“No need,” Duncan said. He smiled, but Everchuck’s broad red face did not crack.
“I just have a few questions.”
Duncan played the anxious citizen. “What’s this all about?”
He did not expect an answer and did not get one.
Everchuck pulled a printout from a breast pocket in his purple gold-slashed robe. Looking down at it, he said, “I have here a copy of a request from you, transmitted to the Transportation-and-Shipping Bureau, for one box of your personal possessions to be removed from your canceled apartment and delivered to your new address. I also have the request and authorization for your removal to the new address. I also have the verification records of your transfer to the new address and of the delivery of the box containing your PP to that address. Did such delivery take place at the time stipulated or at any other time or was it not delivered?”
“It was delivered per schedule, and I moved to the new address, which is 421 Everhopeful Courseway,” Duncan said. “Is there a problem, Detective-Sergeant?”
“In that case,” Everchuck said, glaring into Duncan’s eyes, “what did you and your companion, Citizen Jeremiah Scanderbeg Ward, have in the two bags you carried from your old address to the new address?”
Duncan had expected to be questioned about the contents of the box. But he also knew enough to know that the gank might hurl an unexpected and seemingly irrelevant question at him. He smiled, and he said, “The box wasn’t big enough to hold all the PP. I put the extra stuff into the two bags.”
“Why didn’t you have the T-and-S workers transport those, too?”
“I made an error. I only requested that one box be transported. I thought I could get all my PP into one box. If I’d asked the T-and-S crew to carry the bags, I would have had to make another request. By the time that had been granted, it would have been next Tuesday. You know how these bureaucracies work. All the red tape…”
“Are you criticizing the government?”
“Oh, sure,” Duncan said easily. “That’s my right and duty. That’s democracy. Do you deny me that right and duty?”
“Of course not,” Everchuck said. “That wasn’t my intention. Why did you feel it necessary to get the aid of Citizen Ward to help you carry the bags?”
“Two were too heavy for one man to carry.”
“You misunderstand me,” the organic said. “Why did you select Citizen Ward to help you? Why him in particular?”
“He’s a good friend. It wasn’t easy to find somebody who’d come over at that ghastly hour and help me.”
“Do you know that Citizen Ward is a religious?”
Duncan shrugged, and he said, “Sure. But he doesn’t work for the government. He has a right to be a religious.”
“Yet you associate with him on an intimate and friendly basis?”
“I’m not a religious,” Duncan said. “You know that. You’ve checked out my ID.”
“You knew him in New Jersey?”
“You know I did.”
Now, Duncan thought, now is the time for the completely unexpected, the disconcerting, the knocking-off-balance. The whammo.
“What happened to Ruiz and Izimoff?”
Duncan made himself look startled. He said, “Who?”
“Detective-Sergeant Hatshepsut Andrews Ruiz and Citizen Ibrahim Omar Izimoff!” Everchuck said harshly.
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “You say…happened? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never heard of this Ruiz. Izimoff… I do know that an Ibrahim Izimoff is the operator of a store across the courseway from the Snorter.”
He paused, then said, “The Snorter’s a tavern-restaurant.”
As if Everchuck did not know that.
“You deny that you know what happened to them?”
“I told you I don’t even know that anything did happen! Come on, Sergeant! What is this all about?”
“Would you agree to a truth test?”
“Of course,” Duncan said. He held his palms out and up. “I have nothing to hide. I don’t know why you’re dripping all over me, but if you think I’m guilty of something, you spray me all you want. We can do it here, right now. I waive any interrogation in the precinct building with lawyer and authorized officials present.”
Everchuck did not ask him to repeat his words into a recorder. The organic was carrying all he needed to record in a pocket, no doubt.
Now was the critical moment, critical for Everchuck, anyway. If the organic thought that he was bluffing, he would use the mist. If he was just poking around and had no real well-grounded suspicions of Duncan, Everchuck would not bother with the mist.
“This is just a routine investigation,” Everchuck said.
“Sure, but I’d like you to mist me anyway,” Duncan said. “I don’t want to be even a remote suspect. I’m through for the day, plenty of time. Let’s do it now. Won’t take long.”
“That’s a very commendable attitude, Citizen Beewolf,” Everchuck said. “But I don’t have time to waste.”
“What did happen to them?” Duncan said.
Everchuck swung around and walked away.
20
Duncan entered the Snorter at 5:00 P.M. He threaded his way among tiny tables until he saw Cabtab and Snick in a booth. They looked up at him, said hello, then went back to their argument. Duncan pressed the button on the table to indicate that an unserved customer was at the booth.
The padre drank deeply from a huge stone mug, put it down, and said, “No, my dear Jenny, I disagree strongly, even though I am a devout religionist and thus am in a strange position. But strange only at first glance. I maintain that the present government policy toward religionists is not harsh enough. A fierce repression and persecution of the religious population weeds out the hypocrites, the lip servants, the people who profess to believe in certain religions only because they have been raised in them or have a need to belong to a social group. Repression and persecution separate the wheat from the chaff. The only ones left after these are applied, the wheat, the gold melting from the dross, the truly devout, should be prepared to pay the price for their belief. They should welcome a chance to be martyrs and so express their worship of God.”
“I don’t see you rushing out to be crucified,” Snick said sourly.
“That’s because the government doesn’t really give you a chance to be a true martyr. It’s insidious. It doesn’t prohibit the practice of religion. It just brands it as superstition, in a class with astrology or belief in a flat Earth or in good luck charms. You may worship, but you cannot gather in a church to do so. The only churches still standing are museums or have been converted to profane uses. The members of the faith, whatever it is, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, must gather in gymnasiums or any suitable building not used for secular purposes at that time. A street preacher may give his sermons outside buildings, but he can’t preach except in designated public areas and he can’t stay in one area for more than fifteen minutes. After that, he must move his soapbox to another clearly marked area.”
“I know that,” Snick said. “You’re getting away from the main theme. Your insistence that the government should ban any religious practice whatsoever is absurd. If the government did that, it could no longer claim to be truly democratic and liberal. So it doesn’t forbid worship. It just frowns on it, and with good reason. It makes it inconvenient, doesn’t encourage it, you might say. And, of course, the children learn in school what an absurd and irrational thing religion is.”
Cabtab drank more beer and burped.
“What do you think, Andrew?”
Duncan had been half-listening, his gaze on a display of the referendum results. The people had voted overwhelmingly to eliminate during the test period all surveillance except that absolutely necessary to ensure public safety. Duncan was surprised by that. If his theory that the government gave false data about the popular vote was right, then the majority should not have been registered as against surveillance.
; “I don’t know and don’t care,” he said. “The present system seems to me to be fine. Nobody’s hurt, and the organized religion can’t get any power in government. There’s a strict separation of church and state. Enough of that. I have something important for you.”
When he had finished telling them about Everchuck’s visit, Panthea Snick said, “It seems routine. But you never know. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it. Just be even more careful from now on.”
“Careful we don’t screw up because of the ganks?” Duncan said. “Or because of RAT? Don’t you see the implications of what happened to Izimoff? If we become a danger to RAT, or it thinks we are dangerous even if we aren’t, they’ll expunge us as quickly as we’d brush cookie crumbs from our shirt.”
“It has to be that way,” Panthea said. “It’s only logical. They’re in a very fragile position. They can’t take a chance on weak or uncertain personnel.”
“Jesus, Thea, doesn’t that bother you?”
She sipped at her sherry, then said, “Yes. But I knew what I was getting into when I took the oath. You did, too.”
He drank some bourbon and said, “Not really you didn’t. None of us did. We don’t have the slightest idea what RAT stands for except they’re antigovernment. That’s pretty vague. What are their ultimate goals? What kind of government do they want to establish? What chance do they have of over throwing the government? How big is their organization? Is it just a small bunch of pissants playing rebel? Or is it something really big and powerful?”
He sipped on the bourbon again, put the glass down, and said, “I’m really tired of blundering around in the dark and barking my shins.”
Snick did not reply because of the uproar swelling through the tavern. Everybody was on their feet, cheering, screaming, clapping their hands. Duncan saw that they were all looking at the news displays. These were rolling the printed data re the new rules and regulations. The newscasters’ heads, inset in the upper righthand corners, were repeating verbally the printed text. At least, Duncan assumed they were. Their voices could not be heard because of the customers’ yelling.
Duncan leaned across the table, his head close to Snick’s and Cabtab’s. He said, loudly, “I don’t know why in hell they’re so happy! I ne satellites cant monitor them except when they’re out of the towers, on the bridges, or in boats! And it’s not like there’re monitors everywhere inside the towers! Why don’t they drop the surveillance in cities like Manhattan? That’d mean something! There the streets are observed by the satellites!”
“Maybe the government’s just cautious, and, if this experiment works out all right, the open cities will also be tested,” Snick said.
Duncan scowled. “They don’t want it to work out.”
She threw her hands up. “What could happen? The citizens aren’t about to go ape.”
“They won’t have far to go if they do,” Cabtab growled. That was a strange thing for the tolerant padre to say. Perhaps he was momentarily irritated by the monkeylike shrieks and hoppings-around of the customers. Duncan looked at the display again. All citizens were to run off a printout of the “new order” and to study it so that they could behave themselves accordingly. He made a mental note to do that when he got home. There would, of course, be about 13 percent of citizens who would not obey. The two-thousand-obyear governmental campaign to condition all adults to become politically conscious and enthusiastic participants had never succeeded. It would continue to fail because of the statistically determinable numbers of the born nonpolitical. A small part of these were the philosophically apolitical; the rest, the genetically indifferent. Secretly, the government must be pleased with this, though overtly it encouraged and harangued the electorate to be active. That many PVHs (political voidheads) made it just that much easier for the state to push its programs.
“I shouldn’t have said or even thought of such an unkind and derogatory category,” Cabtab said. He drank deeply, then continued. “One should never generalize, not even one born to generalize, which I am. It was unworthy of me, although what I said had more than a germ of truth to it. Nevertheless, even if it were wholly true, I should not say it. Instead, I should pray for the misbegotten masses, the churlish common people, the asses who pretend to be Homo sapiens. After all, am I in any respect better than they? I do not throw stones. I throw mud, yes, but mud can’t hurt and it’s easily washed off. I—”
“Think I’ll go home,” Snick said. She rose. “This kind of talk is getting us nowhere. It bores me. I have a headache, and I’m tired. You speak of mud, Padre. I feel like I’m stuck in it. Worse, sinking in it up to my neck.”
“Too bad,” Duncan said. “I was hoping to meet your new lover.”
He regretted saying that, but it was too late.
Panthea Snick looked surprised~ “I don’t have a lover, old or new. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“But you said…”
“I said? Oh, I see what you’re referring to. I said that I had someone in the apartment. He wasn’t a lover, just a visitor.”
She smiled and said, “Are you jealous?”
Duncan opened his mouth but shoved back down his throat the impulse to deny her accusation. Now was not the time to conceal how he felt for her. Now was the time to get it over with, confess.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“You’re not in love with me?” she said.
She did not look as if she were surprised but as if the thought might have scuttled across her mind before she helped it on into oblivion with a mental kick.
“Yes, I am.”
She swallowed before saying, “I didn’t know…you never showed anything…any sign of…”
“Now you know.”
“For God’s sake!” Cabtab said loudly. “What kind of courtship is this? This place…the noise…the crowd…is this a romantic scene, the place to declare one’s love?”
“Don’t be embarrassed, Padre,” Snick said. “It just happened. Anyway, I’m glad it was here, not when we were alone.”
“Why is that?” Duncan said.
She leaned forward, her hands on the table, her face close to Duncan’s.
“Because it’s easier to say what I have to say. I’m sorry, Andrew, but… I like you, in fact, I admire you. In some ways, you’re my hero. You did rescue me from the warehouse; you brought me back to life. But…”
“You don’t love me.”
“I have a certain affection for you.”
She straightened. “That’s all. I don’t love you. I don’t desire you, I don’t lust for you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, either, though there seems no way not to. There it is. An honest answer.”
“Thank you,” he said. His voice sounded firm to him. Thank God, it did not betray the trembling inside him.
“Does this make a difference?” she said. “I mean in the way we work together, in… You don’t hate me, do you?”
“I’m a little numb,” he said. “I don’t know what I feel. It’s a shock, though it shouldn’t be. I had no right to expect you to feel the same about me. I certainly never saw you do anything, say anything, or act in any way to make me think you might feel like I do. No, I don’t hate you. And I’m sorry, you don’t know how sorry, that I told you. I should’ve waited for a better time.”
“There wouldn’t have been any. I’m sorry.”
She patted his hand, turned, and walked away. He did not watch her; his gaze was fixed on the table.
Cabtab said, softly, “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Yes,” Duncan said even more softly. “Leave me alone.”
“You’re not going to get drunk and possibly get into trouble? Remember, you can’t afford to attract the ganks’ attention.”
Duncan stood up. “No. I’m going home. What I’ll do there, I don’t know. But nobody’s going to see me whatever I do.”
The padre looked alarmed. “You’re not thinking of killing yourself?”
Duncan laughed,
and then he rammed back a sob.
“No. Jesus! This is stupid! Whoever would’ve thought of it going this way?”
“It’s the dark night of the soul. Believe me, I’ve been there before. If only I could help you…”
“See you tomorrow,” Duncan said, and he stood up and walked away. The padre was wrong. His soul was in no dark night. Everything shone brightly but crooked, as if the light rays were bending at many different angles around him. The light was not only searingly bright; it was cold, very cold.
21
Early next Tuesday morning, Duncan sat in the kitchen. He was nursing a big cup of steaming coffee and an even larger and warmer emotional wound. His breast ached. Tears welled. Images of the mighty bull elephant trumpeting with agony and fury at the spear sticking out of his ribs, of the lion licking the blood from a paw shattered by a bullet, of the sperm whale bristling with harpoons rising under the whaleboat and tossing it into the air fast-forwarded on his mind screen.
Then, when drinking his third cup of coffee, two times too many according to the Bureau of Medicine and Health, he laughed. It was a low laughter grinding with pain. But it was also shot with the pleasure of self-mockery. The images were all of noble and impressive beasts suffering from wounds. Why not envision a cockroach limping along, its pasty guts hanging out, after being half-squashed by a human foot? Why not a fly buzzing desperately in its struggles to free itself from a web? Why not a stinkbeetle the tail end of which had been snipped off by a closing door? Or a rat that had eaten poisoned cheese?
He laughed again. Events and feelings were being reclassified and hence falling into their proper slots. He wasn’t by any means the only human ever to have been rejected, nor was this the first time it had happened to him.
His philosophical satisfaction was great, and his historical perspective—he being the subject of the history—was correctly aligned. Despite which, a few seconds later, he was hurting just as badly.
Ah, well. He would ride it out. Time did not heal all wounds, but time did make them not so painful and usually managed to bury them deep. He busied himself, after eating lightly, in cleaning up the apartment. When he left it, he found himself in a crowd of elated pedestrians. Though this was not a holiday, it seemed to be. Everybody, except himself, was chattering and smiling, happy because today was one of freedom from the monitors. The satellite eyes were turned off, and the ganks were sulking in the precinct stations. A heavy burden of which the citizens had not been aware was lifted. Or so, Duncan thought, they thought. Did they really believe they had complete license to behave like children?