And babies, she thought, as the flapple carried her toward the New New York offices of Lies Incorporated, are discovered under cabbages.
Sure, Mat; you keep on believing.
7
To the pleasant, rather overextensively bosomed young female receptionist Matson Glazer-Holliday said, "My name is Stuart Trent. My wife was teleported earlier today, so I'm anxious to slip in under the wire; I know you're about to close your office."
She glanced searchingly at him, at this bald-headed man with his prominent ridge-bones above his dark, almost pain-haunted eyes. "You're certain, Mr. Trent, that you desire to — "
"My wife," he repeated harshly. "She's already over — she left at five." He added, "I have two suitcases. A leady is bringing them." And, into the office of Trails of Hoffman, strode the robot-like machine, bearing the two genuine cowhide bulging suitcases.
The consummately nubile receptionist said, "Please fill out these forms, Mr. Trent. I'll make certain that the Telpor techs are ready to receive one more, because, as you say, we are about to close." The entrance gate, in fact, was now locked.
He made out the forms, feeling only a coldness, an empty, mindless — fear. Lord, it really was fear! He actually, at this late moment, when Freya had already been teleported across to Whale's Mouth, felt his autonomic nervous system secrete its hormones of cringing panic; he wanted to back out.
However, he managed to fill out the forms anyhow. Because, higher than the autonomic nervous system, was the frontal lobe's awareness that the moment Freya crossed over, it was decided.
In fact, that was his reason for sending her in advance; he knew his own irresolution. He had made her the cat's paw of that irresolution; by having her go he forced himself to complete this. And, he thought, for the best; we must find some way, in life, to overcome ourselves... we're our own worst enemies.
"Your shots, Mr. Trent." A THL nurse stood by with needles. "Will you please remove your outer garments?" The nurse pointed to a small and hygienic back chamber; he entered, began removing his clothing.
Presently he had received his shots; his arms ached and he wondered dully if they had done it already. Had this been something fatal, administered over the cover of prophylactic shots?
Two elderly German technicians, both as bald as doorknobs — as himself — all at once manifested themselves, wearing the goggles of Telpor operators; the field itself, if viewed too long, caused permanent destruction of the retina. "Mein Herr," the first technician said briskly, "kindly, sir, remove the balance of your garb. Sie sollen ganz unbedeckt sein. We wish not material, no sort, to impede the Starkheit of the field. All objects, including your parcels, will follow you within minutes." Matson finished undressing, and, terrified, followed them down a tiled hall to what suddenly loomed as a mammoth chamber, almost barren; he saw in it no elaborate Dr. Frankenstein hodgepodge of retorts and bubbling caldrons, only the twin perpendicular poles, like the concrete walls of a good tennis court, covered with circular cuplike terminals; between the poles he would stand, a mute ox, and the surge of the field would pass from pole to pole, engulfing him. And he would either die — if they knew who he was — or if not, then he would be gone from Terra for the balance of his life, or at least thirty-six years which for him was the same.
Lord god, he thought. I hope Freya got by all right. Anyhow the short encoded message signifying everything all right had arrived from her.
"Mr. Trent," one of the technicians said, fitting his goggles in place, "bitte; please look down so that your eyes do not perceive the field-emanations; Sie versteh 'n the retinal hazard."
"Okay," he said, nodding, and looked down, then, in almost a gesture of modesty, raised one arm, touched his bare chest with one hand, as if concealing himself — protecting himself against what suddenly became a stunning, blinding ram-head that butted him simultaneously from both sides; the forces, absolutely equal, made him freeze, as if poured as a polyester as he stood; anyone watching would have thought him free to move, but he was ensnared for good by the surge passing from anode to cathode, with himself as — what, the ion ring? His body attracted the field; he felt it infuse him as a dissolving agent.
And then the left surge dropped; he staggered, glanced up involuntarily.
The two bald, goggled Reich technicians were gone. He was in a far smaller chamber, and one elderly man sat at a desk, carefully logging from numbered tags a huge mound of suitcases and wrapped, tied parcels.
"Your clothing," the official said, "lies in a metal basket to your right marked 121628. And if you're faint, there's a cot; you may lie down."
"I'm — all right," Matson Glazer-Holliday said, and made his way unsteadily to his clothing; he dressed, then stood uncertainly.
"Here are your two items of luggage," the bureaucrat at the desk said, without looking up. "Numbers 39485 and 39486. Please arrange to remove them from the premises." He then examined his wristwatch. "No, excuse me. No one will be following you from the New New York nexus; take your time."
"Thanks." Matson himself picked up the heavy suitcases, walked toward a large double door. "Is this," he asked, "the right direction?"
"That will take you out on Laughing Willow Tree Avenue," the clerk informed him.
"I want a hotel."
"Any surface vehicle can transport you." The clerk returned to his work, broke contact; he had no more info to offer.
Pushing the door open, Matson stepped out onto the sidewalk.
He saw gray barracks.
Beside him. Freya appeared. The air was cold; she shivered and he, too, quaked, drew against her, stared and stared at the barracks; he saw row after row of them, and — charged, twelve-foot-high wire fences with four strands of barbed wire at the top. And signs. The posted restrictive notices; he did not even need to read them.
Freya said, "Mat, have you ever heard of a town called Sparta?"
" 'Sparta,' " he echoed, standing holding his two suitcases.
"Here." She released his fingers, set the suitcases down. A few people, drably dressed, slunk by, silently, carefully paying no attention to them. "I was wrong," Freya said. "And the message of course to you, the all-clear, was spurious. Mat, I thought — "
"You thought," he said, "it was going to be — ovens."
She said, with quiet calmness, tossing her heavy dark mane of hair back and raising her chin to meet his gaze, look at him face-to-face, "It's work camps. The Soviet, not the Third Reich, model. Forced labor."
"Doing what? Clearing the planet? But the original authentic monitoring satellites reported that — "
"They seem," she said, "to be forming the nucleus of an army. First starting everyone out in labor gangs. To get them accustomed to discipline. The young males go into basic training at once; the rest of us — we'll probably serve in that." She pointed and he saw the ramp of a subsurface structure; he saw the descent mechanism and he knew, remembered from his youth, what it meant, this pre-war configuration.
A multi-level autofac. On continuous schedule, hence not entirely homeo. For round-the-clock operations, machines would not do, could not survive. Only shifts, alternating, of humans, could keep the belts moving; they had learned that in '92.
"Your police vets," Freya said, "are too old for immediate induction; most of them. So they'll be assigned to barracks, as we will be. I have the number they gave you and the one they gave me."
"Different quarters? We're not even together?"