'Hey, Alf, you missed a great race! That scarlet number one rocket fairly burst the guts of that mauve number six! Boy, you should've seen the smoke and heard the bang!'
'Maybe that's what was wrong with the music.'
Leona looked excitingly sexy in a low-cut dress of some semitransparent gauze that revealed just how alike and yet how dissimilar her figure was to an Earth girl's. Anthea laughed a lot. They drank champagne. On the salaries they were earning, even with the savings they were pumping into their accounts with their econorgs' banks, they could afford to live very high off the galactic hog indeed.
'Say, Alf,' whispered Rafflans, leaning close and sliding his eyes lecherously towards Leona. 'If you've never been up happy-trail with a girl from Leostar — you know nothing!' His eyes popped. 'Man, can she!'
'I'll believe you, Rafflans. But I'm satisfied, thank you.'
'You low-down scheming dirty-dog! That Anthea's a nice girl!' Rafflans looked puzzled. 'Say, Alf. Wasn't I going to knock your head off and wrap your arms around your neck?'
'You what?'
'Something like that. Look — there's that crazy bitch Myza and old pipe-stem himself. Hey! Come on over!'
Myza looked devastating too, in a dress that was not so much a see-through gown as a birthday suit with patches. Denis was drooling. Hook allowed himself a good look, too, for although nudity between the sexes was nothing in these enlightened days, nakedness and nudity still retained their old yin and yang appeal. Anthea nudged him.
'You'll make Myza blush.'
'Never!' roared Rafflans. He helped himself to a galaxy-sized portion of strawberries and whipped-cream, with a lagoon of brandy for good measure. 'She'll cut you dead if you don't stare on her beauties.'
'I'll allow that,' said Ryder Hook, stuffing strawberries and cream into his mouth with a silver spoon. He reached for the champagne. By dear Old Dirty Berti Bashti! Life was sweet!
Around them the sumptuous restaurant buzzed and hummed with men and women and aliens in beautiful clothes all eating and drinking. Laughter rang on the scented air. Discreet lighting slid golden gleams on warm flesh, cast star-sparkles into amorous eyes, reflected from jewellery and silver. The whole atmosphere was one of leisure and pleasure and hedonism carried to rarefied heights of sensual luxury.
Hook lifted his silver spoon of strawberries and cream and looked at Anthea, whose lithe and voluptuous figure sat so closely to his on the padded gilded chairs under the roseate lamps.
A trilling tingling started along his spine. The silver spoon vibrated. By the Great Salvor, as they said, Anthea could set a man's very blood on fire!
The thrilling persisted. A silver fog obscured his vision. He felt his bones rattling inside his skin. He looked at the cheap plastic spoon in his hand and the nauseous slop dripping from it to fall into the scummy pool in the cracked dish on the filthy table. Anthea was cuddling up to him, laughing. Her dull orange coverall was stained with grease and dirt. Leona's coverall had been ripped down from the neck and through rents and rips in the coarse material he could see her skin, smeared with dirt. And Myza — Myza sat there in the wreck of a coverall that was held together by little more than the threads. Her body showed bruised and scratched, with oily marks grimy upon the skin.
He saw the battered metalloy cup with the foul water scumming the rim, he saw Anthea lift it to her lips and drink, and heard her say: 'This champagne is the best I've drunk!'
And he knew.
He was no longer Alf.
Ryder Hook knew.
Around him men and women and aliens were sitting laughing and eating and drinking at filthy plastic tables. They ignored the rusty walls of the derelict shed in which they sat. Harsh actinic-lights glared down from shadeless holders. The whole place stank.
The filth in his dish nauseated Hook.
But he sat there.
He just sat there.
A man was passing through the shed between the rickety tables, a man in a black tunic and black breeches. He walked with the confident spring of the supremely self-assured.
And Hook sat and watched as Anthea shovelled squalid artificial food into her lovely mouth. He watched as she drank scummy water from a cracked tin mug.
Ryder Hook sat and watched and dare not spring up and dash the mug from her lips.
And yet — he dare not remain here like this. For if he did the illusion of the sumptuous restaurant would return and he would once more taste strawberries and cream and champagne.
And he would be trapped, then, perhaps for ever until he died from the exhaustion writ clearly on every person's face.
For, he could not risk the chance that another Boosted Man might walk through here and so release him from this hypnotic spell.
Chapter Six
Anthea put her arm around his waist, laughing, carefree, and said: 'Come on, Alf, darling! Let's dance.'
Couples were rising from the crazy chairs and beginning to dance one of the old-time high-kickers-and-stomps across the littered floor between the rickety tables.
Hook couldn't hear any music.
But Anthea dragged him up, laughing, tapping her feet already to the invisible ghostly beat.
'You old lead-tail! Get with it.'
'Sure, sure, Anthea,' he said, and stood up. People were dancing now, gaily, recklessly, their thin arms and legs jerking in the rhythms of unheard music.
The man clad all in black had reached halfway across the untidy room and Hook saw his face, saw the irritation and contempt writ large there, the distaste.
Well, these hypnotised workers were an unsavoury bunch. The wonder was that they could walk at all, given their physical condition, let alone dance. Hook understood they were under the compulsion of whatever system of mind-control was in use here. No one had electrodes affixed to their scalps that Hook could see and he felt sure, anyway, that a far more modern method than that clumsy old system of control would be in use.
The power that could chain them to a set of hallucinations and drive them into accepting squalor as luxury could also as easily galvanise their muscles and will-power into the effort of acting up to the requirements they thought necessary. There was waste here, intolerable waste. When a man fell down, half-dragging his partner with him, in the last stages of exhaustion, his companions laughed and crowed and called him a drunken slob. The man himself laughed, too, weakly, struggling to stand up. He was carried outside, still chuckling and waving arms like pipe-cleaners, firmly convinced that he was happily befuddled and with no idea whatsoever that he was dying.
The Boosted Men were running this planet they called Locus.
They'd find more workers in the galaxy, men and women anxious to earn big salaries. They'd use them mercilessly and discard them. Not a pek of the money would ever find its way into the dupes' bank accounts.
The man in black passed on and he avoided the gyrating dancers with a contemptuous ease that infuriated Hook.
`You're not dancing, Alf!'
Anthea pressed close, her arms were about his neck, her sweet face so grimed in dirt close to his. He could smell the stale sweat of her body, the stink of oil and chemicals on her. That compounded stench had seemed sweet female perfume only moments ago.
`Sure, Anthea, sure.'
He took her in his arms and began to kick and stomp and she chided him with: 'Keep to the music, you big ape!'
He didn't say: 'There is no music.' He couldn't.
That man in black was a Novaman. If he saw any of those dupes behaving in any way differently from the programmed instructions flooding in on them through the pervasive air his suspicions would be aroused. At once. Hook knew the speed of Boosted Men. Wasn't he half a Boosted Man himself?
Half a Boosted Man . . . A petty, stupid, destroying half . . .
The man in black passed on and Hook heard the thin and ghostly strains of an orchestra. He smelled sweet scent from the cleavage between Anthea's breasts. He saw a laughing girl in a brilliant glitter dress a a table lift her glass
goblet and saw the champagne bubbles rising and bursting, he saw and he smelled and he heard — and absolute panic hit him.
He fairly ran Anthea after the Boosted Man.
The music died, the stinks returned; the girl sipped scummy water from a cracked tin mug.
By Dirty Berti Bashti!
He daren't let the Boosted Man get too far — and the range over which this resonance between a full Boosted Man and himself could strike up the buried half of his new nature and so turn him into a fully-developed Boosted Man himself varied unpredictably. He knew that in space the resonance could operate over many millions of kilometres. Onplanet it might remain fully functional over several kilometres, or it could waver and die within the confines of a room. Much depended on the programming of the Novaman who set up these thrilling and wickedly lascivious currents in his own body.
He danced and pranced and dragged Anthea after the man in black.
`Alf! What the hell are you playing at? Can't you dance all of a sudden — ?'
`Let's go outside, Anthea,' he said. His voice thickened. Anthea took the obvious reading of that, and she threw her head back so that the long line of her throat showed, golden and vulnerable, and she laughed and hugged him and they ran outside into the star-spangled night together.
Hook stared about. The Boosted Man walked rapidly towards a massive and lightless block over a double-strip pedway. A guard patrol skimmed past in a flier, and the orange-clad men inside flicked up a salute which the Boosted Man acknowledged by a half-raised hand. Hook watched.
His powers were enormous, phenomenal, frightening, when he was Boosted. He was Boosted now, thanks to that bastard in the black comic-opera uniform. He could see clearly in the darkness. The Boosted Man entered the dark foyer and Hook felt the trilling along his organo-metal bones die and quiver reluctantly away.
He held on to himself.
That building . . .
As he watched it subtly transformed itself from a mere massive block into the familiar shape of Central Records.
`What are you going there for Alf, at this time of evening? No one ever goes there.'
That was true. Hook realised the hypnotic compulsion kept the workers away from Central Records,
So that meant he had to get in.
Had to.
For Anthea's bedraggled orange coverall slid and changed into her exciting white two-piece, her body-stink altered into alluring perfume, and music floated out into the night from the sumptuous restaurant at his back.
Anthea pressed herself to him, demanding.
Hook shook his head, a useless gesture. If he simply ran into that building now — the restaurant and the dance and the fine wines and lavish food called to him. He clawed to keep his sanity. He was lost if he forgot. The chance that a Boosted Man had walked through — the chance that that might never happen again — he had to hang on — and yet Anthea was very sweet, clinging to him, her ripe lips lifted in invitation, her body close to him, warm and luscious and immensely exciting . .
How long had he been a walking zombie under the influence of these womb-regurgitant Novamen's hypnosis?
Surely by now they must have processed out the forensic findings? They'd have come snooping around for him, to take him back to be punished for smashing up their spaceship, and they'd laugh as he underwent the refined agony of a discipline cell. He'd been living very high off the galactic hog just lately — all in his own imagination, of course — and if he knew the Boosted Men at all and their malevolent way of carving their kilogramme of flesh with blood as well into the bargain he knew they'd never allow him even those illusionary pleasures. It could be they needed workers pretty desperately for the project they had going on down here on Locus. They were clearly working all out in order to meet a deadline, although just what it was they were manufacturing Hook had no idea. He was merely a small cog, a human supervisor, adding his quota of work to the general output.
The patrol flier circled and returned. With the last few tattered remnants of sanity left to him, Hook saw the armoured body and armoured transparent hood, the hard-faced men inside, their guns, their paralysis weapons, all the viciousness of efficient control.
The sergeant leaned out as the flier hovered. He wore a blue helmet and face mask and he looked dangerous, as though he liked nothing better than knee-cap smashing and skull-breaking.
`Everything all right, sir?' The goon spoke quietly, formally, very correct.
Hook nodded. He managed to get out: 'Sure, officer — '
The outlines of the flier fuzzed. It changed. He was looking at a normal open flier patrol car, unarmoured, with the friendly policemen inside with fat comfortable faces, and not a gun in sight. They wore casual uniform clothes, with cloth uniform caps, and they were only too anxious to help.
`Sure,' said Alf, the electronics-robot-supervisor. 'Just getting a breath of fresh air.'
'It really is sweet tonight.' The goon looked at Anthea and chuckled. 'Sweet is right. Good evening, sir.'
And the flier trundled off.
He had to remember something — something important.
But Anthea was clinging to his arm and gazing up into his face and the warmth and closeness of her figure, the voluptuous ness of her body pressed close to him, dizziied him. He licked his lips.
'Do you want to go back to the dance?'
'Not really.' She giggled.
`Let's go to your place, then.'
He watched as her white two piece moved with her breathing, watched as her hips swung, watched as her long exciting legs slithered nylon one against the other. They walked along the night-flowered streets, savouring the air, walking in friendly fashion to a rendezvous with passion and frenzy.
Yes, it was good to be alive on Locus.
But — a nagging doubt hung across this bright good life, and Hook shook his head uselessly again and wondered why this black spider-web should spin itself across his pleasure.
Later that evening, after Anthea, he walked back to the hotel room that gave him such splendid service, still pondering. Now, just what was it that had so upset him before Anthea's blandishments had driven every other thought from his confused mind?
He knew that at all times he must remember he was not a superman.
He had to remember that, to save his own sanity and self-respect, such of it as he still wanted to keep; but why?
He had been used all his life to walking in the shade, as a loner and an outcast, one who owed no allegiance to any multi-system conglomerate, one who would be trodden flat unless ready always to preserve identity and pride.
Pride?
For Ryder Hook?
That didn't make sense, either. That was just a laugh.
But he wasn't a superman.
He wasn't even a failed superman — one of those mythical lay-figures so beloved of the tv and tridi entertainment industry.
He had once belonged to RCI, one of the most formidable of multi-system conglomerates with its main headquarters on Earth and with tentacles of power and finance reaching out over the stellar abysses. RCI. Rocket Consortium Interstellar. They'd — what had they done? They'd thrown him out, hadn't they? After he'd been selected for the new Powerman Project. Yes. He'd had scientific wizardry practised on him, so that some of his body cells and molecules had been replaced by metalloy structures. He was partially metallic. Well, that had been to equip him for work on a heavy-gravity planet. But he'd failed. He'd been thrown out. His father had died in some freak accident, no one would tell him any details, and his mother had died; and his younger brother and sister had taken off into the galaxy and he hadn't seen them in years.
Then he'd been with Earth Armed Services Intelligence as Sergeant Jack Kinch. But he'd left EAS, too, hadn't he? The most notorious assassin in the galaxy — and he'd become himself again, plain Ryder Hook, galactic adventurer, seeking to keep himself alive and have a crust of bread and perhaps a little pleasure on the side.
So who was Alf?
Hook was a
ware that he was a man of contradictions, and he bemoaned his vices. One vice was that he couldn't stand a fool, and therefore he tried to treat idiots with a special consideration he carried as his own personal cross. But he was acting as the complete fool now. Here he was, down on Locus, a fine planet, working at a good job with electronics, a subject of which he knew he was a master, earning a good wage, socking the cash away in the bank, having a whale of a time — so why these doubts, these vague and formless fears? What was nagging him?
He had to get into Central Records.
Yes. This silly unease had something to do with Central Records.
A call on the ident plate and Rafflans' voice heralded the Krifman bearing drinks. He plonked a bottle of best Ollindai on the table and beamed at Hook.
'Myza recommended this, Alf, and it is really something. Sup up, lad! The night's young.'
The bottle was old and cobwebby, of an exciting dark ruby colour, with a long spout-neck, and the encrusted labels promised the vintage had been plucked and trodden and matured all of a hundred years ago. A hundred years terran. Locus had a — what was it? — a fifty terran-hour day and night cycle.
'Myza treating you well, Rafflans?'
Rafflans pulled the stopper. He chuckled. 'I'm doing all right. I bought her a pearl necklace today and tomorrow she gets it and I get my reward.' The bottle banged satisfactorily. 'Champagne Ollindai! Superb!'
Rafflans poured and they drank.
'Have you ever been in Central Records, Rafflans?'
'No. Of course not. No reason to. I know what I know. I'm — hey! Easy up, lad! At least let me even with you.' For Hook had drained the glass at a gulp.
'I thought you were with Krifarm?'
`Yes, of course. ZZI and Krifarm, the best combination in the whole galaxy. Well, I was as I said. I left 'em, though, didn't I? Came to Locus. Well, no matter. I'm here and you're here and the girls are here. Drink up, Alf!'
Hook squinted at the Krifman. They fancied themselves in the galaxy. A Krifman was a bad enemy and a good friend. They were always a cut above themselves, though, thinking they were the Great Salvor's specially created lot. At least, Hook thought so — he fancied that of the fantastically varied religions of the galaxy, Earthmen and Krifmans shared the same one. That was old, too .
The Boosted Man Page 5
