Mindworlds

by Phyllis Gotlieb

  “We know that, but none of these poor juddars do.”

  “Perhaps. But I make sure everyone knows the choices.” After a moment she added, “Those weapons that come by night are for the Khagodi to kill us with and think they are gaining great honor and revenge.”

  Ned swallowed. “Then we better hurry. Spartakos, we have five days to get out of here, and it doesn’t look like your maker’s gonna rescue us.” Only somebody who wasn’t in his right mind would come back to this place, wouldn’t he, Spartakos? And I think he was already far out of it when he left.

  “I don’t intend to wait for him, Ned. I have free choice—and I am in this place, and so are you.”

  Some time during the day the body was dragged away, and otherwise the world went on as usual, except that the work took more time and energy because of the rain. Ned’s NCO’s mind thrashed in a whirlpool of strategy, tactics, logistics, and terror. Gathering forces, breaking out, finding vehicles, food, weapons—someone who would listen to a story told by an army of ragtag warriors.

  That night Rrengha roused out of her sleep and began a survey of dreams.

  No one in this camp dreamed of home except Ned, not even Rrengha, who had given her world everything she owed it. Only the Meshar woman Ruah had longed for home, and perhaps she had found her way there, for Rrengha could not sense her. She had no need or desire to esp the armed sentinels who watched with helmets on or slept in shielded quarters, and the O’e would follow Spartakos anywhere without needing persuasion. One group of half a score dreamers in the southwestern camp, who were ready to kill beside their masters and were privileged to sleep with weapons beside them, took up phantom arms to join the killers in their dreams, and Rrengha did not let her mind touch them this night.

  Ned slept in his helmet; he had enough of his own dreams. And no one had ever asked Spartakos about his.

  As for the rest, that daily lot, she gathered their thoughts and dreams, frightened, angry, sexual, indescribable, into a slowly forming network.

  Once she had them netted she slipped in the idea: prisoner and let it run its course among them, sparking fences, brutal guards, beaten O’e …

  Then she added cold sleep, a long needle and a semi-death from Fthel to Darhei, the nearby star that Khagodis circled.

  Once her dreamers were chilled in long sleep Rrengha warmed them into fresh hot life and dropped them into bloody blazing gunfire. As she had done with hostile tribes over long cold nights on Ungruwarkh.

  But she was not on Ungruwarkh. She left the sleepers alone then, a few to twist on their beds or wake startled, and some to find greater depths where monsters did not swim.

  When Ned woke she said, “I tell them what they need to know as far as I can without scaring them into panic.”

  “Thanks, Rrengha.”

  “Another matter. The woman Hummer keeps being about to remember who you are, and I cannot divert her forever.”

  “I know.” He said to Spartakos, “We may need to leave here on short notice, and I think you ought to tell your troops.”

  “I have already done that, Ned.”

  “You have! Are all of them ready to go?”

  “There are a few who don’t believe in the danger, but they are more afraid of Azzah.”

  “Have you found an aircar for us?”

  “I have been surveying Montador and Port City by satellite, but whatever I find we cannot evacuate the whole camp.”

  Ned rubbed the wrinkles the helmet had left on the back of his neck, raised his hands to take it off, hesitated, and wrenched it off for good. It was a killer that had never protected him from anything, and for all its ventilators was too damned hot. Couldn’t throw it away either; he clipped it on his arm. And didn’t bother with depilatory; it would have run off his wet face. Weapons, food, the rest of the hundreds? And this being a criminal operation, maybe prison? “And where would you have it land here?”

  “At the end of the road, beyond the fence. And nearest our camp.”

  “And it will take us to—”

  “Whatever port I call the aircar from. They will know that I am Spartakos, because everyone knows Spartakos. That is simple enough.”

  “Yeh.” Ned went off to find breakfast, as usual, as if he’d spent a thousand days in this place.

  SEVEN EXITS

  Montador: One for the Money

  At the same hour in which Rrengha was taking stock of dreams, the few sleepers in the halls of the District Port Complex, ticket-holders waiting for late connections, were tucked up in cramped SleepLets, little more than slots in the wall.

  In the center of the vast chamber was a great column of streaming lights from the hundreds of built-in screens that announced arrivals, departures, cancellations of aircar flights around the world and connecting shuttles to and from Port City for liftoff. The column’s security cameras and spy-eyes watched sharply from all angles. The Lyhhrt stood with Lorrice and Tyloe, wondering who might be watching through all those eyes.

  Even in the hours just past midnight the station was never less than busy, and travelers ran to keep pace with the robot porters skimming the plasmix floors. An old Earther woman come to a strange world to meet grandchildren, a pair of tattooed Bengtvadi in long robes that automatically rippled and pleated themselves in complex patterns, a harassed Dabiri nickering at a trio of little ones with plaited tails.

  Scores of others lined up at terminals that were checking passports and identifications, dispensing tickets and interworld credit, tokens for renting chairs, slings and leaning-frames. A team of robot cleaners waited for the crowd to thin. A line of sniffer machines stood in whatever wall space was left. There were very few human workers in this temple of automata.

  “He is here, somewhere,” the Lyhhrt said.

  That’s not saying much. Lorrice was wondering if she would ever reach beyond fear. Even Tyloe sensed that. They felt grotesquely out of place, though she and Tyloe looked presentable enough for what they were: visitors, not passengers. Even the Lyhhrt was not so far out of place.

  He paid Lorrice no attention. :Wherever, he is waiting for a messenger from Khagodis to bring him an Interworld Bank Certificate for a great sum of money, to pay for the strike force, the weapons, the house you were staying in, and … :

  There! In that twisting corridor off the great chamber, a very thin Khagodi in a shadow-colored cloak, pushed ahead by a burst of exiting passengers, trying to flatten himself against the wall, terrified of coming out into the light—

  … wakened out of cold sleep to find a waiting message from Khagodis that there was to be no action, no need for a strike force or its weapons, the bank certificate had been nullified, charges under newly passed Interworld Laws were pending …

  Knowing that a murderous intelligence was stalking him.

  :Not mine,: the Lyhhrt in misty silver said. Can I save this one? In a conversation that took less than ten seconds he asked Lorrice:

  :You believe you can tell the difference between those Lyhhrt who say I/we and those who say only I.:

  :I’m not sure—:

  :You have met that one. Can you sense him? He will be enraged—not at you, because he still has some use for you—but because his plans have collapsed—:

  The Khagodi was filled with panic—

  :—and that Khagodi—you can see him through my eyes—is a victim of what happens when plans collapse—you should know how that feels!—and is many times more frightened than even you are … I want to save him. He will not like the justice the Law will give him but it is better than being dead. I need your help. He has a gun—that Quadzull I’ve nearly been killed with more than once—and I want to make sure he does not use it—:

  Aloud, Lorrice said in a dull cold voice, “That’s crazy. We’ll both end up getting shot.” Through the Lyhhrt’s crystalline eyes she and Tyloe could see down the corridor where the Khagodi was crouched against the wall as if he was praying to his gods; that the Khagodi was helmeted, had drawn the Quadzull from his s
houlder pack and was holding it in both hands, hidden by his body, with its muzzle pointed to the floor, desperate to defend himself and too frightened to raise it for fear of having it used against him.

  :I’ll make sure he does not shoot you, I’m more afraid that if he sees a Lyhhrt coming toward him he might die of fright.:

  And the Lyhhrt himself was afraid. Tyloe knew, she let him know, that she could feel, almost taste, that touch of cold fog.

  “Yes, I am afraid,” the Lyhhrt said, “and I will not force you.” :But if you could follow me down the ramp out to the floor and keep watch while I go into that hallway where all those people are pouring out, because I need to reach him before everyone else sees that gun … : He let himself onto the ramp without waiting for her answer.

  A whisper of perhaps that Khagodi’s not worth flickered through her mind and was muffled. She turned toward Tyloe, and he returned the look. In a flash he thought he might have been training all his life for that one jump back there, but whether it would ever mean anything besides a bitten tongue—

  Lorrice took one step onto the moving ramp and let it carry her down.

  “I’ll go along,” Tyloe said.

  :No,: the Lyhhrt said. :You stay where you are.:

  She let Tyloe into her head, fear and sweat and sore feet from all the running. No past worth remembering.

  :Not even Brezant when you come down to it. If I die doing this you try to remember me for a while. Nobody fucking else will.: Then she closed down her mind and walked slowly across the floor, letting the current of passers move her one way or another like driftwood.

  The Lyhhrt reached the opening of the corridor, and in his mind the Other spoke for the first time.

  :There you are! I did not expect you to last so long.:

  He did not answer. He did not know where to search and so kept walking slowly.

  :You believe I have been defeated because a stupid man on another world could not contain his greed. I can correct my mistakes with a storehouse of arms and fleshers to use them for me. And I have told them to rid me of that pathetic—but what do I know about pathos?—useless collection of fools who expected to find wealth on Khagodis. The universe runs on greed and everything is given to the one who uses it properly. You have no answer. Do you think you are invisible?:

  The Lyhhrt in fact did believe he was invisible, at least to hurrying travelers, because he was shielding himself and Lorrice to keep from being noticed while they went forward so slowly. Now he had been told that the Other was within sight, though he could not see him.

  Lorrice murmured, “I don’t sense anyone out of the way here, you’d better not depend on me.”

  “He can see us through many eyes and I/we should be able to see him.”

  She scanned around herself, but her fear was only the kind she always lived with. She waited at the entrance to the corridor while the last stragglers came out to collect luggage. Beyond the Lyhhrt, halfway down the corridor, the Khagodi stayed slumped against the wall.

  Lorrice took two steps into the corridor.

  The travelers streamed away; half of the screens on the column flickered out and left a silent interval before the next swarm, a time halfway between midnight and dawn. The bounded universe of the vast hall and its corridors was populated by Lorrice, the Khagodi, the Lyhhrt, and Tyloe waiting back there. Nowhere else to look.

  Lorrice took another step, and another. Tyloe could feel her twinges at the back of his neck.

  But the inward voice told the Lyhhrt, : That Khagodi you are trying to protect is nothing to me. You have nothing to say. In that case—:

  The Lyhhrt said, :If you forego your plans I will leave you in peace.:

  :You are trying to make humor as the fleshers do. But you are also noth—:

  And one last step that left her an arm’s length from the Khagodi—

  The silence exploded into Tyloe screaming, “Watch out! Behind you!”

  The Lyhhrt swiveled his head backward.

  The giant arm of a robot sweeper slammed down grazing his heel. The Khagodi’s body twitched from head to foot and he slumped to the floor. :Not quite dead.:

  In one movement Lorrice grabbed the Quadzull and shot the sweeper, its body parted at the seams with a sick muffled sound spurting bits of burning silicon, thermoplastic and steel as it reeled and crashed down while the echoes of gunfire were still flaring.

  Another skimmed in after it, slewing and screeching in the hot fragments of the first. Whimpering, Lorrice fired again.

  Then passengers flooded into the hall to catch early morning flights, the alarms started shrieking and the crowd turned back tangling and falling in panic. Harsh voices roared at them to keep still and stay where they were.

  No one came near the corridor. One more sweeper, two buzzing porters, a sniffer, everything automatic was swarming—

  The Lyhhrt had flattened his body against the wall, and was sidling away. :He’s in one of those! Don’t waste shots!: Lorrice, sweating beside him, could feel the heat bouncing off his workshell. The live machines were tangling in the wreckage of the fallen ones, but the smaller porters and sniffers were pulling away and skinning around them toward her, while more flailing sweepers crowded the entrance.

  Because she was being shielded by the Lyhhrt with all of his power, the enemy could not reach her mind, but only the gun could protect her from being smashed. She was thinking rapidly that a Lyhhrt would not install itself in a clumsy sweeper or a puttering sniffer. That left one of three porters, and she was sure there were not three shots left. For all that the Lyhhrt thought that she would know the difference between Lyhhrt, she was sure she would not.

  She tucked the gun down her jersey between her breasts, chose one of the three porters, she never knew why, ran up to it, grabbed the railings, jumped into the basket, and waited to see what happened. It began to spin and kept on spinning, the others shuddered in place.

  Dizzy, she pulled the gun from the tangle of her underwear and shot the porter as she threw herself off over its railing.

  A flash of psychic lightning turned the universe white for one instant.

  The porter’s plates split open whuk! and all of the machines stopped.

  Tyloe sensed Lorrice lying there, bruised and still dizzy. He could not move except as the crowd moved, pushed by human guards, toward the exits.

  The Lyhhrt peeled himself off the wall. He at least was free. He lifted Lorrice by one arm and steadied her for a moment. Snarling, she wrenched herself away, raised the gun toward the ceiling and pulled the trigger defiantly. It clicked with a pstrung! sound. Guards began climbing through the tangle of dead machines, and they had weapons of their own.

  “No more bullets,” the Lyhhrt said. :Now run! Meet me at the monorail platform!:

  Lorrice dropped the Quadzull and ran. She did not want to know what the guards thought of the blasted porter that was dripping a pale pink liquid very nearly the color of an O’e’s blood.

  There was a calm and starry dawn when Tyloe and Lorrice reached the platform. The Lyhhrt was waiting for them. No one else had noticed him. Tyloe and Lorrice had asked themselves, What are we here for? and answered, We need money. Their possessions were waiting for them back at the overpriced hotel but they had none to travel on. As well, Lorrice was limping from the bruises she had collected when she fell, and the long dragging search for an exit. The Lyhhrt had made sure that no one stopped or questioned her.

  Tyloe muttered, “That Khagodi …” He too had needed money.

  “Not dead, but under arrest.” The Lyhhrt did not stop for conversation. “I need to go quickly now. Here is all the money I have, you can divide it. Whatever has the signal chip is still good money, and no one will answer its call. If I survive what I am going to do now, and if you have no criminal records, in half a year you will be able to go to any Interworld Bank, give a genome sample and be provided with whatever you need. You are free.” He disappeared in that way the Lyhhrt have, and left their lives for good.


  Lorrice sighed raggedly and said, “He does know how to use fleshers. You’ll notice he didn’t say, whatever you want.”

  Tyloe found his mind a blank except for one question. It kept him staring at Lorrice, she felt the look’s intensity. “That Quadzull …”

  She shrugged. “Before your time. We’d go out into the forest and he made me learn to shoot. You know Brezant liked to live dangerously. Then he wanted to fuck me lying on all the dead leaves and branches. He didn’t know how dangerous …”

  Khagodis, Dead Moon Crater: Desperation

  Hasso’s sleep under the engine’s drumming was jolted and shuddering. If he had asked himself, How many days since I left home? He could not have answered. Or its alternate: How many since I was so happy on my rooftop brewing tea and waiting for Skerow, when this frightened Lyhhrt called out to me and sent me on this mission, to be imprisoned in a cell for no good reason, find that my one heart was so weak, gather enemies for no reason, and then be chosen as a specimen of humanity by a Being that may not even exist! In all being so helpless, so helpless! His dreams presented the memories in disjointed and surrealistic fragments.

  He was startled awake by a sharp slapping noise that echoed over the water, and after an instant realized that it was a gunshot.

  “That was fired into the air,” Dritta said. “They are not aiming at us yet.”

  Hasso rubbed his eyes and tried to separate this new phenomenon from his dreams, and shift himself out of the stiffness in his limbs. “Would they really try to hit us?”

  “I don’t know, but Shipmaster has reported them to the Coastal Police.”

  The shutters on one side of the cabin had already been folded back, and the UnderMaster was going along the other, the planks slapped and cracked against each other with a noise almost as loud as the gunshot. The sun had burned off mist and rose through second quarter into the flat blue sky. Hasso could just make out the pursuing yacht, but had no line of sight to tell how near land the barge was.