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  Amelia Webster. A remarkable woman. We missed each other by about thirty-five years, and I've regretted it ever since. Perhaps the next time around.

  It was three o'clock when I took the keys from her and left the room. It was close to midnight when I climbed back into my rented car and began to drive back to Atlanta.

  * * *

  That was on March 19, 1980. If you look at the newspapers for that year, you will find that James Webster was murdered on the evening of March 28th. Shot by an unknown assassin in the middle of an evening political rally. The shot was fired from a considerable distance using a high-powered rifle and a telescopic sight.

  No, I must correct that. The telescopic sight wasn't in any of the news reports—they never found the rifle.

  I shot James Webster. I didn't regret it then, and although the idea of murder for political ends appalls me, I have never regretted it since. In the eyes of the world, I might have been able to justify James Webster's murder for good political reasons.

  But seen through those same eyes, I committed the greatest treason. I did the right deed for the wrong reason.

  Let me come now to the heart of it.

  It all boils down to this: what was it I found in the Webster house? Well, what had I been expecting? It was hard to put a name to it, but mass hypnotism comes close. A 'hypnotic generator,' maybe, that would allow one man to mesmerize a whole crowd. That was what was floating around in my mind.

  I found worse than that. First was Webster's diary. Not for the past; for the future. Meticulously noted, day by day and meeting by meeting, the path to the Presidency of the United States.

  Five primaries, the convention, the television speeches, the pre-election addresses.

  Alone, that would have been nothing. Men have dreamed of power, and it is certain that many have made detailed plans to get it, but failed along the way. Webster would not have failed. What I found in his studio proved that.

  It took a while for me to put the pieces together. First there was the general theory. Three heavy black loose-leaf binders, full of mathematics and right over my head. Next to them I found a whole series of Webster 'speeches.' Each had a title and a date, running through the end of 1980. Inside the folder for each speech it looked like the score for a complicated opera, plus lots of added notation that I couldn't follow.

  The words—I recognized some of them, from Webster's speeches in Atlanta—had their own diacritical and pitch marks, above and below them. The music that went with them was precisely annotated as to volume, crescendi, diminuendi and instrumentation.

  On a desk in the corner I found another set of books. Famous speeches by Demosthenes, Cicero, William Jennings Bryan, Adolf Hitler and others. Each had numerous changes, added by Webster, plus again his strange 'orchestration' and added symbols. I finally realized that these were test pieces of Webster's theory and techniques.

  The whole studio was packed with sophisticated recording equipment. Monitors for recording and varying pitch and intonation. Complex tape decks to permit multiple-track recordings, dubbing and splicing. Oscilloscopes to permit the display of wave forms, filters for signal processing, and signal synthesizers. I consider I know a fair amount about recording techniques but I was out of my depth. Webster had a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment in that single room.

  I might never have fathomed the mystery without Webster's direct assistance. The key was in a thin blue book, over on the low table by the bricked-up fireplace of the studio. James Webster had kept a private log and diary for all his work.

  Perhaps everybody needs someone to talk to—a Boswell, a Horatio, a wife or a confessor. James Webster had followed Samuel Pepys and used a private diary.

  From it I at last understood the true scope of his work, his ego and his ambition.

  James Webster, with his failings, was a genius. He had developed the basic theory of human communication, the underlying eternal rules that govern human action and reaction. From that theoretical beginning, he had gone on to find the precise combinations of sounds that would stimulate a particular emotional response. It was an exact science. The calculations were long and complex and exact results hard to achieve, but Webster had developed an 'approximation theory' that used combinations of English words and musical sounds to approximate the mathematically optimal signals.

  His 'speeches' were approximations of this type. As he said in his diary, "all the efforts of the great orators through history have been crude and intuitive attempts to do empirically and unreliably what I can now do with absolute assurance."

  A great man could have found noble uses for his discoveries. Webster had no such objective. The pursuit of personal power, above and beyond any leader in history, was his ambition.

  Did I mention at the beginning that this is a confession? It is. Why didn't I reveal Webster's plans to the world and let society deal with him? Wouldn't I have been regarded as a hero, the man who saved the country (and the world) from an absolute dictatorship? Aye, there's the rub.

  I told you I am appalled at the very idea of killing for political reasons. This is the simple truth. I shot Webster for different and more selfish reasons.

  To those people who have heard of me at all, I am a political writer. I have been one for so long that they cannot imagine me as anything else. But every harlot was a virgin once. Scratch a hack writer, and underneath you often find a poet. That's me. Fifty years ago I decided that I had to earn a living and turned my back on poetry. Only the longing and the love lived on.

  When I left the Webster estate that night, so many years ago, I went to my hotel and I thought, long and painfully. I knew that all the great orators of the past had become fumbling amateurs, blindly stumbling towards Webster's exact knowledge.

  But I knew more than that, much more. I thought of Keats, Coleridge, Milton, Eliot and Wordsworth—of Shakespeare. Their words, long cherished, flooded my mind. And music. I heard the complex web of the final Ricercare of the 'Musical Offering'— the de profundis opening of the Ring—the whirlwind and lightning finale of Schubert's C Major Symphony. All now to be dismissed, discarded, crude approximations to a single attainable absolute. My world was to become obsolete.

  Take your fifty favorite pieces of music, your hundred best-loved poems. Imagine them gone from the world, swept away by a final and terrible progress. Now you know why I killed James Webster, or you will never know.

  Afterword.

  This was the first story I sold. That makes it awfully hard for me to be objective, but I'll try.

  The hero (or villain, depending on your viewpoint) claims to be a poet who was forced to do other things with his working life. I'm not a poet, and I was afraid that would be obvious from my prose. So when I first wrote the story I tried to do it almost wholly in quotations. The result had a certain strange charm. Read aloud, it was like gargling with porridge. I'm sorry now that I threw the first draft away.

  When I rewrote it I cut the literary references to a reasonable level—I think there are now fourteen direct quotes in it, including the title. Still too many, probably, but I needed them to bolster my confidence.

  As for the plot, I have often wondered how Adolf Hitler, such a funny looking ridiculous figure, could exercise the power he did over the German people. The effects of his oratory went well beyond his words, which were often banal. Did he have some other technique to augment what he said? That led me to James Webster.

  One other point for the seekers for hidden significance: I wrote this story in early 1976, before I had heard of Jimmy Carter. The names and the Georgia setting are pure coincidence.

  FIXED PRICE WAR

  As the sun set, the first line of attackers came silently over the brow of the hill. They were the scouts, shadowy figures moving with no apparent coordination down to and across the river, on to the waist-high savannah scrub on the near side. When the last man was across, the second wave appeared, a line of hover-tanks with chopper cover, advancing at no more than wal
king pace. The counterattack waited until the tanks had reached the river. Then a bright mesh of ruby pulsed-laser beams lanced out from the nearer hillside, probing for the soft underskirts of the hover-tanks and the chopper rotors. Yellow and red tracers replied. The air became a multicolored confusion of stabbing pencils of light, smoke from burning vegetation and the fitful glare of crippled tanks and choppers.

  Suddenly the whole hillside was lit by an intense blue-white fireball, spreading from a point close to the river bank. It grew rapidly, changing color to a greenish-yellow.

  Merle Walters gave a grunt of surprise, leaned forward and hit a button on the console in front of him. The display stopped, frozen with the fireball about forty meters across. He swiveled in his chair and pressed the intercom. "Franny, get Alex Burns on the line. I think I've finally caught him."

  He waited impatiently as the connection to Redondo Beach was made, looking at his watch as he did so. Eight-thirty, that made it five-thirty in California. Alex would still be around. When the intercom buzzed he reached out his right arm to pick up the phone. The left sleeve was empty, pinned to his dark jacket. As he placed the receiver to his ear, the screen lit up to show a trim, ruddy-faced man in his early forties.

  "Alex, I think you've finally goofed." Walters grinned in triumph at the man on the screen. "If I had another arm I'd be rubbing my hands together here. I'm reviewing the simulation you've done for Exhibit Three of our proposal. One of your boys has gone wild and thrown in a tactical nuke. You know that's right out."

  "Mr. Walters, I invite your attention to Page 57 of the Work Statement of the Request For Proposal." Burns answered in the careful speech of an Inverness Scot, unchanged after sixteen years in Southern California. "The RFP very clearly states, and I quote: 'Although nuclear weapons may not be employed, clean imploders up to 1,000 metric tons TNT equivalent may be used. No more than three such devices will be available in any single engagement.' The fireball that you are looking at in Exhibit Three is a new Morton Imploder, type four, one hundred and fifty TNT tons equivalent."

  Alex Burns's face showed the slightest trace of a smile. Merle Walters looked at the display screen, thumbed rapidly through his copy of the Request For Proposal, and swore. "Alex, you Gaelic bastard, you did that on purpose. Don't deny it. I've known you too long not to recognize your touch there. Tell your lads the simulations are damn good—but I'd like them a lot better if you'd put some faces on the attackers. All I can see is blobs."

  Burns nodded gloomily. "I know, Mr. Walters. I feel the same way. But the people at GSA won't say who we're fighting and I can think of at least four possibles. Maybe you can get something for me at the bidders' conference."

  "I'll give it a try, Alex—but don't hold your breath waiting for it. I'll be honest with you, that won't be my top priority at this bidders' session. There's something else I have to get an answer on. The Contracts Office have been like a bunch of clams on this one. Jack's trying a little line of his own to get information—we'll tell you tomorrow how it works out."

  Burns nodded again. "Goodnight, Mr. Walters. Maybe I could suggest that you should call it a day. You're looking very tired. Trouble with the resumés?"

  "As usual. We need two or three good production men, all we can find is a bunch of retired colonels and generals. Keep up the good work on the simulations, Alex, and I'll call you about noon—our time—tomorrow."

  Merle Walters broke the connection and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his hand over the top of his bald, furrowed forehead. Alex was right. He was damn tired. Alex couldn't usually catch him that way. And with just ten days to go before the proposal was due, with all the costing still to be done, he'd better keep something in reserve for next week. He spoke again into the intercom.

  "Franny, I'm cutting out. Pull a bunch of those resumés together for me as bedside reading, will you? Remember, I won't be in first thing in the morning. Jack and I will be down at 18th and E Streets, at the Bidders' Conference. I can't be reached there."

  He levered himself to his feet and walked to the outer office, limping slightly. He could disguise it if he tried, but it was pointless in front of Franny. She knew him better than he knew himself. She had the resumés all ready for him—probably had them ready two hours ago. Her plump, pretty face was set in what he thought of as her 'take your medicine like a good little boy' expression.

  "Mr. Walters, I discussed this earlier with Mr. Tukey." She held out a locator. "If you'd carry this about with you, it would be so much easier for us to get messages to you. Look, this new one only weighs an ounce—and it's only an inch wide, it wouldn't be any trouble."

  He looked at it, then peered at Franny from under his thick, grizzled eyebrows—his sternest expression. "Franny, I've told you once and I'll tell you again. I'm not going to wear a damned beeper. It's an invasion of privacy. When you see Jack Tukey tomorrow, you tell him exactly what he can do with that thing. Tell him it's only an inch wide, so he shouldn't have any trouble." His gray eyes twinkled beneath the bushy brows. "Goodnight, Franny, and thanks for another day."

  He went slowly out into the chilly November evening. Ten minutes later, Franny locked up and left also. The Washington office of WAWD Corporation was closed for the night.

  * * *

  The Bidders' Conference was scheduled for 9 AM in the biggest Conference Room of the old Interior building. Merle Walters was there by 8:45, watching the arrivals. About a hundred people. Say two per company. So fifty groups interested in the procurement. Merle knew the real competition like the back of his hand. Three groups, and WAWD. The other forty-six were innocents, flesh-peddlers, or companies looking for subcontract work. When Tolly Suomi of VVV Industries arrived at two minutes to nine, Merle followed him in and sat in the same row. Suomi looked his way and inclined his head. Merle had no doubt that Tolly knew the real score as well as he did.

  Biggest Conference Room, so more than a twenty million dollar job. Coffee served, so more than fifty million. Merle read the signs almost subconsciously, the pricing signals that only the pros could read. Then Petzell would be running the Government side, for a job over five hundred million dollars.

  Merle was sitting smugly on that train of thought when the senior government man came forward to the podium. Instead of Petzell it was his deputy, Pete Wolff. Merle sat up and took notice. What the hell was going on? He'd been tracking this procurement for a year, sniffing it and sizing it. He'd been pegging it at about a billion two. Surely they couldn't have missed the mark so badly? He leaned forward to catch the opening remarks, ignoring the stab of pain in his left side.

  "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." Wolff looked around at the sea of faces, old friends and old enemies. "I want to begin by running over the procedures we will be following on questions and answers. First, though, I should tell you that I'm deputizing today for Howard Petzell." He looked around with a slight smile. "He is home today with a bad case of the 'flu."

  Merle leaned back, then looked across at Suomi. He was sitting there with a half-smile on his face, stroking his gray beard with one finger. Chalk one up to VVV's intelligence service. Suomi had known about Petzell's illness in advance.

  Wolff closed the opening preamble with the usual warning about staying away from the technical men in the Government until the award was announced. Well, why not? Anybody who didn't have all his sources lined up well before the Request For Proposal hit the streets was a dead duck anyway.

  Wolff came at last to the guts of the meeting. "We will now answer the questions from prospective bidders. All questions have been submitted in writing in advance. All answers will be given in writing to all attendees. Will you please identify yourselves as you read your questions. First question, please."

  "Jim Peters, Consultec. How will you be applying the Equal Employment Opportunity Clause in this job?" The speaker was well-known to Merle. From his Baltimore offices, Peters could be relied on to find a few hundred talented mercenaries for any job.

  "As far as
feasible. We know it's not easy for any of you. We don't expect an exact split, but we do want to see some WASPs in there. We can't accept a bid that's all blacks and Puerto Ricans. And we'd really like to see some minorities up near the top of your team, not just a bunch of retired West Pointers. That answer it?"

  Peters shrugged. Wolff and the other government men knew his problem well enough.

  "Next."

  "Oral Jones, Rockdonnell Industries. It's not clear from the Request For Proposal how much Government Furnished Equipment we should assume. Can you give us any guidance?"

  "It's been left open. It's up to you. Use GFE for anything, weapons, food, medical supplies, if you want to. Bid it yourselves if you think you can get it cheaper. We'll be happy to give you our price lists so you can see what we pay."

  Merle sniffed. Dumb question. Nobody could undercut Government prices on supplies, unless they were buying stolen goods. GSA insisted on the best prices in town from everybody. Merle waited for the real action to start.

  "Warren McVittie, Lockheed. I have a question on types of bid."

  Merle noticed that the Lockheed and the Rockdonnell reps were sitting in pairs. Jack Tukey was over on the left-hand side, well away from Merle, where he could keep an eye on Suomi's crack salesman, Vince Menoudakis, and also on the men from Lectron Industries and Lockheed. He and Merle were careful to remain well apart, to get independent views of the meeting, and Tolly Suomi and Vince Menoudakis followed the same logic. Merle also noticed that the Lectron and Lockheed men were not their most senior reps. Suomi's presence confirmed Merle's own feelings—that this meeting was going to be a real ground-breaker. Top men should be there. Score one point against Lectron and Lockheed.

  "The bid request is not clear," went on McVittie. "On Page 24 of the RFP, there's a note to say that bidders may choose to quote cost-plus or fixed price. That's a new clause for this kind of procurement. Are you actually inviting Fixed-Price bids for the whole job?"

  The action had arrived. Merle Walters leaned forward intently. This was one of the questions he had come to hear an answer to. Wolff looked a little uneasy, and paused before he replied.