"What it will be, bro," Hal replied. He raised his own right fist, and their hands met in a gentle, even friendly collision. "I need a crib to stash her. Look, don't touch, Jalal."
"Hey, I'll be cool, and so will the rest of the posse." The younger African-American winked at Rajani. "Skin that color, she's a sister."
Rajani found she was missing more of the conversation than she was catching, so she relied more on what her feelings were telling her than anything else. She sensed an incredible amount of pride among the young men and a fierce loyalty among them to their leader and Hal. Weakened though he was, Garrett seemed to have the stature of a divinity to them. What Hal requested, Jalal saw as duty, and what Jalal saw as duty the Blood Crips treated as a law of nature.
Jalal led them off through the streets and into an abandoned building. Rajani saw power cables going up to leech power from the cells above, though the hallways had no lights and most of the original paint had been covered in several layers of graffiti. Most of the apartments had no doors on them and had been torn to pieces on the inside.
Jalal rapped twice, waited, then rapped three times on the metal door at the end of the corridor. A small slit opened up, words were exchanged, then the door opened only wide enough for everyone to slip inside. Jalal directed Hal and her into a side room with two chairs, a table and two cots. Before he closed the door, she did see a vast collection of weapons in the outer room, and it struck her that the Blood Crips were better armed than the soldiers at the base from which she had escaped.
Hal sat heavily in one of the chairs. Pain passed over his face, but he forced it away with a brave smile. "Okay, I don't know what you did to me in the hospital, but I'm mending very fast. Who are you, and why do you need to get Coyote a warning?"
Rajani slipped her leather jacked off and rolled up the sleeve on her fatigue shirt. She turned her left forearm so Hal could see the gold lines running from her gold fingernails up her arm. "You won't believe me, but what I will tell you is the truth. I was born on your planet in the year 1969. In 1984, I was placed in stasis to combat a specific evil. It is the thing you call Fiddleback."
The mention of the name caused Hal's smile to disappear. "I was in the hospital when they dealt with Fiddleback, but they've told me about it." His dark eyes glittered. "So, I guess I do believe you, in part anyway. Now, give me details so I can check you out. If you're not some sort of trap, then we'll get you in touch with Coyote."
Whatever Hal did to run her story down took two days. During that time, she remained with the Blood Crips. While they did not let her out of the apartment, various members of the gang took turns entertaining her with everything from the vast selection of shows on their pirated cable feed to timing her in stripping down and reassembling automatic weapons.
Despite having trouble understanding all their slang, Rajani enjoyed spending time with the gangbangers. She sensed from them the same depth of curiosity about her that Chandra and the other researchers had, yet none of them hated her the way Chandra's aide Nicholas had. While teaching her how to break down and put back together weapons had reminded her of the various experiments Dr. Chandra had performed, neither he nor his assistants had reacted with the gangbangers' unbridled enthusiasm when she succeeded. Had Jalal not vetoed the idea, a couple of the Blood Crips had intended to let her "make her meat" with an AKM in a drive-by on the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance.
After the two-day wait, Hal Garrett returned and brought three other people with him. Jalal escorted all of them into the little room, then shut the door and stood with his back against it. "We've been taking good care of her, Hal."
"Thanks." Hal, looking much better, introduced his associates. "Rajani, these are Natch, Bat and Jytte. If you pass muster here, we will help you get to Coyote."
Natch stood almost as tall as Rajani and held herself in tightly. Hidden inside a leather jacket, the woman had tucked most of her hair up into a red beret. Rajani felt like a prisoner before a judge as Natch looked her up and down, then the small woman grinned just a bit and Rajani felt her opening up some. "Not from around here, are you, Rajani?"
"No, I'm not." Rajani returned her grin, then looked up at the tall, hard man standing behind Natch. If Natch had been a judge, then Bat was the executioner. She sensed him evaluating her on an animal-threat level. The surface thoughts she picked up read like tactical battle reports on how best to crack a tank. She realized, as she sifted through his ideas, that the plans were accepted or rejected not on the basis of efficiency or efficacy, but on how much fun he would have in employing each technique.
Shivering, she shifted her focus to Jytte. Physically she found the tall, slender, blonde woman appealing and non-threatening. She noticed something stiff about Jytte, but she brushed past it as she sought to probe the woman's mind.
Jytte shook her head. "Please, do not do that."
Rajani blinked. "What?"
"Please refrain from trying to get inside me." Jytte hugged her arms around herself. "I am a very private person. Please."
Rajani nodded. "Forgive me, all of you. Reading thoughts and emotions is, to me, akin to hearing. It is a sixth sense that I have learned to live by. I did not mean to intrude." She brought her internal defenses up to shield the others from her probes, but still caught a sense of relief from Natch and Jytte both.
Bat's hostility almost punched through her mental wards. "You don't look like an extraterrestrial. They're small and gray and have light-bulb heads. You're different. Are you lying to us?"
Rajani sat on the edge of the cot. "No, no I am not. I can explain that, if you wish."
Natch reached back and took Bat's hand. "Please do."
"The race you have described are known to me and my people as the Cythera, and the phenotype is the one they assume in all but one phase of their life-cycle. They are very intelligent and developed space travel ages ago. Then they discovered other inhabited planets in their solar system and, on one of them, they met and allied with my people, the Jes'da. It was the Cythera who devised the plan and built the ships that came here to explore your solar system."
Rajani frowned, trying to remember exactly how her mother had explained all this to her while still trying to work in the explanation Dr. Chandra had devised for some of the things that she could do. "We, the Jes'da, travel with the Cythera and coexist with them. Often, the crews are mixed equally despite the Cythera vastly outnumbering us. There are many Jes'da who have grown up only in the company of the Cythera, and they have begun to resemble them because of that association."
Jytte's face remained impassive as she shook her head. "Contact Lamarckism? The idea that environmental influences create changes that are passed on to offspring has been rejected for decades as fallacious." She looked at Natch. "Bat's children, for example, won't inherit his scars."
"No, no, that's not it at all." Rajani closed her eyes and concentrated. "Dr. Chandra said we were psychomimetic and, with training, psychomorphic. In infancy and on up through the age of five or six of your years, roughly one of our life-measurement units, we imprint on our surroundings and adapt so as to best survive. Protective coloration, if you will, that makes us take the form of those around us.
"You see, I was born on this world, though my parents were from a Jes'da colony world. I was raised in a lab setting where I interacted with humans and my parents. I retain their skin color, but physiologically I became more like a human than my parents—and they both looked very much like the Cythera with whom they had grown up."
Muscles twitched at the corners of Bat's jaw. "Nice stripes. Have a tiger for a pet?"
Rajani blushed. "These 'stripes' are not natural." She tossed off her jacket, then unbuttoned her shirt and slipped out of it. She held her arms out so they could see the stripes running the length of her arms, then turned so they could see where they fused into the solid gold line running from the waistband of her trousers on up to beneath her golden hair. She reached down and undid the button at the waist of her pan
ts. "The stripes run up from my toes, as well."
Hal held his hand up. "We'll believe you on that; you don't need to show us. Put your shirt back on and finish your explanation."
She sat again and pulled the shirt on, but did not button it. "The stripes are from the tattooing done during a ritual that you would take to be a baptism, I think. My parents were both practitioners, or adepts, in a philosophical tradition of my people. It is called . . . well, with my vocal apparatus closer to yours than that of my parents, I can't even say the word, but it's almost pronounced c'dithrta. It teaches us to be always flexible and adaptable, to change the way the universe is changing."
She found herself trembling, and she struggled to stop. Natch sat beside her and hugged her gently. That helped a bit, but the waves of adamant disbelief rolling off Bat began to burrow through her. Hatred and prejudice I can deal with, but at least those things confirm I exist. He refuses to believe anything I say. He denies what I am. He will grind me into nothing.
Deep down inside, defiance sparked in her. Her head came up, and she met Bat's dark stare bravely. "Our psychomimetic nature ends at one LMU, but those of us who practice c'dithrta are able, through exercises and meditation, to make changes in ourselves. It is not easy, but given time and the solitude necessary, it is possible. One of Dr. Chandra's aides, a man named Nicholas, was fascinated with this psychomorphic ability and studied it and c'dithrta. He may have even written about it."
Bat's expression did not change, but the negativity stopped flowing so freely. "Why stasis?"
"Stasis tubes mute outside influences. I went into stasis to meditate on the nature of Fiddleback with the specific goal of my becoming attuned to him. My father wanted me to become able to spy on him without being detected. I worked on the shielding first and, so far, I've not been detected, or I've been able to deflect Fiddleback's probes. My stay in the stasis tube was interrupted by Fiddleback's proximity, and I left without being able to fully understand him.
"The reason for stasis, though, was to protect me. While we are in our meditations, we are very susceptible to outside influences." She smiled at Bat. "Were I to meditate in your proximity, for example, and had I proper nutrition, I would become that creature you want most to smash down and destroy."
Bat's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as a hostile wave pulsed out from him. Rajani recoiled from it, then was almost sucked in by the undertow of respect pouring off him. She felt very confused, but Bat drifted away until he rested his back against the wall and folded his hands across his chest.
Hal looked at him, then back at her. "This meditation you were doing? You said it was interrupted when Fiddleback showed up in Phoenix?"
Rajani nodded. "I had a hard time making sense of Fiddleback's thoughts because they came through on an emotional level that was akin to dealing with a volcano. His frustration and anger nearly overwhelmed me, and they would have if I'd not been in the stasis tube. After that, I sensed his confidence because his tormentor was walking into a trap. Later I found things he had sent out, searcher drones, that were looking for Coyote. Will and George made the connection with you and so I'm here."
The big African-American looked over at Jytte. "Comments?"
"The Native Americans check out. They were the ones who helped Nero Loring when his daughter was after him. They do not work for Fiddleback." Jytte stood rock-still as she spoke, reminding Rajani of a machine spitting out reams of facts. "Area 51 is still a highly classified base in Nevada. Dr. Parit Chandra worked for the Department of Defense as a consultant until he was diagnosed as having brain cancer in 1986. His body, and that of an unidentified female, were found in the ashes of a cabin near Big Bear Lake, California. She had been shot six times—it was ruled a murder/suicide. Nicholas Hunt was cited as a co-author of a research paper Chandra had published in 1981, but all traces of him are lost in 1984."
Jalal smiled. "Chandra probably splashed Hunt to keep Raj here a secret."
"No! Dr. Chandra would never do that." Rajani hesitated. "He would never have done that. You're sure Dr. Chandra is dead?"
The plea to the contrary in her voice brought Jytte back from wherever she had been. The blonde woman blinked at her, then glanced down at the floor. "I am afraid there is little doubt of that. I am . . . sorry."
"Take it easy, Rajani." Natch gave her shoulders a squeeze. "He knew you were safe, so he had to have died happy."
Rajani brushed away a tear, then laughed lightly. "Tears. We don't have these. I guess the pod didn't filter everything out."
"Anything else, Jytte?" Hal sat back in the chair he'd taken.
"Incidentals check, both what she told you before and other things she has said here. I think she is legitimate."
"I agree." Hal looked at Bat and Natch and got nods from both. "Good. Reaching Coyote won't be that easy because our only contact with him is in Tokyo. Looks like we'll have to head there, so pack up for a trip."
Natch frowned. "Can you get us in?"
Hal smiled confidently. "I have some old Suns teammates working the corporate leagues over there. My 'staff' and I have standing invitations to put on a clinic, and I feel in the mood to do some teaching."
Rajani felt the rising confidence in the room and found her spirits being buoyed right along with them. Still, something tugged at the back of her mind. She concentrated, then looked up at Bat. "You didn't believe me, but not because I said I was an extraterrestrial. You didn't believe me because I wasn't the right kind of ET. How did you know about the Cythera?"
"One of them once bet that his champion could tear a man limb from limb in under a minute." Lethal cruelty slid through Bat's smile. "He lost the bet."
Twisting away from the spear thrust, Coyote let his momentum spin him around. His right hand came up in a fist that arced through where the getsul's head had been a second before, then he pulled his own head down as the spear shaft swung over it. Still tucked into a crouch, Coyote rolled backward and ignored the monk's anticipatory cry of victory.
Reaching out with his mind, Coyote yanked himself through to another dimension. Uncurling himself, he stood and waited as the tip of the spear probed the slit in reality that had swallowed him. Grabbing it right behind the head, he tugged it forward, then shifted it back to the right and shoved. He felt the butt end of it hit solidly, then he pulled hard on it, and the spear came free and into the new dimension.
Turning to the right, he opened another hole and stepped through it. He turned his steps back on themselves and opened another hole through which he threw the spear, then he backed away and crouched down. That should be enough to delay him, if he comes after me. If not, that's three down and two more to go.
Only three weeks into his training, Coyote had met and exceeded the demands made on him by Mong. The monk labored long and hard to test the limits of Coyote's abilities. He challenged him with a number of different tasks, binding them all together to place Coyote under incredible stress. Coyote wondered if Mong was truly training him or just trying to crush his spirit.
For the current set of exercises, Mong led Coyote to what he described as a "clutch" dimension. "Kyi-can, it is a proto-dimension akin to multiple bubbles all joined together within a larger bubble. An adept can use his skills to move through the dimensional walls without venturing very far, and this particular clutch is largely benign and easily included within our wards."
"Largely benign?"
Coyote remembered the old monk smiling when he replied to that question. "What little natural life there is there tends to be harmless and timid. There will, however, be five getsuls doing their best to kill you. You are to elude or eliminate them, preferably without fatality to them."
"Or me."
"Indeed." Mong smiled quixotically. "I do not fear for your life in this exercise, but I do fear for it if you do not master this exercise."
So far, so good. Coyote closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. He expanded his consciousness until he reached the logical limits of the dim
, dusty-red dimension in which he had taken refuge. He waited like a trap-door spider and sought any sign that anyone was moving through the dimensions nestled next to his in the clutch.
Nothing. He had identified the various clutch dimensions with terms that made focusing on them easier. The dimension in which he currently stood he had designated as Rust. Moderately warm and fairly dry, he scraped his tongue across his teeth to rid it of the metallic taste in the air. The desolate Marscape struck him as the most normal of the proto-dimensions in the clutch. In eluding the getsul, he'd made a brief side-trip into Muck and tossed the spear into Night.
Angle is likely where they want to engage me. Muck, Night and Crush are my three choices out of here, and the spear should lure someone into Night. I was just in Muck, so it looks like Crush is it. Having made that decision, he took two steps to the left, focused his mind on splitting the wall between dimensions and moved.
Crush's atmosphere closed in on him like a hot and humid summer day inside an iron box. The dimension's gravity ran about 30% greater than that of Earth, as nearly as Coyote could tell, except for the occasional "up-spout" in which gravity geysered up or out or counter to normal. The landscape gently rolled through a series of gray hills, with a deep, dark-blue sky that appeared to be in perpetual twilight. The only sign of life he saw were broad, squat plants and ribbon-like kelp that thrived in the up-spouts.
Coyote crouched, not wholly by his own choice, and let his mind stream out to probe the other nearby dimensions. Rust remained clear, but he detected something in Slide. Slide has an advantage for the defender. As I'm supposed to be the one being hunted, and he's searching the logical place for me to be hiding, perhaps I can surprise him.
Coyote concentrated and cleared his mind as much as he possibly could. He stopped probing Slide and, instead, left himself open and passive. He let all the impressions he could from Slide pour into him, then inside his head he filtered out everything but the getsul's probes. Like a stealth aircraft, he deadened his own image, giving the getsul nothing upon which to track. In return, however, he picked up on the man's probes and used them to pinpoint him.
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