"N-No, Mr. Reich."
"Then what's eating you? This is something we've all been waiting for. What's wrong with it?"
The chief secretary stammered: "We... I... I'm s-sorry, sir. I d-don't know what y-you're talking about."
"I'm talking about the D'Courtney Cartel."
"I... I've n-never heard of the organization, Mr. Reich, sir. I... we..." The chief secretary turned around for support. Before Reich's unbelieving eyes the entire staff shook their heads in mystification.
"D'Courtney on Mars!" Reich shouted.
"On where, sir?"
"Mars! Mars! M-A-R-S. One of the ten planets. Fourth from the sun." Gripped by the returning terror, Reich bellowed incoherently. "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars! Mars! Mars! A hundred and forty-one million miles from the sun, Mars!"
Again the staff shook their heads. There was a rustle and they backed away slightly from Reich. He darted at the secretaries and tore the sheafs of business papers from their hands. "You've got a hundred memos about D'Courtney on Mars there. You've got to. My God, we've been battling it out with D'Courtney for the last ten years. We—"
He clawed through the papers, throwing them wildly in all directions, filling the office with fluttering snow. There was not one reference to D'Courtney or Mars. There was neither any reference to Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, nor the other satellites.
"I've got memos in my desk," Reich shouted. Hundreds of them. You lousy liars! Look in my desk..."
He darted to the desk and yanked out drawers. There was a stunning explosion. The desk burst asunder. Fragments of flying fruit-wood slashed the staff, and Reich was hurled back against the window by the desk top which smacked him like a giant's hand.
"The Man With No Face!" Reich cried. "Christ Almighty!" He shook his head feverishly, and clung to the paramount obsession. "Where are the files? I'll show you in the files... D'Courtney and Mars and all the rest. And I'll show him, too. The Man With No Face... Come on!"
He ran out of his office and burst into the file vaults. He tore out rack after rack; scattering papers, clusters of piezo crystals, ancient wire recordings, microfilm, molecular transcripts. There was no reference to D'Courtney or Mars. There was no reference to Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, the asteroids, the satellites.
And now indeed the office was alive with hustle and bustle, annunciator bells, strident commands. Now the office was stampeding, and three burly gentlemen from 'Recreation' came trotting into the vaults directed by the bleeding secretary who urged: "You must! You must! I'll take the responsibility!"
"Easy now, easy now, easy now, Mr. Reich," they said with the hissing noise with which hostlers soothe savage stallions. "Easy... easy...easy..."
"Get away from me, you sons of bitches."
"Easy, sir. Easy. It's all right, sir."
They deployed strategically while the hustle and the bustle increased and the bells sounded and voices far off called: "Who's his doctor? Get his doctor. Somebody call Kingston. Did you notify the police? No, don't. No scandal. Get the legal department, will you! Isn't the Infirmary open yet?"
Reich's breath came and went in snarls. He overturned files in the path of the burly gentlemen, put his head down and bulled straight through them. He raced through the office to the outside corridor and the Pneumatique. The door opened; he punched Science-city 57. He stepped into the air-shuttle and was shot over to Science where he stepped out.
He was on the laboratory floor. It was in darkness. Probably the staff imagined he had dropped to the street level. He would have time. Still breathing heavily, he trotted to the lab library, snapped on the lights and went to the reference alcove. A sheet of frosted crystal, cocked like a draft-board, was set before a desk chair. There was a complicated panel of control buttons alongside it.
Reich seated himself and punched READY. The sheet lit up and a canned voice spoke from an overhead speaker.
"Topic?"
Reich punched SCIENCE.
"Section?"
Reich punched ASTRONOMY.
"Question?"
"The universe."
Click-pause-click. "The term universe in its complete physical sense applies to all matter in existence."
"What matter is in existence?"
Click-pause-click. "Matter is gathered into aggregates ranging in size from the smallest atom to the largest collection of matter known to astronomers."
"What is the largest collection of matter known to astronomers?" Reich punched DIAGRAM.
Click-pause-click. "The sun." The crystal plate displayed a dazzling picture of the sun in speed-up action.
"But what about the others? The stars?"
Click-pause-click. "There are no stars."
"The planets?"
Click-pause-click. "There is the earth." A picture or the revolving earth appeared.
"The other planets? Mars? Jupiter? Saturn..."
Click-pause-click. "There are no other planets."
"The moon?"
Click-pause-click. "There is no moon."
Reich took a deep trembling breath. "We'll try it again. Go back to the sun."
The sun appeared again in the crystal. "The sun is the largest collection of matter known to astronomers," the canned voice began. Suddenly it stopped. Click-pause-click. The picture of the sun began to fade slowly. The voice spoke. "There is no sun."
The model disappeared, leaving behind it an afterimage that looked up at Reich... looming, silent, horrible... The Man With No Face.
Reich howled. He leaped to his feet, knocking the desk chair backward. He picked it up and smashed it down on that frightful image. He turned and blundered out of the library into the lab, and thence to the corridor. At the Vertical Pneumatique, he punched STREET. The door opened, he staggered in and was dropped 57 stories to the Main Hall of Monarch's Science-city.
It was filled with early workers hurrying to their offices. As Reich pushed past them, he caught the astonished glances at his cut and bleeding face. Then he was aware of a dozen uniformed Monarch guards closing in on him. He ran down the hall and with a frantic burst of speed and dodged the guards. He slipped into the revolving doors and whirled through to the footway. There he jerked to a stop as though he had ran into white hot iron. There was no sun.
The street lights were lit; the skyways twinkled; Jumper eyes floated up and down; the shops were blazing... And overhead there was nothing... nothing but a deep, black, fathomless infinity.
"The sun!" Reich shouted. "The sun!"
He pointed upward. The office workers regarded him with suspicious eyes and hurried on. No one looked up.
"The sun! Where's the sun? Don't you understand, you fools? The sun!" Reich plucked at their arms, shaking his fist at the sky. Then the first of the guards came through the revolving door and he took to his heels.
He went down the footway, turned sharp to his right and sprinted through an arcade of brilliant, busy shops. Beyond the arcade was the entrance of a Vertical Pneumatique to the skyway. Reich leaped in. As the door closed behind him, he caught sight of the pursuing guards less than twenty yards off. Then he was lofted seventy stories and emerged on the skyway.
There was a small car-park alongside him, shelved onto the face of Monarch Tower, with a runway leading into the skyway. Reich ran in, flung credits to the attendant and got into a car. He pressed GO. The car went. At the foot of the runway he pressed LEFT. The car turned left and continued. That was all the control he had. Left, right; stop, go. The rest was automatic. Moreover, cars were strictly limited to the skyways. He might spend hours racing in circles high over the city, trapped like a dog in a revolving cage.
The car needed no attention. He glanced alternately over his shoulder and up at the sky. There was no sun... and they went about their business as though there had never been a sun. He shuddered. Was this more of the one-eye kick? Suddenly the car slowed and stopped; and he was marooned in the middle of the skyway, halfway between Monarch Tower and the giant Visiphone & Vi
sigraph Building.
Reich hammered on the control studs. There was no response. He leaped out and raised the tail hood to inspect the pick-up. Then he saw the guards far down the skyway, running toward him, and he understood. These cars were powered by broadcast energy. They'd cut the transmission off at the car-park and were coming after him. Reich turned tail and sprinted toward the V & V Building.
The skyway tunneled through the building and was lined with shops, restaurants, a theater — and there was a travel office! A sure out. He could grab a ticket, get into a one-man capsule and have himself slotted to any of the take-off fields. He needed a little time to reorganize... reorient... and he had a house in Paris. He leaped across the center island, dodged past cars and ran into the office.
It looked like a miniature bank. A short counter. A grilled window protected by burglar-proof plastic. Reich went to the window, pulling money from his pocket. He slapped credits down on the counter and shoved them under the grille.
"Ticket to Paris," he said. "Keep the change. Which way to the capsules? Jet, man! Jet!"
"Paris?" came the reply. "There is no Paris."
Reich stared through the cloudy plastic and saw... looking, looming, silent... The Man With No Face. He spun around twice, heart pounding, skull pounding, located the door and ran out. He ran blindly onto the skyway, shied feebly from an oncoming car, and was struck down into enveloping darkness—
ABOLISH.
DESTROY.
DELETE.
DISBAND.
(MINERALOGY, PETROLOGY, GEOLOGY, PHYSIOGRAPHY)
DISPERSE.
(METEOROLOGY, HYDROLOGY, SEISMOLOGY)
ERASE.
(X²ØY³ d:Space/d:Time)
EFFACE.
THE SUBJECT WILL BE—
"—will be what?"
THE SUBJECT WILL BE—
"—will be what? What? WHAT?"
A hand was placed over his mouth. Reich opened his eyes. He was in a small tiled room, an emergency police station. He was lying on a white table. Around him were grouped the guards, three uniformed police, unidentified strangers. All were writing carefully in report books, murmuring, shifting confusedly.
The stranger removed his hand from Reich's mouth and bent over him. "lt's all right," he said gently.
"Easy. I'm a doctor..."
"A peeper?"
"What?"
"Are you a peeper? I need a peeper. I need somebody inside my head to prove I'm right. My God! I've got to know I'm right. I don't care about the price. I—"
"What's he want?" a policeman asked.
"I don't know. He said a peeper." The doctor turned back to Reich. "What d'you mean by that? Just tell us. What's a peeper?"
"An Esper! A mind reader. A—"
The doctor smiled. "He's joking. Show of high spirits. Many patients do that. They simulate sang froid after accidents. We call it Gallows Humor..."
"Listen," Reich said desperately. "Let me up. I want to say something..."
They helped him up.
To the police, he said: "My name is Ben Reich. Ben Reich of Monarch. You know me. I want to confess. I want to confess to Lincoln Powell, the police prefect. Take me to Powell."
"Who's Powell?"
"And what y'want to confess?"
"The D'Courtney murder. I murdered Craye D'Courtney last month. In Maria Beaumont's house... Tell Powell. I killed D'Courtney."
The police looked at each other in surprise. One of them drifted to a corner and picked up an old-fashioned hand phone: "Captain? Got a character here. Calls himself Ben Reich of Monarch. Wants to confess to some prefect named Powell. Claims he killed a party named Craye D'Courtney last month." After a pause, the policeman called to Reich: "How do you spell that?"
"D'Courtney! Capital D apostrophe Capital C-O-U-R-T-N-E-Y."
The policeman spelled it out and waited. After another pause, he grunted and hung up. "A nut," be said and stowed his notebook in a pocket.
"Listen—" Reich began.
"Is he all right?" the policeman asked the doctor without looking at Reich.
"Just shaken a little. He's all right."
"Listen!" Reich shouted.
The policeman yanked him to his feet and propelled him toward the door of the station. "All right, buddy. Out!"
"You've got to listen to me! I—"
"You listen to me, buddy. There ain't no Lincoln Powell in the service. There ain't no D'Courtney killing in the books. And we ain't takin' no slok from your kind. Now... Out!" And he hurled Reich into the street.
The pavement was strangely broken. Reich stumbled, then regained his balance and stood still, numb, lost. It was darker... eternally darker. A few street lights were lit. The skyways were extinguished. The Jumpers had disappeared. There were great gaps shorn in the skyline.
"I'm sick," Reich moaned. "I'm sick. I need help..."
He began to lurch down the broken streets with arms clutching his belly.
"Jumper!" he yelled. "Jumper? Isn't there anything in this God-forsaken city? Where is everything? Jumper!"
There was nothing.
"I'm sick... sick. Got to get home. I'm sick..." Again he shouted: "Isn't there anybody who can hear me? I'm sick. I need help... Help!... Help!" There was nothing.
He moaned again. Then he tittered... weakly, inanely. He sang in a broken voice: "Eight, sir... Five, sir... One, sir... Tenser said Tensor... Tension... 'prehension... 'ssention have begun..."
He called plaintively: "Where is everybody? Maria! Lights! Ma-ri-aaa! Stop this crazy Sardine game!" He stumbled.
"Come back," Reich called. "For God's sake, come back! I'm all alone."
No answer.
He was searching for 9 Park South, looking for the Beaumont Mansion, the site of D'Courtney's death... and Maria Beaumont, shrill, decadent, reassuring.
There was nothing.
A black tundra. Black sky. Unfamiliar desolation.
Nothing.
Reich shouted once... a hoarse, inarticulate yell of rage and fright.
No answer. Not even an echo.
"For God's sake!" he cried. "Where is everything? Bring it all back! There's nothing but space..."
Out of the enveloping desolation, a figure gathered and grew, familiar, ominous, gigantic... A figure of black shadows, looking, looming, silent... The Man With No Face. Reich watched it, paralyzed, transfixed.
Then the figure spoke: "There is no space. There is nothing."
And there was a screaming in Reich's ears that was his voice, and a hammering pulse that was his heart. He was running down a yawning alien path, devoid of life, devoid of space, running before it was too late, too late, too late... running while there was still time, time, time—
He ran headlong into a figure of black shadows. A figure without a face. A figure that said: "There is no time. There is nothing."
Reich backed away. He turned. He fell. He crawled feebly through eternal emptiness shrieking: "Powell! Duffy! Quizzard! Tate! Oh Christ! Where is everybody? Where is everything? For the love of God..."
And he was face to face with the Man With No Face who said: "There is no God. There is nothing."
And now there was no longer escape. There was only a negative infinity and Reich and the Man With No Face. And fixed, frozen, helpless in that matrix, Reich at last raised his eyes and stared deep into the face of his deadly enemy... the man he could not escape... the terror of his nightmares... the destroyer of his existence...
It was...
Himself.
D'Courtney.
Both.
Two faces, blending into one. Ben D'Courtney. Craye Reich. D'Courtney-Reich. D'R.
He could make no sound. He could make no move. There was neither time nor space nor matter. There was nothing left but dying thought.
"Father?"
"Son."
"You are me?"
"We are us."
"Father and son?"
"Yes."
"I can't understand... What's happene
d?"
"You lost the game, Ben."
"The Sardine Game?"
"The Cosmic Game."
"I won, I won. I owned every bit of the world. I—"
"And therefore you lose. We lose."
"Lose what?"
"Survival."
"I don't understand. I can't understand."
"My part of us understands, Ben. You would understand too if you hadn't driven me from you."
"How did I drive you from me?"
"With every rotten, distorted corruption in you."
"You say that? You... betrayer, who tried to kill me?"
"That was without passion, Ben. That was to destroy you before you could destroy us. That was for survival. It was to help you lose the world and win the game, Ben."
"What game? What Cosmic Game?"
"The maze... the labyrinth... all the universe, created as a puzzle for us to solve. The galaxies, the stars, the sun, the planets... the world as we knew it. We were the only reality. All the rest was make-believe... dolls, puppets, stage-settings... pretended passions. It was a make-believe reality for us to solve."
"I conquered it. I owned it."
"And you failed to solve it. We'll never know what the solution is, but it's not theft, terror, hatred, lust, murder, rapine. You failed, and it's all been abolished, disbanded..."
"But what's to become of us?"
"We are abolished too. I tried to warn you. I tried to stop you. But we failed the test."
"But why? Why? Who are we? What are we?"
"Who knows? Did the seed know who or what it was when it failed to find fertile soil? Does it matter who or what we are? We have failed. Our test is ended. We are ended."
"No!"
"Perhaps if we had solved it, Ben, it might have remained real. But it is ended. Reality has turned into might-have-been, and you have awakened at last... to nothing."
"We'll go back! We'll try it again!"
"There is no going back. It is ended."
"We'll find a way. There must be a way..."
"There is none. It is ended."
It was ended.
Now... Demolition.
17
THEY FOUND THE TWO MEN next morning, far up the island in the gardens overlooking the old Harlem Canal. Each had wandered all the night, through footway and skyway, unconscious of his surroundings, yet both were drawn inevitably together like two magnetized needles floating on a weed choked pond.