He paused. “The experience of being interrogated under drugs is admittedly unpleasant,” he said. “Memory removal involves a grave risk of removing too much. Moreover, at best you could be found in the gutter, apparently at the end of a monumental debauch, in the course of which you had lost the object entrusted to you. It would do credit to neither yourself nor your clan.
“You are a foreigner, owing no duty to any organization on Earth. If you consider the matter objectively, you will surely, as a reasonable man, see that justice lies with us. Not to mention the prospect of substantial material reward. Think well.”
He stood up. “The hour is late,” he said. “Everyone is tired. Please accept our hospitality for the night. I will discuss the subject with you again tomorrow. Through that door, if you will be so kind.”
Now!
Sevigny slid a hand under Oscar. He poked with a hard thumb. The dirrel hopped to his hind legs and chattered out a protest.
“What ails him this time?” asked Baccioco sourly.
“Excitement. Let me cool him off,” Sevigny said. He began murmuring.
“You remember, your pet is a hostage, too,” Baccioco said. “Nasty things could happen to him.”
“Tk-tk quee ch-rik, k-k-k-ti-oo—” Oscar crouched like a cat. Sevigny picked him up in one arm and rose. Rashid glided near, gun aimed at the Cytherean’s breast.
“You will rest sounder if you take a sleeping tablet,” Gupta smiled. “I shall come along to your room and give you one.”
“Better than chains, huh?” Sevigny looked around at Maura. Damn, but she was a dish! “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night,” she whispered.
Rashid passed Sevigny, two meters away, to get behind him.
“Ki-ik!”
Oscar leaped. Sevigny went to one knee. But the bullet did not fly where he had been. It cracked into the floor. Oscar had already landed on Rashid’s wrist.
The Arab cursed and struck, Oscar sank teeth into his hand. Rashid yelled. Sevigny charged across the distance between. Gupta clawed at him. Sevigny kicked Rashid in the larynx. The Arab fell in a heap. The gun clattered free. Sevigny scooped it up and jumped back out of reach.
“Okay,” he panted “stay where you are.”
Maura screamed. “Be still!” Sevigny told her. He didn’t know if there was anyone else in this apartment. Slowly, he moved to the wall until he covered every approach.
“Tu porco—” Baccioco was aiding Gupta to rise. Blood dripped heavily from the doctor’s mouth. Oscar joined Sevigny and gibbered at the whole world. His fur stood on end.
Rashid got to hands and knees. He stayed there a second or two, fighting for breath, before he climbed to unsteady feet.
Gupta shook his head. The daze cleared from his eyes. “What do you plan to do?” he mumbled through puffed lips.
“Call the police,” Sevigny told him. “Where’s your phone?”
Rashid pulled a knife from inside his blouse and moved toward the Cytherean. He made mewing sounds and his eyes were crazy. Maura’s mouth opened again where she huddled in her relaxer.
“Stop or “I’ll shoot,” Sevigny said to the Arab.
“He won’t stop,” Gupta said. “You will have to kill him.”
Rashid edged closer. He held the knife in an expert underhand grip. His tread wobbled, but…
“For that matter,” Gupta said, “I intend to make a break for help. I recommend that Miss Sumantri and Signor Baccioco do the same. Since you do not know where the alarm buttons are that will summon others, you will have to shoot the three of us. The American police do not look kindly upon homicide. You may have some difficulty in proving self-defense.”
Sevigny moved crabwise along the wall until he was near a footstool. He snatched it with his free hand and threw it at Rashid. The Arab fell as the object hit him in the abdomen, staggered erect again, and resumed his weak, relentless advance.
“All right!” Sevigny yelped. He passed his hand above the plate of what seemed to be the main door. It opened for him and he saw a corridor beyond, an elevator waiting not far down.
“If that lunatic chases me I will shoot.” he said. “I’ll try only to disable him.” He backed through the door with Oscar and let it close. The other entrances he could see along the short length of the hall were on the same side, probably every one leading back into the suite. He retreated fast.
Fifty floors down, the elevator let him out into a lobby, small and empty despite its polished marble. “Blastula,” he muttered, “I’d hoped this was a hotel.“ But no. You couldn’t get away with as much in one as you could in a soundproofed apartment. Baccioco probably maintained a number of those, around the planet. Sevigny debated whether to borrow someone’s phone here. If he left this exit unwatched, his * enemies could escape before the police arrived.
On the other hand, if he hung around they might well find some way to recapture him. And as for their escape, come to think of it, men as prominent as Baccioco and—he supposed—Gupta couldn’t disappear. Rashid was little more than a tool. And he found himself hoping a bit that Maura would go free.
Oscar made comforting noises on his shoulder.
He walked out onto the street. It was wide and softly lit, lined with tall residential buildings. An occasional car went by, the whisper of its air cushion blending with the warm breeze that rustled in palm fronds. He was high above the ocean, which he glimpsed at the edge of the city glitter beneath. The Moon was no longer in sight, but he made out a few stars.
Where was the nearest public phone? He chose an eastward course arbitrarily and began striding. His buskins thudded; the slight jar and the sense of kinesthesia helped shake a little tightness out of him. But his skin was still wetf his stink sharp against a background of jasmine.
At the end of the block a pedestrian belt lifted him over the street. From the top of its arc he spied some glowsigns to the north, and headed that way. Before long he reached a cluster of shops. They were closed for the night, but even in his hurry he lost a few seconds gaping at their display windows. Was such luxury possible on an Earth that everyone called impoverished? Wait. Remember your history classes. Inordinate wealth for a few has always gone along with inordinate want for the many. Because the many no longer have the economic strength to resist.…
That recalled him to his purpose. A booth stood at the corner. He went in, fumbled for a half dollar, and dropped the coin in the slot. The screen lit. He needed a minute to figure out how the system worked. On Venus and Luna they used radio for distance calls, intercoms when indoors. Finally he punched the button marked Directory and spelled out POLICE on the alphabet keys. A set of station numbers appeared. He dialed.
A face and a pair of uniformed shoulders came to view. “Honolulu Central. Can I help you?”
“I want to report a theft and a kidnapping,” Sevigny said. It felt odd not to be telling his troubles to a clan elder.
The voice and eyes sharpened. “Where are you?”
Sevigny peered out at the signs and read them off. “I don’t know where the nearest station would be. I’m a stranger here.”
“Name, please?” The man droned through a maddening series of questions. “Very well,” he ended, “stay where you are and we’ll dispatch a patrol.”
Sevigny fretted for a time which seemed a deal longer than it was. When two dark teardrop shapes halted by the curb his heart slugged.
A large sergeant with an unexpectedly amiable brown face got out of one. “You the party sent for us?” he asked. Sevigny nodded. The officer took a minitaper from the pouch at his belt and thumbed the switch. “Tell me about it.”
Sevigny went through the account in as few words as possible. When he spoke Boccioco’s name, the policeman pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. At the conclusion he turned to the car he had come from and said, “What you make of this, Bradford?”
“Damfino,” said the indistinct shape within, “but sounds creaky to me.”
“You’
re serious, Mr. Sevigny?” the sergeant wondered.
“I sure as hell am,” the Cytherean rasped. “And I suggest, instead of a lot of silly questions, you arrest them before they take off.”
“Well, we can’t do that on your bare word unless you make a formal complaint. Want to come down to the station with us? I ought to warn you, you being outplanet, if this isn’t the truth you’re in bad trouble.”
“I’ll confirm what I said under drugs, damn you!”
“Hey, hey, take it easy. I’m not calling you a liar. The boys in the other car will go talk to these people and follow them if they leave. So let us be on our way.” The officer opened the rear door and gestured at Sevigny to enter first. The plainclothesman in front fed instructions to the pilot and the car got moving.
Turning around, the detective gave Sevigny a hard look. “Maybe your side is fighting back, huh?” he said.
“What do you mean?” With an effort, the engineer kept his hand away from the gun at his hip.
“Making up stories to discredit the people who’re campaigning against the Luna Corporation. Everybody knows President Edwards has been trying to get the Commonwealth Council to revoke its charger; and this is an election year, here in the States. A nice ripe scandal could toss Edwards out and shoo Hernandez in—and he wants to sink more American money into Corporation stock/’
Oscar sensed hostility, fluffed out his tail and clicked his teeth together.
“Whoa, there, Bradford,” said the officer in back. “You’re letting your prejudices run away with you.” He turned to Sevigny. “Me, I think this work on the Moon is the greatest thing that’s happened since Maui’s time. My grandchildren’ll have elbow room like my grandfather used to talk about. Uh, my name’s Kealoha, John Kealoha.”
Sevigny shook the big hand. “Glad to meet you,” he said. “I’d begun to wonder if anybody on Earth wanted us to succeed.”
“Sure. Anybody who can see past the end of his own snout. Why else would the opposition have to turn criminal?”
“That story’s plain fantastic,” Bradford said. “I’d like to interrogate you, Sevigny, the two of us alone.”
The Cytherean’s jaws closed. He’d taken more than he would have imagined possible without drawing a weapon. “Any time!”
“Slack off, you two,” Kealoha urged. “Bradford, he said he’d take babble juice. Let the doc quiz him.”
A waiting silence fell. Eventually the car stopped before precinct headquarters. The building was dwarfed by the apartment houses around, but thickly formed in concrete, doubtless a relic of the Unrest years. Mass aberration could come back again, Sevigny thought; and it would, if Earth’s population didn’t find some outlet. Not that the Moon would relieve crowding here, to any noticeable degree. But a place for temporary escape…
As they debarked, Bradford grasped the engineer’s arm. “Come along, you,” he ordered: and let go with a yell. Sevigny had cracked the blade of a hand across his wrist.
“You-”
Kealoha shoved his bulk between them. “None o’ that,” he rumbled. “You had no call to hustle him, Bradford. And you, Sevigny, don’t ever resist an officer. Not ever.”
“Even when I’m in the right?” The Cytherean was so astonished that half the anger drained from him. It flowed back and his mouth twisted. “Judas! I can’t get off Earth too fast.”
Under Bradford’s glower, he entered the building. A lieutenant of police, evidently in charge at night, waited by the sergeant at the desk. “Sevigny?”
The curious, pale-cheeked tension of him registered only faintly through the engineer’s emotions. “Yes. I want to file some charges.”
“Well, that takes time. We have to get hold of a judge, you know, before you can swear out a warrant.”
Bradford’s expression froze. Kealoha’s mouth fell open. The lieutenant frowned at him and made a slight negative gesture. Behind his desk, the other sergeant sat as if cast in metal.
“I’ll make the call right away,” the lieutenant said. “Meanwhile, turn your gun over to us.”
Sevigny shook his head. “No. I have the right, by interplanetary agreement.”
“And we have regulations. Do you want our help or don’t you?”
A sense of being caught in some purposeless machine overwhelmed Sevigny. Without a word, he laid Rashid’s pistol on the desk. It hadn’t fitted his holster very well anyway. He sagged into a chair and stared across the bleak, harshly lit room, at nothing. Bradford grinned. Kealoha seemed puzzled and distressed.
The lieutenant went behind the desk and dialed. “MacEwen speaking, twelfth precinct station,” he said. “Sevigny’s here.” He cut the circuit before there was a reply, came back, and extended his hand with a smile. “The judge is on his way,” he said. “Glad to meet you, Clansman.”
Something strange…But all Earth was an abyss of otherness. Sevigny shook hands unenthusiastically. “Did you alert him in advance, then?” he asked.
“Yes.” MacEwen sat down, offered a pack of cigarettes, and took one for himself. “The, um, the situation was peculiar. We didn’t know whether it’d be best to take you here or to main headquarters. So we asked Judge Hughes to stand by.” “Lieutenant…” Kealoha began.
“Shut up,” MacEwen said. His voice was quiet but edged. Turning to Sevigny: “This is as odd a case as I ever heard about. You mustn’t blame us for being careful.”
“Too damn careful!” A little life returned to the Cytherean. He sat straight. “I don’t know anything about police methods, but what are you idling here for? That force unit is important evidence of… sabotage, murder, conspiracy. Why haven’t you got a crew, a squad, whatever you call ‘em, at the Hotel Goldwater this minute, finding out how the devil those men got in with their truck and loaded a piece of goods registered to me?”
“Don’t worry, Clansman,” MacEwen said. “There’ve been calls burning the lines throughout Honolulu.” He hesitated. “And beyond. But don’t you see, this is an international case. If your story is true, some mighty important foreigners are involved. It may be too big for us, may need the Safety Corps.”
“So call them. They must have a local office.”
“Please, Clansman. I promise you we’ve gotten things under way. You’ll have to be patient. While you wait for…for the judge, suppose you report what happened to you.”
“I already have. Twice.”
“That must’ve been pretty brief, though. You were in a hurry. We’ll need to know everything you can recall. Best to put it on tape now, while it’s fresh in your mind.” MacEwen went back to a shelf for a recorder. “Sergeant Kealoha, how about getting us some coffee?”
“You’re not even going to put him in an interrogation room?” the policeman asked incredulously.
“Get. That. Coffee. Sergeant.”
Kealoha went out. He looked defeated. MacEwen started the recorder. “Go ahead, Clansman,” he invited. “Start as far back as possible.”
Sevigny yielded. “That would be on the Moon,” he sighed. “I was in charge of a deeptap gang…”
“…so we went to dinner and talked. Not about anything significant.” It hurt even to tell this much. “Suddenly…
“…a needle gun. I passed out.” Kealoha, who had been standing close by, refilled Sevigny’s cup.
“…he claimed…”
The door opened. Two men in unobtrusive clothes entered. They were both young and hard-featured. “Excuse me,” MacEwen blurted, jumping to his feet. The fifth successive cigarette smoldered between his fingers. “Are you the Federals?”
“Yes.” One of them flashed a badge. The other nodded at Sevigny, who crouched forward in his chair. “That him?”
“Right.” MacEwen stepped aside. There was awe in his expression.
The two men walked quickly over to the engineer. “Donald Sevigny,” one said, not a question but a statement which didn’t wait for reply. “We’re from the Federal Police Agency of the United States.”
“S
o?” Sevigny rose, balanced on the ends of his feet. He sensed a wrongness; his skin prickled. Oscar poised humpbacked on his shoulder, tail flicking from side to side. Kealoha, MacEwen, and the desk sergeant grew altogether motionless. Bradford grinned afresh where he sat. For a space the silence was broken only by the remote drone of a freightcraft lumbering overhead.
“You are under arrest. Come along.”
“What?” In spite of every premonition, the words struck like lightning. Sevigny took a backward step. His right hand grabbed for the gun that was no longer there, his left lifted as if to plead. “Are you crazy on Earth?”
“Come along, I said.” A needier seemed to appear from nowhere in the first man’s fingers.
“Wait a minute!” Kealoha bellowed.
“Be quiet, sergeant,” MacEwen ordered.
Huge and blue in his uniform, the policeman stood his ground. “You’ve already took too much advantage of him being ignorant. He’s got a right to know the charge. I can’t let you make an improper arrest.” “Conspiracy to violate the sovereignty retained by the United States government under the Commonwealth,” clipped the second man.
“Nothing doing.” Kealoha shook his head. “Too vague. I know the law. What’s he supposed to have done?”
“Go to quarters, sergeant, or I’ll break you,” MacEwen said. “Damn it, these are Federal officers! Take him away, gentlemen.”
Conspiracy indeed, it tolled through the thudding in Sevigny’s skull. Baccioco and Company got on the phone the minute I left. They must have partners in Washington. The President himself is anti-Lunar. Word went hack, the city police were to keep me for these …
The second agent took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. “You Cythereans have a reputation for violence,” he said. “Hold out your wrists.”
Seven Conquests Page 23