Under Two Moons

VI

Once, when Johan Gull was very young, the newest and least reliable of cogs in Security’s great machine, he had been assigned to Heliopolis to counter a Black Hat ploy. Or not quite that, he admitted; he had been sent to add a quite unimportant bit of information to the already huge store that the agent operating on the scene already had. He had envied that agent, had young Johan Gull. He had looked with jealous eyes about the bright, dizzying scenes of Heliopolis and dreamed of a time when he too might be a senior agent in charge, himself a major piece in The Game, squiring a lovely lady on an errand of great consequence, in the teeth of dreadful danger.

All the fun of it was in the anticipation, he thought as they rode into Heliopolis lock on their battered thoat, checked it at the Avis office and dismounted. If only Tars Tarkas had survived to tell what he knew!

But he had not; and Gull was uneasily aware that he knew no more now than when he left Marsport. Still, he thought, brightening, this was Heliopolis, the Saigon of Syrtis Major. He might get killed. He might not be able to protect this lovely and loving girl from mischance. He might even fail in his mission. But he was bound to have a hell of a time.

They found rooms at the Grand and parted to freshen up. Overhead the city’s advertising display flashed on the thin, yellowish clouds of Mars, on, off—on, off:

HELIOPOLIS

The Wickedest City in the Worlds

Liquor * Gambling * Vice

The Family That Plays Together

Stays Together

And indeed, Gull saw, the pleasure-seekers who thronged the concourses and the lobby of the Grand had often enough brought the kiddies. He watched them sentimentally as the bellthing trundled his luggage toward the elevators. It would be most pleasant to spend a holiday here, he thought, with someone you loved. With Alessandra, perhaps. Perhaps even with Kim, Marie Celeste and little Patty…

But he could not afford thoughts like that; and he quickly showered, shaved, put on a clean white suit and met the girl in the great gleaming cocktail lounge of the Grand.

“ ‘Ello, Meesta Gull,” she said softly, her eyes dark and somehow laughing.

Gull regarded her thoughtfully. She was a sight worth regarding, for the girl in the cocktail lounge was nothing like the bedraggled, terrified creature in the ochre sands. Her green-blue eyes were smoky with mystery. Her leongsam, deeply slit, revealed the gleam of a bronzed rounded thigh. A whisper of some provocative scent caressed him; but it was not her charms that had him bemused; it was something else. His eyes narrowed. Somewhere, he thought. Some time…

She laughed. “You are thoughtful,” she said. “Will you ‘ave a drink with me?”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said gallantly.

“Unless you have other plans?” she inquired. There was no doubt about it; she was poking fun at him.

He rose to her mood. “It’s the least I could do, my dear—seeing you saved my life.”

“Ah! Life.” She glanced wryly at him from the corner of her eye. “What is it, this ‘life’ I ‘ave saved? Can one taste it? Can one carry it to bed?”

Gull grinned. “Perhaps not, but I’m rather attached to mine.” He ordered drinks, watched carefully while they were made, then nodded and raised his glass. “Of course,” he added, “I’ve saved your life too—I guess, let’s see—oh, perhaps three times. From Tars Tarkas. From dying by thirst. From the saucer people. So you actually owe me about three to one, lifesaving-wise.”

“Three to two, dear Meesta Gull,” the girl whispered over the rim of her glass.

“Two? Oh, I think not. Just the torpedoing, really, and as a matter of fact I’m not sure you should get full credit for that. You were a little tardy there.”

She shook her head. “Yes, the torpedoing—and something else. ‘Ave you forgotten? The old warehouse? The —incident—which caused your sore lip?”

Gull stared at her, then brought his glass down with a crash. “Got it!” he shouted. “I remember now!… Oh, damn it, sorry,” he went on, shaking his head. “It was on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve lost it. Sorry.”

He stared at her moodily and drained his glass. “No matter. I’ll think of it. I promise you that.”

The girl laughed softly, then sobered. “Meanwhile,” she said, “we ‘ave some more important business ‘ere.” And she nodded toward the great crystal pane that opened on the thronged boulevards of Heliopolis.

Gull followed the direction of her glance and saw at once what she meant. A demonstration was in progress. A hundred straggling, shouting marchers were carrying placards with as many harsh and doctrinaire slogans:

Let the Space People Save You!

We Are Property

Why Is the Air Force Covering

Up Sightings?

Gull said abruptly, “Let’s take a look.”

The girl rose without answering and together they walked out to the terrace. The shouts of the demonstrators smote them like a fist. Gull could barely distinguish the cadenced words in the roar of sound: “Make … Mars . . . the tomb of Skepticism,” over and over in time to their march until it changed to “Welcome UFOs now! Welcome UFOs now!”

“They take it seriously,” he murmured. Alessandra did not answer; he glanced at her, then followed the direction of her gaze. A man in stained coveralls, eyes fixed on them, was pushing his way in their direction through the crowd. He was tall, and not young. His face was lined with the ineradicable burn of a life spent on the Martian desert.

Gull stroked his goatee to hide a thrill of excitement that tingled through him. This could be it: The break he was looking for.

The man stopped just below them, looking up. “Hey, you!” he bawled. “You Gull?”

Gull shouted carefully. “That’s my name, yes.”

“Well, where the devil you been? We been waiting for you!” cried the man in irritable tones. He reached up, clutched at a carved projection on the face of the terrace, raised himself and swung to face the crowd. “Hey, everybody!” he shouted. “Meet the fella that thinks UFOs are phony! This way! You! Look here!”

Heads were beginning to turn. The ragged line of marchers slowed, Gull whispered to the girl, whose presence he could feel shivering beside him: “Careful! I don’t know what he’s going to do. If it looks like trouble —run!”

But he could not hear her answer, if she made one, for the man was turning back to him again. In the diminished sound of the street his raucous yell sounded clearly: “All right, Gull! You think our supranormal powers’re all a lotta crud, see what you think of this!” And he made a snatching motion at what, as far as Gull could see, was empty air; caught something, squeezed it in his fist; turned towards Gull and threw it.

There was nothing in the man’s hand.

But that nothing spun toward Gull like a pinwheeling comet, huge and bright and deadly; it hummed and sang shrilly of hate and destruction; it rocketed up toward him like an onrushing engine of destruction. And something in it snapped his will. He stood frozen, impotent to move.

Vaguely he felt a stir of motion beside him. Hazily he knew that the girl was thrusting at him, shouting at him, hurling him aside. Too late! The hurtling doom came up and struck him—just a corner brushing against his head as he fell—but enough; worlds crashed; hell-bombs roared in his skull; he dropped, away and away, endlessly down into… into… he could not see, could not guess what it was; but it was filled with terror and pain and doom.

But then he was awake again, and the girl was weeping over him; he could feel her teardrops splashing on his face.

Gull coughed, gasped, clutched at his pounding skull and pushed himself erect. “What—What—”

“Oh, thank ‘Eaven! I was afraid ‘Arry ‘ad killed you!”

“Apparently not,” he said dizzily; and then, “Harry who? How do you know who that fellow was?”

“What does it matter?” she cried. Bright tears hung unshed in her eyes.

“Well, it kind of matters to me,” said Gull doubtfully, looking around. They were no longer on the terrace. Somehow she had lugged him back into the greater security of the cocktail lounge. A waiter was hanging over them, whirring in a worried key.

“Harry Rosencranz!” he cried suddenly. The girl nodded. “Sure! And he knew I was coming. Well, that tears it. My cover’s blown for sure.” He glared at the waiter and said, “Don’t just stand there. Bring us a drink.” The thing went away, warbling unhappily to itself. It had not been programmed for this sort of thing.

Indeed Gull needed a drink. The reality of supra-normal powers was a phenomenon of a totally different kind than the contemplation of them at a distance. The tapes about Reik and his partner had been interesting; the reality was terrifying.

He seized the glass as soon as offered and drained it; and then he turned to Alessandra. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” he said.

The tears were very near the surface now.

She waited.

“How did you know it was Rosencranz?” he demanded. “And the torpedoing—you knew about that.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten that we’ve met before…somewhere… don’t worry, I’ll think of where it was.”

She inclined her head, hiding her face.

“You’re working for someone, aren’t you?” Her silence was answer enough. “A nice girl like you! How’d you get into this?” He shook his head, mystified.

“Ah, Meesta Gull,” she said brokenly, “it’s the old, old story. My ‘usband—dead. My little ones—’ungry. And what could I do? And now they ‘ave me in their power.”

“Who?”

“The Black ‘Ats, Meesta Gull. Yes, it is true. I am in the employ of your enemy.”

“But damn it, girl! I mean, you said you loved me!”

“I do! Truly! Oh,’owl do!”

“Now, wait a minute. You can’t love me and work for them,” objected Gull.

“l can too! I do!”

“Prove it.”

She flared, “Appily! ‘Ow? “

Gull signaled for another drink. He smiled at the girl quite fondly. “It’s very simple,” he said. “Just take me to your leader.”