Sidney's Comet (11 page)

As Sidney and Javik watched the program, Carla stood at her vanity mirror, thinking of Billie Birdbright.

Birdbright would arrive in a few minutes, and she pictured his handsome, bronzed face in her mind . . . the strong, dimpled chin and wavy, bright yellow hair . . . those playful, smoke-grey eyes. She used a small brush to paint a tiny black beauty mark on her left cheek, turned her face slightly to admire it from a different angle.

I have a right to be happy,
Carla thought, thinking for a fleeting moment of Sidney as she placed the brush on her makeup table.
I couldn’t be expected to pass this chance up.

She sprayed perfume on her neck and practiced smiling in the vanity mirror. Carla saw moist lavender lips that matched the color of her eyes, bun-swirled golden-brown hair with a godiva fall and a black ruby clasp to one side. The evening dress was lavender mache, with the bodice cut in a long narrow vee, exposing portions of her bust and midriff. She pulled some of the fall hairs forward over each shoulder, and they cascaded over her breasts.

Carla moto-spun approvingly before the mirror. She knew she would be Birdbright’s bedmate that evening just as the other girls had been. With this in mind, she selected every article of clothing and toiletry with care. A quiet time in the videodome watching a roller rock concert along with vi-do dinners and wine capsules would start the evening off well—

The doorchime rang.

Oh!
Carla thought with a start.
I’d better start dinner!

She moto-hurried into the kitchen module and took two ceramic vi-do trays of porkchops with applesauce and synthetic baby peas from the freezer. She popped them into the microwave oven.

Sidney mentoed nine song request buttons, with instructions to run a tab in his name. The bandmembers began to perform, gyrating their hips wildly as they did a hard-driving rock song with an oboe lead.

“It’s Space Boogie time!” Sidney exclaimed, thinking of Peebles but forcing himself not to look in that direction.

“Wouldja look at that!” Javik said excitedly, pointing at a man with short-cropped saffron yellow hair who was moto-shoeing down a nearby aisle. “Hey Bob!” Javik called out, waving his hands. “Over here!”

Javik turned to Sidney. “It’s Bob Maxwell!”

Maxwell smiled as he saw them and rolled to their table. “Well!” he said in the old familiar husky voice. “You fellows are a welcome sight!” He pulled a chair from an adjacent unoccupied table and sat down.

They stack-clasped hands like school chums. It came naturally, as if there had not been twenty intervening years.

Sidney looked at Maxwell, noted a big man with tiny metallic blue eyes, a small mouth and a weak chin. A few lines around the mouth, but otherwise he had not changed much. “You look to be in pretty fair shape, Bob,” Sidney said. “Been working out?”

“Some. Maybe a couple of kilos heavier than in high school.” Maxwell paused and touched a belt button to auto-clap with the crowd as they did a New City High yell. Sidney and Javik joined in too.

“We are tops. . . . Class of eighty-five!” the partyers chanted. “We are tops. . . . ”

“Remember the pranks we used to pull?” Maxwell asked as the chanting died down. He looked across the table at Javik. “Like the time I dropped a dehydrated sponge in your glass of milk?”

Javik sat back and belly-laughed. “Scared the hell out of me when it puffed up! I was madder’n hell!”

Sidney laughed too, adding, “And the time we went to Liberty High with buckets of Markesian slime. . . . ” He nudged the table in his mirth, causing it to rock.

“The funniest damn thing!” Javik said, beginning to gasp as he laughed. “We greased . . . the hallways while they were in class, then . . . ha! . . . watched as they fell all over the place!” He broke down laughing.

“No way for ’em to catch us,” Maxwell recalled, revealing small, even teeth as he smiled. “The harder those Liberty High punks tried, the more they fell! Your idea, wasn’t it, Sid?”

“Guess it was,” Sidney said.

“Sid always had the imagination,” Javik recalled. “How about those stories he made up to scare the girls when we parked at Lookout Rim?’

Presently, the waitress arrived with a tray containing two red drinks in tall glasses. She placed the drinks in front of Sidney and Javik, then turned to Maxwell.

“Nothing for me,” Maxwell said. He waved a hand to send her away.

They listened to wailing band music for several minutes while Javik and Sidney sipped their drinks. After a while, Sidney tapped his foot to the music unconsciously.

“What’s that tapping noise?” Maxwell asked.

Sidney stopped tapping, felt hot in the face.

Maxwell leaned over to look under the table, then straightened and glared at Sidney with unfriendly little blue eyes. “Was that you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sidney admitted sheepishly. “Guess it was.”

“Energy conservation,” Maxwell said officiously. “Do it in the gym, man, not here!”

Javik swallowed a sip of his drink, wrinkled his nose in anger. “Criminy,” he said. “Ease up, Bob. We can relax the rules a little tonight!”

Maxwell flashed a cool look at Javik, then turned to watch the band as it began to play a rock waltz. The lights dimmed for the number, and couples took to the dance floor, where they short-stepped onto disco spinners. Each couple grabbed an invisible force field pole at the center of their spinner, causing the device to start slowly into motion . . . whirling one way and then the other in time to the music. Some dancers wore lighted disco shoes in various colors, and soon the floor became a blur of lights.

Javik asked a woman at another table to dance. Sidney watched Javik roll by Peebles’s table, saw Peebles’s expression turn to hatred as Javik passed. Then Peebles’s cool, emotionless eyes took over once more as Javik and his partner reached the dance floor.

Sidney heard Maxwell say something, turned to face him. “What?”

“Tom’s the same old operator,” Maxwell said.

Sidney sipped his drink through a straw, tasted the sharp bite of iced raspberry liqueur. “Yeah,” he said. “Say, what line of work you in?”

Maxwell stiffened. “Spent some time as a shredding machine operator in Bu-Cops. Then I volunteered for another assignment . . . in cooperation with Bu-Med.”

“Oh yeah?” Sidney said casually, watching the disco dancers perform. “What’s that?”

“Can’t say, really. It’s classified.” Sidney noticed that Maxwell’s facial muscles were tight.

“Sounds interesting, Bob.”

Moments later, Javik returned to the table. It was break time for the band, and the ballroom lights brightened. “Nikki Johnson,” Javik said. “Says she’s been permied and divorced four times.”

Sidney swallowed a sip of liqueur, looked over the top of his drink at Javik. “You got her life story in five minutes,” he said, laughing. “See what you can get out of Bob here. Says his job is classified.”

“Is that right?” Javik asked, his curiosity peaked. He reached across the table, patted Maxwell on the shoulder and said, “You can confide in us, Bob. We’re old pals, remember?”

“Well,” Maxwell said, wriggling uncomfortably. He chewed at his upper lip, looked around. “It’s the reason I don’t drink anymore.” Maxwell thought for a moment, then removed a tiny brass-plated computer from his jacket pocket. “Carry this everywhere,” he said nervously, leaning forward and dropping his voice to a whisper.

“What is it?” Javik asked, reaching out in an attempt to touch the unit.

Maxwell pulled it away, said flatly: “A bio-medical surveillance monitor.”

Javik rested his hand for a moment on top of the song request panel at the center of the table, then pulled it back as he asked, “What the hell is that?”

“In fisherman’s English, it’s a cappy-finder.”

Sidney swallowed hard, listened as Javik said, “A cappy-finder?”

“Yeah. I could turn it on right here and walk around until the yellow light starts blinking. That would indicate we have a shirker on our hands, someone with a medical problem he isn’t revealing . . . or a person with a problem he doesn’t know about himself.”

Sidney’s blood ran cold with fear. He coughed, felt a shiver run down the center of his back.

“You okay, Sid?’ Javik asked.

“Yeah.” Sidney coughed again. “Got a little swizzle down the wrong pipe.”

“Turn it on,” Javik urged, looking back at the little brass computer.

Sidney stood up hurriedly, felt himself becoming unglued. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice faltering. “I’ll be right back.” He scurried away, consumed with the necessity to flee.

But Maxwell flipped the device on before Sidney got away. A yellow light on the unit blinked rapidly, then stopped as Sidney escaped down the aisle. Maxwell’s gaze followed Sidney.

“What does it mean?” Javik asked.

“Our Friend has a problem,” Maxwell said, rising to his feet. “And he acts like he knows about it.”

“Sid looks healthy enough to me. Maybe your monitor needs adjustment.”

“Just calibrated it,” Maxwell said, replacing the unit in his jacket pocket. “Can’t let this rest, you know. The man needs therapy.” He watched Sidney slip into the restroom.

Javik jumped to his feet, said in a low. angry tone: “Why? He’s not hurting anyone!”

Maxwell rolled away from the table in the direction Sidney had taken. Javik was close behind. “He’s hurting employment,” Maxwell said, glancing over his shoulder. “Each therapy client supports seven point-three-two-five Bu-Med employees. I’ve seen the figures.”

“Hang the figures!” Javik rasped in Maxwell’s ear. “We’re talking about Sid Malloy. He’s a friend, not a god-damned statistic!”

“Friendship has nothing to do with it,” Maxwell said coldly, turning a corner and rolling to a stop outside the restroom. “It’s my sworn duty to take him in. Look, Tom, I had no idea this was going to happen.”

“Then forget it.”

“Can’t. Rules are rules.”

Presently, Sidney rolled out of the restroom. When he saw Maxwell waiting for him with an all-knowing expression, Sidney thought,
Now I’ve had it.
His legs began to shake. Quickly, the knees seemed ready to give way.

An attack,
Sidney thought.
I’m having a breakdown!

“Malloy,” Maxwell said in an authoritative tone. “I’m going to have to . . .”

But Sidney grew woozy and did not hear the ensuing words. His knees folded, and he leaned against the wall for support.

Javik rolled to Sidney’s side and held him up by the right arm. “You’ll be all right,” Javik said. He pulled at Sidney’s arm. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s get out—”

Maxwell pushed Javik in the shoulder. “Can’t let you do that,” he said.

Javik shook him off angrily, shoved past and went toward the elevator bank with Sidney.

Sidney felt his left arm shaking uncontrollably now, only half saw Javik and Maxwell through seizure-glazed, unfocused eyes. The Space Patrol crest on Javik’s sleeve came into focus, then blurred.

Sidney saw the outlines of people as they turned their heads to watch, felt the prying press of eyes he could not actually see. Then Sidney’s vision cleared momentarily, and he saw an angry Maxwell blocking the path, his arms folded across his chest and his face contorted in angry determination. Maxwell’s lips moved, but Sidney swooned and the words sounded garbled to him, as if spoken underwater: “Hold . . . it . . . Tom . . . you’re . . . not . . . go . . . ing . . . a . . . ny . . . far . . . ther!”

Upon hearing this, Javik’s mind went blank with rage. He pushed Sidney to a sidechair. “Rules be damned!” Javik yelled, grabbing Maxwell by the collar. “I’ll kill you, you rotten son-of-an-atheist!” He hit Maxwell in the face with a roundhouse right and fell to the floor pommeling his opponent with unanswered punches.

Sidney saw the unfocused images of people all around, pointing at him and turning their faces to the side in revulsion. “A cappy,” one man said, his tone lilting and cruel. Sidney rolled his eyes in that direction, saw the lapel tag and shoulder epaulets of Colonel Peebles.

Sidney tried to control his left arm, but it flailed wildly. He glanced down at it, saw that it was contorted at the elbow and wrist joints, bent in a horrible manner like pictures he had seen of clients on therapy orbiters.

“Isn’t it disgusting!” Peebles exclaimed.

“Let Bu-Cops through!” a woman said. “Make room!”

“How interesting,” Peebles said. “Look at his face. . . . It’s twisted on the same side as the arm!”

“We shouldn’t have to look at this!” a woman said indignantly.

In his pain, the voices Sidney heard became increasingly distant, increasingly muddled.
“Don’t fight it, fleshcarrier,”
he thought one said.
“This could save you!”

When the police stormed in, Colonel Peebles rolled forward to guide them. “Over there,” he said, motioning to Javik, who was rising to his feet, apparently tired of hitting the prone form of Maxwell. Bloody and bruised, Maxwell dragged himself along the floor to get away. Then he tried to stand, but slipped back to the floor.

Two policemen grabbed Javik, but he broke free, knocking both of them down. Three more cops rushed over now with electro-sticks, and they shock-pummeled Javik to semi-consciousness.

“Kill him!” Maxwell yelled from his position on the floor. “Kill the bastard!”

“This man is my prisoner,” Peebles announced as Javik was subdued. Peebles flashed a red Bu-Mil priority card. ‘Take him to Compound Five at the Bu-Tech Space Center.”

“Yes sir,” a police corporal said.

“And put the cappy in Therapy Detention,” Peebles ordered. “Don’t lose track of him, corporal. General Munoz wants to be kept advised of his whereabouts at all times—”

Later that evening, Carla stood in the bathroom doorway of her condominium in a lavender bathrobe with a white-and-gold rope sash. Fluttering false eyelashes at a bare-chested man who sat on her waterbed with covers drawn across his lap, she asked, “May I offer you a tintette?”

“Yes,” Billie Birdbright said. He smiled. “Thank you.”

Carla removed a packet from her robe pocket, lit a lime tintette and puffed on it for a moment. Then she moto-slippered to the bed, trailing pale green smoke behind her. Carla sat on the edge of the waterbed, placed the tintette in his mouth.