The Winds of Limbo

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MAYFAIR moldered.

.Nowhere on the three planets was there a slum like it, and riches, not poverty, had indirectly created it.

As Alan walked up the festering streets of Park Lane, a light drizzle falling from the overcast afternoon sky, he remembered the story of how it had got like this. Mayfair was the property of one man-a man whose ambition had been to own it, who had achieved his ambition and was now near-senile-Ronald Lowry, the British financier, who refused to let the government buy him out and refused, also, to improve his property. The original residents and business houses had moved out long since, unable to stand Lowry’s weird dictatorship. The homeless, and especially the criminal homeless, had moved in. Like Lowry, they weren't interested in improving the property, either. For them, it was fine as it was-a warren of huge, disused hotels, office blocks and apartment buildings. Lowry was rich-perhaps the richest man in the world-and Lowry, in spite of his senility, had power. He would not let a single government official set foot on his property and backed up his wishes by threatening to withdraw his capital from industries which, without it, would flounder and give the government unemployment problems, re-location problems and the like. Until a less cautious party came to power, Mayfair would continue to molder, at least for as long as Lowry lived.

The scruffy, old-world architecture of the Hilton, the Dorchester and the Millennium Grande towered above Alan as he passed between them and the jungle that grew alongside Hyde Park. Hyde Park itself was public property, neat and orderly, well maintained by London's City Council, but roots had spread and shrubs had flowered, making an almost impenetrable hedge along the borders of the park.

Wisely, he did not head immediately for the Dorchester, where Bias was supposed to be, but went instead to a cafe that still bore the name of the Darlington Grill. The specialite de la maison these days, however, was fish and chips-from the smell.

The majority of the men were gaudily dressed in the latest styles, but some were down at heel-not necessarily criminals, but pridies, people who refused to accept the citizen's grant which the government allowed to all who were unable to work, whether because of physical or emotional reasons. These were extreme emotional cases who, if they had not come to the official-free area of Mayfair, would have been cured by this time and rehabilitated. Mayfair, Alan thought, was indeed a strange anachronism-and a blot on the three planets. Ronald Lowry’s vast financial resources had produced the only skid row now in existence!

Alan had taken the precaution of getting himself a green luminous suit and a flowing scarlet cravat which made him feel sick whenever he saw himself in a mirror. On his head was perched, at a jaunty angle, a conical cap of bright and hideous blue, edged with gold sateen.

He saw by the list chalked on a board at the end of the cafe that his nose hadn't lied. The only food was turbot and chips. The liquor, it seemed, was a product of a local firm-a choice between wheat, parsnip or nettle wine. He ordered a wheat wine and found it clear and good, like a full-bodied Sauterne.

It was only spoiled by the disgusting aroma of illicit cigarettes smoked by several of the nicotine addicts who lounged in what was evidently a drug-induced euphoria at the greasy tables.

Before he had left the City of Switzerland, Alan had procured one of the badges previously worn by the Fireclown's supporters-a small metal sun emblem which the disillusioned Sons of the Sun had rid themselves of when public sympathy for the Fireclown had changed to anger. He wore it inside his cap.

He looked around over the rim of his glass, hoping to see a similar emblem, but he was disappointed.

A sharp-faced little man came in and sat at Alan's table. He ordered a parsnip wine. A few drops spilled on the table as the proprietor brought it.

Alan decided that he would have to chance the possibility that the cafe fraternity were sufficiently angered against the Fireclown to cause trouble. He took off his hat, lining upward so that the sun emblem was visible.

The sharp-faced man was also sharp-eyed. Alan saw him stare at the badge for a moment.- Then he looked at Alan, frowning. In the spilled liquor on the table he drew, with a surprisingly clean finger, a similar design.

"You're one of us, eh?" he grunted.

"Yes."

"Fresh to Mayfair?"

"Yes."

"You'd better come to the meeting. It's a masked meeting, naturally. We've got to protect ourselves."

"Where do I go?"

"South Audley Street-a cellar." The man told him the number and the time to be there. Then he ignored Alan, who finished his drink and ordered another. A little later he got up and left.

Alan could understand the need for secrecy. The police would be searching for any clue to the Fireclown's whereabouts. He wondered if this group knew. Or did they have any real contact with the Fireclown at all? Perhaps in an hour's time, at six o'clock, he would know.

At six he entered the broken-down doorway in South Audley Street and found himself in a long room that had evidently been a restaurant. Through the gloom he could make out chairs still stacked on tables. He walked over rotting carpets, through the piled furniture to the back of the place. A door led him through a filthy, dilapidated kitchen. At the end of a row of rusted stoves he saw another door. Opening it, he saw that it closed off a flight of concrete steps leading downwards. He advanced into a cellar.

About five or six masked figures were already there. One of them, stocky and languid in his movements, Alan thought he recognized.

One of the others, a woman in a red and yellow hood that covered her whole face, came up to him. "Welcome, newcomer. Sit there." She pointed to a padded chair in a shadowed corner.

From a brazier at the end of the cellar flames danced. Huge, grotesque shadows were spread along the floor and up the walls as the men and women began to come down the cellar steps and sit on the damp-smelling chairs.

"Thirty-nine, plus the newcomer-forty in all," the stocky man said. "Close the door and bar it."

The stocky man went and stood by the brazier. Alan wished he could place him, but couldn't for the moment.

"We are come here," he intoned, "as the last loyal Sons of the Fireclown, to honor our leader and prepare for his return. We are pledged to carry out his work, even if we risk death in so doing P'

Alan realized suddenly that these people were using the Fireclown's name, just as the majority had done earlier, to support some creed or obsession of their own. The whole tone of the meeting did not fit with what he knew of the Fireclown, his father. Probably, he thought, he understood the Fireclown better than anyone-particularly since- he could recognize certain traits in the Fireclown that had a milder expression in himself.

Certainly, he decided, this group was worth observing, for it might help clarify the rest of the questions that needed clarifying before he could act in an objective way.

What if the arms syndicate were operating this group for their own purposes? It was possible that they had got hold of these people who seriously wished to put the Fireclown's outre philosophy into practice and were making them act against the Fireclown's interests.

Then he had it. The identify of the intoning man-Bias.

Now, he felt, there was substance for his theory that the arms syndicate was using the Fireclown as a patsy-a fall-guy to carry the can for their devious plans for the world conflict. He bent forward as Bias came to the important point.

"You have each been given incendiary bombs to plant in some of the major buildings around the globe. The burning buildings will act as beacons, heralding the return of the Fireclown with his bolts of fire for the unclean and his gift of a new world for you, the true believers. Are you all sure of what you must do?"

"Yes!" each man and woman responded.

"Now." Bias's masked face was cocked to one side as he suddenly regarded Alan.

"The newcomer is not yet a full Son of the Fireclown. He must prove himself to us."

Alan suddenly realized the menace in the words. He sensed, from the atmosphere in the room, that this was not normal procedure.

"Come here, my friend," Bias said quietly. "You must be initiated."

There was a strong chance that Bias recognized him. But what could he do? For the moment he would have to go through with it.

He got up slowly and walked towards the fiery heat of the brazier.

"Do you worship the Flame of the Sun?" Bias asked theatrically.

"Yes," he said, trying to keep his voice level.

"Do you see the fire as the Fire of Life?"

He nodded.

"Would you bring forth the fires of life in yourself?"

"Yes."

"Then"-Bias pointed at the brazier-"plunge your hand into the flames as proof that you are a brother to the Flame of the Sun!"

Ritual! If Alan needed confirmation that these people had nothing to do with the Fireclown in any real sense, he had it now. The Fireclown scorned ritual.

"No, Bias," he said scornfully, and turned to the masked gathering. "Don't listen to this man. I know the Fire-clown-he is my father-he would not want this! He would hate you to debase yourselves as you are doing now. The Fireclown only uses fire as a symbol. He speaks of the human spirit, not-" he gestured at the brazier "-natural fire!"

"Silence!" Bias commanded. "You seek to disrupt our gathering! Do not listen to him, brothers!"

The Sons of the Fireclown were glancing at one another uncertainly.

Bias's voice spoke almost good-humoredly in Alan's ear. "Really, Powys, this is nothing to you. Why do you interfere? Admit to these fools that you lied and I’ll let you go. Otherwise I can probably convince them, anyway, and you'll be roasted on that thing there."

Alan glanced at the blazing brazier, spouting flames. He shuddered. Then he leapt at it and kicked it over in Bias's direction. Bias jumped away from the burning coals, shouting something incoherent.

Alan pushed through the confused crowd and reached the door, wrenched the bar away and fled up the stairs. He ran through the darkened restaurant and out into the crumbling street a few seconds ahead of his closest pursuer. He dashed down towards Grosvenor Square, an overgrown tangle of trees and shrubs. In the last of the evening light he saw the monolithic tower of the old American Embassy, fallen into decay long since.

A flight of steps led up to the broken glass doors. He climbed them hurriedly, squeezed through an aperture and saw another flight of steps leading upwards.

By the time he had reached the second floor, let his feet lead him into a maze of corridors, he no longer heard the sounds of pursuit and realized, thankfully, that he had lost them. He cursed himself for not wearing a mask. He should have guessed that Bias and the suspicious Sons of the Fireclown had some connection.

And now it was almost certain that Bias, unknown to the Fireclown, was playing both ends against the middle. But he'd still have to find out more before he could prove the Fireclown's innocence.

He had only one course of action. To go to the Dorchester, where Bias had his hideout. He knew he wasn't far from Park Lane, since he had studied a map thoroughly before he left. He waited for two hours before groping his way down to a different exit from the one he'd left and stumbled through the jungle of Grosvenor Square, climbing over fallen masonry and keeping in the shadows as he walked down Grosvenor Street and into Park Lane.

He threw away his hat and reversed his jacket as an afterthought so that the reversible side showed mauve shot with yellow, hunched his shoulders to disguise his outline and hid his face as much as possible, then continued down towards the Dorchester.

Luckily, the street was almost deserted and he passed only a couple of drunks sitting against the wall of a bank, and a pretty young girl who hailed him with pretty old . words. She reviled him softly in language even older when he ignored her.

Reaching the side entrance of the Dorchester, he found the door firmly locked.

He continued round to the front. Lights were on in the lobby and two tough-looking men lounged outside. He couldn't get past them without them seeing him, so he walked boldly and said:

"I've come to see Mr. Bias-he's expecting me. Which suite?"

"First floor," said the guard unsuspiciously.

Alan found the lobby in surprisingly good repair. Even the elevators looked in working order, although there was a good deal of litter about. He took the stairs, reached the first floor, which was in semi-darkness, and saw a light coming from under a pair of big double doors. He paused outside and strained his ear to catch the mumble of voices from within. He was sure he recognized both of them-one was probably Bias's anyway.

The other, he realized after a moment, was the voice of Junnar, his grandfather's secretary!

He took from his pocket the squat laser pistol he had brought with him at Helen's request and walked into the room.

"The plot," he said with forced lightness, "thickens. Good evening, gentlemen."

Bias took the cigarette out of his mouth with an expression of surprise. "Good evening, Powys," he said amiably. "I didn't think we'd seen the last of you. If you're not going to be impetuous we can explain everything, I think."

"Mr. Powys," Junnar said sadly, "you should have stayed out of this from the start. What's the gun for?"

"Self-protection," Alan said curtly. "And I don't need much explanation. I've had an inkling of this for some time. Grandfather put you up to planting the bombs on the Fireclown-am I right?"

Junnar's silence was answer enough. Alan nodded. "He'd use any means to prove the Fireclown a criminal, even if it meant supplying the proof himself, in a very simple way. You got the bombs from Bias and planted them. But you bit off more than you could chew when you started this war scare. What are you up to now? Doing another deal with Bias over the arms he wants to supply the government with as a 'defense' against a non-existent plot?"

"That's about it," Bias admitted.

Alan felt physically sick. His own grandfather, head of the house of Powys, descendant of a line of strong, honest and fervently dedicated politicians, had descended to faking evidence to prove his own theory about the Fireclown. And, in consequence, he had started a wave of hysteria which he was virtually unable to control. He wondered if Simon Powys now regretted his infamy. He probably did, but it was too late.

And this was the man the public was almost bound to elect President.

"You bloody, treacherous pigs! " he said.

"You'd have to prove all this," Bias said softly, his self-assurance still apparently maintained.

Alan was still in a quandary. All his life the concept of clan loyalty to the Powys's had been drummed into him. It was hard to shake it off. Could he betray his own grandfather, who in a peculiar way he still loved, at the expense of the father responsible for his bastardy?

Slowly, standing there with the laser gun in his hand, its unfamiliar grip sticky with sweat, he came unwillingly to a decision.

He waved the gun towards the door. "After you," he said.

"Where are we going?" Junnar asked nervously.

"The City of Switzerland," Alan told them. "And just remember what a laser can do. I could slice you both in two in a moment. It's going in my pocket, and my hand's going to be on it all the way."

"You're rather a melodramatic young man," Bias said resignedly as he walked towards the door.