“All right, folks, it's all over now. Move along!”
The crowd began to disperse. Blaine stood up and brushed himself off. “What was that?” he asked.
“It was a berserker, silly,” the freckled girl said. “Couldn't you see?”
“I saw. Do you have many?”
She nodded proudly. “New. York has more berserkers than any other city in the world except Manila where they’re called amokers. But it's all the same thing. We have maybe fifty a year.”
“More,” a man said. “Maybe seventy, eighty a year. But this one didn't do so good.”
A small group had gathered near Blaine and the girl. They were discussing the berserker much as Blaine had heard strangers in his own time discuss an automobile accident.
“How many did he get?”
“Only five, and I don't think he killed any of them.”
“His heart wasn't in it,” an old woman said. “When I was a girl you couldn't stop them as easily as that. Strong they were.”
“Well, he picked a bad spot,” the freckled girl said, “42nd Street is filled with flathats. A berserker can't hardly get started before he's beamed.”
A big policeman came over. “All right, folks, break it up. The fun's over, move along now.”
The group dispersed. Blaine caught his bus, wondering why fifty or more people chose to berserk in New York every year. Sheer nervous tension? A demented form of individualism? Adult delinquency?
It was one more of the things he would have to find out about the world of 2110.
15
The address was a penthouse high above Park Avenue in the Seventies. A butler admitted him to a spacious room where chairs had been set up in a long row. The dozen men occupying the chairs were a loud, tough, weatherbeaten bunch, carelessly dressed and ill at ease in such rarefied surroundings. Most of them knew each other.
“Hey, Otto! Back in the hunting game?”
“Yah. No money.”
“Knew you'd come back, old boy. Hi, Tim!”
“Hi, Bjorn. This is my last hunt.”
“Sure it is. Last ‘til next time.”
“No, I mean it. I'm buying a seed-pressure farm in the North Atlantic Abyss. I just need a stake.”
“You'll drink up your stake.”
“Not this time.”
“Hey, Theseus! How's the throwing arm?”
“Good enough, Chico. Que tal?”
“Not too bad, kid.”
“There's Sammy Jones, always last in.”
“I'm on time, ain't I?”
“Ten minutes late. Where's your sidekick?”
“Sligo? Dead. That Asturias hunt.”
“Tough. Hereafter?”
“Not likely.”
A man entered the room and called out, “Gentlemen, your attention please!”
He advanced to the center of the room and stood, hands on his hips, facing the row of hunters. He was a slender sinewy man of medium height, dressed in riding breeches and an open-necked shirt. He had a small, carefully tended moustache and startling blue eyes in a thin, tanned face. For a few seconds he looked the hunters over, while they coughed and shifted their feet uncomfortably.
At last he said, “Good morning, gentlemen. I am Charles Hull, your employer and Quarry.” He gave them a smile of no warmth. “First, gentlemen, a word concerning the legality of our proceedings. There has been some recent confusion about this. My lawyer has looked into the matter fully, and will explain. Mr. Jensen!”
A small, nervous-looking man came into the room, pressed his spectacles firmly against his nose and cleared his throat.
“Yes, Mr. Hull. Gentlemen, as to the present legality of the hunt: In accordance with the revised statutes to the Suicide Act of 2102, any man protected by Hereafter insurance has the right to select any death for himself, at any time and place, and by any means, as long as those means do not constitute cruel and unnatural abuse. The reason for this fundamental ‘right to die’ is obvious: The courts do not recognize physical death as death per se, if said death does not involve the destruction of mind. Providing the mind survives, the death of the body is of no more moment, legally, than the sloughing of a fingernail. The body, by the latest Supreme Court decision, is considered an appendage of the mind, its creature, to be disposed of as the mind directs.”
During this explanation Hull had been pacing the room with quick, catlike steps. He stopped now and said, “Thank you, Mr. Jensen. So there is no questioning my right to suicide. Nor is there any illegality in my selecting one or more persons such as yourselves to perform the act for me. And your own actions are considered legal under the Permitted Murder section of the Suicide Act. All well and good. The only legal question arises in a recent appendage to the Suicide Act.”
He nodded to Mr. Jensen.
“The appendage states,” Jensen said, “that a man can select any death for himself, at any time and place, by any means, etcetera, so long as that death is not physically injurious to others.”
“That,” said Hull, “is the troublesome clause. Now, a hunt is a legal form of suicide. A time and place is arranged. You, the hunters, chase me. I, the Quarry, flee. You catch me, kill me. Fine! Except for one thing.”
He turned to the lawyer. “Mr. Jensen, you may leave the room. I do not wish to implicate you.”
After the lawyer had left, Hull said, “The one problem remaining is, of course, the fact that I will be armed and trying my very best to kill you. Any of you. All of you. And that is illegal.”
Hull sank gracefully into a chair. “The crime, however, is mine, not yours. I have employed you to kill me. You have no idea that I plan to protect myself, to retaliate. That is a legal fiction, but one which will save you from becoming possible accessories to the fact. If I am caught trying to kill one of you, the penalty will be severe. But I will not be caught. One of you will kill me, thus putting me beyond the reach of human justice. If I should be so unfortunate as to kill all of you, I shall complete my suicide in the old-fashioned manner, with poison. But that would be a disappointment to me. I trust you will not be so clumsy as to let that happen. Any questions?”
The hunters were murmuring among, themselves:
“Slick fancy-talking bastard.”
“Forget it, all Quarries talk like that.”
“Thinks he's better than us, him and his classy legal talk.”
“We'll see how good he talks with a bit of steel through him.”
Hull smiled coldly. “Excellent. I believe the situation is clear. Now, if you please, tell me what your weapons are.”
One by one the hunters answered:
“Mace.”
“Net and Trident.”
“Spear.”
“Morning star.”
“Bola.”
“Scimitar.”
“Bayonetted rifle,” Blaine said when his turn came.
“Broadsword.”
“Battle-axe.”
“Saber.”
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Hull said. “I will be armed with a rapier, naturally, and no armor. Our meeting will take place Sunday, at dawn, on my estate. The butler will give each of you a paper containing full instructions on how to get there. Let the bayonet man remain. Good morning to the rest of you.”
The hunters left. Hull said, “Bayonetry is an unusual art. Where did you learn it?”
Blaine hesitated, then said, “In the army, 1943 to 1945.”
“You’re from the past?”
Blaine nodded.
“Interesting,” Hull said, with no particular sign of interest. “Then this, I daresay, is your first hunt?”