Gordon R. Dickson (4 page)

Kil
finished his cigaret, punched it through the spring-lid of the bedside
disposal, and got up. As he dressed, the hard purpose within him, melted
temporarily by sleep, formed itself icily once again. The World Police had let him
down. All right, there were private services.

He
looked them up in the city directory and took an aircab to the building that
housed them. The watch built into his Key told him that it was already thirteen
minutes after eight, but this did not disturb him. The services and business in
all large cities worked clear around the clock, or else traded hours with other
establishments in the same line, so that there was always someone on hand to
handle whatever might come up. This had come about naturally where everything
was, by necessity, more or less geared to the great worldwide transportation
system, itself a twenty-four hour a day proposition.

The
detective services occupied two floors of the building; but on the wall
directory near the building's entrance, only a cluster of numbers on the upper
of these two floors was lit up, signifying the fact that they "were open
for business. Kil went up in the disk elevator and tried them, one after another.
Disappointingly, the first three had nothing but automation receptionists,
adequate enough for taking down details and explaining services and rates, but
not liable to provide the immediate action Kil wanted. The fourth door, however,
into which he faced his Key, opened to reveal a thin, nervous, stooped man who
bounced to his feet, and came hurrying around his desk to introduce himself as
Cole Marsk, freelance operative.

Marsk seated himself and listened jerkily,
but attentively, as Kil told his story. The detective was a man of small gestures;
scratching his chin, twitching papers on his desk first out of, then back into,
position before him. His face, however, lengthened; and he bit his lips as Kil
finished.

"Ah/'
he said
. "
Ah. That's too bad. Yes—" he swung
about to look out of the office window, the pivot of his chair giving a
ridiculous little squeak in the silent office as he did so, and another as he
turned back again. "Yes, that's too bad."

"How soon can you get
going on it?" demanded Kil.

"Well—now,"
answered Marsk, not looking at him, "that's it.
One of
these missing person cases.
Of course I'd like your account; but there's
really nothing I can do."

"Nothing?"
Kil stared at him. The detective fidgeted and squirmed under his gaze.

"Nothing.
I'm sorry—" Marsk hurried ahead, almost tripping over his own
words, "—cases like this. What you need, you see, is a large organization.
I'm Class C, myself—oh, not that I'm ashamed of it, but I can't afford an
organization. Some of the big outfits might take your job. But no, they
wouldn't.
Risky."

"What do you mean,
risky?" exploded Kil.

"You
know, it might involve them in a civil suit for in-fringment of privacy, in a
case where the individual didn't want to be located."

"But that's senseless.
She's my wife!"

"Yes. Still—"
Marsk coughed, and avoided Kil's eyes.

"You
mean to sit there," growled Kil, "and tell me I can't hire detectives
to find my own wife?"

"Well—not
those with heavy investments in the business," said Marsk. "And those
without assets like that can't afford the organization. I'm just one man, myself.
That wouldn't do you much good. You've got to check a good large share of the
big population centers simultaneously. Even then, it might take years, or your
wife might never be found."

Kil
slammed his hand down furiously on the arm of his chair and, jumping to his
feet, strode toward the door.

"Wait—wait—"
cried the detective, running after hin» "Wait a minute. Maybe I can help
you some other way."

Kil checked and swung about. "What
way?"

"I
could give you some advice—some directions." A small cunningness crept
into the thin man's eyes. "Of course I'd have to charge for it."

Kil's
hands twitched. He had a sudden, almost uncontrollable desire to pick the
other man up and break him open in search of some solid answer. He controlled
himself.

"All right," he said. "What is
it?"

"One thousand; in
advance."

"One thou—" Abruptly Kil came to a
belated recognition of the sort of man he was dealing with. "I'll give you
a hundred," he said.
"Two hundred."

"All
right, two hundred," said Kil, harshly. He watched as Marsk ran to the
desk and punched a stud for a facsimile draft. Kil walked over and made it out
for two hundred units. Marks triumphantly punched the stud again, and the
facsimile disappeared, flashed instantaneously to Central Banking, to be
deducted from Kil's account.

"Now talk," said Kil.

"All
right I will." Marsk's voice was defensive. "You don't think I was
thinking of holding back anything? I may be Class C, but I'm still Stab. The
truth is, not even the big agencies can help you. Oh, they might, but the odds
are against it. Even the ones with agencies and operatives in most of the
larger spots can't really cover all the transportation centers; and that's
where you do your locating when you want to find somebody."

"You
charged me two hundred'to tell me this?" Kil could feel the deep, slow
kindling of his rage beginning to burn inside him.

"No,
no—that's just part of it. I just wanted to let you know the agencies couldn't
do it. But maybe there's some people who can—" Marsk broke off suddenly
and his eyes roamed jerkily about the room.

"What
is it?" demanded Kil.

"A
looper—nothing—" murmured Marsk. His voice picked up strength again.
"I was going to say—the Unstabs."

"
The Unstabs
!"

"Yes—not
so loud," Marsk rubbed his hands together and then dried the palms of them
on his kilt with a soothing motion. "I'm Class C. I don't have anything to
do with them. But you learn things in this business. You go see a man called
the Ace King."

"The
Ace King?"
Kil
stared at the detective. "Who's he?"

"I
don't know who he'll be. It's a title, not a name. It'll depend on who's in
town at the moment. Hell
be
either a King or a Crim,
though."

Kil regarded him
suspiciously.

"What is this, double
talk?" He leaned forward.
"Kings,

and
CrimsP"

Marsk
laughed high in his nose, a whinnying sound. "That's the way they
talk," he said. "They've got names for themselves, for the three
classes. Kings for Class One—" "What three classes?"

Marsk
stared at him, uncertain whether to laugh or be astonished.

"You
know—the three classes—just like our three Stab classes. You know about
them?"

"How
should I know?" said Kil, harshly. "I don't have anything to do with
Unstabs."

"Class
One, Two, and Three," Marsk said, still looking uncertainly at him.
"Class
One
is on three week permit. They're top,
like our Class A's—like you with six months. They call themselves Kings. Then
there's Class Two, on two-week. They're middle, like our three month Class B's.
Call
themselves
Crims. Then the last are one-weeks.
Like our
Cs.
Thev're called Potes."

"Why?"

"Why—?" Marsk
floundered, at a loss.

"Why're
they called—what they're called? How'd they get these names?"

"Why,
King—I don't know. Because they're top, I suppose," said Marsk. "Oh,
I see what you mean. Well, Class Ones are those who've rated just under the
stability line on the yearly checks. They're perfectly decent, most of
them." He looked at Kil half-challengingly. "Most of them lead
perfectly regular lives, unless they get a bad stroke of luck, or something.
The Class Two's are those who've shown bad Stab ratings and either a criminal
record or criminal tendency. That'd be where their name Crim comes from, of
course. Then the Threes, the Potes—" again Marsk made his jerky-eye
recon-noiter of his office. "What about them?"

"The
Potes are potentials," said Marsk. When Kil still looked blank, the thin
man made an angry gesture with one hand.
"Potential
dangers to the world peace!
You know!"

"No," replied Kil,
bluntly.

"They're
the ones who
could—
who
could build a CH bomb or find somebody else who could build one, or locate
Files and wreck it . . ."

"What
do you mean, locate Files?" interrupted Kil. "Files
is
right here at Police Headquarters."

"Is
it? Oh, is it?" There was a momentary flash of weak anger from the thin
man. "You class A's are all the
same.
You're on
top of the world, so you never wonder about it. Well, for your information,
here at World Police Headquarters is one place Files isn't. It's been hunted
for plenty of
times,
believe me, in the last hundred
years. And it's not here. Nobody knows where it is, except maybe some of the
top men in the Police."

Kil
had the highly trained memory of the typical mem-nonic engineer. He went back
through it to his secondary school classes in Civics.

"Five
square miles," he said, "of computer, power plant, record space,
integrators and power lines. You don't hide that in your kilt pocket."

"Then
you tell me where it is!" Marsk's eyes were bright. "Why if I could
find that out, I could be rich tomorrow. I—" he checked himself. "You
go see the Ace King, like I said."

"I
still don't understand it," said Kil, stubbornly.
"Why
Ace
King?"

"Because
he's the top—the head man!" cried Marsk. "There's only one in each
Slum. He runs everything."

"They
have to move like everybody else, I suppose," said Kil. "What if
another comes along while he's there?"

"Then one goes, or one gets closed
up." "Closed up?"

"That's
what the Unstabs say," Marsk gave a little, twitching smile. "It
means they kill him. Don't look so shocked. That's why they're Unstab. What do
you suppose started that riot in the Tokyo Slum yesterday—or don't you listen
to the news?"

Kil
shook his head and returned grimly to the important point.

"Anyway, this man can help me?"

"If
he wants to," said Marsk. "An Ace King can do anything —except locate
Files." He looked earnestly at Kil. "I'll throw in some free advice.
Keep your mouth shut as much as possible while you're down there. And hold
onto your temper with both hands. The Police crack down on them if they hurt
one of us; but you're Stab, and they hate Stabs, particularly Class A. Just
don't give them an excuse to get rough, and you ought to do all right."

"Thanks," said Kil, getting up.
"I'll remember."

"That's
all right," Marsk rose with him. "I'm Stab, too. After all, they
aren't our kind of people; though some of them aren't too bad. But we Stabs
have to stick together, after all." He followed Kil to the door.
"Just go into any bar or night club down there and ask the bartender for
the Ace King. And then sit down someplace where you'll be sort of out of the
way until he sends for you."

Kil nodded.
And went out.

"Good
luck!" said the voice of Marsk as the door closed between them.

It was not hard to get to the Unstab Area,
the Slum, which was, in fact, nothing more than an unmarked and arbitrary
number of blocks, south of the city terminal. Riding in on one of the roadways
and shivering a little in the sudden dullness of the night breeze, Kil wondered
why he had never been to one before. There had been no particular reason to
go; but on the other hand, for a Stab, there was never any reason
to
go. Neither Unstab people, nor Unstab amusements would be liable to
hold any particular attraction for
a Class A. Still, there was nothing of the ghetto about the area. The
Stabs and the Police had not gotten together to force the Unstabs into these
small pockets within the community. It had been the Unstabs themselves who had
chosen to huddle off away from the rest. The remainder of the world was just
as open to them as it was to the Stabs; as their Slums were to the Stabs. Yet
there was little straying from either section of the social group.