Acutelymindful that he had left the service and would earn no more juicycredit bonuses, he took the monorail instead.
He had only a ten-minute wait before a crowded car screamed to a stopat the port station. Hunter went aboard, along with four passengersfrom recent inbound flights--laboring class tourists returning fromvacations on one of the planetoid resorts. Since a majority of thepeople who passed through the spaceport were executives orprofessionals, they used the autojets.
Hunter's uniform set him apart. A spaceman was expected to live high,to throw away credits like the glamor heroes on the Tri-D spacedramas.
The monorail car was crowded, primarily with afternoon-shift workerson their way to the industrial area. They all wore on their tunics thediscs of the Union of Free Workers. The four tourists who went aboardat the spaceport with Hunter pulled out their U.F.W. badges and pinnedthem on. They belonged. Hunter didn't.
He found an empty chair at the rear of the car, beside a gaudilyattired woman, whose union disc proclaimed her a member of Local 47,the Recreational Companion Union. What miracles we perform, Hunterthought, with a judicial selection of innocuous words!
He glanced at the woman. She was past the first bloom of youth and herface, under her makeup, was heavily lined, her eyes shrewd andobserving. Had he known that she had been shadowing him almost fromthe instant of his arrival in Los Angeles, and had been awaiting hisreturn to Earth in obedience to carefully formulated instructions hewould not have regarded her so complacently.
The monorail shot up toward the Palms-Pine pass of the San JacintoMountains. From the crest of the grade Hunter could look back at theflat, cemented field of the spaceport and the ragged teeth of thelaunching tubes rearing high on the Mojave. Ahead of him, misted bythe blue haze of industrial smog, was Los Angeles, the capital city ofSector West--and indirectly the capital of the entire planet.
Almost indistinct against the horizon were the soaring, Babel towers,the tangled network of walk-levels, jet-ways and private landingflats, which was the center-city. The lower, bulky factory buildingssquatted under the towers and spreading outward from them, likeconcentric rings made by a stone hurled into a quiet pool, was themonotonous clutter of the minimum-housing.
The city sprawled from San Diego to Santa Barbara, and it lappedagainst the arid Mojave to the east. Beyond were the suburban homes oflaborers and low-echelon executives who had carved brass-knuckledniches for themselves in the medium-income bracket.
Hunter saw the panoramic view of Sector West for only a split-secondbefore the monorail car screamed down through the layer of gray haze.For thirty minutes the car shot across the minimum-housing area,stopping from time to time at high-platformed stations.
In the industrial district the car emptied rapidly. Only Hunter andhis faded seat companion got out at the turnaround terminal and tookthe slideway to center-city. In the metro-entry at the top of thestairs they went through a security check station manned by sixblaster-armed police guards.
Half of the guards wore the insignia of Consolidated Solar Industriesand half of United Research, the two titan cartels which were lockedin deadly battle for the empire beyond the stars.
The government played it safe, Hunter thought with bitterness, usingan equal number of police from each organization. On Earth the pacificbalance of commercial power was never disturbed--not, at least, on thesurface. The two imperial giants lived side by side in a tactfuldisplay of peace.
On the frontier the real conflict raged, fought with all the weaponsof treachery and an arsenal of highly refined atomic weapons--theblaster which could tear a man into component elements, and theL-bombs that were capable of turning a young sun into a nova.
The woman passed through the security check with no trouble. The menknew her and made only a perfunctory examination of her cards. ButHunter again had difficulty because of the blaster in his bag. Hisregistered permit carried no weight with the guards. It was not theirduty to execute existing law, but to protect their private employers.
However, the Consolidated insignia on Hunter's jacket made the threeConsolidated guards ready to honor his permit. Eventually theypersuaded the opposition to pass Hunter into the city, on the groundthat the captain's zero-zero adjustment index indicated that it wassafe for him to carry arms.
When Hunter went through the probe, he found the woman waiting forhim. During the half-hour ride from the spaceport, he had tried twiceto start a conversation with her, and failed. Now, abruptly, her facewas animated with interest. She put her arm through his and walkedwith him to the lift shaft.
"So you got away with it, Captain." Since it was long-standingfashion, she had trained her voice to sound low-pitched and husky. "Imean, bringing a blaster into center-city."
"Why all this fuss about a gun?" Hunter asked.
"It's a new government regulation," she told him.
"The government doesn't make the law," he reminded her. "The cartelsdo."
"The last fiscal mental health report showed the percentage ofmaladjusted--" She laughed throatily. "I wish we'd use words honestly!The survey showed the _lunatic_ percentage is still increasing. Thecartels are using that report as an excuse to keep the peopleunarmed."
Hunter was regarding her steadily. "Why?" he asked.
"We're not as content with our world as we're supposed to be," shesaid. "Eric Young can't keep all of us in line forever. Captain, wecould use your blaster. It's next to impossible to get one these days.I could make it worth your while--"
"It's registered to me," Hunter pointed out.
"I'll change the serial," was her instant reply. "Your name wouldn'tbe involved."
"No, I want to keep it."
"To use yourself?"
"Don't talk nonsense," he said. "This isn't the frontier."
He made the denial vehemently, but deep in his mind he had anuncertain feeling that her guess was right. Earth was not thebattle-ground, but it had spawned the conflict. The appearance ofpeace was a sham. Here the battle was fought with more subtlety, butthe objective remained the same.
If Ann Saymer had somehow been caught in the no-man's-land between thetwo cartels--It was the first time that thought had occurred toHunter, and it filled him with a dread foreboding.
The woman sensed his feeling. He saw a smile on her curving lips. Shesaid softly, "So even a spaceman sometimes has his doubts."
"I left the service this morning," he said. Suddenly he was tellingher all about himself and Ann. It was unwise, perhaps even dangerous.But he had to unburden himself to someone or run the risk of losinghis emotional control.
"So now you've lost this--this ambitious woman of yours," she saidwhen he had finished.
"No," he protested. "I won't let myself believe that. Once I did--"
"As well as her interesting invention--the Exorciser," she went onrelentlessly. "Have you ever wondered, Captain Hunter, what mighthappen if the platinum grid was _not_ removed from a patient's brain?"
"No, but I suppose--I suppose he'd remain in control of the operatorof the transmitter."
She nodded. "He'd become a perfectly adjusted specimen with azero-zero index, but--he'd also become a human robot with no will ofhis own."
"But Ann wouldn't--"
"Not Ann, Captain. Not the girl you've waited so long to marry. Allshe wants is a clinic of her own so that she can help the maladjusted.But don't forget--she holds a _priceless_ patent. Keep your blaster,my friend. I've an idea you may need it."
He gripped her wrist. "You know something about this?"
"I know the world we live in--nothing more."
"But you're guessing--"
"Later, Captain, after you start putting some facts together on yourown." She pulled away from him. "If you want to find me again--and Ithink you will--look for me in Number thirty-four on the amusementlevel. Ask for Dawn."
Suddenly, for no reason that he could explain, he had for her a greatsympathy. She was no ordinary woman. Her discernment wasextraordinary, and she possessed, in addition, a strangely elusiv
echarm.
They rode the lift as it moved up through the city level in itstransparent, fairy-world shaft. Dawn got out first, at the mid-citywalk-way where the cheapest shops and the gaudiest entertainmenthouses were crammed together. Dazzling in the glare of colored lights,the mid-city never slept. It was always thronged. It was the only areaof the heartland--except for the top level casinos--open to everycitizen without restriction.
On the levels immediately above it were the specialty shops, dealingin luxuries for the suburbanites who had fought, schemed and bribedtheir way out of the minimum housing. Higher still was the sectorgiven over to the less expensive commercial hotels.
The upper levels were occupied by cartel executive