"Oh, I don"t know. I was scared at first, but I"m not any more."
"And this is your hostess, Mary Noyes."
"h.e.l.lo, Canapes?"
"Thank you. They look delicious, Mrs. Powell."
"Now how about a game?" Powell interposed quickly. "Rebus, anyone?"
Outside, huddled in the shadow of the limestone arch, Jerry Church pressed against the garden door of Powel"s house, listening with all his soul. He was cold, silent, immobile, and starved. He was resentful, hating, contemptuous, and starved. He was an Esper 2 and starved. The bend sinister of ostracism was the source of his hunger.
Through the thin maple panel filtered the multiple TP pattern of the party; a weaving, ever-changing, exhilarating design. And Church, Esper 2, living on a sub-marginal diet of words for the past ten years, was starved for his own people---for the Esper world he had lost.
"The reason I mentioned D"Courtney is that I"ve just come across a case that might be similar."
That was Augustus Tate, sucking up to @kins.
"Oh really? Very interesting. I"d like to compare notes. Matter of fact, I made the trip to Terra because D"Courtney is coming here. Too bad D"Courtney won"t---well, be available." @kins was obviously being discreet and it smelled as though Tate was after something. Maybe not, Church speculated, but there was some elegant block and counter-blocking going on, like duellists fencing with complicated electrical circuits.
"Look here, peeper, I think you"ve been pretty snotty to that poor girl."
"Listen to him shoot off his mind," Church muttered. "Powell, that holy louse who had me kicked out, preaching down his big nose at the lawyer."
"Poor girl? You mean dumb girl, Powell. My G.o.d! How gauche can you get?"
"She"s only a 3rd. Be fair."
"She gives me a pain."
"Do you think it"s decent... marrying a girl when you feel that way about her?"
"Don"t be a romantic a.s.s, Powell. We"ve got to marry peepers. I might as well settle for a pretty face."
The Rebus game was going on in the living room. The Noyes girl was busy building a camouflaged image with an old poem: The vast, sea and is out Glimmering calm in the stand, tonight, tranquil bay England The Come to the window of tide sweet is the night cliffs is air. Only the full from the gone; the long line is moon of spray and lies Gleams fair light Upon the straights;---on the French coast the What the devil was that? An eye in a gla.s.s? Eh? Oh. Not a gla.s.s. A stein. Eye in a stein. Einstein. Easy.
"What d"you think of Powell for the job, Ellery?" That was Chervil with his phoney smile and his big fat pontifical belly.
"For Guild President?"
"Yes."
"d.a.m.ned efficient man. Romantic but efficient. The perfect candidate if only he"d get married."
"That"s the romance in him. He"s having trouble locating a girl."
"Don"t all you deep peepers? Thank G.o.d I"m not a 1st."
And then a smash of gla.s.s crashing in the kitchen and Preacher Powell again, lecturing that little snot, Gus Tate.
"Never mind the gla.s.s, Gus. I had to drop it to cover for you. You"re radiating anxiety like a nova."
"The devil I am, Powell."
"The devil you"re not. What"s all this about Ben Reich?"
The little man was really on guard. You could feel his mental sh.e.l.l hardening.
"Ben Reich? What brought him up?"
"You did, Gus. It"s been moiling in your mind all evening. I couldn"t help reading it."
"Not me, Powell. You must be tuning another TP."
Image of a horse laughing.
"Powell, I swear I"m not---"
"Are you mixed up with Reich, Gus?"
"No." But you could feel the blocks bang down into place.
"Take a hint from an old hand, Gus. Reich can get you into trouble. Be careful. Remember Jerry Church? Reich ruined him. Don"t let it happen to you."
Tate drifted back to the living room; Powell remained in the kitchen, calm and slow-moving, sweeping up broken gla.s.s. Church lay frozen against the back door, suppressing the seething hatred in his heart. The Chervil boy was showing off for the lawyer"s girl, singing a love ballad and paralleling it with a visual parody. College stuff. The wives were arguing violently in sine curves, @kins and West were interlacing cross-conversation in a fascinatingly intricate pattern of sensory images that made Church"s starvation keener.
"Would you like a drink, Jerry?"
The garden door opened. Powell stood silhouetted in the light, a bubbling gla.s.s in his hand. The stars lit his face softly. The deep hooded eyes were compa.s.sionate and understanding. Dazed, Church climbed to his feet and timidly took the proffered drink.
"Don"t report this to the Guild, Jerry. I"ll catch h.e.l.l for breaking the taboo. I"m always breaking rules. Poor Jerry... We"ve got to do something for you. Ten years is too long."
Suddenly Church hurled the drink in Powell"s face, then turned and fled.
CHAPTER 3
At nine Monday morning, Tate"s mannequin face appeared on the screen of Reich"s v-phone.
"Is this line secure?" he asked sharply.
In answer Reich simply pointed to the Warranty Seal.
"All right," Tate said. "I think I"ve done the job for you, I peeped @kins last night. But before I report, I must warn you. There"s a chance of error when you deep peep a 1st. @kins blocked pretty carefully."
"I understand."
"Craye D"Courtney arrives from Mars on the "Astra" next Wednesday morning. He will go at once to Maria Beaumont"s town house where he will be a secret and hidden guest for exactly one night... No more."
"One night," Reich muttered. "And then? His plans?"
"I don"t know. Apparently D"Courtney is planning some form of drastic action---"
"Against me!" Reich growled.
"Perhaps. According to @kins, D"Courtney is under some kind of violent strain and his adaptation pattern is shattering. The Life Instinct and Death Instinct have defused. He is regressing under the emotional bankruptcy very rapidly..."
"G.o.d d.a.m.n it! My life depends on this," Reich raged. "Talk straight."
"It"s quite simple. Every man is a balance of two opposed drives... The Life Instinct and the Death Instinct. Both drives have the identical purpose... to win Nirvana. The Life Instinct fights for Nirvana by smashing all opposition. The Death Instinct attempts to win Nirvana by destroying itself. Usually both instincts fuse in the adapted individual. Under strain they defuse. That"s what"s happening to D"Courtney."
"Yes, by G.o.d! And he"s jetting for me!"
"@kins will see D"Courtney Thursday morning in an effort to dissuade him from whatever he contemplates. @kins is afraid of it and determined to stop it. He made a flying trip from Venus to cut D"Courtney off."
"He won"t have to stop it. I"ll stop it myself. He won"t have to protect me. I"ll protect myself. It"s self-defense, Tate... not murder! Self-defense! You"ve done a good job. This is all I need."
"You need much more, Reich. Among other things, time. This is Monday. You"ll have to be ready by Wednesday."
"I"ll be ready," Reich growled. "You"d better be ready too."
"We can"t afford to fail, Reich. If we do---it"s Demolition. You realized that?"
"Demolition for both of us. I realize that." Reich"s voice began to crack. "Yes, Tate, you"re in this with me, and I"m in it straight to the finish... all the way to Demolition."
He planned all through Monday, audaciously, bravely, with confidence. He pencilled the outlines as an artist fills a sheet with delicate tracery before the bold inking-in; but he did no final inking. That was to be left for the killer-instinct on Wednesday. He put the plan away and slept Monday night... and awoke screaming, dreaming again of The Man With No Face.
Tuesday afternoon, Reich left MonarchTower early and dropped in at the Century Audio-bookstore on Sheridan Place . It specialized mostly in piezoelectric crystal recordings... tiny jewels mounted in elegant settings. The latest vogue was brooch-operas for M"lady. ("She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes.") Century also had shelves of obsolete printed books.
"I want something special for a friend I"ve neglected," Reich told the salesman.
He was bombarded with merchandise.
"Not special enough," he complained. "Why don"t you people hire a peeper and save your clients this trouble? How quaint and old-fashioned can you get?" He began sauntering around the shop, tailed by a retinue of anxious clerks.
After he had dissembled sufficiently, and before the worried manager could send out for a peeper salesman, Reich stopped before the bookshelves.
"What"s this?" he inquired in surprise.
"Antique books, Mr. Reich." The sales staff began explaining the theory and practice of the archaic visual book while Reich slowly searched for the tattered brown volume that was his goal. He remembered it well. He had glanced through it five years ago and made a note in his little black opportunity book. Old Geoffry Reich wasn"t the only Reich who believed in preparedness.
"Interesting. Yes. Fascinating. What"s this one?" Reich pulled down the brown volume." "Let"s Play Party." What"s the date on it? Not Really. You mean to say they had parties that long ago?"
The staff a.s.sured him that the ancients were very modern in many astonishing ways.
"Look at the contents," Reich chuckled. ""HoneymoonBridge"... "Prussian Whist"... "Post Office"... "Sardine." What in the world could that be? Page ninety-six. Let"s have a look."
Reich flipped pages until he came to a bold-face heading: HILARIOUS MIXED PARTY GAMES. "Look at this," he laughed, pretending surprise. He pointed to the well-remembered paragraph.
SARDINE One player is selected to be It. All the lights are extinguished and the It hides anywhere in the house. After a few minutes, the players go to find the It, hunting separately. The first one who finds him does not reveal the fact but hides with him wherever he may be. Successively each player finding the Sardines joins them until all are hidden in one place and the last player, who is the loser, is left to wander alone in the dark.
"I"ll take it," Reich said. "It"s exactly what I need."
That evening he spent three hours carefully defacing the remains of the volume. With heat, acid, stain, and scissors, he mutilated the game instructions; and every b.u.m, every cut, every slash was a blow at D"Courtney"s writhing body. When his proxy murders were finished, he had reduced every game to incomplete fragments. Only "Sardine" was left intact.
Reich wrapped the book, addressed it to Graham, the appraiser, and dropped it into the airslot. It went off with a puff and a bang and returned an hour later with Graham"s official sealed appraisal. Reich"s mutilations had not been detected.
He had the book gift-wrapped with the appraisal enclosed (as was the custom) and slotted it to Maria Beaumont"s house. Twenty minutes later came the reply: "Darling! Darling! Darling! I thot you"d forgotten (evidently Maria had written the note herself) little ol s.e.xy me. How 2 divine. Come to Beaumont House tonite. We"re having a party. We"ll play games from your sweet gift." There was a portrait of Maria centered in the star of a synthetic ruby enclosed in the message capsule. A nude portrait, naturally.
Reich answered: "Devastated. Not tonight. One of my millions is missing."
She answered: "Wednesday, you clever boy. I"ll give you one of mine."
He replied: "Delighted to accept. Will bring guest. I kiss all of yours." And went to bed.
And screamed at The Man With No Face.
Wednesday morning, Reich visited Monarch"s Science-city ("Paternalism, you know.") and spent a stimulating hour with its bright young men. He discussed their work and their glowing futures if they would only have faith in Monarch. He told the ancient dirty joke about the celibate pioneer who made the emergency landing on the hea.r.s.e in deep s.p.a.ce (and the corpse said: "I"m just one of the tourists!") and the bright young men laughed subserviently, feeling slightly contemptuous of the boss.
This informality enabled Reich to drift into the Restricted Room and pick up one of the visual knockout capsules. They were cubes of copper, half the size of fulminating caps, but twice as deadly. When they were broken open, they erupted a dazzling blue flare that ionized the Rhodopsin---the visual purple in the retina of the eye---blinding the victim and abolishing his perception of time and s.p.a.ce.
Wednesday afternoon, Reich went over to Melody Lane in the heart of the theatrical district and called on Psych-Songs, Inc. It was run by a clever young woman who had written some brilliant jingles for his sales division and some devastating strike-breaking songs for Propaganda back when Monarch needed everything to smash last year"s labor fracas. Her name was Duffy Wyg&. To Reich she was the epitome of the modern career girl---the virgin seductress.
"Well, Duffy?" He kissed her casually. She was as shapely as a sales-curve, pretty, but a trifle too young.
"Well, Mr. Reich?" She looked at him oddly. "Some day I"m going to hire one of those Lonely-Heart Peepers to case your kiss. I keep thinking you don"t mean business."
"I don"t."
"Dog."
"A man has to make up his mind early, Duffy. If he kisses girls he kisses his money goodbye."
"You kiss me."
"Only because you"re the image of the lady on the credit."
"Pip," she said.
"Pop," he said.
"Bim," she said.