Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  ::I hope so, too, but that’s not what I meant.::

  ::I know, Friend-of-two-parts, but I’m curiously reluctant to discuss the grimmer possibilities.::

  ::Then let’s not discuss it. Let’s drive right to the heart of the matter. Kolitt, how much time do you have before you must...well, leave me?::

  The silence lasted so long Yost was again becoming acutely aware of the throbbing ache of hunger. But finally Kolitt said, ::It’s very difficult to say. There are many factors to considered. Starvation has affected severely. I estimate roughly six, perhaps seven weeks.::

  ::What! That’s less than half...!::

  ::I’m well aware of that, Friend-of two-parts. And it may not be time enough to complete our mission. Therefore, I elect to exercise the prerogative of the Senior Field Agent and tell you all I know of our mission before I reach the point where I might...misplace...such memories. It’s not a great amount of information, but it will have to go into our report.::

  ::But, Kolitt, if Intelligence didn’t clear me...::

  The impatience in the symbiont’s reply was Yost’s first hint of the nerve wracking battle the Ballatine must be fighting. ::They should have cleared you, Ray. I’m not responsible for the idiocies of deskbound spy chasers! Since our lead has turned out to be a hot one you’re entitled to know.::

  ::What I don’t know, they can’t extract from me.::

  ::You won’t know anything they don’t know already, and it won’t make any difference if they know that you know. If we don’t get away from here before the Mixie comes back...well, that crowd can be counted on to interrogate to destruction.::

  Yost had contemplated just such a fate so often that he couldn’t work up a new horror. ::O.K. What’s the big secret?:

  ::In a word...Rotsuc deposits. Precise co-ordinates of nineteen deposits on ten planets in the Empty Wedge. All with assay values greater than the richest Confluential deposit.::

  Yost whistled. Nineteen deposits of the rarest mineral known to civilization! And all on uninhabited planets, unclaimed by any member of the Confluence. And all rich! It could destroy the economy overnight! Rotsuc would be so cheap that devices based on Room Temperature Superconductions could be made disposable. Without even trying, he could think of three expensively impractical applications that could become common. And...currency values were based on Rotsuc!

  Yost asked, ::And that’s the information that was on that fiber?::

  ::Apparently. Unless, of course, they’re only involved in some ordinary deal.::

  ::No wonder Intelligence went chasing off in all directions and even borrowing manpower! Do they know the locations?::

  ::No. It was the most closely kept secret of a private development company. The theft can’t even be announced without pulling the props out of the market.::

  ::I can see that!::

  ::Then you can also see that it is essential that one of us get home to file the report.::

  ::Of course. But I don’t see how we’re going to make it inside of six weeks. There are no maisu here in the Colony and we’d never make it back on foot.::

  ::That is true, Friend-of-two-parts. Therefore, we shall have to commandeer transportation.::

  ::What transportation? Jet-assisted maisu?::

  ::Our Mixie friend should return next week. Whatever he uses should be suitable.::

  ::Very nice. And how are we going to talk him out of his own, personal ship?::

  ::Friend-of-two-parts::—Kolitt was contrite—::I hadn’t intended to ask his permission.::

  ::You mean just...steal...:: Yost realized how ridiculous his reluctance sounded. But then it hit him. ::But, I thought Ballatine didn’t steal...?::

  ::That was your choice of word, Ray. I had intended to commandeer his ship on an official priority and leave Director Proken to straighten out the legalities. That’s his specialty and I think he owes us something for our trouble...don’t you? We’re not leaving the Mixie stranded. He can counter-commandeer our ship and call for his at the pound.::

  ::Give a philosopher enough paper...! I still call it stealing, but it doesn’t bother my conscience. There’s only one little problem. The Mixie may object to us leaving his cage.::

  ::I hadn’t intended to ask permission to leave. We’re both free citizens and he has no right to detain us.::

  ::Agreed. I’m all for it. But how are we going to get out?::

  ::That, Friend-of-two-parts, was the problem I was working on when you called me. I’m certain I have the information that will unlock this cage, but I seem to have misplaced it in my recent...house-cleaning...LISTEN! Isn’t that Rogahm coming now?::

  Yost perked up...yes! Now he could hear the scuffling limp of the native’s distorted gait. With starvation postponed, Yost hoped time might pass a little faster. He laid himself out and pretended to faint when Rogahm came in. Perhaps that would improve the food service.

  And it did. It hardly seemed like a whole week later when Kolitt roused Yost from his reveries. ::Friend-of-two-parts, I think it is time for us to leave.::

  ::You still haven’t told me how you intend to pull off this miracle.::

  Silence. Followed by that grave tone that had come to make Yost so nervous lately. ::My apologies, Ray. But I have only just located the memory of the final steps.::

  ::Well then, let’s go! What do we do first?::

  ::The power pack of your dousing rod will make a fine detonator for our bomb. Get it out and extract the power capsule.::

  Yost fished the little cylinder out of his coverall, unfolded it into a Y, and unscrewed the stem. ::I don’t get it, what bomb?::

  ::It was an obscure item one of my ancestors read in a chemical safety journal. Now, get out your purification kit.::

  Yost dug the palm-sized sack of gelatin out of his shoulder pocket. ::Before we set off on any escape attempt, I think I’d better...::

  ::I know. But don’t put it down that hole. The T.Y.U. rations have provided us with a unique catalyst which we’ll need for our bomb. But first, squeeze half the gelatin out of the packet and drop the dowsing power pack into the space. Then you can use the stem of the dowsing rod to fill the packet with catalyst.::

  Yost did as he was told, surprised that the semisolid his bowels produced was nearly odorless and an ashen gray color. The Ballatine must have been up to some subtle tricks. ::Now what?::

  ::You can locate the cage’s generator by tapping along the wall with the dousing rod’s V portion. The rod’s circuitry will react to the generator’s rotating field.::

  Yost followed directions and, sure enough, the half-dismantled dousing rod reacted to the generator’s fields, giving him a beautiful electric shock that sent him sprawling halfway across the cage. He picked himself up saying, ::And why didn’t you warn me?::

  ::Friend-of-two-parts, even Ballatine make mistakes. Fortunately, this wasn’t a serious one. And may I remind you that electric-shock is more uncomfortable for me than for you?::

  ::Yeah. Well. Let’s be more careful. Did you mark the spot?:: It would take a Ballatine to tell one point from another on that featureless, gray wall.

  ::Of course. Now we’ll use the remaining gelatin to attach the bomb to the wall.::

  ::That gelatin isn’t a glue! It won’t hold the weight.::

  ::Mixed with a little dilute uric acid, it makes a fair plaster.::

  Working with mounting skepticism, Yost said, ::What’s going to set this thing off?::

  ::When you poke the V portion of the rod into the force-field barrier, the generator will hit the resonating frequency of the power pack.::

  ::Are you sure it won’t hit my resonating frequency first? And, remember, humans aren’t explosion-proof. Are you sure this won’t kill us?::

  ::Sure enough to stake all our lives on it.::

  Yost thought...all our lives...by Kollitt’s count that was three...one human and two Ballatine infants. He shut up and worked grimly. The ship would probably ground any minute and they’d have to be gone before
Rogahm and that Mixie got back or they’d surely be finished. It should be easy enough to get lost in the night desert, but then how would they find the Mixie’s ship in all those rocks...?

  The explosion deafened Yost and stunned him almost senseless. But his body was up and moving before the reverberations had died.

  Making a supreme effort to collect his wits, Yost wrested control from the Ballatine and dug in his heels. ::Kolitt, wait! What do you know about safecracking?::

  ::Nothing, Friend-of-two-parts. Let’s go! We don’t have much time.::

  ::How much time?::

  ::Perhaps fifteen minutes. But I can’t guarantee that. I’m only guessing he’ll cut through the Customs Satellites’ midnight blind spot.::

  Yost knelt by the floor safe and examined it. Even at close range, it looked just like the one he had in his office...and they had a reputation for being temperamental. Especially when installed horizontally.

  ::Friend-of-two-parts, the Mixie might have a surveillance-neutralizer on his ship. He could come down at any time.::

  ::I don’t think so. He was in an awful hurry to get out of here. I think he was trying to make rendezvous with a hole in the customs net.:: Now that he was out of the cage, the heady aroma of cool, fresh air was going to his head. He was a man and he was going to act like one. He spun the dials on the safe door and began thumping on the mechanism here and there.

  ::Ray! If they find us here, they’ll surely kill us. The mission...::

  ::Exactly,:: Yost grunted as he pounded his way around the circular rim of the plug. ::The mission comes first. If that filiament contained Rotsuc locations that Intelligence doesn’t have, we’ve got to bring that information back. If it doesn’t, we’ve got to know because we don’t want to send Intelligence on a wild-goose chase that could divert enough manpower to let the real thieves get away.::

  ::But::—the Ballatine adopted a reasoning tone—::Friend-of-two-parts, you’ll never open a safe with your bare hands. What do you know about safecracking?::

  ::Very little. But I know something about cracking this safe. I do it all the time.:: He continued pounding the safe in a spiral toward the center. Sweat beaded his brow and he felt faint from the exertion after his long confinement. ::You know how it is around Central. You can never get a repairman when you need one. So, one night, I took the safe repairman out and got him drunk and he taught me how to open these safes without the combination. It works on mine, maybe it’ll work here. Give me a few more minutes.::

  ::I can’t give you what I don’t have! Ray, let’s get out of here while we still can.::

  ::I thought you weren’t afraid of death?::

  ::This is not the proper time for me to relinquish personality. I thought you were afraid of death under any circumstances.::

  ::Well, I am.:: He spun the four dials in reverse and began pounding them in sequence.

  ::Then let’s go. To stay here is suicidal!::

  ::Kolitt, remember it was you who wanted to come poking our nose into Rogahm’s back room. You said you didn’t want to file a faulty report. If we don’t get this tape, it’ll not only be a faulty report, it’ll be an inconclusive one. At the moment, I’m more afraid of Proken than I am of the Devil!::

  After a short silence, Kolitt said, ::I guess I don’t understand humans as well as I thought I did.::

  ::Nor do I understand Ballatines. Is your own personal survival more important than this information?::

  ::No. Not really.::

  ::Then kindly stop my hands from shaking! I’ve got to adjust these dials.::

  Kolitt said nothing, but Yost’s fingers steadied and his breathing eased. He turned each of the four gently clockwise, past the zero, and back to zero. When the fourth dial registered zero, Yost stood and twisted the handle set flush with the plug’s surface. Then he heaved, feeling the Ballatine add to his strength. He’d pay for that drain on vital resources later, but it would be worth it. He got the plug up on its hinges and knelt to rummage in the hole. It held only three fiber reels. He stuffed all three into his pockets and said, ::Let’s go. You guide. My night vision is lousy.::

  Crouched low, the Ballatine guided them through the dark studio; he snatched up the rolled Tapestry lying near the door and was out into the night heading into the northern wilderness.

  Black boulders hulked on all sides and tiny pebbles rolled and crunched underfoot. The stars decorated the moonless sky but shed no light to see by. Yost knew that the Ballatine had placed his own, light-sensitive tissues between the rods and cones of the human retina and could see perfectly now that the yellow sun was gone. Of course, the boulders wouldn’t be surrealistic color splashes in the infrared.

  Finally, chest heaving, they crouched between two large boulders to watch the clear sky. ::O.K.,:: said Yost, ::Now what?::

  ::If my time sense isn’t too badly warped, our friend is due to ground any second. Watch carefully, we must get the bearing exactly right if we are to pick up our ship before he discovers we’ve left.::

  ::We’d make better time without lugging this Tapestry along.::

  ::Correct. But we may need it. Hang on to it.::

  ::All right. But I can’t imagine what we might need it for!::

  ::Perhaps that is for the best, Friend-of...THERE!::

  Yost’s head whipped around to follow the fire-streak to ground and almost before the afterimage had faded from his retina they were moving toward it, weaving through the black shadow of the moonless night but always progressing toward that invisible landing field in spite of countless detours.

  Eventually, they crept to the edge of a ravine and looked down the rock-strewn slope to a cleared floor just large enough for the one-man scout that stood silently on its struts. It was an aerodynamically veined, missile-shaped, surface-to-surface scout. The flat expanse of the vest-pocket landing field was illuminated by a circle of glowing panels that cast a soft, green luminescence on the underside of the ship, and provided landing-grid services of a sort. It appeared to be deserted.

  ::Friend-of-two-parts, I recognize the model and I have the skill to pilot it, but I must retire now to locate all the memories. Do you think you can get us inside?::

  ::Leave it to me.::

  Yost hefted the Tapestry and made his way down the slope, bracing himself against the loneliness that struck as Kolitt withdrew. He watched the ship for a while, circling outside the perimeter, among the boulders, trying to decide if the Mixie was still inside. Finally, he dashed under the ship’s landing gear and attacked the hatch. Much to his surprise, it opened to the third standard combination he tried.

  He guessed that a professional thief wouldn’t rely on fancy locks because he knew how simple they were to open. Suspiciously, Yost climbed into the brightly lit interior, pulled the Tapestry up behind him, and dogged the hatch so it couldn’t be opened from outside. Then he prowled the empty compartments with a heart-racing caution until he completed a thorough inspection from drive to pilot’s couch.

  He seated himself at the controls, secured the webbing, and surveyed the instruments. Very similar to what he knew, but a much older model. Not as many autocircuits.

  ::Friend-of-two-parts, allow me.::

  Yost yielded to the Ballatine and in a neat twelve minutes they were space borne, hyperlight, and headed home. Yost had to admit he couldn’t have done as clean a job. Race memory had some advantages. He said, ::That was almost too easy.::

  ::Ray,:: Kolitt reproached, ::There was nothing at all easy about it. I’m living on nervous energy and if I don’t get some nourishment very soon, you are going to have real trouble.::

  Yost freed himself and rummaged about the tiny galley. While he prepared a meal, he munched on a few packets of rations and tasted everything that was open. The Mixie wasn’t a very imaginative chef, but a hungry Ballatine will make anything taste delicious.

  When he’d seated himself before a hot meal, Yost said, ::There’s enough here for the four weeks it’ll take to get home. Are we going to mak
e it?::

  The gravity was back as the Ballatine replied, ::I honestly don’t know, Friend-of-two-parts. If I don’t make it, you’ll deliver our report.::

  ::There must be something I can do to help!::

  ::Nothing. Except eat well.::

  ::If I somehow improvise a nutrient bath...::

  ::Friend-of-two-parts, I will not allow...that...to happen. Death is preferable. Before I left, I saw my conjugal brother safely through fission, so my duty to my line is discharged. Only my personal survival is at stake, and I do not wish to survive in that manner. Do you understand?::

  ::Not really. Or maybe I do, I don’t know.:: Yost thought about it for a few minutes. For a Ballatine to fission, prematurely and without conjugation, would mean that the children would be the social equivalent of bastards...and they would probably have some sort of handicap...possibly be too weak to survive....Yost remembered that overwash of violent emotion he’d gotten from Kolitt in the desert. If the Ballatine felt so strongly about it, it must be worth a life....::Yes, Kolitt, I think I do understand.::

  ::Then there is something you can do, Friend-of-two-parts.::

  ::Yes?::

  ::Hang the Tapestry in the sleeping quarters and then go to sleep. You’re going to be very tired soon.::

  This time, Yost wasn’t inclined to argue. If his partner could derive some comfort from the Tapestry, the least he could do was to hang the thing.

  The minutes mounted to days and the days to weeks. Yost spent a lot of time drowsing or exercising. Kolitt came less and less often to talk and seemed lethargic and mentally disorganized. Cooking was a hobby of Yost’s and, with six meals a day to prepare, he kept busy enough. When he wasn’t busy, he found himself worrying fruitlessly. There was absolutely nothing he could do.

  In an effort to dispel the gloom, Yost took out the fiber reels he’d stolen and played them through the ship’s main viewscreen.

  The first one was a cryptic list of names and numbers. Possibly a payroll, but to whom? The names were some sort of code.

  The second proved to be even less interesting. It contained nothing but binary digits. The computer identified it as a standard route to a local pleasure planet.