Oracle

by Mike Resnick

  He sighed. “The answer to that is that I don't know. I don't think she is. I don't think she has that kind of power, or, if she does have it, then I don't think she can be held anywhere, even Hades, against her will. But even if she is manipulating me into getting her off Hades, why should I care about it? She's just making my job easier.”

  “I don't know,” said Jade. “But I feel very uneasy about it. If she's manipulating you, then she's manipulating me, too, and I don't like being manipulated.”

  “I don't know exactly what we can do about it either way,” replied Chandler.

  “We can quit right now.”

  “Not a chance,” he said. “I've got a contract to fulfill.”

  “How do you know that she isn't planning to go to war with the Democracy? Maybe Kraef Timo is the only voice in opposition to hers, and she's manipulating us into killing him.”

  “If she can do that from 300,000 miles away,” answered Chandler, “why doesn't she just choose a future in which he chokes to death on his food, or trips down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck?”

  “I don't know,” admitted Jade. Her face hardened. “In fact, the more I think about this situation, the more things I don't know.”

  “Look,” said Chandler. “Either we've got free will or we don't. If we do, then we're doing the right thing. If we don't, then we can't do anything else anyway. So what's the point of worrying about it?”

  “Because we can stop right now if we decide to.”

  He smiled. “And how will you know that the Oracle didn't change her mind and choose a future in which we stopped?”

  She wearily leaned back on the chair. “Where does it end?”

  “Second-guessing fate?” asked Chandler. “Never. That's why it's a good idea not to start.”

  “Doesn't it bother you to think that your actions, your very thoughts, might not be your own?” she asked.

  “But they are my own. Even if we're being manipulated, the Oracle didn't choose these thoughts and put them into my mind. She just arranged things so that these were the ones I'd think and act upon.” He paused. “Besides, I don't see any viable alternative. If I assume she's controlling me, then she's controlling me whether I kill Kraef Timo or walk away from him.”

  Jade considered his statement. “Well, it's a practical approach,” she conceded. “But it's not very satisfying. I think an animal in the forest might have that same viewpoint.”

  “I spend most of my life with animals in the forest,” replied Chandler. “Very few of them have high blood pressure or heart attacks. Maybe they know something we don't know.”

  “They don't know anything,” said Jade. “They just react.”

  “They stay warm and dry and well-fed,” he noted. “When all is said and done, that's all most humans are really trying to do.”

  “You're not a very comforting person to talk to, Javier,” she said. “I come to you with serious doubts, and you give me a lecture on animals.”

  “I'm not in the comfort business.”

  “I know. I suppose I'll have to make my decision without any help from you.”

  “What decision?”

  “Whether I should help you or stop you,” Jade said bluntly.

  “I'd very much like your help, though I can accomplish my mission without it,” said Chandler with equal bluntness. “I'd strongly advise you not to try to stop me.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “I still have to make up my mind,” she said at last.

  “Let me know when you do.”

  “You'll be the first to know.”

  She got up and left the room.

  Chandler waited another twenty minutes, then got up and walked to the false closet. It opened after scanning his retina and registering it against its database, and a moment later he was standing in the sunken garage. He decided against borrowing Jade's vehicle, since he didn't know Port Maracaibo's traffic laws and also had no idea where he could leave it while he went about his business.

  He walked over to a gentle incline, followed it up to a door at ground level, opened it, and a moment later found himself in a small alley behind The Womb. He followed it for two blocks, then turned onto a main street, asked a passerby how to find The Uncut Diamond, and caught a coach that seemed to be going in the right direction.

  He was annoyed that Jade had forced him to change his schedule: he'd have been much more comfortable visiting Kraef Timo after midnight, when the Blue Devil's bodyguards had relaxed and a couple of them had perhaps gone off to bed. But if she decided to oppose him, there was no telling how she might go about it, and bringing in some hired killers was certainly not beyond her capabilities.

  The coach passed The Uncut Diamond, a small, rather ordinary-looking hotel, and he got off at the next street, then walked back to the main entrance. He felt no need to keep to the shadows or hide his presence, since nobody here knew him anyway.

  He walked into a darkened cocktail lounge off to the left of the registration desk, was struck by the rancid odor of alien intoxicants, realized that he was one of the few humans in the room, and dialed a beer on the computer menu. He nursed it for about fifteen minutes, keeping an eye on the hotel entrance. Though the hotel catered almost exclusively to aliens, no Blue Devils entered or left—he hadn't really expected to see any—and he decided that it was time to find out where Kraef Timo's suite was located.

  There was no guest register, nor could he have read one if there was. The house vidphones were out of the question, too; he was sure the desk wouldn't release the room number, and asking would just alert Timo to his presence. The hotel was only five floors tall; he could simply check each floor for Blue Devils, but it was unlikely that any of Timo's bodyguards were posted outside the suite.

  Finally he walked over to a public vidphone booth, entered it, checked the directory, and found a restaurant down the street that delivered around the clock. He quickly punched out its combination, then smiled into the camera when the connection was made.

  “This is Mr. Timo at The Uncut Diamond,” he said. “I've been displeased with room service the last two nights. Can I get a sandwich and a beer sent over?”

  The man at the other end took his order and asked for his room number.

  “It's in some alien script,” answered Chandler. “But you can't miss it. It's the third door to the right of the lift, on the seventh floor.”

  He hung up, walked back to the cocktail lounge, and waited. Half an hour later a young man carrying a bag that obviously contained food entered the hotel, walked to the airlift, stepped into it, and stepped right back out, frowning. Chandler left the lounge and slowly approached the airlift as the young man walked to the desk and exchanged a few words with the Lodinite clerk. The two of them arrived together and floated up to the fourth level in silence.

  The delivery man turned to his left, checking the numbers on the doors, and Chandler waited a few seconds, then began following him at a leisurely pace.

  The man stopped at a door, touched a sensor, and waited for it to slide open. Chandler saw a Blue Devil approach the delivery man, after which the two exchanged heated words for a minute or two, and finally the man left and returned to the airlift.

  Chandler leaned against a wall until he was sure the man wasn't going to come back and make a second attempt to deliver his package and get his money. Then he walked silently down the corridor, stopped in front of Timo's door, and reached out to touch the sensor.

  The door opened instantly, and a powerful-looking Blue Devil appeared.

  “I told you to go away!” it said in thickly-accented Terran.

  Chandler reached out and slit his throat without a word, then leaped into the room. Three Blue Devils were seated in odd-looking chairs. He killed all three with a sonic pistol before they realized he was there.

  A laser beam missed his ear by inches, and he hurled himself to the floor, rolling and firing back as he did so. A Blue Devil shrieked in agony and staggered across the room, an ugly gre
en fluid trickling from its ears. He fired again and the alien fell motionless to the floor.

  “Who are you?” demanded another voice, less heavily accented but definitely not human. “What do you want?”

  The voice seemed to be coming from a bedroom off to his left, and, changing his sonic pistol for a laser gun, he fired a beam that seared through the wall at a height of about four feet.

  “Who are you?” repeated the voice. “Why does she want me dead?”

  Chandler felt a brief surge of satisfaction: the she that the alien mentioned could only be the Oracle, which meant that he had indeed chosen the proper target. For a moment he considered trying to take Timo alive and grilling it thoroughly about the Oracle and her plans, but he recalled that Boma, the Blue Devil they had questioned on Port Marrakech, took its own life rather than reveal any information about the Oracle, and with at least one more bodyguard unaccounted for, Chandler didn't think the risk was worth it.

  He fired through the wall once more, lower this time, and heard a body fall to the floor.

  He waited a full minute for another sound, a movement, any indication of life within the bedroom, then cautiously approached it. When he reached the doorway he peered in, and saw a Blue Devil lying on the floor, a huge burn mark running the length of its torso.

  He entered the room, turned the corpse on its back, and looked for some sign or symbol of identification. As he was examining the body, he saw a sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, and as he turned to face the final bodyguard a blue foot kicked the weapon out of his hand.

  The huge Blue Devil leaned forward, reaching out for Chandler. He responded with two quick kicks against the Blue Devil's leg joints, and as the surprised creature was struggling to maintain its balance, Chandler made a quick slashing motion with his hand, then stood back as blood spurted out of the bodyguard's throat. It rasped hoarsely once, glared at Chandler for a moment, and died.

  Chandler locked the door to the corridor and spent the next few minutes making sure there were no more Blue Devils around, then withdrew a small knife, made the Oracle's mark on each corpse, and began thoroughly inspecting the suite, looking for anything, however insignificant, that might tell him something more about the Oracle and her organization.

  He was rummaging through the very last compartment when Jade walked in, a pistol in her hand.

  “You've had a busy night,” she said, glancing briefly at the corpse-strewn floor.

  “How did you get in here?” he demanded.

  “I own this building.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to stop you,” said Jade.

  “Why?”

  “Because I hadn't decided whether or not I wanted you to kill these Blue Devils—and on my world, nobody kills anyone unless I give my permission.” She paused, then continued speaking with a cold fury. “You said you'd wait in your room for two more hours. You lied to me.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said.

  “You lied to me, and that's all that matters,” she replied. “It could be that, for various reasons, you didn't want me to come along. It could be that you're simply a liar by nature. Or it could be because she made you lie.”

  “You're getting paranoid about her,” said Chandler.

  “How can you be paranoid about someone with the ability to shape the future?” she retorted. “You can underestimate her capacity for harm, but I hardly think you can overestimate it.” She stared at him. “However, that's not the issue here. You lied to me, and you killed seven Blue Devils without my permission. That's tantamount to disobeying me.”

  “How can I disobey you?” said Chandler irritably. “That implies that I take orders from you—and nobody gives me orders.”

  “There are only two options for you while you're on Port Maracaibo,” said Jade. “First, you can clear your plans with me and obtain my permission.”

  “And what's the second?”

  She pointed the pistol at him. “I can kill you.”

  22.

  “Put that away,” said Chandler. “You want to expand your operations to Hades, and I'm the only man who can make that possible. We're still on the same side.”

  “If you're on my side, you don't sneak off and commit murders without my approval.”

  They heard the sound of footsteps outside the door, as a very heavy-footed alien walked to its room.

  “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this,” said Chandler. “These bodies aren't going to stay undiscovered all night.” He paused. “Timo and one of his bodyguards were in one of the bedrooms. For all I know, they sent for help before I killed them.”

  Jade considered his statement, then nodded. “All right,” she said, lowering her pistol. “We'll continue this discussion back at the Womb.”

  They walked quickly to the airlift, floated down to the lobby together, then left the building.

  “Did you bring your vehicle?” he asked.

  “It's around the corner,” she replied.

  They entered the landcar and drove back to The Womb in silence. She pulled into the sunken garage, and a moment later they ascended to his room and immediately went to her quarters.

  “Well, what now?” she asked.

  “Now we choose another target.”

  She shook her head. “I'm not helping you until I know that I'm not being manipulated into it.”

  Chandler shrugged. “Then I'll have to do it myself.”

  “Without my help, all you'll be doing is slaughtering a bunch of innocent Blue Devils who may not have any connection to the Oracle at all.”

  “I won't have to kill that many of them,” responded Chandler. “If I put the Oracle's insignia on each victim, she'll either come up here to stop me in a couple of weeks, or I'll know she can't leave Hades and I'll have to go after her.” He paused. “But it would save me a lot of trouble if I knew who worked for her or communicated with her.”

  “Not until I sort things out,” said Jade adamantly.

  “The only thing you have to know is that whether I kill her or take her out, you're going to get rich—or, rather, richer,” said Chandler. “As for the rest of it, we simply don't have enough information. You could consider the problem halfway to eternity, and you still wouldn't know if we're doing what she wants or acting on our own.”

  “There's one piece of information that you haven't considered.”

  “Oh? What is that?”

  “You told me that the Democracy tried to kill you back on Port Marrakech. Why?”

  “I don't know. Probably they didn't want me to fulfill my mission.”

  “Which mission?” asked Jade. “Bringing her out, or killing her?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Well, it's something you ought to consider,” she continued. “If they've managed to learn something about the Oracle since you were hired, something that makes them think she's too dangerous to be allowed to live, then the last thing you want to do is bring her out alive.”

  “By the same token,” he replied, “if you're convinced she can manipulate you and me without our knowing it, she can probably manipulate them.”

  “But why would she have them try to kill you if you were going to bring her out?”

  “Any number of reasons,” answered Chandler. “First, she may be very happy where she is. Second, she may have arranged the attempt on my life, knowing I'd survive it, as a way of making me move my base of operations from Port Marrakech to Port Maracaibo, where I'd have a better chance of convincing the Blue Devils to bring her to me. Third, there's every likelihood that she's carrying a grudge against the man who hired me; maybe with me dead, he'd have to come here and try to fulfill the contract himself.” He paused. “There's no way to know until I come face-to-face with her.”

  “By that time it'll probably be too late,” said Jade. “I don't know if she can control events from Hades, but everything you've told me leads me to believe she can control them when she's in the same room with
you.”

  “I haven't come to kill her,” answered Chandler. “She'll know that.”

  “But you will kill her if you have to,” said Jade. “She'll know that, too.”

  “Unless I know for a fact that she's amenable to coming away with me, I'll probably have to kill her. She's too dangerous to try to deal with.”

  “She'll know that.”

  “Then I'll have to put her in such a position where knowing it doesn't do her any good.”

  “There's no possible way to do that.”

  “We'll see,” replied Chandler with more confidence that he felt. He paused. “Do you have anything more to say?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Then if you don't mind, I'm going to go get something to eat.”

  “You'd better have something sent to your room,” she said. “You'll want whoever delivers it to be able to testify that you were there.”

  He nodded, then left her suite and returned to his own quarters. He ordered a sandwich and an imported beer, and watched the artificial scenery through his window while he waited for the meal to arrive.

  The vidphone flashed, and he activated it.

  “Yes?” he said.

  The image of a Blue Devil appeared above the phone.

  “It won't work, Whistler.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Go home, Whistler,” said the Blue Devil. “Go home and stay alive.”

  It broke the connection.

  He immediately returned to Jade's suite, where he found her sitting at her desk, staring at a computer with a frown on her face.

  “What's the matter?” she asked, looking up.

  “It worked,” he said. “Much faster than I thought it would.”

  “What worked?”

  “I've just been warned off.”

  “By the Oracle?” asked Jade.

  “In essence,” he replied. “By some Blue Devil.”

  “How did they find you so quickly?”

  He shrugged. “For all I know they've been watching me since I landed here.”

  “And you led them right to The Womb?”

  “Not on purpose,” said Chandler. “Besides, they contacted me, not you. They know who's responsible for what happened at The Uncut Diamond. They have no reason to suspect you of any complicity.”