Jorj X. McKie 1 - Whipping Star

by Frank Herbert

  "Am I interrupting anything?" Bildoon asked.

  Tuluk turned a knob on the bench, waited, turned the knob once more. He caught the pole as the invisible supporting force released it. He racked the pole on supports against the back wall above the bench.

  "That is a silly question," he said, turning.

  "It is, at that," Bildoon said. "We have a problem."

  "Without problems, we have no employment," Tuluk said.

  "I don't think we're going to get Furuneo's head," Bildoon said.

  "It's been so long now, we probably couldn't have gotten a reliable nerve replay, anyway," Tuluk said. He screwed his face slit into an S-curve, an expression he knew aroused amusement among other sentients but which represented intense thought for a Wreave. "What do the astronomers say about the star pattern McKie saw on that mysterious planet?"

  "They think there may have been an error in the mindcord."

  "Oh. Why?"

  "For one thing, there isn't even a hint, not the slightest subjective indication of variation in stellar magnitudes."

  "All the visible stars had the same light intensity?"

  "Apparently."

  "Odd."

  "And the nearest, pattern similarity," Bildoon said, "is one that doesn't exist anymore."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well . . . there's a Big Dipper, a Little Dipper, various other constellations and zodiac similarities, but . . ." He shrugged.

  Tuluk stared at him blankly. "I don't recognize the references," he said presently.

  "Oh, yes -- I forgot," Bildoon said. "We PanSpechi, when we decided to copy human form, explored their history with some care. These patterns of stars are ones which were visible from their ancient homeworld."

  "I see. Another oddity to go with what I've discovered about the material of this whip."

  "What's that?"

  "It's very strange. Parts of this leather betray a subatomic structure of peculiar alignment."

  "Peculiar? How?"

  "Aligned. Perfectly aligned. I've never seen anything like it outside certain rather fluid energy phenomena. It's as though the material had been subjected to some peculiar force or stress. The result is, in some ways, similar to neomaser alignment of light quanta."

  "Wouldn't that require enormous energy?"

  "Presumably. "

  "But what could cause it?"

  "I don't know. The interesting thing is that it doesn't appear to be a permanent change. The structure shows characteristics like plastic memory. It's slowly snapping back into reasonably familiar forms."

  Bildoon heard the emphasis which betrayed Tuluk's disturbance. "Reasonably familiar?" he asked.

  "That's another thing," Tuluk said. "Let me explain. These subatomic structures and their resultant overstructures of genetic message units undergo slow evolution. We can, by comparing structures, date some samples to within two or three thousand standard years. Since cattle cells form the basic protein for vat culture food, we have fairly complete records on them over a very long time indeed. The strange thing about the samples in this piece of rawhide" -- he gestured with a mandibular extensor -- "is that its pattern is very ancient."

  "How ancient?"

  "Perhaps several hundred thousand years."

  Bildoon absorbed this for a moment, then, "But you told us earlier that this rawhide was only a couple of years old. "

  "According to our catalyzing tests, it is."

  "Could this alignment stress have mixed up the pattern?"

  "Conceivably."

  "You doubt it, then?"

  "I do."

  "You're not trying to tell me that whip was brought forward through time?"

  "I'm not trying to tell you anything outside the facts which I've reported. Two tests, previously considered reliable, do not agree as to the dating of this material."

  "Time travel's an impossibility," Bildoon said.

  "So we've always assumed."

  "We know it. We know it mathematically and pragmatically. It's a fiction device, a myth, an amusing concept employed by entertainers. We reject it, and we are left without paradox. Only one conclusion remains: The alignment stress, whatever that was, changed the pattern."

  "If the rawhide were . . . squeezed through a subatomic filter of some sort, that might account for it," Tuluk said. "But since I have no such filter, nor the power to do this theoretical squeezing, I cannot test it."

  "You must have some thoughts about it, though."

  "I do. I cannot conceive of a filter which would do this thing without destroying the materials subjected to such forces."

  "Then what you're saying," Bildoon said, voice rising in angry frustration, "is that an impossible device did an impossible thing to that impossible piece of . . . of . . ."

  "Yes, sir," Tuluk said.

  Bildoon noticed that Tuluk's aides in the outer room were turning their faces toward him, showing signs of amusement. He stepped fully into Tuluk's lab, closed the door.

  "I came down here hoping you'd found something which might force their hand," Bildoon said, "and you give me conundrums. "

  "Your displeasure doesn't change the facts," Tuluk said.

  "No, I guess it doesn't."

  "The structure of the Palenki arm cells was aligned in a similar fashion," Tuluk said. "But only around the cut."

  "You anticipated my next question."

  "It was obvious. Passage through a jumpdoor doesn't account for it. We sent several of our people through jumpdoors with various materials and tested random cells -- living and dead -- for a check."

  "Two conundrums in an hour is more than I like," Bildoon said.

  "Two?"

  "We now have twenty-eight positional incidents of Abnethe flogging that Caleban or attempting to flog it. That's enough to show us they do not define a cone in space. Unless she's jumping around from planet to planet, that theory's wrong."

  "Given the powers of that S'eye, she could be jumping around."

  "We don't think so. That isn't her way. She's a nesting bird. She likes a citadel. She's the kind who castles in chess when she doesn't have to."

  "She could be sending her Palenkis."

  "She's there with 'em every time."

  "We've collected six whips and arms, in all," Tuluk said. "Do you want me to repeat these tests on all of them?"

  Bildoon stared at the Wreave. The question wasn't like him. Tuluk was plodding, thorough.

  "What would you rather be doing?" Bildoon asked.

  "We have twenty-eight examples, you say. Twenty-eight is one of the euclidean perfects. It's four times the prime seven. The number strongly indicates randomness. But we're faced with a situation apparently excluding randomness. Ergo, an organizing pattern is at work which is not revealed by analytic numbering as far as we've taken it. I would like to subject the spacing -- both in time and physical dimension -- to a complete analysis, compare for any similarities we . . ."

  "You'd put an assistant on the other whips and arms to check them out?"

  "That goes without saying."

  Bildoon shook his head. "What Abnethe's doing -- it's impossible!"

  "If she does a thing, how can it be impossible?"

  "They have to be somewhere!" Bildoon snapped.

  "I find it very strange," Tuluk said, "this trait you share with humans of stating the obvious in such emphatic fashion. "

  "Oh, go to hell!" Bildoon said. He turned, slammed out of the lab.

  Tuluk, racing to the door after him, opened it and called at the retreating back, "It is a Wreave belief that we already are in hell!"

  He returned to his bench, muttering. Humans and PanSpechi -- impossible creatures. Except for McKie. Now, there was a human who occasionally achieved analytic rapport with sentients capable of higher logic. Well . . . every species had its exceptions to the norm.

  If you say, "I understand." what have you done? You have made a value judgment.

  -Laclac Riddle

  By an effort of com
munication which he still did not completely understand, McKie had talked the Caleban into opening the Beachball's external port. This permitted a bath of spray-washed air to flow into the place where McKie sat. It also did one other thing: It allowed a crew of watchers outside to hold eye contact with him. He had just about given up hoping Abnethe would rise to the bait. There would have to be another solution. Visual contact with watchers also permitted a longer spacing between Taprisiot guard contacts. He found the new spacing less tiresome.

  Morning sunshine splashed across the lip of the opening into the Beachball. McKie put a hand into the light, felt the warmth. He knew he should be moving around, making a poor target of himself, but the presence of the watchers made attack unlikely. Besides, he was tired, drugged to alertness and full of the odd emotions induced by angeret. Movement seemed an empty effort. If they wanted to kill him, they were going to do it. Furuneo's death proved that.

  McKie felt a special pang at the thought of Furuneo's death. There had been something admirable and likable about the planetary agent. It had been a fumbling, pointless death -- alone here, trapped. It had not advanced their search for Abnethe, only placed the whole conflict on a new footing of violence. It had shown the uncertainty of a single life -- and through that life, the vulnerability of all life.

  He felt a self-draining hate for Abnethe then. That madwoman!

  He fought down a fit of trembling.

  From where he sat McKie could see out across the lava shelf to the rocky palisades and a mossy carpeting of sea growth exposed at the cliff base by the retreating tide.

  "Suppose we have it all wrong," he said, speaking over his shoulder toward the Caleban. "Suppose we really aren't communicating with each other at all. What if we've just been making noises, assuming a communication content which doesn't exist?"

  "I fail of understanding, McKie. The hang doesn't get me."

  McKie turned slightly. The Caleban was doing something strange with the air around its position. The oval stage he had seen earlier shimmered once more into view, disappeared. A golden halo appeared at one side of the giant spoon, rose up like a smoke ring, crackled electrically, and vanished.

  "We're assuming," McKie said, "that when you say something to me, I respond with meaningful words directly related to your statement -- and that you do the same. This may not be the case at all."

  "Unlikely."

  "So it's unlikely. What are you doing there?"

  "Doing?"

  "All that activity around you."

  "Attempt making self visible on your wave."

  "Can you do it?"

  "Possible."

  A bell-shaped red glow formed above the spoon, stretched into a straight line, resumed its bell curve, began whirling like a child's jump rope.

  "What see you?" the Caleban asked.

  McKie described the whirling red rope.

  "Very odd," the Caleban said. "I flex creativity, and you report visible sensation. You need yet that opening to exterior conditions."

  "The open port? It makes it one helluva lot more comfortable in here."

  "Comfort -- concept self fails to understand."

  "Does the opening prevent you from becoming visible?"

  "It performs magnetic distraction, no more."

  McKie shrugged. "How much more flogging can you take?"

  "Explain much."

  "You've left the track again," McKie said.

  "Correct! That forms achievement, McKie."

  "How is it an achievement?"

  "Self leaves communicative track, and you achieve awareness of same."

  "All right, that's an achievement. Where's Abnethe?"

  "Contract . . ."

  ". . . prohibits revealing her location," McKie completed. "Maybe you can tell me, then, is she jumping, around or remaining on one planet?"

  "That helps you locate her?"

  "How in fifty-seven hells do I know?"

  "Probability smaller than fifty-seven elements," the Caleban said. "Abnethe occupies relatively static position on specific planet."

  "But we can't find any pattern to her attacks on you or where they originate," McKie said.

  "You cannot see connectives," the Caleban said.

  The whirling red rope flickered in and out of existence above the giant spoon. Abruptly, it shifted color to a glowing yellow, vanished.

  "You just disappeared," McKie said.

  "Not my person visible," the Caleban said.

  "How's that?"

  "You not seeing person-self."

  "That's what I said."

  "Not say. Visibility to you not represent sameness of my person. You visible-see effect."

  "I wasn't seeing you, eh? That was just some effect you created?"

  "Correct."

  "I didn't think it was you. You're going to be something more shapely. I do notice something though: There are moments when you use our verb tenses better; I even spotted some fairly normal constructions."

  "Self hangs this get me," the Caleban said.

  "Yeh, well . . . maybe you're not getting the hang of our language, after all." McKie stood up, stretched, moved closer to the open port, intending to peer out. As he moved, a shimmering silver loop dropped out of the air where he had been. He whirled in time to see it snake back through the small vortal tube of a jumpdoor.

  "Abnethe, is that you?" McKie demanded.

  There was no answer, and the jumpdoor snapped out of existence.

  The enforcers watching from outside rushed to the port. One called, "You all right, McKie?"

  McKie waved him to silence, took a raygen from his pocket, held it loosely in his hand. "Fanny Mae," he said, "are they trying to capture or kill me the way they did with Furuneo?"

  "Observe theyness," the Caleban said. "Furuneo not having existence, observable intentions unknown."

  "Did you see what just happened here?" McKie asked.

  "Self contains awareness of S'eye employment, certain activity of employer persons Activity ceases."

  McKie rubbed his left hand across his neck. He wondered if he could bring the raygen into play quickly enough to cut any snare they might drop over his head. That silver thing dropping into the room had looked suspiciously like a noose.

  "Is that how they got Furuneo?" McKie asked. "Did they drop a noose over his neck and pull him into the jumpdoor?"

  "Discontinuity removes person of sameness," the Caleban said.

  McKie shrugged, gave it up. That was more or less the answer they got every time they tried to question the Caleban about Furuneo's death.

  Oddly, McKie discovered he was hungry. He wiped perspiration from his jaw and chin, cursed under his breath. There was no real assurance that what he heard in the Caleban's words represented real communication. Even granting some communication, how could he depend on the Caleban's interpretations or the Caleban's honesty? When the damn thing spoke, though, it radiated such a sense of sincerity that disbelief became almost impossible. McKie rubbed his chin, trying to catch an elusive thought. Strange. Here he was, hungry, angry, and afraid. There was no place to run. They had to solve this problem. He knew this for an absolute fact. Imperfect as communication with the Caleban actually was, the warning from the creature could not be ignored. Too many sentients had already died or gone insane.

  He shook his head at the fly-buzz of Taprisiot contact. Damn surveillance! This contact, however, failed to break off. It was Siker, the Laclac Director of Discretion. Siker had detected McKie's disturbed emotions and, instead of breaking contact, had locked in.

  "No!" McKie raged. He felt himself stiffen into the mumbling sniggertrance. "No, Siker! Break off!"

  "But what's wrong, McKie?"

  "Break off, you idiot, or I'm done for!"

  "Well . . . all right, but you felt . . ."

  "Break it!"

  Siker broke the contact.

  Once more aware of his body, McKie found himself dangling from a noose which had choked off his breath and was pulling hi
m up into a small jumpdoor. He heard scrambling at the open port. There were shouts, but he couldn't respond. Fire encircled his neck. His chest burned. Panic filled his mind. He found he had dropped the raygen during the sniggertrance. He was helpless. His hands clawed futilely at the noose.

  Something grabbed his feet. Added weight tightened the noose.

  Abruptly, the lifting force gave way. McKie, fell, sprawling in a tangle with whoever had grabbed his feet.

  Several things happened at once. Enforcers helped him to his feet. A holoscan held by a Wreave was shoved past his face toward the jumpdoor, which closed with an electric snap. Groping hands and extensors removed the noose from his neck.

  McKie inhaled a choking breath, gasped. He would have collapsed without the support of those around him.

  Gradually, he became aware that five other sentients had entered the Beachball -- two Wreaves, Laclac, a PanSpechi and a human. The human and one of the Wreaves worked over McKie, clearing away the noose and supporting him. The holoscan operator was a Wreave, who was busy examining his instrument. The others were watching the space all around them, raygens ready. At least three sentients were trying to talk at the same time.

  "All right!" McKie husked, shutting off the babble. His throat hurt when he spoke. He grabbed the length of noose from the Wreave's extensors, examined it. The rope was a silvery material which McKie failed to recognize. It had been cut cleanly with a raygen.

  McKie looked at the enforcer with the holoscan, said, "What did you get?"

  "The attack was made by an ego-frozen PanSpechi, ser," the Wreave enforcer said "I got a good record of his face. We'll try for ID."

  McKie tossed him the severed length of noose. "Get this thing back to the lab, too. Tell Tuluk to break it down to its basic structure. It may even have some of . . . Furuneo's cells on it. The rest of you . . ."

  "Ser?" It was the PanSpechi among the enforcers.

  "Yes?"

  "Ser, we have orders. If an attempt is made on your life, we are to stay with you in here." He passed a raygen to McKie. "You dropped this, I believe."

  McKie pocketed it with an angry gesture.

  Taprisiot contact filled McKie's mind. "Break it!" he snapped.

  But the contact firmed. It was Bildoon in a no-nonsense mood. "What's going on there, McKie?"