The Final Circle of Paradise

"Well, okay, I'll be seeing you," I said. "Thanks, fellows. Where did you say to look for Buba?"

"At the Oasis," boomed Eli. "It's a cafe. Beat it."

"What a polite fellow you are, my friend," I said. "It gets me right in my heart."

"Go on, beat it," repeated Eli. "Stinking Intel."

"Don't get so excited, pal," I said, "or you'll earn yourself an ulcer. Save your stomach, it's your most valuable possession."

Eli started to move slowly out from behind the railing, and I left. My shoulder had started to ache again.

A warm, heavy rain was falling outside. The leaves on the trees shone wetly and joyfully, there was a smell of ozone, freshness and thunderstorm. I stopped a taxi and named the Oasis. The street ran with fresh streams, and the city was so pretty and comfortable that it seemed improper to think of the moldy and abandoned Subway.

The rain was pelting in full swing when I jumped out of the car, ran across the sidewalk, and burst into the Oasis.

There were quite a few people, most of them were eating, including the bartender, who was spooning some soup out of a dish placed among drinking glasses. Those who had finished eating sat smoking and abstractedly staring out of the streaming window at the street. I approached the bar and inquired in a low voice whether Buba was there. The bartender put down his spoon and surveyed the room.

"Naah," he said. "Why don't you have something to eat now, and he'll be along soon enough."

"How soon?"

"Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe."

"So!" I said. "In that case I'll have dinner, and then I'll come over and you can point him out to me."

"Uhuh," said the bartender, returning to his soup.

I picked up a tray, collected some sort of a meal, and sat down by the window away from the rest of the patrons. I wanted to think. I sensed that there was enough data to ponder the problem effectively. Some sort of pattern seemed to be forming.

Boxes of Devon in the bathroom. Pore-nose spoke about Buba and Devon (in whispers). Eli talked of Buba and "slug." A clear chain of links – bath, Devon, Buba, slug. Further: the sunburned fellow with the muscles cautioned that Devon was the worst of junk, while the roundhead saw no difference between slug and the grave. It all had to fit together. It seemed to be what we were looking for. If so, then Rimeyer had done the right thing to send me to the Fishers. Rimeyer, I said to myself, why did you send me to the Fishers? And even order me to do as I was told and not to fuss about it? And you didn't know, after all, that I was a spaceman, Rimeyer. If you did know, there were still the other games with bullets and "one against twelve," besides the demented cyber. You really took a dislike to me for something or other, Rimeyer. Somehow I have crossed you. But no, said I, this cannot be. It is simply that you did not trust me, Rimeyer. It is simply that there is something that I do not know yet. For example, I do net know just who this Oscar is who trades in Devon in this resort city and who is connected with you, Rimeyer. Most likely you have been meeting with Oscar before our conversation in the elevator… I don't want to think about that.

There he was lying like a dead man and here I was thinking such things about him when he could not defend himself.

Suddenly I felt a repulsive cold crawling feeling inside. All right, suppose we trapped this gang. What would change? The shivers would remain, lop-eared Len would be up all night as before, Vousi would be coming home disgustingly drunk, while customs inspector Pete would be smashing his face into broken glass. And all would be concerned about the "good of the people." Some would be irrigated with tear gas, some would be driven into the ground up to their ears, others would be converted from apehood into something which passes muster as human… And then the shivers would go out of style and the people would be presented with the super-shivers, while in lieu of the extirpated slug a super-slug would surface. Everything would be for the good of the people. Have fun, Boobland, and don't think about a thing!

Two men in cloaks sat down at the next table with their trays. One of them seemed to me in some way familiar. He had a haughty thoroughbred face, and were it not for a thick white bandage on the left side of his jaw, I was sure I would recognize him. The other was a ruddy man with a bald pate and fussy movements. They were speaking quietly, but not so as to be inaudible, and I could hear them quite well where I was sitting.

"Understand me correctly," the ruddy one said with conviction while hurriedly consuming his schnitzel, "I am not at all against theaters and museums. But the allocation for the municipal theater for the past year has not been expended fully, while only tourists visit the museums."

"Also picture thieves," inserted the man with the bandage.