Clans of the Alphane Moon (17 page)

“‘Well,’ did you say?” He laughed; it was really
amusing. “Remind me to describe it to you sometime.” Bending, he kissed her; Annette’s face, slippery and damp from the foam, pressed against his muzzle and then he straightened up and walked away, seeing clearly by the light of the still-functioning flare.

As he walked he waited for the laser beam to touch him. So brilliant was the glare that, involuntarily, he half-shut his eyes; squinting, he made his way along step by step, in no particular direction… why hadn’t she shot? It would come, he knew; he wished it would hurry. Death at the hands of this woman—it was a good fate for a Pare; ironic and deserved.

A shape blocked his way. He opened his eyes. Three shapes, and all of them familiar to him; he faced Sarah Apostoles, Omar Diamond and Ignatz Ledebur, the three ultimate visionaries on the moon, or, put another way, he thought to himself, the three greatest nuts from among all the clans. What are they doing here? Levitated or teleported or whatever they do; anyhow got here by their neo-magic. He felt only irritation at seeing them. The situation was enough of a mess as it was.

“Evil confronts evil,” Ignatz Ledebur intoned sententiously. “But out of this our friends must be preserved. Have faith in us, Gabriel. We will see that you are conducted very soon, psychopomp-wise, to safety.” He extended his hand, then, to Baines, his face transfigured.

“Not me,” Baines said. “Annette Golding; help her.” It seemed to him, then, that all at once the weight of being a Pare, of defending himself against all harm, had been lifted from him. For the first time in his life he had acted, not to save himself, but to save someone else.

“She will be saved, too,” Sarah Apostoles assured him. “By the same agency.”

Above their heads the retro-rockets of the big bunny-inscribed ship continued to roar; the ship was descending slowly. Coming down to land.

Beside Mary, the CIA man Dan Mageboom said, “You heard that slime mold’s statement; that ship contains the TV comic Bunny Hentman, who’s on our top-want list.” Agitated, Mageboom plucked at his throat, obviously groping for the intercom transmitter which linked him with the powerful CIA relay aboard the nearby Terran ships of the line.

“I also heard the slime mold declare,” Mary said, “that you’re not a person but a simulacrum.”

“Person, shmerson,” Mageboom said. “Does it matter?” Now he had found the microphone of the ’com; he spoke into it, ignoring her, telling his superiors that Bunny Hentman had turned up at last. And this, Mary thought, on the basis of a verbal utterance by a Ganymedean fungus. The credulity of the CIA passed all understanding. However, it was probably true. No doubt Hentman was aboard the ship; it did have as its ident marking the rabbit symbol familiar to viewers of the TV show.

She recalled, then, the ugly episode when she had approached the Hentman organization in her efforts to obtain a job for Chuck as script writer. They had neatly, adroitly propositioned her and she had never forgotten this; nor would she ever. A “side-deal,” they had euphemistically called it. The lewd skunks, she
thought as she watched the ship settle down like some enormous over-ripe football.

“My instructions,” Mageboom spoke up suddenly, “are to approach the Hentman ship and attempt to arrest Mr. Hentman.” He scrambled to his feet; amazed, she watched him trot toward the parked ship. Should I let him go? she asked herself. Why not? she decided, and lowered her laser beam. She had nothing against Mageboom, human or simulacrum, whatever he was. In any case he was decidedly ineffectual, like all CIA personnel she had met, during her years with Chuck. Chuck! At once she turned her attention back to him, where he huddled with Annette Golding. You’ve come a long way, dear, she thought. Just to pay me back. Is it worth it? But, she thought you’ve also found a new woman; I wonder how you’re going to enjoy having a polymorphic schizophrenic for a mistress. Pointing the laser tube she fired.

The harsh white light of the flare abruptly winked out; darkness returned. For a moment she could not understand what had happened and then she realized that now, since the ship had landed, it had no further use for illumination; hence it had shot the flare down. It preferred darkness to light, like some photophobic insect scuttling behind a bookcase.

She could not tell if her shot had touched Chuck.

Damn it, she thought in angered dismay. And then she felt fear. After all, it was she who was in danger; Chuck had become an assassin, here to murder her—she was perfectly, rationally, wholly conscious of that: his presence on the moon verified what with professional acumen she had long suspected. It occurred to her now that during the trip and initial days on Alpha III M2 Chuck might easily have been the inhabitant of the Mageboom simulacrum. Why hadn’t he done it
then, instead of waiting? In any case that was not true now, since the simulacrum would be operated from Terra; that was CIA policy, as she well knew from remarks Chuck had made over the years.

I should get away, she said to herself. Before he does do it. Where can I go? The big warships can’t come in because those lunatics and maniacs have that shield up; they’re still trying to trace a path through it, I suppose—whatever the reason she had lost contact with the Terran military. And now Mageboom had gone; she no longer could reach the line-ships through him. I wish I was back on Earth, she said miserably to herself. This whole project has turned out terribly. It’s insane, Chuck and I trying to slay each other; how did something ghastly and psychotic like this develop? I thought we had managed to separate… didn’t the divorce accomplish that?

She thought, I never should have had my attorney Bob Alfson get those potent-pics of Chuck and that girl. That’s probably what made him do this. However, it was too late; she had not only gotten the pics but had in addition used them in court. They were now a matter of public record; anyone with a little morbid curiosity who wanted to could search up the court record, animate the pics and enjoy the sequences of Chuck and the Trieste fray making love. In hoc signo vinces, my dear…

Chuck, she thought, I’d like to surrender; I’d like to get back out of this, if not for your sake then for mine. Can’t we be—friends?

It was a squandered hope.

Now something peculiar squirmed at the horizon; she started at it, wondering at its magnitude. Surely it was too immense to be a human construct. The atmosphere was alive with something real; the stars had
become dull, partially extinguished in that region and the thing, whatever it was, now began to assume a nearly-luminous shape.

The shape was that of a master lizard and she realized at once what she was witnessing; this was a schizophrenic projection, part of the primordial world experienced by the advanced psychotic, and evidently a familiar entity here on Alpha III M2—except why was
she
seeing it?

Could a schizophrenic—or possibly several of them acting in concert—have coordinated their psychotic perceptions with a Psionic talent? Weird idea, she thought nervously, and hoped that this was not the explanation. Because such a combination would be lethal, if these people had stumbled onto it during their quarter-century of freedom.

She remembered the hebephrenic whom she had met at Gandhitown… he whom perhaps rightly they had called a saint, Ignatz Ledebur. At the time she had felt, despite the squalor, something of that about him, the invigorating and yet terrifying scent of unnatural abilities directed lord only knew where. In any case she had been fascinated at last by him.

The lizard—seemingly quite real—stretched itself, writhed its elongated neck and opened its jaws. And from it a fireball-like apparition vomited out, igniting that portion of the sky; the fireball drifted upward as if carried by the atmosphere, and she breathed a sigh of relief: at least it was departing, rather than descending. Frankly she was apprehensive about it. She did not relish this sight one bit; it was too much like covert dream-sequences which she had experienced in her own sleep—experienced and not discussed or contemplated, not wanting even to scrutinize them in secrecy,
much less discuss them with anyone else, any professional psychiatrist. God forbid.

The fireball ceased ascending. And began to break up into streamers of luminosity. The streamers drifted down, and, to her numbed surprise, quivered, as if shaped by hand, into enormous words.

The words comprised a sign. In the most literal sense. And—a sign, she realized with embarrassment and horror, directed at her. The words blazed out:

And then in smaller blazing letters, as if by after-thought, this:

They’re out of their minds, Mary Rittersdorf said to herself, and felt a hysterical laugh rise up in her throat. It’s not
I
who am seeking bloodshed; it’s Chuck! Why in god’s name pick on me? If you’re so holy you ought to be able to perceive something as obvious as that. But, she realized, perhaps it was not so obvious. She had fired at Chuck, and before that—she had killed the Mans soldier as he fled back to his tank. So perhaps after all her conscience—her intentions—were not so unstained.

More words formed.

“Good grief,” she protested.
“How?”
She could hardly be expected to write her own answering letters
of fire in the sky; she was scarcely a triumvirate of holy hebephrenic saint-psychotics. This is just terrible, she said to herself. Just grotesque to have to endure. And if I’m to listen to them, to believe them, I’m somehow to blame—somehow responsible for the malignance that exists between me and Chuck. And I’m not.

There all at once was a red glow of laser-beam activity from the vicinity of the Bunny Hentman ship. Dan Mageboom, CIA simulacrum and agent in the field, was evidently fighting it out; she wondered what success he or it was having. Probably very little, if you knew the CIA. Anyhow she wished him luck.

She wondered whether the Holy Triumvirate had any instructions for him, too. Mageboom could use help; alone, he busily engaged in his frontal attack on the Hentman ship, firing away with what she now perceived to be an unhuman dedication. He may be a simulacrum, obviously is in fact a simulacrum, she said to herself, but no one can say he’s a coward. And the rest of us, she reflected, she herself, Chuck and the girl with him, the slime mold, even the Mans soldier who had loped futilely for the protection of his tank—every one of us are now pinned down by fright, motivated by nothing more than the animal instinct to save our individual hides. Out of all of them only Dan Mageboom, the simulacrum, had gone onto the offensive. And, or at least so it appeared to her, Mage-boom’s assault on the Hentman ship was destined for ludicrous failure.

New glowing, enormous words now appeared in the sky. And, thank heaven, these were not specifically directed at her; she was spared the humilation, this time, of being singled out.

All right, Mary Rittersdorf thought agreeably. I’ll begin; I’ll love my ex-husband Chuck, who came here to kill me; how’s that for a new start in the midst of all this?

The red glow of laser beams near and around the parked Hentman ship picked up in intensity; the simulacrum had failed to respond to the great warning words: it continued its futile—but highly gallant struggle.

For the first time in her life she fully admired someone.

   From the instant that Bunny Hentman’s ship appeared the slime mold had become apprehensive; its thoughts, reaching Chuck Rittersdorf, were saturated with concern, now.

“I am receiving ghastly malappraisals of the recent events,” the slime mold thought to Chuck. “All emanating from the Hentman ship; he and his staff, and in particular the several Alphanes around him, have dreamed up a philosophy which places you, Mr. Rittersdorf, dead center in the fictitious conspiracy against them.” The slime mold was silent for an interval and then it thought, “They have dispatched a launch.”

“Why?” Chuck said, and felt his heart-rate change.

“Pics taken during the exposure of the flare revealed your presence here on the surface. The launch will land; you will be nabbed; it is inevitable.”

Scrambling to his feet Chuck said to Annette Golding, “I’m going to try to get away. You stay here.” He started to run, away from the scene, in no direction in particular; he simply hobbled across the uneven
ground as best he could. Meanwhile, the Hentman ship had landed. And, as he ran, he now made out an odd phenomenon; red trails of laser beams lit up in the form of dull streaks near the parked ship. Someone—or some group—had initiated an overt conflict with the Hentman ship as soon as it had opened its hatch.

Who? he wondered. Not Mary, surely. One of the clans here on the moon? Perhaps a spearhead of the Manses… but didn’t they already have their hands full, fighting off Terra, maintaining the dubious protective shield over Da Vinci Heights? And the Manses employed some other form of weapon rather than the old-fashioned laser beam; therefore this sounded more like the CIA.

Mageboom, he decided. The simulacrum had received instructions to engage the Hentman ship in battle. And being a machine it had accordingly done so.

The Manses, he thought, are fighting Terra; Mageboom, representing the CIA, is busy shooting it out with Hentman. My ex-wife Mary is fighting me. And Hentman is my enemy. Logically, what does this add up to? It must be possible to draw up a rational equation, extracted from this baroque interchange; it surely can be simplified. If the Manses are fighting Terra, and Hentman is fighting Terra, then the Manses and Hentman are allies. Hentman is fighting me, so I am his enemy and hence the ally of Terra. Mary is fighting me and I am fighting Hentman, so Mary is the ally of Hentman, hence the enemy of Terra. However, Mary leads the Terran task-force of do-gooding psychologists who landed here; she came as a rep of Terra. So, logically, Mary is both the enemy and the ally of Terra.

The equation simply could not be worked out… there were just too many participants in the struggle, doing too many illogical things, some, as in Mary’s case, entirely on their own.

But wait; his efforts to make a rational sensible equation out of the situation had borne fruit after all; as he trotted through the darkness he had an insight into his own dilemma. He was fighting to save himself from Hentman, the compatriot of the Alphanes and the enemy of Terra; this meant that by rigorous, unassailable logic, he himself was an ally of Terra
whether he recognized it or not.
Forgetting Mary for a moment—her actions undoubtedly were not sanctioned by the Terran establishment—the situation could be viewed clearly for a moment: his personal hope lay in reaching a Terran warship, seeking sanctuary there. Aboard a Terran ship of the line he would be safe-safe there and only there.

But the clans of Alpha III M2 were fighting Terra, he remembered all at once; the equation was even more complex than he had first seen. If he were—logically—an ally of Terra, then he was an enemy of the clans, an enemy of Annette Golding, of everyone on the moon.

Ahead of him his shadow, feebly, was cast. Some light, originating from the sky, had materialized. Another flare? Turning, he briefly came to a halt.

And saw, in the sky, huge letters of fire, a message directed at of all people—his wife.
Avoid bloodshed
, the sign admonished.
And you will be permitted to leave us.
Evidently this was a manifestation of the demented, silly tactics of the psychotics living here, probably of the deteriorated ones, the hebephrenics of Gandhitown. Mary, of course, would pay no attention. However, the glowing sign made him realize one
further factor: the clans of this moon recognized Mary as their enemy. Mary was his enemy, too; he had tried to kill her and she him. Hence, by logic, this made him an ally of the clans. But his relationship to Terra made him an enemy of the clans. So there was no way of ignoring the conclusion of the entire line of his logical reasoning, melancholy as it was. He was both an ally and an enemy of the clans of Alpha III M2; he was for and against them.