that whisper madethe cartel-jungle meaningless.
V
Hunter left his autojet on the parking flat behind the house. He fedenough coins in the meter to hold the car for twenty-four hours. Hedidn't know how fast he'd want an autojet after he talked to Mrs.Ames, but he didn't want a chance passer-by to pick up his car if thecharter expired.
It was necessary for him to ring a bell manually, by means of a metalbutton fixed to the wooden frame of the front door. No scannerannounced his arrival, nor did any soundless auto-door respond to abeam transmitted from within the house. After a time Hunter heardfootsteps. A strange woman--probably a new resident who had takenAnn's place--opened the door.
"I'm Captain Hunter," he said. "I came to see Mrs. Ames."
"Won't you come in, Captain?" the woman replied.
She led him into a front room which, Ann had once told him, had beencalled a living room. A peculiar name, surely, for the room appearedto have been designed solely as a place to sit while watchingTri-D--or flat-screen television, as it had been called in its earlydevelopmental stage when the house was new--or to hear someone playthe bulky instrument known as a piano.
The room was an example of the appalling waste of space so common tothe twentieth century. It was extremely spacious, but neither foodtubes nor bed drawers were concealed in the walls.
Hunter had always been curious about the piano. It amazed him that ithad been operated entirely by hand. There was no electric scanner toread the mood of the player and interpret it in melody. Driven tocontrive his own harmonics, how could the twentieth century man havederived any satisfaction at all from music? His sensibilities had beenimmature, of course. But even so, an instrument which demanded so muchindividual creativeness must have been an enormous frustration.
Since so many surviving twentieth century machines made the samedemand on the individual--their automobiles, for example, had beenindividually directed, without any sort of electronic safetycontrol--it had puzzled both Hunter and Ann that the incidence ofmaladjustment in the past had been so low.
The captain dropped into a comfortable, chintz-covered rockingchair--one relic in this island of time that he really enjoyed. "Willyou tell Mrs. Ames I'm here?" he asked the stranger.
"I'm Mrs. Ames."
"I mean Mrs. _Janice_ Ames--the owner of the house."
The woman smiled woodenly. "You're speaking to her, Captain, though Imust say I don't remember ever having met you before."
"You don't remember--"
Fear clutched at his heart. He sprang up, moving toward her withclenched fists. "An hour ago I called Mrs. Ames from the spaceport. Isaw her. Here--in this room."
"I've owned this house all my life, Captain." Her expression was morethan good acting. She spoke with utter conviction, and seemedcompletely sure of herself. "You must be--" She hesitated and lookedat him sharply. "Have you checked your adjustment index recently?"
"I haven't lost my mind, if that's what you're getting at," he said."Where's Ann Saymer?"
"Believe me, please. The name is totally unfamiliar to me." The womanwas painfully sympathetic--and frankly scared. She backed away fromhim. "You need help from the clinic, Captain. Will you let me callthem for you?"
Suddenly the light fell full on her face, and Hunter saw the tiny,still-unhealed scalpel wounds on both sides of her skull. The lightglowed on the microscopic filament of platinum wire clumsily leftprojecting through the incision.
He understood, then. This woman was wearing one of Ann's patentedgrids, sealed into her cerebral cortex. It made her into a robot,responding with unquestioning obedience to the direction of Ann'stransmitter. And Hunter had no doubt that United manipulated thetransmission.
Simultaneously he realized something else. If the cartel went to thisextreme to forestall his search for Ann, she must still be alive. Forsome reason they still needed her. Possibly her patent drawings hadbeen submitted for government registry in such a way that only Annunderstood them.
Ann had been through the general school, and knew what the score was.She would have protected her invention--and incidentally insured herown survival--if she could have possibly done so, even at a fearfulrisk to herself.
Hunter swung toward the door. It did not occur to him to call thepolice, since they were all cartel mercenaries. Whatever he did tohelp Ann, he would have to do on his own. Until he found her, he couldcount on help from Consolidated. After that--nothing.
He jerked open the front door--and froze. Three men were waiting onthe porch with drawn blasters. Hunter had no time to recognize facialfeatures which it might have been to his advantage to remember later,no time to find any identifying insignia on their tunics. With abarely visible flickering fire arced from one of the weapons, and painexploded in his body, unconsciousness washed into his brain.
His first sensation when the paralysis began to wear off was the dullache of visceral nausea. He opened his eyes, and saw, bleaklyshadowed, the living room of the Ames house. It was after dark, whichcould only mean that he had lain there nearly four hours. To knock himout for that period of time, they must have given him a nearly lethalcharge from the blaster calculated just under the limit of physicalendurance.
His motor control and his sense of touch returned more slowly. For aquarter of an hour he lay helpless in the chintz-covered rocker,feeling nothing but a tingling, like pin-pricks of fire, in his armsand legs.
He looked down and saw that he held a blaster in his hand--his ownblaster, which he had left in his room in the Roost. He did not yethave the neural control to release his fingers from the firing dial.
As his sense of hearing was restored, he became aware that the Tri Dhad been left on. The screen pictured the swirling confusion of a mob.An announcer was describing the sudden outburst of labor violencewhich had occurred in the industrial district that afternoon. EricYoung's U.F.W. had gone on strike against a dozen separate plants.
Essential plants, naturally. Everything was always essential, andgovernment spokesmen always made pretty speeches deploring thesituation. It was a pattern familiar to Hunter for years. One of thecartels would pay Young to strike factories belonging to the other.Then a second bribe, paid by the struck cartel, bought off the strike.Occasionally a sop of bonus credits had to be dished out to thefaithful.
It was not a maneuver either Consolidated or United used frequently,because the advantage was transitory, and the only long-term winnerwas Eric Young.
This time there was a slight variation in the formula. Young hadstruck plants of both cartels. That puzzled Hunter, but any curiosityhe felt was subordinate to his disgust. How much longer would thisfarce go on before it dawned on the rank and file of the U.F.W. thatEric Young was playing them all for suckers? Hunter tried to get up tosnap off the telecast. He managed only to throw himself awkwardly overthe arm of the chair.
And then he saw the body on the floor--the body of the genuine Mrs.Ames, charred by a ragged blaster wound seared through her breast.They had murdered her--naturally with his blaster--and left him at thescene, neatly framed for the crime.
Hunter heard--right on cue--the whine of a police siren outside.Everything timed to trap him just as the motor paralysis wore off!With an effort that brought beads of sweat to his forehead, he droppedhis blaster and pushed himself out of the chair. His feet were numb.He moved a few steps and banged into the piano. Clawing for support,his hands crashed in jangling discord on the keys.
The siren swelled loud in front of the house. Hunter heard thedrum-beat of boots on the porch. He stumbled toward the kitchen--andfell into the arms of two police officers who had entered from therear of the house.
He swung his fist; the fingers felt like clods of wet clay. One of themercenaries caught his wrist and held it easily. In the gloom Huntersaw the Consolidated insignia on the man's jacket, and the guardwhispered quickly, "This deal was a set-up, Hunter--packaged evidence,dropped at headquarters ten minutes ago."
Hunter stared. "Accusing me by name? Get this straight! Four hours agothey put
me under with a blaster and--"
"It's a United frame," the guard said. "They want you out for good.The top brass of Consolidated is giving you the green right down theline. The fastest out Jake and I could figure--" He jerked his headtoward his companion. "--was to give the United boys on our team thefront of the house, and let you make a break for it from the back.We'll fake enough here to protect ourselves."
They pushed a blaster into Hunter's hands. He stumbled through thekitchen as the front door gave and two United mercenaries burst intothe house. Hunter ran awkwardly, without full control of his legs.
He saw, looming black against the night shadows, the oval silhouetteof the autojet on the Ames flat, still held under his twenty-four hourcharter. It offered a tempting means of escape, but a public car wastoo easily traced and brought