Collected Fiction, page 611
He did it well enough. His training had fitted him for deception and given him ability to create protective camouflage. And as he rode the powerful black horse down the street, Mart Havers was the target of many, a slanted glance from the gaily dressed women who moved along the promenades, past shop windows decorated by highly paid artists and glittering with expensive luxuries.
Havers, with his barrel chest and darkly sullen face, was not the usual type of guards.
CHAPTER VI
The Sherlock
OVERHEAD the sky was losing its blue brilliance as the sun neared the western peaks. Havers rode on, fingers wound in the glittering reins. He passed a plaza where two silk-shirted young gallants were dueling hurtlessly with light-swords, sparks cascading as the force-blades clashed and spun. Havers repressed an ironic grin. Children playing with toys.
They were not children—that was the unpleasant part of it. But they were content to play with toys, while the sterile social machine spun on in its never-ending circle.
There was no advance. In spite of spaceships—that stopped short at the Moon—in spite of medical discovers and engineering development. Science was not enough. The Cromwellians had intermingled religion and social culture with science, and the result was a mutual strangulation in which the three, like the Laocoon group, struggled helplessly in the toils of immobility. In this gigantic prison, greater than Babel or the Great Pyramid, foolish men and women bowed and danced and scribbled meaningless patterns on the walls.
And at the summit the Leaders built on endlessly, uselessly, under orders from—what? A council, or a single man, or whatever mysterious sovereign really ruled this planet.
Mart Havers could see no meaning in the life. Perhaps life itself had no meaning. Certainly his own had none. He was conscious suddenly of a profound disinterest in living at all, and he put the dark thought out of his mind wearily and jingled me reins. Worst of all was the futility of striving against the Cromwellian Juggernaut, but La Boucherie gave the rules, and Havers had no choice but to follow.
He rode on. Georgina’s message had been explicit. Avish was nibbling at the bait, and tonight might prove the time.
He was near enough now, he thought, glancing up at the rococco walls above the street. He could not ride to Pusher Dingle’s place. There was risk enough afoot. He reined in the horse, swung himself down, tethered the beast to a curb hitching-post. No one accosted the big guardsman” as he made his way across the promenades, threading an intricate path that presently brought him to a narrow street near the river.
The lobby of Dingle’s apartment building was outmoded in its classic severity of line. He buzzed a signal in a row of glass-brick mail-boxes, then took the elevator. Dingle opened his door cautiously, his pulpy lower lip thrust out. At sight of the guardsman’s uniform he took a deep, unsteady breath.
“Come in,” he said, stepping back.
This was not easy to do. The single room was a chaos of equipment without plan or reason. Wires were strung everywhere, and cryptic gadgets were piled on benches and tables and shelves. The entire contents of half a dozen assorted laboratories seemed to have been dumped into this room.
“I want the Sherlock,” Havers said briskly. “You work it from here?”
“Right here.” Dingle swept an arm around at the cluttered room. “The control’s mixed up with everything else. A needle in a haystack of junk. No one would guess I’ve got anything workable here—which is lucky. I had visitors today. Guardsman. They’re getting suspicious, Havers.”
“Did they find anything?”
“No. Next time, maybe. We’ll have to hurry. There’s one serious danger. After you’ve introduced the Sherlock into Avish’s place I’ve got to operate it by remote control. And the right instruments can detect and locate my control here. Well”—he shrugged—“here’s the Sherlock.”
It was a flat plastic hemisphere six inches in diameter. Havers examined it with interest. It had been made under microscopes, he knew, and was something more than a mechanical bloodhound. Built into that compact body were devices for seeing, both by visible light and by infra-red, and an X-ray lens as well as a device for chemical analysis. Little could remain hidden from a Sherlock with a trained operator at the controls.
Havers folded under it the rubbery tentacles, each with a tiny suction cup at the tip, and thrust it out of sight under his cloak.
“Good luck,” Dingle said, holding the door for him.
“We’ll need it,” Havers grunted, and swung out, brows drawn together.
It was a moonless night by the time he reached the Palladium. Pillars of veined plastic lit from within with coiling tints, shone vividly through the dark. Havers tossed his reins to a liveried groom and walked up the great ramp into the foyer. The vast domed hall was a kaleidescope of shifting color beneath him. A cotillion was in progress. Uniforms blazed everywhere, and the belling skirts of the women swayed like flowers in the dance.
HAVERS’ eye found Georgina and Avish at a balcony table above the floor. He threaded his way toward them among the dancers.
“Hello, Mart.” Georgina’s greeting was gay. “It’s a good thing you’ve got here “at last. My reputation’s in shreds already. What kept you?”
“You shouldn’t have come at all without a chaperon,” Mart said, playing out the little farce to its close.
“My dear brother, you’re chaperon enough for six girls,” Georgina assured him. “The Leader and I were getting worried about you.” She nodded at Avish, whose thin, lined face was rather sour. “I’ve been invited up to Leader Avish’s apartment, and of course I can’t go alone. He has some space films I wanted to see.”
“Government shots of the Moon works,” Avish amplified with as good grace as possible. Obviously, though, he had not intended this. He had planned on a rendezvous with Georgina. Havers was spoiling things. But liquor and Georgina’s charm combined to placate him and he finished his drink and called for the check.
Havers met Georgina’s eyes, and a secret smile passed between them . . .
An hour later Mart Havers stood alone in Avish’s library. From the adjoining room he could hear the low voices of the Leader and Georgina, and the occasional clink of glasses. That was fine. The girl would keep Avish occupied until a suitable hiding place could be found for the Sherlock.
That wouldn’t be hard. The library held shelves of old-style books as well as the racks of small cylinders that were standard equipment—talking books, visual books, and combinations. Havers found a place for the Sherlock behind a set of Dumas. There was room enough between the volumes and the shelf above so that the robot-controlled device could slip out easily, and then it would be up to Pusher Dingle.
Havers touched a tiny stud on the disc, and, after a second, touched it again. Now it was activated. In his makeshift control room elsewhere in Reno Pusher would know that the plan had succeeded, up to this point. He would be watching and waiting.
A light flickered into existence on the Sherlock and went out. Pusher would be watching now, through the gadget’s electric eyes. Havers slowly replaced it behind the books, knowing that the controller was noting and remembering each detail. After this, Pusher would be on his own.
It was dangerous to leave the beam current on too long, since the Leaders’ technicians had plenty of detectors rigged throughput the city. There was always the chance that somewhere in Reno a gauge-needle would jump suddenly, a man would lean toward it, frowning—and the competent machinery of the police would move into action. Triangulation could locate both Pusher’s laboratory and the location of the Sherlock itself, once an unaccountable electronic-beam was noticed by watchful eyes.
That was one of the reasons why planned crime was so dangerous. The safest felonies were sudden, swift, and personal assaults, and an equally swift escape.
But this test was necessary. It didn’t take long. The Sherlock slipped out from behind the books, made a circuit of the room, and returned. It vanished behind the Dumas.
The faint light went out. And it would remain out, Havers knew, until Pusher decided the apartment was empty.
Havers smiled. Like most well-armored antagonists, the Leaders had a vulnerable point. Plate armor fails at the joints, where it has to be flexible—under the arm, for example, where the heart is easily reached with a long blade. Chain mail is another matter, but the whole civilization of the Cromwellians was too rigid to be compared to steel mesh. There were too many rules, too much rigidity. So there were the inevitable joints where their power failed them.
The whole Cromwellian civilization could be destroyed, Havers thought suddenly, if you could find the right joint in their armor where a sword could strike a mortal blow. A sword? Armor could deflect spears and arrows, but when gunpowder was utilized practically, perhaps a vulnerable spot could be found.
Well, leave that to La Boucherie. That was the old fanatic’s main purpose.
Havers grunted and began examining the curious old bindings of the books. There was a sense of solidity, of luxury about this room that disturbed him. Not luxury, really, so much as the sense of belonging.
A gust of anger against Avish shook him. There was nothing like this in the Slag! All men were certainly not created equal, not in the world of the Cromwellians. In a primeval world, where courage and strength were important, it would be Mart Havers who owned this library, this sleek apartment in the gigantic serpentine building where a thousand families dwelt—not Avish!
THE voices from the next room had stopped. Havers went to the threshold, vaguely hoping there would be some good opportunity for a fight. He knew that reaction was the wrong one and that La Boucherie would not approve. But the devil with La Boucherie! It was all right for the old man to be devoted to an ideal, but Mart Havers was young. He had the opportunities that had long since passed by La Boucherie.
No fight seemed required. Georgina was leaning back against cushions, smiling, while Avish poured fresh drinks. The Leader glanced up as Havers entered.
“Another?”
“No.”
Havers’ tone was so brusque that Georgina shot him a quick warning glance. Rebelliously he ignored it. He walked over to a relaxo-chair, sat down, and crossed his arms, staring at Avish.
The Leader was ill at ease. Over his glass rim he blinked at Havers.
“What do you think of my library?” he asked.
“I don’t read much.”
“I do,” Avish said. “You’d be surprised how often pure romance leads into practical ideas. Romance has to be based on natural forces.”
“Romance?” Georgina asked.
“In the purist sense. I’m not speaking of affairs of the heart.” Avish smiled. “I mean, like Hugo’s ‘Toilers of the Sea.’ You can get that down to engineering basics. The fight with the devilfish—pure siphon principle. Jet propulsion. But it’s my unconscious mind that absorbs the technical part. Consciously I just enjoy the cloak and sword treatment.”
“That can be broken down to psychological basics too, can’t it?” Havers asked.
“In historical romances,” Avish said thoughtfully. “Not today. There’s a lot of swashbuckling now, but it doesn’t spring from the same causes. It’s a safety valve. We buckle swashes now not because we really want to, but life would be infernally dull for most people if they didn’t. That’s the real reason. It’s negativistic. It doesn’t get us anything-we want. D’Artagnan’s swaggering was positive. It got him what he wanted. Fighting today isn’t glamorous.”
“There isn’t much fighting, though,” Georgina said.
Instinctively Havers touched the hilt of his sword. Avish following the movement with his eyes, chuckled.
“Ornamental,” he said. “You wouldn’t use it in a fight, any more than you’d use your fists. Pistols are more effective. And most effective of all is a jet-propelled robot-guided projectile with an atomic warhead. Nothing like that had been used for years. But when it was, there was little glamour involved! The chivalric tradition went out with the technology, or it took other lines.”
“It’s stifled, perhaps,” Georgina said.
“Perhaps. If we were allowed interplanetary experiments, there’d be plenty of excitement and glamour on Mars or Venus or the Moon. Only it’s too dangerous. Colonies can rebel. And if a rebellion started in a lunar colony, the insurgents could bombard Earth with atomic bombs. A war base like that—He shook his head.
“It does seem a waste, though,” Georgina said. “We’ve gone about as far as we can with jet-propulsion and atomic engines, haven’t we? And all we do is circle the Earth.”
“There’s still much to discover about our own planet. Underground, we haven’t dug very far down. Still, in one way you’re right. It’s a mistake to solve one problem completely before you start another, or at least think about it. When this world is finally Utopia we should already have started reaching out to the stars. In my own field, I feel the restrictions sometimes. Though they’re necessary,” he added hastily. “Excuse me. The door.”
CHAPTER VII
The Death-Wish
A BUZZER was singing. Avish touched a stud, a panel opened in the wall, and Havers saw Georgina stiffen. He turned his head slowly. On the threshold were five guardsmen, resplendent in their finery, one of them wearing the gilded feathers of an eagle on his shako.
Havers forced himself to sit motionless. Guardsmen might conceivably come here for a routine reason. A colonel might come socially or on business, but the combination struck a false note.
Almost too late Havers realized that his reaction, too, struck an equally false note. He was on his feet instantly, stiffening to attention.
The colonel’s eyes, which had fastened coldly upon him, drifted away. He saluted Avish.
“Priority, Leader,” he said. “We’ve a report that beam radiation came from your apartment.”
Avish looked puzzled. “Perhaps. I’ve some equipment.”
The colonel held out a slip of paper. “It was on this wave-length. Have you been using this tonight?”
“Why, no. Are you sure?” Avish looked from Georgina to Havers. “You didn’t use the visor, did you?”
“I did,” Havers said quickly. “I wanted the newscast.”
The Leader nodded. “That was it, then. It’s quite all right.”
“Not quite, sir,” the colonel objected. “We traced the other end of the beam, too—the sending station. We haven’t localized it yet, but it’s nowhere near any televising station. And there was a directional scrambler being used.”
“Some experimental work?” Avish suggested, but the officer’s mouth tightened.
“That might be, sir. But we can take no chances. Have you any objection to a search?”
“No. Naturally not.”
The colonel gestured. One of his men stepped forward and held up his hand. In the palm was a flat, glittering object. He showed it briefly in turn to Avish, Georgina, and Havers. It was a telecamera, and that might mean trouble, though Havers hoped for the best. As far as he knew, his photograph was not on file in the great Government bureaus, and neither was Georgina’s.
As for the Sherlock—Havers half-smiled when he saw a detector being rolled in. The Sherlock was dead, at the moment. No betraying radiation would come from it, unless Pusher activated the mechanism!
He was still at attention. The colonel gave him an at ease, and the search began. Though it was thorough, the guards were careful not to damage anything belonging to a Leader. Once the detector buzzed before a blank panel, and the colonel looked inquiringly at Avish.
“My home laboratory,” the Leader said. “You’ll need authorization to get into it. Besides, my own key won’t work until I televise my Field Chief and have him send the lock-releasing signal.”
“Pass it,” the colonel said. “We may ask you to open it later, sir, but I hope it won’t be necessary.”
It wasn’t. Not that the searchers found the Sherlock, but calamity struck from an entirely different direction. The first warning Havers had was the way the colonel tilted his head a little to one side in the betraying attitude of a man listening. Faintly in the room they could hear the buzz of the earphone. in his helmet. The man’s eyes went unfocused for a moment as he concentrated on the incoming message. Then quick attention came into his gaze and he stared at Georgina, a hard, suspicious stare.
“Your name again?” he demanded sharply, not at all in the tone a colonel of the guard would normally use toward a debutante.
Havers heard the faint squeak of panic flatten her voice a little as she answered. And something drastic happened in depths of his mind which he had never explored before.
He had known Georgina for two years. There had once been a time when they had thought they loved each other. The idea had been dropped and lost by tacit consent, though in cases like that one of the two involved is always first to let the affair die. Mart Havers had been the instigator in this one. Georgina was too facile, too unstable for his taste. To his mind she seemed not-quite real, so easily did she assume the personality of whatever role she played.
It had been nearly a year since they had last exchanged kisses. It had been longer than that since he had fancied himself in love. But when he heard the sound of panic in her voice, suddenly impulses in his unguessed until now took control. The to a level of awareness. That level said;
“You aren’t expendable, Georgina is, Keep, still for the sake of the Freeman!”
That level vanished like smoke. Beneath it lay a stronger and more primitive impulse. He crossed his arms and fell back a step in a way that looked casual. But it brought both hands to the guns beneath his cloak, and his feet were braced for action.
THE colonel was listening again, his eyes narrowed. He gestured now, and two of his men fell back to guard the door. Avish was looking from face to face in something like panic as he began to catch the undercurrents in what went on.
