Read Ebook: The sentinel stars by Charbonneau Louis

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Ebook has 1420 lines and 70730 words, and 29 pages

This was what it must be like in the Freeman Camps, he reflected--seven days a week to enjoy the luxury of complete choice, of having each day stretch before you like a blank sheet of paper onto which you could dictate absolutely anything you wanted.

Exhilarated by the freshness of the moment, he stared in fascination at the passing faces. It was like trying to study the waves of the sea. They dissolved even as you glanced at them and were instantly replaced by others. He began to feel a little dizzy from the effort of isolating the moving figures. You could only know a wave, he thought, know its form and strength and motion, by riding it.

He stepped onto the slow strip of the sidewalk.

Instantly the faces which had been streaming past him were arrested. He studied the man standing closest to him. He had Eastern blood, to judge by the Oriental caste of his features, the thick shock of black hair, the full upper eyelids. Hendley suspected that he caught the reflection of perma-lenses coating the dark eyes. The stranger wore a green coverall over a small, wiry body. A commissary worker, Hendley guessed, on an eleven to seven day schedule, going to work. Or a finish carpenter, skilled in manipulating the buttons which caused graceful designs to be carved in plastic and metal, on his way home from a two until ten morning shift. Middle-aged, with an unusual Eastern name that would have a low number after the initials. Devoted to his Assigned, the father of a brood of black-haired children, perhaps a boy to inherit his craft.

This latter fancy evaporated. The stranger wore green. A finish carpenter would be further advanced than a 4-Dayman, would be closer to paying off his tax debt.

That was one of the troubles with the color designation of the universal coverall, Hendley thought. It instantly established status. It explained the way the Easterner's black eyes kept flicking forward with an expression of mingled respect and envy toward the beige coverall of a man several steps ahead--a tall, confident-looking man with carefully combed gray hair that matched the gray sleeve emblem identifying him as being in Administration.

Beige. A 1-Dayman. One step away from Freeman status. Son of a successful father, undoubtedly also an Organization official, who had passed on only a small tax debt to his fortunate son. Within a few years his debt to the Organization would be paid off. He would be free to enjoy the lifetime privileges of a Freeman Camp.

Hendley felt a twinge of--was it merely envy?

He stopped when he was ten feet behind the girl.

His first fleeting impression was confirmed. The red coverall shaped itself to her body under the gentle pressure of the air currents as she rode. Hendley couldn't help contrasting the figure of his Assigned--tending already toward plumpness, sturdy of calf and thigh, heavy of neck--with the slender grace of the girl in red. Her hips were round, but they flowed inward to a narrow waist. Below, her legs were long and straight; above, her back was a supple curve, her neck a beautifully feminine column of white. Her hair was gold, cropped close to the nape of her neck.

Hendley moved two steps closer. He wanted to see her face. Would it match the sensitivity of her body? Would it be fine of feature, vivid and alive? Or would her body's promise be blunted by coarseness in her face?

It seemed more important than it should have been. It was as if the girl was part of this morning's freshness, its sense of escape from--something. He didn't want her eyes to be vacant or stupid or self-satisfied. He wanted her mouth to be neither prim nor slack, neither sullen nor fixed in an empty smile.

Another step brought him to her side. For a moment he didn't turn his head. He stared forward, the rushing air cool against his eyes, his neck growing stiff with the effort of remaining still. Then he looked at her.

Her eyes were a warm brown with flecks of green. They were full on him, as if she too had been staring. They were neither appraising nor aloof--but they weren't empty. They seemed to be waiting, as he had been waiting. He felt his heart begin to labor. You are searching too, he thought. You are hoping for something different.

In the long moment while their eyes held, it seemed to him that the soft, wide curve of her lips began to bend upward at one corner in a tentative smile. He wanted to speak but hesitated.

Then she was gone. Frantically he looked back over his shoulder. He was in time to see her nimbly adjusting her forward movement to the pace of the slow lane. Before Hendley had time to move she was stepping onto an off-ramp, already well behind him.

Damn! He jumped recklessly from the fast strip. He had been so absorbed that her quick action had caught him by surprise. In his haste he failed to take the few running steps that would have countered the sudden braking when his feet hit the skidproof surface of the slow lane. His shoes caught and he plunged headlong.

He skidded face down on the sidewalk. Someone was laughing. A hand gripped him under the armpit to haul him to his feet. A black-browed face grinned into his.

"When did you learn to ride the walks?" the man jibed. "You'll never live to be a Freeman that way!"

Hendley grunted in shamefaced appreciation for the help. He felt embarrassed and angry with himself. The laughter did not annoy him. You had to expect that if you took a spill. Knowing how to gauge the sidewalks was as basic as walking. You couldn't expect sympathy when you forgot. What angered him most of all was the possibility that the girl in red had seen him fall.

He alighted at the next off-ramp. On the preceding incline almost a hundred yards away, a steady stream of people flowed out to the street and spilled into the torrent of pedestrians there. It was impossible to pick out the girl. Her bright coverall was now a disguise rather than a beacon. Red, the designation of the 5-Dayman, was the most common color. It suddenly seemed as if the whole street was splotched with red.

He hurried back, astonished at the sharpness of his disappointment. There had been something about the girl--something more than the beauty of her face or the curving suppleness of her body--that had made him want to know her. Or had he imagined a reflection in her eyes of his own discontent, his own yearning?

The street was lined with the Organization's bewildering variety of shops, service outlets, offices, vending cafes, entertainment centers. Crowded arcades tunneled under one of the great cylindrical work centers. Nearby a series of escalators trundled down to the tube station on the next level. Hendley heard the rumble of a departing train.

She could have gone anywhere. Even if she had entered one of the nearby shops or office buildings, even if he had known which one, he would have had little chance of finding her. He could recall no emblem on her coverall that would suggest where she worked or what she did.

He stopped at the foot of the ramp where the girl had disappeared. It was hopeless. An accidental collision of two specks in an interminable dust storm of people, almost instantly blown apart. What were the odds against another....

She was standing in the arched entry of a building, staring at him. As he pushed his way toward her she started to turn, averting her gaze, taking one step as if about to leave. The motion was arrested, and she seemed to be suspended there, poised on the verge of flight. She didn't move until he spoke.

"I was afraid I'd lost you."

"Were you?"

"Why did you try to get away?"

"I don't know what you mean. I work here."

Hendley glanced at the sign over the doors: AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH CENTER. Above them, above the barren crust of the earth, another eyeless concrete cylinder thrust upward toward the sky like a raised fist.

"You're working today?" he asked.

She was studying him now. "Yes."

It was strange, he thought, how much was already understood between them, how much had no need to be said.

"When can we meet?"

"I--that wouldn't be wise."

"When?" he demanded. "This afternoon? Tonight?"

"No, no." She licked her lips nervously. "I'm late. I have to go. Please--we're not of the same status. There's no use--we'd be seen."

His hand went out quickly to grip her arm, and she flinched sharply. His fingers held her, tight on the soft flesh under the coarse red fabric. "Don't you want to see me again?"

She glanced anxiously toward the doors of the building, as if afraid that an Inspector might be watching them. "That doesn't have anything to do with it. It--it's impossible." Then she seemed to wilt, her weight sagging against his supporting hand. "Yes," she said helplessly, "I do want to see you."

"What time? When are you free?"

She hesitated. "Four o'clock this afternoon. But--"

He had already been casting about for a place. "The Historical Museum," he said quickly. "Main floor. As soon as you can make it after four. Do you know where that is?"

She nodded. There was wonder in her face, crowding out the tension of worry. "What's your name?" she asked.

Automatically he started to give his official identity. "TRH--" He broke off. "Hendley," he said abruptly. "Call me Hendley."

His hand slid down her arm to examine the identity disc on her bracelet. Her number was ABC-331. He smiled, for the combination of letters was rare. "What does the 'A' stand for?"

Startled, she stared at him for a moment before answering. "Ann," she murmured. "But nobody ever--"

"I know. That's why I want to call you Ann."

Their eyes held for several seconds. He could feel the pulse beating in her wrist. Her red lips were parted in an expression of surprise. Suddenly she pulled her hand free.

"I have to go," she said. Whirling, she ran toward the doors of the Research Center.

"Four o'clock," he called after her.

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