Free Our Friends From Frolix 8 by Philip K Dick

caustically.
    ‘So noted; hence the application from the computer for a prognosis. Extrapolating from his case, and others similar to it during the last few hours, the computer declares that the news of Cordon’s impending execution has already swelled the ranks of the Cordonite underground by forty percent.’
    ‘Balls,’ Director Barnes said.
    ‘That’s how it works out statistically.’
    ‘You mean they’ve joined in protest? Openly?’
    ‘Not openly, no. In protest, yes.’
    ‘Ask the computer what the reaction will be to the announcement of Cordon’s death.’
    ‘It can’t compute. Not enough data. Well, it computed, but in so many possible ways as to tell us nothing. Ten percent: a mass uprising. Fifteen percent: a refusal to believe that—’
    ‘The greatest probability is what?’
    ‘A belief that Cordon is dead, but that Provoni is not; that he’s alive and will return. Even without Cordon. You must remember that thousands — authentic or forged — writings by Cordon are being circulated everywhere on Earth every minute of the day. His death isn’t going to end that. Remember the famous revolutionary of the twentieth century, Ché Guevara. Even though dead, the diary which he left behind—’
    ‘Like Christ,’ Barnes said. He felt depressed; he had begun to brood. ‘Kill Christ and you get the New Testament. Kill Ché Guevara and you get a diary that’s a book of instructions on how to gain power all over the world. Kill Cordon—’
    A buzzer on Barnes’ desk buzzed.
    ‘Yes, Council Chairman,’ Barnes said into the intercom. ‘I have occifer Noyes with me.’ He nodded to her and she rose from the leather-covered chair facing his desk. ‘We’ll come in.’ He motioned to her, feeling at the same time a stiff dislike of her.
    He did not like policewomen in general, and especially those who liked to wear the uniform. A woman, he had mused long ago, should not be in uniform. The female informers did not bother him, because in no way were they required to surrender their femininity. Police occifer Noyes was sexless — in actual, physiological fact She had undergone Snyder’s operation, so that both legally and physically speaking, she was not a woman; she had no sex organs as such, no breasts; her hips were as narrow as a man’s, and her face was fathomless and cruel.
    ‘Just think,’ Barnes said to her as they walked down thecorridor — past the double rows of weapons-police guards — and came to Willis Gram’s massive, ornate oak door, ‘how good you’d feel if you had after all managed to get something on Irma Gram. Too bad.’ He nudged her as the door opened and they entered Gram’s bedroom office. In his huge bed, Gram lay, buried in piles of sections of the
Times
, an expression of cunning on his face.
    ‘Council Chairman,’ Barnes said, ‘this is Alice Noyes, the special occifer who has been in charge of obtaining material relating to the moral habits of your wife.’
    ‘I’ve met you before,’ Gram said to her.
    ‘Correct, Council Chairman,’ Alice Noyes said, nodding.
    Gram said calmly, ‘I want my wife murdered, by Eric Cordon, on live world-wide TV.’
    Barnes stared at him. Peacefully, Gram stared back, the look of animal cunning still on his face.
    After a pause Alice Noyes said, ‘It would, of course, be easy to snuff her. A fatal squib accident during a shopping tour to Europe or Asia, she makes them all the time. But by Eric Cordon—’
    ‘That’s the inventive part,’ Gram said.
    After a pause, Alice Noyes said, ‘Respectfully, Council Chairman, are we supposed to work out the project or do you have ideas as to how we should or could proceed? The more you tell us, the better our position, operationally, would be, all the way down to the working level.’
    Gram eyed her. ‘By all that, do you mean do I know how to do it?’
    ‘I’m puzzled, too,’ Director Barnes said, at this point. ‘I am trying, first of all, to imagine the effect this