Null-ABC by John Joseph McGuire and H. Beam Piper (crime books to read .TXT) 📗

"How did you get into the store?"

"Through the freight conveyor, into the basement."

"But I thought those goons had both ends of that plugged."

"They did," Yetsko grinned. "But Ray Pelton took us in at the middle, and we crawled through a cable conduit to get around the gang at this end."

Cardon looked around quickly, in search of Ray. The boy, having come out of the excitement of battle, was looking around at the litter of dead and wounded on the blood-splashed floor. His eyes widened, and he gulped. Then, carefully setting the safety of his burp gun and slinging it, he went over and leaned against the wall, and was sick.

Prestonby, with Claire Pelton beside him, started toward the white-faced, retching boy. Yetsko put out a hamlike hand to stop them.

"If the kid wants to be sick, let him be sick," he said. "He's got a right to. I was sicker'n that, after my first fight. But he won't do that the next time."

"There isn't going to be any next time!" Claire declared, with maternal protectiveness.

"That's what you think, Miss Claire," Yetsko told her. "That boy's gonna make a great storm trooper," he declared. "Every bit as great as Captain Prestonby, here."

Claire looked up at Prestonby almost worshipfully. "And I never knew anything about your being a fighting-man, till today," she said. "Ralph, there's so much about you that I don't know."

"There'll be plenty of time to find out, now, honey," he told her.

Cardon stepped over the body of Joe West and went up to them.

"Sorry to intrude on you two," he said, "but we've got to figure on how to get out of here. Could we get out the same way you got in?" he asked Yetsko. "And take Mr. Pelton with us?"

Yetsko frowned. "Part of the way, we gotta crawl through this conduit; it's only about a yard square. And we'd have to go up a ladder, and out a manhole, to get out of the conveyor tunnel. What sorta shape's Mr. Pelton in?"

"He's under hypnotaine, completely unconscious," Prestonby said.

"Then we'd have to drag him," Yetsko said. "Strap him up in a tarp, or load him into a sleeping bag, if we can get hold of one."

"There are plenty, down in the warehouse," Latterman interrupted, joining them. "And the warehouse is in our hands."

"All right," Cardon decided. "We'll take him out, now, and take him home. I have some men there who'll take care of him. We'll have to get you and Ray out, too," he told Claire. "I think we'll take both of you to Literates' Hall; you'll be absolutely safe there."

"But the store," Claire started to object. "And all these people who came here to help us—"

"As soon as I have your father home, I'm going to start rounding up a gang to raise the siege," Cardon said. "Radical-Socialist storm troops, and—" He grinned suddenly. "The insurance company; the one that has the store insured against riot! Why didn't I think of them before? They're losing money every second this thing goes on. It'll be worth their while to start doing something to stop it!"

The trip out through the conduit was not so difficult, even with the encumbrance of the unconscious Chester Pelton, but Prestonby was convinced that, except for the giant strength of Doug Yetsko, it would have been nearly impossible. Ray Pelton, recovered from his after-battle nausea and steeled by responsibility, went first. Cardon crawled after him, followed by a couple of the boys. Then came Yetsko, dragging the sleeping bag in which Chester Pelton was packed like a mummy. Prestonby himself followed, pushing on his future father-in-law's feet, and Claire crawled behind, with the rest of Ray's schoolmates for a rearguard.

They got past the battle which was still going on at the entrance to the store basement, letting Pelton down with a rope and carrying him onto the outward-bound belt. They left it in time to assemble under the ladder leading to the alley through which Ray said they had entered, and hauled Pelton up after them. Then, when they were all out in the open again, Ray ran up the alley and mounted a fire escape, and, in a few minutes, a big 'copter truck which had been parked on the roof let down to them. Into this, Cardon ordered the unconscious senatorial candidate loaded, and the boys who had come with Ray.

"I'll take him home, and then run the boys to the school," he told Prestonby. "You and Ray and Claire get in this other 'copter and go straight to Literates' Hall." He pointed up to the passenger vehicle which was hovering above, waiting for the truck to leave. "Go in the church way, and go straight to Lancedale's office. And here." He scribbled an address and a phone number and a couple of names. "These men have my 'copter at this address. Call them as soon as you get to Literates' Hall and have them take it at once to Pelton's home, on Long Island."

Prestonby nodded and watched Cardon climb into the truck. The Literates' guard who was driving lifted it up and began windmilling away toward the east. The passenger 'copter, driven by another guard from the school, settled down. Putting Ray and Claire into it, he climbed in after them.

"Ray," he said, "how would you like to be a real white-smock Literate?"

Ray's eyes opened. "You think I'm good enough?"

"Good enough to be a novice, to start with. And I don't think you'll stay a novice long."

Claire looked at him inquiringly, saying nothing.

"You, too, honey," he said. "Frank fixed it all up. You and Ray will be admitted to the Fraternities, this afternoon. And that will remove any objection to our being married."

"But ... how about the Senator?" she asked.

Prestonby shrugged. "It's all over the state now that you can read; there's nothing that you can do about it. And Frank has a lot of influence with him; he'll talk him around to where he'll be willing to make the best of it, in a week or so."

Russell Latterman noticed that Major Slater was looking at him in a respectfully inquiring manner. He said nothing, and, at length, the Literates' guards officer broke the silence.

"You didn't go out with the others."

Latterman shook his head. "No, major; I'm an executive of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise, however unlike its name it may look at the moment. My job's here. I'm afraid I'll have to lean pretty heavily on you, until Mr. Cardon can get help to us. I'm not particularly used to combat."

"You've been doing all right with that rifle," Slater told him.

"I can hit what I aim at, yes. But I'm not used to commanding men in combat, and I'm not much of a tactician."

Slater thrust out his hand impulsively. "I took a sort of poor view of you, at first. I'm sorry," he said. "Want me to take command?"

"If you please, major."

"What are you going to do, after this thing's over?" Slater asked.

"Stay on with Pelton's, provided Mr. P. doesn't find out that I organized that trick with his medicine and the safe," Latterman said. "Since Lancedale seems to have gotten on top at the Hall, I am, as of now, a Lancedale partisan. That's partly opportunism, and it's partly because, since a single policy has been adopted, I feel obliged to go along with it. I'll have to get the store back in operation, as soon as possible. Pelton's going to need money, badly, if he's going to try for the presidency in '44." He looked around him. "You know, I've always wanted to run a fire sale; this'll be even better—a battle sale!"

Cardon watched Chester Pelton apprehensively as the bald-headed merchant and senatorial candidate sipped from the tall glass in his hand and then set it on the table beside him. His face was pale, and he had the look of a man who has just been hit with a blackjack.

"That's an awful load of bricks to dump on a man, all at once, Frank," he said reproachfully.

"You'd rather I told you, now, than turn on the TV and hear some commentator talking about it, wouldn't you?" Cardon asked.

Pelton swore vilely, in a lifeless monotone, cursing Literacy, and all Literates back to the invention of the alphabet. Then he stopped short.

"No, Frank, I don't mean that, either. My own son and daughter are Literates; I can't say that about them. But how long—?"

"Oh, for about a year, I'd say. I understand, now, that they were admitted to the Fraternities six months ago," he invented.

"And they were working against me, all that time?" Pelton demanded.

Cardon shook his head. "No, Chet; they were for you, all the way. Your daughter exposed her Literacy to save your life. Your son and his teacher came to your store and fought for you. But there are Literates who want to see you defeated, and they're the ones who made that audio-visual, secretly, of the ceremony in which your son and daughter took the Literates' Oath and received the white smock, and they're going to telecast it this evening at twenty-one hundred. Coming on top of the stories that have been going around all afternoon, and Slade Gardner's speech, this morning, they think that'll be enough to defeat you."

"Well, don't you?" Pelton gloomed. "My own kids, Literates!" He seemed to have reached a point at which he was actually getting a masochistic pleasure out of turning the dagger in his wounds. "Who'd trust me, after this?"

"No, Chet; it isn't enough to beat you—if you just throw away that crying towel and start fighting. They made one mistake that's going to wreck them."

"What's that, Frank?" Pelton brightened, by about one angstrom unit.

"The timing, of course!" Cardon told him, impatiently. "I thought you'd see that, at once. This telecast comes on at twenty-one hundred. Your final speech comes on at twenty-one thirty. As soon as they've shown this business of Claire and Ray taking the Literate Oath, you'll be on the air, yourself, and if you put on any kind of a show worth the name, it won't be safe for anybody in this state to be caught wearing a white smock. Now, if they'd only had the wit to wait till after you'd delivered that speech you've been practicing on for the last two weeks, and then spring this on you, that would have been different. They'd have had you over a barrel. But this way, you have them!"

Pelton took another gulp from the tall glass at his elbow, emptying it. "Fix me up another of these, Frank," he said. "I feel like a new man, already." Then his face clouded again. "But we have no time to prepare a speech, now, and I just can't ad lib one."

Cardon drew a little half-inch record-disk from his pocket case.

"Play this off," he said. "I had it fixed up, as soon as I got wise to what was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office, over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and everything correct."

Pelton snapped the disk onto his recorder and put in the ear plug. Then, before he pressed the stud, he looked at Cardon curiously.

"How'd you get onto this, anyhow, Frank?" he wanted to know.

"Well ... I hope you don't ask me for an accounting of all the money I've been spending in this campaign, because some of the items would look funny as hell, but—"

"No accounting, Frank. After all, you spent as much of your own money as you did of mine," Pelton interrupted.

"... But I bought myself a pipe line into Literates' Hall big enough to chase an elephant through," Cardon went on, ignoring the interruption. "This fellow Mongery, for instance." Elliot Mongery was one of Literate Frank Cardon's best friends; he comforted his conscience with the knowledge that Mongery would slander him just as unscrupulously, if the interests of the Lancedale Plan were at stake. "I have Mongery just like this." He made a clutching and lifting gesture, as though he were picking up some small animal by the scruff of the neck. "So, as soon as I got word of it, I started getting this thing together. It isn't the kind of a job a Literate semanticist would do, but it's all honest Illiterate thinking, in Illiterate language. Turn it on, and tell me what you think of it."

While Pelton listened to the record, Cardon mixed him another of the highballs, adding a little of the heart-stimulant the medic had given him. Pelton was grinning savagely when he turned off the little machine and took out the ear plug.

"Great stuff, Frank! And I won't have to ham it much; it's just about the way I feel." He thought for a moment. "You have me talking about my ruined store,