Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  If he could run the spy to earth, the person who had notified the outlaws of that precious shipment of Baltex, and hale him before the council—he might be Chief Josh Cameron again.

  So he bowed his head and listened with one ear to anticipated instructions. “You will be notified, Cameron, as to your job. In the meantime you know the restrictions on persons in your position. You will not attempt to leave Plastic Prime. You will not spend any money. You will not engage in any remunerative activity. The penalty, as you well know, is death.”

  Cameron did not raise his eyes when they left. He maintained his attitude of respect even after they had long since gone, but his brows furrowed in concentration.

  He itemized in his mind the persons who might have known of Fleetfin’s schedule and cargo. They amounted to a bare half dozen, and among them, he was convinced, was the traitor.

  He could start his investigation at the top with Martin Grueter, or at the bottom with Loren Bradley. It would not occur to Captain Robert Fane that he would break parole. A clerk might, if reduced to ordinary citizen; a taxi driver might. But not an official who knew too well the ruthless aftermath of disobedience. This, Cameron thought, would be Fane’s attitude. It would have been his own.

  More than likely, then, he wouldn’t be watched. He certainly wouldn’t be reported by those on whom he proposed to call. They would automatically assume that he had permission.

  He grinned faintly and punched a taxi summons. Then he went up on the roof and waited by the landing area until a small plane slipped out of the lower traffic lane.

  “Hump yourself!” the driver snapped. “I ain’t got all day.”

  Cameron whipped a hand to his hip, but grinned wryly as he touched rough brown cloth instead of the hard plastic of a coagulator.

  “Sorry,” he said, and jumped in before the driver could change his mind and dart away. “Take me to Factory 6,” he ordered.

  The driver did a slow burn. He turned, with sinister deliberation, a fact twisted by controlled fury. “ ‘Take me to Factory 6!’” he mimicked savagely. “And does your excellency want me to wait? Just who do you think you are, scum? You deadheads gimme a oscillatin’ ache. Sign this!”

  He shoved a record pad at Cameron. Cameron scrawled a signature with the stylus. “You get paid for carrying me. Why all the screams?”

  “It’s your airs I don’t like, scum. You’d think you was—” The driver broke off, screwed his face into an expression of half recognition. “Say. I’ve seen you before. You—” His expression altered to one of glee, with teeth. “Well, well! If it ain’t the chief! Yessir, and will the boys love this! My, my! Demoted an’ everything. A lot of people are going to dance tonight.”

  Cameron’s dark face froze. He expected to be flicked on the raw to a certain extent, but there were limits. He said coldly, “I’ll remember that when I get my uniform back.”

  The driver, in his turn, froze. Such a feat as Cameron predicted was rare, but not unknown. As everybody knew, a number of flat-mouthed taunters of similar unfortunates had been forced to eat their words—and found them fatally indigestible.

  Yet it was not fear alone that flickered behind the hard surface of his eyes. There was surliness and smoldering hatred. Cops shoved you around. Cops told you when to go home. Cops commandeered your taxi if they felt like it. They were worse than soldiers, being underlings of the military.

  The driver turned away, touched the drive, bank, and left keys on his panel and slipped into the local traffic flow. He cut out of the stream over Factory 6, drifted into the gleaming landing area and watched without comment as Cameron took a descending ramp into the squat building.

  As Cameron had thought, he attracted no notice. Others in civilian-brown, clerk-gray, police-blue, military-red, and executive-purple looked through him as they went about their appointed tasks. They didn’t see him.

  He stood on the identification plate of Martin Grueter’s office until the hearty voice boomed: “Son of an artist, look who’s here!” and the door slid up.

  Grueter was in the middle of a conference with underlings in gray and purple, but Cameron’s entrance disrupted the business at hand. All faces turned smiling toward the door.

  The smiles, one after another, became fixed, then faded.

  “I am happy to—” the white-headed Grueter began. He broke off as he noted Cameron’s costume. His kind mouth set, his eyes steadied, hardened.

  “Get out of here,” he said quietly.

  Cameron’s eyes touched on each member of the group and found no friendliness. Not even in Ann Willis, whom he knew well.

  Her eyes, the same purple as her brief tunic, were as hard as Grueter’s, who repeated, still quietly:

  “Get out of here.”

  “Listen to me, Martin,” Cameron said quickly. “I’ve been discharged on false evidence. You can help. I’ve got to—”

  “Get out of here.”

  “Somebody tipped off the—”

  “Get—OUT!”

  The eyes had changed, subtly. Cameron understood. They had tolerated his entrance because of past relations. From their viewpoint the amenities had been observed. Any further intrusion from him and one of them would kill him.

  He bowed his head. “I crave leniency. An error.”

  He backed out into the corridor and the door slid shut.

  He stood thoughtful while the stream of workers and officials flowed around him, trying to decide on his next move. He felt no blame for Grueter or Ann. With others present they dared not show him more courtesy than they would any other citizen. The social gap must be maintained.

  But if he caught one of them alone—

  He walked down a short corridor, around a right-angled turn, to Ann Willis’ office. He could wait, unobserved.

  He stood at the window, as if watching the movement of planes on the loading field below was his assignment. Among these was Fleetfin, into which brown-clad men and women lugged small square crates. Cameron wondered if this was another shipment of Baltex; wondered, too, what Baltex might be and why it was so expensive.

  Only a few crates were shipped to Power Center each month, and paid for more public and official planes than in any of the other Centers. A few of the factories in Textile Center, for example, were always taxed to capacity, turning out the tithe to Power. Textile Center traffic, according to espionage reports, was three point two per cent below Plastic. Food and Luxury Centers averaged slightly more, but they worked twenty-four hours a day.

  What was the precious stuff, then, and what did Power Center do with it? Oh, well, it was their secret, and none had divined it—unless the outlaws knew.

  The outlaws knew a great deal, as Cameron was beginning to suspect. He had not bothered his head particularly about them before— that was out of his province. As long as they stayed in the unmapped areas between Centers, and as long as they did not encroach upon his personal comforts, he regarded them much as everyone else—unlettered savages living like beasts. But he had never really believed in the stories of cannibalism.

  After his unfortunate meeting with the dark stranger, though, thoughts of the outlaws had busied his mind to a considerable degree. The man was not savage, illiterate, brutal, cannibalistic. He did not fit at all into descriptions circulated by the Bureau of Information.

  For the first time in his life, Cameron felt uneasy as he considered the eternal verities he had been taught since he entered School for Officials. The feeling was not one of doubt—not yet. He was simply uneasy as shadowy questions swirled unformed in his head.

  Was the man an outlaw? Was he from some other Center, pirating the most valuable product in the United States? It seemed unlikely, for he had laid down an ultimatum. No more women for Luxury Center.

  In addition, the weapon he had used pointed to his being an outlaw, for if any other Center possessed that secret it would soon rule the others as Power Center had ruled before the collapse of Jorg Duvain’s dictatorship.

  Cameron flu
shed with anger as he thought of that invisible—and apparently invincible—screen. He must look into that. At his leisure if he could produce the spy who, he felt certain, was in this factory. If he failed in this he must produce proof of the weapon in order to vindicate himself before the council.

  Cameron stood for almost an hour at the window. Orderly confusion on the loading field held half his attention. The other half was on the corridor.

  When he heard footsteps he half turned so as to see whoever came around the corner and at the same time seem vigilant on his extemporaneous self-assignment. They came briskly clicking along the Neo-plast floor, and brought slim-legged Ann Willis into view. Cameron turned full toward her then and waited.

  When she recognized him she halted, frozen-eyed. Her pose, Cameron thought, was not indicative of displeasure—she listened, rather. She held herself tense and still for a full five seconds before she allowed her lips to relax.

  “You’re being foolish,” she said softly. “But come in.”

  He followed her inside and took a chair at her invitation. He waited for a formal greeting and was somewhat surprised when she plunged briskly into conversation. True, he was an ordinary citizen, in brown, but she knew better. She knew he had worn police-blue all his life.

  “What do you want?” she asked curtly.

  Cameron told her. “There is a spy somewhere close to the top here. He has cost me my job. I have, as you know, a day or two at least in which to find him. I want to know who knew of Fleetfin’s schedule and cargo. One of the names on that list will be a spy.”

  “How many names do you know?” she asked.

  “Four. Grueter, Captain Jorgeson, the pilot, myself. There must be others. I’m not the spy. Jorgeson and the pilot died in defense of the cargo, and I hardly think Grueter would fit.”

  “What was the cargo?”

  Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you know?” he asked, astonished.

  “I’m not in traffic.”

  “Then I don’t know who else.”

  She was quiet, tapping coral nails on her desk. Her eyes turned a deeper purple with thought. Presently, she looked at him for a long time.

  “You were tried,” she said, “and found guilty.”

  Cameron snorted. “Tried! I was informed that I’d been found guilty.”

  She shrugged this away. “You have broken your parole.”

  “But it won’t matter if I can prove my innocence. You know that.”

  “I know that you have been found guilty by a legal court. I know that it is my duty to report you.”

  Cameron’s jaw dropped. “What’s got into you, Ann? We were friends. You know you’d be sending me to my death.”

  Her gaze did not waver, her mouth did not relax. She continued to tap the shining desk top.

  “I am first of all a loyal citizen of Plastic Prime. Whatever threatens it in any way is dangerous, from my viewpoint. You’ve broken rules of behavior.”

  “But they won’t even ask questions if a report comes from you! I’ll be dead in three seconds.”

  “As you should be.”

  As Ann Willis reached for her phone, Cameron acted instinctively. With one hand he slapped her fingers from the instrument and with the other, even as she reached for her coagulator, he hit her on the chin. All his strength, backed by the momentum of his leap, went into the blow, and she dropped to the floor.

  He stripped off her side arm then examined her for life. He found that he had not broken her neck as he had thought at first. And he knew that he should have.

  He stood, looking down at her lithe slenderness. Alive, she was his own death warrant. Therefore, she should die. He picked up the coagulator.

  He didn’t point it. He knew that he would not. He knew, in a surge of self-contempt, that he could not. Some atavistic reversion, no doubt, and all the more contemptible for that. His contemplation of the girl was not aesthetic. He wasted no appreciation of her curves. He felt only that he was a fool.

  If he didn’t kill her he should have to run for it. Where ? He could hide in Luxury Center for a while, but nowhere else. As soon as she recovered she would send Josh Cameron’s personal data to all Centers, but authorities in Luxury were lax. They’d make a half-hearted search in the tourist spots and then wait for him to show himself.

  He told himself that she must be killed or his own life was forfeit. He told himself this several times. Yet he did not move his arm, did not aim the weapon.

  No, he was going to let her live, and eventually bring him to death. For, even though a trip to Luxury, provided he could get out of Plastic, would offer brief respite, he could not find the spy. The spy was here, and without an ally on the ground Cameron could not run him to earth. He could have no ally. He, ordinary citizen, had struck the purple uniform. All hands were now against him.

  With some despair and hopelessness he began to search the office for a disguise. In her closet hung several of her own outfits, but he could wear none of these. Not that he couldn’t masquerade as a woman—though rather flat-chested; he could do it, but not in these costumes. For any woman with knees like his would wear a long tunic. Let him appear in public as a female with these knobs exposed and even a child would know something was wrong.

  One course was open. It was one of desperation, but he could not pick and choose. He searched her desk, found a small scissors, and cut a purple star from her skirt. He pinned this to the belt of his shorts and slung the coagulator on his hip. He was a reasonable facsimile of an executive messenger, and the weapon gave authority to the disguise.

  He took her purple pass from her tunic pocket, stowed it in one of his own. Then he tied and gagged Ann Willis. He was careful about this. He needed about thirty minutes to catch the next passenger plane. After he was aboard, it mattered little when she was free and conscious. When the alarm went out they would go first to his own apartment. By the time they had checked the ports he should be lost in the pleasure-seekers of Luxury Center.

  So he tied her well.

  ~ * ~

  When the plane had been clear of Plastic Center’s shield for an hour, Cameron had examined each of the passengers and was satisfied that he was free of suspicion. A few eyes had looked at him with interest, but when they touched on his makeshift star and coagulator, they had become blank with acceptance of things ordinary.

  One pair only shifted back to him now and then, but these were red-rimmed from caltra, and Cameron felt sympathy for their twisted owner—if he felt anything. The young man wore the honorary purple of those who had not been warned in time that the drug was not harmless, as advertised, and Cameron attached no importance to the glances directed at him. Caltra victims did strange things.

  His complacence was shattered somewhat when the young man staggered along the aisle to the empty seat beside Cameron and fell into it. Cameron’s desire to be left alone was passive, but it shrieked along jittery nerves. Yet he controlled himself, took his cue.

  “I am happy to see you,” he said respectfully. “May I offer my service?”

  The young man clipped out the formal reply. Then, “Been watching you,” he said.

  Cameron’s dark face remained placid. “Yes?”

  “You want a job?”

  Cameron examined the red-rimmed eyes for signs of double meanings. Then he touched his purple star.

  “I have a job.”

  The young man shrugged this away. “Delivering a message isn’t a career. I’ll fix it so I can hire you. I’ll pay you in money, not credits.”

  Cameron murmured, “You tempt me,” and began a tale of fanciful reasons why he was not free to take any employment from a private source while he concentrated on this unexpected situation. With an eye on the Sierras, over which they were flying westward, he spun a smooth tale of his own importance in the scheme of things.

  His private thought had a tone of hopelessness. If this young man were determined to hire him, for whatever purpose, Cameron could not stall beyond a certain point
. He could not prevent inquiries, not in civilian brown. And he could not allow inquiries—and live.

  The young man interrupted his tale. “Don’t be a fool! Any halfwit can replace you. I like your looks and can pay more than your job pays. What’s your name, and who employs you?”

  Cameron touched his star again. “I claim secrecy.”

  The young man bowed. “That is your privilege. But what is your name?”

  “Jay—Cameron.”

  “J for what? John?”

  “Jay. J-a-y.”

  “All right, Jay Cameron. What are you paid?”

  Cameron named a reasonable sum.

  “I’ll double it,” the young man said.