Equator & Segregation Read online

  A door stood at the end of the passage. The burlier of the two men, evidently the one in authority, produced another key, unlocked the door and flung it open.

  They emerged behind an almost deserted car park, not far from the point at which Tyne had first tackled the building. Trotting across the puddle-strewn ground, they ran to an ancient model of a Moeweg, a German atomicar. Burly flung himself into the driver’s seat as the others bundled into the back. He jerked the dipstick and they were moving at once.

  As they accelerated past the front of the plant, the first car to answer the alarm call arrived from the opposite direction. It had a searchlight mounted on the roof; it was a police car. As the old Moeweg dashed by, a uniformed man leant out of the police car and bellowed to them to stop. Burly accelerated.

  ‘Damn it, they’ll have our number,’ he said over his shoulder, to the man beside Tyne. ‘We’ll meet trouble as sure as eggs. I’m going to turn off before we hit traffic; this is no time to play questions and answers with a bunch of local cops.’

  A fire engine dashed past them. A helicopter thundered over­head. Bright headlights through the trees indicated a stream of traffic heading round a bend for the scene of the alarm. Burly wrenched the dip; they slewed across the road and squealed into a narrow lane leading into jungle.

  The lane had been intended for nothing bigger than a cowcart. Foliage whapped and smacked against the windows as the car lunged forward.

  ‘It’s crazy!’ Tyne thought, ‘all absolutely crazy!’ He had time to wonder about the respect he had held for men of action. He had seen them as people at the equator of life, in the hottest spots, going round the fastest; he saw now it was true only in a limited sense. These people merely went in circles. One minute they were hunters, the next hunted. They made decisions rapidly, yet those decisions seemed based less on a rational understanding and interpretation of their opponent’s motives than on a desire to keep hopping continually in an immense indeterminate game.

  A game! That was the secret of it all! These men of action could enter a contest involving life and death only because once they had plunged in, the stakes became unreal. This was chess, played with adrenalin instead of the intellect. They had got beyond the ordinary rules of conduct.

  The terrible thing was, Tyne found, that although he now saw this clearly enough, he too was caught in the game - voluntarily. World events had become too grave to be treated seriously. One could escape from all their implications by sinking into this manic sub-world of action, where blood and bluff ruled. By the same token, he saw the pendulum which ruled the sub-world sliding back in his favour. These men had caught Tyne when he was unprepared; now that he was in their hands, he could be relaxed but alert; in a sense, he had no care; they had the worries. When this pressure grew to a certain pitch, they would become in their turn unprepared - and he would elude them. It was inevitable, just a rule in the crazy game. After that, of course, the big pendulum would swing the other way again.

  “This is far enough,’ Burly said, when the Moeweg had rocked and staggered some hundreds of yards into the jungle. The man beside Tyne never uttered a word.

  The car stopped, and with an effort Tyne brought his attention back to the present. His mind had been busily elaborating his theory - even giving it some such half-jocular title as Leslie’s Principle of Reciprocal Action, or the Compensatory Theory of Irresponsible Activity (Leslie’s Effect) - with the same atten­tion it had once devoted to preliminary drafts of official mem­oranda.

  Burly flicked off the headlights, so that only the dash light illuminated them. Outside, the rain had stopped, though the foliage overhead still dripped meditatively on to the car roof. It was 4.15, a numb, light-headed time of night.

  ‘All right,’ Tyne said, ‘now suppose you tell me who you are, what you’re doing, and why you think you’re doing it ?’

  Removing the cloth which had covered the lower part of his face, Burly turned in his seat to look at Tyne.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, in a gentle, educated voice, ‘we ought to apologise for virtually kidnapping you like this, Mr. Leslie. Time pressed, and we had no alternative. I ought perhaps to add -forgive me - that none of this would have been necessary if you-had waited for us to explain when we caught you up on the facade of the plankton plant. Your dive into the sea was spectacular, but unnecessary.’

  ‘I didn’t dive,’ Tyne said, wryly. ‘I slipped.’

  Abruptly, Burly burst into laughter. Tyne found himself joining in. The tension eased considerably. The masked man beside Tyne never moved.

  ‘This is the situation,’ Burly said. ‘My name, by the way, is Dickens - Charles Dickens. No relation, of course. I am working with the man you know as Stobart, the U.N.C. agent; his second-in-command, as it were. You have been missing now for some hours, and we frankly were worried. You see, your role in this affair is an ambiguous one; we naturally like to know where you are.’

  ‘Naturally. What made you look for me at the plankton plant?’ Tyne inquired. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘We weren’t looking for you,’ Dickens said. ‘We just happened to be searching the place at the time you came along. Like you, we were hoping to find Murray Mumford there.’

  ‘How did you know I was still looking for Murray?’

  ‘You called his name, remember? For another thing, Mina, Murray’s woman, told you to go there. She told you Murray had said he would be at the plankton plant.’

  Tyne suddenly fell silent. Dickens’ words brought back a vital memory to him, something that he had recalled during those terrible moments of drowning in the plant. The memory gave him the key to Murray’s whereabouts; he must get away from Dickens and his silent partner as soon as he had as much infor­mation as possible from them. Dragging his mind back to the present, he asked, ‘How did you find out about Mina, Dickens ?’

  ‘Stobart found out. He questioned her after you’d left him. We’ve not been sitting down doing nothing.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about Stobart. There’s a man who should learn a few manners before he mixes with people.’

  ‘Stobart is something of a psychologist,’ Dickens said. ‘He deliberately made his advice to you to stop looking for Murray so unpalatable that you would ignore it.’

  Tyne smiled to himself, These boys thought they had all the answers. What they did not know was that he had, in fact, already stopped looking for Murray when the Rosk picked him up in the taxi. Stobart could stuff that up his psychology.

  ‘So Stobart wanted me as a stooge,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘You were just one of his impromptu ideas. The Rosks had him cornered in the Roxy when you arrived. You were a diversion to draw them away. Actually, you were doubly useful. After the Rosks had taken you out to their ketch -‘

  ‘What!’ Tyne exploded. Suddenly he was furiously angry. The silent man beside him placed a restraining hand on his arm, but Tyne knocked it off with his steel fist. ‘You mean you people know about that ketch? Yet you let it stay there? You let me be tortured - well, I was nearly tortured there. You let that thug of Ap II Dowl’s, Budo Budda, come and go there as he pleased? And all the time you knew about the ketch and could have blown it out of the water? Isn’t it infringing the interplanetary agree­ment by being there?’

  ‘Don’t get excited. We didn’t know you were taken to the ship; the Rosks picked you up too quickly for that - you weren’t half awake, Leslie! We were waiting for big game; Ap II Dowl is to visit that ketch in the early hours of this morning. By now, in fact, we should have trapped him there. If we can get him in the bag, many of Earth’s troubles will be over.’

  ‘You don’t know how many troubles she’s got,’ Tyne said grimly. ‘She is about to be attacked by an Alpha II invasion fleet. That’s the cheering news Murray carries round with him.’

  ‘We know.’

  ‘You know! How do you know?’

  ‘We have means, Mr. Leslie; leave it at that.’

  As Dickens spoke, a buzze
r sounded. A radio telephone was installed on the Moeweg’s dashboard, Dickens picked it up, listened, spoke into it in a low voice; Tyne caught his own name being mentioned.

  ‘Can’t you ever think of a word to say?’ he asked the man sitting next to him. The other shrugged his shoulders and made no answer.

  Suddenly Dickens thrust the phone down and swore luridly.

  He cursed with vigour and a vinegary wit, making it as obscene as possible. It was a startling display, coming from him.

  ‘Leslie, you’ve properly buggered things up,’ he said, swinging round in the car seat. ‘That was Stobart calling. He says you were marooned on a small island called Achin Itu until about ten o’clock this evening - that is, yesterday evening. They found your monogrammed mecahale lighter on the beach. Is that a fact?’

  ‘I’d like that lighter back; it cost me fifty chips. Tell Stobart, will you?’

  ‘Listen, Leslie, you shot up that Rosk Colonel, Budda. Do you know what you’ve done? You scared Ap II Dowl away! When he got wind of Budda’s death, he stayed tight in the base. Our fellows raided the ketch an hour back, while you were playing tag over the plankton plant, and got nothing but a lot of useless information.’

  ‘Don’t blame me, Dickens. Call it one of my impromptu ideas, eh ? Any time one of Stobart’s plans go wrong, give me the word; I find I get a thrill out of hearing about it.’

  ‘You’re coming back to Padang with me, Leslie, right away. We’re going to lock you up until you learn not to make a nuisance of yourself.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Tyne said, half-getting out of his seat. Something hard pressed against his side. He looked down. The silent partner was digging in with a revolver, his eyes unwavering above the handkerchief. Dickens switched the car headlights on again as Tyne sat back helplessly in his seat.

  ‘That’s right, relax,’ Dickens said. ‘From now on, you’re living at the government’s expense.’

  ‘But I’ve got a hunch about finding Murray,’ Tyne said. ‘I swear to you, Dickens, I may be able to go straight to him. You still want him, don’t you?’

  ‘We’d trade in the U.N.C. Building for him,’ Dickens said quietly, starting the engine. ‘But things are too complex for you, feller. There’s no room outside for amateurs just at present; you’ve done enough damage. Here’s another thing you didn’t know. Have you paused to wonder why the Rosks couldn’t slip a roll of microfilm smaller than your little finger from Luna to Earth themselves? There’s a reason why they got Murray to carry it. It’s stolen from the Rosks.’

  ‘You mean the Rosks stole the film from the Rosks ?’

  ‘Yes; that’s what I said and what I mean. Ever heard of the Roskian peace faction, the RPF, led by Tawdell Co Barr ? They’re a small and semi-illegal organisation of Rosks ranged against Ap II Dowl and pledged to work for peace with Earthmen. Their numbers are few. In Luna Area 101 there can’t be more than a handful of them. But they managed to get their hands on this film, and of course they want it to reach the main body of RPF in the Sumatran base here. I fancy it’ll be used for propaganda purposes, to show the Rosks what a blood-thirsty maniac Dowl is.

  ‘I tell you this so that you can see why the situation is too complex for you; it comes in layers, like an onion.’

  Even as he spoke, Dickens was wrestling with the car. The wheels spun in mud but did not move. While they waited here for the alarm on the main road to die down, the heavy vehicle had sunk into the soft track.’ Tyne scarcely noticed what was happening as he mulled over what Dickens had told him. It threw new light on at least one Rosk: the girl, Benda Ittai, who had saved his life.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Benda Ittai?’ Tyne asked. Speaking her name aloud filled him with an unexpected pleasure.

  ‘We’re bogged down, damn it,’ Dickens said. ‘Oh, how I love Sumatra! Benda Ittai is evidently one of the RPF. Stobart’s men found her on the ketch when they raided it. The Rosks were about to put her to death. Under the .circumstances, our men found it best to let her go free; I tell you, Stobart has a soft heart - I’d have locked her up. Damn this filthy, soggy country! I can understand how they get volunteers for lunar duty. Yes, if I had my way, I’d clap her in prison; I’d clap all of you - look, I’m getting out to put something under the wheels. Leslie, if you try to escape, my friend will shoot you in the leg. It’s painful. Do by all means try it and see.’

  He climbed out, leaving his door swinging open. His feet squelched in the wet grass, and he steadied himself against the Moeweg’s bonnet.

  Tyne’s heart thudded. He wondered if he stood a chance of overpowering the fellow beside him. Dickens was visible through the windscreen, bathed in bright light which only emphasised the sad waiting darkness of the forest on either side. The agent had produced a small sheath knife and was hacking at the thick fronds of a bush, throwing them under the car’s front wheels.

  Then something else was moving out there. It came swishing in from the treetops with a vibrant humming. Bushes and twigs writhed and cringed; everything seemed to turn alive at its approach.

  Dickens straightened and saw it. Beautifully in control of himself, he dropped the foliage he had cut and reached for a holstered gun without a second’s pause. As his hand came up, he fired two shots at the thing, then turned and leapt into the Moeweg, slamming the door shut behind him. Furiously, he made a fresh attempt to extricate the car from the mud. The flying thing charged at them, bowling in from the bending darkness.

  ‘What is it? What the devil is it?’ Tyne asked, severely rattled. He began to sweat. His ears jarred with the noise the thing made.

  ‘It’s a Rosk fly-spy,’ Dickens said, without turning his head. ‘Sort of flying eye. Televises reports of all it sees back to Rosk base. I’ve seen a captured one back at H.Q. They’re unarmed but definitely not harmless. Mind it doesn’t - ah!’

  They jerked forward a foot then fell back again, their wheels failing to grip. The fly-spy hovered then dropped almost to ground level. Tyne saw it clearly now. It was a fat disc perhaps five feet in diameter and two feet six at its greatest width. Lenses of varying size studded its rim and under surface. An inset search­light swivelled a blinding beam of light at them.

  Rotors probably mounted on a gyroscope powered the machine. They set up the humming note making the bushes in their vicinity move uneasily as if trying to escape observation. The rotors were set inside the disc protected by fine mesh from possible damage.

  It moved forward suddenly. Even as Dickens instinctively ducked the fly-spy struck their windscreen, shattering it into tiny fragments. Dickens swore ripely.

  ‘The Rosk base isn’t far from here!’ he shouted. ‘Just a few miles through the jungle. If this thing has identified us it may be planning to wreck the car - to hold us up till a Rosk patrol can get at us. Cover your face up Leslie - don’t let it see who you are!’

  The fly-spy had lifted. It hovered somewhere above the vehicle. They couldn’t see it, but they could hear it, the venomous note of a hornet, amplified. All the leaves near the car waved furiously, enduring their own private storm. Tyne was tying a handkerchief round his face when Dickens flung the engine into reverse. Bucking wildly, the old Moeweg heaved itself out of the pit it had gouged for itself. At once the fly-spy returned to the attack. With a slicing movement, it sped down and struck one of the rear side windows. It did not retreat, just stayed there pushing, huge through the shattered glass, its lens seeming to sparkle with malice. The car lurched, the coach-work crumpled.

  The silent agent scrambled up on to the seat, taking pot shots through the broken window. His forehead was grey and patchy above his mask.

  ‘Aim at its rotors through the mesh!’ Dickens bellowed. ‘That’s the only way you’ll knock it out!’

  They were speeding recklessly backwards down the jungle track. Dickens drove looking over his shoulder, dipstick in one hand, gun in the other.

  “That thing can squash you if you try to run for it.’ he said. ‘Squash you flat against the ground
.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to jump out,’ Tyne replied. He had just been planning to jump out.

  As he spoke, the silent man flung open his door, hanging out to get a better shot into the middle of the fly-spy’s works. The thing reared up immediately into the {branches overhead - and crashed down into one of the back wheels. The Moeweg skidded sideways into the bushes and stopped, engine bellowing uselessly.

  Tyne hardly paused to think. He knew they were trapped now. This thing could batter the car apart if it was so directed.

  The dumb agent had been pitched on to the ground by the skid. Leaping through the open door, Tyne jumped on to him, snatched his gun and lunged into the undergrowth. He dived into the bushes recklessly, doubled up, doing anything to get away. Moving on hands and knees, he charged forward, heedless of any cuts or tears he sustained. Shots sounded behind him; he did not know if Dickens was firing at him or the fly-spy.

  He travelled fast. He tumbled into a little overgrown stream and was out in a flash. The faintest light, perhaps the first light of dawn, aided him.

  He knew what to do. He was heading for a belt of thick trees with low branches. The fly-spy had severe limitations, for all its power. Dense foliage would stop it.

  Tyne was on his feet now, running doubled up. He no longer knew which way he was running. That deep, determined hum­ming sounded behind him. A light flickered and swam among the leaves, as the searchlight sought him out. The leaves writhed. Where were the damned trees?

  Blowing hard, he pounded through chest-high vegetation. It seemed endless.

  Now he bounded down a bushy slope, plunged into a line of trees, tore himself free of brambles. When he tripped a minute later, he could hardly get up. Looking wearily above his head, he saw against the dark sky a protecting network of branches.

  The smaller branches waved in an artificial wind.

  Panting, Tyne lay there like a trapped animal.

  All he could do, he had done. He hadn’t imagined it would come after him; he had thought it would stay by the car and the two U.N.C. agents. But ... if its transmissions back to Rosk base had caused him to be identified there as the Earthman to whom Benda Ittai had spoken, then there was good reason for his being the quarry.