The Whipping Star (13 page)

"No one except the Caleban," McKie said.

A profound silence settled over the room.

Presently Tuluk said, "You don't seriously believe . . ."

"No, I don't," McKie said.  "But I couldn't prove my belief to a robo-legum court.  This does present an interesting possibility, though."

"Furuneo's head," Bildoon said.

"Correct," McKie said.  "We demand Furuneo's head."

"What if they contend the Caleban sequestered the head?" Hanaman asked.

"I don't intend asking them for it," McKie said.  "I'm going to ask the Caleban."

Hanaman nodded, her gaze intent on McKie and with a light of admiration in her eyes.  "Clever," she breathed.  "If they attempt to interfere, they're guilty.  But if we get the head . . ."  She looked at Tuluk.

"What about it, Tuluk?" Bildoon asked.  "Think you could get anything from Furuneo's brain?"

"That depends on how much time has passed between the death and our key-in, Tuluk said.  "Nerve replay has limits, you know."

"We know," Bildoon said.

"Yeah," McKie said.  "Only one thing for me to do now, isn't there?"

"Looks that way," Bildoon said.

"Will you call off the enforcers, or shall I?" McKie asked.

"Now, wait a minute!" Bildoon said.  "I know you have to go back to that Beachball, but . . ."

"Alone," McKie said.

"Why?"

"I can give the demand for Furuneo's head in front of witnesses," McKie said, "but that's not enough.  They want me.  I got away from them, and they've no idea how much I know about their hidey hole."

"Exactly what do you know?" Bildoon asked.

"We've already been through that," McKie said.

"So you now see yourself as bait?"

"I wouldn't put it exactly that way," McKie said, "but if I'm alone, they might try bargaining with me.  They might even . . ."

"They might even shorten you!" Bildoon snarled.

"You don't think it's worth the try?" McKie asked.  He stared around the room at the attentive faces.

Hanaman cleared her throat.  "I see a way out of this," she said.

Everyone looked at her.

"We could put McKie under Taprisiot surveillance," she said.

"He's a ready-made victim, if he's sitting there in a sniggertrance," Tuluk said.

"Not if the Taprisiot contacts are minimal every few seconds," she said.

"And as long as I'm not yelling for help, the Tappy breaks off," McKie said.  "Good."

"I don't like it," Bildoon said.  "What if . . ."

"You think they'll talk openly to me if they see the place full of enforcers?" McKie asked.

"No, but if we can prevent . . ."

"We can't, and you know it."

Bildoon glared at him.

"We must have those contacts between McKie and Abnethe, if we're going to try cross-charting to locate her position," Tuluk said.

Bildoon stared at the table in front of him.

"That Beachball has a fixed position on Cordiality," McKie argued.  "Cordiality has a known planetary period.  At the instant of each contact, the Ball will be pointing at a position in space -- a line of least resistance for the contact.  Enough contacts will describe a cone with . . ."

"With Abnethe somewhere in it," Bildoon supplied, looking up.  "Provided you're right about this thing."

"The call connectives have to seek their conjunction through open space," Tuluk said.  "There must be no large stellar masses between call points, no hydrogen clouds of any serious dimensions, no groups of large planetary . . ."

"I understand the theory," Bildoon said.  "But there's no theory needed about what they can do to McKie.  It'd take them less than two seconds to slip a jumpdoor over his neck and . . ."  He drew a finger across his throat.

"So you have the Tappy contact me every two seconds," McKie said.  "Work it in relays.  Get a string of agents in. . . ."

"And what if they don't try to contact you?" Bildoon asked.

"Then we'll have to sabotage them," McKie said.

It is impossible to see any absolute through a screen of interpreters.

-Wreave Saying

When you came right down to it, McKie decided, this Beachball wasn't as weird a home as some he'd seen.  It was hot, yes, but that fitted a peculiar requirement of the occupant.  Sentients existed in hotter climates.  The giant spoon where the Caleban's unpresence could be detected -- well, that could be equated with a divan.  Wall handles, spools there, lights and whatnot -- all those were almost conventional in appearance, although McKie seriously doubted he could understand their functions.  The automated homes of Breedywie, though, displayed more outlandish control consoles.

The ceiling here was a bit low, but he could stand without stooping.  The purple gloom was no stranger than the variglare of Gowachin, where most offworld sentients had to wear protective goggles while visiting friends.  The Beachball's floor covering did not appear to be a conventional living organism, but it was soft.  Right now it smelled of a standard pyrocene cleaner-disinfectant, and the fumes were rather stifling in the heat.

McKie shook his head.  The fly-buzz "zzzt" of Taprisiot contact every two seconds was annoying, but he found he could override the distraction.

"Your friend reached ultimate discontinuity," the Caleban had explained.  "His substance has been removed."

For substance read blood-and-body, McKie translated.  He hoped the translation achieved some degree of accuracy, but he cautioned himself not to be too sure of that.

If we could only have a little air current in here, McKie thought.  Just a small breeze.

He mopped perspiration from his forehead, drank from one of the water jugs he had provided for himself.

"You still there, Fanny Mae?" he asked.

"You observe my presence?"

"Almost."

"That is our mutual problem -- seeing each other," the Caleban said.

"You're using time-ordinal verbs with more confidence, I note," McKie said.

"I get the hang of them, yes?"

"I hope so."

"I date the verb as a nodal position," the Caleban said.

"I don't believe I want that explained," McKie said.

"Very well; I comply."

"I'd like to try again to understand how the floggings are timed," McKie said.

"When shapes reach proper proportion," the Caleban said.

"You already said that.  What shapes?"

"Already?" the Caleban asked.  "That signifies earlier?"

"Earlier," McKie said.  "That's right.  You said that about shapes before."

"Earlier and before and already," the Caleban said.  "Yes; times of different conjunction, by linear alteration of intersecting connectives."

Time, for the Caleban, is a position on a line, McKie reminded himself, recalling Tuluk's attempt at explanation.  I must look for the subtly refined differences; they're all this creature sees.

"What shapes?" McKie repeated.

"Shapes defined by duration lines," the Caleban said.  "I see many duration lines.  You, oddly, carry visual sensation of one line only.  Very strange.  Other teachers explain this to self, but understanding fails . . . extreme constriction.  Self admires molecular acceleration, but . . . maintenance exchange confuses."

Confuses! McKie thought.

"What molecular acceleration?" he asked.

"Teachers define molecule as smallest physical unit of element or compound.  True?"

"That's right."

"This carries difficulty in understanding unless ascribed by self to perceptive difference between our species.  Say, instead, molecule perhaps equals smallest physical unit visible to species.  True?"

What's the difference? McKie thought.  It's all gibberish.  How had they gotten off onto molecules and acceleration from the proper proportion of undefined shapes?

"Why acceleration?" he insisted.

"Acceleration always occurs along convergence lines we use while speaking one to another."

Oh, damn! McKie thought.  He lifted a water jug, drank, choked on a swallow.  He bent forward, gasping.  When he could manage it, he said, "The heat in here!  Molecular speedup!"

"Do these concepts not interchange?" the Caleban asked.

"Never mind that!"  McKie blurted, still spitting water.  "When you speak to me . . . is that what accelerates the molecules?"

"Self assumes this true condition."

Carefully McKie put down the water jug, capped it.  He began laughing.

"Not understand these terms," the Caleban objected.

McKie shook his head.  The Caleban's words still came at him with that non-speech quality, but he detected definite querulous notes . . . overtones.  Accents?  He gave it up.  There was something, though.

"Not understand!" the Caleban insisted.

This made McKie laugh all the harder.  "Oh, my," he gasped, when he could catch his breath.  "The ancient wheeze was right all along, and nobody knew it.  Oh, my.  Talk is just hot air!"

Again laughter convulsed him.

Presently he lay back, inhaled deeply.  In a moment he sat up, took another swallow of water, capped the jug.

"Teach," the Caleban commanded.  "Explain these unusual terms."

"Terms?  Oh . . . certainly.  Laughter.  It's our common response to non-fatal surprise.  No other significant communicative content."

"Laughter," the Caleban said.  "Other nodal encounters with term noted."

"Other nodal . . ."  McKie broke off.  "You've heard the word before, you mean?"

"Before.  Yes.  I . . . self . . . I attempt understanding of term, laughter.  We explore meaning now?"

"Let's not," McKie objected.

"Negative reply?" the Caleban asked.

"That's correct -- negative.  I'm much more curious about what you said about . . . maintenance exchange.  That was what you said, wasn't it?  Maintenance exchange confuses?"

"I attempt define position for you odd one-tracks," the Caleban said.

"One-tracks, that's how you think of us, eh?" McKie asked.  He felt suddenly small and inadequate.

"Relationship of connectives one to many, many to one," the Caleban said.  "Maintenance exchange."

"How in the hell did we get into this dead-end conversation?" McKie asked.

"You seek positional referents for placement of floggings, that begins conversation," the Caleban said.

"Placement . . . yeah."

"You understand S'eye effect?" the Caleban asked.

McKie exhaled slowly.  To the best of his knowledge, no Caleban had ever before volunteered a discussion of the S'eye effect.  The one-two-three of how to use the mechanism of the jumpdoors -- yes, this was something they could (and did) explain.  But the effect, the theory. . . .

"I . . . uh, use the jumpdoors," McKie said.  "I know something of how the control mechanism is assembled and tuned to . . ."

"Mechanism not coincide with effect!"

"Uhhh, certainly," McKie agreed.  "The word's not the thing."

"Precisement!  We say -- I translate, you understand? -- we say, 'Term evades node.'  You catch the hanging of this term, self thinks."

"I . . . uh, get the hang of it," McKie agreed.

"Recommend hang-line as good thought," the Caleban said.  "Self, I believe we approach true communication.  It wonders me."

"You wonder about it."

"Negative.  It wonders about me."

"That's great," McKie said in a flat voice.  "That's communication?"

"Understanding diffuses . . . scatters?  Yes -- understanding scatters when we discuss connectives.  I observe connectives of your . . . psyche.  For psyche, I understand 'other self.'  True?"

"Why not?" McKie asked.

"I see," the Caleban said, ignoring McKie's defeated tone, "psyche patterns, perhaps their colors.  Approachments and outreaching touch by awareness.  I come, through this, to unwinding of intelligence and perhaps understand what you mean by term, stellar mass.  Self understands by being stellar mass, you hang this, McKie?"

"Hang this?  Oh, sure . . . sure."

"Good!  Comes now an understanding of your . . . wandering?  Difficult word, McKie.  Very likely this an uncertain exchange.  Wandering equals movement along one line for you.  This cannot exist for us.  One moves, all move for Caleban on own plane.  S'eye effect combines all movements and vision.  I see you to other place of your desired wandering."

McKie, his interest renewed by this odd rambling, said, "You see us . . . that's what moves us from one place to another?"

"I hear sentient of your plane say sameness, McKie.  Sentient say, 'I will see you to the door.'  So?  Seeing moves."

Seeing moves?  McKie wondered.  He mopped his forehead, his lips.  It was so damned hot!  What did all this have to do with "maintenance exchange"?  Whatever that was!

"Stellar mass maintains and exchanges," the Caleban said.  "Not see through the self.  S'eye connective discontinues.  You call this . . . privacy?  Cannot say.  This Caleban exists alone or self on your plane.  Lonely."

We're all lonely, McKie thought.

And this universe would be lonely soon, if he couldn't find a way to escape their common grave.  Why did the problem have to hang on such fumbling communication?

It was a peculiar kind of torment trying to talk to the Caleban under these pressures.  He wanted to speed the processes of understanding, but speed sent all sentiency hurtling toward the brink.  He could feel time flying past him.  Urgency churned his stomach.  He marched with time, retreated with it -- and he'd started somehow on the wrong foot.

He thought about the fate of just one baby who'd never passed through a jumpdoor.  The baby would cry . . . and there'd be no one to answer.

The awesome totality of the threat daunted him.

Everyone gone!

He put down a surge of irritation at the zzzt-beat of the Taprisiot intrusions.  That, at least, was companionship.

"Do Taprisiots send our messages across space the same way?" he asked.  "Do they see the calls?"

"Taprisiot very weak," the Caleban said.  "Taprisiot not possess Caleban energy.  Self energy, you understand?"

"I dunno.  Maybe."

"Taprisiot see very thin, very short," the Caleban said.  "Taprisiot not see through stellar mass of self.  Sometimes Taprisiot ask for . . . boost?  Amplification!  Caleban provide service.  Maintenance exchange, you hang?  Taprisiot pay, we pay, you pay.  All pay energy.  You call energy demand . . . hunger, not so?"