Owen bounded away.
He was running perilously near the front roofline and was acutely aware that it continuously curved. For safety’s sake he changed to the middle course, running along the centers and abandoning any hope of secrecy. The surface below his pounding feet sagged and creaked, behaving, and sounding like a trampoline trainer. He stumbled over an unexpected ridge, caught his balance, and raced on. A querulous cry was raised from some apartment underfoot.
The noise made by his pursuers was shockingly close. Owen thought there were two of them and thought they were running at speed, unmindful of radio antennas or other obstacles. He dropped his protective arm and attempted to increase his own speed. The roofing protested.
Another treacherous ridge felled him.
He was forced into an ungainly dance in his effort to remain upright, hopping forward under his own pell-mell momentum. The dance faltered. One foot came down heavily and plunged through the top surface. Owen hastily yanked his foot out of the hole, hopped again, lost’ his balance, and toppled backward out of control. The poor sheathing cracked and splintered under his weight as his posterior drilled a new hole through the roof and then on through the fragile ceiling below it. Ignominiously, tail first, Owen plummeted downward onto a lady’s bed. A solitary candle lit the bedroom.
The lady was in her shower.
She bolted out of the cubicle and gaped at the unexpected visitor. Her mouth was opened to screech.
Owen scrambled off the bed and rubbed his bruised backsides. He found time to appreciate the glistening wet body and thought the candlelight nicely complimented it.
“Hi, cutie. Want someone to wash your back?”
The lady stared at her holed ceiling and at the shattered roof. Debris littered the bed.
“Idiot male!”
“So’s your old man.”
The lady delivered the tardy screech and made a threatening gesture with two balled fists.
“I will do you.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Owen retorted. “You’re supposed to say. ‘Ho, varlet! Have at thee!’ They do it in all the Errol Flynn movies.”
The lady thrust forward in anger and grabbed at him, but a sudden racket on the rooftops stopped her advance in mid-stride. She stared upward with astonishment as the racket grew into an oncoming thunder. New debris fell.
“Make way for the varlets!” her visitor cried, and leaped clear of the target area. He eyed the ceiling.
Sandaled feet appeared in the ragged opening and in the next moment two hurtling bodies filled the hole, forcefully enlarging it as they fell through amid a shambles of timber and roofing material. Owen’s pursuers crashed down together on the bed in a confusion of arms and legs, a mishmash of kicking feet and strangled cries. The bed collapsed under the impact. Someone pounded on the adjoining wall. An outraged hostess voiced her opinion of the invaders and their uncouth method of entry.
Owen turned to flee, but then hesitated only long enough to offer neighborly advice.
“Cutie, you’d better put something on and get ready for company. There’s a whole damn’ army right behind them!”.
He ran through the house to the front door and yanked it open, then just as quickly leaped backward from the doorway. Two wardens stood just down the way, staring dumbstruck at the place on the rooftop where their sisters had been only moments before. Owen turned desperately in the darkness, seeking refuge, and then crawled into the only concealment available to him:
the cramped space beneath the workbench. His feet struck some solid object.
Quick exploration revealed a casket—a lightweight and streamlined casket identical to those encountered in the cemetery that morning. It was empty. Without second thoughts, Owen slithered into the coffin and attempted to pull the lid down over himself. The lid refused to fit well, a covering as poorly contrived as some of the doors to the houses. He held himself still to avoid discovery, struggling to control his breathing and meanwhile bemoaning his luck at selecting a factory reject.
The commotion in the bedroom seemed to be sorting itself out. The lady of the house had not stopped her angry complaints, but one of the intruders was trying to placate her, while the other was attempting to explain why they were on the roof in the first place. Neither attempt at pacification was wholly successful, but the volume of sound diminished. Someone—one of the wardens—called through the open doorway. The three women in the bedroom responded on the run and there was a headlong rush past the casket and out into the night to search for the fugitive who had only narrowly escaped their clutches.
The lady of the house rushed right back in again when she remembered her nudity.
Owen kept his place and waited silently,^ listening to the sounds of the woman dressing. When her sandals passed him and the door was closed from the outside, he slipped back the coffin lid and raised his eyes above the rim to reconnoiter. The candle still burned in the bedroom, but nothing moved in its dim glow. The workshop appeared to be equally empty. He crept out of the coffin and rested on his knees beside the workbench for a moment, testing the air. The house was silent.
Owen padded softly to the back door and slid the bolt. He applied one eye to a slim crack in the door and scanned the weedy jungle; A number of women were still beating the bushes on the opposite side of the circle, working their appointed way around to the meeting place at Kehli’s or Paoli’s house. Owen marveled that they had missed—or ignored—the circus on the rooftops. He closed the door without a sound but left it unlocked. The next object to fall under his scrutiny was the workman lying on the bare cot in the back room.
Owen hesitated beside the cot, eyeing the man.
“Barney, I could use you, but it would be a damned dirty trick to play on you.” Owen contemplated the man’s usefulness but then shook his head. “Can’t do it, Barney.”
The zombie failed to express his appreciation.
Owen returned to the entrance and cautiously peeked outside, poised to run again if need be. The area immediately in front of the house was unpopulated. He opened the door wider and put his head around the doorframe to scan the nearby lawns and the rolling road. The nearest women were a distance away, while those bearing torches were yet farther down the road. Owen eased through the door, closed it softly behind him, and shot down the narrow sidewalk and across the road to leap into the high grasses that promised-concealment. There was no outcry. He waited a moment to make certain that he hadn’t been seen and then worked his slow way deeper into the grasslands, wanting to put a greater distance between himself and that road and the city it served. The road builders had never thought to maintain a mowed shoulder on the far side.
Only the vital backpacks waiting at Kehli’s house kept him from bolting for the timber and the open prairie. Those packs were as necessary as Texas Tommy’s treasury.
He continued his determined journey into the southwest, seeking the proper house. Bands of women roved the road searching for the missing • culprit—determined manhunters who knocked on doors, opened doors, swept through empty apartments, scanned the rooftops, peered into the high grasses just off the road, and endlessly asked one another futile questions.
His old nemesis Hoon provided the verbal, guidepost that led Owen home—she of the muscular build and the booming voice. Owen popped up in the grass to seek the source of the voice and found Hoon standing just outside an open doorway, her great hands balled on her hips. Hoon was haranguing two monitors who had just completed their search of the nearby empty apartment, monitors who appeared to be already short of temper and unappreciative of .Hoon’s noisy encouragements. The women mounted the rolling road and broke into a trot, the sooner to put a distance between themselves and the behemoth.
Owen watched and waited.
When the night grew quiet again and no other wardens happened along to become victims of verbal abuse, Hoon turned and entered the doorway. The door stayed open but Owen couldn’t remember if that door was one he’d borrowed or hot. The in
terior of the house was not illuminated. He eyed the dark opening with suspicion. A thousand little old ladies of both sexes in Indiana made a habit of sitting behind their screen doors or behind their windows, watching every living thing that passed: man, woman, child, or dog.
Owen turned and retraced his path,.moving away from Hoon’s house. When he had gone a reasonable distance he left, the concealing grasses, crossed the road on the run, and flattened himself against the nearest house wall.
No one raised a cry of discovery.
Owen inched his way along the walls toward Kehli’s dwelling, taking care to tiptoe past every door and not make noise crossing the narrow sidewalks. Darkness enveloped his stealthy advance and he counted the doors to measure his advance. Hoon’s place was near.
He stopped at Kehli’s doorway, softly tested the latch and found it unlocked, then eased the door open. The apartment was in darkness.
A heavy hand thwacked him across the back while an equally heavy foot slammed into his shins, simultaneously knocking him forward and tripping him. Owen fell headfirst toward the door, rebounded off it, and went down gasping for breath. His mouth was filled with growing grass. The woman who had felled him pinioned his legs and bellowed her triumph.
“Caught you, dummy!”.
Owen raised his head to spit out the mouthful of grass. He tried to turn his head to look at Hoon, but she slapped him alongside the ears in a stinging blow. He managed only a single word before she pushed his face into the ground.
“Cossack!”
Thirteen
Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is
nothing else but reason. … The law, which is perfection
of reason,
—Sir Edward Coke
City Hall wasn’t worthy of the name.
It had been, and perhaps still was, a large warehouse or peanut butter factory with a cleared space in the middle that permitted the citizens to assemble for the redress of their grievances or to play bingo. Four of the very large resurrection machines were placed along one wall, while a stack of fifty or sixty spanking new coffins were neatly arranged along the opposite wall. In between were a half-dozen rigid, uncomfortable chairs for visiting citizens, a table just long enough to seat three councilwomen without too much crowding, and a smaller table behind the large one to accommodate the keeper of the records.
Owen Hall took a dim view of the courtroom and its inhabitants.
He held an even dimmer view of the woman seated at the small table, a woman who held a pen poised over an open record book. Hoon kept her face carefully expressionless except for those moments when she happened to catch Owen’s eye, and then the expression was one of malicious triumph. It was a poor way to regard the man who had probably given her the experience of her life, even involuntarily.
The three councilwomen were markedly less inspiring.
Owen recognized with dismay the frowning elderly woman sitting in the center position behind the table: she had to be Wytha, who collected wristwatches off the bodies that were brought in from the excavations—Wytha, who had bossed the bacon factory where Owen worked briefly the previous day. Everything about Wytha but the uniform was monotonously gray: hair, eyes, skin, temper. The gray granny gave the impression of being newly roused^from her sleep and none too happy about it; her face was as sour as pig swill. The factory whistle was absent from her neck.
The two remaining judges were strangers to Owen— at least, he didn’t remember seeing them in his journeys about the city. The one sitting at the left end of the table was openly curious and inquisitive, a middle-aged woman who studied the prisoner with an admixture of voyeurism and distaste. Owen thought she had beady little eyes. The third judge, the younger woman seated at the right end of the table, was self-composed and bland—deceptively bland. Owen distrusted the woman on first sight.
All in all,‘three towering pillars of justice.
“They’d lynch me to watch the dance,” he muttered.
“Hush,” Kehli whispered.
Kehli, a benumbed Paoli, and a warden sat on three of the six chairs in the center of the hall a short distance from the council table. Kehli was distressed and uncomfortable, although she strove to conceal that unhappy state and give the appearance of attentive neutrality. The little deceit was transparent—she fidgeted too much. Paoli was stiffly upright, glum, and still suffering the hangover. She kept her gaze fixed on the councilwomen and refused to acknowledge Owen’s presence. The third person sitting in the row of chairs—the nameless warden—had to be a witness for the prosecution, because she held three neatly wrapped packages in her lap as she waited for the proceedings to open. Owen looked down over her shoulder to see a necktie, a ball pen hammer, and a cucumber.
He stood behind the chairs, his hands bound in front of him and a hefty warden clutching his arm to prevent an escape. The warden’s clutch was none too gentle. All the doors of City Hall were closed and guarded.
Wytha signaled Hoon, and Hoon began to read.
“The male standing before the council is identified as Reclaimant. Two-six-oh-seven-oh-two, estimated age at about thirty. The male was found on the road at the proper hour yestermorning en route to the zone, but was obviously disoriented and unsure of his purpose. When found, the male was on his hands and knees examining the road itself.
“Paoli, Three-five-oh-three-five-oh, questioned him and determined that he was seriously flawed. The male could not identify his originating patron or his assigned place of shelter; he was unsure of his reason for being on the road and vague about his instructions for the day’s work; he did not know or could not remember a place of shelter for the coming night. His speech was incoherent and his behavior was abnormal. Paoli gave him instructions for reporting to work and then for reporting to her shelter at the end of the day. She had determined that the male should be reconstituted in the proper manner and would thereafter be of useful service to the city.
“The male appeared for work at the food-processing center managed by Wytha, Two-one-oh-three-seven, although he had not been specifically assigned to that task. Wytha recognized the disorientation and abnormality and, after establishing his identification and newly assigned place of shelter, gave him instructions in the preparation of foodstuffs. The male performed his duties well while under Wytha’s supervision but deviated from his instructions and reverted to abnormal behavior when Wytha went about her duties elsewhere. In his abnormal state the male produced a hammer, an unknown object fashioned from cloth, and a poison fruit—all of which he committed to the distribution center. The three foreign objects are waiting before the council.”
“That’s a barrel of buffalo chips! A cucumber ain’t no poison fruit—it’s a vegetable you eat, dummy.”
The warden clutching the prisoner pinched his arm to silence him. The third judge—she of the bland countenance sitting on the right end—dropped her vanilla mask and stared at Owen with amazement. The room was dramatically silent Right End asked, “The male has the power of independent speech?”
“Damn right I do,” Owen shot back. “It’s one of the President’s four freedoms and I make good use of it.”
“Where did you obtain the use of independent speech?”
“From my maker, bless her fat hide.” Owen thought it was high time to get in a few good licks of his own..
“Who was your originator? Do you remember?”
“Of course I do. I’ll never forget Sweetiepie.” He raised both hands to point a finger. “Good old Hoon made me what I am today. She wanted something special, see?” The sneaky devil had tried to cover her own involvement.
Right End swiveled her head to stare with surprise at good old Hoon and then turned back to the prisoner. Hoon’s face was flushed and she kept her head down over the books. Wytha had never left off her cold gray appraisal of the culprit. Left End—she of the beady eyes —inspected the male with a new interest and waited for the next question. The mind behind the beady eyes had already gue
ssed the answer.
Right End asked the next question. “What do - you mean by special? Was there a special usage?”
“Yep. I’m a variant, and a damned good one, cutie. Good old Hoon whipped up a batch last night.”
He felt a curious wriggling motion in the. clutch on his arm and slanted his eyes to that side. His captor was silently giggling and shaking with the giggle. The judge seated at the right end had again turned to look at Hoon.
Wytha spoke through stiff gray lips. “Amend the record to present an accurate account of the male’s origin and first place of shelter.”
Hoon dipped her head in acknowledgment. “It will be done.”
“Continue,” Wytha ordered.
Hoon read: “When it was learned that a number of foreign objects had been committed to the distribution center, Wytha stopped work and sent the males employed there back to their shelters. The exact number of foreign objects produced by the abnormal male has not been determined, but a search has revealed several tools, many pieces of cloth similar to the one before the council, and a box of strange design that has no known purpose. The search for other foreign objects is continuing and it is realized that an unknown number of meals will be lost.” “Wait till they find the buzz saw,” Owen muttered.
Kehli squirmed on the chair and whispered, “Hush.” “It has been determined that the male did not return to his shelter as directed but instead went outside to the excavations and engaged Kehli, Three-four-seven-six-one-six, in conversation. Kehli was not aware of events in the city caused by the male’s behavior, but learned by questioning that he had been assigned to Paoli’s shelter. She kept the male with her excavation crew until the day’s task was completed and then returned him to the city. It is believed that the male then went directly to Paoli’s shelter and destroyed the door to gain entrance. At a later hour, when Paoli discovered the missing door and protested his behavior, the male removed several nearby doors. One was used to replace the broken door the others were discarded.
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