Part 2

The door opened and there swept in a red-faced figure, colorfully august in the brown and gold robes of the Reformed and Reconciled Churches of the World. His stern, bloodshot eyes instantly fixed themselves on the remains of the Executive Council of the Young Freeworkers. They hastily excused themselves. They didn't exactly slink out, but they obviously had a hard time fighting the impulse.

The churchman wheeled on Scat. "I am the Reverend Arthur Allerdyce Bassett, spiritual monitor of Bronsco," he announced in a booming voice. "I have come to voice religion's protest against a publication which seeks to pander to the vilest impulses in man and bug, to reduce a creature made in the Lord's image to equality with his machines, to besmirch human dignity and sully the purity of Earth's womanhood by advocacy of open commerce with the foulest and most pruriently prying minds in all creation!"

He paused for breath.

Scat figuratively rubbed his hands. This was something he could get his teeth into. He could hardly wait to bring up the Missionary.

Fifteen minutes later the Reverend Bassett stalked out spluttering threats; he'd done everything but mention the Mystic X by name.

* * * * *

Scat's satisfied grin evaporated fast. He paced restlessly. Twice he pounded his palm and his lips formed the syllables, "Kemmerdygn." He recorded at an editorial, had to keep back-taping, gave it up. Finally he sat down at his desk and flashed Ten Mile.

"I want to talk-see Mr. Kemmerdygn."

"I'll connect you with his secretarial offices."

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Kemmerdygn is in conference."

"He'll be interested," Scat told the pretty, efficient-looking girl. "Tell him I want to beam a story about how he's begun to install at Ten Mile the most up-to-date and humane Martian-protective devices of any mine in the world."

A brief wait.

"Mr. Kemmerdygn has no comment. Good day."

Click-Click came in. He extended his pinchers for Scat's inspection. "My new manicure," he explained. "I've been forging the pincher-ridge patterns of one of those Martians we're keeping for the Underground. That's the only identification that means anything to a human. Get the idea?"

Scat frowned. "Too risky. You might get into Ten Mile, but I don't think you'd get out; we need you here."

"They need me more. Out there in their holes, while I can hop into a vacuum tank every night...." Suddenly Click-Click's pinchers stiffened. "Len's outside," he coded tersely. "I think he wants you; looks like they've brought a finder."

"Finder!" Scat shot up. "Got the cans ready?"

"Yes. Shall we put them in?"

"Not yet. But be ready."

He hurried out. There was a utility car with the Kemmerdygn insignia parked in front. Two scowling bug guards were arguing with Len. Their hands were suggestively near their squirt guns. One of them had a dirty-smocked girl by the wrist. She had a silly, open mouthed grin that just seemed to stay there; she drooled.

"We were telling him you got Ten Mile bugs inside," the bug guard explained to Scat.

Scat looked at him steadily. "We employ Martians to run the beam. They've confused your finder."

The guard pulled the girl to him. "Look Piggie," he said, "these people got bugs of their own. Maybe it's those you been feeling?" She shook her head stubbornly, like a little child. "It's our Ten Mile bugs you feel then? You're sure?" Her head bobbed up and down.

Bug finders were human beings with an inborn sensitivity to Martian telepathy, usually mentally defective. They could not interpret the telepathy, but they had an uncanny knack for distinguishing the characteristic thought-waves of an individual Martian.

The guard looked up at Scat. "We're coming in, Mister; Piggie never misses." He put his hand on his squirt gun.

4

Scat felt very conscious of his artificial arm. There was a tremor in the stump he couldn't control. From the door behind him he heard the code for "Catch!" He half turned and picked a blaster out of the air with his good hand.

"Not on my property," he told the guard.

The guard hesitated. "Okay then. Make us do it the hard way," he said. They got in the car and drove off, Piggie making inarticulate sounds of protest and having to be dragged.

Scat's eyes followed them. "Get out the truck," he told Len. "You're going to Manford to buy groceries. Click-Click, can your visitors. Fast."

"Underground?" Len asked with a look. Scat nodded.

About the time Len was ready to roll, the bug guards came jetting back, accompanied by a policeman who looked and acted exactly like them, except for the uniform.

"Got a warrant to search your place for fugitive bugs," he told Scat. "Hold on there!" he called to Len, who was starting the truck. "Let's have a look before you get away."

The bug guard led Piggie to the truck. She was making anxious, eager noises. Unexpectedly Click-Click came out from behind the truck, so that they almost collided. Piggie squealed and backed off, flapping her arms. The guard grabbed at his squirt gun, but Scat interposed.

"Your bug done that on purpose," the guard blustered threateningly. "He knows Piggie's no good for as much as ten minutes after she gets that close to a bug."

They searched the truck thoroughly. The body was empty except for some boxes of tape scrap and three medium sized cannisters conspicuously labeled in red:

CAUTION! BEAM REFUSE GAS Standard Container

Len's hand hovered over one of the cocks. "Want a sniff?" he asked pleasantly.

The guard gave him a sour look. Beam refuse gas was so deadly a poison that it could not safely be disposed of by any ordinary methods. It had to be shipped to a reconditioning plant in containers that were seamless--supposedly.

And these three cannisters actually contained beam refuse gas under standard pressure--they'd have to, in order to pass the minute inspection made at the regional border.

But the shell of a Martian is one of the most impermeable armors ever developed by organic evolution, and when quiescent he can go upwards for an hour without breathing. This is because he is built for an extremely rarified atmosphere--his physiology is typical of a depleted-planet economy. On Mars his inhalation/exhalation ratio is about 100/1. The chief problem in acclimitizing him to Earth is teaching him to inhale as infrequently as he exhales--otherwise oxygen-drowning occurs. A Martian's lungs are really oxygen accumulators. He has 100 per cent utilization of inhaled oxygen, and he exhales pure carbon dioxide freighted with other respiratory excretions--hence the "bad breath" so obnoxious to human beings.

* * * * *

With a jaunty wave of his hand, Len crawled off and the search moved inside the building. Scat stayed with them to make sure nothing was overlooked. But Piggie, recovered, maintained with sullen headshakes that she no longer felt the presence of Ten Mile bugs, and after that the guards lost interest. Scat could tell that they were puzzling as to how he'd smuggled out the bugs while they were getting the warrant--for undoubtedly there'd been Kemmerdygn spies watching the _Newsbeam_ building to prevent just such a move.

Afterwards Scat said to Click-Click, "I was a little worried when they took your pincher-prints."

"Anticipated," the Martian coded laconically. "I removed the forgeries, but since I have the casts they can easily be replaced. At first I thought of letting the guards pick me up here, but that would be too suspicious."

"It's going to be suspicious wherever it happens," said Scat, shaking his head. "In any case, you won't be able to pass bug-finder identification. Don't do it, Click-Click."

"You told Len to drop in at the _Free Martian_ offices and fetch a Martian to replace me?"

"You're bound and determined then?"

"Yes."

Scat sighed. "Okay, Click-Click. Yes, I told Len."

Scat felt a black pincher lightly touch his shoulder. "Don't mope, Scat. I get a great kick out of going contrary to your orders; after all, it's my badge of enlightenment. Most Martians are too obliging--it's our great racial sin. Works all right when everybody's telepathic--thought-pressure keeps the potential transgressor against social welfare in line. But when a telepathic race comes up against a non-telepathic one--ouch! Then the thought-pressure is all going one way. Our Golden Rule worked on Mars, but it sure got us into trouble here."

* * * * *

That evening, while Scat was having his last smoke, he wished that Len were there to chin with. He kept wondering, profitlessly, how long the regional court would hold out against the pressure Kemmerdygn was undoubtedly bringing to bear. Vacillating governments were the curse of eras like this--rather, the inevitable accompaniment. He wondered if there would be a civil war and to what degree he would be responsible for it. Tonight it was hard to dodge that question.

The talk-see button flashed, as he'd been expecting it to. This time the screen didn't stay completely dark. A wavering "X" glowed there. Black paper painted with phosphorescence and clapped over the screen at their end, he judged.

"Jonas Scatterday, you have disregarded our advice," came the whisper. "That is unwise. Your time-allotment is almost up. This is the last warning."

Scat wondered if he ought to have the call traced. Fat chance, with all the talk-see operators locals. Still, for the sake of the record ... but he felt tired.

* * * * *

Sometime that night Click-Click departed, but Len got back with the replacement in time for the morning edition. Afterwards he showed Scat a big ugly splotch on the tail of the truck where squirt gun corrosive was eating in.

"Tried to stop me on the way back just outside Bronsco," he explained as he swabbed on the decontamination fluid. "Had a barricade up, but I gunned my jets and managed to jump it."

He went on swabbing. "You know," he said reflectively, "the only good sign I've noticed in this burg so far is that the kids aren't bothering us so much. Maybe it's because we're running _Space Pals_ and _In the Days of the Airplane_. Those're a lot better than the crummy comics Donnolan was feeding them."

Scat laughed mirthlessly. "And maybe it's just because they've stepped back to give their parents a chance."

Pessimism wasn't usually Scat's forte, but he'd just reached the mental conclusion that it would be three days before the regional court would weaken and give Kemmerdygn--and the Mystic X--what amounted to carte blanche to handle the _Newsbeam_ situation any way they wanted to.

Actually, his guess was a day short. But that was no satisfaction; they were miserable days, all four of them. Days of feeling that there was no use beaming the news, because no one would watch it anyway. A steady stream of cancelled subscriptions--sets coming back for refund. Complaints. Threats from various sources. Attacks on their Martians. Nuisances, like putting stench gas in the ventilators while they were beaming an edition. No word from Click-Click, though Scat drove one of the Martians past Bugtown to try to pick up something on the grapevine. Fruitless conferences with the officers of the _Free Martian_ and members of the Martian Lobby--they were moving heaven and earth to keep the regional court in line, but it showed signs of wavering.

Most of all, the feeling that a wall was being built around the _Newsbeam_, shutting it off from the rest of the world. You couldn't see that wall, but everywhere in Bronsco you could touch it.

* * * * *

Late afternoon the fourth day, while they were getting out the evening edition, the wall was completed. Beam power went.

Len tried to flash the repair offices. The talk-see was dead.

"Looks like this is it," he told Scat.

Scat nodded. "Now look here. Len ..." he began.

A half hour later he was still trying to persuade Len to take the boys in the truck and make a run for it, when the spokesman of the Young Freeworkers stumbled into the office.

"Ran the slidewalks to warn you, Mr. Scatterday," he panted. "Mystic X. They're planning to get you tonight. Everybody's whispering. There's a lot of cars in the air, and they got big guards on all the trafficways--some of 'em are blocked off."

"What'd I tell you?" crowed Len. "We couldn't have got out anyway."

This was it all right, thought Scat. The regional court had knuckled under; the _Newsbeam_ was finished. Kemmerdygn's victory was so complete that they were being saved up as a kind of tidbit for the Mystic X.

Just like the Martian Clinic in Scarnston.

Of course, they'd known it was coming. The _Free Martian_ would demand that the regional government send in troops to prevent violence. Failing there, they would ship some of their own people into Bronsco. If they could.

"Thanks for telling us, kid," said Scat. "You better beat it now. No objections! Push him out, Len."

* * * * *

Slowly the night came down. It was like being in a fortress with the silence, and the pocket illuminators casting a ghostly light and every now and then one of the Martians clicking a terse report. Scat's stump bothered him.

Gradually a crowd gathered, outside the range of Martian telepathy, but inside perception.

"Mostly pensioners, but some bug guard," one of the Martians coded. "Donnolan's there, and...." He ticked off the names of a half dozen fairly prominent Bronsco figures. "Hold on; there's a new contingent moving in; they're wearing masks."

The talk-see began to work again. "Jonas Scatterday and Len Cutt, we're giving you one more chance. We want all of you outside. You two come out with your hands in the air, your bugs on all fours."

"We don't propose to die so quietly," Scat answered. "If you want us, come get us. I intend to defend my property. We're armed--_all_ of us."

Arming bugs! If they'd had any chance, that action had queered it.

The minutes dragged. From somewhere a pellet gun opened up and began to rattle interminably against the glastic. Len began to swear in a low, steady voice. The Martians moved their guns around as if admiring the internal workmanship. Scat realized that he was tapping out "Come on, Come on," in Martian code over and over again with his duraplast fingers.

"There's a new bunch joined them," a Martian informed him finally. "They seem to be arguing. I don't know about what--too far. They're moving off!"

"Kemmerdygn Interests calling Mr. Scatterday."

They all started at that musical voice--even the Martians. Scat jumped for the desk and flipped on the screen. He recognized the secretary he had conferred with.

"Mr. Kemmerdygn hopes you haven't suffered any unpleasantness," she informed him smilingly. "He took steps as soon as he heard you were in trouble. He particularly desires you to resume publication of the evening edition of the _Newsbeam_. Oh, and about that article you were planning. He would like to confer on it at some later date. You _will_ finish beaming the evening edition, won't you? Good evening."

As she flashed off, Len began to swear again, but in a different vein.

"There's more in this than ..." Scat began. "... but we got tapes to beam. Get going!"

* * * * *

He didn't return until after the _Newsbeam_ had been put to bed. There was a black figure sitting at his desk.

"Click-Click!"

"Absolutely." The Martian waved his pinchers airily--a startlingly human gesture. "You probably guessed what happened, but I thought maybe you'd want a personal report. The Martians at Ten Mile struck--every last one of them. Almost unprecedented, but not quite."

And with those government contracts hanging over his head, Kemmerdygn couldn't afford to lose half a day, Scat appended mentally.

"I won't say that I didn't have anything to do with it," Click-Click continued. "I kept the old grapevine humming. But most of the credit goes to the Martian Tape. The Martians were wild when it wasn't published today--especially because it carried the answers to yesterday's puzzles. Even Kemmerdygn couldn't figure out that one. They're going back to work now, but I imagine they'll be a long time forgetting this initial lesson in self-assertion."

Scat looked down at Click-Click. He grabbed his pincher and squeezed it--hard. Click-Click squeezed back--harder. But since it was Scat's duraplast hand, it didn't matter.

THE END