The Unteleported Man

1

Over Rachmael ben Applebaum's head floated a creditor jet-balloon, and from within its articulation-circuit a flat but handsome, masculine — artificial, however — voice boomed, magnified so that not only Rachmael but everyone else crowding the ped-runnels heard it. The amplification was designed this way; you were singled out and simultaneously exposed; public ridicule, the jeers of the always-present crowds, was brought into play as a force working at you... and, Rachmael reflected, for the creditor, free.

"Mr. Applebaum!" The hearty, rich but machine-sponsored voice echoed, rolled and boomed, and a thousand human heads rotated in expectation, glanced up with amused interest, saw the creditor jet-balloon and spied also its target: Rachmael ben Applebaum trying to get from the parking lot where he had left his flapple and into the offices of Lies Incorporated, a distance of only two thousand yards — but enough to make him visible so as to become the creditor balloon's target.

"Okay," Rachmael grated, and strode on, not breaking gait; he made for the fluoron-illuminated entrance of the private police agency and did not look up; he pretended — as if this were possible — to ignore a sight which, in the last three years, he had learned to know fully.

"Mr. Applebaum," the balloon boomed. "As of this Wednesday, November 8, 2014, you owe, as inheritor of your late father's assets and debts, the sum of four million poscreds to Trails of Hoffman Limited, a major backer in your late father's — "

"Okay!" Rachmael said violently, halting, peering up in futile anguish... the desire to puncture, deflate and bring down the balloon was overwhelming — yet what could he do? By UN ordinance, a creditor could hire such harassment; this was legal.

And the grinning crowd knew it. Saw in this for them a brief but amusing ent-show: entertainment. However, he did not blame them; it was not their fault because they had over the years been trained this way. All the info and edu media, controlled by the "disinterested" UN public affairs bureaus, had tinkered with this facet of modern man's complex character: his ability to enjoy the suffering of someone else whom he did not even know.

"I cannot," Rachmael said, "pay. And you know it." Above, the jet-balloon heard; it had exceeding mar­velous aud receptors. But it did not believe him or care if what he said was true; its job was to hound him, not to seek the truth. Standing on the runnel as it auto­matically carried him along, Rachmael said, as reason­ably as possible, "At present I have no funds, because continuously up to now, one by one, I've paid off as many of Applebaum Enterprise's creditors as I can."

Tauntingly, the mechanical voice from above boomed, "At three sigs on the poscred. Some settling of accounts."

Rachmael said, "Give me time."

"Plans, Mr. Applebaum?" The voice twisted with scorn.

After a pause he said, "Yes." But he did not specify; it depended in part on what he obtained from the private police agency, Lies Incorporated. If that was anything. But over the vidphone at least — he did think he had detected a certain sympathetic resonance from the master proprietor of the police agency, Matson Glazer-Holliday.

Now, in five minutes, in a formal screening-interview with a Lies Incorporated psych-rep, Rachmael would find out — learn just how far the private police agency, which after all had to survive the competition, had to stand up to the UN and the lesser titans of the nine planet system, would go in staking a man who was not merely broke but who owed — owed for the wreckage of an industrial empire which had collapsed, carrying its operator and owner, Maury Applebaum, to his — evi­dently — voluntary death.

Evidently. A good word, and a big one, like any word pertaining to death. As the runnel, despite the lurking, booming creditor balloon above, carried Rachmael toward the sanctuary of the shifting-color doorway he thought, maybe they can help me there, too.

Because it had just never quite seemed reasonable to him that his father, and god knew he was familiar with his father, would laser himself to death due to economic collapse... although admittedly, as subsequent events had proved, that collapse was terminal for Applebaum Enterprise.

"You must pay," the jet-balloon howled. "Trails of Hoffman insists; your petition of bankruptcy was turned down by the UN courts — you, Mr. Rachmael ben Applebaum, are legally liable for the sum of — "

The voice abruptly vanished as Rachmael crossed the threshold of the private inter-planetary police agency, and the thoroughly soundproof rexeroid door slid shut after him.

"Yes, sir," the robot receptionist, not jeering but friendly, said to him; what a contrast with the circus outside.

"Miss Holm," Rachmael said, and heard his voice shake. The creditor balloon had gotten to him; he was trembling and perspiring.

"Syn-cof?" the receptionist asked sympathetically. "Or Martian fnikjuice tea, while you wait?"

Rachmael, getting out a genuine Tampa, Florida Gar­cia y Vega cigarillo, murmured, "I'll just sit, thanks." He lit the cigar, waited. For Miss Freya Holm, whatever or whoever she was — and looked like.

A soft voice said, almost timidly, "Mr. ben Ap­plebaum? I'm Miss Holm. If you'll come into my of­fice — " She held the door open, and she was perfection; his Garcia y Vega cigarillo dwindled, neglected in the ashtray as he rose to his feet. She, no more than twenty, chitin-black long hair that hung freely down her shoulders, teeth white as the glossy bond of the ex­pensive UN info mags... he stared at her, at the small girl in the gold-spray bodice and shorts and sandals, with the single camellia over her left ear, stared and thought, And this is my police protection.

"Sure." Numbly, he passed her, entered her small, contemporarily furnished office; in one glance he saw artifacts from the extinct cultures of six planets. "But Miss Holm," he said, then, candidly, "maybe your em­ployers didn't explain; there's pressure here. I've got one of the most powerful economic syndromes in the Sol system after me. Trails of Hoffman — "

"THL," Miss Holm said, seating herself at her desk and touching the on ofher aud recorder, "is the owner of Dr. Sepp von Einem's teleportation construct and hence monopolistically has made obsolete the hyper-see liners and freighters of Applebaum Enterprise." On her desk before her she had a folio, which she consulted. "You see, Mr. Rachmael ben Applebaum — " She glanced up. "I wish to keep you in data-reference distinct from your father, the late Maury Applebaum. So may I call you Rachmael?"

"Y-yes," he said, nettled by her coolness, her small, firm poise — and the folio which lay before her; long before he had consulted Listening Instructional Educa­tional Services — or, as the pop mind called it in UN-egged-on derision, Lies Incorporated — the police

agency had gathered, with its many data-monitors, the totality of information pertaining to him and to the col­lapse from abrupt technological obsolescence of the once formidable Applebaum Enterprise. And —

"Your late father," Freya Holm said, "died evidently at his own instigation. Officially the UN police list it as Selbstmort... suicide. We however — " She paused, consulted the folio. "Hmm."

Rachmael said, "I'm not satisfied, but I'm resigned." After all, he could not bring back his heavy, red-faced, nearsighted and highly over-taxed father, Selbstmort, in the official German of the UN, or not. "Miss Holm," he began, but she cut him off, gently.

"Rachmael, the Telpor electronic entity of Dr. Sepp von Einem, researched and paid for, developed in the several inter-plan labs of Trails of Hoffman, could do nothing else than bring chaos to the drayage industry; Theodoric Ferry, who is chairman of the board of THL, must have known this when he financed Dr. von Einem at his Schweinfort labs where the Telpor breakthrough occurred. And yet THL owned — outside of your father's — the largest single holding of the now-defunct Applebaum Enterprise. Therefore Trails of Hoffman Limited deliberately ruined a corporation which it had major investments in... and this has seemed strange to us. And" — she glanced up alertly, tossed back her mass of black hair — "now they hound you for restitution; correct?"

Rachmael nodded mutely.

Quietly, Miss Holm asked, "How long did it take a passenger liner of your father's corporation to reach Whale's Mouth with a load of, say, five hundred colonists, plus their personal effects?"

After a tormented pause he said, "We — never even tried. Years. Even at hyper-see." The girl, across from him, still waited, wanted to hear him say it. "With our flagship transport," he said, "eighteen years."

"And with Dr. von Einem's teleportation instru­ment — "

"Fifteen minutes," he said harshly. And Whale's Mouth, the number IX planet of the Fomalhaut system, was to date the sole planet discovered either by manned or unmanned observers which was truly habitable — truly a second Terra. Eighteen years... and even deep-sleep would not help, for such a prolonged period; aging, although slowed down, although consciousness was dimmed, still occurred. Alpha and Prox; that had been all right; that had been short enough. But Fomal­haut, at twenty-four light-years —

"We just couldn't compete," he said. "We simply could not carry colonists that far."

"Would you have tried, without von Einem's Telpor breakthrough?"

Rachmael said, "My father — "

"Was thinking about it." She nodded. "But then he died and it was too late and now you've had to sell vir­tually all your ships to meet note-payment due-dates. Now, from us, Rachmael. You wanted... ?"

"I still own," he said, "our fastest, newest, biggest ship, the Omphalos; she's never been sold, no matter how great the pressure THL has put on me, within and outside the UN courts." He hesitated, then said it. "I want to go to Whale's Mouth. By ship. Not by Dr. von Einem's Telpor. And by my own ship, by what we meant to be our — " He broke off. "I want to take her all the way to Fomalhaut, on an eighteen-year voyage — alone. And when I arrive at Whale's Mouth I'll prove — "

"Yes?" Freya said. "Prove what, Rachmael?"

"That we could have done it. Had von Einem not come along with that thing, that — " He gestured, with impotent fury.

Freya said, "Telpor is one of the most vital dis­coveries in human history, Rachmael. Teleportation, from one star system to another, twenty-four light-years in fifteen minutes. When you reach Whale's Mouth by the Omphalos, I for instance will be — " She calculated. "Forty-three years old."

He was silent.

"What," Freya asked in a soft voice, "would you ac­complish by your trip?"

He said, honestly, "I — don't know."

Presently Freya said, reading from her folio, "You have, for six months now, been thoroughly checking out the Omphalos at a concealed — even from us — launch field and maintenance dock on Luna. She is now con­sidered ready for the inter-system flight. Trails of Hoff­man has tried, through the courts, to attach her to claim her as their legal property; this you have managed to fight. So far. But now — "

"My lawyers tell me," Rachmael said, "that three days stand between me and THL seizing the Om­phalos."

"You can't blast off within three days?"

"The deep-sleep equipment. It's a week from being readied." He let out his breath raggedly. "A subsidiary of THL manufactures vital components. They've been — held up."

Freya nodded. "And your coming here is to request us," she said, "to pick up the Omphalos, with one of our veteran pilots, disappear with her for a week, until she's ready for the flight to Fomalhaut. Correct?"

"That's it," he said, and sat waiting. "I'm not good enough to lose her. They'd find me. But yours — one of your best." He did not look directly at her; it meant too much.

"You can pay our fee of — "

"Nothing. I have absolutely no funds. Later, as I continue to liquidate the assets of the corporation, possibly I — "

Freya said, "There's a note here, Xeroxed, from my employer, Mr. Glazer-Holliday. He observes that you're poscredless. His instructions to us — " She read the note, silently. "However, we're to cooperate with you, despite your financial helplessness." Glancing up at him she said, "We'll dispatch an experienced pilot who will take the Omphalos off where THL, where even the UN agents acting for the Secretary General, Herr Horst Bert old, won't find her. This our man can do — while you manage, if you can, to obtain the final components of the deep-sleep equipment." She smiled slightly. "But I doubt if you'll obtain those com­ponents, Rachmael; there's an additional memo here to that effect, too. You're right: Theodoric Ferry sits on its board of directors, too, and this is all legal, this monopoly which the firm possesses." Her smile was bitter. "UN sanctioned."

He was silent. Obviously it was hopeless; no matter how long the Lies Incorporated professional and ultra-veteran space-pilot kept the huge liner the Omphalos lost between planets, the components would be "held up unavoidably," as the invoices, marked back-order, would read.

"I think," Freya said presently, "that your problem is not the mere obtaining of deep-sleep components. That can be handled; there are ways... we, for in­stance, can — although this will cost you a good deal of money eventually — pick them up on the blackmarket. Your problem, Rachmael — "

"I know," he said. His problem was not how to get to the Fomalhaut system, to its ninth planet, Whale's Mouth, which was Terra's sole thriving colony-world. In fact his problem was not the eighteen-year voyage at all.

His problem was —

Why go at all, when Dr. von Einem's Telpor con­struct, available at a nominal cost at any of Trails of Hoffman's many retail outlets on Terra, made the trip a mere fifteen-minute minor journey, and within fi­nancial reach of even the most modest, income-wise speaking, Terran family?

Aloud he said, "Freya, the trip by Telpor to Whale's Mouth — it sounds fine." And forty million Terran citizens had taken advantage of it. And the aud and vid reports returning — via the Telpor construct — all told glowingly of a world not overcrowded, of tall grass, of odd but benign animals, of new and lovely cities built by robot-assists taken across at UN-expense to Whale's Mouth. "But — "

"But," Freya said, "the peculiar fact is that it's a one-way trip."

Instantly he nodded. "Yes, that's it. No one can come back."

"That's easily explained. The Sol system is located at the axis of the universe; the recession of the extra-galactic nebulae demonstrates von Einem's Theorem One that — "

"There must," he said, "out of those forty million people, be a few who want to return. But the TV and 'pape reports say they're all ecstatically happy. You've seen the endless TV shows, life at Newcolonizedland. It's — "

"Too perfect, Rachmael?"

"Statistically, malcontents must exist. Why do we never hear of them? And we can't go and take a look." Because, if you went by Telpor to Whale's Mouth and saw, you were there, as they were, to stay. So if you did find malcontents — what could you do for them? Be­cause you could not take them back; you could only join them. And he had the intuition that somehow this just wouldn't be of much use. Even the UN left Newcolo­nizedland alone, the countless UN welfare agencies, the personnel and bureaus newly set up by the present Sec­retary General Horst Bertold, from New Whole Ger­many: the largest political entity in Europe — even they stopped at the Telpor gates. Neues Einige Deutschland... N.E.D. Far more powerful than the mangy, dwin­dling French Empire or the U.K. — they were pale rem­nants of the past.

And New Whole Germany — as the election to UN Secretary General of Horst Bertold showed — was the Wave of the Future... as the Germans themselves liked to phrase it.

"So in other words," Freya said, "you'd take an empty passenger liner to the Fomalhaut system, spend eighteen years in transit, you, the sole unteleported man, among the seven billion citizens of Terra, with the idea — or should I say, the hope? — that when you arrive finally at Whale's Mouth, in the year 2032, you'll find a passenger complement, five hundred or so unhappy souls who want out? And so you then can resume com­mercial operations... von Einem takes them there in fifteen minutes and then eighteen years later you return them to Terra, back home to the Sol system."

"Yes," he said fiercely.

"Plus another eighteen years — for them — too — for the flight back. For you thirty-six years in all. You'd return to Terra in the year — " She calculated. "2050 A.D. I'd be sixty-one years old; Theodoric Ferry, even Horst Bertold, would be dead; perhaps Trails of Hoff­man Limited wouldn't even exist, any more... cer­tainly Dr. Sepp von Einem would be dead years ago; let's see: he's in his eighties now. No, he'd never live to see you reach Whale's Mouth, let alone return. So if all this is to make him feel bad — "

"Is it insane?" Rachmael said. "To believe, first, that some unhappy persons must be stuck at Whale's Mouth... and yet we're not hearing, via THL's monopoly of all info media, all energy, passing back this way. And second — "

"And second," Freya said, "to want to spend eighteen years of your life in getting there to rescue them." Professional, intent, she eyed him. "Is this idealism? Or is this vengeance against Dr. von Einem because of his Telpor construct that made your family's liners and commercial carriers obsolete for inter-system travel? After all, if you do manage to leave in the Om­phalos, it'll be big news, a novelty; it'll be fully covered on TV and in the 'papes, here on Terra; even the UN won't be able to squelch the story — the first, sole, manned vessel to go to Fomalhaut, not just one of those old-time instrument packages. Why, you'd be a time capsule; we'd all be waiting for you to arrive first there and then, in 2050, back here."

"A time capsule," he said, "like the one fired off at Whale's Mouth. Which never arrived here on Terra."

She shrugged. "Passed Terra by, was attracted by the sun's gravitational field; was swallowed up unnoticed."

"Unnoticed by any tracking station? Out of over six thousand separate monitoring devices in orbit in the Sol system none detected the time capsule when it arrived?"

Frowning, Freya said, "What do you mean to imply, Rachmael?"

"The time capsule," Rachmael said, "from Whale's Mouth, the launching of which we watched years ago on TV — it wasn't detected by our tracking stations because it never arrived. And it never arrived, Miss Holm, because despite those crowd scenes it was never sent."

"You mean what we saw on TV — "

"The vid signal, via Telpor," Rachmael said, "which showed the happy masses at Whale's Mouth cheering at the vast public launching ceremony of the time cap­sule — were fakes. I've run and rerun recordings of them; the crowd noise is spurious." Reaching into his cloak he brought out a seven-inch reel of iron oxide Am­pex and tape; he tossed it onto her desk. "Play it back. Carefully. There were no people cheering. And for a good reason. Because no time capsule, containing quaint artifacts from the Fomalhaut ancient civiliza­tions, was launched from Whale's Mouth."

"But — " She stared at him in disbelief, then picked up the aud tape, held the reel uncertainly. "Why?"

"I don't know," Rachmael said. "But when the Om­phalos reaches the Fomalhaut system and Whale's Mouth and I see Newcolonizedland, I'll know." And, he thought, I don't think I'll find ten or sixty malcon­tents out of forty million... by that time, of course, it'll be something like a billion colonists. I'll find —

He ended the thought abruptly. He did not know.

But eventually he would know. In the little matter of eighteen years.