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

The Council President, Morehead, came out a little door onto the rostrum and took his seat, pressing a button. The call bell began clanging slowly. Lancedale, glancing around, saw Cardon and nodded. On both sides of the chamber, the Literates began taking seats, and finally the call bell stopped, and Literate President Morehead rapped with his gavel. The opening formalities were hustled through. The routine held-over business was rubber-stamped with hasty votes of approval, even including the decisions of the extemporary meeting of that morning on the affair at Pelton's. Finally, the presiding officer rapped again and announced that the meeting was now open for new business.

At once, Harvey Graves was on his feet.

"Literate President," he began, as soon as the chair had recognized him, "this is scarcely new business, since it concerns a problem, a most serious problem, which I and some of my colleagues have brought to the attention of this Council many times in the past—the problem of Black Literacy!" He spat out the two words as though they were a mouthful of poison. "Literate President and fellow Literates, if anything could destroy our Fraternities, to which we have given our lives' devotion, it would be the widespread tendency to by-pass the Fraternities, the practice of Literacy by non-Fraternities people—"

"We've heard all that before, Wilton!" somebody from the Lancedale side called out. "What do you want to talk about that you haven't gotten on every record of every meeting for the last thirty years?"

"Why, this Pelton business," Graves snapped back at him. "You know what I mean. Your own associates are responsible for it!" He turned back to face the chair, and, with a surprising minimum of invective, described the scene in which Claire Pelton had demonstrated her Literacy. "And that's not all, brother Literates," he continued. "Since then, I've been receiving reports from the Pelton store. Claire Pelton has been openly doing the work of a Literate; going over the store's written records, checking inventories, checking the credit guide, handling the price lists—"

"What's that got to do with Black Literacy?" Gerald Toppington demanded. "Black Literacy is a term which labels the professional practice of Literacy, for hire, by a non-Fraternity Literate, or Literate service furnished for criminal or politically subversive purposes, or the betrayal of a client by a Fraternity Literate. There's nothing of the sort involved here. This girl, who does appear to be Literate, is simply looking after the interests of her family's business."

"She was taught by a Literate, a Fraternities-member, under, to say the very least, irregular circumstances, and without payment of any fee. Any fee, that is, that the Fraternities can collect any percentage on. And the Literate who taught her also taught her younger brother, Ray Pelton, and this Literate, who is known to be her lover—"

"Suppose he is her lover, so what?" one of Lancedale's partisans demanded. "You say, yourself, that she's a Literate. That ought to remove any objection. Why, if she were to come forward and admit and demonstrate her Literacy, there'd be no possible objection from the Fraternities' viewpoint to her marrying young Prestonby."

"And as for Prestonby's action in teaching Literacy to her and to her brother," Cardon spoke up, "I think he deserves the thanks and commendation of the Fraternities. He's put a period to four generations of bigoted Illiterates."

Wilton Joyner was on his feet. "Will Literate Graves yield for a motion?" he asked. "Thank you, Harvey. Literate President, and brother Literates: I yield to no man in my abhorrence of Black Literacy, or in my detestation for the political principles of which Chester Pelton has made himself the spokesman, but I deny that we should allow the acts and opinions of the Illiterate parent to sway us in our consideration of the Literate children. It has come to my notice, as it has to Literate Graves', that this young woman, Claire Pelton, is Literate to a degree that would be a credit to any Literate First Class, and her brother can match his Literacy creditably against that of any novice in our Fraternities. To show that we respect Literate ability, wherever we find it; to show that we are not the monopolistic closed-corporation our enemies accuse us of being; to show that we are not animated by a vindictive hatred of anything bearing the name of Pelton—I move, and ask that my motion be presented for seconding, that Claire Pelton, and her brother, Raymond Pelton, be duly elected, respectively, to the positions of Literate Third Class and Literate Novice, as members of the Associated Fraternities of Literates!"

From the Joyner-Graves side, there were dutiful cries of, "Yes! Yes! Admit the young Peltons!" and also gasps of horrified surprise from the rank-and-filers who hadn't been briefed on what was coming up.

Lancedale was on his feet in an instant. "Literate President!" he cried. "In view of the delicate political situation, and in view of Chester Pelton's violent denunciation of our Fraternities—"

"Literate Lancedale," the President objected. "The motion is not to be debated until it has been properly seconded."

"What does the Literate President think I'm doing?" Lancedale retorted. "I second the motion!"

Joyner looked at Lancedale in angry surprise, which gradually became fearful suspicion. His stooge, who had already risen with a prepared speech of seconding, simply gaped.

"Furthermore," Lancedale continued, "I move an amendment to Literate Joyner's motion. I move that the ceremony of the administration of the Literates' Oath, and the investiture in the smock and insignia, be carried out as soon as possible, and that an audio-visual recording be made, and telecast this evening, before twenty-one hundred."

Brigade commander Chernov, prodded by Cardon, jumped to his feet.

"Excellent!" he cried. "I second the motion to amend the motion of Literate Joyner."

If there were such a thing as a bomb which would explode stunned silence, Lancedale and Chernov had dropped such a bomb. Cardon could guess how Joyner and Graves felt; they were now beginning to be afraid of their own proposition. As for the Lancedale Literates, he knew how many of them felt. He'd felt the same way, himself, when Lancedale had proposed the idea. He got to his feet.

"Literate President, brother Literates," he raised his voice. "I call for an immediate vote on this amended motion, which I, personally, endorse most heartily, and which I hope to see carried unanimously."

"Now, wait a minute!" Joyner objected. "This motion ought to be debated—"

"What do you want to debate about it?" Chernov demanded. "You presented it, didn't you?"

"Well, I wanted to give the Council an opportunity to discuss it, as typical of our problems in dealing with Black ... I mean, non-Fraternities ... Literacy—"

"You mean, you didn't know it was loaded!" Cardon told him. "Well, that's your hard luck; we're going to squeeze the trigger!"

"I withdraw the motion!" Joyner shouted.

"Literate President," Lancedale said gently, his thin face lighting with an almost saintly smile, "Literate Joyner simply cannot withdraw his motion, now. It has been properly seconded and placed before the house, and so has my own humble contribution to it. I demand that the motion be acted upon."

"Vote! Vote! Vote!" the Lancedale Literates began yelling.

"I call on all my adherents to vote against this motion!" Joyner shouted.

"Now look here, Wilton!" Harvey Graves shouted, reddening with anger. "You're just making a fool out of me. This was your idea, in the first place! Do you want to smash everything we've ever done in the Fraternities?"

"Harvey, we can't go on with it," Joyner replied. He crossed quickly to Graves' seat and whispered something.

"For the record," Lancedale said sweetly, "our colleague, Literate Joyner, has just whispered to Literate Graves that since I have seconded his motion, he's now afraid of it. I think Literate Graves is trying to assure him that my support is merely a bluff. For the information of this body, I want to state categorically that it is not, and that I will be deeply disappointed if this motion does not pass."

An elderly Literate on the Joyner-Graves side, an undersized man with a bald head and a narrow mouth, was on his feet. He looked like an aged rat brought to bay by a terrier.

"I was against this fool idea from the start!" he yelled. "We've got to keep the Illiterates down; how are we ever going to do that if we go making Literates out of them? But you two thought you were being smart—"

"Shut up and sit down, you old jackass!" one of Joyner's people shouted at him.

"Shut up, yourself, Ginter," a hatchet-faced woman Literate from the Finance Section squawked.

Literate President Morehead, an amiable and ineffective maiden aunt in trousers, pounded frantically with his gavel. "Order!" he fairly screamed. "This is disgraceful!"

"You can say that again!" Brigade commander Chernov boomed. "What do you people over on the right think this is; an Illiterates' Organization Political Action meeting?"

"Vote! Vote!" Cardon bellowed.

Literate President Morehead banged his gavel and, in a last effort, started the call bell clanging.

"The motion has been presented and seconded; the amendment has been presented and seconded. It will now be put to a vote!"

"Roll call!" Cardon demanded. Four or five other voices, from both sides of the chamber, supported him.

"The vote will be by roll call," Literate President Morehead agreed. "Addison, Walter G."

"Aye!" He was a subordinate of Harvey Graves.

"Agostino, Pedro V."

"Aye!" He was a Lancedale man.

So it went on. Graves voted for the motion. Joyner voted against it. All the Lancedale faction, now convinced that their leader had the opposition on the run, voted loudly for it.

"The vote has been one hundred and eighty-three for, seventy-two against," Literate President Morehead finally announced. "The motion is herewith declared carried. Literate Lancedale, I appoint you to organize a committee to implement the said motion, at once."

Prestonby flung open the door of the rest room where Sergeant Coccozello and his subordinate were guarding the unconscious Pelton.

"Sergeant! Who's in charge of store police, now?"

Coccozello looked blank for an instant. "I guess I am," he said. "Lieutenant Dunbar's off on his vacation, in Mexico, and Captain Freizer's in the hospital; he was taken sick suddenly last evening."

Probably poisoned, Prestonby thought, making a mental note to find out which hospital and get in touch with one of the Literate medics there.

"Well, come out