The Unteleported Man Page 6

  "Without deep-sleep equipment to drop your metab­olism you're making a terrible mistake to go. So maybe the diary won't be a transcript of human deterioration; maybe that's already taken place."

  Wordlessly, Rachmael watched the dark, lithe man step through the lock, disappear, out of the Omphalos and into the tiny rented flapple.

  The lock clanged shut. A red light flicked on above it and he was alone, here in this, his giant passenger liner, as he would be for eighteen years and maybe, he thought, maybe Dosker is right.

  But still he intended to make the trip.

  At three o'clock a.m. Matson Glazer-Holliday was awakened by one of his staff of automatic villa servants. "Your lord, a message from a Mr. Bergen Phillips. From Newcolonizedland. Just received. And you asked — "

  "Yes." Matson sat up, spilling the covers from Freya, who slept on; he grabbed his robe, slippers. "Let's have it."

  The message, typed out by routine printers of the Vid­phone Corp, read:

  BOUGHT MY FIRST ORANGE TREE. LOOKS LIKE A BIG CROP.

  COME ON JOIN MOLLY AND ME.

  Now Freya stirred, sat up; her spider silk nightgown, one strap of it, slipped from her bare, pale shoulder. "What is it?" she murmured.

  "The first encoded note from B.P.," Matson said; he absently tap-tapped the folded message against his knee, pondering.

  She sat up fully, reached for her pack of Bering cigarillos. "What does he report, Mat?"

  Matson said, "The message is version six."

  "That — things are exactly as depicted." She was wide awake now; she sat lighting her cigarillo, watching him intently.

  "Yes. But — THL psychologists, waiting on the far side, could have nabbed the field rep. 'Washed his brain, gotten everything and then sent this; so it meant nothing. Only a transmission of one of the odd-num­bered codes — indicating in various degrees that condi­tions at Whale's Mouth were not as depicted — would have been worth anything. Because of course THL psy­chologists would have no motive to fake those. "

  "So," Freya said, "you know nothing."

  "But maybe he can activate the Prince Albert B-y sat." One week; it would not be long, and the Om­phalos could easily be contacted by then. And, since its solo pilot did not lie in deep-sleep, he could be in­formed.

  However, if after a week —

  "If no data come from the sat," Matson said thoughtfully, "it still proves nothing. Because then Bergen will transmit message n, meaning that the sat has proved inoperative. They will do all that, too, if they have him. So still nothing!" He paced about the bedroom, then took the burning cigarillo from the girl in the rumpled bed, inhaled from it violently, until it heated up and scorched his fingers. "I," he said, "will not live out eighteen years." I will never live to know the truth about Whale's Mouth, he realized. That time period; it was just too long to wait.

  "You'll be seventy-nine," Freya said practically. "So you'll still be alive. But a jerry with artiforgs for natural organs."

  But — I'm just not that patient, Matson realized. A newborn baby grows virtually to adulthood in that time!

  Freya retrieved the cigarillo, winced at its tem­perature. "Well, possibly you can send over — "

  "I'm going over," Matson said.

  Staring at him, after a moment she said, "Oh god. God."

  "I won't go alone. I'll have a 'family.' At every outlet of Trails of Hoffman a Lies Incorporated commando team — " He possessed two thousand of them, many veterans of the war; they would pass over at the same moment as he, would link up at Whale's Mouth. And, in their "personal" gear, they would convey enough detection, relay, recording and monitoring equipment to reestablish the private police agency. "So you're in charge here on Terra," he told Freya. "Until I get back." Which would be thirty-six years from now, he thought acidly. When I'm ninety-seven years old... no, that's right: we can obtain deep-sleep mechanisms at Whale's Mouth because I remember them taking it across; that's one reason why it's so short of supply, here. Originally it was thought that if colonization didn't work they could vacate — roanoke, they called it — they could roanoke back to the Sol system in deep-sleep by ship... from giant liners manufactured at Whale's Mouth from prefab sections passed across by von Einem's Telpor teleportation gates.

  "A coup," Freya said, then. "In fact — a coup d'etat."

  Startled, he said, "What? God no; I never — "

  "If you take two thousand top reps," Freya said, "Lies Incorporated won't exist here; it'll be a shade. But over there — it'll be formidable. And the UN has no army at Whale's Mouth, Matson. You're aware of that, at least on an unconscious level. Who could oppose you? Let's see. The President of Newcolonized land, Omar Jones, is up for reelection in two years; you'd possibly want to wait — "

  "At the first call from Whale's Mouth," Matson said harshly, "Omar Jones could have UN troops trotting through every Telpor instrument in the world. And their tactical weapons with them, everything up to cephalo­tropic missiles." And he hated — and feared — those.

  "If acall came from Whale's Mouth. But once you're on the other side, you could handle that. You could be sure no such emergency announcement was sent out. Isn't that what we've been discussing all this time? Isn't this really why you bought Rachmael's idea — your knowledge that all communication from the other side can be — managed?"She waited, smoking, watching him with a feminine vigil of intensity and acuity.

  Presently he said tightly, "Yes. We could do that. They may have THL psychologists armed and ready for individuals. But not for two thousand trained police. We'd have control in half an hour — probably. Unless, unknown to us, Horst Bertold has been sending troops across." And, he pondered, why should he? All they face — up to now — is bewildered citizens, expatriates who want jobs, homes, new roots... in a world they can't leave.

  "And remember this, too," Freya said. She lifted the strap of her nightgown once more, then, covering her faintly freckled shoulder. "The receiving portion of the teleportation rig has to be spacially installed; every one of those over there had to be sent originally by inter­stellar hyper-see ship, and that took years. So you can stop the UN and Bertold just by rendering the receiving stations of the Telpors inoperative — if they suspect."

  "And if Ican move quickly enough."

  "But you," she said calmly, "can. Taking your best men, with their equipment... unless — " She paused, licked her lip, as if puzzling out a purely academic problem.

  Maddened, he said, "Unless what, goddam it?"

  "They may identify your reps as they cross. And you. They may be ready. I can see it now." She laughed mer­rily. "You pay your poscreds, smile at the nice THL bald-headed, gargoyle-like New Whole Germany techni­cians who run those Telpors, you stand there while they subject your body to the field of the equipment... keep standing there innocently, fade away, reappear twenty-four light-years away at Whale's Mouth... and are lasered dead before you're even fully formed. It takes fifteen minutes. For fifteen minutes, Mat, you would be helpless, half materialized both here and there. And all your field reps. And all their gear."

  He glared at her.

  "Thus," she said, "goes hubris."

  "What's that?"

  "The Greek word for 'pride.' For trying to rise above the station the gods have allocated you. Maybe the gods don't want you to seize control of Whale's Mouth, Matty darling. Maybe the gods don't want you to over­reach your self."

  "Hell," he said, "as long as I have to go across anyhow — "

  "Sure; then why not take control? Push jovial, in­sipid Omar Jones aside? After all..." She stubbed out her cigarillo. "You'd be doomed to stay there anyhow; why live the ordinary life with the ordinary hoi polloi? Here, you're strong... but Horst Bertold and the UN, with Trails of Hoffman as their economic support, are stronger. Over there — " She shrugged, as if made weary by human aspirations — or human vanity. Over there it was simply a different situation.

  No one, he realized, could compete if he managed to move, in one sudden sw
oop, his entire entourage and weaponry across... using, ironically, von Einem's own official retail stations themselves. He grinned at that; it amused him to think that THL would personally see to it that he and his veteran reps reached Newcolonized­land.

  "And then in 2032," Freya said, "when Rachmael ben Applebaum, probably an unwashed, bearded, mumbling hebephrenic schizophrenic by then, shows up in his great and good ship the Omphalos, he'll discover it's a hell, there, exactly as he anticipated... but it'll be you who'll be running it. And I'll bet that will surprise him more than a little."

  Nettled, he said, "I can't think about it any more. I'm going back to sleep." He removed his robe and slip­pers, got wearily into the bed, aware of his years; he felt old. Wasn't he too decrepit for something like this? Not getting into bed; lord, he wasn't too old to clamber in beside Freya Holm, not yet, anyhow. But too old for what Freya had proposed — what she had correctly, possibly even telepathically, ascertained from his un­conscious mind. Yes, it was actually true.

  He had, from Rachmael's initial vidphone call, at the back levels of his cognition-processes, pondered this, from the very beginning.

  And this was his reason for assisting — or rather trying to assist — the morose, creditor-balloon-hounded Rach­mael ben Applebaum.

  He thought, according to published info there is a home army, so-called, at Whale's Mouth, of three hun­dred volunteer citizens. For use as a sort of national guard in case of a riot. Three hundred! And none of them professionals, with experience. It was a pastoral land, the ads explained. A G. of E. lacking a snake; since there was a super-abundance of everything for everyone, what was an army needed for? What have-not existed to envy what have? And what reason to try, by force, to seize his holdings?

  I'll tell you, Matson Glazer-Holliday thought. The have-nots are here on this side. Myself and those who work for me; we're gradually, over the years, being ground down and overpowered by the true titans, by the UN and THL and —

  The haves are across twenty-four light-years in the Fomalhaut system, at its ninth planet.

  Mr. ben Applebaum, he thought to himself as he lay supine, drew, from reflex, Freya Holm against him, you will have quite a surprise when you get to Whale's Mouth.

  It was a pity that he himself — and he intuited this with certitude — would not be alive at that date.

  As to why not, however, his near-Psionic intuition told him nothing.

  Beside him Freya moaned in her half-sleep, settled close to him, relaxed.

  He, however, lay awake, staring into the nothingness. Deep in a new, hard thought. The like of which he had never experienced before.

  6

  The monitoring and recording-transmitting satellite, Prince Albert B-y, creaked out its first video signal, a transcript of the first video telescopic records which it had taken of the surface beneath it in over a decade. Portions of the long-inert network of minned parts failed; backup systems, however, took over, and some of these failed, too. But the signal, directed toward the Sol system twenty-four light-years away, was sent out.

  And, on the surface of Fomalhaut IX, an eye winked. And from it a ground-to-air missile rose and in a period so slight that only the finest measuring devices could have detected a lapse-period at all, arrived at its target, the groaning carrot-shaped monitoring satellite which had, inoperative, silently existed — and hence harm­lessly. Up to now.

  The warhead of the missile detonated. And the Prince Albert B-y ceased to exist, soundlessly, because at its altitude there was no atmosphere to transmit the event in the dimension of noise.

  And, at the same time on the surface below, a power­ful transmitter accepted a tape run at enormous velocity; the signal, amplified by a row of cold, superbly built surge-gates, reached transmission level and was re­leased; oddly, its frequency coincided with that of the signal just emitted by the now nonexistent satellite.

  What would radiate from the two separate transmit­ters would blend in a cacophony of meaningless garble. Satisfied, the technicians operating the ground transmit­ter switched to more customary channels — and tasks.

  The deliberately deranged combined signal sped across space toward the Sol system, beamed, in its mad confusion, at a planet which, when it received this, would possess nothing but a catfight of noise.

  And the satellite, reduced to its molecular level by the warhead, would emit no more signals; its life was over.

  The event, the first transmission by the satellite up unto the final scramble by the far more powerful sur­face transmitter, had consumed five minutes, including the flight — and demolition — of the missile: the missile and its priceless, elaborate, never-to-be-duplicated tar­get.

  — A target which, certain circles had long ago agreed in formal session, could be readily sacrificed, were the need to arise.

  That need had arisen.

  And the satellite was duly gone.

  At the site of the missile-launching a helmeted soldier leisurely fitted a second g.-to-a. missile into the barn, at­tached both its anode and cathode terminals, made sure that the activating board was relocked — by the same key through which he had obtained official entry — and then he, too, returned to his customary chores.

  Time lapse: perhaps six minutes in all.

  And the planet, Fomalhaut IX, revolved on.

  Deep in thought as she sat in the comfortable leather, padded seat of the luxury taxi flapple, Freya Holm was startled by the sudden mechanical voice of the vehicle's articulation-circuit. "Sir or madam, I request your par­don, but a deterioration of my meta-battery forces me without choice to land for a quick-charge without delay.

  Please give me oral permission as an acknowledgment of your willingness otherwise we will glide to destruct."

  Looking down she saw the high-rise spires of New New York, the ring of city outside the inner, old kremlin of New York itself. Late for work, she said to herself, damn it. But — the flapple was correct; if its meta-battery, its sole power supply, were failing, to get out of the sky and on the surface at a repair station was man­datory; a long powerless glide would mean death in the form of collision with one of the tall commercial build­ings below. "Yes," she agreed, resignedly, and groaned. And today was the day.

  "Thank you, sir or madam." With sputtering power the flapple spiraled down until at last, under adequate control, it coasted to a rather rough but at least not dangerous halt at one of New New York's infinite flapple service stations.

  A moment later uniformed service station men swarmed over the parked flapple, searching for — as one explained courteously to her — for the short which had depleted the meta-battery, good normally, the attendant told her cheerfully, for twenty years.

  Opening the flapple door the attendant said, "May I check under the passenger's console, please? The wiring there; those circuits take a lot of hard use — the insula­tion may be rubbed off." He, a black man, seemed to her pleasant and alert and without hesitation she moved to the far side of the cab.

  The attendant slid in, closed, then, the flapple door. "Moon and cow," he said, the current — and highly temporary — ident-code phrase of members of the police organization Lies Incorporated.

  Taken by surprise Freya murmured, "Jack Horner. Who are you? I never ran into you before." He did not look like a field rep to her.

  "A 'tween space pilot. I'm Al Dosker; I know you — you're Freya Holm." He was not smiling now; he was quiet, serious, and, as he sat beside her, per­functorily running his fingers over the wiring of the passenger's control console he said, half chantingly, "I have no time, Freya, for small talk; I have five minutes at the most; I know where the short is because I sent this particular flapple taxi to pick you up. See?"

  "I see," she said, and, within her mouth, bit on a false tooth; the tooth split and she tasted the bitter outer-layer of a plastic pill: a container of Prussic acid, enough to kill her if this man proved to be from their antagonists. And, at her wrist, she wound her watch — actually winding a low-velocity ho
meostatic cyanide-tipped dart which she would control by the "watch" controls; it could either take out this man or, if others showed up, herself, in case of a failure of the oral poison. In any case she sat back rigid, waiting.

  "You," Dosker said, "are Matson's mistress; you have access to him at any time; this I know — this is why I've approached you. Tonight, at six p.m. New New York time, Matson Glazer-Holliday will arrive at an outlet of Trails of Hoffman; carrying two heavy suit­cases he will request permission to emigrate. He will pay his six poscreds, or seven, if his baggage is overweight, and then be teleported to Whale's Mouth. And at the same time, at every Telpor outlet throughout Terra, a total aggregate of roughly two thousand of his toughest veteran field reps will do the same."

  She said nothing; she stared straight ahead. Within her purse an aud recorder captured all this, but heaven only knew for what.

  Dosker said, "On the far side he, by deploying his veterans and the wep-equipment which they will as­semble from components carried in their suitcases as 'personal articles,' will attempt a coup. Will halt emi­gration, make at once inoperative the Telpors, toss President Omar Jones — "

  "So?" she said. "If I know this, why tell me?"

  "Because," Dosker said, "I am going to Horst Ber­told two hours before six. I believe that is usually con­sidered four o'clock." His voice was icy, harsh. "I am an employee of Lies Incorporated but I did not join the organization to participate in a powerplay like this. On Terra, Matson G.-H. stands about where he ought to be: third in the pecking order. On Whale's Mouth — "

  "And you want me," Freya said, "to do exactly what between now and four o'clock? Seven hours."

  "Inform Matson that when he and the two thousand LI field reps arrive at the retail outlets of THL they will not be teleported but will be arrested and undoubtedly painlessly murdered. In the German manner."

  "This," she said, "is what you want? Matson dead and them, those — " She gestured, gripping, clawing the air. "Bertold and Ferry and von Einem to run the cor­porate Terran-Whale's Mouth political-economic entity with no one to — "