The Fellowship of the Hand (12 page)

Sitting back in her chair, still facing the blank screen of the vision-phone, she wondered what it would be like to meet Graham Axman. During these past months Euler’s talk had been of little else, and now that Axman was free at last she had the feeling that momentous events were waiting to transpire.

Yes, Graham Axman.

He was a man to meet.

But then the meeting came, on that midweek evening, and she was vaguely disappointed. She was even more disappointed when Axman came to her room later that night to pump her for information. Was this the man Euler had wanted so badly to free from prison? This wild-eyed devil who planned to attack the New White House?

She expressed her misgivings to Euler the following morning at breakfast, while Graham Axman wandered alone out by the fields. “He wanted me, Euler. He wanted me against you. He wanted sex, and more than that.”

“You may be exaggerating. He’s been in prison for several months, and that might have contributed to his sexual frustrations, but he’ll be all right.”

“He hardly sounded like it yesterday. Euler, I believe in HAND, I believe in what you’re fighting for, but Graham Axman will tear the organization apart! Before you know it you’ll be bickering like Stanley Ambrose and Jason Blunt. You’ll be holding your own secret election!”

“It’s hardly gone that far,” he said, trying to reassure her. “HAND is Graham’s organization, after all. I’m sure he’s only trying to do what he thinks is right.”

“HAND
was
Graham’s organization, Euler. Now it’s yours. You have to lead it.”

“We’ll see.”

Axman returned at that moment, striding through the sliding door of the little kitchen and robbing his hands together. “It’s brisk out there! Don’t they have climate control in this part of the country?”

“Not this far out,” Euler told him.

Axman took some coffee from the masterbrew. “How are you this morning, Milly? Have a goodnight’s sleep?”

“Very good, thanks.” She avoided his eyes, not knowing how much he might have overheard.

“A good night’s sleep is what I needed. I’m beginning to shake off the prison pallor. A bit more sleep and sun and I’ll be back to my old self.”

Milly’s eyes narrowed as she weighed his words. He did indeed seem improved from the previous evening, but she wondered if it was a true improvement or only some sort of act. Euler had told her once of Axman’s acting experience in his youth, when his father produced shows on the island of Plenish. His whole new attitude might be nothing more than the work of a clever actor.

But how was she to know?

“Glad to hear it,” Euler was saying. “Do we go ahead, then?”

Axman nodded. “We’ll start planning the attack on this underground computer complex. President McCurdy can wait.”

They shook hands, and in Euler Frost’s face Milly could see a reflection of old times.

But still she wondered.

She went back to Sunsite on the weekend, and settled into the office routine once more. It was not the busy period at the tax office—payment schedules were always planned so that nothing came due during the month before elections—and so she passed her time on Monday in conversation with the other programmers, thinking up elaborate lies to explain her absence of a few days.

That night, as she entered her apartment after a quick computerized dinner at the office, the vision-phone was buzzing. She answered it at once, expecting to see a girlfriend’s familiar face. Instead, there was only a hazy blur on the screen. Some joker was covering the lens, which probably meant an obscene call.

“Milly—how are you?”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t you recognize my voice, Milly?”

“No.” And yet there was something about it …

“It’s Stanley. Stanley Ambrose.”

“My God! Let me see you!”

The haze fell away from the screen and her eyes focused on the dim, uncertain presence of Stanley Ambrose. How long had it been? Six years?

“How do I look, Milly?”

“I … don’t know. Different.”

“I want to see you.”

“Sure. Where are you?”

“Here.”

“In Sunsite?”

“Yes.”

She could feel her heart thumping. Seeing old friends—old lovers—always affected her like this. “When can we get together?”

“Tonight. I want to see you tonight, Milly. Can you meet me?”

Panic gripped her as she sought for an excuse. “Gee, this is a rain night. We have climate control, and the rain is supposed to start around eleven.”

“Milly, this is
Stanley,
I want to
see
you!”

“Well, hell, you’ve been back a year and now you’re in a big rush all of a sudden! I’m supposed to drop everything and run off to meet you!”

“I can’t explain it, Milly. I’ve had some business matters.”

“I heard about them.”

“You did? From where?”

“We’ll talk about it. Where are you?”

“In the amusement area. I’m calling from a booth near the rocket ride.”

“Can’t you come here?”

“I think your place is being watched, Milly. I have many enemies these days.”

“All right. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

She remembered to wear her waterproof cape in the event she wasn’t back before the eleven o’clock rain started. These things weren’t exact, and on some Monday nights the rain had been known to begin nearly an hour early.

The streets of Sunsite were almost empty as she took the moving sidewalk to the amusement area. Monday was never a big night for going out, and since it had been designated a rain night there was one more reason to keep people at home. As she neared the amusement area on the south side of the town the sidewalk became a bit more crowded, mostly with teen-age girls in bodysuits and dyed hair, prowling in groups while waiting for the boys to appear. Among teen-agers there was always action, even on rain nights. It made her think of her own teen years, and then surprisingly of Earl Jazine. She’d known him so briefly, but he was something like the boys she used to date, before the Treker days.

There were few older people at the amusement area, and she wondered why Stanley had picked it for a meeting place. Moving past the pneumatic merry-go-round and the gravity house, she tried to get her bearings. Without children, and too old to date the teen-age boys, she’d had little reason to come here. The place was strange to her, a dream of strobe lights and screaming kids and signs that urged one to
Walk on the Moon Just Like Spacemen
or
Experience Anti-Gravity for Only a Dollar!
It was like another planet, but perhaps that was its purpose.

She passed the mirror maze and the electric tumble, and finally spotted the rocket ride she sought. At first she saw no one resembling Stanley Ambrose, but then as she neared her destination he stepped out from the shelter of a dime-up machine.

“Hello, Milly.”

“Stanley.” Her eyes tried to focus on him in the garish light, but she could see only a pleasant, smiling figure who seemed to have no relation to her. He’d lost weight, and his face was drawn, and when he spoke his voice had an odd, far-off quality.

“It’s good to see you again.”

“Stanley, where have you been so long?”

“I’m engaged in some secret activities. I’ve had to live underground.”

“Underground? In an underground city?”

“You know about that?”

There was something wrong, something with his voice. It was almost as if she were speaking to a robot. “Yes, I know about it,” she said, and reached out to touch his hand, to reassure herself that he was indeed human.

“What else do you know?”

“The election—I heard about that. Did you win?”

He didn’t answer.

“Stanley—why did you want to see me again?” She wished now that she had phoned Euler before leaving the apartment. Euler—or even Jason Blunt. Somebody!

“I had to find out whose side you were on, Milly. There are sides to everything these days, you know.”

“I was on your side for a long time, Stanley. But you deserted me, remember?”

“You could have come with me to Venus.

The rocket ride had started up again, igniting his ashen face with the reflection of bright orange fire. “No. No, I couldn’t have done that,” she mumbled.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s just that you’re a stranger to me, Stanley. It’s as if I didn’t know you. I guess six years is too long a time.”

Too long.

“I’m the same person, Milly.”

No, you’re not!

“No, you’re not, Stanley. None of us stay the same. We grow and mature and drift apart.”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

“Not really. I didn’t stay celibate waiting your return, if that’s what you mean. But there’s no one person. No one who’ll ever be as close to me as you were.

His right hand dipped into his pocket and came out holding an electric lighter. He fumbled for a short cigar and lit it quickly. She watched the hand as it deposited the lighter in an inner pocket and returned to view. “Smoking,” he mumbled by way of explanation. “These damned cigars are one more bad habit I acquired on Venus.”

“Yes.” She had to get away. Somehow she had to escape from him.

“You seem terribly nervous. Is that what seeing me again does to you?”

A voice cut through the night, suddenly all around them.
“Attention please! The amusement area will close in ten minutes due to rain night! We repeat, the amusement area will close in ten minutes!”

“I have to go,” she said quickly. “The rain will be starting.”

“Wait.” He put out his hand to touch her, but she backed away.

“It was good seeing you again, Stanley. Good seeing you. Too bad we couldn’t …”

She turned and started to run, losing herself in the departing crowd. When she paused to look back he was gone, and she sighed with relief.

Now to get out of here and back to the apartment. She’d be safe there, and she could phone Euler. The crowd was thinning, almost all gone. She’d have to hurry.

The first drop of rain hit her forehead.

Damn! Early again! A full half hour early! She hurried toward the exit and the moving sidewalk that would take her home.

That was when she saw the man with the tattooed face. He was standing by the exit gate with both hands plunged deep into his pockets. He seemed to be waiting for someone, and in that instant—seeing her—he began to move forward.

She glanced around, looking for help, but there was none. The place was deserted, with the last of the stragglers scattered by the rain. Even Stanley was gone. It was as if the earth had swallowed them all up.

Tears of rain blurred her vision. Don’t panic, she told herself. Just don’t panic. Perhaps this is a different tattooed man, not the one who tried to kill Earl Jazine. Surely more than one person in the country had a tattoo on his face. Surely …

The closest building was the mirror maze, and she ran to that. The thick slabs of glass were unbreakable here, tempered to withstand a stunner’s blast or even an old-fashioned bullet. It was the safest place she could be, really, behind this unbreakable glass where he could see her but never reach her.

She darted through the entrance and slid the glass door shut behind her, locking it. He was still coming toward her, but he wouldn’t be for long. The glass would protect her.

But still he came, walking slowly, and she retreated farther into the maze, putting extra layers of glass between them but still keeping him in view.

She looked around, seeking some alarm switch, or at least a light switch which could cloak her in darkness, but they were back by the door. Too far away.

He was at the glass now, and even at this distance she could see the bright curving tattoo around his left cheek. Perhaps it covered a scar, or marked him as an eastern prince. Perhaps if she knew him she wouldn’t be terrified at all.

All over the amusement area, the neons and strobes were beginning to die, blinking out as some unseen hand worked a switch. In another moment the mirror maze would be dark too, and then he could no longer look in through the glass at her.

Another minute.

No longer.

She saw his hand come out of the pocket, as Stanley’s had done. Only this hand held a weapon, a squat little gun—too small to be a stunner.

She recognized it just as the tattooed man pulled the trigger, and by then it was too late to run.

The laser beam passed through the layers of glass without breaking them, seeking her out with unerring accuracy. She tried to scream as it hit her, but there was no time now. No ti——

E
VEN WHEN THE NEWS
of Graham Axman’s daring escape reached him, Crader did not alter his routine. It was a Saturday, after all, and he’d promised to spend the weekend at home with his wife.

“Don’t worry,” he told Jazine on the vision-phone. “You warned the prison. We did everything we could.”

“But he’s out, chief. He’s back with HAND.”

“Keep me advised of developments. For now we just sit tight.”

“Right, chief,” Jazine said with a sigh and switched off.

Crader left the vision-phone and went back outside to the patio, where his wife was enjoying one of the last warm weekends of fall. “More work, dear?” she asked from her vibrochair.

“Not really. Nothing that need concern me today.”

“That’s good. Let some of the younger men handle things for a change.”

He grunted and returned to his video viewer. He’d been running a cassette of the 2036 Olympic Games, but now it was difficult to concentrate on the running, jumping figures. He thought about HAND, and about Graham Axman once more in control.

It was an opinion he had never communicated even to Jazine, much less to the President, but Carl Crader believed there was a great deal of good in the goals of Humans Against Neuter Domination. He had believed it ever since his first encounter with Euler Frost on the island of Plenish during the transvection affair, and it was an opinion that had been strengthened during the HAND raid on the Federal Medical Center. He allowed Frost to escape that time, in the smoke and confusion of the moment, and he’d never regretted that decision. The machines really were taking over the country—not in the sudden dramatic revolt of science fiction dreams, but rather in a slow, insidious seepage that every year, every
day,
robbed the human being of one more shred of self-esteem.