Orbitsville Departure

Chapter 12

The planning of a murder presented special difficulties, Dallen had realised.

Among them were the sheer novelty of the problem parameters and the ingrained moral objections which constantly disrupted his chains of thought. But this can't be me, the jolting recrimination would run, I just don't do this kind of thing. There was also the overriding need to make the murder look like an accidental death. An obvious homicide would trigger an investigation which was certain to reveal the circumstances which had led to Mathieu's fateful encounter with Cona and Mikel Dallen in the quietness of the north stairwell — and from there a short step in elementary police logic would lead to Carry Dallen.

The subsequent punishment would be little in itself. Dallen did not even regard a one-way trip to Orbitsville's Botany Bay as a punishment — which was partly why he could not allow Gerald Mathieu to escape along that road — but it would separate him from Cona and Mikel, thereby adding to the hurt they had already suffered. There was only one way for the issue to be resolved. Mathieu would have to the, preferably in a way he fully understood to be an execution, but which would appear like an accident to all others. And therein lay the practical difficulties.

Edgy and preoccupied, Dallen wandered into the kitchen and found Betti Knopp preparing lunch. She was a middle-aged voluntary worker who came to the house three days a week to shoulder the burden of looking after Cona, a duty she performed conscientiously and in almost total silence. Dallen was grateful to her, but had not managed to build any kind of conversational bridge. Aware of her uneasiness over his presence in the kitchen, he excused himself and went into the main room. Cona was standing at the window, looking out at the sloping perspectives of the North Hill. Her hair had been combed and neatly arranged in an adult style by Betti, and her attitude was one of wistful contemplation, just as in the period of homesickness following her arrival from Orbitsville.

Dallen was tempted to indulge in fantasy — the past weeks had been nothing more than a nightmare and Cona was her old self. He went to the window and put his arms around her. She turned and snuggled against him, making a cooing sound of pleasure and only the smell of chocolate, which the old Cona always avoided, interfered with the illusion that somehow his wife had been restored to him. He stared over her head in the direction of Madison's City Hall, unable to stop dashing his mind against the barriers of the past. If only he had not arranged to have lunch with Cona that day. If only he had been in his office. If only she had gone in by the main entrance. If only Mathieu had blanked the Department of Supply monitor a day or an hour or a minute later or earlier…

Dallen gave a low grunt of surprise as he discovered that Cona had cupped her hand on his genitals and was beginning to massage him with clumsy eagerness. For a second he almost yielded, then self-disgust plumed through him and he stepped back abruptly. Cona came after him, giggling, her gaze fixed on his groin.

"Don't do that," he snapped, holding her at arm's length. "No, Cona, no!"

She raised her eyes, reacting to the denial in his voice, and her face distorted into ugliness in a baby grimace of rage. She went for him again, strong and uninhibited, and he had to struggle to hold her in check. At that moment Betti Knopp came into the room with a tray of food. She gave Dallen a worried glance and turned to leave. "Bring it," he ordered, pushing Cona down into an armchair. The sudden force he had to use either hurt or alarmed her and she gave a loud sob which in turn drew a gasp from Betti, the first sound he had heard her make that day. She knelt by Cona and attracted her attention by noisily stirring a dish of something yellow and glutinous. Dallen stared helplessly at the two women, then strode to the other end of the room and activated the holovision set.

"Speak to me, please," he said to the solid image of a thin, silver-bearded man which appeared at the set's focus. Dallen had dropped into a chair and folded his arms across his chest before realising the image was that of Karal London. He leaned forward intently.

"…was in his early sixties," a news reader was saying, "and is understood to have refused treatment for the lung condition which led to his death. Doctor London was best known in the Madison City area as a philanthropist and creator of the Anima Mundi Foundation, an organisation devoted to promoting an exotic blend of science and religion. It was his work for the Foundation which took him to Optima Thule two years ago, and today there are unconfirmed reports that a bizarre experiment — designed by Doctor London to prove some of his theories — has been…"

"Mister Dallen!" Betti Knopp appeared directly in front of him as if by magic, hands on hips, elbows stuck out in the classic posture of exasperation. "There's something we have to get straight."

He said, "Wait a minute — I'm trying to hear what…"

"I won't wait a minute — you're going to hear me out right now!" Betti, who had been almost totally silent for weeks, was transformed into a noise-making machine. "I don't have to take all this high-and-mighty treatment from you or anybody else."

"Please let me hear this one item, and then well…"

"If you think you're too important to talk with me why don't you contact the clinic and see if they got somebody more to your taste? Why don't you?"

Dallen got to his feet, tried to placate Betti and only succeeded in attracting the attention of Cona, who added to the noise level by starting to pound on her tray with a dish. He turned and ran upstairs to his bedroom, slammed the door shut behind him and switched on another holovision. The local newscast was still running, but now the subject was hotel closures. He tried to activate the set's ten-minute memory facility and swore silently but fervently as he remembered it needed repair. Tense with frustration, he considered returning to the downstairs set, then came an abrupt shift to a more analytical mode of thought.

It had been established that Karal London was dead, so the big question troubling Dallen related to the strange experiment. Was the fact of its being mentioned at all an indication that there had been a surprising result?

The notion seemed more preposterous than ever — the idea of a deceased scientist reaching out across the light years from Orbitsville and disturbing a material object on Earth — but why were the information media interested? Would anybody connected with the Anima Mundi Foundation have been in a hurry to spread word of a negative result?

And why, he thought in a conflict of emotion, am I standing around here?

There were five cars already parked on the gravel in front of the London place, and among them — inevitably it seemed — was Renard's gold Roliac. The front door of the house was open. Dallen went inside, found the hall deserted, and turned left to walk through the living room and the studio beyond. Afternoon sunlight had transformed the fantastic glass mosaic into a curtain of varicoloured fire. Dallen hurried past it and made his way to the corridor which ran towards the rear of the premises, following a murmur of voices. He reached the chamber housing the experimental apparatus and found the door ajar.

In the dimness beyond were perhaps a dozen people in a rough circle about the case containing the six metal spheres. As his eyes adjusted to the conditions Dallen made out the white-clad figure of Silvia London, with Renard standing next to her. She was slightly stooped and was hugging herself as though trying to ward off coldness. Dallen knew she had been crying. He paused in the doorway, uncertain of his right to enter, until Renard beckoned to him.

Feeling conspicuous, he moved forward a few paces and joined the circle of watchers whose attention was fixed on the first sphere in the row of six. A lengthy silence ensued and he feh a growing disappointment, a sense of anticlimax. It was apparent to him now that the members of the group were still waiting for a sign, for proof that their mentor continued to exist as an entity composed of virtually undetectable particles.

Naivety of that magnitude, he supposed, would in itself be a newsworthy item, and he too was guilty in that respect, otherwise he would still be at home. Or would he? He had discovered that his unconscious mind possessed neither scruples nor pride, so it was quite possible that he had come to the London house quite simply to be seen by Silvia as soon as possible after her husband's death — a tactic his conscious mind could only despise.

Irritated by yet another plunge into self-analysis, Dallen looked for an unobtrusive means of escape from the circle, but even Renard was displaying a kind of reverent absorption in the gleaming sphere and its matrix of sensors. Playing up to Silvia now that Karat is out of the way? The sheer adolescent bitchiness of the thought sparked Dallen's annoyance with himself into full-blown anger.

He turned to walk out — and in the same instant a blue lumitube above the first sphere flickered into life.

It glowed for several seconds, during which the silence in the chamber was like grey glass, then the light faded. The silence was disrupted by near-explosive sighs followed immediately by the clamour of voices. Somebody gave a quavering but triumphant laugh. Dallen continued to stare at the polished sphere while he tried to rebuild his private view of the universe.

If the brief wash of photons from the lumitube meant what it was supposed to mean, Karal London was actually in the same room with him, occupying the same space. The imputation was that, released from his body by death, the physicist had been able to rove out across interstellar space and by some unimaginable means impose his will on the forces of gravity.

The message was that the human personality could survive dissolution of the body, had the potential for immortality.

Dallen felt a stealthy chill move down his spine and he shivered. Could he now believe that the Cona Dallen to whom he had been married also still existed in another kind of space? Or would London's theory have it that the assault on her physical brain had to be equally destructive to a mtndon counterpart? But that implied…

"I'm a victim of philosophical rape," Renard whispered, appearing at Dallen's side. "Old Karal has screwed up at least half of my highly expensive education."

Dallen nodded, his gaze fixed on Silvia who was leaving the chamber amid a knot of men and women, all of whom were speaking to her at once. "Where's everybody going? Don't they want to wait and see if anything else happens?"

"Nothing more is expected — that was the fifth signal. Didn't Silvia mention that bit? It's all part of Karal's experimental procedure. As well as having a separate target, each volunteer is supposed to send a different number of pulses." Speaking in a low voice, with none of his customary scoffing vulgarity, Renard explained that the first signal had been detected four hours previously. On receiving it Silvia had notified some officers of the Foundation and, in accordance with an agreed plan, they had sent a tachygram to Karal London's residence in Port Napier, Orbitsville. There had come immediate confirmation that London had just thed. For most workers in the field of the paranormal that would have been sufficient proof of the theory, but London had wanted to go further. The arrival of a predetermined number of signals would, as well as being a powerful argument against a freak equipment malfunction, demonstrate that in his discarnate form he could reproduce familiar human thought patterns. It would also show mat time in mental space was compatible with time in normal space.

"I hate to admit it," Renard concluded, "but I owe the good Doctor London an apology."

"Aren't you a bit late?"

"Not at all." Renard faced the now empty chamber and spread his arms. "Karal, you old bugger, you're not as crazy as you look."

"Very handsome apology," Dallen said.

"The least I could do, old son — it isn't every day that somebody is obliging enough to the and leave you his wife. Did I mention that Silvia is going to the Big O with me?"

Dallen's heart sledged against his ribs. "It must have slipped your mind."

"Beautiful self-control, Carry — you didn't even blink." Renard's arch of teeth glinted as he peered into Dallen's face. "The Foundation's main job now is to spread the glad tidings, which means there's no point in Silvia hanging around here when somebody else can keep an eye on the experiment. All the scientific bosses have their headquarters on Orbitsville, so…"

"Will she address them herself?"

"Only as a figurehead — and that's a job she's really cut out for. There'll be some qualified physicists from the Foundation going out to do all the talking, and I'm giving everybody a free trip." Renard smiled again. "Just to prove what a genuinely decent person lam."

"Of course." Determined not to become involved in any of Renard's private games, Dallen began to leave.

"Wait a minute. Carry." Renard moved to block the doorway. "Why don't you go back to Orbitsville with us? There's nothing on this clapped-out ball of mud for you or your family. I've got most of my grass specimens on board the ship and we'll be ready to go in a couple of days."

"Thanks, but I'm not interested."

"Free trip, old son. And no delays. Worth thinking about."

Dallen repressed a pang of dislike. "If I asked why you wanted me along, would you give me a straight answer?"

"A straight answer? What an unreasonable request!" The humorous glint faded from Renard's eyes. "Would you believe that I just like you and want to help?"

"Try something else."

"Carry, you shouldn't be so unbending. What if I say it's because you're the nearest thing I have to a rival? I told you before that the universe looks after me and gives me everything I want, which is fine — but it gets a bit boring. 1 mean, I know I'm going to have Silvia… I can't lose… but if you were around there'd be the illusion of competition, and it would make life more interesting for all concerned. How does that sound?"

"It sounds weird," Dallen said. "Are you on felicitin right now?"

Renard shook his head. Tm naturally like this — and I'm not letting you out of here until you agree that we're all going to Orbitsville together."

"That's an infringement of my liberty." Dallen smiled pleasantly, masking the glandular spurting which accompanied the thought of being allowed to put his hands on Renard. He had taken one step towards him when a confusion of sounds reached them from another part of the building — startled voices, V an irregular hammering, the shattering of glass. Renard r turned and walked quickly along the corridor with Dallen at his heels. A rapid increase in the noise level told them the commotion was originating in the studio section. The repeated splintering of glass gave Dallen a sick premonition.

He entered the studio at a run and had to edge through a cluster of people to see what was happening. Their attention was concentrated on Silvia. She was gripping a long metal bar and was using it, swinging from one side and then the other, to destroy her glass mosaic screen.

At each slicing impact another part of the unique creation ruptured and sagged, and brilliant motes of colour sprayed like water droplets. Galaxies and dusters of galaxies were annihilated at every stroke. Silvia laboured like an automaton, hewing and clubbing, sobbing aloud each time she overcame the inertia of the heavy bar. Her face was white, the eyes Samson-blind to the transient bright-hued fountains she was creating.

Four years' work and a third of a million pieces of glass. Dallen recited in his head in a kind of dismayed chant. Please don't erase your own life.

He wanted to dart forward and bring the destruction to an end, but was paralysed by a curious timidity, a fear of intruding on private torment. All he could do was stand and watch until Silvia's strength failed. She raised the bar high, aiming for the uppermost part of the trefoil design, but it wavered and circled in her grasp and she had to let it fall. She stood for a moment, head bowed, before turning to face the group.

"It was a memorial," she said in a dazed, abstracted voice. "Karal doesn't need a memorial. He isn't dead." She stared at Dallen, breathing hard, and took a half-step in his direction.

"You're coming with me," said Libby Ezzati as she stepped forward and put a motherly arm around Silvia's shoulders. "You're going to lie down."

"It's the best thing," agreed Peter Ezzati, apparently having just arrived at the house. His rotund body was encased in a dark formal suit to which he had added a band of black crepe on one arm. He positioned himself beside Silvia to help usher her out of the studio and recoiled, comically startled, when she clawed at his armband.

"Take that bloody thing off!" Her voice was shrill and unrecognisable. "Don't you understand? Are you too bloody stupid to understand?"

"It's all right — everything is all right," Libby soothed and with a surprising show of strength half-lifted Silvia clear of the floor and bore her away into the main pan of the house. It seemed to Dallen that Silvia's eyes again sought out his before two other women rallied to Libby's aid, closing in on Silvia and shutting her off from his view. He stared after them until a large petal of glass belatedly detached itself from the gutted screen and crashed to the floor. The sound of it triggered a crossfire of conversation in the group of watchers.

"Spectacular, wasn't it?" Renard murmured to Dallen. "Electra herself couldn't have put on a better show."

Dallen, baffled by the reference, saw that Renard was cool and untouched, perhaps even amused by the monumental act of destruction he had witnessed. "Rick, you're a real credit to the human race."

"What are you trying to say, old son?"

"That I don't like you and I'm getting dangerously close to doing something about it."

Renard looked gratified. "Which one of us do you reckon it's dangerous for?"

"Have a good trip to Orbitsville." Dallen turned to walk away and almost blundered into Peter Ezzati, who had removed his armband and was still looking flustered.

"Everything is happening at once," Ezzati said.

"Karal dying… the experiment… Silvia… And I was late getting here because I was following the news about Orbitsville. These green lights have to mean something. Carry. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about them."

"What green lights?" Dallen felt he had reached saturation point as far as new information was concerned, but something in Ezzati's manner prompted him to make the enquiry.

"Haven't you been following the news? They've discovered these bands of green light drifting across the shell, inside and out. At first they thought there was only going to be one, but more and more of them are showing up, getting closer together."

"Is it some kind of ionisation effect? Something like an aurora?" Ezzati shook his head. "The Science Commission says the bands don't register on any type of detector they've got, except photographically. You can see them if you're looking directly at the shell, but that's all."

"Then they can’t amount for much."

"I wish I could shrug them off like that," Ezzati said, frowning. "I don't like what's happening, Carry — the shell material is supposed to be totally stable."

"It isn't going to explode, you know." As a native of Orbitsville, one who had flown millions of kilometres over its grasslands and mountains and seas, Dallen clearly understood the sheer immutability of the vast globe. Since coming to Earth he had found that people who had never been to Orbitsville were unable to cope with its scale, and tended to think of it as something like a large metal balloon. The inadequacy of their vision was often shown in the way they spoke of people living in Orbitsville, whereas those who had first-hand experience invariably said on Orbitsville.

There could be no substitute for seeing the reality of the sphere from the direct observation area of a ship. Once was always enough. The Big O was daunting but somehow reassuring, and nobody who had ever looked on it could be quite the same person again.

Tin not suggesting it’s going to explode, it's just that…" Ezzati paused and cocked his head like a bird.

"I knew there was something else I had to tell you. With not coming into the office these days, I don't suppose you'll have heard about Gerald Mathieu."

"Mathieu?" Dallen held his, voice steady. "What about him?"

"He set out for the west coast this morning, but he didn't get very for — his ship went down somewhere near Montgomery."

"Forced landing?"

"Very forced. From the analysis of the way his beacons snuffed out it looks as though he flew smack into a hill."

The words impacted on Dallen's mind like a bowling ball hurled with pin-splintering force, scattering all his preconceptions about the immediate future. Instead of satisfaction at the idea of Mathieu meeting a violent death, he felt an immediate sense of loss. It had to be wrong for the man who had casually destroyed a family to escape so easily, so quickly, without even knowing that he had been judged and condemned, without even looking into his executioner's eyes.

"Is there any definite…?" Dallen swallowed to ease the dryness in his throat. "Is Mathieu dead?"

"Don't let Silvia hear you use that word around here." Ezzati smiled broadly and patted Dallen's upper arm. "Discarnate is the accepted term. It looks as though young Mathieu is as discarnate as a dodo."

"I find that… hard to believe," Dallen said, belatedly coming to terms with the new situation. Mathieu's death had relieved him of a terrible responsibility, freeing him to deal with other commitments which, thus far, he had avoided thinking about in detail.

Ezzati looked up at him with some anxiety. "Look, Carry, I didn't mean to sound flippant. Was Mathieu close to you?"

"Not really. I'm going home." Dallen was outside the house and walking to his car, the world around him a blur of shimmering colours and steamy warmth, before he realised that he really was going home. He and Cona and Mike! had wasted too much time on Earth.