The Stardroppers by John Brunner Read Free Book Online

blocking traffic if I stay here much longer, and that’ll be embarrassing.”
    “One moment,” Dan requested, his mind racing. “Ah … I have it. Redvers, we’re not likely to be at this place all day, are we?”
    “I hope not. I’m figuring on being back at the office before lunch.”
    “In that case …” Dan dug out the memo book he always carried and felt for a pen. “Lilith, give me the address you’re staying at, and I’ll call around this afternoon. And that’s a firm promise, okay?”
    “And you’ll tell me about meeting Dr. Rainshaw?”
    “Well, naturally.”
    “Okay, then.” Though it was clear from her face she regarded this as a second-best. She reeled off the address and added that there was a bus which passed the door, and he smiled at her and got into the car at last. The instant he was settled, Redvers let off the brake and shot into the traffic.
    Glancing at his rear-view mirror, which showed the despondent Lilith standing miserably on the pavement, he said, “Going in for cradle-robbing now, are you?”
    “Hardly. But I feel sorry for her. She’s in a hell of a state.”
    “Addict?”
    “If you can call it addiction.” Dan heard the puzzlement in his own voice. “It’s something different, I think. More what they call psychological dependence. Perhaps it’s something to do with what you were mentioning yesterday, this search for security. I had a long talk with her and asked all the questions I could think of, and she gave me much clearer answers than I was expecting. But even so I’m still sweating on what she told me.”
    “Such as?”
    Dan ran over their conversation, frowning. “What fogs me,” he finished, “is—Hmm! I was going to say her cold-blooded attitude, but that’s not right. It’s more her open-eyed recognition of the fact that what she’s doing is dangerous.”
    “You find that surprising?” Redver countered curtly. “Nobody but a moron could overlook the risks, could they?”
    “Is something wrong?” Dan asked in surprise, for the superintendent’s voice had shaken on the last remark, and he was holding the wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Sweat glistened on his forehead, too.
    “Is that thing of yours switched on?” he demanded.
    “This?” Dan flipped the lid of his stardropped. “No, of course it isn’t—why?”
    Then he caught on. Tilting his head, he detected at the edge of hearing a buzzing sound like a swarm of bees. But it didn’t come from within the car; it was ahead of them. He said as much, and Redvers apologized with an effort.
    “You’re perfectly right,” he said, halting the car for a stoplight. “It’s that car over there—see it?”
    He pointed. Slowing down on the other side of the intersection was a large Austin with a loudspeaker showing shrough the open passenger window. Once the traffic had stopped, it was plain that that was the source of the noise.
    “Wired up to a stardropper?” Dan said.
    “Exactly.” Redvers craned to read the registration number of the offending car. “He hasn’t any business to be doing that. Illegal. Noise Abatement Act.”
    Fumbling under the dash, he produced a microphone on a spring-loaded reel of cord and spoke briefly into it. As the lights changed to green, he put it away and let the car roll.
    “They’ll catch up with him in a few minutes,” he said. “Though you can’t help feeling sorry for the poor so-and-so—can you?”
    He seemed to have recovered completely now that the noise of the loudspeaker was drowned out by the moving traffic.
    “Why is he doing it?” Dan said, puzzled.
    “Oh, most likely it means something to him, and he wants other people to share his so-called discovery. Or
almost
means something, and he’s after someone else who can explain the rest of it. Quite common. Tell me, did Watson demonstrate his favorite setting to you, on a machine called a Gale and Welchman?”
    “He did.”
    “Damnably attractive, isn’t it? Any time you feel