The Man Who Lost the Sea (10 page)

He saw the banks of course-coin dispensers, where any planet’s coin could be acquired by anyone … well, almost any planet by almost anyone. Spell out the name of the planet on a keyboard, and in seconds the coin would drop into a glass chamber below the board. Inspect it through the glass, and if it bore the right name, press your thumb into a depression at the right (your thumb would identify you for billing later) and the chamber opened. Or if you’d miscued it and saw the wrong coin, or changed your mind, hit the reject button and the coin would be returned to the bank.

So he punched out K-E-T-H, and a blank disc dropped into the chamber.
Proscribed
, a lighted sign under the chamber announced.

“Oh, my goodness, you don’t want that one!” cried the girl.

“No,” said Deeming truthfully—of all planets in the universe, Keth was the most unspeakable. ‘I just wanted to see what happened if you punched for it.”

“You draw a blank,” said the girl, touching the reject button and clearing the chamber. “Proscribed coins aren’t even in this area. They’re kept separately in a guarded file room. Do you want to see it? Angel Abdasel is the guard; he’s so nice.”

Deeming’s heart leaped. “Yes, I’d like that. But … don’t make me talk to an Angel. They make me feel … you’re not going to like this …”

“Tell me.”

“They make me feel small.”

“I’m not angry at that!” She laughed. “They make me feel small too! Well, come on.”

They took a grey tube and floated to the upper level of the low building, then walked through a labyrinth of corridors and through a door marked STAFF ONLY, which the girl opened for him, waving him through with mock gestures of pride and privilege. At the end of the corridor was a stairway leading down; Deeming could see the corner of an outer exit down there, and floodlit shrubbery. Near the top of the stairs was an open doorway; through it Deeming got a glimpse of gold. There was an Angel in there. Deeming stepped close to the wall, out of the Angel’s line of sight. “Is this the place?”

“Yes,” she said. “Come on—don’t be shy; Abdasel’s ever so nice.” She tapped at the doorpost. “Abdasel …”

The resonant voice in the room was warm and welcoming. “Tandy! Come in, child.”

So her name’s Tandy, thought Deeming dully.

She said, “I’ve brought a friend. Could we …?”

“Any friend of …”

Deeming had Rockhard’s specially designed needler out before he moved to the doorway. He rested it against the doorframe and put his head forwards only far enough to sight it with one eye. He fired, and the needle disappeared silently into the broad golden chest. There had been no warning for the Angel, and no time. He bent his head in amazement as if to look at his chest while a hand rose to touch it. The hand simply stopped. The whole Angel stopped.

“Abdasel …?” whispered the girl, puzzled. She stepped into the room. “Angel Ab …” She must then have sensed something new in her companion’s tense posture. She turned to him and eyed the needler in his hand, and the frozen Angel. “Did … did you—?”

“Too bad, Tandy,” he rasped. “Too damn bad.” He was breathing
hard and his eyes burned. He dashed tears away from them with his free hand furiously.

“You hurt him,” she said dazedly.

“He never felt a thing. He’ll get over it. You know I have to kill you?” he blurted in sudden agony.

She didn’t scream, or faint, or even look horrified. She simply said, “Do you?” in open puzzlement.

He got her out of the way then, not daring to wait a second more for fear he might debate the matter. He closed his mind down to a single icy purpose and lived solely with it while he pawed over the Angel’s desk for an index. He found it—a complete list of Proscribed planets. He recognized the small keyboard beside the computer for what it was, a junior version of the dispensers downstairs, lacking the thumb plate which identified the purchaser.

He took the Angel’s hand. The long arm was heavy, stiff, and noticeably cold—not surprising considering the amount of heat absorbing
athermine
particles which the needle was even yet feeding into his bloodstream. It was enough to freeze an ordinary human solid in minutes, but he had Rockhard’s assurance that it would not kill an Angel. Not that he cared, or Rockhard either. For his purposes, the special needle was just as good either way.

He lifted the heavy hand and used one of its fingers to punch out the names of eight Proscribed planets, among then, of course, Revelo. He scooped them out of the receiving chute and dropped them in his pocket. Then he went to the door and stood holding his breath and listening intently. No sign of anyone in the corridor.

He whipped off his jacket and reversed it, slipped the inserts in his heels, removed the moustache and contact lenses, and stepped out into the corridor. He did not look back (because all he could see whether he looked or not was what lay crumpled on the floor smiling. Smiling, through some accident of spasm—a cruel accident which would mark his inner eye, his inner self, forever).

He went downstairs and out into the night, not hurrying.

He walked towards the park, numb inside except for that old, cold unhappiness which always signaled his successes. He remembered thinking that this was only because the take was so small.
Well, he needed to think of a better one than that now.

His sky pressed down on his skull and nape. He watched each step he took and knew which step to take next.

It was very dark.

He found the road and then the milepost by the bridge. The people he had passed paid him no attention. When he was quite sure he was unobserved he slipped into the underbrush and through it to the meadow. He found the sloping ridge at the lip of the gully and moved along it, seeing mostly with his leg muscles and his semi-circular canals. He drew his needler because it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it; he moved silently because there was such a thing as a statistical improbability, and when he reached the point over the hiding place of his boat, he got down on his stomach and lay still, listening.

He heard only the gurgle of the water.

He got out his pencil torch, and held it in the same hand as the needler, clamping them tightly together and parallel, so that anywhere the light beam struck could be the exact target for a needle. Then walking his elbows, worming his abdomen, he crept to the edge and looked down.

Pitch black. Nothing.

He aimed the needler and torch as close as he could to where the ship ought to be, put his thumb ready on the stud, and with his other hand found the light switch and clicked it on.

The narrow beam shot downwards. He was well oriented. The circle of white picked out the boat and the ground around it, and the figure of the Angel who sat in a patient posture on top of the boat.

The angel looked up and smiled. “Hello, friend.”

“Hello,” said Deeming, and shot him. The Angel sat where he was, smiling up into the light, his eyes puckered from the glare. For a long moment nothing happened, and then, with head still up, and still smiling, the Angel toppled rigidly off the lifeboat and pitched backwards into the rocky streambed.

Deeming turned out the light and clambered slowly down into the dark. He fumbled his way to the boat, unlocked the canopy with
the pre-set palm pattern, and climbed in. Then he cursed and climbed out again and found the water’s edge and fumbled along it until his hands found the soft, strong folds of the golden cloak. He blinked his light once, briefly, and studied the scene as it faded from his retinas. The Angel lay on his back, turned from the hips so that his legs still held the sitting position he had been in when shot. His head was still back, but Deeming had not seen the head; it was under water.

He heaved the big body, lifted it, shifted it until he was sure it was placed the way he wanted it. A man as big as this Angel would have been a sizeable load to move around; the Angel was a third again as heavy as that. (What
are
they, anyway?)

Then he got back into the boat and buttoned it up. He took his stolen course-coins and racked them neatly with the ones the ship already had. And for a while he sat and thought.

Hello, friend
.

Her name was Tandy
.

(Old eyes, pleading.)

“There’s a lot of money in yinyang weed.”

He shifted in annoyance and pressed his thumbs to his eyes until he saw sparks. These weren’t the thoughts he was after.

He ran his hand over the coin rack and slipped his fingers behind it to touch the new flicker-frequency coil which he had plugged in back there. In these tiny objects he had a potential possessed probably by no human being since time began. He had free and secret access to eight Proscribed planets, on some of which there was certainly material that someone, somewhere, would pay for exorbitantly—completely aside from yinyang weed. He could assume that he could not be traced from Ybo … no—no he couldn’t. Say rather that as far as he knew he couldn’t be traced; as far as he knew he had not been observed. The stories that were told about the Angels, how they could read minds, even newly dead minds … and then, for all their strength and confidence, for all their public stature, did they really feel that one Angel guarding the Proscribed coins would by his sole presence be sufficient to protect such potential devastation as those little discs represented? If he, Deeming, were setting up that office, Angels or no Angels, he’d put in cameras and alarms and
various interlocks, like a particular rhythm pattern for keying the wanted discs which no outsider could know about.

The more he pursued this line of thought, the less confidence he had that his trail was cold. The more he thought of this, the more sure he became that even if they could not follow immediately, they would have nets spread in more places than even his growing fear could conjure up.

What would he do if he were an Angel and wanted to catch the likes of Deeming?

First of all, he’d cordon off the Proscribed planets (assuming that the keyboard had made a record of what coins were taken; and it was unthinkable that it had not).

Then he’d put a watch on every place known to have been a haunt of the criminal—on the growing assumption that they could very soon find out who he was.

If they found out who he was, then special watches would be put on Rockhard, because the deal with Rockhard would certainly be discovered; it was too complex and involved too many people to be hidden for long, once the Angels had any lead at all.

Which meant that Earth was out, the Proscribed planets were out, Ybo and Bluebutter and anywhere else he’d ever been were out. He had to go to a new place, somewhere he had never been, where no one would know him, where there were lots of people to disappear among. Somehow, some way, he could think his way through to Don Rockhard and some, anyway, of the riches the old man had promised him.

He sighed and pawed through the coins on the rack until he came to the one marked Iolanthe. A big planet, a little hard on the muscles for comfort, but well crowded and totally new to him.

He dropped it into the slot and coined out of there.

Iolanthe was really up to the minute. He came out of flicker with about a mile of altitude and took a quick look around before he flicked to the nightside. With a design as unique as the ship’s, he wouldn’t want to leave it where it would cause comment. So he hung in the sky and fanned through the communications the planet had to offer.

They were plenty. There was a fine relief map of the planet on perpetual emanation in conjunction with the space beacon, and a wonderful radio grid, so it was easy to place himself. There was an entertainment band and best of all, a news band—a broad one, set up in video frames, each with its audio loop of comment. He could tune in any page of the entire sequence. It was indexed and extremely well edited to cover both current news and background, local and intercultural events.

He started with the most recent bulletins and worked backwards. There was nothing, and nothing, and nothing that might apply to him, not even a date line from anywhere he’d been. Until suddenly he found himself gaping into the face of Richard E. Rockhard.

He turned up the audio.

“… indicted yesterday by C Jury of Earth High Court,” said the announcer suavely, “on one hundred and eleven counts of restraint of trade, illegal interlocked directorates, price pegging, monopoly, market manipulation …” on and on and on. Apparently the old pirate had blown his balloon too big. “… estimated value of Mr. Rockhard’s estate and holdings has been estimated in excess of two and three quarter billions, but in the face of these charges it is evident that the satisfaction of invoices outstanding, accounts receivable, taxes and penalties will in all likelihood total to a far higher figure than the assets. These assets are, of course, in government hands pending a detailed accounting.”

Slowly, his hands shaking, Deeming reached for the control and turned the communicator off. He watched, fascinated, as the ruddy, cold-eyed face of the old man faded away under his hand, distorted suddenly, and was gone. A trick of his mind, or of the fading electrons, shattered the picture as it was extinguished, and for the tiniest fraction of a second it assumed the wordless pleading which had moved him so deeply before.

“Stupid, clumsy old swine,” he growled, too shocked to think of anything really foul to say.

No money. There wasn’t anything except what the government held. He could see himself going to the government with a claim like his.

He pawed through the money the old man had given him for incidentals. He had used none of it so far, but it no longer looked like a lot. He crammed it back into his pocket and then shook himself hard.

I got to do something. I got to get down there and disappear.

He cut in the penetroscope and switched it to the video. The instrument resolved night views considerably better than it did images through beryl steel. He aimed it downwards and got a good sharp focus on the ground and began hunting out a place to hide his boat. He would want hilly or rocky ground, a lot of vegetative cover, access to road or river, and perhaps …