Ch 03

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of Advance Agent by Christopher Anvil. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Advance Agent by Christopher Anvil,
Chapter three. Dan passed another fish market, then came to
a big, brightly polished window. Inside was a huge chromium

(00:25):
plated barbell on a purple velvet cloth. Behind it were
arranged displays of hand grips, exercise cables, dumbbells, and skipping ropes.
The inside of the store was indirectly lighted and expensively simple.
The place had an air that was quiet, lavish, and discreet.

(00:45):
It reminded Dan of a well to do funeral establishment.
In one corner of the window was a small, edge
lighted sign you never know what the next life will
be like. In the other corner of the window was
a polished black plate with a dimly glowing bulb in
the center. Around the bulb were the words You're corrected

(01:08):
charge courtesy of Save Your Life Company. A tall, heavily
muscled man in a dark blue cape stepped outside. Good morning, devisement,
he said affably, I see you're a stranger in town.
I thought I might mention that our birth rates rather high.
Just now, he coughed, deferentially. You set an example. You

(01:32):
know our main store is on one twenty two Center Street,
so if you he was cut off by a childish
scream down the street, a little boy struggled and thrashed
near an oblong hole at the base of a building,
Caught in a tangle of the mysterious ropes. A kid

(01:52):
cried the man. He sucked in his breath and shouted, dog, here, Dog, Dog.
On the end of a wharf, a crowd of children
was watching the unloading from their midst A lioness burst here, dog,
shouted the man. A sweever, A sweever, run dog. The

(02:14):
lioness burst into a blur of long bounds, shot down
the wharf, sprang into the street, and glanced around with
glaring yellow eyes. The little boy was partly inside the hole,
clinging to the edge with both hands. Doggie, he sobbed.
The lioness crouched, sprang into the hole. A crash, a bellow,

(02:39):
and a thin scream came from within. The lioness reappeared,
its eyes glittering in its fur on end. It gripped
the little boy by the cape and trotted off, growling.
Good dog, cried the man. Men in the shop's doorways
echoed his shout. A kid, said the man. They have

(03:04):
to learn sometime, I know, but he cut himself short. Well,
all's well, that ends well. He glanced respectfully at Dan.
If you're here any length of time, sir, we'd certainly
appreciate your looking into this, and if you're planning to
stay long, well, as you see, our sweepers are hungry.

(03:24):
Our main stores on one twenty two Center Street, our
vacation advisor might be of some service to you. Thank you,
said Dan, his throat dry, not at all devisement. The
man went inside, muttering a kid. Dan passed several more

(03:44):
shops without seeing very much. He turned the corner. Across
the street where the boy had been was a dented
brass plate at the base of the building. On Dan's
side of the street, Trotting toward him was a big,
tawny main line in Dan hesitated, then started up a street.

(04:05):
There was a faint clash of metal, swish swish. A
net seemed to form in the air and close around him.
There was a feel of innumerable hairy spiders running over
him from head to foot. The net vanished, Something wrapped
around his ankle and yanked, the lion growled. There was

(04:30):
a loud clang, and Dan's foot was free. He looked
down and saw a brass plate labeled Sweeper. Dan decided
it might be a good idea to see the Savior
Life Company's vacation advisor. He started out to locate one
twenty two Center Street and gave all brass plates a

(04:51):
wide berth. On the way. He strode through a briskly
moving crowd of powerfully built men and women in capes
of various colors, noticing uneasily that they were making way
for him. He studied them as they passed, and saw
capes of red, green, dark blue, brown, purple, and other

(05:12):
shades and combinations of colors. But the only sky blue
cape he had seen so far was his own. A
sign on the corner of a building told Dan he
was at Center Street. He crossed, and the people continued
to draw back for him. It began to dawn on

(05:33):
Dan that he had had the ultimate bad luck for
a spy in an unknown country. He was marked out
on sight as some sort of notable. Just how bad
his luck had been wasn't clear to him till he
came to a small, grassy square with an iron fence
around it and a man size statue in the center.

(05:54):
The granite base of the statue was inscribed I Devise.
The statue itself was a bronze showing a powerful man,
his foot crushing down a mass of snapping monsters. In
his right hand, he held together a large circle of metal,
his finger squeezing shut a cut in the metal which

(06:16):
would break the circle if he let go. His left
hand made a partially open fist into which a wrench
had been fitted. The statue itself, protected by some clear
finish from the weather, was plain brown in color, but
the statue's cape was enameled sky blue. Dan stared at

(06:39):
the statue for a moment, then looked around in the
street beside it. A crowd of people was forming their
backs toward him and their heads raised. Dan looked up
far up near the tops of the buildings. He could
make out a long cable stretched from one building to
another across the street. Just on the the other side

(07:00):
of the crowd was the entrance to the main store
of the Savior Life Company. Dan crossed the street and
saw a very average looking man wearing an orange cape
come to a stop at the corner and looked shrewdly around.
Dan blinked and looked again. The man in orange was

(07:21):
no portion. The man's glance fell on the statue, and
his lips twisted in an amused smile. He looked up
toward the rope, then down at the crowd, and then
studied the backs of the crowd in the fronts of
the stores around him, the lids of his eyes half
closed in a calculating look. A brass plate nearby popped open.

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A net of delicate, hairy tendrils ran over him, and
something like a length of tarred one inch rope snaked
out and wrapped around his legs. An outraged expression crossed
his face. His hand came up, the rope yanked. He
fell on the sidewalk. The rope hauled him into the hole.

(08:06):
The brass plate snap shut. From inside came a muffled report.
It occurred to Dan that Galactic was not the only
organization interested in horses. Dan looked thoughtfully at the brass
plate for a moment, then walked toward the entrance of
the Savior Life Company, past display windows showing weights, cables,

(08:28):
parallel bars, trapezes, and giant springs with handles on each end.
He tried the door. It didn't move. A clerk immediately
opened the door and took Dan along a cool chased
hallway to an office marked Vacation Advisor. Here, a suave
looking man made an offhand remark about the birth rate,

(08:51):
took a sudden look at Dan's cape, blinked, stiffened, glanced
at Dan's midsection, and relaxed. He went through his files
and gave Dan a big photograph showing a smiling, healthy,
middle aged couple and a lovely girl about nineteen. These
are the Millbuns, sir. Mister Milburn is a merchant at present,

(09:11):
quite well to do. I understand missus Milburn is a
housewife right now. The daughter, Mavis, is with a midtown firm.
At the moment. The mother became ill at an awkward time,
the family put their vacation off for her, and as
a result, their charge has run very low. If you
can get to their apartment without being swept, I feel

(09:34):
sure they will welcome you, sir. He scribbled a rough
map on a piece of paper, drew an arrow and
wrote sixty one forty run Fast Boulevard, Apartment six B,
and stamped the paper courtesy of Savior Life Company. Then
he wished Dan a healthy vacation and walked with him
to hold open the outer door. Dan thanked him and

(09:57):
went outside, where the crowd was now almost blocking the sidewalk.
He forced his wayfree, saw someone point and glanced at
the statue. The wrench in the statue's left hand had
been replaced by what looked like a magnifying glass. Dan
had gone a few steps when there was a thundering cheer,

(10:19):
then a terrified scream high in the air behind him.
He turned around and saw a man come plummeting down.
Dan gaped higher and saw a line of tiny figures
going across high up on the rope, one of the
figures slipped. There was another cheer. Dan hurriedly turned away.

(10:42):
He had already convinced himself that the Porsons had a
proper mercantile attitude, and he thought he was beginning to
get an idea as to how they kept their population down.
End of Chapter three by Paul Hampton