Manalone (8 page)

‘But what the hell is this crisis? How much of a crisis can it be if we can’t see or feel its effects or know where the victims are dying?’

‘I think I know where the victims are dying, Paul,’ said Manalone quietly, looking at Sandra out of the corner of his eye. ‘And many technological disasters could neither be seen nor felt in their initial stages – for instance a dramatic increase in airborne radioactivity would only be detectable by instrumentation until its slower effects on biology and genetics became apparent.’

‘My God, you mean …’

‘No. This isn’t a radiation scare. Nothing nearly so simple. This one’s a challenge to our ideas of reality itself. It has aspects which appear as altered gravity and momentum. It involves concepts of size and weight and value. Somehow it involves the past as compared with the present. And a clue to the answer’s to be found in a teapot handle.’

Raper’s perplexed reply was interrupted by the shrill call of the autophone. Being nearest, Raper picked it up. He started to speak then stopped and merely listened, his face turning pale. When he dropped the handset he was looking physically sick.

‘That was
my office, Manalone. Someone exploded a bomb in it. I’ve got to get back to try and salvage a few things from my personal files before the police and the MIPS find them. If they get some of those papers, we’re both dead.’

‘He’s a
damn chancer,’ said Sandra, coming forward as the hastily summoned autram took Raper away to the Hover-rail Terminal. ‘I don’t like you getting mixed up with him, Manalone. There’s sure to be trouble. What’s he want here, anyway?’

‘He came to discuss the election, San. Is there anything wrong in that?’

‘From London to discuss the election? Why can’t he use the vidiphone like everyone else?’

‘It wasn’t that sort of discussion,’ said Manalone tiredly.

She rounded on him like a tiger. ‘Look, Manalone, I know you’re up to something, and it doesn’t smell good. You get yourself involved with the police, and I’ll quit – I promise to God I’ll quit. If you want another interest, why the hell don’t you do that work for Vic Blackman?’

‘The last time you mentioned Blackman you said he was a chancer, too.’

‘I know, but at least he’s got money – I mean
real
money. He’ll pay you well.’

‘Then your objection’s not that I’m running with chancers, but rather that I don’t appear to be making enough profit out of it?’

She went away furious. She never could stand Manalone in one of his logical moods.

‘She’s your wife, Manalone, and if Paul’s right about the MIPS and the current state of the Security forces, you’re already in trouble. Why don’t you just drop it before you really get out on a limb. You may have an in-built hankering after martyrdom, but do you really have any right to let it affect Sandra?’

He could see her in a mirror moving towards the sleep-space, her hair gleaming gloriously under the illuminated ceiling. A magnificent white-throated pet … The only thing that bound her to him was the money he earned. It seemed now that even his substantial income was insufficient for her wants. He knew that one day she would leave him, and he realized that this consideration was something he had known for a long time. She was a chancer – an opportunist – and he was ceasing to be an attractive opportunity. Slightly numb, Manalone wondered how long it would take her to make up her mind.

At least, it
answered his problem. Since losing her was inevitable, he need not allow consideration for her to influence his own actions unduly. He was free to make his own way to Hell if he chose.

‘Aren’t things beginning to make sense yet, Manalone? You’re quite sure there’s a major crisis and you know that the victims are dying. You even know where and how many are dying – they’re dying in hospitals, five percent of mothers during pregnancy plus their unborn children. Over a thousand deaths per ten thousand cases sampled. What you don’t know is why they’re dying.

‘It isn’t radiation. There’s been no significant increase in background count this century. Genetic damage? Possible. It could affect the growing embryo or foetus, but it’s difficult to see how it could kill the mother. Perhaps evolution’s growing tired of the human race and wants to give something else a chance to see what it can do with dominance. One thing’s certain, Manalone, if Paul’s left much of this investigation in note form and the MIPS get hold of it, then you’re probably not going to get the chance to find the answers. Your most pressing need is a life insurance.’

He did not bother to go to bed that night, but worked on in his studyspace culling information from his files, books and tapes about the immense national computer networks whose electronic webs spanned the country like the nervous system of some giant inorganic beast. Transport, Credit, Archive, and several hundred other functional computing complexes each had their own motor and sensory analogues reaching from coast to coast, but he was secretly pleased to note that the electronic beast of which they were a part was disco-ordinated by virtue of having too many autonomous brains and too little integration.

‘By some oversight, Manalone, there’s still room left in the system for human beings. No doubt that will be rectified in time – but just at this moment there’s still a niche between the data links and the peripherals where an individualist might survive.’

He pulled a pad
towards him and began to set up in blocked representation a system analysis for one of the most complex computer programmes he would ever have to write. So engrossed was he in this task that he was scarcely conscious of the dawn breaking and the gradual daylight filtering in through the windows. He was still working at his desk when the contract autram drew up outside the house to take him to the Mills. He did not even look towards Sandra as he left. In some unreal way he felt that she had already gone.

At the Mills? Manalone ignored his own work and headed straight for the computer laboratory with his notes. Here among the extensive library of programmes and subroutines, he found the flesh which would clothe the bones of his idea. He worked swiftly and with the consummate assurance of a man who knew every element of the complexities with which he worked to a level such that he could feel his way through the software almost by instinct. Accuracy was not particularly essential, but speed was critical.

Maurine van Holt tracked him down about four hours later. He had expected her a lot sooner. There was something in the twist of her smile which suggested she knew that he had been deliberately avoiding her.

‘So here you are, Manalone! I didn’t think you were in today until I checked the gatehouse records.’

‘Don’t tell me you missed me?’

‘I was – er – interested in finding you. Everyone in the plant must have been looking for you sometime or another.’

‘It’s nice to know you’re wanted, Mau. You don’t know what that does for a man.’

She realized that he was teasing her, and her eyebrows raised in incredulous amusement.

‘You’re in a rare mood today, Manalone. You sneak in here in a suit you’ve obviously slept in, and having avoided nearly a day’s work, you finish up talking like a human being. Something’s got into you, that’s for sure!’

‘Could be it’s spring.’ He continued watching the coordination of his programme. No less than seven magnetic readers were filing their carefully selected instructions into the central processor, and the sole visible output of the operation was a punched tape from the verifier, which Manalone tore off in lengths and fed straight into the destructor. ‘You know, Mau, you’re wasted here. What’s a girl like you doing in an automated industry like this? Why don’t you let me take you away from it all?’

Her twisted,
sardonic grin became increasingly wry and increasingly bemused.

‘You’re up to something,’ she said. ‘With some people it’s the spring, but when
you
start acting human you definitely need watching.’

He saw the programme run to an end, tore off the verification print and dropped it into the destructor. Then he turned back to meet her deeply analytical gaze.

‘You know, you’re quite a character, Mau. Whenever I’ve a problem and feel like talking about it, you’re always ready with a shoulder for me to cry on. And whenever I’ve a problem and don’t feel like talking, you still seem to know and try to get me to share it.’

‘That’s what secretaries are for.’ Somewhere in the depths of her multi-layered personality a tiny alarm seemed to sound, and a shadow crossed her brow as she realized Manalone’s formidable intelligence was this time being directed against her. She dropped into a convenient chair and faced him fully, acknowledging the game in which the exact words did not count, and only the hidden meanings spoke aloud.

‘What are you saying, Manalone?’

‘I’m saying, Mau, sometimes you seem to know I have a problem even before I do. With a rapport like that, we should have a great deal going for us.’

‘Are you making love-talk to me, Manalone?’

‘Perhaps!’ Manalone was enjoying the contest. ‘How long have we known each other, Mau?’

‘About three years is all.’

‘And do you know that for all that time there’s been something I’ve wanted to ask you – but never quite had the nerve.’

She leaned a little closer towards him. ‘Ask me now, boy.’

‘Maurine – why the hell do you wear a gun?’

He struck at her at the same moment as he spoke. She had seen the hardening of his eyes, but had not known the intention behind it, and was therefore taken by surprise. The gun, unseated from its leg holster, fell out and slid across the polished floor. She was on her feet in an instant to recover it, looking down furiously into his quietly smiling face.

‘That wasn’t
very clever, Manalone!’

‘Wasn’t it? I thought it was.’ He gave no indication of what conclusions he had drawn from the incident. Instead he began quietly to close down the computer peripherals he had been using, and moved to put the programme tapes back into the library. She watched him steadily. Knowing that her charade was broken, and knowing Manalone’s gift of insight, she saw no point in further pretence.

‘You know you’re heading into trouble, don’t you, Manalone? You’re too rare a character to get hurt. Why the hell don’t you stop?’

‘No, Maurine. Why don’t you stop? You’re the ones who’ve started a game you’ll never be able to finish.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I didn’t think you would. But listen to this, Mau. I’ve just taken out an insurance policy. If anything happens to me, I’m afraid your nice tight security operation will blow up in your faces. It could even lead to civil war.’

‘You’re bluffing, Manalone.’

‘That’s something you’ll never be sure of unless you put it to the test.’

‘But how the hell …?’ Her eyes scanned the central processor and she visibly recoiled when she saw the number of open external data links he had been using.

‘You haven’t …?’ Her conclusion was one which evoked real alarm.

‘I haven’t blown it yet,’ said Manalone. ‘But if I’m not around to keep things in trim then a few million computer-service subscribers are going to get some very disturbing facts delivered on their printout terminals. And don’t waste time trying to find the memory banks which contain the information. The deposition’s coded and spread through half a hundred memory stores right across the country. You wouldn’t even recognize it if you found it.’

‘You’re a damn fool, Manalone. They won’t let you get away with it. They’ll punish you. You’ve no idea what you’re taking on.’

‘I know
sufficient to be able to buy some time while I come to grips with the rest.’

The autophone called shrilly, and she answered it, then held out the handset. ‘It’s for you. Paul Raper calling from London.’

‘Manalone!’ Raper’s voice sounded tired and alarmed. ‘I think we’ve hit trouble. The blast destroyed most of my files, but the MIPS may have enough to start them asking questions. I’m going to try to get through to the raft and stay out of the way for a while. If you can meet me there, I’ve got something for you.’

‘Get off the line!’ said Manalone. ‘There’s an MIPS agent standing right near me.’ He dropped the handset back on its rest as though it had suddenly grown hot, and swiftly erased the caller’s number.

Completely composed now, Maurine van Holt was watching him from a discreet distance, smiling her bent and cynical smile which became more enigmatic and more challenging the longer he looked at it. Their eyes met for a long time, locked in the intimacy of mutual defiance.

‘Well,’ said Manalone, ‘what happens now?’

‘Should something happen?’ she asked, her amusement rising to the surface. ‘After all, as you were overheard to say at Cain’s, there isn’t a war on.’

Which was another phrase in which the exact words did not count.

She had not been
near enough to hear Paul Raper’s side of the conversation on the autophone, but Manalone was beginning to understand the web which was around him sufficiently to appreciate that the call had almost certainly been monitored. Maurine’s triumphant grin virtually confirmed the fact. Not only was he under close surveillance, but he obviously had been for some time past. Maurine van Holt’s interest may have become complicated by their personal relationship, but it had started and been maintained in a highly professional way.

Accepting this, Paul Raper had just talked himself into a net by an admission that he had something to conceal. Manalone had no way of stopping Raper from coming, nor could he stop the MIPS who might wait for Raper at the raft. There was just the slight possibility that if Raper came by hover-train, Manalone might be able to intercept him at Bognor Terminal.

Thinking about it, Manalone realized the incongruity of the situation. His own complicity with Raper would be at least as well known to the MIPS as were Raper’s supposed indiscretions. In fact, by some remarkable act of intuition, the MIPS would appear to have anticipated his own interest by something like three years. Not only had Maurine van Holt been inserted into his life as a confidante, but it was now obvious that his habitual corner of Cain’s club had been ingeniously bugged despite Cain’s anti-bug devices. Yet surprisingly his fears were not for himself, but for Paul Raper.