Clans of the Alphane Moon Read online

  “I was going out,” Patty explained. “For a cocktail. But I’ll call and cancel it.” She walked to the vidphone, her sharp, high heels clacking against the synthetic—Inca-style—dirt floor.

  “I hope you like the script,” he said, wandering about and feeling small-time. This was a bit over his head, the elaborate, expensive dress, the handwrought furnishings… he stood facing a painting, watched as its nonobjective surfaces slid and altered, forming entirely new—and never to be repeated—combinations.

  Patty returned from the vidphone. “I was able to catch him before he left MGB Studios.” She did not specify who and Chuck decided not to ask; it would probably deflate him even further. “A drink?” She went to the sideboard, opened a pre-Columbian wood and gold cabinet, revealing bottle after bottle. “What about an Ionian Wuzzball? It’s the snig; you must try it. I bet it hasn’t gotten up into Northern California— you’re so—” She gestured. “So gas-headed up there.” She began to mix drinks.

  “Can I help?” He came over beside her, feeling serious and protective… or at least wanting to be.

  “No thanks.” Patty expertly handed him his glass. “Let me ask you something,” she said, “even before I look at the script. Is my part large?”

  “Um,” he said. He had made it as large as he could, but the fact of the matter was this: her role was minor. The head of the fish got thrown to her, but the fillets had—of necessity—gone to Bunny.

  “You mean it’s small,” Patty said, walking to the bench-like couch and seating herself; the petals of her dress spread out on each side of her. “Let me see it, please.” She had now an astute and entirely professional air about her; she was absolutely calm.

  Seating himself across from her Chuck handed her the pages of the script. It included what he had sent to Bunny—and the more recent portion, her part in particular, which Bunny had not yet seen. Perhaps this was improper, showing Patty her script before Bunny saw it… but he had decided to do it, mistake or not.

  “This other woman,” Patty said, shortly; it did not take her long to leaf through the pages. “The wife. The shrew that Ziggy decides to kill. She’s got a much bigger part; she goes all the way through it and I’m really only in this one scene. At his office, where she comes in… at the CIA headquarters…” She pointed to the part.

  What Patty said was true. He had done his best, but that was it; a fact was a fact, and Patty was too wise professionally to be deceived.

  “I made it as big as I could,” he said honestly.

  Patty said, “It’s almost one of those awful parts where a girl is just brought in to stand and look sexy, and not really do anything, I don’t just want to come in wearing a tight open-bodice dress and be an ornament. I’m an actress; I want lines.” She handed him the script back. “Please,” she said, “Mr. Rittersdorf, for chrissakes, build up my part. Bunny hasn’t seen this, has he? This is still just between you and me. So maybe between us we can think up something. How about a restaurant scene? Ziggy is meeting the girl—Sharon—at this fancy little out-of-the-way restaurant, and the wife shows up… Ziggy has it out with her there, not at home in their conapt, and then Sharon, my part, she can be involved in that scene, too.”

  “Hmm,” he said. He sipped his drink; it was an odd, sweet concoction, much like mead. It occurred to him to wonder what it had in it. Across from him Patty had already drunk hers; she now returned to the sideboard to fix herself another.

  He also rose, walked over to stand beside her; against him her small shoulder brushed and he could smell the peculiar strange scent of the drink which she was making. One ingredient, he noticed, came from a distinctly non-T bottle; the printing on it seemed Alphane.

  “It’s from Alpha I,” Patty said. “Bunny gave it to me; he got it from some Alphs he knows; Bunny knows every kind of creature in the inhabited universe. Did you know he lived for a while in the Alpha system?” She raised her glass, turned to face him and stood sipping meditatively. “I wish I could visit another star system. It must make you feel almost—you know—superhuman.”

  Setting his glass down Chuck put his hands on Patty Weaver’s slight, rather hard shoulders; the dress crinkled. “I can make your part somewhat larger,” he said.

  “Okay,” Patty said. She leaned against him, sighed as she rested her head on his shoulder. “It does mean a lot to me,” she said. Her hair, long and auburn, brushed his face, tickling his nose. Taking her glass from her he sipped, then set it down on the side board.

  The next he knew, they were in the bedroom.

  The drinks, he thought. Mixing with the illegal GB-40 thalamic stimulant that Lord whatever-his-name-is gave me. The bedroom was nearly dark but he could see, outlined beyond his right arm, Patty Weaver sitting on the edge of the bed, unhooking some intricate part of her dress. The dress came off at last and Patty carried it carefully to the closet to hang it up; she returned, doing something strange with her breasts. He watched her for a moment and then he realized that she was massaging her ribcage; she had been bound up in the dress and now she could relax, move about unhindered. Both breasts, he saw, were of an ideal size, albeit for the most part synthetic. As she walked they did not wobble in the slightest; the left, as well as the previously-exposed right, was strikingly firm.

  As Patty dropped like a well-oiled stone into the bed next to the spot where he himself lay the vidphone rang.

  “——,” Patty said, startling him. She slid from the bed, stood, groped for her robe; finding it she started barefoot from the room, tying its sash. “I’ll be right back, dear,” she said matter-of-factly. “You just stay there.”

  He lay staring at the ceiling, feeling the softness, smelling the fragrance, of the bed. A long, long time seemed to pass. He felt very happy. This kind of waiting was a great peaceful pleasure.

  And then, suddenly, there stood Patty Weaver in the bedroom doorway, in her robe, her hair down over her shoulders in a loose cloud. He waited but she did not approach the bed. All at once he realized that she was not going to; she was coming no farther in. Instantly he sat up; his mood of supine relaxation dwindled, vanished.

  “Who was it?” he said.

  “Bunny.”

  “So?”

  “The deal is off.” She came in now, but to the closet; from it she took a simple skirt and blouse. Picking up her underclothing she departed, obviously to dress somewhere else.

  “Why is it off?” He hopped from the bed, began feverishly to dress. Patty had disappeared; somewhere in the apt a door closed. She did not answer. Evidently she had not heard him.

  As he sat on the bed fully dressed, tying his shoelaces, Patty reappeared; she, too, was fully dressed. She stood brushing her hair, her face expressionless; she watched him fumble with his laces, making no comment. It was, he thought, as if she were a light year away; the bedroom was pervaded by her neutral coolness.

  “Tell me,” he repeated, “why the deal is off. Tell me exactly what Bunny Hentman said.”

  “Oh, he said he’s not going to use your script, and if I called you or if you called me—” Now, for the first time since the vidcall, her eyes focused on him, as if she were seeing him at last. “I didn’t say you were here. But he said if I talked to you I was to tell you that he’s thought your idea over and it isn’t any good.”

  “My idea?”

  “The whole script. He got the pages you expressed to him and he thought they were terrible.”

  Chuck felt his ears burn and freeze at once; the pain spread to his face, like frost, numbing his lips and nose.

  “So,” Patty said, “he’s having Dark and Jones, his regular writers, do something entirely different.”

  After a long time Chuck said huskily, “Am I supposed to get in touch with him?”

  “He didn’t say.” She had finished brushing her hair; now she left the bedroom, again disappearing. Rising, he followed after her, finding her in the living room; she was at the vidphone, dialing.

  “Who are you calling?” he
demanded.

  Patty said remotely, “Someone I know. To take me out to dinner.”

  In a voice that cracked with chagrin Chuck said, “Let me take you out to dinner. I’d love to.”

  The girl did not even bother to answer; she continued to dial.

  Going over to the pre-Columbian bench he began to gather up the pages of his script; he returned them to the envelope. Meanwhile Patty had gotten her party; he heard, in the background, her low, muted voice.

  “I’ll see you,” Chuck said. He put on his coat, strode to the door of the apt.

  She did not look up from the vidphone screen; she was absorbed.

  With anguished wrath he slammed the door after him and hurried down the carpeted hall to the elevator. Twice he stumbled, and he thought, God, the drink is still afflicting me. Maybe the whole thing’s a hallucination, brought on by the mixture of GV-40 and the— whatever she called it. The Ganymedean Wuzzfur or whatever. His brain felt dead, cold and dry of animation; his spirit had completely frozen over and all he could think of was getting out of the building, getting out of Santa Monica and back up to Northern California and his own conapt.

  Had London been right? He couldn’t tell; perhaps it was just what the girl had said: the pages he had sent to Bunny had been terrible and that was all there was to it. But on the other hand—

  I’ve got to get in touch with Bunny, he realized. Right now. In fact, I should have called him back there from the apt.

  On the ground-level floor of the conapt building he found a pay vidphone booth; inside it he began dialing the number of the Hentman organization. And then, all at once, he put the receiver back on its hook. Do I want to know? he asked himself. Can I stand knowing?

  He left the vidphone booth, stood momentarily, and then passed out through the main doors of the building, onto the early-evening street. At least I should wait until my wits are clear, he thought. Until that drink has worn off, that non-T intoxicant she gave me.

  Hands in his pockets he began to walk aimlessly down the sidewalk runnel. And, each minute, feeling more and more scared and desperate. Everything was falling apart around him. And he seemed helpless to halt the collapse; he could only witness it, completely impotent, snatched up and gripped by processes too powerful for him to understand.

  A voice in his ear, female and recorded, was repeating, “That will be one quarter skin, sir. Please deposit in coins, no bills.”

  Blinking, he looked around him, discovered that he was once again in a vidphone booth. But whom was he calling? Bunny Hentman? Rummaging in his pockets he found the quarter skin, dropped it in the slot of the pay vidphone. At once the image cleared.

  It was not Bunny Hentman that he was calling. On the screen facing him was the miniature image of Joan Trieste.

  “What’s the matter?” Joan said, perceptively. “You look awful, Chuck. Are you sick? Where are you phoning from?”

  “I’m in Santa Monica,” he said. At least he assumed he still was; he had no memory of a ride back up to the Bay Area. And it did not feel much later… or did it? He examined his wristwatch. Two hours had passed; it was now after eight o’clock. “I can’t believe it,” he said, “but this morning I was suspended by the CIA as a security risk and now—”

  “Good grief,” Joan said, listening intently.

  He grated, “Evidently I’ve been fired by Bunny Hentman but I can’t be sure. Because frankly I’m afraid to get in touch with him.”

  There was silence. And then Joan said calmly, “You must call him, Chuck. Or I can do it for you; I’ll tell him I’m your secretary or something—I can handle it, don’t worry. Give me the number of the phone booth you’re in. And don’t give way to depression; I know you well enough already to know that you’re going back to considering suicide, and if you try it in Santa Monica I can’t help you; I couldn’t get to you in time.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s nice to hear someone cares.”

  “You’ve just had too much disruption in your life lately,” Joan said in her intelligent, commonsense way. “The breakup of your marriage, now—”

  “Call him,” Chuck interrupted. “Here’s the number.” He held the slip of paper to the vidscreen and Joan wrote it down.

  After he had hung up he stood in the phone booth smoking and meditating. His brain was beginning to clear now, and he wondered what he had done between the hours of six and eight. His legs felt stiff, aching with fatigue; perhaps he had been walking. Up and down the streets of Santa Monica, with no destination, no plans.

  Reaching into his coat pocket he got out the tin of GB-40 capsules which he had brought along; without benefit of water he managed to swallow one. That would—he presumed—take away the fatigue effects. But nothing short of a frontal-lobe retirement would take away the realization of the disaster which his situation had become.

  The slime mold, he thought. Maybe it can help me.

  From Marin County info he obtained Lord Running Clam’s vidphone number; at once he placed the call, deposited the coins, waited as the phone rang and the screen remained blank.

  “Hello.” Words, not auditory but visual, greeted him, manifesting themselves on the screen; the slime mold, unable to talk, could not make use of the audio circuit.

  “This is Chuck Rittersdorf,” he said.

  More words. “You are in trouble. I can’t read your mind over such a distance, of course, but I catch the nuance in your voice.”

  “Do you have influence with Hentman?” Chuck asked.

  “As I informed you earlier—” The words, a narrow band, passed in sequence by the video scanner. “I do not even know the man.”

  Chuck said, “Evidently he’s fired me. I’d like you to try to talk him into taking me back.” God, he thought, I have to have some kind of a job. “It was you,” he said, “who induced me to sign the contract with him; there’s a lot of responsibility that can be laid to your door.”

  “Your job with the CIA—”

  “Suspended. Because of my association with Hentman.” Brutally Chuck said, “Hentman knows too many non-Terrans.”

  “I see,” the words formed. “Your highly-neurotic security agency. I should have expected it, but I did not. You should have, since you are an employee of several years.”

  “Look,” Chuck said. “I didn’t call to engage in a dispute as to who’s to blame; I just want a job, any job.” I’ve got to have it tonight, he said to himself; I can’t wait.

  “I must ponder this,” the slime mold informed him, via the moving strip of words. “Give me—”

  Chuck savagely hung up the phone.

  Again he stood closed up within the booth, smoking and waiting, wondering what Joan would say when she called back. Maybe, he thought, she won’t call back. Especially if the news is bad. What a mess. What a state I’ve single-handedly—

  The phone rang.

  Lifting the receiver he said, “Joan?”

  One the screen her small image formed. “I called the number you gave me, Chuck. I got someone on his staff, a Mr. Feld. Everything was in a state of agitation. All Feld would say was for me to look at the evening homeopape.”

  “Okay,” Chuck said, and felt even colder than before. “Thanks. I’ll get a L.A. ’pape down here and maybe I’ll see you later.” He broke the connection, hurriedly left the booth, walked outdoors to the sidewalk and began searching for a peripatetic ’pape vendor.

  It took him only moments to get his hands on the evening ’pape; in the light of a store window he stood reading. There it was on page one. Of course it would be; Hentman was the top TV clown.

  BUNNY HENTMAN ARRESTED BY CIA AS

  AGENT OF NON-TERRAN POWER, FLEES

  CAPTORS IN RUNNING LASER-BATTLE

  He had to read the article twice before he could believe it. What had happened was this. The CIA had, through its network of data-collecting mechanisms, learned during the course of the day that the Hentman organization was dropping Chuck Rittersdorf. This, to the CIA minds, had proved
their thesis; Hentman was only interested in Chuck because of Operation Fifty-minutes on Alpha III M2. Hence, they reasoned, Hentman was, as they had long suspected, an agent of the Alphanes, and the CIA had acted at once— because Hentman’s own informant in CIA would, if they had dallied, have tipped him off and permitted him to escape. It was all very simple and very terrible; his hands shook as held the ’pape up to the light.

  And Hentman had gotten away. Despite the CIA’s swift action. Perhaps Hentman’s own machinery had been efficient enough to warn him; he had been expecting the flying action-squad of CIA men that had tried to close in on him at, as the article said, the TV network studios in New York.

  So now where was Bunny Hentman? Probably on his way to the Alpha system. And where was Chuck Rittersdorf? On his way to nothing; ahead of him lay only a bog-like emptiness, filled with no persons, no tasks, no reason for existence. Hentman might call Patty Weaver, the TV starlet, and tell her that the script was out, but he hadn’t bothered to—

  The vidphone call from Hentman had come in the evening. After the aborted arrest. Therefore Patty Weaver knew where Hentman was. Or at least might know. But that was something to go on.

  By cab he quickly made his way back to Patty Weaver’s magnificent conapt building; he paid the cab and hurried to the entrance, pressed the buzzer for her apt.

  “Who is it?” Her voice still was cool, impersonal, even more so.

  Chuck said, “This is Rittersdorf. I left part of my script in your apt.”

  “I don’t see any pages.” She did not sound convinced.

  “If you’ll let me in I think I can lay my hands right on them. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”