Jake had finally returned to the hotel suite about an hour before dawn. Not turning any of the lights on, he’d stood at the wraparound window and watched the foggy city.
About the only thing he was able to get any satisfaction out of was the fact that he hadn’t given in to the urge to use Tek again.
“Stuff’s still damn tough for me to keep away from,” he said aloud, slumping down into an armchair.
Actually he hadn’t done that badly so far. He’d established that Kittridge was alive and he’d located him. That would make Bascom and the Cosmos Detective Agency happy.
“But there’s still Beth,” he said.
She was the one who was important, the one he had to find.
“She’s dead,” he said to himself.
“No, that was only an android simulacrum. A mechanism, not a person.” Jake knew that, but it didn’t seem to help what he felt.
He felt that Beth, someone he’d become very fond of, was lost to him.
Jake stayed in the chair, looking absently out into the dying night. Gradually he drifted into an uneasy sleep.
When he awoke the fog was gone. A thin sunlight touched the towers and walkways of Acapulco.
And Jake knew where to find Beth.
“She’s gone to her uncle’s villa,” he said, getting up from the chair. “Sure, the place on the Moon that she told me about.”
That would’ve been exactly what she’d do. She was deeply upset, not certain whom she could trust. She’d want to get away by herself, to be alone where nobody could contact her for a while.
“I’ve got to get there.” Jake was striding toward the door of the suite when it opened itself.
“I was certain we’d be seeing each other soon again,” said the chrome-plated Winger as he entered. “If you have a moment, Cardigan, I have to talk to you about a rather serious parole violation.”
The chrome-plated robot brushed at the sleeve of his white suit, tugged carefully at his trouser legs and seated himself in the armchair. “Since I don’t require rest,” he explained to Jake, “I was ready to depart for Mexico the moment the complaint reached the Southern California Parole Authority. As I’ve all along anticipated, you’re almost certain to return to the Freezer within—”
“I’m in the middle of something important,” Jake told the gleaming robot. “I don’t have time for you right now.”
“I’m the one who has the time and you’re going to have to accommodate me.” Winger settled into the chair. “The Field Director of the International Drug Control Agency has filed a complaint against you. You should have realized, Cardigan, that when you assaulted an important law official, you were risking a serious violation.”
Jake held up one finger. “I gave Winterguild one punch on the chin.”
“Which constitutes a serious assault.”
“As I recall the rules, Winger, you have to hold a formal hearing before you can charge me with a parole violation of any kind.”
“And I’m in the process of gathering the material for that hearing right here and now,” the robot informed him. “If you’ll cooperate by sitting down, we can start this little preliminary discussion.”
“Soon as I finish what I have to do,” promised Jake, “we can have a nice long chat.” He started toward the door.
“I’m not against using force to persuade you to stay,” warned the robot as he stood.
Stopping and facing him, Jake said, “I have to find Beth Kittridge. I’m fairly certain where she is and—”
“You can tell me her present whereabouts and I’ll see to it the information gets to Winterguild. He’s also most anxious to locate her.”
“Looks like you’re going to have to try force,” said Jake impatiently, “because I can’t wait around here to—”
The door of the suite all at once opened itself again. Gomez came limping in, smiling broadly. Ignoring Jake, he addressed the immaculate robot. “Is this the room that just phoned for a repairman?”
“It isn’t,” snapped Winger, making a shooing motion with one chrome hand. “I happen to be conducting an official investigation for the government of the State of Southern California. Your intrusion is—”
“Hey, they told me there was a malfunctioning robot up here, señor.” With a slight limp, Gomez made his way into the living room of the suite.
“You’ve been misinformed. There’s no malfunctioning robot here.”
“Ah, but there’s where you’re wrong, amigo.” Smiling, Gomez suddenly reached up to touch the mechanical man’s silvery neck. A harsh buzzing sound came from something concealed in his hand.
Winger’s eyelids started blinking in double time. “You used a disabler on me ... that’s most illegal ... Both hands dropped heavily to his sides, his eyes clicked shut and he ceased to function.
Gomez was in the pilot seat of the maroon and yellow skycar. “You may commence at any time, amigo, heaping gratitude on me.”
“Assaulting a robot can be a serious crime. I appreciate your helping out, but—”
“The particular disabler I used to render Winger even stiffer than usual,” said his partner, “has a wipe-out attachment. It erased all his chrome-plated memories back ten full minutes before my auspicious advent.”
Nodding, Jake said, “How’d you know he was coming to call on me?”
“The Cosmos Agency specializes in gathering little tidbits of information from hither and yon. And from yon came the news that that putz Winterguild had complained to the parole folks because you’d tipped him over onto his toke.”
“One punch.”
“Sufficient to inspire him to have you rerouted back to the Freezer.”
“So Winger hinted when he dropped in on me.”
“However, even as we speak, even as you drink in my words of wisdom delivered in the melodious voice that has been known to charm birds out of trees and both princesses and bimbos into the sack—where was I?”
“I hope you were going to make a point about my being able to keep clear of the damn Freezer.”
“Exactly, amigo. Bascom’s pulling the usual strings to derail, circumvent and otherwise circumlocute the complaint.” Gomez glanced down at Acapulco below. “Ah, we’re fast approaching our destination. The only snag is that it’ll take Bascom at least a full working day to get everything canceled. I decided, therefore, to pop down here to the country of my illustrious ancestors to roadblock Winger before he could do you any harm. Entiendes?”
“Yeah, and thanks.”
“It’s nada,” Gomez assured him. “I think nothing of dragging my pain-racked body out of my sickbed and hobbling to your assistance, Jake, thereby denying myself the ministrations of three gifted physicians, seven medbots and five fetching nurses—two of whom seem to be named Mitzi.”
“About this private spaceport we’re heading for?”
“Owned and operated by a contact of mine.” Gomez punched out a landing pattern. “If we want to make a quick jaunt up to the Moon without anyone being the wiser, Montanya is the gent who can arrange it all.”
“We?”
“Sí of course,” said Gomez, smiling. “I don’t want to miss out on the close of this case.”
After nearly half an hour in the communications room at the edge of the small spaceport, Jake pushed back the metal chair he was sitting in. Looking away from the computer terminal, he glanced up at the vidporn calendar on the opposite wall. On the small screen Miss April was about to jump into bed with two husky skysailors.
Jake left the chair, and the view of the animated calendar, to start pacing the room.
There was a tap on the door, followed by the entrance of Gomez. “All the details have been smoothly and swiftly taken care of, Jake,” he announced, noticing the calendar on the wall. “I didn’t know anybody wore those anymore .... Ah, but back to reality. We’re the proud temporary owners of a trim mooncraft, booked to blast off in exactly two hours and sixteen minutes.”
“How’d you arrange such a
quick departure?”
Gomez smiled. “Montanya owes me a few favors,” he replied, resting a hand atop a terminal. “I trust you won’t mind that our bark on this fateful journey has MOONBASE GOURMET FOOD SHOPS, LTD. emblazoned on several portions of its exterior. It helps our cover story, actually.”
Jake said, “Thanks to your buddy’s somewhat unorthodox information-gathering setup here, I’ve been able to check on all the Moon flights that Beth Kittridge might’ve been on.”
“And?”
“Well, nobody by that name departed anywhere in Mexico—not on a Moonliner, a tourship or a private charter.”
“It figures she wouldn’t use her true name or ID papers.”
“But there are two possible passengers to the Moon who could be her,” he told his partner, “one of whom listed her name as Bev Kingsmill.”
“Oy, she’s not the sort who keeps her initials when she adopts an alias, is she?”
“She struck me as brighter than that, but I won’t rule this lady out.”
“So what you’ve concluded, amigo, is that it is indeed possible she’s holed up on the Moon?”
“Yeah, especially since no one closely resembling her seems to have used any public means of transport out of Acapulco since the time Beth escaped from the Pleasure Dome—that includes skyliners, landbuses and rented skycars.”
“Then,” said Gomez, pointing upward, “we may as well go to the Moon.”
35
WHEN JAKE CAME WALKING into the galley of their Moonbound spacecraft, Gomez was arguing with the kitchen computer.
His curly-haired partner was sitting slightly hunched in front of the terminal inset in the gray wall next to the stove unit. He had a plaschina bowl in his left hand and was gesturing with the spoon in his right. “How can you have gone wrong on oatmeal?” he was asking. “It’s one of the basics of the human diet, has been for countless centuries.”
“Well, let’s give her another try,” said the terminal’s voxbox. “How about the raisins—they taste okay?”
Gomez set the bowl on a gray counter and kept the spoon. “Sí, but I’d like them some other color than blue this time.”
Jake sat at the gray-metal galley dining table. “I got through to the Cosmos Agency again on the satphone.”
“Since you look somewhat less gloomy and morose than you have during the past eighteen hours of our jaunt through the vast wilderness of space,” he said, gesturing at the clear darkness outside the viewport, “I’d guess Bascom had some relatively good news.”
Jake said, “He did, yeah. Bascom’s been able to get my parole violation charges dropped. So at least I won’t be heading back to the Freezer.”
“Let this be a lesson to you. You’re going to have to be much more selective in the future about which assholes you knock down and where.” Gomez eyed the stove. “What about getting the old charges against you wiped out entirely? Since we ought to be able to prove now that Sands and Hokori framed you back then.”
“Sands is still in a coma, so that’s going to have to wait.”
“What about the fate of your one-time missus?”
“Kate’s cooperating with the various lawmen. Looks like she won’t be charged with anything.”
“And where’s Dan?”
“He’s still at that private school in Mexico City. When I get back, I’m going to have to work a few things out with Kate. I want to be involved in my son’s life again.”
“Sounds like the lad could use that about now.” Gomez waved at the stove with his spoon. “Oatmeal?”
“Coming up,” promised the terminal. “We want to make sure we get it absolutely right this time.”
Gomez joined Jake at the table. “Okay, next I’ll ask an unpleasant question—do you think Kate was in on your original frame-up?”
Putting both of his hands palmsdown on the metal tabletop, Jake said, “I don’t know, I don’t have enough facts yet.”
“What about your cop instincts? Do they tell you anything?”
“Maybe I’m ignoring my intuitive feelings,” admitted Jake. “It’s going to take awhile to sort all this out. Some of it’s going to depend on what Sands has to say when—and if—he wakes up again.”
“Wait’ll you’ve had a few more wives, amigo. It’ll be a lot easier to accept that one of them may’ve done you wrong,” Gomez assured him. “How about Professor Kittridge—what’s his version of recent events?”
“According to our boss, Kittridge is claiming he was kidnapped, he and his daughter. Says he had no idea that Sands was a partner of Hokori’s.”
“With Sands in slumberland and Hokori among the angels,” said Gomez, “that’s hard to refute. Thing is, Beth allegedly took off because she realized her dear old dad was intending to sell out to the forces of evil.”
“That’s another reason why I want to find Beth.”
“She may decide to act the way you’re acting about Kate—and simply back off from the whole problem.”
“Everybody does that sometimes, Sid. Turns out I’ve been backing off from problems for the past fifteen years.”
Gomez put up both hands, as though fending off a charge. “Whoa, now,” he cautioned. “This is commencing to get dangerously close to a serious conversation on the meaning of life and how we perceive it. I don’t like to dwell on my true purpose for existing, beyond admitting that I was put on Earth to gladden the hearts of the multitudes.”
Managing a grin, Jake said, “One thing I am sure of—I want to keep working for the Cosmos Agency.”
“Sí, it would be a shame to split up the team again. And I really will strive not to break a limb every time out.”
“Oatmeal’s ready,” announced the terminal in a pleased tone.
They docked at the landing dome of New Moonbase II thirty-seven hours after leaving Earth. Outside the milky seethru walls of the great dome, two other similar domes showed. Beyond that spread the white, silent desolation of the Moon itself.
“Reminds me of some real estate I once invested in around the Palm Springs Sector,” observed Gomez as he disembarked from their anchored spacecraft. “Except my quarter acre sported a cactus.”
“She’ll be here,” said Jake, mostly to himself, following his partner onto a downramp that led to the Customs Complex. The artificial air inside the dome felt harsh on his throat and in his lungs. He coughed.
“Ah, amigo, you miss the pollution-scented air of our old hometown.” The ramp took them to an entryway for the first below-surface level of the Moon Colony. “Allow me to take care of the customs folks.”
There were two white-enameled robots seated at the silvery desk beneath the floating COMMERCIAL VEHICLES sign.
Gomez introduced himself as a spacetrucker for the Moonbase Gourmet Food Shops, Ltd., organization. He produced spurious ID papers for himself and Jake, plus all the proper bills of lading, unloading permits and travel visas. The whole process took a little over seven minutes and both the robots, almost in unison, wished Gomez and Jake a pleasant sojourn on the Moon.
Three minutes later they were in a subway car heading for the Old Settlement. The twenty-four-seat car was chill and clean and they were the only passengers. Six silent vidcommercials played on the row of large screens on the left-hand side of the compartment. Two of the ads were for Sands food products.
Jake coughed again. “Old Settlement’s about thirty miles from here,” he said. “Beth’s uncle has his villa down on OS/Level 2.”
Through the windows on their right showed the dead-white walls of the tunnel the subway train was rushing through.
“You’re absolutely and totally certain,” inquired his partner, “that you want to encounter the authentic Beth Kittridge in person?”
“Yeah—I have to,” answered Jake. “It’s what I’ve been moving toward since I got out of the Freezer.”
“This Beth may not be a ringer for the android version.”
“She’ll be close.”
Gomez laughed quietly. �
��Hey, you really did—really did fall in love.”
“I came to like her a hell of a lot. And I want to see her again.”
“Except that this Beth, the original, doesn’t know about that. Fact is, she doesn’t even know you at all.”
“I’m going to have to risk that,” acknowledged Jake with a quick nod. “I’m pretty sure I dreamed about her, in the Freezer, just before they woke me up.” He stared out at the bright-lit white walls that went flashing by. “I don’t know why—I must’ve seen Beth before somewhere—maybe it was a premonition. Then you came around to show me a picture of her, and next Bascom showed me a hologram in his office. Finally I met the android duplicate.”
“Obviously you have to meet the real Beth Kittridge,” agreed Gomez. “That’s the last move in the game.”
“Okay, I know it sounds a mite odd. Keep in mind, though, that it also ends this assignment.”
“It maybe ends the assignment so far as Bascom and Cosmos are concerned,” he said. “But you’re going to have a few loose ends of your own to tie up. That, amigo, may take you a considerable while to do.”
The villa was nearly a mile from the final stop of the OS/Level 2 subway line. Jake walked from the small, run-down station alone. Gomez told him he preferred to wait on the station’s one remaining bench, since sentimental reunions made him uncomfortably tearful.
The other estates down on this level were real, but most of the trees, grass and shrubbery were hologram projections. The whole system was no longer in great shape, and every so often all the trees would grow dim and then vanish completely for a few seconds, along with all the flowers and all the vast lawns, leaving only metal flooring showing. The area was in its night cycle; the wide, tree-lined streets were dark. Less than half the floating streetlamps were functioning; lights showed at the windows of only two of the houses he passed.
On the vast appearing and disappearing lawn of one of the villas a robot gardener was pretending to be pruning the shrubs. “Howdy, friend,” he called as Jake went by.
“Evening.”
“Howdy, friend. Howdy, friend ...
There were lights showing in the villa he’d come to visit. Just inside the open, rusted iron gates stood a mechanical guard dog. One of its plasglass eyes had fallen out, its imitation fur was patchy and it could manage nothing more than a very weak growl when Jake entered the grounds.
TekWar Page 20