The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 380
According to the computer, the missiles had been launched from a satellite of the alien home planet nearly three months earlier. Devlin did not know exactly how advanced the aliens' equipment was, but he assumed that the ship had been detected and its course through the system plotted anything up to a year earlier. The missiles had been launched on an intersecting course but, like the ship, were no longer under acceleration. Perhaps they were nothing more than large, sophisticated bullets, incapable of further trajectory modification. In which case he could duck, with a very good chance of avoiding trouble—and the sooner he ducked the better his chances would be.
He strapped himself more securely to the couch and, without giving himself a chance to have second thoughts, requested three minutes of three-G thrust on the secondary drive at right angles to the present course. Theoretically the evasive action would have been equally effective if he had accelerated toward the missiles, or even decelerated and allowed them to pass ahead of him, but psychologically it was more comforting to turn away from the attack and the people who had launched it—especially when the display was showing graphically the narrow margin by which the ship would avoid disaster.
According to the display, the missiles would pass within fifty to sixty miles, unless their courses were modified. Should the aliens be capable of this, the display gave the times involved—a little over six minutes for the ship's change of course to become apparent to the attackers, an unknown number of seconds or minutes for the aliens to react and recompute trajectories and just under three minutes for their radio signals to go out to the missiles.
Devlin watched the display anxiously.
MISSILE ONE MISS DISTANCE FIFTY—SIX POINT THREE MILES. MISSILE TWO MISS DISTANCE FIFTY—ONE POINT SEVEN MILES. MISSILE THREE COURSE CORRECTION INITIATED. MISSILE THREE ON COLLISION COURSE. ESTIMATING CONTACT TWO HOURS FIFTY-SEVEN POINT EIGHT MINUTES.
Devlin swore. The missiles did carry enough fuel to make course corrections. But only one of them had done so—the one that had been due to strike last and therefore had more time to maneuver. This might be an indication that the aliens' computing facilities were being overstretched, or simply that they were so confident of hitting the ship that they were refusing to waste time by diverting all three missiles.
To give himself time to think he tapped for a replay of the sound and visual material from the probe, and stared at what he thought might be a good alien and the three bad aliens.
HIS FIRST impulse had been to order random attitude changes and periods of thrust, which would give the aliens' control and guidance specialists a lot of work to do and, just possibly, reduce missile three's capacity for maneuvering. But random attitude and course changes would occasionally take the ship toward the missile. He could not afford a near miss because the radiation, although it might not be fatal to everyone on board, would probably injure the people in cold sleep who were positioned below the outer hull. There was also the fact that the computer would have to carry out all the random movements in reverse order if the ship were to regain its original course and reach the next target system.
The ship was moving deeper into the alien system as well as closing rapidly with the missiles, which meant that the reaction time of the missiles' guidance experts to ship course changes was also being reduced. But if he could make a drastic course change within that reaction time, using the secondary drive at its full emergency thrust of five Gs, the aliens might assume that the ship was incapable of any greater evasive effort than the three Gs already used and their counter computations, necessarily hurried, might be correspondingly off. Devlin did a few quick calculations and decided that a two-minute five-G burn within the reaction time would pull the ship out of danger.
The computer did not agree.
Devlin found himself fighting back anger and a bout of hysterical laughter as the ship's computer did its best to mutiny. It did not want him to apply five Gs thrust to the ship, it flashed, because this should be done only in the event of an extreme emergency shortly before landing on unsuitable terrain. The ship's systems would be severely overstressed by five Gs. This would not matter if the ship were landing shortly afterward, but it could be dangerous for the occupants if it had to resume the voyage after such a period of maximum stress. The display went on to list the dangers of such an action, detailing the effects on power reserves, life-support systems and long-range sensory equipment. Every time Devlin tried to tap out an instruction he got nothing but warning lights, and the minutes were rushing past.
"Damn you," he said to the side display, which was still showing the four aliens talking and gesticulating in slow motion. "We aren't invading you. We wouldn't touch your stinking overcrowded system with a barge pole—"
But a calmer, more controlled corner of his mind knew that the aliens had a point of view, too. They were simply reacting to the apparent threat by a strange ship storming into their system with intentions they could only guess at. If the positions had been reversed, Earth people would probably have done the same.
He tapped again for emergency acceleration of five Gs and the warnings and precautionary telltales began flashing again. He tapped for four Gs and received no objections at all.
With his finger poised above the Execute button he stopped, canceled and tapped for four point five Gs. Still no objections. He tried edging it up by a few decimal points while extending the period of thrust and the arguments started again. Apparently the computer would cooperate at four point five Gs for three minutes and no higher.
NEARLY two hours were needed to power up the secondary drive reactor and to check its focusing coils. By that time it was obvious that the first two missiles were being allowed to go wide. The third was still on a collision course and closing rapidly. When the ship took evasive action, the time lag needed for the light carrying this information to reach the aliens and for the radio signals bearing the missile's course correction to reach it was just over four minutes. Any dodging would have to be done within that time.
He called up a picture of the area of sky from which the missile would come.
The aliens, if they were using their oddly equipped heads, would pre-time the missile to explode at the nearest approach. The detonation signal would go out to it at the last possible moment and be based on the latest available course data—which would be less than four minutes out of date.
Precisely four minutes before estimated impact the thrust from the secondary drive rammed him deeply into his couch. There was nothing on the display screen but stars and, in one corner, a distant figure, blurring rapidly through the eight hundreds. One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed and it seemed that the missile's rate of approach was slowing, but not, Devlin was sure, quickly enough. It was not until the distance closed to under one hundred miles that he was able to recognize individual numbers, not until the forties that it showed any signs of slowing, but there were only a few seconds remaining before estimated impact when the figures crept out of the low twenties and into the 'teens. They hesitated at sixteen miles distance, then withdrew to seventeen, eighteen ...
An intolerably bright point of light appeared near the center of the display screen. By the time Devlin had blinked away the after-image it had become an expanding patch of mist that was almost too diffuse to see. He waited for a shock wave to hit the ship, but the instruments did not even shudder.
"The inverse square law," he said, laughing with relief, "is wonderful."
He felt happy as the ship went through the secondary drive maneuvers that would return it to its original programed course toward the next target system. The near-miss had not—so far as the status displays were concerned—had any ill effects on the ship, its systems or the cold-sleeping colonists. But he also knew a vague uncertainty and a feeling almost of surprise that he had been able to accomplish what he had. True, his memory had recently become much more retentive and the lecture material on computers during training could, perhaps unconsciously, have been available in his mind. Whatever the reason, he had, for a few crucial minutes back there, felt that he knew exactly what he was doing.
At best he was a hero, Devlin thought aridly—and at worst a crew member under observation who had passed a difficult test. Trouble was, he found it difficult to believe that the aliens who had tried to kill him were the product of a simulator. And if he had proven himself a hero, he deserved a pat on the back from someone.
He did not get it from the computer.
COURSE CORRECTIONS COMPLETE. SECONDARY DRIVE REACTOR POWERED DOWN. WARNING. REACTION MASS REMAINING FOR PLANETARY LANDING BELOW MARGIN FOR SAFETY.
If it had been a test, he might not have passed it.
PART 2
Galaxy – November 1973
Chapter Nine
IT SEEMED to Devlin that all his life had been spent trying to pass tests, failing most of them—and then trying to escape the results of the failures. He was trying to escape the latest failure by fleeing into cold sleep, but the computer was being awkward.
NEGATIVE TO REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE COOLDOWN. CARRY OUT INSTRUCTION REMEMBER. COOLDOWN IN ONE HOUR THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES.
Devlin did not want to remember anything, neither his own past life nor the bright, pleasant and often agonizing dream lives. The process of memory was one of the Devlin organic systems capable of being checked by a temporary Hold, but it could not be switched off.
Not only was it becoming impossible for him to forget anything of importance, but even the most trivial incidents were coming back to him with a clarity and intensity that made him wonder if someone—or some medically programed process—could be feeding him psycho-augmenter drugs. He did not know and he could be sure of nothing. His only means of defense against a recall of too-painful memories was to concentrate on one of the less unpleasant days in his life.
The day he had decided to recall had begun pleasantly. There were only three patients in morning surgery and he had no private visits scheduled. The preceding two weeks had seen a sudden upsurge in block security casualties and affairs of honor within the building, but now the area was entering a period of relative sanity which, experience had taught him, might last for a few days. His last patient had been Patricia Morley, the girl with the lacerated cheek.
"It is healing nicely," Devlin said as he renewed the dressing, "but there will be scars. Are you sure you won't have plastic surgery?"
"No," she said firmly.
This was her fourth visit to the surgery and he had twice spoken to her in the recreation hall, so that their time together totaled no more than three hours. Her face was no longer giving her pain and, although she still considered her reason for inflicting the wound a good one, she remained normal enough to want to hide the scars behind a no longer necessary dressing. Soon she would cease to need him as a doctor. Devlin was glad about that, but a little worried that she might have to swap him for a psychiatrist.
Sufferers in silence, even those who could do so without complaint or outward show of distress, were still sufferers.
It was clear that she wanted to talk about her problem—which was, fundamentally, a non-surgical one—and she was not a wailer, a martyr to misfortune or a potential suicide. Devlin would not in the least mind listening to her, but in their present surroundings the conversation stayed on a much too clinical level.
"It's a fine, sunny day," said Devlin. "I advise you to get some fresh air and exercise in the district park."
She laughed at that because the fresh air of the city was anything but—and compared unfavorably with the cooled and filtered hurricane that whistled continually from the building's main air ducts.
"It is three miles away," Devlin went on, "which should be exercise enough if you go on foot. But to make sure that you are following doctor's orders I shall call at the park on my way back from morning rounds. If you look to be on the verge of exhaustion I shall offer you refreshment and a ride back."
"As a form of exercise," she replied, "it beats the nightly epilepsy to music in the rec hall. All right, Doctor, I'll follow the prescribed treatment. But isn't this a very complicated way of asking for a date?"
"It is?" asked Devlin—then more honestly he added: "It is."
BUT HE had good reasons for circumspection, Devlin thought as the girl left his surgery, and she understood them just as well as he did. The rec hall had held too much noise and not enough light for their few chaperoned meetings to have been generally noticed, but driving her away from the block in his car after passing through the security checkpoint which, at this early and safe time of the day was manned by overly talkative oldsters, would cause comment. Giving her a lift back in his medic's vehicle, considering the fact that her dressing would make her look like a walking casualty, would not give rise to any talk.
There was also the fact that as a member of a non-belted profession he was nominally a citizen, but actually, as far as the younger belt-wearers in the block were concerned, a sheep pretending to be a citizen. The girl had already suffered too much as a result of young citizens' offering her unwanted protection and, in at least two cases, killing her men friends. They could not, of course, challenge Devlin to an affair, but they could make life unpleasant for him in many ways if he made them envious—or even annoyed them with the thought that a sheep might win a girl a citizen had lost.
Devlin wanted to help the girl and he liked her company, but he was cautious by nature.
The city park for that area was a tiny island of greenery surrounded by an enormous car park provided for its users. The car park was three-quarters full, Devlin noticed as he found a slot close to the main entrance. This meant that the park itself was relatively uncrowded. He also saw, without really noticing them, the signs warning against the carrying of weapons inside the park and the city security men in full riot gear who lost interest in him as soon as they saw his walking-out whites. Beetle-like inside his air-conditioned armor and his features hidden by the reflections in his visor, the security sergeant waved him past the search point, as he had waved on the black-garbed figure who had preceded Devlin by a few seconds and who had halted inside the entrance.
Hearing Devlin's footsteps behind him the man turned suddenly and smiled. It was Brother Howard.
"Good morning, Doctor," he said pleasantly. "I was hoping to meet you again. Do you mind if we walk together?"
"I'm meeting someone—" began Devlin.
"I understand," said Howard, holding Devlin's gaze until the Brother could have no doubt that the doctor was telling the truth. Then he looked at this watch and went on: "But you strike me as being a methodical individual, Doctor, who would be inclined to make appointments, professional or social, exactly on the hour. It wants eighteen minutes to the hour, and if you could spare me those few minutes for a talk—"
He kept pace with Devlin, waiting.
The truth was, Devlin realized suddenly, that he did not know how long Patricia would take to reach the park—she might even have changed her mind about coming. He was tempted to be impolite to Howard. But the man had not been discourteous to him, merely a little too insistent and Devlin had survived this far by being as polite as possible to everyone.
"My pleasure," he said.
BUT THE Brother said very little during the first few minutes and Devlin began to relax and enjoy the slow, silent pacing between the flower beds and under the trees.
Many other parks in the city featured artificial plants, but the trees in this one were real. Transparent plastic protected the first few yards of their trunks against vandals and name-carvers. The flower beds, which had less obtrusive, electronic protection, were real as well, as evidenced by the delicate and natural scents leaking into the air and the number of bees in the area. The turf underfoot was fresh, green and springy—it had to be a hardwearing synthetic to remain in that condition after the daily pounding it had to withstand from the district's collective feet.
A sudden burst of firing—its irregular spacing, less than a mile distant, suggesting an affair between contestants who could not shoot straight—presently reminded Devlin once more that beyond the real trees and flower beds lay an unpleasantly real world.
Beside him the Brother sighed and said, "I realize that I am rushing things, Doctor—coming much too quickly to the point. But there isn't much time. I hope you will forgive me and make allowances."
Devlin made a wordless noise, a guarded grunt which, he hoped, would bind him to nothing.
The Brother went on soberly, "I won't insult your intelligence by asking if you are happy with things as they are. But just how unhappy are you?"
"With things as they are?"
Brother Howard nodded. "As detailed a list as you can manage."
Devlin began to laugh, then stopped, his amusement changing suddenly to irritation. He said, "There is a long list of things I'm unhappy about. Arming so-called responsible citizens before they have reached maturity, much less achieved a sense of responsibility, is wrong. And I don't like the way the majority of these citizens treat the sheep—or the way the Maxers overreact if someone so much as sneezes without using a tissue—or the way city security can't seem to be able to keep the peace without waging total war on all and sundry. Of course, I'm not being quite fair to them—it's pretty obvious that they can't trust anyone who is not another security man. But they don't bother to hide that fact." He went on angrily. "Oh, I know that the citizens and Maxers started out with the highest possible motives. We were on the verge of anarchy and it was thought that sober and responsible citizens bearing arms would be able to curb the worst excesses—the wholesale muggings and murders and bombings. And the idea of maximum rather than minimum response to violent crime—that worked for a while, too. But then both citizens and Maxers began looking for wrongs to right and when they could no longer find even a minor wrong they—"
Devlin broke off, took a deep breath and continued, "I don't like the mass processing of patients and the complete depersonalization in present-day hospitals—or the increasing loneliness that overcrowding brings. You have only to walk through a crowded rec hall at night to know what I mean. Curative treatment for these social ills should have started many generations ago," he said bitterly. "I realize that nothing can be done at this late date, but I don't have to like the situation. In my profession one is conditioned to dislike illness, I suppose—and I especially do not like the illness and the rot afflicting society these days. The sickness goes through to the core and from the top to the bottom. There is no secure place, nothing to hold on to, nobody in authority who is fully trustworthy, nowhere to go that is any better. I'm generalizing, of course—there are bound to be some individuals or groups trying to improve matters, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule and they will eventually go soft and rotten like the rest of us. Their psychiatrists or friends will explain the folly of remaining firm while everyone else is going loose. They will be given, or elect to take, one of the personality change series that will chemically tailor their minds to fit happily into present-day society. Sheep into citizens or vice versa with a couple of color-coded pills!"
He strapped himself more securely to the couch and, without giving himself a chance to have second thoughts, requested three minutes of three-G thrust on the secondary drive at right angles to the present course. Theoretically the evasive action would have been equally effective if he had accelerated toward the missiles, or even decelerated and allowed them to pass ahead of him, but psychologically it was more comforting to turn away from the attack and the people who had launched it—especially when the display was showing graphically the narrow margin by which the ship would avoid disaster.
According to the display, the missiles would pass within fifty to sixty miles, unless their courses were modified. Should the aliens be capable of this, the display gave the times involved—a little over six minutes for the ship's change of course to become apparent to the attackers, an unknown number of seconds or minutes for the aliens to react and recompute trajectories and just under three minutes for their radio signals to go out to the missiles.
Devlin watched the display anxiously.
MISSILE ONE MISS DISTANCE FIFTY—SIX POINT THREE MILES. MISSILE TWO MISS DISTANCE FIFTY—ONE POINT SEVEN MILES. MISSILE THREE COURSE CORRECTION INITIATED. MISSILE THREE ON COLLISION COURSE. ESTIMATING CONTACT TWO HOURS FIFTY-SEVEN POINT EIGHT MINUTES.
Devlin swore. The missiles did carry enough fuel to make course corrections. But only one of them had done so—the one that had been due to strike last and therefore had more time to maneuver. This might be an indication that the aliens' computing facilities were being overstretched, or simply that they were so confident of hitting the ship that they were refusing to waste time by diverting all three missiles.
To give himself time to think he tapped for a replay of the sound and visual material from the probe, and stared at what he thought might be a good alien and the three bad aliens.
HIS FIRST impulse had been to order random attitude changes and periods of thrust, which would give the aliens' control and guidance specialists a lot of work to do and, just possibly, reduce missile three's capacity for maneuvering. But random attitude and course changes would occasionally take the ship toward the missile. He could not afford a near miss because the radiation, although it might not be fatal to everyone on board, would probably injure the people in cold sleep who were positioned below the outer hull. There was also the fact that the computer would have to carry out all the random movements in reverse order if the ship were to regain its original course and reach the next target system.
The ship was moving deeper into the alien system as well as closing rapidly with the missiles, which meant that the reaction time of the missiles' guidance experts to ship course changes was also being reduced. But if he could make a drastic course change within that reaction time, using the secondary drive at its full emergency thrust of five Gs, the aliens might assume that the ship was incapable of any greater evasive effort than the three Gs already used and their counter computations, necessarily hurried, might be correspondingly off. Devlin did a few quick calculations and decided that a two-minute five-G burn within the reaction time would pull the ship out of danger.
The computer did not agree.
Devlin found himself fighting back anger and a bout of hysterical laughter as the ship's computer did its best to mutiny. It did not want him to apply five Gs thrust to the ship, it flashed, because this should be done only in the event of an extreme emergency shortly before landing on unsuitable terrain. The ship's systems would be severely overstressed by five Gs. This would not matter if the ship were landing shortly afterward, but it could be dangerous for the occupants if it had to resume the voyage after such a period of maximum stress. The display went on to list the dangers of such an action, detailing the effects on power reserves, life-support systems and long-range sensory equipment. Every time Devlin tried to tap out an instruction he got nothing but warning lights, and the minutes were rushing past.
"Damn you," he said to the side display, which was still showing the four aliens talking and gesticulating in slow motion. "We aren't invading you. We wouldn't touch your stinking overcrowded system with a barge pole—"
But a calmer, more controlled corner of his mind knew that the aliens had a point of view, too. They were simply reacting to the apparent threat by a strange ship storming into their system with intentions they could only guess at. If the positions had been reversed, Earth people would probably have done the same.
He tapped again for emergency acceleration of five Gs and the warnings and precautionary telltales began flashing again. He tapped for four Gs and received no objections at all.
With his finger poised above the Execute button he stopped, canceled and tapped for four point five Gs. Still no objections. He tried edging it up by a few decimal points while extending the period of thrust and the arguments started again. Apparently the computer would cooperate at four point five Gs for three minutes and no higher.
NEARLY two hours were needed to power up the secondary drive reactor and to check its focusing coils. By that time it was obvious that the first two missiles were being allowed to go wide. The third was still on a collision course and closing rapidly. When the ship took evasive action, the time lag needed for the light carrying this information to reach the aliens and for the radio signals bearing the missile's course correction to reach it was just over four minutes. Any dodging would have to be done within that time.
He called up a picture of the area of sky from which the missile would come.
The aliens, if they were using their oddly equipped heads, would pre-time the missile to explode at the nearest approach. The detonation signal would go out to it at the last possible moment and be based on the latest available course data—which would be less than four minutes out of date.
Precisely four minutes before estimated impact the thrust from the secondary drive rammed him deeply into his couch. There was nothing on the display screen but stars and, in one corner, a distant figure, blurring rapidly through the eight hundreds. One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed and it seemed that the missile's rate of approach was slowing, but not, Devlin was sure, quickly enough. It was not until the distance closed to under one hundred miles that he was able to recognize individual numbers, not until the forties that it showed any signs of slowing, but there were only a few seconds remaining before estimated impact when the figures crept out of the low twenties and into the 'teens. They hesitated at sixteen miles distance, then withdrew to seventeen, eighteen ...
An intolerably bright point of light appeared near the center of the display screen. By the time Devlin had blinked away the after-image it had become an expanding patch of mist that was almost too diffuse to see. He waited for a shock wave to hit the ship, but the instruments did not even shudder.
"The inverse square law," he said, laughing with relief, "is wonderful."
He felt happy as the ship went through the secondary drive maneuvers that would return it to its original programed course toward the next target system. The near-miss had not—so far as the status displays were concerned—had any ill effects on the ship, its systems or the cold-sleeping colonists. But he also knew a vague uncertainty and a feeling almost of surprise that he had been able to accomplish what he had. True, his memory had recently become much more retentive and the lecture material on computers during training could, perhaps unconsciously, have been available in his mind. Whatever the reason, he had, for a few crucial minutes back there, felt that he knew exactly what he was doing.
At best he was a hero, Devlin thought aridly—and at worst a crew member under observation who had passed a difficult test. Trouble was, he found it difficult to believe that the aliens who had tried to kill him were the product of a simulator. And if he had proven himself a hero, he deserved a pat on the back from someone.
He did not get it from the computer.
COURSE CORRECTIONS COMPLETE. SECONDARY DRIVE REACTOR POWERED DOWN. WARNING. REACTION MASS REMAINING FOR PLANETARY LANDING BELOW MARGIN FOR SAFETY.
If it had been a test, he might not have passed it.
PART 2
Galaxy – November 1973
Chapter Nine
IT SEEMED to Devlin that all his life had been spent trying to pass tests, failing most of them—and then trying to escape the results of the failures. He was trying to escape the latest failure by fleeing into cold sleep, but the computer was being awkward.
NEGATIVE TO REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE COOLDOWN. CARRY OUT INSTRUCTION REMEMBER. COOLDOWN IN ONE HOUR THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES.
Devlin did not want to remember anything, neither his own past life nor the bright, pleasant and often agonizing dream lives. The process of memory was one of the Devlin organic systems capable of being checked by a temporary Hold, but it could not be switched off.
Not only was it becoming impossible for him to forget anything of importance, but even the most trivial incidents were coming back to him with a clarity and intensity that made him wonder if someone—or some medically programed process—could be feeding him psycho-augmenter drugs. He did not know and he could be sure of nothing. His only means of defense against a recall of too-painful memories was to concentrate on one of the less unpleasant days in his life.
The day he had decided to recall had begun pleasantly. There were only three patients in morning surgery and he had no private visits scheduled. The preceding two weeks had seen a sudden upsurge in block security casualties and affairs of honor within the building, but now the area was entering a period of relative sanity which, experience had taught him, might last for a few days. His last patient had been Patricia Morley, the girl with the lacerated cheek.
"It is healing nicely," Devlin said as he renewed the dressing, "but there will be scars. Are you sure you won't have plastic surgery?"
"No," she said firmly.
This was her fourth visit to the surgery and he had twice spoken to her in the recreation hall, so that their time together totaled no more than three hours. Her face was no longer giving her pain and, although she still considered her reason for inflicting the wound a good one, she remained normal enough to want to hide the scars behind a no longer necessary dressing. Soon she would cease to need him as a doctor. Devlin was glad about that, but a little worried that she might have to swap him for a psychiatrist.
Sufferers in silence, even those who could do so without complaint or outward show of distress, were still sufferers.
It was clear that she wanted to talk about her problem—which was, fundamentally, a non-surgical one—and she was not a wailer, a martyr to misfortune or a potential suicide. Devlin would not in the least mind listening to her, but in their present surroundings the conversation stayed on a much too clinical level.
"It's a fine, sunny day," said Devlin. "I advise you to get some fresh air and exercise in the district park."
She laughed at that because the fresh air of the city was anything but—and compared unfavorably with the cooled and filtered hurricane that whistled continually from the building's main air ducts.
"It is three miles away," Devlin went on, "which should be exercise enough if you go on foot. But to make sure that you are following doctor's orders I shall call at the park on my way back from morning rounds. If you look to be on the verge of exhaustion I shall offer you refreshment and a ride back."
"As a form of exercise," she replied, "it beats the nightly epilepsy to music in the rec hall. All right, Doctor, I'll follow the prescribed treatment. But isn't this a very complicated way of asking for a date?"
"It is?" asked Devlin—then more honestly he added: "It is."
BUT HE had good reasons for circumspection, Devlin thought as the girl left his surgery, and she understood them just as well as he did. The rec hall had held too much noise and not enough light for their few chaperoned meetings to have been generally noticed, but driving her away from the block in his car after passing through the security checkpoint which, at this early and safe time of the day was manned by overly talkative oldsters, would cause comment. Giving her a lift back in his medic's vehicle, considering the fact that her dressing would make her look like a walking casualty, would not give rise to any talk.
There was also the fact that as a member of a non-belted profession he was nominally a citizen, but actually, as far as the younger belt-wearers in the block were concerned, a sheep pretending to be a citizen. The girl had already suffered too much as a result of young citizens' offering her unwanted protection and, in at least two cases, killing her men friends. They could not, of course, challenge Devlin to an affair, but they could make life unpleasant for him in many ways if he made them envious—or even annoyed them with the thought that a sheep might win a girl a citizen had lost.
Devlin wanted to help the girl and he liked her company, but he was cautious by nature.
The city park for that area was a tiny island of greenery surrounded by an enormous car park provided for its users. The car park was three-quarters full, Devlin noticed as he found a slot close to the main entrance. This meant that the park itself was relatively uncrowded. He also saw, without really noticing them, the signs warning against the carrying of weapons inside the park and the city security men in full riot gear who lost interest in him as soon as they saw his walking-out whites. Beetle-like inside his air-conditioned armor and his features hidden by the reflections in his visor, the security sergeant waved him past the search point, as he had waved on the black-garbed figure who had preceded Devlin by a few seconds and who had halted inside the entrance.
Hearing Devlin's footsteps behind him the man turned suddenly and smiled. It was Brother Howard.
"Good morning, Doctor," he said pleasantly. "I was hoping to meet you again. Do you mind if we walk together?"
"I'm meeting someone—" began Devlin.
"I understand," said Howard, holding Devlin's gaze until the Brother could have no doubt that the doctor was telling the truth. Then he looked at this watch and went on: "But you strike me as being a methodical individual, Doctor, who would be inclined to make appointments, professional or social, exactly on the hour. It wants eighteen minutes to the hour, and if you could spare me those few minutes for a talk—"
He kept pace with Devlin, waiting.
The truth was, Devlin realized suddenly, that he did not know how long Patricia would take to reach the park—she might even have changed her mind about coming. He was tempted to be impolite to Howard. But the man had not been discourteous to him, merely a little too insistent and Devlin had survived this far by being as polite as possible to everyone.
"My pleasure," he said.
BUT THE Brother said very little during the first few minutes and Devlin began to relax and enjoy the slow, silent pacing between the flower beds and under the trees.
Many other parks in the city featured artificial plants, but the trees in this one were real. Transparent plastic protected the first few yards of their trunks against vandals and name-carvers. The flower beds, which had less obtrusive, electronic protection, were real as well, as evidenced by the delicate and natural scents leaking into the air and the number of bees in the area. The turf underfoot was fresh, green and springy—it had to be a hardwearing synthetic to remain in that condition after the daily pounding it had to withstand from the district's collective feet.
A sudden burst of firing—its irregular spacing, less than a mile distant, suggesting an affair between contestants who could not shoot straight—presently reminded Devlin once more that beyond the real trees and flower beds lay an unpleasantly real world.
Beside him the Brother sighed and said, "I realize that I am rushing things, Doctor—coming much too quickly to the point. But there isn't much time. I hope you will forgive me and make allowances."
Devlin made a wordless noise, a guarded grunt which, he hoped, would bind him to nothing.
The Brother went on soberly, "I won't insult your intelligence by asking if you are happy with things as they are. But just how unhappy are you?"
"With things as they are?"
Brother Howard nodded. "As detailed a list as you can manage."
Devlin began to laugh, then stopped, his amusement changing suddenly to irritation. He said, "There is a long list of things I'm unhappy about. Arming so-called responsible citizens before they have reached maturity, much less achieved a sense of responsibility, is wrong. And I don't like the way the majority of these citizens treat the sheep—or the way the Maxers overreact if someone so much as sneezes without using a tissue—or the way city security can't seem to be able to keep the peace without waging total war on all and sundry. Of course, I'm not being quite fair to them—it's pretty obvious that they can't trust anyone who is not another security man. But they don't bother to hide that fact." He went on angrily. "Oh, I know that the citizens and Maxers started out with the highest possible motives. We were on the verge of anarchy and it was thought that sober and responsible citizens bearing arms would be able to curb the worst excesses—the wholesale muggings and murders and bombings. And the idea of maximum rather than minimum response to violent crime—that worked for a while, too. But then both citizens and Maxers began looking for wrongs to right and when they could no longer find even a minor wrong they—"
Devlin broke off, took a deep breath and continued, "I don't like the mass processing of patients and the complete depersonalization in present-day hospitals—or the increasing loneliness that overcrowding brings. You have only to walk through a crowded rec hall at night to know what I mean. Curative treatment for these social ills should have started many generations ago," he said bitterly. "I realize that nothing can be done at this late date, but I don't have to like the situation. In my profession one is conditioned to dislike illness, I suppose—and I especially do not like the illness and the rot afflicting society these days. The sickness goes through to the core and from the top to the bottom. There is no secure place, nothing to hold on to, nobody in authority who is fully trustworthy, nowhere to go that is any better. I'm generalizing, of course—there are bound to be some individuals or groups trying to improve matters, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule and they will eventually go soft and rotten like the rest of us. Their psychiatrists or friends will explain the folly of remaining firm while everyone else is going loose. They will be given, or elect to take, one of the personality change series that will chemically tailor their minds to fit happily into present-day society. Sheep into citizens or vice versa with a couple of color-coded pills!"
