Shadow of Heaven

Chapter Three

Whistling cheerfully, Duke Bennett draped his gray uniform on a hanger and locked it away in a closet. On his way out of the changing room, he stopped to look at himself in the slightly yellowed mirror; and what he saw made him smile complacently. At fifty he had lost none of his hard-packed muscularity; and, when he got out of those lousy gray cords and into a decent suit, he looked even better than he had as a young man. The girls seemed to think so anyway, and tonight a couple more of them would get the chance to prove it. As he paused to comb his graying, crinkly hair, Bennett marveled—as he had done so many times—at the weird mathematics of triad-ism. Having one woman was good, so having two together ought to be twice as good; but, In fact, the amount of pleasure was boosted into a different order of experience altogether. That was the big pay-off, the triadic bonus, which came as surely as the energy bounty obtained by adding that last pellet of fissionable material.

In a way, he thought, it was getting something for nothing—except that his expenses were high. Still, the racket was going well, specially since he had joined the Receders. The number of fresh contacts had not been as great as he had expected; but the quality was good and his annual take was averaging out at about twice his salary. Not bad going. It showed that a guy with brains could still live well, even if he had never set foot in one of those fancy colleges. Bennett made a minute adjustment to the glow-gold clasp at his throat, and went out into the short corridor which led from the changing room to the chapel itself. Passing through the door at the side of the platform, he edged his way across to the central aisle and began walking to the exit. The lights had been dimmed, and he was halfway to the door before he noticed there was someone still in one of the seats at the top of the aisle. The man had obviously been waiting for him, because he stood up as Bennett drew near. Seeing the stranger’s size, Bennett instinctively shifted his balance in preparation for trouble; but, as he drew closer, he allowed himself to relax again. The big man had a look of ambling softness which Bennett—triumphant veteran of more short, nasty fights than he cared to remember—immediately identified as belonging to someone who could talk faster than he could move.

“You waiting to see me?” Bennett was impatient to get away, but did not want to risk discouraging a possible prospect.

“You guessed it. First time.” The stranger spoke easily, in a deep, unaccented voice, and he smiled as he stared into Bennett’s eyes. What, Bennett thought irritably, has this big hunk of jello got to be so confident about? I’ll give him twenty seconds, that’s all.

“Well, are you satisfied? Or did you want to talk with me too?”

The stranger’s smile became a little wider. “Right again. I did want to talk to you.”

“So, talk,” Bennett said impatiently. “Let’s have it.”

“I’m Johnny Considine’s brother.”

The words shocked Bennett; but he instantly saw that they had been intended to jolt him, that the whole conversation had been set up for just that reason. He stared blankly, filled with the comforting awareness that his muscle control had been perfect. Nobody tripped Duke Bennett that easily,

“I got relatives too,” he said. “That your only claim to fame? Being somebody’s brother?”

‘So you never heard of Johnny Considine?” The stranger fingered a silver badge in his lapel and kept on smiling whitely.

“Not as far as I can remember.” “Too bad. I’m trying to find him.”

“Everybody’s looking for something,” Bennett said brusquely. He had begun shouldering his way past the other man when he felt himself stopped by a hand on his chest. Bennett looked down at the hand incredulously. This guy is begging to be chopped in two, he thought. But that means he doesn’t know anything and is pushing me to see what’ll happen. And that means I can’t let anything happen. Which is a pity, because I never met anybody so much in need of a stomachful of his own teeth.

“I heard my brother was a regular attender at this chapel.”

“That doesn’t mean I should know him,” Bennett said hi the most reasonable voice he could muster. “Look. I’m interested in the Receders’ movement. So, the local committee asks me to talk about the lies, and I agree because I like public speaking. But I only come along here once a week, and I don’t know anybody except the committee members.

“Is that fair enough? Do you mind if I leave now?” Bennett stared into the other’s gray eyes, wondering if he had been too reasonable by acting out of character.

“Of course not,” the stranger replied with a contented note in his voice which Bennett found slightly disturbing. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

Bennett went down the narrow stairs and out to the street, where he snatched a couple of deep breaths before heading for the First Avenue hunting grounds. The incident had been a minor annoyance; but there was nothing to get alarmed about. That Considine boy had been an ideal candidate for Heaven, and there was no way in the world for anybody to guess where he had gone. All the same, it might be better if he pulled in his horns for a while. He had enough cash in reserve to keep him supplied with the necessities—the real necessities—of life for the rest of the year.

Having reached the decision, Bennett allowed himself to relax; and immediately, the chilly, but pleasurable flutterings of anticipation began in his stomach. His mind lost itself in visions of the simple, yet subtle, triadic permutations of skin pigmentation: white, black, and all the warmly sexual spectrum that lay between.

The telepolygraph was an expensive instrument to begin with; and the fact that its use was illegal had boosted the market price to several times its true value. About half the cost of manufacture went into the badge-like receptor, which could pick up encephalography activity at a distance of several feet and measure heart rates when its incredibly accurate range-finder was aimed at areas of skin pulsation. The rest went into the comparator network and logic circuits, which operated a thumb vibrator when certain criteria were fulfilled.

In general, the telepolygraph represented a prohibitively expensive and elaborate method of finding out if a person was lying; but it had its uses in some professions. Stirling had won his from another reporter in a particularly abrasive poker game, but rarely used it in the course of his work. But this time it had really justified its existence. The vibrator had stung his thumb like a wasp each time Bennett was questioned about Johnny. But knowing a person was lying was not exactly the same as knowing the truth.

Stirling stood uncertainly at the entrance to the Receders’ chapel and watched Bennett’s dapper, gymnast’s figure blend with the apparently aimless tides of people surging along the sidewalks and spilling onto the street itself. Realizing the other man was not going to flag a taxi, Stirling grunted with exasperation and breasted the forces of the crowd. In a matter of seconds his shirt was clinging to his back, and sweat had bound his trousers to his thighs, making walking difficult. He stayed a discreet distance behind Bennett and felt faintly relieved that there was no need for him to catch up. Bennett seemed to be a true child of the Compression: his neat black-and-silver head slid effortlessly through the barriers of flesh, while Stirling labored grimly in his wake, like a tugboat following a racing yacht. The irregular strips of sky, which could be seen among the high-level traffic lanes, had darkened to a hectic indigo tinged with dusty saffron in the west.

As they neared First Avenue, the commercial buildings gave way to an assortment of eating places, bars, drugstores, and pleasure houses. Cosmodromes—with their illusions of space, flight and freedom—were popular; but there were many variations on the basic theme. In the so-called “action” houses, anyone could pay his money, climb into a cradle, inhale the hallucigens, and transplant his mind into the cockpit of a centimeter-long military aircraft. With its micro-miniature cameras feeding him sense data through a radio link, he could fly lonely jungle missions, engage in dogfights, or perform acrobatics. Most of the patrons, however, seemed to prefer bombing and strafing the beautifully modeled cities.

Stirling’s single visit to the cosmodrome had satisfied his curiosity about the experience; but, as he struggled along behind Bennett, he began to wish for the chance to stop anywhere, just for the chance to breathe in comfort. The redly glowing signs winked at him. OXYGEN INSIDE. OXY-COND1TIONING HERE. STEP IN AND BREATHE. Stirling tried to ignore the invitations. The government issued regular assurances that, although the general oxygen level had fallen slightly with the annihilation of vegetation, any effects which might be felt would be purely psychological. Stirling’s opinion was that they might be psychological for all the medium-sized, thin, dry individuals whose builds he envied every day; but, for him, the effects were real.

Two blocks from the brightest lights, he rationalized that there was little point in following Bennett all over town. The nearest elevator whipped him up two street levels, where he was able to catch a taxi heading south.

After the pressures and accompanying heat of the bottom-level streets, the deserted spaciousness of the Record’s editorial offices was almost welcome. Stirling knew from experience that he would be able to appreciate the emptiness for only a few minutes before the uneasiness set in. That’s all right, he told himself. In a society where claustrophobia is a sin, agoraphobia must be a virtue. Slinging his jacket across a desk, he crossed the room to the news desk where the two nightmen for that week sat in extravagant postures of boredom. Behind them the long room was cool and cavernous, walled with shadows.

“Hi, Vic,” Dolan said, brightening up. “I didn’t know you were on tonight.”

“I’m not—so you can forget any sneaky ideas of turning that phone over to me for the night.” Stirling pushed Dolan’s feet off the desk and sat down on the edge. “Tell me, Chris, what do you know about the Receders?”

“What is there to know? They’re just one of those minor religious cults. Back to nature, or something like that.”

The other nightman, Waldo Fitz, took off a pair of 3-D television glasses and glanced across at Stirling curiously. Fitz was a surly, thick-set youngster with absolutely no imagination, but with a mind like a computer. He was also a top-flight newsman.

“Are you on to a story, big fella? We’re short of copy for tomorrow. You could get the page one lead with a speeding case.”

“No,” Stirling said cautiously. “Just asking. Is there a story in the Receders?”

Fitz shrugged. “It’s a possibility. The guy who runs that cult is called Mason Third. His name seems to keep popping up.”

“In what connection?”

“Nothing special. lust crops up, that’s all.” Fitz selected a different channel on his spectacles. While the little left and right pictures flickered like imprisoned candle flames, he relaxed back into his torpor. A thread of reedy music escaped the earpieces.

Recognizing Fitz as a man who never gave anything away, Stirling was vaguely dissatisfied. He drifted up to his own desk, sat down, and pulled a stat-vu terminal over to him. In response to his keyed request, the instrument began displaying on its screen all the Record’s stock cuttings on the Receders and Mason Third. Stirling was able to skim through them in less than five minutes and learned practically nothing. The majority of references to the cult were in articles giving general surveys of religious movements and contented themselves with describing the Receders as an obscure and very minor sect. Third’s own file contained a dozen or so clippings taken over the past fifteen years. They conveyed the impression he was a lawyer or a preacher—or both—who had been hovering on the fringes of the political scene without ever committing himself or becoming aligned. His name had appeared, very occasionally, in various contexts on the transport-tribunal/citizens-action group level. Once he had been named as co-respondent in an unremarkable divorce case, and another time had been fined for attempted tax evasion. All Stirling could get out of it was the impression of a shadowy, slightly unsavory figure, who had come from nowhere and was not going anywhere in particular.

Putting aside his newly found interest in the Receders, Stirling punched in Duke Bennett’s name and the few available facts about his background. There was a slight delay while the central installation searched city directories, electoral rolls, and such police files as were open to the Record, Finally, the screen flashed a confirmation that Bennett worked in the freight transfer service associated with International Land Extension, U.S. 23. The only other information was his address, a single apartment on the north side, not very far from Stirling’s own place.

Stirling memorized the string of figures. Here was another clue, another signpost. He made a fairly good salary as a senior reporter, and it took no less than half of it to buy him the privilege of living and sleeping alone. So how was Bennett financing his apartment on an elevator man’s wages?

It was almost two in the morning before Stirling heard footsteps in the access corridor.

He pressed himself back into the shadows of a doorway and held his press card ready in one hand. The steps drew nearer, and Stirling risked a glance along the corridor. A glowtube in the low ceiling showed Bennett zigzagging towards his apartment between two Japanese girls, who had their arms around his waist and who apparently were working hard to support him. The cold tube-light picked out the silver streaks in Bennett’s hair. His face was flushed, ecstatic; and the girls were giggling every time a new loss of balance crushed one or the other of them against the closely spaced walls. They were surrounded with pastel clouds of visi-perfume, and their heels gave off flashes of colored light at the impact of every step. A fine pair of professional glowworms. Stirling thought irrelevantly. He waited until the group was almost level with him, then stepped out, waving his card briefly.

“All right, girls,” he snapped. “I’ll want your names in a minute. Now stand away from that man.”

As he had expected, the two hustlers fled instantly, their rapid steps throwing showers of chemiluminescence from their shoes as though they were drawing power from the floor. Bennett blinked drunkenly after them for a moment; then his eyes focused on Stirling’s face and became opaque with rage and disbelief.

“You.” he gasped. “You!”

“That’s right—Johnny Considine’s brother. I’ve got a proposition for you, Bennett.”

Stirling spoke quickly in an effort to avoid the violence he could see building up in the other man’s hard-packed shoulders; but the words were useless. Bennett drove forward, both fists swinging, all traces of his drunkenness apparently gone. Stirling had a small fraction of a second to note, with relief, that Bennett was making the mistake of assuming that a surface layer of fat meant there could be no muscle underneath. He risked a gambit and allowed his 230-pound frame to absorb a couple of vicious blows from Bennett while he maneuvered for the chance to use his right. The gambit came close to being a disaster, for the punches were delivered with professional brutality and really hurt; but Bennett was not taking the trouble to defend himself. Seeing the opening, Stirling launched a single, massive right, whose lineage could have been traced back to the lead-gloved deathblows of the Roman arena. Bennett’s toughness and experience could not prevent him from being lifted off his feet, doubled around the fist, and dropped on his back several yards along the corridor. He skidded a short distance on the smooth plastic and lay still, making wet, clicking sounds in his throat as he struggled for air.

Concealing a certain amount of awe at his own capabilities, Stirling lit a cigarette and stood staring down at Bennett through a mask of smoke.

“Next time …” Bennett’s eyes slitted with pain. “Next time … you won’t be . . .so lucky.”

Stirling looked unimpressed. “There isn’t going to be a next time, Bennett. I’m a reporter with the Record and you smell like headline material to me. Could your business stand the publicity?”

“What business?”

“Your export business, of course.” Stirling glanced upwards, significantly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t refer to it as exporting, though. You elevate things, don’t you. Things and … people.” “You’re crazy.”

“All right, Bennett. You can crawl into that highly expensive apartment of yours and wait for tomorrow’s Record. You’ll read about yourself.” Stirling walked away, wondering if Bennett would know enough about newspaper ethics to realize that no editor would go to press with the scanty information he had.

“Hold on a minute,” Bennett said desperately. “You were talking about a proposition.”

Stirling turned, went back, and helped the smaller man to his feet. In spite of his exultation he could feel an uneasy tightening in his lungs—as though they were already struggling with the cold, thin air of Heaven.