Still, Benz had an uncanny knack for finding new kicks before anyone else.
Piersen hesitated, then asked, “Is it free?”
“Freer than soup,” Benz said, unoriginal as always.
“What’s it all about?”
“Well, friend, come along and let me tell you ...”
Piersen mopped perspiration from his face. The jungle had become deathly still. He could no longer hear the blue-black animal moaning in the underbrush behind him. Perhaps it had given up the chase.
His evening clothes were ripped to shreds. Piersen stripped off the jacket and unbuttoned his shirt to the waist. The sun, hidden somewhere behind the dead-white sky, glared down. He was drenched in perspiration and his throat was parched. He would have to have water soon.
His situation was becoming perilous. But Piersen refused to think about it now. He had to know why he was here before he could plan a way out.
What fine, brilliant new kick had he gone to with Billie Benz?
He leaned against a tree and shut his eyes. Slowly the memory began to form in his mind. They had walked east on 62nd Street and then—
He heard the underbrush tremble and looked up quickly. The blue-black creature crept silently out. Its long antennae quivered, then homed on him. Instantly the creature gathered itself and sprang.
Reacting instinctively, Piersen jumped out of the way. The creature, claws extended, missed him, whirled, and leaped again. Off balance, Piersen couldn’t dodge in time. He threw out both arms, and the shark-shaped animal crashed into him.
The impact slammed Piersen against a tree. Desperately, he clung to the beast’s broad throat, straining to keep the snapping jaws from his face. He tightened his grip, trying to choke it, but there wasn’t enough strength in his fingers.
The creature twisted and writhed, its paws clawing up the ground. Piersen’s arms began to bend under the strain. The snapping jaws came within an inch of his face. A long black-specked tongue licked out—
In sheer revulsion, Piersen hurled the moaning creature from him. Before it could recover, he seized two vines and pulled himself into a tree. Driven by sheer panic, he scrambled up the slippery trunk from branch to branch. Thirty feet above the ground, he looked down.
The blue-black thing was coming up after him, climbing as though trees were its natural habitat.
Piersen went on, his whole body beginning to shake from the strain. The trunk was thinning out now, and there were only a few branches left to which he could cling. As he approached the top, fifty feet above the ground, the whole tree began to sway beneath his weight.
He looked down and saw the creature ten feet below him and still coming. Piersen groaned, afraid he could climb no further. But fright put strength into his body. He scrambled to the last large branch, took a firm grip, and drew back both legs. As the beast approached, he lashed out with both feet.
He caught it full in the body. Its claw tore out of the bark with a loud rasping sound. The creature fell, screaming, crashing through the overhanging branches, and finally hitting the ground with a squashy thud.
Then there was silence.
The creature was probably dead, Piersen thought. But he was not going down to investigate. No power on Earth—or any other planet in the Galaxy—would induce him to descend willingly from his tree. He was going to stay right where he was until he was damned good and ready to come down.
He slid down a few feet until he came to a large forked branch. Here he was able to make a secure perch for himself. When he was settled, he realized how close to collapse he was. Last night’s binge had drained him; today’s exertions had squeezed him dry.
If anything larger than a squirrel attacked him now, he was finished.
He settled his leaden limbs against the tree, closed his eyes, and went on with his reconstruction of last night’s events.
“Well, friend,” Billie Benz had said, “come along and let me tell you. Better still, let me show you.”
They walked east on 62nd Street, while the deep blue twilight darkened into night. Manhattan’s lights came on, stars appeared on the horizon, and a crescent moon glowed through thin haze.
“Where are we going?” Piersen asked.
“Right hyar, podner,” Benz said.
They were in front of a small brownstone building. A discreet brass sign on the door read NARCOLICS.
“New free drug parlor,” said Benz. “It was opened just this evening by Thomas Moriarty, the Reform Candidate for Mayor. No one’s heard about it yet.”
“Fine!” Piersen said.
There were plenty of free activities in the city. The only problem was getting to them before the crowds collected, because almost everyone was in search of pleasure and change.
Many years back, the Central Eugenics Committee of the United World Government had stabilized the world population at a sensible figure. Not in a thousand years had there been so few people on Earth, and never had they been so well cared for. Undersea ecology, hydroponics, and full utilization of the surface lands made food and clothing abundantly available—overavailable, in fact. Lodgings for a small, stable population was no problem, with automatic building methods and a surplus of materials. Even luxury goods were no luxury.
It was a safe, stable, static culture. Those few who researched, produced, and kept the machines running received generous compensation. But most people just didn’t bother working. There was no need and no incentive.
There were some ambitious men, of course, driven to acquire wealth, position, power. They went into politics. They solicited votes by feeding, clothing, and entertaining the populace of their districts, out of abundant public funds. And they cursed the fickle voters for switching to more impressive promise-makers.
It was a utopia of sorts. Poverty was forgotten, wars were long gone, and everyone had the guarantee of a long, easy life.
It must have been sheer human ingratitude that made the suicide rate so shockingly high.
Benz showed his passes to the door, which opened at once. They walked down a corridor to a large, comfortably furnished living room. Three men and one woman, early birds who had heard of the new opening, were slumped comfortably on couches, smoking pale green cigarettes. There was a pleasantly unpleasant pungent odor in the air.
An attendant came forward and led them to a vacant divan. “Make yourselves right at home, gentlemen,” he said. “Light up a narcolic and let your troubles drift away.”
He handed them each a pack of pale green cigarettes.
“What’s in this stuff?” Piersen asked.
“Narcolic cigarettes,” the attendant told them, “are a choice mixture of Turkish and Virginian tobaccos, with a carefully measured amount of narcola, an intoxicant plant which grows in Venus’s equatorial belt.”
“Venus?” Benz asked. “I didn’t know we’d reached Venus.”
“Four years ago, sir,” the attendant said. “The Yale Expedition made the first landing and set up a base.”
“I think I read something about that,” said Piersen. “Or saw it in a newsreel. Venus. Crude, jungly sort of place, isn’t it?”
“Quite crude,” the attendant said.
“I thought so,” said Piersen. “Hard to keep up with everything. Is this narcola habit-forming?”
“Not at all, sir,” the attendant reassured him. “Narcola has the effect alcohol should have, but rarely does—great lift, sensations of well-being, slow taper, no hangover. It comes to you courtesy of Thomas Moriarty, the Reform Candidate for Mayor. Row A-2 in your voting booths, gentlemen. We humbly solicit your votes.”
Both men nodded and lighted up.