Part 3

"Don't worry," Dr. Brooks said. "We're unplugged from the hospital system, but I reserved the only ambulance with its own computer circuit. It conveys limited ideas, but that's better than nothing."

Big Carl had erected the safety gates. "Look below," he said.

She stood up and pressed her forehead to the latticework of the nearest gate. At first there was only a diamond-shaped patch of sky, with the Silvertongue factory in the bottom corner. Then, as the platforms swung on its cables, she saw the curved edge of the Mushroom, and the Administration roof swarming with figures on motorskates. They circled among the squat mountain laurels, pointing upward. The ambulance walls settled around her suddenly blocking the view, and the belly of the vehicle rumbled shut. With a bump, the floor platform was deposited on its girders.

Dr. Brooks said, "We're away--I'll have the pilot phone the others!"

"Where's the socket?" Miss Knox asked. "Mr. Barger and I were talking."

Dr. Brooks plugged into an overhead beam and the mutape immediately began to chatter: "What is your first name, Miss Knox?"

"Delia," she said.

"Pete Brooks."

"Carl," the big man growled as he folded the gates.

"Call me Bill," said Mr. Barger's tape. Mr. Barger's square hand motioned her closer beside him. "Delia, do you know what we must do when we reach England? We must use the atom bomb first, before the admen have full control. Only then may we return to the America we know. The real America."

"Do the English know?" asked Miss Knox.

"Of course," she said. "They heard the broadcasts, and their scientists understood. They have supported our Royalty Party for years. I think I could increase the range of my device and reach America before they reached England--but there is no time for that. The world must unite against invasion. Even the Russians know that there is no limit to the scope or methods of greedy marketing specialists"--the machine punched out a pattern of giggles and chuckles--"and I doubt if the Russians could ever invent a radiocompressor."

"Are _all_ the admen part of this?"

"Absolutely not, young lady! The very great majority has always followed a strict code of ethics that the very small minority has always subverted. Many ethical admen are in the birds now, on their way to England--knowing perfectly well that England is poor territory for emotional salesmanship."

"But why a Royalty Party in a democracy?" Miss Knox asked.

"Royalty--" The tape showed amusement. "Not aristocracy. Royalty, as in share of and control over. Motto of the Royalty Party: 'The inventor is worthy of his invention,' meaning the right to say how his discovery shall or shall not be used--or not be used at all, if it can only be destructive--as well as sharing in the proceeds. Unreasonable attitudes are not possible; we have an Appeals Board that can overrule a pig-headed patentee. Radiocompressors were intended for beautification of environment, not deception or thought control."

"Why England?" she persisted.

"Pretty generally, the Royalty code is and has been standard procedure there. Like their constitution, it hasn't had to be put in writing."

"Aren't there slums and unsightly monuments in England, too?"

"Of course. Why do you think they would like to have the invention? But it's safe there; it won't be subverted to thought control and sales engineering.... Tell me, Delia, is Dr. Gesner on this ambulance? I would like to meet him."

Dr. Brooks had come back from the control room. He sat beside her on the bed. "Dr. Gesner went ahead with Dr. Hamilton," he said, "because you're healthier than either one of them. But, Mr. Barger--Bill--doesn't light-wave interference need two overlapping projectors plus the subliminal image? We only found one."

The recorder chattered: "I am sure the other is also somewhere in the bed. It is harmless by itself, and I am glad we have it--it will help me instruct a team of British physicists and engineers. But who is in the other compartment? I hate to play chess with the same people over and over."

"I'm afraid he doesn't play," said Brooks. "I think it's old Boney, who had his throat cut because your friends thought he might get you some help too soon."

The recorder punched out, "I would like to meet him," as Miss Knox jumped from the bed, pulling Dr. Brooks by the arm. The machine chattered again briefly and she stopped and read, "Do not neglect me altogether," and ran on. She opened the door to the other bed compartment.

Miss Erwin fell on her with a cuddly embrace, and then Dr. Brooks reached over her shoulder to shake Miss Erwin's hand. "How's the patient?" he asked.

Across the compartment, Boney's face expanded in a three-cornered smile.

"At least he slept," said Miss Erwin. "That poor Mr. Barger--all the time we thought he was in coma, he was wide awake!"

Miss Knox said, "Oh, my God!"

* * * * *

"I hear more jets!" wailed Miss Erwin's voice from the other room. "Why are they all flying home tonight, and we have to leave? Carl, are we--are we a quarter of the way to England?"

"No," Big Carl answered.

Miss Knox called through the doorway, "This one won't let me open the hatch!"

Hunched across the bed, his hair falling over his forehead, Dr. Brooks played chess with Mr. Barger. "Not in here," he said. "You can open the emergency hatch in back if you like night air. But don't expect to see the bombers--or anything but our own landing gear."

She slid past him and shut herself into the small rear compartment and turned out the light. She felt for the emergency lock and swung her weight backward as the damp black air screamed in and tugged at her face--the whirlybird showed its fat thigh with a _rackety-rackety-rack groundhog_! Tears ran down her cheeks, distorting her first view of darkness.

Beyond the machine's ungainly silhouette she peered and saw flashes of yellow light on water--but nothing, nothing familiar. Thus, squinting desperately toward home, she noticed it, marking the horizon. A glowing mushroom. It must have been gigantic.