Part 6

A sign, black letters on a white board, pointed the way to ADMINISTRATION, along a narrow footpath which plunged into the belt of trees. As Hendley entered the shadowed grove he felt a renewal of excitement. The leaves above whispered musically in the wind, an unfamiliar rushing sound which was strangely pleasant. An intricate lacework of light and shadow played over the leaves and branches and trunks of trees. As he broke out of the woods onto another stretch of green lawn, a bird darted from a high branch above his head, swooped in a spectacular arc, incredibly light and swift and beautiful, and dove out of sight into another leafy cavern.

It was the first live bird Hendley had ever seen. He stared up in wonder at the foliage where the bird had disappeared, wishing that it would dart out again. At last he turned away. His breath caught.

The entire Freeman Camp seemed to be spread out before him. The natural screen of trees formed a line repeating the great circle of the outside wall. Within that frame of woods was a rolling green carpet dotted here and there with colorful play areas, pools of water winking in the sunlight, outdoor cafes and bars. Beyond this parklike setting were the residential areas--row upon row of identical two-storied buildings, each lavishly windowed--every room, Hendley marveled, must be open to the light! In a narrower circle beyond these residential buildings were structures of varied shapes and sizes and colors, shops and stores and theaters and game centers of every kind. Crowning the top of a hill almost in the center of the camp, overlooking another immense park lush with trees and flowers and more game areas, was a huge yellow building, a cement mushroom turned light and graceful by inset arches of glass.

The camp was a world all bright and glittering, golden in the sunlight, endlessly varied and enchanting.

Hendley stood rooted, his senses alive to all the strange new sounds and smells, for a long time. Then with quickening anticipation he hurried along the path toward a concentration of squat, windowless buildings immediately before him. He gained admittance through a right-angled corridor which cut off any view of the outside. Here he found himself in familiar surroundings, the sealed-in, air-conditioned world of the worker in the Organization. The check-in procedure was a model of the Organization's pattern of streamlined, impersonal, highly automated efficiency. Hendley was briskly ushered through a receiving line, identified, briefed on the geography of the camp, given a key to his assigned room, a map, and a schedule of the day's "entertainments." No one expressed surprise or special interest in his visiting status.

At the end of the line an official told him, "You will report here an hour before your departure time, which is at twelve noon tomorrow."

Hendley smiled at an unexpected thought. "How will I know what time it is?"

The official's eyebrows rose. "The sun is directly overhead at noon."

"I see," said Hendley, feeling properly squelched.

"You are free to go anywhere in the camp you wish," the beige-clad official said crisply. "And you may use any of the facilities of the camp for recreation, food, drink or, ah, whatever you choose." His manner unbent as he lowered his voice confidentially. "The PIB's are painted red. And if I may make a suggestion, sir, you shouldn't miss the entertainment at the main Rec Hall. An excellent casino, and I've heard that the show tonight on the stage is, ah, shall we say, unusual?" He smiled with a lewd relish, so unexpected that it was shocking. "You can't miss the Rec Hall. It's the big yellow building on the hill."

Hendley started to mumble his thanks, but, after his brief lapse, the official was once again impersonally efficient. "Official personnel are not allowed out of the administration and service buildings--which are, of course, windowless. Service facilities are underground. The camp belongs to the free. You are one of them--until noon tomorrow." He smiled mechanically, then added, making the phrase more a pointed suggestion than a casual dismissal, "Have fun!"

A door opened at the end of another angled corridor, and Hendley walked out into the bright, green land of the free.

* * * * *

It was perhaps two hours later--he was already conscious of missing his watch, unable to shake a lifetime dependence upon measured time--when Hendley paused to rest under the shade of an umbrella at a vending cafe set in the central park. He ate a light meal and relaxed with a tall whiskey and soda, enjoying the luxury of eating and drinking expensively without having paid. He could not remember when he had last had a whiskey in the middle of the day--and this tasted like grain whiskey, not the chemical variety. Possibly it was the rarity of the event--or the fresh air and the stimulation of the camp's bewildering activity--which made the drink so satisfying.

Camp was an inexact word, he thought. The Freeman Camp was, in fact, a huge, complex city, served by what must be an equally complex underground service network, and gaining its atmosphere from being oriented entirely toward pleasure--in a dazzling variety of sports centers, swimming pools, gambling casinos, social clubs, theaters, PIB's, museums, lavish restaurants, and bars as well as the more casual outdoor cafes. Rapid conveyor sidewalks whisked the pleasure-seeker from one part of the camp to another, although most of the time Hendley had walked, anxious to see everything. His feet and legs ached from the unaccustomed exercise.

Crowds thronged the streets, the walks, the parks, but there were, unlike the underground cities, uncrowded areas: quiet havens in the parks away from the activity centers, deserted footpaths through the woods encircling the camp, and out-of-the-way nooks where you could savor the delicious sensation of being alone in the open.

Hendley had briefly visited the room assigned to him for the night, on the second floor of one of the countless rectangular buildings. In spite of the airy spaciousness and inviting comfort of the room, he had not lingered there. There was too much to see, and too little time to enjoy it.

The vending cafe where he had paused was one of the few uncrowded ones he had come upon. There were a dozen outdoor tables, each with its brightly colored umbrella. Only one other table was occupied. The man sitting there had glanced Hendley's way without apparent interest, though his eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses worn by the majority of the camp's residents. He was a slender, lithe young man, about Hendley's own height and build, with skin darkened by long exposure to the sun. Hendley envied the youthful stranger his casual, indolent air. Quite obviously he was used to all this; he could take it for granted.

Fifty yards away a game of some sort was in progress in an outdoor pool. Shouts and sudden cries and bubbling laughter drifted across the green lawn. On impulse Hendley downed the last of his drink, rose and walked slowly toward the pool.

The scene might have been in a Freedom Play on the viewscreen in Hendley's old room. Men and women in white uniforms sat around tables on a broad patio surrounding the pool, or relaxed in lounge chairs, caressing drinks while they talked or idly watched the action in the pool. Sunlight sparkled on the blue water, which was churned into foam where the swimmers tangled in a spirited struggle for a round ball. The swimmers had doffed their uniforms and wore only thin strips of white plastic mesh. One man had lost his flimsy cover in the course of the game, but neither he nor the spectators appeared to pay any attention to the loss.

The game was unfamiliar to Hendley. There were goals set up at each end of the pool, and the object of the skirmishing seemed to be to carry the ball to one of these goals and push it through a round hoop. The players were divided into two teams.

Hendley looked around for a vacant lounge chair. A girl sitting at the far side of the pool, her legs over the edge, caught his eye. She was clad in the wisps of white mesh around her breasts and hips, exposing a large expanse of smooth, deeply tanned skin. Her slender brown legs dangled in the water. Looking up, laughing, she saw Hendley watching her. The laughter faded. Her eyes, large and dimly visible behind tinted glasses, seemed to hold his, their expression unreadable. When a sudden explosion of action in the water drew her attention, Hendley took the opportunity to walk around the pool. He paused a few feet away from the girl, staring down in admiration at her sleek, brown-skinned body.

She glanced up with a slight smile made sensual by full red lips. "Why aren't you in the game?" she asked.

"I don't know how to play." He squatted beside her, watching the agile leap of a swimmer out of the water to spear a loose ball. "Is it easy to learn?"

"Anybody can do it," she said with a careless shrug, "as long as you can swim."

"I swim a little."

"You're new, aren't you?"

"How could you tell?"

Slowly she removed her tinted glasses. Large brown eyes regarded him candidly. "You're so white," she said.

Hendley flushed. It was true, though he hadn't thought too much about it before. His recent arrival in the camp would be obvious to everyone. He felt a strong wish to belong, to be one with these brown, happy, uninhibited people, to merge with them. And just as suddenly the harsh reminder came: he wouldn't have time. He had less than a day.

The girl was no longer watching him. Hendley rose from his crouch, but he didn't move away. She was about Ann's age, he thought. But Ann would never be so brown-skinned. He frowned, guiltily conscious of a comparison unfavorable to Ann, wondering why he had thought "never."

The swimmers converged at that moment near one of the goals. In the tangle of brown bodies and boiling water it was impossible to follow the action closely, but there was a sudden scream of pain, choked off as a mouth filled with water. A whistle shrilled. The players drew apart, surfacing, treading water, drifting to the sides of the pool. One body stayed down, motionless near the bottom, appearing to undulate gently with the rippling of the water. The other swimmers made no move toward him, but even as alarm tugged at Hendley he saw two stiff-legged figures trotting briskly toward the pool from a beige-colored building in the background. With a start Hendley realized they were humanoids, robots so flawlessly imitative of man that, across the width of the pool, only a certain rigidity of movement betrayed their origin. Without hesitation they dove into the pool.

"Why don't the others do anything?" Hendley exclaimed. "That man'll drown!"

"They're not supposed to," the tanned girl said. "Rules of the game. Besides, it's the robots' job. They're better at it."

"But I don't--" Hendley broke off. The robot rescuers surfaced with the limp body of the injured player. With practiced efficiency they eased him onto the deck beside the pool.

"That answers a question I had," Hendley said thoughtfully.

"What's that?"

"About how some of the services are performed in the camp. I didn't know you had robots."

The girl lost interest. "They're handy, even if they are kind of creepy."

A small crowd now huddled around the unconscious swimmer. "Do you suppose he'll be all right?" Hendley wondered aloud.

"Looks like he's only got a broken arm," the girl said indifferently. "They'll bring him around."

Hendley stared at her, startled by her lack of concern. Before he could speak a broad-shouldered man with blond hair burned almost white by the sun heaved himself from the water to flop onto the deck beside the girl. "Two-minute break," he said loudly. "Bad luck. MTL-619 was a good guard."

Becoming aware of Hendley standing nearby, he glanced up. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "How about you? We need a player."

"Oh, I--I don't think so," Hendley demurred.

"Why not? It's fun!"

The girl was watching Hendley. Her brown eyes seemed to hold a challenge. "You'll never learn unless you try," she said.

Hendley hesitated. "All right," he said, surprising himself. "Where do I get one of those suits?"

"They'll give you one at that service building," the blond young man said, waving toward the beige structure from which the robots had appeared. "We'll have to start without you, but hurry up!"

He pushed off the lip of the pool into the water. Hendley glanced again at the girl. She was smiling, but the sunglasses hid her eyes once more and he wasn't sure what the smile said.

* * * * *

A dispensomat was built into one wall of the beige service building. A row of panels, each with an order button, listed various kinds of sports equipment. Hendley pushed the button after SWIMMING TRUNKS--MALE, and gave his size in answer to a metallic voice over an intercom. The white mesh trunks, wrapped in plastic, slid down a chute into view.

Since no facilities seemed available, Hendley guessed that he was expected to change clothes in the open. He undressed hastily, wondering at the insane urge which had made him agree to join the game. He became exaggeratedly conscious of the warm current of air caressing his body, and he felt a prickling of anticipation. He wished that he were not so dead white.

Returning to the pool, Hendley hovered near the edge, not sure what he was supposed to do. With chagrin he saw that the brown-eyed girl did not appear to notice him. Almost immediately the dripping head and shoulders of the husky young swimmer burst from the water, blond hair plastered to his skull. "Come on!" he shouted.

"What do I do?"

"That's our goal! Just don't let them score. And if you get the ball, throw it to me!"

He went under. The action was now concentrated at the far end of the pool. Hendley chose the moment's safety to dive in near his appointed goal. He wondered if the girl was as oblivious of him as she pretended, but within seconds the other players were plunging and wrestling all around him and there was no more time to think.

The rudimentary rules of the game soon became clear. There were five players on each side. Two were guards--Hendley's position--stationed near the goal to block an attack. The other three roamed the pool freely, battling for possession of the ball. That much was simple. What Hendley was unprepared for was the game's other basic rule: no holds were barred. To score or prevent a score, anything went.

His first lesson came when the ball squirted from a player's grip and bobbed loose within Hendley's reach. He got one hand on it. Something slammed into the back of his neck. A knee, missing his groin, sank into his stomach. Strong hands twisted his arm until it seemed ready to pop from its shoulder socket. He swallowed water.

Coming up gagging, he gulped frantically for air. His arm hung limp. As he grabbed the lip of the pool for support, he saw that the ball had moved halfway down the length of the pool. Across the way the brown-eyed, brown-skinned girl was laughing. More than that. She was clapping her hands. Applauding.

Grimly Hendley turned to meet another attack. This time he didn't try for the ball. He kept busy defending himself. One attacker got an arm around his throat, but Hendley had caught the flash of muscular arm from the corner of his eye. He was able to wrench free with no worse than a bruised neck.

Hendley surfaced, pleased with himself. The blond young man came up for air a few feet away. He glared at Hendley with hostile eyes. "You let 'em score!" he snarled. Then he was gone.

For a while Hendley was angry--with the blond man and with himself--but after a short time he no longer felt anything but a desire to get out of the water alive. Yet when the attackers threatened his goal, he threw himself at the nearest one with savage determination. His arms and legs grew heavy with weariness. His head ached. He wondered how long the game lasted, and he longed for the end with a deep yearning. He had forgotten all about the girl watching from the side of the pool.

Then another player was injured and carried from the pool. He was on the opposing team. It appeared that the attackers had used up their substitutions. The game went on, unevenly matched. Hendley's team went to work to exploit their advantage. They scored once. Moments later another of the opposing swimmers drifted senseless near the bottom of the pool. Five players to three. It would soon be over.

Hendley had grown numb to the meaning of what was happening. He was too tired to feel pity or outrage. The chief emotion he felt as the game resumed was an increased sense of security. The odds were improving.

That safe feeling lulled him into carelessness. When the other team, in spite of being outmanned, seized the ball and launched an attack, three of Hendley's teammates ganged up on the man with the ball. It bobbed free. Hendley made the mistake of playing the ball instead of protecting himself. Two men struck at him simultaneously, one at his head, the other from below. They dragged him down. One seemed to be trying to twist his leg off at the knee. The other, more direct, was also more effective. His first blow rocked Hendley's head. The second drove a tooth through his lower lip. The sun seemed to go down suddenly and the blue water turned dark. A band of pressure tightened around his neck. He clawed at it. It was an arm. It wouldn't come loose. His struggles became weaker. He wondered why his teammates didn't come to his aid. Then the man who'd been working on his knee changed tactics, raising the level of his attack--about eighteen inches. Hendley felt a rocketing pain. He followed its crimson burst. When he reached the center of it, it turned to water and he was drowning....

* * * * *

"He's coming around."

Hendley tried to open his eyes, but the lids were stuck. He stopped trying and concentrated on his pain. His knee was aflame, and his neck and jaw and stomach and other, more tender parts ached. Someone seemed to be kneeling on his chest. But he could flex his toes and fingers. He could breathe, if wheezingly. He seemed whole--and he was alive.

His eyelids struggled open. He looked into a smooth-skinned brown face and brown eyes that seemed to devour him. The girl's full, wide mouth was open. Her expression was no longer indifferent. It was--eager.

He stared past her rounded shoulder at the sky, and at another familiar face which he did not immediately place. The face smiled.

"Close call," the young man who owned the face said. "But with a little rest you'll be good as new."

The statement did not seem very credible, but Hendley was unequal to argument. "What happened?" he asked.

"You won!" the tanned girl said enthusiastically.

"I did?"

"FLN-962--he's my Contracted--said you did very well. The team won. They're playing a rematch now."

"Oh." The victory did not matter. What mattered was being out of the game in one piece. He said, "They must be out of their minds."

"FLN is a nut about water polo," the girl agreed.

"I thought I was finished."

"He pulled you out." With a toss of her head the girl indicated the stranger watching over her shoulder. Hendley tried to identify the faintly sardonic smile, the cool ascetic face with its expression of weary boredom. He noted that the man's uniform was soaking wet.

"The robot rescue team was on another call," the man said diffidently, dismissing his action. "I thought they might not get to you in time."

Hendley closed his eyes. "Thanks," he murmured. He felt terribly tired, but the pain in his groin had dulled a little and the other aches were bearable, even the knee. Suddenly he remembered the young man's face. He had been sitting with his air of indolence at a table near Hendley's in the outdoor cafe. Hendley looked up again. The young man was gone.

"Where did he go?" Hendley asked.

"Never mind him," the brown-eyed girl said soothingly. Gently she massaged his neck. "Do you think you can get up?"

"I don't know."

"I'll help you."

Somehow he managed to struggle to his feet with the girl's help. "You need to relax," she said. "Come with me." Too weak to protest or even to wonder why it was necessary to move, Hendley allowed himself to be led away from the pool area. They were on grass, and she steadied him as he sagged against her. Then they were under a canopy of trees which screened the sunlight. The cool shade felt good. Sounds of play in the pool had diminished.

"Lie here," the girl murmured in his ear.

Hendley did as he was told. It was wonderful to lie on the cool grass, to let his abused muscles relax, to close his eyes, to feel the soft breath of air against his body....

He tried to sit up. He wasn't in his uniform. He wore only the minimal cover of the white mesh bathing trunks, and the girl's hands were busily divesting him of this garment.

"You're so white," she breathed, lowering herself to the ground beside him. "You don't know what that does--it's been so long since I've seen anybody so white. And you're hurt. I'll make you feel better--you'll see."

"Wait!" Hendley protested weakly.

"Mmmm," the girl said, her mouth seeking his. "I don't know what it is--when I see a man hurt...."

"TLL! TLL!" Someone was calling. A man's voice. "TLL--where are you?"

"Oh, damn!" the girl said.

"TLL?" The voice was coming closer. Hendley's scalp prickled as he recognized the voice. The muscular blond swimmer, her Contracted! If the man found them like this, he'd never believe....

"Where the hell ... are you in there?"

With a sigh the girl sat up. Hendley tried to rise to his knees, fumbling for his trunks. Bushes parted. The tall, broad-shouldered figure of the blond man loomed over them. "There you are!" he said. "Didn't you hear me?"

"I heard," the girl said petulantly.

The man gave Hendley a cursory nod. "Come on! I hear a hunt's getting up. Soon as it's dark."

"A hunting party?" There was a subtle change in the girl's manner and her voice. Hendley glanced into the large brown eyes. The glitter he saw there made him uneasy.

"Hurry up! We'll have to eat and get ready!" The man for the first time looked directly at Hendley, who made a halfhearted effort to cover himself with the white mesh trunks, knowing the gesture was futile. "You did all right in there for a beginner," the blond swimmer said heartily. "Hope you'll keep showing up. Always need good players!"

He gave the girl his hand to pull her to her feet. "Just let me get my uniform," she murmured, casually adjusting the halter of her swimming garment. She glanced back at Hendley and said, with what seemed like regret, "So white...."

Then the couple was striding off and the girl was saying, "We haven't had a good hunt in so long. Who's the target? Is he playing now?"

Their voices trailed off. Hendley gaped after them. They were Contracted--but there had been neither jealousy nor disgust in the man's attitude. He had practically caught Hendley and the girl violating one of the Organization's first rules of order--and he hadn't cared!

Hendley caught hold of a heavy branch of the nearest bush and dragged himself erect. The ways of Freemen were going to take some getting used to, he thought. Remembering the girl's eyes when she had heard about the hunting party, he shivered involuntarily. What kind of woman would react so strongly to a man's pain? And what did they mean by the hunt?

He glanced down at his pale body, unused to the sun, and shivered again. Even when he emerged from the shade into the warm sunlight, he still felt cold.

* * * * *