I was not exactly obeying Chicago's orders. But it didn't matter. All this could be canceled with a single word, and, anyway, it was only nit-picking detail. The One Big Weeny still escaped me.
I lit a cigarette, thought for a minute, and said, "Honey, get me some of the synoptic extracts of opinion sampling from heads of families and particularly families containing some of the Children. I don't want the integration or analysis. Just the raw interviews, but with the scutwork left out."
And as soon as she was off the line, the Chicago circuit came in with a message they'd been holding:
Query from ASB-jr. Provided top is taken off budget and your hand is freed, can you guarantee, repeat guarantee, win on referendum question?
It was not the response I had expected from them.
Still, it was a legitimate question. I took a moment to think it over. Junior Bigelow had already given me a pretty free hand-as he always did; how else can a troubleshooter work? If he was now emphasizing that my hand was freed entirely, it would not be because he thought I hadn't understood him in the first place. Nor would it be because he suspected I might be cheese-paring secretarial salaries. He meant one thing: Win, no matter what.
Under those conditions, could I do it?
Well, of course I could win. Yes. Provided I found the One Big Weeny. You can always win an election, any election anywhere, provided you are willing to pay the right price.
It was finding the price to pay that was hard. Not just money. Sometimes the price you pay is a human being, in the role for which I had been lining up Connick. Throw a human sacrifice to the gods, and your prayer is granted...
But was Connick the sacrifice the gods wanted? Would it help to defeat him, bearing in mind that his opponent was one of the men who had been screaming at Knafti in the Truce Team suite? And if so-had my knife enough edge to drain his blood?
Well, it always had had before. And if Connick wasn't the right man, I would find the man who was. I messaged back, short and sweet: Yes.
And in less than a minute, as though Junior had been standing by at the faxtape receiver, waiting for the word from me-and perhaps he had!-his reply came back:
Gunner, we've lost the Arcturan Confederacy account. Arc Con liaison man says all bets off. They're giving notice of cancellation our contract, suggestion they will cancel entire armistice treaty, too. I don't have to tell you we need them. Some possibility that showing strong results in Belport will get them back. That's what we have to play for. No holds barred, Gunner, win that election.
The office circuit chimed then. Probably it was Candace, but I didn't want to talk to her just then. I turned all the communication circuits to "hold," stripped down, climbed into the shower, set it for full needle spray, and let the water beat on me. It was not an aid to thought, it was a replacement for thought.
I didn't want to think anymore. I wanted time out.
I did not want to think about (a) whether the war would break out again, and, if so, in what degree I would have helped to bring that about; (b) what I was doing to Nice Guy Connick; (c) whether It Was All Worth It, or (d) how much I was going to dislike myself that coming Christmas Day. I only wanted to let the hot splash of scented foaming water anesthetize me. When my skin began to look pale and wrinkly, although I had not come to any conclusions or found any solutions, I came out, dressed, opened the communications circuits, and let them all begin blinking, ringing, and winking at once.
I took Candace first. She said, "Gunner! Dear Lord, have you heard about the Armistice Commission? They've just released a statement-"
"I heard. What else, honey?"
Good girl, she shifted gears without missing a beat. "Then there was that meeting of civic leaders in the Truce Team suite-"
"I saw. Feedback from the Armistice Commission's statement. What else?"
She glanced at the papers in her hand, hesitated, then said: "Nothing important. Uh-Gunner, that 3-V preempt for tonight-"
"Yeah, honey?"
"Do you want me to cancel it?"
I said, "No. You're right, we won't use the time for the ArcturanAmerican Friendship League or whatever we had scheduled, but you're wrong, we'll use the time some way. I don't know how right now."
"But Junior said-"
"Honey," I told her, "Junior says all sorts of things. Anybody looking to scalp me?"
"Well," she said, "there's Mr. Connick. I didn't think you'd want to see him."
"No, I'll see him. I'll see anybody."
"Anybody?" I had surprised her. She dove into her list again. "There's somebody from the Truce Team-"
"Make it everybody from the Truce Team."
"-and Commander Whitling from-"
"From the hospital. Sure, and tell him to bring some kids."
"-and . . ." She trailed off and looked at me. "Gunner, are you putting me on? You don't really want to see all these people."
I smiled and reached out and patted the viewphone. From her point of view it would look like an enormous cloudy hand closing in on her screen, but she would know what I meant. I said, "You could not be more wrong. I do. I want to see them all, the more the better, and the way I'd like to see them best is in my office all at once. So set it up, honey, because I'll be busy between now and then."
"Busy doing what, Gunner?"
"Busy trying to think of what I want to see them for." And I turned off the viewphone, got up, and walked out, leaving the others gobbling into emptiness behind me. What I needed was a long, long walk, and I took it.
When I was tired of walking, I went to the office and evicted Haber from his private quarters. I kept him standing by what had once been his own desk while I checked with Candace and found that she had made all my appointments for that evening; then I told him to get lost. "And thanks," I said.
He paused on his way to the door. "For what, Gunner?"
"For a very nice office to kill time in." I waved at the furnishings. "I wondered what you'd spent fifty grand on when I saw the invoices in the Chicago office, Haber, and I admit I thought there might have been a little padding. But I was wrong."
He said woundedly: "Gunner-boy! I wouldn't do anything like that."
"I believe you. Wait a minute." I thought for a second, then told him to send in some of the technical people and not to let anybody, repeat anybody, disturb me for any purpose whatever. I scared him good, too. He left, a shaken man, a little angry, a little admiring, a little excited inside, I think, at the prospect of seeing how the great man would get himself out of this one.
Meanwhile the great man talked briefly to the technicians, took a ten-minute nap, drank the martinis out of his dinner tray, and pitched the rest of it in the disposal.
Then, as I had nearly an hour before the appointments Candace had set up for me, I scrounged around fat-cat Haber's office to see what entertainment it offered.
There were his files. I glanced at them and forgot them; there was nothing about the hoarded memoranda that interested me, not even for gossip. There were the books on his shelf. But I did not care to disturb the patina of dust that even the cleaning machines had not been able to touch. There was his private bar, and the collection of photographs in the end compartment of his desk drawer.
It looked like very dull times, waiting, until the studio men reported in that they had completed their arrangements at my request, and the 3-V tape-effects monitor could now be controlled by remote from my desk, and then I knew I had a pleasant way of killing any amount of time.
Have you ever played with the console of a 3-V monitor, backed by a library of tape-effects strips? It is very much like being God.