Point Ultimate

by Jerry Sohl

  The bright hallway on the other side of the door presented a small problem because there were doors at either end. He decided to try the one on his left, but it did not open when he pressed the red stud. He tried the other. It opened.

  He was not prepared for what he saw next, for it was a room as large as a house and it was filled with a strange, soft glow. He stood near the door that hissed closed behind him, wondering at the beauty of it. In the center was a large pool and in the middle of it was a white statue of a nude woman holding aloft a bowl from which water cascaded among the lilies below. Around the fountain pond were lounges and chairs and small woolly carpets, and near the walls were statuary, fresh flowers in tall vases, and small garden plots in which flowers were grow-

  ing. On the walls were many paintings. The room was so spotlessly clean he hesitated to step farther into it, the air was so cool and the total effect so restful he felt moved to sit in one of the chairs.

  A doorway at the far end opened and a thin man came through it. He paused for a moment, then came forward around the pool. He walked stiffly, as if he had an injury. When he came within speaking distance, he stopped. His black eyes indicated nothing, his face was expressionless.

  “Follow me,” the man said. Then he turned and walked toward the door he had come through.

  Emmett followed.

  The man led him to another smaller but lavishly furnished room at the end of which a man sat in a chaise longue, a drink in his hand.

  “Come here,” the man commanded in a clear voice. And as Emmett walked to him, the man’s eyes never left his face. His guide went around the chair, took a position behind it facing Emmett.

  “Sit down.”

  Emmett sat in a nearby straight-backed chair and stared at the man with the drink, a fat man with a pasty face, pale blue eyes and thin strings of black hair running across an otherwise bare pate. The pink jowls, puffy cheeks and eyes were quite a contrast to the thin face of the man behind him.

  Emmett glanced at the man’s thick neck, the huge midsection and the pudgy fingers that gripped the glass, and wondered what kind of a man he was, for what he saw was not very impressive. Then he studied the eyes and found the answer there. They held none of the hopelessness Emmett was used to seeing. He saw authority there. And strength. And intelligence, too.

  The man stirred a little and said, “I’m Alfred Gniessin.” The voice was a low rumble. “Welcome to my villa.”

  Emmett said nothing. From his accent and the name and the lush surroundings there could be no doubt the man was an En-

  emy and the man behind him his servant. This, then, was how the victors lived.

  “Jascha and I have been waiting for you to wake up. You have been sleeping more than ten hours.” He turned his head slightly. “You may turn it off now, Jascha.”

  Jascha moved to a nearby panel. Before he pushed a button, Emmett caught a glimpse of the view on one of the screens above it. It was the room he had slept in, viewed, he could see, from the little black device in the ceiling.

  “What brings you here?” The fat man drained his glass with obvious satisfaction, set the glass on a small serving table. Jascha picked it up, prepared another drink.

  “I brought myself here.”

  The eyes opened a little wider. “Is it going to be like that?” Yes, Emmett said to himself, it’s going to be like that, just as it was when I was questioned in the shed. Only now it’s not questions from a person I could expect to be sympathetic. Are you going to tell me my name and where I’m from too? Are you going to be as clever as they were, Mr. Gniessin?

  Emmett sighed. “Let’s say I was just walking by then.” And you can carry on from there.

  “All right. Let’s do say you were walking by.” He took the new glass. “Then let’s find out why you picked four o’clock in the morning to do it.”

  “There is very little traffic at four in the morning.”

  “There may be very little traffic, but people who move about at that hour are a little more conspicuous than they would be at four o’clock in the afternoon. You discovered that, didn’t you?” “It seems you discovered that.”

  “That’s still not saying why you came here.”

  “Believe me, I didn’t want to come here.”

  “I’ll go along with that.”

  “You should have let me pass by.”

  “You stopped yourself when you set off the alarm.”

  “I didn’t know it was there or I’d never have done it.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Just a little jaunt. I’d never seen the country.”

  “We didn’t find a travel permit among your things. Did you lose it?”

  “I didn’t have any.”

  “Oh?” The eyes were coldly amused. “Now we’re getting somewhere. It takes a lot of courage to travel without a permit.”

  “I wasn’t restricted as I would have been with a permit.”

  “But why should you travel at all? Didn’t you know it was dangerous?”

  “I was willing to take that chance.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  Emmett looked at the eyes. Gniessin, he wanted to say, questions like that were asked me not too long ago and it didn’t do me a bit of good to lie about it. But the people who were doing the asking were smart. Somehow they managed to find out a few things about me. Now why don’t you do the same?

  “Come now, don’t you want to tell me?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “I see.” Gniessin grunted, sat up, put the drink on the table, then faced Emmett with his hands on his knees and a grin on his face. “Well, Emmett Keyes, things haven’t changed much in Spring Creek since you left there before daylight yesterday morning.”

  Then Gniessin laughed, stood up, drew his lounging robe around him, tied the belt tightly about the waist. “You people are all alike. I’ve been in your country for twenty years and I’ve never seen one of you who didn’t underestimate us.”

  He stopped being amused, leaned over to talk to him. “Don’t you suppose it was an easy matter to check you from the number on your forearm? Why do you think it’s there? Do you think we are fools? Do you?” His face was flushed and he turned away without waiting for an answer.

  Yes, I understand about the number. That much I do see. But suppose you tell me how this other man knew. I’ll bet you couldn’t tell me that.

  Gniessin picked up a square of paper from the small serving

  table. “Now that you can see it will do no good to lie, why don’t you tell me where you were going and why?”

  “I didn’t like the life I was living in Spring Creek,” Emmett said. “So I got out.”

  “What was wrong with it?”

  “It led nowhere. It was empty.”

  “Didn’t you have a girl?”

  Emmett darted a glance at him. It was an unexpected question, but the eyes told him nothing. “Of course I had a girl.” He tried to think of Mary Ann, but the face of Ivy kept superimposing itself on Mary Ann’s.

  “Then it couldn’t have been entirely empty, could it?” Gniessin went back to the chair, sat down and reached for the remainder of his drink, examining the paper he had picked up a moment ago. “What was her name?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Was she good looking?”

  “Fair.”

  “As young as you?”

  “A year younger.”

  “Did you ever . . . a . . .” Gniessin’s smile was a lascivious one.

  “That, Mr. Gniessin, is none of your damn business!”

  “Oho!” Gniessin’s face was a fatuous grin as he raised his glass and some of the liquid sloshed out. “Listen to him, Jascha! An admission of guilt if I ever heard one. Look at his face!” He peered at Emmett as if trying to see him through a fog. “Why don’t you tell us all about it? Where did you do it? In the hay?” The head was invitingly close and a surge of hot, angry blood stirred Emmett to action. He ros
e, balled a brown fist and took a step forward. His arm shot out, headed for Gniessin’s nose.

  The blow was stopped abruptly by Jascha, who stepped between them with surprising suddenness, grabbing Emmett’s arm at the wrist. The grip was strong.

  “All right, Jascha,” the fat man said.

  Jascha let go and Emmett massaged his wrist. Jascha stepped back to the other side of the chair and Emmett eyed him with new respect. For such a thin man . . .

  “Sit down,” Gniessin said roughly. He fingered the paper he held. “You’re rather quick tempered, Keyes. A thing like that is bound to get you in trouble wherever you go. You were saying you didn’t like life in Spring Creek.”

  “Life anywhere dominated by the Communists is not worth living.”

  Gniessin looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “That sounds like a sentence from some revolution primer.”

  “It’s a simple fact.”

  “I suppose life would be rather dull for someone with your adventuresome spirit. Isn’t it a pity we can’t give everyone a free hand?”

  ‘Why can’t you?”

  “Do you suppose there would be any of us left if we did?”

  “Good riddance, then.”

  Gniessin frowned. “I haven’t heard talk like that for years. It rather surprises me. I had supposed people who ventured opinions like that were purged long ago. But you’re the new generation, and I can see it’s there as strong as ever. I’m afraid our work here will never be done.”

  “It won’t be if you insist on keeping the people down at the slave level. You make them get a permit to marry, a permit to live in a house, a permit to buy this and that—everything but spit and you’d make them get a permit for that if you knew how often they spit when the name of the Enemy is mentioned-”

  “That’s enough--”

  “It’s hard getting enough to eat without saving all your hard-earned money to buy a permit to have children and pay the exorbitant taxes and-”

  “Will you shut up!” Gniessin roared. Then he scowled at him. “How far do you think you’ll get talking like that? Carry on that way and you’ll land in a camp in Utah or Nevada. As district director for the Occupation Forces, I could send you there.”

  “I don’t give a damn who you are. You could be the Enemy Premier, and I’d still tell you what I think of you.”

  “Pretty strong talk for a person in your position, Keyes. You’re a fool. I could send you to a camp just by signing my name to the commitment papers.”

  “Just because I didn’t have a travel permit?”

  “I admit it’s a minor violation.” Gniessin gave him a long, hard look. “But there’d be no question about it if I stated you murdered a party man named Tisdail.”

  A sense of weakening frustration swept over Emmett. He knew. They all knew. Everyone. Was there no act, no movement, no thought that was secret any more? If he could do nothing that escaped notice, then why had he tried at all? Why, in fact, did he leave home? Perhaps his father was right. Maybe there was nothing one man could do, especially against forces that had the faculty of knowing everything he did.

  “And your parents,” Gniessin was saying. “I could send them away, too.”

  Emmett said nothing. Perhaps he had been handling things wrong. He shouldn’t be so vehement, so eager to strike out at the Enemy and let everyone know it. Maybe Gniessin was right. Maybe he was acting the fool. This shouting, this name-calling —that wasn’t the way to fight them. He’d have to remember that.

  “You are silent,” Gniessin said. “That’s an improvement. You should try a little control. And as far as the permits are concerned, do you suppose I have anything to do with them? The laws under which you people are living were made ten years before I came to America. Now I don’t want to commit you to a camp; it would be a crime to send a young fellow like you to his death. But don’t press me too far, Emmett Keyes, because I will send you there if I have to.”

  He went back to the paper he held. “Now where was I?” He scanned the sheet. “Quite a few things in that bag you were carrying. You had a good hunting knife, some excellent items for survival, and you had two things that puzzle me very much.” He looked up quickly.

  Emmett forced himself to stare at the man. Go ahead, tell me about the currency and the sleep gun. It’s been done before. You knew about Tisdail, so I suppose you know about them, too.

  “That sleeper,” Gniessin said. “Where did you get it?”

  “Found it.”

  “I suppose you found it in the middle of the road right next to all that money?”

  “That’s right.”

  Gniessin shook his head. “It takes an ordinary man quite a few years to amass that much money. A pity he should have been so thoughtless as to leave it right in the middle of a road. But even that’s understandable. But no ordinary man has a sleeper.” Emmett was surprised. Gniessin evidently didn’t know the sleeper belonged to Tisdail. Or was there another reason for this line of questioning?

  “I’m an ordinary man,” Emmett said, “and I had a sleeper.” “You only think you’re ordinary. How many party members do you think have been murdered in the past twenty years? No, Keyes, you are anything but ordinary. But tell me about that group you met in the woods. I had imagined everything in my sector was quiet and serene, and now I find young men and women are running about under the cover of darkness. Who were those people you met and what were they doing?”

  “I don’t know anything about them,” Emmett said, suddenly glad he had nothing to reveal.

  Gniessin turned his head to Jascha, saying, “Do you believe him, Jascha? Or do you think he is holding out? If he’s just being unco-operative, we ought to commit him to the new camp in Nevada, don’t you think? They need men out there.”

  “Sir, you have already--”

  “Shut up, Jascha.” Gniessin sipped his drink and looked at Emmett. When Emmett said nothing, he went on, “Perhaps you really know nothing about them after all. Well, it’s not important. They shouldn’t be hard to catch, and then we’ll have the whole story.” He put his drink down. “When they are, Keyes, they’ll be brought here and you’ll have a chance to see them again if you stay. This villa isn’t a large one, as villas go. I have no family, no children. But there’s room for a man like you. Unless you’d rather go West and work yourself to death.”

  “I’d rather be on my way.” Have a date in Cornwall, Gniessin. A rather uncertain date, to be sure, but I still have it.

  “You wouldn’t find life in this villa unpleasant. It’s at least more healthy than tramping around the countryside without a travel permit. As a district director, I’m supposed to get along without outside help, with only the company of people like Jascha here. But they are strictly limited and offer little in the way of sparkling conversation. You won’t be alone. There are two like you here, a man named Bradshaw who does the cooking, and Dr. Smeltzer. I’m sure you and the doctor would find much in common.” He put what was left of his drink on the serving tray, and when Jascha reached for it, he said, “No more, Jascha.” Once again the fat man pulled his robe around him and stood up. His eyes were lower than Emmett’s because he was not so tall. “Either way there’s no escape, in case you were thinking you would stand a better chance of escaping if you stayed here. You’d never leave here alive. Maybe you don’t believe that.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Well, then, which will it be: Camp or life here?”

  There was no choice. Emmett had heard about life in the Western deserts. Men were sent there and never came back. Several persons from Spring Creek had been sent West when their crimes had transcended the usual violations. There had been no letters, no word from them. And letters addressed to them had never been answered. It was as if they had simply ceased to exist. Death by being deprived of a booster shot was a blessing by comparison.

  “You find it difficult to decide? Is it so hard to determine which is the lesser evil: Life with Alfred Gniessin or deat
h in Nevada?” “I was just remembering some things I had heard about camps. There is no choice, of course.”

  “I didn’t think there was. Well, now that you will be living here, the question of your booster arises. When did you get your last?”

  “A few days before I left Spring Creek.”

  “Then there is plenty of time. Jascha, make a note of that. Then take Mr. Keyes to see Mr. Bradshaw. As soon as Dr. Smeltzer—a—recovers, send him down.”

  CHAPTER - 8

  The door hissed closed behind him. At a table in the kitchen before him stood a short, stocky man with bulging eyes. The way the man slowly blinked them reminded Emmett of a frog. This was evidently Bradshaw, the man Gniessin had referred to.

  “You Keyes?” The man made no effort to move from the table.

  “And you’re Bradshaw?”

  “Yeah.” The eyes finally left Emmett and the man started to roll dough on a lightly floured board before him. His hands were quick and sure, his pudgy fingers deftly grasping the edge of the dough and turning it now and then between rollings.

  Emmett moved from the door and took a chair on the other side of the table. Bradshaw continued to work wordlessly.

  Though the kitchen was large, Bradshaw seemed to be using only part of it. It was brightly lighted, warm, and filled with hunger-evoking aromas of a meal in preparation. There were shiny copper pans and kettles, shelves filled with ingredients, racks of utensils and allied equipment—quite unlike the kitchen he had expected. He had imagined the meals would be prepared electronically, with no need for a cook, which was what Bradshaw seemed to be. Yet even as he looked around, Emmett could see large machines at the far end of the room. They could be electronic devices for cooking.

  “At least you ain’t a zombie."

  Emmett was startled. Not with what Bradshaw had said so much as he was that he had suddenly spoken.

  “Zombie?"

  “One of them robots.”

  “Robots?"