Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  “That blur-and-hypnotize them approach,” said Gaziel, “might be a way to get ourselves a gun—if they had armed guards around.”

  Telzey glanced at her. So far, they’d seen no armed guards in the complex. With Ti’s employees as solidly programmed as they were, he didn’t have much need even for locked doors. “The troops he keeps to hunt down rambunctious forest things have guns, of course,” she said. “But they’re pretty heavy caliber.”

  Gaziel nodded. “I was thinking of something more inconspicuous—something we could shove under Ti’s, or Linden’s, nose if it got to be that kind of situation.”

  “We’ll keep our eyes open,” Telzey said. “But we should be able to work out a better way than that.”

  “Several, I think,” said Gaziel. She checked suddenly. “Speaking of keeping our eyes open—”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s an elevator door over there, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what their elevator doors look like,” Telzey agreed. She paused. “You think that one doesn’t show on the map?”

  “Not as I remember it,” Gaziel said. “Let’s check—section three seventeen dash three.”

  They spread the map out on the floor, knelt beside it. Telzey shifted the scale enlargement indicator to the section number. The map surface went blank; then a map of the section appeared. “We’re—here!” said Gaziel, finger tapping the map. “And, right, that elevator doesn’t show—doesn’t exist for programmed personnel. Let’s see where it goes!”

  They opened the door, looked inside. There was an on-off switch, nothing to indicate where the elevator would take them. “Might step out into Ti’s office,” Telzey said.

  Gaziel shrugged. “He knows we’re exploring around.”

  “Yes. But he could be in a pretty sour mood right now.” Telzey shrugged in turn. “Well, come on!” They stepped into the elevator. The door closed, and Telzey turned the switch. Some seconds passed. The door opened again.

  They stood motionless, looking out and around. Gaziel glanced over at Telzey, shook her head briefly.

  “It can’t be as easy as that!” she murmured.

  Telzey bit her lip. “Unless it’s locked . . . Or unless there’s a barrier field that won’t pass it . . .”

  The door had opened at the back of a large sun-filled porch garden. Seemingly, at least, the porch was open to the cloudless sky beyond.

  There were rock arrangements, small trees, flower beds stirring in a warm breeze. Near the far end was a graveled open area—and a small aircar was parked on it. No one was in sight.

  No, Telzey thought, escape from Ti’s island couldn’t be so simple a matter! There must be some reason why they couldn’t use the aircar. But they had to find out what the reason was.

  They moved forward warily together, a few steps, emerged from the elevator, looked around, listening, tensed. Gaziel started forward again. Telzey suddenly caught her arm, hauled hard. Back they went stumbling into the elevator.

  “What’s the matter?” Gaziel whispered.

  Telzey passed her hand over her mouth, shook her head. “Close!” she muttered. “The sun—”

  Gaziel looked. Her eyes widened in comprehension. “Should be overhead, this time of day!”

  “Yes, it should.” It wasn’t. Its position indicated it might be midmorning or midafternoon on the garden porch.

  The garden porch—a Martri stage.

  “They set it up for us!” Gaziel murmured. “We asked Challis where we could find aircars.”

  Telzey nodded. “So they spotted us coming and spun in a scene from some drama—to get us out there, on stage!”

  “They almost did. Look at it now!” Gaziel said softly. “Nothing’s moving.”

  The garden porch had gone still, dead still. No eddy of air disturbed the flower beds; no leaf lifted. There was total silence about them.

  “They’ve stopped the scene,” Telzey whispered. “Waiting to see if we won’t still try to reach the car.”

  “And find out we’ve become part of the action! Wonder what . . . It’s moving again!”

  The garden growth stirred lazily, as before. A breeze touched their faces. Some seconds passed. Then they heard a hoarse shout, a high cry of fear, and, moments later running steps. A young man and a young woman burst into view from behind a cluster of shrubs, darted toward the aircar.

  The Martri scene began to fade. Off to the left, another man was rising out of concealment, holding a gun in both hands. He took unhurried aim at the pair as they pulled open the door of the car. Then flame tore through the two bodies, continued to slash into them as they dropped writhing to the ground, dimming out swiftly now with everything about them.

  Telzey turned the elevator switch. The door slid shut. They looked at each other.

  “If you hadn’t noticed the sun!” Gaziel said. She drew in a long breath. “If we’d . . . the computer would hardly have had to modify that scene at all to get us deleted!”

  “Wish those minds weren’t in quite such a hurry about that,” Telzey said.

  The elevator door opened. They stepped out into the hall from which they’d entered it.

  VII

  “Oh, certainly we have permanent Martri stages here in the complex,” Ti said at lunch. “They’re generally off limits to personnel, but you two are quite free to prowl about there if you like. The equipment’s foolproof. Remind me to give you a chart tomorrow to help you locate some of them.”

  He appeared affable, though bemused. Now and then he regarded them speculatively. He’d spent all morning, he told them, trying to track down the problem in the programming annex. The annex, a relatively simple piece of Martri equipment, was Linden’s responsibility: but Linden was limited.

  Ti shrugged.

  “I’ll work it out.” he said. “It’s possible I’ll have to modify the overall programming approach used on you. Meanwhile . . . well. Linden has business offices on the level above your room. I’d like you to go there after you finish. He’s to carry your general indoctrination a step further this afternoon. Go up the stairs nearest your room and turn left. You won’t have any trouble finding him.”

  They didn’t. They came to a main office first, which was a sizable one where half a dozen chatty and cheerful-looking young women were at work. One of them stood up and came over.

  “Dr. Linden?” she said. “Oh, yes. He’s expecting you.”

  They followed her through another room to Linden’s private office. He arose behind his desk as they came in.

  “Dr. Ti informed me you were on your way here,” he said. He looked at the young woman. “I’ll be out of the office a while. Take care of things.”

  “How long do you expect to be gone, sir?” she asked.

  “Between one and two hours.” Linden gave Telzey and Gaziel a twisted smile. “Let’s go!”

  He led them up a narrow passage to an alcove where sunlight flooded in through colored windows. Here was a door. Linden unlocked it, but didn’t open it immediately.

  “I’ll explain the situation,” he said, turning back to them. “I told Dr. Ti in Draise that Telzey might become dangerous, and advised him to have her destroyed. But he was intrigued by the possibilities he felt he saw in her, and in creating puppet doubles of her.” Linden shrugged. “Well, that’s his affair. He’s been attempting to shake you up psychologically—Martri programming takes hold best on minds that have been reduced to a state of general uncertainty. However, his methods haven’t worked very well. And he now suspects you may have deliberately caused the malfunction of the programming annex this morning. So he’s decided to try a different approach—and for once in this matter, I find myself in complete accord with him!”

  “What’s the new approach?” Telzey asked guardedly.

  Linden smiled.

  “We have devices in the rooms behind that door,” he said, “which were designed to put difficult subjects into a docile and compliant frame of mind. I’m happy to say that various phases of the
process are accompanied by intense physical pain—and believe me, you’re getting the full treatment!”

  Telzey said, “One of us is Gaziel. She hasn’t done anything to you. Why do you want to give her the full treatment?”

  Linden shrugged. “Why not? Subjectively you’re both Telzey, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re equally insufferable. You’ll find out which of you is Telzey in fact when you’re supposed to. I’ll make no distinctions now. When I feel you’ve been sufficiently conditioned, I’ll put you through the psi depressant procedure again to make sure no problems begin to develop in that area. Then I’ll report to Dr. Ti that his subjects are ready for further programming sessions.” He smiled at Telzey.

  “You,” he said, “had the effrontery to suggest that it would be to my advantage if Dr. Ti gave up his plan to program the two of you. I don’t agree. He feels now that the experiment probably will fail as such, but will produce valuable new information. So he’ll continue with it until neither of you has enough mind left to be worth further study. I see nothing undesirable in that prospect!”

  He opened the door he’d unlocked, glanced back down the passage in the direction of the offices.

  “This kind of thing could disturb the illusions of the work staff,” he remarked. “Subjects experiencing the docility treatment make a remarkable amount of noise. But the place is thoroughly soundproofed, so that’s no problem. You’re at liberty to yowl your heads off in there. I’ll enjoy listening to it. In you go!”

  He took each of them by an arm and shoved them through the door into the room beyond. He followed, drawing the door shut behind him, and locked it from inside. As he started to turn back toward them, Telzey dropped forward and wrapped herself around his ankles. Linden staggered off balance and came down, half on top of her. Gaziel came down on top of him.

  It was a brisk scramble. Linden was somewhat awkward, but big enough and strong enough to have handled either of them readily. Together, hissing, clawing for his eyes, clinging to his arms, kicking at his legs, they weren’t being at all readily handled. They rolled across the room in a close-locked, rapidly shifting tangle, Linden trying to work an arm free and making inarticulate sounds of surprised fury. A table tipped over; a variety of instruments which had been standing on it crashed to the floor. Telzey saw one of them within reach, let go of Linden, snatched it up—mainly plastic but heavy—slammed it down on Linden’s skull. He yelled. She swung down again with both hands, as hard as she could. The gadget broke, and Linden lay still.

  “His keys—” she gasped.

  “Got them!” Gaziel said.

  They went quickly through Linden’s pockets, found nothing else they could use. He was breathing noisily but hadn’t moved again. “We’ll just leave him locked in here,” Telzey said as they scrambled to their feet. “That’s a solid door—and he said the place was soundproof.”

  They unlocked the door, drew it cautiously open. Everything was quiet. They slipped out, locked the door, started down the passage. Somewhere another door opened; they heard feminine voices, turned back and ducked into the alcove across from the door.

  “Once we’re past the office area, we should be able to make it downstairs all right,” Telzey said softly.

  Gaziel studied her a moment, lips pursed. “Now we start them thinking we’re hiding out in the forest, eh?”

  “Yes. Looks like the best move, doesn’t it?”

  Gaziel nodded. “Wish we’d had a few more hours to prepare for it, though. Getting to the aircars is likely to be a problem.”

  “I know. It can’t be helped.”

  “No,” Gaziel agreed. “Between Linden and Ti planning to mess up our minds and the Martri computer waiting around to introduce some fancy deletion procedure, we’d better try to clear out of here the first chance we get! And this is it.”

  The side door to Linden’s armored car opened to the third key Telzey tried. They slipped inside, drew the door shut.

  Telzey settled into the driver’s seat. “I’ll get it started. Look around and see what he has here.”

  “Handguns,” Gaziel announced a moment later.

  “A kind we can use?”

  “Well, they’re heavy things. I’ll find out how they work.” There were clicking noises as she checked one of the guns. The car engine came to life. Telzey eased the vehicle back from the wall of the building, turned it around. It went gliding off quickly across the lawn toward the nearest stand of garden trees. Gaziel looked over at her. “It handles all right?”

  “It handles fine! Beautiful car. I’ll come up on the taloaks from the other side.”

  “We can use the guns,” Gaziel said. “I’ll tie two of them to my belt for now. Nothing much else.”

  Taloaks made great climbing trees, and a sizable grove of them stretched to within a hundred yards of the residential area of the main building complex. Linden’s car slipped up on the trees from the forest side of the estate, edged in among thickets of ornamental ground cover, stopped in the center of one of the densest clusters of growth. Its side door opened. Telzey climbed from the driver’s seat to the top of the door, then on to the top of the car, followed by Gaziel. Each of them now had one of the big handguns Gaziel had discovered fastened to her dress belt. A thick taloak branch hung low over the car. They scrambled up to it, moved on.

  Some five minutes later, they sat high in a tree near the edge of the grove, straddling branches six feet apart. They could watch much of the ground in front of the building through the leaves and were safely out of sight themselves. So far, there’d been no indication of activity in the area.

  “It might be a while before they start looking for Linden,” Gaziel said presently.

  “Unless Ti checks in to see how our indoctrination is coming along,” Telzey said.

  “Yes, I suppose Ti’s likely to—”

  Gaziel’s voice broke off. Telzey looked over at her. She sat still, frozen, staring down at Linden’s gun which she was holding in both hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Telzey said after a moment. “I wasn’t really sure myself until just now.”

  Gaziel slowly refastened the gun to her belt, lifted her head.

  “I’m nothing,” she said, grayfaced. “A copy! A wirehead.”

  “You’re me,” Telzey said, watching her.

  Gaziel shook her head. “I’m not you. You felt me get that order?”

  Telzey nodded. “Ti’s working through the computer. You were to take control of me—use the gun if you had to—then get me and Linden’s car back to the main entrance.”

  “And I’d have done it!” Gaziel said. “I was about to point the gun at you. You canceled the order—”

  “Yes. I blanked out the computer contact.”

  Gaziel drew a ragged breath. “So you’re back to being a psi,” she said. “How did that happen?”

  “Linden’s been trying to probe me. Off and on since yesterday. He pushed open a few channels finally. I finished doing the rest of it about an hour ago.”

  Gaziel nodded. “And you took him over after you knocked him out. What’s the real situation now?”

  Telzey said, “Ti did check. He had his own key to the treatment rooms. I woke Linden up and had him tell Ti a story that got things boiling. What it amounts to is that we put guns on Linden and got his personal standard communicator from him before we knocked him out. We plan to find a spot in the forest where we can hole up in his car and call for help. So they’re coming after us with their other armored cars—eleven of them—in case the order Ti just gave you doesn’t bring us back.”

  Gaziel stared at her a moment, face still ashen. “Ti’s going with them?”

  “Yes. And he’s taking Linden along. They’re about to start. I’m still in contact with Linden, of course, and I know how to get to the aircars. But they’ve stationed some guards at key points in the complex. It will take us some time to maneuver around those, and if we’re seen, Ti could come back with his patrols to stop us. So we have to make sure
first they can’t get back.” She added, “There they are now!”

  A groundcar swept around the curve of the building complex. Others followed at fifty-yard intervals. They arrowed across the lawns in the direction of the forest wall, vanished behind trees. Telzey said, “Ti and Linden are in Five and Six. We can start down.” She looked at Gaziel. “You are coming with me, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m coming with you!” Gaziel said. “I’ll help any way I can. I simply want all this to stop!”

  VIII

  Telzey locked the last control into position, pushed her hair back out of her face, looked over at Gaziel watching her from the edge of the console pit. A low heavy humming filled the Dramateer Room. “We’re set,” she said.

  “Any detectable reaction from the minds yet?” asked Gaziel.

  Telzey bit her lip reflectively. “Well, they’re here, all right!” she said. “Around us. I can feel them. Like a whole army. Spooky! But they’re just watching, I think. They haven’t tried to interfere, so it doesn’t seem they’re going to be a problem. After all, we are getting out. It’s what they wanted, and they seem to understand that we’re doing it.” She added, “Not that I’d like to tempt them by walking across one of their stages! But we won’t have to do that.”

  “Just what have you been doing?” Gaziel said. “I couldn’t begin to follow it.”

  “I couldn’t either,” Telzey said. “Linden did it. I sort of watched myself go through the motions.” She flexed her fingers, looked at them. “Ti’s forest things have cut the groundcars off from the gate and are chasing them up to the fort. One of the cars—well, they caught it. Ti and Linden already are in the fort. Ti’s tried to contact the main complex, but the comm line leads through the computer and it’s been cut off there. He knows the computer must be doing it, of course, and he’s tried to override.”

  “The override system’s deactivated?”

  “That’s the first thing we did,” Telzey said. “They’ll need a calculated minimum of thirty-two minutes to wipe out the forest puppets from the fort.”