Starman's Quest by Robert Silverberg (best book club books of all time .TXT) 📕

took out the slip of paper on which he had jotted down Steve's televector code number and transferred the information to an application blank.

"This system," Alan said. "It means no one can possibly hide anywhere on Earth unless he removes his televector transmitter."

"You can't do that, though. Strictly illegal. An alarm goes out whenever someone gets more than six inches from his transmitter, and he's picked up on suspicion. It's an automatic cancellation of your work card if you[76] try to fool with your transmitter—or if you're Free Status a fine of ten thousand credits."

"And if you can't pay the fine?"

"Then you work it off in Government indenture, at a thousand credits a year—chopping up rocks in the Antarctica Penitentiary. The system's flawless. It has to be. With Earth as overpopulated as it is, you need some system of tracking down people—otherwise crime would be ten times as prevalent as it is now."

"There still is crime?"

"Oh, sure. There's always somebody who needs food bad enough to rob for it, even though it means a sure arrest. Murder's a little less common." Hawkes fed the requisition slip into the slot. "You'd be surprised what a deterrent the televector registry system is. It's not so easy to run off to South America and hide when anybody at all can come in here and find out exactly where you are."

A moment went by. Then the slot clicked and a glossy pink slip came rolling out.

Alan looked at it. It said:

TELEVECTOR REGISTRY
21 May 3876
Location of Donnell Steve, YC83-10j6490k37618
Time: 1643:21

There followed a street map covering some fifteen square blocks, and a bright red dot was imprinted in the center of the map.

Hawkes glanced at the map and smiled. "I thought that was where he would be!"

"Where's that?"[77]

"68th Avenue and 423rd Street."

"Is that where he lives?" Alan asked.

"Oh, no. The televector tells you where he is right now. I'd venture to say that was his—ah—place of business."

Alan frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"That happens to be the address of the Atlas Games Parlor. Your brother Steve probably spends most of his working day there, when he has enough cash to get in. I know the place. It's a cheap joint where the payoffs are low but easy. It's the kind of place a low-budget man would frequent."

"You mean Steve's a gambler?"

Hawkes smiled. "Most Free Status men are. It's one of the few ways we can earn a living without getting a work card. There isn't any gamblers' guild. There are a few other ways, too, but they're a lot less savory, and the televector surveillance makes it hard for a man to stay in business for long."

Alan moistened his lips. "What do you do?"

"Gamble. I'm in the upper brackets, though. As I say: some of us have the knack. I doubt if your brother does, though. After nine years he wouldn't still be working the Atlas if he had any dough."

Alan shrugged that off. "How do we get there? I'd like to go right away. I——"

"Patience, lad," Hawkes murmured. "There's plenty of time for that. When does your ship leave?"

"Couple of days."

"Then we don't need to rush right over to the Atlas now. Let's get some food in ourselves first. Then a good night's rest. We can go over there tomorrow."

"But my brother——"[78]

"Your brother," Hawkes said, "has been in York City for nine years, and I'll bet he's spent every night for the last eight of them sitting in the Atlas. He'll keep till tomorrow. Let's get something to eat."

[79]

Chapter
Eight

They ate in a dark and unappealing restaurant three blocks from the Central Directory Matrix Building. The place was crowded, as all Earth places seemed to be. They stood on line for nearly half an hour before being shown to a grease-stained table in the back.

The wall clock said 1732.

A robowaiter approached them, holding a menu board in its metal hands. Hawkes leaned forward and punched out his order; Alan took slightly longer about it, finally selecting protein steak, synthocoffee, and mixed vegetables. The robot clicked its acknowledgement and moved on to the next table.

"So my brother's a gambler," Alan began.

Hawkes nodded. "You say it as if you were saying, so my brother's a pickpocket, or so my brother's a cutpurse. It's a perfectly legitimate way of making a living." Hawkes' eyes hardened suddenly, and in a flat quiet voice added, "The way to stay out of trouble on Earth is to avoid being preachy, son. This isn't a pretty world.[80] There are too many people on it, and not many can afford the passage out to Gamma Leonis IV or Algol VII or some of the nice uncluttered colony-worlds. So while you're in York City keep your eyes wide and your mouth zippered, and don't turn your nose up at the sordid ways people make their livings."

Alan felt his face go red, and he was happy to have the trays of food arrive at that moment, causing some sort of distraction. "Sorry, Max. I didn't mean to sound preachy."

"I know, kid. You lead a pretty sheltered life on those starships. And nobody can adjust to Earthside life in a day. How about a drink?"

Alan started to say that he didn't drink, but kept the words back. He was on Earth, now, not aboard the Valhalla; he wasn't required to keep ship's regs. And he didn't want to be trying to look superior. "Okay. How about Scotch—is that the stuff MacIntosh was drinking?"

"Fair enough," Hawkes said.

He signalled for a robot waiter, and after a moment the robot slithered up to them. Hawkes punched a lever on the robot's stomach and the metal creature began to click and glow. An instant later a panel in its stomach slid open and two glasses appeared within. The robot's wiry tentacles reached in, took out the drinks, and set them on the table. Hawkes dropped a coin in a slot in the robot's side, and the machine bustled away, its service completed.

"There you are," Hawkes said, pointing to the glass of amber-colored liquid. "Drink up." As if to set an example he lifted his own drink and tossed it down in one gulp, with obvious pleasure.

Alan picked up the little glass and held it before his[81] eyes, staring at the man opposite him through its translucent depths. Hawkes appeared oddly distorted when viewed through the glass.

He grinned. He tried to propose a toast, but couldn't think of any appropriate words, so he simply upended the glass and drained its contents. The stuff seemed to burn its way down his throat and explode in his stomach; the explosion rose through his gullet and into his brain. For a moment he felt as if the top of his head had been blown off. His eyes watered.

"Pretty potent stuff!"

"It's the best there is," Hawkes said. "Those boys really know the formulas."

Alan felt a wave of dizziness, but it passed quickly; all that was left was a pleasant inner warmth, now. He pulled his tray toward him and attacked the synthetic meat and vegetables.

He ate quietly, making no attempt at conversation. Soft music bubbled up around them. He thought about his brother. So Steve was a gambler! And doing poorly at it, Hawkes said. He wondered if Steve would want to go back on the ship. He wondered also how it would be if Steve did agree to go back.

The old comradeship would be gone, he realized sadly. They had shared everything for seventeen years, grown up together, played together, worked together. Up till six weeks ago they had been so close that Alan could almost read Steve's mind, and Steve Alan's. They made a good team.

But that was finished, now. Steve would be a stranger to him aboard the Valhalla—an older, perhaps wiser man, with nine solid years of tough Earther life behind him. He would not be able to help but regard Alan as a kid,[82] a greenhorn; it was natural. They would never be comfortable in each other's presence, with the old easy familiarity that was so close to telepathy. That nine-year gulf would see to that.

"Thinking about your brother, aren't you?"

Alan blinked. "How did you know?"

Grinning, Hawkes said, "A gambler has to know how to figure things. And it's written in permoscript all over your forehead anyway. You're wondering what the first face-to-face meeting's going to be like. I'll bet on it."

"I won't cover the bet. You'd win."

"You want to know how it'll be? I can tell you, Alan: you'll feel sick. Sick and bewildered and ashamed of the guy who used to be your brother. But that'll pass. You'll look behind the things the nine years did to him, and you'll see your brother back there. He'll see you, too. It won't be as bad as you're expecting."

Somehow Alan felt relieved. "You're sure of that?"

Hawkes nodded. "You know, I'm taking such a personal interest in this business because I've got a brother too. Had a brother."

"Had?"

"Kid about your age. Same problem I had, too: no guild. We were born into the street sweepers' guild, but neither of us could go for that, so we checked out and took Free Status. I went into gambling. He hung around the Enclave. He always wanted to be a spacer."

"What happened to him?"

"He pulled a fast one. Starship was in town and looking for a new galley-boy. Dave did some glib talking and got aboard. It was a fluke thing, but he made it."

"Which ship?" Alan asked.

"Startreader. Bound out on a hop to Beta Crucis XVIII.[83] 465 light-years." Hawkes smiled faintly. "He left a year, year and a half ago. The ship won't be back on Earth again for nine hundred thirty years or so. I don't figure to be around that long." He shook his head. "Let's get out of here. People waiting for tables."

Out in the street again, Alan noticed that the sun was low in the sky; it was past 1800, and getting along toward evening. But the streets were not getting dark. From everywhere a soft glow was beginning to radiate—from the pavement, the buildings, everywhere. It was a gentle gleaming brightness that fell from the air; there was no perceptible change from day-illumination to night-illumination.

But it was getting late. And they would miss him back at the Enclave—unless Captain Donnell had discovered that Alan had gone into the Earther city, in which case he wouldn't be missed at all. Alan remembered sharply the way the Captain had calmly blotted the name of his son Steve from the Valhalla's roster as if Steve had never existed.

"Are we going to go over to the Atlas now?"

Hawkes shook his head. "Not unless you want to go in there alone?"

"Huh?"

"I can't go in there with you. I've got an A card, and that's a Class C joint."

"You mean even gambling places are classified and regulated and everything?"

Hawkes nodded. "It has to be that way. This is a very complicated society you've stumbled into, Alan. Look: I'm a first-rate gamesman. That's not boasting; it's empirical truth proven over and over again during the course of a fifteen-year career. I could make a fortune[84] competing against beginners and dubs and has-beens, so they legislate against me. You make a certain annual income from gambling and you go into Class A, and then you can't enter any of the lower-class joints like the Atlas. You slip under the Class A minimum three years in a row and you lose your card. I stay over the minimum."

"So I'll have to go after Steve myself. Well, in that case, thanks for all the help, and if you'll show me which Shoot I take to get to the Atlas——"

"Not so fast, son." Hawkes grasped Alan's wrist. "Even in a Class C dump you can lose plenty. And you can't just stand around hunting for your brother. Unless you're there as a learner you'll have to play."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"I'll take you to a Class A place tonight. You can come in as a learner; they all know me. I'll try to show you enough about the game so you don't get rooked. Then you can stay over at my place and tomorrow we'll go up to the Atlas and look around for your brother. I'll have to wait outside, of course."

Alan shrugged. He was beginning to realize he was a little nervous about the coming meeting with Steve—and perhaps, he thought, a little extra delay would be useful. And he still had plenty of time to get back to the Valhalla after he saw Steve, even if he stayed in the city overnight.

"Well?" Hawkes said.

"Okay. I'll go with you."

This time they took the Undertube, which they reached by following a glowing sign and then an underground passageway. Alan rode down behind Hawkes on the moving ramp and found himself in a warm, brightly-lit underground[85] world with stores, restaurants, newsboys hawking telefax sheets, milling