The Currents of Space Page 4

  The main hall was large, cold, and all but empty. The librarian behind the single desk it contained looked like a small, somewhat wrinkled pea in a bloated pod. She looked up and half rose.

  Terens said quickly, "I'm a Townman. Special privileges. I am responsible for this native." He had his papers ready and marched them before him.

  The librarian seated herself and looked stern. She plucked a metal sliver from a slot and thrust it at Terens. The Town-man placed his right thumb firmly upon it. The librarian took the sliver and put it in another slot where a dim violet light shone briefly.

  She said, "Room 242."

  "Thank you."

  The cubicles on the second floor had that icy lack of personality that any link in an endless chain would have. Some were filled, their glassite doors frosted and opaque. Most were not. "Two forty-two," said Rik. His voice was squeaky. "What's the matter, Rik?"

  "I don't know. I feel very excited."

  "Ever been in a library before?"

  "I don't know."

  Terens put his thumb on the round aluminium disc which, five minutes before, had been sensitized to his thumbprint. The clear glass door swung open and, as they stepped within, it closed silently and, as though a blind had been drawn, became opaque.

  The room was six feet in each direction, without window or adornment. It was lit by the diffuse ceiling glow and ventilated by a forced-air draft. The only contents were a desk that stretched from wall to wall and an upholstered backless bench between it and the door. On the desk were three "readers". Their frosted-glass fronts slanted backwards at an angle of thirty degrees. Before each were the various control-dials.

  "Do you know what this is?" Terens sat down and placed his soft, plump hand upon one of the readers.

  Rik sat down too.

  "Books?" he asked eagerly.

  "Well." Terens seemed uncertain. "This is a library, so your guess doesn't mean much. Do you know how to work the reader?"

  "No. I don't think so, Townman."

  "You're sure? Think about it a little."

  Rik tried valiantly. "I'm sorry, Townman."

  "Then I'll show you. Look! First, you see, there's this knob, labeled 'Catalog' with the alphabet printed about it. Since we want the encyclopedia first, we'll turn the knob to E and press downward."

  He did so and several things happened at once. The frosted glass flared into life and printing appeared upon it. It stood out black on yellow as the ceiling light dimmed. Three smooth panels moved out like so many tongues, one before each reader, and each was centered by a tight light-beam.

  Terens snapped a toggle switch and the panels moved back into their recesses.

  He said, "We won't be taking notes."

  Then he went on, "Now we can go down the list of E's by turning this knob."

  The long line of alphabetized materials, titles, authors, catalog numbers flipped upward, then stopped at the packed column listing the numerous volumes of the encyclopedia.

  Rik said suddenly, "You press the numbers and letters after the book you want on these little buttons and it shows on the screen."

  Terens turned on him. "How do you know? Do you remember that?"

  "Maybe I do. I'm not sure. It just seems the right thing."

  "Well, call it an intelligent guess."

  He punched a letter-number combination. The light on the glass faded, then brightened again. It said: "Encyclopedia of Sark, Volume 54, Sol-Spec."

  Terens said, "Now look, Rik, I don't want to put any ideas in your head, so I won't tell you what's in my mind. I just want you to look through this volume and stop at anything that seems familiar. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now take your time."

  The minutes passed. Suddenly Rik gasped and sent the dials spinning backward.

  When he stopped, Terens read the heading and looked pleased. "You remember now? This isn't a guess? You remember?"

  Rik nodded vigorously. "It came to me, Townman. Very suddenly."

  It was the article on Spatio-analysis.

  "I know what it says," Rik said. "You'll see, you'll see." He was having difficulty breathing normally and Terens, for his part, was almost equally excited.

  "See," said Rik, "they always have this part."

  He read aloud haltingly, but in manner far more proficient than could be accounted for by the sketchy lessons in reading he had received from Valona. The article said:

  " 'It is not surprising that the Spatio-analyst is by temperament an introverted and, often enough, maladjusted individual. To devote the greater part of one's adult life to the lonely recording of the terrible emptiness between the stars is more than can be asked of someone entirely normal. It is perhaps with some realization of this that the Spatio-analytic Institute has adopted as its official slogan the somewhat wry statement, "We Analyze Nothing".' "

  Rik finished with what was almost a shriek.

  Terens said, "Do you understand what you've read?"

  The smaller man looked up with blazing eyes. "It said, 'We Analyze Nothing'. That's what I remembered. I was one of them."

  "You were a Spatio-analyst?"

  "Yes," cried Rik. Then, in a lower voice, "My head hurts."

  "Because you're remembering?"

  "I suppose so." He looked up, forehead furrowed. "I've got to remember more. There's danger. Tremendous danger! I don't know what to do."

  "The library's at our disposal, Rik." Terens was watching carefully, weighing his words. "Use the catalog yourself and look up some texts on Spatio-analysis. See where that leads you."

  Rik flung himself upon the reader. He was shaking visibly. Terens moved aside to give him room.

  "How about Wrijt's Treatise of Spatio-analytic Instrumentation?" asked Rik. "Doesn't that sound right?"

  "It's all up to you, Rik."

  Rik punched the catalog number and the screen burned brightly and steadily. It said, "Please Consult Librarian for Book in Question."

  Terens reached out a quick hand and neutralized the screen. "Better try another book, Rik."

  "But..." Rik hesitated, then followed orders. Another search through the catalog and then he chose Enning's Composition of Space.

  The screen filled itself once more with a request to consult the librarian. Terens said, "Damn!" and deadened the screen again.

  Rik said, "What's the matter?"

  Terens said, "Nothing. Nothing. Now don't get panicky, Rik. I just don't quite see-"

  There was a little speaker behind the grillwork on the side of the reading mechanism. The librarian's thin, dry voice emerged therefrom and froze them both.

  "Room 242! Is there anyone in Room 242?"

  Terens answered harshly, "What do you want?"

  The voice said, "What book is it you want?"

  "None at all. Thank you. We are only testing the reader."

  There was a pause as though some invisible consultation was proceeding. Then the voice said with an even sharper edge to it, "The record indicates a reading request for Wrijt's Treatise of Spatio-analytical Instrumentation, and Enning's Composition of Space. Is that correct?"

  "We were punching catalog numbers at random," said Terens.

  "May I ask your reason for desiring those books?" The voice was inexorable.

  "I tell you we don't want them….Now stop it." The last was an angry aside to Rik, who had begun whimpering.

  A pause again. Then the voice said, "If you will come down to the desk you may have access to the books. They are on a reserved listing and you will have to fill out a form."

  Terens held out a hand to Rik. "Let's go."

  "Maybe we've broken a rule," quavered Rik.

  "Nonsense, Rik. We're leaving?"

  "We won't fill out the form?"

  "No, we'll get the books some other time."

  Terens was hurrying, forcing Rik along with him. He strode down the main lobby. The librarian looked up.

  "Here now," she cried, rising and circling the desk. "One
moment. One moment!"

  They weren't stopping for her.

  That is, until a patroller stepped in front of them. "You're in an awful hurry, laddies."

  The librarian, somewhat breathless, caught up to them. "You're 242, aren't you?"

  "Look here," said Terens firmly, "why are we being stopped?"

  "Didn't you inquire after certain books? We'd like to get them for you."

  "It's too late. Another time. Don't you understand that I don't want the books? I'll be back tomorrow."

  "The library," said the woman primly, "at all times endeavors to give satisfaction. The books will be made available to you in one moment." Two spots of red burned high upon her cheekbones. She turned away, hurrying through a small door that opened at her approach.

  Terens said, "Officer, if you don't mind-"

  But the patroller held out his moderately long, weighted neuronic whip. It could serve as an excellent club, or as a longer-range weapon of paralyzing potentialities. He said, "Now, laddy, why don't you sit down quietly and wait for the lady to come back? It would be the polite thing to do."

  The patroller was no longer young, no longer slim. He looked close to retirement age and he was probably serving out his time in quiet vegetation as library guard, but he was armed and the joviality on his swarthy face had an insincere look about it.

  Terens' forehead was wet and he could feel the perspiration collecting at the base of his spine. Somehow he had underestimated the situation. He had been sure of his own analysis of the matter, of everything. Yet here he was. He shouldn't have been so reckless. It was his damned desire to invade Upper City, to stalk through the library corridors as though he were a Sarkite….

  For a desperate moment he wanted to assault the patroller and then, unexpectedly, he didn't have to.

  It was just a flash of movement at first. The patroller started to turn a little too late. The slower reactions of age betrayed him. The neuronic whip was wrenched from his grasp and before he could do more than emit the beginning of a hoarse cry it was laid along his temple. He collapsed.

  Rik shrieked with delight, and Terens cried, "Valona! By all the devils of Sark, Valona!"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE REBEL

  Terens recovered almost at once. He said, "Out. Quickly!" and began walking.

  For a moment he had the impulse to drag the patroller's unconscious body into the shadows behind the pillars that lined the main hall, but there was obviously no time.

  They emerged onto the ramp, with the afternoon sun making the world bright and warm about them. The colors of Upper City had shifted to an orange motif.

  Valona said anxiously, "Come on!" but Terens caught her elbow.

  He was smiling, but his voice was hard and low. He said, "Don't run. Walk naturally and follow me. Hold on to Rik. Don't let him run."

  A few steps. They seemed to be moving through glue. Were there sounds behind them from the library? Imagination? Terens did not dare look.

  "In here," he said. The sign above the driveway he indicated flickered a bit in the light of afternoon. It didn't compete very well with Fiorina's sun. It said: Ambulance Entrance.

  Up the drive, through a side entrance, and between incredibly white walls. They were blobs of foreign material against the aseptic glassiness of the corridor.

  A woman in uniform was looking at them from a distance. She hesitated, frowned, began to approach. Terens did not wait for her. He turned sharply, followed a branch of the corridor, then another one. They passed others in uniform and Terens could imagine the uncertainty they aroused. It was quite unprecedented to have natives wandering about unguarded in the upper levels of a hospital. What did one do?

  Eventually, of course, they would be stopped.

  So Terens felt his heartbeat step up when he saw the unobtrusive door that said: To Native Levels. The elevator was at their level. He herded Rik and Valona within and the soft lurch as the elevator dropped was the most delightful sensation of the day.

  There were three kinds of buildings in the City. Most were Lower Buildings, built entirely on the lower level. Workers' houses, ranging up to three stories in height. Factories, bakeries, disposal plants. Others were Upper Buildings: Sarkite homes, theaters, the library, sports arenas. But some few were Doubles, with levels and entrances both below and above; the patroller stations, for instance, and the hospitals.

  One could therefore use a hospital to go from Upper City to Lower City and avoid in that manner the use of the large freight elevators with their slow movements and overattentive operators. For a native to do so was thoroughly illegal, of course, but the added crime was a pinprick to those already guilty of assaulting patrollers.

  They stepped out upon the lower level. The stark aseptic walls were there still, but they had a faintly haggard appearance as though they were less often scrubbed. The upholstered benches that lined the corridors on the upper level were gone. Most of all there was the uneasy babble of a waiting room filled with wary men and frightened women. A single attendant was attempting to make sense out of the mess, and succeeding poorly.

  She was snapping at a stubbled oldster who pleated and unpleated the wrinkled knee of his traveling trousers and who answered all questions in an apologetic monotone.

  "Exactly what is your complaint? ... How long have you had these pains? ... Ever been to the hospital before? ... Now look, you people can't expect to bother us over every little thing. You sit down and the doctor will look at you and give you more medicine."

  She cried shrilly, "Next!" then muttered something to herself as she looked at the large timepiece on the wall.

  Terens, Valona and Rik were edging cautiously through the crowd. Valona, as though the presence of fellow Florians had freed her tongue of paralysis, was whispering intensely.

  "I had to come, Townman. I was so worried about Rik. I thought you wouldn't bring him back and-"

  "How did you get to Upper City, anyway?" demanded Terens over his shoulder, as he shoved unresisting natives to either side.

  "I followed you and saw you go up the freight elevator. When it came down I said I was with you and he took me up."

  "Just like that."

  "I shook him a little."

  "Imps of Sark," groaned Terens.

  "I had to," explained Valona miserably. "Then I saw the patrollers pointing out a building to you. I waited till they were gone and went there too. Only I didn't dare go inside. I didn't know what to do so I sort of hid until I saw you coming out with the patroller stopping-"

  "You people there!" It was the sharp, impatient voice of the receptionist. She was standing now, and the hard rapping of her metal stylus on the cementalloy desk top dominated the gathering and reduced them to a hard-breathing silence.

  "Those people trying to leave. Come here. You cannot leave without being examined. There'll be no evading workdays with pretended sick calls. Come back here!"

  But the three were out in the half shadow of Lower City. There were the smells and noise of what the Sarkites called the Native Quarter about them and the upper level was once more only a roof above them. But however relieved Valona and Rik might feel at being away from the oppressive richness of Sarkite surroundings, Terens felt no lifting of anxiety. They had gone too far and henceforth there might be no safety anywhere.

  That thought was still passing through his turbulent mind when Rik called, "Look!" Terens felt salt in his throat.

  It was perhaps the most frightening sight the natives of the Lower City could see. It was like a giant bird floating down through one of the openings in the Upper City. It shut off the sun and deepened the ominous gloom of that portion of the City. But it wasn't a bird. It was one of the armed ground-cars of the patrollers.

  Natives yelled and began running. They might have no specific reason to fear, but they scattered anyway. One man, nearly in the path of the car, stepped aside reluctantly. He had been hurrying on has way, intent on some business of his own, when the shadow caught him. He looke
d about him, a rock of calm in the wildness. He was of medium height, but almost grotesquely broad across the shoulders. One of his shirt sleeves was slit down its length, revealing an arm like another man's thigh.

  Terens was hesitating, and Rik and Valona could do nothing without him. The Townman's inner uncertainty had mounted to a fever. If they ran where could they go? If they remained where they were, what could they do? There was a chance that the patrollers were after others altogether, but with a patroller unconscious on the library floor through their act, the chances of that were negligible.

  The broad man was approaching at a heavy half trot. For a moment he paused in passing them, as though with uncertainty. He said in a conversational voice, "Khorov's bakery is second left, beyond the laundry."

  He veered back.

  Terens said, "Come on."

  He was sweating freely as he ran. Through the uproar, he heard the barking orders that came naturally to patroller throats. He threw one look over his shoulder. A half dozen of them were piling out of the ground-car, fanning out. They would have no trouble, he knew. In his damned Townman's uniform he was as conspicuous as one of the pillars supporting the Upper City.

  Two of the patrollers were running in the right direction. He didn't know whether or not they had seen him, but that didn't matter. Both collided with the broad man who had just spoken to Terens. All three were close enough for Terens to hear the broad man's hoarse bellow and the patrollers' sharp cursing. Terens herded Valona and Rik around the corner.

  Khorov's bakery was named as such by an almost defaced "worm" of crawling illuminated plastic, broken in half a dozen places, and was made unmistakable by the wonderful odor that filtered through its open door. There was nothing to do but enter, and they did.

  An old man looked out from the inner room within which they could see the flour-obscured gleam of the radar furnaces. He had no chance to ask their business.

  Terens began, "A broad man-" He was holding his arms apart in illustration, and the cries of "Patrollers! Patrollers!" began to be heard outside.

  The old man said hoarsely, "This way! Quickly!"