Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle

3

HOP NOYOCK WOKE up feeling hot and flabby. Hot because the reviver always left him sweating. Flabby because somehow, over the last three hundred years, he had gotten a little out of shape.

He rolled onto his side, and his stomach followed a moment later, hitting the metal of the bed with a disgusting slap. He belched.

"How," he asked the nurse who stood by with a sponge and a towel, "can I possibly belch after five years of sleep?"

The nurse shrugged and began to wipe him down. The sponge was ice cold and the water trickled freezingly along his back. Hop was vaguely ashamed that the nurse had to lift his stomach out of the way to wipe down the sweating crease. (I have got to exercise. I have got to diet.) But he knew that he wouldn't have time for exercise, that food would taste too good to worry about dieting, that in only five weeks he'd be eligible to return to the Sleeproom and go under for another five years or until his client came back (aye, there's the rub).

Hop got up and walked stiffly to the hooks where his new clothes hung waiting for him. As he took his first steps he felt a sharp pain, a stiff uncomfortableness in a region of his body that should not be causing him any pain. Could he possibly have developed hemorrhoids while under somec?

"Excuse me," he said to the nurse, who immediately turned away. Nurses had to be very deferential to the sleepers — but obsequiousness was a small price to pay for the privilege of somec, even at the nurses' rather trivial rate of two years up for one year under.

Hop Noyock reached behind himself and found the source of his discomfort. It was a small piece of paper, soaked in the sweat of his revival. On it was written, in Hop's own handwriting, a short message:

"Someone trying to kill Jazz. Must warn."

What in hell did that mean? He looked at the paper for some possible hidden clue. There was none. It was just the ordinary paper they kept by the sleepbeds to satisfy the paranoia of those who were convinced they would think of something absolutely vital between the time when their brains were taped and the time when the somec flowed into their veins, emptying all memories from their minds. Memory slips, they called the papers, and Hop had never used one before.

Now he had used one(or is it my handwriting?) and not only that, he had gone to the bother of putting it in a rather effective, if undignified, hiding place.

Apparently, when he had written it, he had thought it was vital.

But if (if) there was a plot to kill Jazz Worthing (alias Meal Ticket) how in hell had he found out about it between the taping and the somec? It was strictly illegal for anyone but the nurses to come into the tape–and–tap; that was in the contract — it was imperial law, for heaven's sake, forget the contract.

And who would try to kill Jazz Worthing, the Empire's most successful starship pilot, not to mention the star of the five best–selling loops in trade history (I made the boy a star, he'd be nothing without his agent); killing him would not only hurt the Empire's war effort and tear down morale, it would also leave the fans disconsolate —

And thinking of the war effort, what about it? Hop went to the history sheets that hung from the wall. He was proud of the fact that he had a five year summary, a reminder of his high somec rating.

The news was basically good. The Empire was still intact, more or less, win a little, lose a little but the war is far from home.

Then, practical as always, Hop checked the gossip sheets and spent an amusing five minutes as he dressed, reading over what happened while he was under. Of course, most of the people he had never met — their somec schedules never coincided and so he knew of their escapades only from the sheets —

The flight schedules showed that Jazz was coming in only three days. Hop glanced up at the calendar on the wall (they never bother with clocks in the Sleeproom) and realized that he had been wakened almost three months early.

Damn.

Oh well, it could have been three years, that had happened before, and it was a small enough price to pay for his twenty percent of all of Jazz Worthing's revenues. Without Jazz, Hop Noyock wouldn't be on somec at all.

Somebody trying to kill Jazz? Asinine.

(If I find them, I'll tear them apart, the bastards.)

Hop met Jazz the minute the smoke had been pumped out of the landing hall. The two kilometer–long ship always took Hop's breath away (either that or the long climb up the ramp), just as the ridiculous narrow tube that held all the payload made him laugh. It looked like it was tacked onto the huge stardrive as an afterthought. The tail wagging the dog. A hammer to drive a needle through nothing.

Over the ship stretched the huge girders that supported the roof, now looking like fine lace in the distance. Only here, in the ship cradles, were there large doors in the metal roof that sheathed the entire planet of Capitol.

Hop watched as, far below the audience, gates were opened and the crowds flooded in. Jazz's arrival was big news on Capitol. Hop felt the old resentment as he watched the crowd fill all the available space around the base of the cradle. He had made a fortune by charging admission to Jazz's arrivals — but some of his competitors, sponsoring less popular pilots, had managed to convince the government that it was illegal to charge admission for entry to public government facilities — and they had even made Hop give back the money he had already made on it. Damn poor losers, that's all they were.

And then the door of the ship fell open and out stepped Jazz Worthing. Two hundred meters below, the fans started screaming so loudly that the sound could be heard even above the roar of the machinery that was testing the stardrive. Hop Noyock threw out his arms and made the theatrical gesture that had been seen by billions at the end of every Jazz Worthing loop. He strode to the tired–looking pilot and embraced him.

"Jazz Worthing, Capitol is grateful that you're home safe and victorious again."

"Nice to be back," Jazz said, smiling slightly, his bright blue eyes flashing in the dazzling lights. He was several centuries old, and looked younger than twenty. One last pat on the back, and then Hop reached down and flipped off the loop recorder. Jazz relaxed as soon as the taping was finished. He tensed again, though, when Hop whispered in his ear, "Somebody may be trying to kill you. Don't leave the crowds."

"Hop, I don't even want to see the damned crowds."

"No one'd dare try anything in the crowds. We'll talk in a minute."

Hop led Jazz to the railing and showed him off to the cheering fans. Their roar of approval was quite stirring. Hop felt quite stirred.

"Hop, what the hell is going on?" Jazz asked.

"I don't know," Hop said. "Bow for the bastards, Jason, give them their money's worth."

Jazz looked at Hop in surprise. "You don't mean the government's letting you charge admission again?"

"No, no, figure of speech, little figure of speech, you know."

"I just want to go home and go to bed, Hop. Don't give me any trouble about it or I'll fire you."

Hop shrugged. "If you get killed, I'll be out of a job anyway."

Jazz sighed and listened as Hop told him about the note.

"I especially like your hiding place," Jazz commented as they walked down the winding ramp.

"It's my body's only built–in pocket."

"How are we doing?"

"Financially? Latest audit was five years ago, and it said about seventeen billion."

"I left about forty years ago. What would it have been worth then?"

"Eleven billion. Inflation's getting worse."

"That note. Are you sure you weren't just playing a joke?"

"On myself? Ha ha, what a riot."

Jazz set his lips tightly. "Why would anyone want to kill me?"

"One of the other captains?" Hop suggested, lightly.

"We're all friends. We all like each other."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Hop shrugged. "One of their managers then. Out to wipe out the competition."

"Do you believe that?"

"Hell no. It sounds more like treason. Must be something involved with the government, or how could the information have reached me in the Sleeproom? Somebody thinks your death would help or hurt some faction in the government. I wish you'd stay out of politics."

The ramp seemed to go on forever. The roar of the stardrive test grew softer; the roar of the crowd grew louder. "Are you sure," Jazz asked, "that you didn't already know the information, and put it together after you were taped?"

"I've been racking my brains. Nothing. I didn't know anything about any threat on anybody's life. I don't know anybody with a motive. I was told, after the taping."

"Damn."

"How are the loops from this trip?"

"Oh, some good stuff. My fleet got caught in an ambush near Kapittuck and we fought our way out without losses. Very dramatic. Some good close–ups, too, you'll be in gravy for the next five or ten wakings."

"So will you," Hop said.

"Sure," Jazz answered. "And I have so much time on Capitol to enjoy it."

(Don't complain, you bastard. When I started working for you three centuries ago we were both in our teens, subjectively speaking, and now count my gray hairs. I wake up every five years, while you coast through life waking only three or four times a century, staying young forever — )

"You look great, Hop," Jazz said.

"You, too, Jazz old man," Hop said, using the obscenity freely.

They reached the bottom of the ramp, where police were struggling to hold the crowd back from charging up to meet them. "Here are the lions," Jazz said, and then they waded into the crowd of outreaching hands and hungering eyes.

They went to a party that night — after all, wakings were short and all the pleasure had to be crammed into only a few short days and weeks. Besides, eleven actresses doing lifeloops were there, and all of them had paid a tidy sum to get Hop to promise that Jazz Worthing would not only attend, but also spend at least three minutes talking to them. Jazz took care of the duty calls right away, and then proceeded to win a small fortune (a drop in the bucket) at pinochle, losing his preoccupied look for a few hours. The hostess, Arran Handully, a former actress who had now

"retired" — which meant she only made guest appearances in other women's lifeloops — was forever fluttering around Jazz and Hop, bringing them drinks, making charming conversation: obviously Jazz was her prize for the evening. Hop fleetingly wondered if she had arranged her waking just to coincide with his coming. That would be flattery indeed.

After the party had been going for about four hours or so, Arran Handully called for silence, which after a few minutes was grudgingly granted to her.

"One of the reasons for this party is that Fritz Kapock has designed a new costume that is so compelling, so magnificent, that I had to show it to you the best way I know — on me."

Since there was nothing remarkable about the dress she was wearing — floor–length white with long sleeves that ended in gloves and a high neck — everyone knew she was going to dance, which would be fine, she had a Capitolwide reputation for interesting effects, and one of the bestselling lifeloops in history had been her "Rehearsal Day" tape in which she had practiced every conceivable dance pose and motion, nude.

The Kapock design was interesting enough — as she danced her ordinary–looking dress began to glow brightly, dazzlingly, and slowly the guests realized that it was dissolving somehow in the process. The bright aura lingered for several minutes after she was completely naked, and when she ended her dance sparks still seemed to dance around her. The guests applauded wildly — some with lust, some with real appreciation, and a few with gratitude: with this on their loops, more than one budding young actress would have a good start to her career.

After her bow, she brought out Kapock, the designer, who also bowed stiffly.

"Poor guy," Hop commented to Jazz, "he hates the bitch, but who can turn down a commission these days? Inflation eats it up faster than you can spend it. And the price of lower somec ratings is always going up."

Arran picked up a drink from a passing tray and walked out among her guests. The other women soon realized that she had no intention of dressing again, and so they sighed and undressed, too, wishing they hadn't bothered to spend so much money on costumes for the party.

Arran went to Jason Worthing and handed him the drink. Immediately a group of lifelooping women and interested onlookers gathered to see what would happen, hoping perhaps to interject some witticism that might turn the incident to their favor — some clever remark that might get them invited to another, grander party on their next waking, or the one after.

"Did you like Fritz's little costume?"

"Very clever," Jazz said, smiling and accepting the drink. "How is it done?"

Fritz Kapock, who had followed Arran, smiled and said, "I'll never tell."

"He told me," Arran said, tossing her head prettily, "that it's oxidation."

Fritz laughed. "Of course. That much is obvious."

"Oh, and now Fritz is telling everyone how stupid I am," Arran pouted.

What a great act, Hop thought. Billions of loopwatchers, seeing this scene, would nudge each other and say, "See, there's Arran Handully, pretending to be dumb. She'll get ‘em in a minute."

Fritz Kapock awkwardly denied her accusation. "Of course I'm not."

"It's still a dazzling effect," Jazz said, and Hop was pleased that Jazz was making an effort to be pleasant company, even without being on contract.

"That calls for a drink," Arran said, taking a glass out of the hand of a servant near her.

Kapock held up his glass and said, "To Arran Handully, who managed to upstage my small effort by wearing a costume far more beautiful — her lovely self."

"What a poet," Arran whispered, and then she brought a gasp from everyone by stepping toward Jazz Worthing and putting her own glass to his lips. A declaration of intent, and everyone waited for the completion of the ritual, Jazz sipping and then placing his own glass up to Arran's lips.

He didn't do it, though. Instead, he stepped back, rejecting the offer, and raised his glass into the air. "And let me add my own toast to her courage — who else would dare to try to murder me at her own party?"

It took a moment for the words to sink in. And then the guests murmured as Arran protested, using her body coquettishly in a reflexive attempt to disarm and win over all watchers. "What a thing to say, Captain Worthing. There are politer ways to say no to a girl."

"You mean you deny it? Then take a drink from your own glass, my dear."

"After I've been refused? I could almost wish it were poisoned."

"Really? And so could I," Jazz said. "Shall we see if your wish is fulfilled?" He stepped toward her abruptly, taking the glass from her hand, seizing her by the hair with his other hand, and putting the glass to her lips. No one intervened. Let the action flow, as they all said. However things turned out, this would sell a billion loops.

"Take a drink, sweet Arran Handully, from the glass you offered me," Jazz said, smiling.

"What an actor you are," she said softly, and Hop was sure now that he saw terror in her eyes. For the first time it occurred to him that somehow Jason might well have uncovered the very murder plot he had been warned against. But how? They hadn't left each other since he disembarked from the ship.

Jazz began to tip the glass up to pour over her smiling mouth. Suddenly she writhed away, knocking the glass on the floor. It broke; the liquid splashed.

"Don't touch it," Jazz commanded. "It's now time for at least one of our kind and watchful observers to show himself and take a fragment of glass for analysis."

Suddenly several women moaned in disappointment, punching at the buttons on their loop recorders. A grim–faced man came up, holding a suppressor, and the moans stopped. Mother's Little Boys could do whatever they liked — including cutting out a choice scene from a lifeloop. The man knelt down by the fragments of glass and in a very businesslike way mopped up a sample of the liquid and took four pieces of glass, dumped them into a small bag he pulled from his pocket, and then, nodding to the company, left.

Arran was sitting down, shaking.

Fritz Kapock looked at Jason Worthing in hatred. "That was incredibly crude, doing a thing like that," he said.

"I know," Jazz agreed, smiling. "A more courteous man would have drunk, and died gracefully." Jazz excused himself from the group in a way that informed everyone that he preferred not to be accompanied. Hop, of course, accompanied him anyway.

"How did you know?" Hop asked.

"I didn't. But it seems like it was a pretty good guess, doesn't it?"

Guess? Hop knew perfectly well that Jazz Worthing wasn't stupid enough to open himself up to libel suits on the basis of mere guesswork. But if he preferred not to tell, why push him? Then again, why not? Managers have some rights.

"Come on, Jazz. How did you know?"

"I'm a Swipe," Jazz answered.

Hop rolled his eyes and laughed. "All right then. Don't tell me. Protect your sources. But at least tell me why she tried!"

Jazz only smiled and looked over at the group gathered to commiserate with their offended hostess. She was looking weak and helpless, and Hop couldn't help but admire her technique. A brilliant actress — able to utterly hide every natural emotion, play a role every waking moment.

Fritz Kapock separated himself from the group around Arran Handully and began to walk toward where Hop and Jazz were sitting.

"You see," Jazz said, "they're persistent. They won't settle for one attempt."

"What?" Hop asked. "Not Kapock. He's —" but then Hop remembered the gossip sheet " — a damned good swordsman and has had more than a few formal duels. None to the death, but Jazz, be careful, you've got to keep yourself safe. The Empire needs you."

"Not as much as you need your twenty percent, my dear friend," Jason answered.

Fritz Kapock stopped about three meters away, and began talking loudly with a group that had gathered there. Jazz didn't take his eyes off Kapock. Hop was worried. "Jazz, you know a hell of a lot more than you've been telling me."

"Of course," Jazz said, patting Hop's wrist. "That's why you're a manager and I'm a starpilot."

Kapock's voice came loudly to them: "Only a bastard and a coward would make an accusation like that — especially at her own party."

People nearby began to edge nearer. Actresses frantically fiddled with their loop recorders, trying to get them to warm up again, though they knew it was hopeless for a few minutes more — suppressors always ruined recording for exactly ten minutes, no more, no less.

"Jazz, he's trying to provoke you," Hop said.

"Perhaps I shall let him succeed," Jazz answered, and Hop resigned himself to watching his meal ticket get killed on the end of Fritz Kapock's sword. It went like clockwork.

"That boor isn't fit company for civilized persons," said Fritz.

"Hold my hat," said Jazz.

"They should never allow these common soldiers in refined company," said Fritz Kapock.

"Fritz Kapock, I believe?" said Jazz.

"And you're the man who ruined our hostess's evening, aren't you?" Fritz snarled.

"I assume you were hoping I would overhear your insults."

"It's hardly my affair what you do and don't hear."

A woman whooped with glee as her loop recorder came on. Another breathed a sigh of relief.

"I heard, I take due note, and I assume you'll want choice of weapons."

Hop moaned. Jason hadn't even been clever. Hadn't even tried to get Kapock to make the challenge so that the starpilot would get the chance to choose peashooters or tennis or some other harmless duel weapon.

"Foils are effeminate," Kapock said. "And sabers are like meat axes. Rapier? Three edged?"

"Which, just by coincidence, you no doubt have nearby," Jason said. "I'll agree to that."

A servant went for the weapons, and Hop angrily volunteered to be Jason's second. "You irresponsible bastard," Hop muttered as he helped Jazz take off his jacket and shirt.

"True, true. It's been nice knowing you," Jazz said.

"Do you know how to fight with swords?" Hop asked, wondering how Jazz could be so calm about this.

"Sure. You just hold it by the dull end and stick the sharp end in the other fellow."

"Not funny," Hop said. And then the weapons arrived, the crowd cleared a space, and Fritz and Jason, stripped to the waist, took their weapons and went to opposite comers. As a volunteer referee went through the ritual of pleading with both parties to reconcile their differences peaceably, Jazz asked Hop Noyock, "Do you have your loop recorder?"

"Yes."

"Is it off?"

"Of course."

"Then here. Use this." And Jazz handed Hop a small suppressor. Hop looked at him in surprise.

"This is illegal."

"So is duelling. But I want you to have an exclusive. Your last chance to make money off me."

Hop grimaced at the implication of his own venality; at the same time he realized that having an exclusive of this duel would be immeasurably valuable whoever won. So he turned on the suppressor, and the moans and cries of outrage came from women and men all around the duelling square. Then, because his own loop recorder had not been on, Hop started it right up, ready to create another Noyock Productions masterpiece.

"All ready?" Jazz asked. Noyock, holding both suppressor and recorder in his pockets, nodded. "Wish me luck," Jazz said, and then he raised his sword to signal the start of the duel. Kapock raised his, and then leaped forward, swinging the sword in a dazzling display of control, putting the point exactly where he wanted it. Jazz merely held his sword in front of him, almost as if it were a foil, and stood half–crouched. No style at all.

Then Kapock came close enough to strike — and struck. But his sword met Jason's in mid–thrust. Kapock recovered, struck again and again found his blade parried. He backed off. Jason merely stood, waiting, his sword having varied only twice from its straight forward position. Kapock was embarrassed and angry. He had been made to look like a pompous show–off, who could be stopped with ease by a man not even bothering to observe proper form.

Kapock moved to attack again, this time with such quick movements that parrying seemed impossible. Feints could not be distinguished from attacks; but Jason was not drawn into parrying any of the false moves. Instead he moved only three times, each time throwing aside Kapock's whistling blade, and the third time twisting the blade, breaking it off near the hilt. The broken blade spun out toward the crowd, but hit the floor before it could do any damage.

Kapock stood looking at the broken sword in his hand, as amazed as Hop had ever seen a man.

Hop could understand it — he had tried his hand at swordplay years ago, and he remembered enough to know that it was humiliating to be disarmed on only the fifth parry. He also knew that Jazz had blocked the attacks as perfectly as if he had known exactly where and when they were coming, before Kapock himself even knew. More grist for the Jazz Worthing legend mill.

The next step, of course, was for Jazz to step forward and magnanimously state that he was satisfied, and no further fighting was necessary. But at that moment a woman screamed, and all eyes whirled to Arran, who was standing, still naked, looking with horror at the large doors to her hall. They were open, and a group of laserarmed men in Space Service uniforms were marching in. And all at once everyone seemed to come to the same conclusion. Jazz Worthing, the great starpilot, had been under attack — poison, and then a duel. These soldiers would not stand for such an insult to the Service and to the Service's most successful fleet commander. And the guests, in the irrational manner of crowds, immediately began to head for the opposite exit. At the moment they started to move, however, those doors opened, too, and more soldiers came in. The crowd panicked, massed in a jumble in the middle of the hall, and began to shout and scream and scurry meaninglessly from place to place so that it was impossible to tell what was going on.

So Hop did what he always did. He stuck with Jason, following him as Jazz coolly walked to Arran Handully, who was looking dazed and vaguely depressed as the crowd whirled around her. Jazz picked her up and lifted her over his shoulder in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the worst excesses of the pornographic brutality plays. Hop had never seen Jazz treat a woman like that — but then, she had tried to kill him.

Fritz Kapock tried to interfere. Jason hit him, but the blow would only have slowed the artist down, hampered as Jason was by Arran's rather uncooperative bulk. Hop considered it his duty (and a pretty damn good idea for profits) to try to keep Jazz Worthing alive no matter what stupid things he was trying to do. So Hop used a few of the low blows he had learned in his childhood in the lowest corridor of Capitol, and Fritz was out for the duration. Perhaps longer. Hop didn't stop to check.

They headed for a service entrance, and Hop helped muscle a path for Jason to follow through the crowd that was trying to get out that way. Once into the corridor beyond the door (carpeted, Hop noticed — Arran had spent a lot of money on her flat), Jason looked at the direction the crowd was heading, and went the other way. Hop Noyock tagged along, noting with pleasure that he was young enough to appreciate the way Arran Handully looked as she wriggled and jerked, trying to free herself from Jason's grasp. When she started digging fingernails into Jazz's back, Noyock swatted her sharply. "None of that," he said, and she seemed to realize for the first time that she and Jazz weren't alone. She stopped struggling.

"Why don't they have anybody in here guarding the halls?" Hop asked.

"Because they're Servicemen, not constables, and certainly not Mother's Little Boys," Jason answered. "Besides, we're heading farther in, not out."

"Why the hell are we doing that?" Noyock asked, making it a point to breathe heavily so that Jazz knew how tired he was getting as they wound up a ramp.

"Go the other way, if you want to get picked up by angry soldiers."

Hop doggedly followed as Jason went up the ramp, and saw, to his relief, that the starpilot was capable of getting tired. Jazz slowed at the top of the ramp, then swung Arran off his shoulder and slammed her a little harder than necessary against a wall. He held her right hand in his, with his forearm pressing against her throat, and his legs both to one side of hers — he wasn't giving her an opportunity for any action. Just to be sure, however, Hop held her left hand, too. She shot him a glare.

"Don't look at me like that, Arran," Hop said, using his wounded dignity voice. "I'm only holding you twenty percent against the wall. He's responsible for eighty percent."

She didn't answer. Jazz ignored Hop, too, and so he stood holding Arran's hand as Jazz asked her, "Which way from here?"

She didn't answer.

"I know you have a hiding place, Arran. The reason those soldiers were there is because the test on the poison came out positive and they got mad. Want me to take you down there to them?"

She shook her head.

"Then where's the hiding place?"

Hop watched as Jazz stared at her eyes, as if hoping to pluck the answers out of them. Apparently Arran saw a different intent, and she let her eyes fill up with tears. A play for sympathy, Hop knew, but it didn't stop him from feeling instant pity. The bitch. Actresses shouldn't be allowed to have private lives. They didn't know how to stop acting.

Abruptly Jazz jerked her away from the wall and slung her over his shoulder again. Sighing wearily, Hop followed him off down a corridor.

The halls were narrower up here, Hop noticed, and the floors and walls were made of wood. He touched one, and was surprised at the roughness. Not just wood, then. Real wood. He whistled.

"Shut up," Jazz said.

"Why so glum?" Hop asked. "A billion men would give their privates to have her over their shoulder wearing that costume. Though that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

Jazz didn't laugh, and so Hop shut up.

They stopped in front of a rather insignificantlooking door. "What's in here?" Jazz asked.

"A wardrobe," she said immediately.

"Can you break it open, Hop?"

"Me?"

"Forget it," Jazz said. He stepped back and, still burdened with Arran, kicked the door. It budged, but just barely.

"Let me," Hop said, now that he was sure there was no sentry planted in the door. No sense getting blown up unnecessarily. Jazz may be a meal ticket, but keeping him alive would be pointless to Hop if Hop weren't around to get his twenty percent. He stood facing the opposite wall of the narrow corridor, his hands firmly placed on the wall. Then he jumped up and pushed off from the wall, slamming his feet into the door. It didn't quite break free, but all it took was another halfhearted kick from Noyock as he lay on the floor.

"Spectacular," Jazz said as he stepped over Noyock and walked into the room. "You're very agile for a fat man."

"Paunch covers muscle, it doesn't replace it," Hop commented, and got up. The "wardrobe" was a large library, with mirrors wherever there were no shelves, including the floor and ceiling. But the real attraction was the contents of the shelves — real paper books, not tapes, filling every available space. Noyock wasn't much of a reader, but he appreciated value in whatever form it took, and under his breath he mumbled, "The lady's literate, after all."

Jazz paid no attention. Instead he picked Arran off his shoulders and tossed her to the floor. She landed heavily.

"Where's the door?" he heard Jazz say. Arran shook her head, wincing with some pain she acquired in the fall to the floor. Jazz shook her, and she started to cry. Hop hated himself, but the crying made him want to say, "Hey, Jazz, go easy on the woman, huh?" He resisted the impulse, however.

So did Jazz, if indeed he felt such a charitable feeling. Instead, he doubled up his fist and plunged it sharply into Arran's stomach. Hop was sure he heard a rib break. She screamed in pain, and Hop wondered if it was the first honest emotion he had seen her use.

Jazz leaned down and put his ear by her lips. Hop was surprised she was conscious — but apparently she had been for at least a moment, for Jason got up and walked straight to a bookshelf and pulled off two books, reaching behind to find something. Immediately a mirror slid into the floor, and a little room was revealed behind. Jazz walked back to Arran, picked her up, and carried her limp unconscious body into the room. Noyock decided to follow.

As soon as they were inside, Jason lay Arran down on the floor. "Find a light switch," Jazz said, but before Noyock could even glance around, the door slid back up, cutting off all light.

"And I suppose you didn't think to bring a candle," Jason said.

"Next time I'll do better," Hop answered.

"A lighter?"

"You know I don't poison myself, Jazz, why would I carry fire with me?" Not that Hop hadn't once junked himself, but he had long since decided long life took precedence over fleeting pleasures, like smoking. That decision had made him feel like a puritan for months. Now he regretted it again.

They stood in the darkness for a while. Then Hop offered to prowl around and see what he could feel.

"Don't even twitch," Jazz said. "There may be some nasty surprises in here."

They waited awhile more. "Has it been three years yet, Jazz, or only two?" Hop asked.

"About four minutes. Give the lady a chance to wake up."

"I think you broke a rib."

"I hope so. The bitch deserved to lose her head."

"But she never did lose it, did she."

"Quiet. She's waking up."

Arran groaned, and Noyock wasn't even surprised that the moan was vaguely seductive. She could hardly be expected to lose lifetime habits all at once.

"Don't move around too much, Arran," Jazz said softly. "Your rib is broken, and you're in the secret room behind the mirror in the library."

"How did you find the door!"

"You told me."

"I never —"

Jazz slapped her, and she cried out. Hop began to feel a little bit disturbed at the way his meal ticket was acting. Cruelty should have some point, Hop firmly believed.

Jazz hissed at her, "You've lied every moment since we first met tonight. You tried to kill me. I want to know why."

Silence. Then another slap, another cry of pain.

"Dammit, Jazz, stop it!" Hop said.

"I've got to know what I'm up against, Hop. There's a lot she isn't telling me. Like the fact that she has a friend named Farl Baak, a Cabinet minis ter, who for some absurd reason wants me dead."

She gasped.

"I didn't come to your party ignorantly, Arran. Now you can start telling us things. For instance, you might start by telling me how to turn the lights on in here."

"Right by the door," she said.

Hop stepped in the direction he remembered the door was in, but Jazz's voice cut through the darkness. "Don't touch it! Stop where you are, Hop!" Hop stayed where he was. He heard Arran groan in fear — whatever Jazz was doing she didn't like. "Clever trap, Arran," Jason said. "But I'll start feeding you your fingers in small sections if you don't start cooperating."

Another groan of fear and pain, and Arran shouted, "Stop it! Stop it — the light's in the far right corner as you come in, at about knee height —"

The light went on. Jazz was still holding Arran's hand, tightly, while his other hand was extended to touch the spot she had described. Noyock turned from them to examine the door. "Where's the trap?" he asked.

"A metal plate under the wallcoat," Jazz said. "How many volts, Arran?"

"Enough," Arran answered. "I wish it had fried you."

"Hit her once for me," Noyock said. "Suddenly I'm not in love with her anymore."

"I'll be glad to oblige you," Jazz said, "in just about one second if Arran doesn't tell me why Farl Baak wants me dead."

She shook her head. "I never heard of Farl Baak."

"Just because nobody looped it doesn't mean it didn't happen," Jazz said.

"I didn't know the drink was poisoned," she said. Jazz slapped her hard, on the growing bruise at the bottom of her rib cage. She cried out, swung her arm to try to hit him, but was stopped by the pain. He slapped her again. She cried out again in pain, and tears flowed out the corners of her eyes, dribbling down into her ears and hair. These tears, Hop realized in surprise, were involuntary.

"I don't know why you're persecuting me," she said. Jazz only waited. "All right," she said. "I know Farl Baak. But he didn't want you dead. He had nothing to do —"

Another slap, and this time the cry was louder, and she started to sob slightly afterward. Each sob took its toll in pain, and she stopped crying and only moaned. "Because," she grunted in agony, "you're in on the plot, you bastard."

"Plot?" Jazz asked.

"To control the somec. To take control of the Sleeproom."

Jazz chuckled. "And so you had to kill me? How could I be a threat to you, sleeping in a ship off between the stars?"

She shook her head slightly. "Too many of the wrong people were all timed to wake up when you arrived, Starpilot." She spat out his title. "Farl put two and two together."

"Ah."

"And you control the fleets and the armies.

That's why we had to get rid of you before we acted against the others —"

"Jazz is just a starpilot," Hop said, wondering how such a sensible woman could believe such drivel.

"Go touch the doorframe," Jazz said. "Or shut up by yourself, Hop."

Hop shut up again.

"It's cold," Arran said, and her teeth were chattering.

Jazz looked at Hop, and Hop sighed. Jason was still stripped down for the duel, and only Hop's expensive topjacket was available. He took it off, emptied the loop recorder and suppressor out of the pockets, and handed it to Jazz, who wrapped it gently around her.

"Remind me never to trust a secret to her," Hop said to Jazz. " She didn't last very long under pressure."

Arran, despite the pain in her ribs, snarled back at him, "No one expected I'd have to deal with an animal."

Jason buttoned the jacket, and Hop noticed appreciatively that he had not bothered to put her arms into the sleeves — the coat would certainly keep her arms confined, if she should be tempted to try something. "The government," Jazz said, "has tricks that make me look like a lamb." Hop wondered vaguely what a lamb was.

"There are different kinds of pain," Arran said quietly. "Maybe you can take this kind without breaking. I'm sure of it."

"What kind of pain can you take?" Hop asked.

"I can keep smiling when I want to kill. I can seduce a man I loathe. I can spend six months without a single moment of privacy, waking, sleeping, or going to the bathroom. I can endure lovers who feel only contempt for me and pretend that I love every minute of it."

Hop didn't feel like making a clever answer, and Jazz patted her shoulder gently. "All right, and you held up pretty damned well when I was hitting you, too."

"What are you going to do with me now?" Arran asked.

"Sit and watch you, I suppose, until suppertime," Jazz said.

"She needs a doctor," Hop offered.

Jason shook his head. "If we try to take her out of here now, she'll need a mortician. Her whole flat's probably full of troops, searching for her everywhere. If they find her, the law lets them kill her. She did try to poison one of Mother's officers of the fleet."

"Does that mean we can never leave here?"

"It means we'll stay here awhile, Hop. Try to be patient. We'll be through with this before your waking's over. You won't lose any sleep."

"And when we leave, what'll we do? Report on this Farl Baak?"

"Whom do you report a Cabinet minister to? God?"

"What'll we do, then?"

"I want to find out what Baak is really up to. There is no somec plot, and I'm certainly not part of one even if there is. So there must be some reason all those wakings were timed to my arrival. I mean to find out."

"She was probably lying."

"She wasn't."

"You sound pretty sure of that."

"I plan to find out who's behind the plot to kill me. And what his real reasons are. And then I'm going to kill the bastard."

"That's the Jason Worthing I've known and loved," Hop said.

Hours later, Jason decided it was safe for him to go look for Arran's private doctor. She told him how to get out, and to Hop's surprise he believed her immediately. Apparently he was a better judge of people than Hop.

The doctor confirmed that the rib was, indeed, broken. The shock was dangerous, the doctor said. They should have got immediate medical attention. Jason didn't bother explaining that it would have been impractical, and so Hop also kept quiet. And not even Arran hinted as to how she had broken the rib, or what she was doing naked in a secret room. Either the doctor was very good at hiding his curiosity, or he had done all this before. He left without asking for a credit card, either. Hop decided he had to look into the idea of getting a private physician.

Jason had picked up a full outfit of clothing for Arran. He had chosen from her wardrobe in the flat an outfit loose enough to fit over the bandages the doctor had told her she would have to wear for at least six hours until the growth hormone wore off. "Otherwise," he had said, "you'll have a very odd–shaped chest, which might hurt business." Jason had also found a shirt and jacket that made his military pants look a little less like a uniform.

And Hop got his topjacket back. "Well, dressed for the evening and nowhere to go," he said.

"Arran will tell us where to go," Jazz said.

"I don't know any hiding places outside my flat."

"I don't want a hiding place. I want you to take us to Farl Baak," Jazz said.

She gasped. "He'll kill you."

"He doesn't really care if I'm dead, Arran. He only wants to make sure I won't interfere with him. But what if I'm on his side in this little rebellion?"

She shook her head. "He won't believe you."

"Maybe not. Let's go see."

"I don't want you dead."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Jason asked.

Arran suddenly made her face ugly. The woman can look downright natural, Hop realized. "Because even a bitch like me is capable of realizing that you had every right to kill me and instead you saved my life."

"Only in order to get information from you," Jazz said.

"If that were true," Arran answered, "I'd be dead now. You know how to get to Farl's place. You don't need me."

"I don't want to go in the front door."

She sighed. "Now that my ribs are healing, I don't want any interference with them. I'll take you. But it's none of my business what Farl does to you."

"Maybe it would be more to the point," Hop suggested, "if you worried about what we might do to Farl."

She glanced coolly at Hop. "Farl isn't a naked woman with a broken rib."

They walked out of the library and no one saw them. They walked down several ramps and corridors, and finally left Arran's flat through the delivery entrance, and in all that time they didn't see one soldier, one constable, or one human being.

"Why isn't there a guard?" Hop asked.

"Mother's Little Boys are asleep on the job," Jazz answered.

"Jazz, I think this is about the stupidest thing I ever saw you do."

Jason looked at him expressionlessly. "No one's making you come along."

Hop was surprised. "If no one's making me come along, then why the hell am I coming?"

"To protect your investment."

"Damn right."

Arran led them through a circuitous path of tubes, private cars, and corridors. Finally they found themselves ascending a long emergency stairway. After eight flights Hop suggested that they stop and rest.

As they sat on the steps, Jason looked intently at Arran's eyes. She gazed coldly back. Finally Jazz said, "You have one minute to tell me what's really at the top of these stairs."

Arran pursed her lips, then got up and started back down the steps. Jazz followed, and Hop muttered as he brought up the rear, "How come you only broke one rib, Jazz?"

They followed a different route and this time came to a very ordinary door labeled "Employees Only."

"I'm an employee," Arran said, with a nasty smile. Inside the door was a ladder, which they climbed. They came out in a storage closet with no lights. Arran confidently pushed open a door. From outside the closet they heard a man's voice say, "Who the hell — Arran, darling, I'll have you roasted if you ever come here again without an appointment —"

And then Farl Baak stopped talking because he saw Jason and Hop behind the woman.

"Take your hand away from the call button," Jazz said.

"Good morning, Starpilot," Baak said. "I must say, Arran, when you mess up an assignment it isn't necessary to bring the target back with you."

"Just a word of warning, Mr. Baak. I'm not very heavily armed —" not armed at all, Hop refrained from saying " — but the computer on my ship is watching us, and the full record of this conversation will be recorded in four different places. You don't pull the right strings to stop an investigation from finding you."

Baak pulled his hand away from the side of the bed he was lying on.

"The poison was rather direct," Jazz said. "And the duel was stupid."

"What duel?" Baak asked. He looked at Arran for an answer.

"Fritz Kapock," she said.

"That damned hero. And here I thought he was a honk." Baak laughed slightly. "What can I do for you, Mr. Worthing, since you're unfortunately still alive?"

Jason walked over to him, dragged him to an upright position, and slapped him three times. Blood ran from Farl's nose. Then the pilot slammed him against the wall. Farl slid down the wall to the floor.

Hop noticed that Arran seemed distressed by this turn of events, and so he took her hands and held them rather forcefully. "Don't strain any ribs trying to help your friend," Hop said. He didn't mention that he didn't know why the hell Jazz was hitting Baak right now. Was he beginning to believe his own image — tough guy and brawler? (I've created a monster.)

Arran didn't try to break away from him. She merely spat in his face. Because he was holding her hands, he couldn't wipe it away. "Jazz," he said. "I want a new contract for twenty–five percent. Twenty isn't enough for these special services."

Farl Baak was tipping his head backward to try to stop the nosebleed. "If you've broken my nose, you bastard, I'll see to it you're shredded."

Jazz laughed. "Baak, you've got a reputation as a jackass and a pervert. No need to try to maintain that reputation right now. Why did you want me killed, and who are you working for?"

"I'm a Cabinet minister, Worthing, and I don't work for anyone."

Jason took a step toward him. Farl slid away. "I meant it, Worthing. Until my last waking before this I was controlled, but I didn't know it. Now that I know it, I'm not controlled."

"By whom?" Jazz asked.

"I don't know," Farl Baak insisted, and Hop tended to believe him. "That's what I'm trying to find out. But you work for him, I know that. You're part of the plot."

"And how do you know that?"

Baak was silent.

Jason again menaced the man, but this time Baak didn't try to retreat. "If you touch me, Worthing, I'll have a civil suit on you, and criminal complaints for assault and battery, and you know I can make it stick, I'm a Cabinet minister, dammit."

Suddenly Arran spoke up. "Don't be stupid, Farl. Tell him. He doesn't give a damn about your silly office."

Farl looked at her angrily, but it was hard to take him very seriously with his nose bleeding down to his chin. "There are some things I'm willing to endure a lot of pain for, Worthing," Baak said.

Jason studied the man, then nodded. "All right, Baak. You're not what I thought you were. Not a jackass, anyway." Jazz reached for the man, and Baak flinched. But this time Jason only helped him to the bed. Baak sighed in relief, and lay down, tipping his head back to stop the bleeding. "Once my nose starts bleeding it goes off and on for a week," Farl complained.

"Baak, it was stupid to try to kill me. I'm on your side."

"And what side is that, Worthing?"

"Somebody's trying to take over the government, all right. Well, I don't like it any better than you do."

Suddenly Noyock felt lost. What the hell was going on? Jazz hadn't been on Capitol in decades, hadn't talked to anyone out of Hop's earshot since he got back, and suddenly he seemed deeply into plots and counterplots in the top levels of government.

Baak sniffed, then sputtered blood. "Dammit, why did you have to be so rough?"

"Sorry."

"It isn't a plot to take over the government, Jazz, and you know it. Somebody's already taken over. For eight hundred years or so, I'm pretty sure. Some bastard has been giving orders to the Cabinet."

Jason looked at the man intently. "Who?" he asked.

"Like I told you, my friend, I don't know. Until recently I didn't even know I was controlled. But I was. The man works through intermediaries. Blackmail, bribery, playing off old friendships and enmities —"

"You're being blackmailed?" Jazz asked.

"Hardly. Everybody knows every possible scandal about me. Actually I was controlled more subtly. Through an intermediary."

"Who?"

"Arran, of course," Farl answered.

Hop had let go of her when Jazz let Farl lie down. Now she cursed softly and walked toward the bed. "‘How can you say that, Farl, I've been with you since —"

"I didn't say you knew it, did I?" Baak waved her away. "Somebody keep the woman from interrupting. You know how it is, Jazz. You were born on Capitol. I came here from — well, it doesn't matter. Nowhere. There are certain social circles. Certain groups that dominate the lifeloops, that go to the same parties, that share all the interesting gossip. When I got to this somec level I began to think I belonged in those groups. But I was provincial, a boor. Utterly without manners. It was quite a coup when Arran let me into her life — the unlooped life — and started bringing me to parties, helping me learn what to do, what to say. For fifty wakings, now, I've listened to that group debate the great questions of the day — which is a laugh, since the great questions rarely come more than once in a century — and there was definitely an ‘in' opinion and an ‘out' opinion. I admit to you that I invariably voted with the ins. It got me a reputation for wisdom. Arran, here — she decides what the in opinion is to be."

"Ridiculous," Arran said. "I just think what I think."

"I traced it. I wish I could trace it further, but you were so obviously innocent of the plot that I didn't want to discover any —"

"Damn right I'm innocent," Arran interrupted.

"Jason, every single Cabinet minister is controlled some way or another. I didn't even discover it on my own. I was told. By a friend who shall remain nameless."

"You mean Shimon Rapth," Jazz said.

Forgetting his nose, Baak sat upright. "If you already know so damn much why did you come in and break my nose!"

"What did Rapth tell you, Farl?"

"Just what I told you. That the Cabinet is being controlled."

"And you nobly decided to try to put a stop to it by killing me."

"No, Worthing, not at all. I don't give a damn who controls the government. What I care about is who controls the somec —"

And then the conversation ended, because a half–dozen guards broke into the room, armed with lasers and ready to kill. Three of them took Jason and held him. Only one of them bothered to restrain Hop. Hop was a little offended at how little they feared him. Oh well.

"If you men worked for me," Jazz said, "I'd fire you all. He pushed the button ten minutes ago, and had to stall me this long."

Farl only set his lips and got up to get something to stanch the nosebleed. Arran also moved. She headed straight for Jason, who knew what was coming but couldn't do anything about it. She brought her knee up sharply into his groin. Jason cried out and went slack for a moment in the guard's arms. Then he pulled himself upright and she did it again, even harder. This time Hop cried out, too, and Farl said from the kitchen, where he was dampening a cloth, "That's enough, Arran." The Cabinet minister came back into the room with the cloth pressed to his nose. "Too bad you came along with Worthing on this one, Hop," he said. "We've had some pleasant dealings in the past, but this time Jazz is going to die, and I'm really not very afraid of the record on your ship, if there is one, Worthing."

Jazz didn't answer. He was still in pain from Arran's blows.

"Jason Worthing isn't any traitor, Baak," Noyock said.

"Oh, heavens, of course not," Baak answered. "How could I think such a thing? Listen, Noyock, how would you feel if you knew that somebody was getting payoffs to promote wealthy people to high somec levels on merit — men and women who obviously have no merit?"

"I'd kill the bastard. But Jazz hasn't even been on Capitol in forty years!"

"People are getting those promotions, Hop. Somebody's controlling the somec review board the same way they're controlling the Cabinet. And Jazz Worthing is involved. Do you want to see the proof? I'd love to show you." Farl Baak walked to a looper — one of the incredibly expensive home models — and slipped in a loop. Immediately on a small viewing stage a half–size replica of Jason Worthing stood in full starpilot's uniform. Baak punched the start button and adjusted the volume.

"Fellow soldiers of the Empire," the holocene of Jazz began, and the speech went on, an eloquent reminder of all the ways that the troops and the fleets had been trodden on and ignored by those in high places in the government. The speech, if played before soldiers, would have had them ready to tear apart the entire civil service after only ten minutes. And then the holo of Jason Worthing dropped its voice and said, "But, brothers, none of this amounts to anything. It amounts to nothing at all. You haven't suffered a bit, compared to this one outrage:

"You are not on somec, my friends.

"Except when they dump you in the belly of a ship and send you off to die in some forgotten colony, somec never reaches the common soldier. These friends of ours in the civil service scramble in their petty departmental squabbles in order to get five years, ten years, twenty years on somec at a time. What do you get? How long does a soldier live?

"In this Empire there are men and women who live forever! And you — if you're lucky, you'll see a century. And you'll spend the last fifty years of it on a pension that isn't enough to buy a bottle once a month." And so on. Until any soldier seeing it would be ready to kill anyone who kept him from somec. And the speech ended when Jason Worthing raised both hands above his head and cried out, "But there's one man — no, not me — one man who can stop this, one man who can give you eternal life, if you'll only help him, if you'll only reach out with him and strike down the vipers who strangle you! And that man is here with me today!"

The holo of Jason Worthing turned and extended an arm, waiting for someone to appear.

And then the loop ended.

They all sat around the room in silence. Arran looked at Jason Worthing with loathing. Baak glanced at both the starpilot and his agent with an amused half–smile. Jason looked at Hop. Hop looked at Jason. "Jason, you're a bastard," Hop said.