by Bob Shaw
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 under 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 that 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 that 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 clinic 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 Mikel 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 model 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, personally administered, a venting of suppurative poison, and for that he would have to End 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 bad 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 zenity. 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 close 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 lip 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!" The voice came from a thin, high-shouldered man of about sixty who was standing in the centre of the square hall. 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 cheek
bone 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 holomorph 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 basic 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.
"She's around somewhere," Renard said knowingly, flashing his narrow bow of teeth.
Dallen concealed his annoyance over having his screens penetrated so easily. "Why are these people here? They can't all be theoretical physicists."
"Metaphysicists would be more like it. Karal claims there are special particles called mindons which are harder to detect than neutrinos because they exist in what he calls mental space. It's all a bit abstruse for a mere botanist, but apparently our brains have mindon, look-alikes in mental space—where most of the physical laws are different—which enable us to survive death. Karal doesn't talk about dying—he refers to it as becoming discarnate.
"It's all supposed to be very comforting and uplifting," Renard added as he handed Dallen a clinking glass. "Personally, I prefer this stuff or an occasional dab of jinks."
"Felicitin?" Dallen was only mildly curious. "Can you get it right here in Madison?"
Renard shrugged. "A dealer comes through from the west coast once a month, so somebody in town must be really hooked on the stuff."
"Who's got that kind of money?"
"Dealers don't talk. Felicitin isn't illegal, as you know, but heavy users generally get up to some highly illegal activities sooner or later. You can sometimes spot them, though, if you know what to look for."
Dallen sipped his drink and was a little surprised to find it had been mixed exactly to his specification. Renard was on his best behaviour. How, he wondered, would you pinpoint a person who was really dosing up on Felicitin? Look out for someone who was always cool and calm, exuding that air of serene confidence…? A memory picture flickered briefly behind his eyes-—tall young man with Nordic good looks, expensively tailored, relaxed, smiling. Dallen concentrated until he had identified the image as that of Gerald Mathieu, the deputy mayor, then frowned and peered into his glass as a coldness developed in his stomach.
"I hope this isn't supercooled ice," he said. "I've heard this stuff can be bad for you."
Renard smiled. "It's always the ice—never the booze."
Dallen nodded, becoming aware of a man and woman purposefully moving closer to him. He turned and saw the rotund figure of Peter Ezzati, the city's salvage officer, accompanied by his equally plump wife, Libby. While they were shaking hands he noticed that the woman's eyes were following his with a kind of melting intensity and he guessed with a sinking feeling that she was a tragedy buff, a professional sympathiser.
"Is this your first time here, Garry?" Ezzati said. "Are you enjoying it?"
"I'm a bit vague about what I'm supposed to enjoy."
"The talk, mainly. Karal can be quite convincing about his mindons, if you follow his argument right through, but it's the conversation I like. You get guys here whose minds aren't limited to sport and sex, who can talk about anything. For instance, what do you think about these green flashes they're getting on Orbitsville?"
Dallen was baffled. "I'm afraid I…
"You're the first policeman we've had at the meetings," Libby Ezzati put in, her gaze still a channel for moist compassion.
"I'm not a policeman," Dallen explained. "I work for the Deregistration Bureau."
Libby shot an accusing glance at her husband, as though charging him with having told her lies. "But you can arrest people, can't you?"
"Only for things like being on land where there's an exclusion order in force."
"That's another thing," Ezzati said. "Is it true they're pulling the deregister line in to a forty kilometre radius of Madison?"
Dallen nodded. "The population here is shrinking. There's enough good farming land within the radius."
"I don't like it—it's all part of a process." Ezzati considered what he had just said and appeared to find it significant. "All part of a process."
"Everything is part of a process," Dallen said.
"I'm not talking philosophy—I'm talking people."
"You're talking piffle, darling," Libby told her husband, and having allied herself with Dallen decided it was rapport time. "You know, Garry, Kipling had a vital message for all of us when he pointed out that God never wasted a leaf or a tree…"
"Rick is the botanist around here." Dallen walked away quickly and went back into the hall where the rematerialised holomorph of Karal London was addressing two new arrivals … discarnate mind composed of mindons interacts with matter only very weakly, but that doesn't call its existence into question. After all, we have yet to detect the graviton or the gravitino … Coming out of the beam of sound, Dallen went into th
e room opposite and found it populated like the one he had left, small groups standing and talking earnestly in an ambience of low-placed lights and amber drinks.
He worked his way through them and went into the extension where yesterday morning, which seemed an aeon ago, he had first seen Silvia's incredible glass mosaic screen. The studio was empty. Diffuser lamps were shining behind the trefoil panels, providing a patchy illumination which obscured the design of the three universes, shading them off into a mysterious darkness suggestive of the vast tracts of the cosmos beyond the limits of human vision. Dallen found the entire construct beautiful beyond words, and again he was awed by the sheer amount of labour that it represented. His appreciation of art was untutored, a chief criterion being that a piece should appear difficult, to have taxed the artist's powers, to have been hard work—and by that standard alone the screen, with its hundreds of thousands of varicoloured glass chips, had to be the most impressive and soul-glutting creation he had ever seen.
"It's not for sale," Silvia London said from close behind him.
"Pity—I was going to commission a dozen." He turned and found himself warmed by her presence. Everything about her seemed right to him—the humorous intelligence in the brown eyes, the determination of the chin, the strength combined with the utter femininity of the fullbosomed figure sheathed in a pleated white dress.
"Perhaps I could make you a little suncatcher," she said.
"It wouldn't be the same. Being little, I mean. It's the size of this thing—all those separate pieces of glass—which helps make it what it is."
Silvia's lips twitched. "You're a dialectical materialist."
"Step outside and say that," Dallen challenged. Silvia laughed and this time his arms, unbidden, actually opened a little to receive her. He froze in a turmoil of guilt and confusion. Silvia seemed to catch her breath and her eyes became troubled.
