“Joe, there are a lot of suffering people in here—and I’m not talking about myself. I got off lightly, I reckon. But they won’t let us mingle with the prisoners in the Ambulatory Organ Pool, and it’s not just because they’re longterm prisoners. There’s … such a shortage of organs now that they’re drawing on the short-term prisoners—the labor force, and so on. So they must have some other reason for keeping those people apart—and I think I know what it is.”
A thrill of pure horror ran down my spine as I realized the ultimate to which Compulsory Donation could go.
“You may not agree with the Foes,” she continued, “but at least their principles are sound. They could do with a man like you, Joe.”
This tallied with my own thoughts of recent weeks. It was therefore a combination of factors which caused me to throw in my lot with the woman who had once driven me to a nervous breakdown by her unthinking inhumanity: Carioca Jones. The closing of the farm, the attitude of Lambert, the growing public concern, not to mention my own suspicions, the disappearance of Marigold, the hints from Joanne … and, possibly, my dislike of Gallaugher … all these factors added up and resulted in my becoming the only male member of an organization consisting of female nuts.
“This is quite an honor for the Foes,” twittered Carioca, hardly able to believe my decision. “I can’t wait to tell the girls.”
“God damn it, I’m only a slithe farmer, and a failed one too.”
“No, Joe. You don’t realize. Your presence will lend an air of respectability to the society.” She spoke with unaccustomed gravity. “People do tend to look on the Foes as, well, cranks, you know—but with you among us, they’ll have to take us seriously. Heaven knows, I’m not devoted to the male sex,” she continued surprisingly, “but a few more men like yourself might help to bring some of my girls down to earth. You see, they have this obsession that nobody listens to them, merely because they don’t see immediate results for our demonstrations. So they get so frustrated, and they start shouting all those words you people complain about. And I keep telling them: nobody, but nobody, pays serious attention to a woman who screeches obscenities. But they don’t listen to me, Joe. They’d listen to you. They’d listen to a man, God damn them.”
But as it happened the Foes were in fact making nationwide progress. Hardly a day went by without Newspocket carrying the story of another demonstration, another confrontation, another deputation meeting with members of the Government. Other bodies sprang up with similar aims but more moderate methods: the Freedom League, the Blood Brothers, the more prosaically named Western Association for the Reform of the Penal Code.
Now that I was beginning to think in terms of grafts and transplants, I was surprised to observe the differing attitudes of various people toward this aspect of the law. Fresh from a fiery meeting of the Foes, I stepped out of the Princess Louise almost into the arms of Rennie, who was prowling the streets in case of trouble, two uniformed men at his heels. I asked after the policeman who had been attacked by the land lamprey.
“Would you believe it, Joe, the poor guy’s only just got his new arm? By Christ, I don’t know what the Pool’s coming to, these days. I had to bring the utmost pressure on that little prick Gallaugher to get any action at all. Sometimes it seems to me the way to stay healthy is to go to jail! Uh … they tell me you’ve joined the Foes, Joe. That doesn’t sit very happily on my stomach. It doesn’t sit happily at all.”
“How are you coming along with the sabotage case?” I asked hastily.
“Building up nicely.” He shot me a piercing look, as though hoping to surprise a confession. “I’ve been able to call off the lampreys; we have all we need. It’s just a question of tying up a few loose ends. Yes, I was very sorry to hear about you joining the Foes, Joe.”
His suggestive persistence annoyed me.
“Look. Are you trying to tell me Doug Marshall was right? The Foes were responsible for tampering with his gear?”
He wouldn’t tell me anything, of course; that wasn’t his way. In any event, the audience from the Princess Louise was pouring past us and a few curious Foes had gathered within earshot. He merely shrugged and moved away, calling his men to heel. Irritated, I started to ask something sarcastic about the mastermind behind the illegal immigration racket—concerning which all had gone strangely quiet—but he was out of earshot.
As I became involved with the work of the Foes of Bondage I came across more instances similar to that of Miranda Marjoribanks, where a quick and dubious graft had been obtained on payment of a substantial fee. It was becoming increasingly apparent that something was rotten in the state pen.
One day Lambert approached me at the club. His manner of late had become abstracted in the extreme—and toward me, ambivalent. I had changed from drinking acquaintance to political opponent in a few months, and he couldn’t quite figure it. He stared at me with eyes red-rimmed, reeking of drink. “Sagar,” he said, and people turned their heads. “I’ve been checking up, and I tell you again that goddamned girl was sent home. Now will you stop asking your goddamned questions?”
“I haven’t mentioned the subject for days, Heath.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake, your goddamned organization has. They’ve got hold of the story now and they’re pestering me, and I can’t take much more of it. You’ve been spreading vicious rumors, Sagar. You’re a bastard, you know that?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Bryce Alcester came to the rescue. “We don’t want this sort of talk in the club, do we?”
The matter was smoothed over but the question remained; Lambert was unhappy about Marigold. The very fact of his frequent and unnecessary reassurances showed this. He felt there was something going on behind his back, but he couldn’t pin it down. It was noticeable that he avoided meeting Gallaugher in the club. The two prison officers came on different evenings, as though observing an unwritten rota.
Then, one August afternoon in that dreadful divided room at the pen, Joanne suddenly said, “Darling,” and lunged toward the wire with her hands, as though she must touch me. Instinctively I moved toward her too and my heart was leaping at the love in her eyes which even the zombie guard must have recognized; then her steel hands clattered against the mesh and I was glad she couldn’t read the horror in my mind because she might have thought it was for her, not her hands. Nevertheless I touched her fingertips—and felt the sickness of disappointment as she slipped a folded paper into my hand, because her whole performance had been an act and I didn’t want some lousy message; I wanted Joanne.
The message was not even from Joanne.
Dear Joe,
I want you please to help me because nobody here will listen to me when I say I haven’t done anything and I shouldn’t be here. Things happen here which shouldn’t happen to anybody. Please can you do something, Joe, you’re the only man I know.
Love, Marigold.
I stood outside the pen in the August sunshine, still shocked by Joanne’s spurious demonstration of affection, still telling myself it was the only way she could have got the message through, and my confused emotions began to coalesce into slow, insane anger as I knew for certain that sweet, perfect Marigold—who hadn’t even committed a crime—had been butchered inside those walls, in the name of the law.
15
The sea was black and the offshore islands bulked dark against the dim pinkness of the late evening sky. From the clubhouse came sounds of revelry; I could hear Ramsbottom’s booming laugh contrasted with the shrill cackle of Bryce Alcester. Gallaugher was not in there; I’d made sure of that. In the light from the undraped windows I could see a wisp of steam still rising from the catapult; the boiler pressure was well up, the horse ready to go. I stood for a moment watching the stars come out, the glider heavy on my back and the harness tight, and I wondered briefly how I’d got into this thing.
Then I walked to the horse, lay facedown and fastened the pin, took a deep breath, and kicked the lever. The horse rocketed down the rails with
a huge whoosh! of expended steam, and I could imagine the surprised silence followed by the buzz of comment and speculation in the clubhouse. Then the horse dropped away from under me and I was streaking low over the Strait; I remember thinking that if I lost my nerve, I could always make a wide turn and land near the club, telling people I’d fancied the idea of a night flight. The lights of the Skipper’s Marina receded away to my left and I eased the controls, banking left and following the coast. I saw the lights of a hovercar, bright pools against the darkness inland, moving slowly north.
I wore no wet suit because I didn’t want to be restricted in any way, and strapped to my waist was my minivid. I was deadly cold as the wind whipped my clothes untidily about me, and I began to worry about drag. I shifted in the tiny fuselage and felt the bulk of my laser pistol against my leg; the weapon was a concession from Rennie as a result of the giant squid incident and the presence of other fearsome creatures in the proximity of the farm. The lights of the state pen showed up beyond the dark headland of Black Point.
I dipped lower, rounding the headland and skimming low over the water toward the rectangular outline of the pen, ablaze with lights beyond the water’s edge. I was moving too fast; the masthead light of a moored yacht flashed within feet of my belly as I fishtailed in, trying to lose speed. I touched the air brakes gingerly and the glider roared and shuddered; then I quickly released the lever. There were guards around the base of the pen wall, near the wharf; I’d seen them before.
The wall loomed ahead, blacking out the sky.
I eased back the controls, gently, and almost stalled as I slid over the parallel laser beams and instantly into the dazzling brightness of the prison yard. Almost immediately I was out of the lights again and hurtling toward the playing fields. Now I had no choice. I had to set my craft down on the hard ground—something no glider was designed to do. I pulled the controls back, the nose lifted, I mumbled a prayer or a groan or something, and stalled.
I hit with appalling force. I had misjudged my height, and my forward speed was greater than I would have liked. For an eternity I bowled along, my head clasped in my hands, my knees drawn up to my chest, while the glider disintegrated around me and absorbed most of the impact. Eventually all was still and I was lying dizzy among the wreckage, certain that someone must have heard me. After a while I was able to move, carefully to extend an arm, a leg; and I found no breakages, and heard no shouts.
Unbuckling the harness, I climbed shakily to my feet, checked the minivid and laser, got my bearings, and began to walk painfully toward the long three-story building which jutted from the main complex and bordered the far side of the football pitch on which I’d landed. I heard a quiet whistle and froze.
The guard sharks were about. I hadn’t expected them to be on patrol until after Lights Out. I moved even more carefully, slipping behind a row of low shrubs that flanked the driveway at the edge of the football pitch. I heard a sound and crouched low, watching and trying not to breathe as a dark shape undulated along the road, humping its back with dorsal fin high, flattening out so that the pale belly slapped the ground. It was a big brute, all of fifteen feet long.
“Slash!” A door opened nearby; a man stood silhouetted. “Slash, where are you, boy?”
The shark’s head swung around and its alarm whistle began to shrill, triggered by the accelerated pulse rate. It made for the door at speed, while I made a dash for the wall under cover of the noise. I felt my way along to the fire escape I’d noticed previously, jumped, and obtained a grip on the poised stairway. It swung down to ground level and I began to climb. I had no idea where I was headed, but it seemed to me that the guards would be prepared to deal with breakouts rather than break-ins, and then from ground level. So I climbed to the first platform.
A whistling started, piercing, close by.
There was a shark on the platform; I could see its flat head against the sky as I reached the top of the first flight. It lunged forward, whistle shrilling a frantic alarm as I snatched the pistol from my pocket and burned it down with a bright sizzling. It died but kept twitching, smoking and stinking at my feet. I switched off the gun and listened.
Down below, the other shark still whistled as the guard threw it scraps from the doorway, effectively covering the recent commotion on the fire escape. I pocketed the laser and climbed on, zigzagging my way up the side of the building, passing five more intermediate platforms without incident, then finding myself on the flat roof. Sitting down, I waited to recover my breath and nerve. Below, the whistling ceased as Slash finished his unofficial feed and resumed patrol. I wondered at the mentality of the guard who could, apparently, feel affection for such a creature. A light breeze stirred my tattered clothing as I watched an antigrav shuttle lifting from the spaceport at Sentry Down in the far distance, a tiny dim star rising to lose itself among the other, brighter stars in the night sky.
In due course I recovered and examined my surroundings. The roof was a flat rectangle bounded by the low wall on which I sat, featureless apart from a single dark block rising in the far corner. I crossed to this, found an unlocked door and steps leading down. Soon, I opened another door onto a brightly lit aseptic corridor which ran the length of the building. It was quiet and empty; enigmatic doors opened off at regular intervals. I wondered, not for the first time, what the hell I was doing here and what I hoped to achieve.
I crept along the corridors, trying doors which were either locked, or opened into broom closets or linen stores. The sense of anticlimax grew as I became convinced that I would be caught before I ever found Marigold, or conclusive evidence against Gallaugher, or whatever the hell I was looking for. I heard a noise and darted into a nearby room, pulling the door quietly shut behind me.
Footsteps approached and paused. The door was jerked open. I pressed back against the wall as the light snapped on and revealed the sterile fittings of a washroom, and a uniformed man’s back.
“All right, you can come out of there,” he rasped, then grunted as I hit him with the laser pistol.
As I have become older I have noticed with depressing frequency the effects of bodily deterioration on my actions. Last summer I fell full-length into a shallow stream which I was trying to cross by leaping from rock to rock—a project which would have caused me no difficulty ten years ago. Last winter, fooling around with kids, I caught a football, rounded an opponent, slipped a perfect lateral to an uprushing tot, all in the space of five seconds. It took me five minutes, lying on the grass with tortured breath screaming in my throat like a tracheotomized racehorse, to recover.
So I should not have been surprised when I missed my swing with the laser pistol and hit the man a glancing blow on the shoulder. He yelled and wheeled around and we traded inexpert blows without actually hitting each other—which was just as well, because he was Dave Froehlich.
“Mr. Sagar,” he grunted in surprise, fielding my right fist in his left hand. ”What the hell are you doing here?”
I relaxed. “Uh, Dave … is there somewhere we can talk?”
His dour expression lighted. “I have a room to myself,” he said with pathetic pride. “I’m a trusty, in charge of this floor.”
His room was small but private, and it appeared that he was rarely bothered by the authorities after Lights Out. “They treat me fine, Mr. Sagar,” he said, sitting easily on a hard chair, trying to prove how much better off he was since I’d sent him back to the pen.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said absently. There was something troubling me. “Why are you in the Organ Pool, though? Shouldn’t you be in the main pen building?”
And as his eyes slipped away from mine, I wished I hadn’t asked that.
He never did tell me just what form his Compulsory Donation had taken, although he insisted on defending the State’s right to take it. “There have been a hell of a lot of accidents recently, one way and another,” he said.
“Dave, you only had one year to go. Weren’t there any other donors, long-term me
n? I mean, why you, for Christ’s sake?”
“You don’t understand, do you? There aren’t so many prisoners in this place. The crime rate’s so low these days, the shortage of organs is chronic. I understand people offer bribes to the warden, and the guards too, so they tell me.”
We sat there for some time and he told me all about the internal workings of the state pen—so far as his little niche was concerned—and all the time he spoke as though he enjoyed it; as though he had gained some queer inverted dignity by the revocation of his bondage. As though he had been a slave, but now he was free. Which was nonsense. I found myself wondering if he were a little mad, maybe.
He showed me the charts he kept. He was proud of the charts. There were twenty wards on his floor and four men to a ward, and Dave kept full inventory records of his charges.
But the odd thing was, the inventory was not classified according to men; it was classified according to organs.
There would be six arms in room 5, subdivided into two left and four right, classified according to sizes A, B, C, D, E; with a further classification by color. Room number 5 was lucky; it had seven legs, although it was dangerously low on kidneys. Even more sinister was the implication behind the record that the four occupants of room 5 possessed a total of four hearts, as of today’s date.
“There’s no connection between my corridor and the women’s corridor running parallel,” Dave told me, as if it mattered. Fingers, index, left, 63; fingers, index, right, 57.
“If you can go along with this sort of butchery you must be crazy, Dave,” I said with sudden harshness, breaking into his maunderings.
“You went along with it yourself until a couple of weeks ago,” he snapped back.
“I hadn’t seen it, then.”
“But you’d heard of it, and you’d had the chance to inquire more closely. It’s people like you, people who don’t bother, who got all this started in the first place. You could have voted against the Penal Reform Act at any time.”
The Girl With a Symphony in Her Fingers Page 15