World of Tiers 04 - Behind the Walls of Terra

by Farmer, Phillip Jose

  Cambring protested once. "You can't get away with this! You're crazy!"

  "Just shut up!" Kickaha said.

  Thirty seconds later, Kleist, supported by two men reached the car. Kickaha swung out the back door and pointed the pen at them, saying, "Put Kleist into the front seat."

  The two holding Kleist halted. The others, forming a rear guard, reached for their guns, but Kickaha shouted, "I'll kill Kleist and Cambring both! And you, too, with this!"

  He waved the pen. The others knew by now that the pen was a weapon of some sort even if they did not know its exact nature. They seemed to fear it more than a gun, probably because its nature was in doubt.

  They stopped. Kickaha said, "I'm taking these two! The cops'll be here in a minute! You better take off, look out for yourselves!"

  The two holding Kleist carried him forward and shoved him into the front seat. Cambring had to push against Kleist to keep him from falling on him like a sack full of garbage. Kickaha quickly got out of the car and went around to get into the driver's seat, while Anana held the pen on the others.

  He started the motor, backed up with a screech of tires, jerked it to a stop, turned, and roared out of the parking lot. The car went up and down violently as they jumped the dip between the lot entrance and the street. Kickaha shouted to Anana, and she reached over the seat, felt behind Kleist's ear, and came up with the transceiver. It was a metal disc thin as a postage stamp and the size of a dime.

  She stuck it behind her ear and also removed Kleist's wristwatch and put it on her own wrist.

  He now had Cambring and Kleist. What could he do with them?

  Anana suddenly gasped and pushed at Cambring, who had slumped over against Kickaha. In a swift reaction, he had shoved out with his elbow, thinking for a second that Cambring was attacking him. Then he understood that Cambring had fallen against him. He was unconscious.

  Another look convinced him that Cambring was dead or close to death. His skin was the gray-blue of a corpse.

  Anana said, "They're both dead!"

  Kickaha pulled the car over to the curb and stopped. He pointed frantically at her. She stared a moment, and then saw what he was trying to communicate. She quickly shed the receiver and Kleist's wrist-watch as if she had discovered that she was wearing a leper's clothing.

  Kickaha reached over and pulled her close to him and whispered in her ear, "I'll pick up the watch and receiver with a handkerchief and stick them in the trunk until we can get rid of them. I think you'd be able to hear Red Orc's voice now, if you still had that receiver behind your ear. He'd be telling you he'd just killed Cambring and he was going to kill you unless we surrendered to him."

  He picked up Cambring's wrist and with a pencil pried up the watch compartment. There was a slight discoloration under it on the skin.

  With the pencil, he pried loose the disc from behind Cambring's ear and exposed a brown-blue disc-shaped spot.

  Kleist groaned. His eyelids fluttered, and he looked up. Kickaha started the car again and pulled away from the curb, and then turned north. As they drove slowly in the heavy traffic, Kleist managed to straighten himself. To do this, he had to push Cambring over against Kickaha. Anana gave a savage order, and Kleist got Cambring off the seat and onto the floor. Since the body took up so much space, Kleist had to sit with his knees almost up to his chin.

  He groaned again and said, "You killed him."

  Kickaha explained what had happened. Kleist did not believe him. He said, "What kind of a fool do you think I am?"

  Kickaha grinned and said, "Very well, so you don't believe in the efficacy of the devices, the workings of which I've just explained to you. I could put them back on you and so prove the truth of what I've told you. You wouldn't know it, because you'd be dead and your boss would've scored one on us."

  He drove on until he saw a sign which indicated a parking lot behind a business building. He drove down the alley and turned into it. The lot was a small one, enclosed on three sides by the building. There were no windows from which he could be seen, and, for the moment, there was no one in the lot or the alley. He parked, then got out and motioned to Kleist to get out. Anana held the pen against his side.

  Kickaha dragged Cambring's body out and rolled it under a panel truck. Then they got back into the car and drove off, toward the motel.

  Kickaha was worried. He may have pushed Red Orc to the point where he would report the Rolls as stolen. Up to now he had kept the police out of it, but Kickaha did not doubt that the Lord would bring them in if he felt it necessary. The Lord must have great influence, both politically and financially, even if he remained an anonymous figure. With Kickaha and Anana picked up by the police, the Lord could then arrange for his men to seize them. All he had to do was to pay the bail and catch them after they'd gone a few blocks from the police station.

  And if Kleist knew anything which might give Kickaha a lead to Red Orc, the Lord might act to make sure that Kleist could not do so.

  Kleist, at this moment, was not cooperating. He would not even reply to Kickaha's questions. Finally, he said, "Save your breath. You'll get nothing from me."

  When they reached the motel, Kleist got out of the car slowly. He looked around as if he would like to run or shout, but Kickaha had warned him that if he tried anything, he would get enough power from the pen to knock his head off. He stepped into the motel room ahead of Kickaha, who did not even wait for Anana to shut the door before stun-ning bis prisoner with a minimum jolt from the pen.

  Before he could recover, Kleist had been injected with a serum that Kickaha had brought from Wolff's palace in that other world.

  During the next hour, they learned much about the workings and the people of what Kleist referred to as The Group. His immediate boss was a man named Alfredo Roulini. He lived in Beverly Hills, but Kleist had never been in his home. Always, Roulini gave orders over the phone or met Kleist and other underlings at Kleist's or Cambring's home.

  Roulini, as described by Kleist, could not be Red Orc.

  Kickaha paced back and forth, frowning, running his fingers through his long red hair.

  "Red Orc will know, or at least surmise, that we've gotten Roulini's name and address from Kleist. So he'll warn Roulini, and they'll have a trap set for us. He may have been arrogant and overconfident before, but he knows now we're no pushovers. We've given him too hard a time. We won't be able to get near Roulini, and even if we did, I'll bet we'd find out that he has no more idea of the true identity or location of Red Orc than Kleist."

  "That's probably true," Anana said. "So the only thing to do is to force Red Orc to come into the open."

  "I'm thinking the same thing," he said. "But how do you flush him out?"

  Anana exclaimed, "The Beller!"

  Kickaha said, "So far, we don't know where the Beller is, and, much as I hate to think about it, may never."

  "Don't say that!" she said. "We have to find him!"

  Her determination, he knew, did not originate from concern for the inhabitants of Earth. She was terrified only that the Bellers might one day become powerful enough to gate from Earth into other universes, the pocket worlds owned by the Lords. She was concerned only for herself and, of course, for him. Perhaps for Luvah, the wounded brother left behind to guard Wolff's palace. But she would never be able to sleep easily until she was one hundred percent certain that no Bellers were alive in the one thousand and eight known universes. Nor would Red Orc sleep any more easily.

  Kickaha tied Kleist's hands behind him, tied his feet together, and taped his mouth. Anana could not understand why he didn't just kill the man. Kickaha explained, as he had done a number of tunes, that he would not do so unless he thought it was necessary. Besides, they were in enough trouble without leaving a corpse behind them.

  After removing Kleist's wallet, he put him in the closet. "He can stay there until tomorrow when the cleaning woman comes in. But I think we'll move on. Let's go across the street and eat. We have to put something in our be
llies."

  They walked across the street at the corner, and went down half a block to the restaurant. They got a booth by the window, from which he could see the motel.

  While they were eating, he told her what his plans were. "A Lord will come as swiftly for a pseudo-Beller as for the real thing, because he won't know for sure which is which. We make our own Beller and get some publicity, too, and so make sure that Red Orc finds out about it."

  "There's still a good chance that he won't come personally," she said.

  "How's he going to know whether or not the Beller is for real unless he does show?" he said. "Or has the Beller brought to him."

  "But you couldn't get out then!" she said.

  "Maybe I couldn't get out, but I'm not there yet. We've got to play this by ear. I don't see anything else to do, do you?"

  They rose, and he stopped at the register to pay their bill. Anana whispered to him to look through the big plate glass window at the motel. A police car was turning into the motel grounds.

  Kickaha watched the two policemen get out and look at the license plate on the rear of the Rolls. Then one went into the manager's office while the other checked out the Rolls. In a moment, the officer and the manager came out, and all three went into the motel room that Anana and Kickaha had just left.

  "They'll find Kleist in the closet," Kickaha murmured. "We'll take a taxi back to L.A. and find lodging somewhere else."

  They had the clothes they were wearing, the case with the Horn of Shambarimen, their beamer rings with a number of power charges, the beamer-pen, their ear receivers and wrist chronometer transmitters, and the money they'd taken from Baum, Cambring, and Kleist. The latter had provided another hundred and thirty-five dollars.

  They went outside into the heat and the eye-burning, sinus-searing smog. He picked up the morning Los Angeles Times from a corner box, and then waited for a taxi. Presently, one came along, and they rode out of the Valley. On the way, he read the personals column, which contained his ad. None of the personals read as if it had been planted by Wolff. The two got out of the taxi, walked two blocks, and took another taxi to a place chosen at random by Kickaha.

  They walked around for a while. He got a haircut and purchased a hat and also talked the clerk out of a woman's hatbox. At a drugstore, he bought some hair dye and other items, including shaving equipment, toothbrushes and paste, and a nail file. In a pawnshop he bought two suitcases, a knife which had an excellent balance, and a knife-sheath.

  Two blocks away, they checked in at a third-rate hotel. The desk clerk seemed interested only in whether they could pay in advance or not. Kickaha, wearing his hat and dark glasses, hoped that the clerk wasn't paying them much attention. Judging from the stink of cheap whiskey on his breath he was not very perceptive at the moment.

  Anana, looking around their room, said, "The place we just left was a hovel. But it's a palace compared to this!"

  "I've been in worse," he said. "Just so the cockroaches aren't big enough to carry us off."

  They spent some time dying their hair. His red-bronze became a dark brown, and her hair, as black and glossy as a Polynesian maiden's, became corn-yellow.

  "It's no improvement, but it's a change," he said. "So, now to a metalworker's."

  The telephone books had given the addresses of several in this area. They walked to the nearest place advertising metalworking, where Kickaha gave his specifications and produced the money in advance. During his conversation, he had studied the proprietor's character. He concluded that he was open to any deal where the money was high and the risk low.

  He decided to cache the Horn. Much as he hated to have it out of his sight, he no longer cared to risk the chance of Red Orc's getting his hands on it. If he had not carried it with him when he left the motel, it would be in the hands of the police by now. And if Orc heard about it, which he was bound to do, Orc would quickly enough have it.

  The two went to the Greyhound Bus station, where he put the case and Horn in a locker.

  "I gave that guy an extra twenty bucks to do a rush job," he said. "He promised to have it ready by five. In the meantime, I propose we rest in the tavern across the street from our palatial lodgings. We'll watch our hotel for any interesting activities."

  The Blue Bottle Fly was a sleazy beer joint, which did, however, have an unoccupied booth by the front window. This was covered by a dark blind, but there was enough space between the slats for Kickaha to see the front of the hotel. He ordered a Coke for Anana and a beer for himself. He drank almost none of the beer but every fifteen minutes ordered another one just to keep the management happy. While he watched, he questioned Anana about Red Orc. There was so little that he knew about their enemy.

  "He's my krathlrandroon," Anana said. "My mother's brother. He left the home universe over fifteen thousand Earth years ago to make his own. That was five thousand years before I was born. But we had statues and photos of him, and he came back once when I was about fifteen years old, so I knew how he looked. But I don't remember him now. Despite which, if I were to see him again, I might know him immediately. There is the family resemblance, you know. Very strong. If you should ever see a man who is the male counterpart of me, you will be looking at Red Orc. Except for the hair. His is not black, it is a dark bronze. Like yours. Exactly like yours.

  "And now that I come to think of it ... I wonder why it didn't strike me before. . . you look much like him."

  "Come on now!" Kickaha said. "That would mean I'd look like you! I deny that!"

  "We could be cousins, I think," she said.

  Kickaha laughed, though his face was warm and he felt anxious for some reason.

  "Next, you'll be telling me I'm the long-lost son of Red Orc!"

  "I don't know that he has any son," she said thoughtfully. "But you could be his child, yes."

  "I know who my parents are," he said. "Hoosier farm folk. And they knew who their ancestors were, too. My father was of Irish descent- what else, Finnegan, for God's sake?-and my mother was Norwegian and a quarter Catawba Indian."

  "I wasn't trying to prove anything," she said. "I was just commenting on certain undeniable resemblances. Now that I think about it, your eyes are that peculiar leaf-green . . . yes, exactly like it... I'd forgotten ... Red Orc's eyes are yours."

  Kickaha put his hand on hers and said, "Hold it!"

  He was looking through the slats. She turned and said, "A police car!"

  "Yeah, double-parked outside the hotel. They're both going in. They could be checking on someone else. So let's not get panicky."

  "Since when did I ever panic?" she said coldly.

  "My apologies. That's just my manner of speaking."

  Fifteen minutes passed. Then a car pulled up behind the police car. It contained three men in civilian clothes, two of whom got out and went into the hotel. The car drove away.

  Kickaha said, "Those two looked like plainclothesmen to me." The two uniformed policemen came out and drove away. The two suspected detectives did not come out of the hotel for thirty minutes. They walked down to the corner and stood for a minute talking, and then one returned. He did not, however, reenter the hotel. Instead, he crossed the street.

  Kickaha said, "He's got the same idea we had! Watch the hotel from here!" He stood up and said, "Come on! Out the back way! Saunter along, but fast!"

  The back way was actually a side entrance, which led to a blind alley the open end of which was on the street. The two walked northward toward the rnetalworking shop.

  Kickaha said, "Either the police got their information from Red Orc or they're checking us out because of Kleist. It doesn't matter. We're on the run, and Orc's got the advantage. As long as he can keep pushing us, we aren't going to get any closer to him. Maybe."

  They had several hours yet before the metalworker would be finished. Kickaha led Anana into another tavern, much higher class, and they sat down again. He said, "You just barely got started telling me the story of your uncle."

  "There real
ly isn't much to tell," she said. "Red Orc was a figure of terror among the Lords for a long time. He successfully invaded the universes of at least ten Lords and killed them. Then he was badly hurt when he got into the world of Vala, my sister. Red Orc is very wily and a man of many resources and great power. But my sister Vala combines all the qualities of a cobra and a tiger. She hurt him badly, as I said, but in doing she got hurt herself. In fact, she almost died. Red Orc escaped, however, and came back to this universe, which was the first one he made after leaving the home world."

  Kickaha sat up and said, "What."

  His hand, flailing out, knocked over his glass of beer. He paid it no attention but stared at her.

  "What did you say?"

  "You want me to repeat the whole thing?"

  "No, no! That final . . . the part where you said he came back to this universe, the first one he made!"

  "Yes? What's so upsetting about that?"

  Kickaha did not stutter often. But now he could not quite get the words out.

  Finally, he said, "L-listen! I accept the idea of the pocket universes of the Lords, because I've lived in one half my life and I know others exist because I've been told about them by a man who doesn't lie and I've seen the Lords of other universes, including you! And I know there are at least one thousand and eight of these relatively small manufactured universes.

  "But I had always thought... I still think . . . it's impossible . . . my universe is a natural one, just as you say your home universe, Gardzrintrah, was."

  "I didn't say that," she said softly. She took his hand and squeezed it.

  "Dear Kickaha, does it really upset you so much?"

  "You must be mistaken, Anana," he said. "Do you have any idea of the vastness of this universe? In fact, it's infinite! No man could make this incredibly complex and gigantic world! My God, the nearest star is four and some light-years away and the most distant is billions of light-years away, and there must be others billions of billions of light-years beyond these!