Her nakedness that was not nakedness stabbed at him. He could not bear to look down at the alluring slenderness of her body. With pain he said, “Don’t do this to me, Judith. Play fair. Let’s leave now.”
For answer, she turned away and rejoined her companions in the ritual pit. The third communion was about to begin. Cashdan looked invitingly at Quellen, who shook his head and quickly left the room. Outside, he glanced back through the transparent wall and saw Judith with her head thrown back and her lips parted in rapture. The Galubers likewise looked ecstatic. The image of Jennifer Galuber’s obese body burned its way indelibly into Quellen’s brain. He fled.
He was home not long after midnight, but his apartment gave him no comfort. He had to escape. Recklessly, he stepped into the stat field and let himself be hurled to Africa.
Morning had come, there. A light mistlike rain was falling, but the golden gleam of the sun cut through the grey haze. The crocodiles were in their usual places. A bird screeched. The leafy boughs, heavy with rain, trailed towards the rich wet black earth. Quellen tried to let the peace of the place enfold him. Kicking off his shoes, he walked down to the edge of the stream. The muck oozed voluptuously between his toes. Some small insect nipped at his calf. A frog leaped into the stream, making a pool of widening concentric circles in the dark surface of the water. One crocodile lazily opened a glistening eye. The sweet, heavy air surged into Quellen’s lungs.
He took no comfort in any of it.
This place was his, but he had not earned it. He had stolen it. He could have no real peace here. Behind him, in Appalachia, he likewise found no repose. The world was too .much with him, and he was too little of the world. He thought of Judith, sensuous in sprayon, ecstatic as she chewed the cud. She hates me, Quellen thought, or perhaps she pities me, but the effect is the same. She’ll never see me again.
He did not wish to remain in these pleasant surroundings while he was in such a mood.
Quellen returned to the stat. He stepped into the field, and was hurled back across the sea to his own apartment, leaving morning and entering the fist of night. He slept poorly.
Eleven
At the office the following morning, Quellen found his two UnderSecs waiting for him with a third man, a tall, awkward, shabbily dressed fellow with a broken nose that projected beaklike from his face. Brogg had turned the oxy vent up to full, Quellen noticed.
“Who’s this?” Quellen asked. “You’ve made an arrest?” Could it be, he wondered, that this was Lanoy? It didn’t seem likely. How could this seedy prolet—too poor, apparently, to afford a plastic job on his nose-be the force behind the hoppers?
“Tell the CrimeSec who you are,” Brogg said, nudging the prolet roughly with his elbow.
“Name is Brand,” the prolet said in a thin, whiningly high voice. “Class Fifteen. I didn’t mean no harm, sir—it was just that he promised me a home all my own, and a job, and fresh air—”
Brogg cut him off. “We ran up against this man in a drinker. He had had one or two too many and was telling everyone that he’d have a job soon.”
“That’s what the fellow said,” Brand mumbled. “Just had to give him two hundred credits and he’d send me somewhere where everyone had a job. And I’d be able to send money back to bring my family along.”
“That can’t be right,” said Quellen. “Sending money back? Contact up the time-path?”
“That’s what he said. It sounded so good, sir.”
“A phony inducement,” Brogg suggested. “If there’s two-way contact, it upsets all our calculations. But there isn’t any such thing.”
Quellen said, “What was this fellow’s name?”
“Lanoy, sir.”
Lanoy! Lanoy everywhere, tentacles reaching in all directions at once!
Brand muttered, “Someone gave me this and told me to get in touch with him.”
He held out a crumpled minislip. Quellen unfolded it and read it. It said:
OUT OF WORK?
SEE LANOY
“These things are everywhere.” Quellen said. He reached into his own pocket and pulled out the slip he had been handed on the flyramp. Quellen had been carrying it around for several days, like a talisman. He laid it beside the first. They were identical.
OUT OF WORK?
SEE LANOY
“Lanoy’s sent a lot of my friends there,” Brand said. “He told me they were all working and happy there, sir—”
“Where does he send them?” Quellen asked gently.
“I don’t know, sir. Lanoy said he was going to tell me when I gave him the two hundred units. I drew out all my savings. I was on my way to him, and I just dropped in for a short one, when—when—”
“When we found him,” Brogg finished. “Telling everyone in sight that he was heading to Lanoy to get a job.”
“Mmm. Do you know what the hoppers are, Brand?”
“No, sir.”
“Never mind, then. Suppose you take us to Lanoy.”
“I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair. All my friends—”
“Suppose we make you take us to Lanoy,” Quellen said. “But he was going to give me a job! I can’t do it. Please, sir.”
Brogg looked sharply at Quellen. “Let me try,” he said. “Lanoy was going to give you a job, you say? For two hundred units?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if we tell you that we’ll give you a job for nothing? No charge at all, just lead us to Lanoy and we’ll send you where he was going to send you, only free. And we’ll send your family along too.”
Quellen smiled. When it came to handling the lower prolets, Brogg was a far better psychologist than he was. He was forced to admit that.
“Sounds fair,” Brand said. “Only I feel bad about it. Lanoy was nice to me. But if you say you’ll send me for nix—”
“Quite right, Brand.”
“I’ll do it, then. I guess.”
Quellen turned down the oxy vent. Brogg gestured to Lee-ward, who led Brand out of the room. Quellen said, “Let’s go before he changes his mind. He’s obviously wavering.”
“Are you coming with us, sir?” Brogg asked. There was just a hint of sarcasm behind Brogg’s obsequious tones. “It’ll probably be a pretty filthy part of town. Vermin all over the place. The criminal section—”
Quellen scowled. “You’re right,” he said. “No need for me to go. You two take him. I’ve got plenty to do here.”
As soon as they were gone, Quellen rang Koll.
“We’re hot on the trail,” he said. “Brogg and Leeward have traced a lead to the man who’s behind the hoppers. They’ve gone out to make the arrest.”
“Fine work,” Koll said coldly. “It should be an interesting investigation.”
“I’ll report back to you as soon as—”
“Let it go for a while. Spanner and I are discussing departmental status changes. We’d prefer not to be disturbed during the next hour.” He hung up.
What did that mean, Quellen wondered? The coldness in Koll’s voice—well, that was nothing unusual, but it was significant. Koll had been harrying him all week for progress on the hopper business. Now that some progress had finally been made—now that a man was in custody who could lead them to the elusive Lanoy—Koll had been brusque, almost totally uninterested. Koll’s hiding something, Quellen thought.
His conscience pricked him. The instant suspicion returned: Koll knows about Africa. That trip I made last night was monitored, and it was the last chunk of evidence in the case against me. Now they’re getting the indictment ready.