Hunter flung himself flat in the shadow of the ornamental2 shrubs3 along the edge of the parking flat. The four police mercenaries sprinted4 out of the house and leaped into the police jet. With sirens screaming, it soared up in pursuit of the empty autojet.
Hunter estimated that he had perhaps thirty minutes before they sent out a general alarm. A painfully small margin5 of safety. Where could he hide that the machines of detection—the skilled, emotionless, one-track, electronic brains—would not eventually find him? And what of Ann Saymer? What could he do as a fugitive6 to save her?
United had planned it all down to the smallest detail. But that was the way the cartels operated. It was the system Hunter was accustomed to. He felt neither anger not resentment7, simply a determination to out-plan and out-play the enemy.
If he accepted defeat he would admit frustration8, and for Captain Max Hunter that was impossible. Hadn't he survived a decade of frontier conflict with an adjustment index of zero-zero? Instead of hopelessly weighing the odds9 stacked against him, he counted the advantage which a single man held in maneuverability and rapid change of pace.
He walked along the museum street, the blaster in his hand. A block away rose the bulk of a factory building and behind it towered the monster of center-city, transformed into a fairyland by the glow of lights on the many levels. Hunter's eye followed the pattern up toward the top, hidden above the blanket of haze10.
The top! Luxury casinos and the castles of the cartels. Werner von Rausch and his empire of United Researchers. Werner von Rausch, who gave orders and Ann Saymer disappeared. Werner von Rausch, who gave new orders and Mrs. Ames lay murdered in her living room.
But behind the fa?ade of his spacefleet and his private army, behind his police mercenaries, Werner von Rausch was one man—an old man, Hunter had been told—and a vulnerable target. Hunter weighed his changes, and the margin of success seemed to be balanced in his favor.
It was not what they would expect him to do. They had framed him for murder and he should now be running for his life. The hunted turned hunter. Hunter grinned savagely11, enjoying his pun.
He slipped the blaster under his belt, leaving the scarlet12 jacket open to his navel so that the loose folds would conceal13 the outline of the weapon. He would have no trouble reaching the top level.
The resort casinos, like the mid-city amusement area, were open to any citizen. Special autojets, with destinations pre-set for the casino flat, were available in every monorail terminal. Hunter could by-pass a probe inspection14 at a regular metro-entry. The nearest terminal, from the north-coast line, was less than a quarter of a mile away.
As Hunter entered the industrial district he heard the turmoil15 of an angry crowd. He came upon them suddenly, swarming16 at the gates of a factory close to the terminal.
Eric Young's trouble-makers, he thought with a worried frown, jumping obediently when the big boss spoke17 the word. In less than five years Eric Young had turned the union into a third cartel, more powerful than Consolidated18 or United because the commodity Young controlled—human labor—was essential to the other two.
A third cartel! Suddenly Max Hunter understood why the cartels had to have Ann's patent at any cost. The absolute control of the human mind! It was the only weapon which Consolidated or United could use to break Young's power.
Hunter shouldered his way through the strikers toward the terminal. Though he wore no U.F.W. disc, he felt no alarm. Eric Young's strike riots were always well-managed. None of the violence was real and no one was ever seriously hurt.
But these trouble-makers seemed absurdly well-disciplined. They stood in drill-team ranks, moving and shouting abuse in perfect unison19. Then Hunter saw their faces, as blank as death masks—and in all their skulls20 the still unhealed scalpel wound, as well as an occasional projecting platinum21 strand22 which sometimes caught the reflected light.
Max Hunter felt a chill of terror. He was walking in a human graveyard23 of living automatons24, responding to the transmission from Ann's machine. United had lost no time in putting the thing to work. This was no ordinary strike, but the opening skirmish in the conflict that would wreck25 both Consolidated and the union of Free Workers.
Hunter entered the monorail terminal. It was deserted26 except for a woman who stood by the window looking out at the crowd. She was wearing a demure27, pink dress. Her face was plain, and she had used no cosmetic28 plasti-skin to make it more striking. Her brown hair, streaked29 with a gray which she took no trouble to hide, was pulled into a bun at the back of her neck.
Surprisingly, Hunter thought she was pretty, perhaps because she was so different from the eternal, baby-faced adolescent who thronged30 the city in a million identical duplications.
Hunter knew he had seen her before. He couldn't remember where. She shifted her position slightly and the light cast a sharp, angular shadow on her face. Then he knew.
"Dawn!" he cried.
Startled, she turned to face him with a strange look in her eyes.
"I was hoping you wouldn't recognize me, Captain Hunter," she said.
"What are you doing here—dressed like some dowdy31 just in from a farm sector32?" he asked, his gaze incredulous.
"We're all of us a mixture of different personalities," she replied. "I work for an entertainment house, yes. But I also have some of the qualities of your Ann Saymer. Don't take offense33, please. Ann and I are both interested in the maladjusted. She wants a quick cure. I'm looking for the cause."
"Here?"
"Wherever there are people who face an emotional crisis—the men who come to Number thirty-four, or a mob of strikers. I want to know why we react in the way we do, and what makes up the frustration pattern that crowds us across the borderline into insanity34."
"You sound like a psychiatrist," he said.
"I hold a First, Captain Hunter."
"And you work in an entertainment house?"
"Tell me about yourself, Captain. Have you found Ann yet?"
He looked away quickly.
"No," he said, his face hardening.
"And you still haven't had a chance to use your blaster?"
He directed an appraising35 glance at her. The question might imply a great deal. Did she somehow know what had happened at Mrs. Ames'? Did she know he was a fugitive?
A dozen police mercenaries appeared abruptly37 at the end of the street. Since the police had never been used to break a strike, Hunter guessed that this was Consolidated's answer to Werner von Rausch's new weapon.
The mercenaries drew their blasters and ordered the mob to disperse38. The automatons turned to face them. And as they turned they fell silent—the cloying39, choking silence of the tomb. Like marching puppets, the mob moved toward the police. Clearly Hunter could hear a shrill40 voice ordering them to halt.
Hunter felt a sickening inner horror. How could the mob obey when they heard nothing but the enslaving grid41, and responded to neither fear nor reason? Still they moved forward, in a robot death march. Whatever happened, it was a situation Young could turn to his advantage. If the mercenaries killed unarmed workers, it could be turned into superb propaganda. And ultimately, by sheer weight of numbers, the defenseless mob could overwhelm the mercenaries.
White fire leaped from the blasters. The first rank fell, but the mob marched blindly across the smoking corpses42. The mercenaries fired again. It was slaughter43—brutal and pointless—of slaves unaware44 of their danger, unable to save themselves.
Without understanding his own motivation—and without caring—Max Hunter leaped into the sill of the terminal window. There he was in a position to fire over the heads of the mob. The blast from his weapon arrowed into the line of police mercenaries.
Three fell in the agony of the flames. The rest, glad for an excuse to stop the slaughter, turned and fled. Like clockwork things, the mob turned back and resumed its precision demonstration45 in front of the factory.
Hunter slipped white-faced into a terminal bench. His hand trembled as he jammed the blaster back beneath his belt.
"Why did you do it, Captain?" Dawn asked.
How could he answer her, without saying he had seen the grids46 in their skulls? And he wasn't ready to trust Dawn to that extent.
"The people couldn't help themselves," he said ambiguously.
"Because they're in the U.F.W. and Eric Young cracks the whip. Is that what you mean?"
"They weren't aware of their own danger."
"Miscalculating the risks then? But that's part of the system, Captain. If you can't fight your way up to the top—"
"Then the system is utterly47 vicious."
"You don't mean that," she said.
"Why not? We're living in a jungle society. It's nothing but conflict—conflict on the frontier and conflict here from the time they put you in the general school."
"Only the children who have the intelligence—"
"But why?" he interrupted fiercely. "Where does it get us?"
"We have a stable society," she told him. "Peace of a sort. Law enforcement, too, and a chance to build something better when we learn how."
"Something better?" He laughed as he stood up. "We'll get that when we pull this hell apart, and not before."
She put her hand on his arm. "No, Captain. It's not realistic to say that. Over and over again in the past we wrecked48 civilization because good-hearted and conscientious49 people thought there was no other way to create a finer world. It didn't work, because violence is madness. This time we have to begin where we are and build rationally. We can, you know, when we understand what we have to build with."
"What else do we need to know, Dawn? You're falling back on the typical double-talk of the psychiatrists50. With all the application of physical science that we have—"
"I wasn't thinking of technology, Captain. Civilization isn't machines. It's people. Our accumulation of knowledge is tremendous, but essentially51 it means nothing because we know so little about ourselves. It's absurd to talk of making something better until we really know the individual we're making it for."
"Go ahead," he countered angrily. "Pussy-foot around with your cautious experiments, make sure nobody gets hurt—and you'll all end up slaves. As for me, I'm going to find Ann and get out while there's still time."
"Always the same two alternatives," Dawn said wearily. "Pull down the world, or run away from it. We need the courage to try something different. We need men who will act like men. I thought, Captain, by this time—" She looked up into his eyes. "Where are you going?"
"To the top—the casinos." Her abrupt36 question took him off balance and almost surprised him into telling the whole truth.
"Top level." She paused, studying his face. "That's logical, of course. You'll rescue your woman and run away—perhaps to the frontier, or to a forgotten world too insignificant52 to be claimed by either cartel. It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? You have friends in the service. They'll smuggle53 you away from Sector West." She hesitated again. "Running away is insanity, too, Captain. But that is one thing you still have to learn."
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1
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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sprinted
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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consolidated
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| a.联合的 | |
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unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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platinum
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| n.白金 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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automatons
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| n.自动机，机器人( automaton的名词复数 ) | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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cosmetic
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| n.化妆品；adj.化妆用的；装门面的；装饰性的 | |
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streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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cloying
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| adj.甜得发腻的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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grid
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| n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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grids
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| n.格子( grid的名词复数 )；地图上的坐标方格；（输电线路、天然气管道等的）系统网络；（汽车比赛）赛车起跑线 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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49
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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50
psychiatrists
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| n.精神病专家，精神病医生( psychiatrist的名词复数 ) | |
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51
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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52
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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53
smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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