“We can certainly help you there,” the girl said, and shut the case with a click. “That’s one pound fifty pence, please. We run a club for our regular customers, with weekly meetings. Our manager, Mr. Watson, is the chairman. Would you like me to ask if he could have a word with you?”
“That’d be very kind of you,” Dan said, laying down three of the curious seven-sided coins he kept wanting to call half-pounds.
“I’ll just make sure he’s in his office. Perhaps you’d like to glance through our catalog while you’re waiting?”
She placed a fat looseleaf binder before him containing at least a hundred pages of thick shiny paper, and he hefted it in surprise. He said, “How many different models do you stock, for heaven’s sake?”
The girl gave a faint smile. “Around sixty. But there are nearly two hundred in production. Have a seat, why don’t you? That’s too heavy to read standing up.”
She waved him to a cluster of imitation Louis Quinze chairs in what looked like real gilt, and he headed for them, glancing at the various instruments on the shelves that he passed and wondering whether they were as different internally as they were externally. Just about every known kind of finish had been applied to the cases, from plain plastic through engine-turned stainless steel to the ultra-luxurious models in fine-quality leather, like his own He particularly liked one molded in imitation ivory, a copy of a medieval Indian spice box.
Sitting down, he opened the catalog and found a blurb on the first page, which he read thoughtfully. It ran:
We live in a strange era. Until recently, death was our closest neighbor; we walked with him, day in, day out. He has not gone from us, but since the discovery of the stardropper we have learned that life is as close as death and no more distant than the turn of a dial.
Some people seek in the sounds of a stardropper new knowledge of the universe. These are the serious students whose work becomes their life. Others ask no more than the comfort of experiencing for themselves the signals which, scientists tell us, indicate that other beings in the cosmos live, and think, and maybe love.
Whichever category you fall into, we are at your service.
COSMICA LIMITED
Well, that was one way of looking at it.…
Behind him a voice said, “Well, well! One of Harry Binton’s hand-built jobs! And very nice too.”
Dan glanced around. The speaker was a man of forty-odd, smart in maroon and black, and he was holding out his hand. Rising, Dan said, “You must be Mr. Watson.”
“That’s right. Sit down, sit down. That is one of Harry’s instruments, isn’t it, Mr.—?”
“Cross. Dan Cross. Yes, this is a Binton. You know him?”
“We’re his agents in this country. Very fine work he does. Though—oh, I’m probably parochial, but in general I prefer British designs. No doubt about the efficiency of his products, of course; there’s no more powerful model you can hang on a strap. Have you tried many other instruments?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Dan admitted. “I got hooked by a friend just recently, and I picked out a Binton because I saw a good notice for this instrument in Starnews.”
Watson cocked his head on one side. “A little too powerful for a novice, possibly. People can get disheartened if they start with too advanced an instrument. Let me show you a Gale and Welchman—there’s a setting on those that can be a revelation. It’s only a dry-cell model, and one of the cheapest we recommend, but astonishing value for the price.”
He reached to a high shelf and took down a large plain instrument in a white case. Setting it on his knee, he passed Dan the earpiece.
“Tell me when I get the setting right,” he said. “It’s usually between fifteen and sixteen on this scale, but of course it varies from one to another. Getting anything?”
This earpiece was bigger and less comfortable than his own; Dan held it in place with one finger and obediently closed his eyes, the very picture of an eager new stardropping fan.
“I think that’s it,” Watson murmured.
Dan listened hard. Somewhere at the back of his mind a drum was beating. A slow rhythm built up from it, quickened, grew louder. A melodic instrument joined in—or was it a voice singing? No, it was more like a joyful shout. The drumbeat was changing to a tramp of feet (changing, or had he mistaken it at the start?), yet it wasn’t marching feet at all. It was the pumping of a huge heart, and signified life, awareness, vigor. Even violence! For it was the rumble of an earthquake at work on the building of mountains, and the shouting was the scream of rocks being ground upward past their ancient bedfellows out of the once-level plain—
It stopped, and he opened his eyes. He was shaking all over. Watson was smiling like a Cheshire cat; his hand rested on the adjusting knob, which he had turned from its setting.
“Well?” he said.
“You’re right, it’s amazing.” Dan wiped his perspiring forehead with a tissue, reflecting that if any of his friends had shown him that one, he might be a real enthusiast by now.
“That’s what stardropping is all about, you realize.” Watson patted the instrument he held, like a pet animal “This model had an excellent repertoire. I’ve known people who’ve gone on to build big fixed installations and haven’t brought themselves to trade in their original Gale and Welchmans because they like the repertoire so much.”
A reference encountered in Starnews crossed Dan’s memory. He said, “You can’t get that on any other instrument, then?”
“Oh no. Why, even Gale and Welchman turn out the occasional failure without the setting I just demonstrated. But I wouldn’t sell one here, of course. It would be unfair to the customers.”
He pointed to Dan’s copy of Starnews, visible in the side pocket of his jacket. “You’ll find a lot of correspondence in there between people who are trying to pair up signals received on different instruments. At present the system of calibration is arbitrary—not to say chaotic—and even one repeatable signal would serve as a valuable standard. Our club does a certain amount of research into this kind of thing, incidentally, and I gather you were asking about it.”
“That’s right. Obviously there’s a lot for me to learn, and I don’t want to waste my time in London.”
“Here, then.” Watson produced a small card from his pocket and wrote his name on the back before handing it to Dan. “We meet every Wednesday, as you see. Please join us tomorrow if you like. There’s a small entrance fee to cover the cost of renting the room, and if you want to come regularly you pay a subscription of ten pounds. But you’ll be welcome as a guest tomorrow night.”
The card said CLUB COSMICA and gave the address of a pub called the Hunting Horn in the same postal zone as this store. From the other side Dan saw that Watson’s given name was Walter. He put it in his wallet.
“Thanks very much. What time should I arrive?”
“About eight. We have a demonstration this week, so it’ll pay to be prompt if you want to be sure of a good seat.”
Outside the store, Dan almost fell over a girl sitting on the ground. She had the earpiece of a stardropper in, and with eyes closed and mouth open she was chalking a series of spiral lines on the pavement. Half a dozen passersby paused to inspect what she was doing, but by now the spirals covered one another so heavily it was impossible to make out the order in which they had been drawn. Presumably she was hoping someone would recognize the pattern and speak to her. No one did.
In a drugstore window, as he approached Marble Arch, he saw single earplugs on sale, labeled TO AID CONCENTRATION WHILE STARDROPPING.
Waiting to cross at a stoplight, he heard a boy in his late teens hailing a friend: “Dropped any good stars lately?”
Then a man of about sixty, smartly dressed in dark blue, went by pushing a handcart, which Dan guessed might be an old hawker’s barrow. On its cracked, dirty boards was a huge stardropper in a shiny cabinet, a heavy home-model type. From its speaker oozed a sound like something flat and clumsy being moved about in th
ick mud, sucking and plopping. The man had his head cocked on one side, frowning fiercely. Behind him followed five or six youths and girls, also neatly dressed, though they were keeping to the sidewalk. Every time a driver hooted a complaint at being balked by the slow pushcart, they waved their fists at him threateningly.
One of the girls had a look on her face like a saint in ecstasy, and the boy with her was having to lead her by the hand. Next to her was another girl, who was clearly getting nothing from the sound and kept shooting envious looks at her luckier companion. She had short-cut black hair and a peaked gamine face with a sullen mouth, and she wore the leisure clothes currently popular with both sexes—a high-collared shirt and checked pants.
What it was that made Dan single her out from the group as it approached, he didn’t know. But what attracted her attention to him was obvious. It was his stardropper.
She fell out from among her companions, as though giving up in despair, and came toward where Dan was standing, fumbling in her pocket. She withdrew her hand very swiftly as she pushed by.
A knife blade flashed. It severed the strap of Dan’s stardropper. She caught hold of it, tugged it loose, and took to her heels.
IV
Half a dozen people saw the act and attempted to stop the girl, but the crowd around here was dense and she had eeled out of reach in a moment. If she had picked on anyone but a trained Agency operative she might have got away with it; as it was, he didn’t catch up with her until he’d followed her clear across the multiple traffic streams of Park Lane and well into Hyde Park.
Once out here on the open grass, he could keep her in sight all the time, and it simply became a matter of wearing her down. It didn’t take long. As soon as she saw he was still on her track, she gave up. He had expected her to distract him by throwing the stardropper down and making off without it; instead, she just stopped, panting like a bellows and plainly exhausted even by such a short run.
He came up to her, wondering at the defiance in her dark eyes, and noted how undernourished she looked—a strange sight in this prosperous city. He said nothing.
After a moment she hefted the stardropper in both hands, its cut strap trailing on the ground. As though she had read his mind, she said, “No, I wouldn’t have thrown it away. It might have been broken.”
Her voice was flat and emotionless. Dan went on looking at her steadily.
A few seconds of that and her self-control broke. She thrust the stardropper toward him violently. “Here you are, then!” she said with shrill impatience.
He made no move to take the instrument. Confused, she bit down on her lower lip. A crafty look crossed her face.
“You—uh—you aren’t going to turn me in,” she suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dan said. At the words she brightened visibly.
“Would you …?” She had to swallow and start again. “Would you let me try it out?” she ventured, folding her arms over the stardropper and pressing it tight to her chest. “That’s all I wanted it for, I swear it was. To use it! I didn’t mean to sell it or anything!”
Dan sighed. This was just about the most peculiar thief he had ever run across.
Licking her lips, she added, “If you want anything—I mean, I’ll do anything you want if you let me just try your ’dropper. I need it so badly, honest I do!” Her voice broke on the last phrase.
Dan moved his right arm like a striking snake and caught hold of the broken strap, twitching the instrument out of her grasp before she could react. He brought it up short an inch above the ground, watching her face.
The expression of horror which overcame her was genuine; it was like a junkhead’s, seeing someone threaten to tip away his entire stash of heroin. So here was one of the young addicts mentioned in his briefing, whom Redvers had also referred to.
“You louse,” she said when she recovered. “Did you pull wings off flies when you were a kid?”
There was too much pathos in her attempted dignity for Dan to answer at once. He began to knot the strap of the instrument together.
“If you need stardropping that bad,” he said at length, “why don’t you have one of your own?”
“I did have. My mother broke it a week ago. Said I spent too much time with it. So I walked out. But I don’t have any money for a new one, and it’s sheer hell being without, because I was getting somewhere. I know I was getting somewhere. I’d tried for months and I’d finally begun to make it.”
“So you ran away from home. Where are you living now?”
“It’s none of your business!” she snapped. “Nor anybody else’s. I’m sixteen—it’s not illegal!” Then, relenting, she added, “With—with some friends. They run a commune. In Hackney.”
“Don’t any of these friends of yours have stardroppers they could lend you?”
“Of course!” Scornfully. “All of them do. That’s what the commune’s for, so we can ’drop as much as we like without anyone bugging us. But I’ve tried them all, and they don’t suit me. So I came into town today to see if I could find a place selling secondhand ones, work out how much I’d have to spend to get a model like what I had before. Only there aren’t many secondhand ’droppers, and the ones I did see were all types I know don’t do anything for me. Then this old man came by with the cart, and I thought I’d listen to his for a bit, see if that was any good, and it wasn’t, and then I saw yours and I realized that wasn’t any of the makes I’ve tried. I’m sorry, but—oh, I’m going through absolute bloody torture. Look!”
She held one thin hand out in front of her. It shook like a wind-tossed leaf.
“What model did you have?”
“Just a cheap one—a Gale and Welchman—but it was very good.”
So her pitiable state was due to Watson’s pet brand of stardropper, was it? Dan scowled. How had things been allowed to progress to this point? On this showing, stardropping ought to be legislated against, like a dangerous drug.
“What is it about stardropping that fascinates you so?” he demanded, not really expecting a coherent answer.
“How can I tell you if you don’t know? You’re a ’dropper yourself, aren’t you?”
“To me it’s no more than mildly interesting. I could live without it. Why can’t you?”
Making a helpless gesture, she closed her eyes and swayed a little. She said thinly, “Suppose you had a dream, a very important dream, in which you saw something you desperately wanted to remember—a bit of the future, say. And you woke up and you remembered you’d seen it, but not what it was. It’s a little bit like that, except that what you can’t quite remember is a matter of life or death. If you don’t get back to it, you might as well cut your throat.”
“Or starve, hm?” Dan suggested. “When did you last eat anything?”
“Oh … yesterday, I guess. Maybe the day before. I’m too worried to be hungry.”
Dan looked past her. Among trees a short distance away a flag fluttered limply in the breeze, bearing a trademark of a catering company, and people could be seen coming away from that direction carrying sandwiches and cartons of soft drinks.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “There’s a snack-bar over there, isn’t there? You come with me and eat something, and afterward you can borrow my instrument for a while. Fair?”
She paused before replying, her dark eyes enigmatic. Eventually she said, “I told you, I’m sorry I tried to steal your ’dropper. But you don’t have to make me feel so small, damn you. Cosmica isn’t far from here. I’ll go there and pretend I have some money to buy a ’dropper and see if they’ll let me try some out for a while.”
He sighed and took her by the arm. She didn’t resist.
Even with coffee in one hand and sandwiches in the other and on her lap, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his stardropper for more than seconds together. He was sure that if he’d allowed her she would have thrown the food aside and put the earpiece in immediately.
“What’s your name?” he sa
id when she had wolfed two chicken sandwiches and emptied her paper cup.
“Lilith Miles.”
“And you said you’re sixteen. So I guess you’re in school.”
“Was. I quit.”
That fitted, too, thought Dan. She went on, “I had this bargain with my mother, you see—I said I’d keep up with my schoolwork if she let me go on ’dropping. Not that what they tell you at school seems very important after you begin to get results from a ’dropper. Then she went back on what she promised, and smashed it up while I was out. I suppose I should have taken it with me. I usually used to. So, like I told you, I walked out.”
“You keep talking about these results you were starting to get. What sort of results?”
Lilith made a frustrated gesture. “Things that don’t go into words. And yet they make this weird kind of sense! Oh, sometimes you do get very clear impressions, like a friend of mine got news that his father was going to die in an accident, but that doesn’t happen very often, and anyhow it’s not terribly important.”
“I’d have thought death was pretty important,” Dan said, lighting a cigarette. The day was bright, and people in bright clothes, many with children, were coming and going on the bright-green grass of the park, but the air felt cold on his skin.
“Sure it is. But it seems to be completely random, so what’s the good of it? If you could rely on it happening regularly, that’d be different.”
A valid point, Dan conceded. He said after a pause, “Some people go out of their minds, don’t they?”
“Oh, plenty.” She didn’t seem to find the thought disturbing, which was if possible more shocking than what had gone before. “I guess they get stuck halfway. They get impatient, and can’t wait to see the whole thing clear. Another friend of mine—she started fixing nonsene names on things and went around telling them to everybody, thinking they’d mean something. But of course they didn’t. What comes out of a ’dropper simply doesn’t belong in words!”
“But aren’t you frightened that the same thing might happen to you?”