“Once you get your hotel room,” Al said, “I could probably talk Wendy Wright into showing up there.”
“That would be immoral,” Joe said.
“What?” Al stared at him. “At a time like this? When the whole organization is about to sink into oblivion unless you can pull yourself together? Anything that’ll make you function is desirable, in fact necessary, Go back to the phone, call a hotel, come back here and tell me the name of the hotel and the-”
“All our money is worthless,” Joe said. “I can’t operate the phone, not unless I can find a coin collector who’ll trade me another Swiss ten-franc piece of current issue.”
“Geez,” Al said; he let out his breath in a groaning sigh and shook his head.
“Is it my fault?” Joe said. “Did I make that quarter you gave me obsolete?” He felt anger.
“In some weird way,” Al said, “yes, it is your fault. But I don’t know how. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. Okay, we’ll both go back to Pratfall II. You can pick Wendy Wright up there and take her to the hotel with you.”
“Quantus tremor est futurus,” the voices sang. “Quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus.”
“What’ll I pay the hotel with? They won’t take our money any more than the phone will.”
Cursing, Al yanked out his wallet, examined the bills in it. “These are old but still in circulation.” He inspected the coins in his pockets. “These aren’t in circulation.” He tossed the coins to the carpet of the lounge, ridding himself, as the phone had, in disgust. “Take these bills.” He handed the paper currency to Joe. “There’s enough there for the hotel room for one night, dinner and a couple of drinks for each of you. I’ll send a ship from New York tomorrow to pick you and her up.”
“I’ll pay you back,” .Joe said. “As pro tem director of Runciter Associates, I’ll draw a higher salary; I’ll be able to pay all my debts off, including the back taxes, penalties and fines which the income-tax people-”
“Without Pat Conley? Without her help?”
“I can throw her out now,” Joe said.
Al said, “I wonder.”
“This is a new start for me. A new lease on life.” I can run the firm, he said to himself. Certainly I won’t make the mistake that Runciter made; Hollis, posing as Stanton Mick, won’t lure me and my inertials off Earth where we can be gotten at.
“In my opinion,” Al said hollowly, “you have a will to fail. No combination of circumstances – including this – is going to change that.”
“What I actually have,” Joe said, “is a will to succeed. Glen Runciter saw that, which is why he specified in his will that I take over in the event of his death and the failure of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium to revive him into half-life, or any other reputable moratorium as specified by me.” Within him his confidence rose; he saw now the manifold possibilities ahead, as clearly as if he had precog abilities. And then he remembered Pat’s talent, what she could do to precogs, to any attempt to foresee the future.
“Tuba mirum spargens sonum,” the voices sang. “Per sepulchra regionum coget omnes ante thronum.”
Reading his expression, Al said, “You’re not going to throw her out. Not with what she can do.”
“I’ll rent a room at the Zurich Rootes Hotel,” Joe decided. “As per your outlined proposal.” But, he thought, Al’s right. It won’t work; Pat, or even something worse, will move in and destroy me. I’m doomed, in the classic sense. An image thrust itself into his agitated, fatigued mind: a bird caught in cobwebs. Age hung about the image, and this frightened him; this aspect of it seemed literal and real. And, he thought, prophetic. But he could not make out exactly how. The coins, he thought. Out of circulation, rejected by the phone. Collectors’ items. Like ones found in museums. Is that it? Hard to say. He really didn’t know.
“Mors stupebit,” the voices sang. “Et natura, cum resurget creatura, judicanti responsura.” They sang on and on.
CHAPTER 8.
If money worries have you in the cellar, go visit the lady at Ubik Savings & Loan. She’ll take the frets out of your debts. Suppose, for example, you borrow fifty-nine poscreds on an interest-only loan. Let’s see, that adds up to-
Daylight rattled through the elegant hotel room, uncovering stately shapes which, Joe Chip blinkingly saw, were articles of furnishings: great hand-printed drapes of a neo-silkscreen sort that depicted man’s ascent from the unicellular organisms of the Cambrian Period to the first heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the twentieth century. A magnificent pseudo-mahogany dresser, four variegated crypto-chrome-plated reclining chairs… he groggily admired the splendor of the hotel room and then he realized with a tremor of keen isappointment, that Wendy had not come knocking at the door. Or else he had not heard her; he had been sleeping too deeply.
Thus, the new empire of his hegemony had vanished in the moment it had begun.
With numbing gloom – a remnant of yesterday – pervading him, he lurched from the big bed, found his clothes and dressed. It was cold, unusually so; he noticed that and pondered on it. Then he lifted the phone receiver and dialed for room service.
“-pay him back if at all possible,” the receiver declared in his ear. “First, of course, it has to be established whether Stanton Mick actually involved himself, or if a mere homosimulacric substitute was in action against us, and if so why, and if not then how -” The voice droned on, speaking to itself and not to Joe. It seemed as unaware of him as if he did not exist. “From all our previous reports,” the voice declared, “it would appear that Mick acts generally in a reputable manner and in accord with legal and ethical practices established throughout the System. In view of this-”
Joe hung up the phone and stood dizzily swaying, trying to clear his head. Runciter’s voice. Beyond any doubt. He again picked up the phone, listened once more.
“-lawsuit by Mick, who can afford and is accustomed to litigation of that nature. Our own legal staff certainly should be consulted before we make a formal report to the Society. It would be libel if made public and grounds for a suit claiming false arrest if-”
“Runciter!” Joe said. He said it loudly. “-unable to verify probably for at least-” Joe hung up. I don’t understand this, he said to himself. Going into the bathroom, he splashed icy water on his face, combed his hair with a sanitary, free hotel comb, then, after meditating for a time, shaved with the sanitary, free hotel throwaway razor. He slapped sanitary, free hotel aftershave onto his chin, neck and jowls, unwrapped the sanitary, free hotel glass and drank from it. Did the moratorium finally manage to revive him? he wondered. And wired him up to my phone? Runciter, as soon as he came around, would want to talk to me, probably before anyone else. But if so, why can’t he hear me back? Why does it consist of one-way transmission only? Is it only a technical defect which will clear up?
Returning to the phone, he picked up the receiver once more with the idea of calling the Beloved Brethren Moratorium.
“-not the ideal person to manage the firm, in view of his confused personal difficulties, particularly-”
I can’t call, Joe realized. He hung up the receiver. I can’t even get room service.
In a corner of the large room a chime sounded and a tinkling mechanical voice called, “I’m your free homeopape machine, a service supplied exclusively by all the fine Rootes hotels throughout Earth and the colonies. Simply dial the classification of news that you wish, and in a matter of seconds I’ll speedily provide you with a fresh, up-to-the-minute homeopape tailored to your individual requirements; and, let me repeat, at no cost to you!”
“Okay,” Joe said, and crossed the room to the machine. Maybe by now, he reflected, news of Runciter’s murder has gotten out. The news media cover all admissions to moratoriums routinely. He pressed the button marked high-type interplan info. At once the machine began to clank out a printed sheet, which he gathered up as fast as it emerged.
No mention of Runciter. Too soon? Or had the Society managed to suppress it? Or Al, he thought; maybe Al slipped a few poscreds to the owner of the moratorium. But – he, himself had all of Al’s money. Al couldn’t buy off anybody to do anything.
A knock sounded on the hotel room door.
Putting down the homeopape, Joe made his way cautiously to the door, thinking, It’s probably Pat Conley; she’s trapped me here. On the other hand, it might be someone from New York, here to pick me up and take me back there. Theoretically, he conjectured, it could even be Wendy. But that did not seem likely. Not now, not this late.