Alfred Bester - The Computer Connection

“Flash combo went out ten years ago,” Jimmy murmured.

“People don’t keep up with the times,” Harry murmured. “Our luck.”

“First time I ever helped heist a spacecraft.”

“Me too. There’s no money in it.”

“Fee. Alert,” the Chief snapped.

“Yes, Chief.”

“Iris.”

She did things to the console and the iris leaves high overhead opened.

Guess took over at the console and motioned to her. She went to the edge of the landing pad and knelt down, raising a hand to give signals. I assume her tongue was between her teeth but she was in the neutral so I couldn’t see. The Chief did things at the console and Fee waved signs and the capsule lifted toward the iris. Sequoya stepped back and watched intently as it lofted. Fee, still kneeling almost in prayer, watched too. Just before the cryocapsule reached the open iris on its way to somewhere it stopped abruptly and hung there.

“What in God’s name!” Guess exclaimed and darted to the console. Before he could touch any of the controls the capsule slanted down, all the mass of it, and crushed the life out of Fee.

When I got to the tepee at last, Natoma was there with Borgia and M’bantu. Also the wolves. Also Jacy. I was too exhausted to be surprised. The Zulu took one look at my face and said, “I will take the wolves for a walk.”

“No, please. It might be better for me to talk. You know what happened?”

“We do,” Borgia said. “Guess called at the house and asked us to come here. He told us why.”

“Dr. Guess said you would probably try to hole up like a sick animal and would need all help,” M’bantu added.

“Dio! Do I!” I tried to crawl up to reality. “I — Where’s the Greek?”

“He go,” Natoma said. “Businessiness.”

“What has happened to the poor girl’s clay?” Jacy asked.

“They — They wanted to bury her in a public compost. I held out for a private. El Arrivederci . That’s what took so long… Arrivederci… Until we meet again. Isn’t that a laugh? Fee w-would have—” I began to cry. I’d been holding it back for hours and now it came out in bursts and heaves. Natoma put her arms around me to comfort me. I shook her off. “No,” I said. “I killed her. I deserve nothing.”

“My dear Guig,” Borgia began briskly.

“Nothing!” I shouted.

“Love Fee,” Natoma said.

“Yes. Yes, Nat. She was my baby, and I watched her grow into a woman… A great lady… And I killed her. Arrivederci , F. I’ll never see her again.”

“The cryocapsule killed her, Guig.”

“D’you know how and why, McB? I know and I know I’m accountable. I murdered her.”

“No, no, no!” They were all emphatic.

“It was the oversophisticated machine, Guig,” M’bantu said. “It was bound to break down sooner or later. Machinery always does.”

“But this time I made it break down.”

“How?”

“I talked too much.”

“To whom?”

“The machine.”

M’bantu threw up his hands. “Forgive me, Guig. You’re not making sense.”

“I know it. I know it. Fee-5 gave me the information when we were in the bubble. She could bug Extro’s conversations with Sequoya. I had to blab it like a damned show-off. Damn me. Damn my goddamn mouth. And she’ll never be able to forgive me. Never. Never. Never—” I burst into tears again.

Jacy said, “I will take Guig for a walk. Just the two of us. Please wait here, children.”

M’bantu said, “It’s dangerous to walk without protection. Take a wolf. I will instruct him.”

“Thank you. No wolf will be needed. Kiss him, my love.”

Natoma kissed me and out we went, Jacy’s hand on my shoulder. It was the usual hell in the streets; a labyrinth of horror. The streets and lanes twisted and corkscrewed, crossing each other, sometimes broken through abandoned buildings, giant heaps of debris and small wastelands. They were dotted with rotting bods, alive and dead and stinking. There were cul-de-sacs where gangs lurked, fought, and swung in Sado-Mac wars that would have astonished Krafft-Ebing. We passed one blind alley where a small mob was poised for an attack, but they were all skeletons in tatters. Burned by a flesh gun.

You could hear the turmoil of the hyenas and their prey but we were never bothered. Jacy’s charisma. We came to the San Andreas beach, now filled with shacks on rusted spiles, crowded cheek by jowl, with shaky walkways between them in a lattice of overpop.

“The F-death of the world,” I muttered.

“N,” Jacy said firmly and suddenly switched to Spang. I think I know why. He always identifies with the dregs of the world, and I was the lowest. “Now hear, Guigman. The Beholder bless the poor in soul, for they gets the Kingdom of Heaven. God, he bless the no-way cats. You gone be cool and easy, Guig. Santo, hear, all meek dudes because they gone grab the whole scene. Feliz, Guig, if you flip for the right-on. Then you be filled by the Beholder. Bendito all mercy types; they gone, y’know, reap misericordia.

“Albar, you pure in soul. Gone feast your ojo on the Beholder. Peace-jive hombres, benediction. You gone belong to the God gang. Blessed be losers busted for wanting right. They reap like the whole heaven shtik. All be out of sight, Guig, so give me five, man, and dig what I tell because it trip boss in the heaven pad.”

I was crying again but I gave him five and he embraced and kissed me. I remembered that I’d never embraced and kissed my Fee-5 for real. Dear Dio, you treat your children like toys; you never realize they’re people until they’re gone.

A tracer clanked up behind me and clutched hard. These things have rotten depth-perception. In a canned voice it said, “Edward-Curzon-I-D-please.”

“941939002.”

It clicked and then said, “Remove-message-in-well.”

I remove. It turned and scuttled. I opened the message and read: GUESS NOW EN ROUTE TO CERES WITH ME. SIGNED: POULOS.

I showed it to Jacy. He said, “You’d better follow them.”

Natoma had no passport, but Jim the Penman came over and forged a beauty. Jim says forgery is an entirely different proposition these days. No more penmanship; you have to know how to punch in ID symbols that will swindle computer checks. Jim knows how but he’s not telling. Professional secrets. Then again, he stammers, which may be the real reason.

We had a hell of a time putting down on Ceres, but the crew assured the passengers that this was par for the course. She’s the biggest of the asteroids, around 480 miles in diameter, spherical, and rotating every six hours. She spins so fast that lining up on the kinorep funnel for the landing is like trying to thread a needle whirling around on one of those 33 turntables we used to use back in the 1900’s.

When I say spherical, that was before I.G. Farben took over, and I wish I knew how much it cost them to lobby that goniffery through. I know they spent a fortune on scare programs. Ceres was an inferno; alien bacteria, radioactivity, strangling hydrocarbon chains, poisonous spores. By a spooky coincidence there was no more danger after the government thieves told I.G. Farben they could buy Ceres and good luck to them provided they paid their taxes in laundered cash.

No, it wasn’t a smooth ball any longer; it looked more like a mulberry. The Krauts had a hell of a lot of land to play with, so they abandoned the high-rise space-savers and built small in every possible style from quaint old Frank Lloyd Wright up to the controversial design firm of Bauhaus, Stonehenge, Reims y Socios.

Every building was under a bubble, of course, producing the mulberry effect. Ceres was odd and pretty with the changing light glittering on the domes, and a sitting duck for an attack, but I.G. Farben wasn’t worried. They knew that everybody knew that if anyone laid a hand on them they’d cut off all armaments to a peace-loving solar system, which would be a disaster for the seventeen current wars.