Sue Me td-66 Read online

  "I am your friend, good woman. Look at all the major government ministers. Is there another who in his own domain has so many whites in high positions?"

  "Oh, voice, you spread lies. And if you had a body it would die with a thousand cuts. If you had eyes they would be punctured. My husband is a regional administrator. Even the police chief bows to him."

  "But, good woman, your husband does not have a major post in Delhi. Your husband does not sit in council with the ministers. Your husband follows orders and is kept at a distance like an untouchable."

  "I will not listen to another word," said the woman. She clasped her hands to her ears and left the room. But in a few minutes she was back.

  "Do not be insulting, voice, and I will listen to you. What is wrong at International Carborundum ? Not that my husband is at fault. "

  "The Americans do not respect you. Certainly there are important jobs Indians have with the company, but not the crucial ones."

  "An Indian is president of the Gupta installation," she answered. She had even seen his office, so large. So important, with so many wooden cabinets. It looked out over the fifteen-acre chemical plant like a tower of a Mogul prince. It was as modern, she was told when on tour of the factory, as any in America. She saw many impressive buttons and dials in many rooms.

  The president of the local installation, a Brahman who had graduated from a British engineering school, had personally greeted all the wives of the important ministers.

  "What are those wonderful buttons and dials?" asked one of the wives. "What magic do they perform?"

  "I know what every one of them does," the president answered sharply.

  "What does the shiny one with the light do?" asked the woman.

  "It keeps nosy women in their place," he said, and laughed at his own joke. She bowed to the rebuke. But later it was revealed that one should never ask the president how any of the complicated controls and gauges worked. He knew exactly what he had to know: that there were always Americans to take care of everything. He was not to be bothered with the petty tasks, but dealt with the higher concepts. He sat behind a big desk and ordered people about. If ever he wanted to know how any dial or button worked, he would call in an American and order him to explain.

  But why should he ask? Did he ask the untouchables how they collected dung for the fires that burned throughout the Gupta valley? This the woman remembered as the invisible voice spoke to her, and the invisible voice began to make sense.

  "The Americans are smarter than the British. The British sat on horses, parading in fine uniforms, and let others do the work. But the Americans know those are not the people who run things. The people who run things know how they work. And look at the American factory in Gupta. Look at the jobs Indians have. They sit at desks and collect money and they are happy. But they do not know how to run the factory. And the moment the Americans leave, all they will have will be their fancy desks and fancy offices and nothing and no one to order about. Do you think the important ministers in Delhi do not know this?"

  "But my husband is blameless," pleaded the woman.

  "Your husband is regional director. He is most to be blamed."

  "What can we do?"

  "You can begin by insisting that Indians hold crucial, not ceremonial, posts."

  "What is a crucial post?"

  "Safety engineer."

  "That is crucial?"

  "That is most crucial. If the safety engineer does not do his job, no one will be safe. If the president of the factory does not show up for a week, who even notices he is gone?"

  "What if my husband beats me for my insolence?"

  "He most certainly will beat you, but then he will do what you told him."

  "You know my husband."

  "I know how things work."

  In the offices of the English-language Times of Gupta, a voice spoke to an editorial writer. The voice sounded like it was coming from outside his window. It sounded American.

  "What you want Indians for is to let them sit around and pretend they run things. Now, we're lucky. We give them these phony jobs, call them 'president' and such. That's fine. Paying them salaries is just another form of local bribe. We can accept that cost. But heaven help us if one of these brown bastards ever insists on being safety engineer."

  "How do you keep them from it?"

  "Simple. We make them believe the crucial jobs are some form of janitorial work. Safety engineer is close to maintenance engineer, which is another word for broom-pusher. That's untouchable work to these buggers."

  "You mean they're the laughingstock of the home offices of International Carborundum ?" said the writer.

  "Shhh. Not so loud. We're near a newspaper." The editorial writer looked out the window to see which American was ridiculing his race. But outside, he saw nothing but the rotting garbage of the streets and a cow lazily strolling along with an untouchable running behind waiting for fuel for the countless fires that laid an eternal haze over Gupta.

  And so, in a seemingly spontaneous eruption, the leaders of Gupta rose to demand that the American company employ Indians for what they called the most important jobs. The regional director led the demands but he had support o. the local newspaper, whose banner editorial read: "WHAT FOOLS DO THEY TAKE US FOR?"

  Since no one wanted to be a fool, a raging storm engulfed the home office of International Carborundum in Dover, Delaware, offices far less plush than those in Gupta, India.

  "What the hell do they want to be safety engineers for? What the hell do they want to be maintenance engineers for? We couldn't give those jobs away there two years ago."

  "Better give in to them, chief. Where else can we manufacture Cyclod B?" said the subordinate. Cyclod B was the main active ingredient of the insecticide Goodbye Bug. It sold enormously well in America in its attractive lemon-yellow can with a cartoon bug happily keeling over dead and being swept up by a dustpan and broom. Combined with other chemicals, Cyclod B killed bugs very effectively and made the countryside only moderately toxic. But alone, uncombined in formula, it contained two of the deadliest gases known to man, one of them a derivative of a now-outlawed World War I warfare agent.

  International Carborundum had looked around the world for a place to manufacture Cyclod B. After announcing that a local resident would be president of the facility and that it would provide not only five thousand low-paying jobs but also a hundred important positions, the company found that it had its choice of the subcontinent. It chose Gupta because it was near a good railhead. It was far enough away from Delhi so that central-government officials would have to be bribed only occasionally, and it had a mixed Indian population so that the Hindus would not accuse International Carborundum of favoring Sikhs or Muslims or Christians-and vice versa for all the combinations that existed.

  They could spread the wealth.

  The decision from headquarters in Dover was an immediate yes. But with one warning.

  "Make sure as hell they know how damned dangerous Cyclod B is."

  "Bit difficult. We sort of sold the Indian government on the idea that Cyclod B is no more dangerous than water when properly used."

  "How the hell did we do that?"

  "We spread rupees around like manure."

  "Just make sure we have good men in safety and maintenance."

  Apparently someone knew how International Carborundum worked because the good men that were hired all had the best recommendations and degrees. And men with degrees did not like to go around turning valves and knobs like untouchables. The first thing they did was order new offices, with pretty secretaries, expensive desks, and many telephones, and then they assigned the task of monitoring to underlings. These underlings ordered smaller offices for themseves and shared secretaries, but each had a personal phone. They too hired subordinates for the menial work of reading meters and checking valves.

  The safety-engineering budget increased fifteenfold within a week, and thereafter it took a full day and a half with stacks of pa
perwork requiring six or seven signatures to get so much as a mop delivered to a hallway.

  Valves that had to be checked and lubricated every day now rarely saw a human hand. And in Gupta, a lone voice was heard. An American engineer mentioned to a local newspaper that the plant was being run dangerously, but the story was not printed because it smacked of American racism.

  The man tried to explain that it was not the color of the man's skin monitoring the safety valves, but the monitoring itself. He even left a pamphlet for the newspaper editorial writer showing the dangers of Cyclod B.

  "I will not even look at anything brought to me by a racist," said the editorial writer.

  "I'll tell you what, you just keep it around. If you still have it in a week and you haven't used it, I'll buy it back for a hundred dollars American. But I think you'll need it."

  "A racist attitude. We are not only safe, but perhaps even safer because these are the lives of our own people."

  The man laughed at the editorial writer.

  "The only reason International Carborundum manufactures Cyclod B here is that they wouldn't dare manufacture it in America or Europe. Now who are the racists?"

  "You, sir, get out," said the editorial writer, who was deeply bothered by the man's voice. He could have sworn he had heard it before, but had never seen the face before. However, even if the man were a racist, he was a help. He took a safety pin and fixed a typewriter that had been sticking for years and was thought to be too badly damaged to be repaired.

  "How did you do that?"

  "I know how things work," said the man. He did not leave his name or explain why he had such hostility toward Indians running American factories.

  It was not long before one of the gauges on the safety valves began flicking ominously toward the red zone, the danger area for the flow of Cyclod B. The only way to make sure the chemical was safe was to be sure it always stayed liquid, and that meant keeping it at a temperature below a certain level. In the hot valley, Cyclod B had to be constantly refrigerated.

  It was morning when the lowest assistant noticed the dial edging dangerously close to the red zone, which meant the temperatures were rising in the holding tanks. He ran to the third assistant safety engineer with the warning. The third assistant knew this was very important and therefore was very careful in preparing his memorandum for the second assistant safety engineer.

  It was so important he rewrote it four times to make sure his syntax was correct. Then he berated the secretary for the one spelling error. He would not allow strikeovers.

  The second assistant safety engineer insisted his name be included in the memorandum three times instead of just once. The third assistant had his name mentioned enough, the second assistant pointed out, because he was the sender.

  And so by the time the memorandum reached the main office of the safety-engineering department, the gauges were well into the red zone and the untouchable who was assigned to read them had taken his family out of the city. He knew what they meant. He had worked in the factory a long time and the American racists were the only ones who talked to him, and they explained things to him.

  They had told him that when the needles on the temperature gauges hit red, he should do one of two things. The first was to run.

  And what was the second?

  "Place your head carefully between your legs, bend over very far, and kiss your ass good-bye. "

  Cyclod B became a gas quietly as the temperatures rose, and as it became gas it put pressure on the entire tank system, and as this happened other gauges began to creep into the danger zone, and as that happened, the director of safety engineering was meeting with his subordinates preparing their plan to increase the size of their department.

  This memo read that there never could be too high a price for safety. It warned of the danger of chemicals. It proposed a most reasonable solution to the pressing personnel problem. More secretaries. Pretty ones, possibly from Bombay or Calcutta.

  The pressurized gas burst one seam and that was all that was needed. It came out in a small grayishwhite cloud, somewhat thicker than the normal haze of the Gupta valley.

  The first person who smelled it was an untouchable gathering dung on the road. It smelled like a charcoal fire. He wondered who was burning expensive wood. The odor was somewhat pleasant and it tickled his nostrils. Then he realized there was no more tickling. His nostrils were numb, and his limbs were numb, and the sun had gone out of the sky.

  He dropped just as the cow down the road had dropped. Silently the gray cloud spread slowly across the valley without any wind to disperse it. The cloud grew and moved through the factory and into the city, cutting down people more thoroughly and viciously than any Mogul invader.

  Babies cried and then stopped crying as desperate mothers shook them and then fell themselves, dropping their children into the dust as they died. Mothers, even in death, were seen crouched over the bodies of their children as if to protect them.

  The rich important people who were not in the factory area escaped by car. It was four days before the city was safe to enter. Everywhere was carnage. Indian Army soldiers had to wear gas masks, not as protection from the Cyclod B that had by now been slowly dissolved into the air, but to block the stench of rotting flesh.

  At first, government officials, not wanting to lose a valuable factory, tried to run a logical inquiry. But an outcry arose from the survivors.

  The Times of Gupta had proof that Cyclod B was a liquid so dangerous that International Carborundum would not dare manufacture it in an American or European country. They had instead carelessly chosen a valley in India whose heat could turn the liquid into a deadly gas.

  A cry rang out for retribution. It was joined immediately by a firm of American lawyers, who announced to the world:

  "What is the cost of a city? What is the cost of a civilization? The price to be paid must be so prohibitive that a Gupta can never happen again." These words came from Genaro Rizzuto himself just after he met with the Indian prime minister, Gupta had become a word synonymous with disaster.

  Rizzuto even had a bumper sticker that read: "NO MORE GUPTAS."

  The prime minister declined to have it put on the state limousine.

  Chapter 4

  The first reports of the death of fifteen thousand people in India made little impression on the American media. It was just another third-world disaster, appearing in newspapers as a one-paragraph filler item. But when word came that an American factory was responsible, Gupta was a major story.

  It was like Africa. A hundred thousand black Africans could be slaughtered by other blacks, and it would make little impact as a news story. Perhaps one or two mentions here or there. But if twenty black people were killed by white South African police, then it became a front-page story.

  If Syria chose to kill twenty thousand of its citizens, wiping out its town of Hama, that might be mentioned or not. But if Israel was standing nearby while Arabs killed three hundred or so other Arabs at Sabra and Shatilla in Lebanon, that was front-page news. When the Israelis pulled out and the Arabs went back to killing each other in the same places, the news retreated to the inside pages.

  Thus, when there was a white or European angle to a story, a filler item became a front-page disaster. International Carborundum was American. If an American factory had killed fifteen thousand people in Gupta, it was news.

  Remo and Chiun heard the news while Remo was avoiding a movie camera in a Los Angeles studio. He had agreed to accompany Chiun to Hollywood as part of a vacation because Chiun, like Smith, thought Remo needed a rest. Both of them thought Remo was crazy. He thought they were crazy. The compromise was that Remo would go out to the West Coast with Chiun. Chiun would be allowed to secure whatever deal he thought he had going with a movie company, provided he did not appear before a movie camera. Remo would make sure Chiun didn't get himself in front of the cameras.

  This was of course an impossibility, as Remo told Smith, because no one stopped Chiun fr
om doing anything, and the most likely time for Chiun to do exactly what he wanted was when he had promised to fulfill someone else's wishes.

  So Remo got word of the Gupta disaster at precisely the moment when Chiun was most likely to get himself seen. The cameras were rolling and Chiun, who just happened to be in his pure gold kimono with the ruby-encrusted red dragons, stepped forward to offer his humble assistance. Remo's buzzer rang. Smith had asked him to carry it. Smith had been watching a dangerous situation and had promised not to use Remo if he didn't have to. But if he had to, the buzzer would ring.

  It rang just as Chiun stepped forward into the lights begging everyone's pardon, saying he did not wish to interfere and certainly did not wish to disturb anyone.

  "But there is something of interest here that might be helpful to such wonderful stars as yourselves."

  Remo took the buzzer device to the nearest pay telephone. He was supposed to dial the operator and then press the buzzer into the telephone receiver. This would automatically encode an access number directly to Smith.

  Remo had been given access codes before but he had trouble getting them right. The numbers had to be more than seven digits lest unauthorized people accidentally dial into the most sensitive telephone lines in the nation. The more Remo became attuned to the mystical nature of the universe, the less he was able to deal with mechanical things.

  So Smith had engineers devise a beeper device that even chimpanzees had been able to use after brief training with banana rewards. The absolute failsafe, most user-friendly thing since the human kiss, it was called.

  Remo got it right on the third try.

  "What do you want, Smitty? Better hurry."

  "There's a little problem in Gupta, India. I need to talk to you."

  "What's important about Gupta, India?"

  "What's happening at a Los Angeles law firm is important. "

  "That seems just as unimportant. Hey, I got to get back inside. Or do you want Chiun starring in some movie around the world?"

  "I'm coming out there, Remo. This is important."

  "Everything's important except American families, Smitty. Good-bye," said Remo. He moved quickly through the studio offices and onto the set. Chiun had made an arrangement with the producer to provide technical assistance. This producer was famous for action films and was doing a movie on a man with extraordinary powers. Chiun had corresponded with him, saying he knew how people could naturally do wondrous things, without props or tricks.