"No," she faltered. "I'm just in from--Earth."
Earth! It was a long time since Newlin had seen Earth. Few of his
memories were pleasantly nostalgic. Born there, in the poorest quarter
of the international spaceport of Sahara City, his early life had been
hard. Both parents had died there, broken from strain and poverty, and
Newlin escaped only by stowing away in the dangerous after-holds of a
rocketship bound for Mars, risking the unpleasant death from leaking
radioactives in preference to being poor on Earth.
He had been poor since, in many places, but never with the grinding
hopelessness of those early nightmare years. Their mark stayed with him
and colored his life. He knew every rathole of the system, with the same
intimacy the rats knew them. Once, on a non-stop express rocket from
Mars to Pluto, he had lost a finger and all the toes from his left foot
in ceaseless guerilla warfare with rats which had disputed possession of
the hold in which he stowed away. More than once he had bummed passage
near the atomic fuel vats of cranky old space-freighters that were mere
tin cans caulked with chewing gum. As boy and man, he slept in jails
from the dark, mad moons of Neptune to the fiery beach-head colonies of
Mercury. And with fists, brain and nimble fingers he had written an epic
biography in Security Police annals.
Like other cities of the space frontier, Venusport was raw and crude,
exotically beautiful and cruelly violent. To Newlin it was old stuff,
picturesque, with the spicy flavor of a perilous vacation spot. After
abrasive years on a dozen planets and habitable moons, the ugly
savageries of Venus had only a quaint charm. Survival was always
comparatively easy there, and a man shed normal fears with the
shredding, blistered skin of spaceburns. He was surprised when the girl
shuddered and drew close to him. Her instinctive trust amused him, and
he laughed brutally. The sound slashed between them like a chilled
blade.
They went together, in silence. Faint, flat breeze from the city's
air-conditioners fanned their faces. It was dark enough, and for Venus,
reasonably cool. Buildings strewn like a careless giant's toys formed a
vague and monstrous backdrop. Street-lighting was poor, for such
luxuries are expensive and the city fathers cared little what happened
to the poor, diseased, half-starved nonentities. All streets were
crooked aimless alleys, all black and empty. Only near landing stages
and space-freight elevators was there any activity. Darkness and the
Cyclopean setting gave more menace than intimacy to the dim tangles of
avenues and parkways.
The girl stopped, panting for breath. Newlin waited for her.
"You're a fool to trust yourself alone with me in a place like this," he
told her grimly.
She hugged the loose mantle tightly across her shoulders and tried
vainly to read his face in the murk.
"If you're trying to frighten me, you're wasting time," she said, "I
have more important fears."
Newlin chuckled. Skinny wench, but she had something. There was pride in
her, and scorn, and a hot spark that burned through the tones of cold
scorn. Something else, too. A hint of desperate courage that baffled
him.
"I still think you should have tried the panther sweat at the
Spacebell," he suggested. "One sip and--"
"I know," she snapped. "And I hope you've had yours for tonight. You'll
need it. We're almost there."
"In that case, we'd better talk," he said curtly. "I still know nothing
about you. Who you are, what you want? I don't even know your name."
She spoke in low, vibrant tones, but the language seemed unfamiliar to
her. She groped for exact words, extracted subtle meanings. But there
was a hesitance, an uneasiness, about speech itself, as if she found it
a tedious and inflexible medium for thought expressions.
"I told you. In a--building, there is a man I must see. He does not wish
to see me, and there are barriers I cannot pass. The building is a
combination workshop and living quarters, and something else you would
not understand. You must go inside for me and induce him to come out to
me. My name is Songeen. Tell him that. He will know me, and perhaps he
will come. But it has been so long--"
Newlin grunted. "That man I must see. One who wouldn't come when you
whistled. However long it has been?"
"He has changed--greatly. He may be insane. He may be dangerous. In
self-defense, it may be necessary for you to kill him. For your
protection, I have provided a weapon. Use all other means to persuade
him first, but threaten if you have to. And be ready to kill if he
attacks you. But dead or alive, bring him to me."
* * * * *
Suddenly Newlin disliked his errand. Even more, he disliked himself. For
a brittle moment, he was moved to turn back, refuse to carry out a
bargain he now regretted. Killing for pay, at the whim of a jealous or
scorned woman, was too ugly even for his calloused morality.
"Preferably dead?" he asked thinly.
"Preferably alive," Songeen murmured. "You would not understand, of
course. It is because I love him. He will not come, but he must have the
chance. And I must send a stranger to kill him, because he
has--forgotten."
Newlin stiffened angrily. He was on the point of rejecting the girl and
her project when a battery of lights moved toward them from the winding
lanes of the Park. Too well he knew what they meant.
As the wealthiest district of Venusport, Monta Park was smug,
respectable, luxurious--and protected. Roving radio-patrols of
Protection Police--privately hired thugs--guarded its dwellers and their
possessions. A prowling mono-car slowed and maneuvered to cast a
revealing spotlight on the loitering pair. Newlin, had he been alone,
might have dodged into the dense shrubbery, but the girl knew better.
[Illustration: _The spotlight meant violence and sudden death._]
Calmly she turned to face down the occupants of the PP car, and her
haughty expression would have chilled the blood of any PP constable
presumptuous enough to question her. Her attitude and the obvious
richness of her clothing seemed to satisfy the patrol, for the beam
swung briefly and hesitated on Newlin. He dropped behind her like a
servant bodyguard and hoped his scuffed space-leather was not too
noticeable. The beam held for seconds, then flicked out. Soundlessly the
patrol car vanished.
Neither spoke as the pair moved quickly into the precincts of the Park.
As residence area, it was splashy; a series of interlocked estates
rather than expensive mansions packed closely together. Each unit sat
alone in sprawling, neatly sheared grounds, landscaped with flowering
trees and set with the chill sophistication of statuary in gold, silver
and platinum. Botanical splendors from exotic worlds rioted in orderly
tangles of aromatic greenery, with sculpture of glass, marble and the
noble metals glinting like pale ghosts against the darker masses.
Shadows parted before them. Half-hidden among trees rose a slender
spire, needle-shaped, tall as a tower, but unwindowed. For a dwelling,
its design was curious, and the interior must consist of circular rooms
one above the other. At the base, an arched, oval aperture should have
been the door, but neither handle nor keyhole showed on the flat,
polished plate.
"Here we are," the girl said needlessly, her voice soft as a hint of
pain trembled in it. A tremor ran through her body as she thrust out two
objects toward him. A key and a gun.
"You will need these," she went on. "He will be in one of the upper
rooms. His name is Genarion. Perhaps he will talk with you, especially
if you surprise him. But remember, he is deadly. His scientific
knowledge is a more frightful weapon than this. So do not hesitate to
use violence."
Newlin fumbled the gun into a pocket, fingered the key. It was slim as a
needle and as smooth. Without comment, he stared at her as weariness and
disgust strangled him.
"Tell me your price," she said quickly, as if in haste to get words out
before either could think too much. "I will pay--now."
Shabby bargaining, he thought. But he would call her bluff and force her
to back down. "Not money," he said savagely. "I don't kill for money.
For a woman, yes. I want you."
He expected anger, scorn, even hatred. She gasped and her face went pale
and hard. Wilting under his glare, she nodded.
"Yes, even that--if you wish. I have no choice."
Newlin felt sick, empty. He no longer desired her, even if she were
willing. He despised her and himself. But a bargain was still a bargain.
He shrugged.
Like an outsize toy, a child's model of a spaceship, the oddly graceful
structure towered upward into arching darkness. Like her, it was
slender, radiant, beautiful. Bitterly, he caught the girl, dragged her
to him, felt her flesh yielding to him. She leaned and met his lips with
hers. The kiss was cold and ugly as writhing snakes. Cold. Ugly.
_Alien...._
* * * * *
The key went in smoothly, did not turn. It must have been impregnated
with magnetism. Somewhere electronic relays clicked switches faintly.
The door was open, its movement indescribable in familiar terms. It
neither slid, nor swung on hinges. There was no door, much as if a light
had switched off.
A rush of air came out. It had the high, sharp tang of ozone, and
something unfamiliar.
Newlin stood inside what was obviously an airlock valve. A door inside
had opened soundlessly.
He went on. Beyond the inner doorway was a large circular room. Its
dimensions seemed far greater than Newlin would have guessed from the
exterior of the building.
This was no mere dwelling, no laboratory or workshop. It was a spaceship
of radical design. Elfin stair-ladders spiralled up and down. The
girders seemed impossibly delicate and fragile, as if their purpose was
half-decoration, half-functional; and stresses involved were
unimportant. Such support framework was insane--in any kind of
spaceship. It had the quality of fairyland architecture, a dream ship
woven from the filaments of spiderwebs.
But there was hidden strength, and truly functional design, as may be
found in spiderwebs. Newlin was no engineer, but he sensed solidity and
sound mathematics behind the toy structure's delicacy.
The stair ladder supported him without vibration, without give or any
feeling of insecurity. He climbed.
Walls and the floor and ceiling bulkheads were rigid to his touch,
supported his weight firmly, despite their eggshell-thin appearance of
fragility. There were no corners; everything fused together seamlessly
in smooth curves. Walls were self-luminous and oddly cool.
The lower chambers were bare of all furnishing. Higher levels contained
a hodge-podge of implements, all in the same light, strong formula of
design. But none familiar, either as to material or their possible
function. There were machines, but all too simple. Neither the bulk of
atomic engines nor the intricate complexities inseparable from electric
or combustion motors.
Newlin was puzzled.
He stopped to listen, feeling like an intruder into a strange world. The
building, or spaceship, ached with silence.
Another stairwell beckoned. He climbed, slowly, with increased caution.
It would do no harm to have the gun in hand, ready. Where was the man
who lived in such a place? And what sort of man could he be? What would
he have in common with the frightened, haughty girl outside? The obvious
explanation no longer satisfied.
As Newlin ascended, another floor opened and widened to his vision. The
stair-ladder ended here. It was the top floor. But this chamber seemed
infinitely larger than the others. At first there was no sight of the
man. Newlin stood alone in the center of a vast area. He did not seem
indoors at all.
Endless vistas extended to infinity in all directions. In all directions
save one, in which stood a tall shadow. Newlin gasped. It was his
shadow, detached, seemingly solid.
Three-dimensional, it stood stock still. It moved when he moved. He
gasped, then found the answer. By the shadow's echo of his movements, he
could trace a vague outline of encirclement.
The walls were a screen, a circle about the room upon which were cast
pictures so perfect that the beholder had illusion of being surrounded
by eery, exotic landscapes. The scenes were panoramic, all taken at the
same angle, by the same camera, and so cunningly fused into a whole that
the effect was beyond mere artifice. For a moment, Newlin had stood
within the strange world, its crystalline forms and strange jeweled life
as tri-dimensional and real as himself.
It was a large screen, alive with light, alive with dancing, flickering
figures. There was no visible projector, and the images were
disturbingly solid and real. There was depth, without any perception of
perspective. It was a reflection of reality, cast upon the plane of
circling walls.
Then a man stepped from the screen. He had been invisible, because the
projected images had flowed and accommodated themselves to his
metal-cloth smock. For the moment, he had been part of the screen.
Newlin could not tear his eyes from that glaring plane of illusion.
Something about the glare played havoc with nerves, and a faint hint of
diabolical sound tortured his brain. No such world could exist in a sane
universe. Not even with its terrible and heartbreakingly poignant
beauty. It was a vision of Hell, bright with impossible octaves of
light, splendid with raging infernos of blinding color, some of it
beyond the visible range of human sight. And there was sound, pouring in
maddening floods, sound in nerve-shattering symphonies like the tinkling
clatter of many Chinese windbells of glass, all pouring out cascades of
brittle, crystalline uproar.
Sound and light rose in storming crescendos, beyond sight and beyond
hearing. They ranged into madness.
* * * * *
Newlin screamed, tried to cover eyes and ears at once. He tried to run,
but nerve-agony paralyzed movement. He was chained to the spot.
Sound and color descended simultaneously into bearable range.
He stared at the man he had come to see. He stared and the man stared
back.
"Genarion?" Newlin asked, his voice thin and vague among the tumultuous
harmonies bursting from the screen.
"Who are you that calls me by _that_ name?" cried Genarion. He spoke in
the same curious manner as the girl. He showed amazement, mixed with an
ugly kind of terror. "You're not one of _them_!"
"Them?" Newlin said, striving for sanity as sound and light swelled
again. His brain reeled. "Songeen sent me--!"
Speech itself was a supreme effort.
Genarion was beyond speech. Tigerishly, he moved. He leaped upon Newlin
and thrust him back. Newlin sprawled painfully, his back arched and
twisted by invisible machinery.
Genarion stood with a gun in his hand. Aiming hastily, he pressed
trigger. The beam flashed and licked charred cloth and smoking leather
from Newlin's sleeve. There was an odd jangle from the invisible
machinery which gouged so tangibly into Newlin's body.
Instinctively, Newlin fired. He did not bother to aim. For him, such a
shot was point blank, impossible to miss.
Genarion staggered. Part of his body vaporized and hung in dazzling mist
as the projected images of light played over it.
Dazed, Newlin scrambled to his feet. He was sick. But the screen held
him. He stared, hypnotized. Images jigged and flowed in constant, eery
rhythms. They moved and melted and rearranged themselves in altered
patterns, without ever losing their identities or the illusion of
solidity. The scene was not part of Venus, or of any world Newlin had
seen. He had seen every planet or moon in the Solar system. But this was
different, alien, frightening.
And the screen was not really a screen at all, for the body of Genarion,
hideous in the distortion of death, lay halfway through its plane. And
it was changing, subtly, as he watched. It was no longer even a man,
totally unhuman, as alien as the world it lay partway in. The body
flowed, molten, hideous.
The screen was a surrealist painting, come alive, solid and real. And
the solid, physical body of Genarion was part of it. He was dead, but
real. His alien form was a bridge between two worlds, and now dead,
Genarion was alien to both of them.
It was madness. The madness of the screen communicated itself to Newlin.
Before his shocked eyes, Genarion's body began to steam and rise in a
cloud of vaporous, glittering crystals. Swiftly the haze dissipated. It
was gone, gone invisibly into the alien world. Whatever Newlin had
killed, it was not human, not a man.
Newlin turned and fled down the fairy stair-ladder.
He went through the still-open airlock doors and out into the screaming
night. Behind him alarms were ringing frantically. Now they would be
ringing in the stations of the Protection Police and call orders would
go out to the radio-equipped prowl cars. Police would converge swiftly.
Sound shattered the night stillness. From far away, coming closer, was
the shrill wail of a siren. Other sirens.
There was a harsh bleat of police whistles, near at hand. Newlin's
imagination quivered with the possibility of blaster beams thrusting at
his back. He fled.
The alarms had burst into sound too quickly. Had the girl set the police
on him, waiting only long enough to make sure he would accomplish his
mission?
Whatever he had been set to kill, had not been human. Not a man.
Intuitively, Newlin realized that the girl had anticipated everything.
She knew what would happen, he reflected bitterly. She had promised
payment only on delivery of a corpse, when there could be no corpse.
Spud Newlin, Sucker No. 1.
Conscience did not trouble him. After all, the man--or the thing--had
fired first, without warning, without waiting to hear him out. Without
waiting for details like identity, or even asking to hear the message he
brought. It was self-defense, in a peculiar way.
* * * * *
Newlin ran and tried to lose himself in the shadowy fastness of Monta
Park. He was not surprised that the girl had not troubled to wait and
meet him.
He was not even angry. It was part of the game.
The Protection Police radios were carrying the alarm. Soon the Security
Police would take up the hunt. If the girl had turned him in, she would
be able to give a detailed and accurate description. Newlin guessed that
he would be lucky to last even the few hours till daylight--or what
passes for daylight on cloud-shrouded Venus.
Long before then, his career might end suddenly in a wild network of
blaster or heat beams. By dawn he would very likely be crumpled among
the ashcans and refuse in any dark alley.
But still the city would be his best bet. No use beating his way to the
spaceport landing stages. Space Patrol units must have been notified,
and would already be searching all outgoing units.
For the moment, he had a brief interval of grace in which to think
things over and try, if only for his own satisfaction, to figure out
what had happened. It--whatever it was--had writhed hideously when the
blaster beam drove home. Part of it vaporized instantly, and the organs
revealed did not even look animal. Eery, geometric, but not the naked
electronic symmetries of a mechanical robot. Not metal. But what?
Collapsed like wet sacking, it had lain half-inside and half-outside the
screen. He could not recall clearly its rapid mutations of form after
that.
Did it matter? The alarms were out. Blaring metallic clangor, and the
uncanny banshee wailing of the hunting sirens. Police care little who is
murdered in the nameless dives of Venusport, but let one of the lordly
rich men die, and all Hell is loosed on the killer.
If the girl had turned in the alarm, it was only a matter of time. They
would have his name and number; his ident-card would be listed and
reproduced, sent everywhere. They would probably have the robot trackers
out, those hideous electronic bloodhounds which can unerringly sort out
a man's trail from the infinity of other scents and markings, following
not smell, but a curious tangle of electrical impulses left by his body
like static electricity or intangible magnetism. No layman could even
guess how such a robot worked, but fugitives had learned to dread its
infallible tracking ability.
Newlin fled, and as he went, he cursed himself for getting involved in
such a nightmare.
Figures moved and blundered about him in the darkness of the park, but
none got in his way. None seemed to notice him. Since it was not a man
he had killed, perhaps others hunted him; other remote, alien beings he
could not see, or sense.
The girl would know, of course. If he could find her. But she had
vanished before he ever issued from the strange tower, and it was highly
unlikely that he would ever see her again.
Chance, and a sudden rush of blue-clad figures across a street ahead of
him, turned Newlin back toward his own, familiar part of town. The scant
shelter of shadows in deserted alleyways was a comfort, but little real
protection. He had friends, of a peculiar sort, in the old native
quarter, and the Spacebell lay just outside the fringe of the mutants'
district, where the half-human natives laired up. These friends might
hide him, for a while, although such refuge was of little use against
the robot-trackers.
By daylight, he could be smuggled outside the domed city, and once into
the wastelands, there was a chance. Not a good one; but there, even the
robot-tracker could hardly come upon him without his knowledge. A lucky
blaster shot would leave a blank trail and a shattered robot for his
pursuers to follow. He wondered if they would risk another such
expensive machine merely to hunt down a murderer in the wastelands.
Scarcely, when the wastelands would kill the fugitive sooner or later
anyhow.
His first task was to reach the Spacebell and collect his pay. Then to
get protection-armor, against the peril of sandstorms and the
radioactive sinks that spot the old sea-beds outside Venusport. After
that, the native quarter, if he lived to reach it.
Shortly before daylight, he turned the last alley-corner and came in
sight of the Spacebell.
A shadow stirred with movement. A lithe, loosely draped figure hurried
to meet him. It was the girl--Songeen.
"Don't go in there," she said. "They know who you are, and the police
are waiting for you."
Newlin felt numb all over. "How did they know? Did you tell them?" he
snapped.
"Of course not. Don't be a fool. Would I inform, then wait to warn you?
I did not know he had automatic alarms, and automatic cameras to make
records of anyone who came into the--the place. It was the pictures.
They were identified with your ident-card at the Central Police Bureau.
And the robot-trackers are out."
* * * * *
Newlin and Songeen studied each other for a long moment of silence.
"I guess it doesn't matter now," Newlin said finally, "but I'm glad you
didn't turn me in. I might almost as well give up and get the thing over
with. There's no place to run. Not without money."
Songeen produced a small sack of platinum coins which jingled as she
offered it.
"That's one reason I tried to find you. After the alarms, I knew I would
only handicap your flight. I hid. Then I came here, because I thought
you might come back. I'm sorry I have no more money, but the rest is all
in credits. It would be no help to you in the wastelands."
"I see," muttered Newlin. "Why did you care? Were you afraid I'd talk if
the Police caught me?"
Songeen shrugged coldly. "No, I hadn't thought of that. But I think I
owe you something. Murderer's wages. I knew you couldn't fulfil your
bargain when you made it. But, in a way, I am responsible for you."
"In a way," agreed Newlin bitterly. He snatched at the bag of coins.
"This will do. Thanks for nothing."
"Don't blame me too much. I had no choice, and I did not know it would
work out like this."
"Perhaps not, but next time do your own killing. It's rough on both your
victims."
Songeen was crying, tearless wracking sobs that shook her frail body.
"I'm sorry," she moaned. "But I couldn't even get in to see him. He knew
the exact vibration level of my body, and had set supersonic traps to
kill me if I tried to enter. Even my bones would have shattered. I would
have died painfully and horribly. I would rather have died myself than
cause his death. Believe that. There is always a third victim. He was my
husband, and I loved him. You can't understand, of course--"
"I understand less than ever now." Newlin knew that it was madness to
remain so close to the Spacebell. But he could not force himself to
leave Songeen. She seemed near collapse.
A thought struck him. "Say, is there anything there to tie you up with
this business?"
Songeen gave a wry thrust of her thin shoulders. "Much--but does it
matter? It was my--our home. Before he tricked me outside and would not
let me return. They don't know what happened--yet. But there will be
enough evidence against both of us. Part of what you saw was illusion.
His body is still there. Changed--but the trackers can identify it. The
charge is murder, and they will want both of us. Not just you."
"Come with me." Newlin spoke harshly--sharply.