Having resumed his former position and location, he brought his hand up and down several times.
She spoke loudly, “Go to hell, you bastards!”
As Duncan had expected, the two men guessed her location from her voice, though they could not know its exact area of origin, of course. The air crackled, and two holes appeared in the wall and made smoking holes in the floor. Screaming like a wounded puma, she had spun away as soon as she had finished speaking, but the closest beam was only a few inches away from her. Her scream stopped as if blood had choked her throat. Then the violet lights came again, this time spaced wider and higher. But she had kept on rolling.
“Wednesday’ll have a hell of a mess to clean up!” Duncan said. He rolled away, too, but the men did not fire. Evidently, they were not sure that he was lying when he had said that he was extremely important to PUPA.
“Chandler!” Duncan called softly, but not so softly, he hoped, that the two men would not hear him. “You all right?”
Then, shrilly, “You goddamned murderers, I’ll kill you!”
There was some more muttering from the hallway. The first man called out then, “Cut out the crap, Beewolf! We’re not some thick-headed civilians you can fool!”
“You killed her!” Duncan shouted, and he rolled toward the wall until he was against it. Face close to the floor, he inched along to die center of the doorway behind the table. He turned over and reached into his shoulderbag. His groping fingers found the can of truth mist, and he took it out and placed it on the floor by his right hand. He did not intend to speak any more. The two would make a rush very soon. They could not afford any more time.
Nevertheless, they did not come. Or, if they were creeping up, their moccasins were making no noise. Perhaps they were very uncertain about his status in PUPA, and they were not so sure that they had not hit the woman they knew as Chandler.
A beam of violet shot over Duncan, causing him to jump inside his skin. It came, however, not from a proton pistol but from a small flashlight. It played over the darkness past the table on its side and onto the window beyond. Then it was withdrawn. But it could be that it was being used to search for Carebara. They should be able to figure out that Carebara might not be in the kitchen and had been put inside a cylinder or a PP closet.
While one was searching, the other would be waiting, his gun pointed toward the kitchen door.
Snick was busy, though moving slowly enough not to make noise. She carried a small table to the side of the door and placed it so that it could not be seen from the hallway. He wondered what she was up to but said nothing and made no signs to her. She put another, but smaller, table on top of the first. Now, she was putting a chair by the stacked tables. Now, she was stepping up onto the chair. Now, she was placing a foot on the edge of the lower table. Duncan could see the gleam of flesh; her bare feet looked like white mice.
He sweated heavily, and he brushed the acid liquid from the corners of his eyes. When Snick had stopped the power, she had also cut off the air-conditioning, but even if it had been icy cold, he would be sweating.
Duncan bit his lip, hoping that she would not slip or make any noise that might cause the man to shoot at its area of origin. At the same time, he was straining his ears to catch the sound of advancing footsteps. Since the floor was tiled and the men wore moccasins, he was trying to hear steps only because his instinct made him. However, if they were as tense as he, they might be breathing heavily enough to be detected.
Snick had room to stand up, but not much. She was facing toward the wall, her thighs against the edge of the table top, her toes on the edge of the lower table. She raised one leg, bent it, and rolled over very slowly. The table rocked beneath her. Not enough to go on over. She was on her knees. Then she was standing, poised, the knife gleaming much less brightly than her feet.
She must be planning to leap from above on the first to venture through the doorway, but her launch platform was very unstable.
He heard, very faintly, one of the men say something to the other. It sounded as if the speaker was some distance away. Duncan abandoned the idea of moving the table to one side and crawling out into the hallway. The chances were far too high of his being caught by their flashlight beam.
They would be getting desperate now. They had orders to kill Snick but none on how to deal with him. For all they knew, Duncan and Snick, Beewolf and Chandler to them, did have guns. Carebara was going to stay in the cylinder, and when his body was discovered by the Wednesday people or perhaps by Thursday’s, he was going to be in a very bad situation. He would be arrested no matter what story he told or how high he was in Tuesday’s organic force. One whiff of truth mist would make him tell all.
Midnight was coming fast. Conditioned to be in the cylinders before then, the two men must be panicked. Also, if they were found unstoned by Wednesday, they would be in as sticky a plight as Carebara.
In the next few seconds, they would either try to make some sort of deal with their quarry or charge on in.
He crawled back to the other side of the doorway, moved the table back, and extended his arm through the opening. His hand held ~the can of truth mist. He expected them to hear the slight hiss as it expelled the cloud but hoped that they would not identify the noise. When they galloped on in, they would run headlong into the mist. Breathing it in, they would be instantly numbed and be slowed down, though he doubted that they would inhale enough to make them completely unconscious. If he had miscalculated, if they were far enough away and did not attack immediately, the mist would dissipate and be harmless.
Having squirted out at least half the can, he withdrew his arm and moved the table back. It was then that he heard the soft hissing. He cursed. They were doing the same thing he had done!
The table slid backward as a man collapsed over it. Duncan bellowed, “Hold your breath, Thea!” though he knew that he was too late and, by breathing, would become unconscious, too.
As his senses dimmed, he saw another dark figure sail, shouting, over the man lying folded like a tablecloth on the edge of the barrier. He also saw Snick leap, the knife dully gleaming, heard the top table fall onto the floor, and then…
25
He awoke startled, stiff and sore, though a few seconds passed before he was aware of his physical condition. He was lying on a soft bed. On the ceiling was a huge screen displaying a scene from the movie Peer Gynt, though he did not remember when he had seen it or who he was then. Gynt had been running through the mist-filled night on a moor studded with many firs charred to the trunk by a forest fire. He had been pursued relentlessly by balls of thread, thoughts made physical and animated. Then he had come upon a sinister old man, the Button-Molder, who carried a box of tools and a big casting ladle. The molder had told Gynt that he had been looking for him and that he was going to melt down Gynt in his ladle. Gynt was a flawed button, a casting missing a loop. Gynt was arguing that he was not a bad fellow at heart. Though he had been many selves, few of them admirable, the real Gynt was at the core, and he was worth saving from destruction.
The Button Molder: “But, my dear Gynt, why all this fuss/Over a technical point like this?/Your self is just what you’ve never been./So, what’s the difference to you if you get melted down?”
What, indeed? Duncan thought. And he forgot the scene and felt pain and bewilderment because he did not know where he was.
He half-rose, groaning because of his dull headache, and sat on the edge of the bed. He was in a long curving room with a single continuous window from wall to wall on the west. Bright daylight came through it though the sun was not in sight. The splendid furniture shone, furniture that told him that he was in the apartment of a high official. In one of his rooms, anyway.
At the other end of the large room was another large bed, and in it lay Snick, eyes closed, on her side and covered to the waist with an electric-blue blanket. The screen above her was displaying some movie that he could not identify at this angle and distance. Soft voices issued from
it.
He rose and staggered to the window. A canoe-shaped organic aircraft floated by about a hundred feet away. Beyond it were the peaks of some towers and the upper parts of bridges. A freight dirigible moved majestically within his view. He walked close to the window, which became black. When he stepped back, the window lightened, though not enough for him to see very far. Another two steps back, and the window was so clear it did not seem to be there. Evidently, its material polarized when a body of a certain size got within a certain distance of it.
That confirmed that he was imprisoned, and the window would keep any aerial passengers from seeing him or he them. Not, he thought, that there was any chance that anybody flying by would respond to his signals for help if he was visible.
There were two doors, both closed, in the room. He pushed on the nearest; it would not give. The other, however, swung easily inward to reveal a toilet bowl, several sinks with faucets, soap, towels and washrags on racks, and a massive white-and green-streaked marble sunken bathtub. He relieved himself standing up, though he was so shaky that he felt like sitting down. The toilet automatically flushed when he stepped back from it.
After drinking a large glass of water, he looked into the mirror behind the black and red onyx counter. He saw a weary and red-eyed Duncan. His clothes were the ones he had worn when he had passed out. He washed his face and hands, dried them, and was just about to open the door when it swung in. Snick stood in the doorway, her mouth open, and then it narrowed for her to say, “Oh! Thank God! It’s you!”
“More or less,” he said. He was thinking that it might not just be coincidence that the movie was Peer Gynt. Perhaps whoever had brought them here knew more about Duncan than Duncan cared for him to know.
Snick was still alive, and that might mean that their captor intended to allow her to keep on living. He looked at her as she brushed past him, pulled down her panties, sat down, and relieved herself mightily. Though he wanted to talk to her at once, he was driven out by the stench. He did some setting-up exercises to exorcise the stiffness of body and legs, though the effort made his headache worse. He was aware that he was being watched and wished that the observer would enter and tell him what was going on. He would like to get things over with quickly. That, however, was not to be. A buzzing sounded from the wall near the door. He stood up, turned toward the sound, and saw a seemingly seamless section of the wall rotate on a central axis just as the buzzing stopped. The other side, now this side, presented a semicircular shelf on which were two trays covered partly by napkins. He went to the section and found, as he had expected, two breakfasts. He lifted the tray, and the section rotated to its original position. Though he tried to see through the opening, he could make out nothing but darkness.
He and Snick had plenty to eat and drink. Eggs, bacon, toast, cereal and milk, orange juice, coffee, and vitamin pills. The protein, of course, would be relatively cholesterol-free. He called out to her to come enjoy, but, hearing the shower, he decided he would begin the meal by himself. Snick was certainly being cool about this, despite her seemingly painful puzzlement when she had come into the bathroom. He would have preferred to talk about their situation first. Not that that would have helped them except to ease some tension.
It was evident that PUPA, despite the danger of being caught, had sent out a party to his apartment. It would have had no trouble destoning Carebara after midnight. Snick’s orders to the lights to stay extinguished would have been automatically overridden by Wednesday’s circuits.
Snick came out of the bathroom, holding her clothes and shoes in one hand, her body dry but her black straight hair still somewhat wet, shining like a seal’s fur. She walked across the room to the cylindrical cone-topped cleaner on a table in the corner. Its surface shimmered with colors passing from violet to blue; tiny gargoyles stuck their heads out at irregular intervals. Its owner, Duncan thought, must have paid a lot of credits for it.
Snick put the clothes and shoes inside it, closed the door, pressed a button, opened the door, took the clothes and shoes out, and put them on. Duncan, watching her, ate with decreasing appetite. Though the ancient modesties had been done away with because of their psychically damaging effects, he suspected that she was deliberately moving her nude body, exaggerating her motions, to excite his lust. Frustrate him since he could not expend it on her. Why had he fallen in love with the sadistic bitch?
On the other hand, perhaps he was giving her motives she did not have.
She sat down at the table across from him and began eating. Then she wrinkled her nose, said, “Phew!” and stared at him. “You didn’t bathe or clean your clothes. You stink like a skunk.”
“Why don’t you sit over there then?” he said, stabbing his fork to indicate a sofa.
She took her tray away and sat near the window. “I’m sorry, but you were spoiling my breakfast. You can’t blame me, can you? Wouldn’t you feel the same if I was dirty?”
“I have more important things to think about,” he said. “Also, I got sweaty and dirty trying to save your ass.”
“Yours, too,” she said. She looked around while chewing bacon and toast. “You woke up before I did. What do you think about all this?”
“PUPA got us here, how I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough, when they’re ready.”
“They must’ve questioned us under TM.”
“You, yes. They probably didn’t bother with me unless they wanted to determine if I could really lie.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to then.”
“Maybe. I don’t know myself what I say. But my subconscious really works for me. Behaves as if it were conscious.”
“You must have a hell of a cooperative subconscious.”
“Eight of them,” Duncan said. “I’m a man of many parts. But I did too good a job on myself when I became Duncan. I can’t consciously summon the others.”
After he ate his meal, he cleaned his clothes while Snick looked at him nude. He wondered what her thoughts were. After showering and dressing, he came out of the bathroom. Snick was playing with the window, stepping close to it to make it blacken, stepping back to make it transparent.
“We must be on the top floor or near it, judging by the other towers,” Duncan said.
“Yes, and we’re in the same tower.”
Duncan asked the wall screen for the time and the date. It displayed nine o’clock in the morning of Wednesday. His suspicion that they might have been stoned for a long time was not valid. Unless, that is, the owner had for some reason ordered the wrong time and date to be shown.
Why would he? Duncan thought. That’s crazy. I’m getting so I don’t believe anything I see or hear or trust anybody.
The buzzing sounded, and the wall section rotated again. Snick got up and put the trays on the shelf. The section turned, taking the trays with it. Duncan had started to protest that she should not do their captor’s work for him. But what the hell. If they wanted another meal, they would have to deposit the dirty dishes. The citizens were conditioned to be neat, clean, and orderly. Duncan himself had had to restrain his impulse to get rid of the trays.
Snick had just turned away from the wall when the door to the apartment opened inward. Snick stopped walking, Duncan started to rise, thought better of it, and eased back down in the chair. A man and a woman, both in street clothes, entered. They stopped and half-turned, proton guns in their hands. A large, dark-skinned man of middle age walked in. He was also in civilian dress, but it looked expensive, and he was unarmed. He stopped between the two armed guards. A huge, big-bellied and many-jowled man in a brown friar’s robe entered. Behind came two men, holding guns.
Duncan sprang to his feet and shouted, “Padre! Padre Cabtab!”
Cabtab bellowed with delight, opened his arms, and said, “Come to Papa!”
Snick, smiling, started toward him and Duncan, grinning, began to rise. The male guard said, sharply, “Stay where you are!”
Snick halted; Duncan sank back down.
<
br /> “All three of you,” the man said, gesturing with the gun. “Over there. The sofa.”
Duncan hugged and was hugged by Cabtab on the way to the sofa. The padre gave Snick a big kiss on top of her head and squeezed her shoulders. “I thought you were a goner,” she said.
“I may well be yet!” he roared. “We shall see! Our host has treated me well so far, but you remember what the spider said to Miss Muffet!”
The middle-aged man looked at Duncan with very light blue eyes that contrasted weirdly with his dark skin. He had very heavy black eyebrows, prominent epicanthic folds, a large and hawklike nose, rather thin lips, and a massive chin. Duncan thought that he had seen him before but could not evoke any memory. However, he did feel uneasy. There was something about this man that threatened danger, and Duncan did not believe it was just because of this situation.
The man sat down in the chair Duncan had vacated. He church-steepled his fingers and said, “So, we meet again.”
Since the man was looking directly at him, Duncan knew that he was being addressed.
“You have the advantage of me,” Duncan said.
The man smiled and said, “In more ways than one.”
He put his hands on his thighs.
“Now, the question is what do I do with you? And your friends?”
“Maybe if you told us why we’re here, we could help answer that,” Duncan said.
“He looks like you,” Snick said quietly. “He could be your grandfather.”
The room was wavering as if seen through very hot air in a desert. A voice was calling to him, a very faint and far-off voice. Something, no, some things, were fighting far down inside him, roiling his stomach, no, not his stomach, his mind. But making him sick.
The air became clear again; the voice died out. He still felt vaguely sick in his stomach.
The man frowned and said, “You remember?”
“No,” Duncan said. “I…something… I don’t know what. I was affected… I felt strange. I don’t know why.”