FullReads

VII

Max Hunter rode the autojet to the casino. As the machine rose past the city levels, he found himself thinking less about Ann and a good deal more about Dawn–a Recreational companion woman who was simultaneously a psychiatrist. Where did she really fit in the subtle battle between the titan cartels? Which of them was her ally–or did Dawn represent another element as yet unidentified?

Knowing Ann Saymer had taught Hunter a wholesome respect for the thinking of a First in Psychiatry. They operated with a deviousness that made cartel treacheries seem like child’s play. He knew that Dawn had manipulated their conversation in the terminal to her own ends. Behind that deftly-phrased patter of words, what else had she tried to tell him? And what had she tried to find out? “Top level,” she had said. “That’s logical.” Why logical? Logical to whom? Did she know where he was going and why?

The autojet thudded on the casino flat. A female attendant, robed in a skin-colored sheath bright with amber jewels, held open the cab door for him. Hunter entered the nearest casino. At the door he showed his saving record in the Solar First National Fund, and a casino teller issued him a ten thousand credit limit, the smallest denomination available. The resorts weren’t wasting effort on pikers.

Although the casinos everywhere in the system were popular with spacemen, Hunter had never been to the top level before because Ann had seen to it that his surplus credits went into their savings.

It was Hunter’s opinion that he hadn’t missed much. The Los Angeles resorts duplicated, on an elaborate scale, the most unsavory establishments of the frontier. Anything which by any stretch of a perverted imagination could be defined as entertainment was available–at a price.

It was early and the crowd was still small. It consisted of spacemen on the usual furlough binge, a handful of suburbanites who had hoarded a half-year’s savings for this one-night fling in the big resorts, and a dozen bright-faced executives from the lower levels of the cartel hierarchy. The big brass would turn up later on, at a more fashionable hour.

At all costs, Hunter had to keep himself inconspicuous. His uniform was not entirely out of place, although Consolidated did issue its commanders a formal outfit–more gold braid, a jeweled insignia, and a jacket cut to emphasize the broad shoulders.

Hunter stopped at the snack bar and wolfed a plate of cold cuts, the first food he had eaten since morning. Then he moved indirectly across the pillared gambling pavilion, pausing at two tables to place bets. His objective was to find a vantage point in the upper floor of the casino where he could observe the geographic layout of the top level.

He slipped quickly into the dark well of an emergency stairway, feeling reasonably sure that no one had seen him leave the game room. More than half an hour had passed since he had fled Mrs. Ames’ rooming house and he was convinced that very shortly–if they had not done so already–the police would put out a general alarm.

As a matter of course, there would be inquiries at the top level, but at first they would be made by police mercenaries. No one in the casino had any reason to identify Hunter as the fugitive. Later on, of course, when the police used electronic trackers, he wouldn’t stand a chance. But before that happened he intended to make a deal with Werner von Rausch.

At the top of the stairs he found a tower window which afforded a crow’s nest view of the top level. The twelve casinos, bright with lights, occupied more than half the area. Beyond the resort parkland was the small, white government building, dignified by its simplicity among so much ostentation. Beside it was the transparent semi-sphere housing the top landing of the center-city lifts. A third structure–a grotesque mechanical monster trapped in the heart of a spider-web of converging wires–was the power distribution center for the top level.