"You're a stinker, Ash."
"To hell with you," said Sutton. "You and all the rest of them."
Trevor's men, he knew, must be around the house, watching and waiting. He expected to be stopped. But he wasn't stopped. He didn't see a soul.
XLVIII
Sutton stepped into the visor booth and closed the door behind him. From the rack along the wall, he took out the directory and hunted up the number. He dialed and snapped the toggle and there was a robot in the screen.
"Information," said the robot, his eyes seeking out the forehead of the man who called. Since it was an android, he dropped the customary "sir."
"Information. Records. What can I do for you?"
"Is there any possibility," asked Sutton, "that this call could be tapped?"
"None," said the robot. "Absolutely none. You see…"
"I want to see the homestead filings for the year 7990," said Sutton.
"Earth filings?"
Sutton nodded.
"Just a moment," said the robot.
Sutton waited, watching the robot select the proper spool and mount it on the viewer.
"They are arranged alphabetically," said the robot. "What name did you wish?"
"The name begins with S," said Sutton. "Let me see the S's."
The unwinding spool was a blur on the screen. It slowed momentarily at the M's, spun to the P's, then went more slowly.
The S list dragged by.
"Toward the end," said Sutton, and finally, "Hold it."
For there was the entry that he sought.
Sutton, Buster…
He read the planet description three times to make sure he had it firmly in his mind.
"That's all," he said. "Thank you very much."
The robot grumbled at him and shut off the screen.
Outside again, Sutton ambled easily across the foyer of the office building he had selected to place his call. On the road outside, he walked up the road, branched off onto a path and found a bench with a pleasant view.
He sat down on the bench and forced himself to relax.
For he was being watched, he knew. Kept under observation, for by this time, certainly, Trevor would know that the android who had walked out of Eva Armour's house could be none other than he. The psych-tracer, long ago, would have told the story, would have traced his movements and pinpointed him for Trevor's men to watch.
Take it easy, he told himself. Dawdle. Loaf. Act as if you didn't have a thing to do, as if you didn't have a thought in mind.
You can't fool them, but you can at least catch them unguarded when you have to move.
And there were many things to do, many things left to think about, although he was satisfied that the course of action he had planned was the course to take.
He took them up, step by step, checking them over for any chance of slip-up.
First, back to Eva's house to get the manuscript notes he had left on the hunting asteroid, notes that either Eva or Herkimer must have kept through all the years…or was it only weeks?
That would be ticklish and embarrassing business at the best. But they were his notes, he told himself. They were his to claim. He had no commitments in this business.
"I have come to get my notes. I suppose you still have them somewhere."
Or, "Remember the attaché case I had? I wonder if you took care of it for me."
Or, "I'm going on a trip. I'd appreciate my notes if you can lay your hands on them."
Or—
But it was no use. However he might say it, whatever he might do, the first step would be to reclaim the notes.
Dawdle up till then, he told himself. Work your way back toward the house until it's almost dark. Then get the notes and after that move fast — so fast that Trevor's gang can't catch up with you.
Second was the ship, the ship that he must steal.
He had spotted it earlier in the day while loafing at the area spaceport. Sleek and small, he knew that it would be a fast job, and the stiff, military bearing of the officer who had been directing the provisioning and refueling had been the final tip-off that it was the ship he wanted.
Loafing outside the barrier fence, playing the part of an idly curious, no-good android, he had carefully entered the officer's mind. Ten minutes later, he was on his way, with the information that he needed.
The ship did carry a time warp unit.
It was not taking off until the next morning.
It would be guarded during the night.
Without a doubt, Sutton told himself, one of Trevor's ships, one of the fighting fleetships of the Revisionists.
It would take nerve, he knew, to steal the ship. Nerve and fast footwork and a readiness and the ability to kill.
Saunter out onto the field, as if he were waiting for an incoming ship, mingling with the crowd. Slip out of the crowd and walk across the field, acting as if he had a right to be there. Not run…walk. Run only if someone challenged him and made the challenge stick. Run then. Fight. Kill, if necessary. But get the ship.
Get the ship and pile on the speed to the limit of endurance, heading in a direction away from his destination, driving the ship for everything that was in it.
Two years out, or sooner if necessary, he would throw in the time unit, roll himself and the ship a couple of centuries into the past.
Once in the past, he would have to ditch the motors, for undoubtedly they would have built-in recognition signals which could be traced. Unship them and let them travel in the direction he had been going.
Then take over the empty hull with his nonhuman body, swing around and head toward Buster's planet, still piling on the speed, building it up to that fantastic figure that was necessary to jump great interstellar spaces.
Vaguely he wondered how his body, how the drive of his energy-intake body, would compare with the actual motors in the long haul. Better, he decided. Better than the motors. Faster and stronger.
But it would take years, many years of time, for Buster was far out.
He checked. Unshipping the engines would throw off pursuit. The pursuers would follow the recognition signals in the motors, would spend long days in overhauling them before they discovered their mistake.
Check.
The time roll would unhook the contact of Trevor's psych-tracers, for they could not operate through time.
Check.
By the time other tracers could be set in other times to find him he would be so far out that the tracers would go insane trying to catch up on the time lag of his whereabouts — if, in fact, they could ever find it in the vastness of the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Check.
If it works, he thought. If it only works. If there isn't some sort of slip-up, some kind of unseen factor.
A squirrel skipped across the grass, sat up on its haunches and took a long look at him. Then, deciding that he was not dangerous, it started a busy search in the grass for imaginary buried treasure.
Cut loose, thought Sutton. Cut loose from everything that holds me. Cut loose and get the job done. Forget Trevor and his Revisionists, forget Herkimer and the androids. Get the book written.
Trevor wants to buy me. And the androids do not trust me. And Morgan, if he had the chance, would kill me.
The androids do not trust me.
That's foolish, he told himself.
Childish.
And yet, they did not trust him. You are human, Eva had told him. The humans are your people. You are a member of the race.
He shook his head, bewildered by the situation.
There was one thing that stood out clearly. One thing he had to do. One obligation that was his and one that must be fulfilled or all else would be with utterly no meaning.
There is a thing called destiny.
The knowledge of that destiny has been granted me. Not as a human being, not as a member of the human race, but as an instrument to transmit that knowledge to all other thinking life.