Clans of the Alphane Moon (6 page)

Joan Trieste glanced with curiosity at first Mageboom, then Chuck.

By way of explanation Chuck said to her, “Mageboom here is a CIA robot, being operated from our S.F. office.” To Mageboom he said, “Who is it? Petri?”

Smiling, Mageboom said, “I’m on autonomous self-circuit right now, Mr. Rittersdorf; Mr. Petri cut himself off when you left the conapt. Don’t you agree I’m doing a good job? See, you thought I was on remote and I’m not.” The simulacrum seemed marvelously pleased with itself. “In fact,” it stated, “I can pull off this entire evening on self-circuit; I can go out to a bar with you, drink and celebrate, comport myself exactly as a non-simulacrum would, perhaps in some ways better.”

So this, Chuck thought to himself as they walked to the down-ramp, is the instrument through which I’m to obtain redress against my wife.

Picking up his thoughts the slime mold cautioned, “Remember, Mr. Rittersdorf, Miss Trieste is a member of the Ross Police Department.”

Joan Trieste said, “So I am.” She had obtained the slime mold’s thoughts but not Chuck’s. “Why did you think that to Mr. Rittersdorf?” she asked the slime mold.

“I felt,” the slime mold said to her, “that because of that fact you would not countenance amorous activity on his part.”

The explanation seemed to satisfy her. “I think,” she said to the slime mold, “that you ought to mind your own business more. Being a telepath has made you Ganymedeans terrible busybodies.” She sounded cross.

“I am sorry,” the slime mold said, “if I misjudged your desires, Miss Trieste; forgive me.” To Chuck it thought, “Apparently Miss Trieste
will
entertain amorous activity on your part toward her.”

“Chrissake,” Joan Trieste complained. “Mind your own business, please! Leave the whole topic alone, okay?” She had turned pale.

“It is difficult,” the slime mold thought morosely, to no one in particular, “to please Terran girls.” For the rest of the trip to the bar it carefully did not think anything at all.

Later, as they sat in a booth—the slime mold in a great yellow heap on the imitation-leather-covered seat—Joan Trieste said, “I think it’s wonderful, Chuck, that you’re going to work for Bunny Hentman; what a thrill it must be.”

The slime mold thought, “Mr. Rittersdorf, it occurs to me that you should refrain, if at all possible, from acquainting your wife with the fact that you now have two jobs. If she knew she would ask for a much larger settlement and alimony.”

“True,” Chuck agreed. It was sound advice.

“Since she will learn that you are working for Mr. Hentman,” the slime mold continued, “you had better concede that fact, while concealing the retention of your job at CIA. Ask your co-workers at CIA, in particular your immediate superior, Mr. Elwood, to cover for you.”

Chuck nodded.

“The results of this,” the slime mold pointed out,
“this singular situation of your holding two jobs simultaneously, will mean that despite the settlement and alimony payments you will have enough to live comfortably on. Had you thought of that?”

To be honest he had not looked that far ahead. The slime mold was much more provident than he, and it made him feel chagrined.

“You can see,” the slime mold said, “how clearly I am looking out for your interests. My insistence that you accept Mr. Hentman’s job-offer—”

Joan Trieste broke in, “I think it’s terrible the way you Ganymedeans play god with Terran lives.” She glared at the slime mold.

“But consider,” the slime mold said urbanely, “that I brought you and Mr. Rittersdorf together. And I foresee—although admittedly I am not a precog—great and successful activity on your parts in the sphere of sexuality.”

“Shut up,” Joan said fiercely.

   After their celebration at the bar Chuck left the slime mold off, got rid of Dan Mageboom, hailed a jet cab and accompanied Joan Trieste back to her own conapt.

As the two of them rode together in the rear of the cab Joan said, “I’m glad to get out of Lord Running Clam’s vicinity; it’s a pain in the neck, having him read your mind all the time. But it is true that he brought us—” She broke off, cocking her head and listening intently. “There’s been an accident.” At once she gave new instructions to the cab. “I’m needed. There’s been a fatality.”

When they reached the scene they found a jet hopper upended; during its landing, its rotor had somehow failed and it had crashed against the side of a
building, spilling out its passengers. Under a hastily-improvised blanket composed of coats and sweaters, an elderly man lay pale and silent; the police in charge waved everyone away and Chuck realized that this was the fatality.

At once Joan hurried over to him; Chuck accompanied her, finding himself permitted past by the police. Already an ambulance was on the scene; it whirred impatiently, eager to begin the trip to Ross Hospital.

Bending, Joan studied the dead man. “Three minutes ago,” she said, half to herself, half to Chuck. “All right,” she said. “Just wait a minute; I’ll put him back to five minutes ago.” She examined the billfold of the dead man; one of the police had handed it to her. “Mr. Earl B. Ackers,” she murmured, and then she shut her eyes. “This will only affect Mr. Ackers,” she said to Chuck. “At least it’s only supposed to. But you can never be sure with this…” Her face became squeezed, puffed out as she concentrated. “You’d better move away,” she said to Chuck. “So you’re not affected.”

Rising, he walked off, strolled about in the cold night air, smoking a cigarette and listening to the din from the police cars’ radios; a crowd had gathered and traffic moved sluggishly, waved on by the police.

What a strange girl to get mixed up with, he thought. A member of a police department and a Psi as well… I wonder what she’d do if she knew what I have in mind for the Daniel Mageboom simulacrum. Probably Lord Running Clam is right; it would be catastrophic to let her know.

Waving to him Joan said, “Come here.”

He walked hurriedly over.

Under the improvised blankets the elderly man was
breathing; his chest rose and fell slightly and at his lips faint bubbles of saliva had formed.

“He’s back in time four minutes,” Joan said. “Alive again, but after the accident. It was the best I could do.” She nodded to the hospital simulacra; at once they approached, bent over the again-living injured man. Using what appeared to be an X-ray scanning device the senior simulacrum studied the anatomy of the injured man, seeking the source of the worst damage. Then it turned to its companion; the simulacra exchanged thoughts and all at once the junior member of the team opened its metal side, brought out a cardboard carton which it quickly tore open.

The carton contained an artificial spleen; Chuck saw, in the headlights of the police cars, the stamped information on the discarded pasteboard box. And now the simulacra, here on the spot, were beginning to operate; one administered a local anesthetic while the other, utilizing a complex surgical hand, began to cut into the dermal wall of the injured man’s abdominal cavity.

“We can go,” Joan said to Chuck, rousing him from his fixed scrutiny of the simulacra at work. “My job’s done.” Hands in the pockets of her coat, small and slender, she walked back to their jet cab, entered and seated herself to wait for him. She looked tired.

As they drove away from the accident Chuck said, “That’s the first time I’ve seen medical simulacra in action.” It had been impressive; it made him even more aware of the enormous capabilities built into the artificial pseudo-men that General Dynamics had developed and constructed. Of course he had seen the CIA’s simulacra countless times, but there had been nothing like this; in a vital, basic sense this was different. Here, the enemy was not merely another group of
human beings with a differing political persuasion; the enemy here was death.

And, with the simulacrum Daniel Mageboom, it would be the diametric opposite; death, instead of being fought, would be encouraged.

Obviously, after what he had just witnessed, he could never tell Joan Trieste what he planned. And in that case didn’t practicality dictate his not seeing her any further? It seemed almost self-destructive to engineer a murder while at the same time keeping company with an employee of a police agency—did he
want
to be caught? Was this a vitiated suicidal impulse?

“One half skin for your thoughts,” Joan said.

“Pardon?” He blinked.

“I’m not like Lord Running Clam; I can’t read your mind. You seem so serious; I guess it’s your marital problems. I wish there was some way I could cheer you up.” She pondered. “When we get to my conapt you come on in and—” All at once she flushed, obviously remembering what the slime mold had said. “Just a drink,” she said firmly.

“I’d like that,” he said, also remembering what Lord Running Clam had predicted.

“Listen,” Joan said. “Just because that Ganymedean busybody stuck his pseudopodium or whatever they have into our lives that doesn’t mean—” She broke off in exasperation, her eyes shining with animation. “Damn him. You know, he potentially could be very dangerous. Ganymedeans are so ambitious… remember the terms under which they entered the Terra-Alpha War? And they’re all like him—a million irons in the fire, always scenting out possibilities.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Maybe you should move out of that building, Chuck. Get away from him.”

It’s a little late for that, he realized soberly.

They reached Joan’s building; it was, he saw, a modern pleasing structure, extremely simple in design and, like all new buildings, for the most part subsurface. Instead of rising it penetrated down.

“I’m on floor sixteen,” Joan said, as they descended. “It’s a bit like living in a mine… too bad if you have claustrophobia.” A moment later, at her door, as she got out her key and inserted it in the lock she added philosophically, “However this is affluent safety-wise in case the Alphanes attack again; we’ve got fifteen levels between us and an H-bomb.” She opened the door. The apt’s lights came on, a soft, hazy illumination.

A bright streak of light seared into being, vanished; Chuck, blinded, peered and then saw, standing in the center of the room with a camera in his hands, a man he recognized. Recognized and disliked.

“Hello, Chuck,” Bob Alfson said.

“Who is this?” Joan demanded. “And why’d he take a picture of us?”

Alfson said, “Keep calm, Miss Trieste. I’m your paramour’s wife’s attorney; we need evidence for the litigation which, by the way—” He glanced at Chuck. “Is on the court calendar for next Monday at ten
A.M.
in Judge Brizzolara’s courtroom.” He smiled. “We had it moved up; your wife wants it accomplished as soon as possible.”

“Get out of this apt,” Chuck said.

Moving toward the door Alfson said, “Glad to. This film I’m using— I’m sure you’ve run across it at CIA; it’s expensive but helpful.” He explained to both Chuck and Joan, “I’ve just taken an Agfom potentshot. Does that strike a chord? What I have in this camera is not a record of what you did just now but
what will go on here during the next half hour. I think Judge Brizzolara will be more interested in that.”

“Nothing is going to go on here during the next half hour,” Chuck said, “because I’m leaving.” He pushed past the attorney and out into the corridor; he had to get away as soon as possible.

“I think you’re wrong,” Alfson said. “I think there’ll be something of value on the film. Anyhow, what do you care? It’s merely a technical device by which Mary can obtain the decree; there has to be the formal presentation of evidence. And I fail to see how you’ll be hurt.”

Baffled, Chuck turned. “This invasion of privacy—”

“You know there hasn’t been any privacy for anybody for the last fifty years,” Alfson said. “You work for an intelligence agency; don’t kid me, Rittersdorf.” He strolled out into the hall, passed by Chuck and made his way unhurriedly to the elevator. “If you want a print of the film—”

“No,” Chuck said. He stood watching the attorney until he was gone from sight.

Joan said, “You might as well come on in. He’s got it on the film anyhow.” She held the conapt door open for him and at last, reluctantly, he entered. “What he did is illegal, of course. But I guess it goes on all the time in court cases.” Going into the kitchen she began fixing drinks; he heard the clink of glasses. “How about Mercury Slumps? I’ve got a full bottle of—”

“Anything,” Chuck said, roughly.

Joan brought him his drink; he accepted it reflexively.

I’ll get back at her for this, he said to himself. Now it’s decided;
I’m fighting for my life.

“You look so grim,” Joan said. “That really upset you, didn’t it, that man here waiting for us with a
potent-camera. Prying into our lives. First Lord Running Clam and now just when—”

“It’s still possible,” Chuck said, “to perform an act in secret. That no one else knows about.”

“Like what?”

He said nothing; he sipped his drink.

From head-high shelves, cats hopped down, three old orange toms and a mottled Manx, then several part-Siamese kittens with fuzzy, whiskery faces, a supple black young tom, and, with great difficulty, a heavy-with-young calico female; the cats, joined by a small dog, clustered around Ignatz Ledebur’s feet, impeding his progress as he attempted to leave the shack.

Ahead lay parts of a dead rat; the dog, a ratting terrier, had caught it and the cats had eaten what they wished. Ignatz had heard them, at dawn, growling. He felt sorry for the rat, which had probably been after the garbage heaped on both sides of the shack’s single door. After all, the rat had a right to life, too, as much so as any human. But, of course, the dog did not grasp that; to kill was an instinct implanted in the dog’s weak flesh. So no moral blame was involved, and anyhow the rats frightened him; unlike their counterparts back on Terra these had agile hands, could—and did—fashion crude weapons. They were smart.

Ahead of Ignatz stood the rusting remains of an autonomic tractor, long out of service; it had been deposited here several years ago with the vague idea that it might be repaired. In the meantime Ignatz’s fifteen (or was it sixteen?) children played on it, inducing
what remained of its commune-circuit to converse with them.

He did not see what he was searching for: an empty plastic milk carton by which to start his morning fire. So instead he would have to break up a board. Among the great mound of discarded lumber next to his shack, he began to pick about, seeking a board frail enough for him to break by jumping on it, as it lay propped against the shack’s porch.

The morning air was cold and he shivered, wishing that he had not lost his wool jacket; on one of his long walks he had lain down to rest, placing the jacket under his head as a pillow… when he had awakened he had forgotten it and left it there. So much for the jacket. He could not, of course, remember where that had been; he knew only vaguely that it lay toward Adolfville, perhaps ten days’ walk.

A woman from a nearby shack—she had been his, briefly, but he had gotten tired of her after fathering two children by her—appeared and yelled in a frenzy at a big white goat who had gotten into the vegetable garden. The goat continued to eat, almost until the woman had reached him, and then he bucked, kicked with his hind legs, and leaped away, out of reach, beet leaves still dangling from his maw. A flock of ducks, startled by his activity, honked in various stages of panic as they all scattered, and Ignatz laughed. Ducks took things so seriously.

After he had broken the board for his fire, he returned to the shack, the cats still trailing; he shut the door in their faces—not before one kitten managed to squeeze past and inside—and then he squatted by the cast iron trash burner and began building the fire.

On the kitchen table his current wife, Elsie, lay sleeping under a pile of blankets; she would not get
up until he had started the fire and fixed coffee. He did not blame her. On these cold mornings no one liked to get up; it was late in the morning before Gandhitown stirred, except of course for those Heebs who had wandered all night.

From the sole bedroom of the shack a small child appeared, naked, stood with thumb in mouth, watching him silently as he lit the fire.

Behind the child blared the noise of the TV set; the sound worked but not the picture. The children could not watch, could only listen. I ought to fix that, Ignatz said to himself, but he felt no urgency; before the moon’s TV transmitter at Da Vinci Heights had gone into operation, life had been simpler.

When he started to make coffee he found that part of the pot was missing. So, rather than spend time searching, he made boiled coffee; he heated a pan of water over the propane burner, then, just as it boiled, dropped in a large, unmeasured handful of ground beans. The warm, rich smell filled the shack; he inhaled with gratitude.

He was standing there at the stove, God knew how long, smelling the coffee, hearing the crackling of the fire as it warmed the shack, when by degrees he discovered that he was having a vision.

Transfixed, he remained there; meanwhile the kitten which had squeezed in managed to climb to the sink, where it found a mass of discarded food left over from last night—it ate greedily, and the sound and sight of it mixed with the other sounds and sights. And the vision grew stronger.

“I want cornmeal mush for breakfast,” the naked child at the bedroom door announced.

Ignatz Ledebur did not answer; the vision held him, now, in another land. Or rather in a land so real that it
had no place; it obliterated the spacial dimension, was neither there nor here. And in terms of time—

It seemed always to have been, but as to this aspect he possessed no certitude. Perhaps what he saw did not exist in time at all, had no start and, no matter what he did, would never terminate, because it was too large. It had burst loose from time entirely perhaps.

“Hey,” Elsie murmured sleepily. “Where’s my coffee?”

“Wait,” he said.

“Wait? I can smell it, goddam it; where is it?” She struggled to a sitting position, throwing the covers aside, her body bare, breasts hanging. “I feel awful. I feel like throwing up. I suppose those kids of yours are in the bathroom.” She slid from the table, walked unsteadily from the room. “Why are you standing there like that?” she demanded, pausing at the entrance of the bathroom, suspiciously.

Ignatz said, “Leave me alone.”

“‘Leave me alone’ my ass—it was your idea I live here. I never wanted to leave Frank.” Entering the bathroom she slammed the door; it swung back open and she pushed it, held it shut, with her foot.

The vision, now, had ended; Ignatz, disappointed, turned away, went with the pan of coffee to the table, shoved the blankets to the floor, laid out two mugs—left over from last night’s meal—and filled them with hot coffee from the pan; swollen grounds floated at the surface of each mug.

From the bathroom Elsie said, “What was that, another of your so-called trances? You saw something, like God?” Her disgust was enormous. “I not only have to live with a Heeb—I have to live with one who has visions, like a Skitz. Are you a Heeb or a Skitz?
You
smell
like a Heeb. Make up your mind.” She flushed the toilet, came out of the bathroom. “And you’re as irritable as a Mans. That’s what I hate about you the most, your perpetual irritability.” She found her coffee, drank. “It’s got grounds in it!” she yelled at him in fury. “You lost the pot again!”

Now that the vision had departed he found it difficult to remember what it had been like. That was one trouble with visions.
How did they relate to the everyday world?
He always asked that of them.

“I saw a monster,” he said. “It stepped on Gandhi-town and crushed it underfoot. Gandhitown was gone; only a hole remained.” He felt sad; he liked Gandhitown, much more than any other spot on the moon. And then he felt afraid, much more than he ever had before in his life. And yet there was nothing he could do. No way to stop the monster; it would come and get them all, even the powerful Manses with all their clever ideas, their ceaseless activity. Even the Pares who tried to defend themselves against everything real and unreal alike.

But there had been more to the vision than that.

Behind the monster had been a wicked soul.

He had beheld it as it crept out onto the world like a shiny jello of rot; it had decayed everything it touched, even the bare soil, the skinny plants and trees. A cupful of it would corrupt an entire universe, and it belonged to a person of deeds. A creature who
wanted.

So there were two evil things coming, the monster who crushed Gandhitown, and, beyond that, the wicked soul; they were separable, and each would ultimately go its separate way. The monster was female, the wicked soul mate. And—he shut his eyes. This was the portion of the vision that terrified him. The two
would fight a dreadful battle. And it was not a battle between good and evil; it was a sightless, vacant struggle in the mire between two thoroughly contaminated entities, each as vicious as the other.

The battle, fought perhaps even to the death of one of the entities, would take place on this world. They were coming here now, to use this as a battleground deliberately, to fight out their timeless war.

“Fix some eggs,” Elsie said.

Reluctantly, Ignatz looked about in the litter by the sink for a carton of eggs.

“You’ll have to wash the frying pan from last night,” Elsie said. “I left it in the sink.”

“Okay.” He began to run cold water; with a rolled-up mass of newspaper he scrubbed at the encrusted surface of the frying pan.

I wonder, he thought. Can I influence the outcome of this struggle? Would the presence of good in the midst of this have any effect?

He could summon all his spiritual faculties and try. Not only for the benefit of the moon, for the clans, but for the two dismal entities themselves. Perhaps to ease their burden.

It was a thought-provoking idea, and as he scoured the frying pan he continued to entertain it, silently. No use telling Elsie; she would merely tell him to go to hell. She did not know his powers inasmuch as he had never revealed them to her. When in the right mood, he could walk through walls, read people’s minds, cure illness, cause evil people to become ill, affect the weather, blight crops—he could do almost anything, given the right mood. It derived from his saintliness.

Even the suspicious Pares recognized him as a saint. Everyone on the moon did, including the busy, insulting
Manses—when they took time out from their activity to glance up and notice him.

If anyone can save this moon from the two dingy organisms approaching, Ignatz realized, it is I. This is my destiny.

“It’s not a world; it’s just a moon,” Elsie said, with bleak contempt; she stood before the trash burner, dressing herself in the clothes she had taken off the night before. She had worn them for a week now, and Ignatz observed—not without a trace of relish—that she was well on her way to becoming a Heeb; it would not require much more.

And it was a good thing to be a Heeb. Because the Heeb had found the Pure Way, had dispensed with the unnecessary.

Opening the door of the shack he stepped out once more into the morning cold.

“Where are you going?” Elsie shrieked after him.

Ignatz said, “To confer.” He shut the door behind him and then, with the cats trailing, set off on foot to find Omar Diamond, his colleague among the Skitzes.

   By means of his Psionic, unnatural powers he teleported here and there about the moon until at last, sure enough, there was Omar, seated in council at Adolfville with a representative of each clan. Ignatz levitated to the sixth floor of the great stone building, bobbed against the window and rapped until those within noticed him and came to open the window for him.

“God, Ledebur,” Howard Straw, the Mans rep, declared. “You smell like a goat. Two Heebs in the room at once—foul.” He turned his back on everyone, walked off and stood staring into space, fighting to hold back his Mans anger.

The Pare rep, Gabriel Baines, said to Ignatz, “What’s the purpose of this intrusion? We’re in conference.”

Ignatz Ledebur communed silently with Omar Diamond, telling him the urgency of their need. Diamond heard him, agreed, and at once, by combining their skills, the two of them left the council chamber; he and Diamond walked together across a grassy field in which mushrooms grew. Neither spoke for a time. They amused themselves by kicking over mushrooms.

At last Diamond said, “We were already discussing the invasion.”

“It’s going to land in Gandhitown,” Ignatz said. “I experienced a vision; those who are coming will—”

“Yes, yes,” Diamond said irritably. “We know they’re chthonic powers; I acquainted the delegates with that fact. No good can come from chthonic powers because they’re heavy; like the corporeal animae they are they will sink down into the earth, become mired in the body of the planet.”

“Moon,” Ignatz said, and giggled.

“Moon, then.” Diamond shut his eyes, walked without missing a step even though he could no longer see where he journeyed; he had retreated, Ignatz realized, into a momentary, voluntary catatonia. All the Skitzes were prone to this, and he said nothing; he waited. Halting, Omar Diamond mumbled something which Ignatz could not catch.

Ignatz sighed, seated himself on the ground; beside him Omar Diamond stood in his trance and there was no sound except the faint rustling of far-distant trees beyond the limits of the meadow.

All at once Diamond said, “Pool your powers with mine and we will envision the invasion so clearly that—” Again his words became arcane mumbling. Ignatz—even a saint could be annoyed—sighed again.
“Get hold of Sarah Apostoles,” Diamond said. “The three of us will evoke a view of our enemy so real that it will actualize; we will control our enemy and his arrival here.”

Sending out a thought-wave, Ignatz contacted Sarah Apostoles, asleep in her shack in Gandhitown. He felt her awaken, stir, mumble and groan as she rose from her cot to stagger to her feet.

He and Omar Diamond waited and presently Sarah appeared; she wore a man’s coat and man’s trousers, tennis shoes. “Last night,” she said, “I had a dream. Certain creatures are hovering near here, preparing to manifest themselves.” Her round face was twisted with worry and a nagging, corroding fear. This gave her an ugly contracted look, and Ignatz felt sorry for her. Sarah had never been able, in times of stress, to purge the destructive emotions from her being; she was bonded to the soma and its ails.

“Sit down,” Ignatz requested.

“We shall make them appear
now
,” Diamond said. “And here at this spot. Begin.” He ducked his head; the two Heebs also ducked their heads, and together the three of them applied their mutually-reinforcing visionary powers. They struggled in unison, and time passed—none of them knew how much—while that which they contemplated bloomed in the vicinity like an evil bud.

“Here it is,” Ignatz said, and opened his eyes. Sarah and Diamond did also; they looked up into the sky—and saw, lowering itself tail first, a foreign ship. They had been successful.