Orbitsville Departure o-1

by Bob Shaw

  "It still doesn't make sense," Dallen said. We don't have any serious crime in Madison."

  "I love it!" Sanko laughed aloud, his mouth and the solitary tooth forming a notched dark circle. "Graft doesn't bother anybody in Madison and that means it isn't serious."

  "There might be some petty…"

  "Listen to me — Madison City is a kind of general store for all the big Independent communities in this part of the world. They come from as far away as Savannah and Jacksonville, any place that can scrape up big money, and it's from Madison they buy their generators, water purifiers, truck engines, whatever. Didn't you know?"

  "I know my wife and son weren't involved."

  "You're starting to bore me, Dallen. How did you get to Cordele? By car?"

  "I flew."

  "That's a pity — if you'd come by car we'd have taken it and let you walk back. A flier is no use to us though, so I guess you can take it away as soon as you've thawed out."

  It was only then that Dallen realised he had been expecting imprisonment or worse. "You're letting me go?"

  Sanko looked exasperated. "Maybe you expected to be cooked and eaten."

  "No, but with what I know about Beaumont…" Dallen paused, deciding not to make a case for his detention.

  "Try a little experiment," Sanko said, taking Mien's sidearm and dropping it into his own pocket. "When you get back to Madison make out a report saying you heard some non-existent people claiming to have ended the non-existence of some other non-existent people. I'd like to hear what sort of reaction you get."

  It was late afternoon when Dallen reached the city. He circled in low over the south-western districts, over Scottish Hill and the immaculate, hermetically sealed suburbs which would later begin to glow in a simulation of life as the lights came on in a thousand empty streets. The tall buildings of the city centre, projecting above vivid toyland greenery, were washed with sunlight and looked impossibly clean, idyllic. A visitor winging down from space might have concluded that here was a community of contented, rational beings leading well-regulated lives — but Dallen's mood was one of disaffection as he picked out the pastel geometries of the City Hall.

  His reckless dash to Cordele had, as well as providing vital information, jotted him out of grief-dominated patterns of behaviour, freed him from the emotional conviction that a craving for justice and revenge would, if strongly enough felt, bring about its own ends. He had been reminded that there was no even-handed arbiter, and that the most successful hunters were those who stalked their prey with coldness and calculation.

  His ship hovered for a moment, then began its purposeful descent, its shadow a drifting prismatic blur which advanced and retreated according to the lie of the land beneath.

  Chapter 9

  Gerald Mathieu stood at the window of his office and watched the Bureau patrol ship slant down across the sky for a landing at Madison's inner field. The notion that Carry Dallen might be at the flying controls entered his mind, but he dismissed it and walked back to his desk. Dallen's prolonged absence from the City Hall had been welcome to Mathieu as a breathing space, but it was making him obsessive, giving his subconscious mind too much time to elaborate on the image of a dark superhuman Nemesis.

  He had survived his encounter with Dallen immediately after the incident… woman and child, crumpling, fatting, idiot eyes shining… but the circumstances had been exceptional and had not quite dispelled his fear of the other man's intuitive power. Since then that fear had been growing, week by week, and now the prospect of eventually having to face Dallen again ranked with all the other great phobias of his life. There was the dread of venturing into infinite black space, of living in a wafer-thin shell of alien metal, of being exposed as a criminal, of ever having — even once — to exist for a full day without felicitin. And now there was the next meeting with Carry Dallen…

  Mathieu sat down at his desk and tried to concentrate on the backlog of work. The job of mayor or deputy in an artificial city bore little resemblance to that traditionally associated with the tides. It was more akin to being executive officer for a very large theme park, and Mathieu's responsibilities ranged from public relations and tourist information to recruitment and purchasing. Even with extensive electronic assistance the job was demanding, especially as the city's annual revenue was in a steady decline, Mathieu had deferred for several days decisions about reducing engineering budgets, but on his way to the office that morning had promised himself good progress. It would be a sign that he was still functioning well, that a single unlucky accident… woman and child crumpling, going down before him, minds blown away… was not going to ruin his entire career.

  He called up a set of cost analysis graphs on the desk's main screen and strove to link the varicoloured blocks and lines to external reality. Silent minutes went by. The graphs shimmered on the surface of his eyes, tantalising him by refusing to be drawn into his head. He was beginning to feel a mild panic when the internal communicator chimed and Mayor Bryce-land's features appeared at the projection focus, eyes blindly questing. Taking only a second to smooth down his jacket, Mathieu accepted the call, making himself visible at the caller's terminal.

  "Let's have a talk about the conference," Bryceland said at once. "What have you got so far in the way of a programme?"

  Mathieu was baffled for a moment, then it dawned on him that Bryceland was referring to a conference of museum city managers which Madison was scheduled to host in the coming November. "I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, Frank," he said. "Perhaps next week…"

  "Next week!" Bryceland's puffy countenance registered dismay. "I suppose you're aware how important this conference is?"

  "Yes. I'm also aware it's five months away."

  "Five months is no time at all," Bryceland grumbled. "Specially the way you're working these days."

  "Meaning?"

  "Try to figure it out for yourself." Bryceland's image dissolved into transient specks of light, ending the conversation.

  "Jesus Christ!" Mathieu leaped to his feet, fists clenched, angry and afraid at the same time. He walked around the office and paused at his full-length mirror for reassurance. The blond-haired figure gazing at him from the safety of that other office, the one in the looking-glass world, appeared exactly as it should — tall, young, athletic, successful, immaculate. But were the eyes beginning to show signs of strain? Was there a slight hunching of the shoulders which indicated harmful tensions?

  Mathieu raised one hand to touch the rose-petal perfection of his white collar, but the figure in the mirror betrayed him. It guided the hand to the inner pocket of his jacket, and found himself holding the gold pen, the one which dispensed a magical ink. He hesitated, trembling on the edge. It was regarded as medically impossible for anyone to kick the felicitin habit unaided, but since the day of the incident… woman and child, crumpling, unique human flames guttering… he had been holding off on the fixes until after office hours. The motive had been self-defence, the plan to avoid dangerous confidence, but five weeks had gone by and his position had to be growing more secure with each passing hour. And there might be a greater hazard in the displaying of personality changes dating back to the precise day of the crime… woman and child, crumpling, falling…

  He clicked the pen's changeover mechanism and quickly drew the point across his tongue.

  As he was returning the gold cylinder to his pocket he felt a twinge of curiosity about the exact amount of felicitin left in its reservoir. There was no anxiety involved, no urgency, simply a mild desire to confirm that all was well. He raised the pen to his eye and rotated it until the light from the window was caught in an integral glass capillary. The shock was almost physical, dragging his mouth out of shape, causing him to take a step backwards.

  There was nearer a week's supply, where there should have been enough for a month.

  Along with the confirmation that he had been using too much of the drug came the first surge of induced reassurance, blessed certainty t
hat he could handle any difficult situation which arose. Felicitin, as he had noted before, worked fast.

  The main problem to be considered was that his supplier was not due in from the west coast for another two weeks, and the solution was straightforward — he would cook up a good reason and make a special flight to Los Angeles. QED. Everything would be fine. In fact, now that he thought about it constructively, discovering that his drug stock was low was one of the best things mat had ever happened to him. The pen dispenser was a rich man's toy — making it far too easy to take an over-generous dose — so from next week onwards he was going to use microcaps. That system was much better. It would give him a foolproof method of monitoring his consumption, would also save him a lot of money, and would also be a major step towards the day when he would be able to quit using the drug altogether.

  All was well with his world — and the wondrously heartening aspect of it was that things could only get better…

  Mathieu adjusted the hang of his jacket to his satisfaction, smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and sauntered back to his desk.

  Chapter 10

  Dallen had endured the emptiness and quietness of the house for as long as his temperament would allow, and now he had begun to get a last-man-in-the-world feeling.

  From the front window he could see most of one shallow slope of the city's North Hill, and there was no sign of movement anywhere in that expanse of nostalgic blue dusk. The progressive appearance of lights — distant speckles of gold, peach and amber — provided little comfort, because he knew that automatic switches were producing exactly the same effect in the uninhabited districts of Limousin, Scottish Hill and Gibson Park. Everything looked right for the tourists gliding down from orbit on the evening shuttle, but from where Dallen stood it was almost possible to believe that Earth's last citizens had been spirited away while he was dozing.

  The words of the old song tried to invade his mind…

  Out on the freeway, moonflowers blow

  Everyone's gone to Big O…

  But he blocked them off, turning away from the window to walk through silent rooms in which his imagination still detected a hint of urine. Yesterday there had been a message from Roy Picciano explaining that he had, in view of Dallen's late return, taken Cona to the clink for extra tests which would last at least three days. Give yourself a break, the recording had concluded, take a couple of days off.

  At first Dallen had been unable to accept the advice. The sortie to Cordele had left him physically tired, but he had driven to the clinic and spent time with Cona and Mikel. She had been bored and then angered by his attempts to get her to speak, and the boy had been asleep in his cot in the adjoining room, one hand clutching a tiny yellow truck. Dallen sought consolation in the fact that Mike! still had a special liking for toy vehicles, but it was a desperately thin lifeline. The infant personality had been erased before it had properly formed — so how could it ever be retrieved? You want a replacement for your baby son, sir? Must have a fondness for miniature cars? Wait just a moment, sir — we've got the exact mode! you need…

  Dallen had left the clinic with a tearing pain in his throat and a dark chill gathering in his mind. He could go to the chief of police with a new theory about the five-week-old crime, but Lashbrook would seize on the lack of obvious motive as an excuse to take no action. In any case, Dallen reminded himself, he had no wish for the culprit to be taken by the authorities and shipped off to Botany Bay. The punishment would have to be much more drastic, person-airy administered, a venting of suppurative poison, and for that he would have to find the guilty person unaided.

  And there still remained the enigma of the motive. Glib words about a Luddite Special being its own motive explained everything and nothing. What he needed was a credible reason for somebody who worked in City Hall to use such a device on an innocent woman and child, and his brain seemed quite unequal to the task. Grief, bitterness and undirected hatred were no aids to analytical thought.

  It was in that state of mind that Dallen had fallen asleep in an armchair after reaching home. When he had wakened in the middle of the night there had seemed no point in transferring to a lonely bed, so he had stayed in the chair till morning. A full day spent in brooding, snacking and dozing had further reduced his drive, and now he felt too dispirited to think at all. The house had become a tomb, a prison, a place from which he had to escape. Ceasing his aimless drifting, he took a cool shower, shaved and changed into fresh clothing, all the while telling himself that he had no definite plans, that he might be going to the gymnasium or to a bar or to his office. It was not until he had actually started the engine of his car and had to choose a destination that he acknowledged he was going to see Silvia London.

  He drove south with the top down, following the route he had traversed the previous day with Rick Renard. A few major stars were visible through the city's canopy of diffused light, forming a sparse background to Polar Band One, which was nearing zenith. The north-south line of space stations and parked ships had once been a brilliant spectacle in the night sky, but it had dimmed as the era of the great migrations had drawn to a close. Now it was mainly composed of irreparable hulks, many of which had been partially cannibalised to enable other ships to make final departures for Orbitsville. Dallen could only see it as a symbol of Earth's decline and he had no regrets when turning west removed the thinly jewelled braid from his field of view.

  Lights were on all over the London residence and its extensions, and the presence of at least twenty cars on the apron of gravel added to the impression that there was a sizable party going on inside. Dallen, who had been expecting a much smaller gathering, swung his car into a vacant space and got out, discovering that he was dose to Renard's gold Rollac. He hesitated for a second, suddenly dubious about entering the house, then noticed Silvia at a ground-floor window in animated conversation with someone he could not see. The vertical rays from an overhead lamp emphasised the pouting fullness of her lower Up and highlighted her breasts, making her look impossibly voluptuous, like a sexist illustration on a cassette cover. He watched her for a moment, feeling like a voyeur, and went into the house.

  "Welcome to this informal meeting of Anima Mundi Foundation!" His voice came from a thin, high-shouldered man of about sixty who was standing in the centre of the square hail. He was casually dressed in slacks and floral shirt, but his silver-bearded face had a conscious dignity which would have been more in keeping with donnish robes. A bar of unnaturally high colour reached from cheekbone to cheekbone across the saddle of his nose.

  "Is this your first visit to one of our discussion evenings?" he said, giving Dallen a formal smile.

  "Yes, but I only came to…" Dallen broke off as he realised he was speaking to a holomorph. The visual illusion was perfect, only betrayed by a slight studio quality to the voice. It had been beamed at Dallen's ears too accurately, robbing it of any acoustic interaction with the considerable volume of sound coming from rooms on either side of the hall.

  "In that case let me introduce myself," the holo-morph said. "I am Karal London, and I offer you some wonderful news — you, my friend, are going to live for ever."

  "Is that a fact?" Dallen replied uneasily, loathe to converse with the unseen computer which was directing the holomorph's responses.

  "Not only is it a fact, my friend — it is the single most important truth in the cosmos. You will have ample opportunity to discuss it during the evening — and there is a comprehensive range of study aids, all available to you free of charge — but let me begin by asking you one vital question. What is…?"

  The question was lost to Dallen as the door at his right opened and the buoyantly curvaceous figure of Rick Renard appeared, martini glass in hand. He grinned on seeing Dallen, walked straight to the holomorph and shoved his knee into the vicinity of its groin.

  "Out of the way, you silly old fart" he commanded, stepping into the solid image and causing it to flow and fragment. "This really balls the whole system.
Old Karal programmed the set-up himself before he left for Orbitsville, but he was too conceited to allow for anybody being disrespectful enough to stand right inside him. The computer just doesn't know how to react."

  "I'm not surprised," Dallen said, reluctantly amused.

  "Wait to you see this." Renard edged backwards a little, allowing London's image to reassemble itself in front of him, now apparently with four arms, two of which belonged to Renard and were waving like those of a Balinese dancer.

  "…long been postulated that mind is a universal property of matter, so that even elementary particles would be endowed with it to some degree," the grotesque image was saying in London's voice. "We now know that mind is a universal entity or interaction of the same order as electricity or gravitation, and that there exists a modulus of transformation, analogous to Einstein's bask equation, which equates mind stuff with other entities of the physical world…"

  The superimposed image abruptly vanished, leaving the floor to a triumphant Renard. "The programme can't cope, you see. Old Karal should have stuck to his physics."

  "He didn't expect sabotage."

  "What did he expect? People come here for some free booze and a bit of discreet lusting after Silvia — not to be lectured by a miserable bloody apparition. Come on, old son, you look as though you could use a drink."

  "It's been one of those days."

  "Yeah." Renard paused, his gold-freckled face looking uncharacteristically solemn. "I've only just heard about your wife and kid."

  "I don't want to talk about that."

  "No. It was just that I… Ah, hell" Renard led the way into the room from which he had emerged and went to a long sideboard which was serving as a bar. Dallen asked him for a weak Scotch and water, and while it was being prepared took the opportunity to look around. There were about two dozen people in the room, most of them men, who were standing in groups of three or four. He recognised several faces from various City Hall departments, but was unable to see Silvia.