The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

XV

"Premenstrual Syndrome: Just before their periods women behave the way men do all the time"

LOWELL STONE, M.D. 2144-

We didn't break into a run but we got out of there as fast as possible. True, Auntie had clobbered Mr. Mao into accepting me as a "hero" rather than a criminal-but that did not make him love me and I knew it.

Major Bozell did not even pretend to like me. Captain Mar-cy's "defection" infuriated Bozell; Gwen's pictures actually showing bandits (where they could not be!) broke his heart. Then his boss gave him the crudest blow by ordering him to get his troops together and get out there and find them! Do it now! "If you can't do it. Major, I'll have to find someone who can. You thought up this idea of the hundred-kilometer border. Now justify your boasts."

Mao should not have done it to Bozell in the presence of others-especially not in my presence. This I know from professional experience-in each role.

I think Gwen gave Auntie some signal. As may be. Aunt Lilybet told Mao she had to leave. "My little nurse is going to scold me for staying too long. I don't want her to have to scold me too hard. Mei-Ling Ouspenskaya-do you know her, Jefferson? She knows your momma."

The same two police officers wheeled Auntie all the way back through that series of offices and out to the public corridor-square, rather, as the city offices face on Revolutionary Square. She said good-bye to us there and the police officers wheeled her away to Wyoming Knott Memorial Hospital, two levels down and north of there. I don't think they expected to do it-I do know Gwen conscripted these two right there in the Moderator's offices-but Auntie assumed that they would take her back to hospital, and they did. "No, Gwen honey, no need for you to come along-these kind gentlemen know where it is."

(A lady has doors held for her because she expects doors to be held for her. Both Gwen and Aunt Lilybet had this principle down pat.)

Facing the municipal offices was a large bunting-bedecked sign:

FREE LUNA! July 4th, 2076-2188

Was it really Independence Day already? I counted up in my mind. Yes, Gwen and I had married on the first-so today had to be the Fourth of July. A good omen!

Seated at a bench around a fountain in the center of Revolutionary Square was Xia, waiting for us.

I had expected Gwen; I did not expect Xia. In the chat I had had with Xia, I had asked her to try to locate Gwen and to tell her where I was going and why. "Xia, I don't like being called in by cops for questioning, especially in a strange town where I don't know the political setup. If I am 'detained'-to put it politely-I want my wife to know where to look."

I did not suggest what Gwen should do about it. In only three days of marriage to Gwen I had already learned that nothing I could suggest could equal what she would think of, left to her own devious devices-being married to Gwen was not dull!

I was warmly pleased to find Xia waiting but I was startled at what she had with her. I stared and said, "Somebody book the bridal suite?" On the bench by Xia I saw Gwen's small case, a package containing a wig, a rock maple in bonsai, and a package not familiar to me but self-explained by its Sears Montgomery wrapping. "I'll bet my toothbrush is still hanging in the 'fresher."

"How much and what odds?" said Xia. "You would lose. Richard, I'll miss both of you. Maybe I'll run over to L-City and visit you."

"Do that!" said Gwen.

"Concur," I concurred, "if we're moving to L-City. Are we?"

"Right away," said Gwen.

"Bill, did you know about this?"

"No, Senator. But she had me rush over to Sears and turn in my p-suit. So I'm ready."

"Richard," Gwen said seriously, "it's not safe for you to stay here."

"No, it's not," said a voice behind me (proving again that classified matters should not be discussed in public places). "The sooner you chums leave the better. Hi, Xia. Are you with these dangerous characters?"

"Hi yourself, Choy-Mu. Thanks for last time."

I blinked at him. "Captain Marcy! I'm glad you came out;

I want to thank you!"

"Nothing to thank me for. Captain Midnight-or is it 'Senator'?"

"Well... actually it's 'Doctor.' Or 'Mister.' But to you it's 'Richard,' if you will. You saved my neck."

"And I'm Choy-Mu, Richard. But I did not save your neck. I followed you out to tell you so. You may think you won back in there. You did not. You lost. You made the Moderator lose face-you made both of them lose face. So you're a walking time bomb, an accident looking for the spot." He frowned. "Not too healthy for me, either, being present when they lost face... after making the initial mistake of 'bearing bad news to the king.' Understand me?"

"I'm afraid I do."

Xia asked, "Choy-Mu, truly did Number-One lose face?" 'Truly he did, luv. It was Aunt Lilybet Washington who did

it to him. But of course he can't touch her. So it lands on

Captain- On Richard. So I see it."

Xia stood up. "Gwen, let's go straight to the station. Not

waste a second! Oh, damn! I did so much want you to stay a

few days."

Twenty minutes later we were at South Tube Station, and about to enter the ballistic tube for Luna City. The fact that we were able to book space in the L-City capsule leaving almost at once controlled our destination, as Choy-Mu and Xia went along to see us off and, by the time we had reached the station via the local city subway, they had convinced me-or had convinced Gwen (more to the point)-that we should take the first thing leaving town, no matter where it went. From that same station there are ordinary (non-ballistic) tubes to Plato, Tycho Under, and Novy Leningrad-had we been six minutes earlier we would have wound up in Plato warren, which would have changed many things.

Or would it have changed anything? Is there a Destiny that shapes our ends? (Gwen's end was delightfully shaped. Xia's also, come to think of it.)

There was barely time to say good-bye before we had to rack up and strap in. Xia kissed us all good-bye and I was pleased that Gwen did not let Choy-Mu go unkissed. A true Loonie, he hesitated a long beat to make sure that the lady meant it, then returned it enthusiastically. I watched Xia kissing Bill good-bye-Bill returned it without that hesitation. I decided that Gwen's attempt to play Pygmalion to this unlikely Galatea was succeeding but that Bill would have to leam Loonie manners, or he might lose some teeth.

We strapped down, the capsule was sealed, and again Bill cradled the little maple's pot against his belly. The racks swung to meet acceleration-one full gee, a high acceleration for Loonies who filled the rest of the car. Two minutes and fifty-one seconds of boost, then we were at orbital speed.

Odd to be in free fall in a subway. But it certainly is fun!

It was the first time I had ridden the ballistic tube. It dates back before the Revolution, although then (so I've read) it extended only to Endsville. It was completed later, but the principle was never extended to other subway systems-not economic, I am told, other than for heavily-traveled, long runs that can be dug "straight" the whole way-"straight" in this case meaning "exactly conforming to a ballistic curve at orbiting velocity."

This subway is the only underground "spaceship" in history. It works like the induction catapults that throw cargo to Ell-Four and Ell-Five and to Terra... except that the launching station, the receiving station, and the entire trajectory are underground ... a few meters underground in most places, about three klicks underground where the tube passes under mountains.

Two minutes and fifty-one seconds of one-gee boost, twelve minutes and twenty-seven seconds in free fall, two minutes and fifty-one seconds of one-gee braking-it adds up to an average speed of more than five thousand kilometers per hour. No other "surface" transportation anywhere even approaches this speed. Yet it is an utterly comfortable ride-three minutes that feel like lying in a hammock on Terra, then twelve and a half minutes of weightlessness, and again three minutes in that garden hammock. How can you beat that?

Oh, you could do it faster by accelerating at multiple gee. But not much. If your acceleration could be instantaneous (killing all passengers!) and you decelerated the same way (splat!), you could raise your average speed to just over six thousand kilometers per hour and trim your time back by almost three minutes! But that's the ultimate.

That is also the best possible time for a rocketship between Kong and L-City. In practice a jumpbug rocket will usually take about half an hour-depends on how high its trajectory is.

But surely a half hour is short enough. Why tunnel under maria and mountains when a rocket can do the job?

A rocket is the most lavishly expensive transportation ever invented. In a typical rocketship mission half the effort is spent fighting gravity to go up and the other half is spent fighting gravity in letting down-as crashing is considered an unsatisfactory end to a mission. The giant catapults on Luna, on Terra, on Mars, and in space are giant statements against the wastefulness of rocket engines.

Contrariwise, the ballistic subway is the most economical transportation ever devised: No mass is burned up or thrown away and the energy used in speeding up is given back at the other end in slowing down.

No magic is involved. An electric catapult is a motor generator. Never mind that it doesn't look like one. In its acceleration phase it is a motor; electric power is converted into kinetic energy. In its decelerating phase it is a generator; the kinetic energy extracted from the capsule is pulled out as electric power and stored in a Shipstone. Then the same energy is taken from the Shipstone to hurt the capsule back to Kong.

A Free Lunch!

Not quite. There are hysteresis losses and other inefficiencies. Entropy always increases; the second law of thermodynamics can't be snubbed. What it most resembles is regenerative braking. There was a time, years ago, when surface cars were slowed and stopped by friction, rudely applied. Then a bright lad realized that a turning wheel could be stopped by treating it as a generator and making it pay for the privilege of being stopped-the angular momentum could be extracted and stored in a "storage battery" (an early predecessor of Shipstones).

The capsule from Kong does much the same; in cutting magnetic lines of force at the L-City end it generates a tremendous electromotive force, which stops the capsule and changes its kinetic energy into electrical energy, which is then stored.

But the passenger need know nothing of this. He simply lounges in his "hammock" rack for the gentlest ride possible.

We had just spent most of three days in rolling seven hundred kilometers. Now we traveled fifteen hundred kilometers in eighteen minutes.

We had to shoulder our way out of the capsule and into the tube station because there were Shriners impatiently awaiting the opportunity to board for Kong. I heard one say that "they" (that anonymous "they" who are to blame for everything)- "they ought to put on more cars." A Loonie tried to explain to him the impossibility involved in his demand-just one tube, able to handle only one capsule, which could be at this end or at the far end or in free flight in between. But never two capsules in the tube-impossible, suicidal.

His explanation met with blank disbelief. The visitor seemed to have trouble, too, in grasping the idea that the ballistic tube was privately owned and totally unregulated... a matter that came up when the Loonie finally said, "You want another tube, go ahead! Build it! You are free to do so; nobody is stopping you. If that doesn't satisfy you, go back to Liverpool!"

Unkind of him. Earthworms can't help being earthworms. Every year some of them die through inability to comprehend that Luna is not like Liverpool, or Denver, or Buenos Aires.

We passed through the lock separating the pressure owned by Artemis Transit Company from the municipal pressure. In the tunnel just beyond the lock was a sign: GET YOUR AIR CHITS HERE. Seated under it at a table was a man twice as handicapped as I was; his legs ended at his knees. This did not seem to slow him down; he sold magazines and candy as well as air, advertised both sightseeing and guide service, and displayed the ubiquitous sign: TRACK ODDS.

Most people breezed back and forth past him without stopping. Bill had started to do so, when I checked him. "Wups! Wait, Bill."

"Senator, I've got to get some water onto this tree."

"Wait just the same. And stop calling me 'Senator.' Call me 'Doctor' instead. Dr. Richard Ames."

"Huh?"

"Never mind; just do it. Right now, we've got to bay sax. Didn't you buy air at Kong?"

Bill had not. He had entered the city pressure helping with Auntie and no one had asked him to pay.

"Well, you should have paid. Did you notice that Gretchen paid for all of us at Lucky Dragon? She did. And now we'll pay here, but I'll arrange for longer than overnight. Wait here."

I stepped up to the table. "Hi there. You're selling air?"

The air vendor glanced up from working a double-crostic, looked me over. "No charge to you. You paid for air when you bought your ticket."

"Not quite," I said. "I'm a Loonie, cobber, returning home. With a wife and one dependent. So I need air for three."

"A nice try. But no prize. Look, a citizen's chit won't get you citizens' prices-they'll still look at you and charge you tourist prices. If you want to extend your visa, you can. At city hall. And they'll collect air fee to cover your extended visa. Now forget it, before I decide to cheat you."

"Choom, you're hard to please." I dug out my passport- glanced at it to make sure it was my "Richard Ames" passport- and handed it to him. "I've been away several years. If that makes me look like a groundhog to you, that's regrettable. But please note where I was born."

He looked it over, handed it back. "Okay, Loonie, you had me fooled. Three of you, eh? For how long?"

"My plans aren't firm. What's the shortest period for the permanent-resident scale?"

"One quarter. Oh, another five percent off if you buy five years at a time... but with today's prime rate at seven point one, it's a sucker bet."

I paid for three adults for ninety days and asked what he knew about housing. "Having been away so long I not only don't have cubic, I don't know the market-and I don't relish dossing in Bottom Alley tonight."

"You'd wake up with your shoes gone, your throat cut, and rats walking over your face. Mmm, a tough question, cobber. You see the funny red hats. Biggest convention L-City has ever had; between it and Independence Day the town is booked solid. But, if you're not too fussy-"

"We're not."

"You'll be able to get something better after the weekend, but in the meantime there is an old place in level six, the Raffles, across from-"

"I know where it is. I'll try there."

"Better call them first and tell them I sent you. I'm Rabbi Ezra ben David. Reminds me. 'Ames, Richard.' Are you the Richard Ames who's wanted for murder?"

"My word!"

"Surprise you? Too true, cobber. I've got a copy of the notice here someplace." He shuffled through magazines and penciled notes and chess problems. "Here it is. You're wanted in Golden Rule habitat-seems you chilled some VIP. So they say."

"Interesting. Is there a tab out on me here?"

"In Luna? I don't think so. Why would there be? Still the same old standoff; no diplomatic relations with Golden Rule until they qualify under the Oslo Convention. Which they cannot without a basic bill of rights. Which is not bloody likely."

"I suppose so."

"Still... if you need lawyer help, come see me; I do that, too. Catch me here any day after noon, or leave your name at Seymour's Kosher Fish Emporium across from Carnegie Library. Seymour's my son."

"Thanks, I'll remember. By the way, who is it I'm supposed to have killed?"

"Don't you know?"

"Since I didn't kill anybody how could I know?"

"There are logical lacunae in that which I will not examine. It is set forth here that your victim hight Enrico Schultz. Does that name trigger your memory?"

"'Enrico Schultz.' I don't think I've ever heard that name. A stranger to me. Most murder victims are killed by close friends or relatives-not by strangers. And, in this case, not by me."

"Odd indeed. Yet the owners of Golden Rule have offered a substantial reward for your death. Or, to be precise, for delivering you alive or dead, with no emphasis on keeping you alive-just your body, cobber, warm or cold. Should I point out that, if I were your attorney, I would be ethically bound not to exploit this opportunity?"

"Rabbi, I don't think you would anyhow; you're too much the old Loonie. You're simply trying to chivvy me into hiring you. Mmm. I claim the Three Days."

"Three days, it is. Do you want skin receipts or will chits suffice?"

"Since I've lost the look of a Loonie, we had better have both."

"Very well. A crown or two for luck?"

The Reverend Ezra stamped our forearms with the date three months hence and with his chop, using a waterproof ink visible only in black light, and showed us, using his test lamp, that we were marked and now could legally breathe for one quarter anywhere in L-City municipal pressure-and enjoy other concomitant privileges such as passage through public cubic. I offered him three crowns over what I had paid for air; he accepted two.

I thanked him and bade him good day; we went on down the tunnel, each somewhat awkwardly burdened. Fifty meters farther along, the tunnel debouched into a main corridor. We were about to exit, and I was checking my orientation, deciding whether to go left or right, when I heard a whistle and a soprano voice. "Hold it! Not so fast. Inspection first."

I stopped and turned. She had a face that spells "civil servant"-and don't ask me how. I simply know, from three planets, several planetoids, and still more habitats, that after racking up a number of years toward retirement, all civil servants have this look. She wore a uniform that was neither police nor military. "Just in from Kong?"

I agreed that we were.

"Are you three together? Put everything on the table. Open up everything. Any fruits, vegetables, or food?"

I said, "What is this?"

Gwen said, "I have a Hershey bar. Want a bite?"

"I think that counts as bribery. Sure, why not?"

"Of course I'm trying to bribe you. I have a small alligator in my purse. He's neither fruit nor vegetable; I suppose he could be food. In any case he's almost certainly against your stuffy rules."

"Wait a minute; I'll have to check the lists." The inspector consulted a very large loose-leaf volume of terminal printout. "Alligator pears; alligator skins, cured or tanned; alligators, stuffed- Is this one stuffed?"

"Only when he overeats; he's greedy."

"Dearie, are you trying to tell me that you've got a live alligator in that purse?"

"Put your hand in my purse at your own risk. He's trained as a guard alligator. Count your fingers before you reach in, then count them again as you take your hand out."

"You're joking."

"What odds? And how much? But remember, I warned you."

"Oh, piffle!" The inspector reached into Gwen's purse- gave a yelp as she snatched her hand out. "It bit me!" She stuck her fingers into her mouth.

"That's what he's there for," said Gwen. "I warned you. Are you hurt? Let me see."

The two women inspected the hand, each decided that red marks were the extent of the damage. "That's good," said Gwen. "I've been trying to teach him to grasp firmly but not to break the skin. And never, never bite fingers off. He's learning; he's still young. But you shouldn't have been able to get your hand back that easily. Alfred is supposed to hang on like a bulldog while the radio alarm causes me to come a-running."

"I don't know anything about bulldogs but he certainly tried to take my finger off."

"Oh, surely not! Have you ever seen a dog?"

"Just dressed-out carcasses in meat markets. No, I take that back; I saw one in Tycho Zoo when I was a little girl. Big ugly brute. Scared me."

"Some are small and some aren't ugly. A bulldog is ugly but not very big. What a bulldog is best at is biting and hanging on. That's what I'm training King Alfred to do."

'Take him out and show him to me."

"No indeed! He's a guard beast; I don't want him getting petted and cooed over by other people; I want him to bite. If you want to see him, you reach in and take him out. Maybe this time he'll hang on. I hope."

That ended any attempt to inspect us. Adele Sussbaum, Unnecessary Public Servant First Class, agreed that Tree-San was not verboten, admired it, and inquired as to its flowers. When she and Gwen started exchanging recipes, I insisted that we had to get moving-if the municipal health and safety inspection was finished.

We slanted across Outer Ring; I smelted out the Causeway and was oriented. We went down a level and passed through Old Dome, then headed down the tunnel where my memory said the Raffles Hotel ought to be.

But en route Bill exposed me to some of his political opinions. "Senator-"

"Not 'Senator,' Bill. Doctor."

"'Doctor.' Yes, sir. Doctor, I think it's wrong, what happened back there."

"Yes, it is. That so-called inspection is pointless. It's the sort of expensive, useless accretion all governments acquire over the years, like barnacles on an ocean ship."

"Oh, I don't meant that. That's okay; it protects the city and gives her an honest job."

"Strike the word 'honest.'"

"Huh? I was talking about charging for air. That's wrong. Air should be free."

"Why do you say that. Bill? This isn't New Orleans; this is the Moon. No atmosphere. If you don't buy air, how are you going to breathe?"

"But that's just what I mean! Air to breathe is everybody's right. The government should supply it."

"The city government does supply it, everywhere inside the city pressure. That's what we just paid for." I fanned the air in front of his nose. "This stuff."

"But that's what I'm saying! Nobody should have to pay for the breath of life. It's a natural right and the government should supply it free."

I said to Gwen, "Wait a moment, dear; this has got to be settled. We may have to eliminate Bill just to keep him happy. Let's stand right here till we straighten this out. Bill, I paid for air for you to breathe because you have no money. Correct?"

He did not answer at once. Gwen said quietly, "I let him have pocket money. Do you object?"

I looked at her thoughtfully. "I think I should have been told. My love, if I am to be responsible for this family, I must know what is going on in it." I turned to Bill. "When I paid for your air back there, why didn't you offer to pay your share out of the money you had in your pocket?"

"But she gave it to me. Not you."

"So? Give it back to her."

Bill looked startled; Gwen said, "Richard, is this necessary?"

"I think it is."

"But I don't think it is."

Bill kept quiet, did nothing, watched. I turned my back on him to face Gwen privately, said softly, for her ears only:

"Gwen, I need your backing."

"Richard, you're making an issue out of nothing!"

"I don't see it as 'nothing,' dear. On the contrary, it's a key matter and I need your help. So back me up. Or else."

" 'Or else' what, dear?"

"You know what 'or else' means. Make up your mind. Are you going to back me up?"

"Richard, this is ridiculous! I see no reason to cater to it."

"Gwen, I'm asking you to back me up." I waited an endless time, then sighed. "Or start walking and don't look back."

Her head jerked as if I had slapped her. Then she picked up her case and started walking.

Bill's jaw dropped, then he hurried after her, still carrying Tree-San.