Empire of Two Worlds Read online

  Grale and Reeth were running things. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Grale said thankfully when Bec appeared. “What do we do, fight or run?”

  “Run?” Bec snarled. “Run where? Think you can hide in Klittmann all your life? There won’t be any Basement to go to after this.”

  Reeth was looking at Bec sardonically. “You really did it, didn’t you? Thought you could take the whole city.” He shook his head, smiled ruefully.

  “Shut up!” Bec roared, and hit him across the face.

  Reeth didn’t seem perturbed or surprised. Bec was dialling on the vision phone, trying to get Bissey.

  Eventually there came the hiss of the audio line but the paper screen remained a blank square of luminescence. This time Bissey wasn’t showing himself.

  “Yes?” a grunting, whispering voice said.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Bissey?” Bec demanded in hard tones. “This wasn’t in the deal.”

  For answer there was only a dry laugh.

  “I’ll ruin your organics!” Bec fumed. “You won’t get one pint of it back!”

  “Stop kicking, little man,” the dry husky voice said distantly from the vision phone. “Me, I’m just a small-time tank owner. But there are some pretty big boys up in the pile. They didn’t like what you did. They wouldn’t even let me go through with it, when they heard about it. They’re making up the nutrient you stole. So enjoy yourself while you still got time.”

  The line went dead.

  Bec brooded.

  So did I. Bissey’s whispering voice was still in my ears. It was an all too painful lesson in the power that resided in Klittmann, the power that Becmath had so badly underestimated.

  The muffled explosions seemed to be getting louder and sharper. Shouts of consternation could be heard in the garages. Apparently the lid was cracking.

  “I didn’t see our sloop out there,” Bec said at last. “Have you sent it out?”

  “No, there didn’t seem any point against the fleet out there,” Reeth told him. “Anyway, we were waiting for you to get back.”

  “You did the right thing. Is it armed up and everything?”

  “Yes. Ready to go.”

  “Put extra rations in. All we’ve got.”

  “Rations? What for?”

  “Do what I tell you,” Bec snapped. “Doesn’t anything get through to you? After today our supply of everything is cut off.”

  Reeth went away to arrange things. Grale was still hovering around, nervous but tough.

  “We’re taking the sloop and making a break for it,” Bec told him. “Just eight or nine of us. Tell the rest of the guys they’d better filter out through the back way while they can.”

  “Hell, why?” Grale said with a grin. “Let them klugs take what’s coming. They’ll help draw fire from us.”

  Bec gave him a hard look that meant business and then turned to me. “We’re taking the alchemist with us. Come and help me persuade him.”

  The laboratory was reached by a stairway in the corner of the garage where the sloop was kept. Reeth and a couple of others were throwing protein packs in its storage space as we went past. I admired its long black torpedo shape one last time, then we were clattering down the stairs.

  Harmen seemed to be only vaguely aware of the events that were going on above his head. Usually he had half a dozen different experiments going, but this time there was only one. He sat at a table, making adjustments on a panel of dials. In the centre of the table was a big globular discharge tube — though he called them retorts, not discharge tubes — with at least half a dozen necks growing from it at the end of each of which was an electrode. Actually as I looked closer the retort was not globular at all, but was made up of a number of different cavities fitted together. Every few seconds the electrodes discharged in a rapid sequence with a loud shuuush and the globe flamed up. In the centre something was writhing and running through a spectrum of colours.

  For a few moments we were captivated by the sight and didn’t speak. With each shuuuush the writhing gas in the retort seemed to be taking a more definite shape. Then, for several fleeting seconds, it took on the firm, tiny form of a human being. The body was a gay reddish colour. It was bedecked in multi-coloured garments and it looked up at us, its arms spread towards us appealingly.

  A shuddering gasp escaped me. Then the minuscule thing dissolved again into a writhing, formless cloud of colour. Harmen turned to us with a smile.

  “Merely a phantom, I’m afraid. But my first step towards the creation of the Androgyne. It is possible, by means of a recipe now lost, to grow real flesh and blood homunculi that are no bigger than what you have just seen. However, they require special environments and so cannot be let out of their glass bottles.”

  “Don’t say that in front of Klein, you’ll make him nervous,” Bec warned him. “I’ve got bad news for you, Harmen.” Briefly he explained the situation.

  “It always comes to this,” the alk said regretfully, pursing his lips. “Among the original migrants who came to Killibol were a large number of American and German gangsters. It is the only tradition that has survived all these centuries. Yet to leave all this. …” He indicated the workroom with an expansive wave of his arm.

  Suddenly Bec’s tone became urgent and he glanced at me worriedly as he spoke. “Remember what we were talking about the other day?” he said to Harmen. “You know — the location?”

  “Yes?” Harmen’s eyebrows rose.

  “Well, bring whatever instruments would be useful. And maps.”

  “You intend …?”

  “No,” Bec replied hurriedly. “It’s just that we have to have all options open.”

  All this was mystifying to me, but I took no notice. I was too conscious of what was going on overhead. Harmen rooted around and filled our arms with apparatus. Himself he just carried a few books and scrolls.

  The garage was all but deserted. Bec’s gang had all fled except the few he had detailed to man the sloop. We piled in and took our places. Bec ordered Harmen to hide in the storage hold.

  We piled into the main garage where the lid was thumping and shaking under the impact of Hacker shells. It had held up pretty well; but now it was disintegrating. In places we could see the light coming in from outside.

  “Right, just hold it,” Bec said. “Let’s hope she’ll still move.”

  He got out of the sloop and made for the lid switch. At that moment there was a cry from behind us. Tone the Taker came staggering out of a doorway, clutching a box to his chest.

  “Take me with you!” he yelled desperately. “Don’t leave me here!”

  Bec shrugged and gestured with his thumb for Tone to board. Then he pulled the switch. There was a heavy whine of motors.

  The lid was beginning to lift when he scrambled back breathlessly into the driving seat. The sloop surged forward, straight for the mass of steel and concrete.

  Our acceleration, of course was terrific. The lid grumbled up then stuck with just enough clearance. In what seemed like the blink of an eyelid we were in the forecourt and among the cops.

  They sure were surprised by our appearance. They didn’t know about the sloop, and it was better than anything they had. Our big Hacker guns barked destruction as we raced past. Then we were streaking down the main thoroughfare, heading for the Southside ramp and the First Level Ring Road.

  At that point I began wondering what Bec’s destination was, where he intended to go and what he intended to do. Our only asset was the sloop; apart from that we were at the end of the road.

  We made an entire circuit of the Ring Road at high speed, occasionally knocking aside other vehicles by sheer momentum, before the cops latched on to us again.

  An explosion rocked the sloop. Bec wheeled us about, sped off the Ring Road into a narrower street where we were less exposed. Three cop-ships were on our tail.

  I have to say this for Bec, his driving was terrific. I never knew the cops had as many sloops as they turned on us that da
y. We accounted for four, I think. Bec threw us up and down streets almost too narrow for us to go, and his judgment never faltered.

  But the cops were cute too. They were edging us towards where they wanted us to go: the rim of the city. I know now that Bec accepted this with a kind of resignation; he had nowhere else to go.

  Smoke was filling the inside of the sloop from all the firing we had been doing. The sloop slowed down, the motors idling. Suddenly I realised with a start that we were on the edge of a great empty concourse which ended in a great locked valve-like portal thirty feet in diameter.

  We were near Klittmann’s one and only exit.

  Four or five police vehicles were parked in a ragged line some hundreds of feet away, keeping a respectful distance. To my surprise a cop stepped out and put a loud-hailer to his mouth.

  His words floated towards us, faint and distorted.

  “This city doesn’t want you, Becmath. There’s no place for you here. …”

  Now the sloop had stopped. We all looked at Becmath, wondering what was happening. Then our eyes left him. Something was happening. The great lid of the exit valve was sliding smoothly up. Through the gaping circle we could see landscape — outside: dim, grey, cold.

  The initial glimpse of that is an unforgettable experience to a Killibol city-man. For an Earthman, it would be like looking down a vast gaping chasm that has no bottom.

  “You knew,” I said accusingly to Bec. “You knew all the time.”

  “No!” Grale shouted. “Fight it out! Go down fighting!”

  I don’t think Bec heard either of us. A shell exploded nearby. He put the sloop in motion. We gathered speed, heading inexorably for the portal. Had the cops herded us here, I wondered, or had Bec lured them here? We lunged over the slight rise in the ground and sped through the great circle. Out. Into the dimness. The cold. The bare, dead rock.

  And that was how we came to be expelled from Klittmann.

  Four

  Outside the light is always a little dimmer than we keep it in Klittmann, but our eyes quickly grew accustomed to it. On that first day, however, we kept the sloop’s lights burning. The sun was sinking in the sky.

  Day and night on Killibol go through a cycle of fifteen hours. When darkness fell Becmath kept on driving, seeing his way by means of headlights. Me, I settled down to sleep. When I woke the sun was up again and Bec was still driving. The alk was in the seat next to him, a map spread out on the dashboard. He was consulting a funny little instrument with a wavering needle.

  Reeth handed me a slab of protein. I bit into it and enjoyed the fruity flavour. But it was soon gone and not much of a breakfast. While I ate I weighed up the bunch I was stuck with for good or ill.

  Excluding Harmen and Tone the Taker, the four of us were part of the inner circle Becmath kept around him. There was Grale: flashy and boorish. He had a knack of being the first to move and of winding up with the biggest piece. I had a bad relationship with him. Then there was Hassmann, a big, bull-like type, not too bright but dependable if there wasn’t much thinking to be done. He was the kind who never questioned an order but got on with the job.

  Brightest of the three was Reeth. I got along with him best. He was what I call a reasonable guy.

  They were all slum-bred, hard, and they could be cruel. But they were capable, and if a thing could be done they could do it. All the more so because they were schooled in Becmath’s special kind of leadership and organisation. In a word, they were smart and knew a lot. In any tight spot they were the people I would choose to have with me. If there was any crack in this ruthless world where we could crawl, they were the guys to take advantage of it. The trouble was I didn’t believe there was a crack.

  Coming to Bec, he was smarter than them all, smarter than anybody. Among normal men Bec was sharp like a knife. I don’t think any of us even felt resentful about his dragging us with him in his downfall. Big men make big mistakes.

  I swallowed the last of the protein. “O.K.,” I heard Bec say to the alk, “we’ll keep going till we hit the river.”

  At that moment he apparently saw something through the window because he swerved sharply and slowed down to a crawl.

  My pulse quickened when I took a look. There was a girl out there, walking along alone. When she saw us she ran. Bec drew alongside her and we shouted out to her, calling her names. I could hear her panting as she tried to get away.

  “It’s a nomad girl!” Bec said in excitement.

  “Hey, pretty thing, you,” Grale called, pulling down a window. “Come on, don’t be coy.”

  “Fetch her in, boys.” Bec pulled up to a stop.

  A couple of the boys jumped out and grabbed her. They dragged her into the sloop and held her against the side panelling.

  She glared at us hotly, defiantly. She wasn’t wearing much, just a tattered gown that left one leg and one breast bare. When she moved it showed even more. Nomad girls have no sense of modesty, so I’d heard.

  “Hey, she’s good looking,” Bec gloated. “Now listen, girl, with you out here on your own, and on foot too, your people can’t be far away. Probably on the other side of that hill, right?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Let me take her in the back,” I urged, “I’ll screw it out of her.”

  Bec chuckled, half frowning. “That wouldn’t scare a nomad girl. First things first, Klein, plenty of time for that later.”

  Suddenly she spoke. “Yeah, over the hill. Just right over.”

  “You’d better be telling me the truth, now.” Bec wiped his mouth, looking speculatively at the low ground on the mid-horizon. “Listen, honey, we’re going over the hill, and you’ll show me which are the protein vans. Get it? You won’t get hurt. If we grab one,” he explained unnecessarily, “we can eat for good.”

  Motors whining, we crept up the hill, pausing on the crest. The girl pointed and giggled. “There!”

  The nomad camp was down below sure enough. But we didn’t linger for long. There was too much of it. Great vans and prime movers scattered about in the dust. And they spotted us almost as soon as we emerged over the rise. There was a puff as a mortar shell came whizzing our way.

  Bec heaved on the wheel and we roared frantically down towards the plain. I shook the girl by the shoulders. “Pretty girl, you’re taking a big risk by trying that on!”

  “Well, boys,” Becmath said sombrely, “that’s what we can expect from nomad tribes, anybody big enough to have protein tanks. Banditry no good for us. O.K., we continue. We still got Plan A.”

  This was the first I’d heard of Plan A, but at that moment I had other things stirring me besides the threat of starvation. I dragged the nomad girl to the back of the driving cabin.

  “What’s your name, warm-belly?” I said, feeling her arms.

  “Gelbore.”

  “Well, Gelbore, you’ll never see your people again.”

  She was scared and lost, but trying to put a good face on it.

  “So who worries?” she said brashly. She leaned against me, pressing into me gently.

  “Maybe we’ll starve. If so, you’ll starve.” Now I was fondling her uncovered breast. Perhaps it was the strangeness of the situation, but it made me feel dizzy, more dizzy than any woman ever had before.

  Becmath spoke to me over his shoulder. “Don’t get ideas, Klein. That woman cuts down our rations.”

  We were a good way from the nomad camp by now. Gelbore stared woefully out of the window, at the grey terrain and the receding hills.

  “They’re shifting out soon! If you drop me off I’ll not walk back in time!”

  “You’re asking for favours. We haven’t even got time to stop when we throw you off.”

  If you hit the ground at seventy miles per hour, I reckon your chances are something less than hopeful. Gelbore went limp in my arms when she heard this death sentence. Her head drooped.

  “Hell, what difference does it make?” I objected. “If we die, we die, having her along won’t change a
nything. Pity to waste her now we got her.”

  He was silent for some moments. Then he sighed, and shrugged. “You win. Stop worrying, little girl. For the time being anyway.”

  I took her back, past the motor housings, the magazine lockers, into the store hold. “It was me who fixed things for you,” I murmured. She muttered words I didn’t hear.

  I stripped her robe off and it was really good, my hips grinding against hers. When it was over I found myself gazing at her face. For the first time I saw Gelbore as a person.

  Becmath never seemed to need sleep. He insisted on driving the sloop himself most of the time, day and night. He would hand the wheel to myself, Reeth or Grale for a while, but four or five hours later he would be back and carry on sometimes for a twenty-hour stretch.

  I was wondering what Tone would do when he ran out of pop. He had a store of it in the box he never let out of his sight, but it couldn’t last for ever. Every so often he’d disappear into the back to give himself a shot. We never mentioned it, except Grale who used to taunt him sometimes.

  It wasn’t long before we all lost patience with Bec’s silence. We wanted answers. Maybe we’d kept silence this far because of a hidden fear that there weren’t any answers, that Bec had no ideas.

  But life in the sloop was monotonous and we were starting to quarrel. More and more often Bec had to intervene to quieten us down. Eventually Reeth retorted: “Listen, boss, we want to know where we’re going.”

  “Feeling hungry, huh?” A hint of amusement came to Bec’s face.

  “You bet we’re hungry,” Hassmann complained. “What we’re eating wouldn’t keep a dog alive.”

  Bec nodded distantly, as if his thoughts were far away. “So you want food. O.K., then listen to this. There’s a place where food grows on the ground from horizon to horizon. When you walk you’re treading it underfoot, you can’t see the floor for everything that’s growing there. Food just for the picking up. The name of that place is Earth.”

  Grale gave him a pained look. “Earth? Don’t kid us on, boss, we’re not stupid.”