Identity Matrix (1982) (5 page)

The credit cards, too, seemed interesting, but I finally decided against them.

They'd just think I stole them. I didn't want to wind up in the clink, an Indian juvenile delinquent, for stealing my own stuff. The checkbook, though, was another matter. If I could make it somehow back to the lower forty-eight I might be able to manage, through my bank in Maryland, a by-mail transaction.

So, keeping only the money, travelers checks, and checkbook, I started to make my way back up to the campground. It was not easy. I hadn't really realized the weight of so much hair, the drag on the neck mus-cles, and I didn't have the reflexes to automatically compensate that someone born to the body would have had. Too, my arms never
were
very strong, but I found myself positively feeble now. It took me better than an hour and a half to make it back to the top.

Aside from some droppings from several horses there was no sign that anybody had been there, as I expected, and the ground was, overall, too rocky to see much in the way of footprints. Here a crushed cigar, there a couple of cigarette stubs, and that was about all.

I listened for the sounds of people, of gunfire, of, perhaps, the helicopter, and heard nothing. In all the time it'd taken me to get to the pack, then back here, the chase was far beyond now, if not over. I went over and drank some water from the rivulet still flowing nearby as if nothing momentous had happened, then turned and walked back to the ledge up which I'd just climbed. It was a terrible drop down there, with precarious and tiny holds. I realized for the first time what luck I'd had in surviving at all, and noted that what had supported my sixty- or seventy-pound frame on the way up might not have supported my old body. My survival, though, had been a real freak of luck, and I shivered at the thought. No wonder the pursuers hadn't bothered to look down!

I turned away and walked around a little, trying to get used to the balance of my new body, gain some sort of mastery over it. Even the boots had higher heels than I'd ever worn and took some getting used to. Finally, though, I knew I was as ready as I could ever be and started cautiously down the trail. I was determined to hide if at all possible, keep out of sight of any possible pursuers.

But, on the long trip down, I met only one person, a park ranger, who simply nodded and contin-ued on up, giving me not a second glance. My biggest problem was a few gusts of wind that occasionally threat-ened to blow my slight body over, and my constant struggle to keep from falling off my own boots.

The trail became wider now, the slope still sharp but broad, with no sheer cliffs to contend with. You could see almost clear down to Skagway now, and, while any-one else could also see me, there seemed no real way around it.

Besides, I had the best vision I could ever remember, and I felt confident that, at least, nobody was going to sneak up on me or lie in hiding.

Approaching Skagway, but still a ways up, you sud-denly hit trees and I was thankful for them. Although the chances of ambush were greater, I felt confident in moving off the trail and paralleling it in the brush. Still there seemed no one around, either pursuer or pursued, to threaten. Wherever the battle had gone, it was still ahead of me.

But, then, where would my danger lie? They couldn't put an army in here without alarming the population and making headlines. No, if they were looking for the three fugitives they'd do the obvious things. They'd stake out the train station and probably the rail yards as well to avoid a double-back. They'd stake out the tiny airport, the only place you could fly out of in this small valley surrounded by sheer mountain cliffs two miles high. They'd stake out the ferry terminal, of course, to make sure you didn't get out that way, and the little marina. And they'd start a new team down both the White and Chillicoot Passes from the top just to make sure.

But—would their trap work on such beings as these? Assuming the insane for the moment that these were, indeed, alien beings from some other world, they'd be perfect actors. I saw no signs of a device in the transfer—it was something absolutely natural with them, something they did because they were born with the power to do it. Perhaps they were creatures of pure energy, parasites who invaded bodies—but, no, then why would the pro-cess be two-way? Obviously, then, such creatures had to have evolved this power as some sort of natural protec-tion. I wondered, idly, what sort of world it would take for such an ability to evolve? A terribly harsh and com-petitive one, almost certainly. One with so many ene-mies that, to survive, it had to learn how to become its enemies.

That was a sobering thought. These would be no push-overs, these alien body-swappers. They'd be tough, ac-complished, perfect mimics. About the only problem they had as far as I could see was, in this instance, the newcomer, the one dropped by spaceship, was totally unfamiliar with Earth and its people and customs and hadn't even yet learned the language. The other two, though—they were something else. If "Dan" and "Charlie" were actually creatures like the girl had been and not merely hirelings or agents, they'd become your best friend and you'd spill all your secrets to them.

And they'd kill you without batting an eyelash.

I felt certain that if they'd gotten this far the govern-ment or whoever those pursuers were would fail to bot-tle them in.

But they certainly could bottle
me
in, I realized sud-denly, feeling a touch of panic once more. They
knew
what I looked like, certainly—and they'd be watching for me.

I stopped dead and sat down wearily on the grass, cursing softly. Skagway was a trap, all right, but it was a trap for
me.
How the hell was
I
going to get by them?

I wondered what seventh grade in an Indian school would be like—if they let me live that long.

The sheer impossibility of my situation was sinking in on me, and I felt despair rising within. Damn it, I was tired and cold and achy and hungry, and I'd had a lot of water and one stick of gum all day, and I didn't even know how the hell to pee without a toilet without it running all down my legs…

Chapter Three

It occurred to me that, had I been in a large city, not merely a New York or San Francisco but even Anchorage, I'd have had little trouble. I had money, although it wouldn't last long, and I could mix with a crowd, even perhaps enter a shop and buy less conspicuous clothing. Even putting my hair up would be a big help, but I simply didn't know how to do it. The conclusion was obvious and inescapable: to survive to find my own new path in this world, I'd have to get out of the trap that was Skagway.

Air was out, of course. I briefly considered the train—it would be possible to hitch a ride in a boxcar, say, jump-ing on at one of the slow turns as it went into White Pass—but that would only take me back to Whitehorse, a town as isolated and as staked out as Skagway—and one in which the real little girl's parents and friends might reside. There were no roads out of Skagway. The highway through the pass, long a joke in the region, had been killed forever when most of the area had been made a national park.

Skagway itself was a living museum with its 1898 buildings and boardwalk main street. It might have been possible to do something had there been a horde of tourists, but it was a slow day. I briefly toyed with the idea of waiting for the ferry's crowds to come in, using them as at least a mild shield behind which I could get some sort of disguise, but this was quickly dismissed. They would remain with the area staked out until they accounted for all those they were searching for. The danger was acute here, less the further away I got. That meant that, somehow, I had to go along with my origi-nal plan to take the ferry southward in the evening, and that posed its own problems.

Skagway ended a good quarter to half a mile from the water's edge. The area from the end of Main Street, except for some boxcars, was clear and open and abso-lutely flat. There would be no way to even get close to the boat short of swimming for it—and the water tem-perature was 50 degrees at best and probably far less than that. Still, I made my way down towards the har-bor keeping close to the main line railroad tracks which offered some concealment, trying to see if anything was even remotely possible.

It was late; my stomach fairly growled and writhed in hungry pain and I was somewhat dizzy and exhausted, yet the ferry was now due in only a couple of hours and something had to be done fast. Most of the ferries stopped at the highway connection at Haines Junction; it might be two or three days before the next one put in here.

The railroad yard personnel were busy, it seemed, but it took a moment before I realized what they were doing. A large crane-like device hovered overhead, and, occa-sionally, it would lower slowly its grasping apparatus over a boxcar. There would be a series of loud metallic
chunks
and then the boxcar was lifted into the air—no! Not the boxcar! Just the top of it…

Containerized cargo. Load the box in a yard, lift it onto a truck flatbed, take it to the Whitehorse rail yard,lift it off the truck and sit it down, securely clamped, on a railroad car frame and wheels, pull it to Skagway, then take it off that rail frame and…

And put it back on a truck frame. There was only one truck cab, though, being used to pull the trailer frames away and back new ones into position, and I counted. Six—no, seven large trailers were lined up in a row there, yet there was no freighter in the railroad docks. I felt hope rise within me once again. Why all this work now when there was no freighter in? Why load them onto trailer chassis at all? The only answer had to be that these were being readied to be placed on the ferry. If I could slip into, or somehow get on, one of those trailers, I might be pulled right into the belly of the ship beneath the noses of my watchers!

Slowly and carefully using as much of the railroad's equipment as I could for a shield, I made my way towards those waiting trailers, fearful that at any moment watch-ers in the yards, or trainmen, would spot me—or that they would begin taking the trailers over to the ferry dock itself. There was a small stretch of open space I had to get to, but it was extremely cloudy and there was a light mist falling by this time, and it seemed worth the risk. Judging my time as best I could, I sprinted for the trailers, adrenaline pumping, and made them, stop-ping in their shelter to suddenly gasp for breath and get hold of myself.

After a few moments, I looked them over, finding that being four feet tall placed the heavy truck latches out of reach. I might get to one by standing on the ledge and stretching, but it might take more effort than I could muster to move them—if they weren't locked.

My very tininess, though, might serve to some advan-tage if I could ride in on the undercarriage. I ducked under and checked that possibility out. There were spaces and grooves in the solid steel frame where I might fit, but the handholds would be precarious at best and I would have a long, bumpy pull under the least comfortable of circumstances. I knew, though, that I'd have to chance it. I had no real idea where I was going or what I was going to do once I got there, but I knew for damned sure that any alternative was worse. The only people who would believe my story and accept body-switching were the aliens, who'd tried to kill me, and their hunt-ers, who'd think me one of their enemy and would take no chances, of that I was certain.

Choosing the "shoe" area which helped support the rear axle, I picked one of the lead trailers and wedged myself in as best I could and I tried to relax, waiting for the inevitable.

How long I waited there, so precariously perched, I don't really know—but several times I heard men's voices and heard and saw legs and feet walking between the trailers. Once or twice I heard latches thrown, and load-ing doors on the trailers thrown back, including the one I was under, but they didn't see or suspect me hiding beneath. Some of the trousers looked too fancy and new to be trainmen, and I was suddenly glad, despite the pain and discomfort, that I hadn't tried to sneak inside one.

I heard the ship come in, a mighty, echoing blast from its air horn signalling arrival at its furthest outpost, but I dared not peek at it. I knew what it looked like, anyway—a great blue ship, more like an ocean liner than a ferry, a representative of the most luxurious, yet necessary, working boats in the world. I waited stuffed inside my precarious perch, hunger and fatigue tempo-rarily recessed as the tension built within and around me. It seemed like hours there, although it must have been far less than that, and I heard the roar of vehicles getting off, the bumps against the concrete and metal ramp, and the myriad voices and shouting that accom-panied loading and unloading. Then it was still, for a while, as the ship made ready to load and begin the long journey south once again. At least I knew this one's itinerary—there would be an empty stateroom aboard this time, the one I would have occupied.

Finally, after an eternity, I heard the start-up of en-gines on the dock and heard the loading begin. There would not be many from Skagway—you couldn't drive anywhere from here—but they would have to be carefully arranged, as Alaska's ferries stopped at all the cities and towns of the panhandle and arranging cars and trucks so they would be able to get off at their proper destinations was a skill in itself.

Finally there was quiet once more, and I became afraid that I had misjudged the situation, that these trailers, after all, were not due to get on. With the fear came a new awareness of the pain in my position was causing, and I shifted slightly.

Suddenly I heard the roar of a diesel cab and was aware that it was backing up to the trailer under which I hid. The rear of the cab slid under as I watched, then stopped with a bump that almost spilled me. A man got quickly out of the cab and walked back, operating the hydraulic couplers, linking the trailer to the cab, then plugging in the air brakes. He looked under to check his, work, and I feared he would spot me there, but his mind was on business, and I got lucky.

He walked back and got into the cab, then slammed his door and put the truck in gear. The shock of sudden movement spilled me and I grabbed frantically at the metal, trying to pull myself back up before I fell to the ground and was left. I know I cried out in pain and anguish as I did so, but the noise was more than masked by the roar of the diesel. Scraped, with part of my jeans torn, I managed to get back up into the ridiculously small perch and hang on for dear life. Had the truck been in any but the lower gears I know I couldn't have stayed there no matter what I would have tried.