"And I'm a misfit!"
"There are different ways of looking at that." The doctor crossed the
room to stand beside Hendley at the window. The smile was back on his
lips, but it remained pensive. "Do you want to know what I think?"
"What?"
"I envy you."
The phrase seemed disturbingly familiar. Hendley tried to remember who
else had spoken it to him. The answer popped unexpectedly into his
mind. The Morale Investigator had voiced a similar envy on the morning
Hendley departed for the Freeman Camp.
He did not smile at the irony.
* * * * *
It was an hour after sunset when Hendley saw the visitor. He was on
his way to the main Rec Hall, being unable to stay away on the night
of the show in spite of the torment he knew he would endure if Ann was
on stage. The glimpse of a red sleeve emblem out of the corner of his
eye was enough to make him jump hastily and precariously off the moving
walk. Regaining his balance, he looked around eagerly. The familiar
identification symbol stood out clearly among the mass of otherwise
identical white uniforms. This was the first visitor Hendley had seen
since his arrival in the Freeman Camp, and he knew that it was more
than curiosity, more than the memory of an experience shared by the
stranger, which made his heart pound as he began to follow the red
beacon on the visitor's arm.
The man seemed awed by the excitement and activity swirling around him.
Hendley wondered if he, too, had gazed about so eagerly on his first
night, if his eyes had been alight with the same glitter, if his lips
had been parted in a continuous expression of wonder. The visitor was
a solidly hewn block of a man with coarse black hair, the outline of
a heavy dark beard, and thighs and biceps so thick they stretched the
unusually loose-fitting coverall taut. But in spite of his muscular
bulk, the stranger moved with surprisingly light, quick steps. Standing
still, he looked heavy and ponderous; in motion he conveyed an
impression of dynamic strength held in check by an instinctive caution.
His alert, inquiring gaze missed nothing. Hendley had been following
him for no more than a few minutes before he realized that his own
curiosity had been too obvious. The visitor, pausing before the
entrance to a dance hall, turned suddenly to stare directly at Hendley.
The glance was bright and hard, but the man's mouth was smiling in a
friendly way.
Approaching him casually, Hendley returned the smile. "Your first
night?" he called out heartily.
"Was I that obvious?" the visitor asked. "It's no wonder. This is the
biggest night of my life!"
"I guess everyone feels that way," Hendley said. He tried to remember
how Nik had first cultivated him, but he quickly realized that the
circumstances had been different. Nik had been prepared. He'd been
waiting for a visitor to come. His every move had been carefully
planned. Was it madness to try to repeat his tactics without any
preparation, without help, without even a plan of attack?
"I'll bet there's a lot I'll miss on my own," the visitor said. The
comment was almost too fortuitous, as if he were offering himself as a
victim. "You must know everything there is to see."
Hendley could not resist the temptation. "I'll be glad to show you
around," he said.
"Great!" The muscular visitor punched Hendley enthusiastically on the
arm. "I didn't really want to ask, but I've only got one night, and I
certainly don't want to pass up anything special just because I didn't
know it was there!"
Hendley nodded. For a moment he couldn't speak, his jaws locked by the
pain in his arm. The visitor had hit him lightly, almost playfully, but
the blow had carried a numbing force. It was absurd to consider trying
to over-power such a man. If he had any suspicion at all, any warning,
he could break Hendley's spine with a casual pressure of those thick
arms.
But he wouldn't be expecting anything, Hendley thought. He was too
excited by the camp's promised pleasures. He would have no reason to
suspect anything. And even a powerful man was vulnerable to a blow
on the skull by a heavy enough weapon--a rock, for instance, or a
makeshift club. All that was necessary was to lure him into a dark,
deserted place where a weapon was handy. It needed daring, quickness,
determination, but the reward would be worth the risk. Anyway, Hendley
had nothing to lose. If the opportunity failed to present itself, he
would simply not act. He would be no worse off than he was now.
"Let's start with this place," the visitor suggested, pointing to a
nearby building. "What is it?"
"A bowling alley."
The stranger dismissed this sport. "We have those outside. Do you have
PIB's here?"
"Of course."
"Better than ours, I'll bet. Can anyone go anytime he wants?"
"Yes."
"Show me."
The tour began. The visitor's interests turned out to be catholic,
his energies inexhaustible, his capacity for food and liquor and sex
prodigious. Before long Hendley, beginning to feel somewhat heady, gave
up the possibility of getting the stranger drunk. Halfway through the
evening, the visitor inquired about the yellow mushroom building on the
hill. Hendley told him about the Rec Hall's casino and the weekly show,
climaxing in the lottery. The visitor's eyes flashed. "That's how I
like to spell pleasure!" he exclaimed, knocking Hendley breathless with
a clap on the back. "Let's go!"
"It's early yet," Hendley said. After a moment's hesitation he
suggested, "A lot of things go on in the parks that you haven't seen."
"I saw plenty there in the daytime. It's the big show for me!"
Hendley forced a laugh. "Don't judge our night sports by daylight. Come
on, we'll take a shortcut through the park and then up the hill."
"You're the Freeman!" the visitor said. "Lead on!"
Hendley tried to think clearly and calmly. Surprise was the important
thing. Surprise--and an effective weapon. It would not do to miss.
He had already decided on the place, a small clearing not far from
the main road through the central park. The spot was well screened by
bushes and trees. Here he could hide the visitor's body until he had
time to fetch the doctor to remove the man's identity disc--or found
some other way of cutting it loose.
They started along a path leading into the park. As they approached the
clearing Hendley had mentally selected, his eyes searched the path for
the weapon he needed. Soon he saw it--a bed of smooth stones defining
a flower bed, some of them as big as a fist, a short distance ahead.
He let the visitor take the lead along the path. "Be careful through
here," he said. "Sometimes there are prowlers at night."
"Prowlers?"
"We have crime here. Freedom doesn't breed constraint. It's best to be
on guard. You might keep an eye on the bushes as you go. You watch the
left, I'll watch the right."
The big man peered curiously into the shadows to the left of the path.
The bed of rocks was on the right. When they drew opposite it Hendley
stooped quickly. His hand closed over a large stone that shaped itself
to his palm. He rose hastily. The visitor's back was toward him.
"I don't see anything," the stranger said. "Say, maybe it wasn't such
a smart idea coming this way. What is it we were supposed to see?"
Now, Hendley thought. Get him beyond that screen of trees into the
clearing. Any pretext will do. He suspects nothing. It will be quick
and painless. With his thick skull, the visitor was unlikely to be hurt
seriously even by a heavy blow. And he'd undoubtedly be glad to wake up
and find himself a Freeman. He liked his pleasures! It might even be
possible to talk him into making the switch without violence, although
Hendley didn't want to risk everything on that chance.
"Well?" the visitor demanded. "Don't keep me in suspense. Where's that
nighttime fun you mentioned?"
Hendley's arm sagged. The tension went out of his body. At that moment
the visitor turned. He seemed to stiffen slightly, but otherwise
he betrayed no reaction. In a tone that held no more than ordinary
curiosity, he asked, "What's that you've got there?"
"Just being cautious," Hendley said. "I thought I heard something off
there in the bushes. You never know what you'll run into in the park at
night."
"Yeah?"
The visitor's voice had sharpened. His hard, bright eyes were fixed on
Hendley's face. He was suspicious now, but it didn't seem to matter.
The moment had passed for action, and Hendley had failed. He'd been
unable to bring himself to the violence needed. The whole impromptu
plan had been reckless, ill-conceived, doomed to failure. But even if
it had not, he had lacked the necessary ingredient to bring it off:
callous indifference to another man's fate.
"I think we'd better get back," he said. "The park seems to be a
washout tonight. Usually there's more going on that makes it worth the
risk."
The visitor laughed softly. "What's your hurry? I'd like to see
everything this place has to offer."
Hendley regarded him uneasily. The man's response was unnatural. "We
don't want to miss the show," Hendley said.
"You told me we had plenty of time."
Hendley glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the main walk. It
was not far, but a bend in the path shut them off from the view of
anyone riding through the park, just as Hendley had planned. He drew
back, turning along the way they had come, but the visitor's thick hand
caught his arm in an unbreakable grip. "You're not playing games with
me, are you?" he asked softly.
Frightened now, Hendley stared at him. The stranger, he realized
suddenly, had been too eager to be alone with him, too ready to dare
the mysteries of a situation about which he knew nothing. Why? At
that moment it seemed obvious that the visitor was not the type to
walk innocently into an ambush. Had the intended victim all along been
cunningly baiting his own trap?
"I'm not playing games," Hendley said. Then, determined to force the
visitor to show his hand, he added, "But I'm beginning to wonder about
you."
The big man's mouth smiled. "Just why did you bring me here?" he asked.
Before Hendley could answer there was a noise behind them. Both men
turned. Shadows moved on the path, solidifying into the shapes of
Freemen. They barred the way back to the main walk.
"What's this?" the visitor asked sharply. "Some friends of yours?"
"No!" Hendley gasped. "A pleasure pack. They roam the parks at night!"
"Pleasure packs, eh?" The visitor was still smiling as the silent
figures moved closer. There were four of them. Without a word they
fanned out in a practiced encircling movement. They would strike
noiselessly, Hendley knew. Not that it mattered, since few Freemen
passing along the main walk would answer a cry for help.
The attack came in a sudden rush. The men paired off, two of them
closing in on each of their intended victims. They carried clubs and
knives. Hendley dodged a blow from a club and struck out blindly with
the rock he still carried in his hand. He felt no hesitation. This
was no premeditated violence but self-defense. The solid impact of
the rock against bone was strangely satisfying. But he had no time to
congratulate himself as the stunned attacker fell away. The other man
closed with him, grabbing his arm, preventing another blow with the
rock. They fell together to the ground. Grunts and cries of pain came
from nearby, but Hendley could see nothing of the other fight.
Suddenly he was flat on his back, the arm holding the rock pinned by
the attacker's knee. Hendley looked up at a distorted grin of pleasure.
An arm rose and a knife blade flashed. He tried to twist free but he
knew that he was already too late.
The knife traveled no more than a few inches toward his chest. Huge
hands seized the attacker and hauled him bodily into the air. Hendley
heard a gasp of pain. The knife dropped to the ground beside him. There
was a soft thud, and the attacker's limp figure flew through the air.
It dropped in a shapeless heap.
The visitor grinned down at Hendley. "I guess you did hear something
in the bushes after all," he said. "But they weren't much."
Hendley scrambled to his feet and looked around. Three of the attackers
lay sprawled on the ground, inert. Hendley had caught one of them
with his first blow. The visitor, he realized with amazement, had
overpowered the others alone--armed men!--with his bare hands. And he
was not even breathing quickly.
"One of them got away," the visitor said. "But he won't be in a hurry
to start any more fights. Not for a while."
Hendley remained speechless. He saw that he was between the visitor
and the main walk. That was all he needed. This was no man to confront
alone in the isolation of the park. He began to back away, watching the
muscular stranger warily.
"I've been waiting for you to make the move," the visitor said. "You
must be satisfied about me by now."
"Satisfied? What do you mean?"
The visitor stepped toward him. "The code word is BAM," he said softly.
The sound was ridiculous in that moment of tension, like a child's play
word. But Hendley did not laugh. The visitor was frowning. This was no
game. The word had a special meaning of some kind, like the key to a
puzzle which seems unimportant and insignificant by itself but acquires
a unique value when properly used. Had the visitor been fencing with
him all evening, waiting for him to come up with the magic word?
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hendley said.
The visitor smiled. "That's the wrong answer," he said.
Without warning he charged. Only the fact that Hendley was already
poised on the verge of flight enabled him to elude the big man's rush.
A thick arm caught at his waist, but he was already spinning clear. The
fabric of his uniform tore as he broke loose.
Then he was running along the path toward the moving walk and safety,
not looking back, not daring to waste even the fraction of a second it
would have taken to glance over his shoulder.
* * * * *
For the second time in three weeks, ABC-331 was absent from the
spectacle on the stage of the auditorium. Hendley stared down at
the spotlighted dancers. Each movement, each graceful pose, each
tantalizing glimpse in the nearest materializer brought achingly to
memory Ann's willowy beauty. He could hear the audience breathing
and muttering and shifting about in quickening excitement, like some
huge invisible animal in the darkness of the theater. He felt relief
that she was not there, exposing her beauty to the audience like an
offering, but at the same time he felt cut off from her.
If only he could communicate with her in some way, let her know that he
was alive and safe in the camp, even though he was a prisoner. At least
the knowledge would give her some hope.
Hope for what?
The clear, cold question jarred him. Ann saw things with a more candid
eye than his. She would know what confinement in the camp meant. She
would not blind herself to the impossibility of escape. She would be
relieved to know that he was safe, glad, even happy--but she would know
that his assumption of a Freeman's role erected a wall far more solid
and impregnable than any previous barrier of social status.
Shadowy images flickered on the great thought-screen above the stage.
Lurid shapes of desire, created by the minds of Freemen who had
exhausted every normal area of pleasure, writhed and twisted on the
screen like fugitives from the deepest caverns of the imagination.
Dreading what was coming, loathing it because Ann had been involved in
that same monstrous pantomime, Hendley turned away from the screen. And
in that moment, when his attention shifted, he felt again the pressure
of eyes on the back of his neck.
He looked around. Three rows back, sitting almost directly behind
Hendley, the visitor quietly watched the performance on stage. He was
smiling thinly.
It could have been coincidence. Hendley had come to the Rec Hall
directly from the park. The show had already started, and the only
remaining seats were in the balcony. The visitor must have arrived
shortly after him, and it was natural that he should have found a seat
nearby. But Hendley knew that the big man's presence was no accident.
His seat had been deliberately chosen.
Why? What did he hope to accomplish? In the crowded Rec Hall Hendley
was safe from attack--and in any event why should the man pursue him?
Was it because of that ridiculous-sounding message Hendley had failed
to recognize?
The visitor's gaze started to swivel toward him. Hendley swung quickly
back toward the screen. The pressure was repeated at the back of his
head. BAM, he thought. What could the word mean?
The show went on. The erotic audience impression of it danced above the
stage on the giant screen. And at last the lottery began. Through it
all Hendley sat and watched, torturing himself with fears about Ann's
absence and what it meant. And whenever his self-absorption wavered,
he would become conscious of the patient watch of the visitor sitting
behind him.
The last number was called, the last nude figure stood submissively in
the spotlight of stage center. The light-curtain fell, obscuring the
stage. There was a rush of movement toward the exits. Hendley started
up the aisle, turned quickly and pushed his way through the crowd
toward another escalator. The visitor was unfamiliar with the camp. If
Hendley could reach the sidewalk strip ahead of him without being seen,
he could easily elude pursuit.
The exits were jammed. Hendley shoved and jostled his way forward,
found an opening and slipped through. He rode the escalator down to
the lobby, where the milling crowd again offered a human screen. He
began to breathe more easily. The bar on one side of the lobby offered
a natural escape route. He fought his way through the clamoring horde
of drinkers and ducked out a side door. From there it was only a short
distance across the grounds surrounding the Rec Hall to the moving
walk. He broke into a run.
He stopped at the edge of the walk to look back. The feeling of triumph
drained out of him in a rush. The hulking figure of the visitor was
outlined by the lights from the Rec Hall. He paused as Hendley did,
regarding him impassively, no more than thirty feet away.
Staring back at the stranger, for the first time Hendley felt within
him the coiling presence of hatred.
* * * * *
Hendley was, he knew, half-drunk. The condition was becoming a habit,
as indeed it was with an apparent majority of Freemen. The easy
availability of liquor was a superficial reason. More pertinent was the
need to dull one's senses and artificially stimulate the mind. Pleasure
seemed keener when, as in a photograph, it was brought sharply into
focus against a blurred background.
The casino, as always, was crowded. It was therefore safe. Hendley
had had only a few chips, and he had soon lost these. Now, observing
the action at one of the tables, he felt boredom nibbling at him
companionably like an old friend. Gambling meant nothing unless you
could play.
He searched the crowd for the hard, cruel face of the visitor. It
was not visible. But he was there somewhere, patiently watching and
waiting. You have a long wait, Hendley thought. Tomorrow you must be on
the copter heading back to the city. I can wait till then. Sleep is a
bore anyway, a waste.
If only he had some chips!
A winner at the table, raking in a pile of chips, grinned at Hendley.
"No chips, friend?" he asked.
"Not just at the moment," Hendley said eagerly. "But I feel lucky. I'd
be glad to share my winnings if you'll stake me."
The player laughed. "Your kind of luck I don't need," he said. "Why
don't you try the Big Game," he added jeeringly. "You don't need chips
there."
"You don't?" Hendley glanced quickly at the big table in the exact
center of the casino. It was inactive, as it usually was, guarded only
by the silent, motionless robot-dealer.
"You mean you didn't know?" the player asked.
"No. How does it work?"
The player shrugged with an indifference that might have been
exaggerated. "It's you against the house," he said. "You have a chance
to win ten thousand chips--if you feel lucky."
"What if you lose?" Hendley could feel the excitement building in
him. He didn't really care what the penalty was for losing. Here was
something different. He had the rest of the night to get through
somehow. He couldn't risk leaving the Rec Hall while darkness held and
the visitor waited. The game would occupy the time, and bring its own
exhilaration.
"You don't think about losing," the player said evasively. "What
gambler does? The game ends at dawn, no matter who's ahead. If you last
out till then, you win."
Sober, Hendley would have persisted in his questioning. Instead he
stared at the big table. What could happen to him if he lost? He was
a Freeman. Having everything, he had nothing to lose. Anyway, he
_did_ feel lucky. And the prize was huge--enough chips to gamble with
for weeks! Longer than that, for you always stood a better chance of
winning if you had enough chips to ride out the cold streaks and plunge
when you were hot.
With a kind of aggressive, defiant determination he strode through
the casino. The robot-dealer at the center table looked up as he
approached. His plastic face was expressionless, or rather it was set
in a perpetual attitude of slightly curious amiability. He could not
care whether Hendley played or did not play, won or lost. That in
itself was an advantage, Hendley thought. Desire had something to do
with luck.
He slipped onto a stool across the table from the robot. "I want to
play," he said.
With the instant response of the machine, the robot placed two
identical stacks of large chips between them. They were a half inch
more in diameter than the usual casino chips, with smooth white
surfaces marked by a red cross. The robot pushed one of the stacks
toward Hendley. Depressing a button, he activated two pairs of small
viewscreens, one set for each player. Only one of each pair of viewers
was visible to the opposing player, the other being the player's own
record of his moves.
There was a faint whirring, like an old-fashioned museum clock winding
up to strike, and the robot's voice mechanism announced, "We play '100'
game."
It was to be a direct, head-on contest. Hendley knew the game, whose
rules were simpler than the play actually was in practice. It was an
electronic version of the child's trick of guessing how many fingers
are pointing when the hands are held out of sight, except that the
possible combinations of numbers were infinitely greater, with one
hundred as the maximum total. Bets were made for high or low figures,
with each player free to draw additional numbers after the first two
or to stand with what he had. The odds were, on the face of it, even.
But Hendley knew that the robot's precision instrument of a brain
was capable of exact, rapid mathematical calculations far beyond his
powers. He had to offset that edge by turning his human fallibility
into an asset--by doing the unexpected. If he allowed any consistent
sequence to develop in his tactics, the robot would instantly detect
and take advantage of the fact. Hendley forced himself to play
erratically, hoping that he would not unconsciously fall into a pattern
of inconsistency.
In the two-player duel the moves went quickly. In the beginning Hendley
played and bet conservatively. For a while he seemed to be holding his
own. Then, very slowly at first, like a runner inching into the lead
in a closely contested race, the robot's stack of chips began to grow,
Hendley's to shrink.
A crowd gathered almost imperceptibly. Absorbed in the intricacies of
betting, Hendley did not notice the gradual swelling of onlookers.
Then, it seemed simultaneously, he became aware of increasing tension,
a tightening of hidden springs within his body, and of the crowd
surrounding the big table. It was unlike an ordinary gathering in one
thing: its peculiar stillness. No one moved or spoke. When Hendley
looked around, every eye swiveled toward him. Among the intently
watching faces he saw that of the visitor, whose expression was no
longer confident. He seemed puzzled. There was in the other faces a
controlled anticipation that increased Hendley's nervousness. The
crowd's strange silence, its air of breathless waiting, seemed somehow
ominous.
He started to reach for a glass--drinks were brought regularly to the
table. He'd been drinking automatically, without thinking. Now he drew
back his hand. He'd already had far too much. Although his brain seemed
remarkably clear, like the cloudless sky over the Freeman Camp on a
cool night, he realized that that drunken clarity could be deceptive.
He gave all of his attention to his plays. Shortly after he returned
to this grim concentration, the tide of the duel changed. Hendley
thought he detected a fixed sequence in the robot's guesses. Betting
experimentally, he won. Again. Another win. With increasing sureness he
raised his bets boldly. In half a dozen plays he recouped all of his
losses and more. The run continued. He couldn't lose. Then, abruptly,
the pattern of the robot's moves disappeared. Hendley grinned. He had
three-fourths of the chips on the table now--he had the advantage. More
important, he had proved to himself that the robot was vulnerable. A
machine didn't adjust as quickly as a human being, perhaps because it
felt no fear.
Hearing a muttering in the crowd, Hendley stared at the ring of
faces. He was surprised to see a number of the Freemen smiling at him
encouragingly. So they were not all waiting for him to lose! Some of
them appeared disappointed, but almost as many were pulling for him.
The knowledge buoyed him tremendously.
The game dragged on. Hendley kept searching for another weakness in
the robot's play, but without success. The stacks of chips became even
again. Hendley kept varying his guesses, changing his bets at random
from high to low number combinations, but slowly the robot drew ahead
again. At last Hendley admitted to himself that, if the game went on
long enough, the robot would inevitably win. But the game ended at
dawn. If Hendley held out until then he could cash in his chips. He
wondered how long he had been playing. Hours, it seemed. His body
ached, and the continuous tension had begun to affect his nerves.
That was part of the robot's strength, he thought. It was tireless.
Moreover, it did not make the small errors Hendley occasionally made
from carelessness or lack of concentration. With the rest of the
play relatively even, these infrequent slips alone could account for
the robot's superiority. It seemed clear that the robot had made
corrections to prevent the one serious blunder of consistency it had
made. That had been Hendley's only chance to win. Now all he could hope
to do was stave off defeat until the first light of day.
The end came with the suddenness of a physical blow. Only afterward did
Hendley realize that the robot, like a fighter sensing weakness and
stepping up the tempo of his attack, had quickened the speed of play.
Hendley lost several bets in succession. Instinct warned him that so
many losses could not be accounted for by chance alone, but he was
already panicking. He cut his bets down to the minimum. Still the robot
won. Frantically, Hendley stalled for time as much as he could, groping
for the pattern in his play that was betraying him. Now the mind which
had seemed so clear and sharp was a dizzying confusion of numbers. The
robot brushed aside his delaying tactics, continuing the pressure.
Hendley was reduced to three chips. How long had they been playing now?
How much longer did he need? If only the casino had windows so that he
could see the first light in the east!
He lost again. Now chance itself worked against him. He lacked enough
chips to wait out the pendulum swing of luck. He had to risk the final
two chips together in a desperate attempt to gain more of a working
margin. His total in the draw was high--ninety-two. Good enough to win
nine times out of ten....
The crowd burst upon him, shouting, cheering, pounding him on the back.
After the hours of taut silence the noise was overwhelming. Hendley
couldn't understand. He'd lost. Why were they congratulating him?
"Great game!" someone shouted. "Best I've ever seen!" The crowd was
moving out of the casino, carrying him along with them. Someone beyond
the confusion shouted a question. "--lost the big game!" came the
answer. "Almost made it--there's only an hour left 'til dawn!"
A face thrust close to Hendley's, a forehead swollen and red, eyes
bright with excitement. "You've still got a good chance!" the man
cried. "We have to catch you before sunrise. Just an hour to hide out!"
"Hide!" Hendley gaped in bewilderment.
"Sure! You're the target!" the red-faced man yelled above the turmoil.
"You lost the game--now we have the hunt!"
And suddenly, frighteningly, Hendley knew why the big table was almost
always empty, and why the mention of the hunt had always created
such a feverish interest. He saw with terrible clarity what he had
unconsciously guessed all along.
The prey of the hunters was human.
12
The darkness of the woods in the hour before dawn was like a liquid
frozen to a solid, imprisoning within its translucent substance the
thin slivers of starlight, the waxen shapes of frozen leaves, the
brittle tracery of branches, the cubes and cones of inky shadows.
Moving stealthily, Hendley had a sense of shattering this density, of
stealing then along the irregular, jagged cracks of the fragmented
night.
In the distance he heard the hunters' voices, strained by the
intervening trees into the thin cries of children at play. Hendley,
a red marker taped to the back of his uniform to identify him as the
target, had been given a five-minute start. The gap had closed. The
hunters could crash and blunder through the underbrush, careless of
noise, while he must slink in silence.
"No weapons," one of them had told him, grinning. "You don't need to
worry about that. We really have to catch you."
No weapons. But with a shudder Hendley remembered a scene in a newsview
film, not understood at the time, in which a group of Freemen had
swarmed upon a single fleeing figure. And he remembered a glimpse of
that lone figure lying afterward on the grass, motionless, as if he
were asleep. No weapons. Only hands and feet....
He had no idea how many of them there were. In the open near the edge
of the woods they had been a numberless mass, a restless, eager horde
of hunters, impatient for the pursuit to begin, fanning out to blanket
a ridge with their white uniforms. He'd heard their excited mutter,
like a single animal growl, as he plunged into the line of trees. He'd
looked back once, and they had seemed to surge toward him, straining
against an unseen leash.
He paused, trying to place his position. Fortunately he had spent
an afternoon in the woods planning his aborted attempt to scale the
outside wall. He knew roughly where he was and where the main paths
were that would represent added danger.
He analyzed his situation. Leaving the woods would be foolhardy. Of a
certainty there would be sentries posted along the fringes, and in the
open he could easily be seen for some distance even in the darkness.
The cover of the narrow belt of trees and undergrowth was his only
protection. He had to stay ahead of the hunters--or hide--for less than
an hour. Was the sky already graying? Through the tangle of leaf and
branch above he could not be sure.
Could he go overhead, flatten out against a tree trunk as high above
the ground as possible? It might work. But if he were detected there,
he would be trapped. They could shake him loose at their pleasure.
Pleasure! The irony twisted his lips in a bitter smile. There were
thickly clustered bushes where a fugitive might easily escape normal
detection. But the hunters would be expecting this. The natural screens
and covers would be closely searched.
His heart caught and sputtered. From the corner of one eye he'd seen
a glimpse of white. Now it was gone. Fear shrilled in his mind, a
voiceless scream. He flattened himself against the ground, listening.
There was no snap of branch, no scrape of cloth, no rustle of dry leaf
disturbed by a stealthy footstep. Yet there was something--a swift
padding on turf. He wriggled forward to the outer edge of the woods.
Another flash of white! Reaching the last few feet of cover, he waited,
lying still. Moments later a white-clad figure ran past him, not even
glancing his way, not slowing.
He lay still, puzzling over the maneuver. Were these additional
sentries, racing ahead to make sure he did not slip unseen from the
woods? No. The lookouts would already have been posted. This was
another move, designed to....
His body sagged. A feeling of hopelessness settled over him. They had
cut him off. A band of hunters had been sent ahead. They would be
awhile returning, for they could not know how far Hendley had gone and
they would have to range far beyond any point he might have reached.
Then they would group, bisect the woods, and slowly begin to work their
way back. He would be caught in the middle of a pincers movement,
unable to go forward or to retreat. They would not worry about the
time. Even at a careful pace they would find him before dawn. There was
no escape.
For one moment it seemed to Hendley that any further resistance was
futile. He might as well lie where he was and wait for them to find
him. To be trapped at the last moment after desperate attempts to hide,
to be crushed under the fury of the attack as the first light streaked
the sky, would be agonizingly worse than not to have come close at all.
What would he gain by frantic scurrying when there was no refuge? The
woods were too narrow, too thin a line....
In a convulsion of anger he sat up. He shook himself. No, he would
not make it easy for them! At least he could make them feel a little
frustration, a little worry that they might be denied their jolts. With
a bit of the luck which had deserted him until now, he might even fool
them all. He had to try. To give up was somehow to make every step of
his rebellion against the Organization meaningless. He had sought to
find some value in life other than the mechanics of push-button work,
other than, as it had turned out, the purposeless pursuit of pleasure
in freedom. If he had failed, perhaps he had simply not known where and
how to look. In the end the only thing of value he had found was the
personal concern one human being might have for another--a concern
beyond physical need, beyond pleasure, beyond self.
But that alone was worth struggling to save. He might never find Ann
again. He could not give up trying so long as he was alive.
If only he had not drunk so much! He felt a physical let-down now, a
heavy fatigue, that might tell against him. And his mind could not
seem to take a tight grip on the problem of escape. It grasped without
conviction at hazy solutions, lost its hold, slid off into confusion.
Running was futile. Subtlety, not speed, had to save him. No point
in breaking for the wall. The threat of a robot-guard defending the
wall seemed less frightening than the human hunters, but the latter
would be upon him before he could scale the wall. He must stay under
cover. Forward or back then? The larger body of hunters was behind him.
The advance party, fewer in number, might be easier to slip through
undetected. But they would be alert for just that move. In the larger
group there would be more confusion....
He seized the thought as hungry jaws clench over a morsel of food.
Darkness, confusion, limited space and an excess of numbers--there had
to be a way to use these factors. And as he examined the possibilities,
he realized that he could not hope to exploit the situation by acting
like a fugitive. He had to join the hunters. He had to go to them.
Cautiously he began to work his way back along the route over which
he had fled. Nothing so concrete or shapely as a plan controlled his
movements. There were too many unknown factors; too many unexpected
things might happen. He had to act by instinct when the time came,
adjusting to meet the specific situation, following only a general
over-all purpose. But a small current of hope trickled through him,
banishing his fatigue, sharpening his senses.
He was not sure what made him pause. He melted into the shadow of a
tree, his back against the trunk to hide the telltale marker stripe
of the hunted. There were no sounds ahead to give him warning. The
hunters, sensing that he might be close, moved stealthily. Hendley
could feel their presence. As he stood motionless, holding his breath,
straining with eyes and ears, a shadow stirred in the underbrush less
than fifteen feet away.
Muscles in his arms and legs began to jerk spasmodically from the
effort to remain rigid. He felt the beginnings of a cramp in his foot,
a tight hard knotting of muscle in the arch. He set his teeth, willing
himself to remain inert as a stone. The hunter had paused. Was he
looking toward Hendley's tree? Was there a betraying thickness in its
shadow?
The crouching figure crept forward again, one step at a time, his
hands carefully parting the branches through which he moved. Now he
drew level with Hendley's position. Another step took him beyond the
tree.
The hunter wouldn't be alone. The others must be right behind him,
fanned out across the width of the woods. If one of them blundered too
close before Hendley acted, it would all be over. But his plan was
crystallizing. The single advance hunter was the key, the unpredictable
factor he had been hoping for. Now there were other shadows gliding
through the woods. He saw two to his right beyond the first man's
position. And to his left was a slimmer, slighter figure--a woman,
Hendley saw with a start. Others moved on either side, heard but not
seen. They were all around him.
The first man, the eager hunter, was ten yards or more ahead. A
patch of his uniform caught a hazy shaft of--not light, but a grayer
darkness. At that moment Hendley stepped away from the tree.
"There he is!" he shouted, pointing. "There!"
The leading hunter whirled at the outcry. There was a fleeting second
of stillness. Then another shout went up: "We've got him!" And suddenly
the woods were alive with hunters crashing forward toward the lone
figure in the lead. The man threw up his hands as two hunters stormed
through a thicket to get at him. "No!" he yelled. But as they converged
on him he panicked. He turned and ran.
They were on him before he had taken five steps, burying his cries
under the fury of the attack. It wouldn't have mattered what the
unlucky man had shouted, Hendley thought. The hunters were too
tense, their excitement drawn to too high a pitch. He'd relied on
that edginess, but the success of the ruse brought no feeling of
satisfaction. They would learn their mistake all too quickly. Any
second someone might notice that the victim lacked the marker stripe of
the hunted on the back of his uniform.
Hendley forced himself to wait. It would be fatal to turn abruptly and
run from the scene. He would draw attention--and he wore the mark of
the target. Carefully, keeping his back concealed as much as possible
from the hunters who crashed past him through the darkness toward
the struggle ahead, Hendley worked his way back and forth across the
woods, trying to give the illusion of hurrying toward the action while
actually drifting back with each maneuver. Quickly the horde of hunters
thinned out. A last figure pushed past Hendley, breathing heavily,
whimpering with frustration. Then the woods behind him seemed clear.
Using less caution now, Hendley tried to put more distance between him
and the hunters. Even when they discovered their mistake, they wouldn't
expect him to be behind them. They couldn't know that he had shouted
the mistaken identification. Any overeager hunter could have made the
error.
The sounds of the fight receded rapidly. Moments later Hendley heard
what seemed to be an angry bellow. The mistake had been found! But it
was too late, he thought, exulting. Surely dawn could not be far away.
Surely he could elude them long enough to win!
Haste--and the illusion of success--made him careless. He stumbled onto
a cleared path before realizing it was there. It was only six feet
across, but prudence would have made him inspect it carefully if he'd
seen it in time. Instead he found himself momentarily without cover.
And facing him on the open path was a grinning Freeman. "That was a
neat trick," the hunter said.
Hendley spun away. He was not quick enough. Thick, powerful arms
grabbed him from behind, stopped him, wrestled him to the ground. The
other man's bulk crashed on top of him. A hand clamped over his mouth.
"Not a sound," the man breathed.
As Hendley stared up at the hunter, his stunned amazement gave way to
fear. The dark face grinning down at him was that of the visitor.
* * * * *
"Surprised? It wasn't so hard," the visitor said. "I threw in with
those joyboys who were after you. I didn't know what the hunt was all
about at first, but one way or another I had to make sure of you. You
know too much. One word too much. BAM."
Hendley shook his head violently, fighting against the hand which
gagged his mouth.
"I couldn't take any chances with you," the visitor said softly. "Once
I saw what the hunters were up to, I figured everything was okay.
You wouldn't be a problem. But when I recognized your voice shouting
back there, I guessed what you were pulling off." There was grudging
approval in the big man's voice. "After that it was easy," he said. "I
heard you working your way back through the trees. I just slipped out
into the clear and got ahead of you." Suddenly the visitor brought his
other hand up, carrying the belt from his uniform. Before Hendley had
a chance to speak, the belt replaced the hand over his mouth, forcing
his teeth apart to press against his tongue. He tried vainly to shout
against the gag. He began to choke.
"Sorry it had to be you, friend," the visitor said, easily controlling
Hendley's struggles to squirm out from under the crushing weight of
the big man's body. "But BAM is too important. If you hadn't been
acting funny, following me around, you wouldn't have got involved. I'd
have had to pick somebody for the switch, but it needn't have been you.
Now it has to be. I can't have you running loose, knowing I'm tied up
with the Brotherhood."
Hendley stared up at him wildly, trying to communicate with his eyes.
Ignoring the look, the visitor abruptly shifted his weight, flipping
Hendley over onto his stomach. Jerking Hendley's arms behind his back,
the visitor tied them securely with the belt from Hendley's uniform.
"Now," he muttered, "the first thing is the identity disc. You're going
to become me, friend, and when they find you dead I'll be officially
dead, and they can stop looking for me. I guess you really didn't know
about the Brotherhood, did you? We're against the Merger, you see--the
Brotherhood of Anti-Mergers. The morale boys got onto me, and that's
why I'm here--before they could catch up with me."
Horrified, Hendley renewed his desperate resistance. He tried to shout
against the gag. "You've got to listen to me! I'm one of you! I feel
the same way!" But there were only meaningless, muffled sounds. The
visitor paid no attention. He was trying to tug Hendley's identity disc
over his hand. You fool! Hendley thought. If you'd just listen to me.
It opens up and slips right off!
"This is going to hurt," the visitor said softly. "But there's no other
way. It's got to come off."
One of the thick, strong hands seized Hendley's recently healed left
hand and began to apply tremendous pressure. Pain erupted blindingly,
filling Hendley's mind, blotting out all other awareness. He screamed
against the gag. The pressure only increased. Waves of nausea seized
him. Then, like a dry twig, the weak new adhesion of bone in his hand
snapped.
He fainted.
* * * * *
When Hendley came to, slowly, swimming out of a pool of blackness and
aching pain, his eyes opened to a graying darkness. It was not yet
dawn. He'd been unconscious for only a few minutes. At first the only
significance of this knowledge was that the hunt was not over. But the
gray was a promise of dawn. Soon he could rest.
He saw the figure standing over him, struggling into a uniform which
was far too tight--with a red marker stripe along the back. Hendley
felt the loose folds of a strange uniform wrapped about his own body,
tasted the remains of nausea in his mouth and the wet discomfort of
the sodden gag, and shivered at the searing pain in his hand. He
remembered.
The visitor glanced down at him. Seeing Hendley's open, staring eyes,
he paused. "I didn't think you'd wake up till it was all over," he said
softly. "Too bad."
Hendley began to fight against his bonds with the fury of hysteria,
heedless of the pain tearing up his arm. Everything couldn't end this
way, so stupidly, so insanely! The man had to listen to him! But the
visitor merely watched him as one might with objective curiosity
observe the dying struggles of an insect. In the end Hendley's wild,
bitter rage spent itself as his energies were exhausted. He went limp.
"I'll make it quick," the visitor said, in a tone that was practical
rather than sympathetic. "Sorry about the hand, but it couldn't be
helped."
He finished adjusting the snug uniform. Hendley wondered if the man had
forgotten the target stripe now on his back. It didn't seem to matter.
_He_ would reap the safety dawn would bring. Suddenly the bulky figure
lowered as the visitor squatted over Hendley. One of the meaty hands
reached for Hendley's throat. The gesture was arrested. The visitor
was still, his head cocked, a frown knitting his forehead. Listening,
Hendley heard the sounds which had disturbed the visitor: the rustle,
snap, and whisper of men moving through the woods. They were already
close.
"Organization be damned!" the visitor hissed through set teeth.
"They're coming back!"
Hendley felt no relief. The reappearance of the hunters could not save
him. It made no difference at whose hands he was to die. Either way
was a mockery of life itself. When the visitor's blunt fingers closed
suddenly around his throat he resisted almost automatically until a
spasm of renewed anger against the irony fate had played on him made
his struggles more violent. His legs were free. He tried to catch the
visitor with his knee. His heartbeat was a huge drum exploding in his
chest. He could no longer breathe as his windpipe closed inexorably
under the squeezing fingers.
All of a sudden the pressure left his chest. He sucked air into
his lungs. His vision began to clear. He saw the visitor's back
disappearing rapidly into the grayness of the woods. A patch of sky
overhead was measurably brighter. It was almost sunrise.
There was a crash of bodies plunging swiftly through the underbrush
nearby. A strange voice yelled, "We've got him now! Don't let him get
away!"
There was a lot of movement all around Hendley. Someone stumbled over
him, cursed, picked himself up and ran on. Hendley peered after the
running figure. What was wrong? Why weren't they gathering around him,
throwing themselves upon him? He was helpless....
Hope soared into his mind like a bird taking flight. The visitor wore
the uniform of the hunted! He even wore the identity disc the hunters
would be looking for! They would not ask questions--they had too little
time left. The sky was brightening as if a light-wall had been turned
on, just as the artificial dawn had come to Hendley's small room in the
Architectural Center during those plodding days of work that seemed so
far away.
Hendley struggled to his knees. The visitor might yet escape. If he
did, he would be back to finish off his task--to silence the voice that
could link him with BAM. Hendley pulled feverishly in an attempt to
free his wrists. The pain from his broken hand made him sway, reeling,
consciousness almost blotted out. But the belt securing his hands was
not tied tightly. It had not been meant to hold for long. He braced
himself and tugged again. The belt held. The broken hand squeezed into
a smaller ball. Hendley cried out, no longer able to contain the agony.
And his hand pulled loose.
He collapsed on the ground. He seemed to be able to watch the pain
recede very slowly, like gently rolling waves. An unexpected chill
wrenched his body. He lay shivering, his teeth clicking uncontrollably.
But at last the pain was something he could look at, and measure, and
know that he would endure it. It was no longer larger and stronger and
more real than he was. He could tame it.
The visitor's identity disc lay on the ground. Hendley picked it up.
When he staggered to his feet he realized that day had come. He could
see his way easily through the dense woods.
A scream cut through the cool, damp morning air, rising like the wail
of a siren. It broke off cleanly, as if a wire carrying the sound had
snapped. The air itself seemed to go on shivering, as if it still
trembled from the shrill vibrations of the scream. But there was
another sound now in the distance, the growl of the pack leaping upon
its prey while the flesh was still warm and the hot blood flowed freely.
Shaking with fear and revulsion, Hendley stumbled out of the woods into
the open. The hunt was over.
13
The passengers were told to fasten their seat belts. The precaution
hardly seemed necessary, for the copter's motion was almost
imperceptible in the windowless cabin. An illuminated board flashed
the message that the ship was hovering in the landing pattern over City
No. 9, waiting its turn to descend. Hendley had a mental image of the
great city below, huge concrete cylinders rising from the brown, barren
land. From above a circular eye in the center of each tower would be
visible, peering at the sky.
Wondering what time it was, Hendley was startled to realize how readily
he had come to measure time by the sun. He looked around for the
copter's clock panel, found it at the back of the cabin. It was not yet
two o'clock.
There would be time to reach the Historical Museum before four.
Would she be there? Three weeks had passed since he'd suggested the
museum as a meeting place. Even if she had clung to the hope that
he was alive and safe, she would believe that he was in the Freeman
Camp under Nik's identity. Would she still have come, day after day,
to look for him? How long would such blind hope have lasted before
discouragement came, and then despair?
He looked down at his left hand, held stiff by plastic braces and
wrapped in a fresh bandage. The little doctor had again attended to his
hand without question and without recompense. Only once had he sought
to dissuade Hendley, saying, "If this man was a criminal, you shouldn't
leave the camp in his place. He must have had good reason for smuggling
himself in here. That took some doing."
But Hendley had replied: "It may be my only chance to get out. I have
to take it. Even if I could live with this kind of freedom, which I
can't, I'd have to go back. To find her."
A slight bump alerted him. The copter had landed. Hendley let some of
the other passengers file out ahead of him. The exit led directly along
an enclosed ramp into a reception area. Hendley walked slowly behind
the others. He had no idea what to expect. But for some reason he felt
no fear.
A bank of windows in the outer wall of the receiving area faced the
great circle of the landing field. A six-foot partition of plastic
formed the opposite wall. Set into it was an open gateway. Attendants
stationed on either side of the gate watched the passengers with
routine curiosity, conveying no impression of special alertness. But
Hendley knew that it was not these he had to be concerned about. It was
the master computer stationed by the gate, its unblinking eye waiting
to record the identities of all those who passed through.
The more impatient passengers were already filing through the gate. As
Hendley loitered at the very end of the line, one of the attendants
inspected him idly, looked away, then let his gaze wander back. Hendley
began searching his uniform pockets. When he dared another glimpse,
the attendant had lost interest and was no longer watching.
Everything was all right. The computer might reject his identity
number, but the gateway was open. It appeared that the computer did
not have to control the gate to allow each passenger through. Hendley
guessed that such a process caused too much congestion. When the moment
came, a sudden rush would carry him through the opening. Before the
guards could act, he would be merging into the stream of travelers
thronging the main lobby. With luck he would escape.
It was too much to hope that the computer at the city's central landing
field would not possess information about the visitor whose identity
disc Hendley wore. And the big man had said enough to make it clear
that he was a hunted criminal.
The passenger directly in front of Hendley reached the gate and flashed
his identity disc. The computer emitted a low click. The passenger
walked on. Hendley stepped into his place. He waved his wrist toward
the computer's eye casually. He was too conditioned to computer
efficiency to feel any surprise when the machine buzzed in protest. A
red warning light flickered.
Hendley did not wait any longer. He charged for the open gateway.
A split-second later he was reeling back, his face and body bruised
and battered, his brain numbed by shock. Something had risen to smash
him away from the opening. Awareness seeped into his stunned mind.
An invisible electronic field triggered by the computer's warning.
Impregnable. The way was blocked.
There were voices now. Shouts beyond the barrier, faces swimming toward
him. Green uniforms--guards advancing. He stumbled back, looking
around frantically. There was no other gate. In seconds the attendants
would be on him. Only one path lay open, and that seemed a dead end.
He took it anyway, running blindly down the tubelike ramp which led
back into the copter. A stewardess blocked his way. He brushed by her
into the cabin. A man was coming along the aisle, dressed in beige,
wearing a stitched emblem with wings--the ship's mechanic. Hendley did
not slow his rush. He drove into the man at full tilt, his one good
fist smashing out ahead of him, striking the mechanic's jaw so hard
the impact sent an electric shock along strings of nerves all the way
up Hendley's arm into his shoulder. The man fell backward. Hendley
trampled over him.
Then he was in the control center at the front of the copter. A service
door stood open, a ladder suspended from the doorway. Hendley went
down three steps and jumped to the paved surface of the landing field.
There was a momentary illusion of escape. The landing field was broad
and open, dotted here and there with copters in the process of loading
or unloading. There was no one immediately behind him. Hendley started
across the field, running, putting distance between himself and the
alerted guards. He ran into a wide, bright swatch of sunlight.
A siren began to yip--an ascending series of pulsating cries. Hendley
stopped, looking back. Still there was no one in close pursuit. The
door of the copter from which he had escaped was still open--no! The
ladder withdrew even as he watched. The door swung shut! He whirled.
All around the field the routine of activity had ceased. Ladders were
withdrawing, ramps pulling back, doors closing. Two men at the far side
of the field, mechanics, ran toward an opening and jumped through it
just before a panel sealed the doorway.
Hendley was alone in the center of the deserted landing field, standing
in the glare of the sun as in a spotlight, exposed and defenseless.
The siren's wail died as if it were running down. Silence shut down
upon the great expanse of the landing field like a lid. Hendley took a
couple of aimless steps. The thud of his footsteps echoed across the
pavement. He saw movement behind the high windows all around the field,
faces pressing close to the glass, mouths gaping.
From somewhere high above came the slow, deep grinding of a giant
machine rousing itself, groaning, heaving into motion. Hendley looked
up. The massive interlocking panels of the airfield's domelike roof,
ordinarily closed only against the weather, were moving. Two vast
crescents crept toward each other, straightening out, sluggishly
diminishing the opening through which sunlight and warmth poured down.
Hendley could not tear his eyes away. Alone, isolated in the stunned
silence of the airfield, he watched the roof close over him with a
sensation of physical pain. The two closing crescents were like two
huge presses grinding together, beating the sky into an ever-thinner,
brighter sliver, crushing it at last as the roof panels clashed shut.
Sickened, Hendley tore his gaze away. He saw that doors had opened
now at intervals spanning the wide circle of the landing field.
Green-uniformed guards advanced toward him from each doorway, carrying
weapons he could not identify at the distance. He stood rooted, unable
to run any more. The tight green cordon of guards pulled closer around,
the circle shrinking. He threw an agonized glance overhead at the
blank, sealed grayness of the roof dome, where moments before there
had been a dazzling brightness. A deep chill made him shiver. He looked
once more at the noose of guards tightening around him, and slowly he
sank to his knees.
His rebellion had ended.
* * * * *
The trial was brief.
For three days Hendley was kept in a bare, windowless room in the
Judicial Center. There was a single, one-piece pad of plastifoam on
which to lie. The foam was designed so that, intact, it was both
resilient and comfortable. It was almost impossible to tear, but even
if that could have been managed, the damaged web of foam would then
have disintegrated. There was no way it could be used as a weapon,
either against others or oneself. Because it breathed, it would not
even smother if held over the face. The cell was otherwise empty.
He was taken from the room for periodic questionings, some of them
under drugs. Before the trial began he knew that the contents of his
brain had been thoroughly scooped out and examined. All would be
presented in evidence.
His uniform was taken from him, along with the identity disc which had
belonged to the visitor. He wondered if he would be led naked into the
courtroom.
On the fourth day he was given a nondescript uniform of a kind he had
never seen before, a pale gray in color. He was transferred to another
room. Here there was one window. It was covered with unbreakable
plastic, but he could look out and, through a speaker imbedded in the
plastic, listen to the sounds outside. The room was well above street
level, looking out upon the vast underground city.
At first, listening and watching with fascination as the familiar
activity of the city swarmed through the streets, he felt a peculiar
sense of rightness, a feeling of being back in his own element, his
senses lulled by sights and sounds he had always known--the soft
artificial sky of the illuminated roof, the rumble of walk and tube
and hurrying feet, the babble of talk, the faintly discernible odor of
chemically cleansed air--most of all the knowledge of being enclosed,
contained within the city's gigantic womb.
But in a short time Hendley began to feel unnerved by the jostling,
hurrying crowds, even though he was not physically among them. The
noise and confusion made his head ache. The city seemed oppressively
close and warm. There was nowhere a patch of cool shade on which the
eye could rest. He felt a barrenness in the unending surfaces of
stone and glass and plastic and metal, unrelieved by any grass or
living plant. He missed the irregularities of landscape, the sense
of openness, the unexpected breezes which he had so quickly come to
take for granted in the Freeman Camp. He began to feel himself a tiny
creature caught in the intricately meshing gears of a huge, impersonal
machine buried far underground.
He turned off the speaker, welcoming the silence of his cell, and in
the end he did not even look out the window.
The trial began on the fifth day. Wearing his gray uniform, Hendley was
led into an antiseptically clean, white amphitheater. As he was taken
to his seat in the center of the courtroom, spectators, seated behind
glass on the balcony level, ogled him. He was surprised to see a second
empty chair beside his own. The surprise turned to shocked dismay
when a second gray-clad figure was escorted into the court. He rose,
dumfounded, as ABC-331 was seated in the chair next to his.
"What are you doing here?" he exclaimed. "How did they find--" He broke
off. They had scoured out his mind. They knew everything. Everything
from that first forbidden escapade outside the museum.
"It doesn't matter," Ann said, trying to soothe him. "It's all right.
This is the way I want it."
"But they can't--you've done nothing!"
She smiled a little. "Did you think you broke the rule all by yourself
that first day?"
"But they wouldn't try you with me for that alone!"
"There's more. You've made a misfit out of me, too." She spoke without
regret, with even a suggestion of pride. "I was withdrawn from
my--my work. There were complaints that I was--uncooperative. Do you
understand, Hendley?"
As the meaning of her words sank in, he felt a rush of emotion, full
and swelling in his chest. "So that's why you haven't been in the show!"
"Yes, that's why. Then when I learned about your arrest--it's been on
all the news, they're making an issue out of it--I beat them to it
before they could come for me. I gave myself up as an accomplice."
Hendley started to protest but Ann went on quickly, giving him no
chance. "You wouldn't have been caught in the camp by that--that awful
man if you hadn't tried to see me. It's because of me you're here at
all. Don't you know how important that is yet? I wouldn't want to be
anywhere else but with you."
Hendley sank into the chair beside her. He reached out impulsively to
grip her hand.
A stern voice intruded. Hendley looked up at the bench facing the two
chairs of the accused. "The accused will be silent," a grim-visaged
judge said, staring down at them. "This court will now come to order."
As the procedural ritual to open the trial began, Hendley thought of
Ann's reference to Nik. His safe refuge under Hendley's identity would
have exploded around him. He would certainly have been taken into
custody, perhaps returned to the Freeman Camp. Hendley smiled grimly.
Two beige-clad men came forward at the judge's order. One was
designated as a pleader for the defense, the other for the prosecution.
There was also a bailiff, several guards, and, ranged along one wall,
a bank of twelve computers, six in each of two rows. Each was of a
different design and manufacture. These, Hendley knew, were the jurors.
Such trials were unusual in the Organization, but not unknown, and the
system was familiar to him. He guessed that the rarity might account
for the crowded spectator gallery.
"They're here because of all the news coverage," Ann whispered, as
if she had divined his thoughts. "Not just over you, but over that
man whose disc you were wearing. There's been a lot of furor over
BAM. They're said to be guilty of sabotage--it's caused all kinds of
excitement." She paused. Then, nodding at the jury, she asked, "Why are
there twelve of them?"
"It's an old tradition."
"Wouldn't one of them do?"
"Yes. A more sophisticated computer could even make twelve separate
sets of calculations, for that matter. But it's traditional--it's
always been done that way."
The two pleaders began to present their cases. Each spoke rapidly,
without emotion--the emotional factor could not be considered by the
computers who would render the verdict, and was, in fact, regarded as
inconsistent with absolute justice. The presentation by the prosecution
took most of the morning. Its weight of evidence was exhaustive. At
noon the court recessed. Hendley was taken back to his cell, where he
was given a spare meal. When the trial resumed, it seemed to him that
Ann was paler, more drawn than before.
The defense made no attempt to refute the evidence, pointing instead to
the instability of morale shared by the two accused, and to the series
of events beyond their control which had driven them into infractions
of the Organization's rules of order. The defense was palpably weak. A
sense of the hopelessness of their case began to weigh upon Hendley.
The defense rested. Two legal computers were brought into the courtroom
and hooked up to the jury. Each in turn fed into the twelve jurors
all recorded legal precedents which bore upon the case for or against
the accused. During this time Hendley could not help staring at the
flickering screens of the twelve jurors. He had the strange sensation
that they were watching him, examining and judging what they saw.
Ann sat with her head down, her hands clasped in an attitude of
resignation. But her face, when she glanced up at him, was calm.
"It's all right," she whispered reassuringly. But he knew that she did
not mean they would be acquitted.
At last, after a brief address to the jury by the judge, the twelve
computers went into action. A bailiff pushed a button to start them
off. Hendley could see excited activity among the spectators in the
balcony as they craned their necks to see and talked animatedly among
themselves. In the soundproofed courtroom only the calculations of the
jury were audible, each computer racing to its decision--clicking,
humming, whirring, finally coughing up, each in turn, a strip of white
tape. The bailiff ceremoniously collected each strip and handed all
twelve to the judge. As he examined them his stern face did not change
expression.
"The accused will rise," he intoned. Staring down gravely at Hendley
and Ann, he said: "You have been accused of rebellion and sedition
against the rules of order of the Organization. The verdict is
unanimous--guilty!"
Hendley was surprised to find that he felt no reaction. Too much had
happened to him in recent weeks. Or perhaps it was just that he had
already accepted the inevitability of the decision.
"It is within the prerogative of this court," the judge said slowly,
"to determine the severity of sentence. In the light of the male
accused's persistent and determined efforts to defy the Organization's
accepted mode of conduct and way of life, the court does not see that
leniency would serve any just purpose. As for the female accused, known
as ABC-331, it would appear that her emotional relationship with her
fellow accused accounts in great part for her actions. Rehabilitation
in the Morale Center--"
"No!" Ann cried, leaping to her feet. "We're both guilty!"