“That’s irrelevant,” Snick said. “If we have to get out quick, you’d better give us the data.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Izimoff said somewhat stiffly. “Though, I don’t know. The situation has changed. There’s no telling what consequences this unfortunate brawl may have. Maybe I should wait until I hear from my contact. He might reconsider the plan, a different approach now that the frame has changed. Maybe he wouldn’t want you to have the data. God knows we’re all in danger now that you’ve attracted the ganks’ attention.”
He pulled a piece of tissue paper from a pocket and wiped his forehead.
“Everything happened so fast, I doubt very much the ganks could ID us,” Duncan said. “For God’s sake, man! We’ve been left in the dark too long as it is. We’re thirsty for at least a little information, and we’re eager to do something for the organization. Anyway, if you disobey orders, you may find yourself in hot water with your superiors. Come on. Give. Then we’ll be on our way as soon as the bruises and cuts have healed.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Izimoff said.
“What?” the three said at the same time.
“I mean it’s on a card. I was going to give it to a young fellow who works part time for me. He was going to give it to a waitress, pay her for doing it, and she would give you the card when she served your drinks. You’d read it, and then rub it so the data would be destroyed. The brawl broke out just as I was about to hand the card to the young man. I told him to disappear, and—”
“You allowed the card to get into the hands of nonmembers?” Snick said. “I can’t believe it. What if the brawl had started after the young man was in the tavern but before he could give it to the waitress? It’d be floating around in there, and you can bet your fat ass the ganks would soon have it.”
“There’s no need to be insulting,” Izimoff said. He mopped his forehead again. “I was ordered to get the card to you circuitously. Not to deliver it personally. Now that’s been shot to hell. You know me. That’s why I’m reluctant to give it to you now. I know I’m going to be blamed for this even though there was no way I could avoid this frame.”
“What could they do now?” Duncan said. “Kill you?”
Izimoff widened his eyes, rolled them, and said nothing.
“What kind of an outfit is this?” Duncan said.
“Oh, no! They wouldn’t kill me, do anything like that, for God’s sake!” Izimoff said. “But I might get chewed out, might get punished in some way. I don’t know. What do I know about how they punish their members? I’m isolated, just one cell contacting another cell now and then. I don’t even know the IDs of the cells I’ve met. They don’t know mine, either, of course. I’ve never ever met anybody at my store or apartment. If only that riot hadn’t happened!”
“You must’ve been approached by a recruiter,” Snick said. “You’ve been to meetings, haven’t you? You’ve been indoctrinated, surely?”
“Yes, but it was in a dimly lit room. Everybody was masked and our voices were transmitted through synthetic-audio devices. I’ve been to two meetings so far. Both places were in gymnasiums used also for church and synagogue congregations. Each meeting lasted half an hour. We swore an oath…”
He pulled out another piece of tissue. “I’m talking far too much. Stress. I thought I’d handle it better. You won’t report me, will you?”
“Not unless you don’t give us the card,” Duncan said. His look at Snick said, I hope the other members are made of better stuff.
Izimoff removed a stiff gray rectangle from his pocket. “Here you are.”
Duncan took it. Snick and Cabtab got up and stood behind him to read it. He rubbed his thumb on the corner marked by a thin angling black line. A sequence of phrases in English sprang into being on the white surface.
YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED SOON.
“What is this crap?” Duncan said. “Of course we expect to be contacted soon. We know that.”
He glared at Izimoff.
“Is this what we risked our lives for?”
“I don’t know,” Izimoff said, backing away. “I don’t want to know what it says. Please rub it again and give it back to me.”
Duncan did as requested. Izimoff slid his thumb back and forth over the card as if to make sure that the message was destroyed. He glanced at the wall-screen clock. He groaned softly. It would be fifteen minutes before the faces of his unwelcome guests healed and they could leave.
“This is stupid!” Snick said. “Your organization is stupid!”
“Don’t say that!” Izimoff said, holding out his hand, palm up, apparently to bounce her words, tennis-ball-like, back at her. “They’re very cautious, but they wanted to encourage you, to let you know that you weren’t being ignored. At least, I think they do. I didn’t read the card, but from what you said it’s evident what was written.”
Cabtab gingerly touched the area around his left eye. The swelling and redness were almost gone.
“That our friend here is overly nervous and the sender of the card is not too bright doesn’t mean that the entire outfit is a bunch of nellies and morons,” he said. “Anyway, what else can we do but stick with the course outlined? We can’t very well resign. Whatever they are, they wouldn’t allow that.”
“You may be sure of that!” Izimoff said.
They did not talk much thereafter except for a few comments while watching the news. They saw the organics carry the unconscious bodies of the arrested into vans and drive away. Then they saw some of the brawlers in the organic precinct house being arraigned. The questioning by the organics was not shown; that was always kept from the public. That the news media had been allowed to film any of the proceedings was proof that the ganks regarded this as just a mass drunk-and-disorderly incident. The media people were permitted to interview a few of the discharged as they left the precinct.
Media Interviewer (MI): “Just a minute, citizen. May we ask your name and what you’re charged with?”
Citizen: “Screw off!”
MI (to another man): “You look like a cooperative citizen. Would you describe for our watchers just what happened in the Snorter?”
Citizen, smiling with puffed lips: “Garble, garble.”
MI: “That’s perfectly all right, citizen. We understand.” (To a third, a tall big-shouldered woman with long black hair in a mess and a damaged cheek): “Citizen, would you say something for the audience? They’re eager to get the details of the fracas at the Snorter.”
Citizen: “I wasn’t there. The ganks pulled me in because my husband and I were having a little disagreement. If you’d like to hear all about that bastard…”
MI: “Thank you. Oh, here’s a man who looks as if he has something interesting to say. Citizen, would you…”
Duncan pointed at another man slipping past the camera, his head down and his hat pulled low. “Hey, isn’t that Professor Herman Trophallaxis Carebara? The ant-man we met on the train?”
Snick leaned forward, her eyes large. “Yeah, that’s him. But what’s he doing there? Did you see him in the Snorter?”
“No, and he shouldn’t have been there. He said he would be living in the University Tower.”
Snick shook her head. “Do you suppose he’s a gank, and he’s shadowing us?”
“We can’t suspect everybody,” Duncan said.
16
This meeting with the leader of the cell was not much like what Izimoff had said it would be like.
Only Duncan and the man who had summoned him were present. If, he thought, it was a man. The small bare room was lit by a very feeble light, and the person was wearing a mask, a wide-brimmed hat, and a figure-hiding cloak. Also, the round device strapped over his or her mouth not only distorted the voice but might have deepened it considerably. His own device made him sound as if he had just breathed in a lot of helium.
Since the room had been swept for monitoring bugs, the darkness and distorters seemed to Duncan to be unnecessary. Also, why were Cabtab and
Snick not here?
He asked why.
“We have our reasons,” the voice-at-the-bottom-of-the-well said. The cloak swirling, the person rose from the chair swiftly and began pacing back and forth, its hands locked behind its back. The baggy pants kept Duncan from observing whether the legs were male or female.
“I don’t mean that you can’t ask questions,” it said. “If you didn’t you’d be dull, too dull for us to want you. But you must understand that many of your questions won’t be answered. If they’re not, don’t persist in asking them. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“When we hold mass meetings—mass? four or five at the most—we deal with general issues. We never talk about the particular projects of the members in these meetings. Unless, of course, it’s a project in which a number have to assist one another and delicate synchronization is needed. That doesn’t happen very often. Just now, we have in mind a special project for you. But first, this.”
The hand that came out from under the cloak held a blue spray can.
“We administer this at all first meetings and then at random from time to time. We can’t be too careful. You understand?”
“Certainly,” Duncan said. He could not keep from wondering if the can contained something other than truth mist. What if the organization had decided that he was a danger? How easy it would be to spray poison instead of what he expected to breathe. There was nothing he could do to stop them. If he refused, he would be done away with anyway.
The can hissed. He felt wetness on his lips, nose, and eyes and sucked in the sweet-smelling cloud. At least it had the violets odor of the mist. It would do no good to try to hold his breath until the mist was dissipated. It was working through the skin and into the bloodstream now. There was enough to produce a half-consciousness that would make him breathe naturally.
He awoke to find the dark figure standing close above him.
“So…it’s true, then.”
“What?” he said. His wits still had not come back in full force.
“That you can lie when under the mist. I was told you could, but I didn’t believe it. Not really. All my probing failed to get from you anything except that you were indeed Andrew Vishnu Beewolf, and everything you told me fitted with your ID card. The items that aren’t on it, personal things that the organics might question you about, these all came out as if you could be none other than Beewolf.”
Again, the person strode back and forth, hands behind its back.
“I don’t understand it, but there it is. It’s a unique talent. Incomprehensible! Genetic? Or a skill you taught yourself? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Well, yes, it does. If others could be instructed in how to do it, what a splendid advantage we’d have!”
The figure wheeled and pointed a finger at him as if it could shoot a ray that would drill him and make the truth pour from the hole.
“Did you learn how to do it? Or did it just seem to come naturally?”
“I taught myself through experimentation,” Duncan said. “But the ability seems to me to come, as you put it, naturally. So I really can’t answer your question.”
“Unfortunately, you can lie, so I don’t know whether you’re telling the truth. It wouldn’t do any good to subject you to the mist again and ask you.”
Duncan was sure that the person had already put that question to him. Why was he or she lying? Was it just because the members of the organization were so accustomed to deceit that they lied when they did not have to? Or did the person have a good reason for doing so?
I’ve wondered this before, Duncan thought. I must have done it quite often when I was Caird and six others.
His singular talent also had its disadvantages from the viewpoint of the organization. If he could lie to the organics, he could lie to them. Which meant that he could be an infiltrator. He could not be fully trusted, but they could not refuse to use him. He was a tool such as neither organic or subversive had ever had.
“Does this group have a name?” Duncan said suddenly. “I’m tired of thinking of it as just the organization or outfit. It’s hard to identify with something nameless.”
“Ah, yes, Homo sapiens demands labels, tags, titles. Otherwise, it’s at a loss. Do you really have to have a name?”
“I’d feel more comfortable.”
“Very well. During this submonth, it’s RAT.”
“This month. You change it every twenty-eight days?”
“It could confuse the organics.”
That was not so, Duncan thought. Any member caught and questioned would just reveal all the names that had been used.
“RAT?”
“Rebels Against Tyranny.”
“I see.”
“I don’t like it because it implies only destruction. We’re that, but we’re also builders. Rebuilders. Constructive. However, that doesn’t matter now. What does is your project. Listen carefully.”
Thirty minutes later, the person said good night to Duncan and, taking both voice distorters with it, went through a door. Duncan, as instructed, tore his mask into strips and put them in his pocket. He left by another door, stepping into a hallway that led to a noisy gymnasium. He turned left and went out a side door into a courseway. Going by a public trash can, he dropped the strips into it. At 10:00 P.M., he boarded a bus. Ten minutes later, he got off at the corner near his apartment. He had tried to detect a shadower but had failed.
The work assigned to him was, he was sure, a small part of a grand plan. He was not supposed to know how it would mesh with the work done by many others. He was just a gear in a vast underground machinery, which, he hoped, was not a Rube Goldberg. Well versed in history, though he did not know why he was, he knew that revolutionaries were much better at tearing down than at carpentry. Not always, it was true. But they seemed, generally, to have been motivated more by the lust for power than the desire to make a better society, though all certainly would have denied this. The genuine rebuilding had almost always been done by those who had pushed aside or liquidated the first generation of militants.
He was working for a group that had not enlightened him about how it would achieve its ultimate goals. Perhaps, after he had “proved” himself, he would be told much more. If he was not, he would find it hard to keep working with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, he could not quit the RAT if he lost his zeal. Once joined, forever joined.
Maybe.
As a data banker, he would have the way open to establish a new identity if he wished to do so. The danger was that the RATs would, if they were keen enough, know this. And they would have set up a monitoring alarm system to warn them if he tried to do that. On the other hand, he could arrange a monitoring system to detect their monitors. But they might have anticipated that and inserted a monitoring of his monitoring system.
This could go on indefinitely and result in an electronic hall of mirrors.
He laughed, though he did not feel as if his funny bone had been tickled nor was he exuberant. Nevertheless, there was a streak of absurdity in the fantasized situation. If there was a God, It must be laughing at those made in Its image. Or perhaps It was so disgusted that It had long ago left this universe. Or perhaps, being all-powerful, It had canceled Itself and no longer existed. Never mind the contradiction in that It was also always and forever infinite and eternal. Those attributes could be erased if It wished to do so.
Duncan entered the door, which opened onto a hallway lined by apartment doors. His ID card, inserted into the slot in the door, released the lock. The lights came on as he went from room to room. He stood for a while looking through the ceiling-high window at the view. Los Angeles was splendid with lights radiating from every tower and bridge, from boats and ships in the water below, and from airships and airplanes. It was a wondrous sight, and one that should not be stained by worry and pending troubles. The metropolis glowed as if it were a beacon for beauty, hope, and love. These should come flying in like moths. But…flies and buzzards were also pulled in by light. T
he citizens of this magnificent place had everything to make them both contented and happy. That was the theory. The facts were otherwise.
“It’s always been that way,” he muttered. “Yet, if grief, hunger, hurt, insanity, neurosis, physical sickness, and frustration could be made quantitative, wouldn’t it be true that there is far less now than there ever was? Wouldn’t past societies regard ours as a near-Utopia?”
Homo sapiens was never satisfied. At least, some of its members never were.
Loneliness certainly was as endemic as ever—judging from his own experiences and what he knew of others’. At this moment, he was standing in a shower of it, and he had thought himself extraordinarily impervious to such feelings. Lonely…
Which led him to think of Panthea Pao Snick. He would like it very much if she were sharing this apartment with him. He desired her and envisioned with delight living for a long time with her. He was, to put it mildly, in love with her. Why, then, had he not told her so? Easy to answer that. She had given no sign that she had for him any other emotion than that felt for a close colleague. He was not even sure that she had that. He should find out just what she did think of and feel for him. Perhaps she was as inhibited as he. After all, she was, had been, an organic, and they tended to be very careful about revealing their personal attitudes. Besides, there really hadn’t been much time to express any such thing as budding love.
“I must have had some such feelings for her when I was my other personae,” he said aloud. “Why would I feel this way about her now? It’s been all too sudden; it must have sprung from previous experiences, which, unfortunately, I don’t remember.”