Friends Come in Boxes, page 14
“I would have liked that too,” Alice admitted. She forced down her surging emotions. “But I’m afraid it just can’t be. Don’t ask me to explain. I’ve decided I want a Premature and that’s all there is to it. Will you be performing the Transfer?”
“I will, I suppose… Yes, of course I will. I couldn’t let anyone else do it. But I’d just like to know why, that’s all.” He hesitated. “It’s nothing to do with meeting me again, is it?”
Alice tried to laugh, but the sound emerged as a croak of despair. “No, Phillip, of course not. It’s just that I haven’t been well lately and … well, there’s no point in taking chances, is there? You’d be surprised at the figures for brain wastage due to unexpected death in the late thirties. Why wait, when a Premature is available?”
He was staring at her. “You look fit enough to me, Alice. You don’t make sense. There’s something else, something you won’t tell me about. What is it, Alice? What’s gone wrong?”
“Nothing.” She forced a hard tone into her voice. “I’ve got clearance, Phillip, and I want my Transfer. Now.”
Nevertheless he argued and Alice grew increasingly frustrated and apprehensive. She had no time to lose. Her name might be on the indicator board at this moment. Soon, the man before her ceased to be Phillip, the man she had once loved and probably still did; he became a menace, a threat to her life. He stood there pleading, with each word pushing her nearer Total Death. She panicked.
“For God’s sake shut up and give me my Transfer or I’ll make damned sure you’re downgraded!” she screamed.
He stopped talking as abruptly as if she had slapped his face. He stared at her, shrugged, and turned towards the door. “Come along,” he muttered.
Once in the operating theatre she lay on the table while Phillip scrubbed up and a nurse prepared the instruments. The Friend, still swathed in blankets lay on a chair near the door. Muffled sounds came from her. She had begun to get restless; due to the long delay she must obviously now suspect a trick. Phillip glanced at the box and back to Alice, looking perplexed. Poor man, she thought sadly, he doesn’t know what the hell is going on, and his pride won’t allow him further conversation.
The indicator board was on the far wall, before her as she lay. Linton James was still at large, presumably making for the hills. She wished him luck. People had been known to avoid captivity for ten years or more, once they had got through the first few perilous days. Such names were deleted from the boards after a few days, partly through lack of space, and partly because it was felt to be bad for the morale of the population if the name appeared, minute after minute, for months. That was tangible evidence that crime could, on occasion, go unpunished. Not only that, but people used to bet on the date of capture, which was felt to be against the spirit of the System. But in the permanent records, the name of the escaped criminal was not deleted…
Phillip was shaving her scalp, his lips pursed with concentration. The nurse had wheeled across the trolley of instruments; the scene was the same as she had known several times before. Except for the sickening significance of those names drifting down the board…
LINTON JAMES, RAPE.
NANCY BLACKETT, KIDNAPPING.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
The razor tickled as it slid around her ears; his hands were none too steady. She couldn’t see him now—he was behind her—but every so often she caught sight of the top of his head as he bent over her. She said impulsively: “I’m sorry I shouted at you, Phillip. I’ll meet you in a year’s time, if I may,” and he smiled into her eyes from overhead, upside down. For a moment she felt better. There was a crack in the ceiling, jagged like a lightning flash.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LINTON JAMES, RAPE.
NANCY BLACKETT, KIDNAPPING.
James would be running. He would have succeeded in catching a bus to some country terminus before his details were transmitted to the ticket mechanism, and he had walked away, slowly at first and casually; then, once he was past the houses, he had left the road and struck across the fields, bending low beside the hedges and running in an awkward crouch. His shoes were caked with mud and they would feel heavy on his feet. His breath would come fast and harsh and he would be wishing he hadn’t smoked so much. Alice could visualize it all. She almost knew what he looked like…
LINTON JAMES, RAPE.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LINTON JAMES,RAPE.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
Kidnapping was a serious crime against the System and she was not sorry they had caught Nancy Blackett, whoever she was. Her gaze strayed to the array of instruments on the trolley and she felt the familiar constriction in her chest as she saw the large electrical trepan, a toothed helmet. No matter how many Transfers a person undergoes, they say that he never quite loses the moment of fear when the helmet is positioned. Then, of course, after everything is in place with the co-operation of the patient, they give you the shot. The trepan was obscene, conjuring up images of a hollow hemisphere of skull like an empty gourd.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
They had got James! She could see it all. The spottercopter had descended out of the sky and hovered above him as he twisted and ran; this clothes ragged and filthy, flapping in the downdraught. He had darted across a field, crawled along a culvert in an effort to shake off the ’copter tied to him like a kite. They had converged on foot from all directions until, screaming, he had thrown himself to the ground and buried his face in the stinking mud and waited until voices spoke and a rough boot rolled him over.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
If just one more strange name appeared on the board it would not be so bad, just another unknown name to dilute the predicament of Les Anstead, Thief; because the board seemed in some odd way to be waiting, marking time with one rhythmic name before… They had wheeled another trolley in, Phillip was speaking to the nurse in low tones while she got the helmet ready and the Friend mumbled through the blanket. The new trolley was beside her, the tiny occupant covered with a white sheet. For a brief moment she felt pity, then her gaze was snatched away…
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
Alice Lander, Homicide! Dear God, it was a homicide charge! The child had died! That meant a twenty-year sentence. That meant no childhood, ever again, because she would be twenty physical years old before she was released from confinement. Then the remaining twenty years of adult life. Then Total Death. If Phillip and the nurse failed to notice the indicator board. If, during the next five minutes, they didn’t look that way. Once they had opened her skull, and that of her new body, they legally had to go through with it.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
LES ANSTEAD, THEFT.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
She was all alone now and she felt a gust of self-pity and she knew that they must notice the board, they couldn’t miss the board, the board was silently shouting at them, commanding them to stop the operation, now, NOW! And Phillip was bending over her and he was saying something. The nurse held the helmet, she was fitting it over Alice’s head and she wondered: in a moment they will give me the shot and which body will I have when I wake up? Before they start the trepan, will they see the board, and will I wake up to find myself in the same body with only six months to live? Or that body which Phillip is uncovering? That tiny body and forty years’ more life?
That body. She turned her head and saw that body, naked and small…
It had a huge, livid crimson nevus on its cheek. It was an android child.
Quite calmly, Woman Alice Lander gestured the helmet away, swung her feet to the floor and stood, while the nurse and Phillip watched, their faces stupid with astonishment.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “This won’t do; it won’t do at all.” Her eyes were wide and she seemed almost to be smiling. She walked steadily across the room and took the Friend from beneath the blanket. They flinched as they watched, and heard the screaming obscenities, and saw Alice swing the box against the wall, once, to quieten it. She walked towards them; the nurse backed away and Alice placed the box on the operating table. She turned and regarded them; behind the indicator board flickered unnoticed.
“Being of sound mind,” she said quietly and with infinite control, “and being in the presence of two competent witnesses: I, Woman Alice Lander, hereby Make Over all my rights of future Transfer to my present Friend, Betty Benson.”
There was a startled exclamation, then: “Why, thank you, my dear,” said the sightless box beside the android child.
“And furthermore,” continued Alice, “having obtained permission for my own Premature Transfer, I require that the assigned Transfer of Woman Betty Benson be carried out immediately.” Her voice began to falter at last. “Phillip,” she said unsteadily. “Get me out of here.”
He took her by the arm and led her down the corridor and into the sunlit bustle of the noisy street. He held her impersonally and walked stiffly, as though embarrassed. On the steps she turned and smiled at him and he winced at the emptiness behind her eyes. “Now you can buy me that drink, Phillip,” she said. “Someone else can do the operation.”
“I think not,” he replied, his countenance expressionless, and he turned, and walked back into the Transfer Centre.
She hardly noticed him go, but giggled a little at the thought of Betty Benson, of all people, waking up in an android body. Across the street a tall indicator board flashed above a police car from which a man and a woman were regarding her curiously.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
ALICE LANDER, HOMICIDE.
She chuckled at that, too. She would have to telephone them immediately, and set the record straight. There was a visiphone box on the corner. The board ought, of course, to read:
ALICE LANDER, SUICIDE.
People turned and glanced at the woman who stood on the steps of the Transfer Centre, whose wild, racking laughter constituted a disorderly intrusion into the humdrum street sounds.
CHARITY RUN
being the dossier on:
MAN PHILLIP EWELL
(and others)
YEARS, CENTURIES AGO, Bovey Tracey was a busy little town which owed its Prosperity to its position on the fringe of Dartmoor. The town itself possessed several hotels, and the long pull up to the Moor and Haytor Rock was flanked with similar establishments catering to the tourists who enjoyed the beauty and vivid contrasts to be found in this part of Devon. And contrasts there are, from the deeply wooded Dart and Teign valleys to the short springy grass and barren granite outcrops of the Moor proper.
But now the hotels were empty and decaying with fallen roofs, and the tourists were gone, Exeter a village, Newton Abbot deserted apart from the skeleton staffing on the monorail station on the east-west artery. To the south the fertile farmlands stretched to the distant sea; the villages and towns which had once dotted the area had long since been ploughed under in the fight to feed the huge cities of Axminster and Plymouth.
Dartmoor and its fringes had been written off. Too rugged, the soil too poor for farmland; there had been a suggestion that the entire area be used for the creation of a central city combining Plymouth and Axminster—but studies had shown the climate, with its unpredictable rain, fogs, and occasional heavy winter snow, to be unsuitable. So man had withdrawn from the Moor and nature had regained quickly the ground lost in previous centuries.
With two exceptions.
Even within the rigid bureaucracy of England, a gesture of total irrelevance will sometimes be made in the name of recreation. Valuable housing land will be given up for the sake of a sports stadium. There will be a gap in the continuity of coastal fish farms in order that the sportsman might sit for hours with rod and reel in hope of the unexpected, useless conger, or shark from deeper waters. Groups will be formed and pressure brought to bear, and strings pulled in unlikely circles.
Threading its way up the valley from Newton Abbot monorail station was a single-track railway line—two rails!—the distance between them being, by the old standard of measurement, 4 foot 8½ inches. Nobody had ever translated this into metric; that would defeat the purpose. It was the Standard Gauge, and ever shall be. Nostalgia, for days which the present population had never known, must have its outlet. And the Chairman of the Axminster Urban Council was a purist. He was also Chairman of the Great Western Railway Preservation Society. His bookshelf abounded with ancient works, collectors’ items, describing in meticulous detail the locomotives of Dean, Churchward and Collett, the bridges of Brunel. He was a steam nut.
He spent his leisure time travelling the line from Newton Abbot to Moretonhampstead with a secretary who took notes as to repairs required or further restoration to be carried out, while a museum piece in the form of a Collett 0-4-2 tank engine numbered 4839 noisily drew the three restored coaches along the winding track. When he had first discovered the locomotive on a long-forgotten siding with a rowan tree growing through its rusted boiler, it had borne the number 1439, but investigation had proved this is to be the result of a re-numbering system during World War II. The number was suspect, so he had new number plates cast. He was also obliged to have constructed a new boiler and frames, new valve gear and fittings. The sheet steel of the cab sides, spectacle plate and tanks had to be replaced. On the locomotive’s first being fired up, the cylinder block was found to be cracked. He cast a new block. In its present running order, the only original parts of number 4839 were the wheels and buffers.
All of which goes to show that the Chairman of the Axminster Urban Council possessed the stuff of which humanity is made. He was a tenacious enthusiast and as such he attracted many members to the Preservation Society, and considerable funds. He had a forceful personality in addition to his influential post, and his accounting for the funds had never been questioned. The majority of the membership were, coincidentally or not, his subordinates in the Council. The Society never lacked for volunteer labour, and a considerable profit was made from fare-paying passengers who were curious enough to want to know what travel was like in the old days. Further profits stemmed from membership fees and the sale of postcards and brochures. The Chairman was justifiably pleased with the success of his Society.
So nature was hurled back from the trackwork of the Great Western Railway Preservation Society by volunteer labour and the liberal use of weedkiller. Nature also failed to gain a foothold in a small area towards the south of Bovey Tracey due to the efforts of a band of criminal renegades headed by a man named Charles Swann who had, some years previously, been convicted of associating with a nonentity and sentenced to Total Death. He had dropped out of society as a result of this and now, at the illegal physical age of forty-two, was living with the nonentity in Bovey Tracey. The nonentity’s name was Valerie.
Valerie Swann was dying of cancer.
Charles had watched her grow thinner over the past year, seen the flicker of pain which dimmed her eyes becoming more frequent with time, and he had known the sickness of impotence. Nothing could be done. His wife, as he insisted on referring to her, was a nonentity; there could be no Transfer. A few years ago he could have taken a chance, gone to Axminster and attempted to get medical treatment on compassionate grounds with a borrowed Card, but now it was too late; the journey would be too much for her.
Valerie and Charles had first met at a small seaside resort when they were both thirty physical years old; at the time Charles did not suspect that thirty was her actual age too. Maybe he didn’t want to suspect, because he was captivated immediately by her quick wit and fresh, unusual outlook. Only when he suggested marriage did she confess. She had lived in the town all her life without a Code Card; her parents, as occasionally happened, had omitted to turn her in at birth. She was living with them again following an awkward period when they had each undergone Friendship periods of nine years each. Several people in town knew her secret, but nobody was inclined to inform the authorities.
They made up their minds quickly and dropped out, walking the fifty miles to Bovey and joining the small criminal colony which had flourished there for some time. They quickly found themselves among friends and settled down; the word criminal as defined by statute covered a multitude of minor sins, the commonest of which was the motoring offence. Up to now, the colony had had very little trouble with the authorities who conveniently ignored their existence.
Children were born in the colony and occasionally Charles—who by this time was regarded as leader—wondered exactly how far their population would be allowed to grow before the law decided to sit up and take notice. There must be dozens of such colonies up and down the country.
With the children came further problems and a method had to be devised for bringing in supplies, medical and the like, which they were unable to produce themselves. Most of the colony members had friends in Axminster who would have been glad to help if they could, but the old roads to Bovey were virtually impassable. The nearest highway was fifteen miles away at Newton Abbot, and this was constantly patrolled by police on the lookout for offenders. By dint of a certain amount of bribery, however, the problem was solved.
The Great Western Railway Preservation Society became an unwitting carrier.
Charles Swann watched his wife as she lay in bed; she was bad, today, and it was not wise for her to get up. He glanced at his watch; the train was due in Bovey in an hour’s time.
“I’ll be all right, dear,” she said, knowing what was in his mind. “Just ask Joanna to come in. We can have a chat while you’re gone.”
“But you wanted to see Margery,” he said. He had been wondering if, maybe, he could wheel her down to the station on the handcart, suitably upholstered. Margery Steen was a friend from the old days, a few physical years younger than Valerie; and it was she who had been instrumental in organizing the supply delivery. Margery was a guide with the Preservation Society; on a voluntary basis she looked after the passengers three days a week.
