The Syndic

by C. M. Kornbluth

  XV

  Commander Grinnel was officer of the day, and sore as a boil about it.O.N.I. wasn't supposed to catch the duty. You risked your life oncloak-and-dagger missions; let the shore-bound fancy dans do thedrudgery. But there he was, nevertheless, in the guard house office witha .45 on his hip, the interminable night stretching before him, and theten-man main guard snoring away outside.

  He eased his bad military conscience by reflecting that there wasn'tanything to guard, that patrolling the shore establishment was just wornout tradition. The ships and boats had their own watch. At the veryfurthest stretch of the imagination, a tarzan might sneak into town andtry to steal some ammo. Well, if he got caught he got caught. And if hedidn't, who'd know the difference with the accounting as sloppy as itwas here? They did things differently in Iceland.

  * * * * *

  They crept through the midnight dark of New Portsmouth's outskirts. Asbefore, she led with her small hand. Lights flared on a wharf where,perhaps, a boat was being serviced. A slave screamed somewhere under thelash or worse.

  "Here's the doss house," Martha whispered. It was smack betweenpaydays--part of the plan--and the house was dark except for thehopefully-lit parlor. They ducked down the alley that skirted it andaround the back of Bachelor Officer Quarters. The sentry, if he weregoing his rounds at all, would be at the other end of his post when theypassed--part of the plan.

  Lee Falcaro was quartered alone in a locked room of the O.N.I. building.Martha had, from seventy miles away, frequently watched the lock beingopened and closed.

  They dove under the building's crumbling porch two minutes before a latecrowd of drinkers roared down the street and emerged when they weresafely gone. There was a charge of quarters, a little yeoman, snoozingunder a dim light in the O.N.I. building's lobby.

  "Anybody else?" Charles whispered edgily.

  "No. Just her. She's asleep. Dreaming about--never mind. Come onCharles. He's out."

  The little yeoman didn't stir as they passed him and crept up thestairs. Lee Falcaro's room was part of the third-floor attic, finishedoff specially. You reached it by a ladder from a second-floor one-manoffice.

  The lock was an eight-button piccolo--very rare in New Portsmouth andpresumably loot from the mainland. Charles' fingers flew over it:1-7-5-4-, 2-2-7-3-, 8-2-6-6- and it flipped open silently.

  But the door squeaked.

  "She's waking up!" Martha hissed in the dark. "She'll yell!"

  Charles reached the bed in two strides and clamped his hand over LeeFalcaro-Bennet's mouth. Only a feeble "mmm!" came out, but the girlthrashed violently in his grip.

  "Shut up, lady!" Martha whispered. "Nobody's going to rape you."

  There was an astonished "mmm?" and she subsided, trembling.

  "Go ahead," Martha told him. "She won't yell."

  He took his hand away nervously. "We've come to administer the oath ofcitizenship," he said.

  The girl answered in the querulous voice that was hardly hers: "Youpicked a strange time for it. Who are you? What's all the whisperingfor?"

  He improvised. "I'm Commander Lister. Just in from Iceland aboard atomsub _Taft_. They didn't tell you in case it got turned down, but I wassent for authorization to give you citizenship. You know how unusual itis for a woman."

  "Who's this child? And why did you get me up in the dead of night?"

  He dipped deeply into Martha's probings of the past week."Citizenship'll make the Guard Intelligence gang think twice before theytry to grab you again. Naturally they'd try to block us if weadministered the oath in public. Ready?"

  "Dramatic," she sneered. "Oh, I suppose so. Get it over with."

  "Do you, Lee Bennet, solemnly renounce all allegiances previously heldby you and pledge your allegiance to the North American Government?"

  "I do," she said.

  There was a choked little cry from Martha. "Hell's fire," she said."Like breaking a leg!"

  "What are you talking about, little girl?" Lee asked, coldly alert.

  "It's all right," Charles said wearily. "Don't you know my voice? I'mOrsino. You turned me in back there because they don't give, citizenshipto women and so your de-conditioning didn't get triggered off. I managedto break for the woods. A bunch of natives got me. I busted loose withthe help of Martha here. Among her other talents, the kid's a mindreader. I remember the triggering shocked me out of a year's growth; howdo you feel?"

  Lee was silent, but Martha answered in a voice half puzzled and halfcontemptuous: "She feels fine, but she's crying."

  "Am not," Lee Falcaro gulped.

  Charles turned from her, embarrassed. In a voice that strove to benormal, he whispered to Martha: "What about the boat?"

  "Still there," she said.

  Lee Falcaro said tremulously: "Wh-wh-what boat?"

  "Martha's staked out a reactor-driven patrol speedboat at a wharf. Oneguard aboard. She--watched it in operation and I have some small-boattime. I really think we can grab it. If we get a good head-start, theydon't have anything based here that'll catch up with it. If we get abreak on the weather, their planes won't be able to pick us up."

  Lee Falcaro stood up, dashing tears from her eyes. "Then let's go," shesaid evenly.

  "How's the C.Q.--that man downstairs, Martha?"

  "Still sleepin'. The way's as clear now as it'll ever be."

  They closed the door behind them and Charles worked the lock. The Chargeof Quarters looked as though he couldn't be roused by anything lessthan an earthquake as they passed--but Martha stumbled on one of therotting steps after they were outside the building.

  "Patrick and Bridget rot my clumsy feet off!" she whispered. "He'sawake."

  "Under the porch," Charles said. They crawled into the dank spacebetween porch floor and ground. Martha kept up a scarcely-audiblevolleyfire of maledictions aimed at herself.

  When they stopped abruptly Charles knew it was bad.

  Martha held up her hand for silence, and Charles imagined in the darkthat he could see the strained and eerie look of her face. After a pauseshe whispered: "He's using the--what do you call it? You talk andsomebody hears you far away? A prowler he says to them. A wild man fromthe woods. The bitches bastard must have seen you in your handsome suitof skin and dirt, Charles. Oh, we're _for_ it! May my toe that stumbledgrow the size of a boulder! May my cursed eyes that didn't see the stepfall out!"

  They huddled down in the darkness and Charles took Lee Falcaro's handreassuringly. It was cold. A moment later his other hand was taken, withgrim possessiveness, by the child.

  Martha whispered: "The fat little man. The man who kills, Charles."

  He nodded. He thought he had recognized Grinnel from her picture.

  "And ten men waking up. Charles, do you remember the way to the wharf?"

  "Sure," he said. "But we're net going to get separated."

  "They're mean, mad men," she said. "Bloody-minded. And the little man isthe worst."

  They heard the stomping feet and a babble of voices, and CommanderGrinnel's clear, fat-man's tenor: "Keep it quiet, men. He may still bein the area." The feet thundered over their heads on the porch.

  In the barest of whispers Martha said: "The man that slept tells themthere was only one, and he didn't see what he was like except for thebare skin and the long hair. And the fat man says they'll find himand--and--and says they'll find him." Her hand clutched Charles'desperately and then dropped it as the feet thudded overhead again.

  Grinnel was saying: "Half of you head up the street and half down. Checkthe alleys, check open window--hell, I don't have to tell you. If wedon't find the bastard on the first run we'll have to wake up the wholeGuard Battalion and patrol the whole base with them all the goddamnight, so keep your eyes open. Take off."

  "Remember the way to the wharf, Charles," Martha said. "Good-bye lady.Take care of him. Take good care of him." She wrenched her hand away anddarted out from under the porch.

  Lee muttered some agonized monosyllable. Charles starte
d out after thechild instinctively and then collapsed weakly back onto the dirt. Theyheard the rest.

  "Hey, you--it's him, by God! Get him! Get him!"

  "Here he is, down here! Head him off!"

  "Over there!" Grinnel yelled. "Head him off! Head him--good work!"

  "For God's sake. It's a girl."

  "Those goddam yeomen and their goddam prowlers."

  Grinnel: "Where are you from, kid?"

  "That's no kid from the base, commander. Look at her!"

  "I just was, sarge. Looks good to me, don't it to you?"

  Grinnel, tolerant, fatherly, amused: "Now, men, have your fun but keepit quiet."

  "Don't be afraid, kid--" There was an animal howl from Martha's throatthat made Lee Falcaro shake hysterically and Charles grind hisfingernails into his palms.

  Grinnel: "Sergeant, you'd better tie your shirt around her head and takeher into the O.N.I. building."

  "Why, commander! And let that lousy little yeoman in on it?"

  Grinnel, amused, a good Joe, a man's man: "That's up to you, men. Justkeep it quiet."

  "Why, commander, sometimes I like to make a little noise--"

  "Ow!" a man yelled. There was a scuffle of feet and babbling voices."Get her, you damn fool!" "She bit my hand--" "There she goes--" and asingle emphatic shot.

  Grinnel's voice said into the silence that followed: "That's that, men."

  "Did you _have_ to shoot, Commander?" an aggrieved Guardsman said.

  "Don't blame me, fellow. Blame the guy that let her go."

  "God-dammit, she bit me--"

  Somebody said as though he didn't mean it: "We ought to take hersomeplace."

  "The hell with that. Let 'em get her in the morning."

  "Them as wants her." A cackle of harsh laughter.

  Grinnel, tolerantly: "Back to the guardhouse, men. And keep it quiet."

  They scuffled off and there was silence again for long minutes. Charlessaid at last: "We'll go down to the wharf." They crawled out and lookedfor a moment from the shelter of the building at the bundle lying in theroad.

  Lee muttered: "Grinnel."

  "Shut up," Charles said. He led her down deserted alleys and aroundempty corners, strictly according to plan.

  The speedboat was a twenty-foot craft at Wharf Eighteen, bobbing on thewater safely removed from other moored boats and ships. Lee Falcaro letout a small, smothered shriek when she saw a uniformed sailor sitting inthe cockpit, apparently staring directly at them.

  "It's all right," Charles said. "He's a drunk. He's always out cold bythis time of night." Smoothly Charles found the rope locker, cut lengthswith the sailor's own knife and bound and gagged him. The man's eyesopened, weary, glazed and red while this was going on and closed again."Help me lug him ashore," Charles said. Lee Falcaro took the sailor'slegs and they eased him onto the wharf.

  They went back into the cockpit. "This is deep water," Charles said, "soyou'll have no trouble with pilotage. You can read a compass and charts.There's an automatic dead reckoner. My advice is just to pull themoderator rods out quarter-speed, point the thing west, pull the rodsout as far as they'll go--and relax. Either they'll overtake you or theywon't."

  She was beginning to get the drift. She said nervously: "You're talkingas though you're not coming along."

  "I'm not," he said, playing the lock of the arms rack. The bar fellaside and he pulled a .45 pistol from its clamp. He thought back andremembered where the boat's diminutive magazine was located, broke thefeeble lock and found a box of short, fat, heavy little cartridges. Hebegan to snap them into the pistol's magazine.

  "What do you think you're up to?" Lee Falcaro demanded.

  "Appointment with Commander Grinnel," he said. He slid the heavymagazine into the pistol's grip and worked the slide to jack a cartridgeinto the chamber.

  "Shall I cast off for you?" he asked.

  "Don't be a fool," she said. "You sound like a revival of a MickeySpillane comedy. You can't bring her back to life and you've got a jobto do for the Syndic."

  "You do it," he said, and snapped another of the blunt, fat, littlecartridges into the magazine.

  She cast off, reached for the moderator-rod control and pulled it hard.

  "Gee," he gasped, "you'll sink us!" and dashed for the controls. You hadseconds before the worm-gears turned, the cadmium rods withdrew fromtheir slots, the reactor seethed and sent boiling metal cycling throughthe turbine--

  He slammed down manual levers that threw off the fore and aft mooringlines, spun the wheel, bracing himself, and saw Lee Falcaro go down tothe deck in a tangle, the .45 flying from her hand and skidding acrossthe knurled plastic planking. But by then the turbine was screaming analarm to the whole base and they were cutting white water through thebuoy-marked gap in the harbor net.

  Lee Falcaro got to her feet. "I'm not proud of myself," she said to him."But she told me to take care of you."

  He said grimly: "We could have gone straight to the wharf without thatlittle layover to pick you up. Take the wheel."

  "Charles, I--"

  He snarled at her.

  "_Take the wheel._"

  She did, and he went aft to stare through the darkness. The harborlights were twinkling pin-points; then his eyes misted so he could notsee them at all. He didn't give a damn if a dozen corvettes were alreadyslicing the bay in pursuit. He had failed.