Split Infinity

Where was Sheen? Was she afraid to return to him while the sniffer was tracking her? She would have to neutralize the mech-mouse. Far from here, to distract suspicion from his actual hiding place. He would have to wait.

He watched anxiously. He dared not sleep or let down his guard until Sheen cleared him. He was dependent on her, and felt guilty about it. She was a nice .. .  person, and should not have to—

A man walked down the hall. Stile froze—but this did not seem to be a pursuer. The man walked on.

Stile blinked. The man was gone. Had Stile been nodding, and not seen the man depart—or was the stranger still near, having ducked behind a crate? In that case this could be a member of the pursuit squad.  A serious matter.

Stile did not dare leave his crate now, for that would give away his position instantly. But if the stranger were of the squad, he would have a body-heat scope on a laser weapon. One beam through the crate—the murder would be anonymous, untraceable. There were criminals on Proton, cunning people who skulked about places like this, avoiding capture. Serfs whose tenure had expired, but who refused to be deported. The Citizens seldom made a concerted effort to eradicate them, perhaps because criminals had their uses on certain occasions. Such as this one? One more killing, conveniently unsolved, attributed to the nefarious criminal class—who never killed people against the wishes of Citizens. A tacit understanding. Why investigate the loss of an unemployed serf?

Should he move—or remain still? This was like the preliminary grid of the Game. If the stranger were present, and if he were a killer, and if he had spotted Stile—then to remain here was to die. But if Stile moved, he was sure to betray his location, and might die anyway. His chances seemed best if he stayed.

And—nothing happened. Time passed, and there was no further evidence of the man. So it must have been a false alarm. Stile began to feel foolish, and his knees hurt; he had unconsciously put tension on them, and they could not stand up to much of that, anymore.

Another man came, walking as the other had. This was a lot of traffic for a nonpersonal area like this, at this time of night. Suspicious in itself. Stile watched him carefully.

The man walked without pause down the hall—and vanished. He did not step to one side, or duck down; he simply disappeared.

Stile stared. He was a good observer, even through a crack in a crate; he had not mistaken what he had seen.

Yet this was unlike anything he knew of on Planet Proton. Matter transmission did not exist, as far as he knew—but if it did, this was what it would be like. A screen, through which a person could step—to another location, instantly. Those two men—

Yet Sheen had gone that way without disappearing, and so had the mech-mouse. So there could not be such a screen set up across the hall. Not a permanent one.

Should he investigate? This could be important! But it could also be another trap. Again, like a Game-grid: what was the best course, considering the resources and strategy of his anonymous enemy?

Stile decided to stand pat. He had evidently lost the pursuit, and these disappearing people did not relate to him. He had just happened to be in a position to observe them. Perhaps this was not coincidental. The same concealment this service hall offered for him, it offered for them. If they had a private matter transmitter that they wanted to use freely without advertising it, this was the sort of place to set it up.

Yet aspects of this theory disturbed him. How could serfs have a matter transmitter, even if such a device existed? No serf owned anything, not even clothing for special occasions, for working outside the domes or in dangerous regions. Everything was provided by the sys-tem, as needed. There was no money, no medium of exchange; accounts were settled only when tenure ended. Serfs could not make such a device, except by adapting it from existing machines—and pretty precise computer accounts were kept, for sophisticated equipment. When such a part was lost, the machine tally gave the alarm. Which was another reason a criminal could not possess a laser weapon without at least tacit Citizen approval.

Also, why would any serf possessing such a device remain a serf? He could sell it to some galactic interest and retire on another planet with a fortune to rival that of a Proton Citizen. That would certainly be his course, for Citizens were unlikely to be too interested in for-warding development and production of a transport system that did not utilize protonite. Why destroy their monopoly?

Could the self-willed machines be involved in this?  They might have the ability. But those were men he had seen disappear, and the machines would not have betrayed their secret to men.