02. The Shadow Dancers (19 page)

"They don't keep these folks locked up, do they? Why bother?"

"Good point. The other question is,
if
they catch you and hook you instead of killing you outright, will you want to pass anything to us? Those who have this thing inside them have an overwhelming urge to self-preservation at all costs."

"Then we got to agree absolute to the opposite," I told him. "We got to agree that if I get hooked and then make no attempt to communicate within, say, a month of my first observed opportunity, you'll come in and snatch me."

"But that might kill you! At the very least-well, you visited and talked with Donna."

I nodded. "That's why. If it takes self-preservation, or preservation of that thing, to keep me motivated, that should do it."

He nodded. "Yes, yes. Very clever and original. All right. But just what do you propose to do?"

"I don't know and that's the God's honest truth. I won't know till I'm briefed and then there on the scene with time to check it all out and learn all the ropes. Uh-will I have any trouble like in Vogel's world?"

"If you mean color, no. At least, not any more than you would have operating in your own. You will be in a rough democracy which has the same sort of failings and virtues as your own, although it's different. But-I can't let you go in alone, with no plan, no backup."

"Sure you can, if you want results. That's part of your problem all along. You're so Mister Future, high tech, computer modeled and the rest you don't have no gut abilities or feelin's. That's why you keep lockin' the barn door after the horse has already gone."

"Such confidence. Anyone can be broken."

"Yeah. Vogel came damned close to doin' it to me, so it don't take a lot to break me, but I was ready the first opportunity I got to wring his damned neck. I ain't never gonna be no Beth again. I might hav'ta act like her, or worse, but I'll never
become
her. I got you all to thank for that much, and Vogel, too. I learned the difference between
havin 'to
be a Beth and
wantin 'to
be a Beth. That Donna girl down there-for all her problems and for all that she's a shadow of what she coulda been 'cause of this, doesn't
like
it. She's broken, body and soul; she's been raped in the mind as well as the body. Even if she didn't have no
permanent brain damage she'd be broken and in shock. But if she could get the ones who did it to her, she would. If she could pass judgment on 'em, she'd demand justice. That's the difference."

"All right." He sighed. "I'll make the preparations. Fewer than six people will know, all under my control except the resident agent and her people, who you'll have to watch out for." He paused a moment. "You know, you're taking me at face value, too. If I were in your position, I, too, would be a suspect."

"You are," I told him honestly, "but I got to trust somebody. It's that thing about
feelin 's
again. I can't get it out of my head that you really love what you do, that you wouldn't do nothin' else, and that the only thing that could scare you would be if you had to quit. I can't see how you could be bribed to sell out, and somehow I kinda suspect you got somethin' on everybody who could fire you.

He smiled, but said nothin'.

The next few days I spent goin' over all the materials. I didn't trust no hypnoscan, but I'm a quick study when I'm on a case. I memorized everything I could of this world, the important people, the way the opposition's organization was set up. Aldrath, in the meantime, arranged to transfer some of
my
funds into slush funds in the money of the new world, so I wouldn't even be takin' a dime from the Company on this.

We agreed only on objectives. How much did the players in the game there know? Who knew the most? Did they have any orders on what they was doin', or was all the stuff they did directed from above by the two controllers? Who were Addison and Carlos? Could they be snatched? I didn't expect to hand the whole thing over-that woulda been beyond belief-but if we could get one of them, another Vogel type, we'd have what we needed. Incriminating, absolute evidence against their boss who
would
tell Aldrath what he needed to know about the rest of it. If I could also somehow put together just what it was they was plottin' to do, then we would be able to make sure that nobody else could do it.

I went back home one last time, to close out a few things and register a will. It was funny; just like last time, I was calm, I didn't have nightmares or other scary ideas-I was all business. Not even this late in the game, not this time. I don't think I was committin' suicide in a noble cause, not now. I think it was just that, like Aldrath, I knew and loved my job and I did one thing well and this time
I
was in control.

All that stuff about clearin' up personal things back home was really an excuse to see Bill Markham without nobody suspectin' or knowin' nothin' about it. I had the idea that Bill's remorse over Sam was genuine, and even though he was white and blue-eyed, he was one of my own kind. Since his office was in the same downtown bank buildin' as my account and financial advisors, it wasn't hard to arrange a meet.

I told him what I was gonna do, and he did all the usual things and said all the usual things, and a little bit more. I asked him if he trusted Aldrath Prang.

"Yes and no," he replied. "If you mean, do I think he's got any interest in this except catching these people, no. If he could nail a Company director it would be the highlight of his life. On the other hand, he sees people as game pieces, not human beings. I guess it comes with the territory. If he thought he could get more from exposing or sacrificing you, or me, or all of us, he'd weigh the odds and then do it and feel he was right. Are you sure he didn't plant this idea in your head somehow?"

It was a sobering question. "I don't
think
so, but with all them gadgets who'd ever know for sure? Do
you?
About yourself, I mean? You can get
too
paranoid in this job and then you're as crazy as Vogel. Bill, what the hell would you have me do?"

He sighed. "You see the
Inquirer
this morning?"

"Nope. Why?"

"They had to cordon off four blocks of Philadelphia- right here-because an interracial couple moved into one of those white working class neighborhoods and there was rioting, mob violence, and all the racist talk in the world. We've elected black politicians, even mayors, and we're decades after full legal civil rights and lots of progress, yet this still happens-not far off down south, but right here."

"I know a little bit about that myself," I reminded him.

"I'm real sorry to hear it, but what's that got to do with this?"

"That's the kind of hatred and violence and unreasoning fear and madness that breeds Vogels and Hitlers and all the rest. They're not just out there, on other worlds, or over there, in other countries, or down there in Mississippi or someplace. They're
right here.
Over there, you're going to be on unfamiliar ground, at a distinct disadvantage, on their turf and alone. If you have to fight this type of thing, wouldn't it make more sense to fight it here?"

I thought about that. "Bill, what you say is true and maybe I'm nuts, but I think I'm right on this. Our little Hitlers and Klansmen and the rest do a good bit of damage here, but that kinda thing's part of what we have to live through and fight all the time. This is the Company, damn it! Good old G.O.D., Inc. They didn't pick them initials for nothin'. That's power. Real power. Lord knows they're a pretty unpleasant bunch as it is, but suppose instead of a Board
they
had a Hitler? Never mind this drug shit, I'm talkin' 'bout the Company. I got just a taste of what we folks could do to ourselves with a Hitler a few months back without the Company's power and resources and knowledge. They could impose that on lots of worlds and hold 'em till the end of time. Billions, trillions of human bein's, all of 'em their toys and playthings forever. Uh, uh, Bill."

"Damn it! You're only going to get yourself killed-or worse!"

"If Sam's uncle knew what was comin' back in the thirties and he had a big family but he also had one shot at bumpin' off Hitler, even though he'd get caught and tortured to death, I think he'd'a done it. Instead they sent that family to Auschwitz, where they lived hell for years, and only one distant cousin survived at all and him a broken man. Better to have gotten Hitler."

Bill nodded, but made one last try. "A worst-case scenario. You get in, they catch you and hook you and try to turn you to them. Sam survives, recovers, and in the meantime you find yourself blocked and trapped, learning nothing. Finally we take you out, as we would have to, and rush you to the Center, and you wind up like this Donna, say."

"Then I'd say I'd still be better off than bein' Beth all my
life, or walkin' aimlessly around through life watchin' this thing go down bad and always wonderin' if I coulda done something to prevent it. And it wouldn't be nice, but Sam would be no worse off than if Vogel had killed me."

He threw up his hands. "All right, then! It's your funeral! Now, what do you want
me
to do?"

"Be an independent monitor. Use whatever you can to keep some independent track of me-without Aldrath knowin'. And be here in case they double-cross me so somebody gets what I know."

He thought a moment. "I'm pretty limited here, and I'm just a regional security man. Compared to Aldrath, I'm next to powerless. But I'll do all that I can, I promise you that. I'll tell you something nobody is supposed to know that may help. When we went in for Vogel, we also went into his two chief experimental labs in North Carolina and Houston. That's how we got Donna and some of the others you saw still in advanced stages. We also captured more than three hundred doses of the stuff. Some of it went to research, of course, but some didn't get reported. Some of us wanted to make sure that nobody got
us
hooked so we had no way out and no supply to get to the Center fully charged. I have more than a month's supply in a safe-deposit box in this very bank. As far as we know it'll keep almost forever at normal temperatures and conditions. I doubt if I could get a line of communication in there much; you'll be on your own with just Aldrath's few people. But if it really goes bad, and you can manage somehow to get into the Labyrinth and get here, I can keep you going until the Center."

I stared at him. "If it comes to that, you better damned well be here and answer your phone."

It was like our world, and it wasn't nothin' like our world, all at the same time. In
this
world, we lost the Revolutionary War. Washington was hung as a traitor and Benedict Arnold was a great hero. The French Revolution started different, but it still happened and it wound up the same, so they had a real fight with Napoleon anyways. The British claimed and seized most of what we called the Louisiana Purchase by force, not cash. Texas and California revolted
and set up their own republics, which Britain recognized and helped defend. California later came into the Empire after the gold rush. That's more history than I knew in school, but that's what they told me happened.

So we had in the end a Dominion of North America, except Texas and some parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Spain hung on to Mexico and most of Spanish Latin America 'cept Brazil and the places the Brits had colonies, but they mostly governed themselves.

Britain wiped our slavery in the whole Empire in the eighteen thirties, but it was the old pattern here, convertin' slaves into sharecroppers. As machines and industry grew up, as we had it, in the north, a lot of black folks went up there lookin' for work and you had the ghettos formin' anyways pretty much as they looked back home. But, in a number of ways, it was worse.

There hadn't been near as many wars, they hadn't yet discovered the bomb or transistors, for that matter, airplanes was still for the rich and was real funny lookin', and radio was there but TV, while invented, wasn't a big commercial thing and wasn't in nobody's homes. The public schools was really private schools, and the ones for the poor folks was lousy. There was still segregation of sorts, too; not no back-of-the-bus stuff, but there was black schools and white schools, black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods, and the blacks, as usual, got the poorest education, lousiest jobs, and most of the unemployment. Not that there wasn't black doctors, dentists, lawyers, and the rest, but they came from black colleges and had black practices. You needed money to vote, and that was where the power was. This was an America without the Votin' Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and a lot of the rest.

Each of the commonwealths, which was what they called states, was much bigger-Pennsylvania, which still called itself a commonwealth in my world-went all the way to the Mississippi, for example, and parts of Canada and Michigan were in New York. They ran themselves like little independent countries 'cept for money, trade, and foreign affairs, which was taken care of by a national Parliament with only them powers. The country's capital was Philadelphia, of all places. Washington, D.C., just didn't exist. It
was like steppin' back in time to the forties, or maybe the thirties. The cars looked funny and old-fashioned and drove on the left side of the road with the steerin' wheel on the right, and although they had penicillin and a few other things medicine wasn't that great, neither.

The American pound was the currency, divided into twenty shillin's or a hundred pennies. Football was soccer, somebody did invent basketball but there was cricket fields instead of baseball. The national drink was tea, but somehow Coke and Pepsi managed to get invented but beer was the standard. The pound bought about what a dollar buys here, but the average wage was less than a hundred pounds a week. What medical care there was, though, was free, only if you had money you could see somebody real good and real quick. Abortions was illegal and back-alley affairs, and the only birth control they seemed to have was condoms. I had the Center do their version of tyin' my tubes; it was quick, painless, and you couldn't tell, but it relieved my mind a little in a place like this.