THE MAN WHO JAPED

CHAPTER 14

He closed his eyes and willed. He imagined the room: he pictured Gretchen, the coffee table, the package of cigarettes, the lighter beside it. He pictured the ashtray, the drapes, the couch and phonograph.

When he opened his eyes the room was back. But Gretchen was gone. He was alone in the house.

The shades were all down, and he had a deep intuition of lateness. As if, he thought, time had passed. A clock on the mantel read eight-thirty. Had four whole hours gone by? Four hours...

"Gretchen?" he said, experimentally. He went to the stairs and started up. Still no sign of her. The house was warm, the air pleasant and fresh. Somewhere an automatic heating unit functioned.

A room to his right was her bedroom. He glanced in.

The small ivory clock on the dressing table did not read eight-thirty. It read a quarter to five. Gretchen had overlooked it. She had not set it forward with the one downstairs.

Instantly he was running back downstairs, two steps at a time.

The voices had reached him as he lay on the couch. Kneeling, he pressed his hands over the fabric, across the arms and back, under the cushions. Finally he dragged the couch away from the wall.

The first speaker was mounted within a coil of back-spring. A second and then a third were concealed under the rug; they were as flat as paper. He estimated that at least a dozen speakers had been mounted throughout the room.

Since Gretchen had been upstairs the control unit was undoubtedly there. Again he climbed the stairs and entered her bedroom.

At first he failed to recognize it. The control lay in plain sight, on the woman's dressing table, with the jars and tubes and packages of cosmetics. The hairbrush. He picked it up and rotated the plastic handle.

From downstairs boomed a man's voice. "There remains some island of ego."

Gretchen's voice answered. "But submerged."

"Totally withdrawn," Malparto continued. "The shock—"

Allen snapped the handle back, and the voices departed. The tape transport, mounted somewhere in the walls of the house, had halted in the middle of its cycle.

Downstairs again, he searched for the means by which Gretchen had dissolved the house. When he found it, he was chagrined. The unit was built into the fireplace, in open view, one of the many comfort-making gadgets. He pressed the stud and the room around him with its furnishings and rich textures seeped away. The outside world remained: houses, the street, the sky. A glimmer of stars.

The device was a mere romantic gadget. For long, dull evenings. Gretchen was an active girl.

In a closet, under a heap of blankets, he found a newspaper used as a shelf-liner; it was empirical proof. The news- paper was the Vega Sentinel. He was not in a fantasy world; he was on the fourth planet of the Vega System.

He was on Other World, the permanent refuge maintained by the Mental Health Resort. Maintained for persons who had come—not for therapy—but for sanctuary.

Finding the phone, he dialed zero.

"Number please," the operator said, the faint, tinny, and terribly reassuring voice.

"Give me one of the space ports," he said. "Any one that has inter-system service."

A series of clicks, buzzes, and then he was connected with the ticket office. A methodical male voice on the other end of the wire said,

"Yes sir. What can I do for you?"

"What's the fare to Earth?" He wondered, in a stricken way, just how long he had been here. A week? A month?

"One way, first class. Nine hundred thirty dollars. Plus twenty percent luxury tax." The voice was without emotion.

He had no such money. "What's the next system in order?"

"Sirius."

"How much is that?" He didn't have over fifty dollars in his wallet. And this planet was under the jurisdiction of the Health Resort: it had acquired it with its deed.

"One way, first class. Tax included... comes to seven hundred forty-two dollars."

He calculated. "What's it cost to phone Earth?"

The ticket agent said, "You'll have to ask the phone company, mister. That's not our business."

When he had gotten the operator again, Allen said, "I'd like to place a call to Earth."

"Yes sir." She did not seem surprised. "What number, sir?"

He gave Telemedia's number, and then the number on the phone he was using. It was as simple as that.

After several minutes of buzzing, the operator said, "I'm sorry, sir. Your party does not answer."

"What time is it there?"

A moment and then: "In that time zone it is three a.m., sir."

In a husky voice he said, "Look, I've been kidnapped. I have to get out of here—back to Earth."

"I suggest you call one of the inter-system transport fields, sir," the operator said.

"All I've got is fifty bucks!"

"I'm sorry, sir. I can connect you with one of the fields if you wish."

He hung up.

There was no point staying in the house, but he lingered long enough to type out a note—a note with a vengeance. He left the note in the middle of the coffee table, where Gretchen would be sure to see it.

Dear Mrs. Coates,

You remember Molly. Damned if I didn't run into her at the Brass Poker. Says she's pregnant, but you know how that kind are. Think I better stay with her until we can get her a you-know-what.

Expensive, but it's the price you pay.

He signed it Johnny and then left the house.

Other World had plenty of roving taxis, and within five minutes he was in the downtown business district with its lights and flow of people.

At the space port a full-size ship stood upright on its tail. He guessed, with almost frenzied despair, that it was in the process of leaving for the next system. A line of supply trucks dashed back and forth; the ship was already in the final stages of loading.

Paying off the taxi, he tramped across the gravel parking lot of the field, down, the street until he arrived at a syndrome of life: a restaurant doing an active business, full of patrons and noise and chatter. Feeling like a fool he buttoned his coat up around him and strode through the doorway to the cashier.

"Put up your hands, lady," he said, jutting out his pocket. "Before I put a McAllister heat beam through your head."

The girl gasped, raised her hands, opened her mouth and gave a terrified bleat. Patrons at nearby tables glanced up in disbelief.

"Okay," Allen said, in a normally-loud voice. "Now let's have the money. Push it across the counter before I blow out your brains with my McAllister heat beam."

"Oh dear," the girl said.

From behind him two Other World police wearing helmets and crisp blue uniforms appeared and grabbed his arms. The girl flopped out of sight and Allen's hand was yanked from his pocket.

"A noose," one cop said. "A super-noose. It's troublemakers like this ruin a clean neighborhood."

"Let go of me," Allen said. "Before I blow off your heads with my McAllister heat beam."

"Buddy," one of the cops said, as they dragged him from the restaurant, "this cancels the Resort's obligations to succor you. You've shown your unreliability by committing a felony."

"I'll blow all of you to bits," Allen said, as they bundled him into the police car. "This heat beam talks."

"Get his ident." A cop snatched Allen's wallet. "John B. Coates. 2319 Pepper Lane. Well, Mr. Coates, you've had your chance. Now you're on your way back to Morec. How does that sound?"

"You won't live to send me back," Allen said. The car was sprinting toward the field, and the big ship was still there. "I'll get you. You'll see."

The car, flying a foot above the gravel, turned onto the field and made directly for the ship. The siren came on; field attendants stopped work and watched.

"Tell them to hold it," one of the cops said. He got out a microphone and contacted the field's tower. "Another super-noose. Open up the fleebee."

In a matter of seconds the car had come alongside the ship, the doors had united, and Allen was in the hands of the ship's sheriff.

"Welcome back to Morec," a run-down fellow super-noose muttered, as Allen was deposited beside him in the restricted area.

"Thanks," Allen said, with relief. "It's good to be back." Now he was wondering if he would reach Earth by Sunday. On Monday morning his job at Telemedia started. Had he lost too much time?

Whoosh, the floor went. The ship was rising.