The Whipping Star (9 page)

Once more, McKie studied the contents of the cart.  Handmade artifacts, no doubt of it.  There could be a big profit in esoteric and decorative objects, he knew.  These could be artifacts that curried to the buyer boredom brought on by the endless, practical, serial duplications from automatic factories.  If they were manufactured in this village, though, the whole operation looked to be a slave-labor thing.  Or serfdom, which was the same thing for all practical purposes.

Abnethe's game might have sicker overtones, but it had more understandable motives.

"Where's Mliss Abnethe?"  he asked.

That brought a response.  The bearded man jerked his head up, glared at McKie.  The surrounding mob emitted an unintelligible cry.

"Abnethe?" McKie asked.

"Seeawss Abnethe!" the bearded man said.

The crowd around them began chanting:  "Epah Abnethe!  Epah Abnethe!  Epah Abnethe!"

"Rooik!" the bearded man shouted.

The chant stopped abruptly.

"What is the name of this planet?" McKie asked.  He glanced around at the staring black faces.  "Where is this place?"

No one answered.

McKie locked eyes with the bearded man.  The other returned his stare in a predatory, measuring manner, nodded once, as though he'd come to some conclusion.  "Deespawng!" he said.

McKie frowned, swore under his breath.  This damned case presented communication difficulties at every turn!  No matter.  He'd seen enough here to demand a full-scale investigation by a police agency.  You didn't keep humans in this primitive state.  Abnethe must be behind this place.  The whip, the reaction to her name.  The village smelled of Abnethe's sickness.  McKie observed some of the people across from him, saw scars on their arms and chests.  Whip scars?  If they were, Abnethe's money wouldn't save her.  She might get off with another reconditioning, but this time there'd be a more thorough . . .

Something exploded against the back of McKie's neck, knocking him forward.  The bearded man raised the whip handle, and McKie saw the thing rushing toward his head.  He felt a giant, coughing darkness lurch across his mind as the thing crashed against the side of his head.  He tried to bring the raygen out of his pocket, but his muscles disobeyed.  He felt his body become a limping, horrified stagger.  His vision was a bloody haze.

Again something exploded against his head.

McKie sank into nightmare oblivion.  As he sank, he thought of the monitor in his skull.  If they had killed him, a Taprisiot somewhere would jerk to attention and send in a final report on one Jorj X. McKie.

A lot of good that'll do me! the darkness said.

Where is the weapon with which I enforce your bondage?  You give it to me every time you open your mouth.

-Laclac Riddle

There was a moon, McKie realized.  That glowing thing directly in front of him had to be a moon.  The realization told him he'd been seeing the moon for some time, puzzling over it without being fully awake.  The moon had lifted itself out of blackness above a paralyzed outline of primitive roofs.

He was still in the village, then.

The moon dangled there, incredibly close.

The back and left side of McKie's head began throbbing painfully.  He explored his bruised senses, realized he had been staked out in the open flat on his back, wrists and ankles tightly bound, his face pointed at the sky.

Perhaps it was another village.

He tested the security of his bindings, couldn't loosen them.

It was an undignified position:  flat on his back, legs spread, arms outstretched.

For a time, he watched the changing guard of strange constellations move across his field of vision.  Where was this place?

Firelight blazed up somewhere off to his left.  It flickered, sank back to orange gloom.  McKie tried to turn his head toward it, froze as pain stabbed upward from his neck through his skull.

He groaned.

Off in the darkness an animal screamed.  The scream was followed by a hoarse, grunting roar.  Silence.  Then another roar.  The sounds creased the night for McKie, bent it into new dimensions.  He heard soft footsteps approaching.

"I think he groaned," a man said.

The man was speaking standard Galach, McKie noted.  Two shadows came out of the night and stood over McKie's feet.

"Do you think he's awake?"  It was a female voice masked by a storter.

"He's breathing as though he's awake," the man said.

"Who's there?" McKie rasped.  His own voice sent agony pinwheeling through his skull.

"Good thing your people know how to obey instructions," the man said.  "Imagine him running loose around here!"

"How did you get here, McKie?" the woman asked.

"I walked," McKie growled.  "Is that you, Abnethe?"

"He walked!" the man snarled.

McKie, listening to that male voice, began to wonder about it.  There was a trace of alien sibilance in it.  Was it human or humanoid?  Among the sentients only a PanSpechi could look that human -- because they had shaped their flesh to the human pattern.

"Unless you release me," McKie said, "I won't answer for the consequences."

"You'll answer for them," the man said.  There was laughter in his voice.

"We must be sure how he got here," the woman said.

"What difference does it make?"

"It could make a great deal of difference.  What if Fanny Mae is breaking her contract?"

"That's impossible!" the man snorted.

"Nothing's impossible.  He couldn't have got here without Caleban help."

"Maybe there's another Caleban."

"Fanny Mae says not."

"I say we do away with this intruder immediately," the man said.

"What if he's wearing a monitor?" she asked.

"Fanny Mae says no Taprisiot can locate this place!"

"But McKie is here!"

"And I've had one long-distance call since I arrived," McKie said.  No Taprisiot can locate this place? he wondered.  What would prompt that statement?

"They won't have time to find us or do anything about it," the man said.  "I say we do away with him."

"That wouldn't be very intelligent," McKie said.

"Look who's talking about intelligence," the man said.

McKie strained to discern details of faces, but they remained blank shadows.  What was it about that male voice?  The storter disguised the woman's voice, but why would she bother?

"I am fitted with a life monitor," McKie said.

"The sooner, the better," the man said.

"I've stood as much of that as I can," the woman said.

"Kill me, and that monitor starts transmitting," McKie said.  "Taprisiots will scan this area and identify everyone around me.  Even if they can't locate you, they'll know you."

"I shudder at the prospect," the man said.

"We must find out how he got here," the woman said.

"What difference does it make?"

"That's a stupid question!"

"So the Caleban broke her contract."

"Or there's a loophole in it we don't know about."

"Well, plug it up."

"I don't know if we can.  Sometimes I wonder how much we really understand each other.  What are connectives?"

"Abnethe, why're you wearing that storter?" McKie asked.

"Why do you call me Abnethe?" she asked.

"You can disguise your voice, but you can't hide your sickness or your style," McKie said.

"Did Fanny Mae send you here?" she demanded.

"Didn't somebody say that was impossible?" McKie countered.

"He's a brave one," the woman chuckled.

"Lot of good it does him."

"I don't think the Caleban could break our contract," she said.  "You recall the protection clause?  It's likely she sent him here to get rid of him."

"So let's get rid of him."

"That's not what I meant!"

"You know we have to do it."

"You're making him suffer, and I won't have it!" the woman cried.

"Then go away and leave it to me."

"I can't stand the thought of him suffering!  Don't you understand?"

"He won't suffer."

"You have to be sure."

It's Abnethe for certain, McKie thought, recalling her conditioning against witnessing pain.  But who's the other one?

"My head's hurting," McKie said.  "You know that, Mliss?  Your men practically beat my brains out."

"What brains?" the man asked.

"We must get him to a doctor," she said.

"Be sensible!" the man snapped.

"You heard him.  His head hurts."

"Mliss, stop it!"

"You used my name," she said.

"What difference does it make?  He'd already recognized you."

"What if he escapes?"

"From here?"

"He got here, didn't he?"

"For which we can be thankful!"

"He's suffering," she said.

"He's lying!"

"He's suffering.  I can tell."

"What if we take him to a doctor, Mliss?" the man asked, "What if we do that and he escapes?  BuSab agents are resourceful, you know."

Silence.

"There's no way out of it," the man said.  "Fanny Mae sent him to us, and we have to kill him."

"You're trying to drive me crazy!" she screamed.

"He won't suffer," the man said.

Silence.

"I promise," the man said.

"For sure?"

"Didn't I say it?"

"I'm leaving here," she said.  "I don't want to know what happens to him.  You're never to mention him again, Cheo.  Do you hear me?"

"Yes, my dear, I hear you."

"I'm leaving now," she said.

"He's going to cut me into little pieces," McKie said, "and I'll scream with pain the whole time."

"Shut him up!" she screeched.

"Come away, my dear," the man said.  He put an arm around her.  "Come along, now."

Desperately, McKie said, "Abnethe!  He's going to cause me intense pain.  You know that."

She began sobbing as the man led her away.  "Please . . . please . . ." she begged.  The sound of her crying faded into the night.

Furuneo, McKie thought, don't dally.  Get that Caleban moving.  I want out of here.  Now!

He strained against his bindings.  They stretched just enough to tell him he'd reached their limits.  He couldn't feel the stakes move at all.

Come on, Caleban!  McKie thought.  You didn't send me here to die.  You said you loved me.

It is because you speak to me that I do not believe in you.

-Quoted from a Caleban

After several hours of questioning, counter-questioning, probe, counter-probe, and bootless answers, Furuneo brought in an enforcer assistant to take over the watch on the Caleban.  At Furuneo's request Fanny Mae opened a portal and let him out onto the lava ledge for a spell of fresh air.  It was cold out on the shelf, especially after the heat in the Beachball.  The wind had died down, as it did most days here just before night.  Surf still pounded the outer rocks and surged against the lava wall beyond the Beachball.  But the tide was going out, and only a few dollops of spray wet the ledge.

Connectives, Furuneo thought bitterly.  She says it's not a linkage, so what is it?  He couldn't recall ever having felt this frustrated.

"That which extends from one to eight," the Caleban had said, "that is a connective.  Correct use of verb to be?"

"Huh?"

"Identity verb," the Caleban said.  "Strange concept."

"No, no!  What did you mean there, one to eight?"

"Unbinding stuff," the Caleban said.

"You mean like a solvent?"

"Before solvent."

"What the devil could before have to do with solvents?"

"Perhaps more internal than solvents," the Caleban said.

"Madness," Furuneo said, shaking his head.  Then, "Internal?"

"Unbounded place of connectives," the Caleban said.

"We're right back where we started," Furuneo groaned.  "What's a connective?"

"Uncontained opening between," the Caleban said.

"Between what?" Furuneo roared.

"Between one and eight."

"Ohhh, no!"

"Also between one and x," the Caleban said.

As McKie had done earlier, Furuneo buried his face in his hands.  Presently he said, "What's between one and eight except two, three, four, five, six, and seven?"

"Infinity," the Caleban said.  "Open-ended concept.  Nothing contains everything.  Everything contains nothing."

"You know what I think?" Furuneo asked.

"I read no thoughts," the Caleban said.

"I think you're having your little game with us," Furuneo said.  "That's what I think."

"Connectives compel," the Caleban said.  "Does this expand understanding?"

"Compels . . . a compulsion?"

"Venture movement," the Caleban said.

"Venture what?"

"That which remains stationary when all else moves," the Caleban said.  "Thus, connective.  Infinity concept empties itself without connective."

"Whoooooheee!" Furuneo said.

At this point he asked to be let outside for a rest.

Furuneo was no closer to understanding why the Caleban maintained such a high temperature in the Beachball.

"Consequences of swiftness," the Caleban said, varying this under questioning with "Rapidity convergence."  Or  "Perhaps concept of generated movement arrives closer."

"Some kind of friction?" Furuneo probed.

"Uncompensated relationship of dimensions possibly arrives at closest approximation," the Caleban answered.

Now, reviewing these frustrating exchanges, Furuneo blew on his hands to warm them.  The sun had set, and a chill wind was beginning to move off the bluff toward the water.

Either I freeze to death or bake, he thought.  Where in the universe is McKie?

At this point Tuluk made long distance contact through one of the Bureau Taprisiots.  Furuneo, who had been seeking a more sheltered position in the lee of the Beachball, felt the pineal ignition.  He brought down the foot he had been lifting in a step, planted the foot firmly in a shallow pool of water, and lost all bodily sensation.  Mind and call were one.

"This is Tuluk at the lab," the caller said.  "Apologies for intrusion and all that."

"I think you just made me put a foot in cold water," Furuneo said.