The Future Makers (v1.0), page 16
The silent agent scrambled up onto the seat, taking pot shots through the broken window. His forehead was grey and patchy above his mask.
“Aim at its rotors through the mesh!” Dickens bellowed.
“That’s the only way you’ll knock it out!”
They were speeding recklessly backwards down the jungle track. Dickens drove looking over his shoulder, dipstick in one hand, gun in the other.
“That thing can squash you if you try to run for it,” he said. “Squash you flat against the ground.”
“I wasn’t planning to jump out,” Tyne replied. He had just been planning to jump out.
As he spoke, the silent man flung open his door, hanging out to get a better shot into the middle of the fly-spy’s works. The thing reared up immediately into the branches overhead—and crashed down into one of the back wheels. The Moeweg skidded sideways into bushes and stopped, engine bellowing uselessly.
Tyne hardly paused to think. He knew they were trapped now. This thing could batter the car apart if it was so directed.
The dumb agent had been pitched onto the ground by the skid. Leaping through the open door, Tyne jumped onto him, snatched his gun and plunged into the undergrowth. He dived into the bushes recklessly, doubled up, doing anything to get away. Moving on hands and knees, he charged forward, heedless of any cuts or tears he sustained. Shots sounded behind him; he did not know if Dickens was firing at him or the fly-spy.
He travelled fast He tumbled into a little overgrown stream and was out in a flash. The faintest light, perhaps the first light of dawn, aided him.
He knew what to do. He was heading for a belt of thick trees with low branches. The fly-spy had severe limitations, for all its power. Dense foliage would stop it.
Tyne was on his feet now, running doubled up. He no longer knew which way he was running. That deep, determined humming sounded behind him. A light flickered and swam among the leaves, as the searchlight sought him out The leaves writhed. Where were the damned trees?
Blowing hard, he pounded through chest-high vegetation. It seemed endless.
Now he bounded down a bushy slope, plunged into a line of trees, tore himself free of brambles. When he tripped a minute later, he could hardly get up. Looking wearily about his head, he saw against the dark sky a protecting network of branches. The smaller branches waved in an artificial wind.
Panting, Tyne lay there like a trapped animal.
All he could do, he had done. He hadn’t imagined it would come after him; he had thought it would stay by the car and the two U.N.C. agents. But…if its transmissions back to Rosk base had caused him to be identified there as the Earth-man to whom Benda Ittai had spoken, then there was good reason for his being the quarry.
The leaves and grasses trembled about him. The resonant hum filled his ears. Jumping up like a frightened stag, Tyne flung himself into one of the trees. Pulling himself up, he hauled himself ten, fifteen feet above ground, hugging the trunk among a welter of stout, out-thrusting branches.
Seeing was better now. First light drifted like sludge through the trees. The slope he had run down lay in one direction, a fast river in the other. On the other side of the river lay what looked like a track.
The fly-spy had seen him. It swooped in low, cutting above the ground, its light probing. It could not rise to him because of the branches; they shielded him as he had hoped. Instead, the machine nuzzled lightly against the tree bole. For the first time, looking down on it. Tyne saw its big fans, revolving in a whirl behind protective gratings. He fired at them with the agent’s gun. His arm shook, the shot went wild.
The machine backed away and butted the tree. Then it circled out, seeking another way to get at him. Almost at the same time. Tyne became aware of Dickens, running down the slope. Following the fly-spy’s noise, the agent had followed Tyne.
Branches cracked. The fly-spy was pushing through twigs and light branches on a level with Tyne. Tyne slid round the other side of the trunk. If he could only hold out till full daylight, this thing would be bound to go home or else risk detection. He squinted down below, but Dickens had disappeared.
Again he changed position, to keep the tree’s girth between himself and the machine. This meant slipping down to a lower branch. He must beware of being forced all the way down; on the ground he was defenceless. The thing droned angrily, like an immense spinning top, pushing persistently through a maze of twigs. It worked to one side; again Tyne worked away from it.
Suddenly there was a shout, and the sound of shoes kicking steel.
Tyne looked round the tree, peering out like a scared squirrel.
Dickens had jumped or fallen onto the fly-spy. The agent had climbed the next tree and then launched himself or dropped outwards. Now he sprawled on top of the disc, fighting to get a grasp of it.
“Dickens!” Tyne yelled.
The agent slithered over the rocking surface of the fly-spy. His legs dangled, kicking wildly in air. Then he caught a finger hold in the machine’s central mesh and drew himself into a more secure position. As the fly-spy rocked among the branches, he pulled his gun out, aiming it at the rotor blades.
All this had obviously taken the Rosks who controlled the big disc completely by surprise, it just drifted where it was, helplessly. Then it moved. Its pervasive note changing pitch, it shot up like an express lift.
Dickens was knocked flat by a bough. Partially stunned, he slithered once more over the side, and his gun went flying—clatter-clattering all the way from branch to branch down to the ground.
“Jump, Dickens, for God’s sake!” Tyne shouted.
It was doubtful if the agent heard a word of it. He was carried’ up through the foliage, hanging on grimly, head half-buried in his arms. The last leaves swished by, and the fly-spy was out in the open, climbing slowly.
Heedlessly, Tyne jumped from the tree to sprawl full length in a flowering bush. Picking himself up, he broke from the trees, running along below the fly-spy, shouting incoherently. He dared not fire in case he hit Dickens. -
In the vapid early morning light, the disc was clearly visible thirty feet up, heading fast on an unswerving course that would, Tyne guessed, take it back to Sumatran Base, where the Rosks awaited it. Dickens had evidently had the same thought. He knelt on top of the thing, wrenching at the screens on its upper surface. In a moment, he had unlatched a segment of screen, a wedge-shaped bit that left the rotors revolving nakedly underneath.
He wrenched his shoe off and flung it into the rotors.
At once the dynamic hum changed into a violent knocking. From the knocking grew the mirthless squeal of metal breaking up. With a few staccato grinding sounds, the fly-spy began to fall, canting sharply.
Tyne was still running when it crashed into the river he had noticed earlier, bearing its passenger with it. They disappeared with a splash and did not come up again.
VI
It was 9:15 in the morning.
Tyne Leslie sat at the back of a Chinese coffee shop, eating durian off a cracked plate. His cheeks were smooth, his bead was clear; he had been to a nappi wallah who had shaved him and massaged his head and shoulders. When he had finally plodded into Padang ninety minutes ago, after a fruitless search along the river bank for Dickens, he had felt half-dead. Now he was, after the shave, the massage and breakfast, alive again, alert, planning ahead, casting little feelers of worry into the future.
Already he had written a note to Under-Secretary Grierson, a second secretary to whose under-secretary Tyne had been, outlining the threat of invasion to Earth. That note had been delivered to the British Diplomatic Mission building, and would be before the Under-Secretary himself within an hour. How long it would be before any action was taken on it was another matter.
Meanwhile, time grew short. Murray had been at large in Padang for twenty-four hours. If the Roskian RPF agent had been unable to reach Murray, it would be because he had been dogged by his own people, the Rosks faithful to Ap II Dowl. Undoubtedly though, the parties interested in finding Murray were closing in: RPF, Dowl’s men, the U.N.C., and possibly—undoubtedly, if they had wind of the affair—various nationally interested Earth groups. And Tyne.
And Tyne. He had told Dickens he was prepared to go straight to Murray. It was the truth. By a paradox, he could have done as much yesterday, before Stobart spoke to him.
The truth had lain, as so often happens, inside him, waiting for the ripe moment to reveal itself.
When Tyne questioned Mina in the Roxy foyer, she said that Murray had announced he was going to the plankton plant. She had assumed—and Tyne had unthinkingly accepted her assumption—that Murray meant the plant at Semapang, where he had nearly drowned himself. When Stobart had questioned the girl later, he had got the same answer; that was why Tyne and Dickens had met at the building.
But Murray had meant something quite different when he spoke of the plankton plant.
In those terrible seconds when Tyne was dragged drowning through the submarine intakes at Semapang, scenes from his past life had bubbled through his mind. One scene had been of Murray, Allan Cunliffe and himself breakfasting at the Merdeka Hotel after a heavy night While he and Allan sat drinking coffee, Murray tucked in to a large breakfast corn-plaining all the time about the badness of the food. “It’s always synthetic at the Merdeka,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what the food resembles, it’s really plankton underneath. As the Americans say, it’s a plant. A plankton plant! I tell you dreary-looking couple of so-and-sos, we live in a plankton plant Before you know it, the management will be offering us plankton women…”
The comments had stuck. From then on, the three of them had occasionally referred to the Merdeka as “the plankton plant”; it had been a private joke between them, until they tired of it All of this had run through Tyne’s drowning mind. He knew now that to find Murray he had to go to the Merdeka again; that was the place Murray had been referring to. Mina had been misled; so had Stobart; naturally enough, for they had never heard the old private joke. Tyne had been once, fruitlessly, to the Merdeka; today, he was going to ask the right questions of the right people.
Settling his bill, he left the cafe. He had already purchased a spare clip of ammunition for the stolen gun in his pocket Now he moved through side streets, warily, alert for danger. A protest march of the Displaced, complete with drums and banners (“rosks leave our world to peace,”
“world powers ARE DUPES OF ALIENS,” “SUMATRA HAS BEEN SACRIFICED!”), acted as convenient cover as Tyne slipped into the foyer of the hotel.
The familiarity, at once welcome and repugnant of the place assailed him like a pervasive fog. At this hour, before Padang’s political life, with its endless conferences and discussion, was under way, the lounge was full of the sort of men Tyne had been: restless, wretched (but smiling!) men who continually manoeuvred, but never manoeuvered boldly enough. Tyne skirted them, feeling as alien to them as a Rosk might have done.
He went through the building into the rear courtyard, where two very ancient Chinese ladies were combing each other’s hair in the sunshine.
“Have you seen Amir, please?” Tyne asked.
“He is at the warehouse, checking the rations.”
The “warehouse” was a crude brick shed beyond the courtyard, tucked between other buildings and conveniently facing a small back lane. Outside it stood a little delivery van labelled, in Malayan, Chinese, Russian and English, “Semapang Plankton Processed Foodstuffs”. The Merdeka was getting its daily quota of nourishment As Tyne approached, a uniformed driver emerged from the warehouse, climbed into the van and drove off. Tyne went stealthily to the warehouse door. Amir was there alone, left arm in a sling, leaning over a box checking delivery notes. Tyne entered, closing the door behind him.
Amir had been something of a friend of Allan’s and Tyne’s. Now there was only fear on his dark, intelligent face as he looked up and recognized his visitor.
“What have you done to your arm, Amir?”
“I thought you were dead, Mr. Leslie!”
“Who told you that?”
“You should not be here! It is dangerous here, Mr. Leslie! The Merdeka is always being watched. Please go away at once. For everyone’s safety, go away!”
His agitation was painful to watch. Tyne took his good arm and said, “Listen, Amir, if you know there is danger, you must know something of what is happening. The lives of everyone on Earth are threatened. I have to find Murray Mumford at once. At once! Do you know where he is?”
To his surprise and embarrassment, the young Sumatran began to weep. He made no noise or fuss about it; the tears rolled down his cheeks and fell onto the clear floor. He put up a hand to cover his eyes.
“So much trouble has been caused my country by other countries. Soon I shall join the Displaced. When our numbers are big enough, we shall force all foreigners to leave our land.”
“And the Rosks,” Tyne added.
“All foreigners. Do you know there is a funeral to be held this evening, at the Bukit Besar? Do you know whose funeral it is? The half-Dutch girl, Mina.”
“Mina! She’s dead?” exclaimed Tyne.
“That is generally the reason for funerals,” said Amir caustically. “The Rosks killed her because she had to do with your friend Mumford. Perhaps you will be interested to hear that the Rosks came for me yesterday; they tortured me. Perhaps today they will come back to kill me. You came to the Merdeka yesterday and I avoided you. Today I have not avoided you, and I shall probably die.”
“Nonsense, Amir, take a grip of yourself! The Rosks won’t want you again,” Tyne said. “What did they ask you yesterday?”
Amir stopped crying as suddenly as he had begun. Looking Tyne straight in the eye, he pulled his bandaged arm from its sling and began to unwrap it. In a minute he produced it, exposing it with a penetrating mixture of horror and pride.
“The Rosks asked me where Murray Mumford is hiding,” Amir said. “Because I did not tell them, this is what they did to me.”
His left hand had been amputated at the wrist. Grafted on in its place, hanging limply, uselessly, was a chimpanzee’s paw.
Tyne’s own artificial left hand clenched convulsively in sympathetic pain.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Amir.”
“This is how they think of man.”
He turned away, clumsily rebandanging his limb, and added in a choked voice, “But I did not tell them where Murray is. You I can tell. When he came here early yesterday morning, he said he was going to hide in the old Deli Jalat temple, down the lane. Now please go. Go and do not ever ask me anything again.”
“I’m truly sorry,” Tyne said, pausing by the door. ’This’ll be made up to you one day. Amir. Wait and see.”
Amir did not turn round.
Outside, Tyne leapt straight over a low stone wall and crouched there with his gun out Amir had given him a bigger shaking than he cared to admit to himself. Slowly he raised his head and looked about.
One or two natives were busy about the few dwellings facing onto the little back street into which he had emerged; none of them seemed to be interested in Murray. With a pang, he realized a bitter truth in what Amir had said. To the local population, the visiting nations which had descended upon Sumatra were as troublesome as the Rosks. Both groups were equally opposed to their way of life. The Rosks owed their ability to travel easily beyond their perimeter to a typically Eastern indifference to which of two forms of exploitation fell upon them. Had the powerful Western nations behaved with more consideration to Sumatra over the past few centuries, they might be receiving more consideration from her now.
As Tyne was about to climb back over the wall, a man appeared from the direction of the Merdeka. He walked slowly as befitted his bulk, his eyes guardedly casting to left and right It was Stobart He was walking away from the direction in which the Deli Jalat temple stood. When he saw the road was empty, he quickened his pace. As Tyne sank back into concealment, Stobart produced a whistle, raised it to his lips, blew it. No audible sound emerged; it was ultrasonic—no doubt a summoning of forces.
Directly the U.N.C. agent had gone, Tyne hopped back over the low wall and headed in the direction of the temple, where Murray had told Amir he was going to hide. The settlement with Murray was coming; in Tyne’s pocket, the loaded gun felt reassuringly heavy.
Despite the hot sun on his shoulders, icy clarity seized hiih. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to kill Murray.
Only one thing worried him, and he wasn’t going to let that spoil his aim. Murray, waiting with his microfilm to meet the RPF agent, had covered his tracks well; the glimpse of Stobart (who had no doubt picked up Tyne’s trail in the Merdeka lunge) was a token he was still at large, despite the none too scrupulous powers ranged against him. Yet Tyne, working alone, was on the point of finding him. Why?
Two pieces of information had led to Murray: Mina’s information about the “plankton plant”; and from there, Amir’s about the temple. Both U.N.C. and, presumably, Rosk had got the same lead from Mina; neither had got anything from Amir. Mina’s information was capable of correct interpretation only by Tyne; Amir had said his piece voluntarily only to Tyne. Why?
One answer alone emerged. Murray had expected Tyne to pursue him. Before going into hiding, he had left those two messages with Mina and Amir deliberately knowing Tyne would follow them up. Yet Murray would realize Tyne could have only one reason for following: to avenge Allan Cun-liffe’s death on the moon. And the motives a man might have for silently, deviously, beckoning his murderer towards him remained notably obscure. And seductively obscure.
