Good Queen Bess stared, open mouthed, at the shadowed head of Dr. Black, then broke into nervous giggles. “Really,” he gasped, “you are twingy, Doctor, you really are! But I can’t sell you what I don’t have. Per-maybe-haps in a week or so I could fill your order. I shall check with my supplier; you have my word.”
Bess stood up, but Friendly shot out a hand and pulled him back down again. “We have what is infinitely more valuable, you. We don’t want to wait a week. We will not wait a week. The idea of waiting so much as an hour is repulsive to us.”
“You are using force,” Bess said in a surprised and injured tone, “brute force!”
“You are mistaken,” Friendly said. “We are using moral suasion.”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have,” Bess sulked.
“True,” Friendly agreed. “But you have what I want. You and I are going to effect a trade. A sort of barter, you might say. The primitive barter was the very cornerstone of civilization. You have something I want—two things, actually—and I have something you want.”
“I tell you, my dear friend, that I have no silver ice. There isn’t any around any more. Nobody has any silver ice.”
“What I want,” Friendly said, “is information.”
Good Queen Bess’s mouth dropped open, displaying a row of gold-capped teeth. “You,” he said, “a snitch! I never would have guessed. I never would have believed it. Re-truly-markable. A blind man. Two years and I never caught on. And a teenage girl. Re-fucking-markable. A snitch. Take me in to the police-place if you want. Give me the third degree. Break out the rubber hoses. Beat me. Oh, beat me! I’ll love it!”
“You’re fifty years behind the times,” Friendly told him. “We use electric prods to the genitals now—much more effective.”
“Oh-h-h-h!” Bess screeched, clutching at his crotch.
Robert glanced over at Leah, who was sitting demurely in her corner, lookinq amused. He felt confused and out of his depth. Neither his college nor the Navy had prepared him to handle this.
“Now Bess.” Friendly said, “you don’t really think that I’m an informer, do you? Kindly old Doctor Black?”
Bess appeared to have recovered from his attack of exhibitionism. “What do you want to know?” he asked. “And what do you have to trade?”
“Who supplies your silver ice, and why are you so suddenly out of it? Did someone tell you to lay off?”
“Umph,” Bess said. “That’s a load. You’d better have a powerful trade in mind.”
“I do.”
“Well,” Bess said, managing to look covetous. “What is it?”
“In my turn, information.”
“I don’t want any.”
“That’s the idea. You don’t want it known. I’m sure, Mr. Sleeter, that you live in a penthouse apartment in Riverside Drive Restoration with your wife and two children.”
“Him?” Robert asked in surprised. “A wife? Children?”
“Quiet!” Bess whispered urgently. “How the hell did you. . . . No matter. T’is done, t’is pity, and t’is pity but t’is done. Can I trust you? Don’t say it—I know. I have to.” His voice had dropped a full octave briefly, then snapped back to where it was.
“But then he’s a man?” Robert said. “I thought—”
“How great is the wonder of heavenly and earthly things!” Addison Friendly agreed.
“But why would he—why would you—”
“It’s much easier to get around down here if you’re a lady,” Bess said primly. “The Unpeople have a very strict, if somewhat curious, sense of morality. Does that answer your question, sweetie?”
“It doesn’t answer mine,” Friendly reminded him.
“Ah, yes, of course. Dr. Black. Now, I wonder just who the hell you really are. And why. I accept the trade you have proposed.”
Bess stared at the table, and then at the floor, and then at the far wall. “My supplier. Who is my supplier, you might ask. And you would be right. At least, that’s the name I know him by. Mr. Who. A gentleman of Oriental persuasion.”
“Where do you meet?”
“At various Chinese restaurants in the area. I merely sit there nursing my wonton until he comes in. We nod at each other, he slips me the silver, I pass him the money, and we part. It’s all very dramatic.”
“And the second half of my question?”
“Same answer, sorry. Who, you may inquire, asked me not to solicit business for silver ice—and you’d be right. Who, you may ask, professed himself unable to supply any of the precious powder for the next month or so? Right again! How observant you are, for a blind man.”
“Don’t get bitchy,” Friendly recommended. “It doesn’t befit the new you.”
“What I think I’ll get is out. If there’s nothing else you want? Remember, I’m trusting you. If the Unpeople ever decided that I wasn’t the lady I seemed, they would get unfriendly.”
“We think in terms of advantage and dis-,” Friendly said. “We are very materialistic, us. It is to our advantage for you to be running around. You are, after all, our connection.”
“Yes,” Bess nodded agreement. “And the once every two years or so that you need something. . . .”
“A glance, a word, a nod, a smile; we all need human contact, Good Queen Bess.”
“Yes. Well, I’ll be on my way now. It’s been an experience speaking with you dear people. It does a lady of the shade good to be refreshed by such innocence, such unworldliness.” Bess rose and waved around the table. “Ta, ta, now. May the rays of the morning sun never fall on the back of the camel that carries your mother.” With that he pranced rapidly across the room.
“Was that last remark as evil as I think,” Robert demanded, “or is it just my dirty mind?”
“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” Friendly said. “I doubt that it meant anything at all.”
Robert studied what he could see of the face under the hood. “You are a man of many parts, aren’t you? A personality for every occasion, an ability for every need.”
Friendly smiled. “I’ll tell you one thing, Burrows; I am most assuredly not what I am. That”—he waved a big arm—“is never any fun.”
Robert sipped at the cold dregs of chocolate in his cup. “I will grant you, sir, that I’ve learned a lot tonight. But I wonder how much of it pertains to my mystery girl. Even assuming that you are right, and it is telepathy caused by silver ice, how are we to assume that your source is the same as her source? And now even that is cut off.”
“Like the Black Nile, we are cut off at the source. That’s what you think. Let me remind you that mind reading is your idea, not mine. Not, mind you, that I think you’re wrong. And silver ice is the easiest way I know of to accomplish controllable telepathy. If you are cognizant of any others, please enumerate. If not, take my word that we are, indeed, making progress. Ultimately there is only one source for silver ice in this country. Consider that the very next step above Good Queen Bess is a Chinese.”
Robert carefully put his cup down and brought his hands to the edge of the table. “I don’t want to insult you,” he said, “but I cannot agree. I may be very provincial and midwestern, but I was brought up to think that a man’s race or religion has nothing to do with his worth as a person. What you’re doing is stereo-typing. We are looking for a drug from China, and you think we are getting close to the source because one of the dealers is Chinese. People of Chinese descent are as good Americans as people of French, English or Italian descent.”
“That kind of depends on where they’re from, doesn’t it?” Friendly asked. “I mean, for example, a man of French descent who was born in Montmartre, or a Chinese born in Peking might be just a bit insulted if you called them Good Americans, don’t you think?”
“You know what I meant,” Robert said angrily, “and I’m sorry, but I don’t like prejudice.”
“Very commendable of you, Robert. How strong are you on logic? Let us find out. See if you can follow this:
�
�The Chinese are the inheritors of the world’s oldest and longest continuous attempt at civilization, and I have a very high regard for them as a people, and as a race.”
“That—” Robert began, but Friendly raised a palm with fingers outspread. “Bear with me, lad. From one side; the stuff comes from mainland China, through the Haitung. That is clearly established fact. The next side: Good Queen Bess, whose territory borders on New York’s Chinatown, has a Chinese contact. Hypotenuse: the Chinese themselves, or at least the American Chinese, do not use silver ice. Neither, as you know, do they drink to excess.”
“Well,” Robert said, mollified, “I can see that. It’s just that, for a minute, I thought you were being prejudiced against the Chinese.”
“Not very strong on logic,” Friendly told Leah.
She nodded and spoke for the first time in minutes. “He has the right emotions, and he reacts quickly. I don’t think he’s altogether dumb, just untutored.”
This was not the comment that he would have chosen to have a beautiful woman making about him. “I am not generally regarded as dumb,” he said evenly.
“I don’t think you’re dumb,” Friendly said. “Leah doesn’t think you’re dumb. We just don’t think you’ve ever had to do much thinking in the Navy and the organ is beginning to atrophy. The more you use your brain the better it treats you. Listen, youth: I just said something you interpreted as nasty about the Chinese, and you jumped to their defense. Then I said something nice, and you were mollified. The people who created the word ‘prejudice’ gave it a meaning. Pre-judge. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. If I say that all Plutonians are shifty and not to be trusted, I am not more prejudiced than the man who says the Plutonians are innately noble and divinely inspired. Personally I wouldn’t trust a Plutonian as far as I could throw one, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“I see what you mean,” Robert said.
“Fine. Start giving the circuits in your brain a little work to do every once in a while. They will be better for it. Here’s your first problem: what became of the bulldog?”
“What bulldog?”
“That’s part of the problem. Put it aside in that great lumber-room of a brain and withdraw it from time to time to see if an answer has affixed itself yet. Let me know when one does. For now, another problem. This one more limited in scope and more immediate: what do we do next? There will be more of these little tests from time to time. Your grade will be determined, to a large extent, on your classroom presence. Apples are not encouraged.”
“What do you suggest?” Robert asked.
“Ah! No buttering of the teacher. Here, work on this while I go pay the bill.” Friendly took a wide-ball pen from a sleeve pocket and marked a nine-dot square—three rows of three dots—on the table. Then he handed Robert the pen. “Connect the dots,” he said. “You know, like the kid’s game. Do it in four straight lines without lifting the pen from the table.”
Robert clutched the pen in his hand and stared at the dot pattern, feeling foolish under Leah’s eye while Friendly was gone. “This is some kind of trick,” he said, finding that the best he could do left one dot uncovered.
“It demands original thinking,” Leah agreed. “Widen your horizons.”
Robert carefully put the pen down on top of the dots, resisting the impulse to fling it across the room. “What’s the point?”
“The two major functions of the brain that can be influenced by conscious effort are memory and problem solving. As Dr. Black would say, this applies only to friendly conscious efforts. A man with a club can have a powerful influence on your brain.” She picked up the pen and drew four straight lines, creating an arrowhead that covered all nine dots. “The way to improve these two functions is to use them. There are, of course, chemical, psychological and physiological ways to aid the development of memory and problem-solving ability, but the faculty must be constantly exercised to maintain its improvement.”
“That sounds like part of a set speech,” Robert said.
“It’s from the opening lecture of a mental development course we give at Astral Emprise.”
“An effective course?”
Leah laced her fingertips together and looked over them at Robert. “What’s the name of your fourth-grade teacher?”
Robert shrugged. “I forget. Some female. Wait a minute—that was the one who drank from a silver flask she kept in the top drawer and always stank of peppermint. Miss Cook.”
“Very good. That’s what is known as positive reinforcement. Who sat directly behind you?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did someone sit directly behind you?”
“Yes, I guess so. I was in the front of the room. I was always in the front of the room because my name starts with B. Either that, or I was in the front of the room because I was short.”
“Some lives you can’t win,” Leah agreed. “Who was behind you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take our course and before the third week you’ll be able to name everyone in every class you ever took. And it’s an eight-week course.”
“Do you really think it’s of value to be able to remember everyone you’ve ever met?”
“Yes. Next question.”
“What’s the capital of Uzbek?”
“Tashkent.”
At Dr. Black’s signal, they threaded their way through the room and joined him in front. “Where to now?” Robert asked.
“The night will supply our needs,” Friendly Black said. “We merely have to repair into it.”
“I wish you’d let up on the archaic English,” Robert said. “You are not the easiest person in the world to understand.”
“Thank you,” Friendly said. He led the way through the curtained doorway and down the long hallway to the street.
As they reached the front door there was a shrill hissing sound from right behind them. Robert turned—halfway—and saw the gas nozzle pointing toward them from a small hole in the ceiling. A white mist shot toward them in a fine stream, dissipating as it reached Robert, and—
—Robert fell, watching the floor approach and accept him as the universe went black.
Chapter Fifteen
It was the most abrupt transition of Robert’s life. One moment he was walking down a long corridor behind Addison Friendly, who was waving his cane and being loudly blind, and Leah, who was quietly beautiful. Then a stream of gas from behind and the next second, as far as he could tell, he was tied up with his hands behind him, lying on the floor of a dimly-lit room full of packing crates. His throat was clogged with dust and his head ached.
He opened his mouth to yell, as an almost involuntary reaction, and coughed instead. Which was good because nobody noticed. Nobody? There were other people in the room, whatever it was, ignoring him. He’d better give the present situation some thought before he made any noises that brought him to their attention.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on what had happened. He had been instantaneously transported from one place to another, and also tied up on the way as a bonus. That would imply that the enemy, whoever they were, had perfected time travel and some sort of stasis field. But then what the hell did they need him for? There must be some other answer. He rolled over slightly so that the right side of his nose was pressed against the floor rather than the left. It was a very dusty floor, and besides that the change started his head throbbing. I have been knocked out, he decided. Coldly, efficiently, and very quickly. Like a sack of noodles. This was unkind. He was forced to conclude that someone did not like him. He sneezed.
“Ni-koh hai hei-shan, ne?”
“Nei yau t’ung k’ui kong ma?”
“Mo, ngoh mo!”
There were at least two people talking. The language was highly tonal, monosyllabic, and utterly foreign to Robert’s ear. Possibly Chinese, he decided, all things considered.
Two pair of hands picked him up and turned him around. They pulled him over to a wall and propped him up against
it. Everything was fuzzy, and the room was huge and filled with indistinct color-blurred lumps, some of which moved. One of those moved to in front of him and stared down.
“Ah! You are, I see, removing yourself from the influence of the instant-acting capture drug which I, regrettably, caused to be blown into your face.”
“Huh?” Robert said, shaking his head sharply to clear away the fuzz. The haze cleared somewhat, and he tried to focus on the portly Chinese gentleman who was bending over him. But the pain in the upper right quadrant of his brain increased tenfold. He winced and twisted his head, his eyes watering.
“You are in pain!” his captor said, sounding concerned. “It is your head?”
“Yes,” Robert agreed. “Feels like something’s trying to dig through to the other side.”
“My fault. Accept apologies please. Seldom-observed side effect of otherwise-harmless capture drug. Here, let me do something to ameliorate the effect!” He trotted away and returned. “Here, drink this. Glass contains acetylsalicylate in an effervescent base. I will untie your hands.”
Robert drained the fizzy mixture and rubbed his hands. “I hate to sound melodramatic, but what am I doing here, and where are my friends?”
“Your friends are lying down, as you were, to your right. They, also, are unharmed. According to the misunderstanding of the laws of chance that govern the actions of most poker players, they will assuredly wake up without even headaches, since you have the one for the group. I promise nothing, however.” The kidnaper nodded in silent response to some unspoken thought, and then padded away.
The thought of escape glowed in Robert’s head, and he glanced around slyly. Nobody else seemed to be paying any attention to him. He shifted around and moved his arms and legs, trying to see what shape the drug had left him in. As he did that the thought of escape—at least immediate escape—evaporated; walk first, then escape. His motor responses were poor enough that standing would represent a major problem and walking an unattainable goal. He wondered briefly why they had bothered tying him up—force of habit, he supposed.
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