I know how much value such a letter will have in Hawk Nest or Folkstone.
“This frightens me,” I say.
He nods, not unkindly. “I understand that. Yet someone must seek her, and who else is there but you? We grant you a day to make your preparations. You will depart on the morning after next, and God hasten your return.”
5.
Preparations. How can I prepare myself? What maps should I collect, when my destination is unknown? Returning to the office is unthinkable; I go straight home, and for hours I wander from one room to the other as if I face execution at dawn. At last I gather myself and fix a small meal, but most of it remains on my plate. No friends call; I call no one. Since Silena’s disappearance my friends have fallen away from me. I sleep poorly. During the night there are hoarse shouts and shrill alarms in the street; I learn from the morning newscast that five men of Conning Town, here to loot, had been seized by one of the new vigilante groups that have replaced the police machines and were summarily put to death. I find no cheer in that, thinking that I might be in Conning Town in a day or so.
What clues to Silena’s route? I ask to speak with the guard from whom she wangled entry into Ganfield Hold. He has been a prisoner ever since; the captain is too busy to decide his fate, and he languishes meanwhile. He is a small thick-bodied man with stubbly red hair and a sweaty forehead; his eyes are bright with anger and his nostrils quiver. “What is there to say?” he demands. “I was on duty at the Hold. She came in. I had never seen her before, though I knew she must be high-caste. Her cloak was open. She seemed naked beneath it. She was in a state of excitement.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That she desired me. Those were her first words.” Yes. I could see Silena doing that, though I had difficulty in imagining her long slender form enfolded in that squat little man’s embrace. “She said she knew of me and was eager for me to have her.”
“And then?”
“I sealed the gate. We went to an inner room where there is a cot. It was a quiet time of day, I thought no harm would come. She dropped her cloak. Her body—”
“Never mind her body.” I could see it all too well in the eye of my mind, the sleek thighs, the taut belly, the small high breasts, the cascade of chocolate hair falling to her shoulders. “What did you talk about? Did she say anything of a political kind? Some slogan, some words against the government?”
“Nothing. We lay together naked awhile, only fondling one another. Then she said she had a drug with her, one which would enhance the sensations of love tenfold. It was a dark powder. I drank it in water; she drank it also, or seemed to. Instantly I was asleep. When I awoke, the Hold was in uproar and I was a prisoner.” He glowers at me. “I should have suspected a trick from the start. Such women do not hunger for men like me. How did I ever injure you? Why did you choose me to be the victim of your scheme?”
“Her scheme,” I say. “Not mine. I had no part in it. Her motive is a mystery to me. If I could discover where she has gone, I would seek her and wring answers from her. Any help you could give me might earn you a pardon and your freedom.”
“I know nothing,” he says sullenly. “She came in, she snared me, she drugged me, she stole the program.”
“Think. Not a word? Possibly she mentioned the name of some other district.”
“Nothing.”
A pawn is all he is, innocent, useless. As I leave he cries out to me to intercede for him, but what can I do? “Your woman ruined me!” he roars.
“She may have ruined us all,” I reply.
At my request a district prosecutor accompanies me to Silena’s apartment, which has been under official seal since her disappearance. Its contents have been thoroughly examined, but maybe there is some clue I alone would notice. Entering, I feel a sharp pang of loss, for the sight of Silena’s possessions reminds me of happier times. These things are painfully familiar to me: her neat array of books, her clothing, her furnishings, her bed. I knew her only eleven weeks, she was my month-wife only for two; I had not realized she had come to mean so much to me so quickly. We look around, the prosecutor and I. The books testify to the agility of her restless mind: little light fiction, mainly works of serious history, analyses of social problems, forecasts of conditions to come. Holman, The Era of the World City. Sawtelle, Megalopolis Triumphant. Doxiadis, The New World of Urban Man. Heggebend, Fifty Billion Lives. Marks, Calcutta Is Everywhere. Chasin, The New Community. I take a few of the books down, fondling them as though they were Silena. Many times when I had spent an evening here she reached for one of those books, Sawtelle or Heggebend or Marks or Chasin, to read me a passage that amplified some point she was making. Idly I turn pages. Dozens of paragraphs are underscored with fine, precise lines, and lengthy marginal comments are abundant. “We’ve analyzed all of that for possible significance,” the prosecutor remarks. “The only thing we’ve concluded is that she thinks the world is too crowded for comfort.” A racheting laugh. “As who doesn’t?” He points to a stack of green-bound pamphlets at the end of a lower shelf. “These, on the other hand, may be useful in your search. Do you know anything about them?”
The stack consists of nine copies of something called Walden Three: a Utopian fantasy, apparently, set in an idyllic land of streams and forests. The booklets are unfamiliar to me; Silena must have obtained them recently. Why nine copies? Was she acting as a distributor? They bear the imprint of a publishing house in Kingston. Ganfield and Kingston severed trade relations long ago; material published there is uncommon here. “I’ve never seen them,” I say. “Where do you think she got them?”
“There are three main routes for subversive literature originating in Kingston. One is—”
“Is this pamphlet subversive, then?”
“Oh, very much so. It argues for complete reversal of the social trends of the last hundred years. As I was saying, there are three main routes for subversive literature originating in Kingston. We have traced one chain of distribution running by way of Wisleigh and Cedar Mall, another through Old Grove, Hawk Nest, and Conning Town, and the third via Parley Close and the Mill. It is plausible that your woman is in Kingston now, having traveled along one of these underground distribution routes, sheltered by her fellow subversives all the way. But we have no way of confirming this.” He smiles emptily. “She could be in any of the other communities along the three routes. Or in none of them.”
“I should think of Kingston, though, as my ultimate goal, until I learn anything to the contrary. Is that right?”
“What else can you do?”
What else, indeed? I must search at random through an unknown number of hostile districts, having no clue other than the vague one implicit in the place of origin of these nine booklets, while time ticks on and Ganfield slips deeper day by day into confusion.
The prosecutor’s office supplies me with useful things: maps, letters of introduction, a commuter’s passport that should enable me to cross at least some district lines unmolested, and an assortment of local currencies as well as banknotes issued by the central bank and therefore valid in most districts. Against my wishes I am given also a weapon—a small heat-pistol—and in addition a capsule that I can swallow in the event that a quick and easy death becomes desirable. As the final stage in my preparation I spend an hour conferring with a secret agent, now retired, whose career of espionage took him safely into hundreds of communities as far away as Threadmuir and Reed Meadow. What advice does he give someone about to try to get across? “Maintain your poise,” he says. “Be confident and self-assured, as though you belong in whatever place you find yourself. Never slink. Look all men in the eye. However, say no more than is necessary. Be watchful at all times. Don’t relax your guard.” Such precepts I could have evolved without his aid. He has nothing in the nature of specific hints for survival. Each district, he says, presents unique problems, constantly changing; nothing can be anticipated, everything must be met as it arises. How comforting!