Read Ebook: The Friendly Killers by Tenneshaw S M Berry D Bruce Illustrator

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Ebook has 858 lines and 21486 words, and 18 pages

Gaylord's face had grown paler and paler as I talked. Now suddenly, he spun in his seat and tried to throw himself out the grav-car's open door.

I caught his shoulder; slammed him back. "Controller, I've got news for you! Run out on me now, and I'll see that Kruze has you blocked back to Drudge Third."

Gaylord stared at me for so long my arm was beginning to ache with the strain of holding him.

Finally, then, in a sullen voice, he said, "What do you want me to do?"

"That's better." I released his shoulder; gestured him out of the grav-car. "Let's go inside where we can talk."

The office we ended up in--Gaylord's own, I gathered--had two doors, a desk big enough to skate on, three chairs, psychostructor and reel-case, and a custom voco equipped with scanner and scriber.

As a matter of policy, of maintaining control on all levels, I left my host standing while I took the chair behind the desk.

For an instant his jaw tightened angrily. Then, dodging my eyes and turning quickly, he said, "I'll get the file-reels."

I stopped him midway to the door: "What file-reels, Gaylord?"

"Why, the ones on the thrill-mills, of course." Perplexity at the question drew his brows together as he said it.

"Why?"

"Why--?" Openly startled now, he groped. "Well, it's just--I mean, I thought--"

I said, "Let me tell you the story, Gaylord. Then you decide if we need the reels.

"A messenger popped in almost before the woman hung up. He gave Zubin a package about the size of a pound box of candy. Unwrapped, it turned out to be a metal case with a nameplate stamped 'Apex Perceptual Intensifier'. Another plate, on the back, said it was 'Model DXG'! Those were the only marks on it anywhere, inside or out. There weren't any instructions as to what it was supposed to do or how to use it.

"Zubin was curious, in his dull, lethargic, conditioned way. He fiddled with the switches and dials.

"Eventually the thing came on, of course. It practically sent him through the roof. Colors, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings--all his senses were sharpened so far beyond anything he'd ever known before that he thought at first he was going crazy.

"If Zubin had had his way, then, we'd probably never have known about his little present. But his wife, in the next room, caught the fringe effect. It wasn't strong enough to hook her, the way it had Zubin himself, but it did scare her half to death. She decided anything that potent must be immoral, or illegal, or both, so she called your office in a hurry.

"Your psych boys ran poor Zubin through all the tests, from A to Izzard. They couldn't find anything wrong with him, or any harm done, except for one key point: His conditioning had been shattered. From a dreary, phlegmatic lump of protoplasmic tranquility, he'd been transformed into a human being--the kind of eager, intense, raw-nerved, inconsistent, emotional human being we used to have back two hundred years ago, before the laws that made conditioning compulsory.

"That scared everybody. As unit controller for Rizal Security, you ordered a full-scale check.

"In ten days, your men turned up 736 duplicates of Zubin's gadget. The story on all of them was the same: A good-looking girl had vocoed, congratulated whoever it was on having a birthday or anniversary or promotion, and then sent up a thrill-mill.

"Beyond that, you didn't get far. It turned out there wasn't any Apex syndicate or cartel or work coadunate listed anywhere. No one had ever heard of any such device as a perceptual intensifier. The messengers who delivered the packages worked from voco calls themselves; they even made their pick-ups at robot sorter stations. And when you tried to track down the girl who'd done the calling, you found her face apparently belonged to a youngster named Celeste Stelpa who's been certified as dead ever since the Kel blasted Bejak II four years ago.

"As for the technical end of things, nine of your lab men lost their conditioning before they could even get a thrill-mill apart. When they finally did tear one down successfully, they found it wasn't anything too remarkable, really--just a routine sort of gadget that regrouped standard circuits and miniquipment to produce interpulsational patterns of alpha and zeta waves. Effect-wise, that erases the synaptical threadings set up by Educational Psych's conditioning process, so that experiences come through sharp and clear, at maximum voltage, instead of dulled and blurred. It's a permanent change, too--though whether that's accidental or by design, we still don't know.

"Alpha-zeta erasure isn't anything new. It's been done in the psych labs for a hundred years or more.

"And that's where the only really interesting angle on all this comes in: In the labs, the job took a roomful of equipment. So to get the process down to thrill-mill size, whoever manufactured these Apex gadgets used special thronium condenser strata and variocouplers.

"That automatically pushes the cost per thrill-mill up to twice or three times what you'd ordinarily pay for a grav-car."

I got up, then, taking my time about it ... letting the silence grow heavy while I came around the pond-sized desk and moved to a spot directly in front of Gaylord.

"Controller," I said softly, "who do you know who can afford to give away 737 thrill-mills at that kind of price?"

A shrugging, a shifting, more hostile than uneasy. "No one, I guess. At least, no one I've ever heard of." He still sounded sullen.

"That's right," I agreed. "No one. It would dent FedGov Security's confidential budget to bury an expense that big. Kruze himself couldn't handle it; not without a lot of doing."

Again, Gaylord shifted. But this time, nervous tension rather than belligerence was in the action. As earlier, perplexity furrowed his forehead.

I said, "Now you know why I'm not going to waste time scanning file-reels, Controller. The data we need's already in. Intelligent interpretation is the next step.--That, and"--I paused, ever so briefly--"working up the nerve to act."

For the first time, Gaylord's eyes came round to meet mine. "What do you mean?"

I shrugged, in my turn. "I mean, Security's gone at this all wrong, from Controller Kruze straight down to your lowest Rizalian sub-agent. Because one and all, you've been content just to back track on those thrill-mills."

Gaylord's frown deepened. "I don't see--"

"Nineteen of the people who've received those gadgets hold key positions in Rizal's defense against the Kel," I interrupted coldly. "One hundred ninety-one rank as military administrators. Forty-seven more can be classed as vital to supplementary services."

"You mean, you think this all is some sort of crazy Kel plot?" Controller Gaylord's brow smoothed as if by magic. A caustic note suddenly edged his voice. "Maybe you better check those file-reels after all, Traynor. They show 112 clerks in that group that got the thrill-mills. There also were 98 women engaged in motherhood, 226 tech grades, and 44 drudge grades."

"And that wouldn't strike you as protective camouflage, maybe?"

"Protective nonsense, you mean! All you're offering is a hair-brained theory, with neither facts nor logic to back it!"

He was as bad as Kruze.

I nodded slowly. "You may be right. However, I'm still willing to bet my record, my future, against yours on it."

"Your record--?" Gaylord stared. "What is this, anyhow? What are you talking about?" The furrows were back in his forehead.

"It's time to cut loose, that's all. We need action--real action, not just back-tracking." In spite of myself, anticipating, I smiled a little, "You've got a sigman on duty here somewhere, of course?"

"A sigman--?" Gaylord's furrows deepened. "Why, sure, of course."

"All right, then." I hooked my thumbs in my tunic-sash. "I want a message plated--an all-points, top-emergency, triple-restricted action order."

Utter incredulity came to the unit controller's eyes. He didn't move. He didn't speak.

"The message!" I repeated, more sharply. "Take it down. Right now."

Gaylord still didn't move.

"Would you rather I reported the fact and circumstances of your own de-conditioning direct to Controller Kruze instead?"

Another moment of silence, while the incredulity in Gaylord's eyes changed to sullen hate. Then, crossing to the voco, he flipped on the scriber unit. "All right. What's your message, rack you?"

For the fraction of a second I hesitated. My hands were suddenly cold, my lips stiff.

Then, drawing a deep breath, I spoke--slowly, distinctly:

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