THE FEAR PRINCIPLE

by B. A. Chepaitis

  But Rachel was different. Rachel's fear was of losing her soul, which was human and passionate and real. She had two feet firmly on the ground, and was one of the most balanced people Jaguar had ever met. It was her balance and her warmth of spirit that made it easy to like her. She elicited warmth from others, just by nature of her being.

  If Clare had any warmth, either of rage or love, Jaguar hadn't found it. Ghandi-like, she had cleansed herself of all desire, all passion, almost every fear. Even the Jaguar Hecate had emotions, which she expressed, but Clare had refined the simplest animal passion to the pure point of the job at hand. And she was an almost perfect killing machine, remaining invisible because she would only reflect the desires of others. She would be anthropomorphized into many shapes by those desires, the way animals were, and still remain free of the passions humans projected onto her. Jaguar felt a twinge of jealousy at her capacity to be like this. But what was she to do with a woman who was this pure, this free of normal human emotion?

  Sit and look at catalogs, she supposed, until she figured something else out. She was tempted to try empathic contact again, just to see what would happen this time.

  Not today. She wasn't up to it.

  "Clare," she said, "what did you do after the Serials?"

  Clare turned and looked at her, in the mirror. "What?"

  "I mean, you got through the Serials, and then what?"

  She smiled softly. "I left home."

  "Why?"

  "My father wanted me to have sex with him again."

  Jaguar felt the pause in her own heartbeat. A major trauma, and it wasn't in any of the reports. Not there. Very absent. Was she making it up now—another mirror game, reflecting what she thought Jaguar wanted to hear? Or was it real events remembered, emotion frozen and buried?

  "Again?" she asked.

  "Well," Clare said, "of course he'd been having sex with me since I was a little girl. My mother," she added, as if this explained anything, "wasn't as blessed in her looks. But then I didn't want to anymore."

  "You didn't want to anymore?" Jaguar repeated.

  "No," Clare said, sounding sad. Then she leaned over and whispered confidentially in Jaguar's ear. "I never really enjoyed him, you know. But I knew how to please him."

  Jaguar nodded sagely. "I understand. Was he... angry?"

  "Oh yes. Quite. He wanted to disown me. He—he beat me. I had to leave, and make my own way in the world after that."

  "How did you manage?"

  "I looked for work as an artist. You know. Advertising, graphics, computer production. I would have taken anything, but nobody wanted someone as inexperienced as me. I even tried work as a secretary, but I wasn't very good at it, and I was fired. I got a few jobs dancing instead."

  "Dancing."

  "Yes. In bars. For men who needed something to masturbate to. Then I started having sex with some of the customers. Just for fun, but they paid me handsomely before I even asked, so I kept doing it. Then I realized that was no good. If I was going into business for myself, I'd better do it right. So I set up as a call girl."

  "Highly paid, I would imagine," Jaguar commented.

  "Yes. I was quite good at it, too. Only, then a customer got rough with me. He was going to cut my face. I had to kill him."

  "Of course. How did you?"

  "It was easy. I just—chopped his windpipe—and he choked to death. Then another customer helped me get rid of the body, and made some career-shift suggestions to me."

  "Who was that, Clare?" Jaguar asked.

  "Nobody you know," she answered. "But I found it much easier than the work I had been doing. Much cleaner, too. And then, if I wanted to, I could have sex. But I didn't have to if I didn't want to. You see?"

  "I see," Jaguar said. "So ... that was the first time," she commented.

  "Oh no," Clare said. "Not at all."

  Jaguar waited for further information, unsure if it would arrive or if Clare would simply change the subject.

  "I killed my father before I left," she commented, then added, "Mother, too. I had to, because she walked in on us."

  Jaguar continued to wait. Clare turned the page of the catalog and brought her finger down to rest on a deep maroon dress with a slit up the side.

  "That would be marvelous on either of us," she said. "Don't you think?"

  She left the House of Mirrors and stood for a moment outside, flipped her dark glasses down, and made a visual scan of the area around her. No sign of trouble that she could see or hear. She tilted her head back and let the sun pour down on it. It was another warm day. The heat against her skin felt good. She decided to take her time before going back to Adrian. She could walk down the path that led to the jaguar cage, stop and visit with them for a while. No contact. No searching for any space other than the day she was in. No grappling for elusive answers. Just a little time to admire the big cats. It would be good to do something that simple. She'd made enormous progress with Clare today, and deserved to reward herself.

  About halfway down the path, a rustling movement in the nearby trees made her aware that she wasn't alone. She stopped and peered through the rows of pines that lined her way, into the sprawling wild honeysuckle and buckthorn beyond.

  Could be Maria, out on her daily rounds. She shrugged, and moved on. If it was someone else looking for her, they'd find her here or at home. If it was someone she didn't want to talk to, like Nick, she had better keep moving anyway.

  Or, she thought, if it's Nick, I'll twist his bits until he screams.

  She resented the constant interruption to her thoughts, her concentration, which was hard enough to maintain while dealing with two prisoners at once. She wanted not to think about any of it for a while. Later she could review her day with Clare and decide what course to take next. For now she needed to clear herself, and she needed to be alone to do it.

  She turned sharp past the falcon house and pressed herself into the wall, waiting. Nothing happened. She went around to the back of the building, and walked around again to the front.

  Nothing. Maybe she was imagining things. She waited and listened, but heard no sound of footsteps, and the ground was dry, with plenty of leaf cover. Surely a rustle or a crunch would let her know that whoever watched her was still there.

  Then, as she stood at the side of the building deciding what to do next, she caught sight of motion in her peripheral vision.

  Someone was walking, but walking ahead.

  "Nick?" she asked herself, since he was the only person she could think of who would follow ahead of her. If it was he, she knew where he would go, because she knew where she had been headed.

  She took a direct path toward the Jaguar cages, now keeping her steps silent and her breath slow.

  She saw no one standing there. The big cats were resting, strewn across each other like luxuriant living rugs. The male lifted his head at her approach, but made no sound.

  A hand clamped down hard on her shoulder, but she was ready. She whirled, her hands locked, ready to smash into Nick's face.

  "Hey," Gerry said, catching both her hands in one of his. "New kind of handshake?"

  The jaguars growled low and jumped to attention.

  Jaguar grinned at him. "Hello," she said. "Come here often?" She pulled her hands out of his and rubbed the backs of them.

  "Actually," Gerry said seriously, "I don't. I needed to talk to you fast, and Rachel told me to try here."

  "How'd you get in?"

  "The old lady knows me," he said. "I help her out with the bears. Cleaning their habitat, y'know?" He pinched his nose between his fingers and made a face.

  So much for tight security, she thought. "I know, Gerry. So what's the trouble?"

  "I'm setting up for tonight, and I can't find your guitar. The bass. You left it, didn't you?"

  "Is that the emergency?"

  "Yeah—I mean, that bass makes just the sound for 'Dumpster Blues.' The synth isn't even close." His face dropped into a pout, and Jaguar hoped he wasn
't going to throw a fit of artistic temperament for her. Gerry maintained a very even keel, except where his music was concerned, and there he was about as reasonable as a two-year-old.

  "It should be there," she said reasonably.

  "It's not," he insisted, kicking at the dirt with his toe.

  "Well, what would you like me to do? Rematerialize it?

  Make a new one? Stamp my feet and howl?"

  Gerry scratched at his head and thought about this, decided he just didn't know the answer, and gave it up.

  "I just want it," he said. "Now."

  "Look," she said, "keep poking around. Either it'll be there, or we can dump the 'Dumpster' tune for tonight and use ... how about 'Bears in the Kitchen'?"

  Gerry brightened. "Bears in the Kitchen" was one of his favorite pieces—one he'd written that the other band members consistently avoided playing because the changes were beyond human speed, and the lyrics were indecipherable. He'd jump on the chance to do that one. "Hey—that's a great idea," he said.

  "That's what we'll do, then. But keep looking. I'm sure I left it there, and it's bound to turn up. Who'd want that old thing, anyway?"

  9

  "I'm just saying maybe you overstepped yourself in assigning her, Alex. That's all."

  This, from Paul Dinardo, who had gotten a full report on Jaguar's recent trouble, and who had called to let Alex know he was concerned.

  But he was always concerned about something, and frequently it was something to do with Jaguar. It was his job to be concerned. He was on the Planetoid Governors' Board, and his assignment was Alex's zone.

  Alex rubbed his hand over his face, temporarily obscuring himself from Paul's view on the telecom. Paul might be right for once in his life, but he wasn't about to admit that right now. Dealing with the Board's nervousness and needs was a bit more than he had scheduled for the day.

  "It's a risk, Paul. I'll grant you that. But it's in place, so let's just go ahead with it. I think she might be getting somewhere."

  "You don't want to pull her?" Paul asked.

  "Not yet. I need to know a few things, though."

  "Such as?"

  "First, is there anything new to fill in the holes in Clare's life during the Serials? We've got stuff from before, but big gaps during and immediately after."

  Paul snorted. "Records have disappeared. You know how it is for those years, anyway, Alex. And obviously whoever hired her has a damn good eraser."

  Alex nodded. He knew this, but he wanted it confirmed, and he wanted to see Paul's reaction when they spoke of it. From the look on his face, he thought about it the same way Alex did: whoever Clare worked for was careful, and thorough.

  "As I thought," he said. "Then my next question. Do you have any information on NICA's research interests, or DIE's most recent psi projects?"

  He saw Paul startle. "DIE? What've they got to do with it?"

  "Maybe nothing. I'm looking into all the agencies who've shown interest in the case. DIE's just top of the list in alphabetical order, and they do psi work. NICA's next. They've been asking questions, too."

  "Alex, they always ask questions. NICA, DIE—all of them. Christ, if you spit they come around and ask questions. Every other week they're calling me about something. It's just routine."

  Paul was right. Monitoring. Always monitoring. The Pentagon was that way, and NICA, but DIE had a reputation for a great deal more efficiency than any federally run organization. He'd had one consultant visit him in the past, asking for lists of their Teachers for their files, and he'd refused. Since they weren't federal, he didn't have to give it to them. A week later NICA had come in to audit the lists, and Alex was sure all the information had been passed on. The most they could do was create delays in the system so that information got to them late, and in as unhelpful a form as possible.

  But whereas NICA moved through the weight of their federal backing and collective power, DIE moved by stealth. No one knew for sure how many people the group employed, and since their computer lines used the most sophisticated closing device available, no one was likely to find out in the near future. They had no obligation to report to anyone except their CEO and their stockholders, which was easy since their CEO was their principal stockholder. And all interactions were conducted on an individual basis with a series of men and women marked by the mediocrity of their appearance. They monitored faithfully, but they didn't waste time or their people's energy on unrelated agendas. Their interest in Clare was more than an esoteric exercise in ways an assassin can fail.

  "I know," he said, "but I'm interested. What're they up to these days?"

  "The usual, Alex. Stuff they won't tell. And since they're private, you can't run back at them with the taxpayer's-dollar routine."

  "Right. Someday they'll be a regulated office. Serve them right."

  "You want to sign up to be on the Board that regulates them?"

  "No, Paul. I was thinking of nominating you, though. How about Patricks's interest in pyrite?"

  "What's that?" Paul asked. "Some kind of drug?"

  "No. Not a drug. Never mind. Are you sure," he added, "that you're giving me everything I need to run this assignment?"

  Paul paused briefly, then leaned in closer to his telecom. Alex grinned, watching him. People acted as if leaning in and whispering over the wires that carried their image and voice would somehow protect their privacy. Animal instincts, still at work. Good for them.

  "You've got everything I know, Alex. I only wish I did know more because there's something screwy about this whole thing."

  "You think?"

  "I think. Listen, you keep me posted, will you? And consider taking that Addams woman off. I've heard enough bad reports about her to last my lifetime."

  When he buzzed off, Alex sat back and considered. Paul obviously knew nothing. Just as obviously, Jaguar did.

  Pyrite, he thought. Fool's gold. That's where Jaguar's interest rah.

  Pyrite, and experimentation with creating a technologically controlled base for superluminary transfer of information. DIE would be in on that, of course. They were always in front of the other agencies in terms of research. But how did it all connect with having a Governor killed? Paul wouldn't know. Jaguar wouldn't tell. Rereading Rachel's reports a sixth time probably wouldn't help either.

  But he had a friend in Colorado who might have something valuable to share. Neri Gaston. They'd been in the National Guard together, long ago, and had gone very different ways after the Serials, but for very similar reasons. Both looking for a way to explain what had happened. Both looking to be part of the process that ensured it didn't happen again. Neri was at the Think Tank, researching what was euphemistically called psychological intents and control possibilities. Psi work. His facility was located just south of Denver.

  He reached for the telecom, then pulled back his hand. With so many intelligence contingencies around, it might not be such a good idea to talk to him about this over the lines. Safer, he thought, to arrange to meet him in person, find a quiet place to talk.

  Perhaps he could get Neri to meet him in Leadville, or near it. He wouldn't mind getting away for a few days. Maybe some space between him and the place where Jaguar put her feet down would help him untangle his own emotional knots about her. And he might be able to scout around for some dirt on the casinos, the mining facilities. It could prove to be a very productive trip.

  There was a direct shuttle going to the home planet this afternoon. The direct service booked up heavy, but they kept a few spaces for Governors and Supervisors who hadn't planned ahead. He could wait two days for the next one, or he could just go. Today.

  He tapped a finger on his desk. Then he picked up his telecom and reserved a seat.

  It felt good to be singing. The crowd was hot, and the music was good.

  Jaguar was winding her way through a long scat line, backed up from the sound receptor. Her guitar, all ready to go, was next to the amp, and she knew she'd have to reach for it in a few momen
ts so she kept her eye on the edge of it. Gerry had found it right on stage, hooked to the receiver and ready to go, when he came back from the Sanctuary. He supposed someone had found it and put it there, he told her, calling himself an idiot in the happiest of tones and asking her if she'd mind doing the "Dumpster Blues" and "Bears in the Kitchen" all in one set.

  "How about," she suggested, "we combine them and call it 'Dumpster Bears'?" Gerry had seriously considered this, until he saw her grinning mischievously at him.

  Still, she was glad the guitar had been found. It was old, and it had no capacity for any of the tricks that the new Martins or Fenders had. Couldn't hook it up to a harmonic sympathizer without blowing its circuits. It wouldn't even take an old midi line. But her fingers knew the strings like old friends, and Gerry was right when he said it had a voice you couldn't reproduce with synth.

  She scatted along, enjoying the feel and the sound of the music as it bounced through the echo box. Waited for her moment.

  When she was ready, she nodded at Gerry, who looked at her, then at her guitar. She turned and reached for it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gerry hold out a hand, heard him shout, but for some reason she didn't immediately connect this with what happened next.

  Just before she had it in her hands, she had the sensation of being run over by an elephant. Something bulky and soft thumped her good, knocked her down. At first she thought it was a repeat of whatever had happened to her the other night in the streets. Then she realized it was Gerry, his amorphous form spread across her, on top of her, the two of them supine across the stage.

  "What's wrong, Gerry?" she grunted, breathing with difficulty. "Did I drop the pitch?"

  "No, Jag," he said. "Take a look." He removed himself from her, pointing toward her guitar.

  Then she saw it.

  The lead wires were exposed at just the place where she put her hands.

  "With the whole system revved up—toast, Jag. Crispy critters. That's what you'd be if you grabbed it."

  She stood and dusted herself off.