Captain Hunter left the municipal building and stood on the transit
platform. It was blazing hot in the noon sun, and he considered
chartering an autojet to the city, as he always had before. But though
a jet was faster than the monorail it was also more expensive. Acutely
mindful that he had left the service and would earn no more juicy
credit bonuses, he took the monorail instead.
He had only a ten-minute wait before a crowded car screamed to a stop
at the port station. Hunter went aboard, along with four passengers
from recent inbound flights--laboring class tourists returning from
vacations on one of the planetoid resorts. Since a majority of the
people who passed through the spaceport were executives or
professionals, they used the autojets.
Hunter's uniform set him apart. A spaceman was expected to live high,
to throw away credits like the glamor heroes on the Tri-D space
dramas.
The monorail car was crowded, primarily with afternoon-shift workers
on their way to the industrial area. They all wore on their tunics the
discs of the Union of Free Workers. The four tourists who went aboard
at the spaceport with Hunter pulled out their U.F.W. badges and pinned
them on. They belonged. Hunter didn't.
He found an empty chair at the rear of the car, beside a gaudily
attired woman, whose union disc proclaimed her a member of Local 47,
the Recreational Companion Union. What miracles we perform, Hunter
thought, with a judicial selection of innocuous words!
He glanced at the woman. She was past the first bloom of youth and her
face, under her makeup, was heavily lined, her eyes shrewd and
observing. Had he known that she had been shadowing him almost from
the instant of his arrival in Los Angeles, and had been awaiting his
return to Earth in obedience to carefully formulated instructions he
would not have regarded her so complacently.
The monorail shot up toward the Palms-Pine pass of the San Jacinto
Mountains. From the crest of the grade Hunter could look back at the
flat, cemented field of the spaceport and the ragged teeth of the
launching tubes rearing high on the Mojave. Ahead of him, misted by
the blue haze of industrial smog, was Los Angeles, the capital city of
Sector West--and indirectly the capital of the entire planet.
Almost indistinct against the horizon were the soaring, Babel towers,
the tangled network of walk-levels, jet-ways and private landing
flats, which was the center-city. The lower, bulky factory buildings
squatted under the towers and spreading outward from them, like
concentric rings made by a stone hurled into a quiet pool, was the
monotonous clutter of the minimum-housing.
The city sprawled from San Diego to Santa Barbara, and it lapped
against the arid Mojave to the east. Beyond were the suburban homes of
laborers and low-echelon executives who had carved brass-knuckled
niches for themselves in the medium-income bracket.
Hunter saw the panoramic view of Sector West for only a split-second
before the monorail car screamed down through the layer of gray haze.
For thirty minutes the car shot across the minimum-housing area,
stopping from time to time at high-platformed stations.
In the industrial district the car emptied rapidly. Only Hunter and
his faded seat companion got out at the turnaround terminal and took
the slideway to center-city. In the metro-entry at the top of the
stairs they went through a security check station manned by six
blaster-armed police guards.
Half of the guards wore the insignia of Consolidated Solar Industries
and half of United Research, the two titan cartels which were locked
in deadly battle for the empire beyond the stars.
The government played it safe, Hunter thought with bitterness, using
an equal number of police from each organization. On Earth the pacific
balance of commercial power was never disturbed--not, at least, on the
surface. The two imperial giants lived side by side in a tactful
display of peace.
On the frontier the real conflict raged, fought with all the weapons
of treachery and an arsenal of highly refined atomic weapons--the
blaster which could tear a man into component elements, and the
L-bombs that were capable of turning a young sun into a nova.
The woman passed through the security check with no trouble. The men
knew her and made only a perfunctory examination of her cards. But
Hunter again had difficulty because of the blaster in his bag. His
registered permit carried no weight with the guards. It was not their
duty to execute existing law, but to protect their private employers.
However, the Consolidated insignia on Hunter's jacket made the three
Consolidated guards ready to honor his permit. Eventually they
persuaded the opposition to pass Hunter into the city, on the ground
that the captain's zero-zero adjustment index indicated that it was
safe for him to carry arms.
When Hunter went through the probe, he found the woman waiting for
him. During the half-hour ride from the spaceport, he had tried twice
to start a conversation with her, and failed. Now, abruptly, her face
was animated with interest. She put her arm through his and walked
with him to the lift shaft.
"So you got away with it, Captain." Since it was long-standing
fashion, she had trained her voice to sound low-pitched and husky. "I
mean, bringing a blaster into center-city."
"Why all this fuss about a gun?" Hunter asked.
"It's a new government regulation," she told him.
"The government doesn't make the law," he reminded her. "The cartels
do."
"The last fiscal mental health report showed the percentage of
maladjusted--" She laughed throatily. "I wish we'd use words honestly!
The survey showed the _lunatic_ percentage is still increasing. The
cartels are using that report as an excuse to keep the people
unarmed."
Hunter was regarding her steadily. "Why?" he asked.
"We're not as content with our world as we're supposed to be," she
said. "Eric Young can't keep all of us in line forever. Captain, we
could use your blaster. It's next to impossible to get one these days.
I could make it worth your while--"
"It's registered to me," Hunter pointed out.
"I'll change the serial," was her instant reply. "Your name wouldn't
be involved."
"No, I want to keep it."
"To use yourself?"
"Don't talk nonsense," he said. "This isn't the frontier."
He made the denial vehemently, but deep in his mind he had an
uncertain feeling that her guess was right. Earth was not the
battle-ground, but it had spawned the conflict. The appearance of
peace was a sham. Here the battle was fought with more subtlety, but
the objective remained the same.
If Ann Saymer had somehow been caught in the no-man's-land between the
two cartels--It was the first time that thought had occurred to
Hunter, and it filled him with a dread foreboding.
The woman sensed his feeling. He saw a smile on her curving lips. She
said softly, "So even a spaceman sometimes has his doubts."
"I left the service this morning," he said. Suddenly he was telling
her all about himself and Ann. It was unwise, perhaps even dangerous.
But he had to unburden himself to someone or run the risk of losing
his emotional control.
"So now you've lost this--this ambitious woman of yours," she said
when he had finished.
"No," he protested. "I won't let myself believe that. Once I did--"
"As well as her interesting invention--the Exorciser," she went on
relentlessly. "Have you ever wondered, Captain Hunter, what might
happen if the platinum grid was _not_ removed from a patient's brain?"
"No, but I suppose--I suppose he'd remain in control of the operator
of the transmitter."
She nodded. "He'd become a perfectly adjusted specimen with a
zero-zero index, but--he'd also become a human robot with no will of
his own."
"But Ann wouldn't--"
"Not Ann, Captain. Not the girl you've waited so long to marry. All
she wants is a clinic of her own so that she can help the maladjusted.
But don't forget--she holds a _priceless_ patent. Keep your blaster,
my friend. I've an idea you may need it."