Chandler did not hesitate in telling them all about the people of Orphalese. There was nothing worth concealing, he was quite sure. No debts are owed to the dead; and the Orphalese had proved on their own heads, at the last, that their ritual of pain was only an annoyance to the possessors, not a tactic that could defeat them.
It took hardly five minutes to say everything that needed saying about Guy, Meggie and the other doomed and suffering inhabitants of the old house on the mountain.
Koitska hardly spoke. The girl was his interrogator, and sometimes translator as well, when his English was not sufficient to comprehend a point. With patient detachment she kept the story moving until Koitska with a bored shrug indicated he was through.
Then she smiled at Chandler and said, “Thanks, love.
Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
“I don’t know. I thought the same thing about you.”
“Oh, everybody’s seen me. Lots of me. Butwell, no matter. Good luck, love. Be nice to Koitska and perhaps he’ll do as much for you.” And she was gone.
Koitska lay unmoving on his couch for a few moments, rubbing a fat nose with a plump finger. “Hah,” he said at last. Then, abruptly, “And now, d& qvestion is, vot to do vit you, eh? I do not fink you can cook, eh?”
With unexpected clarity Chandler realized he was on trial for his life. “Cook? No, I’m afraid1 mean, I can boil eggs,” he said. “Nothing fancy.”
“Hah,” grumbled Koitska. “Vel. Ve need a couple, three doctors, but I do not fink you vould do.”
“You mean a medical doctor?” Chandler repeated stupidly.
“Da, konyekhno. Vot you fink I mean?” The fat man’s voice was abruptly savage; it was very clear that to him Chandler was of far less importance than the bougainvillea that framed the parking lot outside.
Chandler said carefully, “I’m not a doctor, but I am an electrical engineer. Or was.”
“Vas?”
“I haven’t had much practice. There has not been a great deal of call for engineers, the last year or two.”
“Hah.” Koifska seemed to consider. “Vel,” he said, “it could be… yes, it could be dat ve have a job for you.
You go back downstairs andno, vait.” The fat man closed his eyes and Chandler felt himself seized and propelled down the stairs to what had once been a bay of a built-in garage. Now it was fitted up with workbenches and the gear of a radio ham’s dreams.
Chandler walked woodenly to one of the benches. His own voice spoke to him, out of his own lips. “Ve got here someplaceda, here is cirguit diagrams an de specs for a sqvare-vave generator. You know vot dat is? Write down de answer.” Chandler, released with a pencil in his hand and a pad before him, wrote Yes. “Okay. Den you build vun for me. I areddy got vun but I vant another. You do dis in de city, no here. Go to Tripler, dey tells you dere vere you can verk, vere to get parts, all dat. Couple days you come out here again, I see if I like how you build.”
Clutching the thick sheaf of diagrams, Chandler felt himself propelled outside and back into the little car. The interview was over.
He wondered if he would be able to find his way back to Honolulu, but that problem was then postponed as he discovered he could not start the car. His own hands had already done so, of course, but it had been so quick and sure that he had not paid attention; now he found that the ignition key was marked only in French, which he could not speak. After trial and error he discovered the combination that would start the engine and unlock the steering wheel, and then gingerly he toured the perimetef of the lot until he found an exit road.
It was close to midnight, he judged. Stars were shining overhead; there was a rising moon. He then remembered, somewhat tardily, that he should not be seeing stars. The lane he had come in on had been overhung on both sides with trees.
A few minutes later he realized he was quite lost.
Chandler stopped the car, swore feelingly, got out and looked around.
There was nothing much to see. The roads bore no markers that made sense to him. He shrugged and rum-maged through the glove compartment on the chance of a map; there was none, but he did find a half-empty pack of cigarettes. He added them to the store in his pockets, lit up and relaxed.
Chandler felt exactly as he had felt the day he got his first job.
It was absolutely astonishing, he marveled at himself, but the mere suggestion of a possibility that there might somehow be some sort of an organized place for him in the lunatic framework of this world had calmed jumpy nerves he had almost forgotten he possessed. He puffed smoke over the top of the little car and admired the pleasant evening. There were the stars Vega and Deneb; it did not really seem to matter to him that the last time he had seen those stars, twenty-four hours before, he had just witnessed the murder of a score of innocents and considered his own life to be spent.
It would not be very hard to build a square-wave generator, if he could get parts. No doubt it was a sort of test. If he passed, he would get the job; and this Koitska would have little to worry about, too, because if anyone should somehow fake the test it would not take long to discover the deception, and Chandler had a good idea of what would happen to him or to anyone else whom Koitska caught in a deception
He felt a light touch at his mind.
Or had he? He flicked the cigarette away, staring around. It was nothing, really. Or nothing that he could quite identify. It was as though he had been, well, nudged.
It seemed that someone had paused on the threshold of usurping his body, but then unaccountably reframed.
As he had just about decided to forget it and get back into the car, he saw headlights approaching.
A low, lean sports car slowed as it came near, stopping beside him, and a girl leaned out, almost invisible in the darkness. “There you are, love,” she said cheerfully.
“Thought I spotted someone. Lost?”
She had a coronet, and Chandler recognized her. It was the girl who had interrogated him. “I guess I am,” he admitted.
The girl leaned forward. “Come in, dear. Oh, that car?
Leave it here, the silly little bug.” She giggled as they drove away from the Renault. “Koitska wouldn’t like you wandering around. I guess he decided to give you a job.”
“How did you know?”
She said softly, “Well, love, you’re still here) you know.
What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Going to Tripler, whatever that is. In Honolulu, I guess. Then I have to build some radio equipment.”
“Tripler’s actually on the other side of the city. I’ll take you to the gate; then you tell them where you want to go.
They’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t have any money for fare …”
She laughed at the idea. After a moment she said, “Koitska’s not the worst. But I’d mind my step if I were you, love. Do what he says, the best you can. You never know. You might find yourself very fortunate …”
“I already think that. I’m alive.”
“Why, love, that point of view will take you far.”
She drove in silence for a minute. “Those Awful-Awfuls of yours”
“The Oiphalese?”
“Whatever you call them. They really didn’t have much of a chance, you know.” Chandler looked at her face, but it was shadowed. He wondered why she was taking the trouble to talk to him. Out of simple compassion? “Nobody does against the Exec,” she said, her voice quite cheerful. “You get along best if you make up your mind fo that right away.”
The sports car slid smoothly to a stop at the barricade.
In the floodlights above the machine-gun nests she looked more closely at Chandler. “What’s that on your forehead, dear?”
Somehow he had lost the woolen cap, somewhere along the way. “A brand,” he said shortly. ” ‘H’ for hoaxer. I did something when one of you people had taken me over, and they thought I’d done it on my own.”
The girl caught her breath, then laughed. “Why, this is wonderful!” she said excitedly. “No wonder I thought I’d seen you before. Don’t you remember? I was the forewoman at your trial!”
CHANDLER SPENT the night in a sort of hostel for casual employees of the Executive Committee. It had once been an Army hospital and was still run with the military’s casual, loose-jointed efficiency. Everything he needed was provided for himroom, bedding, food, directionsbut without anyone ever taking a moment to explain.