Wild Country

Chapter Thirty

The grizzled eyebrows lowered as old Jim Street regarded his new brick agent. "I don't believe I'm hearin' this, right on the heels of the F.R.A. announcement."

"That's what smoked the little gadget out, sir," Quantrill replied, taking a swig of beer. "Would it be worth a lot to whoever has it?"

"Who does have it?"

Pause. Then, soft but firm: "My question, then yours."

Street looked at the ceiling for help while his jaw twitched. "Ted Quantrill, you are the most insubordinate son of a bitch I ever met! Do you know who you're talkin' to?"

Still soft: "Yessir. I'm talking to the only man on Earth I trust with my questions — and one who understands about protecting sources."

"Then you don't have it yourself?"

"It doesn't belong to me," Quantrill replied with a shrug.

The old man nodded to himself, took his time smearing a corn chip with salsa that could have blistered paint, popped it into his mouth, and relished it. "I can think of several uses for the thing," he mused, dialing up the holo sound for the second-half kickoff. "Medicine on the spot; a fuel converter for those little bitty space probes; and of course a lot of foreign powers would love to get one so they could copy it. I reckon you could trade it even-steven for, say, the Star of India."

"The owner is afraid of its side effects. I mean, couldn't people use it to get drugs?"

"Depends. Some of those smart-ass gadgeteers could prob'ly limit the stuff a synthesizer makes, but as for ginnin' up cheap drugs, I sure hope so."

Quantrill chuckled and glanced at the old man, then did a double take. "You're kidding — whoa, you're not kidding."

The second half was just beginning. Street killed the audio again and, for the next few minutes, gave Quantrill his undivided attention. "Son, any adult who wants to kill himself with drugs, it shouldn't be gummint business. I grant you he's a peawit, but it's his life. This country's tried tight controls, and wound up with too much government. I was a sprat during Prohibition; my daddy was honest as they come, but he bought his hooch from bootleggers and so did twenty million other folks, and they paid high prices. Rumrunners got into reg'lar wars, and mulched a lot of innocent people and bribed a lot of others. It was the artificially high price of liquor that called for violence.

"So we repealed Prohibition. It took organized crime over a generation to recover from that, but drugs were still prohibited, even picayune stuff like pot. That was their hole card, son. As long as heroin is worth more than silver, we'll have a lot of violent crime over the stuff.

"Now, President McCarty and the voting public are bailin' this country out from under another age of tight controls. If I read the signs right, we might be ready to decriminalize hard drugs. Imagine what would happen if ever'body had a little synthesizer to make heavy drugs cheap as aspirin. It'd break the back of organized crime without adding one honest cop to the system."

Quantrill sat without moving, all but unbelieving. His distaste was obvious: "Christ! We'd see ten thousand deaths from overdoses in a few months…"

"Probably." The old man narrowed his glance. "You still haven't got over Ethridge, have you?"

Quantrill remembered sleek, athletic Kent Ethridge; recalled his courage in the rebel cause. "Should I? Shit fire, personal synthesizers would help other guys oh-dee! How can you tell me that's not wrong?"

"Of course it's wrong, like any other kind of slow suicide. But look at crime the way I have to, where folks get graunched by it just by bein' in the way. Son, the backbone of organized crime is the cost of drugs. All that money gives too much power to people we didn't elect. And when an addict has to beat in a few innocent heads ever' month to rob for his tonnage, that's just what he does."

"Ethridge didn't."

"Nope." said Street. " 'Cause he didn't have to. He got his tonnage in bribes."

Quantrill burst cut, "I don't believe that!"

"I'm sorry. Ted. It's true. We knew he'd been at it for a year, off and on. Maybe he was tryin' to get straight. He couldn't. I think his overdose was the only quick way he knew to solve the problem; the other ways were slow and took more gumption. It was his own choice."

Quantrill, acidly: "You think an addict has that much free choice?"

"I don't think there's any such thing as free choice; call it expensive choice. Whatever you choose has its price. A reformed alky pays a price ever' day of his life, wanting that drink he mustn't have. Or he takes the booze and pays a heavier price when his liver rots.

"Son, I'm tryin' to show you that if drugs become dirt cheap, we take power away from folks who abuse it. And down on the shitty end of the stick, nobody else pays the addict's price. He can go to hell in his own way."

"Like Kent Ethridge did."

Unrelenting, but sadly: "If he can't resist a known deadly temptation, yes; like Ethridge did. Meanwhile the rest of us could walk crosstown or take a camping trip without guns on our belts. We'd trade weak characters for a safer world. It's a trade I'd make in a second, boy. Now honest: wouldn't you?"

Quantrill stared at nothing for long moments, coping with a concept that wrenched at his value system. Finally. "I don't know. Gov. I wish I were as certain as you are."

Unwilling, as if admitting some vast guilt. Street said, "I'm not really certain; I can't be, 'til it's tried. Hell, it isn't up to me anyhow. But when you ask tough questions about things like this, you have to be ready for some hard answers. I know I sound bloody-minded. I'm just tellin' you what I think. And I've been thinkin' on it for over sixty years."

"So how am I supposed to feel ten years from now, when I see a friend synthesizing heroin?"

"Mad as you like. Tell him he's an idiot; I would. If it interferes with his work, you fire him. If it screws up your friendship, find other friends. That's your choice. We'll always have to protect kids against their own foolishness, of course. But if your friend's an adult, he should make his own choices."

Quantrill sighed, swigged the last of his beer. "And free choice is expensive," he said, nodding.

"One way or another. It's part of evolution; always was." Street reached for a cold cut, still watching the younger man closely. "There aren't many men your age I'd say these things to, but you've earned straight answers. I can't help it if I sound hard."

"My God, you sound like an anarchist," Quantrill muttered.

"Actually about half libertarian and half liberal. If you want to see a lot of fat-cat industrial honchos sweating blood and howling about communism, wait 'til America starts producing synthesizers for the open market. Whenever you broaden the power base, you piss in the pocket of the fella who already has power without bein' elected to it." The old man jerked his head toward the holo, where the Scoreboard read TEXAS 34, TCU 17. "The Longhorns know about a broad power base. They're three deep in the skill positions." He turned up the audio.

Quantrill saw unfamiliar numbers on orange jerseys. Texas University was substituting freely now, and three plays later they paid the price for that choice. T.C.U.'s tight end leaped high for a very short pass and slam-lateraled to the nearside guard, taking out the linebacker as he fell. A pulling guard with a five-yard head of steam can be an engine of mass destruction in the opposing secondary. The rules permitted the play, and instead of getting the vital seven yards, the Homed Frogs got twenty-four before a free safety derailed this runaway express.

Quantrill got himself another beer and chuckled. "Only two deep at linebacker," he said.

"Sucker play," said the old man, beaming. "Teasippers got a cushion with their first string, so now they can afford to let their sophomores make a few mistakes, and they sure as hell do. I pity the next opponent that tries a slam lateral over that partic'lar kid. That's how you build next year's team, son. Stick him in there soon as you can afford to, and let him lose his innocence. Next year he's a veteran."

"Mistakes make this game fun," Quantrill observed.

"Unless you're on the team," said Jim Street with a wink. "Now then: who has that damn synthesizer necklace?"

Without a word, Quantrill stripped the velcrolok closure from a thigh pocket and produced the amulet, handing it across to the old man while watching the holo. He did not see Street grin at this elaborate display of careless ease.

After a long silence, turning the amulet over and over. Street made his accusation: "You said you didn't have it."

"Nossir, I said I didn't own it. And I don't."

"How'd you get it past my friskers?"

"They found it. It wasn't a weapon, Gov."

"Like hell; it's an economic weapon — or at least I think it is. Your friend just may be a millionaire, son. I'll have to take it up with the F.R. A. through a lot of gawdam channels, but you did right to bring it here."

T.C.U.'s tiring first team pushed across for a touchdown, and Quantrill said. "I guess Texas will bring in the first team again."

"Wouldn't be's'prised," said the old man, making a show of placing the amulet in his breast pocket. "When the issue's in doubt you go with all the experience you can muster."

Quantrill saw the parallel. "And trust. Gov." He flipped a nonchalant salute to the old man. "I don't mind telling you. I'm not convinced about letting people have drugs as cheaply as aspirin."

"I'll tell you once more: I'm not dead sure, either. I am sure it'll be part of getting more individual freedom and less violent crime. For what it's worth, boy, I give you credit for brains. You had to know you coulda sold this to somebody like New Israel for ten times what you'll get from your own country."

"Fat fucking chance." was the reply. "A friend once called me an 'agent of change.' The least I can do is try and see that the changes are made in the best interests of my own country."

Now the old man laughed outright. "Good luck, boy. We can never know that ahead of time. You know what the big synthesizer means to Ora McCarty's science advisers?" He got a headshake and continued: "Californium and plutonium from asteroid dust or plain old garbage."

Quantrill groaned. "Bombs? Again?"

"Nope. A real space drive. Fuel from synthesizers can take us clean out of the solar system. This little gizmo you handed me" — he patted his pocket—"might put a stardrive within the means of lots of folks. One day soon, maybe."

"I'd rather watch football. I'm just not ready to think about that."

"Then get ready. Because it's gonna happen. What ever made you think you can direct all the changes you trigger off? All we can do is try. Speakin' of which" — he turned to glance at the digital clock on the holo—"I'll have other fish to fry soon as the game's over. No, sit tight," he added, seeing Quantrill start to rise. "I'll need to know where to send, um, a sizable hunk of money. And one more thing: If you stand to get much of a commission on it, you might not want to stay on with me, nickelin' and dimin' and riskin' your ass. We could put other brick agents out there in Wild Country, instead of you."

Quantrill had little doubt that other agents were already out there; Lufo among them. "Maybe later, Gov. Right now I'm just too damn interested in seeing how this game turns out."

The contest on the holo turned, as Street had said it must, on the three-deep strength of the Longhorns: Texas 41, T.C.U. 30. But the old man knew that Quantrill had not been referring to a football game.