Empire of Two Worlds

“O.K., Harmen, you’ve got me convinced. How would you like to quit this place and come and do your work in my outfit. I’ll give you anything you need — anything. You must run short of equipment the way you are now.”

Harmen nodded. “I do. But what are your reasons?”

“I’m interested in original research. The world’s gone too long without anything new. I aim to change that.”

The alk pursed his lips. “The final preparation of the tincture requires the use of an atomic furnace. I am without one. Can you provide it?”

Bec thought for a moment. “We should be able to handle that.” The hardest part of building the sloop had been acquiring its nuclear power unit. But we had done it, so I guessed we could do it twice.

“Then I’ll think about it. Come and see me again in a few days.”

“Sorry, old man, this is the time for snap decisions.” He turned to me. “Get back to the tank, Klein, and send down some of the boys to help Harmen crate up his equipment and books. I don’t think we’ll be able to come back later.”

Harmen let out a roar of indignation, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. Bec had taken to him, for some reason. He was being hi-jacked, like the tank technicians.

I went back to where they were working under the control gallery. The stench was awful. They had filled up the vats and then had found some containers on the premises and filled those. Bissey’s tank was only a small one that fed no more than a few thousand people, but by the time they’d finished they had still only drained off slightly more than a third of its hoard of organics. We’d have to be content with that. As it was the technicians were protesting shrilly about the risk of contaminating the nutrient and ruining it.

I sent some boys down to Bec. Half an hour later they came back carrying loads of junk and books and stuff, then went back for more. There was masses of it and we had to leave a lot behind. Then Harmen came, looking wild-eyed and fierce. I told myself it was lucky I gave the sloop a lot of storage space. As it was we left a lot of stuff lying around the floor.

It was quite a while before we pulled out. Outside, the curving crescent of the street was still empty. We jammed Harmen and the six techs in the sloop with us and set off back to the Basement.

The chief tech was yelling that we were mad, criminally mad. “And why are you taking us?” he asked shrilly, though surely he could guess.

Bec spoke over his shoulder from the driving seat. “Calm down. You’ll be all right. I’ll set you up, you can grow food just like you did before. I’ll treat you better than Blind Bissey ever did.”

“You fool!” the technician fumed. “You don’t think the protein that’s grown in a tank is eatable, do you? It’s raw, you’d vomit if you tasted it. It has to be processed further to make the food you know.”

“Then process it. We’ll get you everything you need.”

Now we were already entering the Basement. The technicians peered through the windows at the dusty chaos. Most of them had probably never been down here before. A stranger to Klittmann might not notice the difference between that and the more select surroundings they were used to, but when you’ve been brought up in something all your life fine differences are important. Their faces were sour.

We drove straight to the fortified garages and locked up the technicians under guard. Then Bec made for his office, taking me in tow.

In his office Bec had a vision phone, one of the few in the whole of the Basement. He flicked out a number on the dial. There was a quiet whirr of machinery as the mechanical disc scanners spun, one set televising Bec’s face and the other tracing a blur of illumination on the paper receiving screen.

The first face that appeared on the screen was that of a servant girl. Bluntly Bec told her of his wish to speak to her master. Something in his tone must have got through to her, because she turned away and did something at a table and her image vanished.

“Bissey speaking,” a whispering voice said. But to Bec’s annoyance — he was proud of his vision phone — no picture appeared.

“Show yourself, Bissey, I like to see who I’m talking to,” he demanded.

“I can’t see you anyway. Why should you see me? What do you want?”

“Better come through and show me your face,” Bec told him. “It’s about your tank.”

There was a pause, then the screen’s fuzzy brightness cleared and it showed a low-quality picture of a fat man sitting in an armchair. His head was raised, his eyes clearly sightless. With one hand he fondled a dog that he used to guide him when he walked.

“Here I am then. What’s this about the tank?”

Brusquely, brutally, Bec told him what we had done. The fat man’s face went drawn and pale. At first he simply didn’t believe us. Bec invited him to check for himself. When he had done so he was shaking.

“You klugs!” he whispered, his voice shaking. “There are laws in this city. The police department will come down there and mash you into little pieces.”