It was only desperation that drove me to the spaceport. Cryptic roarings from the side of the taped road told us that the giant machines were at work in the Ag fields. I turned at an intersection and eased cautiously into the right-hand transverse road, the sonic feeler sending out beeps into the fog to search for oncoming cars. Abruptly there was a sodden flare of white, and the giant blast of an industrial explosive behind it.
It was like that everywhere, outside of Grendoon and the other little cities. You don’t remake a planet without using power.
And, of course, power can be dangerous ... wherefore the conditioning.
I drove into the spaceport through a flaming fence of natural gas jets. A rocket was coming in. The buildings loomed queerly tall in the faint residual mist - it was strange to see the top of a two-storey building. But though I could see much, I could not see Diane.
Nobody came weeping up to me in the walk outside the parking lot, I took a closer look, and it was Vince Borton.
I knew him - had known him - when he was alive, but the time was coming when I would no longer be able to make that distinction. He was typical of the kind that hangs around the docks, begging handouts from the tourist. He was a farmer before. In fact, he farmed with me. In fact, he came in from Earth on the rocket with me. And went to work for Quayle with me; and it was because he had been caught stealing money from Quayle’s pension fund that he was shunned. He sobbed: ‘Mister, please! If I don’t get something to eat, I’ll -’
‘I can’t help you, Vince,’ I said.
I left him staring after me, a shabby nobody with a flatfooted stance and an expression of horror and surprise.
People didn’t talk to nobodies.
But when somebody did, they didn’t refuse help.
And the only explanation of behaviour like mine was the true one – I was in process of becoming a nobody myself.
A high, confidential voice behind me said: ‘What’s the matter, buddy? You don’t look as happy as you did last time I saw you.’
I turned. I saw a bright gold brassard, with the word Visitor picked out in diamond ink.
It was the Earthie I had seen down by the Wallow.
‘Hello,’ I said shortly.
An enormous roaring seeped out of the overhead mist. Jets bellowing, the Earth rocket settled in on the landing pad, pointing a finger of flame at Venus to destroy it and then embracing it.
And then it started again.
There was a crowd, as there always is when a rocket’s coming in. A tall, lean fellow in a thermosuit of Agricultural yellow almost bumped into me. He nodded politely and started to turn away.
‘Hershool’ I sneezed, and so did the Earthie - two mighty thundering sneezes. The Aggie whirled on us. His face was mottled and raging - oh, much more so than the offence justified!
He demanded: ‘What’s the matter with you?’
I said quickly: ‘I’m sorry. Very sorry. Excuse me.... Us,’ I added, though the Earthie hadn’t much to lose. I pulled the Earthie away after me.
He looked at me with eyes like question marks!
‘Sneeze powder,’ I told him softly.
‘What?’
‘To make me sneeze on him.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry I got you into it, but the brassard will keep you out of trouble. Now you’d better leave me alone.’
He stared at me with doubting eyes and pouty lips. ‘Look. I’m just a stranger here, but I don’t get it. Why the sneeze powder?’
‘To make trouble.’
‘Trouble.’ He thought, and then admitted: ‘I heard about this kind of thing. You Venusians have your own systems. Not like Earth.’
‘No.’
‘No violence, eh?’
‘We can’t afford it.’
He nodded. ‘I know. They explained it to me, back at the travel agency. Something about conditioning. Venus is a frontier planet and all frontiers are the same. Everybody is likely to kill everybody else. Especially because weapons are so powerful nowadays.’
‘They have to be here, because of the sapoaurs. But not just weapons.’
‘No, I know about that. Explosives. Big machines that could shred a man into confetti. So they condition you against violence, eh? No matter what happens, once you’re through with the conditioning you can’t kill anybody. And if somebody is really out to get somebody else -’
‘He cuts him dead.’ I nodded. ‘You have the picture. That’s what’s happening to me now. Now you better stay away from me-’
‘Dunlap.’
‘Whatever your name is. I don’t want to get you into trouble.’
I turned and left him. The world was hot and empty without Diane; I didn’t want to share it with him.
But I didn’t have much of a world to share.
Even less than I’d thought.
I marched out towards the parking lot, and there was the Aggie again. He was on the taped path. The jets were off and the fog beginning to settle in again. I thought of swinging around him, but the path was narrow.
I nodded politely. ‘Sorry,’ I said formally.
He looked at me with recognition, then with annoyance.
And then his eyes opened wide, and the expression became utter rage - contempt - hatred.
‘What-what’s the matter?’ I faltered.
He turned away without a word, as icy as the waitress in the hotel, as completely as any person had ever cut a nobody.
It didn’t figure.
Even if he was one of Quayle’s men, there was no reason for this. I watched, incredulous.
In the haze of five yards of thickening fog I saw him stop to talk to one of the field police. Then the Aggie walked on and the policeman came slowly towards me. I nodded politely.
The policeman looked through me. He saw my face and memorized it, but he also didn’t see it; not at all. He looked at my chest for a thoughtful second, then turned and moved back towards the parking lot.
I followed.
He went to my car, produced an official electroseal, locked it. On the entrance door he slapped a sticker with the glowing scarlet word: Impounded.
‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘What’s the matter?’ There was no reason for that! That was the sort of treatment reserved for the gravest offenders - thieves like Vince, accidental murderers, those who used the shunning services without reason....
And one other category.
I touched my chest.
A sharp metal star point scraped my finger. Pinned to my thermosuit was a badge - no, a brassard. The brassard. In diamond ink the word Visitor flared.
I was wearing the brassard without right. It was the worst crime in the world.
I had been framed.
5
I rushed back along the tapewalks like a ghost put to flight with bell, book and candle, seeking help. The only help in all the world for me just then was the Earthie.
Vince Borton clutched at me out of the fog as I passed. ‘Oliver! You too?’
‘Me too.’
‘But why?’
I said grimly, too full of hate and fear to answer: ‘Arthur Quayle, that’s all. Good-bye.’ But he followed.
I found Dunlap talking angrily to another new Earthie just pinning on his brassard. ‘... lousy place not worth the plutonium to blow it to hell! Take my advice, Mac. Turn around. Get right back on that rocket, and -’
‘Dunlap.’
He turned and looked at me. ‘Oh. You.’
‘Can you help me?’
Suspiciously: ‘What do you mean? All I want is out, buddy. I don’t want to get in any trouble here.’