The Metallic Muse (14 page)

“It refers to the world of my origin, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at the flame pistol and added, “It might.”

“There’ll be a list of planetary sources somewhere. Where is it?”

“I don’t know. The ministry hasn’t handled any adoptions for years, and I don’t know anything about them.”

Sandler decided to believe him. “Why all the secrecy about this?”

“I don’t make policy. I just follow orders.”

“A lucky thing for you.” He pocketed the pistol. “Now listen—I’m not going to tell anyone where I got this information as long as you don’t mention it. If you make a complaint, I’ll say I bribed you for it. Is that clear?”

“Certainly.”

“Get away from your desk.”

Sandler found the recorder and erased their conversation. “If anyone asks you,” he said, “you forgot to turn it on. I thank you for your cooperation.”

He rode the ramp back to the parking lot. No alarm sounded. A few minutes later he was back at his hotel. He rented a private pool, floated lazily in the water staring at the brilliant designs in the tiled ceiling, and sang lustily. “From far I come, a drifting scum upon the void. No home have I, no world to cry, nor asteroid.”

He wanted to go home. He was going home. The far-reaching, all-powerful, omniscient galactic government was stubbornly opposed to his so much as knowing where that home might be. He formulated several crucial questions, and he began to make plans to shake some satisfactory answers out of responsible officials. By the neck, if necessary.

The blonde sang a different song in the Martian Room that night, and afterward she stopped at Sandler’s table and said glumly, “Heard the news?”

“What news is that?”

“Ministry of Public Welfare. Censorship Department. The ‘Homing Song’ is bad for public morale. Further performances prohibited.”

“How could that song harm anyone?”

“It couldn’t, unless it’s bad to make people want to go home. And since it isn’t, I figure there’s something about it that might harm the government.”

Sandler nodded thoughtfully. It was of a pattern, along with the ministry’s refusal to give him the information he wanted. “What would happen if you sang the song?” he asked.

“It would cost me a month’s pay, at least. I could even get into trouble for telling you this. The censorship is supposed to be kept confidential. The government seems to think the song will run off and hide if professional performers stop singing it.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everyone in the galaxy knows it by this time.”

“Try that argument on a governmental edict.”

“What would happen if the public demanded the song? I mean, supposing your audience started calling for it the next time you’re on?”

“I still couldn’t sing it. But it would be fun!”

“We’ll try it and see what happens.”

As she moved onto the stage for her next song, he called out, ” ‘Homing Song’!”

A murmur of approval rippled about the room. The blonde ignored it, and as she started her song, Sandler called out again. The other guests began to chant, ” ‘Homing Song’!” and drowned out the music.

Sandler sat back to enjoy the confusion, felt a firm hand on his shoulder, and found himself staring at the credentials of a government public investigator. He paid his check and followed along meekly.

Outside the door he faced the burly officer and demanded, “What’s the charge?”

“Disturbing the peace. Endangering public morale.”

“You’ll have some fun proving that, fellow, with everyone in the place doing the same thing.”

“Ill prove it.” He patted his pocket. “I have a recording. You started the disturbance.”

“If you can convince a judge that it was a disturbance.”

At Police Central Sandler was registered and passed along to the night court. The white-haired judge listened to the charges, had the evidence played, and question the investigator incredulously.

“You say the Censorship Department has prohibited this song, but the public has not been informed. The defendant certainly could not have known that he was asking the singer to do something unlawful. There is no indication that the hotel guests or its management regarded his actions as a public disturbance. The evidence points to the contrary.” He paused. “I doubt that the courts will uphold the censorship order against the ‘Homing Song,’ but I see no need to concern myself with that question now. Case dismissed.”

“I intend to appeal the dismissal,” the investigator said haughtily.

“The law states that you may make such an appeal at your discretion. I shall schedule a hearing for ten tomorrow morning before Judge Corming, and I recommend that in the meantime you give some consideration to the meaning of the word ‘discretion.’ “

As a final insult to the investigator, he fixed bond at ten credits. Sandler posted the bond, caught a ground cab, and then dismissed it two blocks from the station. He strolled slowly along Vega Boulevard and several times stopped to look cautiously behind him.

The investigator’s presence in the Martian Room had been no accident. His arrest on the flimsiest of pretexts had been no accident. The government wanted him out of the way, and if Judge Corming refused to cooperate the case would be appealed further, or the police would fabricate new charges. If he didn’t want to spend the next few years trying to break rocks with a light hammer on a low-gravity satellite, he’d have to move cautiously.

He heard strains of music, entered a small cafe, downed two drinks, and lost his newly acquired caution. He turned to the musicians and shouted, ” ‘Homing Song’!”

A near riot followed, but Sandler did not wait to see the outcome. He hurried off into the night, taking his patronage to another cafe, and to a stylish restaurant, and to a smoke-filled tavern, and with identical results. By the time he got back to his hotel, two dozen eating and drinking places along Vega Boulevard were rocking to the chant, ” ‘Homing Song’!”, police cars were swooping down from all directions, and Sandler was in a mildly intoxicated condition.

From his hotel room window, he looked down at the clusters of police cars and tried to make out what was happening. Above him the sky was clear, the stars bright and coldly distant.

“Somewhere out there is where I belong,” he told himself. “And I’m going there. It may be only a dump of a planet, but it’s mine.”

A moonlet drear

With atmosphere

Is sacred ground.

The barren loam

Of any home

Is flower-crowned.

An air car darted across the face of the hotel building, slowed abruptly, and dropped past his window. He threw himself to the floor as a heavy flame gun burned the air above him, wrecked his bed, and bored into the far wall. He dove for his baggage and came up with his own pistol, but the air car was already out of sight.

The hotel manager charged in a few minutes later, surveyed the damage, and stood fretfully wringing his hands.

“I think,” Sandler said calmly, “that someone doesn’t like me. It might be better for both the hotel and myself if I were to check out.”

The manager agreed enthusiastically.

Traveling a tortuously meandering route, Sandler checked in at a shabby spacers’ hotel near the port. He registered under an assumed name, paid for one night in advance, and settled into his cramped room to make plans.

He had no intention of placing himself in the hands of the police a second time, and when he failed to appear in court he would be a bona fide fugitive from justice. The government would begin searching for him openly. His photo would be circulated, transportation agencies would be notified, and port officials alerted. His situation would grow more perilous by the minute. Whatever he did had to be done quickly.

At dawn he carried his belongings to the port. He 1eft them in a rented locker, descended to a lower level, and at a dispenser brought a handful of tokens for the only anonymous means of transportation in Galaxia—the overburdened pneumatic underground railroad. The masses facetiously referred to it as the air train.

Sandler changed trains five times and rode to the end of the line in a distant part of Galaxia. In a public visiphone booth, he hung his coat over the visual transmitter and made four calls.

A distinguished Galaxia attorney: “My dear sir, we might be able to establish your right to information about your parents and the planet of your origin, but what good would that do if government officials were to swear under oath that no record of this information exists? You’d win your point without gaining a thing.”

The editor of a leading opposition newspaper: “We’re always happy to embarrass the administration, but we don’t want to embarrass it that much. The Department of Censorship would close us. I advise you to get away from Earth while you’re still healthy.”

A prominent visiscope commentator: “The less I know about this, the better I’ll like it.”

An opposition congressman: “You case isn’t the first I’ve heard about. Sure, we could stir things up a bit. But it wouldn’t help you, and the Expansionist Party would spend a billion to defeat me next election. My advice: Forget it!”

Sandler checked both visiscope and the newspapers and found no mention of the disturbances over the “Homing Song.” He wondered if the government would be satisfied if he quietly faded away. At a minimum there would be a galaxy-wide Confidential on him. Never again would he be able to use his own name or land openly on a planet without undergoing continuous and humiliating harassment.

“And since I’m into it that far,” he told himself, “I might as well go all the way. I think I’ll have a quiet talk with this Minister of Public Welfare.”

But he could visualize that august individual shaking his head mockingly and saying, “Sorry. We have no records. No records at all. Be very happy to help you if I could. I knew your foster father. But without records—”

There were drugs, talk pills and anti-hib sprays and truth serums in a multitude of types, each with complicated medical and investigative uses. None of them were available to casual purchasers, no questions asked.

Sandler prowled the streets until he found a doctor’s office. He intentionally avoided looking at the name, concentrating on the faded word “Psychiatrist,” as he climbed th worn stairway. He emerged in a hallway that reeked of a strange mixture of odors, most indefinable and probably unmentionable. On the street level there had been a pawn-broker’s establishment. On the floors above were dwelling units. He could hear squalling children and snarling mothers. This was the reverse side of the polished, gem-like capital of the galaxy. The night side. The foul, indescribable slum side.

The consultation room was jammed with the slovenly dregs of humanity: The aged, the infirm, the addicts, the alcoholics, all shabbily dressed, all waiting with dumbly inexpressive faces for the forces of healing to probe their crumbling minds.

Sandler turned aside and edged his way along the filthy hallway. Again avoiding the doctor’s name, he pressed his ear to a door.

“.. .Mrs. Schultz,” a shrill male voice said. “Then I’ll see you Tuesday at eleven.”

Shuffling footsteps. A door opening. The shrill voice asking, “Who’s next?” And then, as the visiphone gong chimed musically, “Just a moment, please.”

The door closed. The visiphone mumbled inaudibly. The shrill voice piped, “What’s that you say? Oh, pills! Yes, soon as I can get there.”

Footsteps moved urgently about the room and suddenly approached the door. Sandler stepped back as the lock clicked and raised his flame pistol. The doctor halted with the door half-opened, his wrinkled face transfixed with amazement. Sandler pushed through and closed the door after him as the doctor backed away.

The doctor cackled mockingly. “I don’t suppose, young man, that you’ve called for professional assistance.” “I want to buy something,” Sandler said. “You’ve come to the wrong place. I’m a psychiatrist, I don’t keep addictive drugs in my office. If I did, in this neighborhood, it’d be broken into ten times a night.” “I don’t want addictive drugs,” Sandler said. “I have an emergency. A man has been injured in a street brawl. They callede a psychiatrist to treat a bump on the head—but then, there aren’t any other doctors in the neighborhood. Please state your business quickly.”

He was a mere wisp of a man, gaunt, the pink of his head radiant beneath his sparse white hair. Sandler remembered the riff-raff in the waiting room and regarded him with admiration. He was a real doctor, a doctor who lived only to serve.

He said firmly, “I want a hypodermic syringe and a maximum dose of truth serum.”

The doctor scrutinized him with professional interest. “You don’t look like a bad man.”

“I’m a wronged man,” Sandler said wearily. “I’ve harmed no one, I’ve violated no law, but the police are looking for me and an agency of the government has tried to murder me. I ask you in the name of justice to sell me what I want and forget about it.”

“The police have truth serum,” the doctor said. “I might forget, but could you?”

‘I’ve done everything I could to protect you. I don’t know your name. I’m a stranger in Galaxia, and once I leave your office I’ll never be able to find my way back here.”

“Even so, it would be safer for me to report it. Tomorrow—supposing I report it tomorrow?” Sandler nodded.

“Well, then—I can’t sell the things to you. Look.” He got out a hypodermic syringe and filled it. “I’m ready for my next patient. And I get an emergency call, and in my hurry I forget to lock the door. I’m an old man, and I won’t miss the thing until tomorrow. So?”

Sandler stepped aside, and the doctor hurried away. He grabbed the syringe and slipped a hundred-credit note into the doctor’s desk. From the general character of his practice, Sandler thought he might need the money.

Sandler hurried down the stairs, saw the doctor tottering along the street, and turned in the opposite direction.

The official residence of Jan Vildson, the Minister of Public Welfare, occupied a choice location at the intersection of Centaurian and Solar Avenues. Its grounds were enclosed on three sides by a towering, vine-covered wall. On the fourth was a tall commercial building, its wall windowless to the eighth story.