Gods of the Greataway (27 page)

Long John Silver was only a composite smallwish.

That threatening figure, which had dominated the Skytrain for all its existence, was no more real than the phantom Train itself. He wept as he faded. He cursed, he invoked gods and devils from all of human history — to no avail. He was gone, and only the fireman was left, gaunt and eternal. The mists faded, and the Locomotive took its place in the legends of Mankind, in the Song of Earth.

“I’ll see you again,” called the fireman — only the second time the Girl had heard him speak, and again it sent a sick shiver through her.

Manuel was there, and Zozula and Mentor. Together they and the Girl hung in limbo while the Rainbow adjusted and the Greataway adjusted, and finally, on balance, they found themselves back on Earth.

“Silver wasn’t real,” said Manuel.

“He should have known,” said Zozula.

“The Bale Wolves …” said Manuel. “I fought eight of them, one after another. I died every time. They weren’t human. What … what were they?”

They sat on a grassy hillside at sunset, and the ocean glittered crimson below them. “They are man’s most ancient fear,” said Zozula. “They’re the werewolves, I think. They’ve existed in legend as long as memory, and it seems they exist in fact as well, ever since they were created on the People Planet. They’re not Dream creatures in any sense of the word. They’re real, and they’re out there.” He looked up at the night sky and the stars and he shivered. “Up there on the Nameless Planet, with all the powers of evil.”

“We can’t fight them,” said Mentor. He lay face down, embracing the earth.

“We must,” said
Manuel.

“You don’t have to, Manuel,” said the Girl. “I’ll be all right.”

“We’re not just thinking of you, Girl,” said Zozula severely. “We have Domesful of neotenites depending on us.”

“I know.” But she also knew what Manuel had meant, and now she took his hand.

Mentor suddenly sprang to his feet and his tear-wet face shone crimson in the sunset. “You people can do what you like,” he cried, “but I’m not setting foot on that Train again! Never, as long as I live.” He clutched Zozula in an extravagant gesture. “Take me back to the People Planet! I was wrong to leave. I want to go back to Selena!”

“You coward!” shouted Zozula in great embarrassment, pushing him away so violently that he fell on his back. “You’ve been quick enough to complain about Selena during the past few days. Why should she want you back up there?”

“She loves me,” said Mentor.

“What?” Zozula’s embarrassment changed to rage. “You have the gall to accuse a Cuidador of loving
you
, a vat-clone?”

“She does. She said she does.”

“Liar!” Zozula launched a kick at Mentor’s ribs but Mentor rolled quickly aside and Zozula, too, fell on his back. Almost insane with fury, he scrambled over to Mentor and seized him by the throat. They began to roll down the hillside, grappling and screeching.

Manuel said awkwardly to the Girl, “I don’t like this. It’s undignified. Zozula should know better.”

The Girl expelled her tension in a little shout of laughter. “They’re worse than Bale Wolves.” She watched as Zozula climbed to his feet, dragging his clone-son after him, and began to climb the hillside toward them.

“How did we escape from the Train, Girl?” asked Manuel. “I’m sure everyone else got Total Death.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was the Outer Think, as Zozula said. Perhaps I … and maybe you … oh, I don’t know. The main thing is, we’re here.”

“But we have to try again.”

Zozula arrived panting, pulling Mentor by the scruff of his neck. “And this yellow-bellied son of a caiman is coming with us,” he said, “just as soon as we’ve thought of a way to beat those Wolves.”

*

How did they
escape from the Train? Some later historians gave credit to the Girl’s mynde, assisted by Manuel — which implied the definite existence of romantic love between the young couple. Others give little credence to this, pointing out the theoretical impossibility of a Wild Human forming such an attachment for a neotenite, and put forward the idea that the escape was due to the direct intervention of Starquin.

The minstrels chose the former viewpoint of course:

S
elena
had been summoned from the People Planet and Caradoc from Dream Earth, and the council of war was being held in the Rainbow Room.

“We were beaten,” said Zozula, having described their encounter with the Bale Wolves. “The brutes were too good for us. They were always one move ahead. How can you capture a creature that can anticipate everything you do? There was a big-game hunter on the Train, and I’ll swear I saw one Wolf jump out of the way of the bullets before the hunter even pulled the trigger.”

“We’ve done all we can,” said Mentor. “Nobody could have done more.”

“I didn’t say that,” said Zozula quickly. “We have to come up with a new approach. A frontal attack will never defeat a Bale Wolf. We know that now.”

Mentor said, “We can’t even reach the Bale Wolves now. The Train blew up. That’s the end of it.”

The huge image of Caradoc spoke. “The Train’s still there. It will always be there. And it will always blow up. It exists on infinite parallel happentracks, so no matter how many times it is destroyed, it will still always exist.”

Selena said, after an unhappy scrutiny of Mentor, “We don’t have much time. Another four neotenites have died. They weren’t diseased in any way; they just stopped living, like the others.”

“Well,
I
don’t know what we can do,” snapped Zozula, irritated at the way problems were piling up. “Don’t you have any suggestions, Caradoc? You have all the resources of the Rainbow at your disposal.”

“Only
a warning. If you decide to ride the Skytrain again, be very careful how far you go. I’ve been researching the past, and I’ve found traces of a malignant power out there — the old people used to call them Hate Bombs. I don’t know what the effect of these Bombs is, or even how they work. But it seems they’re powerful enough to prevent several hundred Earth colonies from getting through to us.”

“Earth colonies …” murmured Zozula. “I’d wondered about that. I assumed they never contacted us because they’d lost the power of the Outer Think.”

“No. They can’t pass the Hate Bombs. You have an empire out there, Zozula, if you could only reach it.”

“True Humans …” said Selena.

“The majority of humans out there will have adapted to their own worlds,” Caradoc pointed out. “If you saw them, you’d probably think they were Wild Humans. It only needs a small change in environment to change a human.”

Manuel laughed, earning a sharp look from Zozula.

“If we could remove the Hate Bombs, we could make contact,” said Selena.

“After we capture our Bale Wolf,” said Manuel.

But Zozula had been thinking. “Not so fast. Let’s consider this carefully. Let’s be perfectly sure we
want
to let these people in, before we start making plans.”

“Of course we want them in,” Manuel said. “Why not? Just think of what they could teach us … The different worlds they’ve seen. The Greataway. The aliens.” His eyes were shining, his expression faraway. “Just think how good it would be for Earth, and for the Wild Humans. We could relearn all the things we’ve forgotten. We could learn how to operate all our machines. We could even learn how to build them. All those questions we’re asking ourselves about the things we see around us — those people will have the answers. It’ll be the start of a new age!”

Selena was
watching Zozula. “An age that will have no need of Cuidadors,” she murmured.

There was a sudden silence.

When Zozula spoke, he sounded far too abrupt. “Anyway, it’s all academic. If Caradoc doesn’t know how to tackle the Bale Wolves, that means the Rainbow doesn’t know. And if the Rainbow doesn’t know, nobody does.”

The Girl spoke for the first time. “Somebody might.”

“Who?”

She flushed. “Well, I don’t mean somebody might know more than the Rainbow. I mean … I mean it depends on what question you ask, and how you ask it. And
who
you ask.”

“I know what you mean,” said Caradoc. “I can ask the Rainbow questions about human history and get straight answers. But if I ask a Dream Person the same question, I can’t always understand what he tells me. Dream People exist on a different plane from me, with a different reality. There’s a whole dimension of facts that they alone have access to.” He smiled at Eloise. “Eloise exists in my mind as a smallwish, yet I don’t know what she’s thinking. And I know she
does
think.”

“Of course I think,” said Eloise. “And I think you try too hard, Caradoc.” She grinned at him mischievously.

“Or did I smallwish her to say that?” asked Caradoc. “In the end, there are some things I’d rather not ask about.”

The Girl said, “I must go back into Dream Earth, Zozula. I’ll be able to find some of the answers that are beyond Caradoc’s reach.”

*

The pain was gone. After weeks of sore feet, aching chest, breathlessness, nausea, incontinence and headaches, the Girl felt good again. She ran her hands over her body and found it slim. She bent down and touched her toes. The sun was warm and music came from a nearby inn. She jumped, and her calves and thighs felt strong, and she stayed off the ground for a long time. She laughed and jumped again for the sheer joy and freedom of it, and when she landed she felt her breasts jiggle firmly, and it was very healthy and feminine to have them back. It had rained recently and the earth smelled good, and she smelled good, and she ran to a puddle to get a look at herself.

A
beautiful creature looked up at her from the water.

Her hair was short and thick and richly dark where it had been thin, straggly and mousy. Her eyes were warm brown and her face was round without being plump. It was a cute face, a mischievous, gamine face. Delighted, she skipped across the country lane and touched the trees and smelled their resin. It was all so
real
, not the least bit phoney, as she’d remembered it. Her body was tingling with some obscure need, and after a while she identified it: Just another of those good things that go with a good body — she wanted to make love.

It was a pity Manuel wasn’t here.

But there were plenty of people at the inn. She heard laughter above the music. People were having a good time in there. Upstairs were bedrooms with brightly flowered curtains, and there would be soft beds with crisp white sheets.

Dream Earth was
fun
.

Manuel should share this with her. Or if not actually Manuel, then someone very much like him. Someone so much like him that she’d never know the difference.

“I wish …”

And she stopped herself. Some residue of purpose stayed with her, and the smallwish remained unuttered. It would only have been that: just a smallwish, like Eloise. And she had plenty of psy, loads of it. Really, just one smallwish wouldn’t have made too much difference, would it?

“Oh, hell,” she said aloud. Then she ran into the inn before she could change her mind.

Everybody looked familiar. That was one of the good things about Dream Earth — it was like meeting old friends again. Marilyn was there, and Burt and John and Captain Sylvia. They talked about the same things in the same idiom. It was as though she’d never been away. As usual, there was the sprinkling of strangers to make things interesting. At a table in the corner a group of Pirates sat, plotting in low tones. And there were a number of swarthy folk; something in the cast of their faces reminded her of Manuel. Obviously, a new fashion had come into favor in her absence. A giant anteater wandered among the tables, thick tail waving, slender snout prodding at morsels on the floor. She guessed that some influence from the real world had touched Dream Earth: There were reminders of Pu’este here — or maybe she’d never noticed them before.

“I’m
going Latin just as soon as I have the psy,” a blonde Sandra said, confirming the Girl’s impressions.

There was a place at the Sandra’s table and the Girl sat there. They looked at her in some surprise — a Mog, a Raccoona and a Pan, as well as the Sandra, who asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Myself, I think,” said the Girl.

“You haven’t done too badly.” The Pan watched her admiringly with his faun eyes.

The Girl said, “I have to get to the Oracle.”

“Then use some psy, darling.”

“I don’t want to. I may need all I have.”

“Well,
I’m
certainly not going to smallwish you there.” The Sandra was now regarding the Girl with active dislike.

“I just thought … Maybe you knew somebody who’d consulted the Oracle recently, and you could give me directions …”

They roared with laughter. “Who in hell wants to consult the Oracle?” shouted the Mog, in between gulps of beer. “Who in hell cares?”

The Raccoona said quietly, “Only intellectual freaks consult the Oracle, darling. Do we look like intellectual freaks?”

And it was happening again, that thing that happened all too often on Dream Earth, the thing that had in the past caused the Girl to be Herself, to try to escape from the endless round of pleasure. Things closed in. The table seemed smaller and the laughter louder, and Pan’s face looked so close it was distorted, a huge beak of a nose almost obscuring the slanting eyes. Sandra’s hair blotted out the room, and Raccoona’s hands lay on the table like bear paws. The dream was turning into a nightmare.

The Girl stood.

Pan
said, “Hey, stay!”

She blinked to try to rid her eyes of them, remembered she
could
smallwish herself away, whirled around and ran out of the door.

The sky was leaden and the tall clean pines had changed into spreading oaks with grasping branches and the road was slippery. She slid and fell on her back, feeling the cold wetness through her clothes. As she lay there, a bolt of lightning darted from above and exploded a tree into instant flame — and behind the tree was an unspeakable thing, advancing toward her. She couldn’t move, and the thing was as tall as the trees, lurching forward on many clawed legs with viscid digestive juices dribbling from its jaws …