The Collection (78 page)

He
waited out five hours there, until it was almost twenty-two o
^'
clock,
and then let himself out on the roof. Being careful not to silhouette himself,
he looked down and around. There were at least a dozen more vehicles parked on
the street before Olliver
^'
s house and in the alley back of it than
there should have been in a neighborhood like this one. The place was being
watched, and closely.

The
big danger was being seen during the jump from one roof to the next. But
apparently no one saw him, and he landed lightly, as an acrobat lands. The
sound he made might have been heard in the upstairs room immediately below
him, but no farther. His picklock let him in the door from the roof to the
stairs and at the foot of them, the second floor, he waited for two or three
minutes until utter silence convinced him there was no one on that floor.

He
heard faint voices as he went down the next flight of steps to the first floor.
One voice was Olliver's and the other that of a woman. He listened outside the
door and when, after a while, he'd heard no other voices, he opened it and
walked in.

Jon
Olliver was seated behind a massive mahogany desk. For once, as he saw Crag,
his poker face slipped. There was surprise in his eyes as well as in his voice
as he said,
^"
How in Heaven's name did you make it, Crag? I quit
expecting you after I found the search was centering here. I thought you'd get
in touch with me later, if at all."

Crag
was looking at the woman. She was the technician who had given him his start
toward freedom that afternoon. At least her features were the same. But she
didn't wear the glasses now, and the technician's cap didn't hide the blazing
glory of her hair. And, although the severe uniform she'd worn that afternoon
hadn't hidden the voluptuousness of her figure, the gown she wore now accentuated
every line of it. In the latest style, baremidriffed, there was only a wisp of
material above the waist. And the long skirt fitted her hips and thighs as a
sheath fits a sword.

She
was unbelievably beautiful.

She
smiled at Crag, but spoke to Olliver. She said, "What does it matter
how
he got here, Jon? I told you he'd come.
^"

Crag
pulled his eyes away from her with an effort and looked at Olliver.

Olliver
smiled too, now. He looked big and blond and handsome, like his campaign
portraits.

He
said, "I suppose that's right, Crag. It doesn't matter how you got here.
And there's no use talking about the past. We'll get to brass tacks. But let's
get one more thing straight, first-an introduction.
^"

He
inclined his head toward the woman standing beside the desk.
^"
Crag,
Evadne. My wife."

EVADNI

Crag
almost laughed. It was the first time Olliver had been stupid. To think-Well,
it didn't matter. He ignored it.

"Are
we through horsing around now?" he asked.

Apparently
Olliver either didn't recognize the archaic expression or didn't know what Crag
meant by it. He raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean, Crag?
^"

"Making
me take unnecessary risks just to show you how good I am."

"Oh,
that. Yes, we're through horsing around. Pull up a chair, Crag. You sit down
too, Evadne."

When
they were comfortable, Olliver said, "First the background, Crag. You know
the general political situation, but from the outside you probably don't know
how bad it is.
^"

"I
know enough,
^"
Crag said.

^"
A two-party system, but both
crooked. The only fortunate thing is the reasonably close balance of power
between them. The Guilds-powerful organizations that evolved out of the workmen
^'
s
unions of half a dozen centuries ago, pitted against the Syndicates-the
Gilded-ruthless groups of capitalists and their reactionary satellites. The
Guilds using intimidation as their weapon and the Gilded using bribery. Each
group honeycombed with spies of the other-
^"

"I
know all that."

"Of
course. A third party, a middle-of-the-road one, is now being organized, under
cover. We must get a certain amount of capital and of power before we can come
out into the open." He smiled.
^"
Or they'll slap us down
before we get really started."

^"
All I want to know," said
Crag, "is what you want me to do. You can skip the build-up.
^"

"All
right. A certain man has a certain invention. He doesn
^'
t know it's
valuable. I do. With that invention, our party could have unlimited funds.
Billions. We've raised a war chest of several million among ourselves already. But
it isn't enough. A party, these days, needs billions."

^"
Sounds simple," Crag said,
^"
but
have you offered the inventor the million you offered me?"

"He
won't sell at any price. For one thing, he's immensely wealthy already, and a
million wouldn
^'
t mean anything to him. For another, the thing is
incidentally a weapon and it would be illegal for him to sell it."

"What
do you mean,
incidentally
a weapon?
^"
Crag looked at him
narrowly.

"That's
its primary purpose, what it was made to be. But it's not a very efficient
weapon; it kills, but it takes too long. It takes seconds, and whoever you
killed with it could get you before he died. And the range is very limited.

^"
Its real importance, which he
does not realize, lies in a by-product of its action."

Crag
said,
^"
All right, that part's none of my business. But tell me
who and where the guy lives and what I'm looking for.
^"

Olliver
said, "When the times comes, you'll get the details. Something comes
first-for your protection and mine. You won
^'
t be able to do this job
right if you're wanted by the police, being hunted. For one thing, it
^'
s
not on Earth. And you know-or should-how tough it is to get off Earth if the
police are looking for you."

"Tough,
but it can be done.
^"

"Still,
an unnecessary risk. And anyway, I promised you your freedom as part of this
deal. I meant your full freedom, not as a hunted man.
^"

"And
how do you expect to swing
that?
^"
Crag asked.

"With
Evadne
^'
s help. She
^'
s a psycher technician.
^"

Crag
turned and looked at her again. It didn't make him like her any better, but it
did surprise him. To be a psycher technician you had to have a degree in
psychiatry and another in electronics. To look at Evadne you wouldn
^'
t
think of degrees, unless they were degrees of your own temperature.

Olliver
said, "Now don
^'
t get excited, Crag, when I tell you that I'm
going to send you-with your consent-to the psycher. It'll be a short-circuited
one, with Evadne running it; it won't have any effect on you at all. But Evadne
will certify you as adjusted.
^"

Crag
frowned.
^"
How do I know the machine will be shorted?
^"

"Why
would we cross you up on it, Crag? It would defeat our own purpose. If you
were
adjusted, you wouldn't do this job for me-or want to.
^"

Crag
glanced at the woman. She said, "You can trust me, Crag, that far.
^"

It
was a funny way of putting it and, possibly for that reason, he believed her.
It seemed worth the gamble. If they thought he'd been through the psycher, he
really would be free. Free to go anywhere, do anything. And otherwise he'd be
hunted the rest of his life; if he was ever picked up for the slightest slip
he'd be identified at once and sent to the psycher as an escaped convict. And
without a psycher technician to render it useless.

Olliver
was saying,
^"
It
^'
s the only way, Crag. By tomorrow
noon you
^'
ll be a free man and can return here openly. I
^'
ll
hire you-presumably to drive my autocar and my space cruiser-and keep you here
until it's time to do the little job for me. Which will be in about a week.
^"

Crag
decided quickly. He said,
^"
It's a deal. Do I go out and give
myself up?"

Olliver
opened a drawer of the big desk and took out a needle gun. He said,
"There's a better way. Safer, that is. You killed a guard, you know, and
they might shoot instead of capturing you if you went out of here. I'll bring
them in instead, and I
^'
ll have you already captured. You came here
to kill me, and I captured you: They won't dare to shoot you then."

Crag
nodded, and backed up against the wall, his hands raised.

Olliver
said,
^"
Go and bring them in, my dear,
^"
to
Evadne.

Crag's
eyes followed her as she went to the door. Then they returned to Olliver's.
Olliver had raised the needle gun and his eyes locked with Crag
^'
s.
He said softly, "Remember, Crag, she's my wife."

Crag
grinned insolently at him. He said,
^"
You don
^'
t seem
very sure of that."

For
a moment he thought he'd gone too far, as Olliver
^'
s knuckles
tightened on the handle of the gun. Then the men were coming in to get him, and
they held the tableau and neither spoke again.

He
was back in jail, in the same cell, within half an hour. One thing happened
that he hadn't counted on-although he would have realized it was inevitable if
he'd thought of it. They beat him into insensibility before they left him
there. Common sense-or self-preservation-made him wise enough not to raise his
hand, his left hand, against them. He might have killed two or even three of
them, but there were six, and the others would have killed him if he'd killed
even one.

He
came back to consciousness about midnight, and pain kept him from sleeping the
rest of the night. At ten in the morning, six guards came and took him back to
the same room in which he had been tried the day before. This time there was no
jury and no attorneys. Just Crag, six guards, and Judge Olliver.

Sentence
to the psycher was a formality.

Six
guards took him hack to his cell. And, because it was the last chance they'd
have, they beat him again. Not so badly this time; he'd have to be able to walk
to the psycher.

At
twelve they brought him lunch, but he wasn
^'
t able to eat it. At
fourteen, they came and escorted him to the psycher room. They strapped him in
the chair, slapped his face a bit and one of them gave him a farewell blow in
the stomach that made him glad he hadn't eaten, and then they left.

* * * *

A
few minutes later, Evadne came in. Again she was dressed as she had been when
he'd first seen her. But this time her beauty showed through even more for,
after having seen her dressed as she
^'
d been the evening before, he
knew almost every curve that the tailored uniform tried to hide. She wore the
horn-rimmed glasses when she came in, but took them off as soon as she had
locked the door from inside. Probably, Crag thought, they were only protective
coloration.

She
stood in front of him, looking down at his face, a slight smile on her lips.

She
said, "Quit looking so worried, Crag. I
^'
m not going to psych
you-and even your suspicious, unadjusted nature will admit I'd have no reason
for lying about it now, if I intended to. I've got you where I'd want you, if I
wanted you."

He
said nothing.

Her
smile faded.
^"
You know, Crag, I
^'
d hate to adjust
you, even if this was a straight deal. You're a magnificent brute. I think I
like you better the way you are, than if you were a mild-mannered cleric or
elevator operator. That's what you
^'
d be if I turned that thing on,
you know.
^"

"Why
not unstrap me?"

^"
With the door locked, and with
us alone? Oh, I
^'
m not being femininely modest, Crag. I know you hate
women I also know your temper, and I know how you've probably been treated
since last night. I'd have to watch every word I said to keep you from slapping
me down-left handed.
^"

"You
know about that?"

^"
Olliver-Jon-knows a lot about
you."

^"
Then he must know I wouldn
^'
t
hit a woman-unless she got in my way.
^"