Strange little girl, he thought to himself. Mature in some ways, in others perfectly ordinary. How much of her was derived from her father? Father Fields secondhand, Dill thought. Seeing the man through her, trying to infer the father by means of the child.
He landed, and presently was submitting to the elaborate examination at the surface check-point, fidgeting impatiently. The tangle of equipment sent him on and he descended quickly into the depths of the underground fortress. At the second level he stopped the elevator and got abruptly off. A moment later he was standing before a sealed support-wall, tapping his foot nervously and waiting for the guards to pass him.
"All right, Mr. Dill." The wall slid back. Dill hurried down a long deserted corridor, his heels echoing mournfully. The air was clammy, and the lights flickered fitfully; he turned to the right and halted, peering into the yellow gloom.
There it was. Vulcan 2, dusty and silent. Virtually forgotten. No one came here any more. Except himself. And even he not very often.
He thought, It's a wonder the thing still works.
Seating himself at one of the tables, he unzipped his brief case and got out his papers. Carefully, he began preparing his questions in the proper manner; for this archaic computer he had to do the tape-feeding himself. With a manual punch, he spelled out on the iron oxide tape the first series, and then he activated the tape transport. It made an audible wheezing sound as it struggled into life.
In the old days, during the war, Vulcan 2 had been an intricate structure of great delicacy and subtlety, an elaborate instrument consulted by the skilled technicians daily. It had served Unity well, in its time; it had done honorable service. And, he thought, the schoolbooks still laud it; they still give it its proper credit.
Lights flashed, and a bit of tape popped from the slot and fell into the basket. He picked it up and read:
Time will be required. Return in twenty-jour hours, please.
The computer could not function rapidly, now. He knew that, and this did not surprise him. Again taking up the punch, he made the balance of his questions into feeding data, and then, closing his brief case, he strode rapidly from the chamber, back up the musty, deserted corridor.
How lonesome it is here, he thought. No one else but me.
And yet-he had the sudden acute sensation that he was not alone, that someone was nearby, scrutinizing him. He glanced swiftly about. The dim yellow light did not show him much; he ceased walking, holding his breath and listening. There was no sound except the distant whirl of the old computer as it labored over his questions.
Lifting his head, Dill peered into the dusty shadows along the ceiling of the corridor. Strands of cobweb hung from the light fixtures; one bulb had gone dead, and that spot was black-a pit of total darkness.
In the darkness, something gleamed.
Eyes, he thought, He felt chill fear.
A dry, rustling noise. The eyes shot off; he saw the gleam still, retreating from him along the ceiling of the corridor. In an instant the eyes had gone. A bat? Bird of
some sort, trapped down here? Carried down by the elevator?
Jason Dill shivered, hesitated, and then went on.
CHAPTER 4
From Unity Records, William Barris had obtained the address of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Pitt. It did not surprise him to discover that the Pitts-now just Mrs. Pitt, he realized soberly-had a house in the expensive and fashionable Sahara region of North Africa. During the war that part of the world had been spared both hydrogen bomb explosions and fallout; now real estate there was priced out of the reach of most people, even those employed by the Unity system.
As his ship carried him from the North American land-mass across the Atlantic, Barris thought, I wish I could afford to live there. It must have cost the man everything he had; in fact, he must have gone into debt up to his neck. I wonder why. Would it be worth it? Not to me, Barris thought. Perhaps for his wife . ..
He landed his ship at the fabulously illuminated Proust Field runways, and shortly thereafter he was driving by commercial robot taxi out the twelve-lane freeway to the Golden Lands Development, at which Mrs. Pitt lived.
The woman, he knew, had been notified already; he had made sure that he would not be bringing her the first news of her husband's death.
On each side of the road, orange trees and grass and sparkling blue fountains made him feel cool and relaxed. As yet there were no multiple-unit buildings; this area was perhaps the last in the world still zoned for one-unit dwellings only. The limit of luxury, he thought. One-unit dwellings were a vanishing phenomenon in the world.
The freeway branched; he turned to the right, following the sign. Presently slow warnings appeared. Ahead he saw a gate blocking the road; astonished he brought his rented taxi to a halt. Was this development legally able to screen visitors? Apparently it was; the law sanctioned it. He saw several men in ornate uniforms-like ancient Latin American dictator garb-standing at stopped cars, inspecting the occupants. And, he saw, several of the cars were being turned back.
When the official had sauntered over to him, Barris said in a brusque voice, "Unity business."
The man shrugged. "Are you expected?" he asked in a bored tone.
"Listen," Barris began but the man was already pointing back at the through freeway. Subsiding, Barris said with great restraint, "I want to see Mrs. Arthur Pitt. Her husband was killed in line of duty and I'm here expressing official regrets." That was actually not true, but it was near enough.
"I'll ask her if she wishes to see you," the uniformed man, heavy with medals and decorations, said. He took Barns' name; the fact that he was a Director did not seem to impress him. Going off, he spent some time at a portable vidscreen, and then he returned with a more pleasant expression on his face. "Mrs. Pitt is willing to have you admitted," he said. And the gate was drawn aside for Barris' rented taxi to pass.
Somewhat disconcerted by the experience, Barris drove on. Now he found himself surrounded by small, modern, brightly colored houses, all neat and trim, and each unique; he did not see two alike. He switched on the automatic beam, and the taxi obediently hooked in to the circuit of the development. Otherwise, Barris realized, he would never find the house.
When the cab pulled over to the curb and stopped, he saw a slim, dark-haired young woman coming down the front steps of the house. She wore a wide-brimmed Mexican-style hat to protect her head from the midday African sun; from beneath the hat ringlets of black hair sparkled, the long Middle Eastern style so popular of late. On her feet she had sandals, and she wore a ruffled dress with bows and petticoats.
"I'm dreadfully sorry that you were treated that way, Director," she said in a low, toneless voice as he opened the door of the cab. "You understand that those uniformed guards are robots."
"No," he said. "I didn't know. But it isn't important." He surveyed her, seeing, he decided, one of the prettiest women that he had ever come across. Her face had a look of shock, a residue from the terrible news of her husband's death. But she seemed composed; she led him up the steps to the house walking very slowly.
"I believe I saw you once," she said as they reached the porch. "At a meeting of Unity personnel at which Arthur and I were present. You were on the platform, of course. With Mr. Dill."