by Bob Shaw
"Garry! I think we just got another whisper near the corner of 1990 and Third." The voice in Dallen's ear now had a discernible edge of nervousness. "He's getting too near the Exhibition Centre."
"I'm on First, turning into 1990 two blocks east of him," Dallen responded. "Assuming we walk about the same speed, that means we should meet up near the corner of Second. It shouldn't be too hard to pick him out."
"Him or her."
"The masculine pronoun covers both genders—specially in this line of business." Aware that he had put too much effort into trying to sound pedantic and cool, Dallen brought his dunking into tighter focus. "Isn't the TL37 a dual-action fuze?"
"Yeah—timer and impact," Mellor confirmed. "That means if you don't immobilise him real fast he's liable…"
"I know what it means, Jim." Dallen negotiated the remaining distance to the intersection, stepping around the animated solid images as though they were real people, partly from instinct and also because there was a sprinkling of tourists in the simulated crowd. In most cases he could identify holiday-makers by the current fashions of their clothing, but some liked to dress in period for their venture into 1990 Street and it could be quite difficult to distinguish them from holomorphs.
He paused at the comer and took stock of his surroundings. A short distance to his right were the crystalline palisades of the Exhibition Centre; at successive intersections directly ahead were A. D. 2090 Street and A. D. 2190 Street, each a recreation of its own historical era; and to his left were the seething perspectives of a Madison City thoroughfare as it had looked three centuries earlier. And somewhere in that oppressive confusion of human beings and holomorphs there lurked a terrorist who was getting ready to ply his trade.
Dallen's confidence wavered as it came to him that he did not even know if his quarry was on the north or south side of the street. The images of the buses and commercial vehicles which jammed the central pavement were impenetrable to the eye, every bit as good as the real thing for providing an intruder with cover. Dallen slipped his right hand into the side pocket of his jacket and gripped the flat shape of his official sidearm. He rotated its beam control, setting the Weapon to emit a broad fan of energy. It was unlikely that he would get enough time for precise marksmanship, and rather than miss his target altogether it would be better to bring down half-a-dozen bystanders and let them denounce him while they recovered in hospital.
"I'm walking east on 1990," he subvocalised. "If I reach the corner of Second without making contact I'm going to assume the bandit is either near me or has got past me. I'll wait thirty seconds then I'll say 'off. As soon as I do that I want you to throw the switch and kill every image projector in the Street. That should take our visitor by surprise and give me a couple of seconds to pick him out."
"Okay, Garry," Mellor said, "but suppose there's more than one."
"It won't matter—I'm geared up to paralyse half the Street."
"I'm with you."
"Be glad you aren't." Dallen moved tentatively along the block, grateful that fashions in men's casual clothing had varied little over the centuries. His tan jacket, slacks and open-necked shirt made a virtually timeless ensemble which enabled him to mingle unobtrusively with tourists and holomorphs alike. He kept to the outer edge of the sidewalk, trying to scan both sides of the Street at once. His task was made a little easier by the fact that he could remember some of its permanent, though insubstantial, residents. There was the newspaper seller at the entrance to the Clarence Hotel, the amiably tubby guard at the bank, the cigar store owner who grinned his idealised grin at passers-by. Figures who paused and spoke to them, obeying their programmes, were immediately identifiable as holomorphs, as were taxi drivers, delivery men and the like.
Dallen's real problem lay with strolling window-shoppers and sightseers. A couple walking hand-in-hand with two small children were likely to be flesh-and-blood tourists, but similar family groups had been included in the Street's cast of holomorphs to establish a homely atmosphere—and there was nothing to stop bombers adopting the same camouflage. By the time he reached the midpoint in the block Dallen's palms were sweating and his heart rate had climbed until there was a continuous fluttering agitation in the centre of his chest.
He paused, striving to appear relaxed, and shielded his eyes from the sun. Business-suited men carrying leather briefcases hurried by him, a mailman with a sackful of letters, a green-shirted youngster conversing earnestly with a blonde in a pink dress, two adolescents eating cotton candy, an elderly woman laden with shopping bags…
This is hopeless, Dallen thought. And it's funny the way some people are making footprints and some aren't.
Narrowing his eyes he picked out an area, some twenty paces ahead, where rain from the recent shower had accumulated in a depression in the sidewalk. The sun had already dried the surrounding concrete, with the result that people who walked through the shallow pool were leaving footprints for some distance on each side of it.
Except for the holomorphs, of course—illusions don't get wet feet. Dallen frowned, wondering why his heartbeat had lapsed into powerful, measured anvil-blows. There was nothing surprising nor even particularly helpful about what he had noticed, and yet … and yet … Lips moving silently, Dallen turned and ran a few paces in the direction from which he had come, giving himself a second look at one batch of pedestrians. The crowd patterns had already changed, but he found the couple he wanted immediately. The man in the green shirt and the blonde woman were still engaged in what had seemed to be a serious conversation, but—Dallen saw the pair with new eyes—only the man was talking, and only the man was leaving fast-fading smears of moisture on the sidewalk.
Dallen slowed abruptly, desperate for time in which to devise tactics, but his erratic movements brought him into near-collision with three women tourists in holiday shorts. They made little sound, a barely audible gasp of surprise, but it was enough. The green-shirted man glanced back at Dallen and began to run, dragging something from his hip pocket as he went.
Dallen hurled himself into pursuit, realised at once that another second was all the time the terrorist needed, and fired his sidearm through the material of his jacket. Several animated figures were caught in the cone of energy, but they were unaffected—holomorphs—and Dallen ran clean through them as he glimpsed the bomber angling forward, rigid and toppling.
"The fuze! The voice in Dallen's head had the hysterical shrillness of a speeded-up recording. How much impact will it stand?
He overtook the falling man, clamped an arm around him and used the momentum of his charge to carry them both into the narrow entrance of an electronics store. Antique television sets in the glazed display areas on each side glimmered with images of an earlier age. A middle-aged couple who had been inspecting the television sets backed off in alarm, the woman pressing a hand to her throat.
"There's nothing to worry about," Dallen said, smiling a reassurance as he moved his right hand down the dead weight in his arms and gripped the metal cylinder which had been partially withdrawn from the bomber's pocket.
"Say, what's going…?" The paunchy man broke off, looking doubtful, as the bomber made glottal clicking noises which indicated that his powers of speech would soon return. "Is that guy sick?"
Dallen weighed the alternatives open to him. The orthodox course would be to produce identification, send the couple on their way and call for assistance. But handling the situation that way, legally and properly, would have an inevitable consequence—a near-complete victory for the terrorist infiltrator. It was almost certain that the bomb's timing device was set to explode it within minutes, which left the authorities with the choice of evacuating the Street and allowing the destruction to take place, or of risking lives in an attempt to fly the bomb to open ground. Either way, the news would go out with tachyonic speed, the message that Madison City was no longer a safe place for visitors. Dallen looked down at the face of the young man he was cradling in spurious intimacy, saw the mute loathing
in his eyes, and felt the bleak uncompromising side of his own nature respond in kind. He renewed his smile for the benefit of the watching people.
"Sick?" he said. "We should all afford to be so sick—young Joe here has just swallowed about a hundred monks' worth of happydust. He's got a habit of overdoing it."
The woman's powdery face registered concern mingled with distaste. "Will he be all right?"
"Right as rain, lady—it'll all come back up again any time now." Dallen eyed the couple ingenuously. "Can you lend me something to clean him up with? A handkerchief or a tissue or something." The sounds from the bomber's throat intensified, and Dallen patted his cheek with mock affection.
"Sorry … we're late … our friends are…" The man took his wife's arm and walked her back out to the sidewalk where they promptly moved out of sight.
Relieved to find that the incident had attracted no other spectators, Dallen transferred the cylindrical bomb to the safety of his own pocket, then manhandled the inert figure of his captive to the store's inner door. It swung open as soon as he pressed his badge to the lock. He quickly dragged his burden inside, handling the large man with an ease which came from regular strength training. The interior of the store, apart from the window display area, was empty and mouldering, a long cavern hung with cobwebs. A dank toadstool-smell polluted the air. Heading for a doorway at the far end, Dallen used the special whisper which would be audible only at his headquarters.
"I've got him, Jim," he said. "We're in Cagle's television store in the one hundred block, and there was no fuss—-so play everything quiet and cool. Send a car to the rear of the premises, but tell the crew to wait outside in the alley till I call for them."
Mellor spoke quickly. "What about the bomb?"
"It's going to be defused."
"Garry, you're not going to do something dumb, are you? There's no way to neutralise a TL37."
There's one way, Dallen thought. "Radio reception is pretty bad in here, Jim. Can you pick up my…?" He made the lateral movement of his jaw which switched off the implanted transceiver, and—gouging irregular channels in the silted dust of the floor-dragged his captive into what had once been a square office. There was a flurry of movement in one corner as a grey shape disappeared into a hole in the skirting. Dallen swung the young man into a sitting position against a wall, pulled a billfold from the pocket of the green shirt and scanned its contents.
"Derek H. Beaumont," he announced. "You should have stayed at home in Cordele, young Derek."
"You … should…" Beaumont's mouth contorted with the effort of speaking. "You should … go and…"
"Don't say it," Dallen cut in. "That sort of talk is very uninspired—certainly not worth losing your front teeth over." He took his first considered look at his prisoner and was relieved to find himself reacting with an instinctive dislike which was going to make his task easier. Some of the raiders he had come up against an the past had been personable youngsters, physical models he could have chosen for his own son, but the impression he got from the man before him now was one of arrogance and stupidity. Dilute grey eyes regarded him from a pale oval face which lost rather than gained individuality from a down-curving moustache. The standard-issue Zapata moustache, Dallen thought. Or maybe they've only got one, and they pass it around.
"You better not touch me," Beaumont said.
"I know—I've had hygiene lectures." Dallen took the cylindrical bomb from his pocket, "How many people were you hoping to kill with this?"
"You're the killer around here, Dallen."
"You know me?"
"I know you. We all know you." Beaumont's words were slurred as a result of his paralysis. "And one of these days…"
"Then you'll also know this isn't a bluff—you, young Derek, are going to tell me the combination for this." Dallen flicked the six numbered rings, close to one end of the cylinder, which would have to be correctly set to allow the fuze to be withdrawn.
Beaumont managed something close to a sneer. "Why the fuck should I?"
"I should have thought that was obvious," Dallen said mildly. "You're going to be sitting on top of the bomb if it goes. How long have you got? Ten minutes? Fifteen?"
"You don't scare me, Dallen. You couldn't get away with a thing like that."
"Couldn't I?" Dallen thought for a moment about the effects of an explosion in the crowded Exhibition Centre and felt his humanity bleed away, "if you've got some dim ideas about publicity and propaganda—forget them. I hauled you way back here because a few walls and a good cushion of air are enough to contain a bomb this size. The bang will startle a lot of people, naturally, but they'll calm down when they hear it was one of the city's old gas mains. And nobody is going to hear about you, friend. This time tomorrow you'll be nothing but rat turds."
"You're a bastard, Dallen. You're a dirty…" Beaumont fell silent and the appearance of a thoughtful, introverted expression in his eyes showed that he was struggling to move, to force muscle commands across the artificially widened synaptic gaps of his nervous system. Lentils of perspiration appeared on his brow, but his limbs remained totally immobile.
"I'm every thing you say, and more." Dallen knelt and held the bomb close to Beaumont's face. "What's the combination, Derek?"
"I … I don't have it."
"In that case, I'm sorry for you." The possibility that Beaumont was speaking the truth flickered in Dallen's mind, but he refused to consider it. "I'm going to get out of here now-—in case this thing blows up sooner than we expect—but I want you to know I'll be thinking about you."
Beaumont's pallor intensified, making his face almost luminescent. "We're going to crucify you, Dallen. Not only you … your wife and kid, as well … just to let you see what it's like … I promise you it's all set up…"
"You've got a great talent for saying the wrong thing," Dallen said, keeping his voice steady in spite of the pounding tumult of his chest. "I don't want that combination any more. You can keep it—for a while."
He gently inserted the bomb at the juncture of Beaumont's thighs, making it a silver phallus, then straightened up and walked out of the room on legs that suddenly felt rubbery. It's all gone wrong, he accused himself, putting his back to the opposite side of the same partition that supported Beaumont and breathing deeply to overcome a developing sense of nausea. I should have dumped the bloody bomb and hauled Beaumont outside and cleared the area. But now it's too late. It was too late as soon as he brought in Cona and Mikel…
Taking his pipe from a side pocket, he filled it with black and yellow strands, and had put it in his mouth before realising he had no desire to smoke. All at once it seemed incredible, monstrous, that he was squandering the precious minutes of his life in such a fashion. How had he come to be trapped in tine rotting carcase of a television store with a would-be murderer and a live bomb? Why was he confined to the claustrophobia and pettiness of Earth when he and his family should be soaring free on Orbitsville?
In the two centuries which had elapsed since Vance Garamond's discovery of Orbitsville the circumstance of mankind's existence had completely changed. One of the most quoted statistics connected with the Big O was that it provided prime-quality living space equivalent to five billion Earths, but even more significant was the fact that it had enough room to accommodate every intelligent creature in the galaxy. For the first time in history there had been little or no brake on human expansion, and the migrations had begun immediately.
Earth's technology and industry had become totally absorbed in the last great challenge, that of transporting an entire planetary population across hundreds of light years to its ultimate home. It had been a venture only made feasible by two factors—the old world's declining birth rate, and the irresistibleness of Orbitsville's call. Every nation, every statelet, every political party, power group, religion, sect, church, family, individual could have the equivalent of a virgin world in which to pursue ideals and dreams. Governments had been slower to adapt to the new era than peoples, b
ut statesmen and politicians—faced with the prospect of strutting empty stages—had eventually been persuaded that their duties lay elsewhere.
Each migratory government had, by UN agreement, retained responsibility for law and order in its historic territories, but time and distance had had their inevitable effect. Interest had declined, costs had increased, and many totalitarian states had in the end opted for the clean break solution, with compulsory migration of all subjects. Enforced migration to Orbitsville had not been possible in democratic countries, but that had not prevented governments—anxious to shake the clogging dust of the past from their feet—from using every conceivable inducement and pressure. More and more towns and cities had crumbled, ever larger areas of rural land had become overgrown, as the ordinary people had succumbed to the lure of the golden journey, the free trip to the Big O.
There had, of course, been those who refused to leave. Mostly they had been the very old, men and women who wanted to end their days on the planet of their birth, but there had also been a sprinkling of those who simply rejected the idea of pulling up stakes. And now in the year 2296, almost two hundred years after the finding of Orbitsville, the die-hards in each area were still struggling to maintain a semblance of organised community life. But their situation had become less tenable with each passing decade as facilities had broken down and money and support from Orbitsville had dwindled…
"You're not fooling me, Dallen." The voice from the other side of the partition was confident. "I know you're out there, man."
Dallen remained quiet, tightening his lips.
"I'm telling you the God's truth, man—I don't have no combination."
You shouldn't have threatened my wife and boy. Dallen glanced at his watch, suddenly remembering he had arranged to meet Cona and Mikel for lunch, an appointment he was now bound to miss regardless of how things worked out with Beaumont. He would be unable to get a message to Cona unless he resumed radio contact with Jim Mellor, which conflicted with his resolve to claim ail responsibility for his current actions, it's all gone wrong, he accused himself once more. Why doesn't the moron give in before it's too late?
