"The game," Curly said blandly. "I'll wait for you while you hit up to
the green."
Hendley's disbelief burst like a seed pod, spilling out angry words.
"You're insane!" he cried. "You've just murdered a man! If you think
we're going on with this farce--"
"But you have to play," the bald man said, unperturbed. "Rules of the
game, you know. Have to play at least six holes through." He smiled
again, his red face unmarked by concern. He said, "Obviously you're new
here, and there are some things you obviously don't understand. But
anyone who plays golf accepts the risks involved. And the rules." He
hefted his plastic club with his hairy, muscular arms. "You'll play,"
he murmured. "Unless you'd rather fight it out here."
In an arrested moment of stillness in which no bird sang and the air
itself ceased to stir, Hendley faced the murderer on the sun-washed
green. It _was_ happening, he thought stupidly. It could not possibly
happen, but it was.
For some reason he looked up toward the sky, the great blue dome
blazing with fire on the western horizon. Then, his brain numb, his
steps wooden, he turned and walked back along the fairway toward his
ball.
7
The first star of evening rested like a jewel against the night's dark
throat. The moon had not yet risen. At surface level in the Freeman
Camp, away from the gaudy main streets and the floodlit play areas,
the shadows were deep. The clumps of woods and bushes in the parks, so
fresh and cool and inviting during the day, were now black, forbidding
caves.
At night the camp was different. Under the day's warm sun and dazzling
sky, it was a vivid and colorful panorama of flowers and trees and
green grass and gaily painted buildings, with a leisurely pace and a
pervading atmosphere of carefree pleasure which could not be destroyed
by the occasional bizarre incident. With the coming of darkness the
tempo of activity became more frenetic, its spirit caught by the shrill
cacophony of the music blaring from viewscreens and the computer bands
in the better cocktail lounges and dance halls. There was a keener,
more penetrating edge to the sudden peals of laughter, a more insistent
note in the gay, sophisticated talk around the cafe tables and in the
bars, an urgency to the hurrying steps of the crowds pushing along the
streets, a sweaty impatience pervading the lines forming outside the
red-painted PIB's. By day the Freemen were a family group enjoying lawn
games and relaxing by the pool, and the family could hardly be blamed
if a mad uncle brandished a golf club. At night the party started.
The main thoroughfares were thronged with Freemen. They clustered on
street corners. They jammed the lavish restaurants and spilled out of
the tiny bars. They swarmed through the glowing theater lobbies and
filled the recreation halls with noisy confusion. Their merriment had
a voice. It was high and artificially frightened, ringing through the
tunnels of the electronically thrill-packed fun houses. It was hoarse
and raw with savage excitement in the banked spectator rows of the
miniature bird fight arena, where two leggy, long-beaked birds--rare
mutations of an earlier species--controlled by slender string leashes
secured to metal rings around their necks, goaded by electronic
impulses from the whiplike metal rods held by their handler-trainers,
pecked and slashed at each other with their curved sword-beaks. It was
low and suggestive behind the drawn curtains of the private booths
in the peekie-houses, where the latest erotic films were created by
thought impulses on the individual screens.
Assaulted by the voices, jostled by the crowds, TRH-247 wandered
through the camp. The driving tempo of its gaiety infected him,
stealing into his blood stream, quickening all his senses into a kind
of exaggerated awareness. Several drinks had blurred the residue
of horror left from the scene he had witnessed on the golf green,
and diluted the angry tension of the last two holes played out in
the fading light. In the evening's party atmosphere he could almost
forget--although, like someone holding a door closed against a ghost,
he avoided the shadowed places and the dimly lighted side roads which
separated the rows of residential buildings, seeking out the open,
crowded centers and the bright lights.
On those final two holes of golf Hendley had required thirteen strokes.
The number would not easily be forgotten, for each time he had
addressed his ball, the stocky, bald-headed player had stood behind
him, chuckling softly, tapping his weighted clubhead in his hand or
casually lifting it. Hendley had had to fight down panic. His shots
had been erratic and uncontrollable. To his lasting shame, on the last
hole, as he placed himself behind his amused opponent in position to
interfere with a drive, he had found himself thinking: If I struck now,
I could get him first.
But nothing had happened. Hendley had not acted, and the man he called
Curly had been content to smile at Hendley's nervousness and to mock
his ill-concealed anger and revulsion. At the end of the sixth hole the
stocky man had chuckled, saying, "Beat you by nineteen strokes. You're
not much competition." And with that he had picked up his ball and
walked away, leaving Hendley to stare after him bitterly, galled by the
intense relief that left him quivering, unable to walk steadily, his
hands shaking so he had trouble retrieving his ball.
Time, the serene beauty of the camp, and two quick whiskeys at the
nearest refreshment counter quieted Hendley's nerves and helped him to
gain perspective. Obviously there must be some form of internal force
for law and order among the Freemen. Outsiders presumably couldn't
interfere with that internal rule. To do so would be to deny freedom.
When Hendley found out how the system worked, he would have to report
the dangerously mad golfer. Something would be done. Surely the risks
of golf mentioned by Curly didn't include cold-blooded murder!
As reason asserted itself--and the drinks took effect--he began to
feel better. He was able to sip his third drink slowly, enjoying it,
savoring with it his first full view of twilight, painting a stark
black filigree of leaf and branch against a luminous sky. The spectacle
left him breathless. What overwhelming grandeur the world offered! And
here in the Freeman Camp it was continuously on display. The sky itself
seemed to thunder the joys of freedom. Against this awesome splendor
the overzealous enthusiasm of a group of swimmers, the sexual whim of
an impressionable girl, even the petty violence of a deranged mind
shrank into insignificance.
There was so much to enchant the eye and ear. A man would never have
his fill of it. If freedom meant no more than the opportunity--and
the leisure--to enjoy all this to his heart's content: the beauty of
a bird soaring, the sparkle of a sunlit pool, the intricate texture
of a tree trunk, the cool sweep of a green lawn, the vaulting leap of
sky from horizon to horizon--it would be enough. Endless pleasure. No
need to devour it hungrily (except for him, Hendley thought, checking
his rapture). For the others, the truly free, there would never be
the necessity to hurry away to the appointed task, the appointed
recreation hour, the appointed woman. (He hadn't thought of RED-498,
his Assigned, with quite that cold objectivity before, but it was true.)
Darkness came. The insistent beat of the crowded pleasure centers
caught first his ear and then his need to participate, to discover
more of the lures of freedom. He was drawn along the crowded streets,
looking, smiling as the groups grew more boisterous and here and there
an early drunk reeled from a bar, absorbing the sights and sounds as he
had savored his last whiskey. Only occasionally--passing near the dark,
silent, empty places--did he shiver, as if he sensed there the lurking
shadows of pain and insensate cruelty.
At last he was hungry. There were many restaurants to choose from, but
he remembered the reception official's reference to the main Rec Hall
on the hill. He had no trouble locating the hill or identifying the
massive yellow building, whose walls were thrown into sharp relief by
a battery of lights in its spacious gardens. As Hendley rode a moving
walk up the steep incline he could feel the lifting pressure in his
thighs. It had been a long day with far more physical activity than he
was accustomed to.
Up close the Rec Hall was even more impressive than it had seemed at
a distance. From a central spindle, itself as large as an ordinary
recreation hall in the cities, curving escalators rose to the main
theater or exhibition hall, whose domelike roof vaulted outward on
concrete spines like a huge umbrella. Lesser wings on ground level
contained varied game rooms. There was one section off to one side
which was concealed behind a high wall. On a lower level, also reached
from the central lobby by winding escalators, was the great casino.
A floodlit pool was set into the lush green gardens surrounding the
building complex.
Even the lobby was luxurious with an opulence Hendley had never seen
before. Living trees bloomed next to the great concrete pillars. Ornate
plastic and real wood furnishings, intricately worked, were placed in
conversational groupings centered around colorful three-dimensional
paintings and depth sculpture. One entire luminous wall shed a soft,
flattering blue light over the whole room.
Inquiring at the main desk, Hendley learned that a wide selection of
food and entertainment was available. A computer-clerk blinked out a
descriptive layout of the Rec Hall on its message panel. There was a
main dining room on a balcony, where a computer band played discreetly
and a dance floor was jammed with couples doing the Sidewalk Hop.
Hendley chose a quieter cafe in one of the wings on ground level.
The service was excellent. He ordered a martini, punched several
buttons for his meal and sat at the designated table. Just as he
finished his drink a tray carrying his hot dinner slid smoothly off the
conveyor belt which ran past his table. The meat-sub was marvelously
authentic, tender and juicy. Somewhat to his own surprise he devoured
the meal greedily.
Relaxing over coffee and an after-dinner liqueur--which was excellent,
without a trace of chemical taste or side effects--he glanced around
the cafe with a feeling of well-being. Something--a delayed tug of
recognition--brought his gaze back to a young man at an adjoining
table. When their eyes met the young man smiled and nodded. Hendley
returned the greeting. It was the same youth who had saved his life
that afternoon by promptly pulling him from the pool.
With the careless slouch and bored manner of someone long used to
freedom's luxuries, the young man picked up his drink and approached
Hendley's table. "Join you?" he murmured. "You look as if you've been
enjoying your first day in camp."
"It's been quite a day," Hendley admitted. "There's so much to see and
do."
"That's the usual reaction," the other said, faintly patronizing.
Hendley flushed. With a self-conscious laugh he said, half-defensively,
"I didn't say it was _all_ good."