Read Ebook: Check and Checkmate by Miller Walter M Beecham Tom Illustrator

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Ebook has 441 lines and 60733 words, and 9 pages

He kicked a foot-switch to kill the microphone circuit, and spoke quickly to the Stand-ins, knowing that the Asian could not see his lips move behind the golden mask.

"Is Security Section guarding against spy circuits?"

"Yes, John."

"Then quick, get out of the room, all of you! Join the Secondaries."

"But John, it'll leave you fingered! If nine of us leave, they'll know that the remaining one is--"

"Get on your masks and get out! I'm going to take mine off."

"But John--!"

"Move, Subversive!"

"You don't need to curse," the Stand-in muttered. The nine men, out of the camera's field, donned golden helmets identical to Smith's, whistled six notes to the audio-combination, then slipped out the thick steel door as it clicked and came open.

The Red was jeering at him quietly. "Afraid to take off your mask, President? The rabble? Or your self-appointed Stand-ins? Which frightens you, President--"

John Smith plucked at a latch under his chin, and the golden headdress came apart down the sides. He lifted it off and laid it casually aside, revealing a hard, blocky face, slightly in need of a shave, with cool blue eyes and blond brows. His hair was graying slightly at the temples, with a fortyish hairline.

The Red nodded. "Greetings, human. I doubted that you would."

"Why not?" growled Smith.

"Because you fear your Stand-ins, as appointees, not subject to your 'rabble'. Our ruling clique selects its own members, but they are subject to popular approval or recall by referendum. I fear nothing from them."

"Let's not compare our domestic forms, Peoplesfriend."

"I wanted to point out," the Asian continued calmly, "that your system slipped into what it is without realizing it. A bad was allowed to grow worse. We, however were reacting against unreasonableness and stupidity within our own system. In the year 2001--"

"I am aware of your history before the Big Silence. May we discuss pertinent matters--?"

"I shall have to consider your proposal," he said dully.

The Peoplesfriend nodded curtly, then suggested a time for the next interview. Smith revised it ahead to gain more time, and agreement was reached. The screen went blank; the interview was at an end. The Sixteenth Smith took a slow, worried breath, then slowly donned the mask of office again. He summoned the nine Primaries immediately.

"That was dangerous, John," one of them warned him as they entered. "You may regret it. They knew you were in here alone. We're not all identical from the neck-down you know. When we come out, they might compare--"

He cut the man off with a curt gesture. "No time. We're in a bad situation. Maybe worse than I guess." He began pacing the floor and staring down at the metallifiber rug as he spoke. "He knows more about us than he should. It took me awhile to realize that he's speaking our latest language variations. A language changes idiom in forty years, and slang. He's got the latest phrases. 'Greetings, human' is one, like a rabbleman says when somebody softens up."

"Spies?"

"Maybe a whole network. I don't see how they could get them through the Wall, but--maybe it's not so hard. Antarctic's open, as he pointed out."

"What can we do about it, John?"

Smith stopped pacing, popped his knuckles hard, stared at them. "Assemble Congress. Security-probe. It's the only answer. Let the 'Rabble's Parliament' run their own inquisition. They were always good at purging themselves. Start a big spy-scare, and keep it in the channels. I'll lead with a message to the rabble." He paused, the tragedy mask gaping at them. "You won't like this, but I'm having the Stand-ins probed too. The Presidency is not immune."

A muttering of indignation. Some of them went white. No one protested however.

He began to pace again. He began barking crisp orders for specific details of the probe, or rather, for the campaign that would start the probe. The rabble were better at witch-hunts than a government was. Congress had not been assembled for fifteen years, since there had been nothing suspicious to investigate, but once it was called to duty, heads would roll--some of them literally. If some innocent people were hurt, the rabble could only blame themselves, for their own enthusiasm in ruthlessly searching out the underground enemy. Smith couldn't worry about that. If an Asian spy-system were operating in the continent, it had to be crushed quickly.

When he had outlined the propaganda and string-pulling plans for them, he turned to the other matter--the Red leader's boast of ability to conquer the West.

"It's probably foolish talk, but we don't know their present psychology. Double production on our most impressive weapons. Give the artificial-satellite program all the money it wants, and get them moving on it. I want a missile-launching site in space before the end of the year. Pay particular attention to depopulation weapons for use against industrial areas. We may have to strike in a hurry. We've been fools--coasting this way, feeling secure behind the Wall."

When the President had finished and was ready to leave, the others started donning their masks again.

"Just a minute," he grunted. "Number Six."

One of the men, about the President's size and build, looked up quickly. "Yes, John?"

"Your cloak is stained at the left shoulder. Grease?"

Six inspected it curiously, then nodded. "I was inspecting a machine shop, and--"

"Never mind. Trade cloaks with me."

"Why, if--" Six stopped. His face lost color. "But the others--might have--"

"Precisely."

Six unclasped it slowly and handed it to the Sixteenth Smith, accepting the President's in return. His face was set in rigid lines, but he made no further protest.

Masked and prepared, a Stand-in whistled a tune to the door, which had changed its combination since the last time. The tumblers clicked, and they walked out into a large auditorium containing two hundred Secondary Stand-ins, all wearing the official mask.

If a Secondary ever wanted to assassinate the President, one shot would give him a single chance in ten as they filed through the door.

"Mill about!" bellowed a Sergeant-at-Arms, and the two hundred began wandering among themselves in the big room, a queer porridge, stirred clumsily but violently. The Primaries and the President lost themselves in the throng. For ten minutes the room milled and circulated.

"Unmask!" bellowed the crier.

The two hundred and ten promptly removed their helmets and placed them on the floor. The President was unmasked and unknown--unmarked except by a certain physical peculiarity that could be checked only by a physician, in case the authenticity of the presidential person was challenged, as it frequently was.

Then the Secondaries went out to lose themselves in a larger throng of Tertiaries, and the group split randomly to take the various underground highways to their homes.

The President entered his house in the suburbs of Dia City, hugged the children, and kissed his wife.

John Smith was profoundly disturbed. During the years of the Big Silence, a feeling of uneasy security had evolved. The Federation had been in isolation too long, and the East had become a mysterious unknown. The Presidency had oscillated between suspicious unease and smug confidence, depending perhaps upon the personality of the particular president more than anything else. The mysteriousness of the foe had been used politically to good advantage by every president selected to office, and the Sixteenth Smith had intended to so use it. But now he vaguely regretted it.

The tenure of office was still four years, and he could not help feeling that if he had maintained the intercontinental silence, he would not have had to worry about the spy-matter. If the hemisphere had been infiltrated, the subversive work had not begun yesterday. It had probably been going on for years, during several administrations, and the plans of the East, if any, would perhaps not come to a climax for several more years. He felt himself in the position of a man who suffered no pain as yet, but learned that he had an incurable disease. Why did he have to find out?

But now that the danger was apparent, he had to go ahead and fight it instead of allowing it to pass on to the next John Smith.

He made a stirring speech to Congress when it convened. The cowled figures of the people's representatives sat like gloomy gray shadows in the tiers of seats around the great amphitheatre under the night sky; the symbolic torches threw fluttering black shadows among their ranks. The sight always made him shiver. Their cowls and robes had been affected during the last great peace-effort, at which time they had been impregnated with lead to protect against bomb-radiation, but the garb of office had endured for ceremonial reasons.

There was still a Senate and a House, the former acting chiefly as an investigating body, the latter serving a legislative function in accordance with the rabble-code, which no longer applied to the Executive, being chiefly concerned with matters of rabble morals and police-functions. Its duties could mostly be handled by mail and televiewphone voting, so that it seldom convened in the physical sense.

The speech was televised to the rabble, and for that matter, one of the Stand-ins delivered the actual address to protect the President who was present on the platform among the ranks of Primaries and Secondaries, although not even these officials were aware of it. The address was honestly an emotional one, not bothering with any attempt at logical analysis. None was needed. Congress was always eager to investigate subversion. It was good political publicity, and about the only congressional activity that could command public attention and interest. The cheers were rousing and prolonged. When it was over, the Speaker and the President of the Senate both made brief addresses to set the machinery in motion.

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