Strider's Galaxy (31 page)

"Doesn't look as if we're exactly going to be dancing along like Dorothy and the Scarecrow," she said into his ear.

"Let us keep going forward," he said, resigning himself to death.
Better for her that she keeps thinking of all this as just a bad dream, something that will sooner or later be over.
"Who knows what is at the end of the Yellow Brick Road?"

At the moment all that seemed to be at the end of the Yellow Brick Road was pitch blackness. The mouth of the Strider-thing had almost entirely closed. Lan Yi glanced behind him and saw just a strip of jagged-edged greenish light.

"Who goes first?" said Strauss-Giolitto.

"Whichever you prefer."

"All right, I'll lead you. Take hold of my ankle and follow me."

She crawled ahead of him. There was just enough light left for him to catch a glimpse of her foot, and he caught it in his hand. She gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

The jaws clenched tightly shut. There was nothing to see. The slippery tongue on which they were perched still moved erratically underneath them, so that even crawling was a delicate test of the ability to keep balance.

Lan Yi wondered how long he could keep going. Strauss-Giolitto had the fantasy that this wasn't really happening. He knew that it was. It might be an illusion, but so was the person on the other side of the mirror from yourself. If you ran to throw your arms around that mirror-person you could kill yourself just as easily as if you'd jumped off a tall building. He felt as if he were falling into Strauss-Giolitto's fantasy. Any minute now there would be the sound of breaking glass.

She was crawling ahead at such a speed that he found it difficult to keep up. Sometimes he found himself falling face-first into the accumulated mucus at the center of the tongue. Still he clung on to her ankle. It seemed the one safe reference point in a universe that was currently nothing but darkness.

"We'll get there soon," she said.

"Where?"

"At the end of the Yellow Brick Road there's always the Emerald City."

There was a slight glimmer of light. It was dark red—not emerald green—and unreliable, but at least it was there. Strauss-Giolitto's boot, in Lan Yi's hand, looked black.

Then a new ripple was added to the tongue's movement.

"I think we've reached the back of the throat," said Lan Yi, struggling for breath.

They were the last words he said before they found themselves sliding unstoppably downwards. The redness grew a little brighter.

Human stomachs are filled with acid. As he fell, releasing Strauss-Giolitto's foot at last, Lan Yi wondered what the stomach of the Strider-thing might be filled with. It seemed odd to be concerned about which particular fluid might be about to dissolve you, but Lan Yi couldn't help the curiosity.

But they weren't inside a stomach, he suddenly discovered: they were floating in free space, with the stars stretching out on every side as far as he could see. He stopped himself from screaming and looked at the figure of Strauss-Giolitto, tumbling out of control alongside him. Still she seemed unfazed by what they were going through—it was just another dream to her, maybe a dream she had already had. She was relaxing in the vacuum, stretching her arms out behind her as if she were luxuriating in a hot bath.

Lan Yi narrowed his eyes. The faintest points of light around them were swiftly winking out. He wondered why he was able to continue breathing in the vacuum: perhaps Strauss-Giolitto was right, and it really was some kind of dream. But it wasn't—he knew that. He'd experienced lucid dreams before, and this was identifiably not one of them. More of the stars were blinking into nonexistence. The whole of space around him and Strauss-Giolitto was beginning to glow softly. He reached out to take her hand. She smiled at him.

Almost all of the stars had gone now, and the glow of space was becoming dazzling. His body and Strauss-Giolitto's floated towards each other. He found himself wrapped tightly against her, so tightly that it was almost as if he might be absorbed into her. She had always been much larger than him; now she seemed to be twice his size. He wondered if she would next try to swallow him, in a recapitulation of what the Strider-thing had done to them.

Gravity returned suddenly, forcing them apart. They were lying on a hard surface of some kind which gleamed greenly.

"Ah, there you are," said a huge voice.

#

Strider finally narrowed the focus of the Pocket so that she could see Lan Yi and Strauss-Giolitto. They were the last of her personnel that she and Ten Per Cent Extra Free had been able to identify.

"Ah, there you are," she said, and reached into the Pocket to scoop them up. She held them carefully by the collars of their jumpsuits as she withdrew them from the Pocket's field. The first time she'd pulled someone out of the Pocket she'd held him on her upturned hand and then, when he was suddenly restored to his full size and mass, had been lucky to escape without broken bones.

"What an amazing imagination I have," said Strauss-Giolitto, recovering her balance. "Not that long ago I was being swallowed by you."

"Really?" said Strider drily.

"This is actually happening to us, isn't it?" said Lan Yi.

"It has been," said Strider. "The worst of it seems to be over now." She pointed upwards at the view-window. "Unless reality has become a lot looser than anything we've all been through we're back in the middle of the Helgiolath fleet."

"Have you any idea what happened?" said Lan Yi, obviously exerting considerable control over his body as he lowered himself into one of the command seats. He looked as if he were on the point of collapse. Strauss-Giolitto, by contrast, was pacing around the deck as if it were some new part of her dream, something that might reveal an interesting extra detail about her subconscious.

"The Helgiolath commander dictated to me how I was to shift the
Santa Maria
while still remaining a part of his fleet," said Strider. "Whatever's left of the Main Computer obeyed his orders. It's not something I'll let it do again." She grinned without any humor. "In future we'll just stick to the cozy old tachyonic drive, right? I don't think I could go through all that again."

Lan Yi was breathing with great deliberation and his face was paler than she had ever seen it. "One of these days we must compare nightmares," he said heavily, "but I would rather it were not soon. There is a lot I would like to forget. How, though, did Strauss-Giolitto and myself come to arrive in the Pocket?"

"As far as I can work it out," said Strider, "the Helgiolath make their ftl skips by thrusting themselves through different levels of reality—or different realities—before they reconstitute themselves somewhere else. Maybe they enjoy the experiences they undergo along the way. I didn't."

"I echo your opinions entirely," said Lan Yi.

"The Pockets seem to operate along the same principle," said Strider. She sat down near him. "I've spent the past four hours fishing people out of that damned Pocket. Two of them had been driven completely out of their minds by whatever it was they'd been through." She flexed the knuckles of her right hand at him so that he could see the bruises. "I had to hit both of them very hard to . . . sedate them. They're under the control of medbots now."

Strauss-Giolitto wandered towards them. Her eyes were bright.

"Has the nightmare ended?" she said.

"Yes," said Strider wearily. "At least, as far as I can tell it has."

Strauss-Giolitto looked disappointed.

"Are you all right?" said Lan Yi listlessly.

"Oh, I'm fine. Fine," said Strauss-Giolitto.

To Strider it was obvious that the woman was a very long way from fine. She wished that she cared a little bit more.

"Could you look after her?" she said to Lan Yi.

"I seem to have been doing that ever since we came on board the
Santa Maria
," he said with an air of resignation. "Yes, of course I shall." He hauled himself to his feet. "We must take the elevator back to our cabins," he said to Strauss-Giolitto.

She gave him a confident smile. "Want to screw me, is that it?"

"Not at this particular moment in time," said Lan Yi. "Please, just do what I ask."

"Fancy your chances, do you?"

Strider had had enough. She applied the Strider Sedative with all the force she could muster, damaging her hand yet further. "I'll get a bot to clear her away," she said, looking down at the form of Strauss-Giolitto in front of her. "I suppose I'm likely to be indicted because of this sort of stuff." She looked at her hand, wondering if she had fractured her knuckles. "I think I need a medbot pretty urgently."

Then she saw the command deck twisting itself into curious patterns of bright colors, and fainted.

#

Lan Yi looked at the two unconscious women on the floor of the deck. His first instinct was to attend to them himself, but he knew that soon a medbot would arrive which would do the job much better than he could. Poor Strauss-Giolitto, in one sense. Poor Strider, in another. Both of them carried almost unbearable burdens.

"Where are you?" he said to the Images.

WE'RE HERE,
said one of them.

"Who's speaking?"

Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

"Is the
Santa Maria
safe?"

It is at the moment.

"What do you suggest we do?"

There are Images in Kortland's flagship. We have established contact with them. We have explained to them that human beings are not suited to transferring themselves between realities. They will pass this information to Kortland.

"What would you advise?"

We would advise that you distance yourself from the Helgiolath fleet.

"But is it not our best defense?"

It is your worst enemy, and probably you are the worst enemy of the Helgiolath.

"I don't understand."

THE FLEET IS LARGE ENOUGH THAT THE AUTARCHY SHOULD HAVE DETECTED IT, DESPITE THE COMMUNICATIONS-DETECTION SHIELD IT HAS ERECTED AROUND ITSELF. WHY THE FLEET HAS NOT YET BEEN DESTROYED IS SOMETHING THAT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. AT THE SAME TIME, THE FORCES OF THE AUTARCHY SEEM ABLE TO DISCOVER THE
SANTA MARIA
WHEREVER IT IS.

"Polyaggle said there was a way we could perhaps get back to the Solar System."

THERE IS A CHANCE OF DOING THAT, YES.

"Why has Strider not instituted this?"

Her thoughts told us that she had decided to be "philanthropic."

Lan Yi thought about this for a few moments. He had no particular desire to return to the Solar System, where Geena had killed herself. When asked his opinions by Holmberg he had opted to stay in The Wondervale. But others—a majority of others—among the personnel had had different views. Why had Strider decided to ignore what they thought?

"Where's Pinocchio?" he said at last.

THE BOT IS APPROACHING THE COMMAND DECK. HE WILL BE WITH YOU IN TWENTY-TWO POINT ONE SIX SECONDS.

"And Polyaggle?"

SHE HAS YET TO RETURN FROM THE FRACTAL REALITIES.

The information made Lan Yi's face twist with pain. He and Strauss-Giolitto had experienced the nightmare of what Ten Per Cent Extra Free called the fractal realities.

"
Will
she return?" he said.

WE BELIEVE SO.

There was a mental silence. Lan Yi sensed that, whatever the Images had told them about Polyaggle, it was less than the full truth. But there was nothing he could do about it. Rubbing his hand tiredly across his forehead, he thought he saw one of the Images—presumably Ten Per Cent Extra Free—in the side of his vision.

The left-hand communications Pocket sprang into life. There was a hideous double visage there. This must be Kortland. Holmberg had told him that the Helgiolath were far from pretty. At the time he had assumed that he was above any preconceptions as to what constituted prettiness: what counted were intelligence and motivations; they were the true beauties, rather than physical appearance. Now he knew what Holmberg had been talking about.

"Where is your captain?" said Kortland curtly.

"She is . . . unwell."

Lan Yi heard Pinocchio entering the command deck behind him.

"There has been very great difficulty aboard this spaceship," said Lan Yi. "The shift you asked our Main Computer to perform caused much distress among our personnel."

"I apologize for this," said the two-headed leech-like thing. "Had I realized I would have—"

Lan Yi cut across him. "We do not attach guilt to you, but at the same time I think it unwise that we remain a part of your fleet."

"We wish to destroy the tyrant," said Kortland. "Is this not something you would wish to see? I had the impression from your captain that she wanted to experience the destruction of the Autarchy."

"The Images aboard this vessel say that we would be better off without you, and that you would be better off without us." Lan Yi peered at the alien. Biology was not his specialization, but he was beginning to perceive the elegances of Kortland's form. Where human beings had prehensile hands, the Helgiolath must use their mouths.

The Helgiolath appeared to be thinking; it was difficult to know.

"Are you our allies," said Kortland eventually, "or are you going to desert from our fleet?"

Ten Per Cent Extra Free managed to convey a sense of threat in the translation. Lan Yi knew that he would have to speak very carefully in response.

Prompted by Ten Per Cent Extra Free, he said: "We would like to assist you, but not as part of your fleet."

"There is something you could do for us."

"Tell me what it is. I am not the commander of this vessel, and so I cannot promise that we will obey your request."

One of Kortland's heads turned away, but the other continued to look at Lan Yi. The seeming eyelessness of the alien's face was one of its most repulsive aspects, and yet at a different level Lan Yi found himself appreciating it.
Visible eyes are weaknesses,
he thought,
because if you can destroy a creature's sensory organs you can almost certainly, soon afterwards, move in for the kill. Sometime in the distant past the Helgiolath must have evolved away from having overt sensory organs in order better to protect themselves from predators. We human beings, on the other hand, not only have sensory organs plastered all over our faces but have even accentuated their obviousness by putting on secondary retinal screens. Before Strauss-Giolitto went through the Spindrifters' decontamination you could have blown every synapse in her brain by simply coughing loudly at her.