by C. L. Moore
At some point soon after this, when I was on my feet again and grappling with a grunting, unwashed opponent, I kicked his feet from under him and we thudded heavily to the ground, him underneath. I remember telling myself I had to disable him fast, before somebody else came at me from above. And then, wonderingly, holding the stunned man down with both hands, I looked up and saw the little patio almost empty. One man lay silent on his face among the flowers. Another one in the doorway was doubled up and retching, out of the fight. Nobody else was here. I’d won.
I looked down at the ma I was kneeling on. His eyelids fluttered. He was coming to. I slapped him sharply across the face. His eyes snapped open.
“Who hired you?” I demanded. “Who’s the boss here?”
He rolled his head from side to side, setting his jaw. I slapped him again. “Answer me, damn you. Who’s the boss?” Still he shook his head. This time I lifted him a little and cracked his head against the ground. I did it twice, savagely, enjoying it, letting him see I did.
After a while he told me.
I made him say it twice, because I couldn’t believe what happened in my head when he spoke the name. A perfectly normal name. Harris. A man named Harris. But when he said the word, it wasn’t his voice only that I heard. Like an echo behind it I heard another voice too.
I was asleep and dreaming in the hotel bedroom in New York, and the man named Comus was shaking me and telling me urgently about California, swans, antics, and to be, sure and find—an heiress?
Oh no. It was Harris, not heiress. I could remember that now. One of the shutter windows in my mind opened just wide enought to let the memory through. Not until now, of course. Not until I’d found out the hard way. Harris, I thought. Harris?
I got up slowly. My man lay still, watching apprehensively. I kicked him in the side once, not hard but hard enough, and went out walking heavily and feeling my face to find out if I’d be disfigured enough to keep me off the stage. I cared with only half my mind. The other half turned slowly over and over in long, confused ellipses, wonderingly.
* * *
The truck still sat at the curb. Inside it Guthrie lay forward motionless over the wheel. There was nobody in sight on the street for a block in either direction, though window shades quivered slightly in upper windows as I came out. I got into the truck and shook Guthrie. He said something unintelligible in a thick voice. I shook him again. This time he opened his eyes and looked at me blankly. Then he sat back, put a hand to his jaw, winced, gazed at me with dawning recognition, and finally grinned his sad, wry grin.
“You all right?” I asked. He tried his jaw gingerly.
“I guess so. All they did was slug me. How about you?”
“I’m okay.” I said it abstractly. After a moment I added, “Look, I think I’ve got a lead. You just sit here a minute. I’m going to make a call.” I was out of the truck while he was still in the middle of a protest.
There was a little drugstore next to the City Hall. I let the screen door slam open with a crash against the wall. There were no customers inside, and a man behind a counter vanished through a rear door before I got more than a glimpse of him. I grinned to myself, lopsidedly because it hurt. Let them be scared, I thought.
I leaned over the soda fountain and held my handkerchief under the water faucet. Using the mirror behind the bar, I wiped off the dust and blood. I had a scraped area along the jaw and I’d probably develop a black eye by evening. My nose had begun to swell, but it wasn’t bad yet and I thought it wasn’t broken. I didn’t look too menacing for the TV screen.
So I slid into a booth, dropped my coin, and when the operator came on in the flyspecked screen I gave her my best smile. “I need a little help,” I said. “There’s a man named Harris I want to talk to. Would you know the one I mean?”
She looked at me searchingly. Maybe she knew my face. Maybe she already knew about the battle of City Hall too. if she did, she must realize what I was asking.
A fly, trapped in the hot booth with me, lit on the screen and walked across the operator’s face. We flapped at it simultaneously, and then both grinned. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Wait a minute.”
The screen flickered and went blank. Then an advertising card listing specials on sale at Andy’s Hardware Store shimmered at me. It had just faded into an announcement of a rummage sale the Patriots’ Daughters Hall when a gong rang, a metallic voice said, “This is one-way visual only,” and out of the blank screen a man’s voice, rather high and impatient, said, “Yes?”
“I have a message for Mr. Harris,” I said.
“Harris speaking. What is it?”
I looked at the blank screen in silence. What could I say? We have a mutual friend named Comus, who lives in dreamland? I felt his unseen eyes moving over my face and my skin tickled as if the fly were walking on me. It felt strange to stand almost face to face like this with somebody who had taken the definitive step. The enemy. He sounded like an ordinary man. But behind him loomed all the shadowy structure of the fighters against Comus, the men and women who had taken their lives in their hands. They might be wrong, but they were impressive.
I said, “I just had a little argument with some friends of yours. Maybe you can tell me what a man has to do to get a work permit in San Andreas.”
Silence. Then, “How did you get my name?”
“I persuaded one of your boys,” I said. “He didn’t persuade easy.” There was silence again. Suddenly Harris laughed.
“All right. I’m sure he didn’t. Well. So you want an entertainment permit.”
I blinked at the screen. “I haven’t mentioned entertainment yet.”
Harris laughed again. “You don’t need to. We’ve been watching you. We wondered if you’d make it. The man before you didn’t. I’m glad to hear from;Rohan. That’s the name, isn’t it? We can use people like you.”
“Hold on,” I said. “All I want is to put on one show in San Andreas.”
Harris chuckled. “Sure. And you need a permit. Well, we’ll discuss the price. Can’t expect something for nothing, you know. Wait a minute, Rohan. I’ll be back.”
I waited. I looked at the swimming surface of the screen until specks floated before my eyes. I admired the dim outline of my own head in reflection. After a while I opened the door a crack and tried to chase the fly out. It wouldn’t go. When the screen spoke it startled me.
“Rohan? Can you be at the back door of the Medical Building in fifteen minutes?”
I said with some bitterness, “I could if it were up to me. There’s been a little trouble in San Andreas this morning. Maybe you heard.”
He chuckled with some complacence. I decided I didn’t like the man. I also thought he’d sound less complacent after he’d seen his goon squad again. He said, “That was by way of being a test, you know. Don’t worry. This time you won’t have any trouble. The Medical Building is right across the square. And come alone, Rohan.” He paused. Then when I didn’t speak he said casually, “You’ll be there?” It was hardly a question.
I thought, This is a threshold. Once I cross it I’m asking for more trouble than I’ve had yet. Do I want to go on? Paul Swann didn’t make the grade. Do I want to? But I knew I didn’t have any choice, now. Little by little, drawn on by threats, circumstance, and the tenuous memory of a dream, I’d entered too far to back out.
“Oh yes,” I said to the blank screen. “I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER IX
I WATCHED THE BACK of the sound truck diminishing down the street, going in and out of the oak tree shadows and in and out of the bright morning sun. Guthrie seemed to be driving all right. He said he felt okay. He said he would be back for me at noon. He said he didn’t approve of anything I was doing. I hadn’t expected him to. It took a good deal of argument to persuade him to leave at all. But I was in a trap, and we both knew it. A trap the size of California, sure, but still a trap. I couldn’t get out. There was no way to go but forward.
On the way t
o the Medical Building I had two minor surprises. One was a bulletin board in front of the San Andreas Hotel. It startled me to see how wide open the town really was. Between a notice of a cattle sale and a nursery school ad was a hand-lettered card signed by the Freedom Committee urging everyone to contribute what food, ammunition, and first aid supplies could be spared to the Coldspring Guerrillas. An ominous footnote added, “Looting in the northeast broke out again last week. Our men are fighting for all of us. What can you?”
And there was an acerb notice from a Major Andreas (a pseudonym, no doubt) ordering all local guerrillas to keep their weapons strictly out of sight until the CORRECT signal sounded. Somebody had scribbled under this the terse comment that “Maj. A. is a dam fool.”
I was smiling to myself about this one as I crossed the square, and saw my second surprise in the distance. Pedestrians were still scarce in my immediate area, but the streets were fairly busy. And among the heads I caught a glimpse of familiar corn-silk curls bobbing along beside a Stetson hat, the Stetson bent attentively. I couldn’t be positive, but I felt pretty sure it was Cressy. The chance seemed remote that two women in the San Andreas area would have hit on just that pale yellow tone and just that bouncing halo of loose curls. I made a mental note to ask questions later. Cressy had no business in San Andreas.
The flat white back of the Medical Building was locked. I tapped politely. After a minute a lock clicked and Harris’s high, impatient voice said, “Come in, come in,” as if I’d kept him waiting.
I went. I went about three steps into darkness and then stood still, blinking, as the door shut behind me. Harris said out of the dark, “I’ll have to blindfold you for a while, Rohan. Sorry. Here.” A hand invisibly touched my cheek, pressing something sticky and cool across my eyes. Firm fingers sealed it into place. “All right,” Harris said. “Come along.”
Guided by a hand on my arm, I went forward, stumbling. A door creaked noisily and Harris said, “In here. This is an elevator. Brace yourself.” The floor rose under me. Air sighed heavily in the shaft and the floor stopped rising with such suddenness I staggered. The door creaked open again. “Come along,” Harris said.
There were several people in the room. I could hear chairs creak and sense the tempo of varied breathing. Somebody coughed and somebody else cleared his throat. I felt their eyes on me. I smelted disinfectant, tobacco, clean linen freshly ironed, and just a suggestion of some flower scent floating over all the other odors.
Harris said, “Put your hand out. Here’s a chair. Sit down if you want to. We have a few questions to ask.”
I kicked the chair a little and then sank into it. My bruises had begun to hurt, and it felt good to sit down. It was strange to be sitting here in total darkness, feeling the eyes of the Freedom Committee on me. Because that, of course, was what they must be. And even the melodrama seemed justified, under the circumstances.
Harris said, “First I want to say we’re glad to have you here, Rohan. We hoped Swann would make it, but he didn’t have what it takes. You came through the fight and you found out whom to contact. So we know how tough you are, and how resourceful. We need somebody like you, with a Comus road permit and a reason for traveling. We hope you’ll work with us. If you don’t”—he paused—“you won’t work at all. Comus still rules the roads, but the Freedom Committees are in nearly full control everywhere else21;you don’t co-operate you haven’t got a chance of staging your show anywhere in California.”
“What’s your proposition?” I asked cautiously.
“Are you a Comus man?” Harris asked bluntly. “Or will you work with us?”
I hesitated only a moment. “I’ll do what I have to do to get the show lined up.”
“Are you willing to co-operate with the Freedom Committee? Think it over, Rohan. It could mean trouble for you if we lose out to Comus when the showdown comes.”
“Depends on what you want me to do.”
“A few small jobs. We aren’t sure yet ourselves.” His voice sounded cagey. I wished I could see his face. “Somebody with the freedom of the highways might be very useful to us. Before I go into details, we’ll expect you to answer some questions about yourself fully and frankly——” He hesitated.
I said, “Nothing wrong with that.”
“—in a lie-detector jacket?” Harris finished.
I swallowed hard. This is it, I thought. I walked into it. I can’t back out now. But I can’t go ahead. And I remembered how the Comus units that dropped down for raids in these mountain areas sometimes disappeared completely, swallowed up and buried. If I said yes I’d have to speak the truth, and the truth could mean destruction for us all. But if I said no I’d be admitting the worst too. Either way they had me.
The room was quite silent, waiting.
“Why not?” I said.
A little sigh went through the darkness. Chairs creaked from three sides and footsteps sounded briskly on the floor. They knew what they were going to do now.
“All right,” a new voice said. It was contralto, warm and confident. A woman? I thought so, but I couldn’t be quite sure yet. “Stand up, Rohan. Take your shirt off, please. Good. Now put out your arms——”
I felt the smooth, cold, gloved sleeves of the lie-detector jacket slide up my arms until the mittens at the end stopped them. I felt the little pads and studs against my palms, the thick collar of the thing snug under my ears where the arteries pulse. Someone drew the chestband tight. I’d seen this done in the movies often enough. I could picture the complicated dials somewhere near me, needles quivering to record all the inward processes by which sweat and blood pressure speak louder than words.
A breeze blew cool across my cheek. A window must have been opened. Something clicked and a steady humming began somewhere near by.
“Your name, please.” It was a woman’s voice.
“Howard Rohan.”
“Your age?”
“Thirty-five.” Several voices laughed simultaneously. “All right,” I said. “Forty.”
“Do you know the name of this town?” I did. I told her the date and the day of the week. They ran me through a list of the usual neutral questions that establish a base to go by. Then——
“You have a valid Comus road-travel permit?”
“I have.”
“But you yourself have no other connection with Comus. Is that right?”
I waited for a fraction of a moment. There wasn’t going to be any out. I had no choice. I’d never had any choice, I realized, since the Cropper bus stopped at the check station and a man in a red coat called, “Howard Rohan.” Everything that had happened was moving me straight along toward this. Maybe everything that had happened since I was born.
“No,” I said. “That’s wrong. I was hired for this job by Theodore Nye. Comus picked the cast and wrote the play and set the itinerary.” It gave me savage pleasure to pile evidence on top of evidence. ‘There’s a Comus plain-clothes man working the sound truck for our troupe. He’s in direct touch with Nye, for all I know. And you understand as much of this setup as I do.”
I sat in dead silence. The room was perfectly still around me. Not a chair creaked. Not a person seemed to breathe. I had a bitter taste in my mouth and the world had gone brassy again around me, the people clockwork, all sound meaningless, all motion without purpose. I didn’t care what happened to me now. I didn’t care what happened to Guthrie or the troupe. They could push me so far and then no farther. I sat passive, waiting.
The contralto voice spoke in silence, quite steady. “Why are you here in California, Rohan? What was Nye’s purpose in staging this tour?”
There was a humming in my ears that might have been the lie box and might have been my own blood beating dizzily. I don’t know what I’d expected. To be shot right now? To be ridden out of town on a rail, like Guthrie’s stool pigeon? Almost anything except this calm acceptance.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” I heard myself demand.” Aren’t you going to——”
“Answer the question, Rohan,” the calm contralto said.
“Repeat the question then.”
She did. “Nye’s purpose?” I echoed. “I8217;t know. Believe me, I don’t.” Then I laughed a little, because whatever else went wrong, at least they had to believe me now. That gentle humming at my elbow bore witness to the truth. “Nye said the theaters were a diversion, part of a larger plan. That’s all I know.”
“Did he mention the Anti-Com?”
“Yes. Not in connection with the troupe.”
“What did he tell you about it?”
I thought. The invisible people around me waited in silence. “Some kind of mechanism,” I said. “Big enough to wreck Comus—maybe. I don’t believe that. It’s being assembled fast but it isn’t ready yet, and Ted Nye——” I hesitated, but I was hooked up to the lie box and you have to know more than I did to beat that. “He’s feeling the pressure. The way it looks to me, if the President dies before it’s finished, Nye wins. If he doesn’t maybe you rebels win. I don’t know. It gets vague around that point. That’s as far as I can take you.”
Silence. Then the steady contralto saying, “Will you work with us and keep quiet about what you know?”
I answered her slowly and carefully, making sure I meant what I said, testing each word before I spoke it. The hum of the lie box must confirm all I said. “Yes, I’ll work with you. As long as it doesn’t interfere with my real job, I will. But I’m not a spy and I won’t play spy. I’m just an actor. I won’t—oh, gallop around on white horses yelling the British are coming. I won’t take long chances. But I’ll keep my mouth shut as long as you help me do my job. I haven’t any choice about that. Just don’t ask too much of me. Don’t push me too far.”
They sat there thinking it over, maybe watching the needles quiver. Then Harris spoke. “Fair enough, Rohan,” he said. “Now——”