There was silence. Finger on trigger, Fara stood moveless. Dim thoughts came of all the half-things he had heard in his days about the weapon shops; that they had secret supporters in every district, that they had a private and ruthless hidden government, and that once you got into their clutches, the only way out was death. But what finally came clear was a mind picture of himself, Fara Clark, family man, faithful subject of the empress, standing here in this dimly-lighted store, deliberately fighting so vast and menacing an organization. He forced courage into his sagging muscles. He said, "You can't fool me by pretending there's someone behind me. Now, get to that door."
The firm eyes of the old man were looking past him. The man said quietly, "Well, Rad, have you all the data?"
"Enough for a primary," said a young man's voice behind Fara. "Type A-7 conservative. Good average intelligence, but a Monaric development peculiar to small towns. One-sided outlook fostered by the Imperial schools present in exaggerated form. Extremely honest Reason would be useless. Emotional approach would require extended treatment. I see no reason why we should bother. Let him live his life as it suits him."
"If you think," Fara said shakily, "that the trick voice is going to make me turn, you're crazy. That's the left wall of the building. I know there's no one there."
"I'm all in favor, Rad," said the old man, "of letting him live his life. But he was the prime mover of the crowd outside. I think he should be discouraged."
"We'll advertise his presence," said Rad. "He'll spend the rest of his life denying the charge."
Fara's confidence in the gun had faded so far that, as he listened in puzzled uneasiness to the incomprehensible conversation, he forgot it completely.
The old man said persistently: "I think a little emotion might have a long-run effect. Show him the palace."
Palace! The word tore Fara out of his paralysis. "See here," he began, "I can see now that you lied to me. This gun isn't loaded at all. It's—”
His voice failed him. His body went rigid. There was no gun in his hand.
"Why, you—” he began wildly. And stopped again. His mind heaved with imbalance. He fought off the spinning sensation, thought finally, tremblingly: Somebody must have sneaked the gun from him. That meant there was someone behind him. The voice was no mechanical thing. He started to turn. And couldn't. He struggled, pushing with his muscles. And couldn't turn, couldn't move, couldn't budge. The room was growing curiously dark. He had difficulty seeing the old man. He would have shrieked then if he could. Because the weapon shop was gone.
He was standing in the sky above an immense city. Standing in the sky, and nothing around him but air, and blue summer heaven, and the city a mile, two miles below. His breath seemed solidly embedded in his lungs. Sanity came back as the remote awareness impinged on his mind that he was actually standing on a hard floor, and that the city must be a picture somehow focused directly into his eyes.
For the first time, with a start, Fara recognized the metropolis below. It was the city of dreams, Imperial City, Capital of the glorious Empress Isher. From his great height he could see the grounds of the silver palace, the Imperial residence itself. The last tendrils of his fear were fading now before a gathering fascination and wonder. The fear vanished as he recognized with a thrill that the palace was drawing nearer at tremendous speed. "Show him the palace!" they had said. The glittering roof flashed straight at his face. The solid metal of it passed through him.
His first sense of imminent and mind shaking desecration came as the picture paused in a huge room, where a score of men sat around a table at the head of which sat a young woman. The inexorable, sacrilegious, limitlessly powered cameras that were doing the photographing swung across the table and caught the woman full face.
It was a handsome face, but there was passion twisting it now, as she leaned forward and said in a voice at once familiar—how often Fara had heard its calm, measured tones on the telestats—and distorted. Distorted by anger and an insolent certainty of command. That caricature of a beloved voice slashed across the silence as clearly as if he were there in the great room.
"I want that traitor killed, do you understand? I don't care how you do it, but I want to hear by tomorrow night that he is dead."
The picture snapped off and instantly Fara was back in the weapon shop. He stood for a moment, swaying, fighting to accustom his eyes to the dimness. His first emotion was contempt at the simpleness of the trickery. A motion picture. What kind of a fool did they think he was, to swallow something as transparently unreal as that? Abruptly, the appalling depravity of the scheme, the indescribable wickedness of what was being attempted here brought red rage.
"Why, you scum!" he flared. "So you've got somebody to act the part of the empress, trying to pretend that—Why, you—”
"That will do," said the voice of Rad. Fara shook as a big young man walked into his line of vision. The alarmed thought came that people who would besmirch so vilely the character of her imperial majesty would not hesitate to do physical damage to Fara Clark. The young man went on in a steely tone, "We do not pretend that what you saw was taking place this instant in the palace. That would be too much of a coincidence. But it was taken two days ago. The woman is the empress. The man whose death she ordered is a former adviser whom she considered a weakling. He was found dead in his apartment last night. His name, if you care to look it up in the news files, was Banton Vickers. However, let that pass. We're finished with you."
"But I'm not finished," Fara said in a thick voice. I've never heard or seen so much infamy in all my life. If you think this town is through with you, you're crazy. We'll have a guard on this place day and night, and nobody will get in or out."
"That will do." It was the silver-haired man. "The examination has been most interesting. As an honest man, you may call on us if you are ever in trouble. That is all. Leave through the side door."
It was all. Impalpable forces grabbed him, and he was shoved at a door that appeared miraculously in the wall, where seconds before had been the palace. He found himself standing in a flower garden, and there was a crowd to his left. He recognized his fellow townsmen, and that he was outside.
The nightmare was over. As he entered his house half an hour later, Creel said, "Where's the gun?"
"The gun?" Fara stared at his wife.
"It said over the 'stat a few minutes ago that you were the first customer of the new weapon shop."
Fara stood, remembering what the young man had said: "We'll advertise his presence." He thought in agony: His reputation! Not that his was a great name, but he had long believed with a quiet pride that Fara Clark's motor repair shop was widely known in the community and countryside. First, his private humiliation inside the shop. And now this lying to people who didn't know why he had gone into the store.
He hurried to the telestat and called Mayor Dale. His hopes crashed as the plump man said:
"I'm sorry, Fara. I don't see how you can have free time on the telestat. You'll have to pay for it. They did."
"They did!" Fara wondered if he sounded as empty as he felt.
"And they've paid Lan Harris for his lot. The old man asked top price, and got it. He phoned me to transfer the title."
"Oh!" Fara's world was shattering. "You mean nobody's going to do anything? What about the Imperial garrison at Ferd?"
Dimly, he was aware of the mayor mumbling something about the empress' soldiers refusing to interfere in civilian matters. "Civilian matters!" Fara exploded. "You mean these people are just going to be allowed to come here whether we want them or not, illegally forcing the sale of lots by first taking possession of them?" A thought struck him. "Look," he said breathlessly, "you haven't changed your mind about having Jor keep guard in front of the shop?"
The plump face in the telestat plate grew impatient.
"Now, see here, Fara, let the constituted authorities handle this matter."
"But you're going to keep Jor there," Fara said doggedly.
&n
bsp; The mayor looked annoyed. "I promised, didn't I? So he'll be there. And now, do you want to buy time on the telestat? It's fifteen credits for one minute. Mind you, as a friend, I think you're wasting your money. No one has ever caught up with a false statement."
Fara said grimly, "Put two on, one in the morning, one in the evening."
"All right. We’ll deny it completely. Good night."
The telestat went blank; and Fara sat there. A new thought hardened his face. "That boy of ours—there's going to be a showdown. He either works in my shop or he gets no more allowance."
Creel said, "You've handled him wrong. He's twenty-three, and you treat him like a child. Remember, at twenty-three you were a married man."
That was different," said Fara. "I had a sense of responsibility. Do you know what he did tonight?"
He didn't quite catch her answer. For a moment he thought she said: "No. In what way did you humiliate him first?"
Fara felt too impatient to verify the improbable words. He rushed on, "He refused in front of the whole village to give me help. He's a bad one, all bad."
"Yes," said Creel in a bitter tone. "He's all bad. I'm sure you don't realize how bad. He's as cold as steel, but without steel's strength or integrity. He took a long time, but he hates even me now because I stood up for you for so long when I knew you were wrong."
"What's that?" said Fara, startled; then gruffly: "Come come, my dear, we're both upset. Let's go to bed."
He slept poorly.
Three
THERE WERE days when the conviction that this was a personal fight between himself and the weapon shop lay heavily on Fara. Though it was out of his way, he made a point of walking past the weapon shop on his way to and from work, always pausing to speak to Constable Jor. On the fourth day, the policeman wasn't there.
Fara waited patiently at first, then angrily. He walked finally to his shop and called Jor's house. Jor wasn't home. He was, according to his wife, guarding the weapon store. Fara hesitated. His own shop was piled with work, and he had a guilty sense of having neglected his customers for the first time in his life. It would be simple to call up the mayor and report Jor's dereliction. And yet he didn't want to get the man into trouble.
Out in the street, he saw that a large crowd was gathering in front of the weapon shop. Fara hurried. A man he knew greeted him excitedly: "Jor's been murdered, Fara!"
"Murdered!" Fara stood very still, and at first he was not clearly conscious of the thought that was in his mind: Satisfaction! Now, even the soldiers would have to act. He realized the ghastly tenor of his mind. He said slowly, "Where's the body?"
"Inside."
"You mean those . . . scum—” In spite of himself, he hesitated over the epithet. It was difficult to think of the silver-haired weapon shop man in such terms. His mind hardened. "You mean, those scum killed him, then pulled his body inside?"
"Nobody saw the killing," said another man, "but he's gone and hasn't been seen for three hours. The mayor got the weapon shop on telestat, but they claim they don't know anything about him. They've done away with him, that's what, and now they're pretending innocence. Well, they won't get out of it as easily as that. Mayor's gone to phone the soldiers at Ferd to bring up some big guns."
Something of the excitement that was in the crowd surged through Fara, the feeling that big things were brewing. It was the most delicious sensation that had ever tingled along his nerves, and it was all mixed with a strange pride that he had been so right about this, that he at least had never doubted that here was evil. He did not recognize the emotion as the full-flowering joy that comes to a member of a mob. But his voice shook as he said, "Guns? Yes, that will be the answer, and the soldiers will have to come, of course."
Fara nodded to himself in the immensity of his certainty that the Imperial soldiers would now have no excuse for not acting. He started to say something about what the empress would do if she found out that a man had lost his life because the soldiers had shirked their duty, but the words were drowned in a shout:
"Here comes the mayor! Hey, Mr. Mayor, when are the atomic cannons due?"
There was more of the same general meaning as the mayor's car landed lightly. Some of the questions must have reached his honor, for he stood up in the open two-seater, and held up his hand for silence. To Fara's astonishment, the plump-faced man gazed at him with accusing eyes. He looked around him, but he was almost alone; everybody else had crowded forward. Fara shook his head, puzzled by that glare, and then flinched as Mayor Dale pointed a finger at him and said in a voice that trembled, "There's the man who's responsible for the trouble that has come upon us. Stand forward, Fara Clark, and show yourself. You've cost this town seven hundred credits that we could ill afford to spend."
Fara couldn't have moved or spoken to save his life. The mayor went on, with self-pity in his tone, "We've all known that it wasn't wise to interfere with these weapon shops. So long as the Imperial government leaves them alone, what right have we to set up guards or act against them? That's what I've thought from the beginning, but this man ... this . . . this Fara Clark kept after all of us, forcing us to move against our wills, and so now we've got a seven-hundred credit bill to meet and—”
He broke off with, "I might as well make it brief. When I called the garrison, the commander laughed and said that Jor would turn up. And I had barely disconnected when there was a money call from Jor. He's on Mars." He waited for the shouts of amazement to die down. "It'll takes four weeks for him to come back by ship, and we've got to pay for it, and Fara Clark is responsible."
The shock was over. Fara stood cold, his mind hard. He said finally, scathingly, "So you're giving up, and trying to blame me all in one breath. I say you are all fools."
As he turned away, he heard Mayor Dale saying that the situation was not completely lost as he had learned that the weapon shop had been set up in Glay because the village was equidistant from four cities, and that it was the city business the shop was after. This would mean tourists, and accessory trade for the village stores.
Fara heard no more. Head high, he walked back to his shop. There were one or two catcalls from the mob, but he ignored them. The worst of it, as the days passed, was the realization that the people of the weapon shop had no personal interest in him. They were remote, superior, undefeatable. When he thought of it, he felt a vague fear at the way they had transferred Jor to Mars in a period of less than three hours, when all the world knew that the trip by fastest spaceship could never be made in less than 24 days.
Fara did not go to the express station to see Jor arrive home. He had heard that the council had decided to charge Jor with half of the expense of the trip, on the threat of losing his job if he objected. On the second night after Jor's return, Fara slipped down to the constable's house, and handed the officer one hundred and seventy-five credits. He returned home with a clearer conscience.
It was on the third day after that the door of his shop banged open and a man came in. Fara frowned as he saw who it was: Castler, a village hanger-on. The man was grinning. "Thought you might be interested, Fara. Somebody came out of the weapon shop today."
Fara strained deliberately at the connecting bolt of a hard plate of the atomic motor he was fixing. He waited with a gathering annoyance that the man did not volunteer further information. Asking questions would be a form of recognition of the worthless fellow. A developing curiosity made him say finally, grudgingly, "I suppose the constable promptly picked him up?"
He supposed nothing of the kind, but it was an opening.
"It wasn't a man. It was a girl."
Fara knitted his brows. He didn't like the idea of making trouble for women. But the cunning devils! Using a girl, just as they had used an old man as a clerk. It was a trick that deserved to fail; the girl was probably a hussy who needed rough treatment. Fara said harshly, "Well, what's happened?"
"She's still out, bold as you please. Pretty thing, too."
The bolt off, Fara took the
hard plate over to the polisher, and began patiently the long, careful task of smoothing away the crystals that heat had seared on the once shining metal. The soft throb of the polisher made the background to his next words, "Has anything been done?"
"Nope. The constable's been told, but he says he doesn't fancy being away from his family for another month or so, and paying the cost into the bargain."
Fara contemplated that for a minute, as the polisher throbbed on. His voice shook with suppressed fury when he said finally, "So they're letting them get away with it. It's all been as clever as hell. Can't they see that they mustn't give an inch before these . . . these transgressors? It's like giving countenance to sin."
From the corner of his eye, he noticed that there was a grin on the face of the other. It struck Fara suddenly that the man was enjoying his anger. And there was something else in that grin—a secret knowledge. Fara pulled the engine plate away from the polisher. He faced the ne'er-do-well. "Naturally, that sin part wouldn't worry you much."
"Oh," said the man nonchalantly, "the hard knocks of life make people tolerant. For instance, after you know the girl better, you yourself will probably come to realize that there's good in all of us."
It was not so much the words, as the I've-got-secret-in-formation tone that made Fara snap, "What do you mean -after I get to know the girl better! I won't even speak to the brazen creature."
"One can't always choose," the other said with enormous casualness. "Suppose he brings her home."
"Suppose who brings who home?" Fara spoke irritably. "Castler, you—” He stopped. A dead weight of dismay plumped into his stomach; his whole being sagged. "You mean—” he said.
"I mean," replied Castler with a triumphant leer, "that the boys aren't letting a beauty like her be lonesome. And, naturally, your son was the first to speak to her." He finished: "They're walkin' together now on Second Avenue, comin' this way."
The Empire of Isher Page 4