“Ready for another dialogue?” It was Piebald again, summoning Finesse from her cell. She saw with horror that he carried a whip.
Knot saw the parking lot—and drove on by. I can’t wait any half hour! I must help her now!
But Mit says—
We’ll have to chance it.
I should not have relayed Finesse’s sending, the weasel thought dolefully.
Keep on relaying her sending! Knot ordered sternly. All becomes meaningless, if I do not rescue her.
A car converged on him, its air-inflated tires screaming as though that air were leaking out. Now the lobos have spotted you, Hermine said with a weasel thought-rebuke for his folly. Yet she also supported him, for this was exactly the sort of intemperate action a fighting weasel would have taken.
Knot angled his truck suddenly, brushing the car. The car squealed to the side, and off the road. That felt good, Knot told Hermine.
Yes. But more are coming.
Indeed there were. He could see their lights coming up behind, and Hermine verified that these were lobos. How far to the bridge? Knot demanded. In the dark he had little notion of the landscape, but was under the impression that the subway train had taken him a good distance in the general direction of the chasm, and so he should only need to cut across to reach the bridge.
Not far. But they know you’re going there, and are cutting you off. They have picked up Fash and made him talk. You must go elsewhere.
Finesse is across that bridge, isn’t she?
Yes, but—
I am crossing.
Finesse would call you a fool.
She’s right. But this fool is going to rescue her.
Mit says—
Mit said we couldn’t escape the solar station or the farm fields.
Ahead! she thought, alarmed.
A car was pulling across the road, blocking it off. Can I swerve past it on the right?
Slow to more moderate velocity, swerve suddenly, cut back immediately. Make your own siren squeal. Very narrow aperture, Mit says.
Knot slowed, following Mit’s running reminders so as to get it just right. He swerved—and met the lights of an oncoming vehicle, head-on. He swerved back, and the wind of the close pass made the truck shudder. “Mit wasn’t fooling,” he muttered aloud. “If I hadn’t had his precognition, chances are I would have killed myself, not to mention a weasel.” That realization did not horrify him, however; he was partially intoxicated with the adventure of it. Now he thought to turn off his headlights, to make his vehicle harder to spot. There was enough ambient illumination for him to see the road.
The lobos are shaken, Hermine thought. They think you’re a crazy man.
I am! Knot accelerated, no longer caring about the speed limit or personal safety. The unsafest thing he could do now was dawdle.
More cars, she warned.
He saw their lights, blocking off the bridge access.
“Move, bastards,” he breathed. “I’m coming through anyway!”
But the cars did not move. They are empty! Hermine thought, alarmed. Avoid them!
Too late! I’d turn us over!
Mit says we must crash.
Knot saw the collision coming, as it were in slow motion. Yet he knew he could not avert it. If he tried to pass on the right, he would sail right into the chasm. Better to take the crash. He just might knock a car out of the way so that he could continue onto the bridge.
He plowed into the nearest car. The truck’s stasis unit cut in at the moment of impact. Knot’s body was frozen, eyes fixed forward, but he was aware of the proceedings.
The truck smashed the car aside, but veered to the left, ricocheting. It careened on across the road, left the pavement, rolled across an interim section, burst through a wooden barrier, and toppled over the lip of the chasm.
CHAPTER 9:
The stasis cut out again as the truck spun slowly, end over end, in a trajectory toward the water. The unit could not tell the difference between a free-rolling and a free-flying vehicle. The walls of the canyon seemed to rotate as they drew together. Then the truck struck the water, and the stasis cut in again.
When the motion stopped, the stasis ended. This time it was permanent, for water was flooding the mechanism, shorting it out. Suddenly Knot was scrambling for his life, as the water rushed into the cab. Stay with me, he thought to the animals, not taking time to check on them.
He got the window the rest of the way down and drew himself out, stroking unevenly for the surface. The water was not deep, but there was a current. His head broke the surface, and he gasped for air.
A brilliant set of moons illuminated the canyon as if it were day; they must have been shining all the time, but during the chase he had been too preoccupied to pay attention. Now they brightened the surface of the water, making the river seem like a thick black tide beneath the sparkling wavelets.
He had survived—but how was he going to help Finesse now? He was trapped in the mutant enclave, from which there was no ready exit.
Mit! Hermine thought. She was clinging to Knot’s shoulder. He’s loose in the water!
Knot froze momentarily with alarm, then relaxed. He’s a crab, isn’t he? Water is his natural environment. He can’t drown.
He doesn’t like fresh water.
Hm. That might be like trying to breathe the wrong kind of atmosphere. Keep in touch with him; we’ll fish him out.
Knot was not a good swimmer, because his uneven body made effective stroking difficult, but he could handle himself well enough with side-stroke. He moved to the shore while Hermine maintained contact with Mit. He wanted to fetch a stick or bar that he could use to poke into the bottom of the river, for the crab to catch hold of. The nether water was somewhat murky, and Knot did not relish the idea of scratching through whatever wreckage and garbage might be down there with his tender bare hands.
A crowd of enclave mutants had gathered in the moon’s light, attracted by the splash of the truck’s arrival. They were grotesquely varied. One had four spindly legs; another had a split head, with an eye and half a nose on each split. A third had a face that seemed to be mostly nose, with the other features squeezed to the edges. Knot thought of Finesse, with her smashed and swollen nose: she must feel like this, at the moment.
“Are you mute or norm?” a rotund person called; the flesh bulged so oddly that Knot could not distinguish age or sex.
Knot stood up in the shallow edge of the river. He held his uneven arms aloft. “What do I look like?”
“Min-mute,” the person responded contemptuously. “We don’t want your kind here. Go on downstream.”
Some welcome! Their minds, Hermine thought. They are not nice people. They are like scavenger rats. They will attack you.
“I’m going,” Knot called, and waded back into deeper water. Where is Mit? I’ll have to go after him barehanded after all. Can I dive for him here?
He was carried downstream. He is clinging to an underwater plant. We can reach him safely.
Knot swam slowly, conserving his strength, letting the current take him. He was not tired yet, but feared he would need every last bit of his strength to climb the chasm side and escape the enclave. He dreaded the prospect; heights of that nature bothered him.
When he was in the right position, he followed the weasel’s directive and dived. Guided by Hermine’s continuing thoughts, he reached through the opaque water unerringly and caught the crab’s shell in his large hand. No trouble at all. They were together again.
Mit says you are too close to normal, physically, Hermine thought as they came to the surface once more. Most mutants here will not welcome you.
I have no intention of staying here anyway. Ask Mit to show me most feasible route up the side.
Mit says you can’t climb it. You would fall and die.
Sobering warning! How do I get out, so I can rescue Finesse?
There is no route, in this enclave. Only if vehicle comes from the normals. A hovercraft.
r /> The normals have no interest in me. It could only be a lobo machine. We don’t want that.
Then we must remain in the enclave.
Knot saw that he would have to change some more rules. One way or another, he was getting out of here.
It is fun to observe you planning the impossible.
No doubt. But with Finesse being tortured, he had to do it rapidly. I shall operate on the assumption that there is a fast way out of here, that will work for the three of us even if the inhabitants of this enclave are trapped. Can Mit provide any hint of the route?
There was a pause. The situation is too complex, and your mind is too devious. You refuse to be bound by common sense, and precognition is an extension of common sense. Mit cannot grasp it. All he knows is that nowhere in this chasm is there a route you can use to pass the cliffs that bound it.
Then we’ll simplify. Where will I be in one day?
Another pause. The possibilities radiate, Mit says. You are giving him a mind-ache.
Pick the most typical one, Knot thought ruthlessly.
The weasel consulted with the crab again. When her thought came, there was a tinge of amusement. You are mating with an enclave female in the water.
But I love Finesse! he protested.
Yes. It will be very interesting.
Am I out of enclave—or on the way out?
Trying to get out.
Knot shrugged in the water. Well, let’s get on with it. Have Mit lead us to the first person who can and will help us escape.
More consultation. There are few who have any notion—
Let’s isolate the information. Who here knows any way out?
Few do. They are confined by the canyon walls and the rapids.
Do any swim or tunnel? Do any explore?
Hermine brightened. Mit says yes. A mermaid—she knows the whole river, and the cavern passes. Her name is Thea.
Find me that mermaid!
You want to mate with her? Hermine inquired mischievously.
Oops. She’s the one?
Yes. She can’t breed with most males; they are not interfertile. With a normal she might conceive.
Knot grasped the situation. A mutant confined to the water—there would be no point for her to try to leave the enclave. If she wanted to birth and raise a child, she had to find a non-enclave man. So she was caught between untenable alternatives: Locate a man who probably did not exist in the enclave, or give up her dream of a family. I am a mutant too; would I be fertile with her?
Mit can’t tell yet. You might be.
Because physically he was only minimally mutant, and fertility among mutants increased as they approached norm. If that was the price of his escape, he would have to pay it. Certainly he was prepared to go through worse trials to rescue Finesse.
Something in that connection jogged his memory without quite tripping it. Finesse—sex—other partners—what was it?
Well, he could ask. Ask Mit what I am trying to remember.
Mit says CC blanked it from your mind because it was not good for you to know.
To hell with what CC thinks is good for me to know!
There are several things Mit knows that we don’t. I can read his mind, but these things are blocked from me.
Knot could see why. Had he known about Hermine and Mit at the time the lobos questioned him under the drug, the lobos would have killed the animals before they ever had a chance to help Knot escape. But in this particular case, he was determined to know. No one is questioning me now. Make Mit tell.
Hermine hesitated, then answered. She is married.
Married! To another man? But now that memory, keyed in by Mit’s information, was returning. Finesse had been married, with a child—but had gotten a temporary divorce in order to serve in this mission. She had made a greater sacrifice than Knot had, for in her heart she remained married to the other man.
I don’t care if she is married, Knot decided. I don’t want her captive and tortured. I’ll rescue her return her to her family.
Nevertheless, the news dismayed him. Finesse, realistically, could never be his. He did not want her as a temporary liaison; he wanted her forever.
Yet what about her dream? She had made love to him, Knot, in that dream. If she loved another man—
CC blanked out her memory of her marriage, too, Hermine explained. It didn’t like the disruption caused when she revealed the fact of her marriage to you.
CC has some nerve!
After your mission is successful and you save CC, CC will restore all memories, Hermine thought. Since you agree that some memories are dangerous in the neighborhood of the enemy...
But when the memory is of a husband, a family, to enable a woman to think she loves another man—that is insidious and awful. Yet Knot appreciated the necessity, and decided to let the matter be, for now. If he wrestled with the matter too much, he might decide he didn’t want to work for CC any more.
One thing this news did, however: it largely eviscerated any scruples he might have had about making love to other women. He wanted to save Finesse, yes, and would do so—but he had to start preparing himself for attachments elsewhere, so that he could send Finesse back to her husband in due course.
Let’s be on our way, he thought briskly.
A complication. There is a water monster between us and the mermaid Thea.
We don’t have to swim there! We’ll walk on land.
Mit says—
Knot cut off her thought with an imperious mental emission of steam. The little crab was too conservative.
He swam for shore again—but again an assortment of mutants clustered. They were as grotesque as the others, with grossly misshapen bodies, superfluous limbs, widely misplaced orifices and organs of perception. Knot had worked with similar cases all his life, but the degree differed; these mutes were more exaggerated. And their attitude was savage. They brandished crude weapons. They were not gesturing him away; instead they were wading aggressively toward him. Knot hardly needed Hermine’s warning to know that these mutants considered him to be fair prey. That made them more horrendous than anything else. He retreated hastily.
Farther along, the canyon walls closed in. There were no people here—but also no room to walk. He had to remain in the water, though he was getting fatigued by the constant effort to stay afloat. It was easiest with the side-stroke, but then he could watch only to one side. That wasn’t safe.
Monster, Hermine warned.
Knot stroked hastily for the side. But it was fully as inaccessible as it had seemed; the water lapped at an almost vertical wall. Now he saw the monster: a greenish, multi-armed mutant with almost crocodilian jaws. Probably many water-suitable mutants had sought this river; now Knot understood why he had encountered none. Only the fittest had survived. Unfortunately, fitness as defined by nature hardly matched fitness as defined by civilization.
A weapon, he thought. Where—
The pistol, Hermine responded.
It was still with him, but he wasn’t sure it would work after the prolonged immersion. Such weapons were supposed to be sealed watertight, but—
It was all he had. He raised it to point at the monster. “Halt, or I fire!”
The monster halted. Its small, wide-spaced eyes could not focus; it had to turn its head sidewise to examine him. Knot pointed the pistol directly at the nearest eye. “Do you understand me?” he demanded. “You’re human; you must know the language.”
It understands, Hermine thought. It can’t talk. It is trying to determine whether your weapon is operative.
I’d like to know that myself!
Mit says it is not. But he says fire it anyway.
When I do, the bluff will dissipate. I don’t think I can overcome this creature barehanded.
You are correct; you cannot prevail. Pretend the pistol works.
The monster decided to call the bluff. It windmilled its limbs—there seemed to be about seven of them—and charged forward.
Th
en burn, monster! Knot thought violently, firing his useless pistol. His animal friends were crazy, but—
And the monster leaped as though holed. Bubbles rose as it sank in the water.
Now swim! Hermine thought.
Knot swam. Soon he was away from the monster, and forgotten, thanks to his psi.
The pistol did not fire, he thought. What happened?
I relayed your mental firing, Hermine explained. Mit said this would work.
Of course! As with the mental nova burst, the thought of getting beamed in a situation conducive to belief could be devastating. He should have thought of it himself. There was so much he was still learning about Psi.
Mit says there is a ledge ahead.
Knot found it: a rocky level about knee deep into the water, so that it did not show from the surface. It tilted in places, but the unevenness of Knot’s body enabled him to slog along it comfortably. It was better than swimming any more; his arms felt like clay-clad sticks.
I am very hungry, Hermine thought. I never caught my rat.
Knot realized that he was famished also. “There must be food somewhere,” he said aloud. Here, alone, there was no need to communicate silently, and speech focused his thoughts for the weasel to read. “What do all the mutants here eat?”
Mit says garbage thrown down from above.
Besides that, Knot thought with repugnance.
Mostly fish, and some plants from ledges, and each other. Nothing is wasted.
“I don’t know how to fish with bare hands, and I’m not yet ready for cannibalism. What does Mit recommend?”
He says the fastest is to ask Thea.
The mermaid again—the one he was scheduled to make love to. Well, what had to be, had to be. He had pretty well worked that out in his mind, though he was not pleased. The mutants here were so grossly deformed that even he, a mutant himself, found no pleasure in associating with them. “Can you summon her mentally?”
I think so. There was a pause while Knot continued splashing along the ledge.
He realized that he had pretty well lost the contest of predestination. The first time Mit had informed him he would do something, he had fought it all the way—and still become an agent of CC. The last time Mit had made a recommendation, about waiting half an hour in the truck, he had ignored it, and so had finished trapped in this chasm. Had he accepted Mit’s advice, he might have made it to Finesse by this time. So he either honored Mit’s predictions, or fervently wished he had done so. Still, a mer-mutant—