Protector

VANDERVECKEN

I. The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum.

II. If something can go wrong, it will.

He woke with the cold burning his nose and cheeks. He woke all at once, and opened his eyes to black night and clear bright stars. He sat upright in vast surprise. This took some effort. He was wrapped like a pupa in his mummy bag.

The shadows of peaks thrust into the starscape. City light glowed far away beyond a lumpy horizon.

He had gone hiking in the Pi

Apparently he was still here, halfway up a mountain, his mummy bag spread on the path.

He did not remember going to sleep.

Concussion? A fall? He snaked an arm from within the mummy bag and felt for bruises. None. He felt fine; he didn’t hurt anywhere. The air chilled his arm now, and he wondered. The day had been so hot.

And he’d left his backpack in the car. He’d left the car in the Pi

The trails through the Pi

At dawn he started down. His feet felt fine, and the empty desolate rockscape was a joyful thing to see. He sang loudly as he negotiated the incredible trails. Nobody screamed at him to shut up. His legs did not ache despite the afternoon’s climb. He must be in pretty good shape, he thought. Though only a fool would carry a backpack on these trails, unless it had been wished on him halfway up a mountain.

The sun was well up when he reached the parking lot.

The car was locked tight, as he had left it. He was not whistling now. This made no sense. Some Good Samaritan had found him unconscious on the trail, or stu

There was a message spool sitting on his car entertainment set.

He fitted it in and heard it out.

Truesdale, this is Vandervecken. By now you may or may not have realized that four months have vanished from your young life. For this I apologize. It was necessary, and you can afford to lose four months, and I intend to pay a fair price for them. Briefly: you will receive five hundred UN marks per quarter for the rest of your life, provided that you make no attempt to find out who I am.

On your return home you will find a confirming spool from Barrett, Hubbard and Wu, who will supply you with details.

Believe me, you did nothing criminal during the four months you can’t remember. You did things you would find interesting, but that’s what the money’s for.

You would find it difficult to learn my identity in any case. A voice pattern would tell you nothing. Barrett, Hubbard and Wu know nothing about me. The effort would be expensive and fruitless, and I hope you won’t make it.

Elroy did not twitch when acrid smoke curled up from the message spool. He had half expected that. In any case he had recognized the voice. His own. He must have made this tape for… Vandervecken… during the time he couldn’t remember.

He spoke to the blackened tape. “You wouldn’t lie to yourself, would you, Roy?”

Under what circumstances?

He got out of the car and walked to the Tourist Office and bought a morning newstape. His set still worked, though the message spool was a charred lump. He played the tape for the date. January 9, 2341.

It had been September 8, 2340. He had missed Christmas and New Year’s Day and four months of what? In rising fury he lifted the car phone. Who handled kidnappings? The local police, or the ARMs?

He held the phone for a long moment. Then he put it down.

It had come to him that he was not going to call the police.

While his car flew him back toward San Diego, Elroy Truesdale writhed in a kind of trap.

He had lost his first and, to date, only wife because of his reluctance to spend money. She had told him often enough that it was a character flaw. Nobody else had it. In a world where nobody starved, a life style was more important than credit security.

He had not always been like this.

At birth Truesdale had owned a trust fund intended to keep him, not rich, but comfortable for the rest of his life. It would have done so; but Truesdale wanted more. At age twenty-five he had convinced his father to turn the money over to him. He wanted to make some investments.

He would have been rich, from the way it sounded. But it had been a complicated con. Somewhere on Earth or in the Belt, a man who might or might not be named Lawrence St. John McGee was living in luxury. He couldn’t possibly have spent it all, not even on his scale of living.

Possibly Truesdale had overreacted. But he had no real talents; he could not count on himself as security. He knew that now. He was a salesman in a shoe store. Before that it had been a service station, trading batteries on passing cars and checking the motors and fans. He was an ordinary man. He kept himself in shape because everybody did; fat and loose muscles were regarded as personal carelessness. He had given up his beard, a pretty good beard, after Lawrence St. John McGee had walked off with his fortune. A working man did not have the time to keep up a good beard. Two thousand a year for life. He could not turn down the money.

Now he was in a trap, walled in by his own character flaws. Damn Vandervecken. And he must have cooperated, sold himself out. That had been his voice on the message tape.

Wait. There might be no money… just a cheap promise to buy “Vandervecken” a few additional hours and send Truesdale a few hundred miles south.

Truesdale called home. There was four months’ worth of calls waiting in storage in his phone. He keyed it for Barrett, Hubbard and Wu, and waited out the sorting process.

The message was there. He heard it through. It said about what he had expected it to.

He called the Better Business Bureau.

Yes, they had records of Barrett, Hubbard and Wu. It was a reputable firm, as far as they were concerned, specializing in corporate law. He got their number from Information.

Barrett was a smartly dressed woman in middle age. Her ma

“All I want to know,” he told her, “is whether your firm is sure of your funds. This Vandervecken has promised me five hundred marks quarterly. If he cut off your funds, that would cut me off, wouldn’t it? Regardless of whether I’ve abided by the terms of the agreement.”

“That’s not true, Mr. TruesdaIe,” she answered severely. “Mr. Vandervecken has bought you an a