The Unteleported Man

Now Freya stirred, sat up; her spider silk nightgown, one strap of it, slipped from her bare, pale shoulder. "What is it?" she murmured.

"The first encoded note from B.P.," Matson said; he absently tap-tapped the folded message against his knee, pondering.

She sat up fully, reached for her pack of Bering cigarillos. "What does he report, Mat?"

Matson said, "The message is version six."

"That — things are exactly as depicted." She was wide awake now; she sat lighting her cigarillo, watching him intently.

"Yes. But — THL psychologists, waiting on the far side, could have nabbed the field rep. 'Washed his brain, gotten everything and then sent this; so it meant nothing. Only a transmission of one of the odd-num­bered codes — indicating in various degrees that condi­tions at Whale's Mouth were not as depicted — would have been worth anything. Because of course THL psy­chologists would have no motive to fake those. "

"So," Freya said, "you know nothing."

"But maybe he can activate the Prince Albert B-y sat." One week; it would not be long, and the Om­phalos could easily be contacted by then. And, since its solo pilot did not lie in deep-sleep, he could be in­formed.

However, if after a week —

"If no data come from the sat," Matson said thoughtfully, "it still proves nothing. Because then Bergen will transmit message n, meaning that the sat has proved inoperative. They will do all that, too, if they have him. So still nothing!" He paced about the bedroom, then took the burning cigarillo from the girl in the rumpled bed, inhaled from it violently, until it heated up and scorched his fingers. "I," he said, "will not live out eighteen years." I will never live to know the truth about Whale's Mouth, he realized. That time period; it was just too long to wait.

"You'll be seventy-nine," Freya said practically. "So you'll still be alive. But a jerry with artiforgs for natural organs."

But — I'm just not that patient, Matson realized. A newborn baby grows virtually to adulthood in that time!

Freya retrieved the cigarillo, winced at its tem­perature. "Well, possibly you can send over — "

"I'm going over," Matson said.

Staring at him, after a moment she said, "Oh god. God."

"I won't go alone. I'll have a 'family.' At every outlet of Trails of Hoffman a Lies Incorporated commando team — " He possessed two thousand of them, many veterans of the war; they would pass over at the same moment as he, would link up at Whale's Mouth. And, in their "personal" gear, they would convey enough detection, relay, recording and monitoring equipment to reestablish the private police agency. "So you're in charge here on Terra," he told Freya. "Until I get back." Which would be thirty-six years from now, he thought acidly. When I'm ninety-seven years old... no, that's right: we can obtain deep-sleep mechanisms at Whale's Mouth because I remember them taking it across; that's one reason why it's so short of supply, here. Originally it was thought that if colonization didn't work they could vacate — roanoke, they called it — they could roanoke back to the Sol system in deep-sleep by ship... from giant liners manufactured at Whale's Mouth from prefab sections passed across by von Einem's Telpor teleportation gates.

"A coup," Freya said, then. "In fact — a coup d'etat."

Startled, he said, "What? God no; I never — "

"If you take two thousand top reps," Freya said, "Lies Incorporated won't exist here; it'll be a shade. But over there — it'll be formidable. And the UN has no army at Whale's Mouth, Matson. You're aware of that, at least on an unconscious level. Who could oppose you? Let's see. The President of Newcolonized land, Omar Jones, is up for reelection in two years; you'd possibly want to wait — "

"At the first call from Whale's Mouth," Matson said harshly, "Omar Jones could have UN troops trotting through every Telpor instrument in the world. And their tactical weapons with them, everything up to cephalo­tropic missiles." And he hated — and feared — those.

"If acall came from Whale's Mouth. But once you're on the other side, you could handle that. You could be sure no such emergency a