"Come on, Jack. Talk to me," said Pinpin. "I imagine I gave you an awful scare back in my apartment, but that's all in the past now. Of course it wasn’t real, but our young Wilhelmina helped to make it more so. There’s no witness like the sweet innocent, eh?” He tapped the side of his nose with one finger. “So, Jack. Is it wooork that brings you out here? I imagine that it is. Well, that's not a good thing is it, Jack? It won't do at all."
He glanced down and saw the package tucked beneath Jack’s arm, the Outreach logo emblazoned all over it and gave a slight nod. He reached out and gripped Jack's shoulder with bony fingers. "As happy as I am to see you dear boy, and I have been expecting you to show up eventually – it was easy to get through the doors, wasn’t it? — you really shouldn't be here. Company business or not, If I were you, I'd take this one small piece of advice from me. Get off this world, Jack and don't come back. Whatever you're wooorking on — and I can hazard a guess what that might be — just drop it and get the hell out of here."
There was a feral look to his face that Jack had only seen a few times before.
Pinpin leaned forward conspiratorially, casting a glance over his shoulder, though there was no one to be seen for the length of the corridor. Pinpin's grip on his shoulder was becoming painful. "It's only because we're such good friends that I can let you do this. I like you, Jack. I really do. There are times when we might work together again. I don't want any harm to come to you really. Especially after you looked after Wilhelmina sooo well."
Suddenly, the image of Pinpin's face that had floated up when he'd been talking to Daman back in Old became understandable. Clearly, the kids in Old had seen Pinpin since his supposed death. They had thought Jack had been lying to them. That made a lot of sense. Billie had probably been there, and not long before Jack had come looking for her. That's where she'd gone. Pinpin Dan had come to get her. Further pieces started to slot together. Jack extricated himself from Pinpin's grip and took a step back. "So where is she?" he said.
"Why, dear boy. She's here with me, of course. What did you expect?"
Jack bit back his first response. "She's okay?" he said finally.
"Of coooourse she's okay, Jack. Would I let anything happen to Wilhelmina? I don't think so."
Yeah, no more than you already have, you evil bastard. But he didn't say it. He just sniffed and clamped his jaw shut.
"Would you like to see her, Jack. Seems you've taken quite a shine to my young friend, haven't you? I can believe that you've been awfully worried about her since I came to collect her from your apartment. Of course you gave me quite a scare when she wasn't there, but then I found her message. It was easy to track her down from there. She's good, but not quite that good. She does, however, have a range of other talents that make up for it, eh?"
The look he gave was far too knowing for Jack's liking, but he couldn't afford to react. Not yet.
"Yes, of course,” he said. “Can I see her?"
"Well, I don't see what harm it could do, dear boy. I can allow you that before I send you on your way. I need you functioning at the moment. So don't worry, no harm's going to come to you. You just need to be back home, back in the Locality."
"I don't under—"
Pinpin placed a long bony finger in front of his lips. "Ssssst. Not now, Jack." He reached across and steered Jack forward with a hand on his shoulder. "This way. Then we'll call someone to escort you to your vehicle. It won't take too long to get the shuttle back."
Long glistening corridors faded deep into the complex. Straight, straight lines. Everything Jack had seen over the last few weeks had involved curves, sinuous shapes, and the contrasting layout of the facility struck him now. They walked for what seemed like a good quarter of an hour in complete silence, the only sound that of their footfalls echoing from the corridor walls and the distant hum of machinery buried somewhere deep within. Finally, Pinpin pulled him up in front of a door, by placing another hand on his shoulder.
"Here we are. Now, before we go in. No fuss, Jack. All right?"
"Yeah, okay. I've got it, Pinpin. You don't need to worry. You're in control here."
Pinpin grinned his tombstone grin — no amusement in it, then pushed open the door.
Flat white. Clinical. But what did he expect — all the trappings of home? Billie was sitting in a chair looking at a wall display. As she noticed the door open, she quickly uttered a command and the wall cleared down. Only then did she turn to see who it was.
"Uncle Jack!"
Jack swallowed and glanced sideways at Pinpin whose grin only broadened.
"Billie. You okay?" She looked okay, but her face was shadowed, as if she hadn't had enough sleep. That haunted look was back again. The same look as the kids down in Old — a long tunneled deepness to her gaze.
"Uh-huh. Sure," she said. "How did you get here? What are you doing?" Question after question.
"Just wait, Billie. You're sure you're okay."
The tumbling flow ceased and Billie stood. It seemed like she wanted to cross the space between them, but something was holding her back. She nodded.
"As you can see, Jack, Wilhelmina is perfectly alright. Wilhelmina," he said turning back to her. "Jack has just popped in to pay us a brief visit before returning home."
Jack glanced across at Pinpin. "I'm not quite ready to leave yet."
"But I'm afraid to say you'll have to, Jack. You have woooork to do, remember?"
Jack quickly balanced the options. He couldn’t afford to be too pushy, but if he just let things go, it would achieve nothing.
"What work? I'd rather spend a little time with Billie."
"You have to go back and submit your report for Outreach. The one which tells them that you've come up with no rational explanation for the disappearance of the mining crew."
Jack spun to face him. "What do you know about that?"
"Why everything, dear boy," said Pinpin, tapping the side of his nose. "Why do you think you got the job in the first place? I like you, Jack, but I'm afraid you'll never amount to anything much. You have your talents, whatever they may be, but all this fringe escapism you indulge in, it only leads to one place — nowhere. Outreach was getting pressure from within, as well as from some sources outside. Warburg had to be seen to be doing something. Take the heat off for a while so they could get on with things out here. You see Dairil III has something that makes it very special. The miners were the first to stumble upon it. It has an immense power source buried in the heart of its mountains, something to do with the geothermal activity peculiar to that particular world. I don’t understand the particular details of it, but suffice it to say, it suited the program’s purposes.
"And as for your involvement, dear boy, I suggested it. Hire an investigator who can be seen to be doing the job, but has no chance of coming up with any real answers. You, dear boy. The perfect choice."
"I don't buy it."
"No, of course you wouldn't. You've never been much of a visionary, Jack. Oh, that’s rich." He guffawed. "And if only you'd known. When you turned up at my place with that handipad…it was like a gift. Miss Van der Stegen was most impressed. She and Warburg were worried about what had happened to it, and then you turn up and deliver it right into our laps."
"So she is involved with Warburg?"
"Of course she is. She and Warburg are working together. And I work for Warburg. Simple. And with the material they had on Van der Stegen's handipad, they had plenty to undermine his grip on Outreach. Why do you think she showed up at your place, Jack? I suggested it too. We had to find out exactly how much you knew, where you got the damned thing in the first place. A pity you weren't a little more cooperative."
"Dammit, Pinpin. How much of a sap do you think I am?"
"Listen, Jack. You like to think you're good at what you do, that you're endowed with some sort of talent. Well, I don't buy that. I've seen you work. You plod away. You've always been lucky though. Occasionally you get really lucky and come up with a few answers. O
ccasionally the answers are staring you in the face. No, Jack. You were the perfect choice. Jack Stein — going nowhere. It's ironic really, considering. The very people you were looking for were going nowhere too." He brayed, right in Jack's face.
Jack hit him then. He didn't mean too, but the condescension, the sheer arrogance of Pinpin's tone and the implications of what he was saying, along with the thought he’d been having himself over the last couple of weeks, all bundled together in the back of Jack's head in a tight ball of anger and he hit him. Behind that blow lay all the force of the last few weeks’ frustration and pain. He hit him hard. The blow snapped Pinpin's head back. Jack hit him again.
Somewhere in the background, he could hear a voice crying out for him to stop.
At the second blow, Pinpin crumpled. One knee buckled as he raised a bony hand to protect his face, and he tumbled backward and sideways. There was a table behind him — a long low thing with hard edges — and as he fell, Pinpin's head connected with the corner.
A crack. A thud. Slow motion. And then Pinpin was lying there, his gangly awkward form looking all the more awkward.
"Oh shit!" said Jack.
"Uncle Pinpin!" cried Billie.
She was down leaning over him before Jack had finished contemplating his fist. What had he done? The burst of fury had hollowed him, and he stood there uncomprehending.
"Uncle Pinpin!" said Billie again shaking him. A growing pool of bright red, contrasting with the shiny white, smooth floor surface started to snake from beneath Pinpin Dan's head. A red, wet bloodsnake, crawling across the floor. Billie was still shaking him. She didn't seem to have noticed the blood.
"Billie, leave him." She looked up and glared. He crossed and pulled her away. "I said leave him."
Jack was going to make sure this time. He knelt and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Shit. He checked again. Billie was standing looking down at him accusingly.
"Billie, listen. You shouldn't feel anything for this bastard. You really shouldn't."
"He's dead, isn’t he?" she said. "You killed him." Her voice had gone flat, devoid of emotion.
"Yeah, he's dead. I'm sorry, Billie.”
“But you said he was dead before.”
Jack couldn’t deny that. “Yes, I did. I was wrong. But I’m not wrong now. He really is this time.”
He stood staring down at the body. Just what he needed. A corpse and a fresh one at that.
“But now we have a problem," he said.
And they did. Jack was feeling a hollow in his guts. He'd killed him. He'd killed Pinpin Dan. He hadn't meant to, but there was the stark reality lying on the floor in front of him. He couldn't bluff his way out of this. "What's through that door?"
"Living rooms. Bedroom. Bathroom."
"Listen, you've got to help me. Open the door. I'll have to drag him through there. Put him in the bed and clean up this mess. Maybe I can think of a way to get us out of here."
"But what about him?" she asked, nodding at Pinpin's body.
"What about him, Billie. There's nothing we can do for him now. We have to worry about ourselves."
She stared at him for a couple of seconds, then slowly turned, crossed the room and opened the other door.
"Get me something. A towel or something that I can hold under his head."
She disappeared and returned a few moments later with a towel. Jack wadded it beneath Pinpin's head, and holding it in place, started dragging the body across the room. For all his boniness, Pinpin Dan was not small and it took some effort. The shiny floor helped matters a little, and Jack finally managed to get him into the next room. Two other doors were in that room, a living room, and one of them lay open. Jack guessed that was where Billie had retrieved the towel from.
"Billie, the other door."
Showing not even a shred of emotion, she proceeded to cross and open that door as well. A couple of more minutes and a good deal more effort, and Pinpin's body lay covered in the bed, the towel wadded beneath him, partially stemming the further flow of blood, but it wouldn’t be long before it started soaking through. They needed another towel. He said so to Billie, and she quickly returned with another, which Jack slipped under Pinpin’s head. He arranged the pillows so the worst of it was hidden from direct view. With the covers pulled over him, maybe no one would notice, at least for a while.
Billie stood in the doorway, watching.
Who was he kidding. It might just last for a while, but after that? He gave the back of his head a rapid scratch. "Billie, is there anywhere else we could put him?"
"Grow a wall."
"What?"
"Grow a wall. Where the door is. Nobody will see him if there isn't a door."
It took him a moment; then he realized what she was saying. "This place works like the Locality?"
"Uh-huh."
"Can you do it?"
"Easy."
Maybe it was shock, maybe it was something else, but she was taking this all too calmly. She seemed to have completely switched off all of her emotions. He didn't have time to analyze it now, but her reactions spoke of too many things.
She went back into the front room, called up the screen and started issuing commands. In the meantime, Jack went to the bathroom, found another towel and started wiping up the remaining blood. He hid the towel in the disposal unit in the bathroom. By the time he'd finished, the edges of the bedroom door were already starting to blur. Okay, that took care of Pinpin for the time being, but in the meantime, that didn't solve how they were going to get out of this place and back home, off Pandora. He had to think about this. He'd hardly been here long enough to warrant a full investigation. It was going to appear suspicious even to a shuttle driver if he called the vehicle back so soon. He'd have to have a reason.
"Uncle Jack."
"Hmmm?" She'd finished with the programming and now stood next to him, just inside the doorway.
"You know that guy you were looking for?"
"Yeah, not now, Billie. And it's just Jack, okay? I have to work out how to get us out of this place before somebody notices our friend in the next room's missing. How often do other people come here?"
“Not at all. Well, not much.”
“That wall’s going to take a while to grow though. We can’t take the risk. You can tell me on the way out.”
She narrowed her eyes, glanced across at the other room and shook her head. "Nuh-uh. You'd better listen to me."
"What is it?" He turned and glared at her. She barely flinched.
"He's here," she said.
"What?"
"He's here. That guy, Ronschke — the miner guy. I found out some stuff while Uncle Pinpin was looking at some other things." That particular use of Dan's name still gave Jack a shiver. "He gave me access to the systems," she continued. "I could have gotten in there myself, but anyway, I had plenty of time to look around."
Jack quickly crouched in front of her and took her by the shoulders. "Why? How do you know it's him?"
"Why do you think, stupid. You gave me all that stuff to look at, to find things out. I remembered. I remember most things. His name came out and I followed the links. That's all. Pretty simple really." He could barely believe she was being so matter-of-fact.
"And?" he asked.
"They called him a test subject. Vortex case #132. He's being kept here somewhere. They're running a whole lot of different tests on him. Something about passing through the null space and coming through the other side. There were others, but a lot of them just had blank records. Nothing there. There was only about, I think, eight or nine other records with the same sort of detail as the one you're looking for."
Null space? What did that mean? "What sort of tests, I wonder."
"Oh all sorts of stuff. Medical records. Things like that."
Medical. That made sense. It worked right into the dream image of Ronschke. And null space...? A picture of Ronschke floated up in his mind, strapped to the chair in the room with the translucent glass.
&nb
sp; "The thing in the cloud place. The water place. The air place. The place of dark earth. I don't know."
"Do you remember if there were any other names there."
"Uh-huh. You want to know if any other names from the mining crew were there. Right?" Billie looked pleased with herself. She nodded. "All of them. I didn't have time to check all of them — the records were pretty hard to get into — but the names were there. I think it was all of them."
Vortex case #132. And who was to say Ronschke was the last? How many had there been? Here was nothing to say the numbering was sequential, but all the same. Easy. They had a ready supply of miners with few ties and probably, Outreach had the means to control the information flow anyway. If there was anyone back home who cared, they could feed them anything, keep the funds flowing if necessary. Easy test subjects, but test subjects for what? And what Pinpin had said — they were going nowhere.
"Billie, what else did you find out? Do you know why they were testing him?"
"Not straight away. That was harder. Uncle Pinpin didn't want me getting into some of the links, so I had to be more careful. He was on some sort of ship. A ship that traveled into — I don't know. There was more of that mathematics and science stuff. It sounded like the ship was going somewhere, but not going somewhere at the same time. I didn't understand it."
"Tell me some more ... "
She shrugged. "There was lots of stuff. I don't know. Something about exotic matter, about dimen-sion-ality. It sounded like some of the ships — there was more than one — went wherever they were supposed to go and didn't come back. Something about instability. That's right — I remember. They were trying to test the effects of the vortex, the null space, on human subjects. Like an experiment."
Shit. That's what they were doing. Outreach was using the miners as subject to test the effects of some sort of travel. He had been right. Some sort of new ship. Gateways. A place where everything was all mixed up. Something that passed through matter like the dream beast living through the mine walls. Everything was clicking into place. Warburg knew full well what was going on. He'd hired Jack, just as Pinpin had said, to help cover up what was going on out here to give himself time. And what was going on? Ships, transport — all that logistics stuff had to be important to their business, didn't it? And Van der Stegen? Van der Stegen had to be involved somehow. It was his handipad after all. All those formulae, scientific notations, everything else, it all pointed to the same thing. Van der Stegen had to be just as involved as Warburg.
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