The Long Way Home

7

There was a time of roaring confusion, as Chanthavar snapped orders into a visiphone, organizing a chase. Then he swung around to Langley. “I’ll have this warren searched, of course,” he said, “but I don’t imagine the kidnappers are still in it. The robots aren’t set to notice who goes out in what condition, so that’s no help. Nor do I expect to find the employee of this place who helped fix matters up for the snatch. But I’ve got the organization alerted, there’ll be a major investigation hereabouts inside half an hour. And Brannoch’s quarters are being watched already.”

“Brannoch?” repeated Langley stupidly. His brain felt remote, like a stranger’s, he couldn’t throw off the air-borne drugs as fast as the agent.

“To be sure! Who else? Never thought he had this efficient a gang on Earth, but- They won’t take your friends directly to him, of course, there’ll be a hideout somewhere in the lower levels, not too much chance of finding it among fifteen million Commoners, but we’ll try. We’ll try!”

A policeman hurried up with a small, metal-cased object which Chanthavar took. “Peel off that mask. This is an electronic scent-tracer, we’ll try to follow the trail of the pseudo-faces—distinctive odor, so don’t you confuse it. I don’t think the kidnappers took the masks off in Dreamhouse, then someone might notice who they were carrying. Stick with us, we may need you. Let’s go!”

A score of men, black-clad, armed, and silent, surrounded them. Chanthavar cast about the main exit. There was something of the questing hound over him—the aesthete, the hedonist, the casual philosopher, were blotted up in the hunter of men. A light glowed on the machine. “A trail, all right,” he muttered. “If only it doesn’t get cold too fast-Damn it, why must they ventilate the lowers so well?” He set off at a rapid jog trot, his men keeping an easy pace. The milling crowds shrank away.

Langley was too bewildered to think. This was happening faster than he could follow, and the drugs of Dreamhouse were still in his blood, making the world unreal. Bob, Jim, now the great darkness had snatched them too, and would he ever see them again?

Why?

Down a drop-shaft, falling like autumn leaves, Chanthavar testing each exit as he passed it. The unceasing roar of machines grew louder, more frantic. Langley shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to master himself. It was like a dream, he was carried wildlessly along between phantoms in black, and—

He had to get away. He had to get off by himself, think in peace; it was an obsession now, driving everything else out of his head, he was in a nightmare and he wanted to wake up. Sweat was clammy on his skin.

The light flashed, feebly. “This way!” Chanthavar swung out of a portal. “Trail’s weakening, but maybe—”

The guards pressed after him. Langley hung back, dropped farther, and stepped out at the next level down.

It was an evil section, dim-lit and dingy, the streets almost deserted. Closed doors lined the walls, litter blew about under his feet, the stamping and grinding of machines filled his universe. He walked fast, turning several corners, trying to hide.

Slowly, his brain cleared. An old man in dirty garments sat cross-legged beside a door, watching him out of filmy eyes. A small group of grimed children played some game under the white glare of a fluorolamp in the street ceiling. A sleazy woman slunk close to him, flashing bad teeth in a mechanical smile, and fell behind. A tall young man, ragged and unshaven, leaned against the wall and followed his movements with listless eyes. This was the slum, the oldest section, poor and neglected, last refuge of failure; this was where those whom the fierce life of the upper tiers had broken fled, to drag out lives of no importance to the Technon. Under the noise of mills and furnaces, it was very quiet.

Langley stopped, breathing hard. A furtive hand groped from a narrow passage, feeling after the purse at his belt. He slapped, and the child’s bare feet pattered away into darkness.

Fool thing to do, he thought. I could be murdered for my cash. Let’s find us a cop and get out of here, son.

He walked on down the street. A legless beggar whined at him, but he didn’t dare show his money. New legs could have been grown, but that was a costly thing. Well behind, a tattered pair followed him. Where was a policeman? Didn’t anyone care what happened down here?

A huge shape came around a corner. It had four legs, a torso with arms, a nonhuman head. Langley hailed it. “Which is the way out? Where’s the nearest shaft going up? I’m lost.”

The alien looked blankly at him and went on. No spikka da Inglees. Etie Town, the section reserved for visitors of other races, was somewhere around here. That might be safe, though most of the compartments would be sealed off, their interiors poisonous to him. Langley went the way the stranger had come. His followers shortened the distance between.

Music thumped and wailed from an open door. There was a bar, a crowd, but not the sort where he could look for help. As the final drug-mists cleared, Langley realized that he might be in a very tight fix.

Two men stepped out of a passage. They were husky, well dressed for Commoners. One of them bowed. “Can I do you a service, sir?”

Langley halted, feeling the coldness of his own sweat. “Yes,” he said thickly. “Yes, thanks. How do I get out of this section?”

“A stranger, sir?” They fell in, one on either side. “We’ll conduct you. Right this way.”

Too obliging! “What are you doing down here?” snapped Langley.

“Just looking around, sir.”

The speech was too cultivated, too polite. These aren’t Commoners any more than I am! “Never mind. I... I don’t want to bother you. Just point me right.”

“Oh, no, sir. That would be dangerous. This is not a good area to be alone in.” A large hand fell on his arm.

“No!” Langley stopped dead.

“We must insist, I’m afraid.” An expert shove, and he was being half dragged. “You’ll be all right, sir, just relax, no harm.”

The tall shape of a slave policeman hove into view.

Langley’s breath rattled in his throat. “Let me go,” he said. “Let me go, or—”

Fingers closed on his neck, quite unobtrusively, but he gasped with the pain. When he had recovered himself, the policeman was out of sight again.

Numbly, he followed. The portal of a grav-shaft loomed before him. They tracked me, he thought bitterly. Of course they did. I don’t know how stupid a man can get, but I’ve been trying hard tonight. And the price of this stupidity is apt to be total!

Three men appeared, almost out of nowhere. They wore the gray robes of the Society. “Ah,” said one, “you found him. Thank you.”

“What’s this?” Langley’s companions recoiled. “Who’re you? What d’you want?”

“We wish to see the good captain home,” answered one of the newcomers. His neatly bearded face smiled, a gun jumped into his hand.

“That’s illegal... that weapon—”

“Possibly. But you’ll be very dead if you don’t- That’s better. Just come with us, captain, if you please.”

Langley entered the shaft between his new captors. There didn’t seem to be much choice.