“I still think you’re crazy-” Sheklov began, but Danty cut him short.
“Look, Ivan or whatever your real name isl Get this into your head, will you? I was there on the beach when
you came ashore. I saw you get into Turpin’s car-”
“What?” From Lora, a shrill-edged cry of horror.
“Yeah, you heard!” Danty snapped. “Your dad’s carl I saw it again in the garage under the tower you live in. Recognised the licence number, so don’t give me any shitl Like I was saying, Ivanl Do you want that lot to come out when they catch up with me and start feeding me interrogation drugs?”
Ahead, the superway access point loomed, brilliant with neon strips forming arrows and the letter N for northbound. Sheklov caught a brief glimpse of the name of some city, and a distance, but faded to read them clearly.
“You’re in the laughing seat,” Magda said sourly, swing
ing into the traffic on the superway. As ever, there was a
vast horde of it; this was about the time-midnight whon
the night-riders took to the road. Here and there a heavy
truck lumbered along in the slow lanes, and the drivers of
private cars blasted their horns to register their opinion
that all trucks should be forbidden these roads.
“Huh?” Danty said. “Oh, you mean what I was saying a few hours ago, I guess. Like about getting out?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant it,” Danty said after a pause. “But . . well, tell Ivan here what happens to someone when the sexier put the knife in.”
“Oh, life simply stops being worth living,” Magda said. “Even if they don’t convict you of anything, the fact that you’re under suspicion gets around. They have computerto-computer links, you know”-with a glance at Sheklov beside her-“for absolutely everything you may want to do. Your credit rating goes first, and your cards are cancelled, and as you probably know carrying cash in this country is a bad idea. Has been since God knows when. Before Danty was born, certainly.”
“Right,.” Danty agreed.
“Robbery again?” Sheklov hazarded. He was on the verge of caving in; these people took it so matter-of-factly that he was Russian, and it didn’t trouble them, at allonly the attention of the security force was on their minds.
“Not just that-I mean, not just the risk of being robbed,” Magda said. Now, already, at the high speeds permitted on the superway, the city was dwindling and the dark shell of the night was closing them in. “More the automatic assumption that if you’re carrying more than
like fifty bucks-peanutsl-you’re the thief. Lose your credit rating, you might as well be bankrupt. After that, of course, if you have a job, they make sure your employers find out. Then your landlord; that’s the usual order. If you’re married, your spouse, and particularly your kids, if they’re over say eight or ten years old. I had a client once who came to me because her son, who was thirteen, had heard his father was under suspicion by the series. and wanted her to run away with him where Dad couldn’t find them, then inform on him to the pigs.”
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Danty said, and made the quotation downright obscene.
“Is.this-is this so literally true that you’re running out on your home?” Sheklov said in a bewildered tone, no longer sure whether he was Holtzer or himself.
“And our country, if we can make it,” Danty said. “Like Magda just told you, once the searchlight turns on you, life stops being worth living. Mag’1”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. Truly I am. If I’d been any better at my thing, I’d have kept you from getting involved-”
“Oh, zip it up,” Magda cut in wearily. “I guess you were right when you talked to me earlier on. I don’t have anything worth staying for. Hell, it’s got to where if I order a book I’m interested in through the mail, a pig shows up the day after it’s delivered asking why I wanted it.
“Yeah,” Danty said. “And : . . well, if it’s_ any consolation, I feel-beyond any doubt-that this is a right thing to do. It leads somewhere. It does something terribly important that I can’t understand. But I’m sure, I’m convinced it does it!”