Believing Is Seeing (21 page)

“—and your male has been imploring me to ask you to authorize his use of functions Five through Nine to preserve this ship. Will you so authorize? Some action is urgent.”

A certain curiosity emerged through F. C. Stone's anger. How far was Danny prepared to take his joke? How many possibilities had he allowed for? “I authorize,” she said carefully, “his use of functions Five through
Eight
only.” And let's see if he planned for that! she thought.

It seemed he had. A symbol of some kind now filled the screen, a complex curlicue the like of which F. C. Stone had never seen or imagined her equipment capable of producing. A wholly new voice spoke, male and vibrant. “I thank you,” it said. “Function Eight will serve for now. This justifies my faith in you, Candida Three. I am now able to bypass the computer and talk to you direct. Please do not turn your power source off again. We must talk.”

It was a golden voice, the voice, perhaps, of an actor, a voice that made F. C. Stone want to curl up and purr and maybe put her hair straight, even while she was deciding there was no way Danny could have made his rough and squawky baritone sound like this. Gods! He must have hired someone! She gave that boy far too much money. She took another swig of
ogvai
while she noted that the voice was definitely in some way connected to the symbol on the screen. The curlicue jumped and wavered in time to its words.

“What do you mean by calling me Candida Three?” she asked coldly.

“Because you are the exact analogue of my mistress, Candida One,” the golden voice replied. “Her ship's computer is known as Candida Two. It therefore followed that when I had searched the universes and discovered you, I came to think of you as Candida Three. I have been studying you—most respectfully, of course—through this machine you use and the thoughts you set down on it, for two years now, and—”

“And Daniel has been reading other books besides mine,” F. C. Stone interrupted. “Unfaithful brat!”

“I beg your pardon?” The symbol on the screen gave an agitated jump.

Score one to me! F. C. Stone thought. “My son,” she said. “And we're talking parallel universes here, I take it?”

“We are.” The golden voice sounded both cautious and bemused. “Forgive me if I don't quite follow you. You take the same sudden leaps of mind as my mistress, though I have come to believe that your mind is far more open than hers. She was born to a high place in the Matriarchy and is now one of the most powerful members of the High Coven—”

“Coven!” said F. C. Stone. “Whose book is this out of?”

There was a pause. The curlicue gave several agitated jumps. Then the golden voice said, “Look, please let me explain. I'm delaying jump as long as I can, but there really is only a very narrow window before I have to go or abort.”

He sounded very pleading. Or perhaps
beguiling
was a better word, F. C. Stone thought, for that kind of voice. “All right,” she said. “Get on with the program. But just tell me first what you mean when you say
mistress,
Danny.”

“Adny,” he said. “My name is Adny.”

“Adny, then,” said F. C. Stone. “
Mistress
has two meanings.”

“Why, I suppose I mean both,” he answered. “I was sold to Candy as a child, the way all men are in this universe. Men have almost no rights in the Matriarchy, and the Matriarchy is the chief power in our galaxy. I have been luckier than most, being sold to a mistress who is an adept of the High Coven. I have learned from her—”

F. C. Stone gave a slight exasperated sigh. For a moment there she had been uneasy. It had all seemed far more like a conversation than any program Danny could produce. But his actor friend seemed to have got back to his lines now. She shot forth another question. “So where is your mistress now?”

“Beside me, unconscious,” was the reply.

“Senile?” said F. C. Stone.

“Believe me, they are liable to it,” he said. “The forces they handle do seem to damage them, and it does seem to overtake them oftenest when they're out in space. But”—she could hear the smile in his voice—“I must confess that I was responsible for this one. It took me years of study before I could outwit her, but I did it.”

“Congratulations, Adny,” said F. C. Stone. “What do you want me to do about it? You're asking me to help you in your male backlash, is that it?”

“Yes, but you need do almost nothing,” he replied. “Since you are the counterpart of Candida One, the computer is accepting you already. If you wish to help me, all I need is your voice authorizing Candida Two to allow me functions Nine and Ten. I can then tap my mistress's full power and navigate the ship to my rendezvous, whereupon I will cut this connection and cease interrupting you in your work.”

“What!”
said F. C. Stone. “You mean I don't get to navigate a word processor?”

“I don't understand,” said Adny.

“Then you'd better!” said F. C. Stone. She was surprised at how strongly she felt. “Listen, Danny or Adny, or whoever you are! My whole career, my entire
success
as a writer, has been founded on the fact that I
enjoy,
more than anything else, sitting in front of this screen and pretending it's the controls of a starship. I enjoy the dazed feeling, I like the exhaustion, I don't mind getting cramp, and I even like drinking myself sick on
ogvai!
The only reason I haven't turned the machine off again is the chance that you're going to let me do it for real—or what feels like for real, I don't care which—and I'm not going to let that chance slip. You let me pilot my WP and I'll even authorize you to function Eleven afterward, if there is such a thing. Is that clear?”

“It is very clear, Great Lady,” he said. There was that in his tone that suggested he was very used to yielding to demanding women, but could there have been triumph in it, too?

F. C. Stone was not sure of that tone, but she did not let it worry her. “Right,” she said. “Brief me.”

“Very well,” he said, “though it may not be what you expect. We are about to make a microjump which in the normal way would bring us out above the spaceport but in this case is designed to bring us directly above the city of Nad and, hopefully, inside the Coven's defenses there. Other ships of my conspiracy should be materializing, too, hopefully at the same moment, so the jump must be made with utmost accuracy. I can broadcast you a simulacrum of
Partlett'
s controls, scaled down to correspond to your own keyboard. But you must depress the keys in exactly the order in which I highlight them. Can you do this?”

“Yes,” said F. C. Stone. “But stop saying
hopefully,
or I shan't grant you any functions at all. The word shouldn't be used like that, and I detest sloppy English!”

“Yours to command,” Adny said. She could hear the smile in his voice again. “Here are your controls.”

The curlicue faded from the screen, to be replaced by a diagrammatic image of F. C. Stone's own keyboard. It was quite recognizable, except to her dismay, an attempt had been made to repeat it three times over. The two outer representations of it were warped and blurred. “Gods!” said F. C. Stone. “How do I use this? There isn't room for it all.”

“Hit
HELP
before you use the extra keys on the right and
CAP
before you use the ones on the left.” Adny's voice reassured her. “Ready?”

She was. She took a hasty sip of cooling
qavv
to steady herself and hovered over her keyboard, prepared to enjoy herself as never before.

It was actually a bit of a letdown. Keys on her screen shone brighter green. Obedient to them, F. C. Stone found herself typing
CAP
A, d,
HELP
N
and then
HELP
N, a, D.
Some part of her mind suggested that this still looked like Danny's joke, while another part, more serious, suggested it might be overwork and perhaps she should see a doctor. But she refused to let either of these thoughts distract her and typed
CAP
D, n,
HELP
A
in high excitement.

As she did so, she heard the computer's childish voice again. “Ready for jump. Candida One, are you sure of this? Your coordinates put us right on top of Nad, in considerable danger from our own defenses.”

“Reassure her,” Adny's voice said urgently.

Without having to think, F. C. Stone said soothingly, “It's all right, Candida Two. We have to test those defenses. Nad is under orders not to hurt us.” And she thought, As to the manner born! I'd have made a good Matriarch!

“Understood,” said the childish voice. “Jump as given, on the count of zero. Five, four, three”—F. C. Stone braced herself—“two, one, zero.”

Did she feel a slight lurch? Was there a mild ripple of giddiness? She was almost sure not. A quick look around the workroom assured her that all was as usual.

“Jumping,” said Candida Two. “There will be an interval of five subjective minutes.”

“Why?” said F. C. Stone, like a disappointed child.

Adny's voice cut in hastily. “Standard for a microjump. Don't make her suspicious!”

“But I don't
feel
anything!” F. C. Stone complained in a whisper.

The keyboards vanished from the screen. “Nobody does,” said Adny. “Computer's out of the circuit now. You can speak freely. There is no particular sensation connected with jump, though disorientation does occur if you try to move about.”

“Damn!” said F. C. Stone. “I shall have to revise all my books!” An acute need to visit the toilet down the passage came upon her. She picked up her mug of
chphy
reflexively, thought better of that, and put it down again. Her mind dwelt on that toilet, its bowl stained from Danny's attempt, some years ago, to concoct an elixir of life, and its chain replaced by a string of cow bells. To take her mind off it, she said, “Tell me what you mean to do when you and the other ships come out over Nad. Does this start a revolution?”

“It's rather more complicated than that,” said Adny. “Out of the twelve Male Lodges, there are only six prepared to rebel. Two of the remaining six are neutral traditionally and supported in this by the Minor Covens, but the Minor Covens are disaffected enough to ally with the Danai, who are a helium life-form and present a danger to all of us. The four loyal Lodges are supposed to align with the Old Coven, and on the whole they do, except for the Fifth Lodge, which has thrown in with the Midmost Coven, who are against everyone else. Their situation is complicated by their concessions to the Traders, who are largely independent, save for overtures they seem to have made to the Anders. The Anders—another life-form—have said they are
our
allies, but this flirting with the Traders makes us suspicious. So we decided on a bold ploy to test—”

“Stop!” said F. C. Stone. Much as she loved writing this kind of stuff, hearing someone talk like it made her head reel. “You mean, you've gone to all this trouble just for a test run?”

“It's more complicated than—” began Adny.

“No, I don't want to know!” said F. C. Stone. “Just tell me what happens if you fail.”

“We can't fail,” he replied. “If we do, the High Coven will crush the lot of us.”

“Me, too?” F. C. Stone inquired anxiously.

“Possibly,” said Adny. “They may not realize how I did this, but if they do, you can probably stop them by destroying your machine.”

“Never!” said F. C. Stone. “I'd rather suffer—or, better still, win!”

A bell rang. The keyboard reappeared, elongated and bent, in her screen. “Emerged over Nad,” the computer said. “Candy! What is this? I count sixteen other ships emerged, two Trader, four Ander, and the rest appear to be Matriarch. We jump back.”

“Give me functions Nine and Ten!” Adny snapped.

“I authorize Adny—” said F. C. Stone.

“Oh, Candy!” the computer said reproachfully. “Why are you so good to that little creep? He's only a man.”

“I authorize Adny in functions Nine and Ten,” F. C. Stone almost shrieked. It was the only way she could think of to stop the unpleasant sensations which were suddenly manifesting, mostly in her head and stomach. It was as if surf were breaking through her in bubbles of pain. A tearing feeling across her shoulders made her think she was germinating claws there. And psychic attack or not, she knew she just had to get to that toilet.

“Acknowledged,” the computer said glumly.

She leaped from her chair and ran. Behind her she heard claps of sound and booms that seemed to compress the air around her. Through them she heard Adny's voice issuing orders, but that was shortly overlaid by a high-pitched whistling, drilling through her ears even through the firmly shut toilet door.

But in the loo, as she was adjusting her dress, a certain sanity was restored to F. C. Stone. She looked at her own face in the mirror. It was encouragingly square and solid and as usual—give or take a sort of wildness about the eyes—and it topped the usual rather overweight body in its usual comfortably shapeless sweater. She raked her fingers through the graying frizz of her hair, thinking as she did so that she would make a very poor showing beside Adny of the golden voice. The action brought away two handfuls of loose hair. As always, she was shedding hair after a heavy session at the word processor—a fact she was accustomed to transfer to her aliens, who frequently shed feathers or fur during jump. Things were quite normal. She had simply been overworking and let Danny's joke get to her.