The Transvection Machine (11 page)

Hubert Ganger sat down again, but he was obviously unhappy. “Transvection can only occur between two machines, never between a machine and pure space. Unless there was another transvection machine in that operating room, it couldn’t be done.”

“Perhaps the surgical machine could have been rigged in such a way as to attract a transvected body.”

“Now you’re talking rubbish! First, it couldn’t be done. Second, even if it could be done, how could anyone rig the thing in time for the operation? This was an emergency, Mr. Jazine, remember that!
No one
knew Vander Defoe was to be operated upon until perhaps an hour or two before it took place. If he was murdered, it had to a spur-of-the-moment thing, not a carefully planned crime.”

Earl Jazine had to agree that Ganger’s words made sense. It seemed that he was to be left with another dead end. “All right,” he capitulated. “It was just an idea.”

“Will that be all? I have an appointment later today.”

Earl Jazine got to his feet. “I think that’ll be all for now. But I might have more questions later. I want to see Gretel Defoe yet this afternoon, if there’s time.”

He left Ganger at the door and went downstairs. His electric car was parked across the street, but he didn’t get into it immediately. Instead he strolled along the edge of the zoological park, appearing to study the animals. He wanted to see if Ganger would leave his apartment, perhaps to keep a date with Gretel Defoe. But after fifteen minutes the man had not emerged, and Jazine decided to give it up and go visit her himself. He took one last look at the horses in their pastoral setting, marveling that such creatures had once been so plentiful, and then moved on.

Perhaps, he thought, the zoos of the world could unite to save the horse from extinction. They had tried, and failed, with the tiger and zebra and giraffe, and there were children alive today who would never see these animals. He remembered visiting a zoological park in Chicago as a boy, to see the last giraffe in the world before it died. He hadn’t believed that such an animal was possible, and now that it was gone he wondered if it had ever really existed outside the imagination of man.

Perhaps, in another hundred years, there would be no zoos left at all. Perhaps by that time man would have used up every available bit of space on the planet, driving the animals to extinction. And in two hundred years? Maybe even man would be extinct by that time, and there’d be nothing left to rule the Earth.

Nothing but those damned machines.

S
HE STUDIED THE HANDSOME
young man who stood in the doorway looking him up and down before she stepped aside and allowed him to enter. She’d seen the type before—brimming with a sort of brash assurance that they were every man’s equal and every woman’s master.

“How did you find me?” she asked. “Even Vander didn’t know where I was living since I got this new apartment.”

The young man—his name was Earl Jazine—gave her a broad, flirting smile. “Someone as lovely as you couldn’t stay hidden for long, even in Washington. Besides, you did claim your husband’s body for burial, remember. The hospital had your address.”

She’d forgotten about that. “All right, Mr. Jazine, you’re in. Now what?”

He settled into the room’s most comfortable chair and said, “I just want to ask you a few questions about what happened.”

“But I know nothing! The first I knew was when I heard the bulletin on the video news.” She gestured toward the wall screen. “I phoned the hospital and went right down there. I saw that Nurse Simmons.”

“You had no prior knowledge that the operation was pending?”

“None.” It was a lie she had to tell, and she only hoped that fool Maarten Tromp hadn’t said he’d phoned her when Vander was stricken. A half-hour before Jazine arrived at her door, she’d spoken to Ganger on the vision-phone, listening to the answers he’d given the CIB man and planning her own answers to agree with his. “As far as I knew, Vander was always in perfect health.”

“You said he didn’t know where you were living. Could you tell me some more about the circumstances of your separation?”

She hated thinking back to those early days, the happy days, of her marriage. She hated even more the frustrations of having to sit here like some criminal answering the questions of this handsome young man. Perhaps if she could get to the laudanum tablets it would help her.

“Separation?” she mumbled in reply. “I can’t really see where that concerns your investigation in any way. Vander was much older. He’d been married before and his wife was killed in a sea-rail accident. That started him thinking about safer modes of transportation, and led him to Hubert Ganger’s transvection machine.”

“Ganger was the actual inventor of the machine?” She nodded. “I don’t really think it’s a secret any longer. Hubert did all the preliminary work and then my husband moved in as a partner. When the partnership dissolved, Vander had the machine for himself.”

“Was there bitterness on Ganger’s part?”

She had to be careful here. “No, not at all. He credited Vander with doing a great deal of the final testing on it. There was no bitterness at all.”

Earl Jazine nodded. “That’s what he said too.”

“Oh?” Surprise here. She considered herself something of an actress when it came to men. “You’ve questioned him, too?”

“Briefly. It’s part of the routine to question everyone.”

“But you’re not with the regular police, are you?”

“At this point we don’t know that it’s police business. If the Computer Investigation Bureau discovers evidence of homicide, we’ll naturally turn it over to the Washington police.”

“I see.”

“But I was asking about your separation.”

“Yes, you were, weren’t you?” She smiled at him. “I was getting to that. You see, the transvection machine played a big part in it. The thing became an obsession with him, especially after his cabinet appointment. He spent so much time on it … and then there was the age difference. You know what I mean. I finally had to leave him.”

“But why didn’t you get a divorce?”

“I would have. He was a wealthy man, and it was only a matter of working out a fair settlement.” Her mouth was dry and her eyes were beginning to water. She dearly wanted a laudanum tablet.

“Were there any other women in his life that you knew about?”

“I … Pardon me, Mr. Jazine, but you really must excuse me for a moment.” She rose from the sofa and went into the bathroom, hitting the push-plate without really seeing it, her eyes cloudy now with tears. She struggled with the laudanum bottle, pushing the plunger to dispense a single tablet, but her fingers were too moist and it fell to the floor, bouncing to the side of the bidet. She cursed and scooped it up, popping it into her mouth before it could escape again.

All right, all right now. Calm down. Peace, peace.

She felt the old familiar glow as the drug began to catch hold. Straightening her knit body sweater, she returned to the living room. “Now, where were we?”

“I was asking about other women,” he reminded her, his eyes taking in the bulge of her breasts and the angle of her thighs. She always felt sexier after taking the laudanum, and believed she looked sexier too.

“Well, there weren’t any. He was always faithful enough, in his fashion. My only competition was the machine, but that was enough.”

“You’re a very handsome woman, Mrs. Defoe.”

“Thank you.” She smoothed the sweater again in front, liking the way the syntho material clung to her flesh.

“Have you had other men?”

“I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

“There were rumors about you and Hubert Ganger,” he told her frankly.

Damn, double damn! Her brain was becoming clouded with the drug, and she couldn’t think straight. Had Ganger told this guy anything? She couldn’t remember for sure, but she didn’t think so. Somebody else, then? That punk Tromp? She tried to clear away the cobwebs. Maybe another tablet would help.

“I … you’ll have to excuse me again. …”

She hurried to the bathroom, not quite sliding shut the door this time. The bottle was in her hand when he hit the push-plate and stepped quickly through the widening doorway. “Give me those!” he barked, sounding now like her big brother.

“Go to hell!”

“Don’t you know what laudanum tablets can do to you? The stuffs pure opium and alcohol when it’s in liquid form. When it hits your stomach juices it’s like downing five shots of liquor while smoking a pipe of opium. It could kill you like that!”

“Go to hell!” she repeated, slurring the words. “Big fucking brother!”

They were wrestling for the bottle, close up, her body pressed against his. “Give it to me, Gretel.”

She went soft against him, looking up into his eyes. “I’ve got something for you, big boy.”

He seemed uncertain, weighing the possibilities. “What about Ganger?” he asked. “I don’t want to be just another one of the guys he catches you with.”

“Ganger doesn’t care,” she told him, reaching up for the laudanum bottle. But he tossed it into the shower cabinet.

She took his hand and led him into the bedroom, aware that he was not resisting. She still knew how to pick them. He turned her around and kissed her gently, and she pulled him onto the bed. “I’ll show you how, mister.”

They rolled over, and she popped up for an instant. “Where to now?” he wanted to know.

“I’ve got something for you. A little surprise you’ll like.” She pulled open the drawer of the closetier, brought out the electric lance, and padded back to the bed with it. “Here! All for you, honey! Put it on.”

He knocked it from her hand. “When I’m old enough to need one of those damned contraptions, I’ll give up. No machine does it for me.” He took her wrist and pulled her down on top of him. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

The laudanum was in full control now, and though she wished still for a second tablet, the feeling was just as good without it. He was more of a man than Ganger ever had been. Or Vander. Or the others. She nestled against him and imagined herself floating in a pool of big green water lilies, naked and alone, with only the croaking of bullfrogs to disturb the silence of the night.

After a time she opened her eyes and saw the sunlight of late afternoon streaking the wall opposite her window. She rolled over and gazed at the man by her side. “Was it that good with Ganger?” he asked.

“Ganger is a fraud,” she mumbled. “The biggest fraud I ever knew.”

“What kind of a fraud?”

“A fraud fraud!” She buried her face in the sheets.

“Did Ganger kill your husband in order to have you?”

She sputtered with laughter, trying to collect her thoughts. “To
have
me!”

“How did Vander die?”

“Fraud,” she repeated. “Fraud fraud.” Her voice was muffled by the sheets.

“Freud?”

“That too! Yes, that too! Fraud and Freud. …”

He stood up. “I have to go now, Gretel.”

She got to her hands and knees, and reached down to fumble on the rug for the electric lance. But by the time she found it, kicked beneath the bed, he was gone.

H
E OPENED ONE EYE
first, and then the other, very slowly, as if uncertain just what sight might greet his eyes. He’d been dreaming that he was back in San Francisco, where he’d grown up as a boy. The dream had been very real, even to the way the ground churned and the buildings swayed and toppled during the earthquake of ’97. He hadn’t thought about that in years, and he’d been very small at the time it happened.

Awake, he realized it was not the ground that was churning. He was on a boat of some sort. He tried to remember where he was, what had happened, but at first all he could remember was the sea-rail ride. Then, gradually, the rest of it came back to him—the minister, and the island of Plenish, and HAND. And finally the blast from Axman’s stunner. He sat up suddenly and bumped his head on the low cabin roof.

The noise must have attracted someone on deck, because after a moment the cabin door was unlocked and a brawny seaman stuck his head in. “I’ll tell ’em you’re awake,” he said, and then relocked the door.

Crader tried to stand up, clinging to the rail that ran around the edge of the bunk. His knees were weak, but otherwise he seemed to be all in one piece. It was his first experience with the blast from a stunner, and on the whole he felt himself lucky. There were occasional reports of people being killed by them at close range, or at least being rendered unconscious for several days.

Then he realized he didn’t really know what day this was. Perhaps he too had been out of it for longer than he thought. He walked to the square porthole and peered out through the thick polarized glass at the harbor. At least he was still at Plenish. They hadn’t transported him to some far-off headquarters to be guarded by robot slaves or Venusian revolutionaries.

The lock clicked in the door again and it slid open. This time Bails—or Axman, as he’d identified himself—entered alone. There was no sign of the stunner pistol, but Crader had the distinct feeling it might be just outside the door, in the hands of the brawny seaman.

“Did you have a pleasant rest?” Axman asked.

“I suppose so. That’s the first time I’ve been hit by a stunner. What day is it?”

Graham Axman allowed himself a slight chuckle. “You were only unconscious overnight. I had the weapon at its lowest setting. We don’t really want to harm you if we can help it.”

“Is this your yacht?”

“It’s a pleasure launch belonging to the resort, but they allow us to use it. We thought it might be best to have you on water and ready for a quick journey in the event your people came looking for you.”

“They aren’t likely to do that,” Crader told him. “At least not for a few days.”

“Good! Now about the reason for your visit here, and your inquiries about an organization called HAND.”

Crader focused his eyes on the man opposite him, taking in the details of his dress for the first time. There was no longer any trace of the friendly middle-aged minister who had made the sea-rail journey with Crader, and allowed himself to stop off at the resort overnight. Though Axman still wore his small pointed beard, his eyes now had taken on a deep, fiery radiance. He looked more like a devil than a minister, more like a madman than a simple traveler. His clothes too reflected this new image. He wore a crested silver jacket of metallic fabric, over a black body stocking such as actors and homosexuals sometimes affected on the streets of New York.