by Jerry
I locked the door behind me. A plaque on the door was dated and sealed with the City stamp:
GUARANTEE OF PRIVACY
This room has been inspected and sealed against scanners, microphones, and other devices permitting the observation or recording of actions within it, in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act.
That was all very fine, but I wouldn’t put enough faith in it to trust my life to it. I relaxed in a soft, heavy lounge facing the one-way wall. The show was already going on. I wasn’t particularly interested in the fertility rites of the worshipers of Mahrud—not because they weren’t intrinsically interesting, but because I had to do some thinking to save my own skin.
Senator Rowley, in order to keep his section under control, had coupled in his own robot’s sensory organs with those of the city’s Public Services Department and those of various business concerns, most of which were either owned outright or subsidized by the senator.
But something had happened to that computer; for some reason, its actions had become illogical and inefficient. When the patrol car had spotted me on the street, for instance, the sonobeam, which had penetrated the flesh of my arm and bounced off the tantalum plate back to the pickup, had relayed the modified vibrations back to the Central Files for identification. And the Files had obviously given back the wrong information.
What had gone wrong? Was the senator still alive, keeping his mouth shut and his eyes open? If so, what sort of orders was he giving to the robot? I didn’t get many answers, and the ones I did get were mutually contradictory.
I was supposed to be back before dawn, but I could see now that I’d never make it. Here in Groverton, there weren’t many connections with Public Services; the robot couldn’t keep me under observation all the time. But the deeper into the city I penetrated, the more scanners there would be. I couldn’t take a private car in, and I didn’t dare take a flitter or a ground taxi. I’d be spotted in the subways as soon as I walked in. I was in a fix, and I’d have to think my way out.
I don’t know whether it was the music or the soft lights or my lack of sleep or the simple fact that intense concentration is often autohypnotic. At any rate, I dozed off, and the next thing I remember is the girl bringing in the papers.
This gal was silver. I don’t know how the cosmeticians had done it, but looking into her eyes was like looking into a mirror; the irises were a glittering silver halo surrounding the dark pupil. Her hair was the same way; not white, but silver.
“Good morning, Grandfather,” she said softly. “Here are the newspapers you asked for.”
I was thankful for that “Grandfather”; it reminded me that I was an old man before I had a chance to say anything.
“Thank you, my dear, thank you. Just put them here.”
“Your coffee will be in in a moment.” She moved out as quietly as she had come in.
Something was gnawing at the back of my brain; something like a dream you know you’ve had but forgotten completely. I concentrated on it a moment, trying to bring it out into the open, but it wouldn’t come, so I gave it up and turned to the paper, still warm from the reproducer.
It was splattered all over the front page:
MYSTERIOUS TROUBLE AT THE LODGE
Police Unable to Enter
The Police Department announced this morning that they have been unable, thus far, to pass the defenses of the Lodge after receiving a call last night that Senator Rowley had been shot by his secretary, Mr. Edgar Gifford.
Repeated attempts to contact the senator have resulted in failure, says a Department spokesman.
Thus far, three police Hitters under robot control have been shot down in attempting to land at the Lodge, and one ground car has been blown up. Another ground car, the first to respond to the automatic call for help, was stolen by the fleeing Gifford after killing the four officers in the car. The stolen vehicle was recovered early this morning several hundred miles from here, having been reported by a Mr.—
It went on with the usual statement that the police expected to apprehend the murderous Mr. Gifford at any moment.
Another small item in the lower left-hand corner registered the fact that two men had been accidentally caught by a street cleaner and had proceeded to damage it. One of the men was killed by the damaged machine, but the other managed to escape. The dead man was a charity case, named Brodwick, and his associates were being checked.
So much for that. But the piece that really interested me was the one that said:
SENATOR LUTHER GRENDON
OFFERS AID
“Federal Government Should Keep Hands Off,” says Grendon.
Eastern Sector Senator Grendon said early this morning that he would do all in his power to aid Northwestern Sector in “apprehending the murderer of my colleague and bring to justice the organization behind him.”
“There is,” he said, “no need to call in the Federal Government at this time. The citizens of an independent sector are quite capable of dealing with crime within their own boundaries.”
Interviewed later, Senator Quintell of Southwestern Sector agreed that there was no need to call in the FBI or “any other Federal Agency.”
The other senators were coming in for the kill, even before it was definitely established that the senator was dead.
Well, that was that. I decided I’d better get going. It would be better to travel during the daytime: it’s hard for a beam to be focused on an individual citizen in a crowd.
While the other Immortals were foreclosing on Senator Rowley’s private property, there might be time for me to get back safely.
The silver girl was waiting for me as I stepped out the door to the private room.
“This way, Grandfather,” she said, the everpresent smile on her glittering lips. She started down the corridor. “This isn’t the way out,” I said, frowning.
She paused, still smiling. “No, sir, it isn’t the way you came in, but, you see, our number has come up. The Medical Board has sent down a checker.”
That almost floored me. Somehow, the Lodge had known where I was and had instituted a check against this particular house. That meant that every door was sealed except the one where the robot Medical checker was waiting.
The perfect trap. The checker was armed and armored, naturally; there were often people who did not want to be detained at the hospital—and at their own expense, if they were free citizens.
I walked slowly, as an old man should, stalling for time. The only armament a checker had was a stun gun; that was a point in my favor. But I needed more information.
“My goodness,” I said, “you should have called me earlier, my dear, as soon as the checker came.”
“It’s only been here fifteen minutes, Grandfather,” the silver girl answered.
Then there were still plenty of customers in the building!
The girl was just ahead of me in the corridor. I beamed her down with the stun gun and caught her before she hit the floor. I carried her back into the private room I had just left and laid her on the couch.
Then I started pulling down draperies. They were all heavy synthetic stuff that wouldn’t burn unless they were really hot. I got a good armful, went back into the corridor, and headed for the opposite end of the building. Nobody bothered me on the way; everybody was still occupied.
At the end of the hall, I piled the stuff on the floor beneath some other hangings. Then I took two of the power cartridges from the stun gun and pried them open. The powder inside ought to burn nicely. It wouldn’t explode unless it was sealed inside the gun, where the explosion was channeled through the supersonic whistle in the barrel to form the beam.
I took out my lighter and applied the flame to a sheet of the newspaper I had brought along, then I laid the paper on top of the opened cartridges. I got well back and waited.
I didn’t take more than a second or two to ignite the powder. It hissed and went up in a wave of white heat. The plastic curtains started to smolder. Within l
ess than a minute, the hallway was full of thick, acrid smoke.
I knew the building wouldn’t burn, but I was hoping none of the other customers was as positive as I.
I yelled “Fire!” at the top of my lungs, then headed for the stairway and ran to the bottom. I waited just inside the street door for action.
Outside, I could hear the soft humming of a guard robot, stationed there by the checker to make sure no one left through that door.
The smoldering of the curtains put out plenty of smoke before they got hot enough to turn in the fire alarm and bring out the fire-fighter robots stationed in the walls. The little terrier-sized mechanisms scurried all over the place, looking for heat sources to squirt at. Upstairs, a heavy CO2 blanket began to drift down.
I wasn’t worried about the fire robots; they didn’t have the sensory apparatus to spot me. All they could find was fire. They would find it and smother it, but the place was already full of smoke, which was all I wanted.
It was the smoke that did the job, really. People don’t like to stay in buildings that appear to be burning down, no matter how safe they think they are. Customers came pouring down the stairway and out the door like angry wasps out of a disturbed hive. I went with them.
I knew that a fire signal would change the checker’s orders. It couldn’t keep people inside a burning building. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized to what extent the Lodge would go to get me, or to what extent it was capable of countermanding normal orders.
The guard robot at the door started beaming down everybody as they came out, firing as fast as it could scan and direct. It couldn’t distinguish me from the others, of course; not in that mob. But it was hitting everything that moved with its stun beam. Luckily, it couldn’t scan and direct fast enough to get everybody; there were too many. I watched and waited for a second or two until the turret was facing away from the corner, then I ran like the very devil, dodging as I ran.
A stun beam hit the fingers of my left hand, and my arm went dead to the elbow. The guard robot had spotted me! I made it around the corner and ducked into a crowd of people who were idly watching the smoke billowing from the upper windows.
I kept moving through the crowd, trying to put as much distance between myself and the checker’s guards as possible. The guard evidently hadn’t recognized me, personally, as Gifford, because it realized the futility of trying to cut down everyone in Groverton to find me and gave up on the crowd outside. But it kept hitting the ones who came out the door.
I got away fast. The thing really had me worried. I had no desire whatever to get myself mixed up with a nutty robot, but, seemingly, there was no way to avoid it.
I circled around and went down to Corliss Avenue, parallel to Bradley, for about seven blocks before I finally walked back over to Bradley again. Two or three times, police cars came by, but either they didn’t test me with their beams or the answers they got weren’t incriminating.
I was less than a block from the city limits when something hard and hot and tingling burned through my nerves like acid and I blacked out.
Maybe you’ve never been hit by a stun beam, but if you’ve ever had your leg go to sleep, you know what it feels like. And you know what it feels like when you wake up; that painful tingling all over that hurts even worse if you try to move.
I knew better than to try to move. I just lay still, waiting for the terrible tingling to subside. I had been out, I knew, a little less than an hour. I knew, because I’d been hit by stunners before, and I know how long it takes my body to throw off the paralysis.
Somebody’s voice said, “He’ll be coming out of it anytime now. Shake him and see.”
A hand shook me, and I gasped. I couldn’t help it; with my nerves still raw from the stunner, it hurt to be shaken that way.
“Sorry, Gifford,” said another voice, different from the first. “Just wanted to see. Wanted to see if you were with us.”
“Leave him alone a few minutes,” the first voice said. “That hurts. It’ll wear off quickly.”
It was wearing off already. I opened my eyes and tried to see what was going on. At first, the visual pattern was a blithering swirl of meaningless shapes and crackling colors, but it finally settled down to a normal ceiling with a normal light panel in it. I managed to turn my head, in spite of the nerve-shocks, and saw two men sitting in chairs beside the bed.
One of them was short, round, and blond, with a full set of mutton chops, a heavy mustache, and a clean-shaven, firm chin. The other man was taller, muscular, with a full Imperial and smooth cheeks.
The one with the Imperial said, “Sorry we had to shoot you down that way, Gifford. But we didn’t want to attract too much attention that close to the city limits.”
They weren’t cops, then. Of that much, I could be certain. At least they weren’t the police of this sector. So they were working for one of the other Immortals.
“Whose little boys are you?” I asked, trying to grin.
Evidently I did grin, because they grinned back. “Funny,” said the one with the mutton chops, “but that’s exactly what we were going to ask you.”
I turned my head back again and stared at the ceiling. “I’m an orphan,” I said.
The guy with the mutton chops chuckled. “Well,” he grinned at the other man, “what do you think of that, Colonel?”
The colonel (Of what? I wondered) frowned, pulling heavy brows deep over his gray eyes. His voice came from deep in his chest and seemed to be muffled by the heavy beard.
“We’ll level with you, Gifford. Mainly because we aren’t sure. Mainly because of that. We aren’t sure even you know the truth. So we’ll level.”
“Your blast,” I said.
“O.K., here’s how it looks from our side of the fence. It looks like this. You killed Rowley. After fifteen years of faithful service, you killed him. Now we know—even if you don’t—that Rowley had you psychoimpressed every six months for fifteen years. Or at least he thought he did.”
“He thought he did?” I asked, just to show I was interested.
“Well, yes. He couldn’t have, really, you see. He couldn’t have. Or at least not lately. A psychoimpressed person can’t do things like that. Also, we know that nobody broke it, because it takes six weeks of steady, hard therapy to pull a man out of it. And a man’s no good after that for a couple more weeks. You weren’t out of Rowley’s sight for more than four days.” He shrugged. “You see?”
“I see,” I said. The guy was a little irritating in his manner. I didn’t like the choppy way he talked.
“For a while,” he said, “we thought it might be an impersonation. But we checked your plate”—he gestured at my arm—“and it’s O.K. The genuine article. So it’s Gifford’s plate, all right. And we know it couldn’t have been taken out of Gifford’s arm and transferred to another arm in four days.
“If there were any way to check fingerprints and eye patterns, we might be able to be absolutely sure, but the Privacy Act forbids that, so we have to go on what evidence we have in our possession now.
“Anyway, we’re convinced that you are Gifford. So that means somebody has been tampering with your mind. We want to know who it is. Do you know?”
“No,” I said, quite honestly.
“You didn’t do it yourself, did you?”
“No.”
“Somebody’s behind you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who?”
“No. And hold those questions a minute. You said you’d level with me. Who are you working for?”
The two of them looked at each other for a second, then the colonel said: “Senator Quintell.”
I propped myself up on one elbow and held out the other hand, fingers extended. “All right, figure for yourself. Rowley’s out of the picture; that eliminates him.” I pulled my thumb in. “You work for Quintell; that eliminates him.” I dropped my little finger and held it with my thumb. “That leaves three Immortals. Grendon, Lasser, and Waterford. Lasser h
as the Western Sector; Waterford, the Southern. Neither borders on Northwestern, so that eliminates them. Not definitely, but probably. They wouldn’t be tempted to get rid of Rowley as much as they would Quintell.
“So that leaves Grendon. And if you read the papers, you’ll know that he’s pushing in already.”
They looked at each other again. I knew they weren’t necessarily working for Quintell; I was pretty sure it was Grendon. On the other hand, they might have told the truth so that I’d be sure to think it was Grendon. I didn’t know how deep their subtlety went, and I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me who they were working for.
“That sounds logical,” said the colonel. “Very logical.”
“But we have to know,” added Mutton Chops. “We were fairly sure you’d head back toward the city; that’s why we set up guards at the various street entrances. Since that part of our prediction worked out, we want to see if the rest of it will.”
“The rest of it?”
“Yeah. You’re expendable. We know that. The organization that sent you doesn’t care what happens to you now, otherwise they wouldn’t have let you loose like that. They don’t care what happens to Eddie Gifford.
“So they must have known you’d get caught. Therefore, they’ve got you hypnoed to a fare-thee-well. And we probably won’t find anything under the hypno, either. But we’ve got to look; there may be some little thing you’ll remember. Some little thing that will give us the key to the whole organization.”
I nodded. That was logical, very logical, as the colonel had said. They were going to break me. They could have done it gently, removed every bit of blocking and covering that the hypnoes had put in without hurting me a bit. But that would take time; I knew better than to think they were going to be gentle. They were going to peel my mind like a banana and then slice it up and look at it.
And if they were working for any of the Immortals, I had no doubt that they could do what they were planning. It took equipment, and it took an expert psychometrician, and a couple of good therapists—but that was no job at all if you had money.