The Unteleported Man Page 7

  "I don't want him to try."

  "Listen," Freya said bitingly. "The coup that Mat-son expects to carry out at Whale's Mouth is based on his assumption that a home army of three hundred ignorant volunteers exists over there. I don't think you have to worry; the problem is that Mat actually believes the lies he sees on TV; he's actually incredibly primitive and naive. Do you think it's a Promised Land over there, with a tiny volunteer army, waiting for someone to come along with real force, aided by modern wep-technology, such as Mat possesses, to harvest for the asking? If this were so, do you honestly believe Bertold and Ferry would not have done it already?"

  Dosker, disconcerted, eyed her hesitantly.

  "I think," she said, "that Mat is making a mistake. Not because it's immoral but because he's going to discover that, once he's over there, he and his two thousand veterans, he'll be facing — " She broke off. "I don't know. But he won't succeed in any coup d'etat. Whoever runs Newcolonizedland will handle Mat; that's what terrifies me. Sure, I'd like him to stop; I'd be glad to tell him that one of his top employees who knows all the inside details about the coup is going to, at four p.m., tip off the authorities. I'll do everything in my power, Dosker, to get him to abandon the idea, to face the fact that he's wandering idiotically into a ter­minal trap. My reasons and yours may not — "

  "What do you think," Dosker said, "is over there, Freya?"

  "Death."

  "For — everybody?" He stared at her. "Forty mil­lion? Why?"

  "The days," she said, "of Gilbert and Sullivan and Jerome Kern are over. We're on a planet of seven bil­lion. Whale's Mouth could do the job, but slowly, and there's a more efficient way, and every one of those in key posts in the UN, put in by Herr Horst Bertold, knows that way."

  "No," Dosker said, his face an ugly, putty-colored gray. "That went out in 1945."

  "Are you sure? Would you want to emigrate?"

  He was silent. And then, stunning her, he said, "Yes."

  "What? Why?"

  Dosker said, "I will emigrate. Tonight at six, New New York time. With laser pistol in my left hand, and I'll kick them in the groin; I want to get at them, if that's what they're doing; I can't wait."

  "You won't be able to do a thing. As soon as you emerge — "

  "With my bare hands. I'll get one of them. Any one will do."

  "Start here. Start with Horst Bertold."

  He stared at her, then.

  "We have the wep-techs," Freya said, and then ceased speaking as the flapple door was opened by another — cheerful — attendant.

  "Found the short, Al?" he asked.

  "Yes," Al Dosker said. He fooled, fumbled, under the dashboard, his face concealed. "Should be okay now. Recharge the meta-bat, stick it back in, and she can take off."

  The other attendant, satisfied, departed. Freya and Al Dosker were alone once more, briefly, with the flapple door hanging open.

  "You — may be wrong," Dosker said.

  Freya said, "It's got to be something like that. It can't be three hundred assorted-shape volunteer army privates, because Ferry and Bertold or at least one of them would have moved in, and that's the one fact we know: we know what they're like. There just cannot, Dosker, be a power vacuum at Whale's Mouth."

  "All ready to go, miss," one of the other attendants called.

  The flapple's articulation-circuit asserted, "I feel a million times better; I'm now prepared to depart for your original destination, sir or madam, as soon as the superfluous individual has disemflappled."

  Dosker, trembling, said, "I — don't know what to do."

  "Don't go to Ferry or Bertold. Begin at that."

  He nodded. Evidently she had reached him; that part was over.

  "Mat will need all the help he can get," she said, "from six o'clock on. From the moment his first field rep hits Whale's Mouth. Dosker, why don't you go? Even if you're a pilot, not a rep. Maybe you can help him."

  The flapple started its motor up irritably. "Please, sir or madam, if you will request — "

  "Are you teleporting?" Dosker asked her. "With them?"

  Freya said, "I'm scheduled to cross at five. To rent living quarters for Mat and me. I'll be — remember this so you can find us — Mrs. Silvia Trent. And Mat will be Stuart Trent. Okay?"

  "Okay," Dosker mumbled, backed out, shut the flapple door.

  The flapple began to ascend, at once.

  And she relaxed. And spat out the capsule of Prussic acid, dropped it into the disposal chute of the flapple, then reset her "watch."

  What she had said to Dosker, god knew, was the truth. She knew it — knew it and could do nothing to dissuade Matson. On the far side professionals would be in wait, and even if they didn't anticipate the coup, even if there had been no leak and they saw no connection between the two thousand male individuals scattered all over the world, applying at every Telpor outlet on Terra... even so, she knew they would be able to handle Mat. He was just not that big and they could handle him.

  But he did not believe it. Because Mat saw the possi­bility of power; it was a gaff that had hooked deep in his side and the wound spilled with the blood of yearning. Suppose it was true; suppose only a three-hundred-man army existed. Suppose. The hope and possibility enflamed him.

  And babies, she thought, as the flapple carried her toward the New New York offices of Lies Incorporated, are discovered under cabbages.

  Sure, Mat; you keep on believing.

  7

  To the pleasant, rather overextensively bos­omed young female receptionist Matson Glazer-Holli­day said, "My name is Stuart Trent. My wife was teleported earlier today, so I'm anxious to slip in under the wire; I know you're about to close your office."

  She glanced searchingly at him, at this bald-headed man with his prominent ridge-bones above his dark, almost pain-haunted eyes. "You're certain, Mr. Trent, that you desire to — "

  "My wife," he repeated harshly. "She's already over — she left at five." He added, "I have two suitcases. A leady is bringing them." And, into the office of Trails of Hoffman, strode the robot-like machine, bearing the two genuine cowhide bulging suitcases.

  The consummately nubile receptionist said, "Please fill out these forms, Mr. Trent. I'll make certain that the Telpor techs are ready to receive one more, because, as you say, we are about to close." The entrance gate, in fact, was now locked.

  He made out the forms, feeling only a coldness, an empty, mindless — fear. Lord, it really was fear! He ac­tually, at this late moment, when Freya had already been teleported across to Whale's Mouth, felt his autonomic nervous system secrete its hormones of cringing panic; he wanted to back out.

  However, he managed to fill out the forms anyhow. Because, higher than the autonomic nervous system, was the frontal lobe's awareness that the moment Freya crossed over, it was decided.

  In fact, that was his reason for sending her in ad­vance; he knew his own irresolution. He had made her the cat's paw of that irresolution; by having her go he forced himself to complete this. And, he thought, for the best; we must find some way, in life, to overcome ourselves... we're our own worst enemies.

  "Your shots, Mr. Trent." A THL nurse stood by with needles. "Will you please remove your outer gar­ments?" The nurse pointed to a small and hygienic back chamber; he entered, began removing his clothing.

  Presently he had received his shots; his arms ached and he wondered dully if they had done it already. Had this been something fatal, administered over the cover of prophylactic shots?

  Two elderly German technicians, both as bald as doorknobs — as himself — all at once manifested them­selves, wearing the goggles of Telpor operators; the field itself, if viewed too long, caused permanent destruction of the retina. "Mein Herr," the first technician said briskly, "kindly, sir, remove the balance of your garb. Sie sollen ganz unbedeckt sein. We wish not material, no sort, to impede the Starkheit of the field. All objects, including your parcels, will follow you within minutes." Matson finished undressing, and, terrifi
ed, followed them down a tiled hall to what suddenly loomed as a mammoth chamber, almost barren; he saw in it no elaborate Dr. Frankenstein hodgepodge of retorts and bubbling caldrons, only the twin perpendicular poles, like the concrete walls of a good tennis court, covered with circular cuplike terminals; between the poles he would stand, a mute ox, and the surge of the field would pass from pole to pole, engulfing him. And he would either die — if they knew who he was — or if not, then he would be gone from Terra for the balance of his life, or at least thirty-six years which for him was the same.

  Lord god, he thought. I hope Freya got by all right. Anyhow the short encoded message signifying everything all right had arrived from her.

  "Mr. Trent," one of the technicians said, fitting his goggles in place, "bitte; please look down so that your eyes do not perceive the field-emanations; Sie versteh 'n the retinal hazard."

  "Okay," he said, nodding, and looked down, then, in almost a gesture of modesty, raised one arm, touched his bare chest with one hand, as if concealing him­self — protecting himself against what suddenly became a stunning, blinding ram-head that butted him simultaneously from both sides; the forces, absolutely equal, made him freeze, as if poured as a polyester as he stood; anyone watching would have thought him free to move, but he was ensnared for good by the surge passing from anode to cathode, with himself as — what, the ion ring? His body attracted the field; he felt it in­fuse him as a dissolving agent.

  And then the left surge dropped; he staggered, glanced up involuntarily.

  The two bald, goggled Reich technicians were gone. He was in a far smaller chamber, and one elderly man sat at a desk, carefully logging from numbered tags a huge mound of suitcases and wrapped, tied parcels.

  "Your clothing," the official said, "lies in a metal basket to your right marked 121628. And if you're faint, there's a cot; you may lie down."

  "I'm — all right," Matson Glazer-Holliday said, and made his way unsteadily to his clothing; he dressed, then stood uncertainly.

  "Here are your two items of luggage," the bureaucrat at the desk said, without looking up. "Numbers 39485 and 39486. Please arrange to remove them from the premises." He then examined his wristwatch. "No, ex­cuse me. No one will be following you from the New New York nexus; take your time."

  "Thanks." Matson himself picked up the heavy suit­cases, walked toward a large double door. "Is this," he asked, "the right direction?"

  "That will take you out on Laughing Willow Tree Avenue," the clerk informed him.

  "I want a hotel."

  "Any surface vehicle can transport you." The clerk returned to his work, broke contact; he had no more info to offer.

  Pushing the door open, Matson stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  He saw gray barracks.

  Beside him. Freya appeared. The air was cold; she shivered and he, too, quaked, drew against her, stared and stared at the barracks; he saw row after row of them, and — charged, twelve-foot-high wire fences with four strands of barbed wire at the top. And signs. The posted restrictive notices; he did not even need to read them.

  Freya said, "Mat, have you ever heard of a town called Sparta?"

  " 'Sparta,' " he echoed, standing holding his two suitcases.

  "Here." She released his fingers, set the suitcases down. A few people, drably dressed, slunk by, silently, carefully paying no attention to them. "I was wrong," Freya said. "And the message of course to you, the all-clear, was spurious. Mat, I thought — "

  "You thought," he said, "it was going to be — ovens."

  She said, with quiet calmness, tossing her heavy dark mane of hair back and raising her chin to meet his gaze, look at him face-to-face, "It's work camps. The Soviet, not the Third Reich, model. Forced labor."

  "Doing what? Clearing the planet? But the original authentic monitoring satellites reported that — "

  "They seem," she said, "to be forming the nucleus of an army. First starting everyone out in labor gangs. To get them accustomed to discipline. The young males go into basic training at once; the rest of us — we'll probably serve in that." She pointed and he saw the ramp of a subsurface structure; he saw the descent mechanism and he knew, remembered from his youth, what it meant, this pre-war configuration.

  A multi-level autofac. On continuous schedule, hence not entirely homeo. For round-the-clock operations, machines would not do, could not survive. Only shifts, alternating, of humans, could keep the belts moving; they had learned that in '92.

  "Your police vets," Freya said, "are too old for im­mediate induction; most of them. So they'll be assigned to barracks, as we will be. I have the number they gave you and the one they gave me."

  "Different quarters? We're not even together?"

  Freya said, "I also have the mandatory forms for us to fill out; we list all our skills. So we can be useful."

  "I'm old, "he said.

  "Then," Freya said, "you'll have to die. Unless you can conjure up a skill."

  "I have one skill." In the suitcase resting on the pavement beside him he had a transmitter which, small as it was, would send out a signal which, in six months, would reach Terra.

  Bending, he brought out the key, turned the lock of the suitcase. All he had to do was open the suitcase, feed an inch of punched data-tape into the orifice of the transmitter's encoder; the rest was automatic. He switched the power on; every electronic item mimicked clothing, especially shoes; it appeared as if he had come to Whale's Mouth to walk his life away, and elegantly at that.

  "Why?" he asked Freya as he programmed, with a tiny scholarly construct, the inch of tape. "An army for what?"

  "I don't know, Mat. It's all Theodoric Ferry. I think Ferry is going to try to outspit the army on Terra that Horst Bertold commands. In the short time I've been here I've talked to a few people, but — they're so afraid. One man thought there'd been a non-humanoid sentient race found, and we're preparing to strike for its colony-planets; maybe after a while and we've been here — "

  Matson peered up and said, "I've encoded the tape to read, Garrison state. Sound out Bertold. It'll go to our top pilot, Al Dosker, repeated over and over again, because at this distance the noise-factor — "

  A laser beam removed the back of his head.

  Freya shut her eyes.

  A second beam from the laser rifle with the telescopic sight destroyed first one suitcase and then its compa­nion. And then a shiny, spic-and-span young soldier walked up, leisurely, the rifle held loosely; he glanced at her, up and down, carnally but with no particular pas­sion, then looked down at the dead man, at Matson. "We caught your conversation on an aud rec." He pointed, and Freya saw, then, on the overhang of the roof of the Telpor terminal building, a netlike inter­woven mesh. "That man" — the soldier kicked — actually physically kicked with his toe — the corpse of Matson Glazer-Holliday — "said something about 'our top pilot.' You're an organization, then. Friends of a United People? That it?"

  She said nothing; she was unable to.

  "Come along, honey," the soldier said to her. "For your psych-interrogation. We held it off because you were kind enough — dumb enough — to inform us that your husband was following you. But we never — "

  He died, because, by means of her "watch" she had released the low-velocity cephalotropic cyanide dart; it moved slowly, but still he had not been able to evade it; he batted at it, childishly, with his hand, not quite alarmed, not quite wise and frightened enough, and its tip penetrated a vein near his wrist. And death came as swiftly and soundlessly as it had for Matson. The soldier swiveled and unwound and unwound in his descent to the pavement, and Freya, then, turned and ran —

  At a corner she went to the right, and, as she ran down a narrow, rubbish-heaped alley, reached into her cloak, touched the aud transmitter which sent out an all-points, planet-wide alarm signal-alert; every Lies In­corporated employee here at Whale's Mouth would be picking it up, if this was not already apparent to him: if the alarm signal added anything to his knowledge, that which had
probably come, crushingly, within the first five minutes here on this side — this one-way side — of the Telpor apparatuses. Well, anyhow she had done that; she had officially, through technical channels, alerted them, and that was all — all she could do.

  She had no long-range inter-system transmitter as Matson had had; she could not send out a macrowave signal which would be picked up by Al Dosker at the Sol system six months hence. In fact none of the two thousand police agents of Lies Incorporated did. But they had weapons. She was, she realized with dread and disbelief, automatically now in charge of those of the organization who survived; months ago Matson had set her up legally so that on his death she assumed his chair, and this was not private: this had been circulated, memo-wise, throughout the organization.

  What could she tell the police agents who had gotten through — tell them, of course, that Matson was dead, but what would be of use to them? What, she asked her­self, can we do?

  Eighteen years, she thought; do we have to wait for the Omphalos, for Rachmael ben Applebaum to arrive and see? Because by then it won't matter. For us, any­how; nor for this generation.

  Two men ran toward her and one bleated, "Moon and cow," shrilly, his face contorted with fear.

  "Jack Horner," she said numbly. "I don't know what to do," she said to them. "Matson is dead and his big transmitter is destroyed. They were waiting for him; I led them right to him. I'm sorry." She could not face the two field reps of the organization; she stared rigidly past them. "Even if we put our weapons into use," she said, "they can take all of us out."

  "But we can do some damage," one of the two police, middle-aged, with that fat sparetire at his mid­dle, a tough old vet of the '92 war, said.

  His companion, clasping a valise, said, "Yes, we can try, Miss Holm. Send out that signal; you have it?"

  "No," she said, but she was lying and they knew it. "It's hopeless," she said. "Let's try to pass as authentic emigrants. Let them draft us, put us into the barracks."