The Sagittarius Whorl

  After a strenuous crawl through an abandoned sewer, we had come to a very old masonry culvert, part of some antiquated stream-diversion system buried deep under the old quay. The tall arched tunnel was half full of fast-moving black water. By that time I was exhausted, since we'd been on the go with hardly a letup for nearly eight hours.

  I rested on a wide ledge with a lantern perched beside me, while Mohammed searched with his flashlight for the improvised bridge over the stream that existed in Dark Path folklore—and also, we hoped, in reality.

  Suddenly, a pack of hideously diseased scavengers came rushing out of the darkness, screaming like wildcats, intent on separating us from our possessions. I think they were human, but the few glimpses I caught of them in the lamplight were inconclusive. We fought. I threw four of the smelly varmints into the rushing water, where they either drowned or ended up dog-paddling in Lake Ontario. Mohammed used the last of his Ivanov darts subduing the other five.

  We finally found the makeshift bridge, crossed over, and entered the Queen's Quay Dark Path. It was an abandoned goods-delivery system that once served waterfront buildings, now inhabited only by rats. They minded their own business and so did we, traveling eastward for three miserable kilometers through passages partially flooded with icy water. We nearly perished from hypothermia before finding a friendly tribe of genuine Indians, Throwaways from Infinitum, the gambling and entertainment colossus, near the Parliament Street junction. They let us dry out in front of their space heaters and gave us hot food and coffee. My Halukoid appearance didn't seem to bother them in the least.

  The last part of the trip was anticlimactic, 1,500 meters of dry storm drains—we were still beneath the force-field umbrella—cramped utility conduits with snarls of ancient fiberoptic and electrical cable, and the walled-off subbasements of vanished public housing units.

  We arrived in Cabbagetown shortly before midnight, emerging through a drain grate into a small park.

  "The town house you want is in the next block," Mohammed informed me. "Make your phone call."

  I sat in deep shadows with my back against a tree trunk. The little park was forlorn and deserted, its shrubs leafless, the flowerbeds empty, and the fountain turned off for the winter.

  Mohammed crouched beside me. "Go ahead," he urged. "What are you waiting for? I want to get home tonight."

  I hesitated because I was afraid. The long, perilous journey hadn't terrified me, but the prospect of making this phone call did. I stalled. "How do you expect to get back to Grange Place tonight? It's too far. Too dangerous."

  "Damn right it is, man. But only if you take the Dark Path. I'm going to walk crosstown on the surface, right down Dundas Street for three klicks, till I get to Spadina and our regular bolt-hole. It'll be a breeze, now that I don't have a fuckin' Haluk fugitive in tow. Make the phone call!"

  Dex Assistance gave me the code. I tapped it in, keeping the viewer inactive. Got an answer and a face.

  "Yes? Who is this, please?"

  "It's Helly," I whispered. "I need to see you immediately."

  "Helly?"

  "Please listen. I'm in trouble. Serious trouble. You know what—what's going on in the Assembly. The free-for-all about the three hundred new Haluk planets. My own close involvement as Rampart syndic."

  "Yes. But I don't see—"

  "The demiclone spy accusations. They're true. The—The person using my name, giving statements to the media, is an impostor. A clone. I've been kept prisoner by the Haluk for seven months while this other man has used my identity to discredit Efrem Sontag's investigation."

  A protracted silence. "This isn't... some sick practical joke?"

  "No. It's true. I only escaped from the Haluk tower a few days ago. I've been hiding in the Dark Path. Under the city."

  "Good God. And you want—"

  "Your help. Please. There's no one else I can turn to. No one who would believe me."

  "Your voice—"

  "I know. I've been through hell. It's not the only thing about me that's changed. But I can prove who I am. Here's a secret password: Kashagawigamog."

  "The lake where you almost drowned when you were five years old."

  "Where Eve saved my life, then beat the shit out of me for disobeying orders and going out in the canoe alone, without a life vest. I told you about it when we visited that art gallery in Haliburton."

  Another interminable pause, then: "All right. I'll listen to what you have to say. Come to my town house. Do you know where it is?"

  "Yes. I'm only a block away. I'll use the back door. You wouldn't want your neighbors to see me coming in."

  "Why not?"

  "Trust me."

  "Very well. I'll leave the rear garden gate unlocked. Come through the alley."

  "There's something I have to warn you about. My appearance. I don't want to frighten you, but—"

  "I don't frighten easily. You of all people ought to know that."

  "Yes. I'm sorry. But I'd better show you what was done to me by the Haluk. I'm not the man you remember." I activated my viewer pickup.

  "Jesus Christ," Joanna whispered.

  "They demicloned a Haluk, gave him my DNA. This— This change is a side effect of the genen process."

  Her eyes were full of sudden tears. "Oh, Helly!"

  My name. She used my name. "It is me, Joanna. I need you so very much."

  "Come," my former wife said.

  So I did.

  Chapter 8

  I jogged wearily toward Joanna's place with my baseball cap pulled low, praying I wouldn't meet another night-runner who'd notice my filthy athletic clothes and outlandish features. I figured the chance of Haluk agents physically watching her place was vanishingly remote. More subtle varieties of spying were possible—even satellite eyes. But I'd had no relationship with Joanna for years, and I was fairly certain that the aliens would have discounted her as someone I'd call on for help. They'd be concentrating their surveillance efforts on Karl Nazarian and my other associates, on my family, and on Efrem Sontag.

  That night, the pleasant streets of Cabbagetown seemed almost deserted. Paving-stone sidewalks, lamp posts that simulated gaslights, big old trees. A two-meter-high ornamental iron fence surrounded each row of town houses. The locked gates in front of each unit had security boxes with viewscreens. Following inner-city guidelines, there was no private hopper pad anywhere nearby. You didn't fly into affluent enclaves like Cabbagetown; you drove or cycled or walked, and you didn't leave your vehicle parked overnight in front of the house, either.

  There were six large town houses in Joanna's row, built in the gracious style of the previous century—gray clapboard facades, heavy white window frames, overhanging eaves, attic dormers on the third floor, multiple chimneys, little sheltering porticos with hanging lanterns above each front door. The houses shared a two-story mews in the rear that had garage space for twelve cars below, exercise and hobby rooms upstairs.

  I jogged around onto a side street and entered the alley. The mews building sported brass carriage lamps. A single gate beside it gave admittance to the communal garden. The telltale on its card-lock box glowed green, and when I tried the gate, it swung open silently.

  Her back porch light hadn't been turned on and the lower part of her house was dark. Blinds were drawn in two illuminated rooms on the second floor.

  I crept up the steps. Before I could touch the bell pad, the door opened and I saw a tall, slender woman silhouetted against indirect light from an inner hall. She wore a tightly belted crimson velvet robe over a high-necked white nightgown. Her blond hair was still long, as I had remembered it. Freed from its chignon, a single glossy braid fell over her right breast.

  She stared at me, austere features shadowed, eyes wide and touched with twin sparks from the carriage lights, lips parted in a soundless cry of trepidation. My grotesque face seen on a small phone viewer lacked the impact of solid, atrocious reality.

  "It's me, Joanna," I said gently. "It really is me."


  "Yes. Come in." Her voice was steady. She stepped aside as I entered and then locked the door. For a few seconds we stood still, studying each other in the half-light like cornball characters from an old grade-B science-fiction movie: the attractive woman in her nightclothes and the monstrous alien intruder.

  Then she said, "Phew! Why didn't you tell me you'd been hiding in a sewer?" Before I could reply, she strode off briskly. "Come with me. Before we do anything else, you've got to have a long, hot shower."

  I followed meekly through the kitchen and up the back staircase to a sumptuous bathroom on the second floor. "Put those nasty clothes of yours into the valet and use the disinfect setting. You'd better program a serious germkiller bodyscrub, too. The shower has an enormous spritz selection—although I can't say I've ever had to use the industrial-strength option myself. There are guest toiletries in the large cabinet. Toothbrushes and the like." She paused and gave me a quizzical look. "Umm ... you do still have teeth?"

  I burst out laughing and bared them in an un-Haluk grin. They felt like my originals, even though the spaces between them appeared to have expanded. Then I playfully stuck my tongue out at her as well, and instantly regretted it. Earlier, I'd vaguely felt that the organ was a tad abnormal. Now the mirrors in the bright bathroom revealed that it had become obscenely long and agile. I could easily touch the underside of my chin with it. And it was colored a rich plum-purple.

  "Holy shit!" said Joanna DeVet, Morehouse Professor of Political Science. She backed away from me into the hall. When I made a piteous noise she forced herself to smile. "It's not such a bad tongue. Rather handsome, as those things go. Can you unfurl it like a chameleon and catch flies?"

  "I'll have to give that a try one of these days," I said wretchedly.

  "I'm sorry, Helly. I shouldn't joke about it. It's just so ..."

  "Alien," I said softly.

  "Yes," she agreed. "Are you hungry? Can you eat human food?"

  "My last meal was rat stew, dished out by feral Native Americans living in waterfront catacombs. I'm famished."

  "I have half a tandoori chicken with spicy yogurt sauce, nan bread, and rozkoz-poppyseed coffee cake from Granowska's." Joanna hated to cook, but she knew the best takeout and home-delivery places in the city.

  I said, "The chicken sounds just great."

  "Is there anything else you need, dear?"

  She said it so sweetly, with such natural, heartfelt concern, that I felt my throat tighten and my eyes begin to fog.

  Oh, Joanna. Why had I been such a self-centered fool?

  But there was no time now for sentimentality. In spite of her composed demeanor, my former wife was undoubtedly in a state of profound emotional turmoil. I had to keep her calm if she was going to be of any use to me.

  Use.

  That was the only reason I'd come to her, right? Not for asylum and solace, but for help in resuming my quixotic crusade against the Haluk. So I'd better get on with it...

  "Does your phone have Phase XII encryption capability?" I asked.

  "Yes. I've never used that, either." She sighed. "I suppose we're about to go into serious cloak-and-dagger mode."

  "Call the Interstellar Commerce Secretariat Forensic Division. Ask for the emergency voice mail of Chief Superintendent Beatrice Mangan. She's the head of the ICS molecular biology department and an old colleague of mine who knows all about the Haluk demiclone threat."

  "Yes, I know who she is. She was one of the most impressive witnesses during Delegate Sontag's open committee sessions, testifying about the demiclone corpse."

  I went on. "Show your face and transmit your iris ID, then leave a message asking Bea to call you at home as soon as possible, max encrypt."

  "Do I mention your name?"

  "Absolutely not. You're going to have to be my mouthpiece for a while until I gain credibility. Somehow, without telling Bea anything about me or my situation, get her to come to your house early tomorrow. It's imperative that she not be followed, and I don't want her to risk coming at night. The Haluk are certain to have her under surveillance. Ask her to bring a portable genetic assay kit with her, and a phone with a datalink to ICS."

  "I see where you're going. Your DNA will identify you positively."

  "Even better. Bea can confirm that the Haluk embellishments in my genome are the result of an illegal demicloning procedure."

  "What will you do then—go to the media?"

  "Eventually. There are more urgent matters to take care of. I've been in a dystasis tank for seven months, and I need to get back up to speed on current events before I make any drastic moves. For that I could use your help, Joanna. If you're willing."

  "Of course. I have a large library of reference materials here. I can provide you with whatever information you need."

  "As soon as Bea Mangan is ready to vouch for me, I intend to show myself to Delegate Efrem Sontag and my close associate Karl Nazarian—perhaps to Eve and my father as well. We'll work together to decide the best way of blitzing the blueberries. Don't worry, we won't use your house as our command post. I won't endanger you, any more than I have already by simply coming here."

  "I'm willing to take risks, Helly," she said simply. "If it will help you."

  Her unexpected loyalty struck me mute, shamed me.

  "Joanna. Thank you. But I've got to get out of Toronto. The capital's a hotbed of Haluk. Everyone knows that their embassy staff and trade delegation number in the thousands. And I'd bet the ranch that a sizable percentage of them are out beating the bushes for me right now."

  "What about the Haluk impostor using your identity? He's been very plausible, you know. I certainly would never have doubted him."

  "The active Fake Helly demiclone isn't an alien. He's a transmuted human. The Haluk made two copies of me."

  "Don't you want to expose him at once?"

  "I'll need help blowing the whistle on this guy. He's more than a Haluk apologist and secret agent—he's dangerously insane."

  "You know that for a fact?"

  "Oh, yes. And I'm not the only one who thinks so."

  "Who in the world is this monster of depravity?"

  "Alistair Drummond, the former Gala CEO. He didn't die in Arizona."

  "Good heavens!" She thought about it for a moment. "How ... absolutely perfect."

  "I'm sure the Haluk thought so, too, when Drummond presented his ingenious little scheme to their leadership. They also realized that the man is a ticking timebomb, and planned to replace him with a more trustworthy Fake Helly as soon as possible. A Haluk demiclone. That won't happen now. My second clone is very, very dead." I couldn't help the grim satisfaction in my voice.

  Joanna gave me a look. Political scientists aren't slow to grasp unpleasant tactical realities. "So the Haluk are stuck with Drummond, who no doubt has an agenda of his own."

  "Damned right he does. When he tricked Eve and the Rampart board into making him president of the Concern, he put himself in a position to do immense damage. With the Galapharma consolidation, there are now nearly six thousand planets under Rampart control. Drummond has access to databases for all of them. He can control their starship fleets, their internal and external defenses, even their management rosters. For all we know, he might have put Haluk demiclone moles into top executive positions in Rampart Tower and on significant numbers of Rampart worlds in both the Perseus Spur and the Orion Arm. He's had plenty of time. Personnel reshuffling during the consolidation would have made his actions seem logical. I'm sure he's also used his position as Corporate Syndic to promote the Haluk cause effectively among the Assembly Delegates."

  She nodded. "He's been very ardent in his defense of the aliens, personally appealing, utterly convincing. Certainly no one would ever suspect him of being—" She touched the side of her head.

  "A flaming nutcase? Hardly. When he organized the Rampart takeover conspiracy, he was motived by hubris and overweening ambition. Now, I suspect he's out for revenge—against me, against Rampart, perhaps eve
n against the entire human race. We can't simply discredit Drummond and expect him to quietly surrender. He'll find ways to fight back the minute he realizes he and his Haluk allies are being seriously threatened. There may be only one practical way to deal with him."

  "I see." And she did, too. "You and your friends are going to be facing some tricky realpolitik decisions. The Assembly vote on the new Haluk planets is expected very soon. Perhaps within two weeks."

  "We've got to shoot that bill down, Joanna." I spoke with desperate urgency. "The aliens can't be allowed to bring vast numbers of colonists into the Spur. With Drummond's help, they'd find a way to seize all of Zone 23. And that's not even the worst of it. The Haluk have a secret base in a Sagittarian asteroid. Last April their pirates were using it to hijack Sheltok transactinide carriers. By now the damn place might have been expanded into a staging point for an all-out attack against our starship fuel supply."

  "Helly, this is appalling! You'll have to go to the media at once. Concentrating your efforts on the Assembly members themselves might not be effective. The Hundred Concerns want the Haluk colony bill to pass. A majority of the Delegates will bow to their pressure unless the constituency absolutely forces them to do otherwise."

  "Through media exposure."

  "Yes. The Commonwealth constitution has provisions for a citizen referendum under certain circumstances. But the Assembly itself must—"

  I interrupted her, suddenly overcome by a crushing fatigue that was both physical and mental. "Later, Joanna.

  Please. I know Sontag and the others will welcome your expert advice. We'll talk about all that tomorrow. But for now, just convince Bea Mangan to come over here in the morning. Before I can do anything else, I have to prove that I exist."

  "I'll call her at once." Impulsively, she extended her hand. I took it very carefully in my inhuman blue one, bowed my head over it in an archaic gesture of courtesy that seemed instinctive, and released it.

  Joanna blinked, then let her gaze fall. "I'll bring the food to my little sitting room at the end of the hall." She turned away and went down the back stairs.