He shot a look around the wide room with its fluoros and its various sets, now all caught as it were in the act of communicating with the galaxy. Those sets must serve a Boosted Men network. Well, there were a lot of them, and that meant the Boosted Men were expanding among the stars.
Here and now he had to concentrate on one thing at a time.
The set was a simple affair, standard communications equipment. He set the controls, flopped down in the seat in the professional communications' man's crouch, and switched back to ordinary time. At once the room came alive with the muted hum and flicker of electrics, of men channelling messages out to the far stars.
Keeping his voice low, and his body blocking off the screen from the next operator, Hook said: `HGL agency, Lancing.'
Any communications man with the necessary skill could patch himself in across the lightyears, from centre to centre he could make as many free calls throughout the galaxy as he wished. Time lags on the ftl communications systems multiplied, of course, and eventually a message would coagulate and a repeat would have to be flashed to get it further on over the parsecs. But this little set, alone, could take his voice and face out better than a hundred parsecs.
`HGL Lancing.'
`Records.'
`HGL Lancing. Records.'
`What flight did Taynor Shaeel take?' He checked his memory back and gave the local date and time he wanted.
`HGL Agency Lancing. Taynor Shaeel hired starpacket Watchling and left Lancing. Destination Mergone.'
Trust Shaeel to do it in style. No starship line for ves. Ve'd hired a small fast starship all ves own. And, also, Mergone was a neat place to give as your flight plan destination if you were really going to Merfalla. Hook felt an unease he knew to be alarm.
He'd brought Shaeel into this mess, and the Hermaphrodite was on ves way and all ready to carry out the great space rescue.
But there was a puzzling time lag, a discrepancy Hook could only explain by Shaeel's notorious unpredictability. The operator at the next set along was giving Hook a puzzled glance and it was leaving time again.
Hook cursed.
He twiddled his dials and punched the sequence that ought to connect him with traffic. If it didn't he had at most a minute left before the adjacent operator leaned across with a query.
Traffic came up. Breathed deeply.
`Traffic records.'
`Traffic records.'
`Log of arrivals — ' Hook held his tongue fast, and let the request go through as that. If he pinpointed what he was looking for the tape record down in Records would unfailingly lead the forensic boys to their quarry. His call to Lancing had been unregistered.
The log began to unreel on the screen.
Hook felt no shock at the numbers of ships involved.
The Boosted Men had an operation of some size going here on Locus. It was an evil operation, Locus was evil; but for now he had to pick out the arrival he did not wish to find.
He let out a sigh.
The log entry was simple: `Starpacket Watchling, inbound from Lancing.' Then, added in a different mechanical script: `Special detail.'
Hook kept his emotions under control.
He switched to fast time, shucked off the shirt and slacks, whipped out and brought the frozen form of the operator back, dressed him, propped him in his chair. He collected the traffic control uniform, donned it, checked the ladybird was still there, and whistled out of communications. Let the adjacent operator lean across now, and he'd find his suspicions confirmed. His oppo was sick, no doubt about it.
And all the time the screaming accusation of guilt flamed in Hook's mind.
He felt lacerated.
These black bastards of Boosted Men had taken Shaeel. Nothing else could have happened.
If the Boosted Man who was giving Hook his fantastic powers should have appeared then, Hook would have shot the bastard's guts out through his backbone, slapbang, and to eternal hell with all the fine notions people like Ed Malcom cherished.
He calmed down.
NO — he wouldn't do that. He needed his Boosted powers now more than he had ever done before.
A spot of the old question and answer session was needed now. That 'special detail' entry meant what it said. Shaeel had been taken off the starpacket and if ve hadn't been killed out of hand ve'd been interrogated on ves reasons for coming to Merfalla. When ve'd successfully hoodwinked them — as Hook knew the Hermaphrodite could do if they didn't go too deep —ve'd be packed off to the city to work.
The thought of work and Shaeel in conjunction, even in that dismal situation, had Hook's thin lips quivering.
Shaeel and work were sworn enemies.
Moving in speed time burned up the calories, and Hook knew he'd be raging hungry soon. But he had things to do before he could think about eating.
Hook went roaring out and down the stairs so fast that the traffic control uniform began to char and then burst into flames.
With a curse that would have consumed what the flames missed he ripped the uniform off and disposed of it down a disposall. Naked but for his boots, those famous old black boots that wouldn't burn if you stuck them in a furnace, he raced down into the basement. The gray shafts were full of goons looking for him and, anyway, they'd have been too slow.
In the basement he found a set-up which, familiar as it was, sickened him afresh. They had a series of barred cells, and they had a discipline cell. He whistled through all of them, looking in but not going into the discipline cell. He saw a number of people, mostly goons undergoing punishment; but no sign of Shaeel. He made his breathing steady and even. He selected the toughest, meanest, nastiest specimen of prison guard and came up behind him, took his neck in his left hand, squeezing, and dragged the guy back into the shadows.
He switched back to slow time.
He smacked the goon around the head.
`Listen, gonil, and listen good!'
The man — he was a Homo sapiens — started struggling, quite unable to comprehend how he suddenly found himself in a dark corner with a madman draped around him, hitting him.
Hook hit him again and said: 'I want straight answers, or else — ' And he levered down. The goon yelled and Hook's right palm came across and caught the scream.
'A Hermaphrodite was brought down here. Special detail. Tell me where ve is, and fast.'
Letting off the pressure on the man's jaw bones, Hook let him speak. The words came out full of bravado, tough, bitter, vicious.
'I know who you are! You're Hook — the maniac. Well, I won't tell you any —'
Hook was somewhat unkind to him.
After a moment, the guard said: 'It was taken to the hospital — '
Hook hit him again, said: 'A Hermaphrodite is not an "it", curd, a Hermaphrodite is a "ve". Remember, next time.' Then Hook put the guy to sleep.
Out of the ghastly prison and punishment basement, follow green arrows, haring down the corridors, racing and running at top speed in speed time — on and into the hospital. Race down the beds in the wards, a few superficial scratches, a broken leg or two, no disease, of course, all industrial injuries, down to the far end, through the crystal door that had no time to valve itself open but was shot into shining shards by the Tonota Forty, on and into the special ward — and there was Shaeel.
Shaeel!
The room was small, with a suspended bed, a table, a call-out box, and another bed dragged out from the wall and at right angles to the first. Hook saw Shaeel in the suspended bed. He saw the squat and unlovely body of a F'lovett in the other bed lying with both massive arms clamped to the bed rails. He looked again at Shaeel, and he stopped and switched back to real time, and laughed.
Shaeel looked up.
`There you are, 'ook. Hand me that nappy, will you, the little blighter's burping all over me.'
One of Shaeel's breasts was exposed from the pyjama suit ve wore. That breast was fuller and rounder than ever Hook had noticed it before, and Shaeel's breasts had been long a bone
of contention between them. Hanging on to that full and shining breast, sucking away for dear life, a baby Hermaphrodite glugged and gurgled and burped.
`You old devil!' said Hook. 'You're a mother!'
`And a father too, 'ook, although not to the same child. Now don't be tiresome, 'ook, my dear chap. Hand me the nappy.'
Chapter Twelve
`So that's what delayed you. You were having a baby!'
'I was pregnant at the time, 'ook, that I'll admit. If you understood half of what motherhood meant, You Great Hairy Masculine — '
`Do you know the father?'
'Of course. I've always been fond of Thalleyr — ve's a great maph.' Maph was what Hermaphrodites called themselves. 'And I decided it was time I began a family. You know how it is in the galaxy, 'ook.'
'Yes, I know. But you chose a lulu of a time. Who's this?'
`May I present Karg. He has been invaluable. Karg, this is —'
`Check,' said the F'lovett in a hoarse and gravelly voice like a caisson grinding up a causeway. 'Ryder Hook. This mother-hood-doped idjit talks of nothing else.'
`I'll Deal With You for that Foul Calumny,' said Shaeel. Ve pulled the baby free with a cluck of pure enjoyment, began to feed the insatiable monster on the other side. 'Thing is, 'ook, my old Berti Bashti. Why are we here and why are you not wearing your clothes?'
Hook could not tell Shaeel of the Boosted Men.
`Thing is, Shaeel, you maniac, we have to get out of here. All four of us.'
`I'll grant you that. Most Uncouth, these fellers.'
`First thing, stick this in your ear.' Hook handed across the ladybird. He looked at Karg the F'lovett. The alien was short, chunky, square and very very powerful. His thick arms could crush in a beer barrel. His face, something like the face one might expect to find on a Homo sapiens, was characterised by an extreme ferocity of expression, which was normal, and which changed to an expression of docile imbecility when the F'lovett became annoyed.
Karg looked very happy and contented.
That meant he was a raging fury all ready to boil over.
Hook lifted the ladybird out of his ear and held it. He was programmed to thrust it back if anything changed — but the hospital cell remained exactly as it was. He handed the ladybird to Karg. 'If you take that out of your ear, you're done for. Now,' he began to work on the metalloy linked bonds holding Karg's massive arms down. 'You play it along as well as you can and get the starpacket ready. I've some people to bring out of a city back there. Be ready to go.'
`There are a lot of fellows up there who don't like us,' said Karg very mildly and sweetly. That meant he'd break their backs if he got them in his grasp.
'I know. How you hold the gate open is up to you.' Hook glanced at Shaeel who was serving high quality milk. 'Motherhood softens the brain, so I've heard.'
`Ah, but, 'ook, my Great Hairy Cretinous Friend. Motherhood and Fatherhood in the one person — you can't ante-up on that.'
`When I play cards with you, Shaeel, is when I've rigged the deck so even you can't spot a ringer from a grounder.'
'Don't happen, my dear friend 'ook, to have a pack or deck of cards with you now?' Then Shaeel recognised Hook's state of nakedness and ve shook ves head. 'No. That, I think, is beyond even you.'
'Don't bank on it.'
Shaeel's shoulders and arms were smooth and yet strong, like a man's; ves waist was in normal circumstances small and ves hips flared proudly like a woman's. Ve was neither clearly a man nor clearly a woman. Ves face resembled an ancient — a very ancient — Greek statue, bereft of overt sexual symbols, smooth and beautiful and somehow heart-rending. As for this motherhood bit; Hook felt outraged that Shaeel's beautiful breasts should be so gorged and swollen and fat. Ves hair, a delightful tint of auburn, hung tumbled about ves gleaming golden shoulders. As for the baby, it would grow up to be a maph, neither man nor woman, and no doubt would be as infuriating as its mother.
Hook knew, too, that during this special time Shaeel's masculine organs of reproduction would tend to diminish in size, situated as they were just above his female organs. By the time the baby was weaned, Shaeel would have both sets back to normal. Although he had not so far witnessed the act, it was said that Hermaphrodites enjoyed more sheer fun than single-sexed people; this Thalleyr, whom Hook had met, would also around this time be giving birth to a child who would be in a very special way twin to the one just produced by Shaeel.
It was all very gentle and civilised and by arrangement.
But what a time to choose!
`Karg, you'll have to get ves and the child out.'
Karg stretched his massive arms and grunted and stood up. He reached to Hook's stomach. But he overlapped on both sides.
`I'll look after the f'fafling, Hook. All IQ.'
`I'm not your f'fafling, Karg, and Don't You Forget It!' yelped Shaeel. Then ve winced and yanked and the baby's mouth went plop. 'A tooth already, so help me!'
Hook gave them the three Tonota Forties.
`Keep them thinking they're in charge until the last minute. I'm off now, back to the city.'
`How long do we wait?' Karg spoke ferociously, which meant he was being casual.
`Give me until an hour after dark.' Hook looked at them, at Shaeel with ves baby, and Karg with his chunky powerhouse of a body. 'No more. Check?'
`We'll wait, Hook — '
`Your Return Will Be Keenly Anticipated, 'ook —'
Hook went outside the hospital prison cell and, just before he switched into speed time he leaned against the wall. He had to chuckle. Here he'd called out to Shaeel for help, and the maph had come roaring in, pregnant or no, and landed in this mess. Trust Shaeel to introduce the note of the absurd. But —and here Hook stood up and lost his chuckle — Shaeel had not been on form. He'd noticed ves attempts to rally, to be ves old self. But Shaeel had gone through a rotten experience, bringing another life into the galaxy in prison.
Worry over Shaeel had affected Hook, too. Whilst he was in the Boosted state the hypnosis did not affect him, so there had been no need for his little pantomime of a programme. Had the cell been any different, Shaeel and Karg would have told him.
Then he shifted to fast time.
Hermaphrodites had been the direct result of a space programme initiated back on Old Earth. That had been during a period of galactic expansion when the desire to cram as many people as possible into a starship had been superseded by the idea of sending as few as possible but of giving them double the chances of reproduction. Instead of having to provide two people — a man and a woman — in order to produce offspring; the idea had seemed perfectly valid that each person should be able to perform both halves of the equation. Sperm banks were fine for an all-woman crew. Incubators were fine for an all male crew. But where was the fun and the sound basis for a future life-style in that?
So science had performed once again, and two sets of equipment externally and all the necessary interior plumbing had been installed, as Shaeel would put it when ve was a little high on rum, on which ve doted. The plan had worked for a time; then a whole new cataclysm had swept over Old Earth, and the plan had been abandoned. But the result was that there was in the galaxy a happy and thriving race of Hermaphrodites.
Maphs were fine people.
Hook knew as he raced out over the concrete, an invisible presence to the people in ordinary time on the strip, that maphs were very fine people indeed. Very special people; and Shaeel the most special of them all. He guessed that Karg had been dying to know if Hook had ever been up Happy Trail with Shaeel, and he'd damned well let him sweat that one out. That wasn't for the record books!
Mind you, all these sentiments presented Ryder Hook in the most maudlin of maudlin aspects. Hook wasn't a nice person at all. He knew that. It didn't worry him.
He sped about the spacefield doing nasty things to various items of equipment. There was much mischief a man might get up to if he knew what he was about. He left the starpacket Watchling severely alone, wit
h the exception that he lifted the guns from the three guards by her airlock and jimmied the aperture and power controls so that they'd blow up when fired. That ought to give Shaeel and Karg — and the kid —a chance.
When he was ready he selected the flier he wanted — a heavier and more powerfully armoured job than the one he'd wrecked in the reception area — and prepared to step aboard. He cocked an eye up at the central traffic tower. If a Boosted Man looked out of the window at the field, he would be able to see Hook speeding about, speed time or not. Nothing had happened, and so Hook knew the Boosted Man up there had not looked out of the window.
He pressed the remote control button on the rig he'd lashed up and, all over the field, fires and explosions crashed out. He even surprised himself with the mayhem he caused. A Boosted Man had so much power — it was frightening and disgusting —the word power acted like a drug on the imagination.
The armoured flier moved across the field towards the air lock. Hook had cracked the security code — it was a standard formula pattern index — but he didn't bother to use it.
He nudged the armoured flier into the line of approach and triggered her Tonota two-fifties. The two guns took out the valves like tissue paper. The backlash of energy washed over the flier and recoiled and through that holocaust Hook swung forward. The same procedure on the outside valves would mean an emergency situation within the dome. He knew doors would slam shut within the buildings, and so Shaeel and Karg and the kid would be safe; but the resultant confusions would keep the personnel here interestingly occupied.
In the crash of the explosions as fuel tanks went up, as tower-pylons cut through and fell, as energy beams fizzed off targets they were never meant to find, as water and electricity got together spectacularly, Hook shot the flier out through the shattered airlock. Air whooshed out after him and someone took a shot at him, which he anticipated and avoided by a superb and arrogant display of aerial effrontery.
The fires whirled towards the shattered exit as the air sucked out. Then emergency shutters rolled across and the bods inside could get on with clearing up the mess.
The Boosted Man Page 10
