God of Tarot (26 page)

He seemed to recall having taken a drive like this, perhaps ten years ago, perhaps nine, but where had he come from then, and where had he been going? It would not come clear.

There were many other cars on the highway, traveling at the maximum velocity their governors permitted: 100 KPH, nice and even. All good things were governed by hundreds; it was the decimal, metric, percentage system. Easy to compute with, easy to verify, divisible by many numbers.

The cars were like his own: small hydrogen burners, streamlined, comfortable. The hydrogen was separated from water at various power plants; some of it was used for fusion into helium for major power, and some for combination with oxygen to make water again (clean water was precious), some treated for nonignition and put into transport blimps, and some burned explosively in motors. Hydrogen: the most versatile element. Paul was uncertain of the original source of power used to separate out the gas, but obviously it sufficed to run the system.

In just a few years all this would change, as the MT program burst upon them and co-opted all the convenient major energy sources. The creature from Sphere Antares, whose very presence was kept secret from the people of the world he so changed; what mischief was he to wreak on Sphere Sol? But right now people were indulging in their last fling; private transportation was still within the rights and means of the average citizen. Barely.

Paul himself could not afford this car. He had the use of it illicitly: he was drug-running. Hidden so well that even he had no notion of where it was, was a cache of mnem, pronounced “NEEM”: the memory drug. Students used it when cramming for exams; when high on mnem their retention became almost total, enabling them to make very high marks on rote-work without actually cheating. It did not enhance intelligence or give them lasting skills, but temporary memorization was so important in taking machine-graded examinations that this often made the difference in the competitive grade listings that determined eligibility for employment or promotion. Paul himself had never used mnem during his college days, not because of unavailability, expense, or ethics, but because he hadn’t needed it. His college used no tests or grades. The drug had few side effects and could be detected in the human system only through extraordinary clinical procedures that cost more than the public clinics could afford. Therefore it was fairly safe to use, and much in demand.

There were only three drawbacks to mnem. First, it was illegal. That bothered very few people; when morality conflicted with convenience, morality suffered. Second, it was expensive, after the manner of addictive illegal drugs; the cost was not in the manufacture but in the illicit distribution system. That bothered more people, but not enough to seriously inhibit its use. The criminal element had a sharp eye for what the market would bear, just as did the business element. In fact, the abilities and scruples of the two elements were similar, and there was considerable overlapping. The mnem cartel proffered incentive options for those in critical need, such as Paul himself. For he, after college, had found a use for mnem. Third, mnem withdrawal caused not only the loss of the drug-enhanced memories, but a more general mnemonic deterioration, leading to disorientation and irregular amnesia. Thus the addiction was neither psychological nor physiological, but practical: once “hooked,” a user could not function without mnem. That bothered most people, but they tended not to think about that aspect. It was a paradox of mnem, the subject of much folk humor, that it made people forget its chief drawback while it sharpened their memories enormously.

Which was why Paul was risking his freedom by running this shipment across state lines. He had used the drug to become expert in his sideline; now he could maintain his habit only by cooperating with the suppliers. Fortunately they did not require a particular person to do it often; this was not done from concern for the welfare of the individual, but as a precaution against discovery by the authorities. It might be a year before Paul would have to drive again, and in the interim his own supply of mnem was free. It was really a good deal.

There was someone standing at the margin of the highway; the figure seemed to be female. Other cars were rushing by, of course; it was dangerous to pick up a hitchhiker, male or female. But Paul sometimes got restless; though he did not drive often, this long trip bored him. Company would make a difference, particularly feminine company.

He stopped. The girl saw him and ran up. She was young, probably not out of her teens, but surprisingly well developed. Her clothing was scant and in disarray; in fact she was in a rather flimsy nightgown that outlined her heaving breasts with much stronger erotic appeal than she could have managed by any deliberate exposure. A natural girl in an unnatural situation.

“Oh, thank you!” she gasped, climbing into the seat next to him. “I was so afraid no one would stop before the police came.”

“The police?” he asked with sudden nervousness. If she was a criminal—

“Oh, please, sir—drive!” she cried. “I’ll explain, it’s all right, no trouble for you, only lose us in the traffic.
Please
!”

But he hesitated, the car still parked. “I have no money worth taking, only a keyed credit you can’t use. This car requires my thumbprint every half hour, or the motor locks and the automatic takes over, so you can’t—”

She faced him, and he was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. Her fair hair was bedraggled, yet she was lovely in her wild way. “You are in no danger from
me
, sir! I have no weapon. I have nothing. No food, no identification. I don’t know how I can repay you, but please,
please
drive, or all is lost. I would rather die than go back there!”

Still ill-at-ease, he moved the car forward, gaining speed until he was able to merge into the traffic flow. “Where are you going?” he inquired.

“To the Barlowville Station,” she said.

He started punching the coding into his computer terminal, seeking a clarification of the address. “Oh, no!” she protested. “Please, sir, don’t ask the machine! They’ll key it in to me, and in minutes the police—”

The demon in the machine. Paul’s fingers froze. “You’re on the criminal index?” he asked, alarmed. He had just about decided she was harmless, but he didn’t like this. The last thing he needed was a police check on this car!

“I’m being deprogrammed,” she explained hastily. “I belong to the Holy Order of Vision, and my folks sued—”

“They still deprogram religious nuts?” he asked thoughtlessly. “I thought that went out a decade ago, along with other forms of exorcism.”

“It still happens,” she said. “The established sects are all right—they finished their initiations years ago—but the new ones are still being persecuted.”

The rite of passage, he thought. Any new religion had to pass through sufficient hazing to justify its existence, and when it became strong enough to fight back, as early Christianity had, it became legitimate and started hazing the religion that came next.

He shrugged. “I don’t know much about it.” Not in
his
business, he didn’t—and he didn’t care to. Religion held little interest for him, apart from morbid curiosity about the credulity of people. Still, this was a very pretty girl, who seemed somehow familiar. That flowing hair, those full breasts, the way she spoke— He was intrigued. “But if you really want to go back to this cult—”

“Oh, I do!” she exclaimed. “Somehow I’ll return.”

Paul made a decision. “I’ll take you there, if it’s not too far out of the way. But if you won’t let me get the highway address from the travel computer—”

“I can tell you the way,” she said eagerly. Then she faced him and smiled, the expression making her glow. “My name is Sister Beth.”

“I’m Paul Cenji.” What the hell had he expected her name to be? This seemed to be a memory, but it unfolded at its own pace; he could not remember what had happened that day in his past, so had to live it through again.

He drove on for a while, then asked, “How did you get caught away from your church?”

“My Station. We don’t have churches as such, just centers of operation. My mother called me and told me my grandmother was dying, so I came at once. I never renounced my family ties; the Holy Order of Vision isn’t like that. I wish my family belonged, too! But when I got there—”

“They grabbed you and hauled you off to the deprogramming clinic,” Paul finished for her.

“Yes. I suppose I should have suspected something, but I never thought my own mother would…” She shrugged sadly. “But I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing. I forgive her. They tried to talk me out of going back, and when that didn’t work, they said they were going to use mnem—”

“Mnem!” he exclaimed.

“It’s a drug,” she said, not appreciating the actual nature of his reaction. “They use it for rehabilitating incorrigible criminals. It’s not supposed to be used for—” She broke off.

Paul’s suspicions had been aroused again. Could it be coincidence, this reference to the drug he was hauling? Or was this a police trap? “I heard it was illegal,” he said.

“Yes, for anything but the rehabilitation of criminals and some forms of mental illness. But there is a black market in mnem. It costs a lot that way, but my folks raised the credit.”

Paul didn’t like this at all. A seductively innocent girl in scant attire, planted on the highway to attract footloose rakes like him who might be supporting their lifestyles by dealing in contraband. A lot of fools were caught that way, he was sure. Now she was naming the subject, maybe probing for guilty reactions. It was all too easy to give away secrets while dazzled by offerings of this caliber. Already it seemed as if he had known her longer, in another place, by some other name—the perpetual mystery of the female. Maybe he only
wanted
to have known her. Her charm was already corrupting him; he had to get rid of this easy rider without arousing suspicion—if it was not already too late. “Which way is your—Station?”

“It’s in the next state. You can go another hundred kilometers on this highway before turning off.” Right. She had to be able to testify that he had actually crossed a state line. One of the niceties of the law. The police would be executing people on suspicion if they had the law all their own way. But America was not yet a total police state.

So he had until they reached the state line to act. He had to keep up the front until he knew what to do. “Glad to have company for that hundred K,” he said. The irony was that that would have been true, had she not brought up the subject of mnem. What a face, what a body, what a beguiling simplicity she showed! He was accustomed to a rather different sort of woman, and was now discovering that he had misjudged his own tastes.

“I really appreciate this, Mr. Cenji. When I learned of the mnem, I waited till night, then climbed out of my window in my nightdress, and here I am. They never thought I’d do that. If you hadn’t stopped— there’s probably an alarm out for me now.”

Paul turned on the highway audio scan. If there was an announcement—but that would be part of the police bait; it would mean nothing. His best course would be to keep her talking while he figured out what to do with her. “I thought deprogramming itself was illegal now.”

“It is, but they don’t call it that. There are black-market professionals in that field too. I’ve been accused of stealing valuable jewelry. I would never steal! By the time it turns out that the charge is untrue, they will have me wiped out by the drug, and I won’t even remember that I was ever a Sister—oh, I would die first!” She put her face in her hands.

What a touching display! She was good at her act, uncomfortably good; he wanted to put the car on automatic, take her in his arms, console her. Danger! She was surely planning to betray him, to add his scalp to the collection in her police locker.

Yet how could she do this, when he himself had no idea where the cache of mnem was hidden in the car? He was not even certain that there was a cache, this time; every so often the cartel made a blank run, to further confuse the enemy. If that happened to be the case this time, he had only to keep his nerve and he would win. He had no intention of telling her about his cargo, and if the police had known about it for sure, they would simply have arrested him outright. So this elaborate lure made no sense. Unless she was a trained observer, alert to the signs of mnem addiction. Such signs were trifling, but they did exist, and he was an addict. If he didn’t get his
fix
tonight, he would begin to forget his way home tomorrow. So he had to be rid of her before then, bluffing it out. Stopping before the state line would not get him off this hook.

“Actually, I’ve heard the drug is not so bad—for criminals,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt. At least, I’ve heard it doesn’t.”

“Oh, it is very good for criminals,” she said. “We of the Holy Order of Vision are concerned about the problem of criminality. We don’t believe in taking life; it is as wrong for the state to kill as it is for the individual to kill. And we know our society cannot afford to maintain people in prison, yet some are incorrigible. Mnem is the answer to that. It resolves the conflict between the alternatives of killing the criminal and letting him go unpunished. We believe in forgiveness, but in certain cases correction is better. It makes the criminal a citizen again. Some of our Order members are mnem-erased rehabilitates—”

“It
erases
personality? I thought it improved memory!” How much did she know?

“In overdose it does. In trace dosages it actually enhances memory to an extraordinary degree, but then a person has to keep using it, never too much at a time. I could never stand to have all my memory taken away, or to be tied for life to such a drug. The Order could help me if I were an addict, but this single overdose would take me away from the Order, because I wouldn’t
know
. I couldn’t face that, so I fled.”

“Yes. Understandable.” She did know too much, for any ordinary young female citizen. She had to be a police-trained agent, with a near-perfect cover. Soon she would have him spotted.