“Just Dark and Jones,” Bunny said, “my writers.” Again turning to Chuck he explained, “RBX 303’s a tycoon, a big wheeler and dealer in interplan commercial enterprises of every sort. See, Chuck, here’s the situation. RBX 303 here owns controlling stock in Pubtrans Incorporated. Does that mean anything to you?”
For a moment it meant nothing and then it came to Chuck. Pubtrans Incorporated was the company which sponsored Bunny Hentman’s TV show. “You mean,” Chuck said, “it’s owned by—” He broke off. He had started to say, “Owned by one of our former enemies?” However, he did not say it; for one thing it obviously was so, and for another—they were, after all, the former, not the present, enemy. Terra and the Alphanes were at peace and the enmity was supposed to be over.
“You never met an Alph’ close up before?” Bunny said acutely. “You should; they’re a great people. Sensitive, with a terrific sense of humor… Pubtrans sponsors me partly because RBX 303 here personally believes in me and my talent—he did a lot to get me from being nothing but a comic doing the nightclub circuit with occasional guests on TV shows to having my own show, a show that’s gone over partly because Pubtrans has done a hell of a good job publicizing it.”
“I see,” Chuck said. He felt ill. But he did not know quite why. Perhaps it was the whole situation; he could not understand it. “Are Alphanes telepathic?” he asked, knowing they weren’t and yet—there seemed to be an uncanny awareness about this Alphane. Chuck had the intuition that it knew everything; there were no secrets which the. Alphane could not seek out.
“They’re not telepaths,” Bunny said, “but they depend on hearing a lot; that makes them different from us, because we have eyes.” He glanced at Chuck. “What’s with you and telepaths? I mean, you must have known the answer; during the war we were briefed up to our eyeballs about the enemy. And you’re not too young to remember that; you must have grown up with it.”
Dark spoke up suddenly. “I’ll tell you what’s bothering Rittersdorf; I used to feel the same way. Rittersdorf was hired for his ideas. And he doesn’t want to see his brain picked clean. His ideas belong to him up until the moment he chooses to reveal them. If you brought in, say, a Ganymedean slime mold, hell, that would be an unfair invasion of all of our personal rights; it would turn us into machines that you mechanically pumped for ideas.” To Chuck he said, “Don’t worry about RBX 303; he can’t read your thoughts; all he can do is very carefully listen to subtle, tiny nuances in what you say… but it’s surprising how much he can detect that way. Alphanes make good psychologists.”
“Seated in the next room,” the Alphane said, “reading Life magazine, I listened to your conversation, about your new humorous character Siegfried Trots. Interested, I decided to come in; I put the audio tape down and arose. Is this satisfactory with all of you?”
“Nobody minds your presence,” Bunny assured the Alphane.
“Nothing,” the Alphane said, “amuses and entertains—and fascinates—me as does a creative session by you gifted writers. Mr. Rittersdorf, I have never seen you in operation before, but already I can tell that you have a great deal to add. However, I sense your aversion—a very deeply-held aversion—to the line which the conversation has taken. May I ask what precisely you find so objectionable to Siegfried Trots and his desire to do away with his unpleasant wife? Are you married, Mr. Rittersdorf?”
“Yes,” Chuck said.
“Perhaps this plot-idea rouses guilt-feelings within you,” the Alphane said thoughtfully. “Perhaps you have unacknowledged hostile impulses toward your wife.”
Bunny said, “You’re way off, RBX; Chuck and his wife are splitting up—she’s already gone into court. Anyway Chuck’s private life is his own business; we’re not here to dissect his psyche. Let’s get back to the material.”
“I still say,” the Alphane declared, “that there is something very unusual and atypical in Mr. Rittersdorf’s reaction; I would like to find out why.” It turned its knob-like blind head toward Chuck. “Perhaps, if you and I see more of each other, I will find out why. And I have the feeling that knowing this would be of benefit to you, too.”
Scratching his nose thoughtfully Bunny Hentman said, “Maybe he does know, RBX. Maybe he just doesn’t want to say.” He eyed Chuck and said, “I still say it’s his own business, in either case.”
Chuck said, “It simply doesn’t sound like a comedy idea to me. That’s the extent of my—” He had almost said aversion. “Of my doubts.”
“Well, I don’t have any doubts,” Bunny decided. “I’ll have our prop department put together a hollow simulacrum-type figure that somebody can get into; that’ll be a lot cheaper and more reliable than buying a genuine one. And we’ll need some girl to play the role of Ziggy’s wife. My wife, because I’ll be Ziggy.”
“How about the girl friend?” Jones said. “Is that in or not?”
Dark said, “It would have one advantage; we could have her breast-heavy. You know, fracked. That would please a lot of viewers; otherwise we’re stuck with one shrewish type woman who decidedly would not be breast-heavy. That kind never gets that operation performed.”
“You got someone particular in mind who could play that part?” Bunny asked him, pad of paper and pen in hand.
“You know that new fray your agent’s handling,” Dark said. “That fresh little one… Patty something. Patty Weaver. She’s really breast-heavy. The medics must have grafted in fifty pounds if it’s an ounce.”
“I’ll sign up Patty tonight,” Bunny Hentman said, nodding. “I know her and she’s good; she’s exactly right for it. And then we need some bellicose old hag to play the shrewish wife. Maybe I’ll let Chuck do the casting-select for that.” He laughed owlishly.
EIGHT
When, late that night, Chuck Rittersdorf wearily returned to his rundown conapt in Marin County, California, he was stopped in the hall by the yellow Ganymedean slime mold. This, at three A.M. It was too much.
“There are a pair of individuals in your apt,” Lord Running Clam informed him. “It seemed to me you should be tipped off in advance.”
“Thanks,” Chuck said, and wondered what he had to cope with now.
“One of them is your superior at CIA,” the slime mold said. “Jack Elwood. The second is Mr. Elwood’s superior, a Mr. Roger London. They are here to interrogate you as to your other job.”
“I never concealed it from them,” Chuck said. “In fact Mageboom operated by Pete Petri was right here on the spot when Hentman hired me.” Uneasily he wondered why they considered it their affair.
“True,” the slime mold agreed, “but you see they had a tap on the vidline over which you talked this evening first to Joan Trieste and then to Mr. Hentman in Florida. So not only do they know that you’re working for Mr. Hentman but they also know the script-idea which you—”
That explained it. He passed on by the slime mold, to the door of his apt. It was unlocked; he opened it, faced the two CIA men. “This late in the night?” he said. “It’s that important?” Going to the closet—it was the ancient-style manual variety—he hung up his coat. The apt was comfortbly warm; the CIA officials had turned on the nonthermostatically controlled radiant heat.
“Is this the man?” London said. He was a tall, stooped, graying man in his late fifties; Chuck had run into him a few times and had found him difficult. “This is Rittersdorf?”
“Yes,” Elwood said. “Chuck, listen carefully. There are facts about Bunny Hentman you don’t know. Security facts. Now, we’re aware of the reason why you accepted this job; we know you didn’t want to but were forced to.”
“Oh?” Chuck said warily. They couldn’t possibly know what pressure the telepathic slime mold across the hall had put on him.
Elwood said, “We fully recognize your difficult situation regarding your ex-wife Mary, the enormous settlement and alimony payments which she was able to obtain; we know you need the money in order to meet those payments. However—” He glanced at London. London nodded,
and Elwood bent to unzip his briefcase. “I have Hentman’s dossier here. His real name is Sam Little. During the war he was convicted on a charge of violating the trade-rules governing commerce with neutral states; in other words Hentman supplied needed commodities to the enemy by way of an intermediate source. He spent only one year in prison, however; he had a very good choir of attorneys. You want to hear more?”
“Yes,” Chuck said. “Because I can hardly quit my job on the grounds that fifteen years ago—”
“All right,” Elwood said, after a further exchange of glances with his superior, London. “After the war Sam Little—or Bunny Hentman, as he now is known—lived in the Alpha system. What he did there no one knows; our data-gathering sources were of no use to us in Alpha-held territory. Anyhow about six years ago he returned to Terra and with plenty of interplan skins. He began doing a comedy routine in nightclubs and then Pubtrans Incorporated sponsored him—”
“I know,” Chuck interrupted, “that an Alphane owns Pubtrans. I met him. RBX 303.”
“You MET him?” Both Elwood and London stared at him. “Do you know anything about RBX 303?” Elwood demanded. “His family, during the war, controlled the largest wargoods combine in the Alpha system. His brother is in the Alphane cabinet right now, directly responsible to the Alphane Doge. In other words when you’re dealing with RBX 303 you’re dealing with the Alphane government.” He tossed the dossier to Chuck. “Read the rest.”
Chuck glanced through the neatly-typed pages. It was easy to make out the summary at the end; the CIA agents who had compiled the dossier believed that RBX 303 was acting as an untitled rep of a foreign power and that Hentman was aware of this. Therefore their activities were being watched by the CIA.
“His reason for giving you the job,” Elwood said, “is not what you think. Hentman doesn’t need another writer; he’s got five already. I’ll tell you our opinion. We think it has to do with your wife.”
Chuck said nothing; he continued, vacantly, to pore over the sheets which made up the dossier.
“The Alphanes,” Elwood said, “would like to reacquire Alpha III M2. And the only way they can do it legally is to induce the Terrans inhabiting it to leave. Otherwise according to interplan law the Protocols of 2040 come into effect; the moon becomes the property of its settlers and since those settlers are Terran it’s indirectly the property of Terra. The Alphanes can’t make the settlers leave, but they’ve kept an eye on them; they’re perfectly aware that it’s a society made up of former mental patients of the Harry Stack Sullivan Neuropsychiatric Hospital which we established there before the war. The only agency that could get those settlers off Alpha III M2 would be Terran, either TERPLAN or the U.S. Interplan Health and Welfare Service; we could conceivably evacuate the moon, and that would leave it up for grabs.”
“But no one,” Chuck said, “is going to recommend that the settlers be evacuated.” It seemed to him entirely out of the question. One of two things would occur: either Terra would leave the settlers strictly alone or a new hospital would be built and the settlers would be coerced into entering it.
Elwood said, “You may be right. But do the Alphanes know that?”
“And remember,” London said in his hoarse, low voice, “the Alphanes are great gamblers; the entire war was one great longshot for them—and they lost. They don’t know any other way to operate.”
That was true; Chuck nodded. And yet it still made no sense. What influence did he have over Mary’s decisions? Hentman knew that he and Mary were legally separated; Mary was on Alpha III M2 and he was here on Terra. And even if they were both on the Alphane moon Mary would never listen to him. Her decision would be her own.
Yet, if the Alphanes knew that he had control of the Daniel Mageboom simulacrum—
He simply couldn’t believe that they knew this; it was impossible.
“We have a theory,” Elwood said, retrieving the dossier and returning it to his briefcase. “We believe that the Alphanes know—”
“Don’t tell me,” Chuck said, “that they know about Mageboom; that would mean they’d penetrated the CIA.”
“I—wasn’t going to say quite that,” Elwood said uncomfortably. “I was going to say that they know, just as we do, that your separation from Mary is purely legal, that you’re still as emotionally involved with her as ever. As reconstructed by us, their view comes out like this: contact between you and Mary will shortly be resumed. Whether either of you anticipates it or not.”
“And what good will that do them?” Chuck said.
“Here their concept of the situation becomes positively lurid,” Elwood said. “Now, this we’ve picked up strictly from peripheral indications, from snatches gathered here and there; we may be wrong, but it appears that the Alphanes are going to try to induce you to make an attempt to kill your wife.”
Chuck said nothing; he kept his features immobile. Time passed; no one spoke. Elwood and Roger London regarded him curiously, tangibly wondering why he did not respond.
“To be honest with you,” London growled finally, “we have an informant on Hentman’s immediate staff; never mind who. This informant tells us that the script-idea which Hentman and his writers presented you on your arrival in Florida had to do with a CIA simulacrum killing a woman. A man’s wife. The man is a CIA agent. Is that correct?”
Chuck nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall to the right of Elwood and London.
“This plot situation,” London continued, “is supposed to give you the idea of trying to kill Mrs. Rittersdorf with a CIA sim. What Hentman and his Alphane buddies don’t know, of course, is that a CIA sim is already on Alpha III M2 and that you’re operating it; if they did know this they would—” He broke off, then said slowly, half to himself, “Then they’d see there’s no need to build an elaborate script up to give you the idea.” He studied Chuck. “Because very possibly you already have thought of it.”
After a pause Elwood said, “That’s an interesting speculation. I hadn’t come onto it, myself, but eventually I would.” To Chuck he said, “Would you like to give up your operation of the Mageboom simulacrum? To prove beyond a doubt that you had no such action in mind?”
Chuck said, picking his words with care, “Of course I won’t give it up.” It was obvious that if he did he would be admitting that they were right, that they had uncovered something about him and his intentions. And, in addition, he did not care to relinquish the Mageboom task—for a very good reason. He wanted to continue his plan for killing Mary.
“If anything should happen to Mrs. Rittersdorf,” London said, “in view of this, great suspicion would fall on you.”
“I realize that,” Chuck said woodenly.
“So while you’re operating that Mageboom sim,” London said, “you better see to it that it protects Mrs. Rittersdorf.”
Chuck said, “You want my frank opinion?”
“Certainly,” London said, and Elwood nodded.
“This whole thing is an absurdity, a concoction based on isolated data by some imaginative agent in the field, someone who evidently has hung around TV personalities too long. How is my killing Mary going to alter her decision regarding Alpha III M2 and its psychotic settlers? If she’s dead she’d simply be replaced and someone else would make the determination.”
“I think,” Elwood said, speaking to his superior, “that what we’re going to find ourselves dealing with here is not a murder but an attempted murder. Murder as a threat, held over Dr. Rittersdorf’s head, to make her comply.” He added, speaking to Chuck, “That of course is assuming that Hentman’s campaign bears fruit. That you’re influenced by the logic put forth by the TV script.”
“But you seem to think I would be,” Chuck said.
“I think,” Elwood said, “that it’s an interesting coincidence that you are operating a CIA simulacrum in Mary’s vicinity, exactly as Hentman’s script proposes. What are the chances—”
Chuck said, “A more plausible explanation is that somehow He
ntman has found out I’m operating the Mageboom simulacrum, that he developed his idea from the situation. And you know what that means.” The implication was obvious. Despite their denials the CIA had been penetrated. Or—
There existed one other possibility. Lord Running Clam had picked up the facts from Chuck’s mind and had conveyed them to Bunny Hentman. First the slime mold had blackmailed him into taking the job with Hentman and now all of them were acting together to blackmail him into fulfilling their plan for Alpha III M2. The TV script was not designed to put the idea of killing Mary into his mind; by means of the slime mold the Hentman organization knew the idea was already there.
The TV script was to tell him, indirectly but clearly, that they knew. And unless he did as they directed it would be telecast, manifestly, to the entire Sol system. Seven billion people would know about his plans for killing his wife.
It was, he had to admit, a compelling reason for his stringing along with the Hentman organization, to do what they wanted; they rather had him. Look what they had accomplished already: they had made high officials in the West Coast branch of the CIA suspicious. And, as London had said, if anything happened to Mary—
And yet he still intended to go through with it. Or rather to try to go through with it. And not just as a threat, as the Hentman organization wanted, to coerce Mary into advocating a certain policy regarding the psychotic settlers. It was his intention to go all the way, as he had originally planned. Why, he did not know; after all, he did not have to see her any more, live with her… why did her death seem so vital to him?
Oddly, Mary might be the only person who could poke into his mind, if she were given the chance, and discover his motives; it was her job.
The irony pleased him. And, despite the proximity of the two astute CIA officials—not to mention the everpresent yellow slime mold eavesdropping on the far side of the hall—he did not feel badly at all. He was, wit-wise, confronting two distinct factions, both of them experienced; the CIA and the Hentman organization consisted of old-time pros and yet he felt, intuitively, that ultimately he would obtain what he wanted, not what they wanted.