The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

  (I tried to be honest. If that nonsense did not make me gag, would the rest be acceptable? Oh, certainly! Like the gold spectacles of Joseph Smith, like the tablets handed down to Moses from the Mount, like the red shift to the big bang—accept the postulate and the rest goes down smoothly.) “Hazel-Gwen, if we assume a self-aware computer with emotions and free will, I would not boggle at anything else—from ghosts to little green men. What was it the Red Queen did? Believe seven impossible things before breakfast.”

  “The White Queen.”

  “No, the Red Queen.”

  “Are you sure, Richard? It was just before—”

  “Forget it. Talking chessmen are even harder to swallow than a prankster computer. Sweetheart, the only evidence you offer is a story told you by your foster mother in her old age. That’s all. Uh, senile, maybe?”

  “No, sir. Dying, but not senile. Cancer. From exposure to a solar storm when she was quite young. So she thought. As may be, it was not senility. She told me this when she knew she was to die…because she thought the story should not be lost completely.”

  “You see the weakness of the story, dear? One death-bed story. No other data.”

  “Not quite, Richard.”

  “Eh?”

  “My adoptive father Manuel Davis confirms all of it and then some.”

  “But—You always spoke of him in the past tense. I think you did. And he would be…how old? Older than you are.”

  “He was born in 2040, so he would be a century and a half old now…not impossible for a Loonie. But he’s both older and younger than that—for the same reasons I am. Richard, if you talked to Manuel Davis and he confirmed what I’ve told you, would you believe him?”

  “Uh—” I grinned at her. “You might force me to bring to the issue the stalwart common sense of ignorance and prejudice.”

  “Go along with you! Put on your foot, dear, please. I want to take you out and get you at least one more outfit before we move; your trousers have spots on the stains. I’m not being a good wife.”

  “Yes, ma’am; right away, ma’am. Where is your Papa Mannie now?”

  “You won’t believe this.”

  “If it doesn’t involve right-angled time or lonely computers, I’ll believe it.”

  “I think—I haven’t checked lately—I think Papa Mannie is with your Uncle Jock in Iowa.”

  I stopped with my foot in my hand. “You’re right; I don’t believe it.”

  XIX

  “Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.”

  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 1769-1821

  How can you argue with a woman who won’t? I expected Gwen to start justifying her preposterous allegation, citing chapter and verse in an attempt to convince me. Instead she answered sadly, “I knew that was all I could expect. I’ll just have to wait. Richard, do we have any other stops to make besides Macy’s and the main post office before we can go out to the Warden’s Complex?”

  “I need to set up a new checking account and then transfer my present account down from Golden Rule. My cash in pocket is becoming rather seldom. Anemic.”

  “But dearest, I’ve tried to tell you. Money is no problem.” She opened her purse, dug out a wad of money, started peeling off hundred-crown notes. “I’m on an expense account, of course.” She held them out.

  “Easy, there!” I said. “Save your pennies, little girl. I undertook to support you. Not the other way around.”

  I expected a retort involving “macho” or “male chauvinist pig” or at least “community property.” Instead she flanked me. “Richard? Your bank account in Golden Rule—Is it a numbered account? If not, under what name?”

  “Huh? No. ‘Richard Ames,’ of course.”

  “Do you think Mr. Sethos might take an interest?”

  “Oh. Our kindly landlord. Honey, I’m glad you’re here to do my thinking for me.” A track leading straight to me as plain as footprints in snow…for Sethos’s goons to follow to collect that reward for my carcass—dead or alive. Of course all bank records are confidential, not alone numbered accounts—but “confidential” means only that it takes money or power to break the rules. And Sethos had both. “Gwen, let’s go back and booby-trap his air conditioning again. But this time we’ll use prussic acid instead of Limburger.”

  “Good!”

  “I wish we could. You’re right, I can’t touch that ‘Richard Ames’ bank account as long as storm warnings are up. We’ll use your cash—treat it as a loan. You keep track of it—”

  “You keep track of it! Damn it, Richard, I’m your wife!”

  “Fight over it later. Leave the wig and the geisha costume here; we won’t have time today…as I must first go see Rabbi Ezra. Unless you want to run your errands while I run mine?”

  “Buster, are you feverish? I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “Thanks, Maw; that’s the answer I wanted. We go see Father Ezra, then we go hunt living computers. If there is time left, we’ll do the other chores when we get back.”

  It being before noon, we looked for Rabbi Ezra ben David by going to his son’s fish market across from the city library. The Rabbi lived in a room back of the shop. He agreed to represent me and act as a mail drop. I explained to him my parallel arrangements with Father Schultz, then wrote a note for him to send to “Henrietta van Loon.”

  Reb Ezra accepted it. “I’ll stat it from my son’s terminal at once; it should be printed out in Golden Rule ten minutes from now. Special delivery?”

  (Draw attention to it? Or accept slower service? Something was stewing in Golden Rule; Hendrik Schultz might have some answers.) “Special delivery, please.”

  “Very well. Excuse me a few moments.” He rolled out of his room, was back quickly. “Golden Rule acknowledged receipt. Now to other matters—I was expecting you. Dr. Ames. That young man who was with you yesterday—Is he a member of your family? Or a trusted employee?”

  “Neither one.”

  “Interesting. Did you send him to ask me who was offering a reward for you and the amount of the reward?”

  “I certainly did not! Did you tell him anything?”

  “My dear sir! You asked for the traditional Three Days.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Not at all. Since he took the trouble to seek me out here instead of waiting for my business hours, I assumed some urgency. Since you did not mention him, I concluded that the urgency was his, not yours. Now I assume, unless you tell me otherwise, that he intends you no good.”

  I gave the Rabbi a condensed version of our relations with Bill. He nodded. “You know Mark Twain’s remarks on such matters?”

  “I think not.”

  “He said that, if you pick up a stray dog, feed it and take care of it, it will not bite you. This, in his opinion, is the principal difference between a man and a dog. I don’t agree fully with Twain. But he had a point.”

  I asked him to name a retainer, paid it without dickering, plus something for luck.

  The Authority Complex (officially the “Administration Center,” a name found only in print) is west of Luna City, halfway across Mare Crisium. We were there by noon—that tubeway is not ballistic but is nevertheless fast. Once aboard, we were there in twenty minutes.

  Noon was the wrong time to arrive. The Complex is made up of government offices; everything shuts down for a leisurely lunch hour. Lunch seemed a good idea to me, too; breakfast was in the remote past. There were several lunchrooms in the tunnels of the complex…with every chair filled with the broad beams of civil servants or occupied by tourists with red fezzes. Queues waited outside Sloppy Joe and Mom’s Diner and Antoine’s number two. “Hazel, I see vending machines ahead. Can I interest you in a warm Coke and a cold sandwich?”

  “No, sir, you cannot. There’s a public terminal just beyond the food dispensers. I’ll make some calls while you eat.”

  “I’m not that hungry. What calls?”

  “Xia. And Ingrid. I want to be sure Gretchen got home safely. Sh
e could have been waylaid just as we were. I should have called last night.”

  “Only to soothe your own worry; either Gretchen was home day before yesterday evening…or it’s too late and she’s dead.”

  “Richard!”

  “That’s what worries you, isn’t it? Call Ingrid.”

  Gretchen answered and squealed when she saw Gwen-Hazel. “Mama! Come quick! It’s Mistress Hardesty!”

  Twenty minutes later we switched off. All that had been accomplished was to tell the Hendersons that we were at the Raffles and that our mailing address was care of Rabbi Ezra. But the ladies enjoyed visiting and each assured the other that she would come visit in person sometime soon. They exchanged kisses via terminal—to my mind a waste of technology. And of kisses.

  Then we tried to call Xia…and a man came on screen whom I did not recognize; he was not Xia’s day-shift desk clerk. “What do you want?” he demanded.

  Hazel said, “I’d like to speak to Xia, please.”

  “Not here. This hotel has been shut down by the Bureau of Sanitation.”

  “Oh. Can you me where she is?”

  “Try the Chief of Public Safety.” The face flickered off.

  Hazel turned to me, her eyes filled with worry. “Richard, this can’t be right. Xia’s hotel is as squeaky clean as she is.”

  “I see a pattern,” I said grimly, “and so do you. Let me try.”

  I moved in, queried for code, called the office of the top cop, HKL. An elderly desk sergeant answered. I said, “Gospazha, I’m trying to reach a citizen named Dong Xia. I was told—”

  “Yeah, I booked her,” she answered. “But she made bail an hour ago. Not here.”

  “Ah so. Thank you, ma’am. Can you tell me where I might reach her?”

  “Haven’t the slightest. Sorry.”

  “Thank you.” I switched off.

  “Oh, dear!”

  “Leprosy, sweetheart. We’ve got it; anyone who touches us catches it. Damn.”

  “Richard, I’m stating the simple truth. In my childhood when this was a penal colony, there was more freedom under the Warden than there is now with self-government.”

  “Maybe you exaggerate but I suspect Xia would agree with you.” I chewed my lip and frowned. “You know who else has caught our leprosy. Choy-Mu.”

  “You think so?”

  “Seven to two.”

  “No bet. Call him.”

  Query showed him to be a private subscriber, so I called his home. I heard a recording, sans picture: “Marcy Choy-Mu speaking. Can’t say when I’ll be home but I will call in soon for messages. At me gong, please record.” A gong sounded.

  I thought furiously, then said, “Captain Midnight speaking. We are booked into the old Raffles. A mutual friend needs help. Please call me at the Raffles. If I am not there, please leave message telling when and where I can reach you.” I switched off again.

  “Dear, you didn’t give him Rabbi Ezra’s code.”

  “On purpose, Sadie girl. To keep the Rabbi’s code out of Jefferson Mao’s hands; Choy-Mu’s line may be monitored. I had to give him somewhere to call back…but I can’t risk compromising the Rabbi Ezra connection; we must have it for Father Schultz. Table it, beautiful; I’ve got to query for HKL ground control.”

  “Hong Kong Luna ground control. This terminal is for official business; make it brief.” It was voice only.

  “May I speak to Captain Marcy?”

  “Not here. I’m his emergency relief. Message? Make it snappy; I’ve got traffic in four minutes.”

  (Uh—) “This is Captain Midnight. Tell him I’m at the old Raffles. Call me.”

  “Don’t switch off! Captain Midnight?”

  “He’ll know.”

  “And so do I. He went to city hall to put up bail for you know who. Or do you?”

  “Xia?”

  “Too right! I’ve got to get back to my scopes but I’ll tell him. Off!”

  “What now, Richard?”

  “Gallop in all directions.”

  “Do be serious!”

  “Can you think of anything better? The queue is gone from Mom’s Diner; let’s eat lunch.”

  “Eat lunch while our friends are in danger?”

  “Sweetheart, even if we went back to Kongville—and thereby shoved our heads in the lion’s mouth—we would have no way to find them. There is nothing we can do until Choy-Mu calls us. That might be five minutes from now, or five hours. One thing I learned in combat: Never skip a chance to eat, sleep, or pee; another chance may be a long time coming.”

  I recommend Mom’s cherry pie with ice cream. Hazel ordered the same but, by the time I was chasing my last bite with a spoon, she had merely toyed with hers. I said, “Young lady, you sit right there until you have eaten everything on your plate.”

  “Richard, I can’t.”

  “I don’t like to beat you in public—”

  “So don’t.”

  “So I won’t. Instead I will sit right here until you have eaten that all up, even if it means that I must sleep in this chair tonight.”

  Hazel expressed obscenely unfavorable opinions of me, of Jefferson Mao, and of cherry pie, then ate the cherry pie. By thirteen-twenty we were at the door of the computer area in the Complex. There a youngster at a wicket sold us two tickets for two crowns forty, told us that the next tour would start in a few minutes, and let us into an enclosure, a waiting lounge with benches and opportunities to gamble against machines. Ten or a dozen tourists were waiting; most of the males wore fezzes.

  When at last we started, an hour later, there were nineteen or twenty of us, herded by a uniformed guide—or guard; he wore a cop’s shield. We made a long circuit on foot of that enormous complex, a dull and endless trip. At each pause our guide gave a memorized spiel—perhaps not too well memorized, as I could spot errors, even though I am not a communications-control engineer.

  But I did not jump on these slips. Instead I made a nuisance of myself in accordance with earlier coaching by my fellow conspirator.

  At one stop our guide explained that engineering control was decentralized all over Luna both geographically and by functions—air, sewage, communications, fresh water, transportation, et cetera—but was monitored from here by the technicians you see at those consoles. I interrupted him.

  “My good man, I think you must be new on this job. The Encyclopœdia Britannica explains clearly how one giant computer handles everything on the Moon. That’s what we’ve come to see. Not backs of necks of junior clerks sitting at monitors. So let’s see it. The giant computer. The Holmes IV.”

  The guide let his professional smile slip and looked at me with the natural contempt of a Loonie for an earthworm. “You’ve been misinformed. True, it used to be that way, but you’re over fifty years out of date. Today we are modernized and decentralized.”

  “Young man, are you trying to contradict the Britannica?”

  “I’m telling you the simple truth. Now let’s move on and—”

  “What became of that giant computer? Since it’s no longer used. Or so you say.”

  “Huh? Look behind you. See that door? It’s behind that door.”

  “Come, then let’s see it! That’s what I paid to see.”

  “Not on your bloody drum and fife. It’s an historical antique, a symbol of our great history. You want to look at it, you go to the Chancellor of Galileo U. and show your credentials. He’ll send you packing! Nan then let’s all move along to the next gallery—”

  Hazel did not move on with us, but (following instructions) I always had something ahead to point to and to ask a silly question about, whenever our guide seemed about to have a free moment to look around. But when, at long last, we had made the full circle and were back at the lounge. Hazel was there ahead of us.

  I kept quiet until we were out of the Complex and waiting at the tube station. There I moved us out of earshot of others before I spoke. “How did it go?”

  “No trouble. The lock on that door was a type
I’ve dealt with before. Thanks for keeping them all distracted while I coped with it. Good show, love!”

  “You got what you were after?”

  “I think so. I’ll know more after Papa Mannie looks over my photographs. It’s just a big lonely room, Richard, crowded with old-fashioned electronics equipment. I shot it from about twenty angles, and stereoed each shot by hand-held offset—not perfect but I’ve practiced it.”

  “That’s all? This visit?”

  “Yes. Well, mostly.”

  Her voice was choked; I looked at her, saw that her eyes were filled with tears about to overflow. “Why, darling! What’s the matter?”

  “N- n- nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Richard, he’s in there!”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s asleep in there. I know, I could feel him. Adam Selene.”

  The tube capsule slammed into the station about then, to my relief—there are subjects for which words are useless. The capsule was packed full; we could not talk en route. By the time we were back in L-City my darling had quieted down and I could avoid the subject. The crowds in the corridors made talk difficult anyhow. Luna City is crowded at any time; on Saturdays half the Loonies from other warrens come in to shop; this Saturday the usual weekend crowd was augmented by Shriners and their wives from all over North America and elsewhere.

  As we came down out of Tube Station West into pressure two at outer ring, we faced Sears Montgomery. I was about to swing left to the Causeway when Hazel stopped me. “Uh? What, dear?”

  “Your trousers.”

  “Is my fly open? No, it’s not.”

  “We’re going to cremate your trousers; it’s too late for burial. And that shirtjacket.”

  “I thought you were itchy to get to the Raffles?”

  “I am but it will take me only five minutes to put you into a new siren suit.”

  (Reasonable. My trousers were so dirty that I was beginning to risk being cited as a menace to public health. And Hazel did know what I preferred for everyday clothing, as I had explained to her that I would not wear shorts even if every other adult male in Luna City was in shorts—as most of them were. I’m not morbidly self-conscious about my missing foot…but I do want full-length trousers to conceal my prosthesis. It’s my private problem; I do not choose to exhibit it.)