The simulacrum bucked, convulsed, ceased speaking.
“Something’s wrong with it,” Howard Straw said, standing up.
Abruptly the Mageboom simulacrum said, “Wrzzzzzzzzzimus. Kadrax an vigdum niddddd.” Its arms flapped, its head lolled and it declared, “Ib srwn dngmmmmmm kunk!”
Howard Straw stared at it, pale and tense, then turned to Gabriel Baines and said, “The CIA on Terra has cut into the hyper-space transmission from the Hentman ship here.” He slapped his thigh, found his side arm, lifted it up and closed one eye to aim precisely.
“What I have just said,” the Mageboom simulacrum stated, in a now somewhat altered, more agitated and higher-pitched voice, “must be disregarded as a treasonable snare and an absurd delusion. It would be a suicidal act for Alpha III M2 to seek so-called protection from the Alphane empire because for one reason—”
With a single shot Howard Straw disabled the simulacrum; pierced through its vital cephalic unit the simulacrum dropped with a crash spread eagle to the floor. Now there was silence. The simulacrum did not stir.
After a time Howard Straw put his side arm away and shakily reseated himself at his place. “The CIA in San Francisco succeeded in pre-empting Rittersdorf,” he said, unnecessarily in that every delegate, even the Heeb Jacob Simion, had followed the sequence of events firsthand. “However, we have heard Rittersdorf’s proposal, and that’s what matters.” He glanced up and down the table. “We’d better act swiftly. Let’s have the vote.”
“I vote to accept the Rittersdorf Proposal,” Gabriel Baines said, thinking to himself that this had been a close call; without Straw’s quick action the simulacrum, again under Terran control, might have blown itself up and gotten them all.
“I agree,” Annette Golding said, with great tension.
When the total vote had been verified everyone but Dino Watters, the miserable Dep, turned out to have declared in the affirmative.
“What was wrong with you?” Gabriel Baines asked the Dep curiously.
In his hollow, despairing voice the Dep answered, “I think it’s hopeless. The Terran warships are too close. The Manses’ shield just can’t last that long. Or else we won’t be able to contact Hentman’s ship. Something will go wrong, and then the Terrans will decimate us.” He added, “And in addition I’ve been having stomach pains ever since we originally convened; I think I’ve got cancer.”
Howard Straw signaled by pressing a buzzer and a council servant entered, carrying a portable radio transmitter. “I will now make contact with the Hentman ship,” Straw stated, and clicked on the transmitter.
In contact with the remnants of his organization on Terra, Bunny Hentman lifted his head and with a haggard expression on his face said to Chuck Rittersdorf, “What happened is this. That guy London, chief of the San Francisco branch of the CIA and Elwood’s superior, caught on to what was happening; he was monitoring the sim’s activities—must have already been suspicious, no doubt because I got away.”
“Is Elwood dead?” Chuck asked.
“No, just in the grang at the S.F. Presidio. And Petri took over once more.” Hentman rose to his feet, shut off the line to Terra temporarily. “But they didn’t regain control of Mageboom in time.”
“You’re an optimist,” Chuck said.
“Listen,” Hentman said vigorously. “Those people in Adolfville may be legally and clinically insane, but they’re not stupid, especially in matters pertaining to their security. They heard the proposal and I bet right now they’re voting in favor of it. We should get a call from them by radio any time.” He examined his watch. “I say within fifteen minutes.” He turned to Feld. “Get those two Alphanes in here, so they can relay the request immediately to their ships of the line.”
Feld hurried off. After a pause Hentman, sighing, reseated himself.
Lighting a fat, green, Terran cigar Bunny Hentman leaned back, hands behind his head, regarding Chuck.
Moments passed.
“Does the Alphane empire need TV comics?” Chuck asked.
Hentman grinned. “As much as they need simulacrum-programmers.”
Ten minutes later the call came through from Adolfville.
“Okay,” Hentman said, nodding as he listened to Howard Straw. He glanced at Chuck. “Where are those two Alphanes? Now’s the time; now or just plain never.”
“I’m here, representing the Empire.” It was the Alphane RBX 303; it had hurried flappingly into the room with Feld and its companion Alphane. “Assure them once again that they will not be treated as invalids but as settlers. We are absolutely anxious to make that point clear. Alphane policy has always been—”
“Don’t make a speech,” Hentman said incisively. “Ring up your warships and get them down to the surface.” He handed the transmitter’s microphone to the Alphane, rose wearily and walked over to stand beside Chuck. “Jeez,” he murmured. “At a time like this it wants to recap on its foreign policy over the last sixty years.” He shook his head. His cigar had gone out; now with great deliberateness he relit it. “Well, I guess we’re going to learn the answers to our ultimate queries.”
“What queries?” Chuck said.
Hentman said briefly, “Whether the Alphane empire can use TV comics and sim-programmers.” He walked away, stood listening to RBX 303 trying by means of the ship’s transmitter to raise the Alphane battle fleet. Puffing cigar smoke, hands in his pockets, he silently waited. One would never know from his expression, Chuck reflected, that literally our lives depend on the successful establishment of this conduit of communication.
Twitching with nervous agitation, Gerald Feld came up to Chuck and said, “Where’s the Frau Doktor right now?”
“Probably wandering around somewhere below,” Chuck said. The Hentman ship, now in an orbit three hundred miles at apogee, no longer had contact, except by radio, with events occurring on the moon’s surface.
“She can’t do anything, can she?” Feld said. “To fnug this up, I mean. Of course she’d like to.”
Chuck said, “My wife, or ex-wife, is a scared woman. She’s alone on a hostile moon, waiting for a Terran fleet which probably will never come, although of course she doesn’t know that.” He did not hate Mary now; that was gone, like so many other things.
“You feel sorry for her?” Feld asked.
“I—just wish that destiny hadn’t crossed her and me up quite so completely as it has. Her in relationship to me, I mean. I have the feeling that in some obscure way which I can’t fathom Mary and I could somehow still have made it together. Maybe years from now—”
Hentman announced, “He’s got the line ships. We’re in.” He beamed. “Now we can get so goddamn completely absolutely bagged that—well, you name it. I’ve got the booze here on the ship. Nothing, you understand, nothing at all more is required from any of us; we’ve done it. We’re now citizens of the Alphane empire; we’ll pretty soon have license-plate numbers instead of names, but that’s okay with me.”
Finishing his statement to Feld, Chuck said, “Maybe someday when it doesn’t matter I can look back and see what I should have done that would have avoided this, Mary and me lying in the dirt shooting back and forth at each other.” Across the darkened landscape of an unfamiliar world, he thought to himself. Where neither of us is at home, and yet where I—at least—will probably have to live out the remainder of my life. Maybe Mary too, he thought somberly.
To Hentman he said, “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Hentman said. To Feld he said, “Congratulations, Jerry.”
“Thank you,” Feld said. “Congratulations and a long life,” he said to Chuck. “Fellow Alphane.”
“I wonder,” Chuck said to Hentman, “if you could do me a favor.”
“Like what? Anything.”
Chuck said, “Lend me a launch. Let me drop down to the surface.”
“What for? You’re a hell of a lot safer up here.”
“I want to look for my wife,” Chuck said.
Raising
an eyebrow Hentman said, “You’re sure you want that? Yeah, I can see by the expression on your face. You poor damn guy. Well, maybe you can talk her into staying with you on Alpha III M2. If the clans don’t mind. And if the Alphane authorities—”
“Just give him the launch,” Feld interrupted. “At this moment he’s a terribly unhappy man; he doesn’t have time to hear what you want to say.”
“Okay,” Hentman said to Chuck, nodding. “I’ll give you the launch; you can drop down there and do anything foolish that appeals to you—I wash my hands of it. Of course I hope you come back, but if not—” He shrugged. “That’s the way these things go.”
“And take your slime mold with you when you leave,” Feld said to Chuck.
Half an hour later he had parked the launch in a thicket of skinny poplar-like trees and stood in the open air, smelling the wind and listening. He heard nothing. It was only a little world, and nothing much was happening on it; a council had voted, a clan maintained a defensive screen, a few people waited in fear and trembling but probably, as for example the Heebs of Gandhitown, most of the inhabitants shuffled through their psychotic daily routine without interruption.
“Am I insane?” he asked Lord Running Clam, who had slithered off a few dozen yards to a damper spot; the slime mold was aquatropic. “Is this the all-embracing worst thing, of all the possible worst things, that I could do?”
“‘Insane,’” the slime mold responded, “is, strictly speaking, a legal term. I consider you very foolish; I think Mary Rittersdorf will probably commit an act of ferocity and hostility toward you as soon as she sets eyes on you. But maybe you want that. You’re tired. It’s been a long struggle. Those illegal stimulant drugs which I supplied you; they didn’t help. I think they only made you more despairing and weary.” It added, “Maybe you ought to go to Cotton Mather Estates.”
“What’s that?” Even the name made him draw back with aversion.
“The settlement of the Deps. Live with them there, in endless dark gloom.” The slime mold’s tone was mildly chiding.
“Thanks,” Chuck said ironically.
“Your wife is not near,” the slime mold decided. “At least I don’t pick up her thoughts. Let us move on.”
“Okay.” He plodded back toward the launch.
As the slime mold followed after him, in through the open hatch, it thought, “There is always the possibility, which you must consider, that Mary is dead.”
“Dead!” He stared at the slime mold, halting. “How?”
“As you told Mr. Hentman; there is a war being conducted here on this moon. There have been deaths, although fortunately very few as yet. But the potential here for violent death is enormous. The last we saw of Mary Rittersdorf involved the three mystics, the so-called Holy Triumvirate, and their nauseous psychotic projections in the sky. I suggest therefore that we take the launch to Gandhitown, where the prime mover of the triumvirate, Ignatz Ledebur, exists—and that is the proper word—amidst his customary squalor, among his cats, wives and children.”
“But Ledebur would never—”
“Psychosis is psychosis,” the slime mold pointed out. “And a fanatic can never really be trusted.”
“True,” Chuck said gratingly.
Shortly, they were on their way to Gandhitown.
“I really wonder,” the slime mold pondered, “what I hope for your sake; in some respects you would be so much better off if she were—”
“It’s my business,” Chuck interrupted.
“Sorry,” the slime mold thought contritely, but with somber overtones; it could not eradicate them from its musings.
The launch buzzed on with no further interchange between the two of them.
Ignatz Ledebur, depositing a heap of cooked, aging spaghetti before his two black-face pet sheep, glanced up to see the launch descend to a landing in the road adjacent to his shack. He finished feeding the sheep, then walked leisurely back to his shack with the pan. Cats of all sorts followed hopefully.
Indoors, he dropped the pan among the encrusted dishes heaped in the sink, paused a moment to glance toward the woman asleep on the wooden planks which made up the dining table. He then picked up a cat, carried it with him outdoors once more. The arrival of the ship did not, of course, come as a surprise; he had already experienced a vision of it. He was not alarmed, but on the other hand he was scarcely complacent.
Two figures, one of them human, the other amorphous and yellow, emerged from the launch. They made their way with difficulty across the discarded trash toward Ledebur.
“You will be gratified to hear,” Ledebur said to them, by way of greeting, “that almost at this very moment Alphane warships are preparing to land here on our world.” He smiled, but the man facing him did not smile back. The yellow blob, of course, had nothing to smile with. “So your mission,” Ledebur said, with a shade of perturbation, “has yielded successful results.” He did not enjoy the hostility which emanated from the man; he saw, with his mystical Psionic insight, the man’s anger glow in a red, ominous nimbus about his head.
“Where’s Mary Rittersdorf?” the man, Chuck Rittersdorf, said. “My wife. Do you know?” He turned to the Ganymedean slime mold beside him. “Does he know?”
The slime mold thought, “Yes, Mr. Rittersdorf.”
“Your wife,” Ignatz Ledebur said, nodding. “She was doing injurious things out there. Already she had killed one Mans and was—”
“If you don’t show me my wife,” Chuck Rittersdorf said to Ledebur, “I’m going to hack you to bits.” He took one step toward the saint.
Petting the cat which he held with agitation, Ledebur said, “I wish you’d come in and have a cup of tea.”
The next he knew he was lying supine on the ground; his ears rang and his head throbbed dully. With difficulty he managed to sit groggily up, wondering what had happened.
“Mr. Rittersdorf hit you,” the slime mold explained. “A glancing blow slightly above the cheekbone.”
“No more,” Ledebur said thickly. He tasted blood; spitting, he sat massaging his head. No vision had forewarned him of this, unfortunately. “She’s inside the house,” he said, then.
Passing by him Chuck Rittersdorf strode to the door, yanked it open, disappeared inside. Ledebur managed at last to drag himself upright; he stood unsteadily and then, dragging a little, followed.
Indoors, in the front room, he halted by the door, while cats, free to come and go, hopped and scampered and quarreled on all sides of him.
At the bed Chuck Rittersdorf bent over the sleeping woman. “Mary,” he said, “wake up.” He reached out, took hold of her bare, dangling arm, joggled her. “Get your clothes and get out of here. Come on!”
The woman in Ignatz Ledebur’s bed, who had replaced Elsie, gradually opened her eyes; she focused on Chuck’s face, then all at once blinked, became fully conscious. She sat reflexively up, then caught hold of the tumble of blankets, wound them about her, covering her small, high breasts.
The slime mold, circumspectly, had remained outdoors.
“Chuck,” Mary Rittersdorf said, in a low, steady voice, “I came to this house voluntarily. So I—”
He grabbed her by the wrist, yanked her from the bed; blankets fell and a coffee mug bounced and rolled, spilling its cold contents. Two cats who had gone under the bed rushed out in fright, bypassed Ignatz Ledebur in their haste to get away.
Smooth and slender and naked, Mary Rittersdorf faced her husband. “You don’t have a thing to say about what I do anymore,” she said. She reached for her clothes, picked up her blouse, then rummaged further, as self-possessed as could under the circumstances be expected. She began methodically, garment by garment, to dress; from the expression on her face she might have been entirely alone.
Chuck said, “Alphane ships control this area, now. The Manses are ready to lift their shield to let them in; it’s all been accomplished. While you were asleep in this—” He jerked his head toward Ignatz Ledebur. “This individual’s b
ed.”
“And you’re with them?” Mary asked frigidly as she buttoned her blouse. “Why, of course you are. The Alphanes have seized the moon and you’re going to live here under them.” She finished dressing, began then to comb her hair at a reasonable, slow rate.
“If you’ll stay here,” Chuck said, “on Alpha III M2 and not return to Terra—”
“I am staying here,” Mary said. “I’ve already worked it out.” She indicated Ignatz Ledebur. “Not with him; this was only for a little while and he knew it. I wouldn’t live in Gandhitown—it’s not the place for me, not by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Where, then?”
Mary said, “I think Da Vinci Heights.”
“Why?” Incredulous, he stared at her.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t even seen it. But I admire the Manses; I even admire the one I killed. He never was afraid, even when he was running for his tank and knowing he wouldn’t make it. Never in my life have I seen anything resembling that, not ever.”
“The Manses,” Chuck said, “will never let you in.”
“Oh yes.” She nodded calmly. “They certainly will.”
Chuck turned questioningly to Ignatz Ledebur.
“They will,” Ledebur agreed. “Your wife is right.” Both of us, he realized, you and I; we’ve lost her. Nobody can claim this woman for long. It’s just not in her nature, in her biology. Turning, he mournfully left the shack, stepped outside, walked over to the spot at which the slime mold waited.
“I think you have showed Mr. Rittersdorf,” the slime mold thought to him, “the impossibility of what he is trying to do.”