To Build a World

by Poul Anderson

  Why not? Secure Volhontseff out of sight and tell ‘em he had to go on an errand. If there isn’t a gun in the house, there must be some of those beautiful Martian dart knives. Nyo’s agents won’t know that I know their purpose. I can board the flier with them. Its diplomatic registry will pass it through national checkpoints without inspection. Once we’re aloft, them not yet ready to take me and not expecting any trouble—

  Laughter coughed silent in him. A good honest fight, a clear track to Paris, and won’t brother Craik be surprised when I walk in on him!

  “—changed clothes,” his tongue formed, “and got to the consulate here—”

  The door clicked shut again. Sevigny was halfway there before he realized what had happened. Volhontseff! The withered little devil had crawled out when he wasn’t looking!

  The door was locked. He palmed the plate and it swung open with Inquisition slowness.

  The moment he could, he squeezed through; and tumbled flat on his belly. Volhontseff had laid half a dozen Martian staffs there for him to trip on.

  The tiny shape was at the front entrance. “Stop!” Sevigny bawled. The door began to gape. Sevigny grabbed a staff and threw it like a spear. It shattered where Volhontseff had been a half second before. He scampered from sight, yammering louder than seemed possible.

  No use chasing him. He must already have awakened his neighbors. The police would arrive in minutes.

  Sevigny hurried back to the phone. “What’s gone wrong now?” Craik asked superciliously.

  “Record this!” Sevigny overran him. “I know these are conspiring—Nyo, the K’nean ambassador; Ercole Baccioco of Eureclam; Krishnamurti Lai Gupta of Benares and the Indian Conservationist Party; Gilman, the United States Secretary of Resources; the Fatimite Brotherhood. They want—” He outlined the scheme. “In the name of God and honor, get them investigated!”

  He snapped off the set and ran back through the house. Maybe his message would spread. And maybe it wouldn’t.

  He had to stay free and make sure. Besides, he himself was the most important piece of evidence there was. Once repeated under truth drug, in the presence of so many Safety Corps officers that a majority were bound to be honest, his accusation was certain to start their machine.

  First, though, I’ve got to start a different machine. If time allows.

  A rear door led directly into the garage. Volhontseff’s car was impressive to see. But Sevigny was interested only in getting at the prime circuit. No chance of finding the key before the cops showed. However, any Cytherean must needs have mechanical skills, and there were tools on a wall rack. He flung back the hood and fairly ripped the cover off the pilot. Hotwire here? No. Here? The engine awoke. He sat down behind the wheel and eased in power. The garage door opened.

  He was steering manually now, and that was illegal in town. Any prowl car that passed near would fail to register an active pilot and take off after him. So he couldn’t go many kilometers.

  But away!

  He backed out into the street precisely as a police vehicle rounded the corner. “Okay,” he spat, “want to race?” The motor roared with energies.

  Downhill he went in a shriek of wind and of pursuing siren, squealed around a corner, zigzagged up another twisting way as fast as he had once taken a gun car up a mountainside at the Battle of Jerry’s Landing, swooped among the trees of a small park on his airblast—

  It was unfair to pit a lifetime driver on pavements against a Cytherean. In minutes Sevigny moved alone, slowly and quietly, through the nighted tangletown.

  But the ether was acrackle with calls, he knew, and every road would soon be blocked.

  What about those mountains, humping high in the north against a sky that had begun ever so faintly to pale? Honolulu had sprawled far into them, but there should be brush-grown empty areas yet, where a man might skulk . . . No. He’d never make it. His auto had to be abandoned fast. In any event, whatever wild section remained couldn’t be so large that a determined search with modern manhunting equipment wouldn’t soon flush him out. Nor would he have any way of knowing what went on in the world.

  Left, right! Left, right! drummed senselessly through his head. Good soldiers can always find cover when enemies menace their life. Our loveable sergeant has said it. Take cover, my lads, with his wife. Left, right! Left, right! I know you’re a man of Clan Woodman, I known you are gallant and true. So don’t turn your back in our army; they’ll give you the royallest—

  Sevigny snapped the Halt switch. He had half unconsciously been looking from side to side. When he saw what he wanted, dim in starlight, he recognized what it was. A garage stood open and empty. Some night owl was going to be surprised when he got home. With luck, that wouldn’t be for hours; and meanwhile the hounds would cast about in vain for this car.

  He slid it inside. For a space he slumped, and a tide of exhaustion rose in him. Venus, he thought, morning star, even the tehees of your desert have a place to lair. But you are forty million kilometers away. Goodby, Venus.

  And then the remembrance came to him, and he sat up with a strangled yell.

  IX

  Pre-dawn light seeped through a window at the end of the tenth-floor corridor. Sevigny stepped from the elevator and walked down its lushly carpeted length. On the way he noticed a mail slot. Good. I won’t have to wait till night to mail my letter. Any time that no one’s around, I—we—can slip out. Door No. 14 came into view. The directory in the lobby had given him that information.

  Now for the tricky part. His walk had been long but uneventful. The police search was concentrated in the Manoa Road area, where there were roofs for a forester to hide on while men went beneath, gardens and byways for “him to slip through. Afterward a city map taken from the auto had guided him on a route avoiding important streets. Doubtless an alarm would be broadcast with the morning news, his description and perhaps a drawing based on what those who knew him could tell. Or even a photograph, if Gupta had thought to take one while he lay unconscious. But to passersby in the last couple of hours he had only been a lone walker, belated or early as the case might be, nothing to take heed of. If afterward someone remembered him, little harm in a metropolis like this.

  The next few minutes were what counted.

  The automatic doorbell had been turned off for the night. He shoved the manual button. The chime sounded remote, not quite real. He hunched his shoulders and dropped his chin. With the help of the car mirror he had rubbed grime into his hair, brows and sprouting beard. That, a change of clothes and posture, a lowered face, a disguised voice, might get him past the viewer. If not, he was done.

  “Wha’ you wan’ ?” The voice from the speaker was blurred with sleepiness. Fine.

  Aloud, with the best Russian accent he could muster: “I am from Oleg Volhontseff. Please to let me in. I have a very fast message from him.”

  “Ah-yaw . . . um . . . why di’n’e call?”

  “He could not. I shall explain. It has to do with the Martian you know of, him from K’nea.”

  “Oh! One minute, please.”

  He gathered his muscles. So his guess was right. Volhontseff must have gotten in touch with Baccioco and Gupta by now, but lesser agents like Rashid and the girl . . .

  The door opened. He hurtled through. Maura’s lips parted to scream. He got a hand over them, held her locked in a wrestler’s grip and hissed, “Keep still or I’ll snap your spine. I haven’t much to lose, you know!”

  The door closed. He guided her to a chair in the luxurious room, released her, but kept one hand on her neck, letting her feel its weight and hardness. “Don.” she shuddered.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said with entire honesty. “Cooperate and you’ll be okay. I need a hiding place. Where better than with a member of the opposition?”

  “You can’t! It’s not possible, you’ve got to go away!”

  “Quiet down, I said. You must be able to see I can’t leave. Your friends sicced the Federal police onto me the mome
nt I’d gone. But as I hoped, they didn’t wake you later to tell you I’d had a run-in with Volhontseff. No reason for them to do so. I used his name to establish my bona fides here.” Sevigny let go of her, crossed to the door and shoved a heavy couch across. “There. You won’t run loose as he did.”

  He turned around, wondering how wild his appearance was. “I repeat, I’ve no intention of hurting you,” he said. “The most I’ll do is tie and gag you while I sleep or am otherwise busy. I’m efficient at knots, by the way. I suppose you’ve got food in the kitchen to last the several days I’ll need until this mess is straightened out. We’ll stay inside, and I hope the TriV programs aren’t to dull.”

  “No—” She saw her robe had come open, and gathered it with a calculatedly provocative movement. He was not unaffected, but had no urge to be fooled twice. “Don,” she pleaded, “I can t stay here that long, I’ve got appointments.”

  “Call and cancel them. Say you’re sick, or have to go out of town, or something. I’ll stand by in easy reach.”

  “You wouldn’t harm me if I got them to come here, would you? Not really.”

  He grinned. “Okay, my lady. A deterrent has to be credible, and clansmen don’t attack women. But I plan to cobble together some weapons from whatever I can find around this place. If the enemy finds me, they’ll have to force their way in, and I’ll put up one Satan of a fight. There’s an excellent chance you’ll get caught in the fire. Is that believable?”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “I don’t need too long,” he said. “We are going to venture out once, very briefly, in half an hour or so, to post a letter I’ll write, addressed to my boss at his private apartment in Port Kepler. It should get on the returning packet tomorrow sunrise. If I know him, he won’t need much time to swing into action.” He paused. “And then, Maura, you may be damn glad I was here, to put in a word for you—or look the other way while you catch a jet to Djakarta.”

  She considered him. A certain coolness descended on her. “Djakarta might be a good idea at that,” she said, “because I was born Mary Stafford in Chicago.” He choked. Cat-adaptable, she laughed. “Or maybe Venus, hm?”

  “God help Venus,” he muttered in awe.

  She rose and said practically, “You must be starved. I’ll fix breakfast. Afterward—”

  Her gaze dwelt on him. “Frankly,” she said, “the TriV programs are dull.”

  “So I lay doggo till you appeared personally on the newscast to vouch that the charges against me had been dropped,” Sevigny concluded.

  “What was this person’s name you were with?” the Buffalo asked.

  “Never mind,” Sevigny said. The Buffalo gave him a look, shrugged and remarked nothing but: “You seem to’ve had a tough time. I haven’t often seen a man so pooped.”

  “It could’ve been worse,” Sevigny answered dreamily.

  The Buffalo blew out his cheeks in an enormous snort and wallowed back into the lounger. “Whoof, but I’ll be glad to get back!” he said. “I’m far too old and fat for Earth weight. Fuel me, will you?”

  “You must’ve been working pretty hard too,” Sevigny sympathized. He opened the liquor cabinet and poured two drinks of Glenlivet. The Goldwater had seemed swank when he first got here, but that was before he was introduced to the Andromeda Suite.

  “I’ve seen damned little on the news, though, about this whole business,” he complained. “Isn’t the investigation getting anywhere?”

  “All kinds of places,” the Buffalo replied. “But don’t expect ultra-sensational revelations. Enough little fish will get netted to put a crimp in the gang. The big ones will mostly go free, as usual.”

  “Huh? But—”

  “Calm down and give me my booze. What did you think would happen? There are high-explosive international and interplanetary implications. A first-class scandal would raise too much partisanship, too many hard feelings. They’d fight back almighty mean if they got desperate: same as you did, if you recall. So—ah, thanks.” The Buffalo drank deep, belched and wiped his mouth with the back of one hairy paw. “The Chinese had a proverb in their warlord era, that you should always leave your enemy a line of retreat. We’ll do best not to pry too deep. Let some of those jims retire gracefully from public life. Let the rest know we’re watching ’em close and they’d better reel in their horns. Make just one or two stiff examples of secondary figures, to show we mean business. Who’re your candidates for that? Eenie, meenie, minie, moe.”

  “But the others’ll try again!” Sevigny protested.

  “Some of ’em might. I sort of doubt it—they’re likelier to jump on your bandwagon. But they might. We’re forewarned now, though, thanks largely to you. We didn’t know, before, how strong and piratish the antilunar coalition was. Hah! Wait till they see ours!”

  “What?” Sevigny nearly dropped his tumbler.

  “Of course. Remember, we still have to keep down the honest antilunars, who had nothing to do with the gang. But there’s a bucketful of organizations with a vested interest in Moon development. Like the various national political parties who voted to establish the Corporation while they were in office. Like different bureaucrats—space commissioners, for instance. Like the companies which stand to make a profit when Lunar exploitation really gets going. Like the Great Confederation of Y. Like, maybe, a few million plain, ordinary people that daydream about some uncluttered place to go. We had an active lobby in the beginning, to start the project. But then we let it fall apart. Now we’ll build a new one, stronger than ever, since the work is in fact well under way. We’ll propagandize, and get our personal boys elected, and pressure their colleagues, and logroll, and drop a tiny bribe here and there where that’ll do some good, and—” the Buffalo laughed, earthquake style—“all in all, the other coalition ain’t gonna have a marshmallow’s chance on Mercury!”

  Sevigny went to the window and stared downward. The street below crawled with dwarfed traffic. “I suppose you know best,” he said in weariness. “Me, I only want to get back to work.”

  “That’s what I was talking about, son,” the Buffalo boomed. “Fitting you and me into our proper slots. Hey, don’t look so bitter. If your chin dropped a centimeter more we could use it for a ‘dozer blade. As soon as the Corps gets through with you and you’ve had a rest—I know a place in Canada, sho’nuff forest preserve, set aside for billionaires and you—back you go to the air mines. Now drink up and let’s go eat!”

  Sevigny found himself grinning. The tumblers clinked together.