"Don't ask me, I just work here." The clerk threw three thick volumes onto
the counter, each one over a foot square and almost as thick, with a chain
riveted to the spine. "Find your own way, here's your floor plan, but you have
to sign for it. Losing it is a courts-martial offense punishable by . . ."
The clerk suddenly realized that he was alone in the room with the three
veterans, and as he blanched white he reached out for a red button. But before
his finger could touch it the gunner's metal arm, spitting sparks and smoking,
pinned it to the counter. The sergeant leaned over until his face was an inch
from the clerk's then spoke in a low, chill voice that curdled the blood.
"We will not find our own way. You will find our way for us. You will provide
us with a Guide."
"Guides are only for officers," the clerk protested weakly, then gasped as a
steel-bar finger ground him in the stomach.
"Treat us like officers," the sergeant breathed. "We don't mind."
With chattering teeth the clerk ordered a guide, and a small metal door in
the far wall crashed open. The Guide had a tubular metal body that ran on six
rubber-tired wheels, a head fashioned to resemble a hound dog's, and a springy
metal tail. "Here, boy," the sergeant commanded, and the Guide rushed over to
him, slipped out a red plastic tongue, and, with a slight grinding of gears,
began to emit the sound of mechanical panting. The sergeant took the length of
printed tape and quickly punched the code 1457-D K9 823-7 492 FLM 34 62 on the
buttons that decorated the Guide's head. There were two sharp barks, the red
tongue vanished, the tail vibrated, and the Guide rolled away down the
corridor. The veterans followed.
It took them an hour, by slideway, escalator, elevator, pneumocar, shanks'
mare, monorail, moving sidewalk, and greased pole to reach room 62. While they
were seated on the slideway they secured the chains of their floor plans to
their belts, since even Bill was beginning to realize the value of a guide to
this world-sized city. At the door to room 62 the Guide barked three times,
then rolled away before they could grab it.
"Should have been quicker," the sergeant said. "Those things are worth their
weight in diamonds." He pushed the door open to reveal a fat man seated at a
desk shouting into a visisphone.
"I don't give a flying bowb what your excuses are, excuses I can buy
wholesale. All I know is I got a production schedule and the cameras are ready
to roll and where are my principals? I ask you-and what do you tell me-" he
looked up and began to scream, "Out! Out! Can't you see I'm busy!"
The sergeant reached over and threw the visisphone onto the floor then
stomped it to tiny smoking bits.
"You have a direct way of getting attention," Bill said.
"Two years in combat make you very direct," the sergeant said, and grated his
teeth together in a loud and disturbing way. Then, "Here we are, Ratt, what do
we do?"
Producer Ratt kicked his way through the wreckage and threw open a door
behind the desk. "Places! Lights!" he shrieked, and there was an immense
scurrying and a sudden glare. The to-be-honored veterans followed him through
the door into an immense sound stage humming with organized bustle. Cameras on
motorized dollies rolled around the set where flats and props simulated the end
of a regal throne room. The stained-glass windows glowed with imaginary
sunlight, and a golden sunbeam from a spotlight illuminated the throne. Goaded
on by the director's screamed instructions the crowd of nobility and
high-ranking officers took positions before the throne.
"He called them bowbs!" Bill gasped. "He'll be shot!"
"Are you ever stupid," the gunner said, unreeling a length of flex from his
right leg and plugging it into an outlet to recharge his batteries. "Those are
all actors. You think they can get real nobility for a thing like this?"
"We only got time to run through this once before the Emperor gets here, so
no mistakes." Director Ratt clambered up and settled himself on the throne.
"I'll stand in for the Emp. Now you principals, you got the easiest roles, and
I don't want you to flub it. We got no time for retakes. You get into position
there, that's the stuff, in a row, and when I say roll you snap to attention
like you been taught or the taxpayers been wasting their money. You there, the
guy on the left that's built into the bird cage, keep your damn motors turned
off, you're lousing. up the soundtrack. Grind gears once more and I'll pull all
your fuses. Affirm. You just stay at attention until your name is called, take
one pace forward, and snap into a brace. The Emperor will pin a medal on you,
salute, drop the salute, and take one pace back. You got that, or is it too
complicated for your tiny, indoctrinated minds?"
"Why don't you blow it out!" the sergeant snarled.
"Very witty. All right-let's run through it!"
They rehearsed the ceremony twice before there was a tremendous braying of
bugles, and six generals with deathray .pistols at the ready double-timed onto
the set and halted with their backs to the throne. All of the extras,
cameramen, and technicians-even Director Ratt-bowed low while the veterans
snapped to attention. The Emperor shuffled in, climbed the dais, and dropped
into the throne. "Continue . . . " he said in a bored voice, and belched
lightly behind his hand.
"Let's ROLL!" the director howled at the top of his lungs, and staggered out
of camera range. Music rose up in a mighty wave, and the ceremony began. While
the Awards and Protocol officer read off the nature of the heroic deeds the
noble heroes had accomplished to win that noblest of all medals, the Purple
Dart with Coalsack Nebula Cluster, the Emperor rose from his throne and strode
majestically forward. The infantry sergeant was first, and Bill watched out of
the corner of his eye while the Emperor took an ornate gold, silver, ruby, and
platinum medal from the proferred case and pinned it to the man's chest. Then
the sergeant stepped back into position, and it was Bill's turn. As from an
immense distance he heard his name spoken in rolling tones of thunder, and he
strode forward with every ounce of precision that he had been taught back at
Camp Leon Trotsky. There, just before him, was the most beloved man in the
galaxy! The long and swollen nose that graced a billion banknotes was pointed
toward him. The overshot jaw and protruding teeth that filled a billion TV
screens was speaking his name. One of the imperial strabismic eyes was pointing
at him! Passion welled in Bill's bosom like great breakers thundering onto a
shore. He snapped his snappiest salute.
In fact he snapped just about the snappiest salute possible, since there
aren't very many people with two right arms. Both arms swung up in precise
circles, both elbows quivered at right angles, both palms clicked neatly
against both eyebrows. It was well done and took the Emperor by surprise, and
for one vibrating instant he managed to get both eyeballs pointed at Bill at
the same time before they wandered away at random again. The Emperor, still a
little disturbed by the unusual salute, groped for the medal and plunged the
pin through Bill's tunic squarely into his shivering flesh.
Bill felt no pain, but the sudden stab triggered the growing emotion that had
been rushing through him. Dropping the salutes he fell to his knees in good old
peasant-serf style, just like a historical TV, which in fact was just where his
obsequious subconscious had dredged up the idea from, and seized the Emperor's
knob-knuckled and liver-spotted hand. "Father to us all!" Bill exulted, and
kissed the hand.
Grim-eyed, the bodyguard of generals leaped forward, and death beat sable
wings over Bill, but the Emperor smiled as he pulled his hand gently away and
wiped the saliva off on Bill's tunic. A casual flick of his finger restored the
bodyguard to position, and he moved on to the gunner, pinned on the remaining
medal, and stepped back.
"Cut!" Director Ratt shouted. "Print that, it's a natural with that dumb hick
going through the slobbering act."
As Bill struggled back to his feet he saw that the Emperor had not returned
to the throne but was instead standing in the midst of the milling crowd of
actors. The bodyguard had vanished. Bill blinked, bewildered, as a man whipped
the Emperor's crown from his head, popped it into a box, and hurried away with
it.
"The brake is jammed," the gunner said, still saluting with a vibrating arm.
"Pull the damn thing down for me. It never works right above shoulder level."
"But-the Emperor-" Bill said, tugging at the locked arm until the brakes
squealed and released.
"An actor-what else? Do you think they have the real Emperor giving out
medals to other-ranks? Field grade and higher, I bet. But they put on a bit of
an act with him so some poor rube, like you, can get carried away. You were
great."
"Here you are," a man said, handing them both stamped metal copies of the
medals they were wearing and whipping off the originals.
"Places!" the director's amplified voice boomed. "We got just ten minutes to
run through the Empress and the baby kissing with the Aldebranian septuplets
for the Fertility Hour. Get those plastic babies out here, and get those damn
spectators off the set."
The heroes were pushed into the corridor and the door slammed and locked
behind them.
II
"I'm tired," the gunner said, "and besides, my burns hurt." He had had a short
circuit during action in the Enlisted Men's Olde Knocking Shoppe and had set
the bed on fire.
"Aw, come on," Bill insisted. "We have three-day passes before our ship
leaves, and we are on Helior, the Imperial Planet! What riches there are to
see here, the Hanging Gardens, the Rainbow Fountains, the Jeweled Palaces.
You can't miss them."
"Just watch me. As soon as I catch up on some sleep it's back to the Olde
Knocking Shoppe for me. If you're so hot on someone holding your hand while
you go sightseeing, take the sergeant."
"He's still drunk."
The infantry sergeant was a solitary drinker who did not believe in cutting
comers. Neither did he believe in dilution or in wasting money on fancy
packaging. He had used all of his money to bribe a medical orderly and had
obtained two carboys of 99 per cent pure grain alcohol, a drum of glucose
and saline solution, a hypodermic needle, and a length of rubber tubing.
The ethyl-glucose-saline mixture in carboys had been slung from a rafter over
his bunk with the tubing leading to the needle plunged into his arm and taped
into place as an intravenous drip. Now he was unmoving, well fed, and
completely blind-drunk all the time, and if the metered flow were undisturbed
he should stay drunk for two and a half years.
Bill put a finishing gloss on his boots and locked the brush into his locker
with the rest of his gear. He might be late getting back. it was easy to get
lost here on Helior when you didn't have a Guide. It had taken them almost an
entire day to find their way from the studio to their quarters even with the
sergeant, a man who knew all about maps, leading the way. As long as they
stayed near their own area there was no problem, but Bill had had his fill
of the homely pleasures provided for the fighting men. He wanted to see
Helior, the real Hehor, the first city of the galaxy. If no one would go with
him, he would do it alone.
It was very hard, in spite. of the floor plan, to tell just exactly how far
away anything was on Helior, since the diagrams were all diagrammatic and had
no scale. But the trip he was planning seemed to be a long one, since one of
the key bits of transportation, an evacuated tunnellinear magnetic car, went
across at least eighty-four submaps. His destination might very well be on the
other side of the planetl A city as large as a planet] The concept was almost
too big to grasps In fact, when he thought about it, the concept was too big
to grasp.
The sandwiches he had bought from the dispenser in the barracks ran out
before he was halfway to his destination, and his stomach, greedily getting
adjusted to solid food again, rumbled complaints until he left the slideway
in Area 9266-L, Level something or other, or wherever the hell he was, and
looked for a canteen. He was obviously in a Typing Area, because the crowds
were composed almost completely of women with rounded shoulders and great,
long fingers. The only canteen he could find was jammed with them, and he
sat in the middle of the high-pitched, yattering crowd and forced himself to
eat a meal composed of the only available food:
dated-fruitbreadcheese-and-anchovy-paste sandwiches and mashed potatoes with
raisin and onion sauce, washed down by herb tea served lukewarm in cups the
size of his thumb. It wouldn't have been so bad if the dispenser hadn't
automatically covered everything with butterscotch sauce. None of the girls
seemed to notice him, since they were all under light hypnosis during the
working day in order to cut down their error percentages. He worked his way
through the food feeling very much like a ghost as they tittered and yammered
over and around him, their fingers, if they weren't eating, compulsively
typing their words onto the edge of the table while they talked. He finally
escaped, but the meal had had a depressing effect, and this was probably where
he made the mistake and boarded the wrong car.
Since the same level and block numbers were repeated in every area, it was
possible to get into the wrong area and spend a good deal of time getting good
and lost before the mistake was finally realized. Bill did this, and after the
usual astronomical number of changes and varieties of transportation he boarded
the elevator that terminated, he thought, in the galaxy-famed Palace Gardens.
All of the other passengers got off on lower levels, and the robelevator picked
up speed as it hurtled up to the topmost level. He rose into the air as it
braked to a stop, and his ears popped with the pressure change, and when the
doors opened he stepped out into a snow-filled wind. He gaped about with
unbelief and behind him the doors snicked shut and the elevator vanished.
The doors had opened directly onto the metal plain that made up the topmost
layer of the city, now obscured by the swirling clouds of snow. Bill groped
for the button to recall the elevator, when a vagrant swirl of wind whipped
the snow away and the warm sun beat down on him from the cloudless sky. This
was impossible.
"This is impossible," Bill said with forthright indignation.
"Nothing is impossible if I will it," a scratchy voice spoke from behind
Bill's shoulder. "For I am the Spirit of Life."
Bill skittered sideways like a homeostatic robhorse, rolling his eyes at the
small, white-whiskered man with a twitching nose and red-rimmed eyes who had
appeared soundlessly behind him.
"You got a leak in your think-tank," Bill snapped, angry at himself for
being so goosy.
"You'd be nuts, too, on this job," the little man sobbed, and knuckled a
pendant drop from his nose. "Half-froze, halfcooked and half-wiped out most of
the time on oxy. The Spirit of Life," he quavered, "mine is the power . . ."
"Now that you mention it," Bill's words were muffled by a sudden flurry of
snow, "I am feeling a bit high myself. Wheeee . . . !!" The wind veered and
swept the occluding clouds of snow away, and Bill gaped at the suddenly
revealed view.
Slushy snow and pools of water spotted the surface as far as he could see.
The golden coating had been worn away, and the metal was gray and pitted
beneath, streaked with ruddy rivulets of rust. Rows of great pipes, each
thicker than a man is tall, snaked toward him from over the horizon and ended
in funnel like mouths. The funnels were obscured by whirling clouds of vapor
and snow that shot high into the air with a hushed roar, though one of the
vapor columns collapsed and the cloud dispersed while Bill watched.
"Number eighteen blown!" the old man shouted into a microphone, grabbed a
clipboard from the wall, and kicked his way through the slush toward a rusty
and dilapidated walkway that groaned and rattled along parallel with the pipes.
Bill followed, shouting at the man, who now completely ignored him. As the
walkway, clanking and swaying, carried them along, Bill began to wonder just
where the pipes led, and after a minute, when his head cleared a bit,
curiosity got the better of him and he strained ahead to see what the
mysterious bumps were on the horizon. They slowly resolved themselves into a
row of giant spaceships, each one connected to one of the thick pipes. With
unexpected agility the old man sprang from the walkway and bounded toward the
ship at station eighteen, where the tiny figures of workers, high up, were
disconnecting the seals that joined the ship to the pipe. The old man copied
numbers from a meter attached to the pipe, while Bill watched a crane swing
over with the end of a large, flexible hose that emerged from the surface they
were standing on. It was attached to the valve on top of the spaceship. A
rumbling vibration shook the hose, and from around the seal to the ship emerged
puffs of black cloud that drifted over the stained metal plain.
"Could I ask just what the hell is going on here?" Bill said plaintively.
"Life! Life everlasting!" the old man crowed, swinging up from the glooms of
his depression toward the heights of manic elation.
"Could you be a little more specific?"
"Here is a world sheathed in metal," he stamped his foot and there was a dull
boom. "What does that mean?"
"It means the world is sheathed in metal."
"Correct. For a trooper you show a remarkable turn of intelligence. So you
take a planet and cover it with metal, and you got a planet where the only
green growing things are in the Imperial Gardens and a couple of window boxes.
Then what do you have?"
"Everybody dead," Bill said, for after all, he was a farm boy and up on all
the photosynthesis and chlorophyll bowb.
"Correct again. You and. I and the Emperor and a couple of billion other
slobs are working away turning all the oxygen into carbon dioxide, and with no
plants around to turn it back into oxygen and if we keep at it long enough we
breathe ourselves to death."
"Then these ships are bringing in liquid oxygen?"
The old man bobbed his head and jumped back .onto the slideway; Bill
followed. "Affirm. They get it for free on the agricultural planets. And after
they empty here they load up with carbon extracted at great expense from the
CO, and whip back with it to the hickworlds, where it is burned for fuel, used
for fertilizer, combined into numberless plastics and other products . . ."
Bill stepped from the slideway at the nearest elevator, while the old man and
his voice vanished into the vapor, and crouching down, his head pounding from
the oxy jag, he began flipping furiously through his floor plan. While he
waited for the elevator he found his place from the code number on the door and
began to plot a new course toward the Palace Gardens.
This time he did not allow himself to be distracted. By only eating candy
bars and drinking carbonated beverages from the dispensers along his route he
avoided the dangers and distractions of the eateries, and by keeping himself
awake he avoided missing connections. With black bags under his eyes and teeth
rotting in his head he stumbled from a gravshaft and with- thudding heart
finally saw a florally decorated and colorfully illuminated scentsign that said
HANGING GARDENS There was an entrance turnstile and a cashier's window.
"One please."
"That'll be ten imperial bucks."
"Isn't that a little expensive?" he said peevishly, unrolling the bills one
by one from his thin wad.
"If you're poor, don't come to Helior."
The cashier-robot was primed with all the snappy answers. Bill ignored it and
pushed through into the gardens. They were everything he had ever dreamed of
and more. As he walked down the gray cinder path inside the outer wall he could
see green shrubs and grass just on the other side of the titanium mesh fence.
No more than a hundred yards away, on the other side of the grass, were
floating, colorful plants and flowers from all the worlds of the Empire. And
there! Tiny in the distance were the Rainbow Fountains, almost visible to the
naked eye. Bill slipped a coin into one of the telescopes and watched their
colors glow and wane, and it was just as good as seeing it on TV. He went on,
circling inside the wall, bathed by the light of the artificial sun in the
giant dome above.
But even the heady pleasures of the gardens waned in the face of the
soul-consuming fatigue that gripped him in iron hands. There were steel benches
pegged to the wall, and he dropped onto one to rest for a moment, then closed
his eyes for a second to ease the glare. His chin dropped onto his chest, and
before he realized it he was sound asleep. Other visitors scrunched by on the
cinders without disturbing him, nor did he move when one sat down at the far
end of the bench.
Since Bill never saw this man there is no point in describing him. Suffice to
say that he had sallow skin, a broken, reddened nose, feral eyes peering from
under a simian brow, wide hips and narrow shoulders, mismatched feet, lean,
knobby, dirty fingers, and a twitch.
Long seconds of eternity ticked by while the man sat there. Then for a few
moments there were no other visitors in sight. With a quick, snakelike motion
the newcomer whipped an atomic arc-pencil from his pocket. The small,
incredibly hot flame whispered briefly as he pressed it against the chain that
secured Bill's floor plan to his waist, just at the point where the looped
chain rested on the metal bench. In a trice the metal of the chain was welded
fast to the metal of the bench. Still undisturbed, Bill slept on.
A wolfish grin flickered across the man's face like the evil rings formed in
sewer water by a diving rat. Then, with a single swift motion, the atomic
flame severed the chain near the volume. Pocketing the arc-pencil the thief
rose, plucked Bill's floor plan from his lap, and strode quickly away.
III
At first Bill didn't appreciate the magnitude of his loss. He swam slowly up
out of his sleep, thickheaded, with the feeling that something was wrong. Only
after repeated tugging did he realize that the chain was stuck fast to the
bench and that the book was gone. The chain could not be freed, and in the end
he had to unfasten it from his belt and leave it dangling. Retracing his steps
to the entrance, he knocked on the cashier's window.
"No refunds," the robot said.
"I want to report a crime."
"The police handle crime. You want to talk to the police. You talk to the
police on a phone. Here is a phone. The number is 111-11-111." A small door
slid open, and a phone popped out, catching Bill in the chest and knocking him
back on his heels. He dialed the number.
"Police," a voice said, and a bulldog-faced sergeant wearing a Prussian blue
uniform and a scowl appeared on the screen.
"I want to report a theft."
"Grand larceny or petty larceny?"
"I don't know, it was my floor plan that was stolen."
"Petty larceny. Proceed to your nearest police station. This is an emergency
circuit, and you are tying it up illegally. The penalty for illegally tying up
an emergency circuit is . . ." Bill jammed hard on the button and the screen
went blank. He turned back to the robot cashier.
"No refunds," it said. Bill snarled impatiently.
"Shut up. All I want to know is where the nearest police station is."
"I am a cashier robot, not an information robot. That information is not in
my memory. I suggest you consult your floor plan."
"But it's my floor plan that has been stolen!"
"I suggest you talk to the police."
"But . . ." Bill turned red and kicked the cashier's box angrily. "No
refunds," it said as he stalked away.
"Drinky, drinky, make you stinky," a robot bar said, rolling up and
whispering in his ear. It made the sound of ice cubes rattling in a frosty
glass.
"A damn good idea. Beer. A large one." He pushed coins into its money slot
and clutched at the dispos-a-stein that rattled down the chute and almost
bounced to the ground. It cooled and refreshed him and calmed his anger. He
looked at the sign that said To THE JEWELED PALACE. "I'll go to the palace,
have a look-see, then find someone there who can direct me to the police
station. Ouchl" The robot bar had pulled the dispos-a-stein from his hand,
almost taking his forefinger with it, and with unerring robotic aim hurled it
thirty-two feet into the open mouth of a rubbish shaft that projected from a
wall.
The Jeweled Palace appeared to be about as accessible as the Hanging Gardens,
and he decided to report the theft before paying his way into the grilled
enclosure that circled the palace at an awesome distance. There was a policeman
hanging out his belly and idly spinning his club near the entrance who should
know where the police station was.
"Where's the police station?" Bill asked.
"I ain't no information booth-use your floor plan."
"lout"-through teeth tightly clamped together-"I cannot. My floor plan has
been stolen and that is why I want to find Yipe!"
Bill said Yipe! because the policeman, with a practiced motion, had jammed
the end of his club up into Bill's armpit and pushed him around the comer with
it.
"I used to be a trooper myself before I bought my way out," the officer said.
"I would enjoy your reminiscences more if you took the club out of my
armpit," Bill moaned, then sighed gratefully as the club vanished.
"Since I used to be a trooper I don't want to see a buddy with the Purple
Dart with Coalsack Nebula Cluster get into trouble. I am also an honest cop and
don't take bribes, but if a buddy was to loan me twenty-five bucks until payday
I would be much obliged."
Bill had been born stupid, but he was learning. The money appeared and
vanished swiftly, and the cop relaxed, clacking the end of his club against his
yellow teeth.
"Let me tell you something, pal, before you make any official statements to
me in my official capacity, since up to now we have just been talking
buddy-buddy. There are a lot of ways to get into trouble here on Helior, but
the easiest is to lose your floor plan. It is a hanging offense on Helior. I
know a guy what went into the station to report that someone got his plan and
they slapped the cuffs on him inside ten seconds, maybe five. Now what was it
you wanted to say to me?"
"You got a match?"
"I don't smoke."
"Good-by."
"Take it easy, pal."
Bill scuttled around another corner and leaned against the wall breathing
deeply. Now what? He could barely find his way around this place with the
plan-how could he do it without one? There was a leaden weight pulling at his
insides that he tried to ignore. He forced away the feeling of terror and
tried to think. But thinking made him lightheaded. It seemed like years since
he had had a good meal, and thinking of food he began to pump saliva at such a
great rate that he almost drowned. Food, that's what he needed, food for
thought; he had to relax over a nice, juicy steak, and when the inner man was
satisfied he would be able to think clearly and find a way out of this mess.
There must be a way out. He had almost a full day left before he was due back
from leave; there was plenty of time. Staggering around a sharp bend he came
out into a high tunnel brilliant with lights, the most brilliant of which was
a sign that said THE GOLD SPACE SUIT.
"The Gold Space Suit," Bill said. "That's more like it. Galaxy-famous on
countless TV programs, what a restaurant, that's the way to build up the old
morale. It'll be expensive, but what the hell . . ."
Tightening his belt and straightening his collar, he strode up the wide gold
steps and through the imitation spacelock. The headwaiter beckoned him and
smiled, soft music wafted his way and the floor opened beneath his feet.
Scratching helplessly at the smooth walls, he shot down the golden tube which
turned gradually until, when he emerged, he shot through the air and fell,
sprawling, into a dusty metal alleyway. Ahead of him, painted on the wall with
foot-high letters, was the imperious message, GET LOST BUM.
He stood and dusted himself, and a robot sidled over and crooned in his ear
with the voice of a .young and lovely girl, "I bet you're hungry, darling. Why
not try Giuseppe Singh's neo-Indian curried pizza? You're just a few steps from
Singh's, directions are on the back of the card."
The robot took a card from a slot in its chest and put it carefully into
Bill's mouth. It was a cheap and badly adjusted robot. Bill spluttered the
soggy card out and wiped it on his handkerchief.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I bet you're hungry, darling, grrrr-ark." The robot switched to another
recorded message, cued by Bill's question. "You have just been ejected from The
Gold Space Suit, galaxy-famous on countless TV programs, because you are a
cheap bum. When you entered this establishment you were X-rayed and the
contents of your pockets automatically computed. Since the contents of your
pockets obviously fell below the minimum with cover charge, one drink, and tax,
you were ejected. But you are still hungry, aren't you darling?" The robot
leered, and the dulcet, sexy voice poured from between the broken gaps of its
mouthptate. "C'mon down to Singh's where food is good and cheap. Try Singh's
yummy lasagna with dhal and lime sauce."
Bill went, not because he wanted some loathsome Bombay-Italian concoction,
but because of the map and instructions on the back of the card. There was a
feeling of security in knowing he was going from somewhere to somewhere again,
following the directions, clattering down this stair well, drop. ping in that
gravchute, grabbing for a place in the right hookway. After one last turning
his nose was assaulted` by a wave of stale fat, old garlic, and charred flesh,
and he knew he was there.
The food was incredibly expensive and far worse than he had ever imagined it
could be, but it stilled the painful rumbling in his stomach, by direct assault
if not by pleasant satiation. With one fingernail he attempted to pry horrible
pieces of gristle from between his teeth while he looked at the man across the
table from him, who was moaning as he forced down spoonfuls of something
nameless. His tablemate was dressed in colorful holiday clothes and looked a
fat, ruddy, and cheerful type.
"Hi . . . !" Bill said, smiling.
"Go drop dead," the man snarled.
"All I said was Hi." Petulantly.
"That's enough. Everyone who has bothered to talk to me in the sixteen hours
I been on this so-called pleasure planet has cheated or screwed me or stolen
my money one way or another. I am next to broke and I still have six days left
of my See Helior and Live tour."
"I only wanted to ask you if I could sort of look through your floor plan
while you were eating."
"I told you, everyone is out to screw me out of something. Drop dead."
"Please."
"I'll do it-for twenty-five bucks, cash in advance, and only as long as I'm
eating."
"Done!" Bill slapped the money down, whipped under the table, and, sitting
cross-legged, began to flip furiously through the volume, writing down travel
instructions as fast as he could plot a course. Above him the fat man
continued to eat and groan, and whenever he hit a particularly bad mouthful
he would jerk the chain and make Bill lose his place. Bill had charted a route
almost halfway to the haven of the Transit Ranker's Center before the man
pulled the book away and stamped out.
When Odysseus returned from his terror-haunted voyage he spared Penelope's
ears the incredible details of his journey. When Richard Lion-Heart, freed
finally from his dungeon, came home from the danger-filled years of the
Crusades, he did .not assault Queen Berengaria's sensibilities with horrorfull
anecdotes; he simply greeted her and unlocked her chastity belt. Neither will
I, gentle reader, profane your hearing with the dangers and despairs of Bill's
journeyings, for they are beyond imagining. Suffice to say he did it. He
reached the T.R.C.
Through red-rimmed eyes he blinked at the sign, TRANSIT RANKERS' CENTER it
said, then had to lean against the wall as relief made his knees weak. He had
done it! He had only overstayed his leave by eight days, and that couldn't
matter too much. Soon now he would be back in the friendly arms of the troopers
again, away from the endless miles of metal corridors, the constantly rushing
crowds, the slipways, slideways, gravdrops, hellavators, suctionlifts, and all
the rest. He would get stinking drunk with his buddies and let the alcohol
dissolve the memories of his terrible travels, try to forget the endless horror
of those days of wandering without food or water or sound of human voice,
endlessly stumbling through the. Stygian stacks in the Carbon Paper Levels. It
was all behind .him now. He dusted his scruffy uniform, shamefully aware of the
rips, crumplings, and missing buttons that defaced it. If he could get into the
barracks without being stopped he would change uniforms before reporting to the
orderly room.
A few heads turned his way, but he made it all right through the day room and
into the barracks. Only his mattress was rolled up, his blankets were- gone and
his locker empty. It was beginning to look as though he was in trouble, and
trouble in the troopers is never a simple thing. Repressing a cold feeling of
despair he washed up a bit in the latrine, took a stiffening drink from the
cold tap, then dragged his feet to the orderly room. The first sergeant was at
his desk, a giant, powerful, sadistic-looking man with dark skin the same color
as that of his old buddy Tembo. He held a plastic doll dressed in a captain's
uniform in one hand, and was pushing straightened-out paper clips into it with
the other. Without turning his head he roiled his eyes toward Bill and scowled.
"You're in bad trouble, trooper, coming into the orderly room out of uniform
like that."
"I'm in worse trouble than you think, Sarge," Bill said leaning weakly on the
desk. The sergeant stared at Bill's mismatched hands, his eyes flickering back
and forth quickly from one to the other.
"Where did you get that hand, trooper? Speak up! I know that hand."
"It belonged to a buddy of mine, and I have the arm that goes with it too."
Anxious to get onto any subject other than his military crimes, Bill held the
hand out for the sergeant to look at. But he was horrified when the fingers
tensed into a rockhard fist, the muscles bunched on his arm and the fist flew
forward to catch the first sergeant square on the jaw and knocked him backward
off his chair ass over applecart. "Sergeant!" Bill screamed, and grabbed the
rebellious hand with his other and forced it, not without a struggle, back to
his side.
The sergeant rose slowly, and Bill backed away, shuddering. He could not
believe it when the sergeant reseated himself and Bill saw that he saw smiling.
"Thought I knew that hand, belongs to my old buddy Tembo. We always joked
like that. You take good care of that arm, you hear? Is there any more of
Tembo around?" and when Bill said no, he knocked out a quick tom-tom beat on
the edge of the desk. "Well, he's gone to the Big Ju-ju Rite in the Sky." The
smile vanished and the snarl reappeared. "You're in bad trouble, trooper. Let's
see your ID card."
He whipped it from Bill's nerveless fingers and shoved it into a slot in the
desk. Lights flickered, the mechanism hummed and vibrated and a screen lit up.
The first sergeant read the message there, and as he did the snarl faded from
his face and was replaced by an expression of cold anger. When he turned back
to Bill his eyes were narrowed slits that pinned him with a gaze that could
curdle milk in an instant or destroy minor life forms like rodents or
cockroaches. It chilled Bill's blood in his veins and sent a shiver through his
body that made it sway like a tree in the wind.
"Where did you steal this ID card? Who are you?"
On the third try Bill managed to force words between his paralyzed lips.
"It's me . . . that's my card . . . I'm me, Fuse Tender First Class Bill . . ."
"You are a liar." A fingernail uniquely designed for ripping out jugular
veins flicked at the card. "This card must be stolen, because First Class Fuse
Tender Bil shipped out of here eight days ago. That is what the record says,
and records do not lie. You've had it, Bowb." He depressed a red button labeled
MILITARY POLICE, and an alarm bell could be heard ringing angrily in the
distance. Bill shuffled his feet, and his eyes rolled, searching for some way
to escape. "Hold him there, Tembo," the sergeant snapped, "I want to get to the
bottom of this."
Bill's left-right arm grabbed the edge of the desk, and he couldn't pry it
lose. He was still struggling with it when heavy boots thudded up behind him.
"What's up?" a familiar voice growled.
"Impersonation of a non-commissioned officer plus lesser charges that don't
matter because the first charge alone calls for electro-arc lobectomy and
thirty lashes."
"Oh, sir," Bill laughed, spinning about and feasting his eyes on a
long-loathed figure. "Deathwish Drangi Tell them you know me."
One of the two men was the usual red-hatted, clubbed, gunned, and polished
brute in human form. But the other one could only be Deathwish.
"Do you know the prisoner?" the first sergeant asked.
Deathwish squinted, rolling his eyes the length of Bill's body. "I knew a
Sixth-class fuse-fingerer named Bill, but both his hands matched. Something
very strange here. We'll rough him up a bit in the guardhouse and let you know
what he confesses."
"Affirm. But watch out for that left hand. It belongs to a friend of mine."
"Won't lay a finger on it."
"But I am Billl" Bill shouted. "That's me, my card, I can prove it."
"An imposter," the sergeant said, and pointed to the controls on his desk.
"The records say that First Class Fuse Tender Bil shipped out of here eight
days ago. And records don't lie." '
"Records can't lie, or there would be no order in the universe," Deathwish
said, grinding his club deep into Bill's gut and shoving him toward the door.
"Did those back-ordered thumbscrews come in yet?" he asked the other MP.
It could only have been fatigue that caused Bill to do what he did then.
Fatigue, desperation, and fear combined and overpowered him, for at heart he
was a good trooper and had learned to be Brave and Clean and Reverent arid
Heterosexual and all the rest. But every man has his breaking point, and Bill
had reached his. He had faith in the impartial working of justice-never having
learned any better-but it was the thought of torture that bugged him. When his
fear-crazed eyes saw the sign on the wall that read LAUNDRY, a synapse closed
without conscious awareness on his part, and he leaped forward, his sudden
desperate action breaking the grip on his arm. Escapel Behind that flap on the
wall must lie a laundry chute with a pile of nice soft sheets and towels at the
bottom that would ease his fall. He could get awayl Ignoring the harsh,
beastlike cries of the MPs, he dived headfirst through the opening.
He fell about four feet, landed headfirst, and almost brained himself. There
was not a chute here but a deep, strong metal laundry basket.
Behind him the MPs beat at the swinging flap, but they could not budge it,
since Bill's legs had jammed up behind it and stopped it from swinging open.
"It's locked!" Deathwish cried. "We've been hadl Where does this laundry
chute go?" Making the same mistaken assumption as Bill.
"I don't know, I'm a new man here myself," the other man gasped.
"You'll be new man in the electric chair if we don't find that bowb!"
The voices dimmed as the heavy boots thudded away, and Bill stirred. His neck
was twisted at an odd angle and hurt, his knees crunched into his chest, and he
was half suffocated by the cloth jammed into his face. He tried to straighten
his legs and pushed against the metal wall; there was a click as something
snapped, and he fell forward as the laundry basket dropped out into the
serviceway on the other side of the wall.
"There he is!" a familiarly hateful voice shouted, and Bill staggered away.
The running boots were just behind him when he came to the gravchute and once
more dived headfirst, with considerably greater success this time. As the
apoplectic MPs sprang-in after him the automatic cycling circuit spaced them
all out a good fifteen feet apart. It was a slow, drifting fall, and Bill's
vision finally cleared and he looked up and shuddered at the sight of
Deathwish's fang-filled physiognomy drifting down behind him.
"Old buddy," Bill sobbed, clasping his hands prayerfully. "Why are you
chasing me?"
"Don't buddy me, you Chinger spy. You're not even a good spy-your arms don't
match." As he dropped Deathwish pulled his gun free of the holster and aimed it
squarely between Bill's eyes. "Shot while attempting to escape."
"Have mercy!" Bill pleaded.
"Death to all Chingers." He pulled the trigger.
IV
The bullet plowed slowly out of the cloud of expanding gas and drifted about
two feet toward Bill before the humming gravity field slowed it to a stop. The
simple-minded cycling circuit translated the bullet's speed as mass and assumed
that another body had entered the gravchute and assigned it a position.
Deathwish's fall slowed until he was fifteen feet behind the bullet, while the
other MP also assumed the same relative position behind him. The gap between
Bill and his pursuers was now twice as wide, and he took advantage of this and
ducked out of the exit at the next level. An open elevator beckoned to him
coyly and he was into it and had the door closed before the wildly cursing
Deathwish could emerge from the shaft.
After this, escape was simply a matter of muddling his trail. He used
different means of transportation at random, and all the time kept fleeing to
lower levels as though seeking to escape like a mole by burrowing deep into the
ground. It was exhaustion that stopped him finally, dropping him in his tracks,
slumped against a wall and panting like a triceratops in heat. Gradually he
became aware of his surroundings and realized that he had come lower than he
had ever been before. The corridors were gloomier and older, made of steel
plates riveted together. Massive pillars, some a hundred feet or more in
diameter, broke the smoothness of the walls, great structures that supported
the mass of the world-city above. Most of the doors he saw were locked and
bolted, hung with elaborate seals. It was darker, too, he realized, as he
wearily dragged to his feet and went looking for something to drink: his throat
burned like fire. A drink dispenser was let into the wall ahead and was
different from most of the ones he was used to in that it had thick steel bars
reinforcing the front of the mechanism and was adorned with a large sign that
read THIS MACHINE PROTECTED BY YOU-COOK-EM BURGLAR ALARMS ANY ATTEMPT TO BREAK
INTO THE MECHANISM WILL RELEASE 100,000 VOLTS THROUGH THE CULPRIT RESPONSIBLE.
He found enough coins in his pocket to buy a double HeroinCola and stepped
carefully back out of the range of any sparks while the cup filled.
He felt much better after draining it, until he looked in his wallet then he
felt much worse. He had eight imperial bucks to his name, and when they were
gone-then what? Self-pity broke through his exhausted and drug-ridden senses,
and he wept. He was vaguely aware of occasional passersby but paid them no
heed. Not until three men stopped close by and let a fourth sink to the floor.
Bill glanced at them, then looked away; their words coming dimly to his ears
made no sense, since he was having afar better time wallowing in lacrimose
indulgence.
"Poor old Golph, looks like he's done for."
"That's for sure. He's rattling just about the nicest death rattle I ever
heard. Leave him here for the cleaning robots."
"But what about the job? We need four to pull it."
"Let's take a look at deplanned over there."
A heavy boot in Bill's side rolled him over and caught his attention. He
blinked up at the circle of men all similar in their tattered clothes, dirty
skins, and bearded faces. They were different in size and shape, though they
all had one thing in common. None of them carried a floor plan, and they all
looked strangely naked without the heavy, pendant volumes.
"Where's your floor plan?" the biggest and hairiest asked, and kicked Bill
again.
"Stolen . . ." he started to sob again.
"Are you a trooper?"
"They took away my ID card . . ."
"Got any bucks?"
"Gone . . . all gone . . . like the dispos-a-steins of yesteryear . . ."
"Then you are one of the deplanned," the watchers chanted in unison, and
helped Bill to his feet. "Now-join with us in 'The Song of the Deplanned,'"
and with quavering voices they sang:
Stand together one and all,
For Brothers Deplanned always shall,
Unite and fight to achieve the Right,
That Might shall fail and Truth avail,
So that we, who once were free, can someday be
Once more free to see the skies o f blue above,
And hear the gentle piny-pat
Of snow.
"It doesn't rhyme very well," Bill said.
"Ah, we's short of talent down here, we is," the smallest and oldest
deplanned said, and coughed a hacking, rachitic cough.
"Shut up," the big one said, and kidney-punched the old one and Bill. "I'm
Litvok, and this is my bunch. You part of my bunch now, newcomer, and your name
is Golph 28169-minus"
"No, I'm not; my name is Bill, and it's easier to say-" He was slugged again.
"Shaddup! Bill's a hard name because it's a new name, and I never remember no
new names. I always got a Golph 28169-minus in my bunch. What's your name?"
"Bill- OUCH! I mean Golph!"
"That's better-but don't forget you got a last name too . . ."
"I is hungry," the old one whined. "When we gonna make the raid?"
"Now. Follow me."
They stepped over the old Golph etc. who had expired while the new one was
being initiated, and hurried away down a dark, dank back passage. Bill
followed along, wondering what he had got himself into, but too weary to
worry about it now. They were talking about food; after he had some food he
would think about what to do next, but meanwhile he felt glad that someone
was taking care of him and doing his thinking for him. It was just like being
back in the troopers, only better, since you didn't even have to shave.
The little band of men emerged into a brightly lit hallway, cringing a little
in the sudden glare. Litvok waved them to a stop and peered carefully in both
directions, then cupped one dirt-grimed hand to his cauliflower ear and
listened, frowning with the effort.
"It looks clear. Schmutzig, you stay here and give the alarm if anyone comes,
Sporco you go down the hall to the next bend, and you do same thing. You, new
Golph, come with me."
The two sentries scrambled off to their duties, while Bill followed Litvok
into an alcove containing a locked metal door, which the burly leader opened
with a single blow of a metal hammer he took from a place of concealment in his
ragged clothes. Inside were a number of pipes of assorted dimensions that rose
from the floor and vanished into the ceiling above. There were numbers
stenciled onto each pipe, and Litvok pointed to them.
"We gotta find kl-9256-B," he said. "Let's go."
Bill found the pipe quickly. It was about as big around as his wrist, and be
had just called to the bunch leader when a shrill whistle sounded down the
hall.
"Outside!" Litvok said, and pushed Bill before him, then closed the door and
stood so that his body covered the broken lock. There was a growing rumbling
and swishing noise that came down the hall toward them as they cowered in the
alcove. Litvok held his hammer behind his back as the noise increased, and a
sanitation robot appeared and swiveled its binocular eyestalk toward them.
"Will you kindly move, this robot wishes to clean where you are standing," a
recorded voice spoke from the robot in firm tones. It whirled its brushes at
them hopefully.
"Get lost," Litvok growled.
"Interference with a sanitation robot during the performance of its duties is
a punishable crime, as well as an antisocial act. Have you stopped to consider
where you would be if the Sanitation Department wasn't . . ."
"Blabbermouth," Litvok snarled and hit the robot on top of its brain case
with the hammer. "WONKITY!!" the robot shrilled, and went reeling down the hall
dribbling water incontinently from its nozzles. "Let's finish the job," Litvok
said, throwing the door open again. He handed the hammer to Bill, and drawing a
hacksaw from a place of concealment in his ragged clothes he attacked the pipe
with frenzied strokes. The metal pipe was tough, and within a minute he was
running with sweat and starting to tire.
"Take over," he shouted at Bill. "Go as fast as you can, then I take over
again." Turn and turn about it took them less than three minutes to saw all the
way through the pipe. Litvok slipped the saw back into his clothes and picked
up the hammer. "Get ready," he said, spitting on his hands and then taking a
mighty swing at the pipe.
Two blows did it; the top part of the severed pipe bent out of alignment with
the bottom, and from the opening began to pour an endless stream of linked
green frankfurters. Litvok grabbed the end of the chain and threw it over
Bill's shoulder, then began to coil loops of the things over his shoulders and
arms, higher and higher. They reached the level of Bill's eyes and he could
read the white lettering stamped all over their grass-green forms.
CHLORA-FILLIES they read, and THERE'S SUNSHINE IN EVERY LINK! and THE EQUINE
WURST OF DISTINCTION, and TRY OUR DOBBIN-BURGERS NEXT TIME!
"Enough . . . " Bill groaned, staggering under the weight. Litvok snapped the
chain and began twining them over his own shoulders, when the flow of shiny
green forms suddenly ceased. He pulled the last links from the pipe and pushed
out the door.
"The alarm went, they're onto us. Get out fast before the cops get herel" He
whistled shrilly, and the lookouts came running to join them. They fled, Bill
stumbling under the weight of the wursts, in a nightmare race through tunnels,
down stairs, ladders, and oily tubes, until they reached a dusty, deserted area
where the dim lights were few and far between. Litvok pried a manhole up from
the floor, and they dropped down one by one, to crawl through a cable and tube
tunnel between levels. Schmutzig and Sporco came last to pick up the sausages
that fell from Bill's aching back. Finally, through a pried-out grill, they
reached their coal-black destination, and Bill collapsed onto the
rubble-covered floor. With cries of greed the others stripped Bill of his
cargo, and within a minute a fire was crackling in a metal wastebasket and
the green redhots were toasting on a rack.
The delicious smell of roasting chlorophyll roused Bill, and he looked around
with interest. By the flickering firelight he saw that they were in an immense
chamber that vanished into the gloom in all directions. Thick pillars supported
the ceiling and the city above, while between them loomed immense piles and
heaps of all sizes. The old man, Sporco, walked over to the nearest heap and
wrenched something free. When he returned Bill could see that he had sheets of
paper that he began to feed one by one into the fire. One of the sheets fell
near Bill and he saw, before he stuffed it into the flames, that it was a
government form of some kind, yellow with age.
Though Bill had never enjoyed Chlora-fillies, he relished them now. Appetite
was the sauce, and the burning paper added a new taste tang. They washed the
sausages down with rusty water from a pail kept under a permanent drip from a
pipe and feasted like kings. This is the good life, Bill thought, pulling
another filly from the fire and blowing on it, good food, good drink, good
companions. A free man.
Litvok and the old one were already asleep on beds of crumpled paper when the
other man, Schmutzig, sidled over to Bill.
"Have you found my ID card?" he asked in a hoarse whisper, and Bill realized
the man was mad. The flames reflected eerily from the cracked lenses of his
glasses, and Bill could see that they had silver frames and must have once been
very expensive. Around Schmutzig's neck, half hidden by his ragged beard, was
the cracked remains of a collar and the tom shard of a once fine cravat.
"No I haven't seen your ID card," Bill said, "in fact I haven't seen mine
since the first sergeant took it away from me and forgot to give it back." Bill
began to feel song for himself again, and the foul frankfurters were sitting
like lead in his stomach. Schmutzig ignored his answer, immersed as he was in
his own far more interesting monomania.
"I'm an important man, you know, Schmutzig von Dreck is a man to be reckoned
with, they'll find out. They think they can get away with this, but they can't.
An error they said, just a simple error, the tape in the records section broke,
and when they repaired it a little weensy bit got snipped out, and that was
the piece with my record on it, and the first I heard about it was when my pay
didn't arrive at the end of the month and I went to see them about it and they
had never heard of me. But everyone has heard of me. Von Dreck is a good old
name. I was an echelon manager before I was twenty-two and had a staff of 356
under me in the Staple and Paper Clip Division of the 89th Office Supply Wing.
So they couldn't make believe they never heard of me, even if I had left my ID
card home in my other suit, and they had no reason clearing everything out of
my apartment while I was away just because it was rented to what they said was
an imaginary person. I could have proven who I was if I had my ID card . . .
have you seen my ID card?"
This is where I came in, Bill thought, then aloud, "That sure sounds rough.
I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll help you look for it. I'll go down here and
see if I can find it."
Before the softheaded Schmutzig could answer Bill had slipped away between
the mountainous stacks of old files, very proud of himself for having outwitted
a middle-aged nut: He was feeling pleasantly full and tired and didn't want to
be bothered again. What he needed was a good night's rest, then in the morning
he would think about this mess, maybe figure a way out of it. Feeling his way
along the cluttered aisle he put a long distance between himself and the other
deplanned before climbing up on a tottering stack of paper and from that
clambering to a still higher one. He sighed with relief, arranged a little pile
of paper for a pillow and closed his eyes.
Then the lights came on in rows high up on the ceiling of the warehouse and
shrill police whistles sounded from all sides and guttural shouts that set him
to shivering with fear.
"Grab that one! Don't let him get away!"
"I got the horse thief!"
"You planless bowbs have stolen your last Chlora-filly! It's the uranium-salt
mines on Zana-2 for you!"
Then, "Do we have them all-?" and as Bill lay clutching desperately at the
forms, with his heart thudding with fear, the answer finally came.
"Yeah, four of them, we been watching them for a long time, ready to pull
them in if they tried anything like this."
"But we only got three here."
"I saw the fourth one earlier, getting carried off stiff as a board by a
sanitation robot."
"Affirm, then let's go."
Fear lashed through Bill again. How long before one of the bunch talked,
ratted to buy a favor for himself, and told the cops that they had just sworn,
in a new recruit? He had to get out of here. All the police now seemed to be
bunched at the wienie roast, and he had to take a chance. Sliding from the pile
as silently as he could, he began to creep in the opposite direction. If there
was no exit this way he was trapped-no, mustn't think like that! Behind him
whistles shrilled again, and he knew the hunt was on. Adrenalin poured into his
bloodstream as he spurted forward, while rich, equine protein added strength to
his legs and a decided canter to his gait. Ahead was a door, and he hurled his
weight against it; for an instant it stuck-then squealed open on rusty hinges.
Heedless of danger, he hurled himself down the spiral staircase, down and down,
and out of another door, fleeing wildly, thinking only of escape.
Once more, with the instincts of a hunted animal, he fled downward. He did
not notice that the walls here were bolted together at places and streaked with
rust, nor did he think it unusual when he had to pry open a jammed wooden
doorwood on a planet that had not seen a tree in a hundred millenia! The air
was danker and foul at times, and his fearridden course took him through a
stone tunnel where nameless beasts fled before him with the rattle of evil
claws. There were long stretches now doomed to eternal darkness where he had
to feel his way, running his fingers along the repellent and slimy moss covered
walls. Where there were lights they glowed but dimly behind their burdens of
spider webs and insect corpses. He splashed through pools of stagnant water
until, slowly, the strangeness of his surroundings penetrated, and he blinked
about him. Set into the floor beneath his feet was another door, and, still
gripped by the reflex of flight, he threw it open, but it led nowhere. Instead
it gave access to a bin of some kind of granulated material, not unlike coarse
sugar. Though it might just as well be insulation. It could be edible: he bent
and picked some up between his fingers and ground it between his teeth. No, not
edible, he spat it out, though there was something very familiar about it. Then
it hit him.
It was dirt. Earth. Soil. Sand. The stuff that planets were made out of, that
this planet was made out of, it was the surface of Helior, on which the
incredible weight of the world-embracing city rested. He looked up, and in
that unspeakable moment was suddenly aware of that weight, all that weight,
above his head, pressing down and trying to crush him. Now he was on the
bottom, rock bottom, and obsessed by galloping claustrophobia. Giving a weak
scream, he stumbled down the hallway until it ended in an immense sealed and
bolted door. There was no way out of this. And when he looked at the blackened
thickness of the door he decided that he really didn't want to go out that way
either. What nameless horrors might lurk behind a portal like this at the
bottom of the world?
Then, while he watched, paralyzed, with staring eyes, the door squealed and
started to swing open. He turned to run and screamed aloud in terror as
something grabbed him in an unbreakable grip.
V
Not that Bill didn't try to break the grip, but it was hopeless. He wriggled
in the skeleton-white claws that clutched him and tried futilely to pry them
from his arms, all the time uttering helpless little bleats like a lamb in an
eagle's talons. Thrashing ineffectually, he was drawn backward through the
mighty portal which swung shut without the agency of human hands.
"Welcome. . ." a sepulchral voice said, and Bill staggered as the restraining
grasp was removed, then whirled about to face the large white robot, now
immobile. Next to the robot stood a small man in a white jacket who sported a
large, bald head and a serious expression.
"You don't have to tell me your name," the small man said, "not unless you
want to. But I am Inspector Jeyes. Have you come seeking sanctuary?"
"Are you offering it?" Bill asked dubiously.
"Interesting point, most interesting." Jeyes rubbed his chapped hands
together with a dry, rustling sound. "But we shall have no theological
arguments now, tempting as they are, I assure you, so I think it might be best
to make a statement, yes indeed. There is a sanctuary here-have you come to
avail yourself of it?"
Bill, now that he had recovered from his first shock, was being a little
crafty, remembering all the trouble he had gotten into by opening his big wug.
"Listen, I don't even know who you are or where I am or what kind of strings
are attached to this sanctuary business."
"Very proper, my mistake, I assure you, since I took you for one of the
city's deplanned, though now I notice that the rags you are wearing were once
a trooper's dress uniform and that the oxidized shard of pot metal on your
chest is the remains of a noble decoration. Welcome to Helior, the Imperial
Planet, and how is the war coming?"
"Fine, fine-but what's this all about?"
"I am Inspector Jeyes of the City Department of Sanitation. I can see, and
I sincerely hope you will pardon the indiscretion, that you are in a bit of
trouble, out of uniform, your plan gone, perhaps even your ID card vanished."
He watched Bill's uneasy motion with shrewd, birdlike eyes. "But it doesn't
have to be that way. Accept sanctuary. We will provide for you, give you a good
job, a new uniform, even a new ID card."
"And all I have to do is become a garbage man!" Bill sneered.
"We prefer the term G-man," Inspector Jeyes answered humbly.
"I'll think about it," Bill said coldly.
"Might I help you make up your mind?" the inspector asked, and pressed a
button on the wall. The portal into outer blackness squealed open once again,
and the robot grabbed Bill and started to push.
"Sanctuary!" Bill squealed, then pouted when the robot had released him and
the door was resealed. "I was just going to say that anyway, you didn't have to
throw your weight around."
"A thousand pardons, we want you to feel happy here. Welcome to the D of S.
At the risk of embarrassment, may I ask if you will need a new ID card? Many of
our recruits like to start life afresh down here in the department, and we have
a vast selection of cards to choose from. We get everything eventually you must
remember, bodies and emptied wastebaskets included, and you would be surprised
at the number of cards we collect that way. If you'll just step into this
elevator . . ."
The D of S did have a lot of cards, cases and cases of them, all neatly filed
and alphabetized. In no time at all Bill had found one with a description that
fitted him fairly closely, issued in the name of one Wilhelm Stuzzicadenti, and
showed it to the inspector.
"Very good, glad to have you with us, Villy . . ."
"Just call me Bill."
". . . and welcome to the service, Bill, we are always undermanned down here, and you can have your pick of jobs, yes indeed, depending of course upon your talents-and your interests. When you think of sanitation what comes to your mind?"
"Garbage."
The inspector sighed. "That's the usual reaction, but I had expected better
of you. Garbage is just one thing our Collection Division has to deal with, in
addition there are Refuse, Waste, and Rubbish. Then there are whole other
