Gordon R. Dickson (6 page)

The news broadcasts were the best
distraction. He had never really listened to them before, and would not have
listened to them now except that music or the regular light entertainment of
the boxes left his mind to free to wander— and it wandered in only one
direction. Ellen. Her going and her reasons for it had worn a deep, circular
rut in his mind, around which he endlessly chased a question mark. The very
instinct for self preservation steered him away from it now. And the news
broadcasts helped. He was astonished, now that he listened, to discover that
there was so much amiss in the world. While there were no big disasters—for
which, of course, everyone could thank science—the number of small turbulences
and revolts and accidents was so great that they were totalled up in kind and
reported as statistics. There were statistics for everything. It seemed all you
had to do was choose the appropriate percent of the population to which you
belonged; and your individual group trouble was there waiting for you. The only
exception seemed to be the Class A's
like
himself. Not
like himself, he corrected the thought in his head.

He
wondered about Dekko, who was gone most of the time. He slipped in and out of
the apartment like a sneak thief, making brief appearances to see that nothing
was wanting for Kil, and immediately vanishing again. He either had someplace
else to sleep, or slept nearly not at all.
    
*

The
afternoon of the third day, however, Kil had dragged himself, grunting, from
the bed to the lounge, and was sitting there, enjoying his first view of sky
and city through the window, when the door to the apartment clicked open and
Dek'-ko's voice spoke cheerfully behind him.

"Hi,
Chief.
How's it mending?"

Kil
turned his head and watched the small man approach.

"Better," he
said.

Dekko
closed the door behind him and
came
gliding across the
carpet to drop in a chair opposite. He had a curious way of walking, almost on
his toes, so that he moVed with deceptive swiftness and a seemingly effortless
stride. Seated, he was less imposing. His black hair was combed straight back
above his abnormally wide forehead and sharp nose. The slight hump in his back
thrust his shoulders and neck forward, so that his sharp chin seemed about to
dig holes in the scarlet tunic covering his chest. His waist was small, but the
forearms and calves that the tunic and kilt left uncovered were corded with
surprising muscle. He grinned at Kil.

"You stood up pretty well to being shook
out," he said.

"Is that what you call it?" grunted
Kil.

"Sometimes,"
said Dekko, his black eyes bright. "About time we talked things over,
Chief."

Kil
stirred restlessly, sending a twinge through his still-stiff middle.

"Look,"
he said. "Can we do without the Chief? It makes me feel like something dug
up out of a museum. The name
's
Bruner,
or
Kil if you like that better."

"Do
mel" said Dekko. His eyes were black, bright, humorous points in his
face.
"Kil, then; though it's not usual for a
runny."

Kil examined him.

"Tell
me something," he said. "What is usual for a runny? Does a runny
usually do the sort of thing you've had to do for me?"

Dekko went off into a perfectly silent fit of
laughter. He sat *in the chair with his thin shoulders shaking. "Do me,
no!" he said. "I'm a free-lance." "I don't get it."

"Ordinary
runnies," explained Dekko, "got to check out with their Ace, wherever
they are. A free-lance like me doesn't give a damn for Ace or anybody. That's
the difference."

Kil bent a little toward him in curiosity.

"How do you get to be a
free-lance?"

Dekko flashed a mouthful of perfectly even
teeth.

"You need something special." He smiled at Kil. "And
don't
ask me what I got. That's a trade secret. All you need to
know is that I can deliver where maybe an ordinary runny
can't."
           
"

Kil shook his head and leaned back.

"I
don't think you can, in my case," he said. 'You don't know what I'm up
against."

"Sure.
Wife's gone," said Dekko. Kil jerked upright again in surprise. "How
did you know?" Dekko held up three fingers.

"Three
people you told your yarn to. I saw you go into the Sticks and I read you for a
problem. I saw you come out the Stick gate and you still had the problem, so
you told the Sticks and they didn't help. I checked you across the city and
into a hotel; I checked you out of the hotel to see a two-bit named Marsk. I
checked you into the area to see Ace. That's three. Some Stick, Marks, and Ace.
Now you tell me who told me."

"Marsk,"
said Kil, without hesitation. "But what's a Stick?"
"A Nightstick-a World Cop."
"What's a
Nightstick?" Dekko laughed again.

"The
way I heard it," he said. "Once there
was
cops that carried clubs called nightsticks. Nobody was supposed to stand still
on the streets in those days. If you did, some cop with a nightstick'd come up
and tell you to move on. Get it now?" He peered at Kil.

"Oh."
said Kil. "You mean this business of the World Police making sure
everybody moves on from the area he's in, when his permitted time is up?"

"That's
it: Sticks."

Kil
nodded and went back to his own problem. "What makes you think you can do
something for me when nobody else can? And what's your price, anyway? I can't
pay two hundred thousand dollars."

"Who
asked it? That's Ace price," said Dekko. "With me you don't pay a
price because you're not buying, you're hiring. I cost a thousand a month; and
I'm worth it. To answer that first question, though, I don't know whether I
can get your wife back or not. But I know stuff nobody else does; and I've got
a wire."

Kil shook his head bewilderedly.
                           
„

"I
don't understand half what you're saying. What's this wire business?"

"The Societies.
I'm Thieves Guild and a couple of other

things
. We
can try running a wire to the O.T.L. and check through them."

"What's—"
said Kil and stopped. "I'm sorry to keep asking what things are, but this
is all Greek to me."

"Sure,"
answered Dekko. "You're an A. Stab. And A. Stabs don't know anything, in
spite of what most of the riggers think. Just sit back and listen and I'll
explain it."

Kil nodded.

"Forget
Ace—any Ace," said Dekko. "Aces are all little frogs in little
puddles.
There's
only two big outfits in the world
today. One's the Sticks
The
other's made up out of the
Societies."

"Societies—"
frowned
Kil. "Now, it seems to me I heard
something about a Society once.'

"
There's
thousands of them," said Dekko. "They're
secret, most of them. Most harmless, but some aren't. People, you see, need
something, with Files making them shift every few weeks or months. Files has
set things up this last hundred years so no groups can get together and want to
fight other groups. That's fine to keep the peace, but
its
lonely for the single ones. You never know anybody for long. Wife, maybe, and
kids while they're growing up and living with you; but when you got to keep
moving, you fall apart easy. You can't even get to liking the place you live,
or your job, because in just a little while you're going to trade it all for a
place and a job just like it—but different—maybe halfway around the
world."

"But look here—" began Kil.

"Let
me finish. So along
comes
a Society, any old Society,
and you join up. You get accepted, you wear something that shows you're
accepted, and you know what to look for on somebody else. You hit a new place
and start looking around. You see somebody wearing the same gimmick you've got;
you go up to him and you're in. You got a friend, maybe not a real close
friend, but
its
not like being a stranger all the
time, so much."

"But
why secret?" asked Kil, when Dekko stopped.

"Makes it stronger.
Usually you pledge yourself to all sorts of things: treat anyone else
in the Society like a brother, whether you know him or not. Some go further. In
some Societies, if a fellow member asks for anything you got, you got to give
it to him, no questions asked." Kil shook his head.

"I
can't understand why I never heard of all this before," he said.

"You're A. Stab.," repeated.
Dekko.
"A.
Stabs,
are the only
ones that don't need all this stuff because they're the only ones that're
adjusted. They fit this crazy world of Files."

"Sometimes," said Kil, thinking of
Ellen.

"Yeah,
sometimes," agreed Dekko. "Now listen, there's more to
it
than that.
There's
all kinds of different
Societies, but there's "only one O.T.L. Now don't ask me what the letters
stand for, because I don't know. Maybe even the O.T.L.'s themselves don't know.
But O.T.L.'s about forty years old and it sits right at the head of all the
other Societies. All the important ones got members who're members of O.T.L.
O.T.L. can do anything, except find Files. They can probably find your
wife." He paused, a little significantly. "Ever think she might be a
member of something herself?"

"A member?"

"Of some
Society."

"No, of course—I don't think—" Kil
dwindled off on a doubtful note.

"It sounds like it. That old man coming
up—"

"Wait!"
cried Kil. "I think I've got something. I mentioned it to that man McElroy
at the Police Headquarters, but he didn't believe me. Is there any Society that
doesn't wear Keys?" He stopped before something strange and brilliant and
unfathomable in Dekko's eyes.

"Society
without Keys?" said Dekko. "Are you psycho, Kil? How could anyone
live, Society or no Society, without a Key, even if the Police'd let them? You
were—what makes you think there's something like that?"

"The
old man who took Ellen away hadn't any Key on his wrist."

"You were looking at the wrong
arm." "No," said Kil stubbornly. "No, I wasn't."

"Then you hit a blind spot.
Listen," Dekko leaned forward earnestly. "Everything in this world's
got a door, right?" "Yes," admitted Kil, grudgingly.

"And
every door's got a cup? And you can't open that door without a Key to put in
that cup. If you didn't have
a
Key, it'd be like being in a city when your time was up. You couldn't
open anything. You couldn't get in to eat, or sleep, to get clothes, or draw
money or anything. That's why Files was set up the way it was. Anyone who
overstays their time in any one spot got to move or die. If there was any way
around it, there wouldn't be any point to Files."

"The
transportation system's open. You don't need
a
Key to take a rocket, or a mag ship," said Kil.

"What
good's that to you? So you can go to another city. But that city's closed, too.
Listen to me, Kil, if you don't have a Key, there's a billion doors closed
against you. You're locked out; locked out of
all the
world!"

Kil shook his head
stubbornly.

"I saw it," he
said.

"Sure,
think that if you want," Dekko straightened up.
"How
about it?
You want to try stringing a wire to the O.T.L.? Do you want to
hire me?"

Kil nodded.

"You're hired,"
he said. "How do we start?"

"Pasadena,
California; then the Thieves Guild, first," said Dekko. "You got to
join, you know.
Then some other Society, one of the big ones.
Then, if we can do it, the O.T.L."