The star wasps, p.8
The Star Wasps, page 8
Each time Glock shifted to another camera hidden in the vast building below him, the sound of sirens came over the speaker.
Derek went to the window. Down below, he could see tiny red ambulances and fire engines and police cars. They were so far away they looked like bugs. At a little higher level, helicopters were fluttering in the air.
The mawks were still running. People were falling from them and had already fallen from them. At the bottom of each down mawk were piles of twisted, distorted bodies. Those who had been in the greatest panic had tried to shove the slower ones out of the way. Derek could see people still falling. Some were simply jumping. He saw one man come out on the parapet immediately below him, look at the air, walk to the edge, climb over the rail—and leap outward. His body turned over and over and over as it fell more than a hundred stories.
Little blue lights followed the body down.
Many had died on the mawks themselves, died as the viral overtook them, died as the viral passed through them, died as the viral became aware of them, and killed without mercy.
The freeways in the high air where the little bug cars had passed so bravely in the morning were scenes of added horror. Derek tried to ease his mind by counting the number of accidents he could see in which the cars had remained on the freeways and were piled up in multiple accidents. He found his mind refused to count this high at this moment.
There was too much horror in his mind for it to remember such big figures.
Other cars had gone over the guard rails and had smashed on top the buildings below the freeways. He saw several that hung half-on, half-off the freeways, supported like the sword of Damocles by a hair, the drivers already dead at the wheel.
These drivers had been lucky. They had died without taking the long plunge.
The forces of the city, police and fire, were trying to take hold in this bewildering emergency that had come upon them.
They weren’t having much luck. Police and firemen are human too. They stop when their hearts stop. When a viral passed through them, their hearts stopped.
Derek turned back into the room.
“Tune that thing to the news, Raz.”
Glock obeyed. A local television station appeared on the wall screen. A slick-haired announcer was selling soap. Glock turned to another station. A slick chick was selling panty-girdles. A third station had an auction of automobiles.
“Damn!” Derek said. “You’d think they’d stop selling girdles long enough to put something about this on the air.”
“The program directors can’t get to me,” Glock said. “What do you mean by that crack?”
Glock flicked another button. The scene that came on the screen was his own reception room. The hatchet-faced secretary was lying just inside the door that opened out into the hall. She was obviously dead. The dress was pulled up high enough to reveal that she had had a gun in a leg holster.
“Anybody who talked to me has to clear through her,” Glock explained. “The program directors can’t get to me. They don’t dare put anything on the air about this building without first clearing with me.”
Glock looked again at the scene in his reception room.
“She opened the door. There was a viral on the other side. I guess, no matter what door you open in this building, there’s a viral on the other side of it now.”
His eyes went to the door that opened into the reception room where the hatchet-faced secretary with the leg-gun lay dead. His face was greenish white from which oozed globs of yellow sweat.
“I was smart enough to have this room shielded: walls, ceiling, floor, windows, and door. But don’t open that door to my reception room.”
“You had your private office shielded. Now you stay alive while thousands die outside! You’re like the people who built fallout shelters. You would come out of your shelter, to find the world poisoned all around you and all of your neighbors dead!”
Again Derek walked to the windows. The sun was gone. As if it could not stand the sight of what was happening here in this mile-high city any longer, it had dived over the edge of the mountains. Perhaps in the Orient it would see happier sights, sparkling seas, green islands, and tilled fields. Perhaps on the other side of this planet it might even find a happy face!
Fewer cars were visible on the high freeways now. Perhaps a police radio alert had warned the drivers to take the low streets. Around the huge building, the lights had not come on. In the darkness of the street canyons down below he could see searchlights probing fingers of light upward.
The operators of the searchlights seemed to be very nervous. They didn’t leave the searchlight beams on very long. Perhaps they were afraid of what the light would reveal!
Off in Aurora, off in the other towns of what was now Denver, the lights were gleaming. Out there in the suburban areas the men were home from work, home to the wife and the kids, home to a good dinner, then maybe to see a show or go bowling or play bridge. They were doing all the old, dear, familiar things.
How long would they continue doing the old things? How long before all of the mile-high city was under blackout?
“Better you should never have been born than that you should have turned this horror loose on the world,” Derek said.
“I didn’t do it!” Glock screamed. “It was Joe Cotter who did it! He invented these horrors.”
“Cotter brought the viral through from their home star,” Derek answered. “He didn’t intend to use them to harm anyone. You stole them from him, to use for your own gain.”
“You’re the one who actually did it!” Glock’s voice became more shrill. “I had everything nicely under control until you brought that damned glass sphere into my building and stirred them up. You did it with your damned meddling!”
“I had to meddle, Raz. You were using the viral to make your slave empire stronger. Somewhere in your crooked mind was the intention to use them to make yourself a bigger boss than you already are. You’re already a billionaire. But you wanted to use the viral to become a trillionaire!”
“I had no such intention. You’re trying to put words into my mouth that I never said.”
“Just because you never said the words aloud doesn’t mean you didn’t have them in your heart.”
“You’re the one who did it,” Glock answered. “You’ll have to pay for it, tool”
“There’s no use in trying to make me feel guilty,” Derek answered. “You might as well blame the dead down below for their own deaths—because they had the land of hearts that would stop beating when a viral touched them!”
Derek shook his head. Savagery was rising in him. He was growing all the more savage because he saw nothing he could do about the situation. They were trapped here in the Corporation Building. To go out of the room they were in was to die. Perhaps they were the only ones left alive in the whole building.
“Get me in touch with Hollow,” Derek said.
Glock looked surprised.
“Why do you want him?”
“Never mind why I want him, just get him!”
Glock shifted the controls on the complex equipment. “Hollow,” he spoke sharply.
He waited for an answer. It did not come.
“Maybe . . .” Glock began.
“I know. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe my boys killed him. Maybe they have taken his radio away from him and are scared to answer it themselves, thinking you are calling. Maybe they’re dead too. Maybe the viral are down there in the lower levels. One thing is certain, Raz, if my men are dead, I’m going to shove this right into your rotten heart!” He held up the plastic needle he had taken from his shoe. Glock stared at it. His eyes went from it to Derek’s face.
“I. . . I feel sick at my stomach,” he whimpered.
“Puking won’t save your life now,” Derek told him. “You will just get to die in the stench of your own vomit, which is exactly what you deserve!”
Derek turned away. Darkness like the murk at the bottom of a well lay around the building. One of the searchlights had left off its restless probing and was staring fixedly at the sky like a single-eyed idiot that had forgotten who and where he was. Derek’s guess was that the operator had forgotten this important data about himself—and would never remember.
When the censorship lid went off, how would this story be written? Headlines might read:
CORPORATION BUILDING NOW GHOST TOWN
The Colorado Rockies had hundreds of ghost towns. Most of them had been rebuilt and now served as tourist traps. In the old days of the great gold rushes, these towns had sprung up overnight. When the gold or the silver that had brought them into existence had played out, the miners had wandered on. The ghost towns served as mute reminders of the swarming, brawling, bustling life that had once passed this way.
Perhaps all of Denver would become a ghost town! Perhaps the United States would become a ghost country! Perhaps North America would become a ghost continent, with daring expeditions coming over from Europe or from Asia to try to find out what had happened!
Would the world ever know the true story? Derek doubted that it would. Had the world ever been told the true story about anything? Derek suspected that what was called history was mostly lies colored to suit national pride or interest. Of course, true scholars knew better, but who listened to them? What pride would be uplifted by the true story of the viral, what interest would be served by giving it to the world? For that matter, who would write it, even if the true story was known?
To know the true story of the viral was to know how to run. No reporter would be silly enough to write this story. As soon as he knew the truth, he would start looking for a hole to hide in. The newscaster who tried to put this story on the air would quit his job as soon as he realized he was telling the truth. The prime censorship, that of the individual serving his own best interests, would keep this story hidden.
Glock turned back to his private spy system. Now and again he tried to put through a call to Hollow. These calls did not go through his receptionist. He soon reached the point where he did not expect to have an answer.
“We have to find Cotter,” Glock said, over and over again. “He’s the only man who knows enough about the viral to lick them.”
“If you found him, he would probably shoot you on sight,” Derek said.
“Why does everybody hate me so?” Glock wailed.
“Because you have made yourself into something that deserves to be hated,” Derek answered. “You have broken the law . . .”
“I never broke any laws,” Glock answered. “I always stayed on the legal side. My attorneys . . .”
“I’m talking about the law of balance, the law of compensation, the law of karma. This law says that nature always brings everything back to balance: You’ve got too much money. You’re out of balance in this direction. Too many poor people have too little money. You have so much freedom you can do just as you please. Too many people have so little freedom they hardly dare to breathe. You’re like the absolute monarchs in the old days of this planet. Your word is law. Or it was law. It’s not law any more.”
In the distance around the huge building, he could see police cars setting up road blocks. The area was being sealed off.
“Wait until the news of this hits your accounting machines in the morning,” Derek said. “That is, if anybody can reach this building to operate the machines. That is, if morning ever comes again.”
Glock’s face alternated between green and a sticky gray.
“I. . . I hadn’t thought of that.” he choked out. “I’ll be ruined, completely wiped out.” “That’s what the law of balance says should happen,” Derek told him bluntly.
“There isn’t an important corporation on Earth who doesn’t have its headquarters here in this building,” Glock said. “This will be wiping out the brains of most of the companies on Earth. Chaos will result.”
Derek nodded. That the fat man was telling the truth he knew only too well. This huge building was the financial heart of the world. The financial control mechanisms for food, fuel, water, clothing, medicines, transportation, insurance, mining, and manufacturing were all here. Only the primitive areas of the Earth, only the jungles, only the deserts would be unaffected by the chaos coming into existence here.
Men would go back to hunting and fishing and food gathering to stay alive. Men would form into small bands to raid the food supplies of their neighbors or to defend their own. As they tried to stay alive, men would watch the sky for little sparkles of blue light that marked the coming of the viral.
“We’ve got to find Joseph Cotter,” Glock moaned again.
Derek made up his mind.
“All right, we’ll go to him—if we can get there,” Derek said.
“You . . . you do know where he is?”
“Yes. The first thing we have to do is to get out of this building alive. The second thing is to get out of the city. The third thing . . .” Derek paused. “We’ll take the first thing first. To get out of this building, we have to get out of this room. This means that you have to reveal your secret way in and out of this place.”
“What?” Glock said.
“A rat like you always has a way out of his own trap,” Derek answered. “Get up and show me where it is.”
He held the little sliver of plastic between his thumb and forefinger. It was like an ice pick ready for stabbing.
Glock looked at the little plastic needle. “Well . . .”
“Get up and walk,” Derek said.
Glock waddled his way to the wall to the north. He pushed against it. The wall slid back. Revealed behind the concealed door was a small elevator.
“It’ll take us to the sub-basement,” Glock said. “But it’s too small for both of us.”
“We’ll squeeze our way into it,” Derek said.
He pushed Glock ahead of him. The elevator had been built for one man but that man was Glock. The fat man could be squeezed. Derek squeezed him.
Once the two were in the elevator, Glock pushed a button. It dropped downward at a sickening speed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Watching the Earth from the rocketship, Jennie Fargo had the strong impression that the ship was standing still in space and the planet was moving away. She thought this was a nonsensical way for a piece of real estate as big as a planet to be acting. All of her life, it had been a feeling of sureness under her. Now that it was fleeing from her, her sureness of herself was also fleeing.
She was aware of psychological upheavals taking place within her. Most of all, she wanted to cry. As she watched the Earth fall away, this impulse became stronger and stronger. It seemed to her that she was a part of the green planet now dropping away into space, that it was a part of her, and that both she and the planet were tom by the pangs of separation. The planet was losing a daughter. It was sad about that. But it was not nearly as sad or nearly as upset as the daughter was to be losing it. Her body, with all of its wonderful chemistry, its bones, its muscles, and its nerves, had been built out of minerals eaten as food which had come from Earth. At some deep level, these minerals resisted being taken from their home world.
Their resistance formed the foundation of her impulse to cry.
Strapped in a bunk beside her, Joseph Cotter wept like a baby, wept with no sense of shame, wept in part for the same reason she did, and in part for another reason. The other reason was happiness.
“This is like a dream coming true!” the little man who looked like a bearded wino said, over and over again. “I’ve wanted to go out into space so many times, wanted to see the worlds of the sky, wanted to feel them under my feet, wanted to smell them—where there was air for smelling, of course. Somehow Earth was both home and not home to me. It was my planet, my body was born of it, but deep down inside me, I always felt I belonged somewhere else, in some cleaner, brighter, finer place. But I was on Earth and I tried—or I hoped—to make it into the cleaner, brighter, finer place where I longed to be, at least a little.”
Tears from his eyes ran down his whiskered cheeks.
Jennie Fargo stared curiously at him. She had gathered from the talk she had heard that he was one of the world’s great scientists. To see him cry like this disturbed the image of a great scientist she had carried in her mind. She had always thought of them as being dignified and aloof, distant from ordinary people, with their heads in Olympian clouds, people without emotions. Perhaps such scientists as this actually existed. She did not know the answer to this question. But she did know that this little man had all the keen emotions of ordinary people and was not in the least ashamed to express them. Perhaps his emotions were even keener than those of ordinary people! Perhaps this was one of the reasons why he was great!
This idea startled her. In her thinking, emotions were forces that ran away with a girl and had her in bed with a man before she really knew what was happening. For this reason, if for no other, they had to be carefully guarded. Or so she had thought. She had not fully realized that men had emotions too. Yet here was a great man who had emotions and the freedom to express them, to let them flow through him like rivers of cleansing, life-bringing water.
“I guess all I really succeeded in doing was to make Earth dirtier,” Cotter whispered.
He did not cry again. The thoughts that were in him now were too deep for tears to express and release. He shook his head.
“The dream I had was used by venal’ men to make a trap for fools, it was used to forge chains for the legs of lesser men! Must it always be this way? Must the dreamer always turn his finest and best dream over to those who seek only to make a profit from it? Must the dream always be distorted?”
Sadness as deep as the seas of the planet that was still falling away from them appeared in his voice.
Then his voice changed. A growl appeared in it.
“No! It won’t be this way always! Somewhere, in some infinity, in some frequency range, men will grow up!”
If in the old Greek myth, Prometheus had challenged the lightning and had brought fire down to Earth to warm the hearts of men, this little man in this moment was of the same strong breed as Prometheus. Joseph Cotter could not bring the fire down to men. This had already been done. But he would bring some gift!
