“See!” Kickaha said. “The data has long been obsolete! Since then, it’s been discovered that what was thought to be a superstition is fact! There are indeed such entities as ghosts and other kinds of spirits! About two thousand years ago, a Thoan named Houdini proved that there are ghosts. He also proved that they can communicate with us, but it’s seldom that we can communicate with them. The ghosts appear to be highly sensitive and gifted individuals, such as myself, and make their wishes known. Their method of communication is like a one-way gate. They can speak to us. We can’t speak to them!”
He glanced around. By now, all except Kumas were gripping the bars and looking intently at him.
“If you don’t believe me, ask them! They’ll tell you that what I said is true! Isn’t that right, men?”
None of them may have guessed rightly what he was heading for. But they were intelligent enough to play along with him. Kumas might not, but when Dingsteth asked him if Kickaha was telling the truth, the Thoan lay silent on his blankets and stared up through the bars. The others swore that what Kickaha claimed had indeed been public knowledge for a very long time.
“In fact,” Red Orc said, “this same Houdini confirmed the existence of ghosts through scientific-psychic experiments. He was able several times to see them, though faintly. But the dead sometimes come through more or less clearly in dreams.”
He looked at Kickaha as if to say, “Who the hell is Houdini?”
Kickaha held up a hand and formed an O with the fingers while Dingsteth’s back was turned to him. He was delighted that the Thoan had caught on so quickly.
Khruuz spoke loudly. “My people lived before the Thoan! We knew that there were spirits long before the Thoan became aware that we existed!”
Kickaha hoped that the clones did not get so enthusiastic that they made up “facts” that could be exposed as untruths. This game had to be played coolly and close to the chest. When Dingsteth wheeled around to see Khruuz, Kickaha gestured at Ashatelon and Wemathol to say little. Then he stopped. It had occurred to him that Dingsteth’s monitor cameras would photograph him.
If the creature did view the films and it had questions about the gestures, it would get some kind of hokey explanation from him.
Wemathol and Ashatelon told the creature that everybody had known for millennia that there was a spiritual world and that ghosts now and then did communicate through dreams. They were, however, more scornful of Dingsteth for its ignorance than Kickaha wished them to be. They could not resist their impulses to insult and demean.
If Dingsteth was affected by them, it did not show it. After turning its back to face Kickaha, it said, “Describe Zazel.”
Canny creature! Not so guileless as it seemed.
To put off the answer until he could think of an acceptable one, Kickaha said, “What do you mean? Describe his physical features? His face? His height? The relative proportions of his limbs to his trunk? The color of his hair and eyes? Whether his ears were small or large? How big a nose he had and what its shape was?”
“Yes.”
Kickaha breathed in deeply before speaking, hoping to suck in inspiration of mind as well as breath. He spoke loudly so the others could hear him clearly.
“Ah, well, he was shrouded in a mist so I couldn’t make out his face clearly. The dead appearing in mists or not clearly to the dreamer is, as I’ve said before, a common phenomenon. Isn’t that right, men?”
“Yes, indeed!”
“No doubt of it! It’s been proven!”
“If Houdini were here, he’d tell you himself that it’s true!”
“We Khringdiz had the same experiences!”
Kumas rose from his blankets, went across his cage, and screamed, “You’re all crazy!” after which he lay down again.
Dingsteth said, “He invalidates your statements.”
“Not at all,” Red Orc called. “His mind is sliding down into insanity. You will have noticed that he said `all,’ meaning everybody here, you included. You know you’re not insane. The rest of us know we’re sane.
Therefore, his statement is that of a mentally unhinged man and so does not coincide with reality.”
“That seems reasonable,” Dingsteth said. “I know that I am quite rational.”
He spoke to Kickaha, “What did Zazel say?”
“First, he greeted me. He said, ‘Niss Zatzel.’ “
Wemathol groaned. He thought that the leblabbiy Earthman had really goofed up.
” `Niss Zatzel.’ I didn’t know what he meant. Then I realized that he was speaking the Thoan of his time. He was saying `I am Zazel’ in the form of his tongue when he lived. Fortunately, the language has not changed that much. I could understand almost everything he said. When I couldn’t, I could figure it out from the context. Also, his words did not come through the mists without some distortion, some muffling, too. Both the appearance of ghosts and their voices come through as if a slightly malfunctioning gate were transmitting them.”
“I am pleased to find that out. ‘Niss Zatzel.’ You are not a Thoan, hence you would not be likely to know the ancient language.”
Kickaha decided to quote Zazel’s supposed words indirectly from here on. About all he knew of the archaic Thoan was a few words Anana had told him. He was glad that he remembered some of their conversation, which had taken place long ago.
“What did he say after that?” Dingsteth said.
Kickaha spoke slowly, his thoughts only a few words ahead of his tongue.
“He said he had learned much from the other spirits and from the Supreme Spirit who rules their land. He sees now what errors and mistakes he made while in the land of the living.”
Don’t get carried away, Kickaha told himself. Make it effective but short. The less I say, the more chance I won’t say something that’ll betray me.
“To be brief, he told me that he could not get in contact with you except through a human who was open to psychic channels. That one was me. It took him some time and energy to do it since I was emotionally upset about being imprisoned. Finally, last night, he did it in a dream of mine. He told me to tell you that we should be released and treated as guests, though Red Orc is to be watched carefully because he’s dangerous. But you are not to give anybody the data on the creation engine. You should destroy it and then let each of us go our own way.”
After a slight pause, Kickaha said, “He also told me, insisted, in fact, that the Horn of Shambarimen, which you took from Red Orc, should be given to me. It is my property, and as Zazel said, I won’t misuse it.”
Red Orc’s face paled, and it twisted into a silent snarl. But he dared not say anything that would make Dingsteth refuse to release him. On the other hand, Kickaha had to include the Thoan in the people to be freed. If he did not, Red Orc would expose him for the liar he was.
“Zazel ordered that you erase all the data about the engine because it’s a great danger to every living thing in every universe. You must do this immediately. And you must make sure the data is not retrievable. By that, he means that none of it is to be left stored in the world-brain. No one’ll be able to call it up from the world.
“Then you will let us out of our cages and permit us to gate out of this world. But Zazel ordered that Red Orc’s weapons not be given back to him and that his airboat be stripped of its beamers. We will fly our machines to the departure gate. All of us will leave together and gate through to Red Orc’s palace on Earth Two.”
Red Orc glared. He knew why Kickaha was making these terms.
Kickaha continued: “Zazel did not tell me why he wants us to do that. He must have some reason he didn’t care to tell me. But it’ll be for the best, I’m sure. The dead know everything.”
Dingsteth did not speak for several minutes. Its eyes were as unmoving as those in a statue, though it did blink. It did not shift slightly or twitch minutely as a human would have done in that rigid posture. The caged men, Kumas excepted, did not take their gazes from him.
Kickaha
murmured to himself, “Is Dingsteth going to buy it?”
His fabrication would not work on any Thoan or most Earth people. But the creature was not human, and it had had almost no experience with the supreme prevaricator species, Homo sapiens.
At long last, Dingsteth spoke. “If Zazel ordered it, it will be done. If only I could dream, he might speak to me!”
For a moment, Kickaha felt sorry for it. Maybe it was more human than he had thought. Or maybe it just wanted to be.
They would be released within an hour, and they would be gated to the cave wherein their craft were stored. But it took longer to carry out “Zazel’s instructions” than Kickaha had anticipated. The unforeseen, as so often happened, took place. Khruuz was the first to be gated through to the place where Dingsteth had put the aircraft. Kumas was to follow Khruuz, after which Red Orc would be transmitted to the storage place. Kickaha had requested this gating order because he wanted Red Orc not to be the first in the storage place. No telling what that wily bastard could do if he were alone or had only his clones to deal with. But Khruuz was powerful enough to overcome him if the need arose.
The Khringdiz disappeared from the circle in his cage. Dingsteth had trouble getting Kumas to obey its orders. Kumas, lying on his blankets, turned his back to Dingsteth. Finally, Dingsteth said, “I have means to make you do as I wish. They involve much pain for you.”
For a half-minute, Kumas was silent. Then, his face expressionless, his eyes dull, he rose. He shambled to the center of the circle and stood in it. Dingsteth pointed one end of the small instrument in its hand at the circle and pressed a button. Though the radio signal from it started the process, five seconds would pass before the gate was fully activated.
Kumas must have been counting the seconds. Just before he would have vanished, he moved to one side and stuck his right leg beyond the circle.
Then he was gone. But the leg, spurting blood, remained in the cage. It toppled over immediately.
“Killed himself!” Red Orc shouted. The other humans were silent with shock. Dingsteth may have been, but it did not show it. It said, “Why did he do that?”
“It’s as I told you,” Kickaha said. “He was crazy, poor bastard.” Dingsteth said, “I do not understand the instability and twisted complexities and frequent malfunctionings of human beings.”
“We don’t either,” Kickaha said.
Dingsteth put off cleaning up the mess until after its “guests” had left its world. Or perhaps it was not going to bother with it. It gated the others to the cave in which their aircraft were stored, but sent them to a different circle in the cave from the one originally intended. When Kickaha stepped out of his circle, he saw the Thoan’s body in a circle nearby. After a glance at it, he was busy getting ready. That did not take much time. When they were all mounted on the seats of their boats, Dingsteth opened a door to the cave by speaking a code word. A section of the wall slid into the recess, and they flew out into a tunnel. Dingsteth had given them directions for getting to the gate that Red Orc had used for entrance to this world. Red Orc rode behind his clones, Khruuz and Kickaha behind him.
Twenty minutes later, they were at the gate. Kickaha dismounted from his boat and brought out of his backpack a wrist-binding band. Before Red Orc could react, the clones and Khruuz had seized him. He might have gotten away from Ashatelon and Wemathol, but Khruuz was as strong as a bear. Obeying the orders Kickaha had whispered in the hangar-cave, the Khringdiz held the Thoan’s arms behind him, and the clones gripped Red Orc’s legs. Dingsteth, watching them via the world-brain, must have wondered what was going on. Kickaha quickly secured Red Orc’s wrists together at his back.
Exultantly, Kickaha took the Horn from his pack and blew the seven notes. Immediately, a section of the wall shimmered. Red Orc, who had been silent throughout, was hurried by Khruuz into the gate. A minute later, all were in the palace that held Anana. They were busy for a little while defending themselves against the guards, who had attacked them when they saw that their master was a prisoner. That did not take long. A few beamer shots killed some, and the others scattered.
Soon, however, the guards rallied and took up defensive positions. It looked as if the invaders would have to take the place by room-to-room fighting. But Kickaha called for the captain, who replied from behind a barricade of furniture in a hall. After Kickaha, Wemathol, and Ashatelon talked to the captain, they made an agreement. The captain then conferred with his lieutenants and some of the rank and file. The parley took over an hour, but the result was that the guards swore loyalty to Kickaha and the clones. They did not love Red Orc and did not care who paid them, especially since Kickaha had doubled their wages and reduced their working hours.
Kickaha was delighted. “I’m sick of bloodshed. Necessary or unnecessary, it goes hard against my grain. Besides, some of us would’ve been killed if they’d put up a fierce resistance. One of us might’ve been me.”
Wemathol and Ashatelon did not trust the soldiers. To prevent assassination or mutiny, they took some guards aside. These were promised large sums if they would spy on their fellows and report any likely troublemakers or actual plots. Then the clones, not telling Kickaha what they were doing, approached other guards to keep their eyes on Kickaha’s spies. He found out about this when some of the clones’ spies informed him of this. They expected a reward for the betrayal, and they got it.
Kickaha then hired other soldiers and some servants to watch the clones. For all he knew, though, the clones had taken into their secret service the same people he employed. These would spy on him. Undoubtedly, Wemathol and Ashatelon also had their own agents to spy on each other.
This made him laugh uproariously. If the process kept up, all of the guards and the servants would be double or triple or even quadruple agents.
After making reasonably sure that the guards would give no immediate trouble, Kickaha visited Anana. She was in the garden and in a lounging chair by the swimming pool, which was large enough to be a small lake. The sun of Earth II, near its zenith, blazed down on her. On a small table by her was a tall glass containing ice cubes and a dark liquid. Though the noise from the dozen or so women attendants in the water was a happy one, she did not look contented. Nor did she smile or ask him to sit down when he reintroduced himself.
“By now,” he said, “Wemathol has told you the truth. I sent him ahead of me to explain what’s really happened to you because I didn’t think you would listen to me at all. But I’m ready to tell you all over again what Red Orc did to you and to add any details Wemathol left out.”
Her voice was dull, and she did not look directly at him. “I heard him through to the end, though it cost me much not to scream at him that he was a liar. I don’t wish to hear your lies. Now, will you go away and never come back?”
He pulled up a chair and sat down.
“No, I won’t. Wemathol told the truth, though being Thoan, it may have hurt him to do so.”
He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her.
She looked at him. “I want to speak to Orc in person. Let him tell me the truth.”
“For Elyttria’s sake!” he said, speaking more loudly and impatiently than he had intended. “Why bother with that when he’ll only lie!”
“I’ll know if he’s telling the truth or not.”
“That’s illogical! Irrational!”
He tried to master his anger, born from frustration and despair.
She said coldly, “I do not tolerate a leblabbiy speaking to me like that. Even when he has me in his power.”
He closed his mouth. This was going to be very difficult and would require great self-control and delicacy.
“I apologize,” he said. “I know the truth, so it’s hard for me to see you so deceived. Very well. You may speak to Red Orc face-to-face.”
“You’ll be watching us, hearing us?”
“I promise you that no one will be observing you two.”
“But you’ll be recording us. Then you’ll ru
n off the tape, and technically, not be lying to me.”
“No. I promise. However …
“What?”
“You won’t believe me. But Red Orc might kill you unless you’re guarded.”
She laughed scornfully. “He? Kill me?”
“Believe me, I know him far better than you do. He could revenge himself on both of us by breaking your neck and depriving me altogether of you.”
“I would never have loved you, leblabbiy. So how could he deprive you of me?”
“This is taking us in a circle. I’ll give you what you want. You’ll be in a room with Red Orc, and neither human nor machine will be watching or listening to you two. But there’ll be a transparent partition between you and him. I won’t take any chances with him. That’s my decision, and it’s unchangeable.”
Khruuz was not human. He could monitor Anana and Red Orc. In a literal sense, no human or machine would observe them. But I can’t do that, he thought. I’ve never lied to her.
For the same reason, I’ll also not carry out a plan I had. Putting Wemathol or Ashatelon in their father’s place and having one of them pretend to be a repentant and now truthful Red Orc … that’s out, too. But the temptation is so powerful it hurts me deeply to reject it.
Anana did not seem to be grateful even when he told her that she could take all the time she wanted for the meeting. That turned out to be two hours. When she came out of the room, she was weeping. But as soon as she saw Kickaha, she managed to make her face expressionless. A Thoan did not show “weak” emotions before a leblabbiy. Instead of responding to his questions, she walked swiftly to her room.
Red Orc had been held in the room in which he had talked to Anana. Kickaha went to it and sat down on the chair she had occupied. That it was still warm made him feel as if he had touched her.
He looked through the transparent metal screen at the Thoan, who met his gaze unflinchingly.
“You have won this round,” Kickaha said. “Big deal. You’re not going to get out of this alive. Not unless I decide you will. You do have a chance, but I won’t lie to you. I find it almost impossible to kill a man in cold blood or to order others to do what I’m not willing to do. Believe me, your clones want to torture you for a long time before killing you. They can’t understand why I won’t let them do it.”