No one was in the rooms or on the balcony. Anybody here had to be in the two Wednesday cylinders. If each was occupied, then one person was probably a corpse.
Crouching down so that he would not be seen if Castor dared a peek through the window, Tingle went to the nearest cylinder. Pointing the gun with one hand, he reached out with the other and swiftly pulled the door open. The cylinder was empty. Which meant that the other stoner should also be empty. Unless there were two persons in there and one was dead.
He repeated the procedure and sighed with a mixture of relief and puzzlement. No one there either. Where were they? He was almost certain that they had not left the building.
Frowning, he went out onto the balcony and scanned the neighborhood. Snick and Castor were not in sight. For a moment, he thought of telling Paz what had happened, but he rejected that. What good would it do? His chief could not help him, and he might order him out of the building or tell him to stay in the apartment. The only thing for him to do was to search the places available to him.
He walked to the hall and started down it to search the other rooms. At its far end was the entrance door. It was luck that allowed him to escape the beam that evaporated the code-lock device and shot straight down the hall. The glowing white rod-shape almost touched his left shoulder. A second later, the door swung violently inward.
Tingle did not share all the same reflexes with Caird. He had slowly built up his own characteristics to correspond with his role. Thus, he stood frozen for a second longer than Caird would have done. Caird would have instantly thrown himself down on the floor, his gun held out pointing at the door even while falling. Tingle did recover in time to press the firing button even though he did not know who was coming through the door.
Chapter 14
Castor screamed, dropped his weapon, clutched his left upper arm, and was gone. Tingle raced after him and into the hall. The odor of burned flesh and plastic wrapped itself around him. Castor's head was just disappearing down the back stairs as Tingle came through the door. Tingle ran after him, but, by the time he got to the porch, he had lost Castor. He was tempted to run out and circle the building. The madman might be hiding around the corner or behind a bush or tree in the yard. It might take just a minute to catch and kill him. But what if someone saw him shooting a man? The organics would be here in sixty seconds. And if he searched the neighborhood, he might be caught because someone had seen the wounded Castor and called the organics.
Castor was not going to get far before he attracted attention and was caught or pursued. Tingle did not want to be anywhere near Castor when that happened.
It was possible, however, that Castor had a place nearby into which he could dive like a rat into a hole. Such as, for instance, the tall yellow access tube on the corner of the little park near the canal. This was an entrance to the underground goodstransportation system. If he had gotten down there, he was long gone.
He waited until his hard breathing had softened before he spoke Paz's codecall into the watch. Paz answered at once. Tingle told him what had happened; Paz cursed. When he was finished with his blasphemies and invective, which included a dozen Hindustani loanwords, he said, "My agents are in your area now. I'll tell them about this, and I'll send some more. We have to find Castor now!"
"Tell me something I don't know," Tingle muttered. More loudly, he said, "I'm going to look for Snick. I have an idea where she might be. Call you later."
By law, at least one building in every block had to have four extra stoners. These were mostly used for emergencies such as immediately stoning people who had been injured in the neighborhood streets or for the use of organics who had just made an arrest. Stoning a suspected criminal was a far superior restraining method to handcuffing.
Tingle went to the basement door, nodding at a couple who had just come down the staircase. Fortunately, he had put the gun back under the blouse. Even so, they looked suspiciously at him, though that might be his excited imagination. He walked down the steps into another recreation room. A TV strip was shedding its ghostly light; someone had forgotten to turn it off. Whoever had done it was going to be reprimanded and perhaps fined, if the culprit could be identified. Tingle turned it off.
The emergency cylinders stood in a corner of the utility room. Tingle went by them to a wall panel marked EMER CYL PWR and slid it into the recess. The number-three button was glowing. Tingle punched it, and the light went out. He went to the cylinder marked NO. 3 and opened the door. Snick was slumped down in it, her head against her drawn-up knees. She was gray-blue and hard and cold as metal to the touch. A bruise on her forehead indicated that Castor had knocked her senseless. Or perhaps he had killed her. In any event, he had not had time to mutilate her, if he meant to, as he had Doctor Atlas.
Tingle shut the cylinder door, returned to the control panel, punched the number-three button, and then turned the PWR rheostat to ON. A second later, the rheostat automatically returned to the OFF position. He went to the cylinder, swung the door open, bent down, and put a finger on her jugular. It was pulsing feebly. Good! Or was it good? Alive, she was a danger, though not if she could be hidden away someplace.
After stoning her again, he stood thinking for a moment, then called Paz over his wristwatch. The tiny scrambler in the watch would make the transmission unintelligible to anyone listening in except Paz. The government had the right to tap into any transmission; it had also given its citizens the right to use scramblers, providing them with the illusion of freedom. Put a leash on the dog but make it happy by making the leash a long one.
He told Paz just what had happened.
Paz said, "I'll send two agents to get her out of the house."
He said, "I have to know where she's being taken."
Paz said sharply, "Why is that?"
"I have to question her, find out what she's up to. I won't feel safe until I do so. Not about her, I mean. Castor's another matter."
"We'll take care of that."
"I don't like working in the dark," Tingle said. "Anyway, you really need me for the interrogation."
Paz sighed. After a pause, he said, "Very well. As soon as the situation's stable, I'll notify you."
He sounded as if his mouth was full of food. He had probably stuffed it as soon as he realized that Tingle was going to argue about his orders.
After being told to stay in his apartment until he heard from
Paz, Tingle went upstairs. He called the Department of Repairs and Plumbing and ordered a new code-lock installed. He was told that that could not be done until tomorrow. That is, next Wednesday. Tingle canceled the order. He called Paz, who was beginning to sound cross and harassed. Paz said that he would send someone to install a new lock within the hour. It was not wise to bring DORAP in. It might investigate the matter, and how could he explain the damage? The corpspersons would realize that only a charged-particle weapon could have burned through the lock. Tingle said that he knew that, but most corpspeople he had met were not inquisitive about the cause of the damage. They were required by law to record the cause, but that was usually as far as the matter went. Unless some high official got nosey.
"This is getting worse and worse," Paz said. "I hope you don't have any more difficulties."
"I don't make them," Tingle said, and he cut Paz off. Paz was beginning to sound as if he were at the cracking point or perilously close. Perhaps the immer council should be told to watch Paz closely for signs of emotional instability. The trouble with that was that he would have to send the suggestion through Paz. No. He could do that through his Thursday superior, who would see to it that Thursday's council got word. It would then transmit the suggestion to Wednesday's. But that council would not know about it until it was destoned on Wednesday.
Tingle shrugged. He was not so calm and relaxed and in control of himself. Who was he to throw stones at Paz?
He went into the bathroom and turned up the power on his watch so that he could hear it above the shower water. The bathroom do
or was locked, and his weapon lay on a rack to one side of the shower. Though he did not think that Castor would return, he was not going to be careless.
Then he heard a shrilling and saw orange flashing. He swore. The sound and light came, not from his watch, but from the strip on the wall opposite the shower cubicle. The soap slipped out of his hands. He started to pick it up, clianged his mind, turned the water off, and pulled the shower door back. Who could it be? Nokomis? If she came home early for some reason, he would have a hard time getting away from her to call Paz.
He felt the soap under his foot, and he fell backward.
When he awoke, he was in a hospital bed. Nokomis' broad but beautiful face hung above him.
"No, I'm not going to be careless," he muttered.
Nokomis said, "What did you say, dear?"
His mind felt jellied, though not so much that he could not understand her when she told him what had happened. She had been called from the stage during a crucial point in the rehearsal. But he was not to worry about it. He was far more important to her than her career. The producer and most of the cast were furious with her, but he was not to be disturbed by that. To hell with them. The hospital had called her, and she had rushed down in a taxi. And she was so happy that he had not been killed.
However, she was puzzled because, so the hospital said, it had gotten an anonymous call. The anonym had spoken through a strainer, which removed all possibility of identifying the caller by a voiceprint. After saying that Tingle was unconscious in his shower, the caller gave the address and turned off the strip. When the paramedics got to the apartment, they found the door unlocked-she said nothing about the lock mechanism-and Tingle was lying senseless in the shower. The whole thing was so strange.
By the time she was through, Nokomis looked more suspicious than concerned. Tingle said that all he knew was that he had slipped on a bar of soap.
The attendants brought up a machine and subjected him to various tests. After a while, a doctor came in and read the results. He told Tingle that he had no serious injury and that he could go home as soon as he felt strong enough. However, a few minutes later two organics came to question him. Tingle repeated what he had told Nokomis. They looked grave, and one said that he would see Tingle again next Wednesday.
After they had left, Tingle groaned. When Wednesday rolled around, he would be questioned again. If he did not have an explanation to satisfy the organics, and he probably would not, he would be given the ultimate inquisition. Truth mist would be sprayed at him, and, after he had breathed that, he could not lie. He would tell the organics all that they asked.
And he and the other immers would humpty-dumpty into utter ruin.
"One bad thing after another, each worse than the one before it!" he muttered.
"What, dear?" Nokomis said.
"Nothing important."
Fortunately, Nokomis had to go to the toilet. While she was gone, he called Paz again, and Paz cursed again.
"Quit it!" Tingle said sharply. "My wife'll be back in a minute! What happened to me?"
Paz settled down and rapped out an explanation. The agent who had come to repair the doorlock had found him in the shower. He had put the weapon in his own shoulderbag and had then called the hospital. Tingle quickly told Paz about the organics and the inevitable interrogation. Paz said, "That can be avoided, I think. I'll pass on the message. What a mess!"
He paused, then said, his voice very low and soft, "Bob, I've got even more bad news."
Tingle said, "Wait! I hear my wife!"
He listened for a few seconds, then said, "Tell it quick. She's stopped in the hall to talk to somebody."
"I got a recording," Paz said. "From yesterday. It said I should tell you that Ozma Wang is dead. I don't know what that means, but ..
"God!" Tingle said. Then, "I think my wife's about to come in. I'll talk to you later."
He cut off the transmission and put his arm down by his side. He felt something quiver inside him, a thing struggling to get loose and ravage him. It was, he knew, grief, but it was deep within him, far away. It had to be Jeff Caird's grief for the death of his wife.
Nokomis entered the room, stopped, and said, "Were you talking to somebody?"
"No. Why?" he said. The thing that was struggling in him was quieting down now.
"I saw your watch close to your mouth. You must ..
"No, I wasn't talking to anybody. I just happened to be wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. For God's sake, Nokomis! If people were classified grammatically, you'd be in the accusative case!"
She stiffened, glared, and said, "You needn't be so touchy!"
"I'm sorry, dear. It must be the injury to my head."
On the way home in a taxi, Nokomis said, "The whole thing does look peculiar, doesn't it? What could we have that anyone else doesn't have? Is there somebody you haven't told me about, somebody who hates you and is crazy enough to revenge himself? Or ... herself? You never told me about anyone who might hate you that much, but ..
Tingle told her that he needed silence until he felt better. Would she mind not talking? Any noise hurt his head. Nokomis stiffened and moved away from him. He was too upset to worry about offending her. His doubts and anxieties were whirling him around like Dorothy's house in the tornado. He had to talk to Paz again and find out if measures had been taken to deal with his scheduled interrogation on the coming Wednesday.
After a few minutes, he calmed down, and he tried to talk his wife into going back to work. She refused to leave him until she was sure that he was entirely recovered from his fall. She would not listen to his argument that the hospital examination had showed without a doubt that he was not dangerously injured.
He gave up on her and spent a more or less quiet evening (no evening with her was really quiet) until she said that she was going to bed. Knowing that she would not sleep until he was beside her, he said that he did feel tired. He planned to sneak out into another room and call Paz as soon as she started snoring. However, while waiting for her to do so, he fell asleep.
He woke up with the alarm strip whistling. For a moment, he was confused because of the vividness of a dream. Snick had been calling for help from somewhere in a fog, but he could never find her. Though he had several times seen vague dark figures in the mists that might be her, he could not get close to them.
Helpless, he raged inside himself against himself. A man who was a different persona every day should not be married. Though he had known that well, he had allowed his strong need for the domestic life to overcome his reason. Only the Father Tom Zurvan persona had never married, and he had had to be very disciplined and stern with himself when he had built that role.
Just before they went into their cylinders, Nokomis kissed him good night, though not as passionately as she usually did. She had not fully accepted his excuse for not trying to get coercion data on her colleagues. He stepped into the cylinder, turned around, and waved at her. In the dim light through the window he saw her face petrify. He looked at his watch to check that the power had been applied to her cylinder. A delay circuit that he had installed behind the wall gave him enough time to get out of the cylinder and inflate his dummy.
Two minutes later, he ran out of the apartment building. His dash toward the building across the southwest corner of Washington Square was accompanied by the wailing of sirens and the flashing of orange lights from the public strips.
Thursday-World
VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
D5-W1 (Day-Five, Week-One)
Chapter 15
James Swart Dunski, professional fencing instructor, stepped out of his stoner. At the same time, Rupert von Hentzau, his wife, walked from her stoner. They embraced warmly and said, "Good morning." Rupert was nude, golden-coppery, willowy, kinky-haired, and beautiful. The genes of her American mulatto, Afrikaans, and Samoan ancestors had produced a striking woman, one whose body and face made a magnetic field that clamped on to the attention of males wherever she wen
t. Sometimes, she was an artist's model; more often, a fencing instructor.
Having greeted one wife, Dunski embraced the other two, Malia Maljetoa Smit and Jannie Simeona White. He also embraced the other husbands and three children, none of whom he was sure was his, though he could have established his fatherhood by genetic-blood tests. All chattering except Dunski, who felt Tingle struggling to keep his persona, they trooped from the basement room to the ground-level community room. Any other day, Dunski would have enjoyed the verbal byplay, the ass-slapping and breast-rubbing. This Thursday, he was being invaded by a partial recall of the last two days. It angered him, though he also admitted to himself that the intrusion was necessary. Jim Dunski could not live for Thursday only. He could be hurt badly at any moment by Tuesday's and Wednesday's bad events.
One benefit from his present situation was that Rupert was an immer. She, however, was a citizen of this day only. He was desperate to tell her their dangerous situation at once, but he had no acceptable excuse to get her aside. They would have to go through the rituals and conventions all had long ago agreed upon.
First, the sleepy children were put to bed.
Second, they massed in the huge bathroom, brushed their teeth, washed whatever needed washing and urinated, if need be.
Third, they went to the kitchen and drank milk and, if hungry, ate some berries and cereal with milk. By then the joshing, touching, stroking, and rubbing had swelled the penises and nipples and started the natural lubrications.
Fourth, they went into the living room, sat down in chairs arranged in a circle, and spun a milk bottle. This was an antique, which might have been used by children a thousand or more years ago at parties. Its purpose was rather more serious now, a democratic pure-chance procedure designed to avoid jealousy and favoritism.
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