The flickers of light, which could sometimes be seen on its upper edge, were reflections from polished machine casings or flashes from the welding arcs of the maintenance robots. Unless, of course, one happened to be a small boy with somber, searching eyes. In which case they were signals.
A ragged spatter of applause announced to Stirling that the speaker had finished. The audience seemed to know, without being told, that there was nobody to follow. Many of them stood up and immediately began to file out, while others near the front determinedly continued to clap. The uniformed man who had given the talk bowed slightly, looked embarrassed, and gave Stirling the impression he was not a professional speaker. He seemed to have been brought in specially to make a point, like a police sergeant roped into addressing a sewing circle on road safety.
Frowning a little, Stirling tried to remember where he had seen a uniform like that before. He got to his feet, wondered how much he had achieved by coming to the chapel, and was beginning to drift out uncertainly with the crowd, when the speaker turned to leave the platform. A triangular, yellow flash at his shoulder caught the smoky light—and suddenly Stirling was able to place the severe gray uniform. The speaker worked in the freight transfer organization responsible for operating Jacob’s Ladder—the “elevator” connecting Heaven and Earth.
Stirling sat down again. Making a token effort to look small and inconspicuous, he gnawed patiently on a thumbnail while the last of the audience shuffled out past him, In theory, nothing except fertilizer and maintenance spares ever went up in the elevator. But neither could a man vanish as Johnny Considine had done—in theory.
When he was sure nobody was looking at him, Stirling took out a little square case similar to those in which jewelers supply diamond rings. Inside was a silver lapel badge graved with a simple helical design. He put the badge in his buttonhole and snap-fastened onto the back of it a hair-fine wire, which ran down through the lining of his suit to a tiny machine in his left-hand pocket. The weeks of searching had exhausted his limited capability for gentle, patient probing. He had decided on a frontal attack.
Chapter Three
Whistling cheerfully, Duke Bennett draped his gray uniform on a hanger and locked it away in a closet. On his way out of the changing room, he stopped to look at himself in the slightly yellowed mirror; and what he saw made him smile complacently. At fifty he had lost none of his hard-packed muscularity; and, when he got out of those lousy gray cords and into a decent suit, he looked even better than he had as a young man. The girls seemed to think so anyway, and tonight a couple more of them would get the chance to prove it. As he paused to comb his graying, crinkly hair, Bennett marveled—as he had done so many times—at the weird mathematics of triad-ism. Having one woman was good, so having two together ought to be twice as good; but, In fact, the amount of pleasure was boosted into a different order of experience altogether. That was the big pay-off, the triadic bonus, which came as surely as the energy bounty obtained by adding that last pellet of fissionable material.
In a way, he thought, it was getting something for nothing—except that his expenses were high. Still, the racket was going well, specially since he had joined the Receders. The number of fresh contacts had not been as great as he had expected; but the quality was good and his annual take was averaging out at about twice his salary. Not bad going. It showed that a guy with brains could still live well, even if he had never set foot in one of those fancy colleges. Bennett made a minute adjustment to the glow-gold clasp at his throat, and went out into the short corridor which led from the changing room to the chapel itself. Passing through the door at the side of the platform, he edged his way across to the central aisle and began walking to the exit. The lights had been dimmed, and he was halfway to the door before he noticed there was someone still in one of the seats at the top of the aisle. The man had obviously been waiting for him, because he stood up as Bennett drew near. Seeing the stranger’s size, Bennett instinctively shifted his balance in preparation for trouble; but, as he drew closer, he allowed himself to relax again. The big man had a look of ambling softness which Bennett—triumphant veteran of more short, nasty fights than he cared to remember—immediately identified as belonging to someone who could talk faster than he could move.
“You waiting to see me?” Bennett was impatient to get away, but did not want to risk discouraging a possible prospect.
“You guessed it. First time.” The stranger spoke easily, in a deep, unaccented voice, and he smiled as he stared into Bennett’s eyes. What, Bennett thought irritably, has this big hunk of jello got to be so confident about? I’ll give him twenty seconds, that’s all.
“Well, are you satisfied? Or did you want to talk with me too?”
The stranger’s smile became a little wider. “Right again. I did want to talk to you.”
“So, talk,” Bennett said impatiently. “Let’s have it.”
“I’m Johnny Considine’s brother.”
The words shocked Bennett; but he instantly saw that they had been intended to jolt him, that the whole conversation had been set up for just that reason. He stared blankly, filled with the comforting awareness that his muscle control had been perfect. Nobody tripped Duke Bennett that easily,
“I got relatives too,” he said. “That your only claim to fame? Being somebody’s brother?”
‘So you never heard of Johnny Considine?” The stranger fingered a silver badge in his lapel and kept on smiling whitely.
“Not as far as I can remember.” “Too bad. I’m trying to find him.”
“Everybody’s looking for something,” Bennett said brusquely. He had begun shouldering his way past the other man when he felt himself stopped by a hand on his chest. Bennett looked down at the hand incredulously. This guy is begging to be chopped in two, he thought. But that means he doesn’t know anything and is pushing me to see what’ll happen. And that means I can’t let anything happen. Which is a pity, because I never met anybody so much in need of a stomachful of his own teeth.
“I heard my brother was a regular attender at this chapel.”
“That doesn’t mean I should know him,” Bennett said hi the most reasonable voice he could muster. “Look. I’m interested in the Receders’ movement. So, the local committee asks me to talk about the lies, and I agree because I like public speaking. But I only come along here once a week, and I don’t know anybody except the committee members.
“Is that fair enough? Do you mind if I leave now?” Bennett stared into the other’s gray eyes, wondering if he had been too reasonable by acting out of character.
“Of course not,” the stranger replied with a contented note in his voice which Bennett found slightly disturbing. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
Bennett went down the narrow stairs and out to the street, where he snatched a couple of deep breaths before heading for the First Avenue hunting grounds. The incident had been a minor annoyance; but there was nothing to get alarmed about. That Considine boy had been an ideal candidate for Heaven, and there was no way in the world for anybody to guess where he had gone. All the same, it might be better if he pulled in his horns for a while. He had enough cash in reserve to keep him supplied with the necessities—the real necessities—of life for the rest of the year.