Prologue to an Analogue Read online

* * * *

  That night Bill Howard leaned across the desk toward the TV audience,and tiny droplets of sweat stood on his forehead. His voice was calm,though. A big map of New York City hung on the wall behind him.

  The big news that night was a dope raid. He described the dope trafficin the nation, the efforts of the FBI and every law enforcement bodyin the country, to track it down, clean it out. He described what itdid to the young, who got caught and were slaves for life, unless theycould be cured--and he spoke of the meagerness of the cures that wereknown.

  Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from his desk and heoutlined how the raid had been staged, and he pointed out thelocation of the building where it had occurred. Then he followed withhis pointer the route to the precinct jail where the victims werebeing held.

  "Cannot our best researchers find a cure for this addiction?" he askedin his husky voice. "Cannot our best law-enforcement agencies find thereal perpetrators of these crimes? The perpetrators are the fiends whoimport dope and create addicts to peddle it for them. These who areconfined are the victims. If no way can be found to cure them, theymust be confined again and again and again, for that addiction willforce them to ever-increasing crime to satisfy it.

  "If no way can be found to cure them, these are potential slaves forlife--"

  As he ended the station break came, and the camera shifted to theWitches, dancing on stage, crying their chant.

  "Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witchclean--NOW!

  "Which soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent--"

  The announcer's voice, when it came in over the muted jingle"explained" the miracle of the slum-clearance again--a miracle ofAmerican technology. Then he outlined the next "miracle" the WitchCorporation would promote. This, he said, would be a miracle ofAmerican Medical know-how. Witch would pay for the expensive operationneeded to make a little girl walk again after a crippling diseaseseveral years before. Bone would be grafted, new muscles would begrafted, American medical know-how in its full extent would be put ather service.

  Keep healthy by keeping clean with Witch, the announcer suggested.Witch would pay for the expensive operation to undo the effects of onedisease. Meanwhile, Witch's customers could use the preventivemedicine of cleanliness to help them in their fight against disease,while the researchers of American medicine "seek to find you realprotection."

  * * * * *

  It was 10:30 the next morning when the doorbell rang.

  A big man was standing outside in a topcoat, hat in hand. Randolphstood in the door, waiting.

  The man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside, gesturinghim in.

  "I didn't look at your badge close enough," Randolph said as he closedthe door behind his visitor. "Who are you?"

  "Narcotics squad," the man said briefly. "I was on the raid lastnight."

  "Oh? The one Bill Howard was talking about in his newscast?"

  "Yes. That one. I don't figure there's any connection, and my bossjust laughed when I suggested there was a connection."

  "Connection?"

  "You see, I took a break from questioning those boys we pulled in.Trying to get a lead to the higher-ups. They were doped to the ears,and sometimes you can get info from them right quick. I took a breakfor a cup of coffee across the street, and there was a TV in theplace, and I watched your Bill Howard.

  "I left just when your witches came on, shouting that thing about makeit clean NOW. I went right back and started in on the questioningagain, but the guy they brought in for me to question next was--notdopey. He was ... well, there's a difference between boys with themonkey on their back, and when there's no monkey. There was no monkey,but the kid began giving me everything he knew would take us to thehigher-ups. It was being taped, of course, and I asked him when he'dhad his last shot. Not twenty minutes before the raid, he said, calmas you please.

  "I had the guys brought back that I'd talked to before and theywere--different. Only way I can describe it is, no monkey. The monkeyhad been there before. I don't know. They each gave us all they had inleads--they'd been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries.

  "I checked and nobody'd done anything to 'em to bring 'em off theirjazz. If there's anything can be done to pull a guy out of a jazz,anyhow, I've never heard of it, and I've been in the narcotics squadsince the year One. I couldn't figure it. I'd been hearing storiesabout Witch Products and that miracle at the Battery, sort of as ajoke, and I thought, just maybe, just possibly, you know....

  "Anyhow, I took the tapes to my boss, and spoke my bit, but he justlaughed.

  "Maybe you'll just laugh, too, but I thought I'd ask."

  * * * * *

  At the same time in Washington, the cabinet was in full session.Reports coming in from Formosa were worse than even the mostpessimistic had dreamed. The bacteria hit at the nerves and the brain,and the victims--excruciating was a word being used.

  "It's hit everywhere on the island at once. I assume it is contagiousas well as having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcastmethods were used," the CIA chief reported.

  "Any word from their embassy?"

  State answered that one. "No word at all. Phone calls to theAmbassador only elicit reports that he is not available. I can't reachanybody higher than a fourth assistant undersecretary."

  "At least it's not been on the air or in the press."

  "I don't know how long we can hold them in leash. Most of your leadingpapers know there's a twenty-four hour alert on--that was bound toleak--but I've kept them quiet. We'll have to give them somethingsoon, though. They won't take a muzzle too long without at leastknowing why."

  "Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's thisimportant, and the consequences of leakage this apparent?"

  "I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen--but there'salways a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a rightto know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what theeffect--and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel itwould not be good for them."

  "Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before itbreaks."

  "If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking."The CIA chief grinned sourly at his own allusion.

  The next night, the big news was the countdown in process at Canaveralto put a functioning "dome" on the moon. If the dome could be landedsuccessfully, complete with live animals, a man would follow shortly.That was foregone. The question was landing the dome, just a smallspaceship body, but completely equipped to keep a man alive for twoyears, in case anything went wrong with plans to bring him backpronto.

  Bill Howard's voice was excited, and he ran his fingers through hishair, pushing it back as he leaned across the desk, the map of Floridabehind him.

  "To the statesmen, this is a question of who is first and who issecond, and perhaps who will control the spaceways," he said afterdescribing the countdown in process.

  "But to the peoples of the world, this is mankind, reaching for thestars.

  "It is not known," he said solemnly, "whether the failure of many ofour shots has been human error or sabotage. Human error is a frailtyof the race. Sabotage is a frailty of statesmanship, that the worldis still divided as it reaches for the stars. Yet each is possible.

  "Is there a mechanical error built in by human frailty in tonight'sshot? Is there a saboteur at work?

  "Or, as the countdown reaches zero, one hour from now, will the dometear through the atmosphere of Earth in man's first real step to thestars successfully? Is our bird perfect this time?" he asked, as thebreak came.

  The witches danced on crying their chant ... "Witches of the world,unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean,--NOW!"

  * * * * *

  Randolph was chewing his lip still as he went to bed that night. Theman from the Narcotics Squad had left peaceably. There were answer
s toall the questions, and it wasn't his worry anyway. He'd be glad whenthe little girl had her operation. Grafting bones and muscles might bemiraculous, but they were explicable and everybody understood them.Talk of the FCC investigation had died aborning, but talk like thatwas enough to upset anybody. Everything had been upsetting recently,even though the up-curve on Witch products was holding steady.

  * * * * *

  The American dome landed on the moon the morning of the day that thecrippled child was scheduled to come on the Witch program.

  For the American people it was a day of celebration comparable to theFourth of July. In the White House gloom hung like a palpable