Chapter VII: Part 7

The big man peered curiously into the shadows to the left of the path. The bed of rocks was on the right. When they drew opposite it Hendley stooped quickly. His hand closed over a large stone that shaped itself to his palm. He rose hastily. The visitor's back was toward him.

"I don't see anything," the stranger said. "Say, maybe it wasn't such a smart idea coming this way. What is it we were supposed to see?"

Now, Hendley thought. Get him beyond that screen of trees into the clearing. Any pretext will do. He suspects nothing. It will be quick and painless. With his thick skull, the visitor was unlikely to be hurt seriously even by a heavy blow. And he'd undoubtedly be glad to wake up and find himself a Freeman. He liked his pleasures! It might even be possible to talk him into making the switch without violence, although Hendley didn't want to risk everything on that chance.

"Well?" the visitor demanded. "Don't keep me in suspense. Where's that nighttime fun you mentioned?"

Hendley's arm sagged. The tension went out of his body. At that moment the visitor turned. He seemed to stiffen slightly, but otherwise he betrayed no reaction. In a tone that held no more than ordinary curiosity, he asked, "What's that you've got there?"

"Just being cautious," Hendley said. "I thought I heard something off there in the bushes. You never know what you'll run into in the park at night."

"Yeah?"

The visitor's voice had sharpened. His hard, bright eyes were fixed on Hendley's face. He was suspicious now, but it didn't seem to matter. The moment had passed for action, and Hendley had failed. He'd been unable to bring himself to the violence needed. The whole impromptu plan had been reckless, ill-conceived, doomed to failure. But even if it had not, he had lacked the necessary ingredient to bring it off: callous indifference to another man's fate.

"I think we'd better get back," he said. "The park seems to be a washout tonight. Usually there's more going on that makes it worth the risk."

The visitor laughed softly. "What's your hurry? I'd like to see everything this place has to offer."

Hendley regarded him uneasily. The man's response was unnatural. "We don't want to miss the show," Hendley said.

"You told me we had plenty of time."

Hendley glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the main walk. It was not far, but a bend in the path shut them off from the view of anyone riding through the park, just as Hendley had planned. He drew back, turning along the way they had come, but the visitor's thick hand caught his arm in an unbreakable grip. "You're not playing games with me, are you?" he asked softly.

Frightened now, Hendley stared at him. The stranger, he realized suddenly, had been too eager to be alone with him, too ready to dare the mysteries of a situation about which he knew nothing. Why? At that moment it seemed obvious that the visitor was not the type to walk innocently into an ambush. Had the intended victim all along been cunningly baiting his own trap?

"I'm not playing games," Hendley said. Then, determined to force the visitor to show his hand, he added, "But I'm beginning to wonder about you."

The big man's mouth smiled. "Just why did you bring me here?" he asked.

Before Hendley could answer there was a noise behind them. Both men turned. Shadows moved on the path, solidifying into the shapes of Freemen. They barred the way back to the main walk.

"What's this?" the visitor asked sharply. "Some friends of yours?"

"No!" Hendley gasped. "A pleasure pack. They roam the parks at night!"

"Pleasure packs, eh?" The visitor was still smiling as the silent figures moved closer. There were four of them. Without a word they fanned out in a practiced encircling movement. They would strike noiselessly, Hendley knew. Not that it mattered, since few Freemen passing along the main walk would answer a cry for help.

The attack came in a sudden rush. The men paired off, two of them closing in on each of their intended victims. They carried clubs and knives. Hendley dodged a blow from a club and struck out blindly with the rock he still carried in his hand. He felt no hesitation. This was no premeditated violence but self-defense. The solid impact of the rock against bone was strangely satisfying. But he had no time to congratulate himself as the stunned attacker fell away. The other man closed with him, grabbing his arm, preventing another blow with the rock. They fell together to the ground. Grunts and cries of pain came from nearby, but Hendley could see nothing of the other fight.

Suddenly he was flat on his back, the arm holding the rock pinned by the attacker's knee. Hendley looked up at a distorted grin of pleasure. An arm rose and a knife blade flashed. He tried to twist free but he knew that he was already too late.

The knife traveled no more than a few inches toward his chest. Huge hands seized the attacker and hauled him bodily into the air. Hendley heard a gasp of pain. The knife dropped to the ground beside him. There was a soft thud, and the attacker's limp figure flew through the air. It dropped in a shapeless heap.

The visitor grinned down at Hendley. "I guess you did hear something in the bushes after all," he said. "But they weren't much."

Hendley scrambled to his feet and looked around. Three of the attackers lay sprawled on the ground, inert. Hendley had caught one of them with his first blow. The visitor, he realized with amazement, had overpowered the others alone--armed men!--with his bare hands. And he was not even breathing quickly.

"One of them got away," the visitor said. "But he won't be in a hurry to start any more fights. Not for a while."

Hendley remained speechless. He saw that he was between the visitor and the main walk. That was all he needed. This was no man to confront alone in the isolation of the park. He began to back away, watching the muscular stranger warily.

"I've been waiting for you to make the move," the visitor said. "You must be satisfied about me by now."

"Satisfied? What do you mean?"

The visitor stepped toward him. "The code word is BAM," he said softly.

The sound was ridiculous in that moment of tension, like a child's play word. But Hendley did not laugh. The visitor was frowning. This was no game. The word had a special meaning of some kind, like the key to a puzzle which seems unimportant and insignificant by itself but acquires a unique value when properly used. Had the visitor been fencing with him all evening, waiting for him to come up with the magic word?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hendley said.

The visitor smiled. "That's the wrong answer," he said.

Without warning he charged. Only the fact that Hendley was already poised on the verge of flight enabled him to elude the big man's rush. A thick arm caught at his waist, but he was already spinning clear. The fabric of his uniform tore as he broke loose.

Then he was running along the path toward the moving walk and safety, not looking back, not daring to waste even the fraction of a second it would have taken to glance over his shoulder.

* * * * *

For the second time in three weeks, ABC-331 was absent from the spectacle on the stage of the auditorium. Hendley stared down at the spotlighted dancers. Each movement, each graceful pose, each tantalizing glimpse in the nearest materializer brought achingly to memory Ann's willowy beauty. He could hear the audience breathing and muttering and shifting about in quickening excitement, like some huge invisible animal in the darkness of the theater. He felt relief that she was not there, exposing her beauty to the audience like an offering, but at the same time he felt cut off from her.

If only he could communicate with her in some way, let her know that he was alive and safe in the camp, even though he was a prisoner. At least the knowledge would give her some hope.

Hope for what?

The clear, cold question jarred him. Ann saw things with a more candid eye than his. She would know what confinement in the camp meant. She would not blind herself to the impossibility of escape. She would be relieved to know that he was safe, glad, even happy--but she would know that his assumption of a Freeman's role erected a wall far more solid and impregnable than any previous barrier of social status.

Shadowy images flickered on the great thought-screen above the stage. Lurid shapes of desire, created by the minds of Freemen who had exhausted every normal area of pleasure, writhed and twisted on the screen like fugitives from the deepest caverns of the imagination. Dreading what was coming, loathing it because Ann had been involved in that same monstrous pantomime, Hendley turned away from the screen. And in that moment, when his attention shifted, he felt again the pressure of eyes on the back of his neck.

He looked around. Three rows back, sitting almost directly behind Hendley, the visitor quietly watched the performance on stage. He was smiling thinly.

It could have been coincidence. Hendley had come to the Rec Hall directly from the park. The show had already started, and the only remaining seats were in the balcony. The visitor must have arrived shortly after him, and it was natural that he should have found a seat nearby. But Hendley knew that the big man's presence was no accident. His seat had been deliberately chosen.

Why? What did he hope to accomplish? In the crowded Rec Hall Hendley was safe from attack--and in any event why should the man pursue him? Was it because of that ridiculous-sounding message Hendley had failed to recognize?

The visitor's gaze started to swivel toward him. Hendley swung quickly back toward the screen. The pressure was repeated at the back of his head. BAM, he thought. What could the word mean?

The show went on. The erotic audience impression of it danced above the stage on the giant screen. And at last the lottery began. Through it all Hendley sat and watched, torturing himself with fears about Ann's absence and what it meant. And whenever his self-absorption wavered, he would become conscious of the patient watch of the visitor sitting behind him.

The last number was called, the last nude figure stood submissively in the spotlight of stage center. The light-curtain fell, obscuring the stage. There was a rush of movement toward the exits. Hendley started up the aisle, turned quickly and pushed his way through the crowd toward another escalator. The visitor was unfamiliar with the camp. If Hendley could reach the sidewalk strip ahead of him without being seen, he could easily elude pursuit.

The exits were jammed. Hendley shoved and jostled his way forward, found an opening and slipped through. He rode the escalator down to the lobby, where the milling crowd again offered a human screen. He began to breathe more easily. The bar on one side of the lobby offered a natural escape route. He fought his way through the clamoring horde of drinkers and ducked out a side door. From there it was only a short distance across the grounds surrounding the Rec Hall to the moving walk. He broke into a run.

He stopped at the edge of the walk to look back. The feeling of triumph drained out of him in a rush. The hulking figure of the visitor was outlined by the lights from the Rec Hall. He paused as Hendley did, regarding him impassively, no more than thirty feet away.

Staring back at the stranger, for the first time Hendley felt within him the coiling presence of hatred.

* * * * *

Hendley was, he knew, half-drunk. The condition was becoming a habit, as indeed it was with an apparent majority of Freemen. The easy availability of liquor was a superficial reason. More pertinent was the need to dull one's senses and artificially stimulate the mind. Pleasure seemed keener when, as in a photograph, it was brought sharply into focus against a blurred background.

The casino, as always, was crowded. It was therefore safe. Hendley had had only a few chips, and he had soon lost these. Now, observing the action at one of the tables, he felt boredom nibbling at him companionably like an old friend. Gambling meant nothing unless you could play.

He searched the crowd for the hard, cruel face of the visitor. It was not visible. But he was there somewhere, patiently watching and waiting. You have a long wait, Hendley thought. Tomorrow you must be on the copter heading back to the city. I can wait till then. Sleep is a bore anyway, a waste.

If only he had some chips!

A winner at the table, raking in a pile of chips, grinned at Hendley. "No chips, friend?" he asked.

"Not just at the moment," Hendley said eagerly. "But I feel lucky. I'd be glad to share my winnings if you'll stake me."

The player laughed. "Your kind of luck I don't need," he said. "Why don't you try the Big Game," he added jeeringly. "You don't need chips there."

"You don't?" Hendley glanced quickly at the big table in the exact center of the casino. It was inactive, as it usually was, guarded only by the silent, motionless robot-dealer.

"You mean you didn't know?" the player asked.

"No. How does it work?"

The player shrugged with an indifference that might have been exaggerated. "It's you against the house," he said. "You have a chance to win ten thousand chips--if you feel lucky."

"What if you lose?" Hendley could feel the excitement building in him. He didn't really care what the penalty was for losing. Here was something different. He had the rest of the night to get through somehow. He couldn't risk leaving the Rec Hall while darkness held and the visitor waited. The game would occupy the time, and bring its own exhilaration.

"You don't think about losing," the player said evasively. "What gambler does? The game ends at dawn, no matter who's ahead. If you last out till then, you win."

Sober, Hendley would have persisted in his questioning. Instead he stared at the big table. What could happen to him if he lost? He was a Freeman. Having everything, he had nothing to lose. Anyway, he _did_ feel lucky. And the prize was huge--enough chips to gamble with for weeks! Longer than that, for you always stood a better chance of winning if you had enough chips to ride out the cold streaks and plunge when you were hot.

With a kind of aggressive, defiant determination he strode through the casino. The robot-dealer at the center table looked up as he approached. His plastic face was expressionless, or rather it was set in a perpetual attitude of slightly curious amiability. He could not care whether Hendley played or did not play, won or lost. That in itself was an advantage, Hendley thought. Desire had something to do with luck.

He slipped onto a stool across the table from the robot. "I want to play," he said.

With the instant response of the machine, the robot placed two identical stacks of large chips between them. They were a half inch more in diameter than the usual casino chips, with smooth white surfaces marked by a red cross. The robot pushed one of the stacks toward Hendley. Depressing a button, he activated two pairs of small viewscreens, one set for each player. Only one of each pair of viewers was visible to the opposing player, the other being the player's own record of his moves.

There was a faint whirring, like an old-fashioned museum clock winding up to strike, and the robot's voice mechanism announced, "We play '100' game."

It was to be a direct, head-on contest. Hendley knew the game, whose rules were simpler than the play actually was in practice. It was an electronic version of the child's trick of guessing how many fingers are pointing when the hands are held out of sight, except that the possible combinations of numbers were infinitely greater, with one hundred as the maximum total. Bets were made for high or low figures, with each player free to draw additional numbers after the first two or to stand with what he had. The odds were, on the face of it, even. But Hendley knew that the robot's precision instrument of a brain was capable of exact, rapid mathematical calculations far beyond his powers. He had to offset that edge by turning his human fallibility into an asset--by doing the unexpected. If he allowed any consistent sequence to develop in his tactics, the robot would instantly detect and take advantage of the fact. Hendley forced himself to play erratically, hoping that he would not unconsciously fall into a pattern of inconsistency.

In the two-player duel the moves went quickly. In the beginning Hendley played and bet conservatively. For a while he seemed to be holding his own. Then, very slowly at first, like a runner inching into the lead in a closely contested race, the robot's stack of chips began to grow, Hendley's to shrink.

A crowd gathered almost imperceptibly. Absorbed in the intricacies of betting, Hendley did not notice the gradual swelling of onlookers. Then, it seemed simultaneously, he became aware of increasing tension, a tightening of hidden springs within his body, and of the crowd surrounding the big table. It was unlike an ordinary gathering in one thing: its peculiar stillness. No one moved or spoke. When Hendley looked around, every eye swiveled toward him. Among the intently watching faces he saw that of the visitor, whose expression was no longer confident. He seemed puzzled. There was in the other faces a controlled anticipation that increased Hendley's nervousness. The crowd's strange silence, its air of breathless waiting, seemed somehow ominous.

He started to reach for a glass--drinks were brought regularly to the table. He'd been drinking automatically, without thinking. Now he drew back his hand. He'd already had far too much. Although his brain seemed remarkably clear, like the cloudless sky over the Freeman Camp on a cool night, he realized that that drunken clarity could be deceptive.

He gave all of his attention to his plays. Shortly after he returned to this grim concentration, the tide of the duel changed. Hendley thought he detected a fixed sequence in the robot's guesses. Betting experimentally, he won. Again. Another win. With increasing sureness he raised his bets boldly. In half a dozen plays he recouped all of his losses and more. The run continued. He couldn't lose. Then, abruptly, the pattern of the robot's moves disappeared. Hendley grinned. He had three-fourths of the chips on the table now--he had the advantage. More important, he had proved to himself that the robot was vulnerable. A machine didn't adjust as quickly as a human being, perhaps because it felt no fear.

Hearing a muttering in the crowd, Hendley stared at the ring of faces. He was surprised to see a number of the Freemen smiling at him encouragingly. So they were not all waiting for him to lose! Some of them appeared disappointed, but almost as many were pulling for him. The knowledge buoyed him tremendously.

The game dragged on. Hendley kept searching for another weakness in the robot's play, but without success. The stacks of chips became even again. Hendley kept varying his guesses, changing his bets at random from high to low number combinations, but slowly the robot drew ahead again. At last Hendley admitted to himself that, if the game went on long enough, the robot would inevitably win. But the game ended at dawn. If Hendley held out until then he could cash in his chips. He wondered how long he had been playing. Hours, it seemed. His body ached, and the continuous tension had begun to affect his nerves. That was part of the robot's strength, he thought. It was tireless. Moreover, it did not make the small errors Hendley occasionally made from carelessness or lack of concentration. With the rest of the play relatively even, these infrequent slips alone could account for the robot's superiority. It seemed clear that the robot had made corrections to prevent the one serious blunder of consistency it had made. That had been Hendley's only chance to win. Now all he could hope to do was stave off defeat until the first light of day.

The end came with the suddenness of a physical blow. Only afterward did Hendley realize that the robot, like a fighter sensing weakness and stepping up the tempo of his attack, had quickened the speed of play. Hendley lost several bets in succession. Instinct warned him that so many losses could not be accounted for by chance alone, but he was already panicking. He cut his bets down to the minimum. Still the robot won. Frantically, Hendley stalled for time as much as he could, groping for the pattern in his play that was betraying him. Now the mind which had seemed so clear and sharp was a dizzying confusion of numbers. The robot brushed aside his delaying tactics, continuing the pressure. Hendley was reduced to three chips. How long had they been playing now? How much longer did he need? If only the casino had windows so that he could see the first light in the east!

He lost again. Now chance itself worked against him. He lacked enough chips to wait out the pendulum swing of luck. He had to risk the final two chips together in a desperate attempt to gain more of a working margin. His total in the draw was high--ninety-two. Good enough to win nine times out of ten....

The crowd burst upon him, shouting, cheering, pounding him on the back. After the hours of taut silence the noise was overwhelming. Hendley couldn't understand. He'd lost. Why were they congratulating him? "Great game!" someone shouted. "Best I've ever seen!" The crowd was moving out of the casino, carrying him along with them. Someone beyond the confusion shouted a question. "--lost the big game!" came the answer. "Almost made it--there's only an hour left 'til dawn!"

A face thrust close to Hendley's, a forehead swollen and red, eyes bright with excitement. "You've still got a good chance!" the man cried. "We have to catch you before sunrise. Just an hour to hide out!"

"Hide!" Hendley gaped in bewilderment.

"Sure! You're the target!" the red-faced man yelled above the turmoil. "You lost the game--now we have the hunt!"

And suddenly, frighteningly, Hendley knew why the big table was almost always empty, and why the mention of the hunt had always created such a feverish interest. He saw with terrible clarity what he had unconsciously guessed all along.

The prey of the hunters was human.

12

The darkness of the woods in the hour before dawn was like a liquid frozen to a solid, imprisoning within its translucent substance the thin slivers of starlight, the waxen shapes of frozen leaves, the brittle tracery of branches, the cubes and cones of inky shadows. Moving stealthily, Hendley had a sense of shattering this density, of stealing then along the irregular, jagged cracks of the fragmented night.

In the distance he heard the hunters' voices, strained by the intervening trees into the thin cries of children at play. Hendley, a red marker taped to the back of his uniform to identify him as the target, had been given a five-minute start. The gap had closed. The hunters could crash and blunder through the underbrush, careless of noise, while he must slink in silence.

"No weapons," one of them had told him, grinning. "You don't need to worry about that. We really have to catch you."

No weapons. But with a shudder Hendley remembered a scene in a newsview film, not understood at the time, in which a group of Freemen had swarmed upon a single fleeing figure. And he remembered a glimpse of that lone figure lying afterward on the grass, motionless, as if he were asleep. No weapons. Only hands and feet....

He had no idea how many of them there were. In the open near the edge of the woods they had been a numberless mass, a restless, eager horde of hunters, impatient for the pursuit to begin, fanning out to blanket a ridge with their white uniforms. He'd heard their excited mutter, like a single animal growl, as he plunged into the line of trees. He'd looked back once, and they had seemed to surge toward him, straining against an unseen leash.

He paused, trying to place his position. Fortunately he had spent an afternoon in the woods planning his aborted attempt to scale the outside wall. He knew roughly where he was and where the main paths were that would represent added danger.

He analyzed his situation. Leaving the woods would be foolhardy. Of a certainty there would be sentries posted along the fringes, and in the open he could easily be seen for some distance even in the darkness. The cover of the narrow belt of trees and undergrowth was his only protection. He had to stay ahead of the hunters--or hide--for less than an hour. Was the sky already graying? Through the tangle of leaf and branch above he could not be sure.

Could he go overhead, flatten out against a tree trunk as high above the ground as possible? It might work. But if he were detected there, he would be trapped. They could shake him loose at their pleasure. Pleasure! The irony twisted his lips in a bitter smile. There were thickly clustered bushes where a fugitive might easily escape normal detection. But the hunters would be expecting this. The natural screens and covers would be closely searched.

His heart caught and sputtered. From the corner of one eye he'd seen a glimpse of white. Now it was gone. Fear shrilled in his mind, a voiceless scream. He flattened himself against the ground, listening. There was no snap of branch, no scrape of cloth, no rustle of dry leaf disturbed by a stealthy footstep. Yet there was something--a swift padding on turf. He wriggled forward to the outer edge of the woods. Another flash of white! Reaching the last few feet of cover, he waited, lying still. Moments later a white-clad figure ran past him, not even glancing his way, not slowing.

He lay still, puzzling over the maneuver. Were these additional sentries, racing ahead to make sure he did not slip unseen from the woods? No. The lookouts would already have been posted. This was another move, designed to....

His body sagged. A feeling of hopelessness settled over him. They had cut him off. A band of hunters had been sent ahead. They would be awhile returning, for they could not know how far Hendley had gone and they would have to range far beyond any point he might have reached. Then they would group, bisect the woods, and slowly begin to work their way back. He would be caught in the middle of a pincers movement, unable to go forward or to retreat. They would not worry about the time. Even at a careful pace they would find him before dawn. There was no escape.

For one moment it seemed to Hendley that any further resistance was futile. He might as well lie where he was and wait for them to find him. To be trapped at the last moment after desperate attempts to hide, to be crushed under the fury of the attack as the first light streaked the sky, would be agonizingly worse than not to have come close at all. What would he gain by frantic scurrying when there was no refuge? The woods were too narrow, too thin a line....

In a convulsion of anger he sat up. He shook himself. No, he would not make it easy for them! At least he could make them feel a little frustration, a little worry that they might be denied their jolts. With a bit of the luck which had deserted him until now, he might even fool them all. He had to try. To give up was somehow to make every step of his rebellion against the Organization meaningless. He had sought to find some value in life other than the mechanics of push-button work, other than, as it had turned out, the purposeless pursuit of pleasure in freedom. If he had failed, perhaps he had simply not known where and how to look. In the end the only thing of value he had found was the personal concern one human being might have for another--a concern beyond physical need, beyond pleasure, beyond self.

But that alone was worth struggling to save. He might never find Ann again. He could not give up trying so long as he was alive.

If only he had not drunk so much! He felt a physical let-down now, a heavy fatigue, that might tell against him. And his mind could not seem to take a tight grip on the problem of escape. It grasped without conviction at hazy solutions, lost its hold, slid off into confusion. Running was futile. Subtlety, not speed, had to save him. No point in breaking for the wall. The threat of a robot-guard defending the wall seemed less frightening than the human hunters, but the latter would be upon him before he could scale the wall. He must stay under cover. Forward or back then? The larger body of hunters was behind him. The advance party, fewer in number, might be easier to slip through undetected. But they would be alert for just that move. In the larger group there would be more confusion....

He seized the thought as hungry jaws clench over a morsel of food. Darkness, confusion, limited space and an excess of numbers--there had to be a way to use these factors. And as he examined the possibilities, he realized that he could not hope to exploit the situation by acting like a fugitive. He had to join the hunters. He had to go to them.

Cautiously he began to work his way back along the route over which he had fled. Nothing so concrete or shapely as a plan controlled his movements. There were too many unknown factors; too many unexpected things might happen. He had to act by instinct when the time came, adjusting to meet the specific situation, following only a general over-all purpose. But a small current of hope trickled through him, banishing his fatigue, sharpening his senses.

He was not sure what made him pause. He melted into the shadow of a tree, his back against the trunk to hide the telltale marker stripe of the hunted. There were no sounds ahead to give him warning. The hunters, sensing that he might be close, moved stealthily. Hendley could feel their presence. As he stood motionless, holding his breath, straining with eyes and ears, a shadow stirred in the underbrush less than fifteen feet away.

Muscles in his arms and legs began to jerk spasmodically from the effort to remain rigid. He felt the beginnings of a cramp in his foot, a tight hard knotting of muscle in the arch. He set his teeth, willing himself to remain inert as a stone. The hunter had paused. Was he looking toward Hendley's tree? Was there a betraying thickness in its shadow?

The crouching figure crept forward again, one step at a time, his hands carefully parting the branches through which he moved. Now he drew level with Hendley's position. Another step took him beyond the tree.

The hunter wouldn't be alone. The others must be right behind him, fanned out across the width of the woods. If one of them blundered too close before Hendley acted, it would all be over. But his plan was crystallizing. The single advance hunter was the key, the unpredictable factor he had been hoping for. Now there were other shadows gliding through the woods. He saw two to his right beyond the first man's position. And to his left was a slimmer, slighter figure--a woman, Hendley saw with a start. Others moved on either side, heard but not seen. They were all around him.

The first man, the eager hunter, was ten yards or more ahead. A patch of his uniform caught a hazy shaft of--not light, but a grayer darkness. At that moment Hendley stepped away from the tree.

"There he is!" he shouted, pointing. "There!"

The leading hunter whirled at the outcry. There was a fleeting second of stillness. Then another shout went up: "We've got him!" And suddenly the woods were alive with hunters crashing forward toward the lone figure in the lead. The man threw up his hands as two hunters stormed through a thicket to get at him. "No!" he yelled. But as they converged on him he panicked. He turned and ran.

They were on him before he had taken five steps, burying his cries under the fury of the attack. It wouldn't have mattered what the unlucky man had shouted, Hendley thought. The hunters were too tense, their excitement drawn to too high a pitch. He'd relied on that edginess, but the success of the ruse brought no feeling of satisfaction. They would learn their mistake all too quickly. Any second someone might notice that the victim lacked the marker stripe of the hunted on the back of his uniform.

Hendley forced himself to wait. It would be fatal to turn abruptly and run from the scene. He would draw attention--and he wore the mark of the target. Carefully, keeping his back concealed as much as possible from the hunters who crashed past him through the darkness toward the struggle ahead, Hendley worked his way back and forth across the woods, trying to give the illusion of hurrying toward the action while actually drifting back with each maneuver. Quickly the horde of hunters thinned out. A last figure pushed past Hendley, breathing heavily, whimpering with frustration. Then the woods behind him seemed clear.

Using less caution now, Hendley tried to put more distance between him and the hunters. Even when they discovered their mistake, they wouldn't expect him to be behind them. They couldn't know that he had shouted the mistaken identification. Any overeager hunter could have made the error.

The sounds of the fight receded rapidly. Moments later Hendley heard what seemed to be an angry bellow. The mistake had been found! But it was too late, he thought, exulting. Surely dawn could not be far away. Surely he could elude them long enough to win!

Haste--and the illusion of success--made him careless. He stumbled onto a cleared path before realizing it was there. It was only six feet across, but prudence would have made him inspect it carefully if he'd seen it in time. Instead he found himself momentarily without cover. And facing him on the open path was a grinning Freeman. "That was a neat trick," the hunter said.

Hendley spun away. He was not quick enough. Thick, powerful arms grabbed him from behind, stopped him, wrestled him to the ground. The other man's bulk crashed on top of him. A hand clamped over his mouth. "Not a sound," the man breathed.

As Hendley stared up at the hunter, his stunned amazement gave way to fear. The dark face grinning down at him was that of the visitor.

* * * * *

"Surprised? It wasn't so hard," the visitor said. "I threw in with those joyboys who were after you. I didn't know what the hunt was all about at first, but one way or another I had to make sure of you. You know too much. One word too much. BAM."

Hendley shook his head violently, fighting against the hand which gagged his mouth.

"I couldn't take any chances with you," the visitor said softly. "Once I saw what the hunters were up to, I figured everything was okay. You wouldn't be a problem. But when I recognized your voice shouting back there, I guessed what you were pulling off." There was grudging approval in the big man's voice. "After that it was easy," he said. "I heard you working your way back through the trees. I just slipped out into the clear and got ahead of you." Suddenly the visitor brought his other hand up, carrying the belt from his uniform. Before Hendley had a chance to speak, the belt replaced the hand over his mouth, forcing his teeth apart to press against his tongue. He tried vainly to shout against the gag. He began to choke.

"Sorry it had to be you, friend," the visitor said, easily controlling Hendley's struggles to squirm out from under the crushing weight of the big man's body. "But BAM is too important. If you hadn't been acting funny, following me around, you wouldn't have got involved. I'd have had to pick somebody for the switch, but it needn't have been you. Now it has to be. I can't have you running loose, knowing I'm tied up with the Brotherhood."

Hendley stared up at him wildly, trying to communicate with his eyes. Ignoring the look, the visitor abruptly shifted his weight, flipping Hendley over onto his stomach. Jerking Hendley's arms behind his back, the visitor tied them securely with the belt from Hendley's uniform.

"Now," he muttered, "the first thing is the identity disc. You're going to become me, friend, and when they find you dead I'll be officially dead, and they can stop looking for me. I guess you really didn't know about the Brotherhood, did you? We're against the Merger, you see--the Brotherhood of Anti-Mergers. The morale boys got onto me, and that's why I'm here--before they could catch up with me."

Horrified, Hendley renewed his desperate resistance. He tried to shout against the gag. "You've got to listen to me! I'm one of you! I feel the same way!" But there were only meaningless, muffled sounds. The visitor paid no attention. He was trying to tug Hendley's identity disc over his hand. You fool! Hendley thought. If you'd just listen to me. It opens up and slips right off!

"This is going to hurt," the visitor said softly. "But there's no other way. It's got to come off."

One of the thick, strong hands seized Hendley's recently healed left hand and began to apply tremendous pressure. Pain erupted blindingly, filling Hendley's mind, blotting out all other awareness. He screamed against the gag. The pressure only increased. Waves of nausea seized him. Then, like a dry twig, the weak new adhesion of bone in his hand snapped.

He fainted.

* * * * *

When Hendley came to, slowly, swimming out of a pool of blackness and aching pain, his eyes opened to a graying darkness. It was not yet dawn. He'd been unconscious for only a few minutes. At first the only significance of this knowledge was that the hunt was not over. But the gray was a promise of dawn. Soon he could rest.

He saw the figure standing over him, struggling into a uniform which was far too tight--with a red marker stripe along the back. Hendley felt the loose folds of a strange uniform wrapped about his own body, tasted the remains of nausea in his mouth and the wet discomfort of the sodden gag, and shivered at the searing pain in his hand. He remembered.

The visitor glanced down at him. Seeing Hendley's open, staring eyes, he paused. "I didn't think you'd wake up till it was all over," he said softly. "Too bad."

Hendley began to fight against his bonds with the fury of hysteria, heedless of the pain tearing up his arm. Everything couldn't end this way, so stupidly, so insanely! The man had to listen to him! But the visitor merely watched him as one might with objective curiosity observe the dying struggles of an insect. In the end Hendley's wild, bitter rage spent itself as his energies were exhausted. He went limp.

"I'll make it quick," the visitor said, in a tone that was practical rather than sympathetic. "Sorry about the hand, but it couldn't be helped."

He finished adjusting the snug uniform. Hendley wondered if the man had forgotten the target stripe now on his back. It didn't seem to matter. _He_ would reap the safety dawn would bring. Suddenly the bulky figure lowered as the visitor squatted over Hendley. One of the meaty hands reached for Hendley's throat. The gesture was arrested. The visitor was still, his head cocked, a frown knitting his forehead. Listening, Hendley heard the sounds which had disturbed the visitor: the rustle, snap, and whisper of men moving through the woods. They were already close.

"Organization be damned!" the visitor hissed through set teeth. "They're coming back!"

Hendley felt no relief. The reappearance of the hunters could not save him. It made no difference at whose hands he was to die. Either way was a mockery of life itself. When the visitor's blunt fingers closed suddenly around his throat he resisted almost automatically until a spasm of renewed anger against the irony fate had played on him made his struggles more violent. His legs were free. He tried to catch the visitor with his knee. His heartbeat was a huge drum exploding in his chest. He could no longer breathe as his windpipe closed inexorably under the squeezing fingers.

All of a sudden the pressure left his chest. He sucked air into his lungs. His vision began to clear. He saw the visitor's back disappearing rapidly into the grayness of the woods. A patch of sky overhead was measurably brighter. It was almost sunrise.

There was a crash of bodies plunging swiftly through the underbrush nearby. A strange voice yelled, "We've got him now! Don't let him get away!"

There was a lot of movement all around Hendley. Someone stumbled over him, cursed, picked himself up and ran on. Hendley peered after the running figure. What was wrong? Why weren't they gathering around him, throwing themselves upon him? He was helpless....

Hope soared into his mind like a bird taking flight. The visitor wore the uniform of the hunted! He even wore the identity disc the hunters would be looking for! They would not ask questions--they had too little time left. The sky was brightening as if a light-wall had been turned on, just as the artificial dawn had come to Hendley's small room in the Architectural Center during those plodding days of work that seemed so far away.

Hendley struggled to his knees. The visitor might yet escape. If he did, he would be back to finish off his task--to silence the voice that could link him with BAM. Hendley pulled feverishly in an attempt to free his wrists. The pain from his broken hand made him sway, reeling, consciousness almost blotted out. But the belt securing his hands was not tied tightly. It had not been meant to hold for long. He braced himself and tugged again. The belt held. The broken hand squeezed into a smaller ball. Hendley cried out, no longer able to contain the agony.

And his hand pulled loose.

He collapsed on the ground. He seemed to be able to watch the pain recede very slowly, like gently rolling waves. An unexpected chill wrenched his body. He lay shivering, his teeth clicking uncontrollably. But at last the pain was something he could look at, and measure, and know that he would endure it. It was no longer larger and stronger and more real than he was. He could tame it.

The visitor's identity disc lay on the ground. Hendley picked it up. When he staggered to his feet he realized that day had come. He could see his way easily through the dense woods.

A scream cut through the cool, damp morning air, rising like the wail of a siren. It broke off cleanly, as if a wire carrying the sound had snapped. The air itself seemed to go on shivering, as if it still trembled from the shrill vibrations of the scream. But there was another sound now in the distance, the growl of the pack leaping upon its prey while the flesh was still warm and the hot blood flowed freely.

Shaking with fear and revulsion, Hendley stumbled out of the woods into the open. The hunt was over.

13

The passengers were told to fasten their seat belts. The precaution hardly seemed necessary, for the copter's motion was almost imperceptible in the windowless cabin. An illuminated board flashed the message that the ship was hovering in the landing pattern over City No. 9, waiting its turn to descend. Hendley had a mental image of the great city below, huge concrete cylinders rising from the brown, barren land. From above a circular eye in the center of each tower would be visible, peering at the sky.

Wondering what time it was, Hendley was startled to realize how readily he had come to measure time by the sun. He looked around for the copter's clock panel, found it at the back of the cabin. It was not yet two o'clock.

There would be time to reach the Historical Museum before four.

Would she be there? Three weeks had passed since he'd suggested the museum as a meeting place. Even if she had clung to the hope that he was alive and safe, she would believe that he was in the Freeman Camp under Nik's identity. Would she still have come, day after day, to look for him? How long would such blind hope have lasted before discouragement came, and then despair?

He looked down at his left hand, held stiff by plastic braces and wrapped in a fresh bandage. The little doctor had again attended to his hand without question and without recompense. Only once had he sought to dissuade Hendley, saying, "If this man was a criminal, you shouldn't leave the camp in his place. He must have had good reason for smuggling himself in here. That took some doing."

But Hendley had replied: "It may be my only chance to get out. I have to take it. Even if I could live with this kind of freedom, which I can't, I'd have to go back. To find her."

A slight bump alerted him. The copter had landed. Hendley let some of the other passengers file out ahead of him. The exit led directly along an enclosed ramp into a reception area. Hendley walked slowly behind the others. He had no idea what to expect. But for some reason he felt no fear.

A bank of windows in the outer wall of the receiving area faced the great circle of the landing field. A six-foot partition of plastic formed the opposite wall. Set into it was an open gateway. Attendants stationed on either side of the gate watched the passengers with routine curiosity, conveying no impression of special alertness. But Hendley knew that it was not these he had to be concerned about. It was the master computer stationed by the gate, its unblinking eye waiting to record the identities of all those who passed through.

The more impatient passengers were already filing through the gate. As Hendley loitered at the very end of the line, one of the attendants inspected him idly, looked away, then let his gaze wander back. Hendley began searching his uniform pockets. When he dared another glimpse, the attendant had lost interest and was no longer watching.

Everything was all right. The computer might reject his identity number, but the gateway was open. It appeared that the computer did not have to control the gate to allow each passenger through. Hendley guessed that such a process caused too much congestion. When the moment came, a sudden rush would carry him through the opening. Before the guards could act, he would be merging into the stream of travelers thronging the main lobby. With luck he would escape.

It was too much to hope that the computer at the city's central landing field would not possess information about the visitor whose identity disc Hendley wore. And the big man had said enough to make it clear that he was a hunted criminal.

The passenger directly in front of Hendley reached the gate and flashed his identity disc. The computer emitted a low click. The passenger walked on. Hendley stepped into his place. He waved his wrist toward the computer's eye casually. He was too conditioned to computer efficiency to feel any surprise when the machine buzzed in protest. A red warning light flickered.

Hendley did not wait any longer. He charged for the open gateway.

A split-second later he was reeling back, his face and body bruised and battered, his brain numbed by shock. Something had risen to smash him away from the opening. Awareness seeped into his stunned mind. An invisible electronic field triggered by the computer's warning. Impregnable. The way was blocked.

There were voices now. Shouts beyond the barrier, faces swimming toward him. Green uniforms--guards advancing. He stumbled back, looking around frantically. There was no other gate. In seconds the attendants would be on him. Only one path lay open, and that seemed a dead end. He took it anyway, running blindly down the tubelike ramp which led back into the copter. A stewardess blocked his way. He brushed by her into the cabin. A man was coming along the aisle, dressed in beige, wearing a stitched emblem with wings--the ship's mechanic. Hendley did not slow his rush. He drove into the man at full tilt, his one good fist smashing out ahead of him, striking the mechanic's jaw so hard the impact sent an electric shock along strings of nerves all the way up Hendley's arm into his shoulder. The man fell backward. Hendley trampled over him.

Then he was in the control center at the front of the copter. A service door stood open, a ladder suspended from the doorway. Hendley went down three steps and jumped to the paved surface of the landing field.

There was a momentary illusion of escape. The landing field was broad and open, dotted here and there with copters in the process of loading or unloading. There was no one immediately behind him. Hendley started across the field, running, putting distance between himself and the alerted guards. He ran into a wide, bright swatch of sunlight.

A siren began to yip--an ascending series of pulsating cries. Hendley stopped, looking back. Still there was no one in close pursuit. The door of the copter from which he had escaped was still open--no! The ladder withdrew even as he watched. The door swung shut! He whirled. All around the field the routine of activity had ceased. Ladders were withdrawing, ramps pulling back, doors closing. Two men at the far side of the field, mechanics, ran toward an opening and jumped through it just before a panel sealed the doorway.

Hendley was alone in the center of the deserted landing field, standing in the glare of the sun as in a spotlight, exposed and defenseless.

The siren's wail died as if it were running down. Silence shut down upon the great expanse of the landing field like a lid. Hendley took a couple of aimless steps. The thud of his footsteps echoed across the pavement. He saw movement behind the high windows all around the field, faces pressing close to the glass, mouths gaping.

From somewhere high above came the slow, deep grinding of a giant machine rousing itself, groaning, heaving into motion. Hendley looked up. The massive interlocking panels of the airfield's domelike roof, ordinarily closed only against the weather, were moving. Two vast crescents crept toward each other, straightening out, sluggishly diminishing the opening through which sunlight and warmth poured down. Hendley could not tear his eyes away. Alone, isolated in the stunned silence of the airfield, he watched the roof close over him with a sensation of physical pain. The two closing crescents were like two huge presses grinding together, beating the sky into an ever-thinner, brighter sliver, crushing it at last as the roof panels clashed shut.

Sickened, Hendley tore his gaze away. He saw that doors had opened now at intervals spanning the wide circle of the landing field. Green-uniformed guards advanced toward him from each doorway, carrying weapons he could not identify at the distance. He stood rooted, unable to run any more. The tight green cordon of guards pulled closer around, the circle shrinking. He threw an agonized glance overhead at the blank, sealed grayness of the roof dome, where moments before there had been a dazzling brightness. A deep chill made him shiver. He looked once more at the noose of guards tightening around him, and slowly he sank to his knees.

His rebellion had ended.

* * * * *

The trial was brief.