Finally, Jason Taverner nodded.
“Okay,” Buckman said; he felt the glow of discovery lurking inside him, now, revealing itself in a cluster of comprehensions. “You took nothing out. But there’s some reason why the data weren’t there in the first place. Why not? Do you know?”
“I know,” Jason Taverner said, staring down at the table; his face had twisted into a gross mirror-thing. “I don’t exist.”
“But you once did.”
“Yes,” Taverner said, nodding unwillingly. Painfully.
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
It always comes back to that, Buckman said to himself. I don’t know. Well, Buckman thought, maybe he doesn’t. But he did make his way from L.A. to Vegas; he did shack up with that skinny, wrinkled broad the Vegas pols loaded into the van with him. Maybe, he thought, I can get something from her. But his hunch registered a no.
“Have you had dinner?” Buckman inquired.
“Yes,” Jason Taverner said.
“But you’ll join me in the munchies. I’ll have them bring something in to us.” Once more he made use of the intercom. “Peggy–it’s so late now. . . get us two breakfasts at that new place down the street. Not the one we used to go to, but the new one with the sign showing the dog with the girl’s head. Barfy’s.”
“Yes, Mr. Buckman,” Peggy said and rang off.
“Why don’t they call you ‘General’?” Jason Taverner asked.
Buckman said, “When they call me ‘General’ I feel I ought to have written a book on how to invade France while staying out of a two-front war.”
“So you’re just plain ‘Mister’.”
“That’s right.”
“And they let you do it?”
“For me,” Buckman said, “there is no ‘they.’ Except for five police marshals here and there in the world, and they call themselves ‘Mister,’ too.” And how they would like to demote me further, he thought. Because of all that I did.
“But there’s the Director.”
Buckman said, “The Director has never seen me. He never will. Nor will he see you either, Mr. Taverner. But nobody can see you, because, as you pointed out, you don’t exist.”
Presently a gray uniformed pol woman entered the office, carrying a tray of food. “What you usually order this time of night,” she said as he set the tray down on Buckman’s desk. “One short stack of hots with a side order of ham; one short stack of hots with a side order of sausage.”
“Which would you like?” Buckman asked Jason Taverner. “Is the sausage well cooked?” Jason Taverner asked, peering to see. “I guess it is. I’ll take it.”
“That’s ten dollars and one gold quinque,” the pol woman said. “Which of you is going to pay for it?”
Buckman dug into his pockets, fished out the bills and change. “Thanks.” The woman departed. “Do you have any children?” he asked Taverner.
“No.”
“I have a child,” General Buckman said. “I’ll show you a little 3-D pic of him that I received.” He reached into his desk, brought out a palpitating square of three-dimensional but nonmoving colors. Accepting the picture, Jason held it properly in the light, saw outlined statically a young boy in shorts and sweater, barefoot, running across a field, tugging on the string of a kite. Like the police general, the boy had light short hair and a strong and impressive wide jaw. Already.
“Nice,” Jason said. He returned the pic.
Buckman said, “He never got the kite off the ground. Too young, perhaps. Or afraid. Our little boy has a lot of anxiety. I think because he sees so little of me and his mother; he’s at a school in Florida and we’re here, which is not a good thing. You say you have no children?”
“Not that I know of,” Jason said.
“‘Not that you know of’?” Buckman raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you don’t go into the matter? You’ve never tried to find out? By law, you know, you as the father are required to support your children in or out of wedlock.”
Jason nodded.
“Well,” General Buckman said, as he put the pic away in his desk, “everyone to his own. But consider what you’ve left out of your life. Haven’t you ever loved a child? It hurts your heart, the innermost part of you, where you can easily die.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jason said.
“Oh, yes. My wife says you can forget any kind of love except what you’ve felt toward children. That only goes one way; it never reverts. And if something comes between you and a child–such as death or a terrible calamity such as a divorce–you never recover.”
“Well, hell, then”–Jason gestured with a forkful of sausage–“then it would be better not to feel that kind of love.”
“I don’t agree,” Buckman said. “You should always love, and especially a child, because that’s the strongest form of love.”
“I see,” Jason said.
“No, you don’t see. Sixes never see; they don’t understand. It’s not worth discussing.” He shuffled a pile of papers on his desk, scowling, puzzled, and nettled. But gradually he calmed down, became his cool assured self once more. But he could not understand Jason Taverner’s attitude. But he, his child, was all-important; it, plus his love of course for the boy’s mother–this was the pivot of his life.
They ate for a time without speaking, with, suddenly, no bridge connecting them one to the other.
“There’s a cafeteria in the building,” Buckman said at last, as he drank down a glass of imitation Tang. “But the food there is poisoned. All the help must have relatives in forcedlabor camps. They’re getting back at us.” He laughed. Jason Taverner did not. “Mr. Taverner,” Buckman said, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin, “I am going to let you go. I’m not holding you.”
Staring at him, Jason said, “Why?”
“Because you haven’t done anything.”
Jason said hoarsely, “Getting forged ID cards. A felony.”
“I have the authority to cancel any felony charge I wish,” Buckman said. “I consider that you were forced into doing that by some situation you found yourself in, a situation which you refuse to tell me about, but of which I have gotten a slight g}impse.”
After a pause Jason said, “Thanks.”
“But,” Buckman said, “you will be electronically monitored wherever you go. You will never be alone except for your own thoughts in your own mind and perhaps not even there. Everyone you contact or reach or see will be brought in for questioning eventually. . . just as we’re bringing in the Nelson girl right now.” He leaned toward Jason Taverner, speaking slowly and intently so that Taverner would listen and understand. “I believe you took no data from any data banks, public or private. I believe you don’t understand your own situation. But”–he let his voice rise perceptibly– “sooner or later you will understand your situation and when that happens we want to be in on it. So–we will always be with you. Fair enough?”
Jason Taverner rose to his feet. “Do all you sevens think this way?”
“What way?”
“Making strong, vital, instant decisions. The way you do. The way you ask questions, listen–God, how you listen!– and then make up your mind absolutely.”
Truthfully, Buckman said, “I don’t know because I have so little contact with other sevens.”
“Thanks,” Jason said. He held out his hand; they shook. “Thanks for the meal.” He seemed calm now. In control of himself. And very much relieved. “Do I just wander out of here? How do I get onto the street?”
“We’ll have to hold you until morning,” Buckman said. “It’s a fixed policy; suspects are never released at night. Too much goes on in the streets after dark. We’ll provide you a cot and a room; you’ll have to sleep in your clothes . . . and at eight o’clock tomorrow morning I’ll have Peggy escort you to the main entrance of the academy.” Pressing the stud on his intercom, Buckman said, “Peg, take Mr. Taverner to detention for now; take him out again at eight A.M. sharp. Understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Buckman.”
Spreading his hands, smiling, General Buckman said, “So that’s it. There is no more.”
17
“Mr. Taverner,” Peggy was saying insistently. “Come along with me; put your clothes on and follow me to the outside office. I’ll meet you there. Just go through the blue-and-white doors.”
Standing off to one side, General Buckman listened to the girl’s voice; pretty and fresh, it sounded good to him, and he guessed that it sounded that way to Taverner, too.
“One more thing,” Buckman said, stopping the sloppily dressed, sleepy Taverner as he started to make his way toward the blue-and-white doors. “I can’t renew your police pass if someone down the line voids it. Do you understand? What you’ve got to do is apply to us, exactly following legal lines, for a total set of ID cards. It’ll mean intensive interrogation, but”–he thumped Jason Taverner on the arm–“a six can take it.”