He took hold of her hands and lifted them away from her face. Her eyes shone with brilliance, star-like eyes fixed on his own, searching deeply into his, as if obtaining her response not from what he said but from what his own eyes showed.
“You think I’m nuts,” she said.
“Beyond doubt.”
“Here you and I are in this awful situation, and Cordon is going to be executed and all I can do is laugh.” She had ceased, now, but with visible effort; her mouth trembled as it held the laughter back. “I know a place where we can get some alcohol,” she said. “Let’s go there; then we can really get blurfled.”
“No,” he said. “I’m blurfled enough now.”
“That’s why you did what you did, choosing to go with me and leaving Kleo. Because of the alc Zeta gave you.”
“Is that it?” he asked. Perhaps it was. It was well-known that alcohol produced personality changes, and he certainly had not been acting in his usual fashion. But it was an unusual situation; what would have been his “usual” reactions to what had happened to him today?
I have to take charge of this situation, he thought. I have to get this girl under control—or leave her.
“I don’t like to be bossed,” Charley said. “I can see you’re about to boss me around, tell me what I can and can’t do. Like Denny does. Like my father did. Someday, I’ll have to tell you some of the things my father did to me . . . then maybe you’ll understand better. Some of the things, the awful things, he made me do. Sexual things.”
“Oh,” Nick said. Which might explain her lesbian tendencies, if Denny was actually right in so describing her.
Charley said, “I think what I’ll do with you is take you to a Cordonite printing center.”
“You know where one is?” he asked incredulously. “Then the tracks would give their eyeteeth to—”
“I know. They’d love to catch me. I know about it through Denny. He’s a bigger dealer than you realize.”
“Would he expect you to go there?”
“He doesn’t know I know. I followed him one time—I thought he was sleeping with some other girl, but it wasn’t that: it was a printing center. I sneaked off and pretended I’d never left the apartment; it was late at night and I pretended to be asleep.” She took his hand, squeezed it. “This is a particularly interesting plant because they turn out Cordonite material for children. Like, ‘That’s right! It’s a horse! And when men were free they rode horses!’ Like that.”
“Lower your voice,” Nick said. There were others riding the upramp and her vibrant, adolescent voice carried, augmented by her enthusiasm.
“Okay,” she said, obediently.
“Isn’t a Cordonite printing plant at the top of the order of the organization?” he asked.
“There is no organization, there’s only mutual bonds of brotherhood. No, one of the printing plants isn’t at the top; what’s at the top is the receiving station.”
“Receiving station? What does it receive?”
“Messages from Cordon.”
“From Brightforth Prison?”
Charley said, “He has a transmitter stitched inside his body that they haven’t found yet, even with the x-rays they took. They found two, but not this one, and through this one we get daily meditations, his evolving thoughts and ideas, which the printing plants start cranking out as rapidly as possible. And from there, the material is passed to the distribution centers, where pushers pick it up and carry it off and try to get people to buy it.” She added, “As you can guess, there’s a high mortality rate among the pushers.”
“How many printing plants do you have?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Not many.”
“Do the authorities—”
“The pissers—pardon me, the PSS—locate one once in a while. But then we set up another, so the number remains generally the same.” She paused, pondering. “I think we’d better go in a taxi rather than in your squib. If it’s all right with you.”
“Any special reason why?”
“I’m not sure. They may have monitored your license number; we usually try to reach the printing plants in rented cars. Taxis are the best.”
“Is it far from here?” he asked.
“You mean like miles off in the country? No, it’s in the middle of town, in the busiest part. Come on.” She hopped onto the downramp and he followed. A moment later they reached street level; the girl at once began peering into the traffic in search of a cab.
Chapter 10
A cab floated leisurely from the traffic and came to rest at the curb beside them. Its door slid open and they entered.
“Feller’s Luggage Emporium,” Charley said to the driver. “On 16th Avenue.”
“Um,” the driver said, and lifted his ship up and once more into the flow of traffic, except, this time, going the other way.
“But Feller’s Luggage—” Nick began, but invisibly Charley dug her elbow into his ribs; he took the hint and lapsed into silence.
Ten minutes later, the cab left them off. Nick paid, and the cab floated on like a child’s painted toy.
“Feller’s Luggage,” Charley said, surveying the aristocratic building. “One of the oldest and most respected retail establishments in the city. You thought it would be a warehouse behind a gas station on the edge of town. Swarming with rats.” She took his hand, led him through the automatically-opening doors and onto the carpeted floor of the world famous shop.
A smartly dressed salesman approached them. “Good afternoon,” he said, affably.
Charley said, “I have a set of luggage put away. Synthetic ostrich hide, four pieces. My name is Barrows. Julie Barrows.”
“Would you please step this way?” the salesman said to her, turning and walking with dignity toward the rear of the store.
“Thank you,” Charley said. Again she dug Nick in the ribs, this time gratuitously. And smiled up at him.
A heavy metal door slid aside, revealing a small room in which a variety of pieces of luggage rested on plain wooden shelves. The door through which they had come now slid quietly shut. The salesman waited a moment, consulting his watch, then carefully wound the watch . . . and, swiftly, the far wall of the room divided, showing a greater room beyond. A heavy pounding reached Nick’s ears, major printing machinery was at work, and he could see it now. As little as he knew about printing, he knew this: it was totally modern, the best there was, and quite expensive. The Under Men presses did not consist of mimeograph machines, not in the least.
Four soldiers in gray uniforms and wearing gas masks surrounded them, all holding lethal Hopp’s tubes. “Who are you?” one of them, a sergeant, asked—asked hell. Demanded.
“I’m Denny’s girl,” Charley said.
“Who’s Denny?”
“You know.” Gesturing, Charley said, “Denny Strong. He operates in this area at the distribution level.”
A scanner swept back and forth, surveying them.
The soldiers conferred, speaking into lip-level microphones and listening through earfone buttons in their right ears. “Okay,” the sergeant in charge said at last. He turned his attention back to Nick and Charley. “What do you want here?” he demanded.
“A place to stay for a while,” Charley said.
Nodding toward Nick, the occifer said, “Who’s he?”
“A convert. He came over to us today.”
Nick said, “Because of the announcement of Cordon’s execution.”
The soldier grunted, pondered. “We’re housing just about everyone already. I don’t know . . .” He chewed his lower lip, frowning. “Do you also want to stay here?” he asked Nick.