Cadaverous moved to the further wall of the shop. Seizing my chance, I sidled up to Plain Clothes and said out of the corner of my mouth, ‘If you’re going to make an arrest, I’m here to help.’
‘Thanks’, he said, conferring a warm glow on me.
After a moment, which he evidently spent thinking, he asked, ‘Who was it you wanted arrested, kid?’
So they had not even got that far! I pointed to Cadaverous with my elbow.
‘Supposing me and you manoeuvre him outside?’ Plain Clothes said. ‘We could tackle him out there. Are you game?’
Nodding my head dumbly, I watched him go over to Cadaverous and mutter something. What it was I’ll never know, but I can guess. Then they approached, Cadaverous smiling enough to split his face, and we left the shop arm in arm.
Directly we were outside, they both bashed me on the head, sending me sprawling, and ran like mad in the direction of Gamage’s.
It pains me to say that the two real plain clothes men, the spotty one with glasses and the one with shiny shoes, were very rude as they helped Henshaw drag me back into Sowerby’s. Even now, after Henshaw and I have been doing this quiet packing job at the Lane auctioneer’s for three months, what they said still pains me. I had cost old Henshaw his job, but Henshaw was too human to fly off the handle.
‘The way he walked up to that accomplice like a kid asking for toffee,’ one copper sneered to the other, glancing carnivorously at me.
‘What’s the good of carrying on like that?’ Henshaw asked them. ‘Can’t you see it’s a case of arrested development?’
That was a puzzling remark; you might almost think he meant me.
‘But they weren’t arrested,’ I said.
‘It’s not exactly what I meant,’ said Henshaw.
The autofly sank deeper and deeper into the layers of buildings – its motor humming at steady pitch. Uneasily, Laurie Roberts trimmed his muon screen to avoid an upcoming fly. The traffic in these buildings was getting worse.
With London’s population now close on seventy million, that was hardly surprising. Year by year, more strata of houses were added to the existing layers. Everybody said it couldn’t go on any longer, yet it did. London, centre of world trade, blessed with its sunny climate, attracted population irresistibly from all over the Seven Systems.
Laurie glanced at his dials. He was just sinking through Stratum 17A, Square 80. It might be the Grand Bank of Neptune, it might be some pretty girl’s bedroom. Laurie wished he could materialise and see, but lowering the muon screen would instantly pulverise him; besides, he hadn’t far to go now, and he was really in a hurry.
He could not recall a time when he had not been in a hurry. Everyone in the seventeenth A-century was in a hurry: that was the inevitable result of a competitive way of living. Laurie’s one man illusion-repair outfit was a pretty hand-to-mouth job, allowing no time for relaxation.
He scythed forward now, cutting through Stratum 20. There was romance for you! Stratum 20 had been the old pre-muon age London, when people had had to build on the ground. Then intrapenetrability had been discovered, and progress had really gone ahead. The old existing thoroughfares (built for their quaint old automobiles and railways) had been filled in with new buildings; nothing and nobody could get anywhere without a muon screen – but power was reasonably cheap and everyone had them. After that the erection of new layers above and below the city began. London expanded like a self-fertilizing bun. The result was a capital worthy of a galactic race.
Not that that concerned Laurie particularly at present. He was too intent on finding his way down to Strata 29, where a client, Granville Esmond, awaited his services. An autobeam stopped him at 28 – that would be more upcoming traffic – and then he filtered the fly down and sent it clicking along to the appropriate square in which Mr. Esmond lived.
As soon as he arrived, Laurie dialled Esmond’s number. It came up, interlocked, and the muon screen was safely released. Laurie climbed out, glancing at once over his little vehicle with its proud sign: ‘Roberts’ Radiopsi Repairs. I’ll Mend Your Illusions.’ The new paint had been slightly scratched, presumably by a proton shower which had sneaked through his screen; the port projector needed retuning, and Laurie made a mental note to attend to it in the morning.
Mr. Esmond’s materialising hall was as small as the statues of the realm would allow. The tiny autofly filled it. Which was all you could expect if you knew this end of Strata 29; it was decidedly a shabby-genteel neighbourhood.
Mr. Esmond himself stood at the inner, muon-proof door. Although he was a complete stranger to Laurie, his type was familiar.
He wore green flannel shorts, a trylon sneaking-jacket and leather shirt with twill plugging pieces. His boots were aluminium retreads equipped with the standard speakers, leakers and signature keys. His hair, greying now, was worn in a snood. It was, in fact, a thoroughly old-fashioned outfit.
‘Please come in, Mr. Roberts,’ Esmond said in a sad voice. ‘Although I’m afraid you’ll find the flat rather untidy. I’ve had to manage by myself ever since my wife died.’
Laurie surveyed the old man’s face with interest. He hardly looked the type who would marry; the lines of his mouth were prim and ascetic; his face was the face of a self-denier.
There was a green fleck to his withered flesh which Laurie could not account for until he saw the rest of the house. Then he had Esmond placed: he was a retired Venusian civil servant. About him and his home was the air, at once conservative and eccentric, of one who has travelled far and got nowhere.
In the middle of a light years’ wide sphere of civilisation, incorrigible Venus lay, a frontier planet after sixteen centuries of more or less continuous occupation. The transformation of planetary atmosphere had never been a success and the hardy natives – who survived in any atmosphere – were difficult to rule. Venusian jurisdiction could point to thousands of men like Granville Esmond, who spent the greater part of their lives keeping order in remote provinces, far from their own kind.
The walls of Esmond’s poor little living room were covered with framed stereos, the cheap, motionless kind: views of the desolate land, the subterranean villages, groups of local Earthmen in sports kit, a close up of Mrs. Esmond in a sixties hat, looking strangely like her husband. And there were other mementos, a smogwood carving, a chunk of venustone, a native weave rug on the floor.
‘I spent twenty-nine years on our sister planet,’ Esmond said proudly, seeing Laurie’s glance.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘Oh, don’t apologise, it’s nice to have someone to see my – ah, trophies: I’m very much alone.’ The words seemed wrenched out of him; he immediately covered the confession by adding, ‘My illusion room’s through here, if you’d come, please.’
He gestured to a door and then said hurriedly, ‘I’m afraid it’s rather worn … The upkeep’s very expensive, you know. But I couldn’t bear to be without it: it helps remind me of happier times.’
He stood there as if barring the door, smiling in a weak, apologetic way.
‘I’ll put it right if I can,’ Laurie said, and pushed gently past him into the room.
The sky was a tawny overcast, moving slowly like curdled milk. A line of smogtress, part of an afforestation scheme, stretched from the horizon until the boughs of the nearest ones waved overhead. A large cabin dwelling with ‘District Commissioner’ over the door stood close beside a series of monolithic slabs. Laurie recognised the slabs