Buck Morlacher and two other men were wheeling a flat-bed bilaser projector into place. They locked its wheels, made some control adjustments and a glowing image of the Chinook Hotel sprang into being above the machine. The solid-seeming representation was about three metres high and showed the building as it might have appeared in the Architect’s mind, complete with scenic elevators and roof gardens. A murmur of appreciation was heard among the viewers.
“Sorry to interrupt your enjoyment, ladies and gentlemen — but I guess you knew there had to be a catch somewhere,” Morlacher announced with a grin that hovered between candour and coyness.
“Don’t worry, though — this is only going to take up a minute of your time — and I think you’ll agree it’s worth that much to become acquainted with some of the truly wonderful amenities that Central Alberta can offer to businessmen who are interested in reaching new suppliers and new markets. Now I know the Western Prairies air corridor stops a few hundred kilometres south of here, but that’s nothing but a minor detail when you think of the potential for new business that this area offers.”
Morlacher produced a sheet of paper and began to read out statistics which supported his argument. Most of his audience appeared suitably interested, although there was a stealthy drift from the outskirts of the circle in the direction of the bar. Hasson discovered that his own goblet was empty. He turned to go for a replenishment, but stopped in mid-stride as a new sound impinged on his hearing.
It was an unexpected, alien, unidentifiable sound — a ghastly hybrid between a moan and a scream which immediately conjured unwanted thoughts of demons and banshees, and which brought a coldness to the heart. Morlacher stopped speaking as the sobbing wail swiftly reached a crescendo which beat on the gathering like a siren.
It’s coming from above, Hasson thought, but before he could look upwards into the night sky there was a kind of pulpy explosion near the centre of the patio and a number of women shrieked with horror. Hasson shouldered his way forward and saw something black and incredibly bloody lying on the stone slabs.
For an instant he was able to identify the grisly object — it could have been an insane and meaningless concoction of charnel house nightmares — then he realized he was looking at the flattened, ruptured body of a large black mastiff. Spatters of crimson reached out from it in all directions. From the condition of the dog’s carcass Hasson estimated that it had been dropped from a height of several hundred metres.
That almost happened to me once, he thought bemusedly. But now I’m safe. I don’t care about that dog — because now I’m safe.
“You lousy bastards!” Morlacher roared as he leaped on to the low platform of the bilaser projector. His clothing was disfigured by a diagonal streak of red blotches. He shook his fist at the sky and its unseen habitants, and his presence in the cone of laser rays caused the solid image of the Chinook Hotel to shimmer and dissolve like a vision projected on a screen of smoke.
“You lousy shit-head bastards!” Morlacher bellowed, his massive figure seeming to swell with uncontrollable fury. “I’ll get you for this.”
He lowered his gaze and, apparently remembering the presence of his out-of-town guests, made a visible effort to bring himself under control. A shocked silence had descended over the patio, a silence which was disturbed by the faint sounds of a woman crying. Morlacher took out a handkerchief and dabbed himself with it while he muttered apologies to those nearest him. He stepped down off the platform and began to move through the hushed assembly, his eyes questing from side to side. Hasson guessed he was looking for Al Werry.
“Tough luck, Al,” Hasson murmured to himself as he turned towards the bar with his empty goblet. “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”
seven
Wrapped tight in a cocoon of self-interest, Hasson continued to live as quietly as he possibly could, devoting all his attention to his own welfare.
In that isolationist and myopic frame of mind, the importance he attached to events was reduced on a logarithmic scale by their distance from the core of his own being. News of world trade and shifts in global strategies, for example, had so little significance as scarcely to register on his consciousness. He was aware of Al Werry being unusually busy on the days following the barbecue, spending long hours rousting aerial vagabonds, but that too was at a remove from the hub of reality and no more worthy of his concern than the activities of the shadow people in a poor holoplay.
The truly momentous happenings in Hasson’s life, the events which could stir his imagination and dominate his thoughts, were of a different class altogether: the discovery that his skin was becoming tanned as a result of his prolonged spells in the open air; his growing ability to jog for kilometres over terrain which formerly would have exhausted him at walking pace; the Epicurean pleasures he had learned to derive from such noble arts as breathing properly and sleeping well. He made living an end in itself, a goal which was continuously achieved, and as the days progressed he felt increasingly safe, secure, impregnable… A five-hour trek across rolling grasslands had left Hasson feeling hot, dusty and tired. He took a cool shower and changed into fresh clothing, then realised he had neglected to take his full quota of yeast for the day. Oliver Fan had promised him he would eventually learn to enjoy the taste of the aromatic brown powder, and although he had made little progress in that direction he conscientiously swallowed fifty grams of it on a daily basis. He picked up the yeast canon and went downstairs, pausing for a moment in the crowded hall as he heard a familiar twanging voice coming from the direction of the kitchen. It appeared that Ginny Carpenter had returned from her stay in British Columbia.
When he went into the kitchen he saw Werry and May Carpenter seated at the round table with beer glasses in front of them, while Ginny — as spiky and sparkly as ever — was standing with her back to a counter, arms folded, relating details of her trip.
“Well, look who it is,” she said. “The quiet limey.”
“I’m very well, thank you,” Hasson replied politely. “How are you?” He turned and nodded greetings to Werry and May, then rook a glass out of a cupboard.
Ginny examined him critically, blinking a little, and spoke as if he was no longer present. “He’s looking a bit more human, anyways — I told you all he needed was a spell of good food and good home cooking.”
Hasson smiled at her. “Is that why you went away?”
Her face stiffened and she looked at Werry with scandalised eyes, seeking support.
“You needn’t try to put one over on Rob these days,” Werry said, looking delighted. “He’s as sharp as a razor lately — it must be something to do with that blasting powder he keeps swallowing.”
“What is that stuff?” Ginny watched suspiciously while Hasson took a spoonful of yeast and washed it down with water from the tap.
“Yeast. He gets it from the health food store on Second Street.”
“Oily Fan’s place?” Ginny gave a yelp of derision. “Anybody who goes in there needs his bumps felt.”
“Mum!” May Carpenter whispered. “That’s not a very nice thing to…”
Ginny waved her into silence. “You can’t tell me anything about those Chinks. I see “em hundreds of times in their corner stores. You know what they do to pass the time?”
“You’ve told us before,” May said wearily, with a flickering glance at the ceiling.
“They keep opening matchboxes and taking one match out of each. Nobody’s going to miss one match out of each, you see. Just standing there all the time — opening matchboxes and taking one match out of each. We wouldn’t do a thing like that, but after they’ve done it fifty times they’ve made the price of an extra box of matches.” Ginny paused, having completed her case, and looked at the others with a mixture of indignation and triumph. “What do you say to that?”