One Million Tomorrows M

by Bob Shaw

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed, Mr. Carewe,” she said, eyeing the carving suspiciously. “What’s going on here?”

  “Somebody tried to murder me,” he said hopelessly.

  “You’ve had a nightmare—now go back to bed.”

  “I was wide awake at the time.” He handed her the carving. “Didn’t you see anybody run out of the building a minute ago? Why weren’t you here, anyway?”

  “I saw nobody running from the building—and if you must know I was out because I got a call to say there’d been an accident in the communications room.”

  “And had there been?”

  “No.”

  “That proves it then.” Carewe was triumphant. “Proves what?”

  “That somebody lured you out of the way so they could get at me.”

  “Mr. Carewe,” the nurse said tiredly, pushing him towards the ward, “all that proves is that Felix , Parma or some of the others got stoned tonight again. They’re probably staggering around in the dark out there thinking up ways to make nuisances g a miemselves. Now will you please go back to bed.”

  “All right.” Carewe got another idea. “Have a look at this.” He led the way to his disheveled bed and searched it. The blue pill was gone and the broken glass lying on the floor showed no trace of blood. He examined his left sleeve and found a single spot of redness bleached into near-invisibility by the water which had poured down his arm.

  “There’s a spot of blood,” he said significantly.

  “And there’s another.” The nurse pointed at his side, where a crimson stain was appearing through the material of his pajamas. “You’ve opened the wound, and now I’ll have to put a new dressing on it.”

  Carewe took a deep breath, and then decided to save it until he could see Kendy, the Unations coordinator, in the morning.

  “I know I must have seen this on your compcard, but I’ve forgotten the details,” Kendy said. “Tell me, Mr. Carewe—what is your actual age?”

  “I’m forty.”

  “Oh! You tied off quite recently then.”

  The phrase “tied off” jarred with Carewe and he almost told Kendy not to use it—then he realized what was in the other’s mind. It was well-known that very old cools, afraid of death yet tired of life, sometimes were literally overwhelmed by the deathwish. Without conscious volition, they became walking disaster areas where mishap followed mishap until the inevitable fatality occurred.

  “Quite recently,” Carewe said. “I’m not accident prone, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “It was just a thought.” Kendy surveyed the little ward with distaste, obviously anxious to get away and attend to more important matters. His pink healthy skin was almost luminous in the morning sunlight slanting through the window. “There was the business in your chalet, then the trouble with the floater on the river, and …”

  “I’m not accident prone, and I have every intention of staying alive,” Carewe interrupted.

  “As I said, it was just a thought.”

  “I appreciate that, but my definition of an accident does not include poisoning and stabbing.”

  “We recovered the floater from the river,” Kendy said with a frown, apparently unwilling to discuss the attempted murder allegation.

  “Yes?”

  “A pin was missing from the height sensor linkage. When it fellout the sensor thought the vehicle was parked or grounded, and naturally it shut off the power.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Well, at least it had to be accidental—there’s no way I can think of to make a pin like that fall out at a predetermined point on a journey.”

  Carewe traced patterns on the bed sheets with one fingertip. “I’m not familiar with the design of your floaters, but I imagine that when one is passing over a river this height sensor linkage gets doused with water.”

  “It’s bound to.”

  “Suppose someone had removed the original pin and replaced it with one made of, say, gordonite?”

  “What’s gordonite?”

  It’s an alloy which dissolves almost instantaneously on contact with water.”

  Kendy sighed theatrically. “We’re back to the mysterious plot against your life. You’re suggesting there’s a would-be murderer in the base.”

  “Wrong!” Carewe felt his anger returning. “Yesterday I was suggesting that, now I’m telling you.”

  “I’ve made a check on the personnel from every contingent—there’s nobody in the base who has a new gash on his face.” Kendy got to his feet.

  “And how about that little fringe of land surrounding the base? Africa, I think you call it.”

  Kendy smiled. “I like your sense of humor, Mr. Carewe. There’s a very old British joke in which King Darius meets David at breakfast the morning after he had thrown him into the lions’ den. The king says `Did you sleep well?’ and David says, ‘No—as a matter of fact I was troubled by lions,’ and the king sniffs and says, ‘All I can say is, you must have brought them with you.”

  Carewe smiled uncertainly. “That’s a joke?”

  “It baffled me for a long time, too. Then—I’m a student of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century literature, by the way—I discovered the king’s final remark was the traditional one made by English landladies when a boarder complained of fleas in his bed.”

  “It still isn’t much of a joke. I was going to ask you what Beau Geste means, but now I don’t think I’ll bother.”

  “The point I was making is that if someone really is trying to kill you, it’s nothing to do with this Unations base—you must have set yourself up before you came here.”

  Carewe opened his outh to argue, but was unable to think of anything worth saying. He watched Kendy’s broad-shouldered figure vanish through the doorway and tried to find a pattern in the events of the past few days. The only overall conclusions he could reach was that his whole life had gone to hell almost from the moment he had heard of E.80. Barenboim and Pleeth had both been worried about the possibility of commercial espionage. The elaborate secrecy precautions surrounding his arrangement with them perhaps had not been as effective as they had hoped--when he’d poured a drink over Ron Ritchie the salesman had been able to make insinuations about his relationship with Barenboim. But, supposing powerful and ruthless competitors had picked up a whisper about E.80, what form would their espionage take? Would they not try to abduct Carewe alive for interrogation and study? How much could they learn from his dead body? And would they also be interested in Athene?

  Carewe thumbed the buzzer which summoned the nurse. “When am I being shipped out of here?” he asked when she arrived.

  “Dr. Redding has arranged for a vertijet with stretcher accommodation to pick you up this evening. You’ll be flying direct to Lisbon.” Her tone revealed she had not forgiven him for the disruption of her previous night’s routine.

  “I see—and it was arranged through the normal channels, was it? Everybody knows when and how I’m going?”

  “Not everybody,” she said coldly. “Most people wouldn’t take the trouble to find out.”

  Carewe waved dismissal. “That’s all. I’ll call you if I get attacked again.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  When she had gone he took the oral communicator from his bedside table and told it he wanted to speak to Farma’s transport boss. There was a delay of a few seconds before the connection was made.

  “Parma of Farma.” Parma’s Scots accented voice sounded slightly wary. “Who wants me?”

  “This is Will Carewe.” Carewe glanced at the ward door and made certain it was closed. “Where are you now, Felix?”

  “I’m at the club having a liter of breakfast?’

  “Will you be meeting a shuttle flight this morning?”

  “Yeah—in about fifty minutes from now, if I get there in time.”

  “You’re going to be on time, and I’m going with you.”

  “But I thought …” Parma’s voice faded out in puzzlement.
<
br />   “This is important to me, Felix. Can you go to my chalet, collect my bag, then bring your truck over here in about five minutes?” Carewe poured all the urgency he could into the words. “Without telling anybody what you’re doing?”

  “I guess so, Willy. What’s the trouble?”

  “I’ll tell you later—just get here.”

  Carewe put the communicator back and eased himself out of bed. A search of the nearby locker failed to reveal any outdoor clothing He stood at the window and watched until he saw Parma’s truck nosing its way across the central clearing. Giving it time to draw up to the building’s main entrance, he walked quickly to the door of the ward and went out. As he neared the outer door his pendulous right lung picked up the rhythm of the movement and began to bounce gently against his ribs. He walked steadily onwards, got outside without being seen and climbed up into the waiting truck. In spite of his relief, he was illogically resentful of the fact that nobody had noticed his exit.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Parma said, his breath filling the cabin with the smell of beer. “I enjoy a bit of sport as much as anybody, especially in a Godforsaken hole like this, but shouldn’t you be staying in bed?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Carewe said, anxiously watching the hospital door.

  “All right, but I don’t like it, Willy.” Parma let the clutch pedal up violently and the truck spun its wheels in the dust before whining its way across the central clearing with protesting suspension and structure. “And I’ll tell you right now that this isn’t the best getaway car in the world.”

  “It’ll do.” Carewe scanned the base for signs that this unorthodox departure had attracted attention. The base was sleepy under the pressure of sunlight, and the only men visible were two in Unations blue lounging in the shade of an awning. They could have been the two he had seen in exactly the same place on the previous morning. Neither of them turned his head as the truck went past trailing a turbulent wake of dust and dry leaves.

  “By the way, what have you done?” Parma asked as the vehicle swung into the trail and the walls of trees closed in, reducing the light.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “I see.” Parma sounded perplexed. “The reason I ask is that I like to know in advance when I’m buying into trouble.”

  “I’m sorry, Felix.” Carewe suddenly appreciated the extent to which he had imposed on a very brief acquaintanceship. “I wasn’t trying to duck out of giving you an explanation. The fact is I really have done nothing—unless you count disobeying doctor’s orders.”

  “Why are you so Goddam anxious to meet the shuttle?”

  “I’m not just meeting it—I’m leaving on it.” Carewe paused. “Doght think that could be arranged?”

  “It’s hot in here,” Parma said glumly. “I should have brought a couple of bulbs.”

  “How about it?” Carewe persisted.

  “This puts me on the spot, Willy. I work for Farma too—and a transport manager isn’t supposed to smuggle people around with his cargo.”

  “I don’t want to be smuggled. Just put me down on your waybill or whatever it is you have.”

  Parma sighed and the smell of beer mingled with his perspiration became almost overpowering. “What have you got against the afternoon flight Dr. Redding has laid on for you?”

  “Nothing—that’s why I don’t want to travel on it.”

  “Huh?” Parma swore as the truck hit a pothole and lurched to one side. He wrestled it back into the center of the trail.

  “Somebody at the base is trying to kill me, and they might go as far as planting a bomb on the aircraft.”

  Parma laughed outright, his silvery bristles rearranging themselves on his red-veined cheeks. “You great tumshie—that’s Glaswegian for turnip, by the way— who’d want to kill you?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Willy, the only people around here who have anything against you are those ex-Fauves you cooled yesterday, and they can’t even get near the base.” Parma chuckled delightedly.

  Carewe controlled his irritation over the fact that matters of life or death for him produced nothing but amusement and skepticism in others. “This started before I went on the expedition,” he said. “And last night a man came into the ward and tried to knife me.”

  “A dream. Natural enough after what happened during the day.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. I was attacked.” Carewe described his attacker in detail, becoming aware as he did so that his lung was picking up the jouncing rhythm of the truck and nuzzling against his ribs. “Do you mind driving a little slower? I’m resonating again.”

  “Sure.” Parma slowed the truck and glanced sympathetically at Carewe’s chest. “You must be real determined to get out of here. I don’t know anybody who fits the description you gave, but I guess he could have slipped in from outside.”

  “That’s what I thought—now, how about the shuttle? Are you going to put me on it?”

  Parma kneaded his red button nose for a moment. “I like your style with a pint, Willy, but if it wasn’t for that …”

  “Thanks, Felix—now where’s my bag?” Carewe crawled into the back of the truck and took off his pajamas. The dressings on his ribs looked reassuringly small and secure. He struggled into his clothes and had just returned to the passenger seat when the thunder of vertically directed jet engines drowned the whine of Parma’s truck. A silvery aircraft drifted across their field of view, pulled its nose up and sank out of sight behind the trees.

  “There’s your shuttle—and it’s early,” Parma commented.

  “I didn’t realize it was so noisy.”

  “All VTOL jobs are noisy. It’s inherent in the design, but you’re used to hearing them going up and down inside tubefields.” Parma sniffed heartily. “They don’t bother with refinement like that out here.”

  “What about the pilot? Is there likely to be any difficulty over me?”

  “Shouldn’t think so.” Parma glanced at his watch. It was an old-fashioned radium model but, Carewe acknowledged ruefully, it worked in regions where his radio tattoo could not. “I would say that’s Colleen Bourgou. When she’s in this part of the world she always flies in ahead of schedule to catch the sun. And I’ve got to know her pretty well.”

  “Is that the girl who brought me out here?”

  “That’s right—I’d forgotten that.” Parma nudged Carewe’s side. “You noticed her, eh?”

  “Yes.” Carewe thought back, remembering the tawny-haired girl who had so casually removed her shirt in front of him. He had experienced a guilty excitement then, but it had been slight compared to the pang of uncomplicated lust the thought of her naked torso inspired in him now. They were right about E.80, he told himself, I haven’t cooled at all. A few minutes later the truck emerged into the brightness of the airfield. The pilot, who already was sitting on the forward steps, slipped into her shirt with a tan-flashing movement like that of a jungle animal.

  “There she is,” Parma breathed, and—making his first direct reference to Carewe’s apparent status—added, “You had thirty or forty good years in you, Willy. Don’t you have any regrets?”

  “A few,” Carewe said, “but maybe not the sort you think.”

  X

  “Good morning, Colleen,” Parma shouted. “Don’t stop your sunbath on my account.”

  The pilot peered up into the truck’s cabin, narrowing her eyes against the abundance of light. “I’m stopping it on my account—the sooner you take your shot the better it’ll be for everybody, Felix.”

  “Charming,” Parma said in a hurt voice. “That’s the thanks I get for preserving myself in readiness.”

  “Did you say preserving or pickling?”

  “You’re too sharp for me this morning.” Parma climbed down from the truck and Carewe joined him. “You’ve met Willy Carewe, haven’t your

  “Yes.” The pilot glanced at Carewe and he noticed that the pupils of her eyes, reflecting the direct s
unlight, shone like gold coins.

  “I want you to give him a ride back to Kinshasa this trip. He has to go home in a hurry.”

  “Oh? Short stay.”

  “Willy got a Fauve knife in his ribs,” Parma explained quickly. “He shouldn’t even be on his feet but, as I said, he has reasons for leaving in a hurry.”

  The pilot looked at Carewe with new interest, but her voice was doubtful. “I don’t mind altering the waybill if you say so, but I’m not operating an air ambulance. Suppose he collapses on the flight?”

  “A husky big fella like that? I’ll tell you something for nothing, Colleen—this young man …”

  “Is quite capable of speaking for himself,” Carewe cut in. “I assure you I won’t collapse, faint or do anything stupid on the flight. Are you going to take me or not?”

  “Temper, temper.” Colleen looked at Carewe again, and he thought he detected a hint of bafflement in her expression. “All right—get aboard when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.” Noting the girl’s expression Carewe felt his masculine ego stir hopefully—was it possible that the outward trappings of a cool were not enough to disguise his virility? He sat down on the truck’s running board, and nursed the growing stiffness in his ribs while Parma and the girl unloaded supplies from the aircraft’s cargo hatch. He had been hoping for an immediate takeoff but they waited for almost an hour while other vehicles rolled up, received or dispatched boxes and disappeared back into the trees. Most of the drivers seemed friendly with the pilot and from their conversation he deduced they represented a range of contractors to the Unations project—weather control, provisions, ground transport, structural engineering, and the other services required to maintain a technological community in a remote area. Some of the men went inside the aircraft to smoke and talk to the pilot, and Carewe saw them glancing curiously at him. He fretted at the delay and the way in which he had not been able to make a clean, abrupt departure as planned. Any of the men coming and going between the base and the aircraft could be an agent of the hidden power which was trying to snuff out his life….