The Rituals of Infinity Page 2

  T am not fond of flying,' Steifflomeis agreed. 'And that is no way to see a country, is it?'

  'Certainly isn't,' agreed the redhead, 'if you like this sort of scenery.'

  'I am very fond of it,' Steifflomeis smiled. He got up and bowed slightly to them both. 'Now, please excuse me. I will have an early night tonight, I think.'

  'Goodnight,' said Faustaff with his mouth half-full. Once again Steifflomeis had that secret look in his black eyes. Once again he turned quickly. He left the restaurant with a nod to the girl who was still behind the counter, fixing Faustaff s sodas.

  When he had gone the girl came over and stood by their table.

  'What you make of him?' she asked Faustaff.

  Faustaff laughed. The crockery shook. 'He's certainly got a talent for drawing attention to himself,' he said. 'I guess he's one of those people who go in for making themselves seem mysterious to others.'

  'No kidding,' the girl agreed enthusiastically. 'If you mean what I think you mean, I'm with you. He certainly gives me the creeps.'

  'Which way did he drive in from?' Faustaff asked.

  'Didn't notice. He gave an L.A. hotel as his address. So maybe he came from L.A.'

  Nancy shook her head. 'No—that's where he's going. He told us.'

  Faustaff shrugged and laughed again. 'If I read him right this is what he wants—people talking about him, wondering about him. I've met guys like him before. Forget it.'

  Later the girl showed them to their cabin. In it was a large double bed.

  'It's bigger than our standard beds,' she said. 'Just made for you, you might say.'

  'That's kind of you,' Faustaff smiled. 'Sleep well,' she said. 'Goodnight.' 'Goodnight.'

  The redhead was eager to get to bed as soon as the girl had left. Faustaff hugged her, kissed her then stood back for a moment, taking a small, green velvet skull cap from his

  shorts' pocket and fitting it on his head before undressing.

  'You're crazy, Fusty,' giggled the redhead, sitting on the bed and shaking with amusement. 'I'll never make you out.'

  'Honey, you never will,' he said, as he stripped off his clothes and flipped out the light.

  Three hours later he was awakened by a tight sensation round his head and a tiny, soundless vibration.

  He sat upright, pushing back the covers, and getting as gently as possible out of bed so as not to disturb the girl.

  The invoker was ready. He had better lug it out into the desert as soon as possible.

  2

  Three Men in T-Shirts

  Professor Faustaff hurried from the cabin, carrying his huge naked bulk with extraordinary grace and speed towards the car park and his Buick.

  The invoker was ready. It was a fairly compact piece of machinery with handles for moving it. He heaved it from the Buick's trunk and began hauling it out of the car park, away from the motel and into the desert.

  Ten minutes later he squatted beneath the moon, fiddling with the invoker's controls. He set dials and pressed buttons. A white light blinked and went out, a red light blinked, a green light blinked, then the machine seemed still again. Professor Faustaff stood back.

  Half-seen traceries of light jiow seemed to spring from the invoker and weave geometric patterns against the darkness. At length a figure began to materialise amongst them, ghostly at first but steadily becoming more solid. Soon a man stood there.

  He was dressed in a coverall and his head was bandaged. He was unshaven and gaunt. He fingered the disc, strapped wrist-watch fashion to his arm, and said nothing.

  'George?'

  'Hello, professor. Where are we?—I got the call. Can you make it fast?—we need everybody at the base.' Georges Forbes spoke tonelessly, unlike his normal self.

  'You really are in trouble there. Give me the picture.'

  'Our main base was attacked by a D-squad. They used their disruptors as well as more conventional weapons, helicopters flying in low. We missed them until they were close. We fought back, but the bastards did their usual hit and run attack and were in and out again in five minutes—leaving us with five men alive out of twenty-three, wrecked equipment and a damaged adjustor. While we were licking our wounds they must have gone on to create a U.M.S. We're trying to fight it with a malfunctioning adjustor—but it's a losing battle. Four others just won't be enough. We'll get caught in the U.M.S. ourselves if we're not careful—then you can write off E-15. We need a new adjustor and a full replacement team.'

  T'll do my best,' Faustaff promised. 'But we've no spare adjustors—you know how long one takes to build. We'll have to risk shipping one from somewhere else—E-l is the safest, I guess.'

  Thanks, professor. We've given up hope—we don't think you can do anything for us. But if you can do anything ...' Forbes rubbed his face. He seemed so exhausted that he didn't really know where he was or what he was saying. Td better get back. Okay?'

  'Okay,' said Faustaff.

  Forbes tapped the disc on his wrist and began to dematerialise as the E-15 invoker tugged him back through the subspacial levels.

  Faustaff knew he had to get to 'Frisco quickly. He would have to travel tonight. He began to haul the invoker back towards the motel.

  When he was quite close to the car park he saw a figure in silhouette near his Buick.

  The figure seemed to be trying to open the car door. Faustaff bellowed: 'What d'you think you're trying to do, buster?' He let go of the invoker and strode towards the figure.

  As Faustaff approached the figure straightened and whirled round and it wasn't Steifflomeis as Faustaff had suspected but a woman, blonde, tanned, with the shapely synthetic curves of a dressmaker's dummy—the kind of curves an older woman bought for herself. This woman seemed young.

  She gasped when she saw the fat giant bearing down on her, dressed only in a green velvet skull cap, and she moved away from the car.

  'You haven't any clothes on,' she said. 'You could be arrested if I screamed.'

  Faustaff laughed and paused. 'Who'd arrest me? Why were you trying to get into my car?'

  'I guess I thought it was mine.'

  Faustaff looked at the English M.G. and the Thunder-bird. 'It's not dark enough to make that kind of mistake,' he said. The big yellow moon was high and full. 'Which is yours?'

  'The Thunderbird,' she said.

  'So the M.G.'s Steifflomeis. I still don't believe you could make a mistake like that—a red Buick for a black Thunderbird.'

  'I haven't broken into your car. I guess I was just peeking inside. I was interested in that equipment you've got in there.' She pointed to a small.portable computer in the back seat. 'You're a scientist aren't you—a professor or something?'

  'Who told you?'

  'The owner here.'

  'Here. I see. What's your name, honey?' 'Maggy White.'

  'Well, Miss White, keep your noseox^of my car in future,' Faustaff was not normally so rude, but he was sure she was lying, as Steifflomeis had been lying, and his encounter with George Forbes had depressed him. Also he was puzzled by Maggy White's total sexlessness. It was unusual for him to

  find any woman unattractive—they were always attractive in some way—but he was unmoved by her. Subconsciously he also realised that she was unmoved by him. It made him uncomfortable without realising quite why.

  He watched her flounce on high heels back towards the cabins. He saw her enter one, saw the door close. He went to get his invoker and hauled it into the trunk, locking it carefully.

  Then he followed Maggy White towards the cabins. He would have to wake Nancy and get going. The sooner he contacted his team in 'Frisco the better.

  Nancy yawned and scratched her scalp as she climbed into the car. Faustaff started the Buick up and drove out on to the highway, changed gear and stepped on the accelerator.

  'What's the rush, Fusty?' She was still sleepy. He had had to waken her suddenly and also wake the motel owner to pay him.

  'An emergency in my 'Frisco office,' he said. 'Nothing for you to w
orry about. Sorry I disturbed you. Try and get some sleep as we drive, huh?'

  'What happened tonight? You bumped into a girl or something in the car park. What were you doing out there?'

  'Got a buzz from the office. Who told you?'

  'The owner. He told me while he was filling the tank for you.' She smiled. 'Apparently you hadn't any clothes on. He thought you were a nut.'

  'He's probably right.'

  T get the idea that the girl and that Steifflomeis character are connected—have they anything to do with this emergency of yours?'

  'They just might have.' Faustaff shivered. He had no clothes but the shirt and shorts he wore and the desert night was cold. 'Might just be salvagers, but...' He was musing aloud.

  'Salvagers?'

  'Oh, just bums—some kind of con-team. I don't know who they are. Wish I did.'

  Nancy had fallen asleep by the time dawn came. The rising sun turned the desert into an expanse of red sand and heavy black shadows. Tall cactus, their branches extended like the arms of declamatory figures, paraded into the distance; petrified prophets belatedly announcing the doom that had overtaken them.

  Faustaff breathed in the cool, dawn smells, feeling sad and isolated suddenly, retiring into himself in the hope that his unconscious might produce some clue to the identities of Herr Steifflomeis and Maggy White. He drove very fast, egged on by the knowledge that unless he reached 'Frisco quickly E-15 was finished.

  Later Nancy woke up and stretched, blinking in the strong light. The desert shimmered in the heat haze, rolling on for ever in all directions. She accepted the bizarre nature of the continent without question. To her it had always been like this. Faustaff had known it as very different five years before—when a big U.M.S. had only just been checked. That was something he would probably never fully understand—tremendous physical changes took place on a planet, but the inhabitants never seemed to notice. Somehow the U.M. Situations were accompanied by a deep psychological change in the people—similar in some ways, perhaps, to the mass delusions involving flying saucer spottings years before on his own world. But this was total hallucination. The hurfran psyche seemed even more adaptable than the human physique. Possibly it was the only way the people could survive and protect their sanity on the insane planets of subspace. Yet the mass delusion was not always complete, but those who remembered an earlier state of existence were judged insane, of course. Even on a mass level things took time to adapt. What the inhabitants of Greater America didn't realise now, for instance, was that theirs was the only inhabited land mass, apart from one

  island in the Philippines. They still talked about foreign countries, though they would forget little by little, but the countries were only in their imagination, mysterious and romantic places where nobody actually went. Steifflomeis had given himself away immediately he said he was from Sweden, for Faustaff knew that on E -3 a gigantic forest grew in the areas once called Scandinavia, Northern Europe and Southern Russia. Nobody lived there—they had been wiped out in the big U.M.S. which had warped the American continent too. The trees of that area were all grotesquely huge, far bigger than North American redwoods, out of proportion to the land they grew on. And yet these were one of the best results of the partial correction of a U.M.S.

  On all the fifteen alternate Earths with which Faustaff was familiar Unstable Matter Situations had manifested themselves and been countered. The result of this was that the worlds were now bizarre travesties of their originals and the further back down the subspacial corridor you went the more unearthly were the alternate Earths. Yet many of the inhabitants survived and that was the important thing. The whole reason for Faustaff s and his team's efforts was to save lives. It was a good reason as far as they were concerned, even though it seemed they were fighting a slow, losing battle against the D-squads.

  He was convinced that Steifflomeis and Maggy White were representatives of a D-squad and that their presence heralded trouble for himself, if not the whole of his organisation. 'Frisco might have some new information for him when he got there. He hoped so. His usual equanimity was threatening to desert him.

  'Frisco's towers were at last visible in the distance. The road widened here and cactus plants grew thicker in the desert. Behind Frisco was the blue and misty sea, but the only ships in her harbour were coast-going freighters.

  The sedate pace of'Frisco compared to the frenetic mood he had left behind in L.A. made Faustafffeel a little better as

  he drove through the peaceful old streets that had retained a character that was somehow redolent of an older America, an America that had only really existed in the nostalgic thoughts of the generation which had grown up before the first World War. The streets were crammed with signs lettered in Edwardian style, there was the delicious smell of a thousand delicatessens, the tolling of the trolley cars echoed amongst the grey and yellow buildings, the air was still and warm, people sauntered along the sidewalks or could be seen leaning against bars and counters within the cool interiors of the little stores and saloons. Faustaff liked 'Frisco and preferred it to alLother cities in Greater America, which was why he had chosen to set up his headquarters here rather than in the capital of L.A. Not that he minded an atmosphere of noise, bustle and neurosis—in fact he rather enjoyed it—but 'Frisco had a greater air of permanence than elsewhere on E-3 so that psychologically at any rate it seemed the best place for his H.Q.

  He drove towards North Beach and soon drew up beside a Chinese restaurant with dark-painted windows with gold dragons on them. He turned to the redhead.

  'Nancy, how would you like a big Chinese meal and a chance to wash up?'

  'Okay. But is this a brush off?' She could see he didn't intend to join her.

  'Nope—but there's that urgent business Fmust attend to. If I don't come in later, go to this address.' He took a small notebook from his shirt pocket and scribbled the address of his private apartment. 'That's my private place. Make yourself at home.' He handed her a key. 'And tell them you're a fqend of mine in the restaurant.'

  She seemed too tired to question him any further and nodded, getting out of the car, still in her swimsuit, and walking into the restaurant.

  Faustaff went up to the door next to the restaurant and rang the bell.

  A man of about thirty, dark-haired, saturnine, wearing a T-shirt, white jeans and black sneakers, opened the door and nodded when he saw Faustaff. There was a large old-fashioned clock-face stencilled on to the front of his T-shirt. It looked like any other gimmick design.

  Faustaff said: T need some help with the equipment in the trunk. Anyone else here?'

  'Mahon and Harvey.'

  T guess we can get the stuff upstairs between us. Will you tell them?'

  The man—whose name was Ken Peppiatt—disappeared and came back shortly with two other men of about the same age and build, though one of them was blond. They were dressed the same, with the clock design on their T-shirts.

  Helped by Faustaff they manhandled the electro-invoker and the portable computer through the door and up a narrow stairway. Faustaff closed the door behind them and kept an eye on the young men until they had set the equipment down in a small room on the first floor. The boards were bare and the room had a musty smell. They went up more uncarpeted stairs to the next floor which was laid out like a living room, with old, comfortable furniture untidily crammed into it. There were magazines and empty glasses littered about.

  The thiee men in T-shirts flopped into chairs and looked up at Faustaff as he went to a 1920-style cocktail cabinet and poured himself a large glass of bourbon. He spooned icecubes into the drink and sipped it as he turned to face them.

  'You know the problem they have on E-15.'

  The three men nodded. Mahon had been the man who had contacted Faustaff the day before.

  T gather you're already arranging for a team to relieve the survivors?'

  Harvey said: 'They're on their way. But what they really need is an adjustor. We haven't a spare—it'll be dangerous
to let one go from another alternate. If a D-squad attacks a

  world without an adjustor—you can say goodbye to that world.'

  'E-l hasn't had an attack yet; Faustaff mused. 'We'd better send their adjustor.'

  'Your decision,' said Mahon getting up. T'll go and contact E-l.' He left the room.

  'I'll want reports on the situation whenever possible,' Faustaff told him as he closed the door. He turned to the two others. 'I think I've been in touch with the people who made that tunnel you found.'

  'What are they—salvagers or D-squaders?' Harvey asked.

  'Not sure. They don't seem like salvagers and D-squaders usually only turn up to attack. They don't hang about in motels.' Faustaff told about his encounter with the pair.

  Peppiatt frowned. That's not a real name—Steifflomeis —Pd swear.' Peppiatt was one of their best linguists. He knew the root tongues of all the alternates, and many secondary languages as well. 'It doesn't click. Just possibly German, I suppose, but even then ...'

  'Let's forget about the name for the time being,' Faustaff said. 'We'd better put a couple of people on to watching them. Two Class H agents ought to be okay. We'd better have recordings, photographs of them, everything we can get for a file. All the usual information—normal whereabouts and so on. Can yo.u fix that, Ken?'

  'We've got a lot of Class H agents on retainer. They'll think it's a security job—Class H still believe we're some kind of government outfit. You might as well use half-a-dozen—they're available.'

  'As many as you think. Just keep tabs on the pair of them.' Faustaff mentioned that they were probably in L.A. or 'Frisco judging by what they had said. Their cars shouldn't be hard to trace—he'd taken the numbers as he left the car park that morning.

  Faustaff finished his drink and picked up a clipboard of schedules lying on a table. He flipped through them.

  'Cargoes seem to be moving smoothly enough,' he nodded. 'How's the fresh-water situation here?'