“I know!” He stabbed the air with a forefinger. “You are the woman Mordan picked for me!”
“That’s right. Of course.”
“Why, damn your impudence! What the devil do you mean by invading my privacy like this?”
“Tut! Tut! Tut! Mamma spank. Is that any way to talk to the future mother of your children?”
“Mother of my fiddlesticks! If I needed anything to convince me that I want to have nothing to do with the scheme, you have given it to me. If I ever do have children, it won’t be by you!”
She had on shorts and a boyish corselet. In defiance of usual custom for her sex she wore, belted to her side, a hand weapon, small but deadly. She stood up at his words, resting her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong with me?” she said slowly.
“Hunh! What’s wrong with you! What isn’t wrong with you? I know your type. You’re one of these ‘independent’ women, anxious to claim all the privileges of men but none of the responsibilities. I can just see you, swaggering around town with that damned little spit gun at your side, demanding all the rights of an armed citizen, picking fights in the serene knowledge that no brave will call your bluff. Arrgh! You make me sick.”
She remained still, but her face was cold. “You are a shrewd judge of character, aren’t you? Now you listen to me for a while. I haven’t drawn this gun, except in practice, for years. I don’t go around insisting on privileges and I am just as punctiliously polite as the next brave.”
“Then why do you wear it?”
“Is there anything wrong with a woman preferring the dignity of an armed citizen? I don’t like to be coddled and I don’t like to be treated like a minor child. So I waive immunity and claim my right—I go armed. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing—if that were really the case. Which it isn’t. You give the lie to your own words by the fashion in which you broke in on me. A man couldn’t get away with it.”
“So! So? Let me remind you, you ill-mannered oaf, that you signalled ‘welcome’ and let me in. You did not have to. Once inside, before I could say yes, no, or maybe, you started to snarl at me.”
“But—”
“Never mind! You think you have a grievance. I said I hadn’t drawn this gun in years—that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to! I’m going to give you a chance, my fine bucko boy, to work out that grievance. Belt on your gun.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Strap on your gun! Or, so help me, I’ll take it away from you and hang it in the Square.”
Instead of answering he moved toward her. She gripped her weapon, half drew it. “Stand back! Stand back, or I’ll burn you.”
He checked himself and looked at her face. “Great Egg!” he said delightedly. “I believe you would. I honestly believe you would.”
“Of course I would.”
“That,” he admitted, “puts a different face on things, doesn’t it?” He eased back a step, as if to parley. She relaxed a trifle, and removed her fist from the grip of the weapon.
He lunged forward, low, tackling her around the knees. They rolled on the floor, tussled briefly. When events slowed down a little, it could be seen that he had her right wrist grasped firmly, as firmly, indeed, as her right hand gripped her gun.
He banged her knuckles hard against the polished floor, grabbed the shank of the weapon with his other hand and broke it out of her grasp. Still grasping her wrist, he struggled to his knees and moved away from the spot, half dragging her behind him. He ignored the minor violences that were happening to his person in the process. When he was within reach he chucked her gun in the oubliette and turned his attention back to her.
Heedless of her struggles he picked her up and carried her to a large chair where he seated himself with her on his lap. He pinned her legs between his knees, forced her arms behind her back until he managed to get both her wrists in one of his fists.
She bit him in the process.
With her thus effectively immobilized, he settled back, holding her away from him, and looked at her face. “Now we can talk,” he said cheerily. He measured her face with his eye, and slapped her once, not too hard but with plenty of sting in it. “That’s for biting. Don’t do it again.”
“Let me go.”
“Be reasonable. If you look closely you will see that I am nearly forty kilos heavier than you are, and a lot taller. You are tough and strong—I’ve got to hand it to you—but I’m a hell of a sight stronger and tougher. What you want doesn’t matter.”
“What do you intend to do with me?”
“Talk to you. Yes, and I think I’ll kiss you.”
She answered this by giving a brief but entirely futile imitation of a small cyclone, with wildcat overtones. When it was over he said, “Put your face up.”
She did not. He took a handful of hair and snapped her head back. “No biting,” he warned, “or I’ll beat holy hell out of you.”
She did not bite him, but she did not help with the kiss either. “That,” he observed conversationally, “was practically a waste of time. You ‘independent’ girls don’t know anything about the art.”
“What’s wrong with the way I kiss?” she said darkly.
“Everything. I’d as lief kiss a twelve-year-old.”
“I can kiss all right if I want to.”
“I doubt it. I doubt if you’ve ever been kissed before. Men seldom make passes at girls that wear guns.”
“That’s not true.”
“Caught you on the raw, didn’t I? But it is true and you know it. See here—I’ll give you a chance to prove that I’m wrong, and then we’ll talk about letting you go.”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
“Well—”
This kiss was longer than the first one, about eight times as long. Hamilton released her, drew his breath, and said nothing.
“Well?”
“Young lady,” he said slowly, “I’ve misjudged you. Twice, I’ve misjudged you.”
“Will you let me go now?”
“Let you go? That last deserves an encore.”
“That’s not fair.”
“My lady,” he said quite seriously, “‘fair’ is a purely abstract concept. By the way, what is your name?”
“Longcourt Phyllis. You’re changing the subject.”
“How about the encore?”
“Oh, well!” He relaxed his hold on her completely. Nonetheless, it was as long and as breath-consuming as the last. At its conclusion she ran a hand through his hair, mussing it. “You heel,” she said. “You dirty heel!”
“From you, Phyllis, that’s a compliment. Have a drink?”,
“I could use one.”
He made a ceremony of selecting the liquor, fetching glasses, and pouring. He paused with his glass in the air. “Shall we pledge peace?”
She checked her own glass before it reached her mouth. “At this point? I think not. I want to catch you armed.”
“Oh, come now. You fought valiantly and were licked with honor. To be sure I slapped you, but you bit me. It’s even.”
“How about the kisses?”
He grinned. “That was an even exchange. Don’t be stuffy. I don’t want you hunting me down. Come on. Peace, and let bygones be bygones.” He raised his glass a trifle.
He caught her eye and she smiled in spite of herself. “All right—peace.”
“Have another drink?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to go.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“I really must go. May I have my blazer now?”
He opened the oubliette, reached in, recovered it, and dusted it off. “It’s mine, you know. I won it.”
“You wouldn’t keep it, would you?”
“That’s what I mean,” he said, “about you armed women just pretending to take a man’s part. A man would never ask for his gun back. He would wear a brassard first.”
“Are you going to keep it?”
“No, but I wish you wouldn’t wear it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to take you to dinner tonight. I’d feel a fool, escorting an armed woman.”
She looked at him. “You’re an odd one, Hamilton Felix. Slap a girl around, then ask her to dinner.”
“You’ll come?”
“Yes, I’ll come.” She unsnapped her gun belt and tossed it to him. “Tube them back to me. The address is on the nameplate.”
“Twenty hundred?”
“Or a few minutes after.”
“Do you know, Phyllis,” he said as he dilated the door for her, “I have a feeling that you and I are going to have lots and lots of fun.”
She gave him a slow, sidelong look. “You’ll find out!”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I myself am but indifferent honest”
HAMILTON turned away from the door purposefully. There were things to be done, urgent things. That little she-cat Phyllis was diverting, but time’s awasting. He stepped to his phone and called Monroe-Alpha. “Cliff? In your office, I see. Stay there.” He clicked off without offering explanation.
“Good morning, Felix,” Monroe-Alpha said with his usual formality as he ushered him in. “You seemed perturbed. Anything wrong?”
“Not exactly. I want you to do me a favor. Say—what’s gotten into you?”
“Me? What do you mean?”
“Yesterday you looked like a six-day corpse. Today you sparkle, you glow. There’s a song on your lips and a hey, nonny, nonny. How come?”
“I didn’t know that it showed in my face, but it is true that I am feeling somewhat elated.”
“Why? Did the money machine declare another dividend?”
“Didn’t you see the news this morning?”
“As a matter of fact, no. Why?”
“They opened the Adirondack Stasis!”
“Well?”
“It had a man in it, a live man.”
Hamilton’s eyebrows crawled up. “That’s interesting, if true. But do you mean to tell me that the discovery of this human fossil is the cause of your childlike glee?”
“But don’t you see it, Felix? Don’t you feel the significance of it? He’s an actual representative out of the golden days when the race was young—back when life was simple and good, before we messed up with a lot of meaningless complications. Think what he can tell us!”
“Maybe. What year is he from?”
“Uh…1926, on the old scale.”
“1926…let’s see… I’m no historian but I didn’t know that that period was such glowing Utopia. I had a notion it was pretty primitive.”
“That’s just what I mean—simple and beautiful. I’m not a historian either, but I met a chap last night who told me a lot about it. He’s made quite a study of it.” He launched into an enthusiastic description of Frisby Gerald’s concept of life in the early XXth century.
Hamilton waited for him to run out of breath, then said, “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know, but it seems to me your gears don’t mesh.”
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t think this present day is everything it might be, but I will say I think it is probably the best set-up the human race has ever managed. No, Cliff, this ‘Back-to-the-Good-Old-Days’ stuff is the bunk. We get more for less, with less trouble, nowadays, than ever before in history.”
“Well, of course,” Monroe-Alpha answered tartly, “if you have to have an automaton to rock you to sleep at night—”
“Save it. I can sleep on a pile of rock, if necessary, but I think it foolish to go out of your way to seek discomforts.”
Monroe-Alpha did not answer. Hamilton saw that his words had rankled and added, “That was strictly a personal opinion. Maybe you’re right. Let’s forget it.”
“What was the favor you wanted?”
“Oh, yes! Cliff, you know Mordan?”
“The district moderator?”
“The same. I want you to call him up and make a date for him to meet me—I mean, to meet you.”
“Why should I want to see him?”
“You don’t. I’ll keep the date.”
“Why all the fancy business?”
“Cliff, don’t ask me questions. Do it for me.”
Monroe-Alpha still hesitated. “You ask me to do this blind. Is it…everything it should be?”
“Cliff!”
Monroe-Alpha flushed. “Sorry, Felix. I know it’s all right if you want it. How shall I get him to agree?”
“Make it insistent enough and he’ll be there.”
“Where, by the way?”
“At my—no, that won’t do. Let me use your flat.”
“Certainly. What time?”
“Noon.”
Mordan came into the flat looking slightly puzzled. He looked still more puzzled and surprised when he saw Hamilton. “Felix! What brings you here?”
“To see you, uh, Claude.”
“So? Where is our host?”
“He won’t be here. Claude, I arranged this. I had to see you and I couldn’t do it openly.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because,” Hamilton said, “there is a spy in your office.”
Mordan simply waited.
“Before we go into that,” Hamilton went on, “I want to ask you one question: Did you sic Longcourt Phyllis on me?”
Mordan looked apprehensive. “Decidedly not. Have you seen her?”
“Decidedly yes. A sweet little hellcat you picked for me.”
“Don’t be too hasty in your judgment, Felix. I admit she is a bit startling, but she is absolutely sound. Her chart is admirable.”
“Okay, okay. To tell the truth, I rather enjoyed the encounter. But I wanted to make sure you had not been trying to maneuver me.”
“Not at all, Felix.”
“Fine. I didn’t get you up here just to ask you that. I said there was a spy in your office. I know that because our private conversation the other day leaked and leaked badly.” He plunged into an account of his encounter with McFee Norbert, and his subsequent visit to the Hall of the Wolf. “They call themselves the ‘Survivors Club,’” he went on. “Superficially it’s a drinking club within the lodge. As a matter of fact, it’s the front for a revolutionary clique.”
“Go on.”
“They picked me as likely material, and I played along with them, more out of curiosity, at first. Presently I found myself in too deep to back out.” He paused.
“Yes?”
“I joined up. It seemed healthy to do so. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that I wouldn’t have lived very long if I hadn’t taken their oath. They are playing for keeps, Claude.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “You know that little shooting scrape I got into the other night?”
“Yes, surely.”
“I can’t prove this, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense. They weren’t gunning for me; they were gunning for you. You are the one of the persons they have to rub out in order to put over their plans.”
“What are their plans?”
“I don’t know in detail…yet. But the sense of it is this: they’ve got no use at all for the present genetic policy. Nor for democratic freedom. They want to set up what they call a ‘scientific’ state, with the ‘natural’ leaders running things. They are the ‘natural’ leaders, self appointed. They have a great contempt for guys like you—synthesists—who help to maintain this present ‘backward’ state. When they are in control they intend to go all out for biological experimentation. They say that a culture should be an organic whole, with the parts specialized according to function. True men—supermen—sitting on top (that’s themselves) and the rest of the population bred to fit requirements.”
Mordan smiled slowly. “I seem to have seen all this before.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. The Empire of the Great Khans. They’ve got an answer for that one. The Khans were fools and did not know what they were up to. These boys know how. This is strictly 100% homegrown and any resemblance between it an
d the policies of the Khans is purely due to your lack of appreciation.”
“So…” Mordan said nothing more for a long time. Hamilton became impatient.
“Well?”
“Felix, why do you tell me this?”
“Why? So you can do something about it!”
“But why should you want anything done about it? Wait a moment…please. You told me the other day that life is not worth living, as it is. If you go along with these people, you could make of life anything you want it to be. You could redesign the world to a pattern of your own choosing.”
“Hmm! I’d have some opposition. They have their own plans.”
“You could change them. I know you, Felix. In any group, it’s a foregone conclusion that you will dominate if you choose to. Not in the first ten minutes, but in the course of time. You must have known that. Why didn’t you seize the opportunity?”
“What makes you think I could do anything of the sort?”
“Now, Felix!”
“All right! All right! Suppose I could. But I didn’t. Call it patriotism. Call it anything you like.”
“As a matter of fact it’s because you approve of our culture as it is. Isn’t that true?”
“Maybe. In a way. I never did say that I disliked the way things were being run. I just said that I couldn’t see any sense to any manner of life, in any final absolute terms.” Hamilton was feeling slightly bewildered. He had approached this interview feeling romantically heroic and expecting to be patted on the back for having unmasked the villains. But Mordan failed to get excited at the proper places, and insisted on discussing purely philosophical matters. It threw him off stride. “In any case, I don’t want to see those conceited young punks running things. I can’t see them building a Utopia.”
“I see. Have you any more to tell me? Very well, then—” Mordan began to stir in the fashion of one about to leave.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
“Yes?”
“Look, I—The fact is, since I am already on the inside, I thought I might do a little amateur sleuthing. We could arrange some way for me to report to you, or to someone.”
“Oh, so that’s it. No, Felix, I could not approve that.”
“Why not?”