Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

“You should pay attention,” Mario said accusingly. “Yosper is a great man and he saved your life.”

The old man patted Mario’s arm tolerantly. “I was saying that I don’t hold with Darwin.”

Hake goggled. It was exactly as if he had said he thought the earth was flat. “But— But you just said you thought the fittest should survive.”

“I said the righteous, Hake, but I’ll agree it’s the same thing. God gives us the strength to do His will. But that’s nothing to do with your Darwin. It’s against the Bible, so it’s wrong; that’s all there is to it. And,” he added, warming up, “if you look at the whole picture with the eyes of understanding, you see it’s against science, tool Real science, Hake. Commonsense science. Darwin just doesn’t add up. Heaven’s name, boy, just open your eyes to the marvelous world we live in! Electric eels. Hummingbirds. Desert seeds that are smart enough to pay no attention to a shower, but sprout for a real rain—are you telling me that all happened by chancel No, boy. Your Mister Dar-

win just can’t cut it. Just look at your own eye. Your Mister Darwin says some pollywog sixteen billion years ago started out with some scales on its skin that responded to light, am I correct? And am I supposed to believe that for all those years it just kept on trying to turn those scales into something that’ll read a book, or watch a TV screen, and turn with the most beautifully designed muscles and nerves you ever saw, and weep, and magnify, and— Why, your scientists can’t even build a machine as sensitive as the human eye! And you want me to believe all that happened by chance, starting from some fish’s scales? That’s as crazy as— Wait a minute.”

Dieter had come back, followed by a waiter bearing a telephone. While the instrument was being plugged in the Dutch boy whispered in Yosper’s ear. “Uh-huh,” said Yosper, looking satisfied. “Well, let’s drop this argument, as it’s making our friend uncomfortable. I think that wine’s breathed about long enough now, let’s get the waiter to pour it”

Hake shook his head unbelievingly. But what was the use? His chicken Marsala was arriving; he waited impatiently for the waiter to finish boning it before his eyes, and then ate swiftly. “I don’t want any dessert,” he said, finished while the others were still savoring the best parts of their meals. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Sure,” said Yosper hospitably. “You’ve had a rough day. Let’s get straight about tomorrow, though. You’re on an eight a.m. flight to Leonardo da Vinci. When you get there, go in to the depot in Rome, the place where you got your clothes on the way down here. They’ll fix you up with the right documents and tickets; i think it’s a two p.m. flight to New York—you’ll sleep tomorrow night in your own bed—but they’ll straighten all that out for you. Leave a call for six. Mario’ll pick you up at six-thirty and take you to the airport.”

“I will have a coffee sent up to you before we leave,” Mario said agreeably. “If you wish something more before your flight, we can get it after you check in at Capodichino.”

Hake stood listening. And fidgeting. His instincts wanted to say something his mouth was reluctant to speak. Finally he managed to say, “Anyway, thank you. All of you. I guess you did get me out of a tight place.”

“No more than was coming to you, dear boy. You were a great help to us. Your nut-lady and the wogs were a considerable annoyance, and now they’re taken care of.”

“But they got away!”

“The wogs did, yes. But that’s not all bad, Hake. They are an unpleasant pair, and catching them is like catching rattlesnakes in a net. Besides, dear boy, it’s nothing personal with them. I didn’t want to punish them. You don’t punish a bomb, you just make sure it doesn’t blow you up.”

They were all smiling at him, Yosper still eating, the boys leaning back and holding hands. Hake waited for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. He said tightly, “The girl got away too.”

“Not far, boy,” said Yosper pleasantly.

“What are you talking about?”

Yosper sighed. “Well, let’s see if we can find out,” he said, and picked up the phone. He spoke for a few seconds in a language Hake did not know and then put it down, beaming. “She’s in Regina Coeli right now, Hake. She’ll be out of circulation for a while.”

“Jail? For what? She didn’t break any law here!”

Yosper shook his head, chuckling. “She broke the most basic law of the land. You see, her little bunch of amateurs pulls the same trick we do, only they’re not as good at it. She was operating on forged identity and credit. But once we tracked her down to the Pescatore and dear Mario turned her room—why, we knew what she was using. The rest of it was easy. We blew her credit. She got as far as Rome, and they picked her up for using phony cards. She’s a bankrupt, Hake. They’ll auction her off in the Rome slave market to pay her bills. It’ll be a good long time before she bothers us again.”

Twenty-one hours later Hake jumped out of a taxi on the Trastevere side of the Ponte Sant’Angelo. He had not wasted his time in Rome. The training Under the Wire, and the on-the-job skills he had acquired in the last few days, had all found a use. From the Team’s safe depot in Rome he had secured his new passport and his return ticket to America, along with a few items of standard equipment he had requisitioned on the spot—one of them being the inks and papers to change his ticket, and the cards to finance a few extracurricular activities. The rest of the day had been spent finding out what he needed to know. He set his walking stick and “satchel” on the sidewalk under the looming layer-cake of Hadrian’s Tomb and paid the driver carefully, adding coins according to volume and pitch. When the words dwindled away and the tone dropped back down to tenor he turned away, picked up his gear and crossed to the parapet near the bridge. The Tiber River at that point was a gently meandering stream, between grassy banks, here widening into a pool, there narrow and swift. It did not look artificial. It looked as if it had been there forever.

“Siete pescatore?” Hake had not noticed the approach of the Roman policeman. “Pesce,” the man repeated, demonstrating a rod and line with his electric baton. “Feesh? You feesh? Have license?”

“Oh,” said Hake, enlightened. “No, I’m not going to fish. No fish. Just look. Voyeur.”

“Ah, paura” said the patrolman in sympathy, touching Hake’s shoulder before moving on. Hake leaned idly on the balustrade, giving the policeman time to get out of sight. It was true, what he had been talking about. There were anglers on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, dangling hooks into the stream as it flowed under the bridge, even at this hour. And in the stream itself, elderly women in hip-length waders were whipping the shallows with fly rods. Hake could not see whether they were catching anything. But he wished them luck, for it took their attention off him.

He walked quickly twenty yards out onto the bridge and there, just as the map from the depot had said, was an iron disk set in the sidewalk. Using the walking stick as a crowbar he levered the cover off and peered in. It was totally dark, and it stank. That was as expected, too, if not very attractive. He dropped the knapsack in and heard it hit a cement landing a few yards down; he followed, climbing down a slippery metal ladder and lowering the cover back into place above him.

As soon as it was closed the stench became abominable, and the absence of light was total.

He was in Rome’s greatest and oldest sewer. Was the Tiber polluted? Va bene! Roof it over. Let it fulfill its function! And now the river was in fact a sewer. It rolled under a grassed and gardened parkland strip with a new, and artificial, stream running its length to justify the maps and the bridges. Waste disposal was benefited. Esthetic appeal was maintained. And la cloaca maxima nuova flowed untroubled to the sea.