The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith
“Ask anything you wish, Mr. Madison. But you’re out of order, and will have to wait your turn. Please carry on, Jenny.”
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Lieutenant … Win? Is it true that you, and others, were physically attacked in an attempt to keep the Probability Broach under government control?”
“Well, I can’t exactly testify to their motives—”
“And these attacks continued in our world?”
“Yes. Two good friends of mine, who tended my wounds, took my risks, helped me orient—they’re gone! For all I know, they’re—You’re gonna get yours, you scummy bastards! Do you hear me? Are you listening, you—”
Olongo rested a kindly paw on my shoulder. “Please calm yourself, Lieutenant. You’re making reference to someone in this room. Mr. John Jay Madison. Isn’t one of his companions from your own world?”
I breathed deeply, wiping my eyes with a corner of my poncho. “Yes, Oscar Burgess, over there with Madison. He’s Denver Chief of Station for the Federal Security Police. They kidnapped my friends, to keep me from testifying.”
Olongo addressed the assembly. “Any more questions, before we move on?”
Madison came charging down the aisle. “Isn’t it true you’re a charlatan? An ordinary, third-rate commercial peeper, covering up thefts from a client whose trust you’ve also rewarded by implicating him in this fantasy of yours? Speak up! The nation must understand the depths of your depravity!”
I sat it out while Olongo hammered down the crowd. The gavel suddenly snapped, its head bounced across the floor, landing at Madison’s feet. The gorilla drew his sidearm and went right on pounding. “Order! Order! There’ll be quiet in this room, or I’ll start awarding extra navels!” He turned the weapon in his fist, but kept it pointed aloft. “Who’s first?” Someone tittered, Olongo cracked a hideously fanged grin, and holstered the piece. “Lieutenant, would you care to answer this gentleman?”
I struggled not to get angrier. “Mr. Vice President, in the place I come from—in my history, George Washington defeated the Whiskey Rebellion. Just as there were two George Washingtons, in your world where he was executed, and in mine where he died in bed, there are two Edward William Bears—and Madison’s perfectly aware of it. The Edward Bear in your world, a man I’ve come to regard as a brother, is a detective in Laporte. I met him—”
“Just a moment,” Madison interrupted. “If there are two of you, why not simply produce this superfluous Edward Bear for us?”
“Because, you son of a bitch, he’s one of the people you kidnapped aboard the San Francisco Palace! There were also two Manfred von Richthofens, you know. The one in my world got what he deserved!”
Madison affected an exaggerated gesture of tolerant amusement. “Honestly, ladies and gentlemen, is there no length to which these lunatics will spin their fantasies? I have no more questions, Mr. Bear, or whoever you are. Try to get some professional help, soon.” He waltzed back to his desk before I could plant my boot where it might do the most good.
OTHER DELEGATES WANTED answers, too. Bit by bit, I managed to tell the whole story, then Lucy was called for corroboration. I sat, clenching and unclenching my fists, as she told of Clarissa’s disappearance. Whatever else happened, I was deciding to kill Madison before this was all over, or be killed myself. I didn’t really care which.
Past midnight, when I was beyond feeling tired, they showed more film—sixteen millimeter, this time. Before Madison could finish screaming protestations, the Seventh Continental Congress sat, stricken by a horror they’d never imagined possible.
The old films were grainy, scratched with age and many reproductions: over a large industrial city, a single B-29, a steel cylinder dropping from its belly. A flash, smoke billowing 50,000 feet, forming the poisonous mushroom of death. Then Nagasaki.
Then bigger, better bombs, fission giving way to fusion, kilotons to megadeaths. Years passed: Japanese cities, Pacific islands, Nevada, the Sahara, the Negev. Finally that hideous night in my world when the Soviets delivered their ultimatum to China, a last “humane” demonstration: a searing flash in the dark that left a jagged crack from pole to pole, visible across the surface of the moon. The Chinese surrendered the next morning.
Freeman K. Bertram rose in something like terrified dignity, as pale as the screen the films had finished running on. He sidled carefully from behind the Hamiltonians, avoiding contact as if they were contagious, and crossed the floor to Jenny and Olongo.
“Madame President, if it’s not too late … if there’s still some hope, I’d very much appreciate your permission to join, in whatever capacity you’ll have me, the Gallatinist Party.”
XX: A Matter of Honor
The entire concept of “law” is vain and fallacious, for what shall we have accomplished by enacting one? Those who agree with it will obey it, as they did before it existed. Those who disagree will break it, so it has no effect upon them. We have been occupied in an empty gesture of which but two consequences shall follow: those who take comfort in such things will be comforted, and those who derive perverted pleasure by enforcing their will upon others may now find positions among the police.
—Lysander Spooner
First Inaugural Address, 85 A.L.
Liberty Hall emptied in stunned silence, leaving Lucy and me behind. I’d lived all my life with a nuclear sword dangling over my head; it’s something else to be informed suddenly, to be shown, that your whole world’s slated for flaming destruction. That, or abject surrender, and Confederates didn’t strike me as the kind to lie down and spread their legs, even threatened with holocaust.
Gallatinopolis would be a quieter, more thoughtful city tonight. I’d like to report that I spent the night swashbuckling over the rooftops, wrenching the whereabouts of my friends from the villains, but I won’t. It was past three in the morning; Congress would reconvene at nine. I’d had a long day: the Palace kidnapping, eleven hours of parliamentary games, the sudden ominous appearance of Burgess—
As we staggered out of the assembly hall through the portrait gallery, there were a dozen blinding flashes. I was suddenly showered with difficult questions: “Mr. Bear! Are you from another planet?” “Mr. Bear! Isn’t this whole thing an elaborate hoax?” “Mr. Bear! Is your planet radioactive?” “Mr. Bear! How do you like Confederate women?” “Mr. Bear, is that an atomic-powered gun?”
“What can I do, Lucy? I want to go to bed!” I squinted against the glare. Didn’t they realize it hurts?
“Son, these vermin used to juggle, paint their faces up, and stand on their heads a few centuries ago. Treat ’em like any other morons—ignore ’em when you can, humor ’em when you can’t. You could holler ’Privacy,’ but—”
“Great! I’ll—”
“It won’t help our side much. Lemme handle this.” She waved her hands, hollering. “All right! All right! Lieutenant Bear’ll answer all reasonable and intelligent questions, but let’s make this an orderly stampede!” We found an unoccupied caucus room off the hall; I sat up front, Lucy riding shotgun, and did my best, while my sack-time evaporated. Toward the end, I don’t even remember what I said. Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
“Sam Hayakawa, Interplanet News. With me is ‘Win’ Bear, focus of the Seventh Continental Congress. Lieutenant Bear, may I call you Win? Would it be accurate to say you’re from another dimension?”
“I haven’t figured it out myself. I come from a place—a time, really—where history’s different, where—”
“I’m sure that’ll interest our technical-minded viewers, heh, heh. For us laymen, what’s it like to escape from a Federalist dictatorship, and win free to—”
“Now wait a minute! In the first place, I didn’t escape, I was pushed. In the second place the United States isn’t a dictatorship, it’s—”
“Win, since arriving here, you’ve left a wake of shootings behind you. We ordinarily expect perhaps a dozen murders per decade. You’ve killed that many in a month, and—?
“Friend, I’m going to explain this once: I didn’t ask to be here; I didn’t ask your Hamiltonians to—”
“Well, how many people have you killed, then?”
“Nobody who didn’t have a weapon out and pointed. Until now. I’m thinking of making an exception in your—”
“Umnh, one more question, Win …”
“Call me Lieutenant Bear.”
“Erh … since your nation-state—is that correct?—has a long history of atomic warfare, do the ruins of your once-great cities really glow in the—”
“How’d your viewers like it if I took the mike and shoved it right up your—”
“This—this is S-sam Hayakawa, Inner—Interplanet News. G-goodnight!”
TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1987
I tried to get up. The ‘com buzzer was wrecking my hearing. I found a thousand places where it hurt just to exist. Slipping a leg off the bed, I fell to the floor, gun butt digging painfully in my ribs. Even through the drapes, daylight was drilling straight into my skull. I reached up, groping along the edge of the keyboard, and must have hit the right button. The ’com suddenly squawked. “Win! Where are you, boy? What’s wrong?”
“Why nothing, Lucy. I was just admiring the carpet. Such color, such texture, such—you ever been hung over without drinking anything?”
“Politics, son, hazard of the profession. It’s ten forty-five. Ready for another round? We got ’em on the ropes already!”
“At least,” I groaned, “they have ropes to hold them up. What—”
“One thing at a time. I just talked to Forsyth, back at Madison’s place. When Burgess took off yesterday, they loaded a lot of stuff onto a freighter and—”
“Burgess is here. Where did the freighter go?”
“South along the Greenway. They were gone before Forsyth could get a team on ’em, worse luck.”
I got up painfully, sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s Madison up to?”
“Nothing. Maybe a dozen guns around his rooming house, and we’ve got people watching them. Haven’t even used the Telecom since they got here.”
“Lucy!” I said, “Surveillance? Wiretapping? Next you’ll tell me you’ve been out all morning collecting taxes!”
“Don’t talk dirty, boy. Sure, we been watching those snakes. They can sue me. I’ll forfeit everything, even take a nice long asteroid vacation if I have to. What damages you suppose Ed and Clarissa could collect from Madison?”
“Not a cent, I hope!”
“See your point, son. Change your socks ’n get over here. Things’re about t’pop!”
I took longer than that, but even after I met Lucy in Liberty Hall, things still weren’t about to “pop.” A few were eating Telecom breakfasts. The guy to our left was napping again. If I hadn’t seen his chair empty last night, I could have sworn he hadn’t moved. I ordered another glass of milk and waited, thinking about “Anarchist Standard Time.” Shortly after noon, Olongo used a brand-new gavel to hammer things back into shape. Jenny looked fresher than the day before. Politics agrees with some people. “In the light of what we witnessed yesterday, I move a state of extreme emergency!”
“Point of information, Olongo, dear.”
“What this time, Mrs. Grundy?”
“What does Jenny mean emergency? Are we declaring war on this United State?”
“States, Mrs. Grundy, plural. A point well taken, I confess. Jenny?”
Jenny took the microphone again. “Oh dear. I guess we mainly intended to warn everyone. I certainly don’t want to declare—”
“Wait a minute!” I surprised myself by jogging forward.
“Lieutenant Bear.” Olongo recognized me, perhaps a bit gratefully.
“Thanks,” I said, climbing up beside the shaggy vice president. “Listen, folks, I have friends in trouble. This whole world’s in trouble!” Scattered approval, and one or two boos. “I’m not a delegate or anything, but back home, the lowliest ward-heeler would have everything doped out by now, from appropriations and troop movements to a little graft for himself.” General amusement, and a purplish scowl from Buckley F Williams. “Maybe I can tell you what would happen, and whatever you don’t like, you can throw out—including me, if necessary. Whatever you do like, one of you could propose formally, and we can get on with it.”
“That might be permissible, if there are no objections. Do I hear—”
“Objections?” shouted Madison. He and his entourage were just coming in. “If this person is who he claims, he has no right to address this body, not being a citizen of the Confederacy! Or, he’s a criminal impostor, to be ejected immediately! In either event—”
“Sez who, Madison?” Lucy hollered. “Call me a citizen, you’ll get a Dakota pine cone planted where it’ll germinate quick!”
“Order! Lucy, deplore as I might the way you express it, I must say I agree. We will not have guards at our borders, nor papers to establish who belongs. There are no citizens here, Mr. Madison, nor subjects, nor serfs. Lieutenant Bear, do you live and work upon this continent?”
“I guess I do now, Mr. Vice President. Say, I have a bank account in Laporte. Does that help?”
The great anthropoid smiled. “I’ve no better qualification, myself. I don’t believe anyone would challenge my right to speak in this assembly. Would you, Mr. Madison? Good. Please continue, Lieutenant.”
“Okay. First, go ahead, declare your emergency. It’ll get people off the pot. Back home, we’d raise a lot of money, get working on the Broach so it can be used militarily, or prevented from being used. I know you can’t collect taxes, but … . Second—third, I mean, because first you should arrest Madison—I don’t know about declaring war. The United States has enough problems already, and SecPol is one of them. There are a few people over there who see things your way, too. You used propaganda in the Mexican War, and the war with the Czar. With Propertarian help, you can probably do it this time, too. The main thing’s to arrest this gang, and bend them until they tell us where my friends are. Will that do for a start?”
“So moved!” shouted Captain Couper.
“Out of order, I’m afraid,” Olongo said. “Jenny, will you accept Lieutenant Bear’s, and Captain Couper’s, amendment?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound very principled.”
“Well then,” I said, “I’ll make it a formal amendment.”
“SECOND!” The Neoimperialist delegation rose in unison.
“Mr. Vice President,” Madison said, “if we’re to be imprisoned, I’d like to hear the charges … and who the damaged parties are.”
“He’s got a point,” Jenny admitted. “Name the crime, name the victim—the basis for all adjudication.” Lucy was halfway down the aisle, and moving fast.
“What about Clarissa and Ed?” I shouted.
“Did we see these people snatch ’em?” Lucy asked, joining us up front. “Any witnesses to Madison’s threats?”
“What about Kleingunther? That shopgirl saw him take Clarissa!”
“Win, Madison’ll just disavow him, same as before.”
“Madame President! Mr. Vice President! Are these proceedings to be conducted among your cronies, in secret?” Madison stood, flanked by Burgess and the others. I began to get an idea.
“We are attempting,” Olongo enunciated icily, “to answer your question. Will you permit us to continue?”
Madison smiled nastily. “As you will, sir. Permit me to make a number of salient points, though. First, accepting only for the sake of discussion that all these accusations are correct, I’m afraid there is still nothing you could do about them.”
Jenny looked startled. “Why do you say that? You saw the films!”
He nodded, grinning even more. “Which, in theory, were criminally removed from my possession. However, forget that. If I intended to import foreign soldiers, by your own arguments I’ve done nothing wrong: you are attempting to restrict immigration!” He laughed while the rest of the room buzzed in confus
“Order!” Olongo bared his fangs. “Is there more of this?”
Madison affected a sweeping bow. “I’m getting to the meat, sir, but another illustration first: suppose I do intend to use atomic bombs. Who in this room will be the first to move against importation or possession of arms? I remind you that, pistols or nuclear weapons, the principle involved is precisely the same!”
There was even greater commotion; it took longer for Olongo to quiet them down. “Your point, Mr. Madison?”
The Hamiltonian was beaming. “Ah. I simply want you all to remember, over the coming weeks, that this highly-principled anarchism you’re so proud of renders you helpless to deter even threats of the most desperate nature. A more rational social order will have no such problems. That is why, in the end, we will triumph. I wish to thank you for an extremely entertaining two days, and bid each and every one a fond and anticipatory good—”
“Just a mind-forsaken minute, Madison!” Lucy ran toward the Hamiltonians. “I move a recess—sixty seconds!”
What was she up to? “Second!” I yelled, determined not to let her horn in on my action. She could even have Burgess. Madison was mine!
“Oh, very well,” Jenny said. “It’s been moved and seconded—I don’t have any idea why—that we recess for one minute. All in favor?”
Lucy gestured, there was a spatter of hesitant “ayes.” Without waiting for the gavel, she took the few remaining steps. “John Jay Madison, also known as Manfred von Richthofen, I accuse you of kidnapping and attempted murder. The victims: Edward William Bear of Laporte; Clarissa MacDougall Olson of same; and Edward William Bear of the United States of America. Also, Lucille Gallegos Kropotkin of Laporte, Lesser Coprates, and Ceres Central. Select a neutral adjudicator and post bond in the amount of five thousand gold ounces per complaint. Failure to do so will be proclaimed throughout the land, and you may be ostracized and banished from Civilization. What say you, John Jay Madison?”