Rex turned to look at Susie. "Guns?" he said.

  She nodded. "There's a certain amount of hunting in Island Three."

  "There is?" He was surprised.

  "Yes, of course. We have areas in both Grissom and Komarov which we call wildernesses, about 25 square miles apiece, and we make them just as similar to untouched primitive wilds, virgin forests, as we can. They are for hiking, camping, picnicing, fishing, and even hunting. We've brought up not only domesticated animals from Earth but game animals as well. You know, deer, antelope, gazelle, rabbits, wild boar, partridges, hare, pigeons, squirrels, and fox squirrels, even turtles. But only animals that are edible and useful to man. We have no predatory animals save for dogs and house cats, if you can count them."

  Rex said, "It seems a hell of a long way to bring something just to shoot."

  "They're not just to shoot. They're like the fish in our streams and lakes, a very valuable source of protein. Since there are no carnivorous animals to keep them down, we have to hunt them to prevent their number increasing to the point where they would be overly dangerous to the crops. So they're kept track of and from time to time those who like to hunt are allowed a certain quota."

  Rex said, "This reminds me of something. I knew better than to bring a gun with me. They search through everything you're bringing up, there at the hospital at the Los Alamos spaceport when they're sterilizing everything that goes into space. Is it possible for me to get one? Zen only knows what I'll run into before this is all over."

  She thought about it. "I don't know much about guns, but the professor likes to hunt. I believe he's got a target pistol which he keeps back in his bedroom. I'll get it."

  She left him in the living room and he went ovet to the French windows that led onto a rather extensive terrace, and looked out over the town. He breathed deeply in appreciation. There was something about the air that he had noticed before as they were bicycling. He hadn't been able to put his finger on it but now it came to him. Not only was it clean and fresh beyond anything he had ever known Earth-side but it had a slight perfumed quality. And it came to him. There were so many flowers, everywhere, that their odor permeated the air. It must apply to all of Grissom, not just this residential area of New Frisco. It was almost like living in a perfume store.

  From this point, nearly at the end of the cylinder and three stories high, he could see all three of the val-leys and all three of the stretches of windows as well. It came to him that if he had a pair of strong binoculars he could probably pick out individuals on all three of the valleys, those above, seemingly walking upside down. The very thought brought home to him how really alien this all was.

  He got the damnedest feeling that he was living in a gigantic submarine, which, in a way, was what he was doing, of course. It was as Earth-like as they could make it, well enough. But who was kidding whom? Here they were, some half a million Earthlings, living in a gigantic submarine. The thought unnerved him a little and he went back into the living room.

  Susie was there, an automatic pistol in her hand. She was holding it gingerly.

  Rex took it from her. It was a six-inch barreled, .22 Long Rifle caliber and meant for plinking or very small game. It wasn't much of a gun for serious work. You'd have to hit a man rather selectively, say between the eyes, or plumb center in the heart to do much more than dent him. He flicked the stud and dropped the magazine into a side pocket and jacked the slide. There was no cartridge in the firing chamber. He left the receiver back and stuck his thumb at the end of the barrel and peered into the front. The barrel was spotlessly clean and had obviously been fired very little.

  "No holster?" he said.

  She shook her head. "If he has one, I don't know where it is."

  He returned the magazine to the butt of the gun and said, "Wizard. I'll have to stick it in my belt. Where's my room?"

  She showed him down a hall leading off the living room, giving him a conducted tour as they went. Dining room, kitchen, the professor's study, her room. She said, "Down here are three guest rooms. You can take your pick."

  He took his pick, finding it to be a small suite, rather than just a room. There were bedroom, bath and a small sitting room cum study, complete with desk on which was both a TV phone and a library booster. It was in keeping with the rest of the apartment and very comfortable indeed. Two Impressionist-type paintings on the walls, wall-to-wall carpeting.

  He put his suitcase on the bed for the time and didn't open it. She had remained standing in the doorway while he looked his new quarters over.

  He said, "Well, I suppose we should get to the nitty gritty. Let's go to the living room and you can tell me everything you know about this whole thing."

  She led the way, but rather than seating herself went over to the bar, saying, "We should toast your new job—grim though it is."

  She reached down, opened the small refrigerator door and brought forth a heavy bottle. She twisted the top expertly, after setting out two champagne glasses, and there was a satisfying pop. She poured quickly, before the sparkling wine could foam up over the neck of the bottle. She put the two glasses and the bottle on a serving tray and brought them over to where Rex had settled down on a couch. She put the tray on the cocktail table before him and seated herself in an armchair across the way.

  Rex took up one of the glasses and handed it to her, and then one for himself. "Well," he said. "Champagne. I thought that it was too expensive to bring up from Earth-side."

  Susie held up her glass. "To your new job."

  "Cheers." He sipped along with her and then looked down into the glass. He said, "I'm no expert on champagne, but this is great."

  "Domestic champagne," she told him. "Lagrangia brand."

  He took another drink. "I'll be damned. You mean you make it right here in Grissom?"

  "Not exactly. This is made over in one of the Island Twos. You see, we have division of labor. It would be silly, in four Islands, with a total population of less than a million, thus far, to duplicate each other's efforts. So far as potables are concerned, they specialize in sparkling wines. We specialize in brewed beverages such as beer, ale, stout, and hard cider. Island one goes in for distilled guzzle. The same applies to everything else. One Island will specialize, say, in tools, another in bicycles and other vehicles, another in ceramics, and so forth. And then we trade. As the Islands increase in number, we'll continue the policy and branch out into industries we haven't developed thus far."

  "Makes sense," Rex said. He sighed and put down his glass. "Wizard. Why was the professor going to Island One?"

  She frowned and said unhappily, "We don't know."

  "I mean, who was he going to see?"

  "We don't know. Nobody over there seemed to be aware of the fact that he was coming, or what it was he planned to do, or who he was going to see."

  Rex looked at her in surprise. "Did he often make such surprise visits? Kind of spotcheckiog?"

  "No. If that's what he was up to. I've never known him to do it before."

  Rex Bader thought about it for awhile. He took up his wine and finished it and raised eyebrows at her. When she had acquiesced, he refilled both of their glasses.

  He sighed again and said, "Look. Would it be possible for Casey to have opened the door of that fourseater from inside and have gone out into space?"

  "Yes," she nodded. "The hatch can be opened from either side."

  "Then it would have been possible for someone else to have opened the vehicle from outside and taken the professor out?"

  She admitted that hesitantly, saying, "Yes. But if that had happened surely he would have used one of his transceivers to give an alarm."

  "Could some other craft have pulled up alongside his four-seater and its occupants gotten into the professor's spacecraft? Not necessarily someone unfriendly, who would provoke him into giving an alarm."

  She said, "Why, yes. We have various small chemi-cally propelled craft, used in construction about the Islands, in maintenace outside, and so forth. But it seems an unlikely thing to happen."

  "If the professor had gone out into space, on his own initiative, would he have died?"

  Susie scowled at that one but said, "There are light, emergency spacesuits in each vehicle. He could have put one of these on."

  "And if he didn't?"

  "Then, of course, he would die. Contrary to popular belief, space is neither hot nor cold. Things in it are hot or cold but not space. Without a spacesuit, he would immediately die of lack of air. But even if he had one of those light emergency suits he would eventually radiate away his body heat… and die."

  Rex mulled it over some more, taking another pull at his drink. He said, "What would happen to his body, in that case?"

  "It would drift away into space. Eventually, probably, to be blown by solar winds completely out of the solar system, in spite of the fact that we are at La-grange Five and supposedly indefinitely stable."

  "No way of finding him?"

  "Not unless he had his transceivers with him. Then we could get a fix."

  He thought some more, drank some more. Finally he said, "Look, Susie, could there have been any possible reason for George Casey to have committed suicide?"

  She shook her head emphatically. "I saw him roughly fifteen minutes before he left. He was perfectly normal. Besides, he's simply not the type. I've never seen anyone with such a lust for life, such enthusiasms."

  But then she hesitated for a moment. "It would seem very unlikely. I'd say he was immune to space cafard, as I am. But no one is completely immune and it can hit unbelievably quickly. If there had been someone else in the four-seater with him, who was suddenly hit by cafard, then the professor might have been stricken as well. It's terribly contagious, especially in a confined space."

  "What's space cafard again? You mentioned it briefly before."

  Susie said, "It's always been rather rare, actually, but it's the most dangerous thing in space. We know very little about it, but it's thought to be largely based on extreme claustrophobia and the sudden realization that you are in an environment other than that into which you were born. When it strikes, and it can do that out of a clear sky, you become hysterical, violent, and can attack others… or suicide. But Professor Casey loved space, loved living here in the Islands. He is the last person in Lagrangia I would expect to contract cafard. The only possibility I can think of is his being exposed to someone else in the throes of it, and we know that he was alone in that four-seater."

  "Besides," Rex said gloomily. "There are other strange aspects to the whole thing. Why didn't he take you? Why didn't he even tell you why he was going to Island One? Who was he going to see there and why? What was he going to do?"

  She shook her head in rejection of his questions.

  The TV phone screen sounded and Susie got up and went over to it. When she returned she was frowning.

  She said, "It's a chap named Whip Ford. He wants to see the professor."

  "Whip Ford!"

  "You know him?"

  "Very slightly. He was a fellow passenger coming up. Kind of a chip on the shoulder type. I can't imagine him wanting to see Casey. He said he was a tourist."

  "Yes. We have a certain number of them now. They're allowed to stay for a limited length of time, since they usually don't fulfill the requirements to stay permanently in Lagrangia. However, they're good publicity for us when they return Earth-side. They're almost always ecstatic about their visit. Comes under the head of public relations."

  "What does he want?"

  "I don't know, but I'll have to see him. The professor invariably sees to such things. He might be a reporter wanting an interview and George Casey never refuses. It wouldn't do to just brush this Whip Ford off. I'll see him and tell him that the professor is off on a tour of the other Islands and see if there's anything I can do for him, as the professor's private secretary."

  She added, "See here, Rex, you must be famished. Across the street and a hundred yards or so to the right is a small British type bar called The Pub. Neighborhood kind of place and very nice. They have excellent meat pies. Why don't you go over and have a bite while I'm seeing Ford? By the time you return, I'll have finished with him and we can continue with the professor's problem."

  "Sounds like a good idea," he said, coming to his feet. "You sure you don't mind being alone with him? He's a little on the hard-to-take side."

  She scoffed. "No, certainly not. Nothing untoward ever happens in Lagrangia."

  He looked at her sceptically and said, "The professor disappeared, didn't he?"

  When he had gone, she put away the empty bottle and the glasses, and sat down at the desk for a time, checking out some routine matters.

  Finally, there came a knock at the door and she went to answer it. Door identity screens were an unknown in Lagrangia, another rebellion against the tyranny of the machine.

  The man who confronted her was as handsome a black as Susie Hawkins had ever seen, though this was somewhat balanced by the fact that he wore a scowl, rather than a smile.

  He said, his face sullen, "I'm Whip Ford. You say that Professor Casey isn't around?"

  "I'm afraid that's right. I'm his secretary. Perhaps I can help you. Won't you come in?"

  He looked at her suspiciously. "You're sure that he's not just giving me the brush-off?"

  I'm very sure of it, Mr. Ford. Come in." She led the way, saying over her shoulder. "Just what is it that you wished to see Professor Casey about?"

  "I want him to tell us how to go about building one of these Islands."

  SEVEN

  Rex Bader had no difficulty in finding The Pub and was mildly surprised at how pleasantly it had been done. Somebody had gone to a great deal of trouble duplicating a real British type pub. There was even a sign outside duplicating an Elizabethan sign, complete with a rampant lion.

  Inside, the motif was continued with a vengeance. A very typical English pub. Rex Bader had been in several once when one of his few and far between private investigator jobs had taken him to London. The interior was moderately dim, as behooved a bar, so at first sight the rafters, the furniture, the bar itself seemed of heavy dark wood. It was only after he had climbed upon a stool and leaned on the bar that he realized that it wasn't truly wood but some sort of plastic done up in such wise as to resemble it remarkably. The Pub had ten tables and half-a-dozen booths along one wall. On the walls were faded posters going back to World War One days; scenes in London music halls, complete with dancing girls, war propaganda posters, including Huns cutting the hands off little children and nuns, that sort of thing.

  It was the bar itself that was the height of pub authenticity. It had British-type beer spigots, a somewhat beat-up mirror, deliberately beat-up in appearance, undoubtedly, to add to the atmosphere, and a wide selection of bottles, some of the labels of which Rex recognized; scotch, rum, gin, cognac, sherry.

  There were only three occupants of the room when

  Rex entered. Two customers, man and woman, were in a booth leaning confidentially across the table, holding hands and whispering, over two tall glasses of beer. It had been a long time since Rex had seen such magnificent glasses of beer. You got a poor portion for your money in the auto-bars down Earth-side these days.

  The other occupant was the bartender. He looked more British than John Bull. Rounded of face, with a walrus mustache, red hands, and a semi-clean apron tied around his waist. It had been years since Rex Bader had been in a bar that boasted a live bartender. The class of drinkery he could afford was invariably automated. Swanker restaurants, he knew, often sported live waiters and bartenders but such were not for citizens on Negative Income Tax or Guaranteed Annual Stipend, GAS, as it was sometimes called.

  Rex climbed up on a stool and looked up and down the bar appreciatively. Now, here was the sort of place to drink in. Susie had been correct in recommending it.

  "Wot'll it be, Mate?" the bartender said. He even affected a slight British accent.

  Rex said, "The Pub was recommended to me for its brews and its meat pies. I think I'll just have a beer first and then a pie with my second glass. What's your best dark beer?" .

  "Well, Mate, my own favorite is Russian Imperial Stout. But it's on the strong side."

  "Never heard of it."

  "Well, sir, it was originally brewed to order for Catherine the Great of Russia by one of the English breweries. It's the strongest stout made. And the only one that carries a vintage label. It has to be aged at least one year before being consumed."

  "Wizard," Rex said. "I'll have one."

  Russian Imperial Stout, it turned out, wasn't on draft. It came in a dark bottle, with an impressive looking lable. And it was the darkest looking brew and bore the heaviest collar that Rex had ever seen.

  The bartender watched him with concern as he took his first sip. Rex stared down into the glass. "Holy Jumping Zen," he said, in protest. "The poor man's whiskey."

  "Good, eh?" the bartender said in satisfaction. "Rich and strong."

  "That it is," Rex told him, venturing another cautious sip. "You mean to tell me you ship this up all the way from Earth?"

  The other looked at him as though he was out of his mind. "No, of course not, Mate. We brew it right here in Grissom. We just do the best we can to duplicate the original, even down to the appearance of the bottles and labels."

  Rex frowned and pointed a finger at the bottles of spirits lining the shelf under the mirror. "But those. Black and White Scotch, for instance. That has to come up from Earth."

  The other grinned at him. "You must be new in Lagrangia, Mate. The only thing that came up was a few labels to be copied. We make all our guzzle up here, in one Island or the other. Most are pretty good copies of the real stuff down Earth-side, but we haven't got some of them down pat. The heavy Jamaica type rum they make over in Komarov, for instance. It doesn't have quite the body."

  Rex took another gulp. The stuff was growing on him and its strength, on top of the champagne Susie had served, was beginning to warm his food-empty stomach.

 

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