On the Run (Mankind on the Run)

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "All right," he said. "We're set. Come on."

  He led the way out of the door into the night that had now fallen. Slowly, in the darkness, they moved uphill and shortly they came up close under a set of large, one-way windows, now opaqued, in the west wing of the lodge.

  "Wait here," said Dekko. He moved up about five feet to a corner of one of the windows. There was a soft, almost inaudible sighing sound, and a pin-prick of light appeared in the darkness of the opaqued window. Dekko backed off towards Kil, knelt down and drove a short, thin, black rod into the earth, in line with the window.

  "Now," he said.

  Dekko leading, they moved back into the cover of a small clump of pine.

  "Down," said Dekko.

  They went down on their stomachs on the hard turf and Dekko set up before them a small box on tripod legs. He plugged two cords into the box, cords which terminated in hooded spectacles, each with a small button attached to the right temple.

  "Button in your ear," whispered Dekko, slipping his pair of the spectacles on. Kil followed suit and found himself suddenly plunged into the most absolute darkness. Fiddling with the frame of the spectacles, he discovered a small lever; and this, when he shifted it, unopaqued the lenses before him so that normal vision of the night came back to him.

  "Now here," whispered Dekko, "is the doby prize. Four hundred alone, this little looper cost you."

  Very gently, he produced a cube-shape no larger than a ring box. Gently, he opened it. By the illumination of some fluorescent pigment in the walls of the box, Kil saw what seemed to be a sleeping fly with a band of dull black about its thorax.

  "Special resistant strain," said Dekko. "This area will have been sprayed, but the looper should be good for about an hour. Now we check—"

  His fingers moved over the box on the three tripod legs. The band of dull black on the fly seemed to glitter briefly with obsidian lights. And the fly stirred. With insect drowsiness it fluttered its wings, cleaned its forelegs and abruptly took off, disappearing in the dark.

  Dekko gestured with one finger to the spectacles and Kil, reaching up, moved the little built-in lever to its original position. Abruptly, he almost reeled with something like vertigo as he found himself weaving through the night air some two feet or so above the ground. The dark mass of the Lodge loomed up over him. The pinprick of light attracted and he flew toward it.

  The hole in the window grew as he approached. He flew to it, clung to the pane below it, and squeezed through into brilliance. He found himself only inches above the floor in a large room filled with a long conference table at which people sat. Soundlessly, he flew up and clung to the ceiling. The scene reeled, what was up, now becoming down; and

  Kil found himself gazing down at the heads of those at the table.

  The group seated about did not fill the table. There was space for perhaps as many more again. Those that were there, therefore, were clustered around one end at which sat a slim, brown-headed young man with a striking resemblance to Melee.

  "—as of the twenty-third," this young man was saying. "I don't like this looseness in the organization. Rumor of Sub-E has leaked to the Unstabs and whoever leaked it was from one of our inner group of Societies."

  "Question," said a short man with a hard, round face above a grey tunic. "You're sure of that?"

  "The original mention of Sub-E was in the report of a junor codist of the World Police, who received a reference to it from Files while coding for a solution on a series of unexplained, supernatural sort of phenomena which has been coming to Police notice during the last few years. He did not check back immediately, for some reason and when he did, all information on Sub-E, including the name itself, had become unavailable under the self-censoring circuit. His report was copied by one of our agents inside the Police and handed directly to me."

  "I'd say the responsibility might be yours," said the hard-faced man.

  "No you wouldn't," replied the young man pleasantly. "No you wouldn't, Carson, at all."

  There was no change of expression either in his voice or his face, but a slight pause followed his words, and the hard-faced man said no more.

  "The agent?" suggested somebody else.

  "Perfectly trustworthy," answered the young man, turning his attention to this new speaker. "Not conditioned, unfortunately, since he's liable to regular check as Police Personnel. But I had a cover made on his movements and he didn't have any chance at all to pass off the information, up until the time I mentioned it to a meeting of this council, six months ago."

  "Question?" said a dark-skinned woman sitting farther down the table. "What is this self-censoring circuit business? It's the first I've heard of any such thing."

  "Police-restricted information," said the young man, smiling at her. "As far as we can gather, it seems to be some sort of ultimate control system whereby Files can censor itself in the case of information which it computes as having a high probability index of danger to the public welfare."

  "Isn't there someone in the Police who can throw out that censoring circuit and get the information?"

  The young man shrugged.

  "You know—" he said. "The Police have always insisted that even they don't know where Files is located. As far as the men we've got in their ranks can tell, they're telling the truth. W know that the leads from the coding machines go to a central cable which drops directly down, vertically into the ground, for fifteen hundred feet before it goes through a completely spy-proof shield and we lose it completely. Where it comes up, and if it comes up, is anybody's guess."

  "We ought to be able to find out somehow," murmured a tall, thin man further up the table.

  "We're working on it." The young man leaned forward a little over the table. "None of you should forget that while we've got some sympathizers and adherents among the Police, we're not in possession of all their top men and all their top secrets, by a long shot. For one thing, the Commissioner continues to slip through our fingers."

  "The Commissioner!" It was the hard-faced man again. "Are you even sure there is such a man?"

  "Perfectly sure," replied the young man, coolly. "He handles all the long range policy planning and has authority even over the official six-months heads when each one is in office. But outside of that fact and.the scrap of information that he's known to the Police themselves as McElroy—"

  —Out on the hillside, under the stars, Kil started so hard (hat the spectacles almost slipped off his nose—

  "—we don't know anything about him. Except, of course, that he's a fantastically capable man."

  "Too capable for you to handle, maybe," said the hard-faced man, "by yourself this way. If—"

  "No, Carson," said the young man, gently. "Just because I give credit where credit is due, don't jump to a false conclusion. You all know my capabilities, I think. And none of you doubt them, do you?" His glance covered the table, from which there was silence. "What I was saying was just that this McElroy is a capable opponent. In fact—" his smile broadening, the young man tilted back his head and looked up at the ceiling where the fly was. To Kil, it seemed as if his eyes were staring directly into Kil's own. "In fact," the young man repeated, "he may be the very person who's spying upon us at this moment. Take him, men!"

  Warned too late, Kil ripped frantically at his spectacles. But they were hardly halfway off before two heavy bodies landed simultaneously upon him. Fighting furiously, he was conscious of something tremendously hard that collided with his head and then—darkness.

  Chapter nine

  Kil came back, to light, and warmth and consciousness. The bright glare of a well-lit room dazzled his eyes and his head was aching furiously. Even as he awoke, however, this last faded and disappeared, leaving only a dull, uncomfortable feeling, as if the ache had not so much been done away with, as tucked away in the back of his mind somewhere and hidden from conscious discovery by his nerves.

  "That should do it," said a voice; and Kil, looking up, saw it was the brown-ha
ired young man who so resembled Melee, speaking. He was putting aside on a table a small atomizer half-full of colorless liquid. "How do you feel now?"

  "Better," muttered Kil.

  He looked around him. He was in the same conference room he had been watching, but only a few of the people he had seen through the medium of the fly were there. Among these was Melee, who had not earlier been present at the conference. She regarded him from a little distance, with no readable expression.

  "Where's Dekko?" asked Kil, thickly.

  "Your friend?" said the young man. "He seems to have got away—for the moment, anyway. We ought to have him in an hour or so." He looked at Kil, humorously. "You're something new even among Melee's boy friends. What did you expect to gain by spying on her?"

  Kil, about to retort in astonishment, caught a particular intensity in the young man's gaze and checked himself in time from reacting.

  "Well," went on the young man. "Since this is a family matter, I think maybe the three of us would be better off talking it over in private. So if you'll come with me, Melee, and," he turned to Kil again, "you too, we'll go to my study."

  Kil got somewhat shakily to his feet and followed brother and sister out of the room.

  They went down a short hallway and into a small, square, comfortable room. The young man closed the door behind them and made some adjustments in a small, clock-like mechanism attached to it.

  "There," he said, coming further into the room and throwing himself loosely into a chair. "Sit down, Melee. You too, Kil. Oh, by the way, Kil, Mali is my name. As you probably guess, Melee and I are twins. Now, let's get down to the truth of this. Just what were you after?"

  "Kil!" said Melee, suddenly.

  "Hush now, baby," interrupted Mali, gently, in the tones of a father talking to a fretful child. "Let him tell me."

  "I want to find my wife," said Kil, bluntly.

  Melee's face suddenly went pale; and Mali's eyebrows went up.

  Kil told him, fully and honestly. After he had finished, Mali stared at him for a long moment in silence and then turned to his sister.

  "Well," he said. "What do you think of this? Or did you know it before?"

  With a sudden furious movement, she whipped her head away from him, and stood staring into a far corner of the room, without answering.

  "Now," he said, in that same gentle tone, "I wasn't criticising. You shouldn't fight me, baby. Come here."

  He held out his hand Slowly she looked back at him. Slowly she walked over to his chair and he took her lightly by the wrist.

  "My sister," he said, softly, turning to Kil, "is very insecure. She needs constant reassurance."

  Seeing her as she stood there, nakedly docile, Kil suddenly realized the terrible quality of truth in Mali's words. And Dekko's assessment: "She's got tangle circuits up top," came back to him.

  "She doesn't believe anyone—even me sometimes. But she should," went on Mali, tenderly. "I've looked out for her since she was a little girl, haven't I, Melee?"

  "Yes," she murmured, almost inaudibly, her face downcast toward the carpet and looking at neither one of them.

  "Ever since our father died; and we were children. I've never let anyone hurt you, have I Melee?"

  She shook her head, still staring at the carpet.

  "No," she whispered.

  "You know you can trust me, then, don't you?" She nodded.

  "Then you let me handle this in my own way." He let go of her wrist and sat looking at her. "Go back and sit down, baby. I'll take care of everything."

  She walked away to a distant chair and sat down apart. She turned back to Kil.

  "I don't know if I believe you or not," he said. "But it's easy enough to check your story. I can check quite simply with the Acapulco local police, Marsk, and the Ace you say you talked to. This Dekko—we should have him shortly. As far as McElroy's concerned—" he paused and looked at Kil, for a long, calculating moment. "Well, we'll see if your story checks."

  "And if it checks," demanded Kil, "what?

  Why, I'll decide whether you're telling the truth or not. And if you are, I might help you.

  You?"

  "I. The O.T.L. That's what you say you were after here, wasn't it? Help from the O.T.L. to find your wife?"

  "Can you speak for the whole O.T.L.?" said Kil, bluntly.

  Mali smiled.

  "Yes," he said. "Yes, we have a little convention here. We pretend that I'm just one of a governing board for handling the O.T.L. and the member societies as a unit. But it's just that—a convention."

  Kil considered him, grimly and a little skeptically.

  "You think a lot of yourself."

  "That's right," replied Mali, evenly. "I do."

  Kil shrugged and went back to the main topic.

  "You said you might help me. If you do, what kind of price do you charge?"

  "That'd depend." Mali looked at him. "It might be we'd want you to join us." Join your

  Mali nodded. His eyes and face gave absolutely no clue to whether he was serious or not. *

  "You said you were a mnemonic engineer somewhere in that story of yours," he said. "Because mnemonic engineers are necessarily Class A's, we seldom get one in a Society."

  Kil scowled at him.

  "I thought this O.T.L. of yours was an organization of the heads of other Societies, only."

  "Who told you that?" countered Mali. "I just heard it."

  "Then you heard only part of the truth. There's more to it than that."

  Kil abandoned his curiosity in that direction.

  "What about—you haven't told me how you might be able to find my wife," he said.

  "Well," answered Mali, "we'd do pretty much what your Ace said he could do, only we'd do it more efficiently and with a great many more people. The Societies are a fine instrument in the right hands. I could have more than two million people keeping their eyes open for your wife inside of twenty-four hours. Maybe fifty million in the long run."

  "And I'd pay you for that by joining this outfit of yours?"

  Mali nodded.

  "Just what would that mean?"

  "Not a lot," answered Mali. "We'd merely want to be sure of you and your loyalty, which in this case would mean you'd be examined under hypnosis to definitely establish the facts about you for your dossier. And at the same time you'd be given loyalty conditioning."

  "I'm not sure I like that second."

  Mali shrugged.

  "We're like any other outfit today. I don't suppose you've objected to hypno conditioning when you were working on something involving a trade secret of one company or another."

  Kil frowned.

  "That's not the same thing."

  "Well—" Mali got to his feet. "Think it over. Melee will show you a room in the Lodge here where you can stay for the rest of the night. Consider yourself under something like house arrest until we find out about you."

  Kil rose also.

  "I'd like to know just how much truth there is in what you say." he said. Mali smiled.

  "A lot of people say that to me." He nodded. "Good night," he said and went out the door.

  Kil stood staring after him. The voice of Melee at his elbow made him turn.

  "This way, Kil."

  He followed her out by another door. Down a somewhat longer hallway, this time, they came upon a moving ramp rising to the second story of the lodge. She led the way up this and along the corridor above to a door which she opened with her Key.

  "Here," she said.

  She stood aside to let him enter, then followed him in, closing the door behind her. Kil found himself in a comfortable bedroom, a little larger than its equivalent would have been in an overnight Class A hotel, and somewhat more luxuriously furnished. He turned about to Melee and found her close to him, so close indeed that her breasts brushed against him as he turned.

  "Well—thanks," he said. "I'll see you in the morning, I suppose."

  She looked up into his face.

&nb
sp; "Kil," she said, uncertainly. "Kil, offer me a drink, or something, will you? Don't make me go just yet."

  "A drink?" He swung about and saw the transparent door of a liquor cabinet, recessed in one wall. "Oh well, what would you like?"

  He went across to the cabinet. To his secret relief, instead of following him, she crossed the room in the opposite direction and sank down on a couch.

  "A little cognac," she said. "Have one with me, Kil."

  "All right." He answered with his back still toward her.

  He opened the cabinet, selected a pair of glasses and splashed a little of the amber cognac into each of them. He closed the cabinet door and carried the glasses back across the room.

  "Here you are," he said, sitting down in a chair opposite her. She accepted the glass from him, holding it in slim fingers. Abruptly, she shuddered and drank quickly, emptying it almost at once.

  "Please, Kil," she said, holding it out at arm's length. "Another."

  Kil scowled, but took the glass and getting up, went back to the cabinet for a refill. He brought it to her and she looked up at him as she accepted it, almost abjectly.

  "Don't look so angry, please," she said. "Talk to me, Kil. Say something."

  'Talk—about what?" he asked.

  "Tell me about your wife. What does she look like, Kil?" He rubbed his nose.

  "Well, she's small," he said. "She's got blonde hair. And blue eyes. And a soft voice." *

  "Is she pretty?" A momentary shadow passed across Melee's eyes. "Much prettier than I am?"

  Kil shook his head, looking at her.

  "No," he said, slowly, "you know she wouldn't be."

  "I don't," she answered, staring not at him, but away across the room. "No, I don't. I never do. How would I know?" Her hands twisted on the glass. "There's millions of women in the world—maybe all of them prettier than I am." And she shuddered again.

  "Drink the cognac," said Kil, a little more softly. Her eyes came gratefully around to focus on him.

  "Drink with me, Kil" She extended her glass and, a little self-consciously, he touched it with his own. And then, seeing that she once more intended to gulp all her drink at once, he tossed all of his own down. It burned fiercely in his throat and gullet.