Operation Chaos

XX

I came home early that June day. Our street was quiet, walled in between big old elms, lawns, and houses basking in sunlight. The few broomsticks in view were ridden by local women, carrying groceries in the saddlebags and an infant or two strapped in the kiddie seat. This was a district populated chiefly by young men on the way up. Such tend to have pretty wives, and in warm weather these tend to wear shorts and halters. The scenery lightened my mood no end.

I’d been full of anger when I left the turbulence around the plant. But here was peace. My roof was in sight. Ginny and Val were beneath it. Barney and I had a plan for dealing with our troubles, come this eventide. The prospect of action cheered me. Mean while, I was home!

I passed into the open garage, dismounted, and racked my Chevvy alongside Ginny’s Volksbesen. As came out again, aimed at the front door, a cannonball whizzed through the air and hit me. “Daddy! Daddy!”

I hugged my offspring close, curly yellow hair, enormous blue eyes, the whole works. She was wearing her cherub suit, and I had to be careful not to break the wings. Before, when she flew, it had been at the end of a tether secured to a post, and under Ginny’s eye. What the deuce was she doing free?

Oh. Svartalf zoomed around the corner of the house on a whisk broom. His back was arched, his tail was raised, and he used bad language. Evidently Ginny had gotten him to supervise. He could control the chit fairly well, no doubt, keep her in the yard and out of trouble . . . until she saw Daddy arrive.

“Okay!” I laughed. “Enough. Let’s go in and say boo to Mother.”

“Wide piggyback?”

For Val’s birthday last fall I’d gotten the stuff for an expensive spell and had Ginny change me. The kid was used to playing with me in my wolf form, I’d thought; but how about a piggyback ride, the pig being fat and white and spotted with flowers? The local small fry were still talking about it. “Sorry, no,” I had to tell her. “After that performance of yours, you get the Air Force treatment.” And I carried her by her ankles, squealing and wiggling, while I sang,

Ginny came into the living room, from the workroom, as we did. Looking behind her, I saw why she’d deputized the supervision of Val’s flytime. Washday. A three-year-old goes through a lot of clothes, and we couldn’t afford self-cleaning fabrics. She had to animate each garment singly, and make sure they didn’t tie themselves in knots or something while they soaped and rinsed and marched around to dry off and so forth. And, since a parade like that is irresistible to a child, she had to get Val elsewhere.

Nonetheless, I wondered if she wasn’t being a tad reckless, puffing her familiar in charge. Hitherto, she’d done the laundry when Val was asleep. Svartalf had often shown himself to be reliable in the clutch. But for all the paranatural force in him, he remained a big black tomcat, which meant he was not especially dependable in dull everyday matters . . . Then I thought, What the blazes, since Ginny stopped being a practicing witch, the poor beast hasn’t had much excitement; he hasn’t even got left a dog or another cat in the whole neighborhood that dares fight him; this assignment was probably welcome; Ginny always knows what she’s doing; and—

“—and I’m an idiot for just standing here gawping,” I said, and gathered her in. She was dressed like the other wives I’d seen, but if she’d been out there too I wouldn’t have seen them.

She responded. She knew how.

“What’s a Nidiot?” Val asked from the floor. She pondered the matter. “Well, Daddy’s a good Nidiot.”

Svartalf switched his tail and looked skeptical.

I relaxed my hold on Ginny a trifle. She ran her fingers through my hair. “Wow, she murmured. “What brought that on, tiger?”

“Daddy’s a woof,” Val corrected her.

“You can call me tiger today,” I said, feeling happier by the minute.

Ginny leered. “Okay, pussycat.”

“Wait a bit—”

She shrugged. The red tresses moved along her shoulders. “Well, if you insist, okay, Lame Thief of, the Waingunga.”

Val regarded us sternly. “When you fwoo wif you’s heads,” she directed, “put ’em outside to melt.”

The logic of this, and the business of getting the cherub rig off her, took time to unravel. Not until oor offspring was bottoms up on the living-room floor, watching cartoons on the crystal ball, and I was in the kitchen watching Ginny start supper, did we get the chance to talk.

“How come you’re home so early?” she asked.

“How’d you like to reactivate the old outfit tonight?” I replied.

“Which?”

“Matuchek and Graylock—no, Matuchek and Matuchek—Troubleshooters Extraordinary, Licensed Confounders of the Ungodly.”

She put down her work and gave me a long look. “What are you getting at, Steve?”

“You’ll see it on the ball, come news time,” I answered. “We aren’t simply being picketed any more. They’ve moved onto the grounds. They’re blocking every doorway. Our personnel had to leave by skylight, and rocks got thrown at some of them.”

She was surprised and indignant, but kept the coolness she showed to the world outside this house. “You didn’t call the police?”

“Sure, we did. I listened in, along with Barney, since Roberts thought a combat veteran might have some useful ideas. We can get police help if we want it. The demonstrators have turned into trespassers; and windows are broken, walls defaced with obscene slogans, that sort of thing. Our legal case is plenty clear. Only the opposition is out for trouble. Trouble for us, as much as possible, but mainly they’re after martyrs. They’ll resist any attempt to disperse them. Just like the fracas in New York last month. A lot of these characters are students too. Imagine the headlines: Police Brutality Against Idealistic Youths. Peaceful Protesters Set On With Clubs and Geas Casters.

“Remember, this is a gut issue. Nornwell manufactures a lot of police and defense equipment, like witchmark fluorescers and basilisk goggles. We’re under contract to develop more kinds. The police and the armed forces serve the Establishment. The Establishment is evil. Therefore Nornwell must be shut down.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum about,” she sighed.”

The chief told us that an official move to break up the invasion would mean bloodshed, which might touch off riots at the University, along Merlin Avenue—Lord knows where it could lead. He asked us to stop work for the rest of the week, to see if this affair won’t blow over. We’d probably have to, anyway. Quite a few of our men told their supervisors they’re frankly scared to come back, the way things are.”

The contained fury sparked in her eyes. “If you knuckle under,” she said, “they’ll proceed to the next on their list.”

“You know it,” I said. “We all do. But there is that martyrdom effect. There are those Johnny priests ready to deliver yet another sanctimonious sermon about innocent blood equals the blood of the Lamb. There’s a country full of well-intentioned bewildered people who’ll wonder if maybe the Petrine churches aren’t really on the way out, when the society that grew from them has to use violence against members of the Church of Love. Besides, let’s face the fact, darling, violence has never worked against civil disobedience.

“Come back and tell me that after the machine guns have talked,” she said.

“Yeah, sure. But who’d want to preserve a government that resorts to massacre? I’d sooner turn Johnny myself. The upshot is, Nornwell can’t ask the police to clear its property for it.”

Ginny cocked her head at me. “You don’t look too miserable about this.”

I laughed. “No. Barney and I brooded over the problem for a while and hatched us quite an egg; I’m actually enjoying myself by now, sort of. Life’s too tame of late. Which is why I asked if you’d like get in on the fun.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. The sooner the better. I’ll give you the details after our young hopeful’s gone to bed.”

Ginny’s own growing smile faded. “I’m not sure I can get a sitter on notice that short. This is final exam week at the high school.”

“Well, if you can’t, what about Svartalf?” I suggested. “You won’t be needing a familiar, and he can see to the elementary things, keep guard, dash next door and yowl a neighbor awake if she gets collywobbles—”

“She might wake up and want us,” Ginny objected, not too strongly.

I disposed of that by reminding her we’d bought a sleep watcher for Val, after a brief period when she seemed to have occasional nightmares. The little tin soldier didn’t merely stand by her bed, the dream of him stood with his musket at the edge of her dreams, ready to chase away anything scary. I don’t believe gadgets can substitute for parental love and presence; but they help a lot.

Ginny agreed. I could see the eagerness build up in her. Though she’d accepted a housewife’s role for the time being, no race horse really belongs on a plowing team.

In this fashion did we prepare the way for hell to break loose, literally.