Part 3

Charlie was now his best competitive self. "Look at it from my point of view, Bart. If you didn't return, the business would become all mine anyway. Isn't that right?" A bland look of innocence spread over his face, a mask concealing the saturnine smile. "Bart, I suggest you delay your trip for a day or so. Raise the money some other way."

I held back long enough to believe my ears. Then I drew my gun. "You bastard!"

"You can't force me to sign! I'd repudiate it by phone the minute you left!"

"I'll kill you!"

"That won't get you the money. You'll rot in the slave-mines of Mercury!"

True. A feeling of fatalism swept over me like ocean surf. I opened Spacker's door and called out to the detectives:

"If you gentlemen will step in here, we've just received word of Mr. Sponsor's whereabouts."

Then I stepped back behind the door jamb, leveling the gun at Spacker. He knew I meant silence. He knew I would kill.

The detectives entered. I jumped behind them. "Raise your hands!"

They complied.

"You too, Spacker. Now, the three of you turn your backs to me and walk to the wall. Keep those hands high!"

I opened my briefcase with one hand, withdrew the sleep bomb, hurled it at their feet. The detectives knew what it was after one gasp, and tried to hold their breath. But one gasp is enough. They crumpled to the floor, unconscious. I closed Spacker's door and hung up the 'Do Not Disturb' sign.

Our robot secretary was taking a flurry of phone messages. I waited patiently in the anteroom till Claire returned.

"Here they are," she said soberly, handing me the envelope. "Three berths on the _Sophocles_."

"That's wonderful, Claire! Thanks a lot. By the way, you'll notice that those gentlemen have left. The matter is all straightened out."

A smile wreathed her face. "I'm very happy for you, Mr. Sponsor."

"In celebration, you know what we're going to do? We're going to give you the rest of the day off!"

She was enthralled. I waited until five minutes after she'd left, then walked briskly to the down-shaft.

I had to assume there were detectives posted at the main floor entrance. And on the roof. And even perhaps in the freight entrance. I got off on the second floor.

I walked down the corridor, studying the signs on doorways. There was a market research firm, Mechlen Drew Inc., that occupied a large suite, with several labeled doors. I opened one that said 'Employes' and found myself in a room with a medium-sized computer and several preoccupied mathematicians.

I went directly and purposefully to the window, opened it, and calculated the distance to ground level. Twelve feet maybe. The employes looked at me with faint interest. Someone from the building maintenance department, probably.

For a minute or two I watched the pedestrians glide by on the conveyer belt. I saw no evidence of the police.

"I think I'll have to examine this from the outside," I said to the employes. "Will one of you close the window after me?"

I got out on the sill, eased my body down, hung by my fingertips for a moment, then let go. I could see a puzzled expression at the window as I glided away and became lost in pedestrian cross-traffic.

In a mood of self-congratulation, I headed for the Art Institute. The mood vanished as I passed the first newsstand. Boldly on its display screen was a front page story about the fugitive Sponsor family. There were pictures, of course. They didn't have a very good one of Celia. College graduation shot. She had nothing to worry about. The photo of Freddie was better, but the city is full of skinny seven-year-olds with sensitive features. No great risk of recognition there.

But the one of me! A perfect likeness. Repeated on an endless number of newsstands between the Board of Trade Building and the museum. The large, oval-shaped bald head, shorn of all but a trace of sideburns. The straight, prominent nose with flaring nostrils. The large, sensual lips. The hard-clamped jaw.

Thanking Zeus for Chicago's anonymous millions, I entered the quietly thronged Art Institute.

* * * * *

Celia and Freddie were looking at paintings of the Prismatic school, without much enthusiasm, when I found them. Their greeting made me feel like a hero.

"Daddy!" said Freddie, hitting my leg joyfully as Celia embraced me with a passionate kiss.

"It's one-thirty," said Celia softly, achingly. "We were so worried."

"Let's go eat," I suggested, suddenly aware of hunger pangs.

"We already have, but it'll be much nicer this time."

We went to the tea room. Alongside was the sunken garden, with its dwarf trees and moist green grass and bubbling waterfall. Three or four pieces of ancient sculpture--smooth white marble of the Greeks--stood in the garden on pedestals. Somehow these had survived the destruction.

"Nothing else remained of the whole collection," said Celia sadly. "Renoirs, Rembrandts, Raphaels--all, all gone."

"I'm tired, mommy. Why can't we go home now?"

"After a while, dear. Poor kid! He's weary of looking at pictures, and so am I."

"Freddie," I asked, "why didn't you like to play games with the other children at school?" Celia glanced at me disapprovingly.

"Oh, I like to play games. But ... it just seems that when everyone's trying so hard to win ... it spoils the fun. You know."

"Leave him alone, Bart."

I finished my ersatz soup and my synthetic sandwich, and drank down a cup of chemical coffee, and felt much better.

Freddie napped on one of the garden benches, and that was a good thing for him and for us. We had to talk, weigh alternatives, make plans.

"The real crisis," I said, "is at five o'clock when this place closes. Then we have to get into our ship and fly somewhere. Wherever we go there'll be police looking for a green Cad Super with Iowa license plates."

"We have one advantage at that time," said Celia. "Rush hour. If you can stay in the thick of traffic ... and not hedge-hop."

"Don't worry!"

"The real crisis, I think, is when we board the Venus ship," said Celia. "The police will be watching all departures, checking identities, just as a matter of routine."

"That's true, but we don't go aboard as a threesome. You and Freddie earlier. And I at the last minute, with false identity papers."

Celia shook her head as if warding off an unpleasant thought. "Aren't you afraid that when Spacker wakes up he'll tell them about the Venus ship?"

"According to my information, the sleep bomb knocks you out for ten or eleven hours. A doctor can bring you out of it a little sooner, but you still don't regain your full senses right away."

"Even allowing ten hours, Bart. One and ten is eleven. Our ship leaves at twelve o'clock. That means we face one hour of supreme risk."

She was right, of course. And there was one more source of anxiety that I thought it best not to mention. Claire. What would Claire say if she found out about the sleep bomb? If she went back to the office for any reason this afternoon? Or if the police found out in some manner? Surely they would go looking for the detectives. Surely they would question Claire. What would she tell them?

* * * * *

Five o'clock. Exit separately through the rear door to the parking lot.

First Celia, walking briskly, with keys to the car in her gloved hand. Unaware how I stare at her handsome figure, voluptuous movements of hip and thigh. How akin the awareness of danger and awareness of sex!

She opens the car door, turns the ignition key, idles the engine.

Next, Freddie, as well coached as possible. Unhurried, lackadaisical. Taking a slow, wandering path, oblivious of the peril, curious about the other cars, taking his time.

He reaches our car and Celia scoops him up, and I see him clamber over the front seat and bury himself in the back.

Then I, striding heavily, hastily. Briefcase in hand. Looking neither right nor left. Lowering chin almost onto chest. Waiting for a voice behind me. Expecting a shout: 'Wait! Stop!'

I reach our car, jump in, slam the door, open the throttle. We ascend. Circle into the lowest, slowest, most congested local traffic lane, westward bound over Chicago.

* * * * *

I didn't much like Celia's suggestion. But I couldn't think of a better one. And we had to spend the next five or six hours somewhere.

"So why not the Mendelsohns?" said Celia. "It's a little early for their party, but I'm sure we'll be welcome."

"All right. But we've got to keep quiet about our ... troubles. I don't want that shlub to have the last laugh on me."

It was an evening in early fall, and the sun was setting, but not fast enough for my comfort. I craved the protection of darkness. We already had passed two police cars headed eastward, and each time I cringed helplessly, and Celia and Freddie ducked down out of sight. Possibly the red sunset tones were falsifying the green of our car. Otherwise, I can't see how they overlooked us.

Traffic was starting to thin out as we arrived over the Mendota district of Chicago. This was kind of a marginal area--no longer desirable, not yet slum--where respectable poor people maintained some semblance of pride in their old dilapidated solar-heated homes. It was an area so thick with grime and industrial soot, that I had a hard time making out the roof markers from two-hundred feet. The glass and concrete dwellings were universally alike in pattern, a hollow square with patio in the center. Yet despite the general poverty below, I failed to see a single house that didn't have a rattletrap aircar of some kind parked in the rear. All except the Mendelsohn house. The Mendelsohns never owned a car. They had turned their backyard into a vegetable garden.

"Think they'll mind if I land there?"

"Not when they're leaving tomorrow."

I landed gently, nevertheless. Solly was sensitive about plants.

I think they were really astonished to see us. The girls ran into each other's embrace with squeals of recognition. Solly and I shook hands with a good deal more restraint. Dolores was tossling Freddie's hair. Then we went into their house.

It was pretty bare, of course. They had packed most of their things; probably had them stored aboard ship by now. But there was enough furniture left that went with the house for us to sit down on.

"How wonderful! How wonderful of you to come and see us!" said Dolores. She was a tall, dark, big breasted girl with classical features in the Byzantine sense. Her hair was black, her movements languid, her voice deep and melodius.

"We couldn't see you go to the stars without saying goodbye," said Celia.

"We talked about you so often," Dolly said. "Wondering how you were. What you were doing."

I found it hard to imagine this exotic, beautiful woman transplanted to an alien world in the role of pioneer farmgirl.

"We've thought about you too," said Celia. "So many times."

It was awkward. Solly and I hadn't exchanged more than five words.

"Would you like some refreshments?" said Dolly. "Drinks? Something to eat?" She smiled at me and smiled at Freddie, and nodded yes until Freddie nodded with her.

"Sure you do," she said.

We laughed. Dolly stood up. "We weren't expecting our guests for another hour, but everything's ready."

She and Celia and Freddie went into the kitchen.

I hated to be left alone with Solly, and I suppose the feeling was reciprocal.

"Are you glad to be going?" I inquired neutrally.

"Very."

"How long does it take to get there?"

"Two and a half years."

"That's a long time!"

"Not considering the distance. Primus Gladus is nine-tenths of a light-year away."

"Funny," I said, "a star being that close, undiscovered until this century."

"It's not a bright star. Half the luminosity of our sun. For all we know, there may be others just as close." Solly meditated on the idea.

"I suppose that's possible," I said. "Must be thousands of stars in the southern skies--faint stars, I mean--that haven't been measured."

We were both silent. There seemed nothing further to say. The distance was as far between us as between Sol and Primus Gladus. I fumbled in my briefcase.

"This is something that may interest you, Solly." I handed him the folder containing his topsoil project. "Found it in my file just this afternoon. Thought maybe you could use it where you're going."

He looked at it. His forehead wrinkled in a frown.

"Remember?" I cued him. "College days?"

* * * * *

A light came into his eyes from a source thousands of light-years away. "Oh yes," he uttered slowly, a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. "That was our big business venture. The Topsoil Initiator." He looked at me peculiarly. "Bart, how come you kept it all these years?"

"I always thought it was a good idea." This was not a lie. "But why," I said, "haven't _you_ done anything with it?"

"O-o-o-oh," he drawled, "no drive, I guess. The real reason, I guess, is that I never had enough money to buy a barren, rocky acre where I could give it a practical tryout."

"Ten years seems like such a long time to wait for results," I said.

Solly reflected with that faint remembering smile on his lips. "It did then."

The girls returned with food and drink, and somehow Solly and I had warmed up over the topsoil recollection, and we all became quite gay and animated and loud-talking, and I suppose it was a little like old times.

Then a little while later Celia took her purse in the other room, and when she came out she handed Dolores an envelope.

I knew what was in it, and I wanted to shout, 'My God, don't do it! That's all the money we have in the world!' But I couldn't get the words out, and Celia said:

"Dolly, here is something for you from us. It's a going-away present. We want you to have it before the others come."

"How nice," said Dolly. "What can it be?"

She opened the envelope, and a mixed expression played across her face--delight and dismay.

"Why, it's money!... A lot of money!... Thousands!"

She turned her head away in reluctance, then handed back the envelope.

"Oh, no, Celia. We couldn't accept it."

Celia refused to take it back. "Oh now, Dolly," she snapped, "don't be stuffy and proud and stupid! We have millions. We _want_ you to have it. You certainly need it; you can't deny that. So please accept it and make us happy."

"It's wonderful of you both," said Solly. "But you know how it is. We just can't."

"We just can't," repeated Dolly.

"Oh please, please," cried Celia, and she was really getting emotional. "Don't you realize. This is the last time we'll ever see you! You're going to a far-away world, our two dearest friends. And this may seem like a lot of money, but it really isn't. It's all the gifts and presents we would give you in a lifetime, rolled up into one. It's funny little baby clothes when your children are born. It's anniversary gifts. It's for your boy's bar mitzvah and your daughter's confirmation. It's wedding presents when they grow up. It's--it's funeral wreaths!"

Celia started to cry, and Dolly started to cry, and they hugged each other and started to cry even more, and the tears rolled down their cheeks. And the tears rolled down my cheeks, and Solly's too, I guess, and we shook hands very solemnly. And Celia stuffed the envelope into Dolly's hand. And then all of us really cut loose and bawled--I covering my face with my hands, and Solly burying his face in a handkerchief. Only Freddie wasn't crying at first. He was just standing there looking bewildered. And then he got scared and started to cry too, hanging onto my pants leg with one hand, and trying to reach Celia with the other.

And then, thank God, the first guests arrived, ringing the bell, so that we had a compelling reason to stop.

* * * * *

The party was still going strong when we left at eleven. Solly and Dolly walked us out to our car. There really wasn't much left to say. We had found each other in friendship again, and would never again be nearer than nine-tenths of a light-year.

"A pity!" said Solly, and I knew what he meant.

The evening was very cool. Celia began to shiver. We took off, and the cabin heater warmed up the thermometer, but still we felt cold. Freddie sat in the front seat between us, dozing lightly.

Our Cad Super roared through the night. Even at full power, Spaceport, Nevada, was thirty minutes away. The moon set rapidly. The night grew darker.

"I fear that we will be caught," said Celia tonelessly, like a voice dissociated from body.

Our ship's nose wavered slowly between Procyon and Pollux, Canis Minor and Gemini, back and forth, droning on in the blackness.

"I fear for our little boy," said Celia like a soul lost in a maze of warped space. "What will they do to him?"

"They'll never lay hands on him," I said softly.

The Serpent writhed and Charioteer rocked as Twins dueled the Crab and Hunter pursued Bull.

"That was a fine gesture you made," Celia whispered.

"What?"

"Giving them the money. I'm proud of you."

The lights of Spaceport glowed on the horizon. It was a vast complex of launching sites, covering a hundred square miles. But only one ship could blast off at a time, and that ship would be flooded by searchlights. I singled out the Venus rocket and we descended.

It was eleven-thirty-two. I handed Celia her two tickets.

As we approached the Venus compound I could see several police cars parked on the field. Passengers seemed to be leaving rather than entering the ship. The gangway was crowded with people pouring out of the spacelock.

"They're looking for us," I muttered.

"Is that why they're all getting off?" said Celia.

"They must be shaking down the entire ship."

"This is the moment I feared." She tightened her grip on Freddie.

"There must be a way of getting aboard!" I said.

We edged forward to the gates of the field.

"There is no way of getting aboard," said Celia. Her voice was hopeless. She motioned at a large bulletin board.

The sign read: VENUS FLIGHTS CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE BECAUSE OF CIVIL DISORDERS ON THAT PLANET.

I was weary and defeated, but I said, "Honey, we're not licked. We can still go to Australia."

"I have a better idea," Celia exclaimed. It was as though a new current of life, a new gusher of hope, had burst through the surface. "Let's go to Primus Gladus!"

* * * * *

It was four in the morning. We had told Solly and Dolly the straight story.

"Do you think we can get a berth on the ship?" my wife queried anxiously. "Is there any way you can help us?"

The Mendelsohns exchanged glances.

"I don't know," said Solly. "Truthfully. Let me think about it a few minutes."

"Since you've told us the truth about yourselves," said Dolly, "do you mind hearing some things you don't know about us?"

"All cards might as well be face up," I replied.

"Well listen, you two. It isn't easy to emigrate to another system. If you're a shlub, yes. But not if you're a soil chemist, or any other kind of scientist or advanced technician. Earth won't let the boys with know-how get out of its clutches." Dolly's eyes were burning with a message she only half-dared to communicate. "Does this give you any clues?" she asked, eagerly scanning our faces.

Suddenly the parts fit perfectly. "Solly! You did it deliberately. You washed out of school! You let your career fall to pieces. On purpose!"

Solly was nodding and smiling rather grimly.

"But why?" I demanded. "You had such brilliant prospects here on Earth. Why did you do it?"

"Surely you of all people must know by now," said Dolly excitedly. "Can you and your family go on living in this kind of a world? Can you endure this police-state tyranny now that you know what it is? Can you accept the hypocrisy, the masquerade behind pious slogans? What is this thing they call Competition? Is it really good? Is it really the expression of democracy? Is it what they want or is it forced on them?"

"Dolly, you're asking more questions than you're answering," said Celia, trying to head her off.

"Or is it organized greed? Simple dog-eat-dog? The law of jungle cunning and brute force re-affirmed? If we must compete, let it not be as maggots swarming over a half-eaten pie! Let's get people to vie with one another in service to mankind!"

Dolly had worked herself into a kind of evangelical zeal, with Solly nodding hypnotically in agreement.

I answered calmly, trying not to strain our newly healed friendship. "I don't go along with you on some of the things you say, Dolly. I personally think competition is the mainspring of progress--"

Solly started to protest.

"--material progress," I added.

"Well, maybe," said Celia, and in a flash I could see what had gone wrong with Freddie's home-life, from the school principal's point of view. "But I can't see what competitiveness has to do with creative art, or the pure sciences, or philosophy. I think it's positively destructive in those areas. The real struggle there is internal, not external. To me, competition is only a part of life not the whole of it."

"You're all wrong!" I shouted. "My only concern is with the welfare of Freddie. That's what got us into this predicament. I want you to understand that I'm for the system ninety-five per cent!"

Solly, Dolly, and Celia smiled. That irritated me but I let the matter drop.

"Let's consider what's to be done," I said.

"Yes," said Solly very seriously. "I can tell you this about the star-ship. On a voyage of two and a half years, nothing can be done haphazardly, at the last minute. Every berth has to be accounted for long in advance. Our baggage has been calculated down to the last ounce. The number of farming implements, the number of livestock--even the number of children you may have en route!--are strictly allocated."

"In other words, the only way we can get aboard is if someone dies or doesn't show up at the last minute?" said Celia.

"Or if you can persuade someone not to make the trip."

"And in addition get by the police," I added softly.

* * * * *

At seven that morning the airbus stopped to pick up the Mendelsohns and their hand luggage. We had worked out some kind of half-baked plan that I didn't think would go over with the ship's officials. We set a rendezvous time and place and waved them off. Then we got into our Cad Super. For the second time it bore us west to Spaceport.

As we neared the field, Celia commented, "You know, darling, this car is pretty conspicuous in the daytime."

"I'm hungry, mommy," said Freddie who had missed out on breakfast altogether. Celia gave him a soggy hors d'oeuvre, which was all that was left from the Mendelsohn's party.

I had been thinking about what to do with our expensive car. I brought it down almost a mile from the star-ship _Pericles_.

"You two will have to walk the rest of the way," I said cheerily. "I'll meet you at our rendezvous point in about twenty-five minutes."

The time was now seven-thirty. The ship blasted off at nine. I put our car in a steep climb and circled the field at an altitude of ten thousand feet, where I could see which of the many spaceships were loading passengers.

I chose one ship arbitrarily at the opposite end of the field from the star-ship. It turned out to be an Asteroid surveyor, paying its way with a hundred or so passengers to Ganymede. I set down in the adjoining lot, and fixed the degravity controls so that the ship hovered a few inches off the ground, and left it that way to drift across the field with the wind until it attracted the inevitable attention.