“Good for him,” Keith Pellig said.
The MacMillan robot slid up beside them and extended its grapple. Margaret Lloyd quickly passed over her ticket and Keith Pellig did the same.
“Greetings, brother,” Pellig said cryptically to the robot, as his ticket stub was punched and returned.
After the robot was gone Margaret Lloyd said to him, “Where are you going?”
“Batavia.”
“On business?”
“I’d call it business.” Pellig smiled humorlessly. “When I’ve been there awhile, I may start calling it pleasure. My attitude varies.”
“You talk so strangely,” the girl said, puzzled and more than somewhat awed by the complexities of an older man.
“I’m a strange person. Sometimes I hardly know what I’m going to do or say next. Sometimes I seem a stranger to myself. Sometimes what I do surprises me and I can’t understand why I do it.” Pellig stubbed out his cigarette and lit another; the ironic smile had left his face and he scowled dark and troubled. His words slowed down until they came out painfully, intensely. “It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.”
“What does that mean? I never heard that before.”
“A phrase from an old manuscript.” Pellig peered past her, out the wide window at the ocean below, “Well be there, soon. Come upstairs to the bar and I’ll buy you a drink.”
Margaret Lloyd fluttered with fear and excitement. “Is it all right?” She was terribly flattered. “I mean, since I’m living with Walter and—”
“It’s all right,” Pellig said, getting to his feet and moving moodily down the aisle, his hands deep in his pockets. “I’ll even buy you two drinks. Assuming I still know who you are, after we get up there.”
Peter Wakeman gulped down a glass of tomato juice, shuddered, and pushed the analysis across the breakfast table to Cartwright. “It really is Preston. It’s no supernatural being from another system.”
Cartwright’s numb fingers played aimlessly with his coffee cup. “I can’t believe it.”
Rita O’Neill touched his arm. “That’s what he meant in the book. He planned to be there to guide us. The Voices.”
Wakeman was deep in thought. “What interests me is something else. A few minutes before our call reached the Information Library, another call was received for an identical analysis.”
Cartwright sat up with a jerk. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. They claim aud and vid tapes were shot to them for analysis, substantially the same material we sent over. But they don’t know who it was from.”
“Can’t you tell anything?” Rita O’Neill asked uneasily.
“First of all, they actually know who sent in the prior informational request. But they’re not telling. That gives me plenty to think about right there. I’m toying with the idea of sending a few Corpsmen over to scan the officials who had access to the face-to-face request.”
Cartwright waved his hand impatiently. “Forget that. We have more important things to worry about. Any news on Pellig?”
Wakeman looked surprised. “Only that he’s supposed to have left the Farben Hill.”
Cartwright’s face twitched. “You haven’t been able to make contact?”
Rita’s hand gripped soothingly around his. “They’ll make contact when he enters the protected zone. He’s still outside.”
“For God’s sake, can’t you go out and get him? Are you just going to sit there and wait for him?”
Cartwright shook his head wearily. “Sony, Wakeman. I know we’ve gone over this a thousand times.”
Wakeman was embarrassed, but not for himself so much. He was embarrassed for Leon Cartwright. In the few days since Cartwright had become Quizmaster there had been a corrosive change in him.
Cartwright sat twitching and fumbling at his coffee cup, a hunched, aged, and very frightened man. His face was dark and lined with fatigue. His pale blue eyes glinted with apprehension. Again and again he started to speak, then changed his mind and descended into a cloud of silence.
“Cartwright,” Wakeman said softly, “you’re in bad shape.”
Cartwright glared at him. “A man’s coming here to kill me, publicly and in broad daylight, with the whole-hearted approval of the system. Everybody in the world’s sitting and cheering him, propped up in front of their tv sets, watching and waiting for the results. The winner of this . . . national sport. How the hell am I supposed to feel?”
“It’s only one man,” Wakeman said quietly. “He has no more power than you. In fact, you’ve got the whole Corps behind you, and all the resources of the Directorate.”
“If we get him, there’ll be another. An endless stream of them.”
“Each Quizmaster has had to face this.” Wakeman raised an eyebrow. “I thought all you wanted was to stay alive until your ship was safe.”
Cartwright’s gray, exhausted face was answer enough. “I want to stay alive. Is there anything wrong with that?” Cartwright pulled himself up and forced his hands to stay quiet. “But you’re right, of course.” He smiled shakily, half-apologetically. “Try to see my side of it. You’ve been dealing with these assassins all your life. To me it’s a new thing; I’ve been a trivial, anonymous entity, completely out of the public eye. Now I’m chained here under a ten billion watt searchlight. A perfect target—” His voice rose. “And they’re trying to kill me! What in the name of God is this strategy of yours? What are you going to do?”
He’s pitifully scared, Wakeman thought to himself. He’s falling apart. He doesn’t care a damn about his ship. Yet that’s why he’s here in the first place.
In Wakeman’s mind, Shaeffer’s answering thoughts came. Shaeffer was at his desk on the other side of the Directorate building, acting as the nexus between Wakeman and the Corps. “This is the time to get him over there. Although I don’t really think Pellig is very close. But in view of Verrick’s sponsorship we should leave a wide margin for error.”
“True,” Wakeman thought back. “Interesting: at any other time Cartwright would be overwhelmed to learn that John Preston is alive. Now he pays only passing attention. And he can assume his ship has reached its destination.”
“You assume there is a Flame Disc?”
“Evidently. But that’s no concern of ours.” Dryly, Wakeman thought, “And apparently no concern of Cartwright’s. He managed to get himself in as Quizmaster—as a function of slamming the ship all the way out to Flame Disc. But now that he’s actually face to face with the situation he sees it as a death trap.”
Wakeman turned to Cartwright and spoke to him aloud.
“All right, Leon. Get ready: we’re taking you out of here. We have plenty of time. No report on Pellig yet.”
Cartwright blinked and then eyed him suspiciously. “Out where? I thought the protective chamber Verrick fixed up—”
“Verrick assumes you’ll use that; he’ll try there first. We’re taking you off Earth entirely. The Corps has arranged a retreat on Luna. It’s registered as a conventional psycho-health resort. Actually, it’s somewhat more elaborate than Verrick’s installations here at Batavia. While the Corps battles it out with Pellig, you’ll be 239,000 miles away.”
Cartwright gazed helplessly at Rita O’Neill. “What should I do? Should I go?”
“Here at Batavia,” Wakeman said, “a hundred ships land every hour. Thousands of people pour in and out of the Islands; this is the most populated spot in the universe. Christ, this is the functional center of the nine-planet system. But on Luna, a human being literally stands out. Our resort is set apart from the others; our front-organization bought land in an undesirable section. You’ll be surrounded by thousands of miles of bleak, airless space. If Keith Pellig should manage to trace you to Luna and comes walking along in his bulky Farley suit, geiger counter, radar cone and popper and helmet, I think we’ll spot him.”
Wakeman was trying to joke, but Cartwright didn’t smile. “In other words you can’t defend me here.”
Wakeman sighed. “We can defend you better if you’re on Luna. It’s nice, there. We have it fixed up attractively. You can swim, play games, bask in the sun, relax, even sleep. We can put you in suspended animation until this blows over.”
“I might never wake up again,” Cartwright said cunningly.
It was like talking to a child. Frightened, helpless, the old man had ceased to reason. He had plunged all the way down to stubborn, archaic, infantile thalamic processes. Wakeman wished like hell it was late enough in the day for a drink. He got to his feet and examined his watch. “Miss O’Neill will be coming along with you.” He made his voice patient but firm. “So will I. Any time you want to come back to Earth, you can. But I suggest you see our lay-out there; make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.”
Cartwright hesitated in an agony of doubt. “You say Verrick doesn’t know about it? You’re positive?”
“Better tell him we’re sure,” Shaeffer’s thoughts came to Wakeman. “He needs certitude. No use handing him a bunch of statistics at a time like this.”