The Cartels Jungle Part 6

Max Hunter rode the autojet to the casino. As the machine rose past the city levels, he found himself thinking less about Ann and a good deal more about Dawn--a Recreational companion woman who was simultaneously a psychiatrist. Where did she really fit in the subtle battle between the t.i.tan cartels? Which of them was her ally--or did Dawn represent another element as yet unidentified?

Knowing Ann Saymer had taught Hunter a wholesome respect for the thinking of a First in Psychiatry. They operated with a deviousness that made cartel treacheries seem like child's play. He knew that Dawn had manipulated their conversation in the terminal to her own ends.

Behind that deftly-phrased patter of words, what else had she tried to tell him? And what had she tried to find out? "Top level," she had said. "That's logical." Why logical? Logical to whom? Did she know where he was going and why?

The autojet thudded on the casino flat. A female attendant, robed in a skin-colored sheath bright with amber jewels, held open the cab door for him. Hunter entered the nearest casino. At the door he showed his saving record in the Solar First National Fund, and a casino teller issued him a ten thousand credit limit, the smallest denomination available. The resorts weren't wasting effort on pikers.

Although the casinos everywhere in the system were popular with s.p.a.cemen, Hunter had never been to the top level before because Ann had seen to it that his surplus credits went into their savings.

It was Hunter's opinion that he hadn't missed much. The Los Angeles resorts duplicated, on an elaborate scale, the most unsavory establishments of the frontier. Anything which by any stretch of a perverted imagination could be defined as entertainment was available--at a price.

It was early and the crowd was still small. It consisted of s.p.a.cemen on the usual furlough binge, a handful of suburbanites who had h.o.a.rded a half-year's savings for this one-night fling in the big resorts, and a dozen bright-faced executives from the lower levels of the cartel hierarchy. The big bra.s.s would turn up later on, at a more fas.h.i.+onable hour.

At all costs, Hunter had to keep himself inconspicuous. His uniform was not entirely out of place, although Consolidated did issue its commanders a formal outfit--more gold braid, a jeweled insignia, and a jacket cut to emphasize the broad shoulders.

Hunter stopped at the snack bar and wolfed a plate of cold cuts, the first food he had eaten since morning. Then he moved indirectly across the pillared gambling pavilion, pausing at two tables to place bets.

His objective was to find a vantage point in the upper floor of the casino where he could observe the geographic layout of the top level.

He slipped quickly into the dark well of an emergency stairway, feeling reasonably sure that no one had seen him leave the game room.

More than half an hour had pa.s.sed since he had fled Mrs. Ames' rooming house and he was convinced that very shortly--if they had not done so already--the police would put out a general alarm.

As a matter of course, there would be inquiries at the top level, but at first they would be made by police mercenaries. No one in the casino had any reason to identify Hunter as the fugitive. Later on, of course, when the police used electronic trackers, he wouldn't stand a chance. But before that happened he intended to make a deal with Werner von Rausch.

At the top of the stairs he found a tower window which afforded a crow's nest view of the top level. The twelve casinos, bright with lights, occupied more than half the area. Beyond the resort parkland was the small, white government building, dignified by its simplicity among so much ostentation. Beside it was the transparent semi-sphere housing the top landing of the center-city lifts. A third structure--a grotesque mechanical monster trapped in the heart of a spider-web of converging wires--was the power distribution center for the top level.

In back of the government building a high, metal-faced fence knifed across the level. That fence guarded the forbidden home-ground of the t.i.tans. Hunter could see the silhouette of the cartel castles rising against the sky, two gigantic ma.s.ses of stone. The one on the west was Farren's; the eastern one, Von Rausch's. That much and no more was common knowledge.

Were the two families, who had fought for so long to control the empire beyond the stars, on speaking terms here? Did they observe the social amenities in the same spirit that their companies enforced the sham peace on earth? In their lonely, lofty isolation, what amus.e.m.e.nts did they enjoy? What contributed to the enrichment of the lives of those fragile beings who possessed the wealth of the galaxy?

Hunter was sure no armed guards patrolled the forbidden paradise.

There was no need for them, for scanners formed a protective grid over the area. An autojet, attempting a landing from any direction, would break a beam and instantly become the target for the autoblasters erected at intervals along the fence. A man attempting to scale the wall would meet the same lethal charge.

Hunter saw one small gate with an identification screen mounted in front of it. Obviously the gate would open to the handprint of a Von Rausch or a Farren. But a stranger would find himself standing in the line of fire of two blasters, conspicuous over the gate.

The scanners, the blasters, the identification screen--all the complex, electronic watchdogs--depended solely upon power. Countless other people, Hunter knew, had realized that. Only mechanically produced power made the area invulnerable. Anyone could break through the fence. It hadn't been done before, perhaps, because no other man had ever had Hunter's motivation. None had been a fugitive on the run.

Hunter made his way out of the casino and crossed the park in the direction of the government building. Sheltered by the trees from the blaze of light, he was able to see the stars, bright in the velvet sky. The endless universe! Somewhere he could find a haven for himself and Ann, a pinp.r.i.c.k of light in the high-arching firmament which the cartels had overlooked.

Dawn had said that running away was madness. But what alternative did he have? To stay, and attempt to make the cartel rat-race over, sweetly and rationally so that no one would be hurt? Hunter laughed bitterly. Von Rausch had the Exorciser, and he could keep it. It would be part of the bargain the captain thought he could make to save Ann.

With that weapon, Von Rausch would sooner or later tear his own world to shreds. No man in his right mind would want to stay around to pick up the pieces--if any. He drew his blaster and took careful aim at the power distribution center.

The machine exploded. Burning wires sang in the air. In the casinos the lights winked out, and the entertainment machines went dark.

Hunter heard the shrill screaming of the trapped crowd. He knew that it would bring the police running, but he also knew they would have arrived shortly in any case. The important thing was that the electronic watchdogs on the wall were now lifeless.

Hunter blasted open the gate, and took the path that led east.

The Von Rausch castle--and the word was scarcely a metaphor--was something lifted bodily out of a Tri-D historical romance, complete with porticos, battlements, stone-walled towers and an imitation moat where mechanical swans floated on the dark water.

He crossed the moat on a rustic footbridge of plastic cleverly fabricated to seem like crudely hewn wood. Through a high, narrow window he saw a pale flicker of light. The pane was thick with grime.

Hunter could distinguish nothing in the room except a thin, elderly woman who seemed to be moving around a table where six candles burned in a silver candelabrum.

He kicked open the window. The woman looked at him, neither frightened nor alarmed. She was wearing an odd black dress, long-sleeved, high-necked, with a hemline that touched the floor. Her face was pale and wrinkled, unrelieved by any sort of cosmetic.

She held out her fragile hands. "You did come, Karl! I knew you wouldn't disappoint Auntie."

Hunter cried through clenched teeth, "I want Werner von Rausch. Where is he?"

"Goodness, dear, how should I know? Werner never comes to my parties."

Hunter noticed the table, then, set for eight, its gleaming silver and gold-rimmed china glowing in the soft candle light.

"Your Cousin Charlotte's already here, Karl." The woman gestured gracefully toward the table. "And little Helmig. They know how important it is to come on time."

He felt horror--and unconscious pity--as he realized the truth. Yet he tried once more to get from her the information he wanted.

"Oh, bother with Werner," she answered, pouting. "If you must know, I didn't even invite him. He's such a bore among young people."

She saw the blaster in Hunter's hand and pushed it aside gently, with a grimace of disapproval. "I don't like you to have these toys, Karl.

Next thing, you'll be wanting to join the army."

Hunter flung himself out of that room, into a dark and musty hall.

Behind him he heard the woman still talking, as if he had never left her. He blundered from one bleak room to another, rooms that were like tombs smelling of dust and decay.

On the second floor he came upon a small, balding man who sat reading at a desk in a room crammed with tottering stacks of old books. The light came from an antiquated electric lamp. Obviously the house had its own generating plant, independent of the power center Hunter had destroyed.

Hunter jerked up his blaster again. "Werner von Rausch?"

"One moment," the man said. Ignoring Hunter, the man quietly finished what he was reading, slipped a leather placemark into the book, and put it on top of a stack beside the desk. The pile promptly collapsed in a cloud of dust at Hunter's feet.

Max saw some of the t.i.tle pages. The books were extraordinarily old, some of them with a printing date a thousand years in the past. The man pinched a pair of eye-gla.s.ses on his nose and studied Hunter carefully.

"You're from the police, I presume?" he asked.

"If you are Werner von Rausch--"

"I'm Heinrich. I sent in the report. Though, I must say, you couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. I'm collating the spells tonight. I have them all, right here at my fingertips. And when I'm finished--" He seized the captain's jacket and his voice was suddenly shrill. "--I'll have the power to summon up any demon from h.e.l.l. Think what that means! I'll be greater than Faust. I'll have more power than--"

"Where can I find Werner von Rausch?"

"Yes, Werner. Poor boy." Heinrich was calm again. "You'll have to do your duty, officer. He's been annoying me all afternoon. So much noise--a man can't think. He's in his shop at the end of the hall. But don't be too severe with him. Perhaps this time just a warning will make him see reason."

Hunter went back to the corridor, feeling again the shadow of horror at this sick distortion of reality. In the distance, beyond the metal fence, he heard the scream of sirens, and realized he had at best another three minutes before the police would be there. Three minutes to make a deal with Werner and save Ann.

Hunter pushed back the nightmare that welled up from the depths of his mind. It wasn't true; it couldn't be true. If it were, nothing in the jungle made sense.

VIII

As he felt his way along the hall, he pa.s.sed the cage of a lift, a private transit between the house and the cartel offices on the city levels below. He noted it subconsciously, as a possible means of escape. But he was through running. He could make a deal with Von Rausch. After that the police wouldn't matter.