Stairs led below. Stairs! Pomrath hardly knew what they were. He gripped the railing tightly, unsure of his footing as he descended. At the bottom, some sort of scanner beamed him and he heard a blipping sound that probably indicated he was carrying no weapons. A fleshy woman in bulky robes came swishing out to inspect him.
In his own time there were public sex cubicles available to all, without concealment. It figured that in this neopuritan era there would be girlie cribs hidden in the lower levels of musty old buildings. Vice, Pomrath thought, was probably more common here per capita than up yonder.
The woman said, “You’re the foreigner Al said was coming-down, huh? You sure look foreign to me. Where you from, France?”
“Slavic district. Praha.”
“Where’s that?”
Pomrath looked uncertain. “Europe. To the east.”
The woman shrugged and led him with. Pomrath found himself in a small, low-ceilinged room which contained a bed, a washstand, and a pasty-faced blonde girl. The girl slipped off her robe. Her body was soft and slightly flabby, but the basic material was pretty good. She looked young and more intelligent than her job called on her to be.
“It’s twenty dollars,” she said patiently.
Pomrath knew that the moment of truth had arrived. He flicked a wary glance around the little room and saw no sign of any scanning devices. He couldn’t be sure, naturally. Even way back here, they had been pretty sophisticated about espionage, and he didn’t doubt that they pulled the same dirty tricks that were common in his own time. But he had to take the risk. Sooner or later, he had to find himself an ally in this other time, and now was a reasonable time to begin.
“I don’t have any money,” said Pomrath, dropping the phony accent.
“Then get the hell out of here.”
“Shh. Not so fast. I’ve got some ideas. Sit down. Relax. How would you like to be rich?”
“Are you a cop?”
“I’m just a stranger in town, and I need a friend. I’ve got plans. Cooperate with me and you’ll be out of the bed-girl business in a hurry. What’s your name?”
“Lisa. You talk funny. What are you, a hopper or something?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Just a guess.” The girl’s eyes were very blue, very wide. She picked up her robe and put it on again, as though she did not think it proper to hold a business conference in the nude. She kept her voice low as she said, “You just get here?”
“Yes. I’m a doctor. I can make us fabulously rich. With what I know—”
“We’ll turn all the turbines, child!” she said. “You and me. What’s your label?”
“Keystone,” Pomrath said at random. “Mort Keystone.”
“We’re going to twist orbits, Mort.”
“I know we are. How soon can you get out of this place?”
“Two more hours.”
“Where should I meet you?”
“There’s a park two blocks from here. You can sit there and wait and I’ll come along.”
“A what?”
“A park. You know, grass, benches, some trees. What’s the matter, Mort?”
Pomrath was struck by the alienness of having trees and grass in the middle of a city. He managed a smile. “
Nothing’s the matter. I’ll wait for you in the park.” Then he handed her the book. “Here. Buy this for me when you leave the shop. I don’t want to have to steal it.”
She nodded. Then she said, “You sure you don’t want anything else while you’re down here?”
“There’s time for that later,” said Pomrath. “I’ll be waiting in the park.”
He went out. The bookstore proprietor waved cheerily to him. Pomrath replied in a string of improvised guttural sounds and stepped into the street. It was difficult for him to believe that he had been on the verge of psychotic collapse only a few hours ago and four hundred forty-nine years from now. He was utterly calm. This world held challenges for him, and he knew he could meet those challenges.
Poor Helaine, he thought. I wonder how she took the news.
He walked briskly down the street, only momentarily bothered by the lack of resilience in the pavement. I am Mort Keystone, he told himself. Mort Keystone. Mort Keystone. And Lisa will help me get together some money to start a medical practice. I’ll be a rich man. I’ll live like a Class Two. There’s no High Government to slap me down.
I’ll have power and status among these primitives, he told himself pleasantly. And after I’m established, I’ll track down a few people from my own time, just so I don’t feel too isolated from it. We’ll reminisce, he thought.
We’ll reminisce about the future.
14.
Quellen waited three hours, until Koll and Spanner both were tied up on other government business. Then he went down the hall to the custody tank. He opened the scanner slot and peered in. Lanoy floated peacefully on the dark green fluid, utterly relaxed, evidently enjoying himself. On the stippled metal wall of the tank the indicators announced the slyster’s status. EEG and EKG bands wavered and criss-crossed. Heartbeat, respiration, everything was monitored.
Summoning a technician, Quellen said, “Get him out of there.”
“Sir, we just put him back in a few hours ago.”
“I want to interrogate him. Get him out!”
The technician obeyed. Lanoy was unplugged, filtered, and returned to consciousness. Attendant-robots wheeled him back to Quellen’s office. In a short while his reflexes were working again and he could move under his own power.
Quellen shut down all recording devices in the office.He had a strong hunch that he wanted this conversation to be strictly off the record. Since there were only the two of them in the room, he also moved to cut down the oxy vent.
“Leave it up, Quellen,” Lanoy said. “I like to breathe well. It’s at government expense.”
“Let’s finish our talk, then. What’s your game?” Quellen was angry. Lanoy was a completely amoral creature, not even vicious in his criminality, who offended Quellen’s pride and sense of personal dignity.
“I’ll be blunt with you, CrimeSec,” the slyster said. “I want my freedom, and I want to continue in business. I like it that way. That’s what I want. You want to arrest me and let the government or perhaps the High Government take over my business. That’s what you want. Right?”
“Right.”
“Now, in a situation like that we have an interplay of mutually exclusive desires. So the stronger of the two forces wins—all the time. I’m stronger, and so you’ll have to let me go and suppress all the findings of your investigation.”
“Who says you’re stronger, Lanoy?”
“I know I am. I’m strong and you’re weak. I know a lot of things about you, Quellen. I know how you hate crowds and like fresh air and open spaces. These are pretty awkward idiosyncrasies to live with in a world like ours, aren’t they?”
“Go on,” said Quellen. He cursed Brogg silently. No one else could have revealed his secret to Lanoy. And obviously Lanoy knew too much about him.
“So you’re going to let me walk out of here a free man,” Lanoy continued, “or else you’ll find yourself back in a Class Nine or maybe Eleven unit. You won’t like it much there, CrimeSec. You’ll have to share a room, and you may not like your roommate, but there’ll be nothing you can do. And when you have a roommate, you won’t be free to run away. He’ll report you.”
“What do you mean, run away?” Quellen’s voice was little more than a husky whisper.
“I mean run away to Africa, Quellen.”