Ted Donovan said, “We’ll spear its power source from a distance; that shouldn’t be hard. You go on home, forget about it. When we have its tropic circuit laid out we’ll notify you. Unless of course it’s late at night, in which case—”
“Notify me,” Tinbane said, “whatever time it is. If you will.” He did not have to explain; the lab chief understood.
“Obviously,” Donovan said, “this construct is aimed at the police teams raiding the casinos. How they steered our robots onto it we don’t of course know—yet. We may find that circuit, too.” He picked up the already extant lab report, eyed it with hostility. “This was far too cursory, it would now appear. ‘Just another outspacer gambling device.’ The hell it is.” He tossed the report away, disgusted.
“If that’s what they had in mind,” Tinbane said, “they got what they wanted; they got me completely.” At least in terms of hooking him. Of snaring his attention. And his cooperation.
“You’re a gambler; you’ve got the streak. But you didn’t know it. Possibly it wouldn’t have worked otherwise.” Donovan added, “But it is interesting. A pinball machine that fights back. That gets fed up with steel balls rolling over it. I hope they don’t build a skeet-shoot. This is bad enough.”
“Dreamlike,” Tinbane murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Not really real.” But, he thought, it is real. He rose, then, to his feet. “I’ll do what you say; I’ll go on home to my conapt. You have the vidphone number.” He felt tired and afraid.
“You look terrible,” Donovan said, scrutinizing him. “It shouldn’t get you to this extent; this is a relatively benign construct, isn’t it? You have to attack it, to set it in motion. If left alone—”
“I’m leaving it alone,” Tinbane said. “But I feel it’s waiting. It wants me to come back.” He felt it expecting him, anticipating his return. The machine was capable of learning and he had taught it—taught it about himself.
Taught it that he existed. That there was such a person on Terra as Joseph Tinbane.
And that was too much.
When he unlocked the door of his conapt the phone was already ringing. Leadenly, he picked up the receiver. “Hello,” he said.
“Tinbane?” It was Donovan’s voice. “It’s encephalotropic, all right. We found a pattern-print of your brain configuration, and of course we destroyed it. But—” Donovan hesitated. “We also found something else it had constructed since the initial analysis.”
“A transmitter,” Tinbane said hoarsely.
“Afraid so. Half-mile of broadcast, two miles if beamed. And it was cupped to beams, so we have to assume the two-mile transmission. We have absolutely no idea what the receiver consists of, naturally, whether it’s even on the surface or not. Probably is. In an office somewhere. Or a hover-car such as they use. Anyhow, now you know. So it’s decidedly a vengeance weapon; your emotional response was unfortunately correct. When our double-dome experts looked this over they drew the conclusion that you were waited-for, so to speak. It saw you coming. The instrument may never have functioned as an authentic gambling device in the first place; the tolerances which we noted may have been built in, rather than the result of wear. So that’s about it.”
Tinbane said, “What do you suggest I do?”
“ ‘Do’?” A pause. “Not much. Stay in your conapt; don’t report for work, not for a while.”
So if they nail me, Tinbane thought, no one else in the department will get hit at the same time. More advantageous for the rest of you; hardly for me, though. “I think I’ll get out of the area,” he said aloud. “The structure may be limited in space, confined to S.L.A. or just one part of the city. If you don’t veto it.” He had a girl friend, Nancy Hackett, in La Jolla; he could go there.
“Suit yourself.”
He said, “You can’t do anything to help me, though.”
“I tell you what,” Donovan said. “We’ll allocate some funds, a moderate sum, best we can, on which you can function. Until we track down the damn receiver and find out what it’s tied to. For us, the main headache is that word of this matter has begun to filter through the department. It’s going to be hard getting crack-down teams to tackle future outspacer gambling operations… which of course is specifically what they had in mind. One more thing we can do. We can have the lab build you a brain-shield so you no longer emanate a recognizable template. But you’d have to pay for it out of your own pocket. Possibly it could be debited against your salary, payments divided over several months. If you’re interested. Frankly, if you want my personal opinion, I’d advise it.”
“All right,” Tinbane said. He felt dull, dead, tired and resigned; all of those at once. And he had the deep and acute intuition that his reaction was rational. “Anything else you suggest?” he asked.
“Stay armed. Even when you’re asleep.”
“What sleep?” he said. “You think I’m going to get any sleep? Maybe I will after that machine is totally destroyed.” But that won’t make any difference, he realized. Not now. Not after it’s dispatched my brainwave pattern to something else, something we know nothing about. God knows what equipment it might turn out to be; outspacers show up with all kinds of convoluted things.
He hung up the phone, walked into his kitchen, and getting down a half-empty fifth of Antique bourbon, fixed himself a whisky sour.
What a mess, he said to himself. Pursued by a pinball machine from another world. He almost—but not quite—had to laugh.
What do you use, he asked himself, to catch an angry pinball machine? One that has your number and is out to get you? Or more specifically, a pinball machine’s nebulous friend…
Something went tap tap against the kitchen window.
Reaching into his pocket he brought out his regulation-issue laser pistol; walking along the kitchen wall he approached the window from an unseen side, peered out into the night. Darkness. He could make nothing out. Flashlight? He had one in the glove compartment of his aircar, parked on the roof of the conapt building. Time to get it.
A moment later, flashlight in hand, he raced downstairs, back to his kitchen.
The beam of the flashlight showed, pressed against the outer surface of the window, a buglike entity with projecting elongated pseudopodia. The two feelers had tapped against the glass of the window, evidently exploring in their blind, mechanical way.
The bug-thing had ascended the side of the building; he could perceive the suction-tread by which it clung.
His curiosity, at this point, became greater than his fear. With care he opened the window—no need of having to pay the building repair committee for it—and cautiously took aim with his laser pistol. The bug-thing did not stir; evidently it had stalled in midcycle. Probably its responses, he guessed, were relatively slow, much more so than a comparable organic equivalent. Unless, of course, it was set to detonate; in which case he had no time to ponder.
He fired a narrow-beam into the underside of the bug-thing. Maimed, the bug-thing settled backward, its many little cups releasing their hold. As it fell away, Tinbane caught hold of it, lifted it swiftly into the room, dropped it onto the floor, meantime keeping his pistol pointed at it. But it was finished functionally; it did not stir.
Laying it on the small kitchen table he got a screwdriver from the tool-drawer beside the sink, seated himself, examined the object. He felt, now, that he could take his time; the pressure, momentarily at least, had abated.
It took him forty minutes to get the thing open; none of the holding screws fitted an ordinary screwdriver, and he found himself at last using a common kitchen knife. But finally he had it open before him on the table, its shell divided into two parts: one hollow and empty, the other crammed with components. A bomb? He tinkered with exceeding care, inspecting each assembly bit by bit.
No bomb—at least none which he could identify. Then a murder tool? No blade, no toxins or micro-organisms, no tube capable of expelling a lethal charge, explosive or otherwise. So then what in
God’s name did it do? He recognized the motor which had driven it up the side of the building, then the photo-electric steering turret by which it oriented itself. But that was all. Absolutely all.
From the standpoint of use, it was a fraud.
Or was it? He examined his watch. Now he had spent an entire hour on it; his attention had been diverted from everything else—and who knew what that else might be?
Nervously, he slid stiffly to his feet, collected his laser pistol, and prowled throughout the apartment, listening, wondering, trying to sense something, however small, that was out of its usual order.
It’s giving them time, he realized. One entire hour! For whatever it is they’re really up to.
Time, he thought, for me to leave the apartment. To get to La Jolla and the hell out of here, until this is all over with. His vidphone rang.
When he answered it, Ted Donovan’s face clicked grayly into view. “We’ve got a department aircar monitoring your conapt building,” Donovan said. “And it picked up some activity; I thought you’d want to know.”
“Okay,” he said tensely.
“A vehicle, airborne, landed briefly on your roof parking lot. Not a standard aircar but something larger. Nothing we could recognize. It took right off again at great speed, but I think this is it.”
“Did it deposit anything?” he asked.
“Yes. Afraid so.”
Tight lipped, he said, “Can you do anything for me at this late point? It would be appreciated very much.”
“What do you suggest? We don’t know what it is; you certainly don’t know either. We’re open to ideas, but I think we’ll have to wait until you know the nature of the—hostile artifact.”
Something bumped against his door, something in the hall.
“I’ll leave the line open,” Tinbane said. “Don’t leave; I think it’s happening now.” He felt panic, at this stage; overt, childish panic. Carrying his laser pistol in a numb, loose grip he made his way step by step to the locked front door of his conapt, halted, then unlocked the door and opened it. Slightly. As little as he could manage.
An enormous, unchecked force pushed the door farther; the knob left his hand. And, soundlessly, the vast steel ball resting against the half-open door rolled forward. He stepped aside—he had to—knowing that this was the adversary; the dummy wall-climbing gadget had deflected his attention from this.
He could not get out. He would not be going to La Jolla now. The great massed sphere totally blocked the way.
Returning to the vidphone he said to Donovan, “I’m encapsulated. Here in my own conapt.” At the outer perimeter, he realized. Equal to the rough terrain of the pinball machine’s shifting landscape. The first ball has been blocked there, has lodged in the doorway. But what about the second? The third?
Each would be closer.
“Can you build something for me?” he asked huskily. “Can the lab start working this late at night?”
“We can try,” Donovan said, “It depends entirely on what you want. What do you have in mind? What do you think would help?”
He hated to ask for it. But he had to. The next one might burst in through a window, or crash onto him from the roof. “I want,” he said, “some form of catapult. Big enough, tough enough, to handle a spherical load with a diameter of between four and a half and five feet. You think you can manage it?” He prayed to God they could.
“Is that what you’re facing?” Donovan said harshly.
“Unless it’s an hallucination,” Tinbane said. “A deliberate, artificially induced terror-projection, designed specifically to demoralize me.”
“The department aircar saw something,” Donovan said. “And it wasn’t an hallucination; it had measurable mass. And—” He hesitated. “It did leave off something big. Its departing mass was considerably diminished. So it’s real, Tinbane.”
“That’s what I thought,” Tinbane said.
“We’ll get the catapult to you as soon as we possibly can,” Donovan said. “Let’s hope there’s an adequate interval between each—attack. And you better figure on five at least.”
Tinbane, nodding, lit a cigarette, or at least tried to. But his hands were shaking too badly to get the lighter into place. He then got out a yellow-lacquered tin of Dean’s Own Snuff, but found himself unable to force open the tight tin; the tin hopped from his fingers and fell to the floor. “Five,” he said, “per game.”
“Yes,” Donovan said reluctantly, “there’s that.”
The wall of the living room shuddered.
The next one was coming at him from the adjoining apartment.
Faith of Our Fathers
On the streets of Hanoi he found himself facing a legless peddler who rode a little wooden cart and called shrilly to every passer-by. Chien slowed, listened, but did not stop; business at the Ministry of Cultural Artifacts cropped into his mind and deflected his attention: it was as if he were alone, and none of those on bicycles and scooters and jet-powered motorcycles remained. And likewise it was as if the legless peddler did not exist.
“Comrade,” the peddler called, however, and pursued him on his cart; a helium battery operated the drive and sent the cart scuttling expertly after Chien. “I possess a wide spectrum of time-tested herbal remedies complete with testimonials from thousands of loyal users; advise me of your malady and I can assist.”
Chien, pausing, said, “Yes, but I have no malady.” Except, he thought, for the chronic one of those employed by the Central Committee, that of career opportunism testing constantly the gates of each official position. Including mine.
“I can cure for example radiation sickness,” the peddler chanted, still pursuing him. “Or expand, if necessary, the element of sexual prowess. I can reverse carcinomatous progressions, even the dreaded melanomae, what you would call black cancers.” Lifting a tray of bottles, small aluminum cans and assorted powders in plastic jars, the peddler sang, “If a rival persists in trying to usurp your gainful bureaucratic position, I can purvey an ointment which, appearing as a dermal balm, is in actuality a desperately effective toxin. And my prices, comrade, are low. And as a special favor to one so distinguished in bearing as yourself I will accept the postwar inflationary paper dollars reputedly of international exchange but in reality damn near no better than bathroom tissue.”
“Go to hell,” Chien said, and signaled a passing hover-car taxi; he was already three and one half minutes late for his first appointment of the day, and his various fat-assed superiors at the Ministry would be making quick mental notations—as would, to an even greater degree, his subordinates.
The peddler said quietly, “But, comrade; you must buy from me.”
“Why?” Chien demanded. Indignation.
“Because, comrade, I am a war veteran. I fought in the Colossal Final War of National Liberation with the People’s Democratic United Front against the Imperialists; I lost my pedal extremities at the battle of San Francisco.” His tone was triumphant, now, and sly. “It is the law. If you refuse to buy wares offered by a veteran you risk a fine and possible jail sentence—and in addition disgrace.”
Wearily, Chien nodded the hovercab on. “Admittedly,” he said. “Okay, I must buy from you.” He glanced summarily over the meager display of herbal remedies, seeking one at random. “That,” he decided, pointing to a paper-wrapped parcel in the rear row.
The peddler laughed. “That, comrade, is a spermatocide, bought by women who for political reasons cannot qualify for The Pill. It would be of shallow use to you, in fact none at all, since you are a gentleman.”
“The law,” Chien said bitingly, “does not require me to purchase anything useful from you; only that I purchase something. I’ll take that.” He reached into his padded coat for his billfold, huge with the postwar inflationary bills in which, four times a week, he as a government servant was paid.
“Tell me your problems,” the peddler said.
Chien stared at him, appalled by the invasion of privacy—and done by so
meone outside the government.
“All right, comrade,” the peddler said, seeing his expression. “I will not probe; excuse me. But as a doctor—an herbal healer—it is fitting that I know as much as possible.” He pondered, his gaunt features somber. “Do you watch television unusually much?” he asked abruptly.
Taken by surprise, Chien said, “Every evening. Except on Friday, when I go to my club to practice the esoteric imported art from the defeated West of steer-roping.” It was his only indulgence; other than that he had totally devoted himself to Party activities.
The peddler reached, selected a gray paper packet. “Sixty trade dollars,” he stated. “With a full guarantee; if it does not do as promised, return the unused portion for a full and cheery refund.”
“And what,” Chien said cuttingly, “is it guaranteed to do?”
“It will rest eyes fatigued by the countenance of meaningless official monologues,” the peddler said. “A soothing preparation; take it as soon as you find yourself exposed to the usual dry and lengthy sermons which—”
Chien paid the money, accepted the packet, and strode off. Balls, he said to himself. It’s a racket, he decided, the ordinance setting up war vets as a privileged class. They prey off us—we, the younger ones—like raptors.
Forgotten, the gray packet remained deposited in his coat pocket as he entered the imposing Postwar Ministry of Cultural Artifacts building, and his own considerable stately office, to begin his workday.
A portly, middle-aged Caucasian male, wearing a brown Hong Kong silk suit, double-breasted with vest, waited in his office. With the unfamiliar Caucasian stood his own immediate superior, Ssu-Ma Tso-pin. Tso-pin introduced the two of them in Cantonese, a dialect which he used badly.