Philip Dick - World of Chance

Shaeffer's hurried response came back to him: "We now have an inferential report on Pellig. He boarded a regular non-stop liner at Bremen. Passage to Java. He's on his way somewhere between here and Europe."

Wakeman hurried to Cartwright's private quarters. Cartwright was listlessly packing his things with the aid of Rita O'Neill. Rita was pale and tense, but composed. She was going through aud reference tapes with a high-­speed scanner, sorting those worth keeping. A slim, efficient figure with a lucky cat's foot dangling as she worked.

"Keep hold of that," Wakeman said to her, indicating the charm.

Rita glanced up. "Any news?"

"Pellig will be here any minute. Our own ship is almost ready."

Cartwright roused himself. "Look, I don't want to get caught out in space——"

Wakeman was astonished at the words, and at the thoughts he caught behind them. Naked fear had invaded the old man's mind. "The ship is the new experimental C-plus. We'll be there almost instantly. Nobody can stop a C-plus once it's in motion."

Cartwright grunted miserably and began pawing at his heap of shirts. "I'll do what you say, Wakeman. I trust you." He went on clumsily packing, but becoming stronger each moment was an urge to hurry into the reinforced inner office Verrick had constructed and lock himself in. Wake­man deliberately turned his mind from Cartwright's to Rita O'Neill's.

And got a shock. Hatred radiated from the girl's mind directly at him. He was taken aback by its suddenness; it hadn't been there a moment before.

Rita saw the expression on his face, and changed her thoughts. Quick, canny, she had sensed his awareness; now she was thinking of the aud tape humming in her ears as she operated the scanner.

"What is wrong?" he barked at her. "What's wrong?"

Rita said nothing, but her lips pressed together until they were white. Abruptly she turned and hurried from the room.

"I can tell you," Cartwright said hoarsely as he slammed at his battered suitcases. "She blames you for this."

"For what?"

Cartwright picked up his cases and moved slowly towards the door. "I'm her uncle and she's always seen me in authority. Now I'm mixed up in something I don't under­stand and I can't control. I have to rely on you." He moved aside to let Wakeman open the door. "I suppose I've changed, since I came here. She's disappointed, and she blames you."

The C-plus ship was up-ended on the emergency platform in the centre of the main building. As soon as Cartwright, his niece and the group of Corpsmen had entered the hull locks slid smoothly into place. The roof of the building rolled back and the bright noon sky blazed down.

Wakeman fastened Rita's belt and then his own. She said nothing to him but her hostility had melted a little. "We may black-out during the flight. The ship is robot-operated." Wakeman settled down in his seat. Sensitive machinery moved and high-powered reactors screamed shrilly into life. He relaxed and drank in the sleek purr of the drive as it warmed. It was a beautiful ship; the first actually made from the original model and designs.

"You know how I feel," Rita O'Neill said to him abruptly. "You were scanning me."

"I know how you felt. I don't think you still feel that way."

"It's irrational to blame you. You're doing your job the best you can."

"I'm doing the right thing." He waited a moment. "Well? The ship's ready to take off."

Cartwright managed to nod. "I'm ready."

Wakeman considered briefly. "Any sign?" he thought to Shaeffer.

"Another passenger transport coming in," the rapid thought came back. "Entering scanning range any moment."

Pellig would arrive at Batavia; that was certain. He would search for Cartwright; that was also certain. The unknown was Pellig's detection and death. It could be assumed that if he escaped the telepath net he would locate the Lunar site. And if he located that... .

"There's no protection on Luna," Wakeman thought to Shaeffer. "We're giving up all positive defence once we take Cartwright there."

Shaeffer agreed. "But I think we'll get Pellig here at Batavia."

"We'll take the chance." Wakeman gave the signal and the ship moved. First the regular turbine thrust, then the furious lash of energy as the C-plus drive swung into life, sparked by the routine release of power. For a moment the ship hovered over the Directorate buildings, glowing and shimmering. Then the drive caught, and in an instant the ship hurtled from the surface in a flash of blinding speed that rolled black waves of unconsciousness over the people within.

As the darkness engulfed Peter Wakeman a vague satisfaction drifted through his dwindling mind. Keith Pellig would find nothing at Batavia. Nothing but his own death. The Corps's strategy was working out.

At the moment Wakeman's signal sent the glowing C-plus ship away from Batavia the regular liner rumbled to a slow halt at the space field and slid back its locks.

Keith Pellig walked eagerly down the metal ramp and into the sunlight, blinking and peering excitedly at his first view of the Directorate buildings.

At 5.30 a.m. the heavy construction rocket settled down in the centre of what had once been London. In front of it and behind it razor-sharp transports hissed to smooth land­ings and disgorged parties of armed guards. They quickly fanned out and took up positions to intercept stray Directorate police patrols.

Within a few moments the old building that was the offices of the Preston Society had been surrounded.

Reese Verrick stepped out and followed his construction workers to the side of the building. The air was chill and thin; buildings and streets were moist with night dampness, grey, silent structures with no sign of life.

"This is the place," the foreman said to Verrick. He indicated a courtyard strewn with rubble. "The monument is there."

Verrick raced up the littered path to the courtyard. Workmen were already tearing down the steel and plastic monument; the yellowed plastic cube which was John Preston's crypt had been yanked down and was resting on the concrete. Within the translucent crypt the dried-up shape had shifted slightly to one side; the face was obscured by an arm flung across the glasses and nose.

"So that's John Preston!" Verrick said.

The foreman squatted down to examine the seams of the crypt. "It's a vacuum-seal, of course. If we open it here it'll pulverize to dust particles."

"All right," Verrick agreed reluctantly. "Take the whole works to the labs. We'll open it there."

The work crews who had entered the building reappeared with armloads of pamphlets, tapes, records, endless boxes of documents and printing supplies. "The place is a store­room," one of them said to the foreman. "They had junk heaped to the ceiling. There seems to be a false wall and some kind of subsurface meeting chamber. We're knocking the wall down."

Verrick wandered into the building and found himself in the front office; only the bare water-stained walls, peeling and dirty, remained. The office led to a yellow hall. Verrick headed down it, past a fly-specked photograph of John Preston still hanging among some rusty hooks. "Don't forget this," he said to his foreman.

Beyond the picture a section of wall had been torn away, disclosing a crude false passage running parallel to the hall. Workmen were swarming about, hunting for more concealed entrances.

Verrick folded his arms and studied the photograph. Preston had been a tiny, withered leaf of a creature with wrinkled ears in a tangle of hair. Small, almost feminine, lips above a stubbled chin, not prominent but hard with determination. A crooked, lumpish nose (Preston was partly Jewish) surmounted an unsightly neck protruding from a food-stained shirt.

It was Preston's eyes that attracted Verrick. Two un­compromising, steel-sharp orbs that smouldered behind thick lenses. They glowered fiercely at Verrick; their alive-ness startled him. Even behind the dusty glass of the photograph the eyes seemed hot with fire and life and excitement.