“Something puzzles me about the Lutheran salary system,” he said. “Everybody gets paid in hours and minutes; and even with the factorization clauses, the maximum that, say, a top-notch surgeon could earn in an hour is three hours — right?”
“Correct.” Helen repeated familiar words: “In his wisdom, the first Temporal Moderator removed the temptations of unlimited material gain from the path of cur spiritual progress.”
“Never mind the catechism. What I want to know is, how can somebody like your brother, and presumably the rest of your family, have so much more money than anybody else? How does that estate of Carl’s, for instance, square with the system?”
“It squares with the system, as you put it, because the Moderator accepts no payment at all for his services on behalf of the people of Emm Luther. His needs are taken care of by voluntary donations from his flock. Anything he receives in excess of his needs is disposed of as he sees fit, usually to relieve suffering or need.”
“The head man shares his bounty with his friends and relatives,” Tallon said. “I wish Doc Winfield were here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who does? What field of mathematics was your brother in?”
Helen was about to make a sarcastically evasive answer suitable for a political agent who poked his nose into the realm of higher mathematics; then she remembered Tallon’s work on the seeing devices. And an entry in his dossier, she now recalled, stated that he had begun his career as a researcher in domain physics before, inexplicably, becoming a kind of supertramp and finally an agent.
“I couldn’t understand Carl’s work,” she said. “It had something to do with the theory that the null-space universe is much smaller than ours — perhaps only a few hundred yards in diameter. He told me once that the two-light-second spheres we call portals might correspond to single atoms in the null-space continuum.”
“I’ve heard the idea kicked around,” Tallon replied. “Was he getting anywhere with it?”
“You know that all information about space-probe design is grade-one classified.”
“I know; but you said you couldn’t understand it anyway, so what can you give away?”
“Well … as far as I know, Carl was on the team that decided the jump increment and coordinates for the Aitch Mühlenberg probe. The round trip has a smaller number of portals than any other route in the empire. Carl said it meant they could build cheaper spaceships, though I don’t see why.”
“Ships for the Aitch Muhlenberg run would be cheaper because they wouldn’t need such high reliability standards in their positional control equipment. With a smaller number of hops, there’s less chance of something going wrong along the way. But that probe was an isolated success, wasn’t it? They weren’t able to pick up any other worlds using the same sort of math.”
“I suppose not,” Helen said, concentrating on the ascending sweeps of the road, “but Carl didn’t believe it was pure coincidence.”
“I know how he felt. It’s tough to give up a perfectly good theory just because it doesn’t fit the facts. Is he doing anything with it now?”
“He’s blind now.”
“So what?” Tallon spoke harshly. “A man doesn’t have to lie down just because he loses his eyes. Of course it took someone like Lorin Cherkassky to teach me that, so perhaps I have an advantage over your brother.”
“Mr. Cherkassky,” Helen said impatiently, “is a senior executive of the Lutheran government and — ”
“I know; if there were flies on Emm Luther he wouldn’t harm one of them. The government of Earth has its faults, but when there’s a dirty job to be done, it does the dirty job. It doesn’t subcontract the work to somebody else and pretend nothing’s happening. I’ll tell you something; I’ll tell you what Mr. Cherkassky is really like.”
Helen did not interrupt as Tallon told her about his arrest, the use of the brain-brush, his attack on Cherkassky, the blinding, and his certain knowledge that Cherkassky would finish him off at the first opportunity.
Helen Juste let Tallon talk because it kept him awake, which meant he’d sleep more soundly later; and somewhere along the way she understood that everything he was saying was true. Unfortunately it made no difference: He was still an enemy of her world, and his capture was still her passport back to her former position of trust and responsibility.
She drove more slowly now. Tallon kept on talking, and she found it easy to join in. By the time dusk had begun to drift down from the sky in minute gray specks, they had gone beyond mere conversation into real communication — an experience completely new to Helen. She had risked calling him Sam, working it in as naturally as possible, and he had accepted the implied shift in their relationship without comment. He seemed to have grown smaller, as if his illness had caused him to physically shrink; mentally he was suffering from fatigue. Aware of his condition, Helen now made her move.
“There’s a motel up ahead, Sam, and you’ve got to sleep.”
“And what would you be doing while I slept?”
“I’m calling a truce. I’ve been a long time without sleep, too.”
“A truce, sweetie — why?”
“I told you — I’m tired. Besides, you took a risk to help Carl; and after what you told me about Mr. Cherkassky, I don’t want to be the one to hand you over to him.” It was all true, and she found it was easy to lie when you were telling the truth.
Tallon nodded thoughtfully, eyes closed, sweat gleaming on his forehead.
The motel was on the outskirts of a small community that was gathered on a ledge of the mountain range. Along the central part of the main street, store windows shone in the evening twilight and tubes of colored neon were bright threads against the towering black mass of the peaks beyond. The town was quiet, even at that early hour, as it huddled at the bottom of an invisible stream of cool wind that coursed from the uplands toward the ocean.
Helen stopped the car at the motel office and paid for a double chalet. The manager was a leaden-eyed, middle-aged man in an unbuttoned shirt — the archetype of all motel managers — who took her money mechanically, seeming hardly to hear her story that her husband was suffering from a cold and had to rest as soon as possible. She took the key and drove the car along the row of vine-covered chalets to number 9.
Tallon was holding the automatic in his right hand when she opened the car door at his side, but he was shivering so violently she was almost tempted to disarm him herself. There was no need, however, to take even that much of a chance. She helped him out of the car and into the chalet, supporting almost half his weight. He kept muttering apologies and thanks to nobody in particular, and she knew he was close to delirium. The rooms were cold and smelled like snow. She steered him onto the bed, and he curled up gratefully, like a child, as she pulled the covers over him.
“Sam,” she whispered, “there’s a drugstore a couple of blocks away. I’m going to get something for you. I won’t be long.”
“That’s right You get me something.”
Helen stood up with the automatic in her hand. She had won, and it had been easy. He spoke as she was going out the bedroom door. “Helen,” he said weakly, using her name for the first time, “ask the police to bring me a few extra blankets when they come.”
She closed the door quickly and ran through the little living room out into the sharp night air. What did it matter that he knew where she was going? Her mind kept straying into an endless mirror-dialogue — I know; I know you know; I know you know I know… .
The truth of the matter, she decided, was simply that she felt guilty about handing him over, knowing what she now knew about Cherkassky, knowing what she now knew about Tallon. He was too ill to do anything about it, but it had been important to her to trick Tallon in exactly the same way she would have tricked him had he been well. All right. He had seen through the trick. She could stand a little more guilt.