The Unteleported Man

6

The monitoring and recording-transmitting satellite, Prince Albert B-y, creaked out its first video signal, a transcript of the first video telescopic records which it had taken of the surface beneath it in over a decade. Portions of the long-inert network of minned parts failed; backup systems, however, took over, and some of these failed, too. But the signal, directed toward the Sol system twenty-four light-years away, was sent out.

And, on the surface of Fomalhaut IX, an eye winked. And from it a ground-to-air missile rose and in a period so slight that only the finest measuring devices could have detected a lapse-period at all, arrived at its target, the groaning carrot-shaped monitoring satellite which had, inoperative, silently existed — and hence harm­lessly. Up to now.

The warhead of the missile detonated. And the Prince Albert B-y ceased to exist, soundlessly, because at its altitude there was no atmosphere to transmit the event in the dimension of noise.

And, at the same time on the surface below, a power­ful transmitter accepted a tape run at enormous velocity; the signal, amplified by a row of cold, superbly built surge-gates, reached transmission level and was re­leased; oddly, its frequency coincided with that of the signal just emitted by the now nonexistent satellite.

What would radiate from the two separate transmit­ters would blend in a cacophony of meaningless garble. Satisfied, the technicians operating the ground transmit­ter switched to more customary channels — and tasks.

The deliberately deranged combined signal sped across space toward the Sol system, beamed, in its mad confusion, at a planet which, when it received this, would possess nothing but a catfight of noise.

And the satellite, reduced to its molecular level by the warhead, would emit no more signals; its life was over.

The event, the first transmission by the satellite up unto the final scramble by the far more powerful sur­face transmitter, had consumed five minutes, including the flight — and demolition — of the missile: the missile and its priceless, elaborate, never-to-be-duplicated tar­get.

— A target which, certain circles had long ago agreed in formal session, could be readily sacrificed, were the need to arise.

That need had arisen.

And the satellite was duly gone.

At the site of the missile-launching a helmeted soldier leisurely fitted a second g.-to-a. missile into the barn, at­tached both its anode and cathode terminals, made sure that the activating board was relocked — by the same key through which he had obtained official entry — and then he, too, returned to his customary chores.

Time lapse: perhaps six minutes in all.

And the planet, Fomalhaut IX, revolved on.

Deep in thought as she sat in the comfortable leather, padded seat of the luxury taxi flapple, Freya Holm was startled by the sudden mechanical voice of the vehicle's articulation-circuit. "Sir or madam, I request your par­don, but a deterioration of my meta-battery forces me without choice to land for a quick-charge without delay.

Please give me oral permission as an acknowledgment of your willingness otherwise we will glide to destruct."

Looking down she saw the high-rise spires of New New York, the ring of city outside the inner, old kremlin of New York itself. Late for work, she said to herself, damn it. But — the flapple was correct; if its meta-battery, its sole power supply, were failing, to get out of the sky and on the surface at a repair station was man­datory; a long powerless glide would mean death in the form of collision with one of the tall commercial build­ings below. "Yes," she agreed, resignedly, and groaned. And today was the day.

"Thank you, sir or madam." With sputtering power the flapple spiraled down until at last, under adequate control, it coasted to a rather rough but at least not dangerous halt at one of New New York's infinite flapple service stations.

A moment later uniformed service station men swarmed over the parked flapple, searching for — as one explained courteously to her — for the short which had depleted the meta-battery, good normally, the attendant told her cheerfully, for twenty years.

Opening the flapple door the attendant said, "May I check under the passenger's console, please? The wiring there; those circuits take a lot of hard use — the insula­tion may be rubbed off." He, a black man, seemed to her pleasant and alert and without hesitation she moved to the far side of the cab.

The attendant slid in, closed, then, the flapple door. "Moon and cow," he said, the current — and highly temporary — ident-code phrase of members of the police organization Lies Incorporated.

Taken by surprise Freya murmured, "Jack Horner. Who are you? I never ran into you before." He did not look like a field rep to her.

"A 'tween space pilot. I'm Al Dosker; I know you — you're Freya Holm." He was not smiling now; he was quiet, serious, and, as he sat beside her, per­functorily running his fingers over the wiring of the passenger's control console he said, half chantingly, "I have no time, Freya, for small talk; I have five minutes at the most; I know where the short is because I sent this particular flapple taxi to pick you up. See?"

"I see," she said, and, within her mouth, bit on a false tooth; the tooth split and she tasted the bitter outer-layer of a plastic pill: a container of Prussic acid, enough to kill her if this man proved to be from their antagonists. And, at her wrist, she wound her watch — actually winding a low-velocity homeostatic cyanide-tipped dart which she would control by the "watch" controls; it could either take out this man or, if others showed up, herself, in case of a failure of the oral poison. In any case she sat back rigid, waiting.

"You," Dosker said, "are Matson's mistress; you have access to him at any time; this I know — this is why I've approached you. Tonight, at six p.m. New New York time, Matson Glazer-Holliday will arrive at an outlet of Trails of Hoffman; carrying two heavy suit­cases he will request permission to emigrate. He will pay his six poscreds, or seven, if his baggage is overweight, and then be teleported to Whale's Mouth. And at the same time, at every Telpor outlet throughout Terra, a total aggregate of roughly two thousand of his toughest veteran field reps will do the same."

She said nothing; she stared straight ahead. Within her purse an aud recorder captured all this, but heaven only knew for what.

Dosker said, "On the far side he, by deploying his veterans and the wep-equipment which they will as­semble from components carried in their suitcases as 'personal articles,' will attempt a coup. Will halt emi­gration, make at once inoperative the Telpors, toss President Omar Jones — "

"So?" she said. "If I know this, why tell me?"

"Because," Dosker said, "I am going to Horst Ber­told two hours before six. I believe that is usually con­sidered four o'clock." His voice was icy, harsh. "I am an employee of Lies Incorporated but I did not join the organization to participate in a powerplay like this. On Terra, Matson G.-H. stands about where he ought to be: third in the pecking order. On Whale's Mouth — "

"And you want me," Freya said, "to do exactly what between now and four o'clock? Seven hours."

"Inform Matson that when he and the two thousand LI field reps arrive at the retail outlets of THL they will not be teleported but will be arrested and undoubtedly painlessly murdered. In the German manner."

"This," she said, "is what you want? Matson dead and them, those — " She gestured, gripping, clawing the air. "Bertold and Ferry and von Einem to run the cor­porate Terran-Whale's Mouth political-economic entity with no one to — "

"I don't want him to try."

"Listen," Freya said bitingly. "The coup that Mat-son expects to carry out at Whale's Mouth is based on his assumption that a home army of three hundred ignorant volunteers exists over there. I don't think you have to worry; the problem is that Mat actually believes the lies he sees on TV; he's actually incredibly primitive and naive. Do you think it's a Promised Land over there, with a tiny volunteer army, waiting for someone to come along with real force, aided by modern wep-technology, such as Mat possesses, to harvest for the asking? If this were so, do you honestly believe Bertold and Ferry would not have done it already?"

Dosker, disconcerted, eyed her hesitantly.

"I think," she said, "that Mat is making a mistake. Not because it's immoral but because he's going to discover that, once he's over there, he and his two thousand veterans, he'll be facing — " She broke off. "I don't know. But he won't succeed in any coup d'etat. Whoever runs Newcolonizedland will handle Mat; that's what terrifies me. Sure, I'd like him to stop; I'd be glad to tell him that one of his top employees who knows all the inside details about the coup is going to, at four p.m., tip off the authorities. I'll do everything in my power, Dosker, to get him to abandon the idea, to face the fact that he's wandering idiotically into a ter­minal trap. My reasons and yours may not — "

"What do you think," Dosker said, "is over there, Freya?"

"Death."

"For — everybody?" He stared at her. "Forty mil­lion? Why?"

"The days," she said, "of Gilbert and Sullivan and Jerome Kern are over. We're on a planet of seven bil­lion. Whale's Mouth could do the job, but slowly, and there's a more efficient way, and every one of those in key posts in the UN, put in by Herr Horst Bertold, knows that way."

"No," Dosker said, his face an ugly, putty-colored gray. "That went out in 1945."

"Are you sure? Would you want to emigrate?"

He was silent. And then, stunning her, he said, "Yes."

"What? Why?"

Dosker said, "I will emigrate. Tonight at six, New New York time. With laser pistol in my left hand, and I'll kick them in the groin; I want to get at them, if that's what they're doing; I can't wait."

"You won't be able to do a thing. As soon as you emerge — "

"With my bare hands. I'll get one of them. Any one will do."

"Start here. Start with Horst Bertold."

He stared at her, then.

"We have the wep-techs," Freya said, and then ceased speaking as the flapple door was opened by another — cheerful — attendant.

"Found the short, Al?" he asked.

"Yes," Al Dosker said. He fooled, fumbled, under the dashboard, his face concealed. "Should be okay now. Recharge the meta-bat, stick it back in, and she can take off."

The other attendant, satisfied, departed. Freya and Al Dosker were alone once more, briefly, with the flapple door hanging open.

"You — may be wrong," Dosker said.

Freya said, "It's got to be something like that. It can't be three hundred assorted-shape volunteer army privates, because Ferry and Bertold or at least one of them would have moved in, and that's the one fact we know: we know what they're like. There just cannot, Dosker, be a power vacuum at Whale's Mouth."

"All ready to go, miss," one of the other attendants called.

The flapple's articulation-circuit asserted, "I feel a million times better; I'm now prepared to depart for your original destination, sir or madam, as soon as the superfluous individual has disemflappled."

Dosker, trembling, said, "I — don't know what to do."

"Don't go to Ferry or Bertold. Begin at that."

He nodded. Evidently she had reached him; that part was over.

"Mat will need all the help he can get," she said, "from six o'clock on. From the moment his first field rep hits Whale's Mouth. Dosker, why don't you go? Even if you're a pilot, not a rep. Maybe you can help him."

The flapple started its motor up irritably. "Please, sir or madam, if you will request — "

"Are you teleporting?" Dosker asked her. "With them?"

Freya said, "I'm scheduled to cross at five. To rent living quarters for Mat and me. I'll be — remember this so you can find us — Mrs. Silvia Trent. And Mat will be Stuart Trent. Okay?"

"Okay," Dosker mumbled, backed out, shut the flapple door.

The flapple began to ascend, at once.

And she relaxed. And spat out the capsule of Prussic acid, dropped it into the disposal chute of the flapple, then reset her "watch."

What she had said to Dosker, god knew, was the truth. She knew it — knew it and could do nothing to dissuade Matson. On the far side professionals would be in wait, and even if they didn't anticipate the coup, even if there had been no leak and they saw no connection between the two thousand male individuals scattered all over the world, applying at every Telpor outlet on Terra... even so, she knew they would be able to handle Mat. He was just not that big and they could handle him.

But he did not believe it. Because Mat saw the possi­bility of power; it was a gaff that had hooked deep in his side and the wound spilled with the blood of yearning. Suppose it was true; suppose only a three-hundred-man army existed. Suppose. The hope and possibility enflamed him.

And babies, she thought, as the flapple carried her toward the New New York offices of Lies Incorporated, are discovered under cabbages.

Sure, Mat; you keep on believing.