Orbit 9 Read online

  “Excuse me, officer.”

  The cop halted and turned on him. “Don’t come too close, mister.”

  “I just want directions.”

  “Stand back a little there. Okay, what’s the problem?”

  “I’m looking for the entrance to Loshun Tower.”

  “That way,” the cop said, pointing with the stunstick. “Back off now.”

  Murdock backed, restraining the impulse to cut and run.

  In the cool that leaked through the air curtain, a man in a long white robe with a deep cowl marched back and forth, his sandals slapping softly on the maroon indoor-outdoor carpeting. He shouldered a sign that said:

  LISTEN, CHILDREN!

  He confronted Murdock.

  Murdock tried to edge past him.

  The man’s impossibly thick black beard bristled out from the shadow that half-hid his face. As he sidestepped to block Murdock’s way, he said, “The spawning rivers are running dry! Prepare yourself, for the days of wrath are at hand!”

  Murdock tried to go around. The man moved with him, holding out a folded slip of pink paper. Murdock took it. The robed figure didn’t move.

  “Get out of my way or I’ll call a cop,” Murdock said.

  “I am a cop,” Blackbeard intoned. “I only do this during my off-duty time.” He jutted his beard at Murdock again and added, “Prepare yourself, for the days of wrath are at hand! The spawning rivers are running dry!”

  “Do you mind?” Murdock said.

  “You got any ID?” Blackbeard asked.

  “What?”

  “Identification. You got any or not?”

  “I’m really in a hurry,” Murdock said.

  The man waggled his sign. “You see what this is?”

  Murdock looked. The sign was heavy-duty posterboard. The pole that held it up was an extra-long riot stunstick. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet.

  “Citizen card?” the cop said.

  Murdock handed it over. The cop examined it carefully, comparing the picture on it with the actuality.

  “It’s not really a very good likeness,” Murdock apologized.

  “What are you doing this far from Savannah?”

  “I have a business here. My office is in Loshun Tower. I’m in land development.”

  The cop handed the citizen card back.

  “Keep your nose clean,” he said. “We’ll be watching you. We don’t like trouble here. Punta Gorda is a nice peaceful little town and we aim to keep it that way, mister. No nuts or freaks allowed. Step out of line and you’ve had it.” He raised his voice again. “The spawning rivers are running dry! Prepare yourself, for the day of wrath is at hand.”

  Murdock put his wallet away and went into the chill of the Mall. This time he managed to locate a bank of elevators and beside them, the Tower directory. The sight of his company’s name there in simple white block letters against a velvety background cheered him.

  An elevator opened its doors.

  He went in and it sighed, sealed and hummed. He reached out to push the tenth-floor button and noticed that he was still holding the folded pink slip the cop had given him. He opened it as the elevator rose, and looked at it. Bold black type, slightly out of alignment, explained:

  Beyond all doubt, the evidence points to 1914 as the year when the kingdom of God went into operation, and that event is causing things to happen here on Earth.

  That was it except for a small union label in the corner of the sheet. He let the paper flutter to the floor and the elevator stopped.

  The doors opened and he stepped out into a corridor filled with beautiful, tanned girls in short skirts. They were all tall and blond and wore flat-heeled shoes. He paused to appreciate the dazzling array of flexing calves, then struck out for Suite 1066. Two left turns and an acre of sunkissed flesh later he found it. The door was lettered in Greco Adornado Bold:

  AMALGAMATED BEACHFRONT, INC.

  DON’T JUST STAND THERE

  COME ON IN!

  He went on in.

  The office was cool. White walls. A pale blue carpet. Matching furniture. The receptionist was a tall, leggy blond in a brief sky-blue bikini and flat-heeled shoes. She sat in front of a glass-topped desk. There was nothing on it but an empty ashtray and a morocco-bound copy of the Koran. To her left was a full-length vidscreen.

  She flashed Murdock a smile of intense relief.

  “Oh, Shelly, you’re here! We were beginning to think you weren’t going to make it. The papers arrived over an hour ago.”

  “You know me?”

  He’d never seen her before.

  She tilted her pretty head. “Know you? Shel-lee!”

  The last half of her greeting penetrated. “Papers?”

  “The ones you were waiting for, hon. Clearing the bulkhead rights. Have you been smoking, love?” Her face showed sudden concern. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Fine,” he mumbled. “Ummmm. Wh—where’s my partner? He here?”

  “Who?”

  “That was my next question.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” She rose to come around the desk and face him, looking up. Gently she pressed a cool palm against his warm forehead. “Let me smell your breath.”

  Backstepping, he took out his bottle of C and gulped down a couple. He held the bottle toward her. “Would you like some vitamins?”

  “Not during business hours, hon.” Her brow furrowed. “Mr. Hardy’s been calling here every ten minutes. He’s absolutely frantic.”

  “Hardy? My partner?”

  “Your attorney.” She studied him with a faint trace of interest.

  “My attorney,” he repeated, wondering if he shouldn’t have taken calcium instead of C. Or possibly he should take it now to complement the C.

  She said, “He says those papers have to be signed and at the bank before three. We’ve got a messenger girl standing by on roller skates.”

  He sighed.

  She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s the pressure, isn’t it, hon? You’ve been working too hard. You just come along and sign those papers and I’ll take care of everything else.”

  Her cool gentle hand slipped into his and tugged at him. She led. He followed numbly. Across the waiting room, past a coffee table littered with colorful Chamber of Commerce brochures, to a door of frosted glass. She pushed the door open and led him into the office.

  It was as big as the waiting room, and even more deeply carpeted. He felt like he was walking on whipped cream.

  The Translucetic desk was vast and kidney-shaped. It was the color of chlorinated water. The walls were textured, done in four attractive pastel shades: pink, blue, beige and oyster white. A number of tastefully framed Primachrome architect’s renderings of Amalgamated Beachfront property developments were hung in various places.

  She guided him around the desk and into the welcoming upholstery of the Patent Comfy-Chair.

  “Sit down and relax,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”

  “No.”

  “Of water?”

  “No.”

  He looked at the papers on the desk in front of him. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew what had to be done.

  “Where’s a pen?” he asked.

  She put a cryptostylus into his hand.

  The computer-pen made small scratchy sounds as he scrawled his signature across the paper. He lifted the corner of the sheet, signed the first carbon, then the second, third, fourth, fifth. He kept signing and lost count.

  When he reached bottom, the girl took the pen from his cramped hand. She gathered up the sheaf of papers and said, “I’ll give these to Noel. She’ll rush them right over to Mr. Hardy.”

  “Fine,” Murdock said with a nod.

  “Shall I call Mr. Hardy for you?”

  “Please.”

  She started toward the door, then turned and said over her beautiful tanned shoulder, “Take it easy, Shelly. You only live once.”

  *
* * *

  Murdock’s hands felt empty. They were empty. His fingers twitched for something to do. He fished the pentadodecahedron out of his pocket. It chimed as he fondled it.

  He leaned back in the chair and looked around. On his desk—his desk?—was a large green blotter. On the blotter was a small Kalliroscope on a walnut stand equipped with a one-watt heating source. Inside the sealed glass and metal box a smoky living liquid swirled and danced, sensitive to the slightest thermal gradient. He stared at it for a moment, then lifted his eyes.

  A big wall-mounted vidphone blanked back at him from across the room. To one side of it was a dark cork board framed with diffraction foil. A dart board. He remembered how fond he’d been of darts when he was a kid. Hadn’t thought about that for a long time.

  It was an odd dart board. Divided into twelve segments, with no bull’s eye or numbers for scoring. Nothing but a silhouette figure in each of the segments. The figures were strangely familiar. He puzzled as to where he might have seen them before and what they were. Fish, crab, bull, a woman holding a balance. Very familiar.

  He saw the darts lying half-hidden under some Chamber of Commerce brochures to the left of the Kalliroscope on the desk. They were old-fashioned wooden-bodied darts fletched with real feathers. He hefted one, appreciating its weight and balance. He threw it.

  The dart thanged into a picture of two figures standing back to back. Children, from the look of them. Yes. He remembered where he’d seen them before.

  He picked the pentadodecahedron up off the desk and turned it in his hands. The fish, the crab, the bull. They were the same all right. Some small differences in detail, but not enough to disguise them. All the figures were the same except for the children, if that was what they actually were. There was only one child on the pentadodecahedron. He thought there’d been two.

  Or had there been? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about much anymore. Less and less every moment.

  But at least the bulkhead papers were signed and on their way. The business was proceeding properly again. The pressure was off. He wasn’t staring financial ruin in the face anymore. He could stop and think. His nerves would unstring themselves and hopefully he could get back to life as usual.

  The pentadodecahedron was just some toy his children had found among the marigolds. There were more important matters to be considered. He leaned back in the chair to consider them and the intercom buzzed.

  “What?” he said.

  “Mr. Hardy on channel two, sir.”

  Not hon anymore. Sir.

  He said, “Thanks.”

  The intercom clicked at him. He punched 2 and as the screen across the room lit up he told himself that at last he’d get some answers to his questions. Then he could get himself home again where he belonged.

  The man who appeared on the screen was so pale that Murdock wondered if the chromatint was out of adjustment. Nobody in Florida could really be that washed-out looking. The Chamber of Commerce would never allow it.

  “For Christ’s sake, Murdock,” the man said. “Where in hell have you been? If you hadn’t got here when you did, the whole deal would have been blown. I own a piece of this project, too, remember!”

  Murdock decided that whoever this Hardy was, he wasn’t going to be pushed around by him like that.

  “I got here, didn’t I? What’s going on out in the harbor? Somebody’s already begun filling. Is somebody trying to grab our deal? We’ve got the rights. We’ve got the option. Or have we?”

  “What are you raving about?” Hardy snapped. He was wearing a vested suit. A bright red handkerchief poked out of the breast pocket. He fiddled with a corner of it as he spoke. “You’re the one who set up this early-bird deal. It was your idea to order the work started as soon as we were certain the bulkhead rights would be cleared.”

  “I did? Who handled it? My partner?”

  “ Who partner? What partner? What the hell good am I to you as a lawyer if you don’t let me in on these things?” He frowned suddenly. “Who drew up the partnership agreement? What is this, Murdock, the axe? You trying to shove me out the door?”

  He pulled out the red handkerchief and swabbed at his pale face with it.

  This is ridiculous, Murdock thought. Calcium was called for. He found the small bottle of pills and flipped up the cap with his thumb. Not many left. He took three.

  “What’s that?” Hardy asked him suspiciously.

  “Calcium.”

  The lawyer looked dubious. “Murdock, if you’re trying to screw me . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” Murdock said. “Just wait a minute.”

  Hardy paused and took a deep breath.

  Murdock clutched the chiming pentadodecahedron. Its surface was so smooth, so like that of the monogrammed marble egg that he’d left at home. He wondered if he could have the pentadodecahedron monogrammed, too. His fingers played along its shining surfaces.

  “Wait a minute,” he said again. “Let’s both calm down and talk this thing over reasonably. We’ve gotten our wires crossed somewhere.”

  “Have we?” Hardy said, still dubious. “Okay, go ahead. Explain.”

  “No, you explain. Wait. We can take turns asking each other questions. You go first.” He stared at his toy. He could have sworn there’d been two children on it.

  “What’s this about your partner?” Hardy said.

  “That’s what I was going to askyou.”

  “I don’t know what kind of a stupid game you’re . . .”

  The screen went dead.

  Murdock looked at it without surprise. He activated the intercom.

  “The phone just went dead,” he said. “Will you call TPC and . . . hello? Are you there? Is this thing working?”

  No answer.

  He went to the door and opened it. The outer office was empty. He crossed the room and jerked open the hall door. A flash of blue. Long tanned legs. It was his secretary. He thought it was her, but they all looked so damned much alike. She was getting into an elevator. He waved at her and ran down the corridor.

  “Hey!” he yelled, wishing he knew what her name was. “Hey, wait!”

  She waved back. “Hey, hon!”

  And the elevator doors closed.

  He pushed the button for the other elevator. It arrived quickly, full of Xeroxed blond, leggy, tanned young girls talking and giggling among themselves. He squeezed in and pressed L. The cab went up. Slowly, stopping at every floor.

  At last it was empty. No more girls. His feelings on that were mixed; he wasn’t sure whether he should be happy or not. He jabbed at the L again and noticed below it a switch labeled

  MANUAL OVERRIDE

  He threw the switch and the elevator began to descend.

  It went nonstop to the lobby and he let go of the switch. The doors slid back and showed him the plastic jungle of the Mall. He stepped out and glanced around, looking for his secretary. He saw people, legs, sunburnt arms, blondes (have more fun because there are more blondes than anybody else), a teleview camera crew, a bronzed man wearing nothing but a loincloth and a grim expression while a small monkey chittered on his muscular shoulder, and where was his secretary? She was the one in the blue bikini, but he couldn’t see her. He rushed across the lobby toward the Mall entrance. Maybe he could catch up with her in the parking lot.

  He dashed through the air-curtain and collided with the blackbearded white-robed cop.

  LISTEN, CHILDREN!

  Big black letters swooping wildly overhead as the two of them tottered together . . . then they went over in a confused heap. There was a sound of snapping elastic . . . the black beard of the prophet was torn away ... it flopped onto the concrete like a small limp animal. Murdock hazily expected it to scurry off to its burrow or whatever.

  “You’re under arrest!” the cop shouted, writhing under Murdock’s weight. “Now get the hell off me before I charge you with attempted rape!”

  * * * *

  Murdock finally managed to convince the police tha
t he was a respectable businessman who sought nothing more from his life than to bring increased happiness and prosperity to beautiful peaceful Punta Gorda. Once they came to accept this, they began to listen more sympathetically to his story. His status changed subtly from that of a suspect to that of a citizen. By the time he’d told it all, they were shaking their heads in sympathy.