WHEN YOU HIT THAT TICKER WITH THE ADRE

Lord could see the man was a cardio-dope all right. The blue cheeks, the rapid, shallow breathing, were a trademark. The wide, meaning, knowing smile, as though all the world were an oyster for this guy’s own guzzlement. Get your own ticker-sticker, uncle.

Gosheron looked up, smiling vacantly, his be-ringed fingers, wet with wine, clutching a liquor dispenser. His aides seemed to tense up, like ropes dipped in water, their faces going stiff and hard and ugly. The man in Chinese costume staggered a few further unsteady, paces, stopped and drew himself up in drunken solemnity. His face twitched. His feet were planted wide apart on the synthi-glass floor, heels off. His knees were slightly bent and Lord could see the quiver running along the muscles of those legs.

The man wasn’t drunk.

Noise and confusion came back into Lord’s world. The groaning bedlam of the convention beat at him with frenzied hands.

Lord moved a fraction of a second before Gosheron’s aides. He drew his needle-beam, holding it carefully under a lapel flap, sighted on the pseudo-drunk and shot his stomach out through his backbone. Then, sheathing the weapon, Lord moved swiftly down the steps on to the floor, his coat flaring, took the dead man companionably by the arm and murmured a polite phrase of greeting.

The man’s eyes were still open. Mirrored there was no expression at all. Death had struck too fast for any purely physical reaction. Lord had used a needle beam fined down so the wound was small; there was a little blood and intestine on the back of the man’s Chinese coat but the hole in his stomach was invisible. Lord flicked the coat across to make sure.

The cardio-dope was still standing balanced on those wide-apart betraying legs. As he began to fall, his legs buckling, Lord took the weight on his arm, held the corpse upright and started to manoeuvre towards the nearest exit to one side of the alcove. Half-dragging half-carrying the body he got outside attracting as much attention as a hypo-needle at a party. Dopes, drunks, mixers, they all came alike to the bouncers.

‘Stab with me, Jab with me, Come on, baby, GRAB with -’

The man suddenly welled a spurt of blood down his trousers and Lord hastily thumbed a window slide and tipped the body over. It’s a long way down, buster. Goodbye, uncle. He went back into the big room, changing faces as he went.

Gosheron would never know he had just had his life saved by a Terran. He musn’t know, of course: all that he’d make out of it would be the attempted attack itself. A fine life. Terran Security Agent, a fine jim-dandy life.

Time: 2140.

A group was singing, loudly, discordantly, but in an iron mesh of rhythm.

I wanna GLOW

With a baby who’s not SLOW

I wanna SHOT

Of porage that is hot, HOT, HOT!

He’d been out of sight of Gosheron for perhaps forty-five seconds. His sigh of relief was not pleasant. Everything looked the same. If Gosheron copped his blood-bucket tonight - exit Lord also, ungracefully.

Impossibly the noise and confusion grew. Sounds and colours rose and burst around him like fire-streaked porpoises breaking the surface of a turgid, boiling, lava-engorged sea.

That was one attempt that had failed. There’d be others - probably fanatics from the Earth for Terrans party. Just so long as the Sahndran Ambassador had a fine old time and was suitably impressed by Terran independence and wealth - wealth! that was as false a front as an anaemic fifteen year old hat-check girl’s - then the big wheels of Earth might chisel a few contracts for materials.

He. snatched a glass from a passing robot. Wood al-co-hol! Down the hatch, derriere’s up - whatever a derriere was. His mind fretted again over Katy. Where in hell was the girl? She’d forgotten him, obviously, taking some boob of a spaceman and sucking him dry. To hell with all women.

I wanna GLOW...

Lord grimaced disgustedly and threw the empty glass at a dispenser. He missed and the crystal shattered into fragments. A girl’s high-pitched laugh jeered at his nerves.

Gosheron was talking now with the arbiters of trade and industry and money. This was the crux of the whole jamboree. This little quiet casual conference was the reason this lavish display of worldly wealth and squandering extravagance had been staged. Gosheron represented Sahndran on Earth, and Sahndran had systems choc-full of raw materials, resources, metals, Q’s, everything that Earth lacked. Be nice to him, Terran hater though he might be, pal, he holds the whip hand. Only - don’t let him know. Put on a show, throw an Advert. Con. and let him see how we can whoop it up! Dazzle the old boy. Geriatrics kept him chipper at eighty-three. Fling in a woman or two. Talk nice.

And get those raw materials for Earth!

Drink, Your Excellency? Which porage would you prefer? Yes, Your Excellency. This is the latest

I wanna WHIZ

Wanna ZIZ,

Drink my NU-CLE-O-NIC FIZZ!

There had been more than a hint of desperation in the way Earth had flung itself into the algae business. If algae and bacteria could not provide the protein and carbohydrates and fats needed and if the forests could not supply the raw materials for commerce and synthesis, then mankind was sliding to hell in a bucket. The enormous demand for energy had stripped the land of renewable Q’s - the sun and wind and tides were left. And still the consumption racket went on, still the stentorian calls for more production and consumption boomed out. It was hysterico-religious mania by then, of course. Geriatrics added to the inferno. Improved methods of equipping the unfit for life sprang up, adding still more burdens. Birth control? Just try, uncle, just try. The whole crazy mess rolled on inevitably, with warfare an outmoded - and unmentionable - method of control.

The basics were perfectly correct. Just that something went wrong along the line, somewhere. Even space travel didn’t turn out to be the panacea everyone had confidently expected.

We just weren’t the only people in the Galaxy.

A tall, glistening, floodlit flagpole with the United Nations flag bravely fluttered, towering over a garbage can with a gaping ever hungry mouth. That was the symbol.

WE’LL DRINK AT BARS

SPREAD FROM HERE OUT TO THE STARS

A world bedlam of frenzied, sensation-seeking, hungry, frightened people.

Drink, drink, wood al-co-hol!

You couldn’t really blame them.

Lord felt the shivers and pulled his nasal plugs out, took a rapid sniff of snow, and replaced the filters. He needed it, anyway, after that hop-headed Chinaman. He finished another Nuclear Fizz - this time his cast was accurate and the glass splintered down the dispenser to be carried into the city’s complex reclamation system - and wandered into the shadows to the rear of the animated group around Gosheron.

They were busily building empires and tearing others out from under the clammy feet of friends. Lord felt a faint disgust.

The woman with the golden face mask and bleached rocket hair glided swiftly from some purple-lit alcove, seized his arm. Her eyes were yellow pits of fire.

‘Spencer! Darling Spencer! Fancy seeing you!’

Index: T/F/354920/E.

Name: Katherine Coburn.

Age: Alleged 26. Chronologic: 40. Height: 160 cms. Hair: Mousy. Eyes: Blue (partial to yellow stain).

Professional tridi entertainer. Four hospitalisations on unspecified data. Possible connections with Earth for Terrans party. Security Risk Rating: BX - problematical. Appears on restricted ‘arrest during emergency’ list.

There burst a suffocating wash of sound and light from the ballroom carrying her throaty greeting on it like a surfboard, tearing into his guts and making him ache to crush her into his arms then and there.

‘Katy - I’d not recognised you - Katy - why in hell didn’t you visor me?’

‘I recognised you easily, uncle. But, Spencer, darling - I’ve been so busy -’

‘Yeah! I saw! With that fat slug Gosheron.’

‘But he’s important, darling. And he’s got lots of you know what.’

‘I can keep you in reasonable comfort, Katy, you know that -’

‘Oh, don’t propose again, there’s a dear boy! I believe passionately in Trial Marriage, and it’s so much less fuss. We’ve been happy for a couple of years, uncle, why not let it go on that way?’

‘We’ve been happy! I’ve been in hell!’

She shrugged, her naked shoulders agleam in the lights where finger marks had smeared away powder. Lord’s tongue was a cinder in the dryness of his mouth. She smiled at him, the golden sheath around her mouth dimpling and folding over the flesh.

‘I need a fix,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Atta boy, Spencer - I’ll join you.’ Her yellow eyes smouldered. She lifted her scrap of skirt, drew out a jewelled plastic box. ‘What are you hitting these days?’

‘Usual.’ Lord’s own box, his portable carry-case, opened clumsily under his trembling fingers, a hinge snapped with a sharp ping! and the lid hung askew.

‘Hey, take it easy, uncle!’ she laughed.

The needle filled smoothly. Lord bared his forearm, pinched up the flesh and slid the porage home where it was needed. Uncle! Hit that sky!

Katy’s eyelids half closed, her body undulated and she rippled her hands in an abandoned temple dance, tiny bells tinkling on her ankles. She crooned softly.

I need a tonic - Uncle;

I’m super-sonic - Uncle.

Don’t get platonic,

You hep carbuncle.’

‘You’re mixing!’ he accused her.

‘Sure, uncle. Sure. I’m hot! I’ve been mixing coupla weeks now. Get wise, Spencer darling. Grab a jab and stab! The old mainline porage is strictly for the crumbs.’

The golden sheath around her mouth crimped in and her smile would have drowned the sunrise. Her teeth were very white.

‘Do get me a drink, dear boy -’

He brought two Nuclear Fizzes and didn’t realise he had finished his own in one gulp. Somewhere off to one side Gosheron was surrounded by the moguls of finance, safe for the moment, giving time to talk to Katy without nagging worry.

‘I’ll see you after this -’ he began eagerly.

She cut him off, gaily, like a sunbeam falling unexpectedly across a candle flame.

‘Spencer, darling - have you seen Gruney around?’

‘Gruney?’ he said vaguely.

‘Yes, Gruney,’ she laughed impatiently. ‘Grunewald Sloane. Such a dear boy. He promised to let me grab a stick from his ticker-sticker. Do you think I should?’ She finished archly.

‘Stay away from cardio-dopes,’ Lord said automatically, not really hearing what she was saying, seeing only the outline of her in the sheathing golden film. He had just realised that the film was all she was wearing, it had looked like a dress with the scrap of pocket-skirt. She looked like the torrid flame from some pagan temple torch.

‘That’s your trouble, Spencer,’ she pouted, flinging her empty glass somewhere in the direction of a disposer. ‘You never want any fun!

Cardio-dopes are hepped whizzes. Especially Gruney. If you see him tell him I’m aching to have a word with him.’ She laughed kittenishly. ‘He’s dressed like a Chinaman, really utter. Bye, bye, Spencer, darling.’

And she was gone, like a flame twisting round a wind tossed torch. Spencer’s mind groped among blackening embers. He puzzled over familiar things with foul sooty fingerprints across them.

Chinaman’s clothes? Cardio-dope?

What was Katy doing running with that bunch?

JIB JOB JAB - AGAIN,

HIT THAT VEIN - BRAIN!

Time: 2148

Katy knew a man who had tried to kill Gosheron. Katy didn’t know Lord was Terran Security. Katy had been trying to make Gosheron. Spencer Lord’s mind twisted like a burned out hyper-drive. His face went sickly grey under the false features and he laid an unsteady hand against the wall to support himself.

Training took over. He didn’t feel or hear the relays clicking in his brain; but the icy, wall compounded of complete calm, utter confidence and dedicated obedience clamped shut like the closing valves of an airlock.

Almost.

Jamming the smooth functioning of his Bureau indoctrinated reactions, a sibilant golden flame mocked the closing of that wall. The vivid image of Katy danced maddeningly before his eyes, filtering the coldly calculated trained sequence of actions he must now go through. He shut his eyes in agony for a space, then opened them by an effort of will and put one hand to his weapons belt.

Security Rating Risk: AAA. Terran Security Operative. Left, right, left, right, left. BIM! BAM! BOOM! There wasn’t much inside him now except a vastly dark hole which sucked his guts through claws of white hot steel.

The song from the chanting line in the ballroom beat up in metronomic waves of hypnotic sound. The wooden floor glistened with spilt liquor. An abandoned needle splintered under his foot. He disregarded all that, walked steadily over to the group around Gosheron. He couldn’t see Katy.

If she tried to kill Gosheron he must kill her. It was black and white. There’d be no time for a fast deal, a hand across her mouth dragging her away where he could talk, unfix the crazy notions and fanatic schemes she must have had drilled into her poor befuddled brain. Gosheron must not know, ever, that his life had been endangered. These fanatics would try a shot even if they were dying in pieces - and Katy was one of them!

It was a situation fully covered by various aspects of the training he had gone through - except that the assassin wasn’t the girl he - Lord was too far gone even to curse. The Earth’s continued sustenance depended on the deals that would be made tonight, and once Gosheron, the old Terran hater, got a whiff of any murder-plot against him he’d be off whoosh - to the stars.

Lord was sweating now, the sleazy feel of it slick between plastic face mask and flesh. He felt sick, too.

Giggle-gas balloons were popping everywhere now and Lord forced himself to smile foolishly, mouth drooling as the stuff billowed around him. He had half a mind to take out one filter - it was a hell of a job trying to giggle the way he felt. And, suddenly, it was too dangerously easy.

He checked himself savagely. Gosheron was laughing and chuckling, greasy fat tears rolling down his slobby cheeks. The group around the alien were back-slapping, chortling, having a whale of a time; Lord knew their keen brains were bent on one objective, talking Gosheron into ripe contracts for Earth.

Sharks and shysters they might be: but Earth’s future depended on them - good luck to them. Katy - Katy was a moth, a gaudy, brilliantly empty flutterer, giving nothing to the world, only taking. Yet - she was Katy ... Katy

...

Time: 2151.

When Lord saw her flashing eyes and laughing mouth in the crowd around Gosheron, her leg rubbing familiarly against a flushed young roisterer, he knew it was too late. She had wormed her way through the crush towards the alien. Lord pushed through after, laughing, shouting, a drink seized from a lax hand held high. His other hand stayed on his weapons belt under the flaring coat. The girl was a sliver of quicksilver, gliding in among the guests, slipping closer and closer to Gosheron.

I’M RIZ

I’M HIZ

ON MY NU-CLEO-NIC FIZZ!

Lord pushed faster, hating himself, hating the world, wondering just what he dared to do. There was an icy band around his forehead that constricted and drew fire-hot sparks of pain from his temples. Glass smashed in a roar of laughter. Heat beat up in baking waves. People rolled drunkenly away from a couple locked in a torrid embrace. Balloons and rockets crashed and plopped. Gosheron was clumsily tilting a glass, an aide steadied it, moving between Lord and Katy.

He stepped casually fast to one side, reached out a rock steady hand for Katy. She eluded his grasp without appearing to see him. Then he saw the needle between her fingers.

That wouldn’t be porage. That would be a killer.

YOU NEED A TONIC - UNCLE

YOU’RE SUPER-SONIC - UNCLE ...

She had one impudent arm around the fat alien now, her ripe lips reaching for his flabby mouth. She was laughing screechingly, piercingly, and flakes of gold began to peel from her body. An aide glanced at her, chuckled, and reached out.

Lord was held suspended in a timeless vacuum. He thought he had stopped breathing and his heart-beats came in sluggish reverberations of sound that hurt his chest.

The aide saw the needle. His laughing face went grim. Katy, all her vibrant body a golden bow, moved the hand with the needle. The drop of liquid at the tip caught the lights and shone fragmentarily blinding like a nova.

‘Porage, porage, have a shot of porage,’ she chanted.

Gosheron wheezed and shook, his fat face creased in smiles, his eyes avid on the girl’s slim body. The aide’s hand raked down towards Katy. She thrust and in that instant the other aide, unseen by Lord, fired. His wide beam tore Katy’s hand and wrist off. The needle vapourised. She stood looking dazedly at the stump, cauterised already and with no blood oozing.

Miraculously a clearing appeared around the drama. Women screamed. Men swore. There was a sudden, awful, engulfing silence.

Lord’s face felt as though a granite crusher had used it for a dummy run. His brain told him that he mustn’t allow the Sahndrans to think this an organised attempt on the life of their Ambassador. He had to cover up fast.

He could not trust himself to speak yet. He shoved roughly into the cleared area, trampling splintered glasses, and took the girl’s body on his arm as she collapsed in a dead faint. He faced Gosheron, forced his rigid lips to open.

‘She meant no harm!’ He whined the words as though fear and horror stricken. ‘She wanted to give you a shot of porage - give you a kick. And you blasted her arm off.’

Gosheron’s smile was now all diplomacy.

‘I am sorry for the impetuosity of my guards, but -’ He shrugged and ripples of fat ran disgustingly along his shoulders. ‘We cannot take chances. She should have known better.’

‘I’ll look after her,’ Lord got out. ‘My name’s Kinroy Tracey, in case you want to pay any compensation.’

Then he was pulling away, carrying Katy, her nude gold filmed body cold against his arm. Cold?

He glanced down in panic. Her closed eyelids showed blue where the gold had worn away. She was barely breathing. He scraped a nail across her gold filmed flesh, saw the betraying blue tinge beneath.

The little idiot! She’d been cardio-doping, all right! The shock, with her in that condition ...

Before he had left the great ballroom she was dead.

‘The filthy aliens!’ Lord mumbled blindly to himself, over and over. They used a molecular on her. The poor kid. Dead. They only needed to knock her hand away. Dead. A molecular. The dirty rotten twisted ...’

He sat with her in his arms for a long while, whilst around him beat the insistent roar of the world, going to hell in a bucket and enjoying itself every inch of the way.

Time: 2200.

Spencer Lord laid Katy down gently and walked back into the ballroom to continue protecting the alien Ambassador.

Get a Jab - Get a Grab.

On a nu-cle-o-nic Fizz!

Drink, drink, wood al-co-hol!

Going to hell in a bucket.

<<Contents>>

* * * *

BOB SHAW: A Full Member of the

Club

Like James White, Bob Shaw comes from Northern Ireland, although he now lives in Lancashire. A fan from the early days, he graduated to sf with the publication of a short story, Aspect in the August 1954 Nebula. This was followed by a half-dozen other stories over the next eighteen months. Then he virtually disappeared from the scene, re-emerging just enough to keep his name in readers’ memories with The Silent Partners in the last issue of Nebula (June 1959) and the following year in America’s If, in collaboration with Walt Willis with a tongue-in-cheek vignette Dissolute Diplomat (which you will find included in my forthcoming Orbit anthology Splinters From the Mind). This absence from the sf scene was deliberate policy on Shaw’s part. He had felt he was not really ready to write, and accordingly spent three years abroad as part of his plan to ‘study the inhabitants of Sol III’.

He returned to sf in 1965 with ... And Isles Where Good Men Lie in New Worlds, then edited by Michael Moorcock. This was followed in the May 1966 issue with a brilliant novelette Pilot Plant. Then in August he took Analog by storm with a fascinating new concept - ‘slow glass’. Light of Other Days told of the invention of a material which absorbed light and allowed it to pass through at a much slower rate, eventually releasing it, after so many days, weeks, months or years, depending on the glass. This meant a piece of slow glass could be placed at a scenic view for several years and then installed in a home allowing the occupants to look out on the

‘captured’ live scene, just as if they were there. It also put paid to crime, as a slow glass window in a room would reveal all after the given period. This angle was explored in a sequel story Burden of Proof (Analog, May 1967). Eventually Shaw wrote a slow-glass novel, Other Days, Other Eyes serialised in Amazing in 1972.

In fact the majority of Shaw’s recent sales have been to the American market, due mostly to the blatant absence of any regular British market. He has averaged one novel a year since 1967, and 1974 was a special ‘boom’

year. A novel, Orbitsville, was serialised in the June to August issues of Galaxy, and whilst that was running the July Galaxy published A Full Member of the Club, which was picked by one anthologist as amongst the year’s best short stories. Concurrently the July issue of If published A Little Night Flying which had previously appeared in the May issue of Britain’s Science Fiction Monthly as Dark Icarus, and which was also picked by another anthologist as one of the year’s best short sf stories.

From that group Shaw picked his own favourite. He said:

‘I chose A Full Member of the Club because its plot is perfectly suited to one of my favourite literary techniques. Roughly speaking, there are two ways to handle the telling of a science fiction story and they both involve the element of strangeness. One method is to pitch the reader straight into an unfamiliar environment and proceed to overwhelm him with its strangeness; the other is to ease the reader into a familiar environment, and then gradually, drop by drop, introduce the alchemy of strangeness. As a practitioner of science fiction writing I have used both methods, but prefer the latter because it is - if I may use an unliterary term - sneaky. (The reason nobody likes a sneak is that his methods are effective). The challenge for the writer is to install the reader in a smoothly moving railcar and try to keep him looking straight ahead while a succession of points are quietly switched, thus sending him off in an unexpected direction. The challenge for the reader is to decide the exact moment at which he becomes aware of having left the mundane world and having entered that fantastic Other Universe, the building blocks of which are all the science fiction and fantasy stories ever written.’

‘However, stories are for reading - not analysing -and I hope you enjoy reading A Full Member of the Club:

* * * *

A FULL MEMBER OF THE CLUB

Bob Shaw

It was a trivial thing—a cigarette lighter—which finally wrecked Philip Connor’s peace of mind.

Angela and he had been sitting at the edge of her pool for more than an hour. She had said very little during that time, but every word, every impatient gesture of her slim hands, had conveyed the message that it was all over between them.

Connor was sitting upright on a canvas chair, manifestly ill at ease, trying to understand what had brought about the change in their relationship. He studied Angela carefully, but her face was rendered inscrutable, inhuman, by the huge insect eyes of her sunglasses. His gaze strayed to a lone white butterfly as it made a hazardous flight across the pool and passed, twinkling like a star, into the shade of the birches.

He touched his forehead and found it buttery with sweat. “This heat is murderous.”

“It suits me,” Angela said, another reminder that they were no longer as one. She moved slightly on the lounger, altering the brown curvatures of her semi-nakedness.

Connor stared nostalgically at the miniature landscape of flesh, the territory from which he was being evicted, and reviewed the situation. The death of an uncle had made Angela rich, very rich, but he was unable to accept that as sufficient reason for her change in attitude. His own business interests brought him more than two hundred thousand a year, so she knew he wasn’t a fortune hunter.

“I have an appointment in a little while,” Angela said with a patently insincere little smile.

Connor decided to try making her feel guilty. “You want me to leave?”

He was rewarded by a look of concern, but it was quickly gone, leaving the beautiful face as calm and immobile as before.

Angela sat up, took a cigarette from a pack on the low table, opened her purse, and brought out the gold cigarette lighter. It slipped from her fingers, whirred across the tiles, and went into the shallow end of the pool. With a little cry of concern, she reached down into the water and retrieved the lighter, wetting her face and tawny hair in the process. She clicked the dripping lighter once, and it lit. Angela gave Connor a strangely wary glance, dropped the lighter back into her purse, and stood up.

“I’m sorry, Phil,” she said. “I have to go now.”

It was an abrupt dismissal, but Connor, emotionally bruised as he was, scarcely noticed. He was a gypsy entrepreneur, a wheeler-dealer, one of the very best—and his professional instincts were aroused. The lighter had ignited the first time while soaking wet, which meant it was the best he had ever seen, and yet its superb styling was unfamiliar to him. This fact bothered Connor. It was his business to know all there was to know about the world’s supply of sleek, shiny, expensive goodies, and obviously he had let something important slip through his net.

“All right, Angie.” He got to his feet. “That’s a nice lighter—mind if I have a look?”

She clutched her purse as though he had moved to snatch it. “Why don’t you leave me alone? Go away, Phil.” She turned and strode off toward the house.

“I’ll stop by for a while tomorrow.”

“Do that,” she called without looking back. “I won’t be here.”

Connor walked back to his Lincoln, lowered himself gingerly onto the baking upholstery, and drove into Long Beach. It was late in the afternoon, but he went back to his office and began telephoning various trade contacts, making sure they too were unaware of something new and radical in cigarette lighters. Both his secretary and telephonist were on vacation, so he did all the work himself. The activity helped to ease the throbbing hurt of having lost Angela, and—in a way he was unable to explain—gave him a comforting sense that he was doing something toward getting her back or at least finding out what had gone wrong between them.

He had an illogical conviction that the little gold artifact was somehow connected with their breaking up. The idea was utterly ridiculous, of course, but in thinking back over the interlude by the pool with Angela, it struck him that, amazingly for her, she had gone without smoking. Although it probably meant she was cutting down, another possibility was that she had not wanted to produce the lighter in his presence.

Realizing his inquiries were getting him nowhere, he closed up the office and drove across town to his apartment. The evening was well advanced yet seemingly hotter than ever—the sun had descended to a vantage point from which it could attack more efficiently, slanting its rays through the car windows. He let himself into his apartment, showered, changed his clothes, and prowled unhappily through the spacious rooms, wishing Angela was with him. A lack of appetite robbed him of even the solace of food. At midnight he brewed coffee with his most expensive Kenyan blend, deriving a spare satisfaction from the aroma, but took only a few disappointed sips. If only, he thought for the thousandth time, they could make it taste the way it smells.

He went to bed, consciously lonely, and yearned for Angela until he fell asleep.

Next morning Connor awoke feeling hungry and, while eating a substantial breakfast, was relieved to find he had regained his usual buoyant outlook on life. It was perfectly natural for Angela to be affected by the sudden change in her circumstances, but when the novelty of being rich, instead of merely well off, had faded, he would win her back. And in the meanwhile he—the man who had been first in the country with Japanese liquid display watches—was not going to give up on a simple thing like a new type of cigarette lighter.

Deciding against going to his office, he got on the phone and set up further chains of business inquiries, spreading his net as far as Europe and the Far East. By midmorning the urge to see Angela again had become very strong. He ordered his car to be brought round to the main entrance of the building, and he drove south on the coast road to Asbury Park. It looked like another day of unrelieved sunshine, but a fresh breeze from the Atlantic was fluttering in the car windows and further elevating his spirits.

When he got to Angela’s house there was an unfamiliar car in the U-shaped driveway. A middle-aged man wearing a tan suit and steel-rimmed glasses was on the steps, ostentatiously locking the front door. Connor parked close to the steps and got out.

The stranger turned to face him, jingling a set of keys. “Can I help you?”

“I don’t think so,” Connor said, resenting the unexpected presence. “I called to see Miss Lomond.”

“Was it a business matter? I’m Millett of Millett and Fiesler.”

“No—I’m a friend.” Connor moved impatiently toward the doorbell.

“Then you should know Miss Lomond doesn’t live here any more. The house is going up for sale.”

Connor froze, remembering Angela had said she wouldn’t be around, and shocked that she had not told him about selling out. “She did tell me, but I hadn’t realized she was leaving so soon,” he improvised. “When’s her furniture being collected?”

“It isn’t. The property is being sold fully furnished.”

“She’s taking nothing?”

“Not a stick. I guess Miss Lomond can afford new furniture without too much difficulty,” Millett said drily, walking toward his car. “Good morning.”

“Wait a minute.” Connor ran down the steps. “Where can I get in touch with Angela?”

Millett ran a speculative eye over Connor’s car and clothing before he answered. “Miss Lomond has bought Avalon—but I don’t know if she has moved in yet.”

“Avalon? You mean …?” Lost for words, Connor pointed south in the direction of Point Pleasant.

“That’s right.” Millett nodded and drove away. Connor got into his own car, lit his pipe, and tried to enjoy a smoke while he absorbed the impact of what he had heard. Angela and he had never discussed finance—she simply had no interest in the subject—and it was only through oblique references that he guesstimated the size of her inheritance as in the region of a million, perhaps two. But Avalon was a rich man’s folly in the old Randolph Hearst tradition. Surrounded by a dozen square miles of the choicest land in Philadelphia, it was the nearest thing to a royal palace that existed outside Europe.

Real estate was not one of Connor’s specialties, but he knew that anybody buying Avalon would have had to open the bidding at ten million or more. In other words, Angela was not merely rich—she had graduated into the millionaires’ super-league, and it was hardly surprising that her emotional life had been affected.

Connor was puzzled, nevertheless, over the fact that she was selling all her furniture. There was, among several cherished pieces, a Gaudreau writing desk for which she had always shown an exaggerated possessiveness. Suddenly aware that he could neither taste nor smell the imported tobacco which had seemed so good in his pouch, Connor extinguished his pipe and drove out onto the highway.

He had traveled south for some five miles before admitting to himself that he was going to Avalon.

The house itself was invisible, screened from the road by a high redbrick wall. Age had mellowed the brickwork, but the coping stones on top had a fresh appearance and were surmounted by a climb-proof wire fence. Connor drove along beside the wall until it curved inwards to a set of massive gates which were closed. At the sound of his horn, a thickset man with a gun on his hip, wearing a uniform of café-au-lait gabardine, emerged from a lodge. He looked out through the gate without speaking.

Connor lowered a car window and put his head out. “Is Miss Lomond at home?”

“What’s your name?” the guard said.

“I’m Philip Connor.”

“Your name isn’t on my list.”

“Look, I only asked if Miss Lomond was at home.”

“I don’t give out information.”

“But I’m a personal friend. You’re obliged to tell me whether she’s at home or not.”

“Is that a fact?” The guard turned and sauntered back into the lodge, ignoring Connor’s shouts and repeated blasts on the horn. Angered by the incident, Connor decided not to slink away. He began sounding the car horn in a steady bludgeoning rhythm—five seconds on, five seconds off. The guard did not reappear. Five minutes later, a police cruiser pulled alongside with two state troopers in it, and Connor was moved on with an injunction to calm down.

For lack of anything better to do, he went to his office.

A week went by, during which time Connor drew a complete blank on the cigarette lighter and was almost forced to the conclusion that it had been custom-built by a modern Faberge. He spent hours trying to get a telephone number for Angela, without success. Sleep began to elude him, and he felt himself nearing the boundary separating rationality from obsession. Finally, he saw a society column picture of Angela in a New York nightspot with Bobby Janke, playboy son of an oil billionaire. Apart from making Connor feel ill with jealousy, the newspaper item provided him with the information that Angela was taking up residence at her newly acquired home sometime the following weekend.

Who cares? he demanded of his shaving mirror. Who cares?

He began drinking vodka tonics at lunchtime on Saturday, veered onto white rum during the afternoon, and by nightfall was suffused with a kind of alcoholic dharma which told him that he was entitled to see Angela and to employ any means necessary to achieve that end. There was the problem of the high brick wall, but, with a flash of enlightenment, Connor realized that walls are mainly psychological barriers. To a person who understood their nature as well as he did, walls became doorways. Taking a mouthful of neat rum to strengthen his sense of purpose, Connor sent for his car.

Avalon’s main entrance, scene of earlier defeat, was in darkness when he reached it, but lights were showing in the gate lodge. Connor drove on by, following the line of the wall, parked on a deserted stretch of second-class road. He switched off all lights, opened the trunk, took out a heavy hammer and chisel, crossed the verge and—without any preliminaries—attacked the wall. Ten minutes later, although the mortar was soft with age, he had not succeeded in removing one brick and was beginning to experience doubts. Then a brick came free and another virtually tumbled out after it. He enlarged the hole to an appropriate size and crawled through onto dry turf.

A dwarfish half-moon was perched near zenith, casting a wan radiance on the turrets and gables of a mansion which sat on the crest of a gentle rise. The building was dark and forbidding, and as he looked at it Connor felt the warm glow in his stomach fade away. He hesitated, swore at himself, and set off up the slope, leaving his hammer and chisel behind. By bearing to the left he brought the front elevation of the building into view and was encouraged to see one illuminated window on the first floor. He reached a paved approach road, followed it to the Gothic-style front entrance, and rang for admission. A full minute later the door was opened by an archetypal and startled-looking butler, and Connor sensed immediately that Angela was not at home.

He cleared his throat. “Miss Lomond …”

“Miss Lomond is not expected until mid …”

“Midnight,” Connor put in, expertly taking his cue. “I know that—I was with her this afternoon in New York. We arranged that I would stop by for a late drink.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Lomond didn’t tell me to expect visitors.”

Connor looked surprised. “She didn’t? Well, the main thing is she remembered to let them know at the gate lodge.” He squeezed the butler’s arm democratically. “You know, you couldn’t get through that gate in a Sherman tank if your name wasn’t on the list.”

The butler looked relieved. “One can’t be too careful these days, sir.”

“Quite right. I’m Mr. Connor, by the way—here’s my card. Now show me where I can wait for Miss Lomond. And, if it isn’t imposing too much, I’d like a Daiquiri. Just one to toy with while I’m waiting.”

“Of course, Mr. Connor.”

Exhilarated by his success, Connor was installed in an enormous green-and-silver room and supplied with a frosty glass. He sat in a very comfortable armchair and sipped his Daiquiri. It was the best he had ever tasted.

The sense of relaxation prompted him to reach for his pipe, but he discovered it must have been left at home. He prowled around the room, found a box of cigars on a sideboard, and took one from it. He then glanced around for a lighter. His gaze fell on a transparent ruby-colored ovoid sitting upright on an occasional table. In no way did it resemble any table lighter he had ever seen, but he had become morbidly sensitive on the subject, and the ovoid was positioned where he would have expected a lighter to be.

Connor picked it up, held it to the light and found it was perfectly clear, without visible works. That meant it could not be a lighter. As he was setting it down, he allowed his thumb to slide into a seductively shaped depression on the side.

A pea-sized ball of radiance—like a bead fashioned from

sunlight—appeared at the top of the egg. It shone with absolute steadiness until he removed his thumb from the dimple.

Fascinated by his find, he made the tiny globe of brilliance appear and disappear over and over again, proved its hotness with a fingertip. He took out the pocket magnifier he always carried for evaluating trinkets and examined the tip of the egg. The glass revealed a minute silver plug set flush with the surface, but nothing more. Following a hunch, Connor carefully guided one drop of liquid from his drink onto the egg and made sure it was covering the nearly invisible plug. When he operated the lighter it worked perfectly, the golden bead burning without wavering until the liquid had boiled off into the air.

He set the lighter down and noticed yet another strange property—the ruby egg was smoothly rounded at the bottom, yet it sat upright, with no tendency to topple over. His magnifier showed an ornate letter P engraved in the base, but provided no clue as to how the balancing act was achieved.

Connor gulped the remainder of his drink and, with eyes suddenly sober and watchful, took a fresh look around the room. He discovered a beautiful clock, apparently carved from solid onyx. As he had half-expected, there was no way to open it, and the same elaborate P was engraved on the underside.

There was also a television set which had a superficial resemblance to an expensive commercial model but which bore no maker’s name plaque. He checked it over and found the now-familiar P inscribed on one side where it would never be noticed except by a person making a purposeful search. When he switched the set on, the image of a newscaster which appeared was so perfect that he might have been looking through a plate glass window into the man’s face. Connor studied the picture from a distance of only a few inches and could not resolve it into lines or dots. His magnifier achieved no better results.

He switched the television off and returned to the armchair, filled with a strange and powerful emotion. Although it was in his nature to be sharp and acquisitive—those were attributes without which he could never had entered his chosen profession—it had always remained uppermost in his mind that the world’s supply of money was unlimited, whereas his own allocation of years was hopelessly inadequate. He could have trebled his income by working longer and pushing harder but had always chosen another course simply because his desire for possessions had never taken control.

That, however, had been before he discovered the sort of possessions real money could buy. He knew he was particularly susceptible to gadgets and toys, but the knowledge did nothing to lessen the harsh raw hunger he now felt.

There was no way that anybody was going to stop him from joining the ranks of those who could afford future-technology artifacts. He would prefer to do it by marrying Angela, because he loved her and would enjoy sharing the experiences, but if she refused to have him back, he would do it by making the necessary millions himself.

A phrase which had been part of his train of thought isolated itself in his mind. Future technology. He weighed the implications for a moment, then shrugged them off—he had lost enough mental equilibrium without entertaining fantasies about time travel.

The idea, though, was an intriguing one. And it answered certain questions. The lighters he coveted, partly for their perfection and partly because they could earn him a fortune, were technically far in advance of anything on the world’s markets, yet it was within the realm of possibility that a furtive genius was producing them in a back room somewhere. But that impossibly good television set could not have been manufactured without the R&D facilities of a powerful electronics concern. The notion that they were being made in the future and shipped back in time was only slightly less ridiculous than the idea of a secret industry catering exclusively for the superrich …

Connor picked up the cigar and lit it, childishly pleased at having a reason to put the ruby egg to work. His first draw on the cool smoke gave him the feeling that he had been searching for something all his life and suddenly had found it. Cautiously at first and then with intense pleasure he filled his lungs with the unexpected fragrance.

He luxuriated. This was smoking as portrayed by tobacco company commercials—not the shallow, disappointing experience commonly known to smokers everywhere. He had often wondered why the leaf which smelled so beguiling before it was lit, or when someone nearby was smoking, promising sensual delights and heart’s ease, never yielded anything more than virtually tasteless smoke.

They promise you “a long cool smoke to soothe a troubled world,”

Connor thought, and this is it. He took the cigar from his mouth and examined the band. It was of unembellished gold and bore a single ornate P.

“I might have known,” he announced to the empty room. He looked around through a filigree of smoke, wondering if everything in the room was different from the norm, superior, better than the best. Perhaps the ultra-rich scorned to use anything that was available to the man in the street or advertised on television or …

“Philip!” Angela stood in the doorway, pale of face, shocked and angry. “What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying the best cigar I’ve ever had.” Connor got to his feet, smiling. “I presume you keep them for the benefit of guests—I mean, a cigar is hardly your style.”

“Where’s Gilbert?” she snapped. “You’re leaving right now.”

“Not a chance.”

“That’s what you think.” Angela turned with an angry flail of blonde hair and cerise skirts.

Connor realized he had to find inspiration and get in fast. “It’s too late, Angela. I’ve smoked your cigar; I lit it with your lighter; I have checked the time with your clock; and I’ve watched your television.”

He had been hoping for a noticeable reaction and was not disappointed—Angela burst into tears. “You bastard! You had no right! ”

She ran to the table, picked up the lighter, and tried to make it work. Nothing happened. She went to the clock, which had stopped; and to the television set, which remained lifeless when she switched it on. Connor followed her circuit of the room, feeling guilty and baffled. Angela dropped into a chair and sat with her face in her hands, huddled and trembling like a sick bird. The sight of her distress produced a painful churning in his chest. He knelt in front of Angela.

“Listen, Angie,” he said. “Don’t cry like that. I only wanted to see you again—I haven’t done anything.”

“You touched my stuff and made it change. They told me it would change if anybody but a client used it … and it has.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Who said what would change?”

“The suppliers.” She looked at him with tear-brimmed eyes, and all at once he became aware of a perfume so exquisite that he wanted to fall toward its source like a suffocating man striving toward air.

“What did you …? I don’t …”

“They said it would all be spoiled.”

Connor tried to fight off the effects of the witch-magic he had breathed. “Nothing has been spoiled, Angie. There’s been a power failure

… or something …” His words trailed away uncertainly. The clock and the television set were cordless. He took a nervous drag on the half-smoked cigar and almost gagged on the flat, acrid taste of it. The sharp sense of loss he experienced while stubbing it out seemed to obliterate all traces of his scepticism.

He returned to Angela’s chair and knelt again. “They said this stuff would stop working if anybody but you touched it?”

“Yes.”

“But how could that be arranged?”

She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “How would I know? When Mr. Smith came over from Trenton, he said something about all his goods having an … essence field, and he said I had a molecular thumbprint. Does that make sense?”

“It almost does,” Connor whispered. “A perfect security system. Even if you lost your lighter at the theatre, when somebody else picked it up it would cease to be what it was.”

“Or when somebody breaks into your home.”

“Believe me, it was only because I had to see you again, Angie. You know that I love you.”

“Do you, Philip?”

“Yes, darling.” He was thrilled to hear the special softness return to her voice. “Look, you have to let me pay for a new lighter and television and

…”

Angela was shaking her head. “You couldn’t do it, Philip.”

“Why not?” He took her hand and was further encouraged when she allowed it to remain in his.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “You just couldn’t. The installments are too high.”

“Installments? For God’s sake, Angie, you don’t buy stuff on time.”

“You can’t buy these things—you pay for a service. I pay in installments of eight hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars.”

“A year?”

“Once every forty-three days. I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but …”

Connor gave an incredulous laugh. “That comes to about six million a year—nobody would pay that much!”

“Some people would. If you even have to think about the cost Mr. Smith doesn’t do business with you.”

“But …” Connor incautiously leaned within range of Angela’s perfume and it took his mind. “You realize,” he said in a weak voice, “that all your new toys come from the future? There’s something fantastically wrong about the whole set-up.”

“I’ve missed you, Philip.”

“That perfume you’re wearing—did it come from Mr. Smith, too?”

“I tried not to miss you, but I did.” Angela pressed her face against his, and he felt the coolness of tears on her cheek. He kissed her hungrily as she moved down from the chair to kneel against him. Connor spun towards the center of a whirlpool of ecstasy.

“Life’s going to be so good when we’re married,” he heard himself saying after a time. “Better than we could ever have dreamed. There’s so much for us to share and …”

Angela’s body stiffened, and she thrust herself away from him. “You’d better go now, Philip.”

“What is it? What did I say?”

“You gave yourself away, that’s all.”

Connor thought back. “Was it what I said about sharing? I didn’t mean your money—I was talking about life … the years … the experiences.”

“Did you?”

“I loved you before you even knew you would inherit a cent.”

“You never mentioned marriage before.”

“I thought that was understood,” he said desperately. “I thought you

…” He stopped speaking as he saw the look in Angela’s eyes. Cool, suspicious, disdainful. The look that the very rich had always given to outsiders who tried to get into their club without the vital qualification of wealth.

She touched a bellpush and continued standing with her back to him until he was shown out of the room.

The ensuing days were bad ones for Connor. He drank a lot, realized that alcohol was no answer, and went on drinking. For a while he tried getting in touch with Angela and once even drove down to Avalon. The brickwork had been repaired at the point where he had made his entry, and a close inspection revealed that the entire wall was now covered with a fine mesh. He had no doubt that tampering with it in any way would trigger off an alarm system.

When he awoke during the night, he was kept awake by hammering questions. What was it all about? Why did Angela have to make such odd payments, and at such odd intervals? What would men from the future want with Twentieth Century currency?

On several occasions the thought occurred that, instead of concentrating on Angela, he would do better to find the mysterious Mr. Smith of Trenton. The flicker of optimism the idea produced was quenched almost immediately by the realization that he simply did not have enough information to provide a lead. It was a certainty that the man was not even known as Smith to anybody but his clients. If only Angela had revealed something more—like Smith’s business address …

Connor returned each time to brooding and drinking, aware but uncaring that his behavior was becoming completely obsessive. Then he awoke one morning to the discovery that he already knew Smith’s business address, had known it for a long time, almost from childhood.

Undecided as to whether his intake of white rum had hastened or delayed the revelation, he breakfasted on strong coffee and was too busy with his thoughts to fret about the black liquid being more tasteless than ever. He formulated a plan of action during the next hour, twice lighting his pipe—out of sheer habit—before remembering he was finished with ordinary tobacco forever. As a first step in the plan, he went out, bought a five-inch cube of ruby-colored plastic, and paid the owner of a jobbing shop an exorbitant sum to have the block machined down to a polished ovoid. It was late in the afternoon before the work was finished, but the end product sufficiently resembled a P-brand table lighter to fool anyone who was not looking too closely at it.

Pleased with his progress thus far, Connor went back to his apartment and dug out the .38 pistol he had bought a few years earlier following an attempted burglary. Common sense told him it was rather late to leave for Trenton and that he would be better waiting until morning, but he was in a warmly reckless mood. With the plastic egg bumping on one hip and the gun on the other, he drove westward out of town.

Connor reached the center of Trenton just as the stores were showing signs of closing for the day. His sudden fear of being too late and of having to wait another day after all was strengthened by the discovery that he was no longer so certain about locating Mr. Smith.

In the freshness of the morning, with an alcoholic incense lingering in his head, it had all seemed simple and straightforward. For much of his life he had been peripherally aware that in almost every big city there are stores which have no right to be in existence. They were always small and discreet, positioned some way off the main shopping thoroughfares, and their signs usually bore legends—like “Johnston Bros.” or “H&L”—which seemed designed to convey a minimum of information. If they had a window display at all it tended to be nothing more than an undistinguished and slightly out-of-style sport jacket priced three times above what it had any chance of fetching. Connor knew the stores were not viable propositions in the ordinary way because, not surprisingly, nobody ever went into them. Yet in his mind they were in some indefinable way associated with money.

Setting out for Trenton he had been quite sure of the city block he wanted—now at least three locations and images of three unremarkable store fronts were merging and blurring in his memory. That’s how they avoid attention, he thought, refusing to be disheartened, and began cruising the general area he had selected. The rush of home-going traffic hampered every movement, and finally he decided he would do better on foot. He parked in a sidestreet and began hurrying from corner to corner, each time convincing himself he was about to look along a remembered block and see the place he so desperately wanted to find, each time being disappointed. Virtually all the stores were closed by now, the crowds had thinned away, and the reddish evening sunlight made the quiet, dusty facades look unreal. Connor ran out of steam, physical and mental.

He swore dejectedly, shrugged, and started limping back to his car, choosing—as a token act of defiance—a route which took him a block further south than he had originally intended going. His feet were hot and so painful that he was unable to think of anything but his own discomfort. Consequently he did a genuine doubletake when he reached an intersection, glanced sideways and saw a half-familiar, half-forgotten vista of commonplace stores, wholesalers’ depots, and anonymous doorways. His heart began a slow pounding as he picked out, midway on the block, a plain storefront whose complete lack of character would have rendered it invisible to eyes other than his own.

He walked towards it, suddenly nervous, until he could read the sign which said GENERAL AGENCIES in tarnished gold lettering. The window contained three pieces of glazed earthernware sewer pipe, beyond which were screens to prevent anyone seeing the store’s interior. Connor expected to find the door locked, but it opened at his touch and he was inside without even having had time to prepare himself. He blinked at a tall gaunt man who was standing motionless behind a counter. The man had a down-curving mouth, ice-smooth gray hair, and something about him gave Connor the impression that he had been standing there, unmoving, for hours. He was dressed in funeral director black, with a silver tie, and the collar of his white shirt was perfect as the petals of a newly opened flower.

The man leaned forward slightly and said, “Was there something, sir?”

Connor was taken aback by the quaintness of the greeting, but he strode to the counter, brought the ruby egg from his pocket and banged it down.

“Tell Mr. Smith I’m not satisfied with this thing,” he said in an angry voice. “And tell him I demand a repayment.”

The tall man’s composure seemed to shatter. He picked up the egg, half-turned toward an inner door, then paused and examined the egg more closely.

“Just a minute,” he said. “This isn’t …”

“Isn’t what?”

The man looked accusingly at Connor. “I’ve no idea what this object is, and we haven’t got a Mr. Smith.”

“Know what this object is?” Connor produced his revolver. He had seen and heard enough.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No?” Connor aimed the revolver at the other man’s face and, aware that the safety catch was on, gave the trigger an obvious squeeze. The tall man shrank against the wall. Connor muttered furiously, clicked the safety off, and raised the gun again.

“Don’t!” The man shook his head. “I beseech you.”

Connor had never been beseeched in his life, but he did not allow the curious turn of speech to distract him. He said, “I want to see Mr. Smith.”

“I’ll take you to him. If you will follow me …”

They went through to the rear of the premises and down a flight of stairs which had inconveniently high risers and narrow treads. Noting that his guide was descending with ease, Connor glanced down and saw that the tall man had abnormally small feet. There was another peculiarity about his gait, but it was not until they had reached the basement floor and were moving along a corridor that Connor realized what it was. Within the chalk-stripe trousers, the tall man’s knees appeared to be a good two-thirds of the way down his legs. Cool fingers of unease touched Connor’s brow.

“Here we are, sir.” The black-clad figure before him pushed open a door.

Beyond it was a large, brightly lit room, and at one side was another tall, cadaverous man dressed like a funeral director. He too had ice-smooth gray hair, and he was carefully putting an antique oil painting into the dark rectangular opening of a wall safe.

Without turning his head, he said, “What is it, Toynbee?”

Connor slammed the door shut behind himself. “I want to talk to you, Smith.”

Smith gave a violent start but continued gently sliding the gold-framed painting into the wall. When it had disappeared, he turned to face Connor. He had a down-curved mouth and—even more disturbingly—his knees, also, seemed to be in the wrong place. If these people come from the future, Connor thought, why are they made differently from us? His mind shied away from the new thought and plunged into irrelevant speculations about the kind of chairs Smith and Toynbee must use … if any. He realized he had seen no seats or stools about the place. With a growing coldness in his veins, Connor recalled his earlier impression that Toynbee had been standing behind the counter for hours, without moving.

“… welcome to what money we have,” Smith was saying, “but there’s nothing else here worth taking.”

“I don’t think he’s a thief.” Toynbee went and stood beside him.

“Not a thief! Then what does he want? What is …?”

“Just for starters,” Connor put in, “I want an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“Of your entire operation here.”

Smith looked mildly exasperated. He gestured at the wooden crates which filled much of the room. “It’s a perfectly normal agency set-up handling various industrial products on a …”

“I mean the operation whereby you supply rich people with cigarette lighters that nobody on this Earth could manufacture.”

“Cigarette lighters—”

“The red, egg-shaped ones which have no works but light when they’re wet and stand upright without support.”

Smith shook his head. “I wish I could get into something like that.”

“And the television sets which are too good. And the clocks and cigars and all the other things which are so perfect that people who can afford it are willing to pay eight hundred sixty-four thousand dollars every forty-three days for them—even though the goodies are charged with an essence field which fades out and converts them to junk if they fall into the hands of anybody who isn’t in the club.”

“I don’t understand a word of this.”

“It’s no use, Mr. Smith,” Toynbee said. “Somebody has talked.”

Smith gave him a venomous stare. “You just did, you fool!” In his anger, Smith moved closer to Toynbee, so that his body was no longer shielding the wall safe. Connor noticed for the first time that it was exceptionally large, and it occurred to him that a basement storeroom was an odd place for that particular type of safe. He looked at it more closely. The darkness of the interior revealed no trace of the oil painting he had just seen loaded into it. And, far into the tunnel-like blackness, a bright green star was throwing off expanding rings of light, rings which faded as they grew.

Connor made a new effort to retain his grasp of the situation. He pointed to the safe and said, casually, “I assume that’s a two-way transporter.”

Smith was visibly shaken. “All right,” he said, after a tense silence,

“who talked to you?”

“Nobody.” Connor felt he could get Angela into trouble of some kind by mentioning her name.

Toynbee cleared his throat. “I’ll bet it was that Miss Lomond. I’ve always said you can’t trust the nouveau riche—the proper instincts aren’t sufficiently ingrained.”

Smith nodded agreement. “You are right. She got a replacement table lighter, television and clock—the things this … person has just mentioned. She said they had been detuned by someone who broke into her house.”

“She must have told him everything she knew.”

“And broken her contract—make a note of that, Mr. Toynbee.”

“Hold on a minute,” Connor said loudly, brandishing the revolver to remind them he was in control. “Nobody’s going to make a note of anything till I get the answers I want. These products you deal in—do they come from the future or—somewhere?”

“From somewhere,” Smith told him. “Actually, they come from a short distance in the future as well, but—as far as you are concerned—the important thing is that they are transported over many light years. The time difference is incidental, and quite difficult to prove.”

“They’re from another planet?”

“Yes.”

“You, too?”

“Of course.”

“You bring advanced products to Earth in secret and sell or rent them to rich people?”

“Yes. Only smaller stuff comes here, of course—larger items, like the television sets, come in at main receivers in other cities. The details of the operation may be surprising, but surely the general principles of commerce are well known to you.”

“That’s exactly what’s bothering me,” Connor said. “I don’t give a damn about other worlds and matter transmitters, but I can’t see why you go to all this trouble. Earth currency would be of no value on … wherever you come from. You’re ahead on technology, so there is nothing …” Connor stopped talking as he remembered what Smith had been feeding into the black rectangle. An old oil painting.

Smith nodded, looking more relaxed. “You are right about your currency being useless on another world. We spend it here. Humanity is primitive in many respects, but the race’s artistic genius is quite remarkable. Our organization makes a good trading surplus by exporting paintings and sculptures. You see, the goods we import are comparatively worthless.”

“They seem valuable to me.”

“They would seem that way to you—that’s the whole point. We don’t bother bringing in the things that Earth can produce reasonably well. Your wines and other drinks aren’t too bad, so we don’t touch them. But your coffee!” Smith’s mouth curved even further downward.

“That means you’re spending millions. Somebody should have noticed one outfit buying up so much stuff.”

“Not really. We do quite a bit of direct buying at auctions and galleries, but often our clients buy on our behalf and we credit their accounts.”

“Oh, no,” Connor breathed as the ramifications of what Smith was saying unfolded new vistas in his mind. Was this why millionaires, even the most unlikely types of men, so often became art collectors? Was this the raison d’etre for that curious phenomenon, the private collection? In a society where the rich derived so much pleasure from showing off their possessions, why did so many art treasures disappear from the public view? Was it because their owners were trading them in against P-brand products? If that was the case, the organization concerned must be huge, and it must have been around for a long time. Connor’s legs suddenly felt tired.

He said, “Let’s sit down and talk about this.”

Smith looked slightly uncomfortable. “We don’t sit. Why don’t you use one of those crates if you aren’t feeling well?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me, so don’t try anything,” Connor said sharply, but he sat on the edge of a box while his brain worked to assimilate shocking new concepts. “What does the P stand for on your products?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Perfect?”

“That is correct.”

The readiness with which Smith was now giving information made Connor a little wary, but he pressed on with other questions which had been gnawing at him. “Miss Lomond told me her installments were eight hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars—why that particular figure? Why not a million?”

“That is a million—in our money. A rough equivalent, of course.”

“I see. And the forty-three days.”

“One revolution of our primary moon. It’s a natural accounting period.”

Connor almost began to wish the flow of information would slow down. “I still don’t see the need for all this secrecy. Why not come out in the open, reduce your unit prices and multiply the volume? You could make a hundred times as much.”

“We have to work underground for a number of reasons. In all probability the various Earth governments would object to the loss of art treasures, and there are certain difficulties at the other end.”

“Such as?”

“There’s a law against influencing events on worlds which are at a sensitive stage of their development. This limits our supply of trade goods very sharply.”

“In other words, you are crooks on your own world and crooks on this one.”

“I don’t agree. What harm do we do on Earth?”

“You’ve already named it—you are depriving the people of this planet of …”

“Of their artistic heritage?” Smith gave a thin sneer. “How many people do you know who would give up a Perfect television set to keep a da Vinci cartoon in a public art gallery five or ten thousand miles away?”

“You’ve got a point there,” Connor admitted. “What have you got up your sleeve, Smith?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t play innocent. You would not have talked so freely unless you were certain I wouldn’t get out of here with the information. What are you planning to do about me?”

Smith glanced at Toynbee and sighed. “I keep forgetting how parochial the natives of a single-planet culture can be. You have been told that we are from another world, and yet to you we are just slightly unusual Earth people. I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that other races could have a stronger instinct toward honesty, that deviousness and lies would come less easily to them than to humans?”

“That’s where we are most vulnerable,” Toynbee put in. “I see now that I was too inexperienced to be up front.”

“All right, then—be honest with me,” Connor said. “You are planning to keep me quiet, aren’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, we do have a little device …”

“You don’t need it,” Connor said. He thought back carefully over all he had been told, then stood up and handed his revolver to Smith.

The good life was all that he had expected it to be, and—as he drove south to Avalon—Connor could feel it getting better by the minute.

His business sense had always been sharp, but whereas he had once reckoned a month’s profits in thousands, he now thought in terms of six figures. Introductions, opportunities, and deals came thick and fast, and always it was the P-brand artifacts which magically paved the way. During important first contacts he had only to use his gold lighter to ignite a pipeful of P-brand tobacco—the incredible leaf which fulfilled all the promise of its

“nose,” or glance at his P-brand watch, or write with the pen which produced any color at the touch of a spectrum ring, and all doors were opened wide. The various beautiful trinkets were individually styled, but he quickly learned to recognize them when they were displayed by others, and to make the appropriate responses.

Within a few weeks, although he was scarcely aware of it, his outlook on life had undergone a profound change. At first he was merely uneasy or suspicious when approached by people who failed to show the talisman. Then he became hostile, preferring to associate only with those who could prove they were safe.

Satisfying though his new life was, Connor had decided it would not be perfect until Angela and he were reunited. It was through her that he had achieved awareness, and only through her would he achieve completeness. He would have made the journey to Avalon much sooner but for the fact that there had been certain initial difficulties with Smith and Toynbee. Handing over the revolver had been a dangerous gambit which had almost resulted in his being bundled through their matter transmitter to an unknown fate on another world. Luckily, however, it had also convinced them that he had something important to say.

He had talked quickly and well that evening in the basement of the undistinguished little store. Smith, who was the senior of the pair, had been hard to convince; but his interest had quickened as Connor enumerated all the weaknesses in the organization’s procurement methods. And it had grown feverish when he heard how Connor’s worldly knowhow would eliminate much of the wasteful financial competition of auctions, would streamline the system of purchasing through rich clients, would institute foolproof controls and effective new techniques for diverting art treasures into the organization’s hands. It had been the best improvisation of his life, sketchy in places because of his unfamiliarity with the art world, but filled with an inspired professionalism which carried his audience along with it.

Early results had been so good that Smith had become possessive, voicing objections to Connor’s profitable side dealings. Connor smoothed things over by going on to a seven-day work schedule in which he also worked most evenings. This had made it difficult to find the time to visit Angela, but finally his need to see her had become so great that he had pushed everything else aside and made the time …

The guard at the gate lodge was the same man as before, but he gave no sign of remembering his earlier brush with Connor. He waved the car on through with a minimum of delay, and a few minutes later Connor was walking up the broad front steps of the house. The place looked much less awesome to Connor, but while ringing for admission he decided that he and Angela would probably keep it, for sentimental reasons as much as anything else. The butler who answered the door was a new man, who looked rather like a retired seaman, and there was a certain lack of smoothness in his manner as he showed Connor to the large room where Angela was waiting. She was standing at the fireplace with her back to the door, just as he had last seen her.

“Angie,” he said, “it’s good to see you again.”

She turned and ran to him. “I’ve missed you so much, Phil.”

As they clung together in the center of the green-and-silver room, Connor experienced a moment of exquisite happiness. He buried his face in her hair and began whispering the things he had been unable to say for what seemed a long, long time. Angela answered him feverishly all the while he spoke, responding to the emotion rather than the words.

It was during the first kiss that he became aware of a disturbing fact. She was wearing expensive yet ordinary perfume—not one of the P-brand distillations of magic to which he had become accustomed on the golden creatures he had dated casually during the past few weeks. Still holding Angela close to him, he glanced around the big room. A leaden coldness began to spread through his body. Everything in the room was, like her perfume, excellent—but not Perfect.

“Angela,” he said quietly, “why did you ask me to come here?”

“What kind of a question is that, darling?”

“It’s a perfectly normal question.” Connor disengaged from her and stepped back suspiciously. “I merely asked what your motives were.”

“Motives! ” Angela stared at him, color fleeing from her cheeks. Then her gaze darted to his wristwatch. “My God, Philip, you’re in! You made it, just like you said you would.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t try that with me—remember, I was the one who told it all to you.”

“You should have learned not to talk by this time.”

“I know I should, but I didn’t.” Angela advanced on him. “I’m out now. I’m on the outside.”

“It isn’t all that bad, is it? Where’s Bobby Janke and the rest of his crowd?”

“None of them come near me now. And you know why.”

“At least you’re not broke.” Small solace.

She shook her head. “I’ve got plenty of money, but what good is it when I can’t buy the things I want? I’m shut out, and it’s all because I couldn’t keep myself from blabbing to you, and because I didn’t report the way you were getting on to them. But you didn’t mind informing on me, did you?”

Connor opened his mouth to protest his innocence, then realized it would make no difference. “It’s been nice seeing you again, Angela,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but things are stacking up on me back at the office. You know how it is.”

“I know exactly how it is. Go on, Philip—get out of here.”

Connor crossed to the door, but hesitated as Angela made a faint sound.

She said, “Stay with me, Phil. Please stay.”

He stood with his back to her, experiencing a pain which slowly faded. Then he walked out.

· · · · ·

Late that afternoon, Connor was sitting in his new office when his secretary put through a call. It was Smith, anxious to discuss the acquisition of a collection of antique silver.

“I called you earlier, but your girl told me you were out,” he said with a hint of reproach.

“It’s true,” Connor assured him. “I was out of town—Angela Lomond asked me down to her place.”

“Oh?”

“You didn’t tell me she was no longer a client.”

“You should have known without being told.” Smith was silent for a few seconds. “Is she going to try making trouble?”

“No.”

“What did she want?”

Connor leaned back in his chair and gazed out through the window, toward the Atlantic. “Who knows? I didn’t stay long enough to find out.”

“Very wise,” Smith said complacently.

When the call had ended, Connor brewed some P-brand coffee, using the supply he kept locked in the drinks cabinet. The Perfection of it soothed from his mind the last lingering traces of remorse.

How on Earth, he wondered idly, do they manage to make it taste exactly the way it smells?

The End

Author Biography and Bibliography

Bob Shaw was born in Northern Ireland in 1931; by the end of the decade he’d fallen in love with sf as, he said, an escape from the dullness of suburban Belfast.

In 1950 he discovered fandom and fanzines, and was soon famous in these inner circles—the Wheels of IF or Irish Fandom—as “BoSh.” As every fanzine fan knows, he and Walt Willis wrote The Enchanted Duplicator (1954), which is the Pilgrim’s Progress of fandom; its Profan, the kindly pro author who also remains a fan, was modelled on Eric Frank Russell but might just as well have been Bob himself at any time after about 1970.

His own 1950s fanzine column (a staple of Hyphen from its first issue) was called “The Glass Bushel” because, belying his genuine modesty, Bob claimed this was the only kind of bushel he was prepared to hide his light under. These are still good funny columns, all the funnier because they’re not afraid to be serious … it was Bob who advised aspiring fanwriters that if they wished to raise a laugh they should write in merciless detail about the most horrible, ghastly experience of their lives, whereupon fandom would fall about in appreciative hysterics.

Also in the 50s, Bob made some early fiction sales to sf magazines—and maturely decided that these early pieces weren’t good enough, that he needed more real-life experience. Off he went to work in Canada and see the world. So the true beginning of Bob’s professional career was the strong 1965 story “… And Isles Where Good Men Lie” in New Worlds, followed next year by “Light of Other Days” in Analog—rather astonishingly shortlisted for both Hugo and Nebula despite being only the third published story by the new Bob Shaw. 1967 saw his first novel Night Walk, a fast-moving sf thriller powered by a personal phobia which plenty of us share: the fear of losing one’s sight and ability to read. The hero is blinded and discovers an eerie way to see through others” eyes by electronically reading the activity of their optic nerves ….

I conducted a fanzine interview with Bob in the mid-1970s, and questioned him rather ineptly about the special emotional charge attaching to eyes and vision in his work. It wasn’t just that he once suffered a sight-threatening eye disease (which occasionally flared up again; he would appear in some hotel bar wearing dark glasses and observe, puzzling fans until the penny dropped, “I take a dim view of this convention.”). The nasty incident in his novel Ground Zero Man alias The Peace Machine, where a chap’s eye is taken out by a steel reinforcing bar and he cradles it pathetically in his hand, actually happened to a boyhood friend and stuck painfully in Bob’s imagination all his life. The migraine-induced visual disturbances which I’d found so fascinating in The Two-Timers were part of routine existence for Bob, who went through this subjective light-show (hemicrania sine dolore) about twice a year. I’ve never been so grateful to Bob Shaw and to sf in general as when in the late 1980s I started getting it myself, and was saved from abject panic by realizing this was the harmless phenomenon about which he’d been writing.

Further fine books followed, and the SF Encyclopaedia will give you all the facts; the inventor of “slow glass” and author of (to pick some more favourites) The Palace of Eternity, Vertigo and A Wreath of Stars would be a notable sf figure even if he’d been a recluse living in a cave. But Bob still moved happily between sf’s professional and fan circles, in a way that denied the canard that they are really different circles or that one somehow outranks the other.

I unknowingly saw the birth of a legend at my own first Eastercon, Tynecon in 1974, where Bob was guest of honour and spoke hilariously on

“The Need for Bad Science Fiction.” This led to his famed “Serious Scientific Talks” at convention after convention. Newcomers would be bewildered as the bars emptied and the entire membership crowded to hear a presentation called, say, “The Bermondsey Triangle Mystery,”

replete with demented science, excruciating puns, and gags kept mercilessly running until they coughed up blood. All this was delivered in that mournful Irish voice … which somehow conveyed mild surprise that these peculiar listeners should be laughing so hard that it hurt. The speeches have since been published in various editions, but you have to imagine the voice; indeed, if you’ve ever been to Bob’s performances, it’s impossible to “hear” the words on the page other than in his voice.

With slightly poisoned irony, it was these transcribed talks and other fanzine writing that brought Bob the acclaim deserved for his fiction: the 1979 and 1980 Hugo awards, but for Best Fan Writer rather than Best Novel. ( Orbitsville, however, had deservedly won the 1976 British SF

Association Award.)

Privately he sometimes wearied of the famous speeches, which conventions tended to take for granted, and for which of course he asked no payment. There were times, he said wryly, when he dreaded registering for a con because by return of post the committee would send their draft programme with “Bob Shaw’s Serious Scientific Talk” in a prime slot. Fandom can be thoughtlessly cruel to those it loves; we loved Bob a little too much. Some of the “serious scientific” humour also surfaced in less frenetic form in his funny 1977 sf novel Who Goes Here?, which remains pleasantly rereadable.

After a period of professional quiet in the early 1980s, Bob made a popular come-back with his biggest sf project: the trilogy of The Ragged Astronauts (1986; British SF Award winner; Hugo shortlist), The Wooden Spaceships (1988) and The Fugitive Worlds (1989), set in a universe of audaciously daft physics where pi has an unfamiliar value, twin planets can share an atmosphere, interplanetary balloon flight is feasible, and the gravitational constant is “whatever it needs to be to make my solar system work.” Things looked good as the 1990s began. There seemed every reason to expect sf gatherings to be gladdened for the foreseeable future by Bob’s familiar bearded, heavy-eyed face: “Cartoons of me look like Ming the Merciless,” he would complain without rancour.

But then came the run of evil luck. Bob’s wife of many years, Sarah (“Sadie”—herself a legendary figure of Irish Fandom), died with shocking unexpectedness in 1991. For a while Bob tried, as he put it, to drink the world dry. In late 1993 he suffered a grim cancer operation which left him unwell for a solid year. “At one stage of the surgery,” he told me cheerfully,

“they must have been able, literally, to look right through me and out the other side.” There were gleams of better cheer: Bob was on good conversational form at the 1995 Eastercon and declared himself to be writing again at last (he’d delivered part of a second sequel to Who Goes Here in 1994, but had abandoned it owing to poor health). True to his own maxim about extracting humour from bad experiences, he published a funny article about smuggling dope in the colostomy bag which he had once anticipated with particular dread. His “serious scientific talk” at Intersection downplayed the traditional puns in favour of a moving appreciation of his 50-year association with sf and fandom; even before the dismal clarity of hindsight, many of the listeners felt that Bob was saying goodbye.

December saw his second marriage, to Nancy Tucker in the USA; but illness persisted. After returning to England this February, enjoying dinner with his son’s family and Nancy, and paying a last visit to the Red Lion pub, Bob died peacefully in his sleep that night. The funeral took place on 19

February 1996.

Adapted from David Langford’s Ansible website.

Author Biography and Bibliography

Series

Land and Overland

The Ragged Astronauts (1986)

The Wooden Spaceships (1987)

The Fugitive Worlds (1989)

Orbitsville

Orbitsville (1975)

Orbitsville Departure (1983)

Orbitsville Judgement (1990)

Warren Peace

Warren Peace (1993)

Novels

The Enchanted Duplicator (1954) (with Walt Willis)

Night Walk (1967)

The Two-timers (1968)

Shadow of Heaven (1969)

One Million Tomorrows (1970)

The Palace of Eternity (1970)

Ground Zero Man (1971)

Other Days, Other Eyes (1972)

A Wreath of Stars (1976)

Medusa’s Children (1977)

Vertigo (1978)

Dagger of the Mind (1979)

Ship of Strangers (1979)

The Ceres Solution (1981)

Galactic Tours (1981)

Fire Pattern (1984)

Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle (1986)

Dark Night in Toyland (1989)

Kiler Planet (1989)

Shadow of Heaven, Revised (1991)

Collections

Tomorrow Lies in Ambush (1973)

Who Goes Here? (1977)

A Better Mantrap (1982)

Stories

“Aspect” (1954)

“The Trespassers” (1954)

“Departure” (1955)

“The Journey Alone” (1955)

“Barrier to Yesterday” (1956)

“Sounds in the Dawn” (1956)

“The Silent Partners” (1959)

“Dissolute Diplomat” (1960), with Walt Willis

“...And Isles where Good Men Lie” (1965)

“And Isles Where Good Men Lie” (1965)

“Call Me Dumbo” (1966)

“Light of Other Days” (1966)

“Pilot Plant” (1966)

“Burden of Proof” (1967)

“Appointment on Prila” (1968)

“Element of Chance” (1969)

“Hue and Cry” (1969)

“Communication” (1970)

“The Cosmic Cocktail Party” (1970)

“The Happiest Day of Your Life” (1970)

“Harold Wilson at the Cosmic Cocktail Party” (1970)

“Invasion of Privacy” (1970)

“Telemart 3” (1970)

“Telemart Three” (1970)

“Gambler’s Choice” (1971)

“Repeat Performance” (1971)

“Repeat Performence” (1971)

“The Weapons of Isher II” (1971)

“What Time Do You Call This?” (1971)

“The Brink” (1972)

“Deflation 2001” (1972)

“A Dome of Many-Colored Glass” (1972)

“Other Days, Other Eyes” (1972)

“Retroactive” (1972)

“Stormseeker” (1972)

“Altar Egoes” (1973)

“Dark Icarus” (1974)

“A Full Member of the Club” (1974)

“A Little Night Flying” (1974)

“Unreasonable Facsimile” (1974)

“An Uncomic Book Horror Story” (1975)

“Unfaithful Recording” (1975)

“The Giaconda Caper” (1976)

“Skirmish on a Summer Morning” (1976)

“Waltz of the Bodysnatchers” (1976)

“Crossing the Line” (1977)

“Dream Fighter” (1977)

“Amphitheater” (1978)

“Small World” (1978)

“The Cottage of Eternity” (1979)

“Frost Animals” (1979)

“Well-Wisher” (1979)

“The Edge of Time” (1979), with Donald William Heiney (as Malcolm Harris)

“In the Hereafter Hilton” (1980)

“The Kingdom of O’Ryan” (1980)

“Love Me Tender” (1980)

“Conversion” (1981)

“Go On, Pick a Universe!” (1981)

“Cutting Down” (1982)

“Dark Night in Toyland” (1988)

“Aliens Aren’t Human” (1989)

“Courageous New Planet” (1989)

“Executioner’s Moon” (1989)

“The K-Y Warriors” (1989)

“Shadow of Wings” (1989)

“To the Letter” (1989)

“Incident on a Summer Morning” (1991)

“Lunch of Champions” (1991)

“Alien Porn” (1993)

“Time to Kill” (1993)

<<Contents>>

* * * *

PHILIP E HIGH: The Jackson Killer

Philip Empson High was born in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, on April 28th, 1914. Shortly after, the family moved to Kent, where he still lives. It was there during his school holidays in the August of 1927 that he discovered the sf magazines, and a whole new world opened to him. Thereafter he devoured all he found, and, eventually, despairing that his favourite authors seemed to be ignoring various aspects of the genre, he started to write himself. The first story to sell, The Statics, appeared in the September 1955 Authentic. Unlike his fellow authors, High came late to writing sf, and his fiction reflects the years of experience behind him. He has been a commercial traveller, an insurance agent, a reporter, a salesman and is now a bus driver, which, he says, suits him admirably. During the war he served in the Royal Navy.

Fiction appeared with increasing regularity over the ensuing decade, although the diminution of the British market in the late 1960s meant fewer of his stories appeared. As a consequence he sold several novels to the American paperback market, some of which have since appeared in this country. Most notable amongst them are The Prodigal Sun (1964), No Truce With Terra (1964), Reality Forbidden (1967), and his most recent Speaking of Dinosaurs (1974).

For High’s own favourite short story we go back to the May 1961 New Worlds and The Jackson Killer. High says:

‘No writer worthy of his salt is ever satisfied with his own work. This story, however, almost hit the target from my own personal standard. Further, I enjoyed writing it and can still read it without wincing.’

* * * *

THE JACKSON KILLER

Philip E High

Lassen spun the glass slowly in his hand, watching the tiny whirlpool in the wine. He did not really care for alcohol, local or imported, but it served a purpose. One sipped, one looked lonely and one waited.

He glanced casually at the noisy party at the nearby table. One of the women was beginning to wear the look, the kind of look Colonial women wear when they see a lonely stranger.

Colonial hospitality, God bless it, it saved a lot of work.

He caught the woman’s eye and smiled. A careful smile which was neither suggestive or arrogant but reserved, friendly and a little shy. He had practised it successfully on many occasions and it would serve his purpose now.

He waited, staring at his glass, his face intent as if lost in thought.

Lassen was handsome in a taughtly aristocratic kind of way, smooth, well groomed and the bleakness in his eyes was only visible in a certain light at a certain angle. A vaguely repellent quality is something an Eliminator acquires and must learn to hide successfully.

‘Excuse me,’ said a voice at his elbow.

Lassen started slightly as if surprised. ‘Yes?’ One of the men, a big red faced specimen in a shiny suit.

‘Thought you might like to join us.’ The fellow was grinning like an ape, close relative, no doubt. ‘Saw you were a stranger. Hate you to think the people of Kaylon were unfriendly, plenty of room at our table.’

Lassen looked pleasantly surprised, a little emotional but still faintly reserved., The correct reactions in the correct order for a given situation.

‘How kind, but I would not dream of intruding on a purely private -’

‘Private, hell, on Kaylon nothing is private. Come on, join us.’

‘Well, if you are quite sure -’

He permitted himself to be led to the table and introduced. They found a vacant chair, filled a glass and pressed food upon him.

He gave a clever impression of slowly unbending and even laughed moderately at some of the jokes but he was sighing inwardly. Colonials were always the same, brash, crude, hungry for an Earth they had never seen and infected with a vague sense of inferiority. Nonetheless he had to bear with them, they were part of the job, just as this alleged place of amusement was part of the job. What better place to start the rot than the principle night spot of a Colonial city. Long experience had taught him that rumour, his kind of rumour, would spread like wildfire on a pioneer planet. It was more effective than the most modern forms of communication and far quicker; in a few hours even the remotest posts in the Backlands would have it in detail.

One chose the spot, started the rumour and waited. It was as simple as that.

* * * *

His orders assured him that the prey was on this boisterous half-developed planet. It was just a question of dropping the right word in the right place and smoking him out.

He had, to endure nearly two hours of banal merriment and pioneer

‘shop’ before the chance came.

‘Staying on Kaylon long, Mr Lassen?’ It was Dirk, the red-faced fellow in the shiny out-dated evening dress.

‘Not long, Mr Dirk. Once my business is cleared up I shall be on my way.’

‘Oh, you have business here? I thought you were waiting ship connections.’

‘No, definitely business and very important.’

‘What kind of business, if that’s not a leading question?’ Hunter, a wizened little man with a limp moustache.

‘I am an Eliminator, Mr Hunter.’

‘Eliminator!’They stared at him.

‘I suppose you mean pests,’ said Hunter finally. ‘But we don’t have much here, apart from the tiger-rats which will take another hundred years to control.’

Lassen pushed his empty plate to one side. ‘I don’t kill pests, Mr Hunter - I kill men.’

Their open mouths and wide eyes echoed the words soundlessly.

‘Men - he kills men.”

A coldness seemed to fall on their faces, the red lips of the women thinned and, without moving, they seemed to draw away from him.

‘Bluntly you are a paid assassin?’ The words were spoken by a slender, dark-haired man who had been introduced to him as David Kearsney.

‘Not an assassin, sir, a government agent from the Eliminator Corps.’

‘A flowery title for the same thing, isn’t it?’ Kearsney’s face was cold.

‘You kill men.’

Lassen sipped his wine. ‘Only a certain type of man - I’m a Jackson killer.’

There was a strained silence then someone laughed a little nervously.

‘My name’s Jackson.’

Lassen made a deprecating gesture. ‘You confuse a name with a social malaise.’ He looked about him. ‘The work of the Corps is necessary, just as the elimination of pests is necessary.’

‘Governments, and their agents, can always justify their excesses on reasonable grounds,’ said Dirk bitterly. ‘But as far as you rate with us here, you’re a paid gun-slinger.’

‘I have my duty, I do it.’

‘Oh, spare us that one. That was the plea of war criminals back in pre-space days. Today a man must answer to his own conscience, his own conceptions of right and wrong, or did you eliminate those first?’

Lassen looked at them coldly. ‘I see by your expressions you are unfamiliar with the Proxeta Uprising. I would respectfully suggest that an outline of Galactic history should be added to your school curriculum before passing judgment. As reasonable men, you must see that capital punishment cannot exist without an executioner.’

‘You enjoy your work presumably.’

Lassen frowned. He had not expected a question like that on a pioneer world. It was altogether too penetrating and savoured slightly of interrogation.

‘I object to that remark, Mr Kearsney.’ Lassen rose and bowed slightly. ‘Thank you for your hospitality and good-night.’ He turned and strode towards the door.

For some time after he had gone, no one spoke.

‘An assassin,’ said Dirk, finally. He looked miserably about him. ‘I’m sorry, I never suspected -’

‘It was my idea,’ said his wife quickly.

‘No one is to blame - God!’ Hunter tugged angrily at his moustache.

‘We all made a fuss of him.’

‘I think,’ said Dirk, ‘someone should see the ladies home, this is something we should talk over.’

When they had gone, Hunter sat down and said: ‘Well?’ He looked slightly perplexed.

Dirk scowled at him. ‘Don’t say “well” like that. The obvious question is - what are we going to do?’

‘Do?’

‘Do about him. He’s come to Kaylon to kill someone, one of us, we’ve got to stop him.’

‘Easy, now,’ Hunter looked alarmed. ‘Don’t go rushing into things, he’s a trained killer. Further, he’s a government agent and the law is on his side.’

‘Did you see him produce anything to prove it?’ Dirk was almost shouting. ‘In any case why did he relish telling us so much?’

‘I should think that was fairly obvious.’ Kearsney was leaning back in his chair, frowning slightly. ‘He wanted us to talk about it. You know how quickly such a story would spread, eventually Jackson - whoever Jackson is

- would hear about it. A normal man - and we assume Jackson is a normal man - would either run or betray himself by trying to eliminate the eliminator. It’s no good keeping silent about it, in the first place we may not be the first people he’s told and in the second the women know. The story will probably reach Jackson before we leave the room.’

Hunter rose. ‘A call to Central Information wouldn’t be out of place, would it?’ He pushed his chair angrily under the table. ‘I’ve never heard of the Proxeta Uprising.’

‘Check on Jackson while you’re at it,’ Dirk called after him.

Hunter entered the booth frowning. Dirk was a good fellow, a reliable friend and all that sort of thing but too damned impetuous. His type of reaction could get them all killed, there were limits to Colonial loyalties. Not that he didn’t understand, it was just Dirk’s way of rushing things.

He dialled CI and scowled at the mouthpiece of the caller. Lassen’s words had implied an ignorance they had been unable to refute. How the hell could they be expected to know about an uprising in another part of the galaxy? Terran history and their own ten generation colonisation programme had been all their educators had considered necessary. True, the CI memory banks contained the entire knowledge of the Empire but there just wasn’t the time to use it. Despite a ten generation colony, three large cities and a twelve million population, Kaylon was still a beach-head. You had to fight to stay on it. Beyond the cities and the roadways, there were still the jungles and, of course, the tiger-rats. In the Backlands you lived behind the barrier screens and if you went out, you used an armoured vehicle.

‘Central Information,’ said a pleasant recorded voice. ‘Subject, please.’

When he returned to his table they looked at him expectantly.

‘I got some but not all.’ Hunter lowered himself into his chair and reached for the whisky. ‘The Proxeta Uprising was an attempt by ten worlds in sector 72 to set up an independent autonomy outside the Empire. The attempt was opposed for the obvious economic and military reasons and developed into major war which lasted nearly five years.’ He paused and sipped his drink. ‘If it’s any help, the instigator and self-style leader of the insurgent forces was a man named Howard F. Jackson.’

‘Jackson, eh?, Dirk pulled at his chin, frowning. ‘Where does that get us?’

‘Nowhere. What we’re looking for is not classified under the Jackson heading. When I tried, CI simply referred me back to the uprising. As the original Jackson was executed for war crimes over sixty years ago, Lassen, obviously, is looking for someone or something else.’

‘He could be looking for a symbol,’ said Dirk in a thoughtful voice.

‘Something which the original Jackson embodied or represented.’

‘I formed the same opinion.’ Hunter drained his glass and lit a cigarette. ‘Jackson was regarded by his followers as a superman.’

‘Superman!’ Dirk scowled at the other without seeing him. ‘Here on Kaylon! Surely we should have got wind of him?’

‘If I were a superman,’ said Kearsney in a soft voice, ‘I’d he low until I was ready to make myself felt.’

Hunter nodded quickly. ‘Makes sense that, damn good sense.’

Dirk reached for the nearest bottle. ‘And what do we do about our superman, assuming of course, our guess is right?’

‘What the hell are we supposed to do?’ Hunter’s voice was suddenly challenging.

Dirk flushed angrily. ‘Damn it, he’s one of us isn’t he?’

‘Easy, easy.’ Kearsney’s voice was soothing but firm. ‘We want to know why Lassen wants him first.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Hunter was looking angry and nervous. ‘You can carry this pioneer-unity-stuff too far. It’s all very well talking of covering or aiding him just because he’s one of us but we’ve got to think first. In the first place we’d be putting ourselves on the wrong side of Galactic law. In the second - and to be frank - I don’t fancy tangling with a trained killer. I’ve done my share of fighting in the Backlands but this is something we might not come out of alive if we don’t use our heads.’

‘You make a good point,’ Dirk admitted grudgingly. ‘But it goes against the grain, very much so.’ He frowned at his empty glass and refilled it. ‘I suppose this eliminator business is on the level?’

Hunter nodded slowly. ‘I’m afraid so, yes. I checked CI. There is, definitely, a government, or more correctly, a military organisation known as the Elimination Corps.’

Dirk shook his head slowly. ‘A murder squad - you can call it that, can’t you? In this day and age it doesn’t seem possible - what the hell do they do?’

Hunter smiled at him twistedly. ‘The same as Lassen told us - they kill Jacksons.’

* * * *

Lassen lay on his bed, the thin handsome face intent and thoughtful. He was almost fully dressed but his body in the neat, one-piece suit was completely relaxed.

The Eliminator was waiting. He had removed his shoes and loosened his collar but these were the only mild relaxations he permitted himself.

The hotel room, like the man, was neat and uncluttered, with personal belongings in their proper places. The smart carry-case open at the foot of the bed suggested only that he was about to pack and only an astute observer would have noticed the slight bulge beneath the sheet and close to his right hand.

Lassen was thinking about Jackson. Sooner or later the rumour would reach him and the man would react. His name might be Smith, Hereward, Brown, anything, but he would know what the news meant instantly. Only a Jackson would know he was a Jackson because only a Jackson would spend day after day in CI absorbing knowledge like a sponge and, in so doing, would learn about himself.

When Jackson heard there was an Eliminator on the planet, there were only two courses open to him, fight or run because he would know straight away that hiding from an Eliminator was out of the question. Neither solution was a happy one, however clever you were, fighting a trained man backed by the scientific know-how of an entire Empire was not a job with the odds in your favour.

Escape, on the other hand, was even less attractive. Every planet, however advanced, has only one escape route - the ferry ports. To get off the planet, you had to take the ferry, there was no other way and preventing such attempts was almost too easy. All one needed was a stellar shipping list, the ferry wouldn’t blast off until a ship was in orbit. No, in point of fact, a planet had only one escape route, one rat-run, which was too easy to plug.

The alternative, therefore, was to kill the Eliminator and then run; hoping to put light years behind you before his successor took up the chase.

In his time, Lassen had experienced a variety of attacks, most of them ingenius and all doomed to failure. A single individual pitting his skill against the scientific knowledge of an Empire was a task even a Jackson couldn’t handle.

Lassen smiled to himself. That was the trouble with Jacksons, they were too smart for their own good and, worse, most of them were only half-Jacksons. A real Jackson would place himself in a position where the chance of detection and subsequent elimination was almost an impossibility.

The neat carry-case at the foot of the bed purred softly and instantly he was tense. His right hand slid beneath the sheet, gripping the butt of the Pheeson Pistol, his left hand twisted the buckle of his belt activating the personal deflector screen.

‘Postal service,’ said a pleasant recorded voice. ‘A parcel for Mr. Lassen.’

Something thudded into the delivery basket.

Lassen eyed the small package warily and without moving. The automatic postal system was more than thorough and would automatically reject explosives but there were quite a number of lethal devices requiring no explosives whatever. He had seen deadly little clockwork mechanisms firing poison needles by compressed air, ‘treated’ papers which killed the careless by impregnation through the skin...

‘Postal service,’ said the voice again. ‘A parcel for Mr Lassen.’

There was a second plop in the delivery basket.

Lassen stiffened. A tiny pin-point of brilliant light had appeared which began to expand like a minor sun.

At the foot of the bed, the carry-case hissed and began to vibrate slightly. Forces rushed from it, blanketing the heat and the light and crushing them backwards. There was an impression of suffocation and growing weakness. The brilliant light seemed to fall in on itself, turned to a dull red which faded to blackness and a few grey whisps of smoke.

Lassen rose slowly and crossed the room. The delivery basket still dripped hot metal but the charred mass within it was completely dead.

He shook his head thoughtfully. Clever, quite clever, two parcels, probably despatched from widely different points but timed to arrive within seconds of each other. Each parcel was, of course, harmless in itself but deadly when brought together. Altogether it was an ingenious method of getting reactives into critical contact through the carefully vetted postal system.

He nodded to himself with satisfaction. This one was a real Jackson. Further, and far more important, the reaction had been swift which meant only one thing, he was in the city. He might even have been in the same room, possibly among those at the table to take counter action so swiftly.

Lassen shrugged. The auto-senders recorded details of their users as a protection against loss or fraud; tracing Jackson or his stooges required only an examination of the records.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Routine, once the prey reacted he betrayed himself and that was the end. Not that this fellow wasn’t far above average, his reactions had been swift but with precise and careful planning but, like all Jacksons, there was the inevitable weakness. It was characteristic that they would concede a technical superiority because it was the product of a joint effort but never, no never the superior intelligence of the operator and that was where they lost the fight.

Lassen lit a cigarette and crossed the room. Having made the first move, Jackson would, at the same time, be preparing for escape. All he, Lassen, had to do was plug the rat hole.

He touched a button. ‘Hello? Ferry port? Can you give me the date and time of the next stellar liner, please?’

* * * *

Hunter opened the door of his apartment half-way and hesitated. ‘Oh, hello, Dirk,’ he said a little ungraciously. ‘Something important?’

‘It’s about Jackson.’

‘Now look - if you’ve got some crazy scheme, count me out, we’ll have that cleared up from the start.’

Dirk scowled at him. ‘It’s merely information - information which I don’t intend to talk about in the passage. Do you mind?’

‘Oh, very well.’ Hunter stood aside with obvious reluctance. ‘Come in.’

He waved his hand at the nearest chair. ‘Make yourself at home, I’ll dial you a drink - whisky as usual?’

‘Thanks.’ Dirk dropped into the chair and fumbled for a cigarette.

‘Careful aren’t you?’

‘I prefer to call it sensible.’ Hunter passed the drink. ‘A difference of opinion, that’s all.’ He sat down. ‘What is this information?’

Dirk puffed at the cigarette. ‘I know about Jackson, all there is to know, everything, that is, except his identity.’

‘The hell you do - where did you get it?’

‘CI,’ Dirk sipped his drink with faint complacence. ‘I checked the psychiatric section, the master-selector soon cottoned on to what I wanted after a few questions.’ He gulped his drink and put down the empty glass.

‘A Jackson is a mutant primary.’

Hunter, who had just finished dialling for another drink, nearly dropped the glass. ‘Mutant! I thought all those yarns about monsters was an exploded myth? This is on the level?’

Dirk looked at him directly. ‘Absolutely.’ He picked up the second drink and scowled at it absently. ‘As Lassen reminded us, we don’t avail ourselves of CI enough and now that I have I rather wish I hadn’t - we’re all mutants.’

Hunter was suddenly a little pale. ‘How come?’

Dirk shrugged. ‘The early days of atomics, the unshielded ships when we began to challenge space.’ He sighed. ‘According to CI eighty-seven per cent of the human race are mutant.’ He found another cigarette and lit it quickly. ‘Naturally the most complex part of the body suffered first - the brain. Nearly all of us have - what shall I call it? - abnormal additions.’

‘I don’t feel any different.’ Hunter laughed weakly and without humour.

‘You shouldn’t, your abnormality is latent, you are not a primary, that’s the difference between you and - Jackson.’

‘And just what is a Jackson?’ Hunter was patently relieved.

‘A human being with an incomprehensible IQ - in short, a superman.’

Hunter frowned at him. ‘What’s wrong with having a few supermen around?’

Dirk shrugged. ‘Unfortunately and, it seems, inevitably, they’re all raging paranoics. The original Jackson had a staggering IQ, incredible qualities both of leadership and organisation and the unshakable conviction he was the Chosen Saviour of Mankind.’ Dirk shook his head, frowning. ‘He nearly succeeded in proving it too, his ten planet autonomy nearly licked the Empire.’

‘And there’s no cure?’

‘None. Conditioning leaves a drooling idiot which is crueller than execution, putting them in prison is too uncertain to be worth risking.’

Hunter picked up his drink, frowned at it, and put it down again without drinking it. ‘That justifies Lassen or does it?’

Dirk made a helpless movement with his hands. ‘I’m neither moralist nor philosopher - ten million died in the Proxeta Uprising.’

Hunter sipped the drink without tasting it. ‘So somewhere on Kaylon is a Jackson; now we know the truth I think that lets us out.’

Dirk gulped his drink and banged down the glass. ‘Of course, you’d love that kind of loyalty if you were Jackson, wouldn’t you? And who the hell am I to argue with you.’ He strode to the door which opened at his approach. ‘I can see I’ve been wasting my time here, perhaps elsewhere I can find a colonist with guts and -’

The door slid shut behind him cutting off the final words.

Hunter frowned briefly, then shrugged. Poor old Dirk, in ten minutes he would calm down and begin to think for himself. Tomorrow, no doubt, he would be back, red faced and apologetic. Somehow you couldn’t help liking him despite his tantrums and impetuosity.

Hunter’s thoughts turned to more important matters. Dirk’s information explained a lot of things, particularly the compulsory time-wasting psychiatric checks which one suffered twice every year. The authorities were not only checking for Jacksons but were determined to nip them in the bud before they developed. Was that why Lawson, Meeker and several more had been taken away for specialist treatment immediately after their checks? He rather thought it might be.

There were still important questions unanswered. What turned a normal into a primary, a potential into an active?

Thoughtfully he pressed the caller button and dialled Central Information.

The answers were detailed but obscure and boiled down to two factors comprehensible to the layman - intense emotional shock and conditions and environment conducive to paranoia.

Hunter thought about it. Did the peculiar social order of short-term office applicable to the whole Empire depend on that one factor. One could become a President, Mayor, Minister, General or Executive but only for six months. After which the constitution and galactic law demanded that one stepped down for another leader to assume the mantle of power.

It was said that absolute power corrupts and a sustained position of absolute power might be considered as conducive to paranoia. A man entrusted too long with power might come to believe in his own God-like qualities and so develop into a Jackson.

The explanation, of course, might not be the right one but certainly went a long way to account for a dithery administration and infuriating policy changes. The short-term-office was beginning to make sense at last.

Hunter sighed and sat down. He supposed, in due course, he’d hear what had happened and who the Jackson had been. He hoped to God it was not one of his friends. The thought made him warm slightly towards Dirk who, no doubt, was at this moment, trying to bamboozle some other unfortunate into some impractical rescue scheme.

It was a good guess. Dirk was working hard on Kearsney.

* * * *

‘I’m sorry, Dirk.’ Kearsney shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think this business really concerns me. Remember, I’m not a colonist I’m an immigrant, I’ve only been here two years.’

‘You’re splitting hairs, we took you in, made you one of us, you’re just making -’ Dirk’s rather hectoring voice trailed suddenly into silence, he was staring past Kearsney and into the small bedroom. When he spoke again his tone was friendly and almost too casual. ‘Going on a holiday?’

Kearsney glanced at the half packed cases and said, easily, ‘Oh those - No, not a holiday, old chap, a Backlands job, some sort of administrative muddle at Salzport.’

Dirk lit a cigarette. ‘The floater for Salzport,’ he said in a detached voice, ‘left eight hours ago. There won’t be another for ten days.’

‘Really?’ Kearsney’s teeth gleamed briefly in an unreal smile. ‘I shall have to wait then, I must have got hold of an old timetable by mistake.’

‘Yes, you must.’ Dirk leaned against the wall and stared into the bedroom. ‘You don’t pack stellar cases for the Backlands.’

‘I do - any objection?’

Dirk exhaled smoke. ‘Panzer-grubs will eat everything but the locks before you’ve been there thirty minutes.’

‘That’s my worry.’ Kearsney crossed the room and removed a suit from a wall cupboard. ‘We’ll have a chat some other time, eh? I’m rather busy just now - do you mind?’

Dirk detached himself from the wall. ‘Sure, even I can take a very broad hint.’ At the door he turned. ‘Good luck, Dave. He’ll get no help from us and, if we can find a way of obstructing him, we’ll do a damn thorough job.’ The door slid shut behind him.

He left Kearsney staring unseeingly before him. So Dirk knew, or thought he knew, exactly how things stood. Under the bluster and impetuosity was an astute and singularly observant man, not many would have spotted those cases and drawn the right conclusions. His loyalties too, although misplaced, were not only understandable but peculiar to colonies in general. He understood clearly how easy it must have been for Howard F. Jackson to weld ten planets into formidable unity. Colonies were fertile soil for insurrection, not because they disliked Earth but by circumstance. Fighting to stay put on a hostile world bred more than ordinary ties of unity, you fought with and for your neighbour and learned that unless you did you both perished. This, of course, bred an attitude of my-neighbour-right-or-wrong and the outsider took the can back.

The ‘Prodge’ rang, interrupting his train of thought and he flicked the receptor switch irritably. What now?

‘Taking a trip, Mr Kearsney?’ The projected three-dimensional image of Lassen looked meaningly at the cases.

Kearsney shrugged, bluff was obviously out of the question. ‘You didn’t waste any time,’ he said, evenly.

‘Tracing your stooges was not difficult.’ The projection paused to light a cigarette. ‘That was quite a neat trick with the reactives but I’m afraid you won’t get another chance. No time. Will you give yourself up or do you prefer to do things the hard way?’

Kearsney made a small movement with his hand. ‘The hard way.’

Lassen smiled faintly. ‘Excellent, I was afraid you might disappoint me. Where will it be?’

‘I’ll meet you in the hills somewhere along Eastern Highway at noon, tomorrow.’

‘And you hope to rid yourself of me in a duel?’

‘That is the general idea.’ Kearsney’s voice was expressionless.

‘Time and date could be significant.’

Kearsney shrugged. ‘You’ve probably worked that one out for yourself. The ferry lifts at 3 pm standard time, if I win I have time to make the ferry.’

‘And you believe you’ll win?’

Kearsney’s jaw set stubbornly. ‘I can hope.’

The other stared at him for a long second before speaking. ‘Hope is a luxury you cannot really afford, Mr Kearsney.’

There was a faint click and the projection vanished.

* * * *

Lassen climbed into the ground car without haste and re-checked the dials on the additional facia. He had spent six hours on the vehicle and was satisfied that the changes he had made were sufficiently comprehensive to take care of most contingencies.

This Jackson was well above the average and it was unlikely that he would depend solely on his own skill with weapons. An Eliminator thought ahead and was prepared for eventualities before they arose.

Lassen touched the starter button, pressed the thrust pedal and felt the wheel-less vehicle roll smoothly forward on its cushion of air.

After ten minutes driving, his instruments told him that he was being followed. A second vehicle was hanging doggedly on his tail a cautious two miles to his rear.

He shrugged. Colonists, probably labouring under the delusion they could help the fugitive when the shooting started. Well they would not be the first natives to obstruct the course of justice and get themselves killed along with the fugitive they were trying to aid.

The car jerked suddenly as his additional braking system took over and slithered to a halt.

A bare hundred feet in front of him a needle of white flame leapt a hundred feet into the air leaving a wide shallow crater.

Lassen switched the braking system to normal and approached the point of the explosion cautiously. It had been close, his instruments had detected and detonated the booby trap only just in time, another second...

Through the window of the car he studied the crater, frowning. The device itself was obsolete but the means gave one pause for thought. Only one explosive would leave a burnished effect in the crater and that was Trachonite.

Lassen frowned. It was difficult to imagine an unstable substance like trachonite being manufactured outside a fully equipped laboratory, yet this Jackson had not only constructed it but compressed the unstable elements into a pill-size device which could be tossed casually from a car window.