The Empire of Isher Read online

  He drifted into sleep, worrying about it. Twice, when he stirred on the edge of wakening, the thought was still there, unpleasant, urgent, a jarring background to his first night in the city of dreams. He awoke tired and unhappy. Only gradually did the uneasiness wear off.

  He avoided the expensive automat, eating breakfast for a credit-eighth in a restaurant that offered personal service and featured "home" cooking. He regretted his miserliness. The weight of the indigestible meal on his stomach did not lighten until he was in the Penny Palace, an ornate gambling establishment on the world famous Avenue of Luck.

  According to a guidebook which dealt exclusively with the avenue and its games, the Penny Palace owners "have put up glitter signs which modestly claim that it is possible for anyone to come in with a penny and walk out with a million, meaning, of course, a million credits." Whether or not this good fortune has ever been achieved the signs do not indicate.

  The write-up concluded generously, "The Penny Palace has the distinction of having more fifty-fifty games for the number of machines it has in operation than any other establishment on the Avenue of Luck."

  It was that plus the low stakes that interested Cayle. His immediate plans did not include walking out "with a million." He wanted five hundred credits to begin with. After that-well, then he could afford to enlarge his horizon.

  He laid his first bet on a machine that pumped the words odd and even into a swirling pool of light. When ten of each had been pumped into the pool the liquid-looking stuff suffered a chemical change, after which it would support only one of the words on its surface. All the others sank through a screen and vanished.

  The winning words floated easily face up and somehow set in motion the paying mechanism or the collecting mechanism. The bettors either saw their bets vanish with a click or else their winnings would slide automatically to the square before which they stood. Cayle heard the click of defeat.

  He doubled his bet and this time won. He withdrew his original stake, and played with the coin he had won. The intricate lights fused, the pump squished, then up floated the word even. The pleasant sound of money sliding softly toward him assailed Cayle's ears. It was a sound that he was to hear often during the next hour and a half for, despite the fact that he played cautiously and only with pennies, he won just over five credits.

  Tired at last he retreated to a connecting restaurant. When he came back into the "treasure room," as it was called, he noticed a game that was played in an even more intimate fashion by the player himself.

  The money went into a slot, releasing a lever, and when this was pulled a light sequence was set up. The movement was very rapid but it resolved swiftly into red or black.

  —The game was thus but another variation of the odd and even sequence, since the player had the same fifty-fifty chance of winning.

  Cayle slipped a half-credit coin into the proper slot, pulled the activating lever-and lost. His second guess was equally wrong, and his third, also. The fourth time his color shimmered into place and he had his first win. He won the next ten straight, lost four, then won seven out of another ten series. In two hours, by playing carefully, limiting his luck rather than forcing it, he won seventy-eight credits.

  He withdrew to one of the bars for a drink, and pondered his next move. So many things to do-buy a new suit, protect his winnings, prepare for another night and pay back the money Lucy Rail had loaned him.

  His mind poised, titillated. He felt comfortable and very sure of himself. A moment later he was putting through a 'stat call to the weapon shop girl.

  Making more money could wait.

  She came in almost immediately. "I'm out on the street now," she answered his request.

  Cayle could see what she meant. Her face almost filled the screen. Extens-stats magnified from a tiny image. People used them on the street, keeping them connected with their home 'stats. One of the fellows in Glay had one.

  Before Cayle could speak, the girl said: "I'm on my way to my apartment. Wouldn't you like to meet me there?"

  Would he!

  Her apartment turned out to be a four room affair, unique only in the abundance of automatic devices. After a quick look around, it was clear to Cayle that Lucy Rail never did a stroke of housework. What puzzled him, however, was that the place seemed unprotected. The girl came out of her bedroom dressed for the street and shrugged at his comment.

  "We weapon shop people," she said, 'live just like anyone else, usually in the nicer residential districts. Only our shops and—” she hesitated—”a few factories and, of course, the Information Center are protected from interference."

  She broke off. "You said something about buying a suit. If you wish I'll help you select it. I've only two hours, though."

  Cayle held the door open for her, exhilarated. The invitation to her apartment must have a personal meaning. Whatever her duties for the weapon shops, they couldn't possibly include inviting obscure Cayle Clark to her apartment, even if only for a few moments. He decided to assume that she was interested in him as an individual.

  They took a carplane, Lucy pushing the button that brought the machine down to pick them up.

  "Where are we going?" Cayle asked.

  The girl smiled, and shook her head. "You'll see," she said. When they were in the plane, she pointed up. , "Look," she said.

  An artificial cloud was breaking out in the sky above. It changed colors several times, then vividly through it shone the letters: HABERDASHERY PARADISE.

  Cayle said, "Why I saw their ad last night."

  He had forgotten but now he remembered. The streamers of lights had soared aloft the night before as he walked from the automat to his rooming house. Advertising Paradise. Informing males of every age that here was the place to buy, here the retail establishment that could furnish anything in men's clothing any hour of the day or night, anywhere on earth, Mars or Venus and, for a trifling extra cost, anywhere in the inhabited Solar System.

  The ad had been one of hundreds-and so, in spite of his need for clothes, the name didn't remain in his memory.

  "It's a store worth seeing," Lucy said.

  It seemed to Cayle that she was enjoying his enjoyment. It made him feel a little naive-but not too much. What was important was that she was going with him. He ventured, "It's so kind of you to help me."

  Haberdashery Paradise turned out to be more impressive than its ads. The building was three blocks long and eighty stories high. So Lucy told him; and added, "We'll go to the main sections quickly, then buy your suit."

  The entrance to Paradise was a hundred yards wide, and thirty stories high. An energy screen kept the weather out but its doorless vastness was otherwise without barriers. It was easy to press through the harmless screen into the domed anteroom. The Paradise not only supplied beach clothing-it supplied a beach with a quarter of a mile of surging water tumbling from a misty horizon onto rich, tangy smell of the sea itself. Paradise not only supplied ski outfits, it supplied startlingly lifelike mountains with a twisting half-mile of snow-covered slope.

  "Paradise is a COMPLETE STORE," said one flashing sign to which Lucy called his attention. "If there is anything you do not see that fits in with our slogan, 'Everything for the Man,' ask for it. We have it at a price."

  "That includes women," Lucy said matter-of-factly. "They charge the same for women as they do for their suits, anywhere from five credits to fifty thousand. You'd be surprised how many women of good family register when they need money. It's all very discreet, of course."

  Cayle saw that she was looking at him thoughtfully. And that he was expected to make a comment. It was so direct that he was startled. He said hastily, "I shall never pay money for a woman."

  It seemed to satisfy her, for they went from there to the suits. There were thirty floors of suits but each floor had its own price range. Lucy took him to the twenty-thirty credit floor and pointed out to him the difference in weave between "city" cloth and the cloth of his own suit. For thirty-two credits h
e bought a suit, tie, socks and shoes.

  "I don't think," said Lucy practically, "you should go any higher than that yet."

  She refused his offer of the credits he owed her. "You can pay me that later on. I'd rather you put it in the bank now, as a reserve fund."

  It meant he would see her again. It seemed to mean she wanted to see him again.

  "Better hurry and change," said Lucy. "I'll wait."

  It was that that decided him to try to kiss her before they separated. But when he came out, her first words dashed this determination. "I didn't realize how late it was," she said. "It's three o'clock."

  She paused to look at him, smiled. "You're a big, strong, handsome man," she said. "Did you know? But now, let's hurry."

  They separated at the Gargantuan entrance, Lucy hurrying to a carplane stop, leaving him empty behind her. The feeling departed slowly. He began to walk at a quickening pace.

  By the time he came to where the Fifth Interplanetary Bank sat heavily on the base from which its ethereal spires soared to a height of sixty-four stories, ambition was surging in him again. It was a big bank in which to deposit the tiny sum of fifteen credits but the money was accepted without comment, though he was required to register his fingerprints.

  Cayle left the bank, more relaxed than he had been at any time since the robbery. He had a savings account. He was suitably dressed. There remained one more thing before he proceeded to the third phase of his gambling career. From one of the public carplanes he had located the all-directional sign of a weapon shop, nestling in its private park near the bank. He walked briskly up the beflowered pathway, and he was almost at the door when he noticed the small sign, which he had never seen before in a weapon shop. The sign read:

  ALL METROPOLITAN WEAPON SHOPS

  TEMPORARILY CLOSED

  NEW AND OLD RURAL SHOPS OPEN AS USUAL

  Cayle retreated reluctantly. It was one possibility he had not expected, the fabulous weapon shops being closed. He turned as a thought came. But there was no indication as to when the shops would reopen, no date, nothing at all but the one simple announcement. He stood frowning, experiencing a sense of loss, shocked by the silence. Not, he realized that that last should be bothering him. In Glay it was always silent around the weapon shop.

  The feeling of personal loss, the what-ought-he-to-do-now bewilderment grew. On impulse, he tried the door. It was solid and immovable. His second retreat began, and this time he carried through to the street.

  He stood on a safety isle undecided as to what button to push. He thought back over the two and a half hours with Lucy and it seemed a curious event in space-time. He felt appalled, remembering how drab his conversation had been. And yet, except for a certain directness, a greater decisiveness, her own conversation left no dazzling memories.

  "This is it," he thought. "When a girl puts up with a dull fellow for an afternoon, she's felt something."

  The pressures inside him grew stronger, the will to action telescoping his plans, impelling him to swift activity. He had thought-weapon shop, more gambling, then Army District Headquarters commanded by Colonel Medlon—over a period of a week. The weapon shop had to be first because weapon shops did not open for Imperial agents, whether soldiers or merely government employees.

  But he couldn't wait for that now. He pressed the button that would bring down the first carplane going toward District Number 19. A minute later he was on his way.

  Seven

  DISTRICT 19 headquarters was an old style building of the waterfall design. The pattern was overdone, the design renewing itself at frequent intervals. Stream after marble stream poured forth from hidden crevices and gradually merged one with another.

  It was not a big building, but it was big enough to give Cayle pause. Its fifteen stories and its general offices, filled with clucking file machines and clerks, were impressive. He hadn't pictured such a field of authority behind the drunken man on the plane.

  The building directory listed civil functions and military functions. Cayle presumed that he would find—Colonel Medlon somewhere behind the heading: STAFF OFFICES, PENTHOUSE.

  A note in brackets under the listing said: Secure pass to penthouse elevator at reception desk on 15th floor.

  The reception department took his name, but there was a subdued consultation before a man attached it to a relayer and submitted it for the examination of an inner office authority. A middle-aged man in captain's uniform emerged from a door. He scowled at Cayle. "The colonel," he said, "doesn't like young men." He added impatiently, "Who are you?"

  It didn't sound promising. But Cayle felt his own stubbornness thickening in his throat. His long experience at defying his father made it possible for him to say in a level voice, "I met Colonel Medlon on a plane to Imperial City yesterday and he insisted I come to see him. If you will please inform him that I am here—”

  The captain looked at him for a full half minute. Then, without a word, he went back into the inner sanctum. He emerged, shaking his head but more friendly. "The colonel says that he does not remember you but that he will give you a minute." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Was he—uh—under the influence?"

  Cayle nodded. He did not trust himself to speak. The captain said in a low, urgent voice, "Go inside and push him for all he's worth. A very important personage has called him twice today and he wasn't in. And now you've got him nervous. He's frightened of what he says when he's under. Doesn't dare touch a drop when he's In town, you know."

  Cayle followed the backstabbing captain, with one more picture of the Isher world taking form in his mind. Here was a junior officer who appeared to be maneuvering for his superior's job.

  He forgot that as he stepped out of the penthouse elevator. He wondered tensely if he were capable of handling this situation. The gloomy feeling came that he wasn't. He took one look at the man who sat behind a great desk in the corner of a large room and the fear that he would be thrown bodily out of the 19th District Headquarters evaporated.

  It was the same man as on the ship, but somehow shrunken. His face, which had seemed bloated when he was drunk, looked smaller. His eyes were thoughtful, and he drummed nervously on his desk.

  "You may leave us alone, captain." His voice was quiet and authoritative.

  The captain departed with a set look on his face. Cayle sat down.

  "I seem to recall your face now," said Medlon. "Sorry, I guess I had been drinking a little." He laughed hollowly.

  Cayle was thinking that what the other had said about the empress must be highly dangerous for a man of his position. Aloud, he said, "I did not receive the impression of anything unusual, sir." He hesitated. "Though, when I think of it, you were perhaps too free with your confidences." Once more he paused. "I thought it was your position that made it possible for you to speak so strongly and so freely."

  There was silence. Cayle had time for cautious self-congratulation but he did not delude himself. This man had not risen to his present position by being afraid or simpleminded.

  "Uh—” said Colonel Medlon finally, "what did we—uh— agree on?"

  "Among other things, sir," said Cayle, "you told me that the government was in need of officers and you offered me a commission."

  "I do not," said Colonel Medlon, "recall the offer." He seemed to be bracing himself. "However, if I did so far forget myself as to make such an offer I have very regretfully to inform you that I have no authority to make you an officer. There is a regular procedure with regard to commissions, completely out of my hands. And since the positions are held in great esteem the government has long regarded them as a source of financial return. For instance, a lieutenancy would cost you five thousand credits even with my influence behind you. A captaincy would disturb you to the extent of fifteen thousand credits, which is quite a sum for a young fellow to raise and—”

  Cayle had been listening with a developing wryness. Looking back over his words it seemed to him that he had done his best with the material. He just wasn
't in a position to make use of Medlon's indiscretions. He said with a twisted smile, "How much is a colonelcy?"

  The officer guffawed. "Young fella," he said jovially, "it is not paid for in money. The price comes out of your soul, one black spot at a time."

  He broke off, earnestly. "Now, look," he said. "I'm sorry if I was a little free with Her Majesty's commissions yesterday, but you understand how these things are. And just to show you I'm not a welsher, even when I'm not responsible, tell you what I'll do. You bring five thousand credits here at your convenience in, say-well, two weeks, and I'll practically guarantee you a commission. How's that?"

  For a man who owned less than forty credits, it was a fairly futile attempt at a solution. If the empress had actually ordered that commissions not be sold in future, the command was being ignored by corrupt henchmen.

  She and her advisers were not all-powerful. He had always thought that only the weapon shops restrained her government. But the net she was caught in was more intangible than that. The vast mass of individuals who served her will had their own schemes, their own desires, which they pursued with more ardor than they served the woman to whom they had sworn allegiance.

  The colonel was rustling papers on his desk. The interview was over. Cayle was about to say some final word, when the telestat on the wall behind Medlon lighted up. The face of a young woman came onto the screen.

  "Colonel," she said curtly, "where the hell have you been?"

  The officer stiffened. Then turned slowly. But Cayle did not need the uneasy reaction of the other man to realize who the woman was.

  He was looking at the Empress of Isher.

  Eight

  CAYLE, WHO HAD been sitting down, climbed to his feet. It was an automatic movement. Motivating it was an awareness that he was an intruder. He was halfway to the door when he saw that the woman's eyes were watching him.

  "Colonel," he mumbled, "thank you for the privilege—”

  His voice was a sick sound in his ears and he stopped in shame. And then he felt a surge of doubt, a disbelief that such an event could be happening to him. He looked at the woman with eyes that momentarily questioned her identity. At that moment Medlon spoke.