"Me? Sure, baby, I'm okay. I'm tough)" Danty said, ruffling her hair. "Let me sit up, hm? That's the idea!"as she twisted around to support him behind his shoulders. Touching his arm, he winced, and added, "I guess this may need a sling for a day or two, Magdal"
"Lora, go look behind that curtain, by my bed. There's a bag full of rags," Magda said, and Lora departed at a run. She added to Danty, "Who did it-Josh?"
"I'm not sure whether Josh beat Shark to it, or the other way around " Danty sighed. "They took me completely by surprise. Jumped me near the hoverhalt as I was coming off the beach."
"You know who did this to you?" Sheklov said, astonished. ".Shouldn't you-uh-report it, then? Or something?" he added lamely.
"To the pigs?" Danty said with a cynical grin. "Man, I should die laughing the day the pigs do anything for mel More like -hey'd give Josh a medal."
"Is this long enough?" Lora called, waving a piece of blue cloth around the corner of the curtain that hid Magda's sleeping alcove. Magda held out her hand for it, and after tugging hard on its ends folded and tied it to make a sling.
"Great, baby," Danty said, having tried it out. "Say, I guess I should thank you all, shouldn't I? Don-Lora. . . Lora, honey! Shit, what you crying for?"
She was struggling not to, but tears were pouring down her cheeks and she was clamping her hands together to stop their ;baking.
"Give her a trankl" Danty said, and interrupted himself. "No. got a better idea. Any of that vodka left that Punchy gave us?"
"Sure is!" Magda said, snapping her fingers, and headed for the kitchen. She was back in a moment with mismatched glasses and a bottle half-full. According to its label, Sheklov noted, the contents.vere made in Scheneotady, New York. This wasn't like the Vyborova he drank at home, but it helped, and he set his empty glass aside gratefully. It was only when he found Danty offering the bottle for a refill that he realized he had drunk it Russianstyle, in a gulp, instead of sipping it like the rest of them.
That, though, apparently wasn't unexpected in .the present context. At least, none of them commented.
After a pause to wipe her eyes, Lora said suddenly, "I-uh-I'd like to say something."
"So shoot," invited Danty.
"I . . ." She took the plunge. "I like youl Both of youl You feel real."
"That's a change from this morning," Danty chuckled. "I thought you'd set the stairs afire. the speed you left at."
"I know," Lora said, almost inaudibly. "All the time I do stupid things, the exact opposite of what I want . . . .
I wish 1 could figure out how to explore inside myself, too. I'm sure there's something in there I ought to know about, something that would be worth having. After all. I'm not an idiot. I'm just"-a furious grimace "kind of crazy!"
"Aren't we all?" Magda said. and drained her glass. At the same moment there was a shrill ring from behind the curtain. and she jumped up.
"That might be about Molly," she said, answering an unspoken query from Danty. "I left the number at the hospital so they could tell us the news." And vanished.
"Friend of ours," Danty explained. "Pregnant."
"Oh. Is she in the maternity ward?" Sheklov hazarded.
He gave his usual crooked grin. "No. Emergency. They have three kids already and their neighbours aren't talking to them. So her husband threw her downstairs to try and abort her. Broke her pelvis."
"What?" Lora burst out in horror.
"Happens all the time," Danty said. passing his unhurt hand wearily over his face. "Shit, what you expect? We got three hundred sixty million people now, and no way out."
There was silence among them. During it, they heard Magda's voice.
"But how the hell did you get this number? It's unlisted, and I never gave it to Avice!"
"Oh " Danty said softly. "Not Molly. One of her patients-I mean clients. Mustn't say `patient.' You have to have a licence if you have patients."
Magda again: "Yes! Yes, all right! Thanks for calling. But don't use this number again. and above all don't pass it on to anyone else, is that clear? I don't want to have it changed againl"
And she came back, scowling.
"The Clarke woman?" Danty asked.
"Right in one." She helped herself to more vodka and resumed her seat. "Husband's been called back unexpectedly, so she won't dare come here tomorrow. Christ, can you call that sort of thing a marriage? That's what mine was like you know, why it broke up. I wasn't allowed to do anything I thought of by myself, or I'd get kicked in the ass for my temerity." She threw her liquor down her throat as though it would drown the memory.
"Dantyl" Lora said suddenly, jumping out of her chair and going to sit at his side. "Are you okay now? Feeling all right?"
"No." Danty said. "I'm feeling lousy-what the hell do you expect, with a crack on the head and a knife-cut?" And relented reaching up to tousle her hair affectionately. "Don't let it get you down, though. I've had worse things happen to me, and lived through them . . . . Say, Mag'1"
"Yes?"
"Could we like feed these people? Day's wearing on, and all I had was brunch."
"Well-"
"Hold it!" Sheklov interrupted. "I have a better idea. Why don't we all eat dinner together? My expense. Lora, would you drive us somewhere? Like maybe out of town?"
"Oh, gread" Lora said. "Sure, wonderful! Danty?"
"Well, I wouldn't say no, if we can find somewhere that doesn't mind a mixed party," Danty said after a pause. "What about you, Mag'?"
"I guess so," she said. "Have to change clothes first, though, if we're going any place-uh-respectable."
"So will I," Danty said, getting up. "But I sure wouldn't refuse a square meal. Thanks, Don. We won't be a moment."
He caught Magda by the arm and escorted her through the curtain, out of sight.
The moment they were alone fn the sleeping alcove, she rounded on him. Very softly, but very ferociously, because this must not carry to the others, she said. "What the shit possessed you to walk into that much trouble?" She tapped his cut arm.
"Had to," was the curt reply. "Just had to. Know what happened this afternoon? Turpin was called out from home to go somewhere very fast in an EG veetol. And I can guess where."
"That reserved area?" Magda said, her eyes fixed on his drawn face.
"Where else? And for some reason it was more important for me to know that than for me to steer clear of where Josh and Shark and Potatohead might find me."
There was an awful, dead pause.
"Remember what I said about getting scared?" Danty said at last. "What-what-what could be more important than my keeping alive? And I mean thatl They were going to cut me into little pieces, and no one would have tried to helpl It was just luck that there was a pig somewhere
around who wasn't fond of them right now. I got the notion that Shark and Potatohead were like having a blow on the beach, and the pig moved them on. So when he saw them again . . ." A vague gesture. "That was all that saved me. I rode the hover line back here, bleeding all over the car, and you know, nobody even offered me a seat?"
"That's America," Magda said.
"Yes." Danty turned away and pulled open the small built-in closet where his clothes were stored. "And you know something? 1 want out."
"Where to? Africa? Look what happened to the people who went there in the black exodus!"
"No, just out," Danty said. His voice, still barely above a `whisper, suddenly became level and determined. "Any place where this fucking talent would have something solid to work on, instead of walking me into trouble all the time!"
1 XX
"That you. Morton?" Fenella Clarke called as she heard the key clicking in the door. A microphone beside her chair picked up her voice-being directionalised. it did not blur the question by also picking up the sound from the TV she was watching-and conveyed it to the entrance foyer.
"Who the hell else are you expecting who can get through these locks?" her husband retorted. There was a mike focused on him, too.
When she married him, she had thought it romantic, in some indefinable way, to have captured one of the brightest up-and-coming young experts who had undertaken that toughest of all varieties of law-enforcement work: policing the very minds of disloyal citizens. And her confidence had been amply repaid in material terms. Less than five years after their meeting, he had been in a position to buy into the Lakonia towers, and this apartment was among the choicest. with a superb view on every side.
The kind of thing she had not foreseen . . .
Well, that mike beside her chair was an example. (Remembering, she said to it meekly, "Just a figure of speech, honey, you know thatl" And heard a grunt by way of response.) The whole place was riddled, permeated, infested with bugs. Electronic type. Mostly newly developed gadgetry that he was field-testing, because his profession was also his hobby.
And, above all, she had never in her life imagined the penalties she was going to have to pay for her comfort. In her memory, she marked the turning-point by Morton's decision to have a separate bedroom in their Lakonia apartment-not by the acquisition of the apartment itself. It was at that stage that he had reached he point where a security force executive began to worry about talking in his sleep. At least, that was what she had worked out in discussions with her friend Avice Donnelly, who was married to a senior plant security officer for Energetics General
and hence was regarded as a proper person for Morton Clarke's wife to befriend.
She didn't actually like Avice. She found her bitchy, overfond of gossip and especially of scandal, and given to nursing ridiculous grudges, sometimes for years on end.' But one couldn't get along with no friends whatever. Just couldn't! No matter how often Morton indicated that that was the way he would have preferred it.
Every promotion seemed to make things worse. Back when he was a mere agent, and they had been courting, he had appeared to get some kind of fun out of his work. That was something she could understand, even appreciate. There was a quality akin to fencing in the person-to-person duels of a subversive and a security agent, and when the results were in, one could stand back and look at the ingenuity that had led to the d6nouement with honest admiration. "He thought that we would think . . ." Only: "We realized he would think that we would think . .. ."
And he'd been promoted to the next grade, keeper, and she'd accepted his proposal of marriage on the spot. He'd been so overjoyed, it was infectiousl
The rot set in later. She found out.about his promotion to acting bailiff by chance, weeks after it was authorised . . . then to substantive bailiff only when she answered a call on the secure line while they were discussing the household accounts . . .
She had barely dared to mention all this to anyone except Avice, because if Morton felt he had to keep such data from his wife, how could she talk about it with anyone else?
And, naturally, there was the problem of children. Fenella had hoped to have at least one-people felt that was okay-and had looked forward to the baby's arrival. Except Morton refused to co-operate. A child was vulnerable to being kidnapped by subversives.
She had asked about divorce when that episode overtook her. And been refused. Flatly. No.
And tomorrow, like Avice, she had meant to pour out her heart to this wonderful woman, this Magda Hansen, who was so sympathetic and understanding and made such fabulous suggestions for getting around obstinate husbands, and . .
How the hell had Avice brought herself to consult Mrs. Hansen, anyway? Avice with her impenetrable shell of
self-possession, her tinkly laugh, her air of not giving a fart about anyone or anything-she must have been driven to the breaking-point.
Come to think of it, 1 haven't heard from her in over three weeks! I should have called up. . .
She reached for a cigarette, the latest of far too many today, and glanced towards the door. Wasn't Morton going to come in?
Obviously not. But then, he so often didn't, Just made straight for his den, which she was forbidden to enter unless he was present.
One of these days I'm going to walk in there and smear shit all over all the things he prizes more than me. And then I'll shoot myself right in the middle of it, the messiest way possible, through the roof of my mouth. See how he likes coming home and finding that lot to clear up!
She turned her attention, with an effort, back to the TV, knowing at the bottom of her mind that she never would.
Stomach grumbling from the sandwich and glass of milk he had gulped down on his way home, at the wrong time owing to his hasty departure from California-at least as far as his metabolism was concerned-Morton Clarke wiped his face as he entered his den and closed the door. Tight. With a careful double-check of the locks.
Should have remained a bachelor. No life for a married man, my career.
But, having married, one must stay married. They were instantly suspicious, in the security force, of anyone who changed his mind on such an important matter . . .
He sat down before his desk, which was more of an electronic console because this was his only permissible outlet for personal initiative once he had dedicated his life to the security of his country. Sometimes he thought of himself as akin to a mediaeval monk, sustained only by recollection of a pledge he had given while in full and sober possession of his faculties when the Rule of his order became intolerable. Yes; he must not give way to private preferences, to personal predilections. This afternoon, at the reserved area, he had come perilously close to doing so when he picked up that rock and .uttered that fierce remark to Turpin: "Did you see that go into orbit?"