Vulcan's Hammer (4 page)

How lonesome it is here, he thought. No one else but me.

And yet—he had the sudden acute sensation that he was not alone, that someone was nearby, scrutinizing him. He glanced swiftly about. The dim yellow light did not show him much; he ceased walking, holding his breath and listening. There was no sound except the distant whirl of the old computer as it labored over his questions.

Lifting his head, Dill peered into the dusty shadows along the ceiling of the corridor. Strands of cobweb hung from the light fixtures; one bulb had gone dead, and that spot was black—a pit of total darkness.

In the darkness, something gleamed.

Eyes, he thought. He felt chill fear.

A dry, rustling noise. The eyes shot off; he saw the gleam still, retreating from him along the ceiling of the corridor. In an instant the eyes had gone. A bat? Bird of some sort, trapped down here? Carried down by the elevator?

Jason Dill shivered, hesitated, and then went on.

CHAPTER FOUR

From Unity records, William Barris had obtained the address of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Pitt. It did not surprise him to discover that the Pitts—now just Mrs. Pitt, he realized soberly—had a house in the expensive and fashionable Sahara region of North Africa. During the war that part of the world had been spared both hydrogen bomb explosions and fallout; now real estate there was priced out of the reach of most people, even those employed by the Unity system.

As his ship carried him from the North American landmass across the Atlantic, Barris thought, I wish I could afford to live there. It must have cost the man everything he had; in fact, he must have gone into debt up to his neck. I wonder why. Would it be worth it? Not to me, Barris thought. Perhaps for his wife . . .

He landed his ship at the fabulously illuminated Proust Field runways, and shortly thereafter he was driving by commercial robot taxi out the twelve-lane freeway to the Golden Lands Development, in which Mrs. Pitt lived.

The woman, he knew, had been notified already; he had made sure that he would not be bringing her the first news of her husband’s death.

On each side of the road, orange trees and grass and sparkling blue fountains made him feel cool and relaxed. As yet there were no multiple-unit buildings; this area was perhaps the last in the world still zoned for one-unit dwellings only. The limit of luxury, he thought. One-unit dwellings were a vanishing phenomenon in the world.

The freeway branched; he turned to the right, following the sign. Presently SLOW warnings appeared. Ahead he saw a gate blocking the road; astonished, he brought his rented taxi to a halt. Was this development legally able to screen visitors? Apparently it was; the law sanctioned it. He saw several men in ornate uniforms—like ancient Latin American dictator garb— standing at stopped cars, inspecting the occupants. And, he saw, several of the cars were being turned back.

When the official had sauntered over to him, Barris said in a brusque voice, “Unity business.”

The man shrugged. “Are you expected?” he asked in a bored tone.

“Listen,” Barris began but the man was already pointing back at the through freeway. Subsiding, Barris said with great restraint, “I want to see Mrs. Arthur Pitt. Her husband was killed in the line of duty and I’m here expressing official regrets.” That was actually not true, but it was near enough.

“I’ll ask her if she wishes to see you,” the uniformed man, heavy with medals and decorations, said. He took Barris’ name; the fact that he was a Director did not seem to impress him. Going off, he spent some time at a portable vidscreen, and then he returned with a more pleasant expression on his face. “Mrs. Pitt is willing to have you admitted,” he said. And the gate was drawn aside for Barris’ rented taxi to pass.

Somewhat disconcerted by the experience, Barris drove on. Now he found himself surrounded by small, modern, brightly colored houses, all neat and trim, and each unique; he did not see two alike. He switched the automatic beam, and the taxi obediently hooked in to the circuit of the development. Otherwise, Barris realized, he would never find the house.

When the cab pulled over to the curb and stopped, he saw a slim, dark-haired young woman coming down the front steps of the house. She wore a wide-brimmed Mexican-style hat to protect her head from the midday African sun; from beneath the hat ringlets of black hair sparkled, the long Middle Eastern style so popular of late. On her feet she had sandals, and she wore a ruffled dress with bows and petticoats.

“I’m dreadfully sorry that you were treated that way, Director,” she said in a low, toneless voice as he opened the door of the cab. “You understand that those uniformed guards are robots.”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know. But it isn’t important.” He surveyed her, seeing, he decided, one of the prettiest women that he had ever come across. Her face had a look of shock, a residue from the terrible news of her husband’s death. But she seemed composed; she led him up the steps to the house walking very slowly.

“I believe I saw you once,” she said as they reached the porch. “At a meeting of Unity personnel at which Arthur and I were present. You were on the platform, of course. With Mr. Dill.”

The living room of the house, he noticed, was furnished as Taubmann had said. He saw Early New England oak furniture on every side.

“Please sit down,” Mrs. Pitt said.

As he gingerly seated himself on a delicate-looking straight-backed chair, he thought to himself that for this woman being married to a Unity official had been a profitable career. “You have very nice things here,” he said.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Pitt said, seating herself opposite him on a couch. “I’m sorry,” she said, “if my responses seem slow. When I got the news I had myself put under sedation. You can understand.” Her voice trailed off.

Barris said, “Mrs. Pitt—”

“My name is Rachel,” she said.

“All right,” he said. He paused. Now that he was here, facing this woman, he did not know what to say; he was not sure, now, why he had come here.

“I know what’s on your mind,” Rachel Pitt said. “I put pressure on my husband to seek out active service so that we could have a comfortable home.”

To that, Barris said nothing.

“Arthur was responsible to Director Taubmann,” Rachel Pitt said. “I ran into Taubmann several times, and he made clear how he felt about me; it didn’t particularly bother me at the time, but of course with Arthur dead—” She broke off. “It isn’t true, of course. Living this way was Arthur’s idea. I would have been glad to give it up any time; I didn’t want to be stuck out here in this housing development, away from everything.” For a moment she was silent. Reaching to the coffee table she took a package of cigarettes. “I was born in London,” she said, as she lit a cigarette. “All my life I lived in a city, either in London or New York. My family wasn’t very well off—my father was a tailor, in fact. Arthur’s family has quite a good deal of money; I think he got his taste in interior decorating from his mother.” She gazed at Barris. “This doesn’t interest you. I’m sorry. Since I heard, I haven’t been able to keep my thoughts in order.”

“Are you all by yourself here?” he said. “Do you know anyone in the development?”

“No one that I want to depend on,” she said. “Mostly you’ll find ambitious young wives here. Their husbands all work for Unity; that goes without saying. Otherwise, how could they afford to live here?” Her tone was so bitter that he was amazed.

“What do you think you’ll do?” he said.

Rachel Pitt said, “Maybe I’ll join the Healers.”

He did not know how to react. So he said nothing. This is a highly distraught woman, he thought. The grief, the calamity that she’s involved in . . . or is she always like this? He had no way of telling.

“How much do you know about the circumstances surrounding Arthur’s death?” she asked.

“I know most of the data,” Barris said cautiously.

“Do you believe he was killed by—” She grimaced. “A mob? A bunch of unorganized people? Farmers and shopkeepers, egged on by some old man in a robe?” Suddenly she sprang to her feet and hurled her cigarette against the wall; it rolled near him and he bent reflexively to retrieve it. “That’s just the usual line they put out,” she said. “I know better. My husband was murdered by someone in Unity—someone who was jealous of him, who envied him and everything he had achieved. He had a lot of enemies; every man with any ability who gets anywhere in the organization is hated.” She subsided slightly, pacing about the room with her arms folded, her face strained and distorted. “Does this distress you?” she said at last. “To see me like this? You probably imagined some little clinging vine of a woman sobbing quietly to herself. Do I disappoint you? Forgive me.” Her voice trembled with fury.

Barris said, “The facts as they were presented to me—”

“Don’t kid me,” Rachel said in a deadly, harsh voice. And then she shuddered and put her hands against her cheeks. “Is it all in my mind? He was always telling me about people in his office plotting to get rid of him, trying to get him in bad. Carrying tales. Part of being in Unity, he always said. The only way you can get to the top is push someone else away from the top.” She stared at Barris wildly. “Who did you murder to get your job? How many men dead, so you could be Director? That’s what Arthur was aiming for—that was his dream.”

“Do you have any proof?” he said. “Anything to go on that would indicate that someone in the organization was involved?” It did not seem even remotely credible to him that someone in Unity could have been involved in the death of Arthur Pitt; more likely this woman’s ability to handle reality had been severely curtailed by the recent tragedy. And yet, such things had happened, or at least so it was believed.

“My husband’s official Unity car,” Rachel said steadily, “had a little secret scanning device mounted on the dashboard. I saw the reports, and it was mentioned in them. When Director Taubmann was talking to me on the vidphone, do you know what I did? I didn’t listen to his speech; I read the papers he had on his desk.” Her voice rose and wavered. “One of the people who broke into Arthur’s car knew about that scanner—
he shut it off.
Only someone in the organization could have known; even Arthur didn’t know. It had to be someone up high.” Her black eyes flashed. “Someone at Director level.”

“Why?” Barris said, disconcerted.

“Afraid my husband would rise and threaten him. Jeopardize his job. Possibly eventually take his job from him, become Director in his place. Taubmann, I mean.” She smiled thinly. “You know I mean him. So what are you going to do? Inform on me? Have me arrested for treason and carried off to Atlanta?”

Barris said, “I—I would prefer to give it some thought.”

“Suppose you don’t inform on me. I might be doing this to trap you, to test your loyalty to the system. You
have
to inform— it might be a trick!” She laughed curtly. “Does all this distress you? Now you wish you hadn’t come to express your sympathy; see what you got yourself into by having humane motives?” Tears filled her eyes. “Go away,” she said in a choked, unsteady voice. “What does the organization care about the wife of a dead minor petty fieldworker?”

Barris said, “I’m not sorry I came.”

Going to the door, Rachel Pitt opened it. “You’ll never be back,” she said. “Go on, leave. Scuttle back to your safe office.”

“I think you had better leave this house,” Barris said.

“And go where?”

To that, he had no ready answer. “There’s a cumbersome pension system,” he began. “You’ll get almost as much as your husband was making. If you want to move back to New York or London—”

“Do my charges seriously interest you?” Rachel broke in. “Does it occur to you that I might be right? That a Director might arrange the murder of a talented, ambitious underling to protect his own job? It’s odd, isn’t it, how the police crews are always just a moment late.”

Shaken, ill-at-ease, Barris said, “I’ll see you again. Soon, I hope.”

“Good-bye, Director,” Rachel Pitt said, standing on the front porch of her house as he descended the steps to his rented cab. “Thank you for coming.”

She was still there as he drove off.

As his ship carried him back across the Atlantic to North America, William Barris pondered. Could the Healers have contacts within the Unity organization? Impossible. The woman’s hysterical conviction had overwhelmed him; it was her emotion, not her reason, that had affected him. And yet he himself had been suspicious of Taubmann.

Could it be that Father Fields’ escape from Atlanta had been arranged? Not the work of a single clever man, a deranged man bent on escape and revenge, but the work of dull-witted officials who had been instructed to let the man go?

That would explain why, in two long months, Fields had been given no psychotherapy.

And now what? Barris asked himself acidly. Whom do I tell? Do I confront Taubmann—with absolutely no facts? Do I go to Jason Dill?

One other point occurred to him. If he ever did run afoul of Taubmann, if the man ever attacked him for any reason, he had an ally in Mrs. Pitt; he had someone to assist him in a counterattack.

And, Barris realized grimly, that was valuable in the Unity system, someone to back up your charges—if not with evidence, at least with added assertion. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, he said to himself. Someone should look into Taubmann’s relationship with Father Fields. The customary procedure here would be to send an unsigned statement to Jason Dill, and let
him
start police spies to work tracing Taubmann, digging up evidence. My own men, Barris realized, could do it; I have good police in my own department. But if Taubmann got wind of it . . .

This is ghastly, he realized with a start. I have to free myself from this vicious cycle of suspicion and fear! I can’t let myself be destroyed; I can’t let that woman’s morbid hysteria infiltrate my own thinking. Madness transmitted from person to person— isn’t that what makes up a mob? Isn’t that the group mind that we’re supposed to be combatting?

I had better not see Rachel Pitt again, he decided.

But already he felt himself drawn to her. A vague but nonetheless powerful yearning had come into existence inside him; he could not pin down the mood. Certainly she was physically attractive, with her long dark hair, her flashing eyes, slender, active body. But she is not psychologically well-balanced, he decided. She would be a terrible liability; any relationship with a woman like that might wreck me. There is no telling which way she might jump. After all, her tie with Unity has been shattered, without warning; all her plans, her ambitions, have been thrown back in her teeth. She’s got to find another entrée, a new technique for advancement and survival.

I made a mistake in looking her up, he thought. What would make a better contact than a Director? What could be of more use to her?

When he had gotten back to his own offices, he at once gave instructions that no calls from Mrs. Arthur Pitt be put through to him; any messages from her were to be put through proper channels, which meant that regular agencies—and clerks— would be dealing with her.