The Status Civilization

  Chapter Twelve

  The Lake of Clouds was Omega's finest vacation resort. Upon entering thedistrict, all weapons had to be checked at the main gate. No duels wereallowed under any circumstances. Quarrels were arbitrarily decided bythe nearest barman, and murder was punished by immediate loss of allstatus.

  Every amusement was available at the Lake of Clouds. There were theexhibitions such as fencing bouts, bull fighting, and bear baiting.There were sports like swimming, mountain climbing, and skiing. In theevenings there was dancing in the main ballroom, behind glass wallswhich separated residents from citizens and citizens from the elite.There was a well-stocked drug bar containing anything the fashionableaddict could desire, as well as a few novelties he might wish to sample.For the gregarious, there was an orgy every Wednesday and Saturday nightin the Satyr's Grotto. For the shy, the management arranged maskedtrysts in the dim passageways beneath the hotel. But most important ofall, there were gently rolling hills and shadowy woods to walk in, freefrom the tensions of the daily struggle for existence in Tetrahyde.

  Barrent and Moera had adjoining rooms, and the door between them wasunlocked. But on the first night, Barrent did not go through the door.Moera had given no sign of wanting him to do so; and on a planet wherewomen have easy and continual access to poisons, a man had to thinktwice before inflicting his company where it was not wanted. Even theowner of an antidote shop had to consider the possibility of not beingable to recognize his own symptoms in time.

  On their second day, they climbed high into the hills. They ate a basketlunch on a grassy incline which sloped away to the gray sea. After theyhad eaten, Barrent asked Moera why she had saved his life.

  "You won't like the answer," she told him.

  "I'd still like to hear it."

  "Well, you looked so ridiculously vulnerable that day in the Victim'sSociety. I would have helped anyone who looked that way."

  Barrent nodded uncomfortably. "What about the second time?"

  "By then I suppose I had an interest in you. Not a romantic interest,you understand. I'm not at all romantic."

  "What kind of an interest?" Barrent asked.

  "I thought you might be good recruitment material."

  "I'd like to hear more about it," Barrent said.

  Moera was silent for a while, watching him with unblinking green eyes.She said, "There's not much I can tell you. I'm a member of anorganization. We're always on the lookout for good prospects. Usually wescreen directly from the prison ships. After that, recruiters like me goout in search of people we can use."

  "What type of people do you look for?"

  "Not your type, Will. I'm sorry."

  "Why not me?"

  "At first I thought seriously about recruiting you," Moera said. "Youseemed like just the sort of person we needed. Then I checked into yourrecord."

  "And?"

  "We don't recruit murderers. Sometimes we employ them for specific jobs,but we don't take them into the organization. There are certainextenuating circumstances which we recognize; self-defense, for example.But aside from that, we feel that a man who has committed premeditatedmurder on Earth is the wrong man for us."

  "I see," Barrent said. "Would it help any if I told you I don't have theusual Omegan attitude toward murder?"

  "I know you don't," Moera said. "If it were up to me, I'd take you intothe organization. But it's not my choice.... Will, are you sure you're amurderer?"

  "I believe I am," Barrent said. "I probably am."

  "Too bad," Moera said. "Still, the organization needs high-survivaltypes, no matter what they did on Earth. I can't promise anything, butI'll see what I can do. It would help if you could find out more aboutwhy you committed murder. Perhaps there were extenuatingcircumstances."

  "Perhaps," Barrent said doubtfully. "I'll try to find out."

  That evening, just before he went to sleep, Moera opened the adjoiningdoor and came into his room. Slim and warm, she slipped into his bed.When he started to speak, she put a hand over his mouth. And Barrent,who had learned not to question good fortune, kept quiet.

  The rest of the vacation passed much too quickly. The subject of theorganization did not come up again; but, perhaps as compensation, theadjoining door was not closed. At last, late on the seventh day, Barrentand Moera returned to Tetrahyde.

  "When can I see you again?" Barrent asked.

  "I'll get in touch with you."

  "That's not a very satisfactory arrangement."

  "It's the best I can do," Moera said. "I'm sorry, Will. I'll see what Ican do about the organization."

  Barrent had to be satisfied with that. When the vehicle dropped him athis store, he still didn't know where she lived, or what kind of anorganization she represented.

  * * * * *

  Back in his apartment, he considered carefully the details of his dreamin the Dream Shop. It was all there: his anger at Therkaler, the illicitweapon, the encounter, the corpse, and then the informer and the judge.Only one thing was missing. He had no recollection of the actual murder,no memory of aiming the weapon and activating it. The dream stopped whenhe met Therkaler, and started again after he was dead.

  Perhaps he had blocked the moment of actual murder out of his mind; butperhaps there had been some provocation, some satisfactory reason whyhe had killed the man. He would have to find out.

  There were only two ways of getting information about Earth. One laythrough the horror-tinged visions of the Dream Shop, and he wasdetermined not to go there again. The other way was through the servicesof a skrenning mutant.

  Barrent had the usual distaste for mutants. They were another raceentirely, and their status of untouchability was no mere prejudice. Itwas well known that mutants often carried strange and incurablediseases. They were shunned, and they had reacted to exclusion byexclusiveness. They lived in the Mutant Quarter, which was almost aself-contained city within Tetrahyde. Citizens with good sense stayedaway from the Quarter, especially after dark; everyone knew that mutantscould be vindictive.

  But only mutants had the skrenning ability. In their misshapen bodieswere unusual powers and talents, odd and abnormal abilities which thenormal man shunned by day but secretly courted by night. Mutants weresaid to be in the particular favor of The Black One. Some people feltthat the great art of Black Magic, about which the priests boasted,could only be performed by a mutant; but one never said so in thepresence of a priest.

  Mutants, because of their strange talents, were reputed to remember muchmore of Earth than was possible for normal men and women. Not only couldthey remember Earth in general, but in particular they could skren thelife-thread of a man backward through space and time, pierce the wallof forgetfulness and tell what really had happened to him.

  Other people believed that mutants had no unusual abilities at all. Theyconsidered them clever rogues who lived off people's credulity.

  Barrent decided to find out for himself. Late one night, suitablycloaked and armed, he left his apartment and went to the MutantQuarter.