They're a new kind of man, I guess."
"No," said Lechon. "Read your history, gentlemen. The warrior race. The latest example of what can be done with men by intensive training and discipline. The Spartans and the Osmanli Turks did it in their time. Our Centaurian is more like a Spartan Peer than a Turkish Janissary. Lycurgus would know our father Juggins for a true Spartiate at once ..."
He went on. The three undergraduates listened with one ear. Merrian was in the throes of a soul-search. Was force an evil when used against creatures like these?
Dowling and Hsi, not introspective idealists, were concerned with the recasting of their personal plans. Dowling guessed that there would still be local Philadelphia politics to get into when he finished his course, Bozos or no Bozos. There'd have to be go-betweens between the supermen and their subjects.
Hsi was thinking of the soft job in the Sino-American Transport Co. that his father would shoe-horn him into when he finished college. If he could, by hard work and family influence, worm his way to the Directorate, there were some big deals he had in mind ... There would be the omnipresent and allegedly incorruptible Bozos. But that incorruptibility was, to his mind, still only alleged.
Class reunions, like weddings and funerals, bring together a lot of people who would not ordinarily cross the street to speak to one another. So when the class of '09 broke up after the formalities, Hsi and Dowling and Merrian drifted together and wandered off to a restaurant to compare biographies.
Baldwin Dowling had filled out a bit, though he still had the wavy black hair and flashing smile. He had acquired a wife and one child. Arthur Hsi looked much the same, but had acquired a wife and six children. Fred Merrian had lost most of his sandy hair, and had received in exchange two wives, two divorces, and a thin feverish look.
Hsi had just come from a trip to Australia, and was full of it. "It's a wonderful place. Everything goes just like clockwork. No tips, no bribes. No fun, either. Every Bozo is a soldier of some sort, even the ones who run elevators and sell dog-biscuit."
Fred Merrian showed signs of building up argumentative back-pressure. "You mean you approve of them?" he snapped.
Hsi looked stupidly amused. "I wouldn't say that, Fred. But we have to get along with them. The Sino-American Transport Company is a huge organization, with subsidiaries all over the Pacific: hotels and airlines and whale-hatcheries and things. So must get along with them. What have you been doing last ten years?"
Merrian looked bitter. "I'm trying to make a living as a writer. But I won't write the sort of trash the cheap magazines buy, so—" He shrugged.
"What about you, Baldwin? I seem to hear about you in politics."
Dowling said: "Yeah, maybe you have. Tm the official mediator for the city of Philadelphia. When one of my—ah—flock gets into trouble with the Bozos, I try to get him out."
"You look prosperous," said Hsi.
"I haven't done so badly." Dowling's smile had a trace of leer. "Sort of like a tribune of the people, as Professor Lechon explained it to me."
"Lechon?" said Hsi. "Is he still here?"
"Yep, and still dishing out the love-life of the ancient Parthians." He noted Merrian's expression, and said: "Fred no doubt thinks I'm a raw renegade. But as you said, the Bozos are here, and we've got to get along with them. By the way, I met a man who knows you; Cass Young. Said your Chinese business methods had nearly driven him crazy."
"What didn't he like?"
"Oh, the way you never mean exactly what you say, and act hurt when some sucker objects to it. And the—ah—dryness of the Oriental palm, as he expressed it. Oh, remember the Bozo Juggins? The first administrator of the University of Pennsylvania? He's still here; administrator for the whole metropolitan area."
"Really?" said Hsi. "By the way, did Mr. Young tell you what he had been seeing me about?"
"No."
"Well, I want to talk to you about it." Hsi looked questioningly at Fred Merrian. Merrian looked at his watch, and reluctantly took his leave.
"Too bad," said Dowling. "He's the most decent and upright guy I know. But he isn't practical." He lowered his voice. "I could swear he was mixed up in some anti-Bozo movement."
"That would account for the hungry-wolf look," said Hsi. "Do you know about such movements?"
"I know a lot of things I don't let on. But what's this deal you have in mind?"
"I say nothing about a deal." Hsi paused to giggle. "But I see I can't fool you, Baldwin. You know the Morehouse project?"
"The mailing-tube unification plan? Yeah."
"Well, Sino-American controls the Philadelphia-Baltimore tube, as perhaps you don't know. And the tubes from Boston to Miami can't be unified without the Philadelphia-Baltimore link, obviously. But we don't want to sell our stock in the link outright."
"What, then?"
"If exchange of stock could be arranged—some good friends of ours already hold 45 per cent of the stock in the new Boston-Miami company—it would give us a strong voice in the affairs of the new company."
"In other words, majority control?"
"I would not say that. A strong voice."
Dowling grinned. "Don't try to kid me into thinking these 'good friends' aren't Sino-American dummies. How much stock of the new company do you want? Six per cent?"
"Seven and a fraction would look better."
"I get you. But you know how we do things here. The Bozos have their fingers in everything. If you make anything, they grab it; if you lose, that's your hard luck. AH the disadvantages of socialism without the advantages. And it's as much as your life's worth to try to hush one of them up. Still, I might be able to handle Juggins."
Hsi giggled. "So they are still incorruptible here, eh? How much of that 'healthier life' they promised have you gotten?"
"Well," said Dowling dubiously, "they did clean things up somewhat."
"Have you a new water-system yet?"
"No, though they've been talk—"
Boom! Far off across the Schuylkill, a yellow flash tore the night sky. Other explosions followed in quick succession. Broken glass tinkled. Hsi and Dowling gripped their table. Dowling muttered: "The fools!"
"A revolution?" asked Hsi.
"That's what they think." The faint tapping of gunfire became audible.
A pair of hard-looking men in uniform appeared in the doorway. Dowling murmured: "Watchdogs." He did not have to describe these police, whose list of virtues stopped after bravery and loyalty to their masters, the warrior race.
There was nothing to do but sit and listen. When the noise abated, Dowling went over to one of die watchdogs and spoke in a low voice.
The watchdog said: "Didn't recognize you, Mr. Dowling. I guess you can go home, and take your friend."
As the two men left the restaurant, Hsi was conscious of the hostile glares of the other customers. Outside, Dowling grinned wryly. "Nobody likes special privilege, except when he's the guy who's got it. We're walking."
"But your car—" wailed Hsi, a completely unathletic person.
"I'm leaving it here. If we tried to drive, the watchdogs would shoot first and ask questions afterwards. If we see anybody, we raise our hands and walk slowly."
Off to the northeast, the sky was red. A lot of houses in North Philadelphia had been set afire by the oxidizers ...
Hsi and Dowling spent the next day at the latter's home, without news of any kind. Edna Dowling tried to pump Hsi on the subject of ancient Chinese art. Arthur Hsi grinned foolishly, and spread his hands. "But Mrs. Dowling, I don't know anything about art. I'm a businessman!"
The next morning a newspaper did arrive over the ticker. It told of outbreaks, and their suppression, in Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, St. Louis ...