License Invoked

Chapter 12

At 10:00 P.M., the SATN-TV host pointed into the camera lens.

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you, yes, you! You can keep your children from falling under the influence of wrong-thinking people like this woman and her ilk." The camera pulled back from him to show the poster of Green Fire. In the amber spotlight, Fionna Kenmare's dark eye makeup looked sinister and terrifying, and the male musicians hovered like thugs. "Tonight we show you ways to combat the insidious influence of so-called white magic and rock music. We've got a lot of guests tonight I know you'll enjoy. Stay tuned!"

Augustus Kingston watched the screen with his eyes slitted like a pleased snake. This show was SATN's bread and butter. The average pollster from the FCC or either of the two big services would have been very surprised if they ever took a survey in this area of the country. Never mind your late night reruns of situation comedies. Never mind your home shopping networks. The big deal in this part of the woods was the Hate Your Neighbor show, hosted by Nick Trenton. In the last five years Trenton had shown a genius for raising hackles among his guests, half of whom had something to do with evildoing, and the other half who were the subject of their rants. It was a poor night when there wasn't one good fistfight. You could raise a contact high of black magic just sitting in the audience. The sponsors would see to it that it ran forever. They said that the evil that men did lived after them. Augustus Kingston could have thought of no better monument to himself than an everpouring fount of dark power that bore his name, although he intended to live a very long time and enjoy it.

That night's programming was setting up to be a good one. They had rounded up a handful of wiccans, a man and four women, and coaxed them to come on the show to promote their peaceful nature cult. They were on the set already, looking nervously at the black candles and the pig-shaped altar. What they didn't know was their fellow guests were unconstructed right-wing megaconservatives who didn't believe women should even be taught to read. Kingston turned down the audio monitor as he picked up the phone and punched the internal extension.

"Ed, how's that test running?"

"Pretty well, sir!" the engineer shouted over the noises in the control room. "I don't know what you've got at the other end, but the needles are showing almost fifteen percent feed coming in on the line. Wow, almost sixteen percent!... Sir, can I ask what kind of transmission this feed is?" he asked in a worried voice.

"No, Ed, I'd rather you didn't," Kingston said, in a paternal voice. He pulled a Cuban cigar out of the walnut humidor on his desk.

"Well, sir, if it's radioactive... I don't want to make a fuss, but my wife and I want to have kids one day."

"I promise you, son," Kingston concentrated on getting the end clipped off to his satisfaction. "This is nothing that would ever show up on a Geiger counter. You still don't want to stick your fingers in it, though."

"No, sir."

"Good boy. You got that transmission going in to the special power storage like I told you?"

"Yes, sir," Ed's voice said, resignedly.

"What's the reading?"

"Almost sixteen percent."

"Very nice. I'm proud of you, son. Keep me posted." Kingston glanced up at the clock as he depressed the plunger and dialed the operator. "Charlene, I'm expecting a long-distance call. Put it right through, won't you, honey? And don't listen in. If you do, you're fired."

The watcher's call came through on schedule, at a quarter to the hour. Kingston had never met the man on the scene. He had been hired by the friend of a friend of a friend. At least it sounded like a man. It could have been a woman with a deep voice. It was hard to tell, because the voice was distorted by one of those gizmos that they used on crime shows. Kingston didn't care, as long as the person made the scheme work. Everything he was hoping for depended on it.

"Mr. Kingston?" the voice buzzed in his ear.

"That's me," the station owner said. "How's it going at your end?"

"All the technology is in place. There was no problem hiding the mechanisms in among all the other electronics. What's two or three more boxes or cables?"

"Exactly," Kingston said. He felt pretty pleased. This friend of a friend had picked a smart one. "You need a feed from us this evening?"

"A short one, just to test the mechanism again," said the voice. "I need to rewire the transmission lines in the control room."

"Don't they already go there?" Kingston asked impatiently.

"They go to the switcher," the voice said. "I'm hooking it into my conduit's chair."

"Ahh," said Kingston. "I was wondering how you were making a direct connection. The Law of Contagion says they have to touch."

"The first connection was too general. It blew out. This one will be a lot better. I'm waiting until full dress rehearsal tomorrow afternoon for a full test. By then, it will be too late for the concert to be cancelled. After that, you can let the full power transfer rip. I promise you you'll get a return feed beyond your wildest hopes."

"Marvelous," Kingston gloated, foreseeing his own power rising like the sun. "The pipeline will bring in clouds of evil that will feed our evil, and make us immortal!... Er, you didn't hear me say that."

"No, sir."

"How many people you say are coming to that concert?"

"A maximum of ninety thousand tickets. They're not all sold yet."

"You know," Kingston said, easing back in his chair, "I consider every one of those empty seats a lost opportunity. Now, you're sure your conduit doesn't know what it is we're doing?"

"Not a clue." There was a hesitation. "Well, we've got one possible hiccup. There's a couple of government agents on the job. They actually suspect magic," the voice dropped to a whisper, "and it looks like they know some, too."

"Really." Kingston's eyebrows went up, but he kept his voice from reflecting the dismay he felt. Chances were slim that these practitioners were his kind of people. "Don't worry. Give me a full description of them."

The voice ticked off the physical details of a prim, blond Englishwoman in a two-piece suit and a Southerner who wore ratty clothes that were half hippie, half ex-GI. Kingston took notes.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh," the owner said at last. "I'll take care of it. Get back to me tomorrow." He hung up the phone and sauntered into the control room.

The Trenton show was well under way. The male wiccan was trying to defend his congregants from the leering megarightists. The women had a few things to say for themselves, but kept getting shouted down by the audience. One of the opposition was out of his chair, hefting the overstuffed piece of furniture as if judging whether he could actually throw it. It looked as though the first fight was about to break out, when Trenton signalled for a station break. Kingston grinned. That'd keep the television audience glued to their seats. They'd have to stay tuned to see if punches flew.

After the police had cleared the combatants off the set, Trenton stepped into the audience. Time for the night's rail against Fionna Kenmare.

"... Do you really want a woman like this evil person influencing your children?" he asked them, his voice smooth and suave. He pointed at the poster of her on stage above the pig-shaped altar. In no time he had them worked into a frenzy. "She's horrible! She's a goody-goody! She believes in white magic!"

Some of the audience were out of their seats chanting, "No! No! No!" Kingston smiled.

The new transmitter-receiver near the switcher panel was sparking up. It looked like it had come straight out of Frankenstein's laboratory. The red digital indicator on the front read "16," ticking occasionally to "17." Kingston's mystery connection was right. The chosen conduit was one heck of a powerful transmitter. Good thing that neither the conduit or anyone else suspected what was going on. A lot of people's abilities were stifled when they became aware of what they were doing, or in this case, being led to do. It'd be one fine Saturday night.