The scientist being grilled had no hope left. He could answer honestly, for there was nothing that could save him from that which was in store.
"The strain was virulent. There is no known antidote—nothing could have saved that port, nor most of Africa and most of India—and there was no way for the world to know from whence came the death-dealing submarine except that it be the mighty America.
"The bombs should have come in retaliation, spreading their death and adding to the impetus of the epidemic, so that enough of the world was wiped out to give the great People of the Dragon room into which to expand. We calculated that a third of our own would be wiped out in the holocaust, which would have relieved us of many problems. The tan peoples of India and the darker peoples of Africa should have sued us to lead them in a unity of the yellow peoples, against the insanities of the pale peoples of the west.
"There is no antidote ... yet the epidemic is destroyed. I cannot yet believe what is told me. I would go to my ancestors happily if I could go to them with the answer to this riddle."
That night Bill Howard came on the screen his big homely face wreathed in smiles, his tweed suit and shaggy blond hair looking even more informal than usual.
"It's a great day for the people of the world," he said.
"There's undoubtedly tremendous political significance in what happened at Suez, and every statesman and every politician will have statements to make, and conclusions to draw.
"Suez's obvious healthiness has been variously attributed to American technology, garnered from the experts we've sent them over the years; to Russian technology, garnered from their experts loaned to the nation involved; to Mohammed and to the God of the Christians.
"The peoples of the world," he said softly, "are concerned with these things in the abstract, but mostly, we the people are willing to leave this to the theorists, while we rejoice."
"For we the people, who thought we faced that most degrading, that most unanswerable, that most horrible fate of all, bacteriological war, find ourselves at bacteriological peace."
At the break, the thirteen witches danced on, crying their chant, and behind them as a background was the bright, clean sub-and-shanty scene.
"Witches of the world unite, to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean—NOW!" they chanted. "Pestilence or peril, disease or disaster, Stay clean, clean, clean, Witch clean!"
"Ah," said the deep voice of the announcer as the jingle muted, "Which witch do you really wish? Witch is the modern method of cleanliness, using the best of modern technology, and the Witch witch is witching through the world...."
Randolph watched the program skeptically. The best lawyers and the best p.r. agents to be had, he reminded himself. Still.... There was a nagging worry that this thing was going too far. It's O.K. to claim the moon, he thought, chewing his lip, but isn't it a little risky to claim peace on earth for the Witch products?
He made a mental note to call BDD&O the next morning. The audience reaction would make itself felt by then, and he could decide....
It was almost noon next day before Randolph reminded himself of the call he'd planned to make to BDD&O. He got Oswald on the wire almost immediately.
"Randolph, here," he said. "I called about that new commercial. It seems a little drastic to claim peace on earth for the Witch products. What are you planning for tonight?"
"More of the same!" Oswald's voice was jubilant. "The switchboard has been swamped, and we're on almost every program on every channel! They're taking us apart, of course. 'Witchcraft raises its head,' and 'Salem is here with a new twist and a singing commercial,' and 'Anybody got a pestilence?'—that sort of thing. But they're crediting Witch products from dawn to dawn. I sure didn't make a mistake when I tied our contract to your sales! We ought to break the bank!"
Randolph chewed the thought in silence. "Oswald," he said, "It's an old habit of the American people to make a joke out of what they can't understand. Sort of Paul Bunyan all over again. But don't overdo it. That Witches of the world unite, deal. Remember the IWW? Wasn't that sort of communistic?"
"Every time anybody talks about getting the world peacefully together, about unity, somebody starts shouting 'commie.' Since when has communism and unity got anything to do with anything? You're an international corporation, aren't you? It's in your title, IWC, isn't it? You don't just sell Witch things in the United States—you've markets in Europe and Africa and India, and all over the place, or I read the sales charts wrong. What's worrying you about using it?
"The overseas tapes are going like a cannonball express. Our ratings have skyrocketed everywhere," Oswald said in satisfaction. "What do you mean, don't overdo it? You get the world in a hatbasket, and then you want to throw it away?"
"Incidentally," he added in a calmer tone, "I got one crank call that's got me thinking. The guy got all the way through to me before he'd talk, and that takes some getting, what with the salaries I pay people to keep the cranks off my neck.
"He said that now we had the witches of the world united, why didn't we do some real cleanup work, like slums and insane asylums. Got me thinking, you know. A good cause never did a program any harm."
Randolph chewed his lip a while in silence, and Oswald, knowing his client, waited patiently.
"I like that a lot better than claiming peace on earth for the Witch products," Randolph said at last. "Why don't you pick a slum we can clean up for not too much, and let's see what you can work out. This cleanup theme isn't bad, it's just peace on earth that doesn't really belong to us you know.
"I tell you what. We'll go to fifty thousand dollars or so on a cleanup job, and you use that. Leave the world to the politicians and the eggheads."
After he hung up, Randolph stood by the telephone, still chewing his lip. Could you clean up something like a slum for say fifty thousand dollars? Oswald would double the figure in his own mind, of course, always did. But he'd get the sales out of it. His contract was tied to sales.
Yes, he thought, it was best to call him off the track he was on now. Lawyers or no lawyers, that sort of thing was dangerous.
It took a week, and it took every member of the staff that could be pulled off other programs, as well as the ones assigned to Witch.
The "slum" had been located—three buildings in a short block just up from the Battery, surrounded by new buildings. It was a one-privy-to-a-floor, cold-water only setup, with a family living in every room. It existed on high-value land only because the land and buildings were tied up in an estate and couldn't be sold. But they could be remodeled and thrown into one, and contracts were signed, permissions granted, the paperwork alone filled nearly a complete file cabinet.
It would take double the fifty thousand dollars, of course—maybe more. But Randolph had authorized it, hadn't he? He always named half the figure—or less—than he meant to be used. Anyhow, international ratings and sales would more than make up the purse, because this thing would hit socko. Worry about the cash was the last thing that was bothering Oswald. He had a bear by the tail, and his contract price was tied to the gross....
The show was ballyhooed the whole week while the work went on.
"Clean, clean, Witch clean—what's the witches next big cleanup? Witches of the world, unite—let's cleanup this old world and make it livable...."
The night the new cleanup job was to show, Randolph tuned in his TV as ignorant of the details as the next viewer. It worried him a little that Oswald insisted on keeping him in the dark on everything except the fact that it would be a slum cleanup, but he had the best p.r. men and the best lawyers in the country working on it, he told himself; and certainly the sales charts for the past two weeks had been spectacular.
"We can count on the biggest TV audience of the year tonight," Oswald had told him gleefully at noon. "The buildup's been a natural, and those 'Salem with a new twist and a singing commercial' plugs have been continued on this network—the cost of that was comparatively small—and I've even gotten them onto a few of the really big shows to boot."
Bill Howard came on the screen, his big homely face leaning across the desk toward the TV audience.
"The biggest news in the country right now," Bill said in a solemn tone, "is the biggest single cleanup job in the country today.
"There's a slum," Bill said, "right here in New York that the Witches of the world will unite to cleanup—tonight."
Then he put on the full power of the personality that made him the most listened-to newscaster on the air, TV and radio. The manner that made the news sound human, like it really happened to real people. He put it on full power, and went to work.
First he showed a big map of New York, and talked about how people thought of it as a big, impersonal place, but it wasn't. He made it everybody's home town.
Then he traced the map right down to the exact spot where the buildings were. Then he turned on a movie, and he showed the back-door, garbage strewn, and a room where a family slept, seven of them, and the privy they shared with five other families.
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