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LIES, INC. -- CHAPTER FOUR |
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At one in the morning, Rachmael ben Applebaum was yanked from his sleep -- this was usual, because the assorted creditor-mechanisms had been getting to him on a round-the-clock basis, now. However, this time it was no robot raptor-like creditor mechanism. This was a man. Dark, a Negro; small and shrewd-looking. Standing at Rachmael's door with i.d. papers extended. "From Listening Instructional Educational Services," the Negro said. He added, "I hold a Class-A inter-plan vehicle pilot-license." That woke Rachmael. "You're going to take the Omphalos off Luna?" "If I can find her." The dark, small man smiled briefly. "May I come in? I'd like you to accompany me to your maintenance yard on Luna so there's no mistake: I know your employees there are armed; otherwise --" He followed Rachmael into the conapt living room -- the sole room, in fact: living-conditions on Terra being what they were. "Otherwise Trails of Hoffman would be ferrying equipment to their domes on Mars with the Omphalos as of last month -- right?" "Right," Rachmael said as he blearily dressed. "My name's Al Dosker. And I did you a small side-favor, Mr. ben Applebaum. I took out a creditor-construct waiting in the hall." He displayed, then, a side arm. "I suppose, if it got into litigation, it'd be called 'property destruct.' Anyhow, when you and I leave, no THL device is going to monitor our path." He added, half to himself, "That I could detect, anyhow." At his chest he patted a variety of bug chasers; minned electronic instruments that recorded the presence of vid and aud receptors in the vicinity. Shortly the two men were on their way to the roof field -- And then Rachmael was back at the settlement. "It's my food," Fred said. Oh God, Rachmael thought. Here I am again. *** "The thing is," Fred said amiably, as he dragged the turkey leg across the weed-pocked ground, "that a SubInfo computer screwed up. Subliminal information, right? They're repairing it, but meanwhile it's transmitted a lot to the right hemisphere hebesphere -- I forget. " He gave up trying to drag the turkey leg and extended his hand to Rachmael. "Name's Stine," he said. "Lewis Stine. I've damn near got it fixed." Numbly, Rachmael shook hands. He wondered what had become of Dosker. "Want to know how I'm fixing it?" Fred said. "I'd rather know --" "With this," Fred said, indicating the turkey leg. "It's a highly specialized piece of technogonically sophisticated --" "You're just a goddamn rat," Rachmael said, "and you've got about four words scrambled up together. I'm living in a rat heap with other rats." "No, I'm a highly skilled computer repairman," Fred -- or Lewis Stine -- said, looking nettled. "Or am I?" He contemplated the turkey leg. "You're right. It doesn't look like something you'd fix a computer with. Maybe I should lay back for a while and think this over. The problem is, I intended to eat that turkey leg. If that's what it is. See, while I'm working on the computer -- which is what I'm doing right now, although you'd never know it -- my thoughts are being transmitted to you because I haven't been able to shut the computer down. I mean I can shut it down, but that's contravindicated. " "Indicated," Rachmael corrected him. "Yeah; contraindicated. Thank you." Fred eyed him. "You a computer repairman, too?" "God no," Rachmael said. "Rats are highly telepathic," Fred said. "This was proved back in 1978 by the Russians. They took these rats, see, and shut them inside a lead enclosure which screened out all thoughts. Then they hooked up the rats to an encephalograph. And then --" Fred grinned. "Get this. They killed the rats. You know what the encephalogram showed?" "Flat line," Rachmael said. "Right. And then they quickly brought in a psychic. The psychic thought at the dead rats, and the encephalograph showed brain-wave activity. See? Isn't that clever?" "Fascist Russians," Rachmael said hotly. He was not amused. "You have to admit it's a clever way to prove that rats are telepathic," Fred said. "No," Rachmael said, "it proves that psychics are telepathic. It just showed --" "I'll mash in your head with this crescent wrench," Fred said, grabbing up the turkey leg as best he could. "All the great scientific discoveries were made by rats -- are made by rats." "Made by the use of rats," Rachmael corrected. He could see that Fred would never get the turkey leg off the ground. "Rats keep the human population down," Fred said, abandoning his attempts to pick up the turkey leg. "Abba explained that to us before he died. He also explained where we go when we die." "I know," Rachmael said. "I was there. I heard him." *** The roof field faded back in, replacing the weed-pocked settlement; Fred and his turkey leg vanished. Dosker had parked his taxi-marked flapple off to one side. "Get in," Dosker said to him. "Have I been here all this time?" Rachmael said. Glancing at him, Dosker said, "I don't get you." "Never mind," Rachmael said. How ordinary the flapple looked. But as it arced into the night sky Rachmael blinked at its velocity; he had to accept the obvious: this was not the usual thrust which now impelled them. They had hit 3.5 Machs within nanoseconds. As Dosker piloted the flapple he reached into the glove compartment, brought out a turkey leg and began gnawing on it. Rachmael gazed at him fixedly, stricken. "What's the matter?" Dosker said. "Haven't you ever seen a turkey leg before?" "It's fine," Rachmael said. "Fine looking turkey leg; Damn fine." He lapsed into silence. A computer foul-up. But being repaired. To have to be clued in by a rat ... another rat, he realized. And the tender and wise Abba had passed on to his celestial reward. But he would be reborn; always, Abba was reborn. Every year or so. He was their -- eternal leader. "You'll direct me," Dosker was saying as he gnawed on the turkey leg. "Since even we at Lies, Incorporated don't know where you've got the Omphalos. You did a good job of berthing her, or perhaps we're beginning to slip .. or both." "Okay." At the 3-D Lunar map he took hold of the locating trailing-arm, linked the pivot in position, then swept out a route until the terminus of the arm touched the recessed locus where his technicians worked busily at ... I wish he'd stop gnawing on that turkey leg, Rachmael said to himself. ... at the Omphalos. Worked, while waiting for parts which would never come. "We're off course," Dosker said abruptly. Speaking not to Rachmael but into his console mike. Shit; we've been phooed." Phooed -- a trade term. Rachmael felt fear, because the word was a condensation of PU -- picked up. Picked up by a field, and this one was moving Dosker's small flapple out of its trajectory. At once Dosker fired the huge Whetstone-Milton rockets, tried to reassert with their enormous strength homeo-course ... but the field continued to tug, even against the millions of pounds of thrust of the twin engines, as both fired in unison, acting as retro-jets against the field exerting its presence unseen. But, on a variety of console instruments, registering. Rachmael, after an interval of strained, wordless silence, said to Dosker, "Where's it taking us?" "From a Three to L course, " Dosker said laconically. He set down his turkey leg, now. "Not to Luna, then." They would not, the two of them, reach the Omphalos' place of berth; that was now clear. But -- Where instead? "We're in T-orb," Dosker said. Orbit around the Earth, despite the push of the two W-M engines. Dosker, now, reluctantly, in a motion of admitted defeat, cut them. Fuel for them had no doubt dropped to a dangerously low level: if the field let go they would orbit anyhow, orbit without the possibility of being capable of creating a trajectory that would lead to an ultimate landing either on Luna or on Terra. "They've got us," Dosker said, then, half to Rachmael and half into the mike that projected from the ship's console. He recited a series of encoded instructions into the mike, listened, then cursed, said to Rachmael, "We're cut off aud and vid, all signal-contact; I'm not getting through to Matson. So that's it." "That's what?" Rachmael demanded. "You mean we give up? We just orbit Terra forever and die when we run out of oxygen?" Was this the fight that Lies, Incorporated put up when faced by Trails of Hoffman? He, alone, had held out better; now he was disgusted, astonished and completely perplexed, and he watched without comprehension as Dosker inspected his bank of bug chasers at his chest. At the moment the Lies, Incorporated pilot seemed interested only in whether or not monitors were picking them up -- as well as controlling, externally, the trajectory of their ship. Dosker said, "No monitors. Look, friend ben Applebaum." He spoke swiftly. "They cut my transmission on aud by rnicro-relay to Matson's satellite, but of course --" His dark eyes glinted with amusement. "I have on me a dead man's throttle; if a continuous signal from me is interrupted it automatically sets off an alarm at Lies, Incorporated, at its main offices in New New York and also at Matson's satellite. So by now they know something's happened." He lowered his voice, speaking almost to himself alone. "We'll have to wait to find out if they can get to us before it doesn't matter." The ship, without power, in orbit, glided silently. And then, jarringly, something nosed it; Rachmael fell; sliding along the floor to the far wall he saw Dosker tumble, too, and knew that this had been the locking of another ship or similar device against them -- knew and then all at once realized that at least it hadn't detonated. At least it had not been a missile. Because if it had -- "They could," Dosker said, as he got unsteadily to his feet, "have taken us out permanently." By that he, too, meant a detonating weapon. He turned toward the tri-stage entrance hatch, used for null-atmosphere penetration. The hatch, its circular seal-controls spun from impulses emanating outside, swung open. Three men, two of them riffraff with lasers, with the decayed eyes of those who had been bought, hamstrung, lost long ago, came first. And then a clear-faced elegant man who would never be bought because he was a great buyer in the market of men; he was a dealer, not produce for sale. It was Theodoric Ferry, chairman of the board of Trails of Hoffman Limited. Ahead of him his two employees swung a vacuum-cleaner-like mechanism; it searched, buzzing and nosing, probing until its operators were satisfied; they nodded to Theodoric, who then addressed Rachmael. "May I seat myself?" After a startled pause Rachmael said, "Sure." "Sorry, Mr. Ferry," Dosker said. "The only seat is taken." He sat at the control console in such a way that his small body had expanded at its base to fill both bucket seats; his face was hard and hating. Shrugging, the large, white-haired man said, "All right. " He eyed Dosker. "You're Lies' top pilot, aren't you? A1 Dosker ... yes, I recognize you from the clips we've made of you. On your way to the Omphalos. But you don't need Applebaum here to tell you where she is; we can tell you." Theodoric Ferry dug into his cloak, brought out a small packet which he tossed to Al Dosker. "The locus of the dry-docks where Applebaum has got her." "Thanks, Mr. Ferry," Dosker said with sarcasm so great that his voice was almost forged into incomprehensibility. Theodoric said, "Now look, Dosker; you sit quietly and mind your own business. While I talk to Applebaum. I've never met him personally, but I knew his very-much-missed late father." He extended his hand. Dosker said, "If you shake with him, Rachmael, he'll deposit a virus contamination that'll produce liver toxicity within your system inside an hour." Glowering, Theodoric said to the Negro, "I asked you to stay in your place. A pun." He then removed the membrane-like, up-to-now invisible glove of plastic which covered his hand. So Dosker had been right, Rachmael realized as he watched Theodoric carefully deposit the glove in the ship's incinerating disposal-chute. "Anyhow," Theodoric said, almost plaintively, "we could have squirted feral airborne bacteria around by now." "And taken out yourselves," Dosker pointed out. Theodoric shrugged. Then, speaking carefully to Rachmael, he said, "I respect what you're trying to do. Don't laugh." "I was not," Rachmael said, "laughing. Just surprised." "You want to keep functioning, after the economic collapse; you want to keep your legitimate creditors from attaching the few -- actually sole -- asset that Applebaum Enterprise still possesses -- good for you, Rachmael. I'd have done the same. And you impressed Matson; that's why he's supplying you his only decent pilot." With a mild grin, Dosker reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarillos; at once the two decayed- eyed men accompanying Theodoric caught his arm, expertly manipulated it -- the harmless pack of cigarillos fell to the floor of the ship. One after another, the cigarillos were cut open by Theodoric's men, inspected ... the fifth one turned out to be hard; it did not yield to the sharp-bladed pocket knife, and, a moment later, a more complex analytical device showed the cigarillo to be a homeostatic cephalotropic dart. "Whose Apha-wave pattern?" Theodoric Ferry asked Dosker. "Yours," Dosker said tonelessly. He watched without affect as the two decayed-eyed but very expert employees of THL crushed the dart under heel, rendering it useless. "Then you expected me," Ferry said, looking a little nonplussed. Dosker said, "Mr. Ferry, I always expect you." Returning once more to Rachmael, Theodoric Ferry said, "I admire you and I want to terminate this conflict between you and THL. We have an inventory of your assets. Here." He extended a sheet toward Rachmael; at that, Rachmael turned toward Dosker for advice. "Take it," Dosker said. Accepting the sheet, Rachmael scanned it. The inventory was accurate; these did constitute the slight totality of the remaining assets of Applebaum Enterprise. And -- glaringly, as Ferry had said, the only item of any authentic value was the Omphalos herself, the great liner plus the repair and maintenance facilities of Luna which now, hive-like, surrounded and checked her as she waited futilely ... he returned the inventory to Ferry, who, seeing his expression, nodded. "We agree, then," Theodoric Ferry said. "Okay. Here's what I propose, Applebaum. You can keep the Omphalos. I'll instruct my legal staff to withdraw the writ to the UN courts demanding that the Omphalos be placed under a state of attachment." Dosker, startled, grunted; Rachmael stared at Ferry. "What," Rachmael said, then, "in return?" "This. That the Omphalos never leave the Sol system. You can very readily develop a profitable operation transporting passengers and cargo between the nine planets and to Luna. Despite the fact --" "Despite the fact," Rachmael said, "that the Omphalos was built as an inter-stellar carrier, not inter- plan. It's like using --" "It's that," Ferry said, "or lose the Omphalos to us." "So Rachmael agrees" -- Dosker spoke up -- "not to take the Omphalos to Fomalhaut. The written agreement won't mention any one particular star system, but it's not Prox and not Alpha Right, Ferry?" After a pause Theodoric Ferry said, "Take it or leave it." Rachmael said, "Why, Mr. Ferry? What's wrong at Whale's Mouth? This deal -- it proves I'm right." That was obvious; he saw it, Dosker saw it -- and Ferry must have known that in making it he was ratifying their intimations. Limit the Omphalos to the nine planets of the Sol system? And yet -- the corporation Applebaum Enterprise, as Ferry said, would continue; it would live on as a legal, economic entity. And Ferry would see that the UN turned a certain amount, an acceptable quantity, of commerce its way. Rachmael would wave goodbye to Lies, Incorporated, to first this small dark superior space pilot, and then, by extension, to Freya Holm, to Matson Glazer-Holliday, cut in effect himself off from the sole power which had chosen to back him. "Go ahead," Dosker said. "Accept the idea. After all, The deep-sleep components won't arrive, but it won't matter, because you're not going into 'tween system space anyhow." He looked tired. Theodoric Ferry said, "Your father, Rachmael; Maury would have done anything to keep the Omphalos. You know in two days we'll have her -- and once we do, there's no chance you'll ever get her back. Think about it." "I -- know right now," Rachmael said. Lord, if he and Dosker had managed to get the Omphalos out tonight, lost her in space where THL couldn't find her ... and yet that was already over; it had ended when the field had overcome the enormous futile thrust of the twin engines of Dosker's Lies, Incorporated ship: Trails of Hoffman had stepped in too soon. In time. All along, Theodoric Ferry had pre-thought them; it was not a moral issue: it was a pragmatic one. "I have legal forms drawn up," Ferry said. "If you'll come with me." He nodded toward the hatch. "The law requires three witnesses. On the part of THL, we have those witnesses." He smiled, because it was over and he knew it. Turning, he walked leisurely toward the hatch. The two decayed-eyed employees followed, both men relaxed ... they passed into the open circularity of the hatch -- And then convulsed throughout, from scalp to foot, internally destroyed; as Rachmael, shocked and terrified, watched, he saw their neurological, musculature systems give out; he saw them, both men penetrated entirely so that each became, horrifying him, flopping, quivering, malfunctioning -- more than malfunctioning: each unit of their bodies fought with all other portions, so that the two heaps on the floor became warring subsyndromes within themselves, as muscle strained against muscle, visceral apparatus against diaphragmatic strength, auricular and ventricular fibrillation; both men, unable to breathe, deprived even of blood-circulation, staring, fighting within their bodies which were no longer true bodies ... Rachmael looked away. "Cholinesterase-destroying gas," Dosker said, behind him, and at that instant Rachmael became aware of the tube pressed to his own neck, a medical artifact which had injected into his blood stream its freight of atropine, the antidote to the vicious nerve gas of the notorious FMC Corporation, the original contractors for this, the most destructive of all anti-personnel weapons of the previous war. "Thanks," Rachmael said to Dosker, as he saw, now, the hatch swing shut; the Trails of Hoffman satellite, with its inert field, was being detached -- within it persons who were not THL employees pried it loose from Dosker's flapple. The dead man's throttle signaling device -- or rather null-signaling device -- had done its job; Lies, Incorporated experts had arrived and at this moment were systematically dismantling the THL equipment. Philosophically, Theodoric Ferry stood with his hands in the pockets of his cloak, saying nothing, not even noticing the spasms of his two employees on the floor near him, as if, by deteriorating in response to the gas, they had somehow proved unworthy. "It was nice," Rachmael managed to say to Dosker, as the hatch once more swung open, this time admitting several employees of Lies Incorporated, "that your co-workers administered the atropine to Ferry as well as to me." Generally, in this business, no one was spared. Dosker, studying Ferry, said, "He was given no atropine." Reaching, he withdrew the empty tube with its injecting needle from his own neck, then the counterpart item from Rachmael's. "How come, Ferry?" Dosker said. There was, from Ferry, no answer. "Impossible," Dosker said. "Every living organism is --" Suddenly he grabbed Ferry's arm; grunting, he swung brusquely the arm back, against its normal span -- and yanked. Theodoric Ferry's arm, at the shoulder-joint, came off. Revealing trailing conduits and minned components, those of the shoulder still functioning, those of the arm, deprived of power, now inert. "A sim," Dosker said. Seeing that Rachmael did not comprehend he said, "A simulacrum of Ferry that of course has no neurological system. So Ferry was never here." He tossed the arm away. "Naturally; why should a man of his stature risk himself? He's probably sitting in his demesne satellite orbiting Mars, viewing this through the sense-extensors of the sim." To the one-armed Ferry-construct he said harshly, "Are we in genuine contact with you, Ferry, through this? Or is it on homeo? I'm just curious." The mouth of the Ferry simulacrum opened and it said, "I hear you, Dosker. Would you, as an act of humanitarian kindness, administer atropine to my two THL employees?" "It's being done," Dosker said. He walked over to Rachmael, then. "Well, our humble ship, on acute examination, seems never to have been graced by the presence of the chairman of the board of THL." He grinned shakily. "I feel cheated." But the offer made by Ferry via the simulacrum, Rachmael realized. That had been genuine. Dosker said, "Let's go to Luna, now. As your advisor I'm telling you --" He put his hand, gripped harshly, on Rachmael's wrist. "Wake up. Those two gnugs will be all right, once the atropine is administered; they won't be killed and we'll release them in their THL vehicle -- minus its field, of course. You and I will go on to Luna, to the Omphalos, as if nothing happened. Or if you won't I'll use the map the sim gave me; I'm taking the Omphalos out into 'tween space where THL can't tail her, even if you don't want me to." "But," Rachmael said woodenly, "something did happen. An offer was made." "That offer," Dosker said, "proves that THL is willing to sacrifice a great deal to keep you from your eighteen-year trip to Fomalhaut for a look at Whale's Mouth. And --" He eyed Rachmael. "Yet that makes you less interested in getting the Omphalos out into uncharted space between planets where Ferry's trackers can't --" I could save the Omphalos, Rachmael thought. But the man beside him was correct; this meant of course that he had to go on: Ferry had removed the block, had proved the need of the eighteen-year flight. "But the deep-sleep components," he said. "Just get me to her," Dosker said quietly, patiently. "Okay, Rachmael ben Applebaum? Will you do that?" The controlled and very professional voice penetrated; Rachmael nodded. "I want the locus from you, not from the chart that sim gave me; I've decided I'm not touching that. I'm waiting for you, Rachmael, for you to decide." "Yes," Rachmael said, then, and walked stiffly to the ship's 3-D Lunar map with its trailing arm; he seated himself and began to fix the locus for the hard-eyed, dark, Lies, Incorporated ultra- experienced pilot. |