D-99: a science-fiction novel by H. B. Fyfe (cool books to read TXT) 📗

even a public square. Members of the public that were to be observed frequenting it were very, very far from being human.

Two of them scurried past his window, clearly illuminated by lights far up in the domed ceiling. They were furry, about five feet tall, lithe and cat-like in their movements. Compared to a human, they were slim and short-bodied. They possessed three arms and three legs, each set being equally spaced about their bodies. Now and then, as they walked with short, rapid steps, frequent joints were apparent in all limbs, showing clearly that they were not just muscular tentacles. From the openings at the apexes of their heads, which must have been mouths, they were streamlined in a fashion that made it more natural to picture them swimming like Terran cuttlefish then climbing up and down thick poles. The three eyes set about each head were low enough to allow for jaw muscles.

The man watched this pair slide down a column set beside the wall that concealed him. Other individuals were scattered about the wide concourse. Almost without exception, they wore nothing more than a pouch secured by a belt just above what would have been the hips in a human. Clothing was made unnecessary by handsome coats of short, honey-colored fur that enhanced their feline air. Sometimes, when one or another bent or twisted, purple skin would show through the fur.

Across the concourse, the man could see open stalls that suggested shops. Most of them were dark inside, with nettings stretched across the fronts. The general atmosphere was not unlike that of a small Terran business section, or even a spaceport terminal, late in the evening with business slack and only night workers about.

Abruptly, those abroad scuttled for the walls. A perfectly good reason for the exodus appeared a moment later, as a column of low, long vehicles dashed from a high-arched tunnel and shot across the open space. Each was three-wheeled and carried half a dozen individuals wearing what resembled thick plastic armor. Cages of metal guarded their heads and they bore weapons like Terran rocket launchers. The convoy passed out of sight before the man could note more.

He retreated thoughtfully from the window. At the opening to the corridor, he paused indecisively. He shook his head as if trying to put out of his mind what he had just witnessed.

It might have been prudent for anyone in his position to give the corridor a searching look before entering, but this did not seem to occur to him. In seconds, he was striding along in the former direction—if anything, a trifle more briskly.

As he walked, the muffled sounds from the scene he had examined faded in the distance. Once again, he was alone with his own discreet footfalls. Several times, he passed junctions of cross corridors, and once he had to burn open a door; but never did he meet an inhabitant of the hive-like city. Either the way had been shrewdly chosen or it was seldom used at this period of the day. Even granting both, his luck must have been fantastic.

The corridor had begun to assume an almost hypnotic monotony when it ended bluntly at a column leading only upward. The man perforce was faced with the challenge of climbing it, a prospect which he obviously did not relish.

Sighing, he reversed his earlier procedure in sliding down other poles. With only one good arm, pulling himself up was slow work. It was, perhaps, only the fact that the levels were constructed to suit beings five feet tall that made it possible for him to make it to the next level up. He sat with his legs dangling through the opening, panting, while perspiration oozed out to bead his forehead.

This time, he was nearly half an hour in recovering and working up the determination required to go on. The corridor in which he found himself ran at right angles to the one below. It was wider and higher, as if more traveled, but any such open area as he had peeped at was far to the rear. Nearby, however, was a much larger door than he had yet encountered. He walked over to it.

When a tentative push produced no results, he dipped his left hand into a pocket for the black disk.

He seemed to have a good idea of where to locate the hinges on this door too. When he had burned through, the door was harder to shove aside because it turned out to be of double thickness. The hinges had been concealed from both inside and outside. The tall man now found himself only a few steps from another such portal, in what looked like an anteroom.

Methodically, he proceeded to burn his way through, squinting in the bright light of the flame but otherwise betraying no emotion.

The last door fell away. Fresh air billowed in around him, and he could see stars in a night sky outside.

Without haste, he stepped outside.

The tan, plastery wall reared above him for about ten levels. Off to his left, shadows on the ground showed a jagged shape, so it was probable that another part of the building towered upward after a set-back. The ground around the exit was perfectly level and bare of any vegetation. The nearest life was a wall of shrub-like trees about a hundred feet away, and toward these the man began to walk in the same tired pace.

He found, as if by instinct, a broad, well-kept path through the trees. A mild breeze caused the long, hanging leaves to rustle. Without looking back, the man followed the path up a gentle slope and over the curve of the hill. At the bottom of the downgrade, two figures shrank suddenly back into the shadows. He kept walking.

"That you, Gerson?" came a loud whisper, as the two Terrans stepped forward again. "Come on; we have an aircar over here! Did anyone follow you?"

The tall man turned to go with them through a fringe of trees. It seemed like a poor time to try to talk, with the possibility of pursuit behind them. The two bundled him into the black shape of the aircar in silence, and moved it cautiously through the trees just above the ground. They raised into clear air only when they had put half a mile between them and the towering hive-city.

NINE

In the library, between Smith's corner office and the conference room that adjoined the communications center, Westervelt sat and watched Lydman pore over a technical report in the blue binding of the Department of Interstellar Relations. Half a dozen other volumes, old and new, technical and diplomatic, were scattered about the table between them.

The youth caught himself running a hand through his hair in Smith's usual manner, and stopped, appalled. He judged, after due reflection, that it might be worse: he could have picked up some of Lydman's peculiarities instead.

Probably, he told himself, he ought to show some better sense and imitate the suavity of Parrish if he had to adopt the manners of anyone in the department. Unfortunately, he did not like Parrish very well, even when he was not engaged in being actively jealous of the man.

Some day, Willie, he mused, you'll snap too. When you do, it would be just your style to take after this mass of beef in front of you.

Immediately, he was ashamed of the thought. Lydman had been, in his way, nicer to him than anyone else. Moreover, he was far from being a mass of beef. Westervelt recalled the sight of Lydman on an open beach, where he seemed more at ease than anywhere else. The man kept himself hard-muscled and trim. Despite the gaunt look that sometimes crossed his features, he was probably on the low side of thirty.

So he's still quick as well as strong, thought Westervelt. If he does go for the door the way Joe predicts, Willie my boy, you be sure to get out of the way!

In theory, he was supposed to be helping Lydman research some problems Smith had thought up. So far, he had read one short article which had bored the ex-spacer and twice gone to the files for case folders. He was very well aware that the real idea was to have someone with Lydman constantly. For this reason, he was prepared further to assume the courtesy of answering any interrupting phone calls. He was determined that any news not censored by Pauline would be a wrong number, no matter if it were the head of the D.I.R. himself.

Lydman looked up from his reading.

"I'm getting hungry; aren't you, Willie?"

"I guess so. I didn't notice," said Westervelt.

"How about phoning down for something? Get whatever you like."

That was typical of Lydman, Westervelt realized. The man did not care what he ate. Smith would have been specific though unimaginative. Parrish would have sent instructions about the seasoning. The girls would choose something sickening by Westervelt's standards. He shoved back his chair and stood up.

"I'd better see what they're doing up front," he said. "I think Mr. Smith was talking about it being quicker to raid our own food locker. I'll be back in a minute."

Lydman raised his gray-blue eyes and stared through him curiously.

"No hurry," he said mildly.

Westervelt thought that the man was still watching him as he walked through the door, but he did not like to look back. It might have been so.

When he reached the main office, he found both girls replacing folders in the bay of current files opposite Simonetta's desk.

"How about letting me at the buried treasure?" he asked. "The thought of food is infiltrating insidiously."

"Willie," said Simonetta, "you'll go far here. None of the other brains had such a good idea. I'll phone for something if you'll see what people want."

"I think Mr. Smith wants to use stuff we have in the locker," said Westervelt, blocking the way to her desk. "Hold it a second while I check."

He rapped on Smith's door as he opened it. He found the chief with most of the papers on his desk shoved to one side so that a built-in tape viewer could be brought up from its concealed position. Smith was scowling as if obtaining little useful information from whatever he was watching.

"They're getting hungry," Westervelt whispered. "Is it all right to raid our guest locker?"

Smith shut off his machine, and scrubbed one hand across his long face.

"Right, Willie," he agreed. "The sooner the better. Take out whatever you think best and pass it around. Meanwhile, I'd better check on the situation downstairs—come to think of it, when you called, did you get an outside line and punch the numbers yourself?"

"No, but I have an understanding with Pauline," said Westervelt.

He was thinking that Smith had put him in charge of the food, which was perhaps a little better than being sent around to take personal orders as the girls had assumed he would do, but which was still a long way beneath the conference status he had appeared to have an hour earlier.

"Good boy!" Smith approved. "Then she'll know who I want to talk to and that she shouldn't listen in."

Westervelt was far from sanguine about the last condition, but left without trying to cause his chief any unhappiness.

Well, so it goes, he reflected. One minute a project man, the next an office boy! If I pick out what everybody likes, I'll be a project man again. But if they like it too much, I'll turn out to be the official chef around here whenever someone important stays to lunch.

The picture of sitting in on a talk with some potent official of the D.I.R. and expounding his brilliant solution to a problem, only to be requested to slap together a short order meal, made him pause outside the door, frowning.

"Now what, Willie?" asked Simonetta.

He roused himself.

"Leave it to me, Si," he answered, working up a grin. "I have everything under control."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Beryl commented. "I won't stand for a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy, or anything that fattening."

"You'll have your choice," Westervelt promised. "I wouldn't want anything to spoil that figure. Just let me at the locker."

He slipped an arm around her waist to move her aside. The flesh of her flank was softly firm under his fingers, and he made himself think better of an impulse to squeeze.

Beryl stepped away, neither quickly enough to be skittish nor slowly enough to imply permissiveness. Westervelt shrugged. He stepped forward to the blank wall at the end of the file cabinets, and slid back a panel to reveal a white-enameled food locker.

It was divided into an upper and lower section, with transparent doors that rolled around into the side walls. The lower half was refrigerated. Westervelt opened the upper to explore more comfortably.

Most of the foiled packages contained sandwiches, many of them self-heating. Somewhat