A little over an hour later he stepped from the elevator kiosk at
Station B-90 and breathed the night air of topside. It was less pure
actually than the carefully controlled tunnel air, but it was somehow
infinitely more wonderful. At least to a sentimental primitive boob like
Richard Pell, it was. Oh, he knew that it was infinitely more sensible
to live and work entirely underground as people did these days--but just
the same he loved the look of the black sky with the crushed diamonds of
stars thrown across it and he loved the uneven breeze and the faint
smell of trees and grass.
This particular topside section was given over to entertainment; all
about him were theaters and cafes and picnic groves and airports for
flying sports. A few hundred feet ahead he could see the
three-dimensional atmospheric projection that marked the Stardust Cafe,
and he could hear faintly the mournful sound of a Venusian lament being
played by the askarins. He was glad they hadn't banned Venusian music,
anyway, although he wouldn't be surprised if they did, some day.
That was one of the things these Supremists were trying to do. Rysland
and Chief Larkin had given him a long and careful briefing on the outfit
so that he could start work tomorrow with his partner, Steve Kronski.
Steve, of course, would shrug phlegmatically, swing his big shoulders
toward the computer rooms and say, "Let's go to work." It would be just
another assignment to him.
As a matter of fact, the job would be not without a certain amount of
interest. There were a couple of puzzling things about these Supremists
that Rysland had pointed out. First of all, they didn't seem to be at
all organized or incorporated. No headquarters, no officers that anybody
knew about. They just _were_. It was a complete mystery how a man became
a Supremist, how they kept getting new members all the time. Yet you
couldn't miss a Supremist whenever you met one. Before the conversation
was half over he'd start spouting about the destiny of Earthmen and the
general inferiority of all other creatures and so on. It sounded like
hogwash to Pell. He wondered how such an attitude could survive in a
scientific age.
Nor would a Supremist be essentially a moron or a neurotic; they were
found in all walks of life, at all educational and emotional levels.
Rysland told how he had questioned a few, trying to discover when, where
and how they joined the movement: Apparently there was nothing to join,
at least to hear them tell it. They just knew one day that they were
Supremists, and that was the word. Rysland had shaken his head sadly and
said, "Their belief is completely without logic--and maybe that's what
makes it so strong. Maybe that's what frightens me about it."
* * * * *
Okay, tomorrow then Pell would tackle it. Tomorrow he'd think about it.
Right now he had a date with his best girl.
He entered the cafe and the music of the askarins swirled more loudly
about his head and he looked through the smoke and colored light until
he spotted Ciel sitting in a rear booth. The place was crowded. On the
small dance floor before the orchestra nearly nude Venusian girls were
going through the writhing motions of a serpentine dance. Their greenish
skins shimmered iridescently. The sad-faced Venusian musicians on the
band-stand waved their graceful, spatulated fingers over their curious,
boxlike askarins, producing changing tones and overtones by the altered
capacitance. A rocketman in the black and silver uniform of the Space
Force was trying to stumble drunkenly out on to the floor with the
dancers and his friends were holding him back. There was much laughter
about the whole thing. The Venusian girls kept dancing and didn't change
their flat, almost lifeless expressions.
Ciel looked up without smiling when he got to the booth. She had a
half-finished glass of meth before her.
He tried a smile anyway. "Hello, baby." He sat down.
She said, "I didn't really think you'd get here. I could have had dates
with exactly eleven spacemen. I kept count."
"You have been faithful to me, Cynara, in your fashion. I need a drink
and don't want to wait for the waitress. Mind?" He took her half glass
of meth and tossed it down. He felt the wonderful illusion of an
explosion in his skull, and it seemed to him that his body was suddenly
the strongest in the world and that he could whip everybody in the joint
with one arm tied behind his back. He said, "Wow."
Ciel tried a smile now. "It does that to you when you're not used to
it."
The first effect passed and he felt only the warmth of the drink. He
signaled a waitress and ordered a couple more. "Don't forget to remind
me to take a hangover pill before I go to work in the morning," he told
Ciel.
"You--you are going to work in the morning, then?"
"Afraid I can't get out of it."
"And the moon trip's off?"
"Not off, just postponed. We'll get to it, don't worry."
"Dick."
"Yes?"
"I can take it just so long, putting our vacation off and off and off."
Her eyes were earnest, liquid and opaque. "I've been thinking about it.
Trying to arrive at something. I'm beginning to wonder, Dick, if maybe
we hadn't just better, well--call it quits, or something."
He stared at her. "Baby, what are you saying?"
* * * * *
A sudden, fanfare-like blast from the orchestra interrupted. They looked
at the dance floor. There was a flash of light, a swirling of mist, and
within the space of a second the Venusian girls suddenly disappeared and
their place was taken by a tall, hawk-nosed, dark-eyed man with a cloak
slung dramatically over one shoulder. The audience applauded.
"That's Marco, the new mentalist," said Pell.
Ciel shrugged to show that she wasn't particularly impressed. Neither
was Pell, to tell the truth. Mentalists were all the rage, partly
because everybody could practice a little amateur telepathy and
hypnotism in his own home. Mentalists, of course, made a career of it
and were much better at it than anybody else.
Their drinks came and they watched Marco go through his act in a rather
gloomy silence. Marco was skillful, but not especially unusual. He did
the usual stuff: calling out things that people wrote on slips of paper,
calling out dates on coins, and even engaging in mental duels wherein
the challenger wrote a phrase, concealed it from Marco, and then
deliberately tried to keep him from reading it telepathically. He had
the usual hypnotism session with volunteers who were certain they could
resist. He made them hop around the stage like monkeys, burn their
fingers on pieces of ice, and so on. The audience roared with laughter.
Pell and Ciel just kept staring.
When Marco had finished his act and the thundering applause had faded
the Venusian dancing girls came back on the stage again.
Ciel yawned.
Pell said, "Me, too. Let's get out of here."
It wasn't until they were home in their underground apartment and
getting ready for bed that Ciel turned to him and said, "You see?"
He was buttoning his pajamas. "See what?"
"It's _us_, Dick. It's not the floor show, or the meth, or
anything--it's _us_. We can't enjoy _anything_ together any more."
He said, "Now wait a minute...."
But she had already stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door. He
heard the lock click.
"Hey," he said, "what am I supposed to do, sleep out here?"
He took the ensuing silence to mean that he was.
And he did.
* * * * *
The next morning, as he came into the office, Pell scowled deeply and
went to his desk without saying good morning to anybody. Ciel had kept
herself locked in the bedroom and he had made his own breakfast. How it
was all going to end he didn't know. He had the feeling that she was
working herself up to the decision to leave him. And the real hell of it
was that he couldn't exactly blame her.
"Morning, partner," said a voice above him. He looked up. Way up. Steve
Kronski was built along the general lines of a water buffalo. The usual
battered grin was smeared across his face. "I see we got a new
assignment."
"Oh--did Larkin brief you on it already?"
"Yeah. Before I could get my hat off. Funny set-up, all right. I punched
for basic data before you got in. Hardly any."
"Maybe that means something in itself. Maybe somebody saw to it that the
information never got into the central banks."
The C.I.B. computers could be hooked into the central banks which stored
information on nearly everything and everybody. If you incorporated,
filed for a patent, paid taxes, voted, or just were born, the central
banks had an electronic record of it.
Kronski jerked his thumb toward the computer room. "I punched for names
of Supremist members coupla minutes ago. Thought maybe we could start in
that way."
Pell followed, his mind not really on the job yet. He wasn't at his best
working with the computers, and yet operating them was ninety per cent
of investigation. He supposed he'd get used to it sometime.
Three walls of the big computer room were lined with control racks,
consisting mostly of keyboard setups. Code symbols and index cards were
placed in handy positions. The C.I.B. circuits, of course, were adapted
to the specialized work of investigation. In the memory banks of tubes
and relays there was a master file of all names--aliases and nicknames
included--with which the organization had ever been concerned.
Criminals, witnesses, complaints, everyone. Code numbers linked to the
names showed where data on their owner could be found. A name picked at
random might show that person to have data in the suspect file, the
arrest file, the psychological file, the modus operandi file, and so
forth. Any of the data in these files could be checked, conversely,
against the names.
Kronski walked over to where letter sized cards were flipping from a
slot into a small bin. He said, "Didn't even have to dial in Central
Data for these. Seems we got a lot of Supremist members right in our own
little collection."
Pell picked up one of the cards and examined it idly. Vertical columns
were inscribed along the card, each with a heading, and with further
sub-headed columns. Under the column marked _Modus Operandi_, for
instance, there were subcolumns titled _Person Attacked_, _Property
Attacked_, _How Attacked_, _Means of Attack_, _Object of Attack_, and
_Trademark_. Columns of digits, one to nine, were under each item. If
the digits 3 and 2 were punched under _Trademark_ the number 32 could be
fed into the Operational Data machine and this machine would then give
back the information on a printed slip that number 32 stood for the
trademark of leaving cigar butts at the scene of the crime.
"Got five hundred now," said Kronski. "I'll let a few more run in case
we need alternates."
"Okay," said Pell. "I'll start this batch through the analyzer."
He took the cards across the room to a machine about twenty feet long
and dropped them into the feeder at one end. Channels and rollers ran
along the top of this machine and under them were a series of vertical
slots into which the selected cards could drop. He cleared the previous
setting and ran the pointer to _Constants_. He set the qualitative dial
to 85%. This meant that on the first run the punch hole combinations in
the cards would be scanned and any item common to 85% of the total would
be registered in a relay. Upon the second run the machine would select
the cards with this constant and drop them into a slot corresponding
with that heading. Further scanning, within the slot itself, would pick
out the constant number.
Pell started the rollers whirring.
Kronski came over. He rubbed his battered nose. "Hope we get outside on
this case. I'm gettin' sick o' the office. Haven't been out in weeks."
Pell nodded. Oh, for the life of a C.I.B. man. In teleplays they
cornered desperate criminals in the dark ruins of the ancient cities
topside, and fought it out with freezers. The fact was, although
regulations called for them to carry freezers in their shoulder
holsters, one in a thousand ever got a chance to use them.
Pell said, "Maybe you need a vacation."
"Maybe. Only I keep putting my vacation off. Got a whole month saved up
now."
"Me, too." Pell sighed. Ciel would probably be pacing the floor back
home now, trying to make up her mind. To break it up, or not to break it
up? There would be no difficulty, really: she had been a pretty good
commercial artist before they were married and she wouldn't have any
trouble finding a job again somewhere in World City.
The rollers kept whirring and the cards flipping along with a whispering
sound.
"Wonder what we're looking into these Supremists for?" asked Kronski. "I
always thought they were some kind of harmless crackpots."
"The Chief doesn't think so. Neither does Theodor Rysland." He told
Kronski more about the interview last night.
Presently the machine stopped, clicked several times and began rolling
the other way.
"Well, it found something," said Kronski.
They kept watching. Oh, for the life of a C.I.B. man. Cards began to
drop into one of the slots. The main heading was _Physical_ and the
sub-heading _Medical History_. Pell frowned and said, "Certainly didn't
expect to find a constant in this department." He picked up a few of the
first cards and looked at them, hoping to catch the constant by eye. He
caught it. "What's 445 under this heading?"
* * * * *
Kronski said, "I'll find out," and stepped over to the Operational Data
board. He worked it, took the printed slip that came out and called
back: "Record of inoculation."
"That's a funny one."
"Yup. Sure is." Kronski stared at the slip and scratched his neck. "It
must be just any old kind inoculation. If it was special--like typhoid
or tetanus or something--it'd have another digit."
"There must be some other boil-downs, if we could think of them." Pell
was frowning heavily. Some of the other men, used to the machines, could
grab a boil-down out of thin air, run the cards again and get another
significant constant. The machine, however, inhibited Pell. It made him
feel uneasy and stupid whenever he was around it.
"How about location?" suggested Kronski.
Pell shook his head. "I checked a few by eye. All different numbers
under location. Some of 'em come from World City, some from Mars
Landing, some from way out in the sticks. Nothing significant there."
"Maybe what we need is a cup of coffee."
Pell grinned. "Best idea all morning. Come on."
Some minutes later they sat across from each other at a table in the big
cafeteria on the seventy-third level. It was beginning to be crowded now
with personnel from other departments and bureaus. The coffee urge came
for nearly everybody in the government offices at about the same time.
Pell was studying by eye a handful of spare data cards he'd brought
along and Kronski was reading faxpaper clippings from a large manila
envelope marked _Supremist Party_. Just on a vague hunch Pell had
viewplated Central Public Relations and had them send the envelope down
by tube.
"_Prominent Educator Addresses Supremist Rally_," Kronski muttered.
"_Three Spaceport Cargomen Arrested at Supremist Riot. Young Supremists
Form Rocket Club._ Looks like anybody and everybody can be a Supremist.
And his grandmother. Wonder how they do it?"
"Don't know." Pell wasn't really listening.
"And here's a whole town went over to the Supremists. On the moon."
"Uh-huh," said Pell.
Kronski sipped his coffee loudly. A few slender, graceful young men from
World Commerce looked at him distastefully. "Happened just this year.
New Year they all went over. Augea, in the Hercules Mountains. Big
celebration."
Pell looked up and said, "Wait a minute...."
"Wait for what? I'm not goin' anywhere. Not on this swivel-chair of a
job, damn it."
"New Year they all become Supremists. And the last week of December
everybody on the moon gets his inoculations, right?"
"Search me."
"But I know that. I found that out when I was tailing those two gamblers
who had a place on the moon, remember?"
"So it may be a connection." Kronski shrugged.
"It may be the place where we can study a bunch of these cases in a
batch instead of picking 'em one by one."
"You mean we oughta take a trip to the moon?"
"Might not hurt for a few days."
Kronski was grinning at him.
"What are you grinning at?"
"First you got to stay over on your vacation, so you can't go to the
moon with your wife. Now all of a sudden you decide duty has got to take
you to the moon, huh?"
Pell grinned back then. "What are you squawking about? You said you
wanted to get out on this case."
Kronski, still grinning, got up. "I'm not complaining. I'm just
demonstrating my powers of deduction, as they say in teleplays. Come on,
let's go make rocket reservations."