Man Who Used the Universe (29 page)

She left him, scuttling out through the diaphragm entryway.

Chaheel rested there, surrounded by all the comforts of a family world yet coldly terrified.

It was clear now, oh yes, quite truly clear. They didn't want to think that Lewmaklin might be up to something. Didn't want to believe the possibility that their valuable ally might be somewhat less loyal than he appeared to be.

As for myself, I am not obsessed. My decisions are reached on the basis of calm examination of the evidence. Admittedly much is based on personal experience, but that is what a psychologist must draw upon when hard facts are lacking. We interpret the subjective as well as the objective. If they insist on ignoring my findings. . . .

Lewmaklin, Lewmaklin. The name haunted . . . no, no, it did not haunt him! Was the representative right? Should he forget all about Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin, forget about secret intentions and deceptions?

He could not do that, any more than he could wipe his mind clean of all thoughts. Lewmaklin had wormed his way so deeply into Nuel society that he now had as many friends among the families as among his own kind.

Very well then, he thought, making a sudden decision. If the Council is not interested in my opinions then perhaps the Board of Operators on Terra may be. For it was evident that the human government was as ignorant of Lewmaklin's association with these Tremovan as were the Nuel. And if men and Tremovan were locked together in some ploy, then possibly the death of one suspicious psychologist might alert one or two among the Si to probing a little deeper into the records he would carefully leave behind. He prepared himself for a return to the eighty-three worlds of the UTW. . . .

Loo-Macklin walked into the massive bedroom and studied the figure napping on the bed. The circular canopy was an imaginarium, a specially coated metallic cloth sensitive to the thoughts of anyone resting beneath it. It was activated by dreams as well as by conscious imaginings.

At the moment it was filled with stars, unreal constellations, the clusters too close to one another for astronomical veracity. He watched them for awhile, then moved close to the bed and whispered to the supple woman recumbent upon it.

"Tambu. Tambu, wake up."

The woman stirred sleepily, rolled over, and stretched. Her tone was languorous. "Ah, lord and master of the big mouth. What is on your mind?"

He turned away from her. "I am about to embark on important work."

She made a face. She believed that in knowing him she had softened him somewhat. That in coming to understand him a little she had made him more human. Not that they'd grown close. The true Him remained always hidden from her and she could not pry it open. But for her, at least, the marriage consummated in jest on Terra had become real. He might be distant, but he was kind.

She was about to learn how little she knew him.

"You woke me up to tell me that?"

"That and one other thing, Tambu. We are separating."

Her inviting smile vanished. She seemed to age a dozen years in the space of a moment. The last star cluster flickered out overhead, leaving the marvelous canopy again only a sheet of silvery metal cloth, cold and empty. Cold and empty as the man hovering near her.

She sat up, propping herself with her hands and swinging her long legs over the side of the bed. "That's not funny, Kees."

"It's not meant to amuse you."

"You're lying to me. Testing me for some reason. You're always testing people, Kees."

"Not you, Tambu. Not this time, anyway."

"Then what the hell are you talking about?"

"We are separating. To go our different ways, proceed individually with our lives."

She shook her head slowly. "I don't . . . what have I done?"

"You've done nothing . . . overtly. This is necessary." His expression was grim. "You're gaining control over me, Tambu. Long ago I vowed I would never, ever permit that. Would never let another being gain the slightest control over my life."

"I've left you alone," she argued. "I never questioned where you went or what you did, even when you were gone months at a time. I've followed your lead in everything because I saw instantly how important it was to you. How have I exerted the slightest control over you? I don't understand."

He continued looking away from her, though whether to spare himself or her she could not tell. "Tambu, I believe I may be falling in love with you."

"Damn." She sat there silently, beneath the unfocused canopy. A desire had come true, a feeble wish neared fulfillment. This grand, unknowable, empty man had warmed to her at last. Because of that it seemed she might lose him.

"Is that so terrible that you can't cope with it? Can't you survive with love as well as without it, Kees?"

He made a curt, angry gesture with one hand, slicing the air. "Love is the most powerful kind of control. I will not permit it anymore than I would any other form of control."

"Kees, it's not weak to love another."

Now he turned to stare down at her, anguish mixing with determination in those penetrating blue eyes. "It is for me. Why do you think I've avoided children? Because that much love, that much control would ruin me forever."

Her fingers moved aimlessly, entwining, relaxing. "I know that tone of voice. There's nothing I can say to change your mind, is there?"

"No. I'm . . . sorry. This is my fault. I ought not to have done this to you."

Her smile was crooked. "Done this to me? You flatter yourself. I did this to me. I accepted you, not the other way around. You were a challenge, Kees. I thought I saw something else, something more in you where others see only ruthlessness and ugliness. I guess I was wrong. Or else I failed. Either way, it seems that I'm destined to lose."

"I'll see that you're amply provided for for the rest of your life." This was making him more uncomfortable than he'd believed possible. End it now, he told himself.

She laughed at him. To his very considerable surprise, he discovered that it hurt.

"The marriage seemed advisable at the time," he went on. "Certain important outside elements found it mollifying. And I was curious myself, never having tried it before. I did not expect . . . did not expect myself to be so threatened. It frightens me."

"Kees, Kees." She sighed tiredly. "Do you think that makes you unique?"

"That is part of the trouble, Tambu. I am unique." He stated it flatly, without pride. "I will not risk all that I have done."

"Of course you won't. Since I can't change your mind, I will abide by your wishes, Kees. Because you see, regardless of how you feel about me, I've come to love you."

He started to comment, decided not to, and strode from the room. He did not look back.

Two weeks later the word arrived that Tambu Tabuhan Loo-Macklin had died on Terra, in her new crag house, of a carefully measured overdose of narcophene. Loo-Macklin accepted the information quietly and said nothing further about it to anyone, including Basright, though that sensitive old man noticed a slight slumping of his master's shoulders from that day on.

He's no normal man, the aged assistant thought. He's not Nuel either. He's made himself something else, something that partakes of both races and yet of something more than that. He's a prisoner, a prisoner of himself, and I don't know what he's done it for, or what it is.

But he had a feeling he was soon to find out.

On Twelfth Day Eighth Month Loo-Macklin entertained a visitor. The man who was wheeled into the audience chamber overlooking the ocean was wasted away beyond reach of medication, withered beyond hope of transplant redemption. He breathed only with the assistance of a respirator, which forced air into his exhausted lungs. His eyes were glazed and dry.

He dismissed his two nurses and was left alone with Loo-Macklin. They chatted for a while, interrupted only by the rasping, hacking bouts which shook a once vital body.

Then the ancient visitor bid Loo-Macklin come near with a wave of one crooked, weak finger. Loo-Macklin politely bent over the bed, admiring the tenacity of purpose which had brought this man across the gulf between the worlds simply so that his curiosity might be satisfied.

"A long time have I watched you, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin. One last thing would I ask you."

"If I'm able to answer I will, Counselor Momblent."

"Come closer." Loo-Macklin bent over the thin body and listened intently. He nodded, considered a moment, then whispered a reply.

"Louder. My hearing is not what it used to be, along with the rest of me."

So Loo-Macklin spoke more clearly into the counselor's ear. Momblent strained to make sense of the words. Then a smile spread across his parchment face and he began to cackle delightedly. The cackle became a cough and the nurses had to be summoned in haste.

Counselor Momblent died six hours later, only partway back to the city. But he died happy.

Making contact was hard. The problem was that Chaheel Riens had no intention of unburdening himself to anyone lower than a personal representative of the Board, if not an actual Board member. The Board of Operators was the supreme programmer, the highest human level of UTW government. Trying to gain an audience with one of them was like trying to meet with a member of the Council of Eight, or a Family Matriarch.

He could not settle for anyone of lesser status for fear that an underling might be part of Loo-Macklin's extensive network of personal contacts. Surely the word was out to keep watch for a particular Nuel scientist, though in a sense Chaheel was protected by Loo-Macklin's own high opinion of him. He would think that Chaheel was too intelligent to come back into the UTW. Only a complete idiot would do a fool thing like that.

At least enough Nuel now moved freely through the eighty-three worlds so that Chaheel's mere presence was not cause for comment. His thoughts and remarks might give him away, but not his shape.

Prior to departing for the UTW, Chaheel had undergone a change of eye color. Additional surgery had removed the characteristic wisdom folds from his abdominal skirt. Loo-Macklin's minions would be searching for a psychologist named Chaheel Riens. With luck they would never look twice at a minor family functionary named Mazael Afar, on loan to the Board of Operators Research Foundation from the Varueq family.

Surgery and fabrication had to be carried out in secret. So powerful was Loo-Macklin's influence among the families that Chaheel didn't doubt they would forcibly restrain him if they knew of his plans.

It was his first trip to Terra, also called Earth, also Gaea, mother world of humanity. It was a measure of how deeply the Nuel had penetrated human society and how extensively shape-prejudice had been overcome that Chaheel was even permitted to travel there.

He was certainly not the first Nuel to visit that blue planet. Clearly the Plan was moving ahead nicely. Praise and glory to the Families . . . and to their allies, like one Kees vaan Loo-Macklin.

Subsequent to arrival Chaheel made certain he was not being followed or watched. Then he initiated inquiries. Who was accessible, whom might he talk with?

Eventually he was able to arrange a meeting with a programmer of eighth status. Though hardly a member of the Board of Operators, it was still something of a coup for Chaheel to have secured a meeting with someone so high in the computer hierarchy.

He insisted that the meeting take place in the man's home and not a government office. Oxford Swift found the request, not to mention the insistence, peculiar, but then what else but perversity could you expect from a Nuel? Already he regretted agreeing to the meeting.

His home was a rambling falsewood structure, which ambled along the south bank of the Orinoco. Similar residences were strung like beads along both sides of the mighty river, carefully stained to blend into the thick vegetation.

Chaheel arrived by marcar early in the morning. The meeting was to take place before Swift was required at his office. It gave the man an excuse to cut the interview off early should the alien's presence prove disagreeable.

"Greetings, uh, Mazael Afar." The human did not extend a greeting hand to the creature, which flowed down the ramp leading into a curved room overlooking the river. "It's nice to meet you," he lied. "I've worked with the Nuel on one or two other occasions, though never before in person.

"I understand you have some questions you want to ask me that involve your projected work for the department?"

Chaheel replied by removing a small instrument from a pocket. The man eyed it curiously as Chaheel turned in a slow circle. Insofar as he could tell this residence was not being monitored. The conversation could proceed without fear of detection.

"My name," he said as he slipped the device back into his pocket, "is not Mazael Afar but Chaheel Riens. I'm a psychologist, not an economic programmer."

Oxford Swift digested this silently. He was of middle age, with long black hair tied back in a single fall. Thin puce suspenders held up blue and white trousers. His wife glanced curiously into the room from the food preparation area, vanished hastily when Chaheel turned a single huge eye on her.

"I expect you have an explanation for this subterfuge," Swift murmured. He thought about the little ceremony with the strange device. "Let's go out on the porch. It's a nice place to chat."

At least this individual is perceptive, Chaheel thought. Perhaps I have made a lucky choice.

"My reasons are of the utmost importance," he told the man. "I was informed that you were more honest than most." The man made a little gesture with his head, which Chaheel knew to signify modesty.

"What I have to tell you is possibly vital to both my own people and to mankind. I will tell you truly that my government ignores my pleas. I am hoping that your own will prove more receptive."

"Why come to me?" Swift wanted to know. "Surely not because I have the reputation of being an honest man?"

"Partially that, and because of your position. You have access, albeit limited, to the highest level of UTW government. That is more than I could hope to gain in the short time I believe may remain to us."