Chapter 4

Something exploded in Jeff’s brain then, something he could no more control than the creeping, vicious hatred of Paul Conroe that had driven him for so long. The jangling, tinny music of the tavern was screaming through his mind; the indelible picture of the swerving, gyrating figure: the long raven hair, the impassive face, the full lips. His knees buckled and his head was reeling, but he lurched across the room at the girl. Catching her by the collar, he drew her face up to his with a wrench that knocked the cigarette from her hand and brought her breath out in a gasp.

“All right,” he grated. “Where is he? Come on, come on, talk! Where is he? And don’t tell me he’s not here, because I know he is, understand? I just saw him. I just chased him, down below. I know he’s here! I want to know where.”

Her foot came up sharply and caught him in the leg, sending an agony of pain into his thigh. Suddenly she began to fight like a cat, clawing, biting--blue fire in her eyes. Jeff brought his hand up and slapped her face twice, hard. With a snarl she caught him in the stomach with her foot and tore herself free, sending him reeling back against the wall.

He bounded off, then stopped dead in his tracks. A horrible realization exploded in his mind. She was standing poised, her face twisted, her eyes burning, a stream of poisonous language pouring at him. In her hand was a knife, blade up, balanced in her hand with deadly intent. But Jeff hardly noticed the knife; he didn’t hear the words as he stared unbelievingly at her face, his heart sinking. Because the face was wrong, somehow.

The lips were not right, the nose was shaped differently, the glow in the eyes was not right. His panting turned into a bitter sob of disbelief, of incredible disappointment. There couldn’t be any doubt--it simply was not the right girl.

“Where--where is he?” he asked weakly, his heart pounding helplessly in his throat.

“Not another step,” the girl snarled. “Another inch and I’ll slice you up like putty.”

“No, no--” Jeff shook his head, trying desperately to clear his mind, to understand. This was the girl he had seen in the visiphone screen. Yes, the same clothes, the same face. But she wasn’t the girl in the tavern. “Conroe,” he blurted out, plaintively. “You--you must know Conroe--”

“I’ve never heard of Conroe.”

“But you must have--last night, in that dive--dancing--”

Her jaw dropped as she stared at him in disgust. Then she gave the knife a flip into the desk top and sank down on her bed, her face relaxing. “Go away,” she said tiredly. “That goddam Frenchman’s sense of humor. Go on, beat it. I’m not rooming with any hoppy--at least until he’s off the stuff.”

“You don’t know Conroe?”

The girl looked at him closely. “Look, Jack,” she said with patient bitterness, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know your pal Comstock or whatever it is. And I sure as hell wasn’t dancing anywhere last night. I was working in the tank last night getting some looped-up hophead cooled off for the axe this morning. And it wasn’t fun for either of us, and you’ll be down there yourself if you don’t cool off. And you won’t like it, either. So go away, don’t bother me.”

Jeff sank down on the opposite bed, his head in his hands. “You--you looked so much like her--”

“So I looked so much like her!” She spat out a filthy word and drew her legs up, glaring at him.

Jeff reddened, his whole body aching. “All right, I’m sorry. I got excited. I couldn’t help it. And I can’t leave here--I tried it a little while ago and ran into a couple of fists.”

Blackie’s lip curled. “The guards don’t like us down here. They don’t like anything about us. They’ll kill you if you give them half an excuse.”

Jeff looked up at her. “But why? I didn’t do anything.”

The girl laughed harshly. “Do you think that makes any difference to them? Look, Jack, let’s face it: you’re in a prison, understand? They don’t call it that, and there aren’t any bars. But you’re not going anywhere, and the boys in gray are here to see that you don’t. And they hate us because we’re not good enough for them, and we’re in line for the kind of money they don’t dare go after. You’re here for one thing: to make money, big money, or to get your brains jolted loose, and nothing else--” She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. “Or are you?”

Jeff shook his head miserably. “No, nothing else. I’m waiting for testing. This other thing is an old fight, that’s all. You wouldn’t understand. You just looked so much like the girl--” He looked up at her, studying her face more closely. She wasn’t as young as he had thought at first. There were little wrinkles around her eyes, a shade too much make-up showing where her mouth crinkled when she talked. Her lips were painted too full, and there was a tiredness in her eyes, a beaten, hunted look that she couldn’t quite hide.

She leaned back on the bed, and even relaxation didn’t erase the hardness. Only the jet black hair and the smooth black eyebrows looked young and fresh.

Jeff shook his head and kept staring at her. “I don’t get it,” he said helplessly. “I was assigned to this room--”

“So was I.” The girl’s eyes hardened.

“Are you one of the ... workers?”

She sneered bitterly. “You mean one of the experimental animals? That’s right. The Mercy Men. Full of mercy, that’s me.” She spat on the floor.

“But the mixed company--”

There was no humor in her laugh. “What did you think, they’d have a separate boudoir for the ladies? How do they treat any kind of experimental animal? Get off it, Jack. They don’t care what we do or how we live. All they want is good healthy human livestock when they’re ready for it. Nothing more. That means they have to feed us and bunk us down. Period. And if you’ve got any wise ideas”--her eyes widened with a look of open viciousness, shocking in its intensity--”just try something. Just once. You’ll find out a lot about Blackie in a hell of a rush.” She rolled over contemptuously, turning her back to him. “You’ll find out I don’t like loonies for roommates, for instance.”

Jeff lit a cigarette, his hands trembling. The room seemed to be spinning, and he felt his muscles sagging in pain and fatigue. He had counted so much on information from the girl. But incredible as the resemblance was, Blackie couldn’t have been the girl he had seen in the tavern. If she had recognized him, he would have spotted it. She couldn’t have hidden it completely.

Suddenly he felt terribly alone, almost beaten, helpless to go on. Where could he go? What could he do? How could he follow a trail that led straight into stone walls? He leaned back on the bed and yielded to the fatigue that plagued him. His mind sank into a confusion of hopelessness. Maybe, he thought wearily, maybe that plaguing doubt that lay in the fringes of his mind was right. Maybe he’d never find Conroe. He sighed as the darkness of utter exhaustion closed in on him, and his head sank back to the pillow--

He knew he was dreaming. Some tiny corner of his mind stood aside, prodding him, telling him he dare not sleep, that he must be up, moving, hunting, that the danger was too grave for sleep. But he slept, and the little corner of his mind prodded and cried out and watched...

He was walking along a brook, a walk he had taken once before, so very many years ago. A cool breeze struck down from the meadow, rumpling his hair. He heard the tinkle of the water as it sparkled across the rock. And he was afraid, so desperately afraid. The voice in his mind screamed out to him at every footstep, until he faltered and slowed and stopped.