No, he thought. Don't.
He stumbled as he snatched at the hazy, small loop which connected the two environments, entrance to the 'scuttler tube.
The red glow of an aimed laser-beam passed over his head.
You missed me, he thought in terror. But - he clawed! for the entrance, found it, began to struggle back through. But next time. Next time!
'Stop,' he shouted at her without looking at heir. His voice echoed in the bee-zooming plain of flowers.
The second laser-beam caught him in the back.
He put his hand out, saw it pass through the haze and disappear beyond. It was safe, but he was not. She had killed him; it was too late, now, too late to get away from her. Why didn't she wait ? he asked himself. Find out who I was ? Must have been afraid.
Again the laser-beam nicked. It touched the back of his head and that was that. There was no returning for him, no reentry into the safety of the tube.
Rick Erickson was dead.
Standing on the far side, in the tube of Dr Sands' Jiffi-scuttler, Stuart Hadley waited nervously, then saw Rick Erickson's fingers jerk through the wall near the floor; the fingers writhed, and
Hadley stooped down and grabbed Erickson by the wrist. Trying to get back, he realized, and pulled Erickson by the arm with all his strength. It was a corpse that he drew into the tube beside him.
Horrified, Hadley rose unsteadily to his feet; he saw the two clean holes and knew that Erickson had been killed with a laser rifle, probably from a distance. Stumbling down the tube, Hadley reached the controls of the 'scuttler and cut the power off; the shimmer of the entrance hoop at once vanished, and he knew or hoped - that now they, whoever they were who had murdered
Rick Erickson, could not follow him through.
'Pethel!' he shouted. 'Come down here!' He ran to Erickson's work bench and the intercom. 'Mr.
Pethel,' he said, 'come back down here to the basement right away. Erickson's dead.'
The next he knew, Darius Pethel stood beside him, examining the body of the repairman. 'He must have found it,' Pethel muttered, ashen-faced and trembling. 'Well, he got paid for his nosiness; he sure got paid.'
'We better get the police,' Hadley said.
'Yes.' Pethel nodded vacantly. 'Of course. I see you turned it off. Good thing. We better leave it strictly alone. The poor guy, the poor goddam guy; look at what he got for being smart enough to figure it all out. Look, he's got something in his hand.' He bent down, opening Erickson's fingers.
The dead hand held a wad of grass.
'No org-trans operation can help him, either,' Pethel said. 'Because the beam caught him in the head. Got his brain. Too bad.' He glanced at Stuart Hadley. 'Anyhow the best org-trans surgeon is Sands and he isn't going to do anything to help Erickson. You can make book on that.'
'A place where there's grass,' Hadley murmured, touching the contents of the dead man's hand.
'Where can it be ? Not on Earth. Not now, anyway.'
'Must be the past,' Pethel said. 'So we've got time-travel. Isn't it great ?' His face twisted with grief. 'Terrific beginning, one good man dead. How many left to go ? Imagine a guy's reputation meaning that much to him, that he'd let this happen. Or maybe Sands doesn't know; maybe she was just given the laser gun to protect herself. In case his wife's private cops got to her. And anyhow, we don't know for sure if she did it; it could have been someone else entirely, not Cally
Vale at all. What do we know about it ? All we know is that Erickson is dead. And there was something basically wrong with the theory he was going on.'
'You can give Sands the benefit of the doubt, if you want,' Hadley said, 'but I'm not going to.' He stood up, then, taking a deep shuddering breath. 'Can we get the police, now ? You call them; I can't talk well enough to. You do it, Pethel, okay ?'
Unsteadily, Darius Pethel moved toward the phone on Erickson's work bench, his hand extended gropingly, as if his perception of touch had begun to disintegrate. He picked up the receiver, and then he turned to Stuart Hadley and said, 'Wait. This is a mistake. You know who we've got to call ? The factory. We have to tell Terran Development about this; it's what they're after. They come first.'
Hadley, staring at him, said, 'I - don't agree.'
This is more important than what you think or I think, more important than Sands and Cally
Vale, any of us.' Dar Pethel began to dial. 'Even if one of us is dead. That still doesn't matter.
You know what I'm thinking about ? Emigration. You saw the grass in Erickson's hand. You know what it means. It means the hell with that girl on the far side, or whoever it is over there who shot Erickson. It means the hell with any of us and all of us, our sentiments and opinions.'
He gestured. 'All our lives put together.'
Dimly, Stuart Hadley understood. Or thought he did. 'But she'll probably kill the next person who ...'
'Let TD worry about that,' Pethel said savagely. 'That's their problem. They've got company police, armed guards they use for patrol purposes; let them send them over, first.' His voice was low and harsh. 'Let them lose a few men, so what. The lives of millions of people are involved in this, now. You get that, Hadley ? Do you ?'
'Y-yes,' Hadley said, nodding.
'Anyhow,' Pethel said, more calmly, now, 'it's legitimately within the jurisdiction of TD because it look place within one of their 'scuttlers. Call it an accident; think of it that way. Unavoidable and awful. Between an entrance and an exit hoop. Naturally the company has to know.' He turned his back to Hadley, then, concentrating on the vidphone, calling Leon Turpin, the chief of
TD.
'I think,' Salisbury Heim said to his presidential candidate James Briskin, 'I have something cooking you won't like. I've been talking to George Walt...'
At once Jim Briskin said, 'No deal. Not with them. I know what they want and that's out, Sal.'
'If you don't do business with George Walt,' Heim said steadily, 'I'm going to have to resign as your campaign manager. I just can't take any more, not after that planet-wetting speech of yours.
Things are breaking too badly for us as it is, we can't take George Walt on in addition to everything else.'
'There's something even worse,' Jim Briskin said, after a pause. 'Which you haven't heard. A wire came from Bruno Mini. He was delighted with my speech and he's on his way here to - as he puts it - "join forces with me." '
Heim said, 'But you can still...'
'Mini's already spoken to homeopape reporters. So it's too late to head him off media-wise. Sorry.'
'You're going to lose.'
'Okay, I'll have to lose.'
'What gets me,' Heim said bitterly, 'what really gets me is that even if you did win the election you couldn't have it all your way; one man just can't alter things that much. The Golden Door
Movements of Bliss satellite is going to remain; the bibs are going to remain; so are Nonovulid and the abort-consultants you can chip away a little here and there but not...'
He ceased, because Dorothy Gill had come up to Jim Briskin. 'A phone call for you, Mr. Briskin.
The gentleman says it's urgent and he won't be wasting your time. You don't know him, he says, so he didn't give his name.' She added, 'He's a Col. If that helps you identify him.'
'It doesn't,' Jim said. 'But I'll talk to him anyhow.' Obviously, he was glad to break off the conversation with Sal; relief showed on his face. 'Bring the phone here, Dotty.'
'Yes, Mr. Briskin.' She disappeared and presently was back, carrying the extension vidphone.
'Thanks.' Jim Briskin pressed the hold button, releasing it, and the vidscreen glowed. A face formed, swarthy and handsome, a keen-eyed man, well-dressed and evidently agitated. Who is he ? Sal Heim asked himself. I know him. I've seen a pic of him somewhere.