Clans of the Alphane Moon (12 page)

The slime mold, he thought. Maybe it can help me.

From Marin County info he obtained Lord Running Clam’s vidphone number; at once he placed the call, deposited the coins, waited as the phone rang and the screen remained blank.

“Hello.” Words, not auditory but visual, greeted him, manifesting themselves on the screen; the slime mold, unable to talk, could not make use of the audio circuit.

“This is Chuck Rittersdorf,” he said.

More words. “You are in trouble. I can’t read your mind over such a distance, of course, but I catch the nuance in your voice.”

“Do you have influence with Hentman?” Chuck asked.

“As I informed you earlier—” The words, a narrow band, passed in sequence by the video scanner. “I do not even know the man.”

Chuck said, “Evidently he’s fired me. I’d like you to try to talk him into taking me back.” God, he thought, I have to have
some
kind of a job. “It was you,” he said, “who induced me to sign the contract with him; there’s a lot of responsibility that can be laid to your door.”

“Your job with the CIA—”

“Suspended. Because of my association with Hentman.” Brutally Chuck said, “Hentman knows too many non-Terrans.”

“I see,” the words formed. “Your highly-neurotic security agency. I should have expected it, but I did not.
You
should have, since you are an employee of several years.”

“Look,” Chuck said. “I didn’t call to engage in a dispute
as to who’s to blame; I just want a job, any job.” I’ve got to have it tonight, he said to himself; I can’t wait.

“I must ponder this,” the slime mold informed him, via the moving strip of words. “Give me—”

Chuck savagely hung up the phone.

Again he stood closed up within the booth, smoking and waiting, wondering what Joan would say when she called back. Maybe, he thought, she won’t call back. Especially if the news is bad. What a mess. What a state I’ve single-handedly—

The phone rang.

Lifting the receiver he said, “Joan?”

One the screen her small image formed. “I called the number you gave me, Chuck. I got someone on his staff, a Mr. Feld. Everything was in a state of agitation. All Feld would say was for me to look at the evening homeopape.”

“Okay,” Chuck said, and felt even colder than before. “Thanks. I’ll get a L.A. ’pape down here and maybe I’ll see you later.” He broke the connection, hurriedly left the booth, walked outdoors to the sidewalk and began searching for a peripatetic ’pape vendor.

It took him only moments to get his hands on the evening ’pape; in the light of a store window he stood reading. There it was on page one. Of course it would be; Hentman was the top TV clown.

He had to read the article twice before he could believe it. What had happened was this. The CIA had,
through its network of data-collecting mechanisms, learned during the course of the day that the Hentman organization was dropping Chuck Rittersdorf. This, to the CIA minds, had proved their thesis; Hentman was only interested in Chuck because of
Operation Fifty-minutes
on Alpha III M2. Hence, they reasoned, Hentman was, as they had long suspected, an agent of the Alphanes, and the CIA had acted at once— because Hentman’s own informant in CIA would, if they had dallied, have tipped him off and permitted him to escape. It was all very simple and very terrible; his hands shook as held the ’pape up to the light.

And Hentman
had
gotten away. Despite the CIA’s swift action. Perhaps Hentman’s own machinery had been efficient enough to warn him; he had been expecting the flying action-squad of CIA men that had tried to close in on him at, as the article said, the TV network studios in New York.

So now where was Bunny Hentman? Probably on his way to the Alpha system.
And where was Chuck Rittersdorf?
On his way to nothing; ahead of him lay only a bog-like emptiness, filled with no persons, no tasks, no reason for existence. Hentman might call Patty Weaver, the TV starlet, and tell her that the script was out, but he hadn’t bothered to—

The vidphone call from Hentman had come in the evening. After the aborted arrest. Therefore Patty Weaver knew where Hentman was. Or at least might know. But that was something to go on.

By cab he quickly made his way back to Patty Weaver’s magnificent conapt building; he paid the cab and hurried to the entrance, pressed the buzzer for her apt.

“Who is it?” Her voice still was cool, impersonal, even more so.

Chuck said, “This is Rittersdorf. I left part of my script in your apt.”

“I don’t see any pages.” She did not sound convinced.

“If you’ll let me in I think I can lay my hands right on them. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“Okay.” The tall metal door clicked, swung open; upstairs in her apt Patty had released it.

He ascended by elevator. The door to her apt was open and he walked on in. In the living room Patty greeted him with chilly indifference; she stood with her arms folded, gazing stonily out the window at the view of nighttime Los Angeles. “There are no pages of your goddam script here,” she informed him. “I don’t know what—”

“That call from Bunny,” Chuck said. “Where was he calling from?”

She eyed him, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t remember.”

“Have you seen tonight’s homeopape?”

After a long pause she shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Bunny called you after the CIA made their arrest attempt. You know it and I know it.”

“So?” She did not even bother to look at him; in all his life he had never been so glacially ignored. And yet, it seemed to him that underneath the hardness of her manner she was frightened. After all she was very young, hardly twenty. He decided to take the chance on that.

“Miss Weaver, I’m an agent of the CIA.” He still had his CIA identification; reaching into his coat he now got it out, held it toward her. “You’re under arrest.”

Her eyes flew wide-open in a startled reaction; she
spun, stifling an exclamation of dismay. And he could see how radically her breathing had altered; the heavy red pullover sweater rose and fell rapidly. “You really are a CIA agent?” she asked in a strangled whisper. “I thought you were a TV script writer; that’s what Bunny said.”

“We’ve penetrated the Hentman organization. I posed as a TV script writer. Come on.” He took hold of Patricia Weaver by the arm.

“Where are we going?” She tugged away, horrified.

“To the L.A. CIA office. Where you’ll be booked.”

“For
what?”

“You know where Bunny Hentman is,” he said.

There was silence.

“I don’t,” she said, and sagged. “I really don’t. When he called I didn’t know he’d been arrested or whatever it was—he didn’t say anything about that. It was only when I went out to dinner, after you left, that I saw the ’pape headlines.” She moved morosely toward the bedroom. “I’ll get my coat and purse. And I’d like to put on a little lipstick. But I’m telling you the truth; honest I am.”

He followed after her; in the bedroom she got her coat down from a hanger in the closet, then opened a dresser drawer for her purse.

“How long do you think they’ll keep me?” she asked as she rooted in her purse.

“Oh,” he answered, “not more than—” He broke off. Because Patty held a laser pistol pointed toward him. She had found it in her purse.

“I don’t believe you’re a CIA agent,” she said.

“But I am,” Chuck said.

“Get out of here. I don’t understand what you’re trying to do, but Bunny gave me this and told me to use it when and if I had to.” Her hand shook, but the
laser pistol remained pointed at him. “Please go on,” she said. “Get out of my apt—if you don’t go I’ll kill you; honestly I will—I mean it.” She looked terribly, terribly frightened.

Turning, he walked out of the apt, into the hall, down the hall to the elevator. It was still there and he stepped inside it.

A moment later he was back downstairs, stepping out onto the dark sidewalk. Well, that was that. It had scarcely worked out as he intended. On the other hand, he reflected stoically, he had lost nothing… except perhaps his dignity. And that, given time, would return.

There was nothing to do now but return to Northern California.

Fifteen minutes later he was in the air, heading home to his dreary conapt in Marin County. All in all, his experience in L.A. had failed to be sanguine.

   When he arrived he found the apt’s lights on and the heater on; seated in a chair, listening to an early Haydn symphony on the FM, was Joan Trieste. As soon as she saw him she hopped to her feet. “Thank god,” she said. “I was so worried about you.” Bending, she picked up the San Francisco
Chronicle.
“You saw the ’pape by now. Where does this put you, Chuck? Does it mean the CIA is after you, too? As a Hentman employee?”

“I dunno,” he said, shutting the door of the apt. As far as he could make out the CIA was not after him, but it was something to ponder; Joan was right. Going into the kitchen he put on the teakettle for coffee, missing, at a time like this, the autonomic coffee making circuit of the stove he had gotten Marygotten
her, left with her, along with almost everything else.

At the doorway Joan appeared. “Chuck, I think you ought to call into CIA; talk with someone you know there. Your former boss. Okay?”

He said, with bitterness, “You’re so law-abiding. Always comply with the authorities–correct?” He did not tell her that in the hour of crisis, when everything was falling apart around him right and left,
his
impulse had been to seek out Bunny Hentman, not the CIA.

“Please,” Joan said. “And I’ve been conversing with Lord R.C. and he feels the same way. I was listening to news on the radio and they said something about other employees of the Hentman machine being arrested—”

“Just leave me alone.” He got down the jar of instant coffee; his hands shaking, he put a large teaspoonful in a mug.

“If you don’t contact them,” Joan stated, “then I can’t do anything for you. So I think it would be best if I left.”

Chuck said, “What could you do for me anyhow? What have you done for me in the past? I’ll bet I’m the first person you ever met who lost two jobs in one day.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I think,” Chuck said, “I’ll emigrate to Alpha.” Specifically, he thought, to Alpha III M2. Had he been able to find Hentman—

“The CIA’s right, then,” Joan said; her eyes smoldered. “The Hentman machine is in the pay of a non-Terran power.”

“Lord,” Chuck said, with disgust. “The war’s been
over for years! I’m sick of this cloak-mit-dagger rubbish; I’ve had enough to last me forever. If I want to emigrate then let me emigrate.”

“What I should do,” Joan said, without enthusiasm, “is arrest you. I’m armed.” She displayed for his benefit, then, the incredibly tiny but undoubtedly genuine side arm which she carried. “But I can’t do it, I feel so sorry for you. How could you make such a mess of your life? And Lord R.C. tried so hard to—”

“Blame him,” Chuck said.

“He only wanted to help; he could see you weren’t taking responsibility.” Her eyes flashed. “No wonder Mary divorced you.”

He groaned.

“You just won’t try,” Joan said. “You’ve given up; you—” She ceased. And stared at him. He had heard it, too. The thoughts of the Ganymedean slime mold, from across the hall.

“Mr. Rittersdorf, a gentleman is passing along the hall in the direction of your apt; he is armed and he intends to force you to accompany him. I can’t tell who he is or what he wants because he’s got a grid of some sort installed as a brain-box lining to shield him from telepaths; therefore he’s either a military person or a member of the security or intelligence police or part of a criminal or traitorous organization. In any case prepare yourself.”

To Joan, Chuck said, “Give me that little laser pistol.”

“No.” She lifted it from its holster, turned it toward the door of the apt; her face was clear and fresh. Evidently she had herself completely under control.

“My god,” Chuck said, “you’re going to get killed.” He knew it, foresaw it as fully as if he were a precog;
reaching out with lashing speed he grasped the laser tube and yanked it from her hand. The tube got away from him; both he and Joan surged toward it, groping–they collided and with a gasp Joan tumbled against the wall of the kitchen. Chuck’s clutching fingers found the tube; he straightened up, holding it…

Something struck his hand and he experienced heat; he dropped the laser tube and it clattered away. At the same time a man’s voice–unfamiliar to him–rang in his ears. “Rittersdorf, I’ll kill her if you try to pick that tube up again.” The man, now in the living room, shut the apt door after him and came a few steps toward the kitchen, his own laser beam held in Joan’s direction. He was middle-aged, wearing a cheap gray overcoat of domestic material and odd, archaic boots; the impression that flashed over Chuck was that the man hailed from some totally alien ecology, perhaps from another planet entirely.

“I think he’s from Hentman,” Joan said as she slowly rose to her feet. “So he probably would do it. But if you think you could get hold of the tube before—”

“No,” Chuck said at once. “We’d both be dead.” He faced the man, then. “I tried to reach Hentman earlier.”

“Okay,” the man said, and gestured toward the door. “The lady may stay here; I only want you, Mr. Rittersdorf. Come along and let’s not fnop any time; we have a long trip.”

“You can check with Patty Weaver,” Chuck said as he walked ahead of the middle-aged man out into the hall.

Behind him the man grunted. “No more talking, Mr. Rittersdorf. There’s been too much glucking talk already.”

“Such as what?” He halted, feeling ominous gradations of fear.

“Such as your entering the organization as a CIA spy. We realize now why you wanted that job as TV scriptwriter; it was to get evidence on Bun. So what evidence did you get? You saw an Alphane; is that a crime?”

“No,” Chuck said.

“They’re going to pelt him to death for that,” the man with the gun said. “Hell, they’ve known for years that Bun lived in the Alpha system. The war’s over. Sure he’s got economic connections with Alpha; who that’s in business hasn’t? But he’s a big figure nationally; the public knows him. I’ll tell you what got the CIA where they decided to crack down on him. It was Bun’s idea for a script about a CIA sim killing someone; the CIA figured he was beginning to use his TV show to—”