‘When their three wheels hit the public pavement,’ Zeta said, ‘our responsibility ends. After that, whatever happens to them is their own business.’
Nick had not wanted to be a tire regroover… a man who took a bald tire and, with the red hot iron, carved new grooves deeper and deeper into the tire, making it look adequate. Making it look as if it had all the tread it needed. He had inherited the craft from his father, who had learned it from his own father. Down the years, father, to son; hating it as he did, Nick knew one thing: he was a superb tire regroover and always would be. Zeta was wrong; he already burned deeply enough. I’m the artist, he thought; I should decide how deep the grooves should go.
Leisurely, Zeta snapped on his neck radio. Cheap and noisy music – of a sort – blurred out of the seven or eight speaker-systems spread over the heavy man’s bulging body.
The music ceased. A pause, and then an announcer’s voice, speaking in professionally disinterested tones. ‘PSS spokesmen, representing Director Lloyd Barnes, announced a short while ago that police prisoner Eric Cordon, long imprisoned for acts hostile to the people, has been transferred from Brightforth Prison to the termination facilities in Long Beach, California. When asked if this meant that Cordon is to be executed, PSS spokesmen avowed that no decision as to that has been reached. Well-informed sources outside the PSS are openly saying that this heralds Cordon’s execution, pointing out that of the last nine hundred PSS prisoners transferred at various times to the Long Beach detention facilities, almost eight hundred were eventually executed. This has been a bulletin from—’
Convulsively, Earl Zeta clutched at the switch of his body radio; he missed it, clenched his fist spasmodically, shutting his eyes and rocking back and forth. ‘Those bastards,’ he said between his teeth. ‘They’re murdering him.’ His eyes opened; he grimaced, his face showing violent and deep pain… then, by degrees, he obtained control over himself; his anguish seemed to ease. But it did not go away; his tubby body remained tensed as he stared at Nick.
Nick said, ‘You’re an Under Man.’
‘For ten years you’ve known me,’ Zeta grated. He got out a red handkerchief and carefully mopped his forehead. His hands were shaking. ‘Listen, Appleton,’ he said, managing to make his voice more natural, now. More steady. Yet the shaking continued down deep in the man, out of sight. Nick sensed it, knew it was there. Hidden and buried, out of fear. ‘They’re going to get me, too. If they’re executing Cordon they’ll just go on and wipe all of us out, all the way down to minnows like me. And we’ll go into those camps, those damn, lousy, rotten detention camps on Luna. Did you know about them? That’s where we’re going. We – my people. Not you.’
‘I know about the camps,’ Nick said.
‘Are you going to turn me in?’
Nick said, ‘No.’
‘They’ll get me anyway,’ Zeta said bitterly. ‘They’ve been compiling lists for years. Lists a mile long, even on microtapes. They’ve got computers; they’ve got spies. Anyone could be a spy. Anyone you know or have ever talked to. Listen, Appleton – Cordon’s death means we’re not just fighting for political equality, it means we’re fighting for our actual physical lives. Do you understand that, Appleton? You may not like me very much – God knows we don’t get along with each other – but do you want to see me murdered?’
‘What can I do?’ Nick said. ‘I can’t stop the PSS.’
Zeta drew himself up, his dumpy body rigid with the agony of despair. ‘You could die along with us,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ Nick said.
‘“Okay”?’ Zeta peered at him, trying to understand him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Nick said. He felt numbed by what he was saying. Everything was gone, now: the chance for Bobby had been effectively voided, and a race of tire regroovers would go on forever.
I should have waited, he thought. This just simply happened to me; I didn’t expect it – I don’t really understand it. It must be because Bobby failed. And yet I’m here saying this, telling Zeta this. It’s been done.
‘Let’s get over to my office,’ Zeta said hoarsely, ‘and open a pint of beer.’
‘You have liquor?’ He could not imagine it, the penalty was so terribly great.
‘We will drink to Eric Cordon,’ Zeta said, and led the way.
SIX
‘I have never drunk alcohol before,’ Nick said as they sat facing one another across the table. He had begun to feel terribly odd. ‘You read in the papes all the time that it causes people to go berserk, to suffer complete changes of personality, suffer brain damage. In fact—’
‘Scare stories,’ Zeta said. ‘Although, it’s true you should go easy at first. Take it slow; let it just slide down.’
‘What’s the penalty for drinking alcohol?’ Nick asked. He found himself having trouble forming words.
‘A year. Mandatory, without possibility of parole.’
‘Is it worth it?’ The room, around him, seemed unreal; it had lost its substantiality, its concreteness. ‘And isn’t it habit-forming? The papes say once you start, you can never—’
‘Just drink your beer,’ Zeta said; he sipped his, downing it without apparent difficulty.
‘You know,’ Nick said, ‘what Kleo would say about my having alcohol?’
‘Wives are like that.’
‘I don’t think so. She’s like that, but some aren’t.’
‘No, they’re all that way.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Zeta said, ‘their husband is the source of all their financial money.’ He belched, grimaced, leaned back in his swivel chair, the beer bottle gripped in one large hand. ‘To them – well, look at it this way. Suppose you had a machine, a very complex delicate machine, which when it was working properly it pumped out, fed out, a line of pops. Now, supposing that machine—’
‘Is that really how wives feel about their husbands?’
‘Sure.’ Zeta burped again, handed Nick the bottle of beer.
‘It’s dehumanization,’ Nick said.
‘Sure it is. Bet your purple and green ass it is.’
‘I think Kleo worries about me because her father died when she was very young. She’s afraid all men are—’ He searched for the word but could not find it; by now his thought-processes were erratic, filmed over and peculiar. He had never experienced anything like this before, and it frightened him.
‘Just be calm,’ Zeta said.
Nick said, ‘I think Kleo is vapid.’
‘“Vapid”? What’s “vapid”?’
‘Empty.’ He gestured. ‘Maybe I mean passive.’
‘Women are supposed to be passive.’
‘But it interferes—’ He stumbled over the word and felt his face redden with embarrassment. ‘It interferes with their maturing.’
Zeta leaned toward him. ‘You’re saying all this because you’re scared of her disapproval. You say she’s “passive” and yet that’s exactly what you want, now, in regard to this. You want her to go along; I mean, approve of what you’re doing. But why tell her at all? Why does she need to know?’
‘I always tell her everything.’
‘Why?’ Zeta said loudly.
‘That’s the way it’s supposed to be,’ Nick said.
‘When we finish this beer,’ Zeta said, ‘you and I are going somewhere. I won’t say where – it’s just a place. Where, if we get lucky, we can pick up some material.’
‘You mean Under Men material?’ Nick asked, and felt coldness tug at his heart; he felt himself being steered into risky waters. ‘I already have a booklet a friend posing as a—’ He broke off, unable to construct his sentence. ‘I’m not going to take any risks.’
‘You already have.’
‘But it’s enough,’ Nick said. ‘Already. Sitting here drinking this beer and talking the way we’ve been talking.’
Zeta said, ‘There is only one “talking” that matters. The talking of Eric Cordon. The real stuff; not the f
orgeries that are being circulated around on the street, but what he does say, what it’s all about. I don’t want to tell you anything: I want him to tell you. In one of his booklets. I know where we can pick one up.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I’m not talking about the “words of Eric Cordon”. I’m talking about the true words of Eric Cordon, his admonitions, parables, the plans, known only to those who are truly members of the world of free men. Under Men in the truest sense; the real sense.’
‘I don’t want to do anything Kleo won’t approve of,’ Nick said. ‘A husband and wife have to be honest with each other; if I go ahead with this—’
‘If she doesn’t approve, get yourself another wife who can.’
‘You mean that?’ Nick asked; his brain had become so fogged over now that he could not tell if Zeta was serious. And, if he did mean what he said, whether he was right or not. ‘You mean this could split us,’ he said.
‘It’s split a lot of marriages before. Anyhow, are you so happy with her? You said before, “She’s vapid.” Your exact words. And you said it, not me.’
‘It’s the alcohol,’ Nick said.
‘Of course it’s the alcohol. “In vino veritas,”,’ Zeta said, and grinned, showing his brownish teeth. ‘That’s Latin; it means—’
‘I know what it means,’ Nick said; he felt anger, now, but he did not know what toward. Was it toward Zeta? No, he thought, it’s Kleo. I know how she would react to this. We shouldn’t ask for trouble. We’ll wind up in a detention dome on Luna, in one of those dreadful work camps. ‘What comes first?’ he asked Zeta. ‘You’re married, too; you have a wife, and you have two children. Is your respon—’ Again his tongue failed to function properly. ‘Where’s your first loyalty? To them? Or to political action?’
‘Toward men in general,’ Zeta said. He raised his head, held the beer bottle to his lips, and finished the last of the beer. He then slammed it violently down on the table. ‘Let’s get moving,’ he said to Nick. ‘It’s like the Bible says: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”’
‘“Free”?’ Nick asked, also rising – and experiencing difficulty in doing so. ‘That’s the last thing Cordon’s booklets are going to make us. A track will get our names, find out we’re buying Cordonite writing, and then—’
‘Always looking over your shoulder for tracks,’ Zeta said scathingly. ‘How can you be alive that way? I’ve seen hundreds of people buy and sell pamphlets, sometimes a thousand pops’ worth at one time and’ – he paused – ‘sometimes the tracks do worm their way in. Or a prowl car catches sight when you’re passing over some pops to a dealer. And then, like you say, it’s in prison on Luna. But you have to take the risk. Life itself is a risk. You say to yourself, “Is it worth it?” and you answer, “Yes, it is. Goddam it, yes it is.”’ He put on his coat, opened the door of the office and stepped out into the sunlight. Nick, after an extensive pause – seeing that Zeta was not looking back – followed after him, slowly. He caught up with him at Zeta’s parked squib. ‘I think you ought to begin looking for another wife,’ Zeta said; he opened the door of the squib and squeezed his bulk in behind the tiller. Nick, getting in also, slammed the door on his side. Zeta grinned as the squib shot up into the morning sky.
‘That’s really none of your business,’ Nick said.
Zeta did not answer; he concentrated on his driving. Turning his head he said to Nick, ‘I can drive badly now, we’re clean. But on the way back we’ll have the stuff, so we won’t get a PSS occifer flagging us down for speeding or erratic turning. Right?’
‘Yes,’ Nick said, and felt the numbing fear inside him rise. It had become inevitable, the path they were following; he could not now get out of it. Why not? he asked himself. I know I have to go through with it, but why? To show that I’m not afraid that a track will burst us? To show that I’m not dominated by my wife? For all the wrong reasons, he thought… and mainly because I’ve been drinking alcohol, the most dangerous substance – short of Prussic acid – you can imbibe. Well, he thought, so be it.
‘Nice day,’ Zeta said. ‘Blue sky, no clouds to duck behind.’ He soared upward enjoying himself; Nick shrank numbly back against the seat and merely sat, helpless, as the squib oozed forward.
At a payfone, Zeta made a call; it consisted of only a few half-articulated words. ‘He’s holding?’ Zeta asked. ‘He’s there? Okay. Yeah, right. Thanks. Bye.’ He hung up. ‘That’s the part I don’t like,’ he said. ‘When you make the fonecall. All you can do is figure that so many million fonecalls are made in one given day that they can’t monitor them all.’
‘But Parkinson’s Law,’ Nick said, trying to cover his fear with jollification. ‘“If a thing can happen—“’
Zeta, getting back into the squib, said, ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’
‘But eventually.’
‘Eventually,’ Zeta pointed out, ‘death will get us all.’ He cranked up the engine of the squib and they zoomed upward again. Presently, they were flying over a sprawling residential section of the city; Zeta peered down, scowling. ‘All the goddam houses look exactly alike,’ he muttered. ‘It’s so frigging hard to see from the air. But that’s good; he’s stuck right in the middle of ten million loyal believers in Willis Gram and Unusuals and New Men and all the rest of that crap.’ The squib dived suddenly. ‘Here we go,’ Zeta said. ‘You know, that beer affected me – it actually did.’ He grinned at Nick. ‘And you look like a stuffed owl; you look like you could turn your head completely around.’ He laughed.
They came to rest on a roof landing field.
Grunting, Zeta got out; Nick did so, too, and they made their way to the escalator. In a low voice, Zeta said to him, ‘If the occifers stop us and ask what we’re doing here, we say we’re bringing some guy back his squib keys which we forgot to give him when we fixed his squib.’
‘That makes no sense,’ Nick said.
‘Why doesn’t it make any sense?’
‘Because if we had his squib keys he wouldn’t have been able to fly back here.’
‘Okay, we say it’s a second set of keys he asked us to order for him, for his wife.’
At the fiftieth floor, Zeta stepped from the escalator; they made their way down a carpeted hall, seeing no one. Zeta paused all at once, briefly looked around, then knocked on a door.
The door opened. A girl stood confronting them, a small, black-haired girl, pretty in an odd, tough way; she had a pug nose, sensual lips, elegantly formed cheekbones. About her hung the glow of feminine magic; Nick caught it right away. Her smile, he thought, it lights up: it illuminates her whole face, bringing it to life.
Zeta did not seem pleased to see her. ‘Where’s Denny?’ he asked in a low but distinct voice.
‘Come in.’ She held the door aside. ‘He’s on his way.’
Looking uneasy, Zeta entered, motioning Nick to follow him. He did not introduce either of them to the other; instead he strode through the living room, into the bed-roomette, then into the kitchen area of the living room, prowling like an animal. ‘Are you clean here?’ he demanded suddenly.
‘Yes,’ the girl said. She looked up into Nick’s face, a jump of about a foot. ‘I’ve never seen you before.’
‘You’re not clean,’ Zeta said; he stood reaching down into the waste tube; he came up abruptly with a package which had been taped to the inside of the tube. ‘You kids are nuts.’
‘I didn’t know it was there,’ the girl said in a sharp, hard voice. ‘Anyhow, it was fixed so that if a track busted down the door, we could flick it down the tube just by touching it, and there’d be no evidence.’
‘They plug the tube,’ Zeta said. ‘Catch it down around the second floor, before it hits the furnaces.’
‘My name’s Charley,’ the girl said to Nick.
‘A girl named Charley?’ he asked.
‘Charlotte.’ She held out her hand; they shook. ‘You know, I think I know who you are. You’re Zeta’s tire regroover.’
‘Yes,
’ he said.
‘And you want a genuine booklet? Are you paying for it or is Zeta? Because Denny isn’t going to lay out any more credit; he’ll want pops.’
‘I’m paying for it,’ Zeta said. ‘This time, anyhow.’
‘That’s how they always do it,’ Charley said. ‘The first booklet is free; the next is five pops; the next is ten; the—’
The apartment door opened. Everyone ceased moving, ceased breathing.
A pretty boy stood there, bulky, well-dressed, with tangled blond hair, large eyes, an expression of intensity constricting his face so that in spite of his prettiness he had an ugly, cruel intensity to him. He surveyed Zeta briefly, then Nick, for several silent moments. He then shut the door after him, Ferok-bar locked it, walked across the room to the window, peered out, stood chewing on the edge of his thumbnail, radiating, all about him, ominous vibrations, as if something awful, something which would destroy everything, was about to happen… as if, Nick thought, he’s going to do it. He’s going to beat up all of us himself. The boy emanated an aura of strength, but it was a sick strength; it was overripe, as were his enlarged eyes and tangled hair. A Dionysus from the gutters of the city, Nick thought. So this was the dealer. This is the person from whom we get authentic tracts.
‘I saw your squib on the roof,’ the boy said to Zeta, as if announcing the discovery of some evil act. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, inclining his head toward Nick.
‘Someone — who I know — who wants to buy,’ Zeta said.
‘Oh, really?’ The boy, Denny, walked toward Nick, studied him at closer range. Studying his clothes, his face; judging me, Nick realized. As if some eerie kind of combat is involved, the nature of which was, to him, totally unclear.
All at once, Denny’s protruding, large eyes moved rapidly, he stared at the couchette, at the wrapped booklet lying on it.
‘I dug it out of the waste tube,’ Zeta said.
‘You little bitch,’ Denny said to the girl. ‘I told you to keep this place clean. You understand?’ He glowered down at her; she gazed up, lips half-parted anxiously, her eyes unblinking with alarm. Turning rapidly, Denny picked up the booklet, tore the wrappings from it, studied it. ‘You got this from Fred,’ he said. ‘What’d you pay for it? Ten pops? Twelve?’