’t satisfied with. The letters column and the lead editorial still needed to be assembled. But he had a draft of the editorial, which addressed the unavailability of jobs across the nation for any but highly trained specialists with advanced degrees. There was always a need for physicians. But roofers, carpenters, waiters, stock boys: All were effectively things of the past. The result was a chasm between the well-off and everybody else. As an example, The National had no use for a copy editor. Everything was done by an AI. Reporters, yes. There was a staff of eleven full-time correspondents, and a substantial number of occasional contributors, but there were no other employees. Meantime, the welfare rolls swelled, and crime grew exponentially. If you wanted to be sure of a career, become a physician or a lawyer. Everything else was, at best, pizza delivery.
He’d assigned his most linguistically abrasive associate to get the Beemer interview and do the research. The result, “Hellbound by Lunchtime,” would ruffle some feathers. Already had. The cover depicted Beemer, looking tired and forlorn, surrounded by a group of ten-year-olds, all staring at flames that looked as diabolical as Tilly had been able to produce. The subtitle ran across the bottom: EDUCATION OR INDOCTRINATION?
The National, like most publications, was interactive. You could read an interview, you could watch it, and, to a degree, you could participate in it. A lot of his readers thought they were talking with the editor. They were, of course, getting Tilly. Tilly was named for Attila, a figure who was, in many ways, admirable.
On-screen, the committee had finished with Asquith, were filing out, or standing around talking to each other while the commissioner disconsolately made his way out of the room.
THE NATIONAL WAS devoted to commentary on science, politics, and the world at large. It ran book reviews, a letters section, three editorials, political cartoons, a logic puzzle, and a section on the state of the language. MacAllister had never lost his affection for a well-composed sentence, and nothing drew his disgust quite as effectively as overwritten pieces, prose that wandered about without ever getting to the point. He didn’t think well of adjectives, despised adverbs, and insisted his correspondents rely on nouns and verbs. They do the heavy lifting, he’d said numerous times while handing back copy with large chunks carved out of it.
The staff meeting for each issue was held Monday afternoon after the current issue had been put to bed. So what was on the horizon for next week that we want to cover?
All eleven correspondents were present, two physically, the others via hookup. The lead story, they decided, would be on the danger posed by the possibility of the southern ice cap giving way. How serious is it? he asked the reporter who’d been assigned to do the background work.
“Worse than the Council’s letting on,” she said. “It could let go with virtually no warning. If the whole thing goes down, as they expect it will, there’ll be hundreds of thousands dead along the coastlines.”
“What are the odds?” asked Chao-Pang, in Madagascar. “We’ve been talking about it for two centuries.”
“They’re still doing computations. But they look scared.”
Okay. That would be the cover. Let’s take a serious look at this thing. How likely is it to occur in, say, the next year? How prepared are we? Has the administration taken serious steps, or are they hoping nothing will happen until they’re out of office? (He already knew the answer to that one.)
Next up was a developing political scandal, a prominent House leader taking money and other benefits from lobbyists.
“Guilty?” asked MacAllister.
“Absolutely.”
“Will he step down?”
“Not voluntarily. But it looks as if he’ll wind up in jail.”
Then there was the artificial sperm issue, which would make it possible to dispense with males in the reproductive process. Not desirable, of course, but possible. And that was enough to bring out the legions who feared for the moral fabric and claimed we were playing God.
Who’s your daddy? The phrase would take on a whole new meaning.
“How’s it going to go?” asked MacAllister.
The response came from Hugh Jankiewicz, who covered the House. “There’ll be a fight, the ban will fail, then there’ll be a reaction and a bigger fight. Eventually everybody will get used to it. I suspect nobody will be able to show any harm done, and we’ll move on to something else.”
“Where’s the advantage?” asked MacAllister.
“Purely political,” said Jankiewicz. “It will enable some women to claim men have become irrelevant.”
WHEN THE LINE cleared, a call was waiting.
“Mr. MacAllister? My name’s Charles Dryden.” MacAllister immediately decided he didn’t like the speaker. He smiled too easily. It was okay for young women, but in men, especially older men, it was a giveaway. He was dressed in the kind of clothes one wore in the executive suite.
“Yes, Mr. Dryden,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Mr. MacAllister — May I call you Gregory?”
“If you like.”
“Gregory, I represent Orion Tours. We’re putting together a major advertising campaign. We’ve been looking at the reading audience of The National. By and large, they fit the profile of the sort of people who use our service. They are intelligent, well educated, and they do not lack for resources.”