The Simulacra

Next, she called in NP Commissioner Wilder Pembroke.

‘I want a report,' she informed him, ‘as to exactly what support the Karps are drawing from. In addition to their own resources. Obviously, they wouldn't have gone ahead with this unless they felt they could count on allies.' She eyed the top NP official with deliberate, rigorously calculated intensity. ‘How do the National Police stand?'

Wilder Pembroke said calmly, ‘We're ready to deal with the plotters.' He did not seem disturbed; in fact, she thought, he was even more self-possessed than usual. ‘As a matter of fact we've already begun rounding them up. Karp employees and executives, and the personnel of the Frauenzimmer outfit. And anyone else who's involved; we're working on that aspect, using von Lessinger's equipment.'

‘Why weren't you prepared for this by means of the von Lessinger principle?' Nicole asked sharply.

‘Admittedly, this was there. But only as the most meagre possibility. One in a million, of the possible alternative futures. It never occurred to us -- ‘

‘You've just lost your job,' Nicole said. ‘Send in your staff. I'll choose a new police commissioner from among them.'

Colouring, incredulous, Pembroke stammered, ‘But at every given moment there's a raft of dangerous alternatives so malign that if we -- ‘

‘But you knew,' Nicole said, ‘that I was under attack. When that thing, that Martian animal, bit me it should have warned you. From then on you should have been expecting an all-out attack, because that was the beginning.'

‘Shall -- we pick up Luke?'

‘You can't pick up Luke. Luke is on Mars. They all got away, including the two that were here in the White House. Luke came and got them.' She tossed that report to Pembroke. ‘And anyhow, you no longer have any authority.'

There was a strained, unpleasant silence.

‘When that thing bit me,' Nicole said, ‘I knew we were in for a time of difficulty.' But in one respect it was a good thing it had bitten her; it had made her alert. Now she could not be taken by surprise -- she was ready, and it would be a long time before something, or someone -- would bite her again.

Metaphorically or literally.

‘Please, Mrs Thibodeaux -- ‘ Pembroke began.

‘No,' she said. ‘Don't whine. You're out. That's it.'

There's something about you I don't trust, she said to herself. Maybe it's because you let that papoola animal get to me. That was the beginning of your decline, of your career downfall. From then on I was suspicious of you.

And, she thought, it was almost the end of me.

The door of the office opened and Richard Kongrosian appeared, beaming. ‘Nicole, ever since I moved that A.G. Chemie psych-chemist down to the laundry room I've become fully visible. It's a miracle!'

‘Fine, Richard,' Nicole said. ‘However, we're having a closed conference in here, at this moment. Come back later.'

Now Kongrosian made out Pembroke. The expression on his face at once changed. Hostility ... she wondered why.

Hostility -- and fear.

‘Richard,' she said suddenly. ‘How would you like to be NP Commissioner? This man -- ‘ She pointed at Wilder Pembroke. ‘He's out.'

‘You're joking,' Kongrosian said.

‘Yes,' she agreed. In a way, at least. But in a way, no.' She needed him, but in what fashion? How could she make use of him and his abilities? At the moment she simply did not know.

Pembroke said stiffly, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, if you change your mind -- ‘

‘I won't,' she said.

‘In any case,' Pembroke said in a measured, prepared tone of voice, ‘I'll be glad to return to my position and serve you.'

Thereupon he left the room; the door shut after him.

At once Kongrosian said to her, ‘He's going to do something. I'm not sure what it is. Can you tell who's loyal to you at a time like this? Personally, I don't trust him; I think he's part of the planet-wide network of conspiracy scheming against me.' Hastily he added, ‘And against you, too, of course. They're after you, too. Isn't that right?'

‘Yes, Richard.' She sighed.

Outside the White House a news machine squalled; she could hear it vending details about Dieter Hogben. The machine possessed the entire story. And it was exploiting it for all it was worth. She sighed again. The ruling council, those shadowy, ominous figures who stood directly behind every move she made, were undoubtedly thoroughly aroused, now, as if wakened from their sleep. She wondered what they would do. They had a lot of wisdom; collectively, they were quite old. Like snakes they were cold and silent, but very much alive. Very active and yet always obscured from sight.

They never appeared on TV, never gave guided tours.

At the moment she wished she could trade places with them.

And then all at once she realized that something had happened. The news machine was vending something about her.

Not about the next der Alte, Dieter Hogben, but some other Ge entirely.

The news machine -- she went to the window to hear better -- was saying that ... She strained to hear.

‘Nicole dead!' the machine shrilled. ‘Years ago! Actress Kate Rupert in her place! Entire governing apparatus a fraud, according to ... ‘ And then the news machine moved on. She could no longer hear it, no matter how hard she tried.

His face wrinkled with confusion and uneasiness, Richard Kongrosian asked, ‘Wh-what was that, Nicole? It was saying you're dead.'

‘Do I look dead?' she asked tartly.

‘But it said an actress was taking your place.' Kongrosian, bemused, stared at her, his face working with incomprehension. ‘Are you just an actress, Nicole? An impostor, like der Alte? He continued to stare, looking as if he were about to burst into grief-stricken baffled tears.

‘It's merely a sensational newspaper story,' Nicole said firmly. She felt, however, frozen all over. Numbed with dark, somatic dread. Everything was out now; some highlyplaced Ge, someone even more an intimate of the White House circle than the Karps, had leaked this last, great secret.

There was now nothing left to conceal. Hence there was no longer a distinction between the many Bes and the few Ges.

There was a knock at the door and without waiting Garth McRae entered, looking grim. He held a copy of The New York Times.

‘That psychoanalyst, Egon Superb, informed a reporting machine,' he said to Nicole. ‘How he found out I don't have the slightest idea -- he's hardly in a position to know first-hand about you; obviously someone must have deliberately spilled it to him.' He studied the newspaper, his lips moving. ‘A patient. A Ge patient confided in him and for reasons that we may never know he called the newspaper.'

Nicole said, ‘I suppose there's no use arresting him now. I'd like to find out who's using him; that's what I'm interested in.' It was no doubt a hopeless wish, doomed to disappointment. Probably Egon Superb would never say; he would take the pose that it was a professional secret, something given him in sanctified privacy. He would pretend he did not want to get his patient into jeopardy.

‘Even Bertold Goltz,' McRae said, ‘didn't know that. Even though he roams around here at will.'

‘What we're going to see a demand for now,' Nicole said, ‘is a general election.' And it would not be she who would be elected, not after this disclosure. She wondered if Epstein, the Attorney General, would consider it his job to take action against her. She could count on the Army, but what about the High Court? It might rule that she was not legally in power. Actually it could be doing that at this very moment.