“You know we have to do it.”
“You’re making him suffer, and I won’t have it!” the woman cried.
“Then go away and leave it to me.”
“I can’t stand the thought of him suffering! Don’t you understand?”
“He won’t suffer.”
“You have to be sure.”
It’s Abnethe for certain, McKie thought, recalling her conditioning against witnessing pain. But who’s the other one?
“My head’s hurting,” McKie said. “You know that, Mliss? Your men practically beat my brains out.”
“What brains?” the man asked.
“We must get him to a doctor,” she said.
“Be sensible!” the man snapped.
“You heard him. His head hurts.”
“Mliss, stop it!”
“You used my name,” she said.
“What difference does it make? He’d already recognized you.”
“What if he escapes?”
“From here?”
“He got here, didn’t he?”
“For which we can be thankful!”
“He’s suffering,” she said.
“He’s lying!”
“He’s suffering. I can tell.”
“What if we take him to a doctor, Mliss?” the man asked, “What if we do that and he escapes? BuSab agents are resourceful, you know.”
Silence.
“There’s no way out of it,” the man said. “Fanny Mae sent him to us, and we have to kill him.”
“You’re trying to drive me crazy!” she screamed.
“He won’t suffer,” the man said.
Silence.
“I promise,” the man said.
“For sure?”
“Didn’t I say it?”
“I’m leaving here,” she said. “I don’t want to know what happens to him. You’re never to mention him again, Cheo. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, my dear, I hear you.”
“I’m leaving now,” she said.
“He’s going to cut me into little pieces,” McKie said, “and I’ll scream with pain the whole time.”
“Shut him up!” she screeched.
“Come away, my dear,” the man said. He put an arm around her. “Come along, now.”
Desperately, McKie said, “Abnethe! He’s going to cause me intense pain. You know that.”
She began sobbing as the man led her away. “Please . . . please . . .” she begged. The sound of her crying faded into the night.
Furuneo, McKie thought, don’t dally. Get that Caleban moving. I want out of here. Now!
He strained against his bindings. They stretched just enough to tell him he’d reached their limits. He couldn’t feel the stakes move at all.
Come on, Caleban! McKie thought. You didn’t send me here to die. You said you loved me.
It is because you speak to me that I do not believe in you.
—Quoted from a Caleban
After several hours of questioning, counter-questioning, probe, counter-probe, and bootless answers, Furuneo brought in an enforcer assistant to take over the watch on the Caleban. At Furuneo’s request Fanny Mae opened a portal and let him out onto the lava ledge for a spell of fresh air. It was cold out on the shelf, especially after the heat in the Beachball. The wind had died down, as it did most days here just before night. Surf still pounded the outer rocks and surged against the lava wall beyond the Beachball. But the tide was going out, and only a few dollops of spray wet the ledge.
Connectives, Furuneo thought bitterly. She says it’s not a linkage, so what is it? He couldn’t recall ever having felt this frustrated.
“That which extends from one to eight,” the Caleban had said, “that is a connective. Correct use of verb to be?”
“Huh?”
“Identity verb,” the Caleban said. “Strange concept.”
“No, no! What did you mean there, one to eight?”
“Unbinding stuff,” the Caleban said.
“You mean like a solvent?”
“Before solvent.”
“What the devil could before have to do with solvents?”
“Perhaps more internal than solvents,” the Caleban said.
“Madness,” Furuneo said, shaking his head. Then, “Internal?”
“Unbounded place of connectives,” the Caleban said.
“We’re right back where we started,” Furuneo groaned. “What’s a connective?”
“Uncontained opening between,” the Caleban said.
“Between what?” Furuneo roared.
“Between one and eight.”
“Ohhh, no!”
“Also between one and x,” the Caleban said.
As McKie had done earlier, Furuneo buried his face in his hands. Presently he said, “What’s between one and eight except two, three, four, five, six, and seven?”
“Infinity,” the Caleban said. “Open-ended concept. Nothing contains everything. Everything contains nothing.”
“You know what I think?” Furuneo asked.
“I read no thoughts,” the Caleban said.
“I think you’re having your little game with us,” Furuneo said. “That’s what I think.”
“Connectives compel,” the Caleban said. “Does this expand understanding?”
“Compels . . . a compulsion?”
“Venture movement,” the Caleban said.
“Venture what?”
“That which remains stationary when all else moves,” the Caleban said. “Thus, connective. Infinity concept empties itself without connective.”
“Whoooooheee!” Furuneo said.
At this point he asked to be let outside for a rest.
Furuneo was no closer to understanding why the Caleban maintained such a high temperature in the Beachball.
“Consequences of swiftness,” the Caleban said, varying this under questioning with “Rapidity convergence.” Or “Perhaps concept of generated movement arrives closer.”
“Some kind of friction?” Furuneo probed.
“Uncompensated relationship of dimensions possibly arrives at closest approximation,” the Caleban answered.
Now, reviewing these frustrating exchanges, Furuneo blew on his hands to warm them. The sun had set, and a chill wind was beginning to move off the bluff toward the water.
Either I freeze to death or bake, he thought. Where in the universe is McKie?
At this point Tuluk made long-distance contact through one of the Bureau Taprisiots. Furuneo, who had been seeking a more sheltered position in the lee of the Beachball, felt the pineal ignition. He brought down the foot he had been lifting in a step, planted the foot firmly in a shallow pool of water, and lost all bodily sensation. Mind and call were one.
“This is Tuluk at the lab,” the caller said. “Apologies for intrusion and all that.”
“I think you just made me put a foot in cold water,” Furuneo said.
“Well, here’s some more cold water for you. You’re to have that friendly Caleban pick up McKie in six hours, time elapse measured from four hours and fifty-one minutes ago. Synchronize.”
“Standard measure?”
“Of course, standard!”
“Where is he?”
“He doesn’t know. Wherever that Caleban sent him. Any idea how it’s done?”
“It’s done with connectives,” Furuneo said.
“Is that right? What are connectives?”
“When I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”
“That sounds like a temporal contradiction, Furuneo.”
“Probably is. All right, let me get my foot out of the water. It’s probably frozen solid by now.”
“You’ve the synchronized time coordinate for picking up McKie?”
“I got it! And I hope she doesn’t send him home.”
“How’s that?”
Furuneo explained.
“Sounds confusing.”
“I’m glad you figured that out. For a moment there, I thought you weren’t
approaching our problem with sufficient seriousness.”
Among Wreaves seriousness and sincerity are almost as basic as they are with Taprisiots, but Tuluk had worked among humans long enough to recognize the jibe. “Well, every being has its own insanity,” he said.
It was a Wreave aphorism, but it sounded sufficiently close to something the Caleban might have said that Furuneo experienced a momentary angeret-enforced rage and sensed his ego shimmering away from him. He shuddered his way back to mental solidity.
“Did you almost lose yourself?” Tuluk asked.
“Will you sign off and let me get my foot out of the water?”
“I receive the impression you are fatigued,” Tuluk said. “Get some rest.”
“When I can. I hope I don’t fall asleep in the Caleban hothouse. I’d wake up done just about right for a cannibal dinner.”
“Sometimes you humans express yourselves in a disgusting fashion,” the Wreave said. “But you’d better remain alert for a while. McKie may require punctuality.”
He was the kind of man who created his own death.
—Epitaph for Alichino Furuneo
It was dark, but she needed no light for black thoughts.
Damn Cheo for a sadistic fool! It had been a mistake to finance the surgery that had transformed the Pan Spechi into an ego-frozen freak. Why couldn’t he stay the way he’d been when they’d first met? So exotic . . . so . . . so . . . exciting.
He was still useful, though. And there was no doubt he’d been the first to see the magnificent possibilities in their discovery. That, at least, remained exciting.
She reclined on a softly furred chairdog, one of the rare feline adaptives that had been taught to lull their masters by purring. The soothing vibrations moved through her flesh as though seeking out irritations to subdue. So relaxing.
She sighed.
Her apartment occupied the top ring of the tower they had had built on this world, safe in the knowledge that their hiding place lay beyond the reach of any law or any communication except that granted through a single Caleban—who had but a short time to live.
But how had McKie come here? And what had McKie meant, that he’d had a call through a Taprisiot?
The chairdog, sensitive to her mood, stopped purring as Abnethe sat up. Had Fanny Mae lied? Did another Caleban remain who could find this place?
Granted that the Caleban’s words were difficult to understand—granted this, yes, there was yet no mistaking the essentials. This world was a place whose key lay in only one mind, that of Madame Mliss Abnethe.
She sat straight on the chairdog.
And there would be death without suffering to make this place forever safe—a giant orgasm of death. Only one door, and death would close it. The survivors, all chosen by herself, would live on in happiness here beyond all . . . connectives . . .
Whatever those were.
She stood up, began pacing back and forth in the darkness. The rug, a creature adapted like the chairdog, squirmed its furry surface at the caress of her feet.
An amused smile came over her face.
Despite the complications and the strange timing it required, they’d have to increase the tempo of the floggings. Fanny Mae must be forced to discontinue as soon as possible. To kill without suffering among the victims, this was a prospect she found she could still contemplate.
But there was need for hurry.
Furuneo leaned, half dozing, against a wall within the Beachball. Sleepily he cursed the heat. His mindclock said there was slightly less than an hour remaining until the time for picking up McKie. Furuneo had tried to explain the time schedule to the Caleban, but she persisted in misunderstanding.
“Lengths extend and distend,” she had said. “They warp and sift with vague movements between one and another. Thus time remains inconstant.”
Inconstant?
The vortal tube of a S’eye jumpdoor snapped open just beyond the Caleban’s giant spoon. The face and bare shoulders of Abnethe appeared in the opening.
Furuneo pushed himself away from the wall, shook his head to restore alertness. Damnation, it was hot in here!
“You are Alichino Furuneo,” Abnethe said. “Do you know me?”
“I know you.”
“I recognized you at once,” she said. “I know most of your stupid Bureau’s planetary agents by sight. I’ve found it profitable.”
“Are you here to flog this poor Caleban?” Furuneo asked. He felt for the holoscan in his pocket, moved into a position for a rush toward the jumpdoor as McKie had ordered.
“Don’t make me close this door before we’ve had a little discussion,” she said.
Furuneo hesitated. He was no Saboteur Extraordinary, but you didn’t get to be a planetary agent without recognizing when to disobey a senior agent’s orders.
“What’s to discuss?” he asked.
“Your future,” she said.
Furuneo stared up into her eyes. The emptiness of them appalled him. This woman was ridden by a compulsion.
“My future?” he asked.
“Whether you’re to have any future,” she said.
“Don’t threaten me,” he said.
“Cheo tells me,” she said, “that you’re a possibility for our project.”
For no reason he could explain, Furuneo knew this to be a lie. Odd how she gave herself away. Her lips trembled when she said that name—Cheo.
“Who’s Cheo?” he asked.
“That’s unimportant at the moment.”
“What’s your project, then?”
“Survival.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “What else is new?” He wondered what she would do if he brought out the holoscan and started recording.
“Did Fanny Mae send McKie hunting for me?” she asked.
That question was important to her, Furuneo saw. McKie must have stirred up merry hob.
“You’ve seen McKie?” he asked.
“I refuse to discuss McKie,” she said.
It was an insane response, Furuneo thought. She’d been the one to bring McKie into the conversation.
Abnethe pursed her lips, studied him. “Are you married, Alichino Furuneo?” she asked.
He frowned. Her lips had trembled again. Surely she knew his marital status. If it was valuable for her to recognize him, it was thrice valuable to know his strengths and weaknesses. What was her game?
“My wife is dead,” he said.
“How sad,” she murmured.
“I get along,” he said, angry. “You can’t live in the past.”
“Ahhh, that is where you may be wrong,” she said.
“What’re you driving at, Abnethe?”
“Let’s see,” she said, “your age—sixty-seven standard, if I recall correctly.”
“You recall correctly, as you damn well know.”
“You’re young,” she said. “You look even younger. I’d guess you’re a vital person who enjoys life.”
“Don’t we all?” he asked.
It was going to be a bribe offer, then, he thought.
“We enjoy life when we have the proper ingredients,” she said. “How odd it is to find a person such as yourself in that stupid Bureau.”
This was close enough to a thought Furuneo had occasionally nurtured for himself that he began wondering about this Cheo and the mysterious project with its possibilities. What were they offering?
They studied each other for a moment. It was the weighted assessment of two contestants about to enter a competition.
Would she offer herself? Furuneo wondered. She was an attractive female: generous mouth, large green eyes, a pleasant oval face. He’d seen the holoscans of her figure—the Beautybarbers had done well by her. She’d maintained herself with all the expensive care her money could buy. But would she offer herself to him? He found this difficult to contemplate. Motives and stakes didn’t fit.
“What’re you afraid of?” he asked.
It was a good opening attack, but she an
swered him with a peculiar note of sincerity: “Suffering.”
Furuneo tried to swallow in a dry throat. He hadn’t been celibate since Mada’s death, but that had been a special kind of marriage. It had gone beyond words and bodies. If anything remained solid and basic, connective, in the universe, their kind of love did. He had but to close his eyes to feel the memory-presence of her. Nothing could replace that, and Abnethe must know it. She couldn’t offer him anything unobtainable elsewhere.
Or could she?
“Fanny Mae,” Abnethe said, “are you prepared to honor the request I made?”
“Connective appropriate,” the Caleban said.
“Connectives!” Furuneo exploded. “What are connectives?”
“I don’t really know,” Abnethe said, “but apparently I can exploit them without knowing.”
“What’re you cooking up?” Furuneo demanded. He wondered why his skin felt suddenly chilled in spite of the heat.
“Fanny Mae, show him,” Abnethe said.
The jumpdoor’s vortal tube flickered open, closed, danced and shimmered. Abruptly, Abnethe no longer was visible in it. The door stood open once more, looking down now onto a sunny jungle shore, a softly heaving ocean surface, an oval stabo-yacht hanging in stasis above a clearing and a sandy beach. The yacht’s afterdeck shields lay open to the sun, exposing almost in the center of the deck a young woman stretched out in repose, facedown on a floater hammock. Her body was drinking the rays of a tuned sun filter.
Furuneo stared, unable to move. The young woman lifted her head, stared out to sea, lay back.
Abnethe’s voice came from directly over his head, another jumpdoor obviously, but he couldn’t take his gaze from that well-remembered scene. “You recognize this?” she asked.
“It’s Mada,” he whispered.
“Precisely.”
“Oh, my god,” he whispered. “When did you scan that?”
“It is your beloved, you’re sure?” Abnethe asked.
“It’s . . . it’s our honeymoon,” he whispered. “I even know the day. Friends took me to visit the seadome, but she didn’t enjoy swimming and stayed behind.”
“How do you know the actual day?”
“The flambok tree at the edge of the clearing: It bloomed that day, and I missed it. See the umbrella flower?”
“Oh, yes. Then you’ve no doubt about the authenticity of this scene?”