Gordon R. Dickson by Mankind on the Run Read Free Book Online Page B

the streets in those days. If you did, some cop with a nightstick'd come up
and tell you to move on. Get it now?" He peered at Kil.
    "Oh."
said Kil. "You mean this business of the World Police making sure
everybody moves on from the area he's in, when his permitted time is up?"
    "That's
it: Sticks."
    Kil
nodded and went back to his own problem. "What makes you think you can do
something for me when nobody else can? And what's your price, anyway? I can't
pay two hundred thousand dollars."
    "Who
asked it? That's Ace price," said Dekko. "With me you don't pay a
price because you're not buying, you're hiring. I cost a thousand a month; and
I'm worth it. To answer that first question, though, I don't know whether I
can get your wife back or not. But I know stuff nobody else does; and I've got
a wire."
    Kil shook his head bewilderedly.                             „
    "I
don't understand half what you're saying. What's this wire business?"
    "The Societies. I'm Thieves Guild and a couple of other
    things . We
can try running a wire to the O.T.L. and check through them."
    "What's—"
said Kil and stopped. "I'm sorry to keep asking what things are, but this
is all Greek to me."
    "Sure,"
answered Dekko. "You're an A. Stab. And A. Stabs don't know anything, in
spite of what most of the riggers think. Just sit back and listen and I'll
explain it."
    Kil nodded.
    "Forget
Ace—any Ace," said Dekko. "Aces are all little frogs in little
puddles. There's only two big outfits in the world
today. One's the Sticks The other's made up out of the
Societies."
    "Societies—" frowned Kil. "Now, it seems to me I heard
something about a Society once.'
    " There's thousands of them," said Dekko. "They're
secret, most of them. Most harmless, but some aren't. People, you see, need
something, with Files making them shift every few weeks or months. Files has
set things up this last hundred years so no groups can get together and want to
fight other groups. That's fine to keep the peace, but its lonely for the single ones. You never know anybody for long. Wife, maybe, and
kids while they're growing up and living with you; but when you got to keep
moving, you fall apart easy. You can't even get to liking the place you live,
or your job, because in just a little while you're going to trade it all for a
place and a job just like it—but different—maybe halfway around the
world."
    "But look here—" began Kil.
    "Let
me finish. So along comes a Society, any old Society,
and you join up. You get accepted, you wear something that shows you're
accepted, and you know what to look for on somebody else. You hit a new place
and start looking around. You see somebody wearing the same gimmick you've got;
you go up to him and you're in. You got a friend, maybe not a real close
friend, but its not like being a stranger all the
time, so much."
    "But
why secret?" asked Kil, when Dekko stopped.
    "Makes it stronger. Usually you pledge yourself to all sorts of things: treat anyone else
in the Society like a brother, whether you know him or not. Some go further. In
some Societies, if a fellow member asks for anything you got, you got to give
it to him, no questions asked." Kil shook his head.
    "I
can't understand why I never heard of all this before," he said.
    "You're A. Stab.," repeated. Dekko. "A. Stabs, are the only
ones that don't need all this stuff because they're the only ones that're
adjusted. They fit this crazy world of Files."
    "Sometimes," said Kil, thinking of
Ellen.
    "Yeah,
sometimes," agreed Dekko. "Now listen, there's more to it than that. There's all kinds of different
Societies, but there's "only one O.T.L. Now don't ask me what the letters
stand for, because I don't know. Maybe even the O.T.L.'s themselves don't know.
But O.T.L.'s about forty years old and it sits right at the head of all the
other Societies. All the important ones got members who're members of O.T.L.
O.T.L. can do anything, except find Files. They can probably