No Man's World

VI

The car lurched and Rawson had to uncouple the robot and bring it back onto course manually. They were over open country and no traffic lanes operated.

“Damn!” Rawson said without heat. “Car’s packed up on us. Control’s shot to hell.”

“Can you put it down?” asked Sharon. She half rose from her seat.

“Take it easy, Miss Ogilvie. Mr. Rawson can handle this car in his sleep.” Caradine felt that to be true. It was true of most adults. The car banked and swept down, and the whisper of air on the hull penetrated as a distant drumming.

“No official landing space. Have to put down where we can.

“There’s a promising-looking field over there.” Caradine pointed. He felt no alarm. There were always the ejector capsules; personalized parachute packs with an enclosed seat and wind-breaks. He wondered at Sharon. She hadn’t seemed the girl to panic.

Rawson brought the car round again, cautiously heading into the wind. He lowered the undercart and flaps and lined the car up on the rapidly growing field.

That told Caradine that his estimate of another five years active work from the antigrav unit had been out by four years, three hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-two and a half hours.

Then he checked himself. A remark like that would bring up a casual, “Whose year’s that, then?”

And some fumbling answer that might brand him as a single-planet man. And an unknown planet, at that. Shanstar —he had to remember the fiddling littlest things. Shanstar’s year was four hundred and ten of Earth’s days. You had to remember so much… And yet, he’d been quietly boasting to himself that he was in the business of remembering details.

Correction. Had been in the business.

Trees flickered past below. Rawson’s grip on the controls was relaxed and confident. He lifted the nose of the car. Caradine took a firm grip on the armrest. Sharon, sitting in the middle, put one hand on the rail under the fascia. Caradine reached his right hand out, slid it about her waist and drew her to him. She responded at once, put her left arm around his waist. They waited, then, consciously relaxing.

“Coming up…”

The field was not as smooth as it had appeared from the air. The wheels hit, one burst, and the car slewed. Rawson applied the brakes frantically. The car rolled. It went over three times, finished up on its side.

Sharon said, quite distinctly, “Oaf.”

Then Caradine had the door open and was hanging one-handed, hauling her out. She dropped with a kick of multicolored tights, and jumped onto the grass. Caradine followed and reached back for Rawson, pulled him up the seating and over the canted side. The three of them stood in a row, their hands on their hips, surveying the wreck.

“Well,” Sharon said with a tight look on her face. “What now, Greg?”

She was very put out.

“That damn tire,” Rawson said. “I didn’t bargain for that.”

Caradine said peacefully, “The radio should be okay. We’ll have to call a cab.”

Rawson shinned up the side without speaking. He bent down over the fascia, out of Caradine’s view. He was some time. Sharon had wrinkled up her forehead. Caradine didn’t speak to her, since it was evident she was in deep thought.

Caradine, too, began to have thoughts about this accident. Sharon had been upset only when a crash seemed imminent. He didn’t believe her panicky start from the seat. People just didn’t behave like that in an age of safe and rapid robotic transport. But, when the robots failed, a certain amount of flap might be justified. But Sharon had reacted as he would have expected her to do only after the tire burst.

So he was not at all surprised when Rawson reappeared and reported that the radio was out. That sort of fitted the pattern. And just what that pattern was, Caradine, although he had no idea whatsoever, just didn’t like the whole sight and smell of it. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled around on them.

“Well, children, it seems we walk.”

Sharon swung on Rawson. They began wrangling violendy. Only semi-surprised at such infantile behaviour, Caradine leaned up against the wreck, soaking up the sunshine, letting them get it out of their system, and wondering how far they had to go before they found civilization. Gamma-Horakah was very much of a show, a garden, planet.

A high, muted whine drifted down to them. Sharon and Rawson stopped slanging each other and stared up. Caradine cocked a lazy eyebrow.

The car was handled superbly. It swooped wide and low, swinging across them at an angle so that the occupant could give them a good long look. Then it veered up, flopped over on its back, fell vertically, turning as it did so, and its extended wheels touched the grass in the same instant as the car reached an upright position. The canopy flipped open.

Allura Koanga stepped out in a flurry of white petticoat and scarlet skirt.

Caradine sat back to enjoy what might come.

He was a gravely disappointed man.

The two girls were as sweet as processed honey to each other.

And just as synthetic.

“My dear, I’m so glad I was passing.”

“Darling, so sweet of you to rescue us.”

“You must have itched when the car went wrong.”

“You drive so well, darling.”

“And you don’t look the teeniest bit upset.”

Caradine killed his smile. Sweet as honey, yes. But the barbs were there all right, jabbing with remorseless female viciousness.

Two of a kind, he supposed, would always hurt each other most.

That was the trouble with the galaxy, and the planetary groupings that were so much alike. Men always fought best— or worst—when he fought other Men.

That was the black tragedy that a million years hadn’t managed to obliterate from his heritage.

He roused himself. “Well, Allura. Are you going to give us a lift back to town or do we begin to walk?”

“Please get in, Mr. Carter. I shall be happy to assist you.”

Smiling to himself, Caradine entered the car. It was new, bright red, and a Mach One-plus job. He sat in the back seats. He particularly didn’t want to sit between Sharon Ogilvie and Allura Koanga.

He valued his eardrums.

All the way back Greg Rawson sat in a tight-lipped silence that he broke in monosyllables that were barely this side of rudeness. Something had evidently gone wrong for him. Caradine suspected that it was not the crack-up of a hired car. Machinery was so much mankind’s servant these days that any wreck could be written off, almost, without a second thought.

It would be nice, Caradine decided, very nice, to know just what was bothering Greg Rawson.

Allura was vivacious, full of the joys of living, and exuding a faint air of triumph that equally baffled Caradine.

Sharon rallied to that mood of gaiety, and was as hectic and scatter-brained in her jollity as Allura. Caradine was too wise a hand to think the outward facade meant anything, and he was equally sure that these three people knew that he must suspect all was not as it seemed. He wondered just how far they were prepared to push their hand.

And was it all merely because he had a visa to visit Alpha tucked away down at the office in the care of Harriet Lafonde?

One thing—they’d have to do better than they had so far to persuade him to start spying.

The red car swooped in over the city and Allura put it down in the park of the Outworld Arms. They all got out and the robot trundled the car off to the garage.

Caradine spoke first.

“I need a drink. Anyone interested?”

They all were. They went through into the lounge and Caradine dialed four Pomcrushes, adding his room number.

Greg Rawson reached down to the personal TV control inset in the arm of each of the lounging chairs. The TV came on and he selected a channel showing a fifteen-piece dance band just rounding off a number. The music was barbaric stuff from some outworld planet with jerky and nerve-pounding overtones. Caradine was glad when it had finished and the band leader let the robot music dispenser take over and begin to pump out canned stuff that dripped like syrup through the consciousness. The screen rippled and cleared and a human announcer began to read the news.

Mosdy, it was about the Horakah space navy buildup. Young men who craved excitement and adventure should rush down to their nearest recruiting depot and sign up for a man’s life, out there in the deeps between the stars, etc, blah, blah, blah.

It made Caradine a little sick.

With a beautiful world like Gamma-Horakah, men were still anxious to go off into space shooting and killing like maniacs. He’d had his gutful a long time ago. So he supposed he couldn’t blame the youngsters now. But it was all such a criminal and lunatic waste.

Local news followed. A bond issue. Results of racing and other sports. A couple of gang fights. A couple of murders. A couple of new buildings going up. Caradine checked an involuntary start as news of one murder came over.

A young lad, one of the gang members who wore flashy clothes and carried himself proudly as a member of Harakah, had been shot in an alley. His corpse had been found by his friends going to their afternoon swim on their day off. It was all pathetic, unnecessary, and a sample of human passions tied up to the extent that murder seemed the only way out.

Greg Rawson devoured the item.

No shots of the body were shown. The boy’s mother appeared briefly. She was a widow. Lack of parental control, surmised Caradine, had led her son to this.

The lad’s name had been Tommy Gorse. They were already calling it the Gorse Murder.

Caradine stood up, excusing himself, and went to his room. He needed to freshen up before dinner. The afternoon hadn’t been wasted. He’d had a pleasant drive out and although he hadn’t seen the Painted Caves, he’d witnessed the edifying spectacle of two beautiful women clawing each other like cats.

Hiff intercom beeped and he answered.

“Mr. John Carter? There are two gendemen to see you. On the way up.” The robot switched off before he could question it.

His door chime gonged. He reached a hand up and touched his white shirt. The Beatty was snugged down in the shoulder holster. He activated the door catch, the same one that Allura had shorted out the previous night, and the two men walked in.

“Mr. John Carter?” One was grizzled, tough, dour and full of familiar confidence that at once put Caradine’s nerve on a tingling alert. The other was younger, brash, and learning the tricks of the trade from the old hand.

“Yes?” he said courteously. “Come in. Sit down. What can I do for you?”

“We’re police officers, Mr. Carter. We’d like to ask you a few routine questions.”

“Please go ahead.”

“You were in the Nebula Restaurant yesterday?”

“Is that the place—”

“You had a fight with four youths. You agree?”

“I remember. They tried to beat me up for no reason.” Caradine was getting the picture now. And it stank. He was a member of a stellar grouping of about fifty-two planets. These policemen represented a grouping of a thousand or more worlds. They’d treat him with contemptuous severity. One of their citizens had been murdered. Caradine reckoned he knew who Tommy Gorse was.

“This afternoon, in an alley in the city, Tommy Gorse, the leader of the group with whom you fought, was brutally murdered. We’d like to hear your movements this afternoon, Mr. Carter.”

“That’s simple enough. I went with friends to visit the Painted Caves.”

“Anyone vouch for that?”

“Well, we didn’t actually reach the Caves. The car broke down and we had to force land. Mr. Greg Rawson and Miss Sharon Ogilvie were with me. They can corroborate that.”

“Are they from Shanstar, too?”

There it was. The savage minority-group hate. “No. They’re from Ahansic.”

“Ahansic.” The younger of the two policemen said it. He made it a spitting curse.

There was Allura Koanga, too. But she was from Shanstar. They just wouldn’t believe her. But perhaps with the four of them all giving the same story, a story that, as it was true, would hold up under questioning, he might be believed.

“After we had to put down,” he said, still in that polite, matter-of-fact voice, “we were picked up and given a ride back into town.”

“Yes?”

“A Miss Allura Koanga picked us up.”

“Koanga? She’s with Hsien Koanga. Staying here?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, that shouldn’t bother us overmuch.”

Caradine didn’t like the way the policeman had picked that up so fast. Maybe the Koangas were down in the police records as spies. Maybe he’d only made his case worse.

“Well, Mr. Carter. Well check with these people. But I’d advise you to stay in the city. You will be under surveillance. Well call on you again.” He turned to go and the younger cop went to the door. “You see, Mr. Carter, young Tommy Gorse was shot with a one millimeter needle-beam. A one millimeter needle-beam that was almost certainly a Beatty. Just like the one you have under your arm.”