Brink of Madness Read online

  Chapter II

  A little over an hour later he stepped from the elevator kiosk atStation B-90 and breathed the night air of topside. It was less pureactually than the carefully controlled tunnel air, but it was somehowinfinitely more wonderful. At least to a sentimental primitive boob likeRichard Pell, it was. Oh, he knew that it was infinitely more sensibleto live and work entirely underground as people did these days--but justthe same he loved the look of the black sky with the crushed diamonds ofstars thrown across it and he loved the uneven breeze and the faintsmell of trees and grass.

  This particular topside section was given over to entertainment; allabout him were theaters and cafes and picnic groves and airports forflying sports. A few hundred feet ahead he could see thethree-dimensional atmospheric projection that marked the Stardust Cafe,and he could hear faintly the mournful sound of a Venusian lament beingplayed by the askarins. He was glad they hadn't banned Venusian music,anyway, although he wouldn't be surprised if they did, some day.

  That was one of the things these Supremists were trying to do. Ryslandand Chief Larkin had given him a long and careful briefing on the outfitso that he could start work tomorrow with his partner, Steve Kronski.Steve, of course, would shrug phlegmatically, swing his big shoulderstoward the computer rooms and say, "Let's go to work." It would be justanother assignment to him.

  As a matter of fact, the job would be not without a certain amount ofinterest. There were a couple of puzzling things about these Supremiststhat Rysland had pointed out. First of all, they didn't seem to be atall organized or incorporated. No headquarters, no officers that anybodyknew about. They just _were_. It was a complete mystery how a man becamea Supremist, how they kept getting new members all the time. Yet youcouldn't miss a Supremist whenever you met one. Before the conversationwas half over he'd start spouting about the destiny of Earthmen and thegeneral inferiority of all other creatures and so on. It sounded likehogwash to Pell. He wondered how such an attitude could survive in ascientific age.

  Nor would a Supremist be essentially a moron or a neurotic; they werefound in all walks of life, at all educational and emotional levels.Rysland told how he had questioned a few, trying to discover when, whereand how they joined the movement: Apparently there was nothing to join,at least to hear them tell it. They just knew one day that they wereSupremists, and that was the word. Rysland had shaken his head sadly andsaid, "Their belief is completely without logic--and maybe that's whatmakes it so strong. Maybe that's what frightens me about it."

  * * * * *

  Okay, tomorrow then Pell would tackle it. Tomorrow he'd think about it.Right now he had a date with his best girl.

  He entered the cafe and the music of the askarins swirled more loudlyabout his head and he looked through the smoke and colored light untilhe spotted Ciel sitting in a rear booth. The place was crowded. On thesmall dance floor before the orchestra nearly nude Venusian girls weregoing through the writhing motions of a serpentine dance. Their greenishskins shimmered iridescently. The sad-faced Venusian musicians on theband-stand waved their graceful, spatulated fingers over their curious,boxlike askarins, producing changing tones and overtones by the alteredcapacitance. A rocketman in the black and silver uniform of the SpaceForce was trying to stumble drunkenly out on to the floor with thedancers and his friends were holding him back. There was much laughterabout the whole thing. The Venusian girls kept dancing and didn't changetheir flat, almost lifeless expressions.

  Ciel looked up without smiling when he got to the booth. She had ahalf-finished glass of meth before her.

  He tried a smile anyway. "Hello, baby." He sat down.

  She said, "I didn't really think you'd get here. I could have had dateswith exactly eleven spacemen. I kept count."

  "You have been faithful to me, Cynara, in your fashion. I need a drinkand don't want to wait for the waitress. Mind?" He took her half glassof meth and tossed it down. He felt the wonderful illusion of anexplosion in his skull, and it seemed to him that his body was suddenlythe strongest in the world and that he could whip everybody in the jointwith one arm tied behind his back. He said, "Wow."

  Ciel tried a smile now. "It does that to you when you're not used toit."

  The first effect passed and he felt only the warmth of the drink. Hesignaled a waitress and ordered a couple more. "Don't forget to remindme to take a hangover pill before I go to work in the morning," he toldCiel.

  "You--you are going to work in the morning, then?"

  "Afraid I can't get out of it."

  "And the moon trip's off?"

  "Not off, just postponed. We'll get to it, don't worry."

  "Dick."

  "Yes?"

  "I can take it just so long, putting our vacation off and off and off."Her eyes were earnest, liquid and opaque. "I've been thinking about it.Trying to arrive at something. I'm beginning to wonder, Dick, if maybewe hadn't just better, well--call it quits, or something."

  He stared at her. "Baby, what are you saying?"

  * * * * *

  A sudden, fanfare-like blast from the orchestra interrupted. They lookedat the dance floor. There was a flash of light, a swirling of mist, andwithin the space of a second the Venusian girls suddenly disappeared andtheir place was taken by a tall, hawk-nosed, dark-eyed man with a cloakslung dramatically over one shoulder. The audience applauded.

  "That's Marco, the new mentalist," said Pell.

  Ciel shrugged to show that she wasn't particularly impressed. Neitherwas Pell, to tell the truth. Mentalists were all the rage, partlybecause everybody could practice a little amateur telepathy andhypnotism in his own home. Mentalists, of course, made a career of itand were much better at it than anybody else.

  Their drinks came and they watched Marco go through his act in a rathergloomy silence. Marco was skillful, but not especially unusual. He didthe usual stuff: calling out things that people wrote on slips of paper,calling out dates on coins, and even engaging in mental duels whereinthe challenger wrote a phrase, concealed it from Marco, and thendeliberately tried to keep him from reading it telepathically. He hadthe usual hypnotism session with volunteers who were certain they couldresist. He made them hop around the stage like monkeys, burn theirfingers on pieces of ice, and so on. The audience roared with laughter.Pell and Ciel just kept staring.

  When Marco had finished his act and the thundering applause had fadedthe Venusian dancing girls came back on the stage again.

  Ciel yawned.

  Pell said, "Me, too. Let's get out of here."

  It wasn't until they were home in their underground apartment andgetting ready for bed that Ciel turned to him and said, "You see?"

  He was buttoning his pajamas. "See what?"

  "It's _us_, Dick. It's not the floor show, or the meth, oranything--it's _us_. We can't enjoy _anything_ together any more."

  He said, "Now wait a minute...."

  But she had already stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door. Heheard the lock click.

  "Hey," he said, "what am I supposed to do, sleep out here?"

  He took the ensuing silence to mean that he was.

  And he did.

  * * * * *

  The next morning, as he came into the office, Pell scowled deeply andwent to his desk without saying good morning to anybody. Ciel had keptherself locked in the bedroom and he had made his own breakfast. How itwas all going to end he didn't know. He had the feeling that she wasworking herself up to the decision to leave him. And the real hell of itwas that he couldn't exactly blame her.

  "Morning, partner," said a voice above him. He looked up. Way up. SteveKronski was built along the general lines of a water buffalo. The usualbattered grin was smeared across his face. "I see we got a newassignment."

  "Oh--did Larkin brief you on it already?"

  "Yeah. Before I could get my hat off. Funny set-up, all right. I punchedfor basic data before you got in. Hardly any."

 
"Maybe that means something in itself. Maybe somebody saw to it that theinformation never got into the central banks."

  The C.I.B. computers could be hooked into the central banks which storedinformation on nearly everything and everybody. If you incorporated,filed for a patent, paid taxes, voted, or just were born, the centralbanks had an electronic record of it.

  Kronski jerked his thumb toward the computer room. "I punched for namesof Supremist members coupla minutes ago. Thought maybe we could start inthat way."

  Pell followed, his mind not really on the job yet. He wasn't at his bestworking with the computers, and yet operating them was ninety per centof investigation. He supposed he'd get used to it sometime.

  Three walls of the big computer room were lined with control racks,consisting mostly of keyboard setups. Code symbols and index cards wereplaced in handy positions. The C.I.B. circuits, of course, were adaptedto the specialized work of investigation. In the memory banks of tubesand relays there was a master file of all names--aliases and nicknamesincluded--with which the organization had ever been concerned.Criminals, witnesses, complaints, everyone. Code numbers linked to thenames showed where data on their owner could be found. A name picked atrandom might show that person to have data in the suspect file, thearrest file, the psychological file, the modus operandi file, and soforth. Any of the data in these files could be checked, conversely,against the names.

  Kronski walked over to where letter sized cards were flipping from aslot into a small bin. He said, "Didn't even have to dial in CentralData for these. Seems we got a lot of Supremist members right in our ownlittle collection."

  Pell picked up one of the cards and examined it idly. Vertical columnswere inscribed along the card, each with a heading, and with furthersub-headed columns. Under the column marked _Modus Operandi_, forinstance, there were subcolumns titled _Person Attacked_, _PropertyAttacked_, _How Attacked_, _Means of Attack_, _Object of Attack_, and_Trademark_. Columns of digits, one to nine, were under each item. Ifthe digits 3 and 2 were punched under _Trademark_ the number 32 could befed into the Operational Data machine and this machine would then giveback the information on a printed slip that number 32 stood for thetrademark of leaving cigar butts at the scene of the crime.

  "Got five hundred now," said Kronski. "I'll let a few more run in casewe need alternates."

  "Okay," said Pell. "I'll start this batch through the analyzer."

  He took the cards across the room to a machine about twenty feet longand dropped them into the feeder at one end. Channels and rollers ranalong the top of this machine and under them were a series of verticalslots into which the selected cards could drop. He cleared the previoussetting and ran the pointer to _Constants_. He set the qualitative dialto 85%. This meant that on the first run the punch hole combinations inthe cards would be scanned and any item common to 85% of the total wouldbe registered in a relay. Upon the second run the machine would selectthe cards with this constant and drop them into a slot correspondingwith that heading. Further scanning, within the slot itself, would pickout the constant number.

  Pell started the rollers whirring.

  Kronski came over. He rubbed his battered nose. "Hope we get outside onthis case. I'm gettin' sick o' the office. Haven't been out in weeks."

  Pell nodded. Oh, for the life of a C.I.B. man. In teleplays theycornered desperate criminals in the dark ruins of the ancient citiestopside, and fought it out with freezers. The fact was, althoughregulations called for them to carry freezers in their shoulderholsters, one in a thousand ever got a chance to use them.

  Pell said, "Maybe you need a vacation."

  "Maybe. Only I keep putting my vacation off. Got a whole month saved upnow."

  "Me, too." Pell sighed. Ciel would probably be pacing the floor backhome now, trying to make up her mind. To break it up, or not to break itup? There would be no difficulty, really: she had been a pretty goodcommercial artist before they were married and she wouldn't have anytrouble finding a job again somewhere in World City.

  The rollers kept whirring and the cards flipping along with a whisperingsound.

  "Wonder what we're looking into these Supremists for?" asked Kronski. "Ialways thought they were some kind of harmless crackpots."

  "The Chief doesn't think so. Neither does Theodor Rysland." He toldKronski more about the interview last night.

  Presently the machine stopped, clicked several times and began rollingthe other way.

  "Well, it found something," said Kronski.

  They kept watching. Oh, for the life of a C.I.B. man. Cards began todrop into one of the slots. The main heading was _Physical_ and thesub-heading _Medical History_. Pell frowned and said, "Certainly didn'texpect to find a constant in this department." He picked up a few of thefirst cards and looked at them, hoping to catch the constant by eye. Hecaught it. "What's 445 under this heading?"

  * * * * *

  Kronski said, "I'll find out," and stepped over to the Operational Databoard. He worked it, took the printed slip that came out and calledback: "Record of inoculation."

  "That's a funny one."

  "Yup. Sure is." Kronski stared at the slip and scratched his neck. "Itmust be just any old kind inoculation. If it was special--like typhoidor tetanus or something--it'd have another digit."

  "There must be some other boil-downs, if we could think of them." Pellwas frowning heavily. Some of the other men, used to the machines, couldgrab a boil-down out of thin air, run the cards again and get anothersignificant constant. The machine, however, inhibited Pell. It made himfeel uneasy and stupid whenever he was around it.

  "How about location?" suggested Kronski.

  Pell shook his head. "I checked a few by eye. All different numbersunder location. Some of 'em come from World City, some from MarsLanding, some from way out in the sticks. Nothing significant there."

  "Maybe what we need is a cup of coffee."

  Pell grinned. "Best idea all morning. Come on."

  Some minutes later they sat across from each other at a table in the bigcafeteria on the seventy-third level. It was beginning to be crowded nowwith personnel from other departments and bureaus. The coffee urge camefor nearly everybody in the government offices at about the same time.Pell was studying by eye a handful of spare data cards he'd broughtalong and Kronski was reading faxpaper clippings from a large manilaenvelope marked _Supremist Party_. Just on a vague hunch Pell hadviewplated Central Public Relations and had them send the envelope downby tube.

  "_Prominent Educator Addresses Supremist Rally_," Kronski muttered."_Three Spaceport Cargomen Arrested at Supremist Riot. Young SupremistsForm Rocket Club._ Looks like anybody and everybody can be a Supremist.And his grandmother. Wonder how they do it?"

  "Don't know." Pell wasn't really listening.

  "And here's a whole town went over to the Supremists. On the moon."

  "Uh-huh," said Pell.

  Kronski sipped his coffee loudly. A few slender, graceful young men fromWorld Commerce looked at him distastefully. "Happened just this year.New Year they all went over. Augea, in the Hercules Mountains. Bigcelebration."

  Pell looked up and said, "Wait a minute...."

  "Wait for what? I'm not goin' anywhere. Not on this swivel-chair of ajob, damn it."

  "New Year they all become Supremists. And the last week of Decembereverybody on the moon gets his inoculations, right?"

  "Search me."

  "But I know that. I found that out when I was tailing those two gamblerswho had a place on the moon, remember?"

  "So it may be a connection." Kronski shrugged.

  "It may be the place where we can study a bunch of these cases in abatch instead of picking 'em one by one."

  "You mean we oughta take a trip to the moon?"

  "Might not hurt for a few days."

  Kronski was grinning at him.

  "What are you grinning at?"

  "First you got to stay over on your vacation, so you can't go to themoon with your wife. Now all
of a sudden you decide duty has got to takeyou to the moon, huh?"

  Pell grinned back then. "What are you squawking about? You said youwanted to get out on this case."

  Kronski, still grinning, got up. "I'm not complaining. I'm justdemonstrating my powers of deduction, as they say in teleplays. Come on,let's go make rocket reservations."