The Frederick Pohl Omnibus (1966) SSC

by Frederik Pohl

  I had been framed.

  • • • •

  5

  I rushed back along the tapewalks like a ghost put to flight with bell, book and candle, seeking help. The only help in all the world for me just then was the Earthie.

  Vince Borton clutched at me out of the fog as I passed. 'Oliver! You too?'

  'Me too.'

  'But why?'

  I said grimly, too full of hate and fear to answer: 'Arthur Quayle, that's all. Good-bye.' But he followed.

  I found Dunlap talking angrily to another new Earthie just pinning on his brassard. '... lousy place not worth the plutonium to blow it to hell! Take my advice, Mac. Turn around. Get right back on that rocket, and--'

  'Dunlap.'

  He turned and looked at me. 'Oh. You.'

  'Can you help me?'

  Suspiciously: 'What do you mean? All I want is out, buddy. I don't want to get in any trouble here.'

  'You can't. You're wearing the brassard.'

  'Maybe.'

  'There's no risk involved! Remember? We Venusians can't use violence. That's the first thing we do, before we take off the brassard. We get conditioned against it. And you're immune to anything else. That's what the brassard's for.'

  'Well. You didn't tell me what you want.'

  'I want you to come see how the other half lives. The Terra Club.'

  'What's at the Terra Club?'

  'Albert Quayle,' I said.

  Vince hit us up for a ride back to town--in Dunlap's car, of course. I let him, provided he sat in the back seat.

  He grinned at me wryly.

  But I couldn't apologize, because the fission-blasts were going off again and the noise drowned everything out for a moment.

  Dunlap demanded aggressively: 'What is all that?'

  'That's the reason, Dunlap.'

  'Blasting? The reason for what?'

  'The reason for the conditioning. Every man a Titan. This is Venus.

  You've heard of the saposaurs?'

  'Saposaurs?' He nodded. 'Sort of intelligent lizards, eh? But they don't like people. They stay in the back lands.'

  'Most of the time. Not always. Look.' I pointed to the built-in machine-guns on the car. 'They're needed, Dunlap. It isn't safe to travel on Venus without plenty of weapons. And the tools! Plutonium built the Wallow.

  All of Venus was marsh. Most of it still is. Without the atomic explosives to drain it off, we'd be living in jellied mud.'

  He said hoarsely: 'There isn't any danger from the saposaurs in the car, is there?'

  'Not unless one shows up.'

  He said, 'Oh.'

  Vince Borton volunteered eagerly from the back seat--it must have been a joy for him to talk again--'There are plenty of them out in the fields.

  Not so much at night. They come in the daylight months, when there's plenty of fog.'

  'Why?'

  'They like knives,' Borton told him. 'They're not really smart--sort of like gorillas plus twenty-five per cent. But they're smart enough to know that steel will outlast their teeth and claws. They never had fire and don't much want it. Steel is something else. They'll break up a car if they can just to take the jagged pieces of metal for weapons.'

  Dunlap said slowly: 'But--all right, granted you have to have strong safeguards against violence with all that plutonium around, and guns for protection against the saposaurs. What about this business of ignoring people to death?'

  'Shunning them,' I corrected him. 'Cutting them dead. There has to be some way, Dunlap. The community can't tolerate anti-social behaviour!

  Why, if somebody insults my wife, I can't hit him--I don't know how. The community has to have protection against--against--'

  'Against you and me, Oliver,' said Vince mournfully from the back seat.

  • • • •

  We dropped Vince at the edge of the city and followed the tapewalks to the Terra Club.

  Dunlap complained: 'It's hot. I don't like it so hot.'

  'You came here all by yourself.'

  'But I can't stand this heat!' He was fretful and irritable because he didn't like what he was getting into, I was sure.

  'Watch the tape,' I ordered. Lights were ahead, bobbing like pastel ghosts in the fog. A man loomed up. He glanced at me, then through me and he nodded to Dunlap.

  'Already,' I said.

  'What?'

  'Forget it.' But it was a blow. The police weren't like the locals of the unions: they didn't content themselves with filing a protest and letting it get around to their own members. Now I was shunned by everyone; everyone in Grendoon would have seen my picture on the tri-V. 'Turn in here, Dunlap,'

  I told him, with my heart a solid load inside me.

  The sign hanging from the tape wheeped faintly as we came close and its scanners picked us up, then blazed with the orange letters: Terra Club We went in the door.

  The maitre-de greeted us affably--glad-to-see-you-tonight and all that. I moved into the light where he could get a better look at me and I was a ghost. He couldn't see me at all.

  I skinned off my thermosuit, and Dunlap out of his. The check girl took his, but there was nothing to do with mine but sling it over my shoulder. 'Ask for a table for two, Dunlap,' I said tightly.

  'I'd like a table...For two.'

  'The gentleman is expecting someone,' the maitre-de inquired politely.

  'Say yes, Dunlap.'

  'Yes.'

  'Very well, sir.' The maitre-de led Dunlap down to a table right at the side of the dance floor. It was for me, that table, not for Dunlap, but Dunlap didn't know that. The maitre-de wanted it that way. He wanted me to be seen. I mean not seen, but not-seen by everybody. So that everybody who was not-seeing me could get a good look. Good enough so that they would know enough never to see me again.

  The table was for two, all right, but it was only one chair that the maitre-de pulled out. I had to pull out my own. And when the waiter came, he only turned one glass right-side up, spread one napkin and offered one menu.

  I said: 'Thank God for your brassard. Order me some Scotch, Dunlap.

  And a sandwich.'

  'Two Scotches and a sandwich,' Dunlap looked at me. 'Ham?'

  'Anything.'

  'Ham, or whatever you've got.'

  The waiter looked at him, then shrugged.

  He brought the two Scotches, and lined them both up in front of Dunlap.

  I didn't mind leaning across the table to get mine. I wolfed the sandwich; already I was hungry. Later it would be worse, but I wasn't looking that far ahead. I lifted my glass.

  'Confusion to our enemies.'

  Dunlap was acting more and more nervous. He said sullenly: 'But I don't know. I mean, it's more your enemy, isn't it? I wonder if I really should get involved in what is, essentially, a private disagreement.'

  'A private murder.'

  'All right, damn it! But this isn't much fun, Oliver. And it's costing me money.'

  'Money?' I reached in my pocket and dumped my wallet in front of him. He stared at me. 'Keep it. It's no good to me. Literally. There isn't a man in Grendoon with something to sell who'll take money from me.'

  He looked thoughtful. He opened the wallet and whistled.

  'There's a lot of dough here, Oliver.'

  'What? Well, why not.' I swallowed the drink. 'I worked for Quayle nearly six months. Out in the boondocks. Hard work, fighting off saposaurs, handling the plutonium. Ask Vince Borton, he was there with me. Then--'

  'What then?'

  'I got to talking to Quayle's wife. You saw her.... Down at the Wallow.'

  Dunlap looked at me with a certain expression on his face.

  'All right,' I said. 'She was his wife. But you don't know him, Dunlap! A rat. Made life hell for her. Rough to work for--you wouldn't think he was conditioned, the language he used. In town, he'd be shunned himself, but out on the fields customs are a little different about giving offence.

  Especially when the man giving offence is the boss.'

&n
bsp; He grumbled nervously. 'But I don't even know this Quayle!'

  'Now you do,' I told him, and pointed. 'He's just coming in.'

  • • • •

  Quayle was a toad, with a toad's face and features.

  Three men were with him--overseers from the farms, big men, rough and mean men, the kind that seemed to seek him out. And there was a woman, a woman in a scarlet dress.

  That would be Diane's successor. Trust Quayle! He wouldn't go long without a woman, and always a beauty. Diane had been far from the first--

  he'd been married to only three of them. She was one; the other two had died out on the boondocks. Not in-quotation-marks 'died'; one got in the way of a saposaur and one disappeared in the swamps. That was how Quayle had got where he was, in fact--they had been rich, and he inherited from both.

  His filmed toad's eyes went mildly around the room.

  He didn't see me. It was very clear that he didn't see me. After he was through not seeing me he whispered something to one of the men; and the man snapped a finger for a waiter, and whispered to the waiter, and the waiter whispered back.

  Albert Quayle smiled a toadish smile. 'Oh, go on, live a minute,' that smile said. 'Live a minute longer, let yourself be sheltered by an Earthman's brassard. But he won't stay forever. And then you're dead.'

  And he was right, unless I found a way to handle it.

  The first thing was to get Dunlap on my side. I had to show him what I was up against.

  'Order two more Scotches,' I told him.

  While the waiter was gone I whispered: 'Listen close. You don't believe that this business can kill me, do you? You don't think that simply ignoring a man can be fatal? Watch what happens.'

  He scowled, making almost as toadish a face as Quayle's. 'Hold on, Oliver! What are you up to? If you kill this guy Quayle or something-'

  'If I only could!' At that moment the waiter came back. I took one of the glasses out of the waiter's hand. He blinked only once at the remaining glass and calmly set it in front of Dunlap. 'Sorry, sir,' he apologized. 'You wanted two scotches, didn't you? I'll get another.'

  'Now watch what happens.' I took the full glass and walked straight across the dance floor.

  Nobody bumped into me, though the band was playing and the floor was full. Nobody noticed that I was there. They danced neatly around a moving vacuum, named me.

  • • • •

  I got to Quayle's table and I stood staring at him for a second. The woman moved nervously, but no one else gave any sign that a man was standing within a yard of them all. I shouted loudly: 'Quayle!'

  There was no response, none at all. Only the woman blinked.

  'Quayle,' I cried, 'you're a rotten, stinking murderer! You're shunning me to death because I took your wife away from you!'

  And I threw the liquor in his face.

  He blinked--raw alcohol was in his eyes--but that was all I could see.

  I fell writhing to the floor.

  That's the conditioning, you see. The muscles are there, and the brain can think murder; but once the thought becomes act, even if it is less than murder, if it is violence in any form--then the conditioned reflex begins.

  Think of a white-hot, iron maiden from Nuremberg, with her spikes closing in on you. Think of an epileptic fit. Think of being boiled alive. Combine them.

  Unfortunately I did not lose consciousness, though the room spun madly around me and I couldn't see anything but a tortured giant's face, mottled and furious, with the liquor sloshing down the bridge of his nose.

  • • • •

  After a few minutes I painfully got up.

  The dancers had been all around me, but no foot had touched me; every person in the room must have seen and heard, but there was no sign.

  The music was playing. The Terra Club was gay and laughing. I walked shakily back to our table.

  Vince Borton was standing there, pleading with Dunlap for something; but his eyes were on me. 'You damned fool! What do you think you were trying to prove?'

  'More Scotch,' I said hoarsely.

  Dunlap pushed one of his glasses over. He looked shaken. 'That was the conditioning?'

  I nodded.

  Vince said, 'You're crazy, Oliver! Come out of here. I came to tell you something, but--'

  I cut in: 'Imagine what it would have been if I'd tried to kill him.'

  'I can't,' Dunlap admitted.

  'It would have killed me.'

  'It should have killed you!' Borton blazed. (And while we were shouting, all round us the Terra Club was having a party.) I said: 'Vince. Please.... Leave me alone.'

  Suddenly he calmed. 'All right' Then he said thoughtfully, 'Listen.

  Funny thing. You know when you threw liquor in Quayle's face?'

  'Yes. I know.'

  'But do you know what he did?' He nodded, satisfied at my expression. 'He started to go for you.'

  'But surely, that's not strange,' Dunlap protested.

  'It isn't? After you just saw what happened to Oliver?'

  'Mmm. I see,' Dunlap said after a moment, but then he shrugged. 'All right,' he said. 'You've convinced me. You deliberately let yourself in for that to prove a point, so I guess I have to say you've proved it. Now what?'

  'Help me, Dunlap.'

  'How?'

  'First I want to find Diane. I've got to. But I can't talk to anyone, so you'll have to--'

  'No he won't,' Borton interrupted. 'That's what I came to tell you.'

  'Tell me what?'

  'Where Diane is.' Borton fingered his ragged cap. 'I heard from one of the other nobodies. You know how it is--misery loves company. When somebody new gets shunned, we all know it right away.'

  'And Diane?'

  He nodded. 'Shunned. She's over at the Wallow, on an island; and the water's coming in, and she can't get anybody to help her.'

  • • • •

  6

  Outside the Terra Club I said: 'Now I've got him! Quayle's in the palm of my hand!'

  The hot fog closed in on all of us like a barber's steamy towel. It seemed to make it difficult for Dunlap to breathe. He wheezed nervously: 'What are you talking about?'

  The doorman glanced at him with curiosity, then looked away. Borton was almost treading on the man's shoes, but the doorman didn't know he was alive.

  'I'm talking about Quayle! This is the end of the road for him, I promise you. I didn't want to do this. But he doesn't leave me any choice.

  Now that I know where Diane is, I'm going to blow the lid off. We'll go get her, and then--it's the end for Quayle.'

  Dunlap clutched at his chest, knocking the brassard off his thermosuit. He bent and fumbled for it. When he stood up he seemed a little steadier.

  'How?' he asked.

  'With a little help from the police, that's how! Do you know what he's been doing? He's been smuggling steel knives to the saposaurs. Yes! I can prove it with Diane's help. It's our ace in the hole.'

  'But, look. What does that have to do with you?'

  'Everything! Why do you think we were shunned, Dunlap? He's behind it. He's afraid. Diane knew all about it. She had to. But she wouldn't have talked. And neither would I, because that was the way she wanted it. But now--'

  'I know. Now you're going to blow the lid off,' he sneered.

  'You bet we are. Once we let truth out, he's discredited--done. He'll be a nobody then, not us. And then we can appeal our cases. The courts will listen. We'll get the verdict reversed; they'll believe me when I say I didn't put the brassard on. The locals will let us off.' I grinned as confidently as I could, although I was sweating even more than the hot fog could justify.

  'And the pity of it,' I said, 'is that Quayle didn't have to have it this way.

  We were willing to buy him off if necessary.'

  They both stood looking at me like saposaur chicks fresh out of the egg--puzzled, surprised, and ready for a fight.

  'Oliver, what the hell are you talking about?' Vince Borton demanded.

&nb
sp; 'You don't have anything Quayle wants, except Diane.'

  'That's where you're wrong, Vince. I told you. He bribes the saposaurs with steel knives so they'll go after the other plantations, but leave his alone. But it takes a lot of knives. There are lots of saposaurs.

  And it's against the law, of course.'

  'So?'

  'So he can't get all the knives he wants,' I explained patiently. 'But I can get them for him. Plenty! We talked about it, Diane and I; that was what we were going to offer him. But now--no. Now it's war.'

  Dunlap said tenaciously: 'Explain that a little, will you? Where were you going to get them?'

  'I know where there's a shipload! Did you ever hear of the Formidable? Old rocket ship--oh, twenty-five years back. It crashed. They did that, in those days. It missed Glendoon by twenty miles, smashes itself up and sank in forty feet of mud. But I know where it is.' I let that sink in as the old rocket had sunk into the greasy mud. 'I found it while I was working for Quayle, digging his own drainage ditches, blasting with his own plutonium. I thought of telling him about it. But I told Diane first, and then the two of us.... Well--anyway, we didn't tell him. And it's loaded with knives.

  That was twenty-five years ago, you see. They used to try to trade with the saposaurs then.'

  Dunlap cleared his throat, 'I, uh, I think I left my wallet at the table.

  Wait a minute, will you? I'll be right back.'

  Vince Borton stared after him. Then, lowering his voice so that the unhearing doorman would really not hear, he blazed: 'Oliver, you idiot!

  What's the use of telling him all those lies?'

  'No, Vince. Don't get me wrong. They're only part lies. I do know where the Formidable crashed--but it isn't forty feet of mud, it's four hundred and Quayle's own thousand-acre drainage lake is right on top of it now. He'll never recover it. But he'll want those knives, as long as he thinks they can be had.'

  'So? Then why did you tell the Earthie about it? Why not tell Quayle?'

  I stepped back to the entrance of the Terra Club. The noise of revelry was loud inside it, loud enough to drown out most of the distant full roll of blasting. But I could see clearly through the double glass door.