Clans of the Alphane Moon

  “Okay.” The tall metal door clicked, swung open; upstairs in her apt Patty had released it.

  He ascended by elevator. The door to her apt was open and he walked on in. In the living room Patty greeted him with chilly indifference; she stood with her arms folded, gazing stonily out the window at the view of nighttime Los Angeles. “There are no pages of your goddam script here,” she informed him. “I don’t know what—”

  “That call from Bunny,” Chuck said. “Where was he calling from?”

  She eyed him, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t remember.”

  “Have you seen tonight’s homeopape?”

  After a long pause she shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Bunny called you after the CIA made their arrest attempt. You know it and I know it.”

  “So?” She did not even bother to look at him; in all his life he had never been so glacially ignored. And yet, it seemed to him that underneath the hardness of her manner she was frightened. After all she was very young, hardly twenty. He decided to take the chance on that.

  “Miss Weaver, I’m an agent of the CIA.” He still had his CIA identification; reaching into his coat he now got it out, held it toward her. “You’re under arrest.”

  Her eyes flew wide-open in a startled reaction; she spun, stifling an exclamation of dismay. And he could see how radically her breathing had altered; the heavy red pullover sweater rose and fell rapidly. “You really are a CIA agent?” she asked in a strangled whisper. “I thought you were a TV script writer; that’s what Bunny said.”

  “We’ve penetrated the Hentman organization. I posed as a TV script writer. Come on.” He took hold of Patricia Weaver by the arm.

  “Where are we going?” She tugged away, horrified.

  “To the L.A. CIA office. Where you’ll be booked.”

  “For what?”

  “You know where Bunny Hentman is,” he said.

  There was silence.

  “I don’t,” she said, and sagged. “I really don’t. When he called I didn’t know he’d been arrested or whatever it was—he didn’t say anything about that. It was only when I went out to dinner, after you left, that I saw the ’pape headlines.” She moved morosely toward the bedroom. “I’ll get my coat and purse. And I’d like to put on a little lipstick. But I’m telling you the truth; honest I am.”

  He followed after her; in the bedroom she got her coat down from a hanger in the closet, then opened a dresser drawer for her purse.

  “How long do you think they’ll keep me?” she asked as she rooted in her purse.

  “Oh,” he answered, “not more than—” He broke off. Because Patty held a laser pistol pointed toward him. She had found it in her purse.

  “I don’t believe you’re a CIA agent,” she said.

  “But I am,” Chuck said.

  “Get out of here. I don’t understand what you’re trying to do, but Bunny gave me this and told me to use it when and if I had to.” Her hand shook, but the laser pistol remained pointed at him. “Please go on,” she said. “Get out of my apt—if you don’t go I’ll kill you; honestly I will—I mean it.” She looked terribly, terribly frightened.

  Turning, he walked out of the apt, into the hall, down the hall to the elevator. It was still there and he stepped inside it.

  A moment later he was back downstairs, stepping out onto the dark sidewalk. Well, that was that. It had scarcely worked out as he intended. On the other hand, he reflected stoically, he had lost nothing… except perhaps his dignity. And that, given time, would return.

  There was nothing to do now but return to Northern California.

  Fifteen minutes later he was in the air, heading home to his dreary conapt in Marin County. All in all, his experience in L.A. had failed to be sanguine.

  When he arrived he found the apt’s lights on and the heater on; seated in a chair, listening to an early Haydn symphony on the FM, was Joan Trieste. As soon as she saw him she hopped to her feet. “Thank god,” she said. “I was so worried about you.” Bending, she picked up the San Francisco Chronicle. “You saw the ’pape by now. Where does this put you, Chuck? Does it mean the CIA is after you, too? As a Hentman employee?”

  “I dunno,” he said, shutting the door of the apt. As far as he could make out the CIA was not after him, but it was something to ponder; Joan was right. Going into the kitchen he put on the teakettle for coffee, missing, at a time like this, the autonomic coffee making circuit of the stove he had gotten Marygotten her, left with her, along with almost everything else.

  At the doorway Joan appeared. “Chuck, I think you ought to call into CIA; talk with someone you know there. Your former boss. Okay?”

  He said, with bitterness, “You’re so law-abiding. Always comply with the authorities–correct?” He did not tell her that in the hour of crisis, when everything was falling apart around him right and left, his impulse had been to seek out Bunny Hentman, not the CIA.

  “Please,” Joan said. “And I’ve been conversing with Lord R.C. and he feels the same way. I was listening to news on the radio and they said something about other employees of the Hentman machine being arrested—”

  “Just leave me alone.” He got down the jar of instant coffee; his hands shaking, he put a large teaspoonful in a mug.

  “If you don’t contact them,” Joan stated, “then I can’t do anything for you. So I think it would be best if I left.”

  Chuck said, “What could you do for me anyhow? What have you done for me in the past? I’ll bet I’m the first person you ever met who lost two jobs in one day.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “I think,” Chuck said, “I’ll emigrate to Alpha.” Specifically, he thought, to Alpha III M2. Had he been able to find Hentman—

  “The CIA’s right, then,” Joan said; her eyes smoldered. “The Hentman machine is in the pay of a non-Terran power.”

  “Lord,” Chuck said, with disgust. “The war’s been over for years! I’m sick of this cloak-mit-dagger rubbish; I’ve had enough to last me forever. If I want to emigrate then let me emigrate.”

  “What I should do,” Joan said, without enthusiasm, “is arrest you. I’m armed.” She displayed for his benefit, then, the incredibly tiny but undoubtedly genuine side arm which she carried. “But I can’t do it, I feel so sorry for you. How could you make such a mess of your life? And Lord R.C. tried so hard to—”

  “Blame him,” Chuck said.

  “He only wanted to help; he could see you weren’t taking responsibility.” Her eyes flashed. “No wonder Mary divorced you.”

  He groaned.

  “You just won’t try,” Joan said. “You’ve given up; you—” She ceased. And stared at him. He had heard it, too. The thoughts of the Ganymedean slime mold, from across the hall.

  “Mr. Rittersdorf, a gentleman is passing along the hall in the direction of your apt; he is armed and he intends to force you to accompany him. I can’t tell who he is or what he wants because he’s got a grid of some sort installed as a brain-box lining to shield him from telepaths; therefore he’s either a military person or a member of the security or intelligence police or part of a criminal or traitorous organization. In any case prepare yourself.”

  To Joan, Chuck said, “Give me that little laser pistol.”

  “No.” She lifted it from its holster, turned it toward the door of the apt; her face was clear and fresh. Evidently she had herself completely under control.

  “My god,” Chuck said, “you’re going to get killed.” He knew it, foresaw it as fully as if he were a precog; reaching out with lashing speed he grasped the laser tube and yanked it from her hand. The tube got away from him; both he and Joan surged toward it, groping–they collided and with a gasp Joan tumbled against the wall of the kitchen. Chuck’s clutching fingers found the tube; he straightened up, holding it…

  Something struck his hand and he experienced heat; he dropped the laser tube and it clattered away. At the same time a man’s voice–unfamiliar to him–rang in
his ears. “Rittersdorf, I’ll kill her if you try to pick that tube up again.” The man, now in the living room, shut the apt door after him and came a few steps toward the kitchen, his own laser beam held in Joan’s direction. He was middle-aged, wearing a cheap gray overcoat of domestic material and odd, archaic boots; the impression that flashed over Chuck was that the man hailed from some totally alien ecology, perhaps from another planet entirely.

  “I think he’s from Hentman,” Joan said as she slowly rose to her feet. “So he probably would do it. But if you think you could get hold of the tube before—”

  “No,” Chuck said at once. “We’d both be dead.” He faced the man, then. “I tried to reach Hentman earlier.”

  “Okay,” the man said, and gestured toward the door. “The lady may stay here; I only want you, Mr. Rittersdorf. Come along and let’s not fnop any time; we have a long trip.”

  “You can check with Patty Weaver,” Chuck said as he walked ahead of the middle-aged man out into the hall.

  Behind him the man grunted. “No more talking, Mr. Rittersdorf. There’s been too much glucking talk already.”

  “Such as what?” He halted, feeling ominous gradations of fear.

  “Such as your entering the organization as a CIA spy. We realize now why you wanted that job as TV scriptwriter; it was to get evidence on Bun. So what evidence did you get? You saw an Alphane; is that a crime?”

  “No,” Chuck said.

  “They’re going to pelt him to death for that,” the man with the gun said. “Hell, they’ve known for years that Bun lived in the Alpha system. The war’s over. Sure he’s got economic connections with Alpha; who that’s in business hasn’t? But he’s a big figure nationally; the public knows him. I’ll tell you what got the CIA where they decided to crack down on him. It was Bun’s idea for a script about a CIA sim killing someone; the CIA figured he was beginning to use his TV show to—”

  Ahead in the hall the Ganymedean slime mold, in a huge yellow heap, manifested itself, blocking the way; it had flowed out of its conapt.

  “Let us by,” the man with the gun said.

  “I am sorry,” Lord Running Clam’s thoughts came to Chuck, “but I am a colleague of Mr. Rittersdorf’s and it is impractical for me to allow him to be carted off.”

  The laser beam clacked on; red and thin it traveled by Chuck and disappeared into the center of the slime mold. With a crackling, tearing noise the slime mold shriveled up, dried into a black encrusted blob which smoked and sputtered, charring the wooden floor of the hallway.

  “Move,” the man with the gun said to Chuck.

  “He’s dead,” Chuck said. He couldn’t believe it.

  “There’s some more of them,” the man with the gun said. “On Ganymede.” His fleshy face showed no emotion, only alertness. “When we get into the elevator press the up button; my ship’s on the roof, and what a louzled-up little field it is.”

  Numbly, Chuck entered the elevator. The man with the gun followed and an instant later they had reached the roof; they stepped out into the cold of a foggy night. “Tell me your name,” Chuck said. “Just your name.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can find you again. For killing Lord Running Clam.” Sometime sooner or later he would be set down in the same vector with this person.

  “I’ll be glad to tell you my name,” the man said as he herded Chuck into the parked hopper; its landing lights glowed and its turbine buzzed faintly. “Alf Cherigan,” he said as he stationed himself at the controls.

  Chuck nodded.

  “You like my name? You find it pleasant?”

  Saying nothing Chuck stared ahead.

  “You’ve stopped talking,” Cherigan observed. “Too bad, because you and I’ll be cooped up together until we reach Luna and Brahe City.” He reached to snap on the auto course-finding pilot.

  Beneath them the hopper bucked and leaped but did not ascend.

  “Wait here,” Cherigan said, with a wave of his laser pistol in Chuck’s direction. “Don’t touch any of the controls.” Opening the hatch of the hopper he irritably put his head out, peering to see in the darkness, what had stalled the lift-action. “Holy critter,” he said, “the outside conduit to the rear rubes–” His speech stopped; he rapidly yanked himself back into the hopper once again, then fired with his laser beam.

  From the darkness of the roof an answering beam paralleled his own, found its way through the open hatch and to him; Cherigan dropped his weapon and flopped convulsively against the hull of the cabin, then twisted and sagged like a gored animal, his mouth hanging, his eyes corrupted and vague.

  Bending, Chuck picked up the discarded laser beam, looked out to see who it was, there in the darkness. It was Joan; she had followed him and Cherigan up the hall, had taken the manual emergency lift to the roof field and arrived behind them. He got hesitantly from the hopper and greeted her. Cherigan had made a mistake; he had not been informed that Joan was an armed policewoman and accustomed to emergencies. It was even hard for Chuck to realize what she had done so quickly, first with one shot at the guidance-system of the hopper, then the second shot which had killed Alf Cherigan.

  “Are you getting out?” Joan asked. “I didn’t hit you, did I?”

  “I’m untouched,” Chuck said.

  “Listen.” She approached the hatch of the hopper, regarded the slumped, discarded shape that had just now been Alf Cherigan. “I can bring him back. Remember? Do you want me to, Chuck?”

  He considered a moment; he remembered Lord Running Clam. And because of that he shook his head no.

  “It’s up to you,” Joan said. “I’ll let him stay dead. I don’t like to but I understand.”

  “How about Lord–”

  “Chuck, I can’t do anything for him; it’s too late. More than five minutes has passed, I had the choice of staying there with him or following you and trying to assist you.”

  “I think it would have been better if you—”

  “No,” Joan said firmly. “I did the right thing; you’ll see why. Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  Startled, he said, “No, of course not.”

  “Look in the repair case of the hopper, in the storage region under the control panel. There’re micro-tools for fixing the miniaturized portions of the ship’s circuits… you’ll find a loupe there.”

  He opened the cabinet, rummaged about, mindlessly obeying her. A moment later his hands found the jeweler’s loupe; he stepped from the hopper, holding it.

  “We’ll go back below,” Joan said. “To where he is.”

  Presently the two of them bent over the reduced cinder which had previously been their compatriot, the Ganymedean slime mold. “Stick the loupe in your eye,” Joan instructed, “and search around. Very closely, especially down in the pile of the carpet.”

  “What for?”

  Joan said, “His spores.”

  Taken aback he said, “Did he have a chance to—”

  “Sporification for them is automatic, the moment they’re attacked; it would have functioned instantaneously, I hope. They’ll be microscopic, brown and round; you should be able to find them with the loupe. It’s of course impossible to with the naked eye. While you’re doing that I’ll prepare a culture.” She disappeared into Chuck’s apt; he hesitated and then got down on his hands and knees to search the hall carpet for the spores of Lord Running Clam.

  When Joan returned he had, in the palm of his hand, seven tiny spheres; under the lens they were smooth and brown and shiny, definitely spores. And he had located them near the spot where the waste remains of the slime mold lay.

  “They need soil,” Joan said as she watched him sprinkle the spores into the measuring cup which she had found in his kitchen. “And moisture. And time. Find at least twenty, because of course not all of them will survive.”

  At last he managed to acquire, from the dirty, much-used carpet, twenty-five spores in all. These were transferred to the measuring cup and then he and Joan descended to the lowes
t floor of the building, made their way out into the backyard. In the darkness they clutched handfuls of dirt, deposited the loose, black soil into the measuring cup. Joan located a hose; she sprinkled drops of water onto the soil and then sealed the cup off from the air with a polyfilm wrapper.

  “On Ganymede,” she explained, “the atmosphere is warm and dense; this is the best I can do to simulate proper conditions for the spores but I think it’ll work. Lord R.C. told me once that in an emergency Ganymedeans have managed to sporify successfully in open-air conditions on Terra. So let’s hope.” With Chuck she returned to the building, carrying the cup with great care.

  “How long will it take?” he asked. “Before we know.”

  “I’m not sure. As soon as two days or–and this has happened in some cases–depending on the phase of the moon as long as a month.” She explained, “It may sound like superstition but the moon will affect the activation of these spores. So resign yourself to that. The fuller the better; we can look it up in tonight’s homeopape.” They ascended to the floor of his apt.

  “How much memory will there be in the new–” He hesitated. “In the next generation of slime mold? Will it or they remember us and what took place here?”

  As she sat examining the homeopape Joan said, “It depends entirely on how quickly he managed to act; if he got off spores from his–” She shut the ’pape. “The spores should react in a matter of days.”

  “What would happen,” Chuck asked, “if I took them off Terra? Away from Luna’s influence?”

  “They’d still grow. But it might take longer. What’s on your mind?”

  “If the Hentman organization would send someone to find me,” Chuck said, “and something happened to him–”

  “Oh yes of course,” Joan agreed. “They’ll be sending another. Probably in a few hours, as soon as they realize we got the first one. And he may have had a deadman’s-signal installed on him somewhere, so they had the information as soon as his heart stopped. I think you’re right; you should get off Terra as soon as possible. But how, Chuck? To really disappear you’d have to have resources, some money and support, and you don’t; you have no source of income at all now. Do you have anything at all saved up?”