No Place on Earth

wife

Chapter 1

The cell was like a tomb, its walls dead white. They curved upward without an opening to a bubble of glass in the center of the ceiling. Beyond the bubble there was no light—only the changing dark blue of the night sky. The walls were bare except for a portrait of a bearded man named Malthus and two slots which read MARCH 10, 2240, and 11:25 P.M. Even the cell door was only a penciled outline on the smooth walls.

The cell’s furnishings were a large stone slab table on a pedestal and an upright metal chair. A man sat in the chair, his arms bound behind his back, wrists locked together with transparent tape. The same thin tape strapped his ankles to the legs of the chair.

He sat patiently, unmoving, his eyes on the smooth wall section that slid up to make a doorway. While he watched, the door slithered open. Two men in crisp white uniforms stepped through. One uniform had three gold stripes on the left sleeve, the other had two. Above the breast pocket of each was sewn a triangular red emblem with three gold letters: PCC. And in small script beneath, Population Control Corps.

The uniformed men grinned at the man in the chair.

You ask him this time, Corporal, the man with three stripes said.

The corporal’s grin broadened. Tell us about yourself, he said.

The man in the chair looked at them eagerly. I’m Petr Clayborne, he said.

The uniformed men looked at each other, and laughter tugged at their lips.

I’m Petr Clayborne, the bound man said, smiling. I’m Petr Clayborne.

The two men doubled up with laughter that echoed in the bare room. They laughed until the corporal had to turn away and lean against the wall, and the other man began to choke. The eager smile never left the bound man’s face.

Gradually the laughter sputtered and died. The corporal’s pink young face sobered first.

You wouldn’t think it, the way he is now, but he must be important to bring Captain Hartog here personally, the corporal said.

Important! The older man spat at the man in the chair. An enemy of the state! I’d like to see how Hartog goes to work on him.

There was a rushing sound outside, a glow of light flashing past the glass bubble overhead, and the two uniformed men moved alertly toward the cell door. Petr Clayborne watched them go with a wide-eyed, childlike interest.

He waited eagerly until he heard their steps returning. But the first man who stepped into the cell was strange to him—a big man, deeply tanned, with a face as square and hard as the stone slab table. He also wore the white uniform with the red emblem. He strode toward Petr, his steps deliberate, heels clicking on the floor. The other two men hovered behind him.

Good evening, Petr, the big man said.

The man in the chair looked at him blankly. The big man smiled—a scar across the hard block of his face. His arm whipped down, and the back of his hand lashed across Petr’s face. The cutting edge of a red stone ring left a trail of red behind it. Petr tasted the blood, and his ears rang. Involuntary tears filled his eyes.

He doesn’t remember a thing, Captain, the man with three stripes said, grinning. He’s like a kid.

The big man grunted. I want information from you, Petr. You understand that, don’t you? You know what I’m saying?

Petr shook his head. He blinked at the tears and looked through them with eyes that were hurt and bewildered.

You will understand, Petr. You think you’re very clever, you and your Underground. But we’re going to reopen that memory of yours, Petr. You’ll tell us everything.

He turned abruptly. Is Major Porter here yet, Sergeant?

He’s outside now, sir, the man with three stripes said. His equipment is all unloaded.

Get him in here, Captain Hartog snapped. And keep the other two prisoners standing by.

Yes, sir.

The sergeant left hurriedly, and the youthful corporal stood by the open door at sharp attention. Hartog ignored him and turned back to Petr. There was something in his gaze Petr could not understand. He returned the stare with an anxious curiosity.

It’s taken a long time to catch up with you, Petr, Hartog said softly. But this is the end of the line. You’ve lost more than your memory. We’re going to teach you to betray.

The corporal coughed. A stranger stood beside him, tall and thin, with a hungry face. He was clad in plain gray.

Hail Malthus, he said pleasantly, flipping one hand in the air in a perfunctory way. Captain Hartog? He held out his hand.

Hartog ignored it but he returned the salute. Hail Malthus, he said. We’ve no time to waste, Major. Is all your equipment ready?

The major smiled thinly. All of it, he said. The patient has already been given preliminary injections to arrest the effects of the memory obliterator. He looked at Petr with academic interest. He’s remarkably docile.

The hard line of the PCC captain’s mouth curled. Docile! Don’t let his looks fool you, Major. I’ve been after him fot months, and even now that we’ve caught him he’s done more harm to our plans, to the whole Leader government, than his father ever did.

His father was executed, I understand, Major Porter said, studying Petr through narrowed eyes. Interesting. The father-son criminal pattern is unusual today.

Petr listened to them as they talked. Childlike, his mind groped at the word father. The word brought a picture—dim at first, then slowly crystallizing. It was a picture in a dark room. The man, tall and terrifying, bent down to touch his head. He lay obediently still but he was frightened. The tall man turned away sadly.

Petr jerked his mind away from the memory, back to the cell and the big man staring down at him. Vaguely he recognized the captain’s animosity and he was troubled by it. He could not understand what he had done wrong when he felt only a desire to please.

The major turned as the two noncoms shuffled into the room, grunting under the weight of a tall metal box, whose face was divided by an oblong screen. A tangle of wires twisted up from the back of the box to the screen, and out of the top, like antennae, grew two long tubes with suction cups at the ends.

The box was set at the head of the stone slab. The major bent over it, fingering a row of dials just below the screen.

How does this work? Hartog said impatiently.

Shock, the major said. It’s nothing new, of course, but this is sustained and rather stringent. Dangerous. We have to keep close watch over the patient.

Hartog grunted. Just keep him alive until we learn what we want to. I don’t care what effects it has if it does the job.

It’s the only thing we’ve had success with at all, the major said as if talking to himself. Drugs alone won’t do the job. They’ll arrest the fluid the Underground uses, keep its effects from spreading. And we can break down resistance in the patient with drugs, cause him to feel that he wants to help us. But that isn’t enough.

Hartog looked at the sergeant behind him. Drugs were given immediately?

Yes, sir. We knew he’d swallowed that memory obliterator as soon as we got him in here. He was given the prescribed counter injections at once.

They’d already taken effect when I arrived, Major Porter said. But by then great gaps had been opened in the prisoner’s mind. At least forty years of his life have been ripped away.

He remembers nothing?

Only fragments. Nothing beyond the first ten years or so of his life.

Hartog frowned. How is it possible to bring his memory back?

The major’s lips curved in a thin, indulgent smile. Let me put it this way. The destructive fluid affects certain areas of the brain. It’s like freezing cubes of ice. We’ve stopped the freezing before it was complete, by catching it so promptly. Our drugs will prevent any further freezing—even thaw out the cells a little.

And the shocks are supposed to do more thawing?

That’s roughly it. The major looked at Petr. I’ll admit in other cases our success has been only partial. But we’ve never had our drugs applied so quickly before. That gives us a good chance.

Is there anything else wrong with him? Hartog asked thoughtfully.

Only the burns.

Hartog bent down to peer at the lower half of Petr’s face.

They’re mostly in his mouth, Major Porter said. The gums, tongue, and the inner lips.

Porter stepped over and opened Petr’s jaws. The two men stared silently.

You said the treatment was dangerous, Hartog said. I presume the danger increases if the treatment is prolonged?

Porter’s eyebrows raised slightly. There is a drastic increase, yes.

Abruptly Hartog stood erect. We’re wasting time, he snapped. If we don’t get on with this, the whole group will escape.

Of course, Major Porter said. Have him put on the table.

The two young PCC corpsmen stepped forward quickly at Hartog’s command. One had started to cut the tape around Petr’s wrists when the big captain stepped in.

Don’t bother with that, he snapped.

With one quick jerk he ripped the tape away. The breath hissed through Petr’s teeth, and tears stung his eyes. Hartog laughed and reached down to tear away the tape around Petr’s feet, while the two guards held his arms. This time, anxious that the big man should not know the pain he felt, Petr was ready. His face was expressionless even as the tearing tape seared his ankles.

They dragged him across to the slab table and stretched him on his back. Major Porter held up his hand.

Use this, he said.

He gave the sergeant a cylinder. When it was compressed, Petr felt a cold spray over his body. It moved up from his feet to his neck, weightless as mist, but when the sergeant had finished Petr found that he was enveloped in an almost invisible jacket as tight and unyielding as the casing of a sausage.

Something else new? Hartog asked with a frown.

Yes, the major said. It’s remarkably efficient. It will be in general issue shortly.

He can’t tear it?

Major Porter shook his head. The indulgent smile touched his lips. You couldn’t tear it off him, Captain. We have a disintegrator spray, of course. He took a small green vial from his pocket and held it up. It’s the only way of getting that jacket off him.

A cushion was placed under Petr’s head, and he found himself looking up into the major’s face, a bizarre face upside down, with its thin mouth and luminous eyes. The two suction cups were placed against Petr’s temples, and he felt a faint shock, a tingling sensation running through his body. After a moment it seemed to lessen, or he became accustomed to it, was hardly aware of it.

Everything’s ready now, the major said gently. You may start the questioning, Captain.

You haven’t done anything to him yet, Hartog said sharply.

We need to prompt the memory a little, the major said with patience. Where do you want him to start? What do you know that might start a train of thought? You don’t want memories of his childhood, I presume?

We know all about his childhood, Hartog said. He was raised by the state after his father was executed. Up until eight or nine months ago he had no record. He was irresponsible, weak—definitely not a Leader type. The captain paused. I’ve always opposed this idea that the state should raise weaklings.

What was his crime, Captain?

He defied Malthusian ethics, Major. Violated the Population Code.

The … the first law?

Exactly, Hartog said with distaste.

I see, Major Porter said. But what is the information you want from him?

We know the Underground is building a spaceship, Major. A foolish, hopeless attempt—but it will make a good propaganda story when we smash it.

Clayborne was involved in this attempt?

He was selected to go on the flight. We had a loyal agent planted in the group he was fleeing with. He murdered that agent.

The major looked at Petr thoughtfully. That happened here, out on the street. And when he was caught he destroyed his memory so he couldn’t tell you about the spaceship.

He’ll tell us, Hartog said coldly. He leaned over Petr. Where are your friends going, Petr? Where is the spaceship being built?

Petr looked at him anxiously. He struggled to remember, but his mind was like a giant catalogue of names and dates and facts, each of which eluded him. He would almost trap one, but at the last moment it would skip away.

You left the hotel, Hartog said. Where did you go from there, Petr? Who went with you?

That’s the idea, the major said softly. A name. Give him a name to remember.

A series of zigzag lines of light flickered across the screen just above Petr’s head.

Alda, Hartog said suddenly. Where’s Alda, Petr?

A white line jumped on the screen, and the major’s hand moved quickly. Petr’s head exploded. A great ball of fire soared through his brain and burst like a shell. A long way off someone screamed.

Then he remembered.

2

He moved through darkness stealthily, careful not to jar the cumbersome box he carried. Once he stumbled and fell to his knees, frantically juggling the box to keep it level, taking the jolt in his own legs and body. There was a faint sound from within the box.

Ahead of him the woman moved, her head erect. Only an occasional swaying or uncertainty in her step betrayed her exhaustion. She stayed close to him. They were only an arm’s reach behind the wiry man who led them. No one spoke. Each saved his labored breath.

They came over the crest of the hill, and the harbor opened out below them. To the left the resort town, still and lifeless in the night, a huddle of small dark domes, with a sprinkle of lights along the main street and around the central landing strip insisting that life still went on here even in midwinter.

Near the center of town one of the domes glowed faintly. There was no window, no gash of light, but a soft shedding of light through the luminous walls. As they watched, a figure emerged from the base of the sphere and stood briefly. He moved to his left along the street toward the docks below them at one end of the town.

The patrolman, Duclos said. He has a habit of stopping in the station for warm coffee. Dangerous for him and good for us.

Which is our submarine? Alda asked.

Second from the end, Duclos said.

It was only a long, slim shape on the water, one of a row nestled against the frame of the pier like sleepers in a barracks. There was no light or movement on the pier or among the black cylinders resting on the water.

Is the crew aboard? Petr asked.

Duclos smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness. You won’t see them, but they’re aboard, waiting for us.

They started down the slope. The patrolman couldn’t be seen now, but Duclos moved ahead steadily, as if it were broad daylight and there was no danger. They came out of the woods at the foot of the slope behind a row of identical domes—lightweight structures of the kind used in summer resorts, easily erected and as easily dismantled and moved away. There was an air of impermanence about them, like a new housing project.

All empty, Duclos whispered.

He moved off again, and they followed. They kept to the curving shadow of the last dome in the row and crept toward the main street. Duclos beckoned, and they froze in the shadows. Alda leaned against Petr, and he murmured meaningless encouragement in her ear. Duclos hissed, and they were silent.

The PCC patrolman passed in full view of them less than twenty paces away. They watched him make a casual check of the pier. He didn’t bother to go out to the end.

His steps quickened as he turned back. He passed them again, heading for the warmth and the habitual coffee in the glowing dome of the Corps station. After a moment Duclos nodded.

I’ll go first, he said.

He flitted across the brightness of the street like a darting moth, to disappear in the darkness beyond. Petr moved forward until he could study the length of the street.

Now, he said.

They ran together. In the center of the street Petr felt as if he were in the full glare of a searchlight but he didn’t look toward the station. Then they were across the street and skidding down the incline toward the pier, the precious box held precariously level in Petr’s arms. Duclos stepped up to meet them.

The pier had a railing which offered partial concealment. They moved over the wood surface silently, crouching behind the railing. Near the end of the pier they found steps leading down to a black, stubby submarine. They clambered along the catwalk at its side. Only when Petr was on top of the sub’s tower did he see the door standing open. One by one they stepped through, descending a twisting metal staircase, whose steps had been cushioned with rubber against sound.

The interior of the sub was dark. But above there was a gentle clank of the tower door closing. Instantly a soft glow of light grew in panels at the sides of the ship.

Duclos looked at them. There’s a private cabin for Alda, he said. His hand touched the box Petr held. And the ship’s doctor will take care of this one.

He looked