J. F. Bone, page 3
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t. Just where the devil have you been?”
“I told you that. I was on Gakan. There was a police action there.”
“I know that,” he said impatiently, “but didn’t you people ever hear of template cytoplasty as a treatment for rayburns?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s been in use here for a year, which means that it’s been in the civilized part of the galaxy at least two or three times as long. It’s a refinement of the cell regeneration technique that builds normal cells in weeks. In six months at the most, a rayburn case can be made to look normal.”
“The Medical Association hasn’t sent me my journals recently,” I said. “We move around a lot in the combat forces.”
“I should have known,” he said. “Things get to the military about five years after civilians are using them routinely. It was the same way in the Patrol.” He grinned at me, and for the first time since I saw what was under the bandages on my face I felt a surge of hope. “You don’t have to worry about those burns,” he went on. “They can be treated here. We have the equipment to handle rayburns. We need it.” He grimaced wryly. “There’s a lot of violence in the domes. Almost as many casualties as in a—hey!—Williams! Where are you going now?”
I kept my hand on the doorlatch. “Straight to the nearest hospital, Inspector. I’ll try you again when I’m well.”
“Slow down,” Lantham said. “Come back here and sign these papers.” He lifted a few flimsies from the desk top and held them out to me. “They’re your acceptance forms.”
I felt a little sick to my stomach. I had thought he was bigger than a publicity hound. Hell—I’d just proved I was unstable. By rights he should be helping me out the door. I wondered whether it was the MD or the RM which had gotten to him.
“The commissioner wants you, and I want you. You could be an asset to the force. What’s more there are no waiting lines for cops. They get first priority in Arthean hospitals.”
Right then I didn’t care whether the commissioner or Lantham was the media lover. I nearly sprained my wrist signing the papers while Lantham sat there behind his desk and grinned like a duralloy idol.
I had a queer feeling as I handed him the flimsies. I felt like crying. I didn’t know how I’d be able to repay his faith in me. I was war-weary; a psycho discharged for the good of the service. Yet Crowninshield and Lantham had enough faith in me to give me a chance to become an officer of the law. I swore right then, that I’d be a good cop if it took everything I had. I wouldn’t let them down.
* * *
CHAPTER III
« ^ »
Four months and much minor torture later, I was on the road to recovery. There were scars where the grafts didn’t take, but I could move my face, and I looked presentable enough to get rid of the mask.
While I was undergoing treatment, I also went to the Police Academy. There was a lot of technical material given by neurosynthesizer tapes, and a lot more drill in armed and unarmed combat techniques. The training was a lot harder than the learning, but I had little trouble with either.
My ratings were usually good or excellent. I suppose they were relative, and that I looked good because my fellow trainees weren’t. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have suspected someone in the front office was greasing me along. But that simply didn’t happen. A CAF discharge can maybe get you into a Civil Service job, but it takes your own work to keep you there.
We graduated in three months, and the Commissioner swore us in. The assembled classes back of us stood around the borders of the drill field and gave the traditional cheer as the last gold badge—the ancient emblem of the policeman—was pinned on the anchor man of our class. Next week, the surgeons would start the final series of tissue grafts that would make me an ornament to society.
I was back in barracks packing my gear before I went looking for my assignment when a runner from Lantham’s office found me. “The Inspector wants to see you, Officer Williams,” he said. I looked at the clerk suspiciously, wondering why Lantham didn’t use the intercom.
“You know what for?” I asked.
“He didn’t say,” the clerk replied with a smirk that said that he knew damn well why I was being called, but he’d rather let me sweat it out. I shrugged with apparent unconcern and followed the runner through the maze of corridors that separated the barracks from the office part of Headquarters.
Lantham looked at me behind a blue puff of cigar smoke. “Sit down, Williams,” he said.
I did as I was told. “Couldn’t this have waited until I was whole again?” I complained.
“No”—he bit the word off. He sounded as though he meant it; so I didn’t push. Then he shrugged and opened his mouth. “Sam,” he began in that fatherly manner I had already gotten to know, “you’re too good a man to be sitting around here on your fat duff while crime runs rampant on Arthe.”
I didn’t feel like grinning. “Well, lets have it,” I said. “You’ve got something nasty on your mind, and I guess I’m being volunteered.”
“I’d hate to disillusion you,” he said. “I have—and you are. With your medical background, you’re the ideal man for the job. At least Crowninshield thinks you are, and who am I to say he’s wrong.”
“The Commissioner could have waited a couple of months,” I said. “I thought I was going to have time to get my face cleaned up.”
“I told him you needed R and R and final surgery and he said that you had signed a two-year contract and that he needed you now.” Lantham grinned sourly at me. “That’s what comes of doing too well on your training program.” He laid his hands flat on the desk top and dropped the fatherly attitude. “Ever hear of tonocaine?” he asked.
I nodded. It was a familiar word that brought back unpleasant memories. It’s a narcotic extracted from a fungus native to Gakan. It is only effective in mammals, and its potency is directly proportional to the intelligence of the addict. In a way, it’s similar to heroin in that one dose doesn’t make an addict, but half a dozen do. It can be absorbed through all normal routes, and in moderate aerosol concentrations will even pass through intact skin. It has a number of actions—anesthetic, euphoriac, intestinal depressant, but its main feature is its effect upon the brain. It transports the user into an ecstatic dream world where anything—literally anything—can happen—and where the sensations from these happenings are heightened until they are almost unbearable. It allows the user to fantasize anything he likes, and removes all moral and inhibitory control. Tonocaine can bring all the little blind alleys of a person’s character into the open, and drop them on an ego freed from restraint. An overdose kills, by paralyzing the victim. Deprivation symptoms are like those of heroin, only worse. They can kill a mainliner and can make a six doser wish he had never been born. During the Gakan action, the Geeks used it as a weapon. They put it in aerosol and got it into the air replenishers of our fortress domes. The results were devastating!
Lantham smiled without humor. Even though I hadn’t said a word, my expression was as readable as a book. “You would know,” he said quietly. “Now, do you know anything about Dunkelburg?”
I shook my head. “Only that it’s one of consol’s domes.”
“You’ll know a lot more than that,” he promised.
He wasn’t fooling. I spent the next three days in Briefing under hypno, and when it was over I knew more about that Class II dome than the men who built it. Dunkelburg was notorious. Even among the tough towns like Consol 27 and mining domes like Bluestone, it held a place of honor. It was one of the two places on Arthe where there was any marked amount of tonocaine addiction. Six happies had been picked up there during the past year and this, of course, was impossible. What with the source of the drug destroyed on Gakan, there shouldn’t be a single tonocaine addict left in the galaxy. They should either be dead from deprivation reaction, or recovered, or safely confined in mental institutions. It argued loud and clear that someone somehow had gotten hold of live spores and was raising the fungus.
Everything else was mystery. The trouble was that no one really knew tonocaine, and by the time they recognized an addict, it was too late. Of the four halfbreeds and two Confeds who had been picked up in Dunkelburg, five had been brought in feet first and the sixth had died of deprivation syndrome before he could be questioned. Those were plainly long-term, high dose level addicts. The fact that the live one had died so quickly was almost certain proof of that. But that was the entire story—six dead men and no clues.
“Have you checked Gakan?” I asked Lantham during the discussion we had about the source of the drug after the briefing session was over.
“Naturally. The Patrol’s been alerted and they’ve gone over it with a fine tooth comb. They didn’t find anything worth mentioning. Anyway, it wouldn’t make any difference if they did. The stuff’s being grown here!”
“It can’t be,” I said. “The fungus requires a swampland environment with high atmospheric pressure and temperature. On a rainworld, maybe, but not here.”
“Here,” Lantham said firmly. “The conditions could be maintained artificially. Besides, we seized half a kilogram of sporedust right here in Thermopolis and that much wouldn’t have gotten through Customs in ten years.”
“Okay, so it’s being produced here,” I said. That quantity almost proved he was right unless space ships were dropping it in. However, Arthe was an important way station and had total IFF coverage from Lura Base on the moon. That made spacedrop doubtful.
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
“I thought you knew. You go to Dunkelburg.”
“Okay, so I go to Dunkelburg—then what?”
“Then you find out where the dope is coming from. Then you tell me so I can know, too. Then I collect a lot of cops and smash things like fungus gardens, and growers, and peddlers and the Mr. Big behind the operation. See? Simple, isn’t it!”
“Yeah, simple,” I agreed. I had a mental picture of me, Sam Williams, acting like Donald Dare the demon detective. Somehow it didn’t jell.
That night I took the jet which would ultimately land me in Dunkelburg. I couldn’t get over the changes that had occurred in civilian transport in the four years I had been in the service. The jets were whisper quiet and acceleration dampers took all the elevator sensation out of takeoff. These new dagger-finned ships were a far cry from the rhomboid-winged monsters that had hurtled through the stratosphere a few years ago.
The safety devices were virtually out of this world. It would be practically impossible for a person to become an aircraft casualty now. Even if something happened to one of these ships while it was in flight, or while landing, there would be no casualties. Each seat was a complete, self-contained, air cushioned, escape cell that operated automatically in case of serious damage to the ship, or could be operated by the pilot with manual controls in case something happened to the autos. It would furnish complete protection from crash speeds up to two hundred kph and would protect a passenger from the vacuum of outer space. On Arthe, it would maintain an occupant in relative comfort for several days, shielded from the damaging effects of raw air while the built-in homing devices broadcast a continuous signal to guide a rescue party.
For the first time in my life I felt safe in an aircraft. I leaned back in, the deep foam padding and looked forward to my mission with a thrill of anticipation. The promise of action excited me.
* * *
CHAPTER IV
« ^ »
I was riding prowler beat with John Dawson, a pink-skinned, smooth faced cop, with the short legs and long barrel-chested body of an oversized infant. I didn’t let the baby look fool me. He was hard. His eyes were small, wide set, and black as free space. There was no humanity in them. I disliked Dawson, but I had to admit he was efficient. He was pure professional, too good for a tank town like this. He would be more properly cast riding night patrol in a big city like Thermopolis. Class II domes can get by with less efficiency and more humanity. Dawson was wasting his life here. I wondered why.
Being the senior, Dawson drove the three-wheeler. He handled the turbine driven job like he did everything else—smoothly and competently. If it hadn’t been for him sitting beside me, I’d have enjoyed the ride.
We had clashed the moment we met. I had reported in to Chief Marlin at Dunkelburg Police Headquarters and the Chief assigned me to work with Dawson until I learned the ropes. I thought it was a good deal until I met Dawson. He came swaggering into Marlin’s office, looked me over with his empty eyes, and sniffed. “Pretty boy. Ha!” he snorted. “You proud of looking like that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m proud.”
It was a nice beginning. We eyed each other like two mongrel dogs over a stray bone. Our eyes locked and held. Finally I let mine drop—not because I had to, but because I didn’t want to waste any more time, and this sort of contest could have gone on for hours. He grunted with satisfaction as though he had won some sort of victory, and I grinned inside at how wrong he was. That was how it had begun, and now, twenty-four hours later, it was no better.
I was seeing Dunkelburg in the flesh. It was a tank town—literally. Some down/and out prospector named Hector Dunkel discovered the hydrocarbon pool over which the town stood. He sold out to Consol Oil for a million, and drank himself to death in six months. Consol built a Class II Bucky dome over the discovery site and called it Dunkelburg in honor of the prospector’s memory. And just in case you don’t know what a Bucky is, it’s engineer argot for a Buckminster Geodesic Dome—a structural form invented several millennia ago by a man who has won eternal fame for his useful self-supportive structures.
It was a typical workday night, a couple of drunks rolled, a mugging out on the rimwalk, a non-fatal knifing in one of the back rooms of the periphery dive, a hair-pulling match between a pair of halfcaste floozies, a loud party of drunk and stoned in the Hub that we broke up politely, another loud party of drunk and stoned out on the Rim that we broke up with moderate violence. Nothing unusual, no killings, no rape, no mutilation, just routine. Right now it was quiet.
Dawson pulled the prowler to the curb along one of the radius roads and turned off the engine. He took a cigar out of his tunic, licked it, lighted it, and blew a cloud of smoke out of the open window. I fished out a battered pack of mints, slipped one between my teeth and sucked on it.
Like all Class II domes, Dunkelburg is a dome-covered circle three kilometers in diameter. It sits on a planed-off anticline commanding a good view of the level brown desert that forms about eighty per cent of Arthe’s surface. On top of the massive wall encircling the town are the anchor blocks of the geodesic dome that stretches its girders and transparent panes across the top of the town. The dome holds in filtered and regenerated air and makes the internal environment fit for unmutated human life. The town itself is divided into sections by annular and radial streets. The central part, called the Hub, is about half a kilometer across and is crowded with tall apartments, business offices and shops serving the Confeds and Company administrators who run the place. In the exact center of the dome is a squat mass of the power station surrounded by a circular park. The central column of the air shaft rises from the center of the power station, a hollow cylinder of featureless, steel-strong plastic that opens at the very top of the dome into the clean rarefied upper air that is virtually chlorine-free. The station runs all the time, furnishing energy to heat and light the place, run the machinery and air replenishes, and to power the walkways that take care of the majority of public transportation problems. Its deep bass hum is part of life.
Twelve radius roads fan out from the central park, cutting the dome into sections like a piece of pie. Ten concentric rings of streets spaced equidistantly between the park and the Rim complete the road net. The radius roads are numbered, and the annular streets are lettered. After one day in a dome there is no reason for a man to get lost, because physically one Class II dome is exactly like another.
Shops and industry fill the space between the Hub and the Rim except for the area between “I” and “J” streets. Here is the domain of the Dunkelburg Housing Authority, a polite phrase for the slums. It is filled with barrack-like medium rise buildings which are in turn filled with a motley assortment of retired contract workers, down-and-outers, halfbreeds, and swarms of children.
Beyond “J” street is a thirty meter wide strip that ends abruptly at the vertical barrier of the five meter high outer wall on which the dome is built. This is the Rim—the nine kilometers of distilled iniquity. Here are the bars, brothels, massage parlors, amusement palaces, casinos, pawnshops, slinkifeelies, and all the other little unmentionables which are found scattered over the average Confederacy city. Here, they’re concentrated on the rim because space is at a premium, and while the Hub deplores the Rim and wants it as far away as possible, it does nothing to stop the area from operating.
After all—why should the Hub protest? The Rim is necessary, not only for the ‘breeds to work off their frustrations, but also to keep up the morale of the operating personnel. It is as necessary as the central park. Civilized folk it seems, aren’t happy without their dives and joints—a sort of homelike touch that keeps them from remembering that all that separates them from a singularly messy death is a half centimeter thick eggshell of plastic stretching overhead in a hemisphere of a million glittering facets.
Four huge airlocks pierce the outer walls at the ends of 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th streets. And that’s Dunkelburg—or any other Class II dome in Arthe.
It’s easy to police, but even so there’s better than two hundred cops on duty. We live in barracks in the Hub, and are a semi-military outfit, organized into four companies which can be built up from their normal cadre of fifty officers to a full-fledged military group of two hundred and fifty if the need arises. That’s a lot of law, but it’s necessary sometimes.
