It was dashed with cold finality when a precise voice came through Cameron’s monitor:
“Down, or I’ll cut you in two. At once, please.”
No questions. Just a command. The speaker didn’t want to know where Fleetfin was headed, who was aboard, or what time it was.
“Who are you?” Captain Jorgeson blustered.
Cameron watched the grille of his monitor as if he could conjure the voices into faces and legs.
“I don’t want to kill you,” the frosty voice replied, “but I’m not in the least sentimental. I shall give you thirty minutes to land at Dead Horse Spring, two points to port. You’ll have to—”
Fleetfin shuddered slightly, and Cameron cursed the captain’s stubborn idiocy. He touched another button on his panel.
“Down, damn you!” he ordered. “We’ll settle the question of authority later. I order you down. You can’t fight that ship. Cease firing!”
The outlaw’s voice broke in, crisp with annoyance. “You can see that I’m shielded. One more blast from you and you begin second-guessing in hell.”
Captain Jorgeson, a red-topped mountain of wrath in the cubicle doorway, roared at Cameron.
“Who’s giving orders here? The council will—”
“Oh, dry up!” Cameron said. “I told you we’ll fight it out later. I don’t want to be on a killed-in-action list. There’s nothing you can do, anyway, but go down. He’s shielded. Why make him sore by shooting at him?”
“You’re under arrest!” Jorgeson snarled.
Cameron bowed sardonically at the departing footsteps and sat back to await the landing.
Clouds which might have come straight out of Textile Center seemed to drift upward, and presently Dead Horse Spring was visible in miniature far below. It rose steadily toward them, as did the pocked desert. They were soon on its face and the long black ship drifted gently toward them.
“All outside,” came the outlaw’s voice.
Cameron joined the captain and the young, bright-eyed pilot as they stepped out into the pungent heat. The odor of sage was hot in their nostrils and they shielded their eyes from sand glare as the outlaw craft settled fifty yards away.
Cameron noted a phenomenon, then. Some twenty feet before him, the surface of the desert was marked by a line no more than an inch in width. It was no mark such as paint would make, it was not a line of vegetation, it was a line drawn by—nothing. The sand itself writhed within this narrow space, and the boiling demarcation stretched off to either side as far as the eye could see. It was as if a million tiny animals burrowed from underneath in geometric formation.
He flicked a dark glance at his companions, but their gaze was fixed on the figure who emerged from the long plane.
This was a man, like other men, dressed in the garb of an ordinary citizen. His shorts, sandals, and shirt would have passed without notice in any crowd. But not his bearing, not his face.
Whereas the ordinary citizen went stolidly about his directed business, this man walked like an official, or a commander. Whereas the eyes of an ordinary citizen were usually blank and withdrawn, this man’s sparked. He was dark and hawklike, and completely at ease as he approached, despite the fact that he was unarmed.
His wide thin mouth curled up at one corner as he examined the trio. “I am happy,” he began in courteous phrases of the day, “to see you. May I be of service?”
“Your offer,” the captain replied automatically, “is most kind, and reciprocated.” Having disposed of the amenities, Captain Jorgeson roared, “What the—”
The outlaw lifted a dark hand. “In good time, captain. Please notice the agitation here in the sand.” He pointed to the narrow, writhing line which Cameron had already seen. “That marks the location of my defensive weapon. You see that I am unarmed. I warn you not to attack, for if you touch this screen you will simply—vanish. I am quite serious,” he added, as Captain Jorgeson began to grin. “Don’t—”
He broke off as Jorgeson whipped a Payne coagulator from its holster and depressed the activator. He waited, calmly, until the captain, with a baffled expression, lowered his weapon.
“Don’t touch it,” he continued.
“It’s a bluff!” Jorgeson said quietly to Cameron and the pilot. “There isn’t any such weapon. Let’s get him.”
The big redhead led the charge in a plunging rush and the young pilot was on his heels. Cameron stood motionless. He decided that if the outlaw really had such a weapon, attack was useless. If not, let the others prove it.
Jorgeson reached the area—and exploded. It was just that, Cameron thought. It sounded like an old-style bomb—a muffled boom, a brilliant flash, and silence. The silence was infinitesimal, for the young pilot could not check his momentum.
He tried. He dug his heels into the sand. He screamed once, just before he slid into the writhing line. Then he exploded.
Cameron staggered from the second concussion, and in the ensuing silence tensed himself against falling debris. What goes up comes down. But nothing came, not even a button from Jorgeson’s uniform.
There was utter silence except for the whisper of wind in dry, thin vegetation. The two dark men looked at each other.
In the stranger’s eyes was dark sorrow, and his mouth was serious. In Cameron’s heart was a touch of awe. Such things were impossible.
The stranger spoke first. “I haven’t decided whether you’re intelligent, soldier, or whether your reflexes are slow. Do you know?”
“What is it you want?” Cameron asked.
“Your cargo, of course. All seventeen crates of Baltex.”
Cameron caught his breath. “How—”
“How do I know? That, my friend, would be telling. I do know, and that is the important fact. Will you stack the crates outside your ship ? Then you may go. I’m sorry about the other two. They really suicided, though.”
Cameron weighted the factors. He couldn’t get through that diabolical screen, whatever it was. He couldn’t escape, not in this tramp freighter. He shrugged.
“I guess you have me.”
“You are intelligent!” the stranger exclaimed. “Then why in the name of Heaven are you still in a Center? Why aren’t you with us?”
Cameron sneered. “With outlaws?”
The stranger’s face lost animation. It became just a face. “Get at it, then!” he snapped.
Cameron lugged the crates one at a time out of the freight compartment and stacked them on the sand. After a half-hour of this, his uniform was splotched with sweat, his whole body wringing wet. He set the final crate atop the pile and faced the stranger.
“Now what?”
“Oh, on your way, soldier. Take back this message. If so much as one more woman is taken from outside any Center, the whole will suffer. Tell your superiors about this screen of contraterrene energy. It’s impregnable. Maybe you can scare ‘em, for their own good.”
“They don’t scare easy.”
“They can die easily then.”
Cameron looked at the dark stranger for some time, fixing each feature in his memory. He decided that there was little danger of forgetting him, for the man’s features were like Cameron’s own—wide, dark eyes, black hair, prominent nose, wide mouth, and a slim, wiry body.
“I’ll see you some day,” Cameron promised.
The dark stranger said nothing and Cameron presently shifted his eyes. He entered Fleetfin and took off.
When he was at cloud level he saw the stranger enter the long black craft. It maneuvered near the cargo, remained quietly until lost from sight.
“Somebody,” Cameron said aloud, “will pay for this.”
Every man on his force should be assigned to tracing the leak in some department along the production line. No, he reflected, the leak must be near the top, for the outlaw knew the nature and amount of cargo. He had intersected Fleetfin’s course as unerringly as if he had written the sealed orders.
Tracing the leak was a one-man job and he should be the man.
The big shots in Power Center would scream their silly heads off at the loss of their purchased cargo, and would try, perhaps, to toss Cameron to the council. But if he could produce a spy he should save himself and protect further secret cargo.
Another point in his report, he decided, would also create havoc. Women. He smiled grimly as his mind’s ear picked up the anguished protests of entertainment tycoons. Without the vivacious, beautiful outlaw hostesses, the entertainment profits’ curve was headed for a nose dive. They must agree to the outlaw’s ultimatum, Cameron thought, for that screen was a definite menace.
He thought of the noise a man makes when he explodes, and shuddered. They’d have to stop their piracy, whether they liked it or not. No more raiding parties at night, no more spotting an oudaw camp, no more stalking a particular beauty along the path to a spring or river.
Cameron sighed. He’d had a lot of fun in the palaces of joy. It would be hard shrift to do without those colorful nights.
A warning signal on his klystron brought him back to the job of piloting. Plastic Center’s shield was, according to meter reading, a thousand yards ahead. He searched through the pilot’s papers for the collapse combination.
He found it and depressed eight numbered keys on the panel. He held these down and accelerated. When he had gone five thousand yards he released the keys. He was now well inside Plastic Center, and the earth below was a riot of irrigated green.
Far ahead were the pastel domes of Plastic 3.9, the outlying subsidiary of Plastic Prime. He passed over this and others at full speed, and was at the main landing port in an hour.
~ * ~
At ten o’clock on the following morning, Cameron left his apartment for the council chambers. He was thoughtful as a taxi whisked him over gleaming rooftops. He wasted no glance on the maelstrom of movement below, ordinarily a picture of aesthetic pleasure. He took no notice of the patterned movement of aircraft.
For he had been summoned to appear before the council.
Summoned.
So many others, he knew, had been summoned in this manner, and had been reduced to the status of ordinary citizen, doomed to perform the routine tasks of production—to run the machines that manufactured the products that other Centers wanted in trade for products that Plastic needed to augment its own. Ordinary citizen.
Then he shrugged. This must be an exceptional case. They wanted a report, perhaps. Or they wanted his testimony so that a criticism could be lodged against the guilty party—the leak.
He paid the taxi pilot, walked from the landing roof to a moving ramp and rode it to a lower level. He went down a deserted corridor— deserted because nobody came here unless ordered—to the council-chamber door. He stood on the identification plate until the door slid upward. He entered the chamber.
The council members looked at him gravely, their gravity accentuated by their formal robes of democracy. Cameron took the witness chair and faced them.
“Gentlemen, I am happy to see you. May I serve you?”
“Your offer,” the bearded chairman intoned formally, “is most kind, and reciprocated.” His manner changed. “What have you to say for yourself?”
Cameron blinked. “Say? For myself ? What do you mean?”
A snicker circled the council table. Young and old, these elected members seemed to be amused at Cameron’s question. Their amusement had a sinister overtone.
“We have evidence,” the chairman explained, “which points to you as the person who gave information to the outlaws and co-operated with them in confiscating vital materials. Secondarily, you are indicated as the person who killed two useful citizens of Plastic Prime.”
Cameron’s jaw dropped. “But my report—”
“Has been examined, and the scene investigated. What did you do with the bodies?”
“They—exploded. I described it.”
“Josh Cameron,” the chairman said earnestly, “I must warn you that you are in a precarious position. The fantastic tale you spun only does you harm. We want the truth before we reach a decision.” He held a thin hand palm outward. “Not that we shall not lodge a criticism. That has been decided. But the exact type of criticism will be determined by your defense.”
“But you have the truth!” Cameron protested. “I wrote it out in detail.”
Their laughter was hearty, but not gay. It cackled at him, sharply.
“Captain Jorgeson’s last notation on his log,” the chairman said, “was ‘Cameron ordered me down.’ That shows you were in collusion with the outlaws. What did you do with the bodies ? If Captain Jorge-son and the pilot were taken captive, tell us. That would be believable, and would effect our criticism.”
Cameron’s jaw set. “I’m the chief of police. I have the interests of this Center at heart. Look at my record. Would I invent some tale? Have you any previous indication of disloyalty? You have not. I’m telling the truth.”
“It is our opinion that you are lying.”
“But why? Why? What could I gain?”
“That is what you will tell us.”
“Listen,” Cameron said. “On my honor I’m telling the truth. If I had been in collusion with the outlaws I wouldn’t have come back. I’d have known you wouldn’t believe me. But now you must. The whole thing happened as I said in my report. They have that weapon. You must believe me.”
“As you describe the outlaw,” the chairman said, “he appears to be a man of education and intelligence. Now, we know what the outlaws are. You can’t expect us to accept the idealized portrait you drew.”
“How about the women we’ve stolen?” Cameron demanded. “Are they brutish, moronic, giantesses? Do they look as if they eat their young?”
“We have no personal data on these women,” the chairman said with dignity. “We do not habituate places in which they are said to be employed.”
“You should!” Cameron snapped. He stamped out. At the door, he turned. He didn’t say anything. He glared contemptuously for a moment before he went away.
~ * ~
Josh Cameron, ordinary citizen.
He was still Chief Cameron when he answered the summons at his apartment door, but when the heavy features of Captain Robert Fane filled the identity screen, he knew. He didn’t see the accompanying soldiers, but he knew.
He twisted his mouth in bitter realization and touched the door control. Fane and his detail stepped inside, hands on their Payne coagulators.
“I am happy to see you,” Cameron said. “May I be of service?”
Captain Fane mushed the formal answer. “Yourofferiskindandreciprocated.” His blocky face set. “Where are the uniforms, guns and other properties of Plastic Center?” He threw a bundle at Cameron’s feet. “There are your new clothes. I want what you are wearing.”
Cameron touched a button in the master panel and the walls slid up from his clothes closet and arsenal. “All right,” he said. “Have at it.”
Fane purpled, jerked out his side arm. He leveled it at Cameron, who flinched in astonished alarm, then lowered it. His heavy face did not relax, but his words had a touch of informality.
“The next time you do not pay proper respect to your betters you will probably die.”
Cameron bowed his head. It was hard, for he had not known this status before. He had been typed as an official at birth and had received homage all his life. He knew how to behave as an ordinary citizen, but the knowledge was intellectual, not instinctive. With effort, then, he bowed as befitted him.
“You are kind,” he said. “My conduct was inexcusable, but I crave leniency. My new station is unfamiliar as yet.”
“You won’t get a second chance,” Fane snapped. “Enough of this chatter—off with your clothes!”
While the soldiers gathered up his emblems of office and social rating, Cameron shucked out of his fine, soft garments of blue Nolyn and into Textile Center’s standard product. When he was dressed, he waited.
He waited without resentment, eyes downcast. Without question, with
out objection as the soldiers cleared his wall tables. A pang of regret tore at him when they bundled his precious reading tapes and tossed them on the heap. But he said nothing.
Humility clothed him, all right, but a plan formed slowly in his head. He knew that a few days’ grace were his while the military court decided on the niche he should fill in industry. The court had acted immediately on the criticism of the council—that was automatic. But judicial machinery ground slowly, and freedom of action—within established limits—would be his while they checked his aptitude and intelligence ratings and co-ordinated these with labor-type needs.
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