She paid the mechanism its dime.
“As a matter of fact,” the hotel room said, spurred into life by the coin, “I have at an earlier occasion composed a ballad of my own. I sing in the style of Doc Boggs. The ballad is called—”
“Hotel rooms,” Joan said, “even run-down ones, are not ethnic.”
She could have sworn she heard the old hotel room sigh. It was strange. But in fact these machines had become old and worn-out, had begun making mistakes; therefore they began to seem almost human. In irritation she punched at its off stud and the garrulous construct wheezed into inactivity. Leaving her, mercifully, to plan her next step.
The Tennessee hills—controlled by the feral and uncooperative bands of Neeg-parts; if they wouldn’t do business with the Burgers and the plantations nor with the Ganymedian occupation authority, on what basis could she approach them? Through her reputation? Even the broken and corroding old hotel room, built probably back in ’99, had wanted to get into the act. It was reasonable, then, to suppose that Percy X, too, would like to reach a larger audience. Everyone, after all, had an ego.
It was too bad, she reflected, that she couldn’t paint herself coffee-color, call herself a Neeg and temporarily, for her own purposes, join them—not as a prying white potentially hostile visitor but as a new recruit.
She eyed herself critically in the cracked and yellowed mirror.
The Japanese blood was rather dilute, unfortunately. It gave her chitin-like black hair and eyes to match and a small, delicate body…but very little else. Perhaps she could pass for an Indian. There were Indians among the Neeg-parts, she had heard. But no, she thought sadly; there’s no use kidding myself: I’m white. And white, to these descendants of the cult of Black Muslims, is white. I’ll just have to play it by ear, she decided.
From her luggage she took a pair of clinging but warm powder blue nylon coveralls. Sexy but tasteful, and in the latest fashion. She had observed some of the clothing worn by women in this out-of-the-way bale, but even for the sake of protective coloration she could not bring herself to wear such museum pieces. It seemed that the unisexual mode, standard for at least fifty years in the outside world, had not as yet penetrated to Tennessee. This might well be the only spot left in the world where women’s clothing differed from men’s.
At the aud-phone dangling by only a few of its screws from the wall of the room she dialed the code number of the local taxi service. And then sat waiting, with her recording gear piled beside her, for the ionocraft cab to appear.
I’m still thinking, Paul Rivers told himself early that morning. He then heaved a wistful sigh and rolled over to give his belly the same opportunity to acquire a sunburn as his back had had. Here I lie, surrounded by the silent flesh of my fellow human beings, he said to himself with a trace of bitterness, and my mind goes nattering on, as if I were back at the university lecturing to some slightly dense class of undergraduates. My body is here but my mind—perhaps, students, the central problem of man is that he is never where he is, but always where he is going or where he has come from. Thus, when I am alone I am not really alone. And when I am with someone I am not really with them.
How, he asked himself almost angrily, do I get my mind to shut its big energetic mouth?
While lying face up Paul Rivers had kept his eyes closed to protect himself against the brightness of the sun, seeing nothing but the redness of that light, it being still uncomfortably bright as it filtered through his eyelids in lurid, vague, oozing patterns. Now his face turned away from the sun, he felt safe in opening his eyes.
The first sight that greeted his disgusted vision consisted of an empty tranquilizer bottle half-buried in the sand. Smell of salt-sea breeze, too; refreshing tang in the aroma of putrid seaweed and expired fish. Listen: the breathing rush of waves, endless birth, growth and death that means nothing. Distant shouts and laughter of the supposedly enlightened and innocent, but actually groggy and drugged; this done by the lethal occupying authority. Taste while you can, he commanded himself, that healthy sand in your mouth; feel it crunch and grind in your teeth. Experience that delightful tickle of sand fleas walking on your baking backside! This, he told himself sternly, is real living.
He was, however, unable to prevent himself from reading, instead, the label on the bottle. I am, he had to admit, my own most hopeless case.
A shadow fell upon the still-life of the tranquilizer bottle in the nearby sand and Paul Rivers glanced up. Slowly. He couldn’t place the face; the nipples, however, were familiar. Ah, he now remembered. It was Miss Holly Something-or-Other, the Vice-President of the local chapter of the Sexual Freedom Society. Perhaps in order to avoid the appearance of complete nudity she wore a pair of horn-rimmed, oval-lensed sunglasses. She must be in her late teens or early twenties, he thought vaguely. A little too young for me, possibly, but still…
Tall and tawny, with Earth-mother brown hair falling loosely to the small of her back, Miss Holly stood over him with a gentle smile on her full, unlipsticked lips and met his gaze with half-closed, fearless eyes. Miss Holly was, he decided, the only good argument he had yet come across for the principles of the Sexual Freedom Society, but she was, simply in being as she was, a very persuasive, if not conclusive, one. Without a word she knelt, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Her gesture of greeting completed, she wet her lips with her tongue and spoke. “Vidphone call for you, Doctor Rivers.” He noticed for the first time that she was holding in her palm a cigarette package-sized vidphone. How can this be? he thought. Nobody but the central office knows where I am, and they wouldn’t bother me on my vacation. Puzzled, he took the vidphone and focused his eyes on the tiny screen. It was, indeed, the home office; he recognized the image as his immediate superior, Dr. Martin Choate. Because of the 3-D and color Dr. Choate looked like some sort of underworld elf peering up out of an imprisoning box.
“Hello, elf,” Paul Rivers said.
“How’s that?” Dr. Choate said, mildly startled. “Now, Rivers, you know I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important.”
“Yes?” Paul Rivers said patiently, in the encouraging voice he had developed from long practice in getting reluctant talkers to come to the point.
“I have a patient for you,” Dr. Choate said, and stopped again, searching for words.
“Who is it?”
Dr. Choate cleared his throat, smiled weakly and said, “The human race.”
Dingy, with scaling enamel, once bright green but now the color of mold, the tattered ionocraft taxi settled into the locking frame at the window of Joan Hiashi’s elderly hotel room. “Make it snappy,” it said officiously, as if it had urgent business in this collapsing environment, this meager plantation of a state once a portion of a great national union. “My meter,” it added, “is already on.” The thing, in its inadequate way, was making a routine attempt to intimidate her. And she did not precisely enjoy that.
“Help me load my gear,” Joan answered it.
Swiftly—astonishingly so—the ionocraft shot a manual extensor through the open window, grappled the recording gear, transferred the units to its storage compartment. Joan Hiashi then boarded it.
As she made her exit the door to the hotel room opened. A thick-necked, paunchy, middle-aged man, smoking a yellowish cigar, appeared. And said, “I’m Gus Swenesgard; I’m the owner of this plantation and I own this hotel and this room says you’re trying to escape without paying.” His tone was neutral, as if it neither angered nor surprised him.
“You will notice,” Joan said wearily, “that I am leaving behind all my clothes except for what I have on. I’m here on a business trip; I’ll be back in a day or so.” It astonished her that a Burger, the feudal baron of the whole plantation area which included this town of Swenesgard, would take a personal interest in such a small matter.
As if reading her mind—and perhaps he was; perhaps Gus Swenesgard was a telepath trained by the Bureau of Psychedelic Research—the sweat-stained
, big-footed Burger said, “I keep tabs on everything, Miss Hiashi. Like, I mean, you’re the only important, famous-type guest the Olympus Arms has had in months, and you’re not creeping out like a—” He gestured with the cigar. “A worm. On your belly, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Pretty small plantation you’ve got here,” Joan observed, “if you can afford to do that.” She got out a handful of UN bills. “If it distresses your neurotic mind I’ll pay in advance. For six days. I’m surprised they didn’t ask for it at the desk when I registered.”
“Aw,” Gus Swenesgard said, accepting the bills and counting them, “we trust you.”
“I can see that.” She wanted to get on her way; what did this old idiot have in mind, really?
“Come on, miss. We know you’re a Neeg-lover.” The man reached out and gave her an overly familiar pat on the head. “We’ve watched your shows, my family and me. Always a lot of Neegs on it, aren’t there? Even my six-year-old, Eddie; he said it. ‘That lady’s a Neeg-lover.’ I’ll just bet you’re on your way up to the hills to visit Percy X. Isn’t that right, miss?”
After a pause Joan said, “Yes.”
“Now I’ll tell you what.” Gus Swenesgard pocketed the bills; they bulged, wadded-up, in his uncreased trousers’ pocket. The pants had to be at least ten years old; nobody made clothes with pockets in them anymore. “You may be a Neeg-lover but that don’t mean they feel the same about you. Those ’parts, they’re insane. Like African savages. They’ll mutilate you.” He nodded his red, near-bald head emphatically, with great earnestness. “Up in the North you don’t realize that; all your Neegs have missed.”
“‘Missed’?” She did not know the term; it was obviously one of local use, and pejorative.
“Miscegenated. You know; mixed their blood in with you whites so you’re all contaminated. But down here it’s different; we know how to treat our Toms; we know where they belong.”
“For their own good?” Joan said caustically.
“They’re happy. They got security. They don’t have to worry about being commandeered for Gany work camps.”
Uneasily, Joan said, “I didn’t know that the conquerors had work camps.”
“They didn’t take over this planet for nothing, miss. They haven’t begun to requisition labor crews yet. But they will. They’ll take ’em back to Ganymede and make them into what they call ’creeches.’ I got inside dope on it. But we mean to protect our Toms; they’ve worked for us good and we owe that to them.” Gus Swenesgard’s voice was unwavering, tough with harshness.
“It’s pointless, Mister Swenesgard,” came a soft but professionally commanding voice form behind the two of them. Gus turned rapidly, startled, to face the newcomer. So did Joan.
“What…?” began Gus.
“She has her mind made up,” the stranger continued quietly. “If you are really so interested in Miss Hiashi’s welfare, it seems to me that the only thing you can do is offer to go along with her. To protect her.”
“I don’t know who you are or think you are,” Gus said emphatically, “but you, mister, are out of your mind.”
“My name is Paul Rivers.” He extended his hand and Gus, with reluctance, shook it. “I sense you’re afraid, sir.”
“Any man with an ounce of intelligence would be,” Gus snapped. “Those Neegs—”
“The Greeks believed, in their more philosophical moments,” Paul Rivers said, “that there was only one blessing greater than a short life, and that was never to have been born at all. In times like these, one can see a great deal of wisdom in this.”
“If you’re so damn philosophical,” Gus said angrily, “you go with her.”
Turning to Joan, Paul Rivers said, “If you’ll allow me.”
Joan looked at him and felt suspicion. Lean, probably in his late thirties, with touches of gray in his close-cropped, well-groomed black hair, he seemed so calm, so self-confident; he seemed, in fact, perfectly sincere, and yet it struck her as incredible that someone would put his life in jeopardy for nothing, no matter how philosophical he might be. Still…
“All right,” Joan decided. “If you’re nutty enough to come I’m nutty enough to let you.” No use questioning him, she thought. He could probably lie himself blue and I’d never know it.
“If you’ll wait a moment,” Paul Rivers said, moving toward the door, “I’ll go to my room and get a needle gun.” He departed.
And the moment he left the room she changed her mind—violently. The air of confidence which Rivers possessed could come from only one thing. Obviously, he never expected to arrive at the point, the place, where danger would threaten him. She thought, Rivers must be someone hired to stop me from reaching Percy. Perhaps to kill me.
“Can I leave now?” she asked Gus. “My taxi says its meter is on.” Without waiting for an answer she crossed lightly through the open window and into the ionocraft.
“That Percy X,” Gus Swenesgard called after her, “is a psychopath, descended from psychopaths, back to the first Black Muslims. You think to him you’re going to be cute little Joan Hiashi, the TV darling? You’ll be”—he followed to the window, gesturing with his cigar agitatedly as the taxi door shut—“one of those whites who lynched civil rights demonstrators back in 1966. You weren’t even born then, but what’s that matter to a fanatic like Percy X? I ask you; what’s that mean to him—and how many yards of video tape you think you’re going to groove before he—”
As the taxi door shut Joan shouted, “Percy X and I went to college together. Comparative Religion One and Two at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. We intended to be preachers, Mister Swenesgard. Isn’t that crazy?” She gave the pedal signal to the cab and it uncoupled from the window.
Joan could not hear what Gus shouted after her in answer to that. The whoosh of the ionocraft climbing swiftly toward the sun drowned it out. Strange, she thought, that Percy and I are going to meet again under such changed conditions. I’ve been studying Buddhism and he the religion of Mohammed, but somehow, during all the excitement, we have both gotten a long way from where we had intended to go.
“He doesn’t want you to go,” the cab said sourly. “But I don’t care. If he revokes my license I’ll just switch over to another plantation. Like Chuck Pepitone’s. It’s big there; I’ll bet I’d do six times the business.”
“Business is business,” Joan said, and settled back against the sagging imitation sea otter pelt seat.
“I’ll say one thing for him,” the cab said. “He does take an interest in what’s going on around him. Most of the Burgers are too lofty to do anything but sip bourbon sours and ride horses. Gus, though; he takes the trouble to get me vital parts, hard to get parts. I’m sort of out of date, you know, and parts for me aren’t easy to come by. And I always felt he sort of liked me.”
“He likes me, too,” Joan said, “in his own knee-patting way. But I’m not turning back now, just to please him.” Nor that other man who showed up, she said to herself. That Paul Rivers.
In his hotel room Paul Rivers spoke hurriedly into his scrambler-equipped pocket vidphones. “I’ve made contact with Joan Hiashi and she has agreed to let me accompany her into the mountains.”
“Good,” Dr. Choate said. “Now, as you know, her analyst in New York has informed us that she is a collaborator out to supply the Gany Military with information leading to Percy’s capture. As I explained in your briefing, this is something which we, of the World Psychiatric Association, cannot permit. Percy is a symbol for the human race now, an important ego-identification figure. As long as he continues to resist, so will the mass ego of humanity. Thus, it is vitally important that he continue, or at least seem to continue.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Paul Rivers asked.
“The latest psycho-computer findings indicate that this would lead to a massive increase in schizophrenia throughout the world, a thorough group insanity impossible to control. However, there is one way to avoid this.”
/> “How?” Paul Rivers asked. He checked over his needle gun expertly and carefully as he spoke.
“Martyrdom. If he must die, it has to be a hero’s death. The worms know this as well as we do. Our therapists attached to the office of Military Administrator Koli reports that Koli plans to capture Percy alive and have him skinned. The humiliation to the human ego were Percy to be skinned like a mere animal, for some sort of wall hanging, would constitute a traumatic incident of a magnitude difficult to overestimate. This, above all else, must not be allowed to happen.”
“Hmm,” Paul Rivers said, pocketing his needle gun.
“It’s up to you, Rivers.” Choate then rang off; the miniature screen faded into an odd little slot of darkness.
Retracing his steps back down the hotel corridor, Paul Rivers reached Joan Hiashi’s room; he pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Only Gus stood there. By the window, smiling. The smile alone told Paul Rivers an additional unpleasant fact.
“Mister Swenesgard,” he said in a low, level voice, “you really wanted her to go. Didn’t you?”
The smile on the fat man’s moon-like face increased. “Why, how you talk,” Gus said. “And,” he added with satisfaction, “there ain’t no use you trying to chase after her. That broken-down old ionocraft taxi she’s in is the only one available.”
III
LINCOLN SHAW sat sprawled in the hot sun with his back against a tree, frowningly repairing, for the hundredth time, the frame on his horn-rimmed glasses. He was a thin, small-boned mulatto with an air of cultured delicacy considerably out of place here in this mountain setting.
“Hey Lincoln,” came a shout from the other side of the clearing. “Who that who freed the slaves?”
“I did,” Lincoln said automatically. This was a standing joke between Lincoln and Percy; he had long since ceased getting angry about it.
“No,” Percy roared, “I did!”
“Nobody freed the slaves,” Lincoln muttered under his breath as Percy strode into the clearing carrying rabbits fresh from the traps.