Norstrilia - Illustrated Page 18

  “Ruth, you can take us back!”

  She jumped to her feet and slapped the sand off her bottom. She was a little taller than her father; though he was an extremely handsome, aristocratic-looking man, she was an even more distinctive person. It would be obvious to anyone that she would never lack for suitors or pursuers.

  “All right, father. You always have schemes. Usually it’s antique money. This time I’m mixed up with it somehow, or you wouldn’t be here. Father, just what do you want me to do?”

  “To marry. To marry the richest man who has ever been known in the universe.”

  “Is that all?” she laughed. “Of course I’ll marry him. I’ve never married an offworlder before. Have you made a date with him?”

  “You don’t understand, Ruth. This isn’t Earth marriage. In Norstrilian law and custom you marry only one man, you marry only once, and you stay married to him for as long as you live.”

  A cloud passed over the sun. The beach became cooler. She looked at her father with a funny mixture of sympathy, contempt, and curiosity.

  “That,” she said, “is a cat of another breed. I’ll have to see him first…”

  The Assistant Commissioner’s Office, Top of Earthport, Four Hours Later

  “Don’t tell me there’s nothing. Or make up stories about the blue men. You go back to that top deck and take it apart, molecule by molecule, until you find out where that brainbomb went off!”

  “But, sir—”

  “Don’t but me! I’ve been in battle and you haven’t. I know a bomb when I feel one. The blasted thing still gives me a headache. Now you take your men back up to that top deck and find out where that bomb went off.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young subchief gloomily, never thinking for a moment that he would have the least success in his mission. He saluted dispiritedly.

  When he met his men at the door, he gave them an almost imperceptible shake of his head. In consequence, he and his men were the sorriest collection of slouching scarecrows ever seen at Earthport as they trudged their weary way up the ramp to the top deck of Earthport.

  Antechamber of the Bell and Bank, The Same Time

  “We got the bull-man, B’dank, but somehow he escaped. Probably he is down in the sewers, hiding out. I haven’t got the heart to send the police after him. He won’t last long, down there. And it would make a fuss if I pardoned him. You might agree with me, but the rest of the Council wouldn’t.”

  “And Commissioner Teadrinker, my Lord? What are you going to do about him? That’s sticky wicket, my Lord. He’s a former Lord of the Instrumentality. We can’t have people like that committing crimes.” The Lady Johanna Gnade was emphatic.

  “I have the punishment for him,” said Jestocost, with a bland smile.

  “Oblivion and reconditioning?” said the Lady Johanna. “He’s basically talented material.”

  “Nothing that simple.”

  “What, my Lord?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, ‘nothing,’ Jestocost? It does not make sense.” The Lady Johanna let a rare note of petulance come into her voice.

  “I meant what I said, my Lady. Nothing. He knows that I know something. The spider is dead. The robot is demolished. Nine other Rod McBans are causing a bit of chaos in the lower city. But Teadrinker doesn’t know that I know everything. I have my own sources.”

  “We know you pride yourself on that,” said the Lady Johanna, with a charming wry smile, “We also know that you like to keep individual secrets from the rest of us. We put up with it, my Lord, because we love you and trust you, but it could be a very dangerous practice if it were carried out by other persons, less judicious than you, or less skillful. And it could even be dangerous if—” She hesitated, looked at him appraisingly, and then went on, “—if, my Lord, you lost your shrewdness, or died suddenly.”

  “I haven’t,” said he crisply, dismissing the subject.

  “You haven’t told me what you are going to do with Teadrinker.”

  “Nothing, I said,” said Jestocost a little crossly. “I’m going to do nothing at all and let him wait for me to bring destruction down on him. If he begins to think that I have forgotten, I will find some little way of reminding him that somebody or something is on his trail. Teadrinker is going to be a very unhappy man before I get through with him.”

  “That sounds inhumane, my Lord. He might appeal.”

  “And be tried for murder?”

  She gave up. “Your ways are new, my Lord. You have seen your way into the Rediscovery of Man. Letting people suffer. Letting things go wrong. I was brought up on the old philosophy—if you see wrong, right it.”

  “And I saw,” said Jestocost, “that we were dying of perfection.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said she wearily, “You have this rich man covered, I suppose?”

  “As well as I can manage,” said Jestocost.

  “That’s perfect, then,” said she with an air of finality. “I just hope you haven’t gotten him mixed up with that queer hobby of yours.”

  “Queer hobby?” said Jestocost in a courtly fashion, with a lift of his eyebrows.

  “Underpeople,” she said with a tone of disgust. “Underpeople. I like you, Jestocost, but your fussing about those animals sometimes makes me sick.”

  He did not argue. He stood very still and looked at her. She knew he was avoiding a provocation. He was her senior, so she offered him a very slight curtsey and left the room.

  Antechamber of the Bell and Bank, Ten Minutes Later

  A bear-woman, complete with starched cap and nurse’s uniform, pushed the wheelchair of the Lord Crudelta into the room. Jestocost looked up from the situation shows which he had been watching. When he saw who it was, he offered Crudelta a deep bow indeed. The bear-woman, flustered by this famous place and all the great dignitaries whom she was meeting, spoke up in a singularly high voice, begging:

  “My Lord and Master Crudelta, may I leave you here?”

  “Yes. Go. I will call for you later. Go to the bathroom on your way out. It’s on the right.”

  “My Lord—!” she gasped with embarrassment.

  “You wouldn’t have dared if I hadn’t told you. I’ve been watching your mind for the last half-hour. Now go along.”

  The bear-woman fled with a rustle of her starched skirts.

  When Crudelta looked directly at him, Jestocost gave him a very deep bow. In lifting his eyes he looked directly into the face of the old, old man and said, with something near pride in his voice,

  “Still up to your old tricks, my Lord and Colleague Crudelta!”

  “And you to yours, Jestocost. How are you going to get that boy out of the sewers?”

  “What boy? What sewers?”

  “Our sewers. The boy you sold this tower to.”

  For once, Jestocost was flabbergasted. His jaw dropped. Then he collected himself and said, “You’re a knowledgeable man, my Lord Crudelta.”

  “That I am,” said Crudelta, “and a thousand years older than you, to boot. That was my reward for coming back from the Nothing-at-all.”

  “I know that, sir.” Jestocost’s full, pleasant face did not show worry, but he studied the old man across from him with extreme care. In his prime, the Lord Crudelta had been the greatest of the Lords of the Instrumentality, a telepath of whom the other Lords were always a little afraid, because he picked minds so deftly and quickly that he was the best mental pickpocket who had ever lived. A strong conservative, he had never opposed a specific policy because it ran counter to his general appetites. He had, for example, carried the vote for the Rediscovery of Man by coming out of retirement and tongue-lashing the whole Council into a corner with his vehement support for reform. Jestocost had never liked him—who could like a rapier tongue, a mind of unfathomable brilliance, a cold old ego which neither offered nor asked companionship? Jestocost knew that if the old man had caught on to the Rod McBan adventure, he might be on the trail of Jestocost’s earlier deal
with—no, no, no! don’t think it here, not with those eyes watching.

  “I know about that, too,” said the old old man.

  “What?”

  “The secret you are trying most of all to hide.”

  Jestocost stood submissive, waiting for the blow to fall.

  The old man laughed. Most people would have expected a cackle from that handsome fresh young face with the withered spidery body. They would have been fooled. The laugh was full-bodied, genuine and warm.

  “Redlady’s a fool,” said Crudelta.

  “I think so too,” said Jestocost, “but what are your reasons, my Lord and Master?”

  “Sending that young man off his own planet when he has so much wealth and so little experience.”

  Jestocost nodded, not wanting to say anything until the old man had made his line of attack plain.

  “I like your idea, however,” said the Lord Crudelta. “Sell him the Earth and then tax him for it. But what is your ultimate aim? Making him Emperor of the Planet Earth, in the old style? Murdering him? Driving him mad? Having the cat-girl of yours seduce him and then send him home a bankrupt? I admit I have thought of all these too, but I didn’t see how any of them would fit in with your passion for justice. But there’s one thing you can’t do, Jestocost. You can’t sell him the planet Earth and then have him stay here and manage it. He might want to use this tower for his residence. That would be too much. I am too old to move out. And he mustn’t roll up that ocean out there and take it home for a souvenir. You’ve all been very clever, my Lord—clever enough to be fools. You have created an unnecessary crisis. What are you going to get out of it?”

  Jestocost plunged. The old man must have picked his own mind. Nowhere else could he have put all the threads of the case together. Jestocost decided on the truth and the whole truth. He started with the day that the Big Blink rang in the enormous transactions in stroon futures, financial gambles which soon reached out of the commodity markets of Old North Australia and began to unbalance the economy of all the civilized worlds. He started to explain who Redlady was—

  “Don’t tell me that,” cried the Lord Crudelta. “It was I who caught him, sentenced him to death, and then argued to have the sentence set aside. He’s not a bad man, but he’s a sly one, that he is. He’s smart enough to be an utter and complete fool when he gets wound up in his logical plots. I’ll wager you a minicredit to a credit that he has already murdered somebody by now. He always does. He has a taste for theatrical violence. But go back to your story. Tell me what you plan to do. If I like it, I will help you. If I don’t like it, I will have the whole story before a plenum of the Council this very morning, and you know that they will tear your bright idea to shreds. They will probably seize the boy’s property, send him to a hospital, and have him come out speaking Basque as a flamenco player. You know as well as I do that the Instrumentality is very generous with other people’s property, but pretty ruthless when it comes to any threat directed against itself. After all, I was one of the men who wiped out Raumsog.”

  Jestocost began to talk very quietly, very calmly. He spoke with the assurance of an accountant who, books in order, is explaining an intricate point to his manager. Old himself, he was a child compared to the antiquity and wisdom of the Lord Crudelta. He went into details, including the ultimate disposition of Rod McBan. He even shared with the Lord Crudelta his sympathies for the underpeople and his own very secret, very quiet struggle to improve their position. The only thing which he did not mention was the E’telekeli and the counter-brain which the underpeople had set up in Downdeep-downdeep. If the old man knew it, he knew it, and Jestocost couldn’t stop him, but if he did not know it, there was no point in telling him.

  The Lord Crudelta did not respond with senile enthusiasm or childish laughter. He reverted, not to his childhood but to his maturity; with great dignity and force he said:

  “I approve. I understand. You have my proxy if you need it. Call that nurse to come and get me. I thought you were a clever fool, Jestocost. You sometimes are. This time you are showing that you have a heart as well as a head. One thing more. Bring that doctor Vomact back from Mars soon, and don’t torment Teadrinker too long, just for the sake of being clever. I might take it into my mind to torment you.”

  “And the ex-Lord Redlady?” asked Jestocost deferentially.

  “Him, nothing. Nothing. Let him live his life. The Old North Australians might as well cut their political teeth on him.”

  The bear-woman rustled back into the room. The Lord Crudelta waved his hand. Jestocost bowed almost to the floor, and the wheelchair, heavy as a tank, creaked its way across the doorsill.

  “That,” said Jestocost, “could have been trouble!” He wiped his brow.

  THE ROAD TO THE CATMASTER

  Rod, C’mell and A’gentur had had to hold the sides of the shaft several times as the traffic became heavy and large loads, going up or down, had to pass each other and them too. In one of these waits C’mell caught her breath and said something very swiftly to the little monkey. Rod, not heeding them, caught nothing but the sudden enthusiasm and happiness in her voice. The monkey’s murmured answer made her plaintive and she insisted,

  “But, Yeekasoose, you must! Rod’s whole life could depend on it. Not just saving his life now, but having a better life for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

  The monkey was cross: “Don’t ask me to think when I am hungry. This fast metabolism and small body just isn’t enough to support real thinking.”

  “If it’s food you want, have some raisins.” She took a square of compressed seedless raisins out of one of her matching bags.

  A’gentur ate them greedily but gloomily.

  Rod’s attention drifted away from them as he saw magnificent golden furniture, elaborately carved and inlaid with a pearlescent material, being piloted up the shaft by a whole troop of talkative dog-men. He asked them where the furniture was going. When they did not answer him, he repeated his question in a more peremptory tone of voice, as befitted the richest Old North Australian in the universe. The tone of demand brought answers, but they were not the ones he was expecting. “Meow,” said one dog-man. “Shut up, cat, or I’ll chase you up a tree.” “Not to your house, buster. Exactly what do you think you are—people?” “Cats are always nosy. Look at that one.” The dog-foreman rose into sight; with dignity and kindness he said to Rod, “Cat-fellow, if you feel like talking, you may get marked surplus. Better keep quiet in the public dropshaft!” Rod realized that to these beings he was one of them, a cat made into a man, and that the underpeople workmen who served Old Earth had been trained not to chatter while working on the business of Man.

  He caught the tail of C’mell’s urgent whisper to A’gentur: “…and don’t ask him. Tell Him, We’ll risk the people zone for a visit to the Catmaster! Tell Him.”

  A’gentur was panting with a rapid, shallow breath. His eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets and yet he was looking at nothing. He groaned as though with some inward effort. At last he lost his grip on the wall and would have floated slowly downward if C’mell had not caught him and cuddled him like a baby. C’mell whispered, eagerly,

  “You reached Him?”

  “Him,” gasped the little monkey.

  “Who?” asked Rod.

  “Aitch Eye,” said C’mell. “I’ll tell you later.” Of A’gentur she asked. “If you got Him, what did He say?”

  “He said, ‘E’ikasus, I do not say no. You are my son. Take the risk if you think it wise.’ And don’t ask me now, C’mell. Let me think a little. I have been all the way to Norstrilia and back. I’m still cramped in this little body. Do we have to do it now? Right now? Why can’t we go to Him”—and A’gentur nodded toward the depths below—“and find out what we want Rod for, anyhow? Rod is a means, not an end. Who really knows what to do with him?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Rod.

  Simultaneously C’mell snapped, “I know what we are going to do with h
im.”

  “What?” said the little monkey, very tired again.

  “We’re going to let this boy go free, and let him find happiness, and if he wants to give us his help, we will take it and be grateful. But we are not going to rob him. Not going to hurt him. That would be a mean, dirty way to start being better creatures than we are. If he knows who he is before he meets Him, they can make sense.” She turned to Rod and said with mysterious urgency,

  “Don’t you want to know who you are?”

  “I’m Rod McBan to the hundred and fifty-first,” said he promptly.

  “Sh-h-h,” said she, “no names here. I’m not talking about names. I’m talking about the deep insides of you. Life itself, as it flows through you. Do you have any idea who you are?”

  “You’re playing games,” he said. “I know perfectly well who I am, and where I live, and what I have. I even know that right now I am supposed to be a cat-man named C’roderick. What else is there to know?”

  “You men!” she sobbed at him. “You men! Even when you’re people, you’re so dense that you can’t understand a simple question. I’m not asking you your name or your address or your label or your great-grandfather’s property. I’m asking about you, Rod, the only one that will ever live, no matter how many numbers your grandsons may put after their names. You’re not in the world just to own a piece of property or to handle a surname with a number after it. You’re you. There’s never been another you. There will never be another one, after you. What does this ‘you’ want?”

  Rod glanced down at the walls of the tunnel, which seemed to turn—oh, so far below—very gently to the north. He looked up at the little rhomboids of light cast on the tunnel walls by the landing doors into the various levels of Earthport. He felt his own weight tugging gently at his hand as he held to the rough surface of the vertical shaft, supported by his belt. The belt itself felt uncomfortable about his middle; after all, it was supporting most of his weight, and it squeezed him. What do I want? thought he. Who am I that I should have a right to want anything? I am Rod McBan CLI, the Mister and Owner of the Station of Doom. But I’m also a poor freak with bad telepathy who can’t even spiek or hier rightly.