Point Ultimate

by Jerry Sohl

  The top of the box slammed down deafeningly. Darkness rushed in. For a moment Emmett had a feeling of panic. Then he forced himself to calm down.

  I am a sardine, he told himself. I've just been packed, a special sardine in a special can of my own. And soon somebody's going to open this can and I’ll be on somebody’s table and they’ll stick a toothpick in me and. . .

  “Ready, Emmett?” Ivy asked. Her voice was clearer than he thought it would be.

  Ready for what? he wanted to ask.

  “Brace yourself.”

  There was something else?

  Suddenly the box dipped slightly, silently, then rolled smoothly to one side. Something clicked ever so softly in place.

  Now he could feel cool air, and he could hear feet moving about above him. He was no longer in the box—at least not in the box on the stage. It must have been two boxes, one inside another. The one he was in had been moved to one side and underneath the stage.

  It was quiet now. As quiet as—a tomb. He shuddered.

  “You’re sick.” The words jarred him. He hadn’t expected to hear anyone talking. It was Ivy.

  “I’m what?” Bruno asked in surprise.

  “Sick,” Ivy said. “You can’t go on with the show. We can’t put on a show with Emmett down there, you know.”

  “Oh. . . . Mmm. I’d forgotten about that. Better get the word to Berne. Don’t want him giving the spiel then.”

  Their footsteps clicked across the floor and down the stage steps.

  Then it was still.

  He felt panic mounting again, forced it down. I won’t get ill, I’m perfectly comfortable, I’m resting. In fact, I may even fall asleep. He emptied his mind of every thought, tried to keep it that way, letting only colors wash over it. . . .

  A heavy step on the stage brought him back. He must have dozed because it took him a moment to remember where he was. Now there were several other footsteps. And voices.

  “When did you give the last show?” The voice was deep, demanding. The feet dragged. The floor creaked with movement. “See anything around there, eh, Carl?” This last was nearly a shout.

  “Nothing out here, Captain.” Emmett could hardly hear this voice.

  “You were saying—a—about your last show, Mr. Le Gasta.”

  “About half an hour ago it was.” Bruno’s voice.

  Well, this was it. Let’s get to it. Let’s open the box. And then let’s get out of here.

  “You didn’t see anybody with a bandaged left wrist, eh? A tall man, broad-shouldered, dark-haired?”

  “You could answer that description yourself, Captain. Except for the bandage.”

  “Eh? What’s that? Well, come to think of it, I guess I could. Yes, of course.” A wheezy laugh. “Quite an outfit you’ve got here. You’re the magician, eh? Could you make a man disappear? Maybe you have. Heh-heh. That would be something, eh? How about you, Miss? Did you see a man like that, a man with a bandaged wrist?”

  “No, sir.”

  More feet walking around.

  “Take a look around, Carl. Outside.”

  Creaking boards. “What’s this?” The explanation. “What’s that?” Another explanation. “Show me how it works.”

  Emmett was getting warm. He was sweating. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep or even if he had been asleep at all, but his muscles were protesting the position he was in. He tried flexing them. It worked all right for a while, but then even that didn’t seem to do any good. In the meantime, the captain wanted to see more tricks.

  Finally Ivy said, “Captain, Bruno was going to cancel this show. He wasn’t feeling well. And here he’s doing tricks for you.

  I think he'd better stop because if we're going to do a show at all he needs a rest.''

  “Weren't feeling well, eh? Well, that’s too bad.” Creaking boards. Dragging feet. “What's in this box?”

  “Oh?” Did the captain catch that quaver in Ivy's voice?

  “Just our saw-illusion box,” Bruno said.

  “I get sawed in half in it,” Ivy explained.

  “Really?” The captain's voice was taken with the idea.

  Emmett heard the top of the other box being raised.

  “Big enough to hold a man, you know?”

  “It would have been a good place to hide, Captain. But you would have found him.”

  “Saw her in half.”

  “What?”

  “I say, saw her in half. I've never seen a woman sawed in half.”

  “I'm sorry, Captain, but I can’t.”

  “Why not?” An injured tone.

  “Captain, I told you my brother's not feeling well.”

  “I order you to saw her in half.” The feet were placed wide apart.

  This is it. This is where he finds out. I wish I had been more insistent. Now he’ll find me in this box and it will be all over. And back to the villa. Maybe I won't even go back. Maybe I’ll just be sent right to a labor camp. . .

  “You don't know what you're asking,” Ivy said. “My brother's been working too hard. He should be in bed. You don't have any idea how much working this illusion takes out of you.”

  “You come back any time,” Bruno said. “You and your family. I’ll give you a private show.”

  “Humph.” The captain coughed. ‘Well, all right. That's a promise?”

  “That's a promise.”

  “Didn’t see anything outside, Captain,” a voice reported.

  “Stick around, Carl. We're just about through in here. You missed some good magic tricks.” The foot pounded heavily on the floor. “What’s under here, eh?”

  “Nothing,” Bruno said. “Just the supports for the stage.”

  “A man could hide there, though.”

  “Well, I suppose.”

  “Lets have a look, Carl.”

  Steps going across the stage. Down the stairs.

  Emmett tensed himself. They’d find him surely now!

  Suddenly the box jerked sidewise. Then it slid silently along, stopped, then rose and clicked into place.

  After a few moments Emmett heard voices below him.

  “Nothing under here.”

  “You sure? Flash your light over there, Carl. We’ll see what that is.”

  “There?”

  “Right. Only candy. Must sell lots of candy, eh. Not a bad life, eh, Carl? You see that girl?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes. Well. Humph. We’ve looked everywhere, haven’t we?” “No trace of him around here, sir.”

  “I guess not. Withdraw the cordon then. This was the last place. He’s skipped. Notify the fliers.”

  Emmett watched the four turbotrucks ahead of his as they whirred through the night, their headlights faltering fingers that felt their way along the old blacktop road, for there was only a thin slice of moon to save the world from complete blackness.

  “Now do you see why I invited you to ride up here?” Ivy said, running hands through her hair to let it fly in the breeze. “Plenty of fresh air, you can see the scenery without looking through a window, and last of all it’s private.”

  The last vehicle of the five was the stake truck driven by Bruno. All the magician’s equipment had been neatly arranged on the truck bed, with the tent folded carefully to cover it all with several thicknesses. And now they sat at the very top of this just above and a little behind the truck’s cab.

  “Is it always this quiet on the road, Ivy?”

  “At this hour of the morning it is.”

  Emmett chuckled. “That reminds me of Mr. Gniessin. Once he said things that moved around at four o’clock in the morning were much more noticeable than they were at any other time.” “From all IVe ever heard about this Mr. Gniessin I imagine a lot of people are going to be happy he’s dead.”

  “All except the collaborators, favor seekers, county directors and people who stood in well with him. The new man will set up his own system, I suppose.”

  Ivy turned from the headlighted view of the
road ahead. She studied Emmett’s face. “Know something?” she said.

  ‘What?”

  “You’re different.”

  “I am? In what way?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned. “You’re—stronger, I guess.” She looked back to the road, squinting her eyes against the wind. “Before, you didn’t seem to know what you were doing. You weren’t sure of yourself. Now you ... I guess it must be the experiences you’ve had. You’ve learned many things.”

  “It’s true. I have learned a lot.” He sighed. “But the things I’ve learned haven’t been happy things.”

  “You’re a realist now. You know what the score is. You know they can’t be beaten no matter how hard you try. But you are enough of a realist to know that they will never be beaten unless somebody makes a start somewhere, sometime.”

  “That’s right. Everyone seems to want to give up. Everybody except me. And you, and the others. I was lucky to find you people.”

  “Were you?” She smiled fetchingly.

  “Except for a while there when you two were going to let Grandpa finish me off.”

  Ivy laughed. “Grandpa still doesn’t think you can be trusted.” “The memory of what happened to your father and mother, is that what affects him?”

  Ivy nodded. “They were caught. Just like Arno. We never saw them again.”

  “What I don’t understand is why the occupation forces let you operate. Members of your family and your gypsy group get caught one by one or two by two, but still they don’t arrest the whole lot of you. Why?”

  “That’s easy to answer, Em. We provide needed entertainment for such places as Cornwall, Reardon, Spring Creek and where we’re headed now, Marblehill. The rural people are more subjugated than city people. They don’t have half the opportunities of the people in the metropolitan areas. Maybe it’s because they can be kept track of so much more easily, I don’t know. But you rarely see a Tri-D antenna or a current model turbo or flier out in the country. And only once in a blue moon does somebody downstate get a robot. I think there are several in Springfield, but outside of area directors’ villas, I don’t know of any except in Chicago. So it’s a red letter day for them when Madame Le Gasta and her troupe hit town. It’s the same with all the gypsy bands. In the Enemy mind the advantage of letting us operate must outweigh the disadvantage of having us do this little business on the side.”

  “Do they know exactly what you’re up to?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.” She looked at him thoughtfully, her eyes far away. She brushed back her wayward hair absently. “Of course we don’t know too much about it ourselves. It’s better that way, you know. If you’re caught, you can’t tell anything. That’s why we never call each other by name when we’re working in the area. For example, you never knew the name of the leader back there at the implement shed, did you?”

  “I still don’t know his name.”

  “Johannes. Martie Johannes.”

  “That was Johannes?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did he know who that sleeper belonged to? And how did he know my name? And how--”

  “Hold on!” Ivy said, laughing and putting a hand over his

  mouth. "Don't ask me about those things. Johannes knows more than anybody I know. He's a mysterious man. A powerful man, Em. The most powerful man I know. Sometimes he scares me."

  "And he's on our side.”

  "Yes, thank God he's on our side."

  "Did he know about Gniessin?”

  "Yes, he did. Isn't that amazing? When Bruno talked to him by phone he told Bruno he understood Gniessin had died. But say"—and she looked at him with quickening interest—"when Bruno told him about your being immune, he wanted to know all the particulars. Bruno said he told him he didn't know any more than what you told him, but Johannes wants to see you tomorrow night. He's got some questions he wants to ask you. He seems to be excited about you for some reason.”

  "Tomorrow night's the delivery night?"

  "Yes, but don't tell anyone I told you. With some people you still have to prove yourself. I think even Bruno hasn't become absolutely convinced about you."

  "How about you?" Emmett asked, grinning. "Are you convinced yet?"

  "Among your many loyalties, there is one I’m not so sure of," she said.

  He moved to her side, tried to convince her with a kiss just how deep his loyalty was. When she could get her breath again, she said she’d never question it again.

  "At least not until I recover," she added.

  He lay back on the canvas and looked up at the stars, his hands behind his head.

  "These pregnant girls you tell about," he said, "must be like the ones Dr. Smeltzer sent to the address he was given. You have your addresses and you start from there, is that right?"

  "That's right," Ivy said. "We don't get all the unlawful pregnancies, of course. But we get some of them. Now tomorrow night in Marblehill we'll escort a group to Point One. That's where we pick up Johannes. I think there are twenty points in our sector altogether. From one point to another we may go by truck, car, flier or boat. Or we might walk, as we were doing the night you found us.

  “Sometimes the girls are local girls, sometimes they come from the East, and were just one of the links in the big chain from the East to Point Ultimate in the West somewhere. And don’t ask just where in the West. Johannes won’t talk about it.”

  “But what does he want with all the pregnant women? What does he do with them?”

  “I don’t suppose he does anything with them. They’re not very far along, most of them. You’d hardly know some of them are pregnant. But they’ve all been promised they can have their babies in complete security if they go along with men like Johannes. It’s been going on for years.”

  “And the Enemy doesn’t know?”

  Ivy shrugged. “I suppose they know for some reason many of the illegally pregnant disappear. I don’t know if the girls ever go back to their home towns or not. I doubt it. They’d have a lot of explaining to do, and besides, I know they don’t go back because otherwise the information about what they’ve been through would come out sooner or later and we’d get stopped.”

  “And your mother and father were caught doing this thing?”

  “Yes. About five years ago.”

  “And still you keep it up.” His hand sought hers. “I think you’re very brave.”

  “I’m not brave, Em. I know I’m going to be caught some day.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t.”

  “No. What’s to prevent it? And if you come in with us, you’ll be caught some day, too.”

  “I’ve been caught before.”

  “You’ve been lucky. You’re lucky to be immune, too. The first man I ever saw who was. I imagine that’s what’s got Johannes going.”

  “You know, Ivy, I thought all gypsies were immune. I’ve heard that all my life, grew up with that notion, in fact. And that’s why I wanted to find gypsies. I wanted to join them. I thought I’d be with my own kind that way.”

  “I only wish it were true.” She sighed. “But we’re just like everybody else. If we don’t take our booster when the time rolls around, we come down with the symptoms.”

  “Do all gypsies feel as your group does about the occupation? And do they work on this undercover project?”

  “Heavens, no, Em. We’ve traveled around a great deal. We’ve seen other groups with permanent travel permits. Some of them never were gypsies until the occupation came. Others that were claim life is better under the occupation. It means less diversion for most of the people and as a result the gypsies are more welcome in the communities they visit. So they don’t want to change it.”

  “Then I was really lucky to run into your group.”

  “Do you think so?” She ran a finger underneath his chin and made him look at her.

  “I mean from the standpoint of anti-Communism. I could have been thrown out of some groups for what I’d say.”

  “Some of the
m are bad, too. Bruno and I often talk about it. And they have no attractions, have nothing much to offer. People tell us ours is the best one on the road. We’re trying to keep it that way.”

  “What does Grandpa do?”

  “He’s been failing. We don’t ask him to do much any more. Lost his eye during a fight ten years ago when he used to run the show and he’s been going downhill ever since. His specialty was mind reading. I don’t remember it, but my mother used to tell me how good he was.”

  “Maybe that’s what I should take up.”

  “Mind reading?”

  “I’ve got to do something with the show. I just can’t stay in the illusion box all the time.”

  “You have to stay out of sight until all this blows over.”

  “I don’t think it will ever blow over.”

  Ivy had turned to lie on her stomach, chin on her hands, looking down the road. Now she reached for and gripped Emmett’s arm.

  He rolled over to see her frightened face staring ahead.

  He saw the line of turbotrucks grinding to a stop.

  There were three turbos across the road before them, each with a red star on its side.

  They heard Bruno get out of the cab, watched him go out into the road and stand there with his hands on his hips, looking toward the lead truck. He turned around and looked up at Ivy, starting to say something. Ivy stopped him by putting a finger to her lips and shaking her head.

  Just then a lone flier hissed in the air up at the head of the line. It started toward them.

  CHAPTER - 18

  As one person they turned toward the rear of the truck and clambered down over the canvas and jumped to the road. It was dark behind the last truck, and the flier hissed toward them, its searchlight probing the turbos and their contents.

  They dashed across the road into the ditch and up the other side. The fence was no hindrance at all. They ran across an open field and Emmett wished he had been watching his surroundings just prior to the stop so he could tell where to run. Ivy tugged at his arm, pulling him left. He had no better plan, so he followed her.

  In a few moments they came to another fence and went over it. And a few moments after that they were in the middle of a farm wood lot trying to get their breaths.