"Didn't say a word. Just paraded past us. Some of the kids was crying, but otherwise they were quiet."
"Then one man came running back to me, and he said 'Get out of here. It's the devil's work. Get away from this place if you're a God-fearing man.' Then he turned and ran toward the subway with the rest.
"I couldn't figure we had any orders to stop 'em, so we didn't try. We just watched."
Oswald came back on the phone.
"Can you keep it out of the papers?" Randolph asked.
"It's already on every newscast, and the papers'll have it by noon—it's on the wires," Oswald said.
Randolph coughed nervously1, but Oswald didn't wait for him to speak.
"I'm working on something to counteract2 this," he said. "We're being witch-hunted," Oswald said. "I'll get the whole firm to work on it and call you back."
In Washington, meantime, another conference was going on, far more intent, far more critical.
"It's more than just a pest plane that crashed in Formosa, Mr. President," the CIA Chief was saying. "It carried bacterial4 bombs, and they exploded.
"There's been no attempt to hide its source. It's, of course, of enemy make. No identification on the bodies aboard, they're in civilian5 clothes. But again, the make is Moscow.
"It shouldn't be long before we know the worst."
"Will they clean this one up as they did the last one, or will they demand surrender terms on this one?" the President asked.
The Secretary of State and the Secretary of War started to answer together, but it was State that got the first word in.
"I think they'll clean this one up," he said. "It would be a direct threat on which they'll demand surrender terms. That's just a guess, of course.
"The best teams of doctors are being organized and jetted over. The best bacteriologists the nation has at its command. Every antibiotic6 available is being sent."
"Will that make a dent3?"
"No."
"How long can we keep it under wraps?"
"A week. Ten days, perhaps, with top security."
"Give it everything you've got. But keep it quiet until we know what the next move is. Twenty-four hour alert, of course, immediately."
"Even if the alert itself endangers the security wraps?"
"Yes. A week to ten days of security isn't enough to pay for taking a chance the other way."
By 4:00 p.m. Oswald was on the phone to Randolph. "We've got the antidote7," he said jubilantly.
Randolph was quiet for a minute, chewing his lip. Then: "I'm being vilified8 in the press as the creator of a hoax9 that even those who stood to benefit by it couldn't take," he said. "The few who have decided10 that a real miracle occurred have also decided that I'm in league with the devil, and that witches are for burning. Mostly Witch is the butt11 of every joke that can be dreamed up by every cub12 reporter in the nation. Saxton has started laying the groundwork for making Witch a political issue. There is talk of an FCC investigation13."
"I trust," he said formally, "that your antidote is an efficient one."
Oswald's voice sounded smug, and not at all disgruntled. "Try this on for size," he said. "First, Witch is known far and wide as nothing less could have made it known—"
"Yes, and if the churches ban the use of Witch, we'll wish we weren't."
"O.K., O.K. Tonight we explain carefully that the 'miracle' was a miracle of cleanliness, and that carpenters and contractors14 and all that did the miracle. You know, American technology and mass production in operation, something to be proud of. Tie Witch right in to the whole picture of the United States as the leader of mechanical—stress mechanical—miracles.
"Then—what's the most appealing thing in the world?" He didn't wait for an answer. "A child. A small, crippled child, for whom Witch can provide the funds to make her walk." Oswald hurried on, knowing that Randolph had to go through a bit of lip chewing before he could interrupt, and taking advantage of the fact to ride over objections.
"We've got a kid that an expensive operation will save from being a cripple. I've consulted two top surgeons already, and they say it's nearly positive.
"We don't do any hocus-pocus. We just say that Witch is going to pay for the operation. She leaves the broadcast and goes straight to the hospital. We get a movie of the operation, and we do movies on her convalescence15, and we play it for weeks until she walks on stage cured—weeks later."
Now Oswald waited. It was a long wait, an unusually long wait, even for Randolph. Finally, he said:
"All right. But if anything unusual occurs you will answer for it in court."
"Nothing unusual could occur. I admit I still don't know what happened last time, but we'll find out.
"Meantime, we'll take a week to build this one up," Oswald continued. "The buildup will stress that this is a cure being bought by money. No miracle, except the miracle of American medical know-how16. No miracles meantime. Just keep Witch clean and stay well, and Witch buys the operation the kid needs. She's pretty, too," he added as an afterthought. "Ten years old."
That night Bill Howard leaned across the desk toward the TV audience, and tiny droplets17 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 traffic in the nation, the efforts of the FBI and every law enforcement body in the country, to track it down, clean it out. He described what it did to the young, who got caught and were slaves for life, unless they could be cured—and he spoke18 of the meagerness of the cures that were known.
Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from his desk and he outlined how the raid had been staged, and he pointed19 out the location of the building where it had occurred. Then he followed with his pointer the route to the precinct jail where the victims were being held.
"Cannot our best researchers find a cure for this addiction20?" he asked in his husky voice. "Cannot our best law-enforcement agencies find the real perpetrators of these crimes? The perpetrators are the fiends who import dope and create addicts21 to peddle22 it for them. These who are confined are the victims. If no way can be found to cure them, they must be confined again and again and again, for that addiction will force them to ever-increasing crime to satisfy it.
"If no way can be found to cure them, these are potential slaves for life—"
As he ended the station break came, and the camera shifted to the Witches, dancing on stage, crying their chant.
"Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean—NOW!
"Which soap or detergent23, Witch cleanser upsurgent—"
The announcer's voice, when it came in over the muted jingle24 "explained" the miracle of the slum-clearance again—a miracle of American technology. Then he outlined the next "miracle" the Witch Corporation would promote. This, he said, would be a miracle of American Medical know-how. Witch would pay for the expensive operation needed to make a little girl walk again after a crippling disease several years before. Bone would be grafted25, new muscles would be grafted, American medical know-how in its full extent would be put at her service.
Keep healthy by keeping clean with Witch, the announcer suggested. Witch would pay for the expensive operation to undo26 the effects of one disease. Meanwhile, Witch's customers could use the preventive medicine of cleanliness to help them in their fight against disease, while the researchers of American medicine "seek to find you real protection."
It was 10:30 the next morning when the doorbell rang.
A big man was standing27 outside in a topcoat, hat in hand. Randolph stood in the door, waiting.
The man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside, gesturing him in.
"I didn't look at your badge close enough," Randolph said as he closed the door behind his visitor. "Who are you?"
"Narcotics28 squad29," the man said briefly30. "I was on the raid last night."
"Oh? The one Bill Howard was talking about in his newscast?"
"Yes. That one. I don't figure there's any connection, and my boss just 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 break for a cup of coffee across the street, and there was a TV in the place, and I watched your Bill Howard.
"I left just when your witches came on, shouting that thing about make it clean NOW. I went right back and started in on the questioning again, but the guy they brought in for me to question next was—not dopey. He was ... well, there's a difference between boys with the monkey 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 the higher-ups. It was being taped, of course, and I asked him when he'd had his last shot. Not twenty minutes before the raid, he said, calm as you please.
"I had the guys brought back that I'd talked to before and they were—different. Only way I can describe it is, no monkey. The monkey had been there before. I don't know. They each gave us all they had in leads—they'd been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries.
"I checked and nobody'd done anything to 'em to bring 'em off their jazz. 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 squad since the year One. I couldn't figure it. I'd been hearing stories about Witch Products and that miracle at the Battery, sort of as a joke, and I thought, just maybe, just possibly, you know....
"Anyhow, I took the tapes to my boss, and spoke my bit, but he just laughed.
"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 most pessimistic 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 contagious31 as well as having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcast methods were used," the CIA chief reported.
"Any word from their embassy?"
State answered that one. "No word at all. Phone calls to the Ambassador only elicit32 reports that he is not available. I can't reach anybody 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 leash33. Most of your leading papers know there's a twenty-four hour alert on—that was bound to leak—but I've kept them quiet. We'll have to give them something soon, though. They won't take a muzzle34 too long without at least knowing why."
"Could you give them the story and trust them, when it's this important, and the consequences of leakage35 this apparent?"
"I'd thought of that. You can convince some newsmen—but there's always a Joe somewhere who figures the American people have a right to know their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect—and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel it would not be good for them."
"Keep it top security as long as possible. Let me know before it breaks."
"If I can. I'm not a witch. I might not know when it was breaking." The CIA chief grinned sourly at his own allusion36.
The next night, the big news was the countdown in process at Canaveral to put a functioning "dome37" on the moon. If the dome could be landed successfully, complete with live animals, a man would follow shortly. That was foregone. The question was landing the dome, just a small spaceship body, but completely equipped to keep a man alive for two years, in case anything went wrong with plans to bring him back pronto.
Bill Howard's voice was excited, and he ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back as he leaned across the desk, the map of Florida behind him.
"To the statesmen, this is a question of who is first and who is second, and perhaps who will control the spaceways," he said after describing the countdown in process.
"But to the peoples of the world, this is mankind, reaching for the stars.
"It is not known," he said solemnly, "whether the failure of many of our shots has been human error or sabotage38. Human error is a frailty39 of the race. Sabotage is a frailty of statesmanship, that the world is still divided as it reaches for the stars. Yet each is possible.
"Is there a mechanical error built in by human frailty in tonight's shot? Is there a saboteur at work?
"Or, as the countdown reaches zero, one hour from now, will the dome tear through the atmosphere of Earth in man's first real step to the stars successfully? Is our bird perfect this time?" he asked, as the break 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. The man from the Narcotics Squad had left peaceably. There were answers to all the questions, and it wasn't his worry anyway. He'd be glad when the little girl had her operation. Grafting40 bones and muscles might be miraculous41, but they were explicable and everybody understood them. Talk of the FCC investigation had died aborning, but talk like that was 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 the crippled child was scheduled to come on the Witch program.
For the American people it was a day of celebration comparable to the Fourth of July. In the White House gloom hung like a palpable shroud42.
"They'll have to move fast now," the Secretary of War was reporting to his chief. "They can't afford to let us get our man up there. Even if we could shoot him off successfully."
"We can't shoot a man up there until we've proved in at least two more successful shots that we can get him there," Security declared forcefully. "The threat from our enemies is as nothing to the threat from the vote-wielding public if we tried and failed when a human life is at stake."
"Formosa is leaking," admitted the CIA chief. "We can't hold it more than three days now at the outside."
The President rested a hand on his desk. "Two more shots mean at least six months before a man is up there, armed. Three days means Formosa is in the news this week. When the news breaks, credit our doctors and bacteriologists with being on the way to a cure. Fix it so that if they clean up their epidemic43, the way they did Suez, we get the credit.
"That's the best we can do right now. Besides looking for a miracle. But miracles are popular these days," he added ruefully.
It was Bill Howard who stood outside when Randolph answered his doorbell next morning. He let the big, homely44, almost shambling figure in without a word.
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1
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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2
counteract
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| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
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3
dent
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| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
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4
bacterial
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| a.细菌的 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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6
antibiotic
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| adj.抗菌的；n.抗生素 | |
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7
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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8
vilified
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| v.中伤，诽谤( vilify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
hoax
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| v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧 | |
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10
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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11
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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12
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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14
contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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15
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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16
know-how
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| n.知识；技术；诀窍 | |
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17
droplets
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| n.小滴( droplet的名词复数 ) | |
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18
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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19
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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addicts
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| 有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人 | |
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22
peddle
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| vt.(沿街)叫卖，兜售；宣传，散播 | |
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23
detergent
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| n.洗涤剂；adj.有洗净力的 | |
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24
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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25
grafted
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| 移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根 | |
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26
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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28
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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29
squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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30
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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31
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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32
elicit
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| v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
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33
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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34
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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35
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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36
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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37
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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38
sabotage
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| n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏 | |
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39
frailty
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| n.脆弱；意志薄弱 | |
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40
grafting
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| 嫁接法，移植法 | |
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41
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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42
shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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43
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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44
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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