Rachmael said, “And I accidentally knock your purse to the floor, and the contents spill out, and in gathering them up I—”
“Are you insane?” Quietly she said, “You cover the purse. There is a strip of titanium within the righthand overleaf of the menu. The container of scent has a titanium-tropic ambulation-circuit; it will within two seconds register the presence of the strip and will rotate itself out of my purse, which I’ve left open; it will travel across the underside of the menu. The strip is at the bottom, where your right hand with complete naturalness will be resting as you hold what has been deliberately made up an awkward, stiff menu. When it touches the titanium strip the container will emit a weak charge, about ten volts; you will feel this galvanization and you will then, with your four fingers, take hold of the container, detach it from the titanium strip to which it has tropically adhered, drop it from the underside of the menu onto your lap. And then, with your other hand, you will shift the container from your lap into your pocket.” She rose. “I’ll be back within six minutes. Goodbye. And good luck.”
He watched her go.
And then, as he sat there, he realized that he had to rise, too; had to act—the job of transferring the deep-sleep components obtained for him from the blackmarket was difficult and delicate, because Theodoric Ferry, ever since Lies Incorporated had taken out his satellite and its crew, its simulacrum of Ferry himself, had kept total surveillance over everything Rachmael had done; the ultimate in technological and personnel resources of Trails of Hoffman Limited had been brought into play, motivated now by Theodoric’s personal animus.
What had been a remote and impersonal conflict had become once more, he reflected, that which it had always been for his father: a deeply human, immediate matter. A struggle which, at last, had brought his father’s death and the disintegration of the organization.
Thinking this, Rachmael began dutifully to fidget, then rose, began hunting for the girl with the light-emanating, gay music resounding, Swiss nipple.
“A menu, sir?” Genet stood before him, holding out the great, wonderfully printed and engraved, in fact embossed, menu; he thanked her, accepted it humbly, returned to his table with the pleasant tunes of Johann Strauss in his ears.
The menu, the size of an old-fashioned antique disc record album, easily covered Freya’s purse. He sat holding it open, reading the wine list, and especially the prices. Good god! It cost a fortune even for a split of good wine, here. And for a fifth of a three-year-old generic white—
All the retail establishments such as the Fox’s Lair were exploiting Terra’s overpopulation; people who had waited three hours to get in here to eat and drink would pay these prices—by then they had, psychologically, no choice.
A weak electric shock made his right hand quiver; the circular container of miniaturized deep-sleep components had already made physical contact with him and, with his fingers, he pried it, clam-like, loose from its grip, its tropism; he dropped it into his lap, felt its weight.
As directed, he then reached for it with his left hand, to transfer it to his cloak pocket . . .
“Sorry—oops.” A busboy, a robot, carrying a loaded, chest-high tray of dishes, had bumped him, making him totter on his chair. People everywhere, those rising, those seating themselves, the robot busboys clearing, the waitresses with their lights and tunes everywhere . . . confused, Rachmael reseated himself, reached for the container on his lap.
It was gone.
Fallen to the floor? In disbelief he peered down, saw his shoes, the table legs, a discarded match folder. No round gold-like container.
They had gotten it. It was they who had sent the “busboy.” And now it, too, with its load of dishes, had vanished in the general confusion.
Defeated, he sat vacantly staring. And then, at last, from the split of wine, he poured himself a second drink, lifted the glass as if in toast: a toast to the success, admitted and accepted, of the invisible extensions of THL around him that had, in the crucial instant, intervened, deprived him of what he needed essentially in order to leave the Sol system with the big Omphalos.
It did not matter now whether he made contact with Dosker aboard her; lacking the components it was insanity to leave.
Freya returned, seated herself across from him, smiled “All okay?”
Leadenly, he said, “They stopped us. Dead.” For now, anyhow, he thought. But it’s not finished yet.
He drank, his heart laboring, the delicate, expensive, delicious, and utterly superfluous wine—the wine of at least temporary utter defeat.
On the TV screen, Omar Jones, President of Newcolonizedland, highest official in residence at the great modular settlement at Whale’s Mouth, said jovially, “Well, you folks back home, all bunched together there in those little boxes you live in—we greet you, wish you luck.” The familiar, round, pleasant face beamed its smile of warmth. “And we’re just wonderin’, folks, when you all are going to team up with us and join us here at Newcolonizedland. Eh?” ****start****He cupped his ear. As if, Rachmael thought, it were a two-way transmission. But this was illusion. This was a video tape sent across in signal-form by way of von Einem’s Telpor nexus at Schweinfort, New Whole Germany. By, through, the good offices of the UN’s network of Earth satellites, relayed to TV sets throughout Terra.
Aloud, Rachmael said, “Sorry, President Omar Jones, of Newcolonizedland, Whale’s Mouth.” I’ll visit you, he thought, but my own way. Not by a von Einem Telpor operating for five poscreds at one of Trails of Hoffman’s retail outlets . . . so it’ll be a little while; in fact, he thought, I’d guess you, President Jones, will be dead by the time I arrive.
Although after the defeat at the Fox’s Lair—
They, the opposition had in effect severed him from his source of support from Lies Incorporated. He had sat across from their rep, pretty, dark-haired Freya Holm, drunk vintage wine with her, chatted, laughed. But when it came time to transfer vital components from Lies Incorporated across a five-inch space to him . . .
The vidphone in the miniscule bedroom-cubby of his conapt said Pwannnnnnk! Indicating that someone desired to contact him.
Shutting off the jolly face of President Omar Jones of Newcolonizedland, Whale’s Mouth, he went to the vidphone, lifted the receiver.
On its gray, undersized screen there formed the features of Matson Glazer-Holliday. “Mr. ben Applebaum,” Matson said.
“What can we do?” Rachmael said, feeling the weight of their loss. “In fact those people are probably monitoring this—” ”
“Oh yes; we register a tap on this vidline.” Matson nodded, but he did not seem nonplussed. “We know they’re not only monitoring this call but recording it, both aud and vid. However, my message to you is brief, and they’re welcome to it. Contact the master circuit of your local public Xerox-spool library.”
“And then?” Rachmael asked.
“Do research,” Matson Glazer-Holliday said carefully. “Into the original discovery of Whale’s Mouth. The first unmanned data-receptors, recorders and transmitters which were traveled from the Sol system, years ago, to the Fomalhaut system; in fact, back in the twentieth century.”
Rachmael said, “But why—”
“And we’ll be in touch,” Matson said briskly. “Goodbye. And glad to have—” He eyed Rachmael. “Don’t let that little incident at the restaurant get to you. It’s routine. I assure you.” He mock-saluted, and then the image on the tiny colorless—the Vidphone Corporation of Wes-Dem provided minimal service, and, as a public utility licensed by the UN, got away with it—the image died.
Rachmael, bewildered, hung up the aud receiver.
The records of the original unmanned monitors which had been dispatched to the Fomalhaut system years ago were public record; what could exist there that would be of value? Nevertheless he dialed the local branch of the New New York Xerox-spool public library.
“Send to my apt,” he said, “the abstract, the comprehensive material available, on the initial scouting of the Fomalhaut system.” By those now old-fashioned constructs which George Hoffman had utilized—by which the habitable planet Whale’s Mouth had been discovered.
Presently a robot runner appeared at his door with a variety of spools. Rachmael seated himself at his scanner, inserted the first spool, noting that it was marked A General Survey of the Fomalhaut Unmanned Inter-system Vehicle Reports, Shorter Version, by someone named G.S. Purdy.
For two hours he ran the spool. It showed that sun coming nearer and nearer, then the planets, one by one and disappointing, bitterly so, until now number nine bloomed into view; and all at once—
No more barren rocks, unblunted mountains. No airless, germless, hygienic void with methane as gas or crystallized at greater astronomical units from the sun. Suddenly he saw a swaying and undulating, blue-green frieze, and this had caused Dr. von Einem to trot out his Telpor equipment, to set up the direct link between this world and Terra. This plum-ripe landscape had gotten Trails of Hoffman interested commercially—and had written mene, mene for Applebaum Enterprise.