[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction
Adventures Magazine December 1953 and March 1954. Extensive research
did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.]
There have been a thousand tales of future Utopias and
possible civilizations. They have been ruled by benevolent
dictatorships and pure democracies, every form of government from
extreme right to absolute left. Unique among these is the easy-going
semi-anarchistic society ruled by THE SYNDIC.
[Illustration]
"It was not until February 14th that the Government declared a
state of unlimited emergency. The precipitating incident was the
aerial bombardment and destruction of B Company, 27th Armored
Regiment, on Fort George Hill in New York City. Local Syndic
leaders had occupied and fortified George Washington High School,
with the enthusiastic co-operation of students, faculty and
neighborhood. Chief among them was Thomas 'Numbers' Cleveland,
displaying the same coolness and organizational genius which had
brought him to pre-eminence in the metropolitan policy-wheel
organization by his thirty-fifth year.
"At 5:15 A.M. the first battalion of the 27th Armored took up
positions in the area as follows: A Company at 190th Street and St.
Nicholas Avenue, with the mission of preventing reinforcement of
the school from the I.R.T. subway station there; Companies B, C,
and D hill down from the school on the slope of Fort George Hill
poised for an attack. At 5:25 the sixteen Patton tanks of B Company
revved up and moved on the school, C and D Companies remaining in
reserve. The plan was for the tanks of B Company to surround the
school on three sides--the fourth is a precipice--and open fire if
a telephone parley with Cleveland did not result in an
unconditional surrender. There was no surrender and the tanks
attacked.
"Cleveland's observation post was in the tower room of the school.
Seeing the radio mast of the lead tank top the rise of the hill, he
snapped out a telephone order to contact pilots waiting for the
word at a Syndic field floating outside the seven mile limit. The
pilots, trained to split-second precision in their years of public
service, were airborn by 5:26, but this time their cargo was not
liquor, cigarettes or luggage. In three minutes, they were whipping
rocket bombs into the tanks of Company B; Cleveland's runners
charged the company command post; the trial by fire had begun.
"Before it ended North America was to see deeds as gallant and
strategy as inspired as any in the history of war: Cleveland's
historic announcement--'It's a great day for the race!'--his death
at the head of his runners in a charge on the Fort Totten garrison,
the firm hand of Amadeo Falcaro taking up the scattered reins of
leadership, parley, peace, betrayal and execution of hostages, the
Treaty of Las Vegas and a united Mob-Syndic front against
Government, O'Toole's betrayal of the Continental Press wire room
and the bloody battle to recapture that crucial nerve center, the
decisive march on Baltimore...."
B. Arrowsmith Hynde,
_The Syndic--a Short History_.
* * * * *
"No accurate history of the future has ever been written--a fact
which I think disposes of history's claim to rank as a science.
Astronomers quail at the three-body problem and throw up their
hands in surrender before the four-body problem. Any given moment
in history is a problem of at least two billion bodies. Attempts at
orderly abstraction of manipulable symbols from the realities of
history seem to me doomed from the start. I can juggle mean
rain-falls, car-loading curves, birth-rates and patent
applications, but I cannot for the life of me fit the recurring
facial carbuncles of Karl Marx into my manipulations--not even,
though we know, well after the fact, that agonizing staphylococcus
aureus infections behind that famous beard helped shape
twentieth-century totalitarianism. In pathology alone the list
could be prolonged indefinitely: Julius Caesar's epilepsy,
Napoleon's gastritis, Wilson's paralysis, Grant's alcoholism,
Wilhelm II's withered arm, Catherine's nymphomania, George III's
paresis, Edison's deafness, Euler's blindness, Burke's stammer, and
so on. Is there anybody silly enough to maintain that the world
today would be what it is if Marx, Caesar, Napoleon, Wilson, Grant,
Wilhelm, Catherine, George, Edison, Euler and Burke--to take only
these eleven--were anything but what they were? Yet that is the
assumption behind theories of history which exclude the carbuncles
of Marx from their referents--that is to say, every theory of
history with which I am familiar....
"Am I then saying that history, past and future, is unknowable;
that we must blunder ahead in the dark without planning because no
plan can possibly be accurate in prediction and useful in
application? I am not. I am expressing my distaste for holders of
extreme positions, for possessors of eternal truths, for keepers of
the flame. Keepers of the flame have no trouble with the questions
of ends and means which plague the rest of us. They are quite
certain that their ends are good and that therefore choice of means
is a trivial matter. The rest of us, far from certain that we have
a general solution of the two-billion body problem that is
history, are much more likely to ponder on our means...."
F. W. Taylor,
_Organization, Symbolism and Morale_
I
Charles Orsino was learning the business from the ground up--even though
"up" would never be very high. He had in his veins only a drop or two of
Falcaro blood: enough so that room had to be made for him; not enough
for it to be a great dearth of room. Counting heavily on the good will
of F. W. Taylor, who had taken a fancy to him when he lost his parents
in the Brookhaven Reactor explosion of '83, he might rise to a rather
responsible position in Alky, Horsewire, Callgirl, recruitment and
Retirement or whatever line he showed an aptitude for. But at 22 one
spring day, he was merely serving a tour of duty as bagman attached to
the 101st New York Police Precinct. A junior member of the Syndic
customarily handled that job; you couldn't trust the cops not to squeeze
their customers and pocket the difference.
He walked absently through the not-unpleasant routine of the shakedown.
His mind was on his early-morning practice session of polo, in which he
had almost disgraced himself.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Orsino; a pleasure to see you again. Would you like
a cold glass of beer while I get the loot?"
"No, but thanks very much, Mr. Lefko--I'm in training, you know. Wish I
could take you up on it. Seven phones, isn't it, at ten dollars a
phone?"
"That's right, Mr. Orsino, and I'll be with you as soon as I lay off the
seventh at Hialeah; all the ladies went for a plater named Hearthmouse
because they thought the name was cute and left me with a dutch book. I
won't be a minute."
Lefko scuttled to a phone and dickered with another bookie somewhere
while Charles absently studied the crowd of chattering, laughing
horseplayers. ("Mister Orsino, did you come out to make a monkey of
yourself and waste my time? Confound it, sir, you have just fifty round
to a chukker and you must make them count!" He grinned unhappily. Old
Gilby, the pro, could be abrasive when a bone-head play disfigured the
game he loved. Charles had been sure Benny Grashkin's jeep would conk
out in a minute--it had been sputtering badly enough--and that he would
have had a dirt-cheap scoring shot while Benny changed mounts. But
Gilby blew the whistle and wasn't interested in your fine-spun logic.
"Confound it, sir, when will you young rufflers learn that you must
crawl before you walk? Now let me see a team rush for the goal--and I
mean _team_, Mr. Orsino!")
"_Here_ we are, Mr. Orsino, and just in time. There goes the seventh."
Charles shook hands and left amid screams of "Hearthmouse! Hearthmouse!"
from the lady bettors watching the screen.
High up in the Syndic Building, F. W. Taylor--Uncle Frank to
Charles--was giving a terrific tongue-lashing to a big, stooped old man.
Thornberry, president of the Chase National Bank, had pulled a butch and
F. W. Taylor was blazing mad about it.
He snarled: "One more like this, Thornberry, and you are out on your
padded can. When a respectable member of the Syndic chooses to come to
you for a line of credit, you will in the future give it without any
tom-fool quibbling about security. You bankers seem to think this is the
middle ages and that your bits of paper still have their old black
magic.
"Disabuse yourself of the notion. Nobody except you believes in it. The
Inexorable Laws of Economics are as dead as Dagon and Ishtar, and for
the same reason. No more worshippers. You bankers can't shove anybody
around any more. You're just a convenience, like the non-playing banker
in a card game.
"What's real now is the Syndic. What's real about the Syndic is its own
morale and the public's faith in it. Is that _clear_?"
Thornberry brokenly mumbled something about supply and demand.
Taylor sneered. "Supply and demand. Urim and Thummim. Show me a supply,
Thornberry, show me a--oh, hell. I haven't time to waste re-educating
you. Remember what I told you and don't argue. Unlimited credit to
Syndic members. If they overdo it, _we'll_ rectify the situation. Now,
get out." And Thornberry did, with senile tears in his eyes.
At Mother Maginnis' Ould Sod Pub, Mother Maginnis pulled a long face
when Charles Orsino came in. "It's always a pleasure to see you, Mr.
Orsino, but I'm afraid this week it'll be no pleasure for you to see
me."
She was always roundabout. "Why, what do you mean, Mrs. M.? I'm always
happy to say hello to a customer."
"It's the business, Mr. Orsino. It's the business. You'll pardon me if I
say that I can't see how to spare twenty-five dollars from the till, not
if my life depended on it. I can go to fifteen, but so help me--"
Charles looked grave--graver than he felt. It happened every day. "You
realize, Mrs. Maginnis, that you're letting the Syndic down. What would
the people in Syndic Territory do for protection if everybody took your
attitude?"
She looked sly. "I was thinking, Mr. Orsino, that a young man like you
must have a way with the girls--" By a mighty unsubtle maneuver, Mrs.
Maginnis' daughter emerged from the back room at that point and began
demurely mopping the bar. "And," she continued, "sure, any young lady
would consider it an honor to spend the evening with a young gentleman
from the Syndic--"
"Perhaps," Charles said, rapidly thinking it over. He would infinitely
rather spend the evening with a girl than at a Shakespeare revival as he
had planned, but there were drawbacks. In the first place, it would be
bribery. In the second place, he might fall for the girl and wake up
with Mrs. Maginnis for his mother-in-law--a fate too nauseating to
contemplate for more than a moment. In the third place, he had already
bought the tickets for himself and bodyguard.
"About the shakedown," he said decisively. "Call it fifteen this week.
If you're still doing badly next week, I'll have to ask for a look at
your books--to see whether a regular reduction is in order."
She got the hint, and colored. Putting down fifteen dollars, she said:
"Sure, that won't be necessary. I'm expecting business to take a turn
for the better. It's sure to pick up."
"Good, then." To show there were no hard feelings, he stayed for a
moment to ask: "How are your husbands?"
"So-so. Alfie's on the road this week and Dinnie's got the rheumatism
again but he can tend bar late, when it's slow."
"Tell him to drop around to the Medical Center and mention my name, Mrs.
Maginnis. Maybe they can do something for him."
She glowed with thanks and he left.
It was pleasant to be able to do things for nice people; it was pleasant
to stroll along the sunny street acknowledging tipped hats and friendly
words. (That team rush for the goal had been a sorry mess, but not his
fault--quite. Vladek had loosed a premature burst from his fifty caliber
at the ball, and sent it hurling off to the right; they had braked and
backed with much grinding of gears to form V again behind it, when
Gilby blew the whistle again.)
* * * * *
A nervous youngster in the National Press Service New York drop was
facing his first crisis on the job. Trouble lights had flashed
simultaneously on the Kansas City-New York, Hialeah-New York and
Boston-New York trunks. He stood, paralyzed.
His supervisor took it in in a flash and banged open the circuit to
Service. To the genial face that appeared on the screen, he snapped:
"Trace Hialeah, Boston and Kansas City--in that order, Micky."
Micky said: "Okay, pal," and vanished.
The supervisor turned to the youngster. "Didn't know what to do?" he
asked genially. "Don't let it worry you. Next time you'll know. You
noticed the order of priority?"
"Yes," the boy gulped.
"It wasn't an accident that I gave it to him that way. First, Hialeah
because it was the most important. We get the bulk of our revenue from
serving the horse rooms--in fact, I understand we started as a horse
wire exclusively. Naturally the horse-room customers pay for it in the
long run, but they pay without pain. Nobody's forcing them to improve
the breed, right?
"Second, Boston-New York trunk. That's common-carrier while the Fair
Grounds isn't running up there. We don't make any profit on
common-carrier service, the rates are too low, but we owe it to the
public that supports us.
"Third, Kansas City-New York. That's common carrier too, but with one
terminal in Mob Territory. No reason why we should knock ourselves out
for Regan and his boys, but after the other two are traced and closed,
we'll get around to them. Think you got it straight now?"
"Yes," the youngster said.
"Good. Just take it easy."
* * * * *
The supervisor moved away to do a job of billing that didn't need
immediate doing; he wanted to avoid the very appearance of nagging the
boy. He wondered too, if he'd really put it over, and decided he hadn't.
Who could, after all. It took years on the wires to get the feel. Slowly
your motivation changed. You started by wanting to make a place for
yourself and earn some dough. After years you realized, not with a
blinding flash, but gradually, that you were working for quite another
reason. Nice gang here that treats you right. Don't let the Syndic down.
The customers pay for their fun and by God, you see that they get it or
bust a gut trying.
* * * * *
On his way to the 101st Precinct station house, the ears of Charles
Orsino burned as he thought of the withering lecture that had followed
the blast on Gilby's whistle. "_Mister_ Orsino, is it or is it not your
responsibility as team captain to demand that a dangerous ball be taken
out of play? And did or did not that last burst from Mister Vladek beat
the ball out of round, thus giving rise to a distinct possibility of
dangerous ricochets?" The old man was right of course, but it had been a
pocked and battered practice ball to start with; in practice sessions,
you couldn't afford to be fussy--not with regulation 18 inch armor steel
balls selling for thirty dollars each at the pro shop.
He walked between the two green lamps of the precinct station and dumped
his bag on the sergeant's desk. Immediately the sergeant started a tale
of woe: "Mr. Orsino, I don't like to bother you with the men's personal
troubles, but I wonder if you could come through with a hundred dollar
present for a very deserving young fellow here. It's Patrolman Gibney,
seven years in the old 101st and not a black mark against him. One
citation for shooting it out with a burglar and another for nabbing a
past-post crook at Lefko's horse room. Gibney's been married for five
years and has two of the cutest kids you ever saw, and you know that
takes money. Now he wants to get married again, he's crazy in love with
the girl and his first wife don't mind, she says she can use a helping
hand around the house, and he wants to do it right with a big wedding.
"If he can do it on a hundred, he's welcome to it," Charles said,
grinning. "Give him my best wishes." He divided the pile of bills into
two orderly stacks, transferred a hundred dollars to one and pocketed
the other.
He dropped it off at the Syndic Building, had an uninteresting dinner in
one of its cafeterias and went to his furnished room downtown. He read a
chapter in F. W. Taylor's--Uncle Frank's--latest book, _Organization,
Symbolism and Morale_, couldn't understand a word he read, bathed and
got out his evening clothes.
* * * * *
A thin and attractive girl entered a preposterously-furnished room in
the Syndic Building, arguing bitterly with a white-bearded, hawk-nosed
old man.
"My dear ancestor," she began, with exaggerated patience.
"God-damn it, Lee, don't call me an ancestor! Makes me feel as if I was
dead already."
"You might as well be for all the sense you're talking."
"All right, Lee." He looked wounded and brave.
"Oh, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Edward--" She studied his face
with suddenly-narrowed eyes and her tone changed. "Listen, you old
devil, you're not fooling me for a minute. I couldn't hurt your feelings
with the blunt edge of an axe. You're not talking me into anything. It'd
just be sending somebody to his death. Besides, they were both
accidents." She turned and began to fiddle with a semi-circular screen
whose focus was a large and complicated chair. Three synchronized
projectors bore on the screen.
The old man said very softly: "And what if they weren't? Tom McGurn and
Bob were good men. None better. If the damn Government's knocking us off
one by one, something ought to be done. And you seem to be the only
person in a position to do it."
"Start a war," she said bitterly. "Sweep them from the seas. Wasn't Dick
Reiner chanting that when I was in diapers?"
"Yes," the old man brooded. "And he's still chanting it now that you're
in--whatever young ladies wear nowadays. Promise me something, Lee. If
there's another try, will you help us out?"
"I am so sure there won't be," she said, "that I'll promise. And God
help you, Edward, if you try to fake one. I've told you before and I
tell you now that it's almost certain death."
* * * * *
Charles Orsino studied himself in a three-way mirror.
The evening suit was new; he wished the gunbelt was. The holster rode
awkwardly on his hip; he hadn't got a new outfit since his eighteenth
birthday and his chest had filled out to the last hole of the
cross-strap's buckle since then. Well, it would have to wait; the
evening would cost him enough as it was. Five bodyguards! He winced at
the thought. But you had to be seen at these things and you had to do it
right or it didn't count.
He fell into a brief reverie of meeting a beautiful, beautiful girl at
the theater, a girl who would think he was interesting and handsome and
a wonderful polo player, a girl who would happily turn out to be in the
direct Falcaro line with all sorts of powerful relations to speak up for
him....
Someone said on his room annunciator: "The limousine is here, Mr.
Orsino. I'm Halloran, your chief bodyguard."
"Very well, Halloran," he said casually, just as he'd practiced it in
the bathroom that morning and rode down.
The limousine was a beauty and the guards were faultlessly turned out.
One was democratic with one's chief guard and a little less so with the
others. As Halloran drove, Charles chatted with him about the play,
which was Julius Caesar in modern dress. Halloran said he'd heard it was
very good.
* * * * *
Their arrival in the lobby of the Costello created no sensation. Five
bodyguards wasn't a lot of bodyguards, even though there seemed to be no
other Syndic people there. So much for the beautiful Falcaro girl.
Charles chatted with a television director he knew slightly. The
director explained to him that the theater was sick, very sick, that
Harry Tremaine,--he played Brutus--made a magnificent stage picture but
couldn't read lines.
By then Halloran was whispering in his ear that it was time to take
their seats. Halloran was sweating like a pig and Charles didn't get
around to asking him why. Charles took an aisle seat, Halloran was
across the aisle and the others sat to his side, front and rear.