Starrigger

21

The next few minutes… hours… I couldn't tell which, were a dream remembered, then dreamed again. The last thing I recall clearly was watching the kid put his hand to his head and slowly sit down on the bed. I was rooted to the spot. Gradually, I grew aware of people around me, then of hands gripping my arms and leading me down corridors, endless corridors, then finally into another room.

Voices. I was seated in a chair but couldn't move, staring at the ceiling, watching pretty afterimages from the glare of the overhead lights. For the first time, I noticed that they weren't biolume panels, but glowing tubes, fluorescent tubes, recessed into the ceiling.

"Do you think he knows?" somebody whispered. Another voice: "Careful. He may be coming out of it." The second voice I recognized. Corey Wilkes. "Darla-darling," the first voice said, "can you think of anywhere the creature might be?"

"No," Darla answered. "Is Pendergast searching?"

"I assume. Corey?"

"Yes, but the crew's busy as hell," Wilkes said. "Something about another ship out there, following us."

"I think it's imperative we find her before we make Sea-home," the first voice said. "She could slip off the ship easily."

"You're absolutely right. Van," Wilkes said. "But one thing worries me. The story he told Darla about Hogan was to throw us off the track, of course, but he may have given her to one of the other passengers after all."

"Then, what the girl told us isn't true?"

"No, she's probably telling the truth, but Jake may have taken her from the hiding place and then given her to someone else, just to further muddle things." Wilkes laughed mirthlessly. "Of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that the creature is the Roadmap, and we only have Darla's word on that. Frankly, I'm still a little skeptical."

"Darla?" Van said. "Can you convince him?"

"She's the Roadmap," Darla said flatly. "But before you get anything useful from Winnie, I want some assurance that you'll let him go."

"That was the agreement, Darla-darling, but… Corey, we can't speak for the Reticulans, can we?"

"No," Wilkes said. "He's their sacred quarry. There are ceremonies to be performed, obligations to discharge."

"Then what we agreed ― you're backing out?"

"Not us, Darla."

"I assure you," Darla said coolly, "that you'll get no further help from me interpreting for Winnie."

Wilkes was unruffled. "Oh, that may not be quite the problem you think it is. Granted, it's your field, and all, but I may be able to find someone else."

"In the Outworlds?"

I could almost hear Wilkes' Cheshire-cat grin. "Don't worry, Darla, we'll let him go. And I'm sure I can persuade the Rikkis to let him loose. They relish the hunt even more than they do the kill. But they will continue to track him down."

"Then it's agreed," Darla said quietly.

A shadow moved in front of me, but I didn't take my eyes from the light.

"I want to hear more about the maps," Wilkes said. "You said you wrote something down."

A rustling of paper. Then Wilkes said, "Well, this looks like the Perseus arm… and here's the Orion, I suppose. Uh-huh. Fine. So, it's a simplified map of this part of the galaxy, so far as anyone knows. And these lines are major Skyway routes?"

"Yes."

"What about these Xs all over the place?"

"Open clusters, I think. Winnie calls them 'tangle-many-trees.' Thickets."

"How charming. But there has to be more to it than this. What about this… this epic poem you mentioned? Can you recite some of it?"

"I'll try. Winnie's pidgin English is awfully difficult to render into something coherent. But parts of it go like this:

"These are the Paths through the Forest of Lights, and this way you shall go to find Home. In the land of bright water, keep the sun at evening on the right hand and follow the path to the great trees at the edge of the sky….'"

"That's a portal, I take it?"

"Yes. 'Pass through them but do not touch, for they clutch like the' ― and here's an untranslatable word, but I think it's the name of a plant that preys on small animals ' ― and you will come to the land of white rock that is cold to the touch.'"

"Now, that sounds like Snowball to me," Van said.

"Yes." Wilkes wasn't sure. "Go on, Darla."

"'Again, at evening keep the sun, which is small and dim, at the right hand and follow the Path to the great trees which grow here out of the white rock. Pass through them, but do not touch, for they clutch…' That stanza keeps repeating. Anyway, it goes on like that, endlessly."

"Not coherent?" Van laughed. "It even scans."

Silence, except for the sound of pacing.

Finally, Wilkes said, "I'm not sure I buy it."

"Corey, Darla's telling the truth."

"I don't doubt her. Van. I simply doubt that this could be the map. Why hasn't anyone got wind of this before? Winnie couldn't be the only member of her race who's privy to this mythology."

"No," Darla said, "but she could be one of an exclusive group of initiates. A secret order. Primitive human tribes have them."

"I see what you mean. But why haven't the exopologists gotten any hint of this?"

"Lack of basic field research," Darla explained. "It's tough to get a permit to study anything on Hothouse."

"And we know why that is," Van said. "The Authority doesn't want any scientific corroboration that the Cheetahs are truly sentient and deserve protection."

More pacing. "But how long will the knowledge stay secret?"

"I'm not worried," Van said. "I doubt that the Authority will ever lift its de facto ban on exopological field studies on Hothouse as long as the planet is a source of drugs. Of course, there's always a chance someone may find out, but it's a calculated risk."

Again, a shadow crossed my field of vision.

"Corey, you may have your doubts about Winnie's map, but I have my own as to whether this is the best way to go about preventing this map, or any map, from getting wide circulation. This Paradox business, I mean."

"Do you still think we can do anything back in T-Maze?"

Van sighed. "No, I suppose not. From what Darla's told us, Grigory wasn't any closer to ferreting it out of the dissident network than we were. That's why he went after Jake. Right, Darla?"

"Grigory was never convinced that the map was more than a myth," Darla said. "But it's true that the map is in the hands of the dissidents. Jake as much as gave it to them when he plunked it down on Assemblywoman Miller's desk."

"And why in the name of God did he do that?" Wilkes wondered, more to himself than to anyone. "At any rate, this was after he returned from his… quest, heroic journey, back from the future or the past or wherever the hell he went." Wilkes began pacing again. "But Miller is in a psych motel, isn't she?"

"She doesn't have the map, nor does she know where it is," Darla said. "By now it's probably been copied and recopied several times over. No telling how many people have it now."

"Which is why," Wilkes said pointedly, "we're doing it this way. Stop Jake here, intercept him and get the map, and it never gets back to T-Maze. Things go back to the way they were before."

"Or the whole universe disappears, us with it," Van said gloomily.

"In that case, we'll never know what hit us. As painless a death as you could hope for. But that's doubtful. Paradox is built into the Skyway, if you believe legends, and I do. The universe can surely survive a Paradox or two."

"But… it already happened," Van persisted, unconvinced. "They have the map. I just don't see how we can change that one immutable fact. And as long as the dissidents have it and the Authority doesn't, everything's fine. Why fiddle with it?"

"How can you think like that, when at least a dozen dissident leaders were arrested not a few days ago? The Authority's closing in. Van."

"Yes, I suppose it is," Van said dejectedly. "I was hoping against hope that somehow we could avoid all this."

"So was I," Wilkes said. "But even if what Darla says is true and the Authority doesn't know about the Roadmap yet, surely Grigory will be able to convince them sooner or later."

"That's what I don't understand. How can he convince them if he isn't convinced himself? Darla?"

"You must understand," Darla explained, "that Grigory had been acting pretty much on his own. He was kicked upstairs to his job, and he resented it, but his professional dedication was unswerving. You know how he¹ is, Van. It's essentially a public-relations job, investigating strange phenomena and manufacturing explanations for public consumption. Not a day goes by when someone doesn't report having a visitation from the Roadbuilders. You've heard the stories. Usually no reliable witnesses, no corroborating evidence. Just wild stories. The Roadbuilders will return someday and make the road free again, abolish all oppressive governments, open up the entire Skyway to every race. That sort of thing. If you believe the stories, the Roadbuilders have handed out hundreds of maps to humans and nonhumans alike, but no authentic artifacts have ever materialized. It was Grigory's job to debunk all the stories, kill the hope that generates them, the hope that people have of someday getting the Authority off their backs. That's why the Authority can't really bring itself to believe in the map unless it has its nose nibbed in it. I agree with Van that Grigory ― if he's alive, which I doubt ― won't be able to convince the Authority, even if he comes to believe in the map himself, which I also doubt."

Wilkes said, "And this Eridani creature is the key to the whole thing. Is that what you'd have us believe?"

"As far as I can tell, she is."

"Well, I have no problem with that," Van said. "There's certainly something to it. Maybe it's not a complete map, or an accurate one, but it's a map."

"As I said," Darla told them, "I haven't had the time or the

opportunity to study Winnie's drawings. You'll have to make the final judgment, based on the evidence."

"If only we had more to go on," Wilkes complained.

"Only Winnie can give us more information," Van said. "But we have to find her first."

"We'll find her," Wilkes said confidently. "Darla, can you be sure that Winnie's joumey-poem clearly reveals that there's a way back to T-Maze through Reticulan territory?"

"No. That fragment was all I had time to translate. Lots of distractions, and then Jake spirited her away. But back on the island I specifically asked her if she knew a way home. That's when she started reciting the poem."

"A way home," Wilkes repeated. "Hmm."

"I think he's coming around."

It was like a camera coming into focus, suddenly, and there in front of me was the tall, white-haired man I'd seen at Sonny's, Dr. Van Wyck Vance, wearing a midnight-blue jumpsuit. He was smoking a cigarette wrapped in tan-colored paper, blowing smoke at me. I looked at him. It was just like the last time; I was abruptly awake, aware… but this time I could recall clearly what had happened when I was under. The entire preceding conversation settled into my forebrain as if it had been recorded and just now fed in.

Wilkes was seated in an armchair to my right, Darla on the bed across the room. Vance was standing in front of me.

"Hello, Jake," Wilkes said.

I nodded, then turned to Vance.

"I don't think we've been introduced," he said. "I'm Van Wyck Vance."

"I know," I told him. "I've met your daughter, Daria. She speaks highly of you."

They turned to Darla, who shook her head.

"How did you know?" Vance asked.

"A little birdie told me."

Vance took a thoughtful puff on his cigarette, then shrugged. "Well, you said he was resourceful, Corey."

"Yes, he is," Wilkes said.

Darla said, "Jake, Daria is a name I rarely go by. Van always called me Darla."

"Her mother named her," Vance said, sitting down next to his daughter. "I never cared for it. I remember when she used to come home in tears ― her schoolmates were teasing her by calling her 'Diarrhea.' Remember, Darla-darling?"

"I'm glad to say I've repressed that."

Vance laughed.

I was sitting in another armchair with nothing binding me, and I thought now would be a good time to get up. I started to.

"Roadmap!" Wilkes said sharply.

I was startled enough to plop back down, then looked around for someone with a gun. Nobody was holding one on me. I felt weak. My head felt like a ball of fuzz sitting on my shoulders.

"You won't be able to get up, Jake," Wilkes informed me. "I planted the posthypnotic suggestion while you were under. Actually, I should say posthypnogogic. This thing doesn't induce a standard hypnotic trance." He held up a thin bright-green tube about half a meter long. "Subjects are ten times more suggestible under it. Even consciously being aware of the plant doesn't break the spell."

"The Reticulans are very good at mind-control technology," Vance said.

"Unfortunately," Wilkes said, "they don't know enough about human physiology yet to make this thing really useful. Twrrrll tells me they're working on it, but we're still as much a mystery to them as they are to us. If you were a Rikki, Jake, you'd be my obsequious slave, and would tell me anything I'd want to know, or do anything I'd want you to do. As it is, all the wand does to humans is either knock 'em out or turn them into shambling hulks in a highly suggestible state ― and I'm not enough of a psychometrician or a hypnotist to always get the results I need." He brandished the wand at me in the manner of a headmaster reprimanding a wayward pupil. "You're a tough customer, mister, I'm not at all sure I could make you tell me where you've hidden your little alien friend ― and even if I could, I have the sneaking suspicion I'm going to need your active cooperation to actually get hold of her. You've got her stashed with somebody on board, somebody ― a group, I bet ― with whom we can't readily punk around. A gaggle of Buddhist nuns… boy scouts… the damn Archbishop of Sea-home and his acolytes. I wouldn't be surprised. You're slippery, Jake. Slippery. No, I'm afraid I'll have to resort to old-fashioned methods of persuasion. Meantime…" He stroked the wand lovingly. "This gizmo will keep you right where I want you."

Vance said, "I suppose a truth drug wouldn't do either?" Wilkes shook his head disdainfully, continuing to caress the wand.

"Ingenious little things," he went on. "Very powerful. The effect can cover a city block. You adjust the field-strength here." He fiddled with one end of the rod, which was ringed with a wide silver band. "This doodad here. The only drawback is that the effect can be thwarted by taking a simple tranquilizer. Of course, if the subject doesn't know that…"

"Tranquilizer?"

"Yes. You'd think the opposite would be true, wouldn't you? A high-altitude pill of some kind. An antidepressant. The way I understand it, that does almost no good at all."

"Almost," I said, feeling foolish.

"Why, are you on something? You did seem to be semiaware while you were under. Good try, Jake."

"Seemed like a hell of a good idea at the time."

"I'm curious, though. Did you actually know about the dream wand? Did you happen to be awake that night when we walked in at the commune?"

"Commune?"

"The religious — group's place. When a subject's already in normal sleep, there's no awareness of going under."

I looked at Darla briefly. She looked slightly confused, so I thought it would be better not to mention the wand's use at the Militia station.

Wilkes picked up the byplay and looked at Darla, then at me. "Something?" he asked.

"We do have the mystery of Jake's escape from the Militia station to explain," Vance reminded him.

"Oh, yes. Twrrrll was sure he detected another wand in operation there. But that was most likely the Ryxx, don't you think?"

"How did they get hold of a dream wand?"

"Oh, the Ryxx are master traders. They probably paid the right price to a renegade Rikki and got it. Or they may have a similar technique of their own. Besides, we did see two Ryxx nearby."

Vance grunted noncommittally.

"Who knows?" Wilkes conceded. "They may not have done it, but they have just as much reason as we do to keep the map secret. Granted, it's hard to understand why they didn't grab Jake as soon as he came out, or try to, anyway. But they didn't.

And I'm not going to waste time wondering why. Someone got him out of there, for whatever treason."

I said, "May I ask a question?"

"Sure," Wilkes said.

"Why did you come to the Teelies' farm that night?"

"You'd have to see to understand. Darla, would you call Twrrrll in here?"

Darla didn't get up. Vance rose and said, "I will." He went to the connecting hatch, opened it, and called the alien's name.

After a moment, Twrrrll came in. It struck me how tall he was, how sickly thin his limbs were, and how they contrasted with his seven-digited, powerful hands, hands that could envelop a human head and squeeze. His feet were huge as well. He wore no clothing except for crisscrossing strips of leatherlike material that wrapped his thorax like a harness.

"May I be of serrrvice?" the alien asked.

"Jake would like to see the mrrrllowharrr," Wilkes said.

"Verrry well."

It was a strange sensation to see him undrape an invisible something from his shoulders and cradle it in his hands. Stranger still to watch him stroke it with two fingers and trill to it softly. As he did so, something even more unsettling was happening to my perceptual apparatus. It wasn't like watching something flicker into existence out of thin air. No, not like that at all;

for the thing was there all the time. Everyone has had a similar experience. You look and look for a misplaced object, something you just had a minute ago but inexplicably misplaced, like a pennon a desktop. You search and search and can't find it, until someone points it out for you and it's right under your nose. The thing in the alien's hand existed, was there, but the fact simply had not registered in my brain. All at once the animal materialized, but I knew it had been there all along. I had seen it, but had not recorded it as a datum.

"It still amazes even me, Jake," Wilkes said.

It was a match for the caterpillar-snake thing Susan had accidentally killed at the farm, its pink brain-bud glistening moistly in the overhead light. I felt queasy, desperately hoping my worst fears were unfounded.

"It was with you all the time, Jake. On your jacket, most of the time. Probably right under your collar, tucked away safe and snug."

I felt like throwing up. "How?" I said in a strangled voice.

"Strange survival tactic. Marvelous, really. Not visual camouflage, but perceptual camouflage. God knows how it's done, but the animal makes its predators forget it's there. Some extrasensory power, no doubt. Your perception of it gets shunted directly to the preconscious, bypassing the primary perceptual gear. Is that basically the way it works, Twrrril?"

"Yes. We would use different terrrminology, perhaps. But yes."

'Trouble is, me mrrrllowharrr is very sluggish, which makes it vulnerable when it gets underfoot. Isn't that what happened at the farm?"

I took my eyes from it.

"Darla?"

"Yes. One of the Teelies accidentally stepped on it."

"We were hoping that's what happened, and that you hadn't become aware of it somehow. Its hold on the mind isn't absolute. We couldn't locate the carcass, but Twrrril convinced us to take a chance and plant another one, this one's mate. We put it on your jacket, which you conveniently left outside your sleeping egg."

"Why?" was all I could say.

"It leaves a psychic trace, Jake. The Reticulans can follow it anywhere. Even through a potluck portal."

The alien left and closed the hatch, leaving behind the smell of turpentine and almonds.

"All that nonsense at the restaurant," I said when my stomach had quieted down. "It was only to plant that thing on me?"

"Right, and I nearly ran out of chitchat before that thing finally made it over to you, crawling over the floor."

"Then why the gunplay?"

Wilkes triumphant smile dissolved. "That…" He grunted. "That was a mistake. Rory ― the one who drew on you ― is a little dim. Likable, but dim. I mentioned that we wanted to throw a scare into you. To Rory that meant he should wave his gun around. I, uh.had to let him go, of course. Luckily, Darla was there to save the day." He studied my face, as if watching a seed that he had planted take root.

"I didn't know, Jake," Darla said in a low voice. "Not about the mrrrllowharrr. I didn't see the thing."

"Corey, really," Vance said deploringly. "Jake's opinion of my daughter must be low enough. Do you have to rub it in?" To me he said, "Darla wasn't working for us then." He turned to her with a thin smile. "And I'm not even sure she's with us now. Are you, Darla-darling?"

"You know where my loyalties lie. Van," Darla said resentfully.

"I do? Maybe you'd like to remind me once again."

"It isn't important. The deal is that I hand over Winnie to you… correction. That was the deal before Winnie disappeared. The deal is now that I help you find her in exchange for leaving Jake alone. I go back to T-Maze with you, using your secret route through Rikki country." Darla looked at me. "You were right, Jake. There is a way back from here."

"But we're not letting it get around," Wilkes said to me in a stage whisper.

"I know," I said. "And I know about the antigeronics you're running into the Outworlds. Neat little scheme, and one hell of a big market to have cornered."

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" There was a sort of admiring awe in Wilkes' voice. "Go on, Darla."

"When we get back, I alert the dissidents to destroy all copies of the map. Anyone who has had anything to do with it will have to go underground, take to the road until the crackdown runs its course. The movement will be hurt, but at least the Authority won't get the Roadmap. Meanwhile, the secret will be safe with us."

"And what about Winnie?"

"She can be taken back to Hothouse and left with the movement network there. As far as I know, nobody knows about her yet, not even the dissidents. They may have the map,1>ut they aren't aware of its source. I can't be absolutely sure, but it's a good bet even Grigory never realized her significance. He never mentioned her to me."

"Hmm." Wilkes brought his palms together and touched both index fingers to his lips. "We have some problems here. Namely, you yourself are wanted by the Authority. If you're caught, you'd have a hell of a time explaining how you got back from a potluck portal."

"I won't have to. Nobody saw us shoot it, or knows that we did, except you and your partners."

"And Grigory."

"Grigory's dead."

"Do we know that?"

"I told you what happened on Seven Suns."

"Yes, and you haven't played your role as grieving widow very convincingly."

"You must know I signed a life-companionship contract with Grigory for other than personal reasons."

Vance said, "When everything is secured back in the Maze, Darla will come back here with me."

Wilkes brooded. "All very well and good, but still…"

Somewhere in the room, Sam's key beeped.

"Aren't you going to answer it, Darla?" Vance asked. "Only polite."

Darla took it out of her pocket, then threw it across the room to me. "He should," she said.

I picked it up and looked at Wilkes.

"Is there a camera on that thing, Jake?"

"Yes."

"Set it up on that table, will you please? And point it at me."

I did, and opened the circuit, then sat back down.

"Hello, Corey! Long time no see, and all that merte."

"Hi, Sam. Your son is our guest."

"So I gathered. What's up?"

"We want the Eridani creature."

"Uh-huh. Can't help you, Corey."

"That's tod bad."

"Sorry. These sailors down here ought to be able to tell you she hasn't shown up."

"They were posted after we learned about the girl. She could have brought the creature down before that."

"Girl?"

"Yes, the sailor-girl Jake recruited to help him hide the creature. Before we knew about it, we assumed Winnie ― is that her name? ― we assumed she was still topside with Jake. And then Jake dragged a red herring in our path. Nice touch." He turned to me. "Where in the world did you meet Hogan, of all people?"

"At a literary luncheon," I said.

Wilkes cackled. "Anyway. We still want her, Sam. And we're going to get her, or somebody's going to get hurt."

"Yeah, yeah. Corey, did anyone ever tell you that you were the slimiest piece of merte ever to get flushed into a plasma torch?"

Wilkes eyes flared. "Yes, several times, and in even more colorful language. Did anyone ever tell you that I was the one who had you killed?"

"You did? How?"

"Oh, it was beautiful. The people who got the contract assured me it was foolproof. The man driving the buggy that ran into you did it deliberately. He had special impact padding, all kinds of anticrash gear. An expert. No one even began to suspect it was anything other than an accident."

"Congratulations. So what?"

Wilkes mumped a fist into his chest in mock pain. "Oh, Sam, you strike even from beyond the grave. Here I am, maybe the first murderer ever to have the satisfaction of gloating to his victim after the fact, and I can't get a rise out of you."

"You're talking to a machine, you know."

"Am I? I've heard that an Entelechy Matrix transfers a person's soul to a machine."

"Soul, my ass. Look, let's lose the verbal sparring and get down to cases. Exactly what's going to happen if you don't get Winnie, as if I didn't know?"

"You don't know." Wilkes sighed. "Oh, well. Come on, Jake. I want you to see this." He rose and crooked his finger at me, walking over to the connecting door. He opened it and pointed.

I got up and walked over, robotlike. I looked into the room. My eyes were drawn first to the sight of Lori. She was naked, slumped in a chair in a far comer, under the wand's spell. Then my gaze drifted to the four Reticulans, Twrrrll among them. They were regarding me impassively, standing around a strange piece of furniture, made of black wrought iron, which looked like a cross between a table and a bed. The legs were fashioned into alien animal limbs, adorned with ornamental tracery exhibiting runic symbols. An elaborate headboard was executed in the same manner. Across the top of the table lay a network of troughs, not unlike the bottom of a roasting pan, with tributaries branching out to the edge and running off into gutters that would conduct blood, or any kind of body effluent, down to the foot of the bed, there to spill into two large copper pails. The pails were chased with more cryptic markings. To one side stood a much smaller table done in the same style, upon which lay an assortment of strange bladed instruments.

"Roadmap!" Wilkes whispered hoarsely into my ear. The electric tension flowed out of me and I went limp, swaying on my feet. "The Reticulans have always been hunters, Jake.They never lost the impulse, as we did. It's still the driving thrust of their culture. Interesting, don't you think? Long ago they depleted their home planet of 'honorable game,' as they call it. Then they discovered the Skyway. You'd think fifty or sixty new planets would hold them for a while. But the Reticulans are an old race, Jake. One of me oldest on this part of the road. Very recently, a few hundred years ago, they took to hunting outside their maze. They're feared and hated everywhere, as well they should be."

He craned his head around to whisper in my other ear. "Can you imagine what it's like to be vivisected, Jake? That's how the Reticulans will honor you, their sacred quarry. Unless you hand over Winnie, in which case I might persuade them to let you loose for a little while longer. They probably consider it a challenge to track you without the mrrrllowharrr."

He closed the hatch, then shoved me toward the chair. I sat down heavily.

"How much good will it do, Corey," I asked, "to tell you I don't know where she is?"

"None at all, I'm afraid," Wilkes said airily. He got a cigarette from a gold case on the table and lit it, blew smoke at the ceiling. "Your little girl friend says the same thing."

"What did she say?"

"She says she hid Winnie up on the poop deck in an unused radio shack. She went back later and the animal was gone."

"You don't believe her?"

"Yes, I do, but I can't believe both of you don't know."

"Winnie may have got frightened at something and run."

"Fine. Then Pendergast's people will find her eventually, and everything'll be wonderful. But I'm only giving you another hour, Jake. Then―"

"It's a big ship, Corey," Vance said, fiddling with my newly bought revolver. "Maybe we should give it a little more time."

"Okay, two hours." Wilkes threw up his arms. "Hell, I'll wait all night. I'm easy to get along with. But somebody knows where she is, and personally I think it's you, Jake. But we'll wait."