The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Returning to the spot table, Windcrystal picked up a mug. “We have, each of us, varying gifts,” she intoned, mama cow lowing the calves to tranquility. “I have the reading of auras, cards, and molecular enmeshments. I do not have scrying.” She hand-cradled the mug like another gift. “I have never had scrying, except ... with this.”

  She held the mug up. From Lestrade’s view, halfway across the room, it looked like any ordinary old basementseller’s oddment, concave sides glazed with four colors in a heatbake design, one or two chips visible from a distance, hefty handle, no pedestal, capacity about 200 milliliters. Its four colors were white, black, yellow, and red. Called by such scholars, if Lestrade remembered Comparative Religion 101, as Dammler-Haynes, Levy, and Escrivoire the most ancient ritual holy colors, probably because of being the first pigments humanity figured out how to mix for cave paintings.

  “The Scrying Mug of Starwalker Jones Silverstairs,” Windcrystal crooned, like an old movie packer showing off a fragment of eyeball from the original King Kong. “Which he made and empowered before his martyrdom in 2024, so that he might search for the end to the persecutions. Embedded in its bottom is a fragment of the great crystal of that high priest of Osiris whose name is Mysterious and who was butchered by Akhenaton in his madness. At the root of the handle lies the Philosopher’s Stone of Inez of Santillane, who narrowly escaped the Spanish Inquisition. Both of these were earlier incarnations of the blessed and enlightened Silverstairs himself, so that the garnered powers of at least three wise lifetimes went into this mug. With it, anyone can see the present, many can see the past, a few can even glimpse the future.”

  Lady God! thought Lestrade. No wonder Mom dropped out of this woman’s coven.

  “Venite!” said Harvard. “So you saw it before it happened and held off alerting anyone because—”

  “I said that a few can glimpse the future, Sergeant Harvard. Usually only those who have the natural gift of scrying in any smooth and shiny surface. Not having that natural gift, I cannot see the past, let alone the future. Only the present.”

  Lestrade said, “You eyewitnessed the incident by seeing it in this mug.”

  The magist nodded. “Yes. I did.”

  “Demonstrate,” Harvard said. “Tell us what’s happening at the Egalitarian Convention in Kansas City right now.”

  “Just a minute, sir,” said Lestrade. “If this is to be any kind of scientific test ...”

  “Eheu? Ita, you’re right.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your screen, M. Crowley? Or don’t you have one?”

  “In my bedroom, and no, Sergeant, if you will take my word for it, I haven’t been watching any of the political channels today at all.”

  “We won’t have to take your word for it. M. Lestrade, ite.”

  “Ave, Caesar,” Lestrade responded dryly, repressing the urge to go on with the rest of the gladiators’ farewell, which she had memorized after the first three days of working under Holmes Hennessey Harvard.

  Escaping into the bedroom, she soon figured out Windcrystal’s screen unit, an old all-purpose console that would probably go completely obsolete in another few years. She called up the broadcast menu, found the number of the channel carrying the Egalitarian Convention today, tuned in, and tabbed the sound as low as she could and still hear it herself. “Ready at this end, sir,” she called back.

  “Not quite, Rosie. Shut the portus.”

  Biting her lip, she returned to the doorway between the rooms. Windcrystal was filling her Scrying Mug with tea from the same pot she’d used for her visitors. If she kept standing near the window alcove, there was no way she’d be able to see her bedroom screen through the open door. It was more likely that she had some sophisticated micro-periscope or audiowhisper system rigged to work best with the door shut. Lestrade decided not to point this out to her senior partner. She just shut the door and returned to the screen.

  The spokeswoman for Wyoming was giving the “last few words” of her speech. It took her only four more minutes and thirty-eight seconds by Lestrade’s watch to get around to announcing that Wyoming went unanimously for Preston. Not so many hours ago, that would have given Rosemary Lestrade a little surge of satisfaction, no matter how foregone a conclusion Preston’s victory was. Now she just tabbed off the screen and returned to the living room.

  “Well?” Harvard demanded.

  “Wyoming for Preston, sir. Unanimous.”

  He turned smugly to the magist. “You said Colorado, M. Crowley, and you never said unanimous.”

  “I said ‘probably’ Colorado, Sergeant. The spokeswoman was in traditional Arapaho costume, and the state outline on her name badge was a simple rectangle.”

  He looked at Lestrade.

  She had to nod. “Yes, sir. Amerind outfit, anyway. Arapaho, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, or whatever, I wouldn’t know.”

  Windcrystal said, “Yet the differences can be striking, if one knows what to look for. But you see, Sergeant, the scrying surface is inferior to telecasts in that it lacks sound, screen captions, and sign-language insets. For that reason I rarely use it for events that can be followed in the natural plane, on the regular screen.”

  “You could have peeked at the big scoreboard,” Harvard replied. “That would have told you the exact state, and whether Preston’s score was unanimous or percentage.”

  “I doubt it. Even that giant board would have been illegible when shrunk to fit inside the round of this mug. Besides, I can focus my viewpoint much better on people.”

  Lestrade asked, “Without sound and screen captions, how did you know the state went for Preston?”

  “She knew that,” Harvard answered, “because every idiot on the continent knows that at least fifty-five of the sixty-two states are going to go for Preston.”

  “I knew it,” Windcrystal amended, still calm, “because M. Preston’s aura radiated triumph.”

  “So you can even read ‘auras’ in that thing? Yes, veritate, you did say something about seeing the victim was dying by her aura. Could I see them in it, too?”

  “No, Sergeant Harvard,” said the magist. “Not unless you have the gift of seeing them in day-to-day life.”

  “But you say that anyone can see ordinary, day-to-day scenes in your saint’s little grail, do you? In vino veritas! Give me a look.” He held out his right hand.

  Windcrystal looked at it, looked at him, and slowly shook her head. “With every respect, Sergeant, the Scrying Mug is a sacred trust.”

  “Are you saying ... Well, pestis to you, Madame! My aura isn’t quite perfect, is that it? Or are you afraid that I might drop your rara avis?”

  She probably was, but she replied, “Anyone can scry using this mug, Sergeant Harvard, but there is one qualification. The mortal mind must be open at least to the possibility of More Things in Heaven and Earth before even the Scrying Mug of Starwalker Silverstairs will work for the mortal eyes.”

  “Eheu. Now, presto! there’s a qualification. I suppose you understand, M. Crowley, how this will look to the average, scientifically-minded citizen.”

  “Sergeant Harvard, sir,” Lestrade broke in, carefully respectful, “aren’t we getting just a little sidetracked here?”

  “Officer Lestrade!” Windcrystal exclaimed, turning to her. “If it will satisfy you, Sergeant Harvard, I am willing to let your partner look into the mug.”

  “Well! So her aura’s all right, is it? Veritate. I’ve always suspected something of the kind. Ite, Rosie, play the oracle for us.”

  Thinking words that not even pollies said aloud anymore except in uncensored movies and videoplays from the Golden Age of Expletives, Lestrade sat down on the fraying, overcushioned couch and let Windcrystal place the mug on the coffee table in front of her. “What would you like me to try to see, Sergeant Harvard?”

  “The Indianapolis Pacers-Menominee Mosquitoes game. Unless you’d rathe
r look in on the Olympics.”

  She decided to keep the Olympics out of it. Bending over the mug, she dutifully tried to concentrate on the umpteenth game in the Universal Basketball League championship playoffs. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened. The tea just sat there and stopped jiggling. If there really was a piece of crystal at the bottom of the mug, it was invisible through the lightly tinted liquid.

  Then a picture tuned in, as if on one of those old, circular entertainment screens popular in the ’20s and ’30s. M. Pargeter’s living room, about the way they’d left it after bagging up the evidence, except that some kind of flying pest had gotten in through all the electronic and other barriers set up to keep everything out, and was flying lopsided circles above the desk where the body had been found.

  Lestrade looked up and shook her head. “Nothing, sir. Not a thing.”

  “No?” Windcrystal sounded disappointed. “Try taking a sip of the infusion and closing your eyes for a count of thirteen before looking again. It also helps sometimes to hold the mug in both hands, the fingers of the dominant hand firm on the handle, the palm of the other hand beneath the mug, like so.” She demonstrated with a teacup.

  Lestrade looked at her superior.

  He said, “Follow the Good Witch of the North’s instructions, Rosie. Let’s give her every chance.”

  Lestrade thought, Every chance to run her own head into the noose, you mean, you son of a one-night stand! And catch me like your poor mother if I’m going to kill my own credibility helping her do it. But the policewoman shrugged and followed instructions, hoping it was more or less visible what a tiny sip she swallowed.

  When, having counted silently to thirteen, she opened her eyes and looked again, the light in Pargeter’s apartment was coming from the illumino-panel walls and ceiling, filtering out and down crazily through the color patches of the same Lautrec Chartreuse panel reproductions that had still been in place that morning. In and out of the splotches of yellow and purple and green Debbi Pargeter, still alive but nightdressed as they had found her body, grappled with a tall, gangly, dark-haired man wearing a light jacket, like an athlete’s workout jacket, and no trousers. The man’s profile, smaller than Nixon’s on the commemorative postage stamp, came into view when he reached for the marbleplast vase that had given Pargeter the concussion ...

  Lestrade put the mug down on the coffee table, shook her head, and stood. “I’m sorry, sir,” she told Harvard, trying to sound ironic, “I still can’t see a blasted thing.”

  “Non! Factus est?”

  “Except the mug itself,” she added heavy-handedly. “And the tea, which is pretty luke now.”

  “Good, Rosie! The details. Always remember to catalog all those little details. Bonum, M. Crowley, what did you see in your parvissima little mug, that you didn’t call anyone about at the time?”

  Windcrystal gave Lestrade a long, thoughtful look and took back the Scrying Mug of Starwalker Silverstairs. Cradling it in her hands, she sat and returned her gaze to the sergeant. “Is this being recorded?”

  “It is, M. Crowley,” he assured her. “If you’ll cast your mind back, you refused to listen to your rights, thus giving us implied consent. But don’t worry. The Privcom Rule of 1999—”

  “That isn’t what concerns me. I have nothing to hide. I simply wanted to be sure that you would catch this story the first time, that there would be no need for me to repeat it.”

  “Don’t count on that, M. Crowley,” Lestrade warned her. “Recording or not, us pollies can get very boring about wanting to hear stories over and over again.”

  Windcrystal nodded fatalistically. “Like little children. Even—perhaps especially—when the stories are vile. Very well, let me be as brief as possible. I woke last night at three thirty-three a.m.—that is, at about oh three thirty-three hours—with a very strong, very clear and present impression that Debbi Pargeter was in distress. I have—had—been counseling Debbi for about four months, and that is more than long enough for the molecular enmeshment of kindredly attuned persona waves. There may, also, have been a dream, but if so, my recall of it was overwhelmed by the sense of desperate urgency. I tried phoning Debbi—M. Pargeter. When I could get no answer, I filled the Scrying Mug and peered in.”

  She paused, took a couple of deep breaths, and went on as if she needed a lot of will power to keep from breaking down, “Sergeant Harvard, Officer Lestrade, that…that man was mauling her. How much I would have given for the gift to throw a protective spell across the city! But before I could reach my screen again to call for help on the natural plane—I wear no wristphone, you see—she was trying to defend herself with a kitchen knife. He grappled it away from her and stabbed her—about here—” She indicated the area very accurately on her own torso—”once—twice—and again. At the third blow she falls, still feebly clutching at him. He backs away, face pale, eyes staring wide—a ghastly face, a face of terrible sin and instant remorse, I will not forget that face for many lifetimes. He turns and flees, still holding the knife, carrying it away with him. ... I ... knew at once that the wound was fatal, by the poor child’s aura. She fell to the floor and I ... must have lost my own conscious awareness. ...”

  As Windcrystal paused again, Harvard said, “Are you sure you didn’t drain off the contents of your mug and pass out?”

  She didn’t pretend not to catch his meaning. “I had filled it with pure water, Sergeant Harvard. Any liquid will work, but alcoholic beverages can distort the image in strange ways—”

  “Factus est!”

  “And, gratias ago Fortunae,” the magist went on with a Latin tag of her own, “I had put it down on the table while I sat on the couch, so that when I fell back in my faint, the Scrying Mug was safe.”

  “And you had a nice, soft backrest, yourself, nota bene,” said Harvard.

  Lady! Didn’t Harvard’s superiors ever review the recorded chips before deciding whether to file or erase them? “M. Crowley,” Lestrade cut in, “could you see where the scene you just described was taking place?”

  “The kitchen of Debbi Pargeter’s apartment. I have—had—been there more than once.”

  “And the stab wounds were all that killed her?” said Harvard. “She didn’t have any other injuries big enough to see in that little, miniaturized mug-screen of yours?”

  “Her head was bloodied…her golden crown of hair. From what, I came too late to the Scrying Mug to see. I could tell from certain signs in her aura that there had been a blow. To the back of her head, but as if the attacker had aimed, clumsily, by reaching around from a face-to-face confrontation.”

  “But it was the stabbing that wrote fini. Right away? You intimated that you could see in your crystal cup that she expired subito. What was the clue? Did her ‘aura’ suddenly evaporate?”

  “No. It did not dissipate instantly. But by its immediate reaction, I saw that the wounds were fatal, that the bond which binds the higher bodies to the corporal could never repair itself from that shock. It is difficult to explain to the unseeing and the skeptical—”

  “As opposed to the gullible,” said Harvard. “Veritatis. All right, M. Crowley, we’ll be in touch, and it won’t be astral touch. You won’t need to read our next communication in your stars or tea leaves or molecular entanglements or mugs or whatever. Just don’t leave town. Rosie, I think we can venite for now.”

  “I don’t, sir.”

  “Quid nunc?”

  “All the little details, sir,” she quoted back at him. Then, turning back to Windcrystal, “M. Crowley, can you give us a description of this man you saw allegedly mauling the victim?”

  Harvard threw his hands up in an elaborate gesture that meant his junior would hear more about this later.

  Windcrystal said, “I can do better than a mere description, Officer. As soon as I recovered my conscious senses, while the power and the memory were still strong within me, I sk
etched a portrait.”

  “Eheu. A portrait,” Harvard commented, watching the magist cross the room to her bookshelves. “How considerate of you. M. Crowley fecit. That’ll be a real help to us. Signed, I hope?”

  “Not yet, Sergeant, but I can sign it now, if you like.” Lifting a battered sketchpad from where it had lain across a row of old realprint books, Windcrystal opened it to one of the last pages, tore out the sheet, and handed it to Lestrade.

  It wasn’t easy to recognize the face as Windcrystal had drawn it, twisted up like a raging raskolnikov, but after a few seconds of looking over Lestrade’s shoulder, Harvard exploded. “Pestis et damnatus! What the devil are you trying to pull off on us? That’s Andy Dimaggio Smythe!”

  * * * *

  “Of course we aren’t going to bother Dah Smythe, Rosie,” Harvard went on when they were back in the polcar. “Not on grounds of a scribble of his face made by an old satanist copying from some sports cartoon. Pestis, he may be ‘only’ one of our hometown Basketweavers this season, but if the Pacers don’t pick him up in time for next season, the Celtics or the Cutters will. By ’70, Andy Dah Smythe will be the brightest thing in basketball since Birdie Capucino Naismith. The nerve of that old poisoner! On top of stringing us her old fools’ tale about eyewitnessing it in a secondhand coffee mug, trying to fob Andy Dimaggio Smythe off on us as the murderer! Must have been flying on the theory that if you’re going to bluster it, bluster it big. And then pretending not to know who Dah Smythe is! Annus mirabilis!”

  “She probably didn’t,” said Lestrade. “If she did know who he is, she’d have drawn somebody else. Assuming, sir, that it is a fob.”

  “‘Assuming’? Pestis Satani, Rosie, what else can you do with the data? You know, Dah Smythe might even have grounds here for a slander and libel suit.”

  “Granting that I’m just a wet-eared rookie fresh out of pollytech and still on a short umbilical to the textbook, Sergeant Harvard, Intermediate Procedures 705 gave two chapters to the history and famous case studies of psychics working successfully with police investigators. At present, eighteen states have official guidelines for volunteer psychics to work as regular unpaid support personnel—”