On the Run (Mankind on the Run)

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "How can anything like that help?" Kil was staring at the beautiful face in horror and disbelief.

  "She likes men. But she likes men who're different. The oddballs. The unusuals. I'd be good as a hunchback, but I happen to know she's already had a hunchback. You, now, she's never met anything like you before."

  "What do you mean?" Kil was half-angry.

  "What I say. You're hard and tight—and different. Also, you've got something on your mind; she'll want to know what that is. If you take my advice you'll never tell her. She's the kind of woman that wouldn't like hearing about another woman."

  "Oh, hell," said Kil, looking across at her. "I can't do this."

  "She's your wire to the O.T.L.," said Dekko. "You want her, or don't you?"

  Kil clenched his jaws together. The little muscles crawled in his cheek.

  "All right," he said. He got up abruptly and began to walk across the room.

  Melee Alain saw him coming. She lifted her eyes from the seated woman she was talking to and looked at him with a long, direct, and level glance. He came up to her.

  "Hello, Melee," he said.

  She looked at him searchingly. Her head tilted back and her eyes widened slightly. They were green eyes flecked with little gold lights; they and the lips of her perfect mouth, parting a little, seemed to draw him almost physically to her. It was in that moment that Kil realized instantly and fully the danger of her. There is nothing so compelling as to be openly desired by a beautiful woman; and Melee's desires wore no false gown of modesty.

  "Now don't tell me I've forgotten your name," she answered in a low voice. Her eyes invited him to join her in the polite fiction.

  "Kil Bruner," he told her.

  "Kil," she said. "Yes, Kil. How could it have slipped my mind—a strong name like that?" She put her hand lightly and firmly on his unsleeved arm. "Shall we go someplace where we can talk, Kil?"

  "I'd like to."

  She drew him across the room and through a little door into a small lounge.

  "I reserved this," she said, closing the door carefully behind them. "It's not set for anyone else's Key." She led the way to a couch. "Sit down, Kil."

  He seated himself beside her tentatively, feeling large and awkward like a captive bear. For all her height, she moved with a casual suppleness; and now she leaned forward to a low table before them, pressing studs inset on its obsidian top.

  "Drink?"

  "Tequila," he said.

  A section of the table top slid aside and the drinks rose up before them. She had chosen a tall mixed drink of some kind. She took it and leaned back into an angle of the couch, looking at him.

  "You're quiet," she said.

  He drank the tequilla all at once, bit into his slice of lemon and tossed it back into the dish. He scowled at it.

  "This isn't going to work," he said; and started to stand up. She caught at his arm and held him back. He turned to look at her.

  "You're a strange man," she said. She continued to hold him, staring into his eyes.

  "Don't you want to make love to me?" she said, at last.

  "Yes," he replied, truthfully enough. He was thinking that the fault was not in her attractiveness. The seductiveness of her burnt like a fierce flame" in the closeness of the small, shaded lounge. The trouble lay in the fact that he was not a good liar—and he was having trouble believing what Dekko had told him about her.

  "Then what is it?" When he still did not answer, she continued to study him. "You know, when I saw you coming across the floor to me, I felt something odd about you. But you seemed to be so full of purpose. I half-expected you to pick me up and carry me off right then. And now—you don't like this place, is that it?" she said with a sudden flash of intuition.

  "It's not that," he said.

  "You don't like me throwing myself at you, this way." She bit her lip, frowning. "Forgive me, Kil." Her face suddenly cleared and she drew her legs up beneath her to sit curled in the angle of the couch. The change was astonishing. It was as if the fierce lamp.of her beauty was suddenly shaded, reduced to a soft and gentle glow. She looked small and innocent, almost shy. "What would you like, Kil?"

  He looked squarely into her eyes. This, at least, he could answer honestly.

  "To see you again," he said.

  "Away from all this, you mean?"

  He nodded.

  "I'm staying out at Bar Harbor. Do you know where that is? Near Brainerd, Minnesota. It's a resort area. I'm at a place called the Twin Pine Lodge. You could come up for a few days."

  "I will—" he hesitated. Now there was no choice but to lie. "I'm tied up in a business deal right now. That little man I was talking to before I came up to you—"

  "Oh," the monosyllable was disappointed. "Can't you put him off?"

  "No, but if I could bring him along, for say a day or two?" She laughed in wonder, staring at him. "There cant be anyone like you!" she said. He shrugged, turning away. . "Well, then—"

  "Oh, bring him, of course," she said. "You must be some crazy, wild sort of efficiency expert. And I must be infected with that same thing from contact with you. By all means place us both on your schedule for the next few days." She moved suddenly over against him, all soft and warm and appealing. "But kiss me, Kil."

  He bent toward her lips; but the impalpable presence of Ellen was suddenly between them. He stopped.

  "No," he said, harshly.

  Her face twisted suddenly as if she was going to cry.

  "Oh, get out!" she cried, with something between a sob and a laugh. She pushed him away. "Get out of here—but come to me tomorrow at the Lodge."

  He got up and went to the door. His hand was on it, when her voice stopped him. "Kill"

  He turned to face her. She was looking at him with something on her face that was very like hatred.

  "You'll kiss me," she said. "I'll make you kiss me."

  He went out.

  Chapter eight

  The town of Brainerd was the terminal for the Bar Harbor resort area. Dekko and Kil took an airbus for the short hop there from Duluth, and a cab out to the resort area. Twin Pines Lodge, the cab's information service informed them, was a commercial resort with a capacity of about eighty people, situated on picturesque Gull Lake. It took them there.

  They found themselves deposited before a wide stretch of lawn enclosed by an antique pole fence. Behind the fence, the lawn ran up a slope to a long lodge building on the crest of a low hill which hid the lake from them. Two large and symmetrical Norwegian pines flanking the Lodge's entrance explained the resort's name. A gateman—rather surprising fixture—halted them at the entrance in the pole fence to say that the resort's accommodations were already fully occupied. On Kil's mentioning Melee, however, he called up to the lodge building and -turned again from his phone set to tell them that reservations for them had been made; but since the resort was crowded, he would have to put them in a single cabin. He took them in and guided them to a row of small cabins.

  "Cabin eighteen," said the gateman.

  He left them in it and departed. Kil had half expected to find Melee there and waiting for him. But she was nowhere to be seen. The small building was ordinary enough, equipped with its own food delivery system and the usual conveniences. They proceeded to settle down in it.

  It was still early in the day. Dekko slipped out to look the situation over, and Kil found himself somewhat restless with time on his hands. He thought of going up to the lodge to look for Melee and decided against it. He stepped out and took the opposite direction, along past the cabins, toward the lake.

  At the last cabin in the row, the door was opened and a deeply tanned, skinny man with a full gray-brown beard sat cross-legged on its threshold. He did not turn his head as Kil approached, but his eyes picked up the younger man and followed him until Kil was directly in front of him. Then:

  "Good morning," he said, in a surprisingly bass voice.

  Kil stopped.

  "Hello," he answered, a little unc
ertainly.

  "That's a very interesting Key band." There was humor in the bright eyes above the beard. "Almost the duplicate of my own."

  "What—" Kil frowned, then suddenly understood. He reached out his wrist and the seated man lifted his own Key to touch it to Kil's. There was a tingle that ran suddenly around Kil's skin under the band.

  "As I thought," said the seated man. "Sit down, won't you? I'm Anton Bolievsky. And not at all as eccentric as I look, by the way. Won't you sit down?"

  Kil looked around him. There was a leveled off tree stump near the doorway to which a cushioned top had been fixed. Kil seated himself on this.

  "Thanks," he said.

  "Don't thank me," replied Anton Bolievsky. "I've been hoping you'd come by this way ever since I saw you get here. You're an unusual sort of man to run into here. Mind if I ask your name?"

  "Oh, sorry," said Kil. "Kil Bruner."

  "Kil—Bruner." Bolievsky nodded thoughtfully. I'll remember that."

  Kil looked at him curiously.

  "You're a member of the Thieves Guild?" he asked. "Kil," said the other. "I'm everything. Doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief; you've met our friend Toy, of course?

  Yes." Kil nodded.

  "Well, there you have it. Toy represents the emotional failure of our age. I represent the intellectual failure. Master of all trades and a good, honest jack at none of them." He cocked his head at Kil. "You don't believe me?"

  "Well, I—" Kil found himself feeling a sudden curious attraction to this man. The directness of him raised a sympathetic vibration in the metal of Kil's own direct self. "What do you mean, he represents emotional failure?"

  Bolievsky smiled in his beard.

  "He's one of the mythological characters of our modern fairy-tale. The giant Apathy, ruler of the kingdom of I Give Up. Toy has gone hunting for dragons without finding any. And since he can't be St. George, he won't play. We've got other failures in that line, but Toy's far and away the most spectacular of them."

  "I suppose he can't help it," said Kil, thoughtfully, "being born twice as big as anyone else and so forth."

  "Don't you ever think it," Bolievsky shook his head. "That's just his excuse. He doesn't want to help it—and that's a major sin in any man, not wanting something enough. Our most common fault nowadays. We want this, we want that, but not hard enough to go out and get it. We want a world without Files prodding us from spot to spot, but not enough to really get down to work and do something about it. And meanwhile the people who want something or other selfishly, for themselves, and want it hard enough, go out and get it just because of the type of attitude that Toy personifies."

  Kil found himself smiling for the first time since Ellen had disappeared.

  "And you're an exception?" he said.

  "Oh—" Bolievsky smiled wryly. "I'm much more deeply damned. As I say, I'm an intellectual failure. In-te-lec-tu-al fail-ure." He rolled the words out. "I don't know what I want. I have yet to decide on a career, which is somewhat startling when you stop to consider that I'm now sixty-three years old. I have an excellent mind and a great deal of energy. My health is good and I eat like a horse. I have a doctorate in philosophy and degrees in history, economics, chemistry, physics, psychology and biology. I have read widely in other fields, and speak and read—or at least read—twelve dead languages. I have dabbled in mysticism, ancient religions, politics, yoga; in short, in everything animal, vegetable and mineral, I am the very model of a modern intellectual. Will you believe me," said Bolievsky, earnestly, reaching out and laying a long, thin hand on Kil's knee, "when I tell you that I sometimes wonder about the purpose for which I was put into this world?"

  "No," said Kil. "But why tell me all this?"

  "Because you have a strange air about you. As if you might possibly be one of those rare human animals who does know what he wants. Do you?"

  Kil laughed.

  "And what if I did?"

  "Why then," said Bolievsky, letting his hand drop from Kil's knee and drawing himself up stiffly, "you're the most likely candidate for Superman. Laugh if you like. Listen!" He held up one finger. "Once upon a time when Man was galloping about in a bearskin, hitting small animals over the head with a club and climbing trees to get away from the big ones; drying in the sun, soaking in the rain, and freezing in the snow and wind, and all the time wondering where his next meal was coming from, he sat down and made a list of his wants: Here—" Bolievsky reached back around and inside the doorway, and came out with a pen and sheet of paper. "Like this."

  He wrote rapidly. When he was finished, he handed the sheet to Kil. Kil looked at it. On it was a list, with the title:

  LIST OF NEEDS AND WANTS

  by Ima Caveman

  Something to kill large animals

  Something to kill bad enemies

  A bearskin that doesn't wear out

  A cave that is

  (a) warm when it cold out

  (b) cool when its hot out

  Something to take care of evil spirits

  Something to fix me when I'm hurt or sick

  All the food and drink I'll ever need

  Something to make people good

  Something just in case they are bad anyway

  Kil laughed again, and handed the sheet back. "What about it?" he asked.

  "Just this," said Bolievsky, and wrote again, on the same page. So that now' it read:

  LIST OF NEEDS AND WANTS

  by Ima Caveman

  Something to kill large animals

  weapons

  Something to kill bad enemies

  nuclear weapons

  A bearskin that doesn't wear out

  plastic clothing

  A cave that is

  (a) warm when its cold out

  (b) cool when its hot out

  heating and air conditioning

  Something to take care of evil spirits

  education

  Something to fix me when I'm hurt or sick

  modern medicine

  All the food and drink I'll ever need

  modern production methods

  Something to make people good

  religion

  Something just in case they are bad anyway

  organized society

  He handed it back to Kil. Kil read it.

  "You see," said Bolievsky. "We present-day, dressed-up cavemen have answered our full list of wants. Now we have answered it. The day of the caveman's millennium is at hand. Or should be. What do you think?"

  "I think," said Kil, dryly, "that maybe we aren't cavemen any longer."

  "Exactly!" cried Bolievsky. "By satisfying the caveman, we have destroyed him. He was nothing more than a bundle of wants to start off with. Enter the Superman—the successor to the caveman, who has discovered a new want. Now," he said, peering at Kil, "perhaps a superman like yourself would condescend to tell an old destroyed caveman like myself what that want might be?"

  Kil smiled, shook his head and handed the sheet back. He got up from the stump.

  "I haven't got the slightest idea," he said. "But if I think of something, I'll let you know."

  "Yes—" said Bolievsky, in a disappointed tone, gnawing at his beard and staring at the paper in his hand.

  Kil turned and walked off. After he had gone a few steps back toward his own cabin, a thought struck him. He turned and came back.

  "There's one thing you might think over," he said. "Doesn't that list of yours strike you as being pretty selfish in all departments?"

  Bolievsky threw a startled glance at the sheet in his hand.

  "By God," he said. "You're right. It does!"

  Kil left him staring at his list and went back to the cabin he shared with Dekko, doing a little thinking himself as he went.

  Several hours later, Dekko showed up. He came in quietly, shut the cabin door behind him, and from his pocket produced a small instrument not much larger than the Key on his wrist. With this he made a tour of all three rooms without speaking. When he was
finished he came back to Kil, who had been watching him from the couch where he had been sitting and reading.

  "All right," said Dekko, sitting down. "This is it."

  Kil laid his scanner aside.

  "This is what?" he asked.

  "This place. The O.T.L. It's all O.T.L.: a semi-permanent set-up. They rotate people like Stick headquarters. Everybody here is a representative from some Society, or Group, or Organization. And by the way, I think your girl friend knows we're up to something."

  "My girl friend?"

  "Melee."

  "What the hell do you mean?" snapped Kil. "You were the one that thought up the idea of getting acquainted with her in the first place."

  Dekko took time out to grin.

  "Sure. Her, then. Anyway, I could be wrong about her suspecting, too. Well, it doesn't matter. I still think we can make out all right. There'll be something doing at the Lodge tonight, and we're going to listen in on it. Then we'll figure out where to go from there. It'll mean taking a few chances, though." He looked questioningly at Kil.

  "Whatever's necessary," said Kil, grimly.

  "Good, then. We've got to wait until dark. Catch a nap if you can."

  Dekko walked into his own bedroom and dropped on the bed there. Two minutes later, when Kil passed the doorway on the way to his own room, the smaller man was already heavily and silently asleep.

  Kil awoke to find Dekko shaking him. He sat up, muzzily. The window of his room was a square of darkness and Dekko himself was a dim, indistinct figure bending over him.

  "No lights," said Dekko. "Come on."

  Kil sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there, scrubbing some life back into his sleepy face. Partially recovered after a moment, he pushed himself to his feet and lurched out of his room, down the short hall and into the cabin's living room, dusky in deep shadow from the thin fringe of dying daylight in the western sky.

  Dekko was sitting at a low table, working with small things in the darkness, either by virtue of cat-like eyesight or just plain feel; it was not clear to Kil which. After a while he finished, gathered them up and stood up himself.