Patron of the Arts

by William Rotsler

Women. Lots of women. Big bosomy blondes, all silken and eager. All your sexual fantasies fulfilled, Huo. Overpopulation made life cheap. Fathers sold their daughters into contract slavery just to be certain they survived and were fed. And those women would be quite eager to please, to get out of the megacities, to get out of the lower depths of the arcology cities, to submit to the power of their contractors. Power. All kinds of power in a world bulging with the weak and the weakened. Toy with lives, change their reality, play God. And all the rest. Food, homes, delights, services, protection, fame.

  But only if I am dead.

  And not dead as Brian Thorne, but as Diego Braddock.

  Was it so simple that all I had to do was send a tight-beam to my board of directors, saying I was alive and well on Mars and to slap Huo in jail?

  No, he’d produce the double. It was probably a good double. When was the last time I had met with the board? Four months before the trip out—that was five months ago. A man can change a lot in five months, Huo would say, if anyone noticed the double’s slight differences. Wait, I had seen Fredrickson a week or so before I left. No, that still left two months or more, time for a lot of changes. How long had Huo been planning this? There was all that time after Madelon, all those many, many months of just not wanting to be concerned with all the businesses, all the decisions. Huo had done a fine job then. I had given him an enormous bonus, enough to retire on. But not live in the luxury he saw around me.

  Envy is such a useless emotion. At least you can understand greed. Greed was responsible for most of our technology, and I suppose we deserve what we got.

  Suppose I just got on a return flight and went home? Could I be certain one of the crew or one of the passengers was not an agent? Was I trapped here? I started getting mad again. No one tells Brian Thorne what to do! Some of my victor’s elation returned. I would go home on the next ship, and damn any claw-fingered zongo to stop me! I’d walk into my office and laser that son-of-a-bitch right at my own desk! He’d fall down in bloody chunks and—

  I was feeling sick again.

  I returned the reader after wiping the tape, then double-wiping it for any residual magnetism. I dropped the tape into a torch-labeled container on the street and checked into a Guild-operated hostel. I paid extra for a private room and I lay there a long time trying to figure it out. By now Huo knew I knew someone was trying to kill me. He wouldn’t know I suspected him, or I thought not, at any rate. Were the three I killed Osbourne and Sayles and some hired gun? Were there others?

  I got up, went out, climbed back into my one-eyed sandcat, and took off for the Sunstrum mine. I climbed down off the cat tired and scratch-faced and just stood there, holding onto the door. Sven Sunstrum cycled the lock and came out to me himself. He looked at me and at the beat-up cat and at the patch I had welded over the broken lock so I could pressurize the cabin.

  “Come in,” he said.

  I sat down in the living room of their dome, slumped into a chair. They looked at me expectantly, waiting. “My name isn’t Diego Braddock,” I said. “It’s Brian Thorne.”

  “The Brian Thorne?” Nova asked, her eyes wide. I nodded. “I came here incognito so I could avoid trouble.” I smiled sadly at that. “Now I’m afraid I might get someone hurt.”

  “Do you need help?” Sunstrum asked.

  “Someone is trying to kill me.” I took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “And I don’t know why. Or which why.”

  Sunstrum looked at his daughter, then back at me. “Over Nova?” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Probably not. They are very professional.”

  Li Wing said, “There are many types of men here. They were many things before. It attracts certain kinds of men, men who would know how to kill.” Her eyes went from me to her husband.

  “Who would want to kill you?” asked Sunstrum. “As Thorne, I mean.”

  I shrugged. “Many, I suppose.”

  “Brian Thorne,” Nova said thoughtfully. “I thought you were much older.”

  I grinned wearily at her. “Right now I am.” The exhaustion was setting in as my body ran out of adrenaline.

  Nova said to her parents, “He’s Brian Thorne.”

  “I heard him explain, dear,” Li Wing said softly.

  “No, you don’t understand. He’s Brian Thorne.” Her face clouded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I sighed and her father spoke. “He didn’t want you hurt.” He looked at me. “What are you going to do now? Do you want us to protect you here? We could get a message off to Earthcom right away.”

  “No,” I said. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I want. I just wanted to tell you . . . Nova and you.”

  “You didn’t tell me before,” Nova said, “because you wanted me to love the real you, not all that money, right?”

  “Please, dear,” Li Wing said.

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve told you now,” I said. “I think I’d like to sleep.” And I think I did, right then, right there.

  10

  I awoke in the dark with a warm, soft body slithering up my torso. A fruit-fresh mouth coming to me in the night, bearing gifts of love. I held her rounded bare hips in my hands and said, “No.”

  “It will make you feel better, darling.”

  “My mind wouldn’t be on it,” I said, and grinned. “And that would be a waste.”

  She took the rebuff without rancor and snuggled next to me, and we held each other. “What are you going to do now?” she asked at length.

  “I’m going back to town to see if there is anything in yet.” I stopped her protests with fingers on her lips. “I may have gotten them all, so don’t worry.”

  “But suppose you haven’t!”

  “No one lives forever, not even with the longevity treatments, love. I’ll be careful. But I must have information to work on.”

  She hugged me tighter and I felt the rich bounty of her breasts against my side and the protective thigh across my loins. I breathed her black mist of hair and for moment I just wanted to stay there, safe, until the bad guys went away.

  But they weren’t going away. They wouldn’t be paid for missing. If they were locals recruited for the job they’d want the money. If they were professionals they had their reputations to maintain. Even assassins have egos and images to maintain, I thought ruefully. No, they’d try again. If I had gotten the local crew there would be another, or the local control would recruit another team. Because of Nova there might be more than a few ready to prepare me for a burial in several parts.

  I had to return to town, though. Null-Edit tapes are delivered only to the addressee. I needed information, and even a bland Don’t worry, boss from Huo would tell me something, in a negative fashion. Sunstrum had fixed my sandcat’s headlight and recharged my laser. Nova took it badly that she couldn’t go, and was angry when neither her father nor I would allow any of the miners to go along to watch for backshooters. It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, I just couldn’t ask any of them to risk his life for a man he probably didn’t like anyway, just to obey his boss, whom he did like.

  I came back into Bradbury from the north, slipping in as the tail-end cat in an ore train down from Arlington Burl’s Enyo and Eris mines. Dusty and dented, we pulled into a dump yard and I slipped away without anyone paying much attention.

  The legless dispatcher handed me a Null-Edit tape and a tightbeam message and shoved a reader toward me without a word. I went into my “office” and hunkered down on the toilet to see what Huo had to say.

  If I hadn’t been alerted I wouldn’t have been suspicious. There Huo was, sitting at his desk at the General Anomaly office, looking cool and confident, but slightly troubled.

  “Sir, I received your tightbeam and hurried to shoot one back for confidential taping.” He looked as earnest and as reliable as ever. “But, sir, we have to have more information. Who is trying to kill you? Are these trained personnel or local recruits? Did you recognize any of them?”<
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  He looked at some red-backed reports quickly, and glanced at someone off pickup. “Mr. Thorne, we are investigating this as rapidly as we can. If you keep yourself handy we will get a complete report to you as soon as possible.”

  Stay still, Thorne, I can shoot better that way. Moving targets are no fair.

  “All other business is going well, sir, everything normal.”

  Stay calm, don’t get worried, sit there until the target we painted on you gets dry.

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as possible, sir.” He started to click off, but stopped. A frown of concern creased his brow. “And, sir, watch yourself.”

  You bet I will, Huo-boy.

  Was I being overly suspicious? Was the problem a fantasy of Bowie’s? Why, after all these years, should I doubt Huo? But Bowie was neither a drinker nor a psycho, and I had known his courage and loyalty for a long time.

  I simply could not take a chance. I had to go back to Earth, and fast.

  I ripped open the seal on the tightbeam message. It was from Sandler, and my heart sank. Expensive joke or poor swindle. Thorne here and in good health. Too busy to play games. Reporting your nonsense to Publitex. Sandler, Gen. Anomaly.

  Either they had gotten to him, or the double was superb. I was suddenly sorry I had not worked out some sort of personal code with Lowell, but it was too late to do anything by long distance. I returned the reader and cached the tape and the message flimsy in case I needed them later, in court. But somehow I doubted that this sort of thing would be settled in any court.

  I borrowed the dispatcher’s city communicator and called the shuttle office. “What’s the first ship back to Earth?”

  “The Elizabeth II is going back in, oh, ten hours.”

  “I have return passage for one, any class. Please verify. The name is Braddock, from Publitex.”

  There was a long pause and when he spoke the voice was different. “Uh, listen, I have a message here, fella. Your ticket has been nulled. No credit. Sorry. I guess your company has cut off your air.”

  Yes, I was certain they had. It was a cheap ploy, but it was momentarily effective. And a moment might be all they needed. I was so used to my Unicard that for a moment I was at a loss to figure out how to buy my passage. Then several alternatives occurred to me, from selling the goods I had brought to having someone else buy a ticket. I started back to the sandcat. I intended to tape a block of explanation and goodbye to Nova, look up someone to buy my goods, head for the Spaceport, and go.

  At the Guild office I ran into Johann, who looked at me funny.

  “Just the man I wanted to see,” I said, pulling him aside. “What do you offer me for the stuff I brought in?”

  His eyes narrowed and he looked uncomfortable and found it hard to speak. “I need passage money,” I said. “Quick. I’ve got troubles, Johann. All I need is enough to get back.”

  “You have nothing to sell, Braddock. They slapped an embargo on all your goods and sealed every container. There was some kind of notice from Earth and the Marine captain is looking for you. They say you’re a thief. Some kind of computer switch they say.”

  I looked at him hard. “Do you think I’m a thief?”

  “No. But they’re looking anyway.”

  I was neatly boxed. I had no tangibles to transform into a passage ticket. But I might have an intangible. “Johann . . . have you ever heard of Brian Thorne?”

  He looked at me narrowly. “He after you?”

  “No. I’m him. I’m Brian Thorne.”

  Johann looked around the bar and his eyes wouldn’t meet mine.

  “Got any proof?” I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think I’d need any.”

  Johann looked into the middle distance and spoke slowly. “I don’t say you are, and I don’t say you aren’t, but I heard talk. The Robert Oppenheimer got in yesterday and there’s a lot of gossip going around.”

  He paused, looking me over, and I indicated that he should go on.

  “The talk is . . . that Brian Thorne has gone busted. It was only mentioned because he was the push behind the archaeological digs around here.” He was watching me for reaction, but I ignored him. So Huo had done more than gouge a few million. He had managed to shift everything. And Sandler either helped or was massively deceived. Probably the latter. They must have a good double, someone who had been in training for years.

  Suddenly the full impact of it hit, emotionally as well as intellectually. I was busted, broke, and worse. I had killers after me and I was boxed up on a world almost without friends.

  I turned back into an awareness of Johann’s inspection. I shrugged. “I’m Thorne. Braddock is just a getaway name, when I want privacy.” He shrugged back, indicating a neutral opinion. “I don’t blame you,” I said. “But I need to get back to Earth. Someone . . . several someones . . . are hunting me.”

  Johann took another long look and shrugged. “I’d stake you, but I don’t think I have the cash. There’s something wrong with the net, too; we can receive but we can’t see, to send past the satellite. They ought to have it fixed in a day or so. I could get a message through to my bank and have the passage paid for at that end, but . . .”

  “Never mind. Thank you. I’ll go see the Sunstrums.” He nodded agreement. I went out of the bar and was heading toward the sandcat lot when they tried again.

  This time I was alert and ready. I took my time making an approach to the sandcat. I stood between two big fertilizer drums and studied the hiding places within sight of the quickest transportation back to the landing field. Everything seemed to be normal. Or as normal as I imagined it should be. There were two dusty drivers checking shocks on the second ore transporter and one lone miner doing some welding on a batter stripper with the Arlington Burl logo.

  I edged out and walked quickly and purposefully toward the cat. I was reaching up toward the latch when the door sizzled and the paint boiled and popped.

  Throwing myself sideways as I drew, I hit the ground in a roll and kept rolling until I was behind the next vehicle. Either they hadn’t set their laser right or they were a long way off, but I was alive. I jumped up and ran in a crouch past two more transporters and halted behind a trencher. I searched the probable area where they might be, but saw nothing.

  My boots kicked up puffs of dust as I turned and sprinted for the nearest dome cluster, angling past it and running hard. There was an area between my shoulder blades that just seemed to wait for a laser bolt. My breath was coming hard when I pulled up between a repair dome and a parts storage building. I was also angry. I didn’t like running, I didn’t like getting shot at, I didn’t like not knowing who it was that was shooting. But since there wasn’t much I could do about it, I started walking toward the landing site.

  It was full dark when I got there but there was one shuttle on the ground besides the gray-colored port lifter. I couldn’t read the name, but the logo was Spaceflight’s black-and-gold.

  They were bound to have someone here, but I had to take that chance. I watched from under a big Caterpillar ore carrier until it seemed safe, then started running towards the Spaceflight shuttle. Far off to my left the fused sand surface of the field bubbled and collapsed in a long rip at right angles to my run. I broke stride, veering to the left to throw the shooter off, and vaulted the sudden slit bubbling before me. My telltale was pinging furiously and I was scared.

  But panicking is a self-destructive state and the worse time to panic is during stresses that produce panic. So I kept running, zigging and zagging as I sought the shelter of the big solid shuttle. At least its bulk would slow down the burn of any hand-held laser.

  I careened around the rear end of the shuttle and one of the blinker lights and part of a hatch control were cut off. The bits and pieces clattered to the fused sand as I jumped up on the opposite side of the shuttlecraft from the assassins.

  I looked down to see one, two, three long rips appear below me on the surface of the field. They were firing under the
landing pods, hoping to cut me off at the ankles. I took a fix, backtracking along the ruler-straight lines, then leaped up to fire over the back hatch. I sent several pulses into the darkness, then swept the arc before me with a dangerous expenditure of energy. There was a crash and a gurgling scream and I pulled back with a laser almost too hot to handle. The blue warning light was blinking and I didn’t dare fire it again for awhile. The entrance port of the shuttle was dogged shut and my pounding produced no response. I felt very much alone out there and scanned the darkness for flanking snipers.

  Suddenly I was pinned by a bright cone of light. “What the hell is going on out there?” There was a roar of anger from the port shuttlecraft as the commander flooded the area with light.

  You’ll be the death of me, I thought grimly as I remained motionless, hugging the steel of the shuffle. Turn that light off!

  The light swung away and was scanning the area where I had targeted my shots, but I didn’t wait to see what damage I had caused. I ran.

  The fused sand field beneath my feet gave way suddenly to the soft sand of the desert and I slogged on through the transporter tracks and the churned-up parking areas. I ran blindly and sought darkness as safety.

  When I fell at last with gasping exhaustion behind the time-melted lip of a small crater I was without thought. I was grateful to be alive, and very weary. After some time I began to pull myself together. The laser was still hot, but the warning light had gone off. I couldn’t check the charge in the dark, but it had to be low.

  Slowly, I began to think.

  They were watching the port here. Would they be watching it as Ares Center, or Burroughs? How many were there? It seemed as if a faceless army was out to get me. Anyone I met on any street could be one of them!

  Finally I got to my feet and faced back toward the port. I could see lights and both shuttles were lit up. I could see someone standing up in the hatch of one, and several others against the light. There were two sandcats approaching and one had a flashing red light atop it. Should I go back and tell the local authorities the problem? How could I be certain some of them had not been bought? My frustration turned again to anger, and I started off to the left, circling the field and coming up on several sandcats parked near Kochima’s Star Palace. The second one was unlocked, provisioned, and ready. I climbed in and took off with a roar, heading out.