Forrester had come to the conclusion that, since he was alive, he would have to go on living.
“Ev’thing all raht this morning?” Whitlow asked cheerfully. “Man! You were flahing hah when we parted.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Forrester glumly. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for the details. Whitlow, how do I go about getting a job again?”
“What for?”
“I think it’s about time I grew up,” said Forrester abjectly. “I’m not knocking you. But I don’t want to live this way.”
“You better start with some money,” Whitlow offered. “Won’t anybody hah’r you if you come in this way.”
“All right. So the first step is to panhandle a stake?”
“Raht!” cried Whitlow. “And that’s whut Ah came to tell you, Chuck! The flah-boy’s around again. Whahn’t you see if you can score again with him?”
They moved out across the broad green belt under the pylons, looking for open sky. Whitlow had seen the space pilot in a one-man flier, cruising aimlessly around; according to Whitlow, the man had looked as though he were about to land and stroll among the Forgotten Men again, but there was no sign of him. “Sorry,” Whitlow apologized. “But Ah’m sure he’s around somewhere.”
Forrester shrugged. Truth to tell, he was thinking, he wasn’t sure he wanted to panhandle anybody. When you came right down to it, he had been living off this society without contributing anything in return. Not even anything in terms of the peculiar values of the society itself; something that, it appeared could be as little as a membership in Taiko’s revolutionary society dedicated to its overthrow. With the endless flexibility of employment available, Forrester thought, surely there was something he could do—something that he would enjoy, and think worth his while to do. . . .
“Told you, Chuck!” Whitlow yelled. “See ‘im? There!”
Forrester looked upward, and Whitlow was right. A face looked down from the flier; it looked like the astronaut’s face, the eyes regarding them thoughtfully.
The figure picked up a joymaker and whispered into it. The flier dipped and slid away toward a landing.
“He’s landing,” said Forrester unnecessarily.
Whitlow was rubbing his chin, watching the flier descend toward the ground. He said abstractedly, “Uh-huh.” His eyes looked worried.
“What’s the matter?” Forrester asked.
“Huh?” Whitlow frowned at him, then back at the flier. “Oh, nothing, Chuck. Only Ah have a bad feeling raht now.”
“What about?”
“Well . . . Nothing, Chuck. Only you never know what these flah-boys will want to do for fun, an’— Listen, Chuck. Ah believe Ah want to get out of here.” And he turned briskly, catching Forrester’s arm to pull him along.
Alarmed only because Whitlow seemed to be alarmed, not yet comprehending what it was all about, Forrester went along. If he thought at all, he only thought that it was rather cowardly of Whitlow to be so fearful, and not untypical of this cowardly age, where the very hope of immortality had produced exaggerated fear of permanent death. It was not until he felt the rush of air overhead that fear struck him personally and acutely.
The flier had taken off again, was now circling over them.
“It’s him!” Forrester cried. “You’re right, he is after us!”
He turned and ran, Whitlow dodging away in another direction, the two of them scattering as the flier dipped and turned overhead. . . .
It was funny, Forrester realized tardily, but he hadn’t seen the man’s face looking out of the flier this time.
At that moment he heard Whitlow’s yell. The man hadn’t been looking out of the flier. He hadn’t even been in it; had sent the thing on its autonomic circuits into a hovering pattern, while he himself waited on the ground. And he stood there now, holding something that looked like a whip, directly in Whitlow’s path, under the skirt of a tapering yellow building.
Whitlow tried to turn again and run, but he never had a chance. The thing that looked like a whip was a whip. The spaceman seemed only to shake it gently, and its tip hissed out to touch Whitlow, then curled around his neck and threw him to the ground.
Forrester turned and ran. Directly behind him was the hoverway, with its hissing, rocketing, ground-effect cars following each other like tracer rounds out of a machine gun. If one of them struck him, he would die as surely as at the hands of any assassin; but he did not wait, he flung himself across the broad strip and miraculously missed them. A copper was standing, regarding him curiously, as Forrester turned to look back.
The spaceman was lifting the whip again, an expression of alert pleasure on his face. Over the whush of the hovercars Forrester could hear Whitlow’s scream. Their benefactor from space reached out again with the whip as Whitlow tried to rise; he was slashed back to earth again; he tried to get up once more, and his body shook as the whip flicked blood from the side of his head. He tried again, and was thrown down. And stopped trying.
Forrester turned away and found he was sobbing.
I have aright to be scared, he told himself, half crazed. No one could watch a friend whipped to death unmoved. Not when the death was so vicious and so pointless. Especially not when the victim could so easily have been himself.
Could still be himself.
Forrester started to run and blundered into the ruddy metal arms of the copper. “Man Forrester,” it said, staring into his eyes, “I have a message for you and good morning.”
“Let go!” shouted Forrester.
