Master of Life and Death, Robert Silverberg [ready player one ebook TXT] 📗

the computer after his conference with FitzMaugham and Ludwig. Perhaps it still wasn't too late to erase the damning data and cover his mistake.

Then it would be just his word against Fred's. He might yet be able to brazen through, he thought dully.

He ordered lunch with quivering fingers, and munched drearily on the tasteless synthetics for awhile before dumping them down the disposal chute.

IV

At precisely 1255 Walton tidied his desk, rose and for the second time that day, left his office. He was apprehensive, but not unduly so; behind his immediate surface fears and tensions lay a calm certainty that FitzMaugham ultimately would stick by him.

And there was little to fear from Fred, he realized now. It was next to impossible for a mere lower-level medic to gain the ear of the director himself; in the normal course of events, if Fred attempted to contact FitzMaugham, he would automatically be referred to Roy.

No; the danger in Fred's knowledge was potential, not actual, and there might still be time to come to terms with him. It was almost with a jaunty step that Walton left his office, made his way through the busy outer office, and emerged in the outside corridor.

Fred was waiting there.

He was wearing his white medic's smock, stained yellow and red by reagents and coagulants. He was lounging against the curving plastine corridor wall, hands jammed deep into his pockets. His thick-featured, broad face wore an expression of elaborate casualness.

"Hello, Roy. Fancy finding you here!"

"How did you know I'd be coming this way?"

"I called your office. They told me you were on your way to the lift tubes. Why so jumpy, brother? Have a tough morning?"

"I've had worse," Walton said. He was tense, guarded. He pushed the stud beckoning the lift tube.

"Where you off to?" Fred asked.

"Confidential. Top-level powwow with Fitz, if you have to know."

Fred's eyes narrowed. "Strictly upper-echelon, aren't you? Do you have a minute to talk to a mere mortal?"

"Fred, don't make unnecessary trouble. You know—"

"Can it. I've only got a minute or two left of my lunch hour. I want to make myself perfectly plain with you. Are there any spy pickups in this corridor?"

Walton considered that. There were none that he knew of, and he knew of most. Still, FitzMaugham might have found it advisable to plant a few without advertising the fact. "I'm not sure," he said. "What's on your mind?"

Fred took a pad from his pocket and began to scrawl a note. Aloud he said, "I'll take my chances and tell you about it anyway. One of the men in the lab said another man told him you and FitzMaugham are both secretly Herschelites." His brow furrowed with the effort of saying one thing and writing another simultaneously. "Naturally, I won't give you any names yet, but I want you to know I'm investigating his background very carefully. He may just have been shooting his mouth off."

"Is that why you didn't want this to go into a spy pickup?" Walton asked.

"Exactly. I prefer to investigate unofficially for the time being." Fred finished the note, ripped the sheet from the pad and handed it to his brother.

Walton read it wordlessly. The handwriting was jagged and untidy, for it was no easy feat to carry on a conversation for the benefit of any concealed pickups while writing a message.

It said, I know all about the Prior baby. I'll keep my mouth shut for now, so don't worry. But don't try anything foolish, because I've deposited an account of the whole thing where you can't find it.

Walton crumpled the note and tucked it into his pocket. He said, "Thanks for the information, Fred. I'll keep it in mind."

"Okay, pal."

The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped inside and pressed twenty-nine.

In the moment it took for the tube to rise the one floor, he thought, So Fred's playing a waiting game.... He'll hold the information over my head until he can make good use of it.

That was some relief, anyway. No matter what evidence Fred had already salted away, Walton still had a chance to blot out some of the computer's memory track and obscure the trail to that extent.

The lift tube opened; a gleaming sign listed the various activities of the twenty-ninth floor, and at the bottom of the list it said D. F. FitzMaugham, Director.

FitzMaugham's office was at the back of a maze of small cubicles housing Popeek functionaries of one sort or another. Walton had made some attempt to familiarize himself with the organizational stratification of Popeek, but his success thus far had been minimal. FitzMaugham had conceived the plan half a century ago, and had lovingly created and worked over the organization's structure through all the long years it took before the law was finally passed.

There were plenty of bugs in the system, but in general FitzMaugham's blueprint had been sound—sound enough for Popeek to begin functioning almost immediately after its UN approval. The manifold departments, the tight network of inter-reporting agencies, the fantastically detailed budget with its niggling appropriations for office supplies and its massive expenditures for, say, the terraforming project—most of these were fully understood only by FitzMaugham himself.

Walton glanced at his watch. He was three minutes late; the conversation with his brother had delayed him. But Ludwig of the UN was not known to be a scrupulously punctual man, and there was a high probability he hadn't arrived.

The secretary in the office guarding FitzMaugham's looked up as Walton approached. "The director is in urgent conference, sir, and—oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Walton. Go right in; Mr. FitzMaugham is expecting you."

"Is Mr. Ludwig here yet?"

"Yes, sir. He arrived about ten minutes ago."

Curious, Walton thought. From what he knew of Ludwig he wasn't the man to arrive early for an appointment. Walton and FitzMaugham had had plenty of dealings with him in the days before Popeek was approved, and never once had Ludwig been on time.

Walton shrugged. If Ludwig could switch his stand so decisively from an emphatic anti-Popeek to an even more emphatic pro-Popeek, perhaps he could change in other respects as well.

Walton stepped within the field of the screener. His image, he knew, was being relayed inside where FitzMaugham could scrutinize him carefully before admitting him. The director was very touchy about admitting people to his office.

Five seconds passed; it usually took no more than that for FitzMaugham to admit him. But there was no sign from within, and Walton coughed discreetly.

Still no answer. He turned away and walked over to the desk where the secretary sat dictating into a voicewrite. He waited for her to finish her sentence, then touched her arm lightly.

"Yes, Mr. Walton?"

"The screen transmission seems to be out of order. Would you mind calling Mr. FitzMaugham on the annunciator and telling him I'm here?"

"Of course, sir."

Her fingers deftly flipped the switches. He waited for her to announce him, but she paused and looked back at Walton. "He doesn't acknowledge, Mr. Walton. He must be awfully busy."

"He has to acknowledge. Ring him again."

"I'm sorry, sir, but—"

"Ring him again."

She rang, reluctantly, without any response. FitzMaugham preferred the sort of annunciator that had to be acknowledged; Walton allowed the girl to break in on his privacy without the formality of a return buzz.

"Still no answer, sir."

Walton was growing impatient. "Okay, devil take the acknowledgment. Break in on him and tell him I'm waiting out here. My presence is important inside."

"Sir, Mr. FitzMaugham absolutely forbids anyone to use the annunciator without his acknowledgment," the girl protested.

He felt his neck going red. "I'll take the responsibility."

"I'm sorry, sir—"

"All right. Get away from that machine and let me talk to him. If there are repercussions, tell him I forced you at gunpoint."

She backed away, horrified, and he slid in behind the desk. He made contact; there was no acknowledgment. He said, "Mr. FitzMaugham, this is Roy. I'm outside your office now. Should I come in, or not?"

Silence. He stared thoughtfully at the apparatus.

"I'm going in there," he said.

The door was of solid-paneled imitation wood, a couple of inches thick and probably filled with a good sturdy sheet of beryllium steel. FitzMaugham liked protection.

Walton contemplated the door for a moment. Stepping into the screener field, he said, "Mr. FitzMaugham? Can you hear me?" In the ensuing silence he went on, "This is Walton. I'm outside with a blaster, and unless I get any orders to the contrary, I'm going to break into your office."

Silence. This was very extraordinary indeed. He wondered if it were part of some trap of FitzMaugham's. Well, he'd find out soon enough. He adjusted the blaster aperture to short-range wide-beam, and turned it on. A soft even flow of heat bathed the door.

Quite a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered by now, at a respectful distance. Walton maintained the steady heat. The synthetic wood was sloughing away in dribbly blue masses as the radiation broke it down; the sheet of metal in the heart of the door was gleaming bright red.

The lock became visible now. Walton concentrated the flame there, and the door creaked and groaned.

He snapped the blaster off, pocketed it, and kicked the door soundly. It swung open.

He had a momentary glimpse of a blood-soaked white head slumped over a broad desk—and then someone hit him amidships.

He was a man about his own height, wearing a blue suit woven through with glittering gold threads; Walton's mind caught the details with odd clarity. The man's face was distorted with fear and shock, but Walton recognized it clearly enough. The ruddy cheeks, the broad nose and bushy eyebrows, belonged to Ludwig.

The UN man. The man who had just assassinated Director FitzMaugham.

He was battering his fists into Walton, struggling to get past him and through the wrecked door, to escape somewhere, anywhere. Walton grunted as a fist crashed into his stomach. He reeled backward, gagging and gasping, but managed to keep his hand on the other's coat. Desperately he pulled Ludwig to him. In the suddenness of the encounter he had no time to evaluate what had happened, no time to react to FitzMaugham's murder.

His one thought was that Ludwig had to be subdued.

His fist cracked into the other's mouth; sharp pain shot up through his hand at the impact of knuckles against teeth. Ludwig sagged. Walton realized that he was blocking the doorway; not only was he preventing Ludwig from escaping, he was also making it impossible for anyone outside to come to his own aid.

Blindly he clubbed his fist down on Ludwig's neck, spun him around, crashed another blow into the man's midsection. Suddenly Ludwig pulled away from him and ran back behind the director's desk.

Walton followed him ... and stopped short as he saw the UN man pause, quiver tremulously, and topple to the floor. He sprawled grotesquely on the deep beige carpet, shook for a moment, then was still.

Walton gasped for breath. His clothes were torn, he was sticky with sweat and blood, his heart was pounding from unaccustomed exertion.

Ludwig's killed the director, he thought leadenly. And now Ludwig's dead.

He leaned against the doorpost. He was conscious of figures moving past him, going into the room, examining FitzMaugham and the figure on the floor.

"Are you all right?" a crisp, familiar voice asked.

"Pretty winded," Walton admitted.

"Have some water."

Walton accepted the drink, gulped it, looked up at the man who had spoken. "Ludwig! How in hell's name—"

"A double," the UN man said. "Come over here and look at him."

Ludwig led him to the pseudo-Ludwig on the floor. It was an incredible resemblance. Two or three of the office workers had rolled the body over; the jaws were clenched stiffly, the face frozen in an agonized mask.

"He took poison," Ludwig said. "I don't imagine he expected to get out of here alive. But he did his work well. God, I wish I'd been on time for once in my life!"

Walton glanced numbly from the dead Ludwig on the floor to the live one standing opposite him. His shocked mind realized dimly what had happened. The assassin, masked to look like Ludwig, had arrived at 1300, and had been admitted to the director's office. He had killed the old man, and then had remained inside the office, either hoping to make an escape later in the day, or perhaps simply waiting for the poison to take effect.

"It was bound to happen," Ludwig said. "They've been gunning for the senator for years. And now that Popeek was passed...."

Walton looked involuntarily at the desk, mirror bright and uncluttered as always. Director FitzMaugham was sprawled forward, hands half-clenched, arms spread. His impressive mane of white hair was stained with his own blood. He had been clubbed—the simplest, crudest sort of murder.

Emotional reaction began. Walton wanted to break things, to cry, to let off steam somehow. But there were too many people present; the office, once sacrosanct, had