The Past Through Tomorrow (105 page)

Lazarus felt more like a cop with a proper uniform kilt and a bandolier of paralysis bombs slung under his left arm. Besides, the proctor’s kilt was a better fit. To the right the passage outside led to the Sanctuary and a dead end; he went to the left by Hobson’s choice although he knew he would run into his unconscious benefactor’s legate. The passage gave into a hall which was crowded with Members herded into a group of proctors. Lazarus ignored his kin and sought out the harassed officer in charge. “Sir,” he reported, saluting smartly, “There’s sort of a hospital back there. You’ll need fifty or sixty stretchers.”

“Don’t bother me, tell your legate. We’ve got our hands full.”

Lazarus almost did not answer; he had caught Mary Sperling’s eye in the crowd—she stared at him and looked away. He caught himself and answered, “Can’t tell him, sir. Not available.”

“Well, go on outside and tell the first-aid squad.”

“Yes, sir.” He moved away, swaggering a little, his thumbs hooked in the band of his kilt. He was far down the passage leading to the transbelt tunnel serving the Waukegan outlet when he heard shouts behind him. Two proctors were running to overtake him.

Lazarus stopped in the archway giving into the transbelt tunnel and waited for them. “What’s the trouble?” he asked easily as they came up.

“The legate—” began one. He got no further; a paralysis bomb tinkled and popped at his feet. He looked surprised as the radiations wiped all expression from his face; his mate fell across him.

Lazarus waited behind a shoulder of the arch, counted seconds up to fifteen: “Number one jet fire! Number two jet fire! Number three jet fire!”—added a couple to be sure the paralyzing effect had died away. He had cut it finer than he liked. He had not ducked quite fast enough and his left foot tingled from exposure.

He then checked. The two were unconscious, no one else was in sight. He mounted the transbelt. Perhaps they had not been looking for him in his proper person, perhaps no one had given him away. But he did not hang around to find out. One thing he was damn’ well certain of, he told himself, if anybody had squealed on him, it wasn’t Mary Sperling.

It took two more parabombs and a couple of hundred words of pure fiction to get him out into the open air. Once he was there and out of immediate observation the brassard and the remaining bombs went into his pouch and the bandolier ended up behind some bushes; he then looked up a clothing store in Waukegan.

He sat down in a sales booth and dialed the code for kilts. He let cloth designs flicker past in the screen while he ignored the persuasive voice of the catalogue until a pattern showed up which was distinctly unmilitary and not blue, whereupon he stopped the display and punched an order for his size. He noted the price, tore an open-credit voucher from his wallet, stuck it into the machine and pushed the switch. Then he enjoyed a smoke while the tailoring was done.

Ten minutes later he stuffed the proctor’s kilt into the refuse hopper of the sales booth and left, nattily and loudly attired. He had not been in Waukegan the past century but he found a middle-priced autel without drawing attention by asking questions, dialed its registration board for a standard suite and settled down for seven hours of sound sleep.

He breakfasted in his suite, listening with half an ear to the news box; he was interested, in a mild way, in hearing what might be reported concerning the raid on the Families. But it was a detached interest; he had already detached himself from it in his own mind. It had been a mistake, he now realized, to get back in touch with the Families—a dam good thing he was clear of it all with his present public identity totally free of any connection with the whing-ding.

A phrase caught his attention: “—including Zaccur Barstow, alleged to be their tribal chief.

“The prisoners are being shipped to a reservation in Oklahoma, near the ruins of the Okla-Orleans road city about twenty-five miles east of Harriman Memorial Park. The Chief Provost describes it as a ‘Little Coventry,’ and has ordered all aircraft to avoid it by ten miles laterally. The Administrator could not be reached for a statement but a usually reliable source inside the administration informs us that the mass arrest was accomplished in order to speed up the investigations whereby the administration expects to obtain the ‘Secret of the Howard Families’—their techniques for indefinitely prolonging life. This forthright action in arresting and transporting every member of the outlaw group is expected to have a salutary effect in breaking down the resistance of their leaders to the legitimate demands of society. It will bring home forcibly to them that the civil rights enjoyed by decent citizens must not be used as a cloak behind which to damage society as a whole.

“The chattels and holdings of the members of this criminal conspiracy have been declared subject to the Conservator General and will be administered by his agents during the imprisonment of—”

Lazarus switched it off. “Damnation!” he thought. “Don’t fret about things you can’t help.” Of course, he had expected to be arrested himself…but he had escaped. That was that. It wouldn’t do the Families any good for him to turn himself in—and besides, he owed the Families nothing, not a tarnation thing.

Anyhow, they were better off all arrested at once and quickly placed under guard. If they had been smelled out one at a time, anything could have happened—lynchings, even pogroms. Lazarus knew from hard experience how close under the skin lay lynch law and mob violence in the most sweetly civilized; that was why he had advised Zack to rig it—that and the fact that Zack and the Administrator had to have the Families in one compact group to stand a chance of carrying out their scheme. They were well off…and no skin off his nose.

But he wondered how Zack was getting along, and what he would think of Lazarus’ disappearance. And what Mary Sperling thought—it must have been a shock to her when he turned up making a noise like a proctor. He wished he could straighten that out with her.

Not that it mattered what any of them thought. They would all either be light-years away very soon…or dead. A closed book.

He turned to the phone and called the post office. “Captain Aaron Sheffield,” he announced, and gave his postal number. “Last registered with Goddard Field post office. Will you please have my mail sent to—” He leaned closer and read the code number from the suite’s mail receptacle.

“Service,” assented the voice of the clerk. “Right away, Captain.”

“Thank you.”

It would take a couple of hours, he reflected, for his mail to catch up with him—a half hour in trajectory, three times that in fiddle-faddle. Might as well wait here…no doubt the search for him had lost itself in the distance but there was nothing in Waukegan he wanted. Once the mail showed up he would hire a U-push-it and scoot down to—

To where? What was he going to do now?

He turned several possibilities over in his mind and came at last to the blank realization that there was nothing, from one end of the Solar System to the other, that he really wanted to do.

It scared him a little. He had once heard, and was inclined to credit, that a loss of interest in living marked the true turning point in the battle between anabolism and catabolism—old age. He suddenly envied normal short-lived people—at least they could go make nuisances of themselves to their children. Filial affection was not customary among Members of the Families; it was not a feasible relationship to maintain for a century or more. And friendship, except between Members, was bound to be regarded as a passing and shallow matter. There was no one whom Lazarus wanted to see.

Wait a minute…who was that planter on Venus? The one who knew so many folk songs and who was so funny when he was drunk? He’d go look him up. It would make a nice hop and it would be fun, much as he disliked Venus.

Then he recalled with cold shock that he had not seen the man for—how long? In any case, he was certainly dead by now.

Libby had been right, he mused glumly, when he spoke of the necessity for a new type of memory association for the long-lived. He hoped the lad would push ahead with the necessary research and come up with an answer before Lazarus was reduced to counting on his fingers. He dwelt on the notion for a minute or two before recalling that he was most unlikely ever to see Libby again.

The mail arrived and contained nothing of importance. He was not surprised; he expected no personal letters. The spools of advertising went into the refuse chute; he read only one item, a letter from Pan-Terra Docking Corp. telling him that his convertible cruiser
I Spy
had finished her overhaul and had been moved to a parking dock, rental to start forthwith. As instructed, they had not touched the ship’s astrogational controls—was that still the Captain’s pleasure?

He decided to pick her up later in the day and head out into space. Anything was better than sitting Earthbound and admitting that he was bored.

Paying his score and finding a jet for hire occupied less than twenty minutes. He took off and headed for Goddard Field, using the low local-traffic level to avoid entering the control pattern with a flight plan. He was not consciously avoiding the police because he had no reason to think that they could be looking for “Captain Sheffield”; it was simply habit, and it would get him to Goddard Field soon enough.

But long before he reached there, while over eastern Kansas, he decided to land and did so.

He picked the field of a town so small as to be unlikely to rate a full-time proctor and there he sought out a phone booth away from the field. Inside it, he hesitated. How did you go about calling up the head man of the entire Federation—and get him? If he simply called Novak Tower and asked for Administrator Ford, he not only would not be put through to him but his call would be switched to the Department of Public Safety for some unwelcome inquiries, sure as taxes.

Well, there was only one way to beat that, and that was to call the Department of Safety himself and, somehow, get the Chief Provost on the screen—after that he would play by ear.

“Department of Civil Safety,” a voice answered. “What service, citizen?”

“Service to you,” he began in his best control-bridge voice. “I am Captain Sheffield. Give me the Chief.” He was not overbearing; his manner simply assumed obedience.

Short silence—“What is it about, please?”

“I said I was
Captain Sheffield
.” This time Lazarus’ voice showed restrained annoyance.

Another short pause—“I’ll connect you with the Chief Deputy’s office,” the voice said doubtfully.

This time the screen came to life. “Yes?” asked the Chief Deputy, looking him over.

“Get me the Chief—hurry.”

“What’s it about?”

“Good Lord, man—get me the Chief! I’m
Captain Sheffield!
”

The Chief Deputy must be excused for connecting him; he had had no sleep and more confusing things had happened in the last twenty-four hours than he had been able to assimilate. When the High Chief Provost appeared in the screen, Lazarus spoke first. “Oh, there you are! I’ve had the damnedest time cutting through your red tape. Get me the Old Man and
move
! Use your closed circuit.”

“What the devil do you mean? Who are you?”

“Listen, brother,” said Lazarus in tones of slow exasperation, “I would not have routed through your damned hide-bound department if I hadn’t been in a jam. Cut me in to the Old Man.
This is about the Howard Families
.”

The police chief was instantly alert. “Make your report.”

“Look,” said Lazarus in tired tones, “I know you would like to look over the Old Man’s shoulder, but this isn’t a good time to try. If you obstruct me and force me to waste two hours by reporting in corpus, I will. But the Old Man will want to know why and you can bet your pretty parade kit, I’ll tell him.”

The Chief Provost decided to take a chance—cut this character in on a three-way; then, if the Old Man didn’t burn this joker off the screen in about three seconds, he’d know he had played safe and guessed lucky. If he did—well, you could always blame it on a cross-up in communications. He set the combo.

Administrator Ford looked flabbergasted when he recognized Lazarus in the screen. “You?” he exclaimed. “How on Earth—Did Zaccur Barstow—”

“
Seal your circuit
!” Lazarus cut in.

The Chief Provost blinked as his screen went dead and silent. So the Old Man
did
have secret agents outside the department…interesting—and not to be forgotten.

Lazarus gave Ford a quick and fairly honest account of how he happened to be at large, then added, “So you see, I could have gone to cover and escaped entirely. In fact I still can. But I want to know this: is the deal with Zaccur Barstow to let us emigrate still on?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Have you figured out how you are going to get a hundred thousand people inboard the
New Frontiers
without tipping your hand? You can’t trust your own people, you know that.”

“I know. The present situation is a temporary expedient while we work it out.”

“And I’m the man for the job. I’ve got to be, I’m the only agent on the loose that either one of you can afford to trust. Now listen—”

Eight minutes later Ford was nodding his head slowly and saying, “It might work. It might. Anyway, you start your preparations. I’ll have a letter of credit waiting for you at Goddard.”

“Can you cover your tracks on that? I can’t flash a letter of credit from the Administrator; people would wonder.”

“Credit me with some intelligence. By the time it reaches you it will appear to be a routine banking transaction.”

“Sorry. Now how can I get through to you when I need to?”

“Oh, yes—note this code combination.” Ford recited it slowly. “That puts you through to my desk without relay. No, don’t write it down; memorize it.”

“And how can I talk to Zack Barstow?”

“Call me and I’ll hook you in. You can’t call him directly unless you can arrange a sensitive circuit.”

“Even if I could, I can’t cart a sensitive around with me. Well, cheerio—I’m clearing.”

“Good luck!”