Clans of the Alphane Moon (18 page)

At that point he gave up. Forewent the use of logic. Turning, he once more began to run.

The old adage, derived from the meditations of the sophisticated warror-kings of ancient India, that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” had just not worked out in this situation. And that was that.

Something buzzed low over his head. And a voice, artificially magnified, howled at him, “Rittersdorf! Stop, stand still! Or we’ll kill you on the spot.” The voice boomed and echoed, bouncing back from the ground; it had been beamed at him, directed full-force from what he knew to be the Hentman launch overhead. They had, as predicted by the slime mold, located him.

Panting, he stopped.

The launch hovered in the air at the ten-foot level. A metal ladder flopped noisily down and once more the artificially-reinforced voice instructed him. “Climb the ladder, Rittersdorf. Without messing around or any delay!” In the night gloom, illuminated only by the glowing sign in the sky, the magnesium ladder quivered insubstantially like some link with the supernatural.

Taking hold, Chuck Rittersdorf, with leaden, heart-clutched reluctance, began to climb. A moment later he stepped from the ladder and found himself in the
control cab of the launch. Two wild-eyed Terrans, with laser pistols, faced him. Paid enemies of Bunny Hentman, he realized. One was Gerald Feld.

The ladder was drawn back up; the launch scooted for the parent ship at the greatest velocity possible.

“We saved your life,” Feld said. “That woman, your ex-wife, would have ripped you apart if you had stayed out there.”

“So?” Chuck said.

“So we’re returning good for evil. What more can you ask? You won’t find Bunny upset or sore; he’s too big a man not to take all this in his stride. After all, no matter how bad things go he can always migrate to the Alphane empire.” Feld managed to smile, as if the thought struck him as a happy one. From Hentman’s point of view it meant things were not intolerable after all; a way out existed.

The launch reached its parent ship; an aperture tube opened, the launch fitted itself in place and then slid without use of power down the tube and to its berth, deep within the big ship.

When the launch had opened its hatch Chuck Rittersdorf found himself confronted by Bunny Hentman, who mopped his florid forehead worriedly and said, “Some lunatic’s attacking us. One of the psychotics, here, evidently, from the way he’s acting.” The ship vibrated. “See?” Hentman said, with anger. “He’s charging us with a hand weapon.” Waving Chuck toward him he said, “Come along with me, Rittersdorf; I want to have a conference with you. There’s been a hell of a misunderstanding between you and I but I think we can still work it out. Right?”

“Between you and me,” Chuck said, in automatic correction.

Hentman led the way down a narrow corridor;
Chuck followed. No one appeared at this point to have a laser beam trained on him, but he obeyed anyhow; one probably existed potentially—he was still patently a prisoner of the organization.

A girl, naked to the waist, wearing only shorts, strolled across-corridor ahead of them, smoking a cigarette meditatively. There was some aspect about her that Chuck found familiar. And then, as she disappeared through a doorway, he realized who she was. Patty Weaver. In his flight from the Sol system Hentman had been provident enough to bring at least one of his mistresses with him.

“In here,” Hentman said, unlocking a door.

Within the small, barren cabin Hentman shut the two of them up, then began immediately to pace with a restless, frantic intensity. For the time being he said nothing; he remained preoccupied. Every now and then the ship again vibrated under the attack directed at it. Once the overhead light went so far as to dim, but soon returned. Hentman glared up, then resumed his pacing.

“Rittersdorf,” Hentman said, “I’ve got no choice; I’ve had to go—” A knock sounded at the door. “Jeez,” Hentman said, and went to open the door a crack. “Oh, it’s you.”

Outside, now with a cotton shirt on, the tails not tucked in, the buttons not buttoned, Patty Weaver said, “I just wanted to apologize to Mr. Rittersdorf for—”

“Go away,” Hentman said, shutting the door. He turned back to face Chuck. “I’ve had to go over to the Alphanes.” More perspiration, in huge wax-like drops, emerged on his forehead; he did not bother to wipe them away. “Do you blame me? My TV career’s ruined
by that goddam CIA; I’ve got nothing left on Terra. If I can—”

“She has big breasts,” Chuck said.

“Who? Patty? Oh yes.” Hentman nodded. “Well, it’s that operation they give in Hollywood and New York. It’s more the rage now than the dilation, and she’s had that done, too. She would have looked great on the show. Like a lot of things, too bad it didn’t work out. You know, I darn near didn’t get out of Brahe City. They thought they had me, but of course I was tipped off. Just in time.” He glared at Chuck with nervous accusation. “If I can deliver Alpha III M2 to the Alphanes then I’m in; I can live the rest of my life in peace. If I can’t, if Terra manages to take over this moon, then I’m not in.” He looked tired and depressed, now; he seemed to have shrunk. Telling Chuck this had been too much for him. “What’s your comment?” Hentman murmured. “Speak up?”

“Hmm,” Chuck said.

“That’s a comment?”

Chuck said, “If you imagine I still have any influence with my ex-wife and her report to TERPLAN on this—”

“No,” Hentman agreed, nodding curtly. “I know you can’t influence her decision as to this operation; we saw you all down there, taking potshots at each other. Like animals.” He glowered, his energy returning. “You kill my brother-in-law, Cherigan; you’re ready to—in fact eager to—kill your wife… what kind of lives do you people lead? I never saw such a thing. And leaking my location to the CIA, on top of everything else.”

“The Paraclete has deserted us,” Chuck offered.

“The parakeet? What parakeet?” Hentman wrinkled up his nose.

“There’s a war on, here. Let’s say that. Maybe that explains some of it. If it doesn’t—” He shrugged. It was the best he could do.

“That somewhat hefty girl you were lying with,” Hentman said. “Out there where your ex was shooting at you. She’s a local nut, isn’t she? From one of the settlements here?” He eyed Chuck keenly.

“You could say that,” Chuck said, with reluctance; the choice of wording did not especially appeal to him.

“Can you reach their governing inter-settlement supreme type council through her?”

“I suppose.”

Hentman said, “Here’s the only workable solution. With or without your damn parakeet or whatever it is. Have their council meet and listen to you, to your proposal.” Drawing himself up, Hentman said with firmness, “Tell them to ask for Alphane protection from Terra. Tell them they’ve got to ask the Alphanes to come in here and occupy this moon. So it’ll legally become Alphane territory under those damn protocols, whatever they are; I don’t quite understand them but the Alphs do and so does Terra. And in exchange—” He did not take his eyes from Chuck’s face; tiny, unwinking, his eyes challenged everyone, all things. “The Alphanes will guarantee the civil liberties of the clans. No hospitalization. No therapy. You won’t be treated as nuts; you’ll be treated as bona fide colonists, owning land and engaging in manufacture and commerce, whatever it is you all do.”

“Don’t say ‘you,’” Chuck said. “I’m not a clan member, here.”

“You think they’d go for that, Rittersdorf?”

“I—don’t honestly know.”

“Sure you do. You were here before, in that CIA
simulacrum. Our agent, our informant at CIA, told us every move you made.”

So there was a Hentman person at CIA. He had been right; the CIA had been infiltrated. That was just about par for it, too.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Hentman said. “They’ve got some nurt of theirs in here; don’t forget that. Unfortunately I could never make out who he is. Sometimes I think it’s Jerry Feld; other days I think it’s Dark. Anyhow it was through our man at CIA that we learned you had been suspended, and so naturally we let you go—what good were you to us if you couldn’t reach your wife here on Alpha III M2? I mean, let’s be reasonable.”

Chuck said, “And through their agent in your organization—”

“Yeah, the CIA knew within minutes that I’d canceled the script idea and dropped you so off they went, slamming—they thought—the door on me… as you read in the ‘papes. But of course through my agent with them I knew the blade was about to fall, so I got away. And their agent in my organization let them know I had left Terra, only he didn’t know where exactly I had gone. Only Cherigan and Feld knew that.” Philosophically Hentman said, “Maybe I’ll never find out who the CIA has in here. It’s not important, now. I kept most of my dealings with the Alphs top secret, even from members of my staff, because of course I knew we’d been infiltrated right from the start.” He shook his head. “What a mess.”

Chuck said, “Who’s your agent at CIA?”

“Jack Elwood.” Hentman grinned lopsidedly, gleeful at Chuck’s reaction. “How come do you suppose Elwood was willing to release that expensive pursuit ship to you?
I
told him to. I wanted you to get here.
Why do you imagine Elwood urged you so strongly originally to take control of the Mageboom simulacrum? That was my strategy. From the start. Now, let’s hear your info about these clans here and which way they’ll jump.”

No wonder Hentman and his writers had been able to whip together the so-called “TV script” which they had dropped in his lap; through Elwood they had maneuvered at dead-center, just as Hentman was now admitting.

But that was not entirely true. Elwood could inform the Hentman organization of the existence of the Mageboom simulacrum, who operated it and where it was bound. But that was all. Elwood did not know the rest.

“Admittedly I was here before,” Chuck said. “And spent some time here, but at the Heeb settlement, which isn’t representative; the Heebs are at the bottom of the scale. I have no knowledge of either the Pares or the Manses and they’re the ones who run the affair, here.” He recalled Mary’s brilliant analysis of the situation, her account of the intricate caste system in operation on Alpha III M2. It had proved correct.

Hentman, his eyes intense, said, “Will you try it? I personally believe the whole bunch of them have something to gain; if I was them I’d take it. Their alternative is to go back into enforced hospitalization—and that’s it. Take it or leave it… put it that way to them. And I’ll tell you what you’ll get out of it.”

“By all means,” Chuck said. “Dilate on that aspect.”

“If you do this we’ll instruct Elwood to take you back into the CIA.”

Chuck remained silent.

“Kriminy,” Hentman said plaintively. “You don’t even bother to answer. Okay, you saw Patty here in
the ship. We’ll instruct her to be nice to you. Know what I mean?” He winked a hasty, nervous twitch.

“No,” Chuck said emphatically. That had turned out too unpleasantly.

“All right, Rittersdorf.” Hentman sighed. “We’ll really up it. If you’ll do this for us we’ll toss you a big bone, something out of the class of what I’ve named.” He took a deep raucous breath. “We’ll guarantee to do the job of killing your wife for you. As painlessly and quickly as possible. And that’s very painless… and very quick.”

   After what seemed like an endless time to both men Chuck said, “I can’t make out why you think I’d like Mary dead.” He was able to meet Hentman’s shrewd gaze, but the effort required was great.

Hentman said, “Like I said—I watched you two scrunched down taking potshots at each other like a couple of wild animals.”

“I was defending myself.”

“Sure,” Hentman said, nodding in a parody of compliance.

“Nothing you saw here on this moon involving me and Mary would have told you that. You must have come to Alpha III M2 with that knowledge. And you didn’t get it from Elwood because he couldn’t have known it either, so spare yourself the nuisance of telling me that Elwood—”

“Okay,” Hentman said brusquely. “Elwood retailed to us the part about the simulacrum, you and Mageboom; that’s how
that
got into the script. But I’m not telling you where I got the rest. And that’s it.”

Chuck said, “I won’t go before the council. That’s it, too.”

Glaring, Hentman said, “What does it matter how I
found out? I know; let it rest at that. I didn’t ask for the info; we wrote it in as an afterthought because when she told me—” He stopped himself at once.

“Joan Trieste,” Chuck said. Working with the slime mold; it had to be that. So now it had emerged. However it hardly mattered at this point.

“Let’s not get sidetracked. Do you want your wife killed or not? Make up your mind.” Hentman waited impatiently.

“No,” Chuck said. He shook his head. There was no doubt in his mind. The solution lay at hand and he rejected it. And with finality.

Wincing, Hentman said, “You want to do it yourself.”

“No,” he said. That was not the case. “Your offer made me remember the slime mold and Cherigan’s killing it there in the hall of my conapt. I could see that happening again, only with Mary instead of Lord Running Clam.” And, he thought, that’s not what I want at all. Evidently I’ve been wrong. That terrible event told me something—and I can’t forget it. But what, then,
do
I want in regard to Mary? He did not know; it was obscure to him, and perhaps it would remain so forever.

Once more Hentman had gotten out his handkerchief to mop his forehead. “What a foul-up. You and your domestic life; it’s wrecking the plans of two inter-system empires, Terra’s and Alpha’s—did you ever think of it that way? I give up. Frankly I’m glad you said no, but we couldn’t seem to find any other inducement we could offer you; we thought that was what you wanted out of all this.”

“I thought so, too,” Chuck said. It must be that I’m still in love with her, he realized. A woman who murdered that Mans soldier as he tried to get back to his
tank. But—at least in her own eyes—she had been trying to protect herself, and who could blame her for that?

Again there was a knock at the door. “Mr. Hentman?”

Bunny Hentman opened the door. Gerald Feld stepped rapidly inside.