Face red, eyelids blinking as if they were the wings of a heavy beetle trying to fly, Carebara stepped back. Duncan stepped forward. The professor took another step away from Duncan, who kept the same distance between them. Carebara stopped when he felt the door behind him.
“Get away from me!” he squeaked.
“Which is it?” Duncan said.
Carebara’s right hand shot into his open shoulderbag.
24
Carebara did not have time to withdraw whatever he was reaching for. Duncan drove his knee into the man’s crotch, seized his wrist, and twisted it. He stepped back and yanked Carebara forward with the arm. The professor fell forward hard on the floor. His hand was empty, and he was too busy yelling and writhing with pain to attempt to draw the weapon out from the bag. However, when Duncan pulled the bag from Carebara’s shoulder and looked into it, he did not find the expected proton pistol. There was a small unmarked can, which he supposed was what Carebara had meant to use. He pointed it at the man’s face, pushed the button, and a violet-colored mist sprayed over Carebara’s face. He gasped once, his eyes closed, and he quit yelling and jerking.
Duncan had stepped back as he shot the mist, but he caught a whiff of it.
“Truth mist!” he said.
Carebara might not have intended to use it for its primary purpose. After all, he had no time to interrogate them. He had just wanted to subdue Duncan. Or, perhaps, he had meant to knock both of them out when he found out that they would not put the capsules into their mouths.
Duncan looked at the wall time display. Forty-two minutes until midnight. In twelve minutes, the first flashings of the streetlights and the wall lights in the residences would notify the citizens that it would soon be time to enter their cylinders. The sirens in the courseways and the buzzer alarms in the residences would add their warnings.
“Get his feet,” Duncan told Snick.
She hastened to help him, and Carebara was quickly laid out on a sofa. The sofa was told just where to swell so that the professor’s head was propped high. Snick placed Carebara’s right arm across his chest so that it would not dangle and be filled with blood.
Duncan pulled up a chair close to the sofa and sat down. He leaned forward and spoke in a medium-loud and authoritative tone. “You, Doctor Herman Trophallaxis Carebara, will answer all my questions fully and truthfully. Do you understand me?”
Carebara’s lips barely moved. His “Yes” was very weak.
“Speak more loudly and enunciate clearly,” Duncan said. “Do you understand me?”
The professor’s reply was clear.
“Is Herman Trophallaxis Carebara your natal name?”
“No.”
“What is your natal name?”
“Albin Semple Shamir.”
Snick bent down close to Duncan’s right ear and whispered. “Is all this preliminary stuff necessary? We don’t have much time. Why not ask him for the essential data?”
Duncan frowned, then said softly, “You’re right. But I have a couple of questions about his background in the organization.”
Duncan asked them and learned that Carebara had been recruited ten obyears ago. He had gone from Atlanta, State of Georgia, to the State of New Jersey. Though he had taught entomology ever since he had gotten his Ph.D., he had also been a secret agent for the organics. That position had enabled him to protect the subversive organization and to aid its plans.
Duncan asked him again if he was loyal to the organization.
“Yes.”
“Who is your immediate superior?”
“I don’t know.”
More questioning revealed that the person who gave him his orders was masked and spoke with a voice distorter.
“What were you supposed to do with us?” Duncan said. “I mean, where were you ordered to conduct Duncan and Snick?”
“Where?”
“To what place?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Ah!”
Duncan leaned back and looked up at Snick.
“Now we’re getting somewhere!”
But he was not.
“Were you ordered to kill Duncan and Snick?”
“No.”
“Were you ordered to knock them out with truth mist?”
“No.”
“You were not told to take Duncan and Snick to another place? To meet your superior?”
“No.”
“You were not told to kill Duncan and Snick or to make them unconscious?”
“No.”
Panthea Snick said softly in Duncan’s ear. “Remember, the subject replies rather literally. Instead of asking about both of us, ask him about just one of us. Yourself first.”
“To what address were you to conduct Beewolf from his apartment?”
“I was to take him to 173A Pushkin Plaza, Level 25.”
“To what address were you to conduct Chandler?”
“I was not ordered to conduct her to any address.”
“What were you ordered to tell her when you went to her apartment?”
“I was ordered to order her to go to 173A Pushkin Plaza, Level 25.”
“She, that is, Chandler, was to go on alone to 173A Pushkin Plaza?”
“Yes.”
“Then you were to come to Beewolf’s address and to conduct him to 173A Pushkin Plaza?”
“Yes.”
“What were you to do when you and Beewolf got to the plaza?”
“Hand Beewolf over to somebody.”
“Who was the somebody?”
“I don’t know.”
“How was this somebody going to identify himself to you?”
“The somebody would know me.”
“But you would not know him?”
“No.”
“After you met the somebody and that person took Beewolf into custody, what were you to do?”
“I was ordered to go home.”
“What is your home address?”
“It is 358 Orange Courseway, Level 17, University Tower.”
“Was Chandler to wait at 173A Pushkin Plaza until you and Beewolf came there?”
“I do not know.”
Duncan looked at Snick, raised his eyebrows, and shrugged. It seemed strange to him that Snick would be sent by herself to the plaza. If she were picked up by the ganks on the way, she would have no excuse for being out. She should have gone with Carebara to Duncan’s place. As a secret organic officer, Carebara would only have to flash his ID to any curious ganks, and they would have let him and his companions go without further questioning.
A cold thought made him shiver.
What if some PUPAs had been waiting for Snick to leave her apartment after Carebara had told her where to go? They might have had orders that Carebara did not know, orders to take her to some place and dispose of her. She was a danger to the organization now that Cabtab would probably expose her true identity. So am I, Duncan thought. But I’m valuable to PUPA. I have the ability to lie under the mist, and I might be able to teach the techniques to PUPA. Also, there is that other reason why the government regards me as such a peril to it.
He rose and strode toward the front door. Snick said, “What is it?”
He did not reply. He opened the door and stuck his head out. At first, looking along both sides of the courseway, he saw no one. Then a second sweep revealed several vague figures under the canopied entrance of a store far to the left. He stepped back in, released the door, and walked back to Snick. Looking anxious, she said, “What now?”
“Two PUPAs—I think.” He told her of his suspicions.
“Get rid of me?” she said. “Why? I’m not a novice, an amateur. I’m valuable, too.”
“Maybe not from their viewpoint,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t intend to stay with them. They’re just too callous and casual about knocking off their own members. That policy is, I suppose, responsible for their having escaped detection so far. PUPA is like an ant colony, as our friend Carebara might say. The goo
d of the whole leaves no room for consideration of the individuals. They’ll be sacrificed to ensure that the group as an entity doesn’t suffer. But we’re not ants. Still…”
“Still what?”
He held up his hand for silence. Facing the nearest wall screen, he asked for a display of the entry code to the apartment door. Then he ordered that a new code be inserted.
“It’s just temporary,” he said to Snick. “I suspect that those two ganks have the entry code to this apartment. Yours, too. Now they can’t get in.”
He looked at the time display.
“They should be trying to enter soon. They don’t have much time, and they’re probably wondering why the hell Carebara hasn’t come out with us.”
“Why would they know that I’m here?”
“They must know we’re friends. When they didn’t find you in your apartment, they figured you came here. Or maybe they don’t know. In any event, they’re worried about me and the professor.”
He walked to the sofa.
“Let’s get him into a cylinder. Might as well use mine.”
While she lifted Carebara’s legs, she said, “The ganks’ll find him, and he’ll spill everything.”
“I don’t care! I have no loyalty now. PUPA deserves whatever it gets. We won’t be around.”
She said nothing while they placed Carebara in a more-or-less fetal position in the cylinder, closed the door, and turned on the power.
The walls flashed on-off with orange, and the phone buzzer rang. Both Snick and Duncan were startled. Before Duncan could ask who was calling, the wall screens displayed large black letters: C. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES. These lasted for perhaps five seconds, then the screens resumed their normal appearances.
“They’re waiting for him, for him and me,” Duncan said.
“Why don’t they ask to speak to him?”
“Too cautious, I suppose.”
Though they were in a very tight and dangerous situation, Duncan grinned. Even if he had wanted to go to 1 73A Pushkin Plaza, Level 25, he could not do so. The two down the Street must have orders to get Snick, and if she came out, they would follow their orders. Which meant that he would have to defend her. But, since he had no weapons to do that, he was staying inside the apartment.
“All we can do is wait them out,” he said. “They’ll have to leave soon. Even if they’re ganks, they won’t have an excuse to stay unstoned.”
Looking at the wall screen that showed the courseway, he said, “Get some grease, if you can. If there isn’t any, butter will have to do. And get some cloths, anything we can hold in our hands to protect against the friction.”
“You’re really serious about sliding down the banisters?”
“I’d rather fly down. You know how we could do that?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
“Smart or not, I’m trying to save our asses.”
Then he said, “Oh, oh! They’re not waiting anymore! They’re here!”
Clearly visible in the bright light, the two men were standing before the door. They were of medium height but well-muscled, both wearing cone-shaped hats with wide floppy brims, loose sleeveless robes that fell to the ankles, no socks, and moccasins. One was dark and had a broad and high-cheek-boned face with dark eyes with slight epicanthic folds. His black hair was spiked and greasy-looking. The other had a long nose, lobeless ears, thick lips, and round eyes. His skin was striped a la zebra mode. Though his eyes were blue, Duncan suspected that they had been depigmented.
The unstriped one reached out and pressed the doorbell.
“We won’t answer,” Duncan said.
After the doorbell gonged seven times, the unstriped man said something in a low voice to his companion. Both reached into their shoulderbags, and each pulled out a proton gun.
“They’re going to blast the lock mechanism!” Duncan said.
Snick grabbed her shoulderbag, spun, and ran toward the back of the apartment. Duncan did not think that she was deserting him. He knew her better than that. Whatever her doubts about the rightness of the revolutionaries’ cause or her indecision about how to escape, she would react properly to an immediately dangerous situation. She would be going to the kitchen to get knives and whatever else she could for their defense. He was as sure of that as if he had read her mind.
Duncan could not see the bright spot of the laser beam used for aiming, but he knew that it was now on the slot into which his ID card had to be inserted to activate the lock. There would be no time for Snick to return with the knives, which he doubted they could use advantageously at the door. He told the sofa to extend its wheels. It raised up, and he got behind it and drove it forward, his hands on one end. It slammed into the door just as smoke curled from the midsection and the metal melted.
“Wheels down!” Duncan said, loudly. He turned, snatching up his bag from the sofa, and ran toward the kitchen. Having to push the sofa out of the way would at least momentarily delay the two. Now, he had to get to Snick before they could see him well enough for a shot. Near the entrance to the kitchen he dived because it seemed to him that they should be inside by now or at least have opened the door wide enough for one of them to have a good view of him. Just as he began sliding forward on the floor, the lights went out. Snick must have told the computer to turn them off.
He rose swiftly. There was illumination, not very strong, from the lights of the nearby towers and from the levels above and below this apartment. There was also the bright light from the courseway. The invaders had left the door open.
Snick, a shadowy figure, handed him a long thin knife. She whispered, “I told the electrical power not to go on unless I say so.”
She giggled. “If they kill me, you’re going to have a hell of a time getting the lights back on or phoning out. Nobody can call in, either.”
The soft illumination from the courseway was suddenly cut off. The men must have realized that it silhouetted them and made it difficult for them to see into the kitchen.
“They don’t know if we have a gun or not,” Duncan said softly. “They won’t charge on in.”
He told the large table to extend its wheels. It rose swiftly, the mechanism silently turning over the wheels in the grooves in the legs. It dropped them onto the floor and then raised the ends of the legs. He pushed the table to one side of the kitchen door, turned the table onto one side, and shoved it across the doorway. The invaders would be able to see that the entrance was blocked because of the twilight glow from the window. They would know they had to push it ahead to get into the kitchen—unless they tried to leap over it. He doubted that they would try that or that they would stick their heads around the side of the door first.
“They won’t take their time,” he said. “Time’s as important to them as to us. More important, in fact.”
He got down on all fours and crawled behind the shield of the table to the other side of the entrance. He rose to his full height.
One of the men called, “Beewolf! Chandler! Where’s Carebara!”
Duncan raised a finger to his lips. Dark as it was, it was still light enough for Snick to see the gesture.
“Come on, Beewolf! We know you three are in this apartment! No one’s come out! Carebara wouldn’t be hiding from us. What did you do with him? Where is he?”
The silence was as thick as the darkness.
“We just want Carebara and Chandler,” the same man called. “We have no orders about you. Give them up now! Now! Or we come in after you! We’ll shoot if we have to!”
These two would be in a PUPA cell, and they would probably have been kept as ignorant as he and Snick. But their cell must be bigger, their information base wider. Otherwise, how would they know about Carebara?
He wondered if they knew how important he was to PUPA. Would that data, if they knew it, keep them from harming him except as a last resort?
He got down on his hands and knees and, pushing his shoulderbag ahead, moved a few feet backward. It would not do for them
to make an accurate guess about just where his voice was coming from. Not if they meant to shoot him if forced to do so.
“Carebara is unavailable!” he said, and he crabbed sidewise and then lay flat on the floor. His bag was within reach.
One of the men cursed softly. There was another mutter, two voices this time.
“We don’t have time for that crap!” the second man said harshly. “Give up Carebara and Chandler, now! Or we come in shooting! I mean it!”
“And kill Carebara, too!” Duncan said.
Holding the bag, he rolled away toward the center of the kitchen.
“And also kill me!” he said. “Your superiors wouldn’t like that at all, you morons! You know what they do to people who screw up!”
The first man cursed quietly again.
“Besides,” Duncan said, “we have guns, too! We don’t want to use them, but we will! You charge on in, we kill you!”
Duncan rolled away toward his right, half-rose, and moved his hand to indicate that Snick should back away. She nodded, and she moved away from the wall a few feet. Duncan gestured that she should lie down. Instead, she got down on her hands and knees. His violent signs told her to go all the way; she lay flat, her head turned toward the entrance. Her knife was still in her hand.
“Sure, you got guns!” the first man said loudly. “Why didn’t you blast us when we came through the door?”
“Because you’re PUPA,” Duncan said. “We wanted a chance to reason with you.”
“No time, and we got orders!” the first man said. “I give you three seconds, you and Chandler, to come out! Keep your hands high! We can see your outlines!”
“Toss your guns in first so we’ll know you can’t shoot us!” Duncan said.
“Sure, we’ll do just that!” the second man said, and both laughed.
Duncan crawled over to Snick. His mouth close to her ear, he said, “When I give the signal, like this—” He raised his hand, fingers straight out, then chopped up and down, “—you say something loudly, then roll to hell fast toward the other end of the room. That way. If they fire, scream as if you’d been hit.”
She nodded.
“Wait. I have to get back to the other side of the door.”