Nina shot a mute, agonized look at Cussick. “This is an emergency,” she faltered. “It should be put right through.”
“Well, then,” the official said, without particular interest, “you’ll have to fill out a special declaration.” From a drawer he took a form-pad and turned it toward her. “Indicate the particulars in section five and again in section eight. Make certain the carbons are in properly.” He pointed to a small table in the corner of the lounge. “You can fill it out over there.”
Numbly, Nina and Cussick carried the pad to the table and seated themselves. “Well?” Nina demanded, in a stricken voice. “What’ll I say?”
“Say you’re with somebody from the astronomical research labs. Say there’ve been some clues on the nature of the ring around us.”
Dutifully, Nina filled out the form. “See those men waiting over there? They’re waiting to see him… and they’re all big shots. He’s been in conference for a week straight.”
She signed the form, and the two of them walked slowly back to the desk. A line had formed; when their turn finally came, the official brusquely accepted the form, scanned it, tore it from the pad, and dropped it into the recording slot. “Please be seated,” he told them fussily. “It’ll be a half-hour at the very least before Mr. Jones has time to examine your request.” He added: “Help yourselves to magazines.”
They found seats. Bolt upright, the two of them waited, magazines clutched listlessly. Officials moved back and forth everywhere; from the side corridors came the sound of voices, the muted clank of equipment. The building hummed with restless activity.
“They’re busy,” Cussick commented. He thumbed through a copy of the Saturday Evening Post, and then restored it to the rack.
Nina nodded, too frightened to speak. Eyes fixed on the floor, she sat rigidly clutching her purse and magazine, lips a thin bloodless line. Cussick reached into his pocket until his fingers touched the lethe-mirror. Stealthily, he unwrapped it. Now it was operative… all he had to do was draw it out.
But he didn’t really believe he had a chance.
“Are you sorry?” Nina asked faintly. “Wish you hadn’t come?”
“No,” he answered. “I’m not sorry.”
“It isn’t too late… we could just get up and leave.”
He didn’t answer. He was afraid to; it wouldn’t take much more only the merest pressure, to lift him to his feet and carry him out of the building. A house with Nina and Jackie. The three of them together again, as they had been… he turned his mind from the thought and contemplated the dour information clerk, processing forms.
The clerk nodded to him. Stiffly, unbelievingly, Cussick got up and walked over. “Us?” he inquired hoarsely.
“You can go on in.”
Cussick blinked. “You mean it’s cleared?”
“Mr. Jones accepted it immediately.” Without looking up from his work, the clerk nodded toward a side door. “In there, and please complete your business as quickly as possible. Others are waiting.”
Cussick walked back to Nina; she watched him, wide-eyed, all the way across the lounge. “I’m going in,” he told her briefly. “It might be better if you left. As long as I’ve gotten through, there’s no need of your staying here.”
Quietly, she got to her feet. “Where should I go?”
“Back to the apartment. Wait for me there.”
“All right,” she agreed. She didn’t say anything more; without a word, she turned and walked quickly from the lounge, back the way they had come, to the elevator.
As Cussick approached the inner office, he wondered grimly why the application had so readily been accepted. He was still mulling it over when four gray-uniformed workers rose up and confronted him. “Papers,” one of them said, hand out. “Your papers, mister.”
Cussick passed over the material the information clerk had returned to him; the workers examined it, examined him, and were satisfied. “Good enough,” one said. “Go ahead.”
A triple, interlocked section rolled noisily back, and Cussick found himself facing more offices and corridors. There were fewer people, here; his footsteps echoed in the dismal silence. For a time he walked along a wide carpeted hallway; nobody was in sight; nobody met him. An almost religious quiet hung over the corridor… there were no ornaments, no pictures or statues or bric-a-brac, only the carpet, the sheer walls, the ceiling. At the far end of the hall was a half-closed door. He reached it and halted uncertainly.
“Who’s out there?” a voice demanded, a thin, metallic voice, heavy with fatigue, aggravated and querulous. For a moment he didn’t recognize it; then identification came.
“Come in,” the voice ordered irritably. “Don’t stand out there in the hall.”
He entered, his hand around the lethe-mirror. Behind a vast littered desk sat Jones, his face wrinkled with weariness and despair. The piled-up work virtually hid him from sight; a tired, defeated puppet struggling with a mountain far too large to be lifted.
“Hello, Cussick,” Jones muttered, glancing up briefly. He reached out his claw-like hands and shoved aside some of the heaps of tapes and papers that covered his desk. Squinting nearsightedly, he waved at a chair. “Sit down.”
Stunned, Cussick advanced toward the desk. Jones had expected him. Of course… he had hidden the obvious from himself. Long before he had seen the application—long before Cussick had dictated it—Jones had known who the “expert from astronomical research” was.
Behind Jones stood two giant, dull-faced, uniformed toughs, gripping machine guns, eyes blank and impassive—as silent and unmoving as statues. Cussick hesitated, fingered the lethe-mirror, started to hold it out.
“Come on,” Jones snapped testily, extending his hand. In a single second he had seized the lethe-mirror; without even glancing at it he dropped it to the carpet and ground it to splinters under his heel. Folding his hands together in the center of the desk, he peered up at Cussick. “Will you sit down?” he grated. “I hate to look up. Sit down so we can talk.” He groped around among the litter on his desk. “You smoke, don’t you? I don’t have any cigarettes here; I gave up smoking. It’s unhealthy.”
“I have my own,” Cussick said, reaching unsteadily into his coat.
Fingers drumming restlessly on the desk, Jones said: “I haven’t seen you in years, not since that day in the police offices. Work, decrees and whatnot all the time. It’s a big job, this type of work. A lot of responsibility.”
“Yes,” Cussick agreed thickly.
“Pearson is dead, you know. Died this morning.” A grotesque leer touched the withered face. “I kept him alive for awhile. He planned my murder, but I was waiting—a whole year ahead of time. Waiting for that assassin to show up. You picked a good time to come; I was just about to send for you. Not just you, of course; everybody in your class, the whole lot of you. And that stupid blonde who used to be your wife; you knew she joined us, didn’t you? Of course you knew… she filled out this application. I recognize her chicken-tracks.”
“Yes,” Cussick repeated.
“A lot of sex-starved society females have come to us,” Jones rambled on, face twitching, thin body quivering with nervous spasms. His voice was monotonous; the words ran together in a mumbled blur of fatigue. “A sort of substitute for adequate copulation, I suppose… this is a lifelong orgasm for them. Sometimes with tricks like your wife around, I get the feeling I’m running a cat house instead of a—“
From his coat, Cussick’s hand brought out the gun. He was conscious of no decision; his hand moved on its own volition. In an instinctive, reflexive blur, he aimed and fired.
It was at the larger of the two bodyguards that he had aimed; in some dim way he had the idea that it was necessary to kill them first. But Jones, seeing the glint of metal, had suddenly jumped to his feet. Like a skinny, animated doll, he bounced between Cussick and the two guards; the explosive shell caught him directly above the right eye.
The two guards, paralyzed with disbelief, stood rooted to the spot, without even lifting their guns.
Cussick, too, was unable to stir. He stood holding the pistol, not firing at the guards, not being fired as in return. The body of Jones lay strewn across the littered desk.
Jones was dead. He had killed him; it was over.
It was impossible.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN HE pushed open the apartment door, Nina gave a shriek and ran sobbing to him Cussick caught hold of her and held her tight, his mind still swirling aimlessly.
“I’m okay,” he muttered. “He’s dead. It’s over.”
She backed away, face streaked with tears, eyes red and swimming. “You killed him?” There was only disbelief there, without comprehension. He felt the same way; her expression mirrored his own. “But how?”
“I shot him.” He was still holding the pistol. They had let him walk out of the building; nobody had tried to stop him. Nobody comprehended what had happened… he had met only dazed shock, comatose figures, stricken and lifeless.