Empire of Two Worlds

Three

Becmath was not long in fulfilling his promise.

In less than a year he was the biggest man in the Basement. Nearly all enterprises were sewn up; that is to say, they paid dues to him in order to stay in operation. There were a few, though, that he left alone. “You always need room to manoeuvre,” he used to say.

I saw what he meant when the cops started to get interested, and sent in one of their patrol sloops. They didn’t usually do that. They had enough trouble keeping law and order in the upper reaches and tended to leave the too-violent Basement to stew in its own juice. As might normally be expected, their intrusion caused trouble and they retreated with a badly damaged vehicle, but without being able to blame it on Bec. Somehow he lured them into a showdown with the Vokleit Gang, one of the independent outfits he had left alone.

In that year, too, I rose quickly in Bec’s organisation and became his lieutenant. Not all of his inner circle appreciated my rapid advancement, but most of them had sense to see that a special relationship was growing between me and Bec, so they accepted it. Only Grale, the Nasty-Face who had wanted to put a bullet in my back at Klamer’s, hated my guts for it.

Already I could see that Becmath’s ambitions were beginning to look beyond the Basement. After the police raid he told me to design and start building the sloop, like the ones the police had but bigger and better. Plainly he thought that at some time in the future he might have to face them on equal terms.

One day I went into his office to find him smoking weed and brooding. “Sit down, Klein,” he said. “There’s something I want to talk over.”

He often used me to sharpen his ideas on. I took a tube from the box on the table and lit up.

“You know,” he said, “it’s not only in the Basement they got gangsters. They got gangsters upstairs too.”

“What, you mean some of those government bosses?”

He waved his hand. “Them too, but that’s not what I meant. There are private interests, private empires just like we got down here. Only they can throw their weight around with no sweat. Because the basis of real power lies upstairs, and they’ve got it.

“You know what I mean, Klein,” he added, staring at me with his steady black eyes. “I mean the tanks.”

“You certainly can’t do much unless you can eat,” I muttered.

“That’s right. Have you ever wondered about something, Klein? Have you ever wondered why nothing ever changes in Klittmann? Why we do everything in the same way we did it generations ago?”

His remark puzzled me. I shrugged. “Why, no. What other way is there?”

“That’s right, what other way.” For some moments he sat gazing at the nerve-calming smoke that plumed up from the end of the tube he was holding. “You know, it was centuries ago, maybe a thousand years ago, that men came from Earth and settled on Killibol. They came at the peak of an age of science and technology. An age of great change.”

“I didn’t know that.” To tell the truth I had difficulty even in comprehending it.

“Few do. But as soon as the cities rose and the gateway from Earth was closed, something happened. Everything petrified, even technology and engineering, and we finished up with what we got today — stasis. There isn’t systematic knowledge any more, only habitual techniques handed down from generation to generation. I’ve got a theory as to why that happened. Firstly, the need for food comes before everything else. The tanks are a stranglehold that stops people from altering anything — especially since they are more or less in the hands of a few and the others are beholden to those few. You can’t think about anything if in thinking about it you endanger your protein supply. Secondly, the fact that Killibol is a dead world causes each city to bunch up in itself and prevents traffic between them. It wasn’t like that on Earth. There was food everywhere and the cities all had intercourse with one another all the time. It must have been real lively. Maybe you need that intercourse between cities to get things moving.”

“How do you know all this, Bec?”

“I’ve read books.” He picked up an ancient, dog-eared volume that was lying on the table. “There’s a guy comes down into the Basement looking for pop. Tone, they call him: Tone the Taker. He’s quite a strange fellow. He knows a place where he gets all these old books and I make him bring them in exchange for pop.”

Slowly Bec got to his feet and put the book away in a cupboard. “Wouldn’t it be a fine thing, Klein, if people could be freed of their slavery to the tanks?”

“That’s impossible.”

“So it is. But maybe the stasis would be broken if the tanks didn’t have bosses — that’s where the real stranglehold lies. Supposing Klittmann was ruled by a rod of iron, by a real strong king or dictator, like they had on Earth thousands of years ago, and the tanks were made available to all. State property, like they were supposed to be when Klittmann was founded? Maybe we could even move in on some of the other cities.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about, boss?” While I could just barely get the drift of what he was saying, I didn’t at that time see what it had to do with me.

He cast me a sardonic glance and I sensed he was disappointed in me.

“No. We’ve taken over the Basement, but we’re not going to stop with the Basement. Those big shots upstairs aren’t so big once you take their protein tanks away. Klein, we need a tank.”

His words practically stopped my mind. I saw for the first time that Bec’s theorising came to a practical point. But it seemed such an enormous step that I just couldn’t encompass it.

“Bec — how?” I goggled.

“You see?” he retorted with a grimace. “You can’t even imagine it. You think of yourself as tankless, as a gunman living outside the law. But what is the law? It’s a gun, it’s a mob, just like us. Once we’ve got what they’ve got, we can take the whole damned city.”

“You sure talk big.”

“Somebody round here has to. Now listen, you want to know how we’ll do it. It’s not nearly as hard as it sounds. Is the sloop ready?”

“Yes.” I had, in fact, tried out the new vehicle a few days before.

“Good, we’ll need it. There’s a guy called Blind Bissey. He owns a tank, just one, located secretly in one of the quiet quarters on the level just above us. Because of it he’s able to run a few factories, have a staff around him, trade, live in style, things like that.”

Bec’s arguments were beginning to impress me. “Hell, isn’t that just what we do?”

“That’s right. Tone the Taker knows where the tank is. As a matter of fact, it’s right close by his store of old books. That’s another reason why I want to go up there. Here’s what we’ll do. One night we’ll drive up there by a planned route — and take over the tank.” He raised his eyebrows as he spoke the last words. “Simple.”

My head was singing with the audacity of it all. “We’ll never get away with it!”

“Why not? If it looks like we can’t hold the place we’ll round up the technicians and bring them down here, and take as much organic material from the tanks as we can and bring that down here as well. That’s all you need, remember: organic material and know-how. We’ll set the tank up anew in the Basement. Meanwhile I’ll get in touch with Blind Bissey and offer him a partnership.”

“It’s war,” I said with a feeling of foreboding. “We’ll be smashed into the ground.”

“You think so? Where’s Bissey without his tank? He’ll want it back so bad he’ll give me fifty per cent to get it. He’ll even call off the cops to get it. I tell you, basically he’s a mobster like us. So Bissey’s outfit will be our first step on the way to real influence. Once we’re upstairs we’ll start to edge in on the workers’ unions, take over more tanks, form alliances in the government and even the cops. Given time, there won’t be anybody who can stop us.”

“You seem to have it all worked out,” I admitted.

He smiled. “I’ve read a lot of books, Klein. Some of the people who lived ages ago were pretty smart.”

The sloop purred smoothly along the gleaming metal street, taking the regular right curves with barely a whisper. Behind us followed three smaller cars to complement the gunmen who were crammed into the big vehicle.

The district was quiet, almost deathly. On either side of the broad avenue the structures presented a continuous façade that swept up to join perfectly with the roof overhead, dully visible behind the glare of the street lights. Bec had had the route reconnoitred pretty thoroughly; we knew there would be no police patrols along at this hour and we were reckoning on a smooth operation.

Each vehicle towed a big square vat. The four of them wouldn’t enable us to carry away all the contents of the tank with us if need be, but they would give us a good part of it; and organics are the most precious thing there is on Killibol.

Becmath drove. In the seat next to him was Tone the Taker, a skinny, nervous individual who had taken pop in the arm before we set out. Pop addicts nearly always go to pieces if they’re without their supply. Their nervous systems need it.

Crowded in between the driving seat and the main troop force were myself and Reeth, another of Bec’s inner circle. Reeth was slight-bodied, slick and nimble. Becmath had chosen him well. He kept his eyes skinned and alone of all the henchmen he was sometimes openly critical of his boss’s decisions, a quality which Bec seemed to value.

“Slow here,” Tone said, “there’s a hidden turning on your right.”

As the sloop slowed to a dawdle we saw an arch closed off with a big sheet of steel. It could be opened, Tone had explained, only from the inside, but that, of course, would not detain us long. We had brought impact explosives with us, the same that are used to punch out odd-shaped sheets of metal.

In less than a minute the stuff was taped in place. There was a short, sharp bang and a piece of steel clanged to the floor, leaving a hole large enough for a man to get through. Tone stepped inside and shortly afterwards the arch’s door slid upwards and disappeared.

Our convoy bumped in darkness down a sloping, uneven surface. Tone instructed us to stop. We got out and proceeded on foot by the light of hand-lamps.

I felt an irrepressible excitement. Never before had I seen one of those places where they make food; I felt, in fact, a vague kind of mystique about it, like you would about your own mother’s womb. No wonder, I thought, that the tank controllers had found it easy to hang on to them and make other men subservient by means of them. It took a man like Becmath to overcome that unspoken feeling of reverence and claim a tank for himself.

Suddenly Tone flung open a door and we were there. Faces turned towards us in bewilderment as we blundered in, handguns and repeaters darting about on the look-out for trouble.

There wasn’t much to see. We were in a gallery, not very large — maybe twenty or thirty feet long — one wall of which was covered with dials and switches. At either end were doors leading to the culture banks.

We herded the shocked technical crew to the far end. Out of curiosity I opened one of the doors and peered in. The light was dim and the air had a dank, musky smell. There were a number of short corridors. And that was all. The tank itself, I knew, was sealed.

I closed the door again. “What now?” I asked Bec in a low tone.

“Better not try to hold this place,” he said. “We could, for a while, but what then? We’ll get a better bargaining position from our own territory.”

He called over Tone. “You said we could drain nutrient fluid off. Are you still sure?”

“Yes, if we get the crew to help us.”

“They’ll help us,” Bec said, with one glance at the frightened technicians. They wore long white gowns and white gloves. I’d never seen a costume like that before.

Underneath the gallery there was a valve where the organics from the tank could be drained off. Apparently they used it regularly in order to clean out wastes and replenish the nutrient fluid from recycled material in an adjoining chamber.

The technicians were reluctant at first; they took quite a knocking about before we persuaded them to co-operate in opening the valve. The stuff that came gushing out was thick and slimy and the smell was so strong it made us gag. We started to fill up the vats. In spite of the smell we were all excited, like kids, because we were doing something that had never been done before.

“O.K.,” Bec said to Tone while the work was going on. “Now take me to this old man.”

Tone led the way to the exit. “You come too, Klein,” Bec told me, “I’d like you to see this.”

We went part way back up the ramp in the darkness. Tone found a smaller passage that went off at right angles and then curved round in a crazy spiral. Shortly light shone round the edges of a thick door. Tone thumped on it with his fist.

“Open up, Harmen,” he cried in his reedy voice. “It’s me, Tone.”

After a brief shuffling noise from the other side, the door swung open. An old man stood there. His hair was unkempt and down to his shoulders. He was tall, thin, but still energetic and hardly stooped at all. His face made an impression on you the instant you saw it: the nose was bony and hooked, the corners of the mouth turned down, and the eyes were intense and penetrating. But the corners of those eyes were wrinkled with humour-lines, and somehow the total effect was kindly despite its bizarreness.

“I’ve brought some friends; they wanted to meet you,” Tone told him.

Harmen’s eyes followed us with displeasure as we walked into the room. “I told you never to bring anyone here.”

“You should never trust a taker,” Bec told him with a smile.

Even before the door opened I had heard a faint buzzing noise. Now it was louder, but intermittent. The air was heavy with the smell of electricity and unidentified substances. The room was large. The light was erratic, and came mainly from various instruments that gave off illumination in irregular pulses and flamed colour against the walls and ceiling.

These instruments were set up on a number of tables. The whole effect was weird, unbelievable. Something started to creep up my spine.

“Harmen used to be a tank technician,” Bec murmured to me. “All the time, though, he was interested in something else, as you can see. When he retired he set up this little place here. It’s perfect for him, as you can see. Nice and private. Only Tone knew about it — Harmen was sorry for him and helped him get pop.”

“He’s an alchemist,” I whispered. “What the hell are we doing here?”

I’d heard of alchemists — alks — before, but naturally never seen one. They were something you threatened your children with. They were supposed to have evil magic powers and to indulge in nasty habits like sucking the blood from live babies. I didn’t know they really existed any more, but of course it would have to be in secret. There were city ordinances against “unauthorised or secret experimentation”, and popular fear of alks was strong.

“Alchemy is the only field of scientific endeavour left in the world,” Bec said quietly, trying to calm me. “Don’t believe what you hear about alks. Harmen doesn’t drink blood, and he can’t take away your will and make you his puppet by remote control. At least, I don’t think he can.” He gazed around him. “Just look at all this stuff! I bet this guy knows more electronics than anybody in the city.”

Some of the apparatus on the tables seemed to be modelled on discharge tubes of various shapes and sizes, some globular, some retort-shaped with several electrodes discharging into the same chamber. What was going on in those discharge tubes was weird, frightening, but kind of beautiful. Colours — all the colours you can think of. The discharge tubes — flasks, or whatever — seemed to have various substances in them which the electrical charges were acting on. In one, the stuff was splashing against the sides of the retort in colour changes of a definite sequence: black, red, white, then yellow with brilliant islands of green, then deep purple. It was hypnotic. I tore my eyes away, suddenly remembering the stories about how an alk can steal your will and put it in a little mechanical doll.

“What do you want here?” the alk demanded in gravelly tones.

“We’ve come to see what you can do, old man. What you know.” I sensed that Bec was unexpectedly discomfited in these new surroundings. He suddenly felt himself to be a clumsy mobster.

“You want instruction in the Hermetic Art?” Harmen seemed puzzled and wary.

“It’s on the level,” Tone said brightly. “They’re not here to bust you.”

“That’s right,” Bec answered. “Come on, tell us about it.”

While they were talking I noticed a screen in one corner of the room. The loud buzzing noise was coming from behind it. So I stepped over and peeped behind it.

There was a big, round globe. Every time the irregular buzzing noises sounded a massive jolt of power must have been flashed into it, because it boiled and glared with a brightness I’d never experienced before. Momentarily I was blinded. I staggered back, blinking. Harmen was expounding to Bec in high-flown language.

“Alchemy, or the Hermetic Art,” he said, “is the eternal science, older than any others and continuing after they die. With every exoteric advance in knowledge the alchemical operations can be refined and perfected further, the missing techniques can be devised anew and so the Great Work carried further forward on the path to completion.”

“And what would completion be?”

Harmen frowned slightly. “You want answers all at once? My own teacher did not divulge that until I had mastered four separate disciplines of experimentation.”

“So what? Tell me now.”

“You think it will help you? The aim of the Work is the Tincture, the Prima Materia, Hyle, the Sublime Substance that is neither mass nor energy and by the possession of which one can conquer space and time.”

Bec met this proclamation with a blank look. A faint derisory smile appeared on Harmen’s face.

The alk continued to drone on, but it was clear that Bec soon lost the drift for he suddenly interrupted: “Is it right that Tone got all those books from you?”

The other nodded. “I have amassed a fair library. Those history books I’m not interested in and didn’t mind parting with. The science and technology books I keep. The techniques that are applied to alchemy now come from the science that was developed about eight hundred years ago.”

He showed Bec a thick, ancient volume that he took out of a drawer. Stamped on the cover in old-style video-comp lettering was the title: Plasma Physics and the Secret Art.

“My library, however, extends right back to the primitive state of the art, beginning with the Emerald Table and containing such valuable works of instruction as The Sophic Hydrolith. I can carry a process through six stages, from the Raven’s Head to the Blood of the Dragon. But not, alas, to the Tincture. However, those operations refer to the pre-atomic stage of alchemy. The later manuals, such as the Plasma Physics and the texts on the dissociation of matter by high-frequency magnetic fields, have greatly extended the range of alchemical operations.”

I got the idea that Harmen was so pleased to talk about his work that it didn’t matter much to him that none of us grasped too well what he was talking about. Bec cut off the flow of words with a wave of his hand.

“O.K., Harmen, you’ve got me convinced. How would you like to quit this place and come and do your work in my outfit. I’ll give you anything you need — anything. You must run short of equipment the way you are now.”

Harmen nodded. “I do. But what are your reasons?”

“I’m interested in original research. The world’s gone too long without anything new. I aim to change that.”

The alk pursed his lips. “The final preparation of the tincture requires the use of an atomic furnace. I am without one. Can you provide it?”

Bec thought for a moment. “We should be able to handle that.” The hardest part of building the sloop had been acquiring its nuclear power unit. But we had done it, so I guessed we could do it twice.

“Then I’ll think about it. Come and see me again in a few days.”

“Sorry, old man, this is the time for snap decisions.” He turned to me. “Get back to the tank, Klein, and send down some of the boys to help Harmen crate up his equipment and books. I don’t think we’ll be able to come back later.”

Harmen let out a roar of indignation, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. Bec had taken to him, for some reason. He was being hi-jacked, like the tank technicians.

I went back to where they were working under the control gallery. The stench was awful. They had filled up the vats and then had found some containers on the premises and filled those. Bissey’s tank was only a small one that fed no more than a few thousand people, but by the time they’d finished they had still only drained off slightly more than a third of its hoard of organics. We’d have to be content with that. As it was the technicians were protesting shrilly about the risk of contaminating the nutrient and ruining it.

I sent some boys down to Bec. Half an hour later they came back carrying loads of junk and books and stuff, then went back for more. There was masses of it and we had to leave a lot behind. Then Harmen came, looking wild-eyed and fierce. I told myself it was lucky I gave the sloop a lot of storage space. As it was we left a lot of stuff lying around the floor.

It was quite a while before we pulled out. Outside, the curving crescent of the street was still empty. We jammed Harmen and the six techs in the sloop with us and set off back to the Basement.

The chief tech was yelling that we were mad, criminally mad. “And why are you taking us?” he asked shrilly, though surely he could guess.

Bec spoke over his shoulder from the driving seat. “Calm down. You’ll be all right. I’ll set you up, you can grow food just like you did before. I’ll treat you better than Blind Bissey ever did.”

“You fool!” the technician fumed. “You don’t think the protein that’s grown in a tank is eatable, do you? It’s raw, you’d vomit if you tasted it. It has to be processed further to make the food you know.”

“Then process it. We’ll get you everything you need.”

Now we were already entering the Basement. The technicians peered through the windows at the dusty chaos. Most of them had probably never been down here before. A stranger to Klittmann might not notice the difference between that and the more select surroundings they were used to, but when you’ve been brought up in something all your life fine differences are important. Their faces were sour.

We drove straight to the fortified garages and locked up the technicians under guard. Then Bec made for his office, taking me in tow.

In his office Bec had a vision phone, one of the few in the whole of the Basement. He flicked out a number on the dial. There was a quiet whirr of machinery as the mechanical disc scanners spun, one set televising Bec’s face and the other tracing a blur of illumination on the paper receiving screen.

The first face that appeared on the screen was that of a servant girl. Bluntly Bec told her of his wish to speak to her master. Something in his tone must have got through to her, because she turned away and did something at a table and her image vanished.

“Bissey speaking,” a whispering voice said. But to Bec’s annoyance — he was proud of his vision phone — no picture appeared.

“Show yourself, Bissey, I like to see who I’m talking to,” he demanded.

“I can’t see you anyway. Why should you see me? What do you want?”

“Better come through and show me your face,” Bec told him. “It’s about your tank.”

There was a pause, then the screen’s fuzzy brightness cleared and it showed a low-quality picture of a fat man sitting in an armchair. His head was raised, his eyes clearly sightless. With one hand he fondled a dog that he used to guide him when he walked.

“Here I am then. What’s this about the tank?”

Brusquely, brutally, Bec told him what we had done. The fat man’s face went drawn and pale. At first he simply didn’t believe us. Bec invited him to check for himself. When he had done so he was shaking.

“You klugs!” he whispered, his voice shaking. “There are laws in this city. The police department will come down there and mash you into little pieces.”

“Sure, let them do that,” Bec said gaily. “Give them a call. But you can say goodbye to your protein nutrient. We’ll make sure that’s never usable again if the cops look like busting us.”

True, Bissey still had two thirds of his stock; but the loss of even one third was plainly a traumatic threat to him. Nothing like this had happened for generations.

“What do you want?” he hissed.

“Listen,” Bec told him, “and listen good. We want fifty per cent…. ”

He spoke on, his words punching like blows into the blind man’s flesh. By the time he had finished Bissey was beaten.

Becmath was riding high. He had everything going for him, and he knew it. For him it was a high spot in his life that looked even better because he thought it was only a beginning.

Bissey had capitulated. At first he had wanted the nutrient returned to his tank, but Bec had thought better of it and refused. So at great expense a little tank was set up in the Basement. It didn’t make eatable food, only raw protein that was shipped upstairs.

The alchemist was installed pretty good, too. Bec gave him a work-room — he called it a “laboratory” — in the system of garages and apartments where the gang operated from. Anything he wanted, he and Bec used to go upstairs together and get it somehow. The atomic furnace we were still working on.

Soon his “laboratory” was full of spluttering, flashing and buzzing and other noises and sights I wouldn’t really know how to describe. I didn’t like to go in there. Sometimes there were strange vibrations in the air that seemed to get right inside my mind and make me dizzy and give me peculiar feelings. But Bec used to talk to Harmen for hours at a time.

Bec used to go upstairs and see Blind Bissey sometimes, too. He was planning to move in the upper world of big power blocs, and he liked to sound Bissey out about it. The fat man hated us, of course, but he used to keep himself well under control, fondling his dog, his blind eyes staring into space.

We were on one of those visits when our plans collapsed around our ears.

That day I had wondered why Bissey seemed pleased to see us for once. He even smiled. And I didn’t like the smug look on his face when he said goodbye.

On the way back Bec wanted to stop off to buy something. He had a purchasing card now, one of those issued by the big manufacturing cartels, and he got a kick out of using it. So we stopped the car and went into a distributing outlet. Bec spent a long time choosing a metal belt with designs embossed on it.

When we came out, police sloops were sweeping past, heading for the Basement. A lot of them. Bec frowned, and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Let’s see what’s going on,” he said gruffly.

When the convoy had passed we made for home, taking a side route for safety’s sake.

Noise is something everyone in Klittmann gets used to from birth. Because it’s just one massive enclosed space, sound travels easily and long. We were scarcely within the region of the Basement before we heard the sound of gunfire and explosions.

It was the latter that frightened me. Explosives are almost never used in Klittmann except in tightly controlled conditions — certainly not in fighting. The danger of structural damage to the city is too great. That was why Bec’s use of a grenade at Klamer’s had taken me so much by surprise. Bec looked at me meaningfully. We went on a little further, then pulled up. We got out and went into a store owned by a trader named Klepp, usually a mine of information.

“What’s going on?” Bec demanded aggressively. “Have you heard anything?”

“Something big’s happening,” Klepp said warily. “The cops are here in force. Not only that but some kind of private armed militia. Not only that….” he trailed off.

“Come on, give!” Bec clenched his fist angrily, his eyes blazing.

“A lot of the old small outfits in the West Section have come to life and formed a consortium against you. It’s a rebellion, Bec. They’re coming at you from all sides.”

Bec growled a curse and strode from the shop.

We stood outside. “Bissey knew about this,” he said furiously. “He was just playing us along. Let’s go and see what’s happening at the garage.”

As we drew nearer the sounds of fighting grew louder. We approached cautiously. There was fighting elsewhere in the Basement, too — strangers from upstairs in unfamiliar uniforms were wandering about uncertainly and shooting into various buildings.

“I’ll bet those are Bissey’s own workers,” Bec said. “Armed just for the occasion, told they’re fighting for their rations. This thing has been well planned.”

We left the car about half a mile from the garage and went forward on foot to take a look. Police sloops were parked in the approach to the main frontage. The lid was down — the big slab of metal and concrete that we had grandiosely installed to keep out an army. Our own gun positions were silent and the sloops were firing Hacker shells at the lid to break it up.

“They’ll be through there before long,” Bec mused. “Come on, we’ll get in the back way.”

It didn’t take us long to work our way round and get into the complex by the hidden back entrance. Inside, it was organised desperation. They had put up makeshift barriers to hold off the cops when they broke through the lid. Half the mob had already sneaked off.

Grale and Reeth were running things. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Grale said thankfully when Bec appeared. “What do we do, fight or run?”

“Run?” Bec snarled. “Run where? Think you can hide in Klittmann all your life? There won’t be any Basement to go to after this.”

Reeth was looking at Bec sardonically. “You really did it, didn’t you? Thought you could take the whole city.” He shook his head, smiled ruefully.

“Shut up!” Bec roared, and hit him across the face.

Reeth didn’t seem perturbed or surprised. Bec was dialling on the vision phone, trying to get Bissey.

Eventually there came the hiss of the audio line but the paper screen remained a blank square of luminescence. This time Bissey wasn’t showing himself.

“Yes?” a grunting, whispering voice said.

“What’s the meaning of this, Bissey?” Bec demanded in hard tones. “This wasn’t in the deal.”

For answer there was only a dry laugh.

“I’ll ruin your organics!” Bec fumed. “You won’t get one pint of it back!”

“Stop kicking, little man,” the dry husky voice said distantly from the vision phone. “Me, I’m just a small-time tank owner. But there are some pretty big boys up in the pile. They didn’t like what you did. They wouldn’t even let me go through with it, when they heard about it. They’re making up the nutrient you stole. So enjoy yourself while you still got time.”

The line went dead.

Bec brooded.

So did I. Bissey’s whispering voice was still in my ears. It was an all too painful lesson in the power that resided in Klittmann, the power that Becmath had so badly underestimated.

The muffled explosions seemed to be getting louder and sharper. Shouts of consternation could be heard in the garages. Apparently the lid was cracking.

“I didn’t see our sloop out there,” Bec said at last. “Have you sent it out?”

“No, there didn’t seem any point against the fleet out there,” Reeth told him. “Anyway, we were waiting for you to get back.”

“You did the right thing. Is it armed up and everything?”

“Yes. Ready to go.”

“Put extra rations in. All we’ve got.”

“Rations? What for?”

“Do what I tell you,” Bec snapped. “Doesn’t anything get through to you? After today our supply of everything is cut off.”

Reeth went away to arrange things. Grale was still hovering around, nervous but tough.

“We’re taking the sloop and making a break for it,” Bec told him. “Just eight or nine of us. Tell the rest of the guys they’d better filter out through the back way while they can.”

“Hell, why?” Grale said with a grin. “Let them klugs take what’s coming. They’ll help draw fire from us.”

Bec gave him a hard look that meant business and then turned to me. “We’re taking the alchemist with us. Come and help me persuade him.”

The laboratory was reached by a stairway in the corner of the garage where the sloop was kept. Reeth and a couple of others were throwing protein packs in its storage space as we went past. I admired its long black torpedo shape one last time, then we were clattering down the stairs.

Harmen seemed to be only vaguely aware of the events that were going on above his head. Usually he had half a dozen different experiments going, but this time there was only one. He sat at a table, making adjustments on a panel of dials. In the centre of the table was a big globular discharge tube — though he called them retorts, not discharge tubes — with at least half a dozen necks growing from it at the end of each of which was an electrode. Actually as I looked closer the retort was not globular at all, but was made up of a number of different cavities fitted together. Every few seconds the electrodes discharged in a rapid sequence with a loud shuuush and the globe flamed up. In the centre something was writhing and running through a spectrum of colours.

For a few moments we were captivated by the sight and didn’t speak. With each shuuuush the writhing gas in the retort seemed to be taking a more definite shape. Then, for several fleeting seconds, it took on the firm, tiny form of a human being. The body was a gay reddish colour. It was bedecked in multi-coloured garments and it looked up at us, its arms spread towards us appealingly.

A shuddering gasp escaped me. Then the minuscule thing dissolved again into a writhing, formless cloud of colour. Harmen turned to us with a smile.

“Merely a phantom, I’m afraid. But my first step towards the creation of the Androgyne. It is possible, by means of a recipe now lost, to grow real flesh and blood homunculi that are no bigger than what you have just seen. However, they require special environments and so cannot be let out of their glass bottles.”

“Don’t say that in front of Klein, you’ll make him nervous,” Bec warned him. “I’ve got bad news for you, Harmen.” Briefly he explained the situation.

“It always comes to this,” the alk said regretfully, pursing his lips. “Among the original migrants who came to Killibol were a large number of American and German gangsters. It is the only tradition that has survived all these centuries. Yet to leave all this….” He indicated the workroom with an expansive wave of his arm.

Suddenly Bec’s tone became urgent and he glanced at me worriedly as he spoke. “Remember what we were talking about the other day?” he said to Harmen. “You know — the location?”

“Yes?” Harmen’s eyebrows rose.

“Well, bring whatever instruments would be useful. And maps.”

“You intend…?”

“No,” Bec replied hurriedly. “It’s just that we have to have all options open.”

All this was mystifying to me, but I took no notice. I was too conscious of what was going on overhead. Harmen rooted around and filled our arms with apparatus. Himself he just carried a few books and scrolls.

The garage was all but deserted. Bec’s gang had all fled except the few he had detailed to man the sloop. We piled in and took our places. Bec ordered Harmen to hide in the storage hold.

We piled into the main garage where the lid was thumping and shaking under the impact of Hacker shells. It had held up pretty well; but now it was disintegrating. In places we could see the light coming in from outside.

“Right, just hold it,” Bec said. “Let’s hope she’ll still move.”

He got out of the sloop and made for the lid switch. At that moment there was a cry from behind us. Tone the Taker came staggering out of a doorway, clutching a box to his chest.

“Take me with you!” he yelled desperately. “Don’t leave me here!”

Bec shrugged and gestured with his thumb for Tone to board. Then he pulled the switch. There was a heavy whine of motors.

The lid was beginning to lift when he scrambled back breathlessly into the driving seat. The sloop surged forward, straight for the mass of steel and concrete.

Our acceleration, of course was terrific. The lid grumbled up then stuck with just enough clearance. In what seemed like the blink of an eyelid we were in the forecourt and among the cops.

They sure were surprised by our appearance. They didn’t know about the sloop, and it was better than anything they had. Our big Hacker guns barked destruction as we raced past. Then we were streaking down the main thoroughfare, heading for the Southside ramp and the First Level Ring Road.

At that point I began wondering what Bec’s destination was, where he intended to go and what he intended to do. Our only asset was the sloop; apart from that we were at the end of the road.

We made an entire circuit of the Ring Road at high speed, occasionally knocking aside other vehicles by sheer momentum, before the cops latched on to us again.

An explosion rocked the sloop. Bec wheeled us about, sped off the Ring Road into a narrower street where we were less exposed. Three cop-ships were on our tail.

I have to say this for Bec, his driving was terrific. I never knew the cops had as many sloops as they turned on us that day. We accounted for four, I think. Bec threw us up and down streets almost too narrow for us to go, and his judgment never faltered.

But the cops were cute too. They were edging us towards where they wanted us to go: the rim of the city. I know now that Bec accepted this with a kind of resignation; he had nowhere else to go.

Smoke was filling the inside of the sloop from all the firing we had been doing. The sloop slowed down, the motors idling. Suddenly I realised with a start that we were on the edge of a great empty concourse which ended in a great locked valve-like portal thirty feet in diameter.

We were near Klittmann’s one and only exit.

Four or five police vehicles were parked in a ragged line some hundreds of feet away, keeping a respectful distance. To my surprise a cop stepped out and put a loud-hailer to his mouth.

His words floated towards us, faint and distorted.

“This city doesn’t want you, Becmath. There’s no place for you here….”

Now the sloop had stopped. We all looked at Becmath, wondering what was happening. Then our eyes left him. Something was happening. The great lid of the exit valve was sliding smoothly up. Through the gaping circle we could see landscape — outside: dim, grey, cold.

The initial glimpse of that is an unforgettable experience to a Killibol city-man. For an Earthman, it would be like looking down a vast gaping chasm that has no bottom.

“You knew,” I said accusingly to Bec. “You knew all the time.”

“No!” Grale shouted. “Fight it out! Go down fighting!”

I don’t think Bec heard either of us. A shell exploded nearby. He put the sloop in motion. We gathered speed, heading inexorably for the portal. Had the cops herded us here, I wondered, or had Bec lured them here? We lunged over the slight rise in the ground and sped through the great circle. Out. Into the dimness. The cold. The bare, dead rock.

And that was how we came to be expelled from Klittmann.