Dr. Fiori finally remembered to close his mouth. “Is that a threat?” he asked confusedly.
“Have I done something wrong?”
Jase leaned back in his chair. “No. I’m telling you something you didn’t know. We have specific instructions about how to treat prisoners here. The FWG doesn’t like those rules broken. The FWG doesn’t like much of anything to happen here that it hasn’t thought up first. Now. You want to use one of our life prisoners for a biocomputer still in experimental stages. I’m basically a simple man. Can you tell me in simple language what it does?”
“Well.” The glib flow of words gave way to a careful concentration. “It translates the chemical, neurological and electrical impulses of the brain into images on a screen. We named it the Dream Machine. Look. Suppose I show you a loaf of bread. Nothing is distracting you, nothing else is demanding a response from you but that loaf of bread. The Dream Machine makes a recording of your response. It shows you thousands of images and records your responses to them. Then, when you think or dream, the Dream Machine can match the patterns your brain produces with the images it has already stored, and it translates your brain activity back into images. Does that sound harmful?”
“It sounds fascinating.”
Dr. Fiori’s voice lost its faint wariness. “Language is of course hopelessly imprecise. You and I can’t even imagine the same loaf of bread. But we can’t refine the Dream Machine further to help our patients without using a patient. And at New Horizon, which, while it has some government support, is not an FWG institution—”
“You’re concerned about lawsuits.”
“Absolutely.”
His frankness surprised a smile from Jase. “So. You want to use a lifer with no legal status on earth. I’d be willing to bet many of the Dark Ring prisoners are borderline candidates for New Horizon. Why her?”
“She—I remember her trial. She used a private language that was remarkably rich in symbols, imagery. She’s perfect. And she has no family.”
“According to her status-sheet, she does have a sister on earth. With no record herself, and no known address. In seven years, nobody has tried to communicate with the prisoner. No letters, calls, no requests for visitors’ passes. Not even a Christmas card from her lawyers. Nothing.”
“She’s a derelict. Nobody cares about her. She could be used to help other patients. Perhaps even cured.”
“I hope not,” Jase said bluntly. “For her sake. Incurable, cured, she’ll never leave the Dark Ring.” He paused. The tired face on the screen waited hopefully. “Well. If it were up to me, I’d say leave her alone. A crazy woman killed, a crazy woman was convicted—that’s the woman who should take the punishment. But it’s not up to me. I can’t give you permission.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t have the authority to make a decision like that. Another point. If you do get permission, we can probably find space for your equipment. But staff quarters will be limited and I can’t let you use our computer.”
“The Dream Machine is self-sufficient. But,” Dr. Fiori added rather plaintively, “who do I go to now?”
“Let me think… Someone in FWGBI. Ah.” He smiled thinly. “Ask Darrel Collins. He’ll know whom you should talk to. I’ll let him know you’ll be in contact with him. I think he’s about to owe me a favor.”
He muttered at Dr. Fiori’s thanks impatiently, and placed his next call to the Free World Government Bureau of Investigation. As he suspected, the investigator did want to owe him a favor. He requested lodgings for himself and three lawyers, and an hour’s private conversation in a closed room with one Harl Tak, LR, 49 yrs, no commuted sentence, ringleader of a silver sand connection. Jase gave him a dock-pass code, and Dr. Fiori’s name, and found, as Collins’ face vanished, that a dozen com-lights were flashing at him.
Half an hour later, he looked up to find Jeri Halpren standing in front of his desk.
“Oh,” he said without enthusiasm.
“It’s ten o’clock.”
“I’ve got—”
“You promised,” Jeri said inflexibly. “The call’s on the roster. It’s going through now.” He blinked once, nervously, and added, “Do you want to know who you’ll be talking to?”
Jase swallowed an expletive. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Sidney Halleck.” He paused. After a moment Jase sighed.
“Who?”
Jeri stopped smiling. “Sidney Halleck.” He leaned on Jase’s desk then, and began to babble.
“He’s the authority on Environmental Auditory Influences, recommended by the FWG Bureau of Arts as well as by the FWG Institute of Social Institutions. He’s a musicologist, composer, inventor, he’s got the world’s largest collection of musical instruments, and he designed the Constellation Club in Suncoast Sector, which he owns—”
“He owns Suncoast Sector?”
“No. The Constellation Club. People fly to it from all over the world. Twenty bands nightly and its own private smallcraft dock—”
“What the hell,” Jase said blankly, “do you want me to talk to a musician for?”
Jeri stopped. He took a deep breath and swallowed. “Musician.” He took another breath.
Then he tapped his ear. “Sounds.” For a moment Jase wondered if his tongue had gotten tangled up. Then he became coldly articulate. “I’m your Director of Rehabilitations. For prisoners to be rehabilitated into Earth society. There are noises on Earth. There are no noises up here.”
There’s you, Jase thought.
“Sidney Halleck has done studies for FWG committees on the effect of background noise on workers under all kinds of conditions. It’s his theory that a lack of familiar, natural sound is as debilitating as too much, too varied an input of sound. It’s my theory that the abrupt change from the nearly complete silence of the Underworld to the aural chaos on—”
“The what?”
Jeri sighed. “Racket on Earth might contribute to the sense of isolation and social withdrawal that ex-prisoners go through. The Underworld is only fifty years old. Most ex-prisoners were sent off-Earth for good reason, and they were here for an average of thirty years. We’re still getting the first wave of analyses of our Rehab program.”
Jase grunted. “I’ve never found it quiet around here. What do you want me to do? Send some prisoners down to his nightclub?”
“Please,” Jeri said stiffly. “Just be polite to him. Ask him if he’ll take a few moments to speak to me.”
“All right,” Jase said, “all right, all right. Sidney Halleck.” He was intrigued in spite of himself. “It almost makes sense. Do you know any experts on air?”
“Air?”
“Familiar, natural smells or the lack of them?” The call registered on-screen. A big, benevolent face turned toward him inquiringly, and in the instant he felt his own harsh, professional gaze. Sidney Halleck wore his life on his face—an unfashionable thing to do on Earth—and it seemed to Jase a life of intelligence, humor and goodwill.
“Mr. Halleck.”
“Chief Klyos?” Sidney said. His deep, calm voice sounded bewildered but courteous.
“What can I do for you?”
“I don’t know anything about music, but I’m told it’s an honor to meet you.”
“Did you ever sing a nursery rhyme? Then you know something about music.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Mr. Halleck,” Jase said carefully, trying to remember Jeri’s babbling. “You’ve been recommended to us by the FWG Bureau of Arts as well as by the FWG Institute of—ah—Social Institutions. May I ask you to talk for a few minutes to our Director of Rehabilitations, Dr. Jeri Halpren? He’s experimenting with a new program for inmates due to be sent back into Earth society. May I transfer you to him?”
“Of course,” Sidney Halleck said bemusedly. “I’m at a loss to know how I can help him; I know nothing about prisons, but—”
“He’ll explain.” He glanced at Jeri, who was staring at him in g
rateful disbelief. He kept his voice courteous with an effort. “Thank you very much, Mr. Halleck. It’s been a pleasure to—oh.” He stopped, surprised. “I’ll be damned.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I just remembered a nursery rhyme.”
Sidney smiled cheerfully. “The brain is a marvelous junkyard.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“Which rhyme was it?”
“Ah—tarts. ‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer’s day…’ But, Mr. Halleck, there’s no music to that one.”
“Strictly speaking, no,” Sidney said apologetically. “You’re right. But there is rhythm, and if you define music as a succession or pattern of sound intervals set to a predictable or varied rhythm, then you’re halfway there with ‘The Queen of Hearts,’ right? Whereas something like ‘All around the Mulberry Bush—’ ”
“Oh, yeah—‘the monkey chased the weasel’—”
“Actually has its own melody. You remember?”
“What the hell was that next line?” They were both silent, thinking. Then Jase became aware of a turmoil of emotion at his elbow. He glanced at Jeri. “Ah—my Rehab Director is getting restless. Mr. Halleck—”
“Please. Sidney.”
“Sidney. If you decide to visit the Underworld, I’ll look forward to talking to you again.”
“I hope I can be of some help. Good day, Chief Klyos.”
Jase turned the com over to Jeri and rose to get away from Jeri’s irritating nasal. What was that line? The monkey chased the weasel… And who was the Queen of Hearts? He stared at the question blankly, until the sheer nonsense of it, of him standing entranced in the Hub of the Underworld wondering about the identity of a nursery-rhyme character, overcame him.
But, he thought stubbornly, they all meant something else. All those rhymes. Didn’t they?
Politics, plague, fire, life and death… He resisted the urge to interrupt Jeri’s conversation, then yielded to it the moment Jeri broke contact and said, “He’s coming.” His smile beamed against the force of Jeri’s irritation and dwindled. “Now what did I do?”
“I wanted to ask him something. I wanted to ask him—” He waved a hand. “Ah, forget it. Ridiculous.” But he heard it again, teasing his brain as he resumed his work. The monkey chased the weasel… Only he was chasing the Queen of Hearts too. And—pop!
They all disappeared.
He scowled severely, blocking the bizarre image, and concentrated on the monotonous, crucial habits of the Underworld.
THREE
The Magician was flat on his back beneath the control panel of the Flying Wail when Aaron Fisher ascended the ramp and rapped his knuckles on the open hatch. There being no response from the body beneath the panel, he stepped across the threshold into the smallcraft. A gentle, ancient mingling of horns and trumpets sounded at the step. The Magician put down his laser-welder and rolled out too abruptly, banging his head.
“Ouch, damn it to molten—Aaron.” He got to his feet, smiling, extending one hand and rubbing his head with the other.
“You okay?”
“I’ll live.” He spun the commander’s chair around, casting an eye on Aaron’s rumpled uniform. “Have a seat. Or are you here on business?”
Aaron shook his head tiredly. “I’m on my way home.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes. No. Have you got a cold beer?”
“Coming up.” He lingered a moment, still absently rubbing his head, his expression peculiar. “I hope you enjoyed the concert the other night.”
Aaron grinned briefly, amazedly at the memory. “When did you finally stop?”
“Six in the morning. Sidney was still there.”
“What were you on? Just out of professional curiosity.”
“Nothing. I finally decided one of my body-wires must have triggered something in my brain, because the music wouldn’t turn off. But I’ve been experimenting with them here, and nothing’s happened.”
Aaron’s smile faded. “Be careful,” he said, and the Magician’s eyes changed, focused with unconscious scrutiny on the patroller. Aaron’s face moved fractionally away, into the warm morning light falling through the open hatch across his chair. The light was soothing, not yet bright-hot; the air over the dock, which would smell later of asphalt, exhaust, chemicals, carried now a cool hint of the sea. Still feeling the curious, searching gaze he turned again to challenge it. But the Magician had disappeared; Aaron heard the cooler swish open in the tiny kitchen. He eased back in the seat and stared uncharacteristically at nothing.
He was a tall man, slender and hard, with a face that was at once amiable and aggressive.
He wore an old-fashioned growth of dark hair on his upper lip, and made no attempt to eradicate the restless lines and hollows he had earned. His eyes took color from their surroundings. At the moment, within the grey and silver interior of the Flying Wail, they were shadowed.
He said, as the Magician returned with beer, “You changed your door bell.”
“Handel’s Water Music.” He swiveled the navigator’s chair and sat. Aaron nodded toward the welder.
“Problems?”
“Just the com-system. The receiver’s old.”
“This is an old cruiser. I took my off-world training flights in this model, thirteen years ago. Ugly, but reliable. The Underworld changes models every four or five years; this was one of the best.”
“It’s so ugly,” the Magician said fondly, “I got it for a song.” He stretched out against the worn leather, propped his bare feet on the toolbox. For a moment he seemed to daydream, his face looking blurred and somehow boneless, his eyes intent on his coffee as if he were watching landscapes float across it. He asked abruptly, “What happened last night?”
“A sniper.”
“Who died?”
“A pat—” He stopped and drank beer. Then he eyed the Magician, his expression quizzical, defensive. The Magician was still gazing absently into his cup, but the lines of his face had become more pronounced. Aaron yielded, finished the word softly. “A patroller.”
The Magician looked at him quickly. “Someone you knew?”
“Not too well. He was just transferred into the station; they put him with me for the night. I had to fly him in. He died on the way.”
“You were shot at in the air?”
“The sniper was in a sol-car. Luckily the traffic was light.” He lifted the beer bottle; it touched his lips and descended again. He added, as if the silence were suddenly threatening, “It was a laser-rifle.” The Magician’s voice rumbled wordlessly in his throat. Aaron opened a hand to the air, pushing at the memory. “The sniper didn’t—the only thing on his status-sheet was docking fines. It wasn’t a grudge; he wasn’t on drugs, he did a normal day’s work—there was nothing for him to get out of opening fire on us. I’ve been shot at by kids over nothing more than a pack of cigarettes they didn’t feel like paying for. That makes me furious. But this—someone killing, someone killed for no reason anywhere under the stars, not the smallest reason—that gets to me like nothing else does.”
He lifted the beer again, drank this time. The Magician watched him almost curiously, as if he were hearing a chord that, with all his variegated musical background, he couldn’t chart. He said, with feeling, “You were lucky you didn’t get blown apart in midair.”
“Luck… What does that mean, really?”
“You mean is chance truly a matter of chance?”
“That’s a hackneyed question, isn’t it?” He stirred, pulling away again, but his brows were drawn hard at some memory forming in the sunlight. “I could see—I could see time slow down. While I was under fire. Seconds elongated… Magic-Man, I swear I saw that laser-beam part the air inch by inch. The one that killed. I would never have seen it that way unless I knew it was going to hit. But how could I have known? I knew it was going to kill, and I knew it wasn’t me about to die. How?”
“I’ve heard about things like that,” t
he Magician said softly. “I’ve never understood them.”
Aaron pulled his attention from the light. “I’ve seen it once or twice before. But it always surprises me. It makes me wonder… what other things I might know without knowing…”
“Or, while you’re so busy looking for other things, what you might be missing.”
Aaron looked at him. The widening light spilled over his face, washed the expression and most of the color out of his eyes. He was silent a moment. The Magician heard his breath gather and stop before he spoke. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Know things—before I want you to know them.”
“Do I?”
There was another silence. Then Aaron said dryly, “I say good morning and you ask me who died.”
“Oh, that.” He shrugged a little and tapped at his ear. “I pay attention to sounds. It was in your voice.”
Aaron shook his head. “I wasn’t even talking then. And you were staring at your coffee. I’m paid to notice things. You picked it right out of the air. It’s not the first time.”
The Magician smiled. “Why? You have some deep, dark secret you’re afraid I’ll discover accidentally? You might as well tell me, then, since—” His face changed as Aaron shifted. He frowned at his cold coffee, listening to the silence between them. But it was empty; it gave him no cue. He said finally, “It just happens, sometimes. That’s all. How long have we known each other?”
“I don’t know. Four, five years. Since they came up with that program to put patrollers on foot during part of their shifts. I walked into the Constellation Club and there you were, playing Bach and turning orange.”
The Magician grinned. “If I was orange, it wasn’t Bach. Five years. If one of my band members died, and I walked up to you the next morning and said it’s a fine day, what the hell would you say to me?”
He shook his head, unconvinced. “There’s more—”
“Okay. Sure it’s more complicated than that. But it’s not that important, and it wouldn’t be bothering you unless you had something—” He was on his feet suddenly, his back to Aaron.
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