Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

“Do you mind?” Murdock said.

“You got any ID?” Blackbeard asked.

“What?”

“Identification. You got any or not?”

“I’m really in a hurry,” Murdock said.

The man waggled his sign. “You see what this is?”

Murdock looked. The sign was heavy-duty posterboard. The pole that held it up was an extra-long riot stunstick. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet.

“Citizen card?” the cop said.

Murdock handed it over. The cop examined it carefully, comparing the picture on it with the actuality.

“It’s not really a very good likeness,” Murdock apologized.

“What are you doing this far from Savannah?”

“I have a business here. My office is in Loshun Tower. I’m in land development.”

The cop handed the citizen card back.

“Keep your nose clean,” he said. “We’ll be watching you. We don’t like trouble here. Punta Gorda is a nice peaceful little town and we aim to keep it that way, mister. No nuts or freaks allowed. Step out of line and you’ve had it.” He raised his voice again. “The spawning rivers are running dry! Prepare yourself, for the day of wrath is at hand.”

Murdock put his wallet away and went into the chill of the Mall. This time he managed to locate a bank of elevators and beside them, the Tower directory. The sight of his company’s name there in simple white block letters against a velvety background cheered him.

An elevator opened its doors.

He went in and it sighed, sealed and hummed. He reached out to push the tenth-floor button and noticed that he was still holding the folded pink slip the cop had given him. He opened it as the elevator rose, and looked at it. Bold black type, slightly out of alignment, explained:

Beyond all doubt, the evidence points to 1914 as the year when the kingdom of God went into operation, and that event is causing things to happen here on Earth.

That was it except for a small union label in the corner of the sheet. He let the paper flutter to the floor and the elevator stopped.

The doors opened and he stepped out into a corridor filled with beautiful, tanned girls in short skirts. They were all tall and blond and wore flat-heeled shoes. He paused to appreciate the dazzling array of flexing calves, then struck out for Suite 1066. Two left turns and an acre of sunkissed flesh later he found it. The door was lettered in Greco Adornado Bold:

AMALGAMATED BEACHFRONT, INC.

DON’T JUST STAND THERE

COME ON IN!

He went on in.

The office was cool. White walls. A pale blue carpet. Matching furniture. The receptionist was a tall, leggy blond in a brief sky-blue bikini and flat-heeled shoes. She sat in front of a glass-topped desk. There was nothing on it but an empty ashtray and a morocco-bound copy of the Koran. To her left was a full-length vidscreen.

She flashed Murdock a smile of intense relief.

“Oh, Shelly, you’re here! We were beginning to think you weren’t going to make it. The papers arrived over an hour ago.”

“You know me?”

He’d never seen her before.

She tilted her pretty head. “ Know you? Shel- lee!”

The last half of her greeting penetrated. “Papers?”

“The ones you were waiting for, hon. Clearing the bulkhead rights. Have you been smoking, love?” Her face showed sudden concern. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine,” he mumbled. “Ummmm. Wh—where’s my partner? He here?”

“Who?”

“That was my next question.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” She rose to come around the desk and face him, looking up. Gently she pressed a cool palm against his warm forehead. “Let me smell your breath.”

Backstepping, he took out his bottle of C and gulped down a couple. He held the bottle toward her. “Would you like some vitamins?”

“Not during business hours, hon.” Her brow furrowed. “Mr. Hardy’s been calling here every ten minutes. He’s absolutely frantic.”

“Hardy? My partner?”

“Your attorney.” She studied him with a faint trace of interest.

“My attorney,” he repeated, wondering if he shouldn’t have taken calcium instead of C. Or possibly he should take it now to complement the C.

She said, “He says those papers have to be signed and at the bank before three. We’ve got a messenger girl standing by on roller skates.”

He sighed.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s the pressure, isn’t it, hon? You’ve been working too hard. You just come along and sign those papers and I’ll take care of everything else.”

Her cool gentle hand slipped into his and tugged at him. She led. He followed numbly. Across the waiting room, past a coffee table littered with colorful Chamber of Commerce brochures, to a door of frosted glass. She pushed the door open and led him into the office.

It was as big as the waiting room, and even more deeply carpeted. He felt like he was walking on whipped cream.

The Translucetic desk was vast and kidney-shaped. It was the color of chlorinated water. The walls were textured, done in four attractive pastel shades: pink, blue, beige and oyster white. A number of tastefully framed Primachrome architect’s renderings of Amalgamated Beachfront property developments were hung in various places.

She guided him around the desk and into the welcoming upholstery of the Patent Comfy-Chair.

“Sit down and relax,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”

“No.”

“Of water?”

“No.”

He looked at the papers on the desk in front of him. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew what had to be done.

“Where’s a pen?” he asked.

She put a cryptostylus into his hand.

The computer-pen made small scratchy sounds as he scrawled his signature across the paper. He lifted the corner of the sheet, signed the first carbon, then the second, third, fourth, fifth. He kept signing and lost count.

When he reached bottom, the girl took the pen from his cramped hand. She gathered up the sheaf of papers and said, “I’ll give these to Noel. She’ll rush them right over to Mr. Hardy.”

“Fine,” Murdock said with a nod.

“Shall I call Mr. Hardy for you?”

“Please.”

She started toward the door, then turned and said over her beautiful tanned shoulder, “Take it easy, Shelly. You only live once.”

Murdock’s hands felt empty. They were empty. His fingers twitched for something to do. He fished the pentadodecahedron out of his pocket. It chimed as he fondled it.

He leaned back in the chair and looked around. On his desk— his desk?—was a large green blotter. On the blotter was a small Kalliroscope on a walnut stand equipped with a one-watt heating source. Inside the sealed glass and metal box a smoky living liquid swirled and danced, sensitive to the slightest thermal gradient. He stared at it for a moment, then lifted his eyes.

A big wall-mounted vidphone blanked back at him from across the room. To one side of it was a dark cork board framed with diffraction foil. A dart board. He remembered how fond he’d been of darts when he was a kid. Hadn’t thought about that for a long time.

It was an odd dart board. Divided into twelve segments, with no bull’s eye or numbers for scoring. Nothing but a silhouette figure in each of the segments. The figures were strangely familiar. He puzzled as to where he might have seen them before and what they were. Fish, crab, bull, a woman holding a balance. Very familiar.

He saw the darts lying half-hidden under some Chamber of Commerce brochures to the left of the Kalliroscope on the desk. They were old-fashioned wooden-bodied darts fletched with real feathers. He hefted one, appreciating its weight and balance. He threw it.