by Ларри Нивен
The bouncing flywheel hadn't reached the control cone.
Things lighted up when I turned on the communications board. I had to manipulate switches with the heel of my hand. I turned on everything that looked like it had something to do with communications, rolled all the volume knobs to maximum between my palms, and let it go at that, making no attempt to aim a com laser, talk into anything, or tap out code. If anything was working on that board — and something was delivering power, even if the machinery to use it was damaged — then the base would get just the impression I wanted them to have. Someone was trying to communicate with broken equipment.
So I settled myself in the control cone and smoked. Using my toes was less painful than trying to hold a cigarette in my fingers. I remembered how shocked Sharrol had been the first time she saw me with a cigarette between my toes. Flatlanders are less than limber.
Eventually someone came.
* * *
I picked up the open bulb of glass that Margo had called a snifter and held it before me, watching the play of light in the red-brown fluid. It was a pleasure to use my hands.
Twelve hours ago they had been useless, swollen, and blackening — like things long dead.
«To the hero's return,» said Margo. Her green eyes sparkled. She raised the snifter in a toast and drank.
«I've been in a 'doc the past twelve hours,» I said. «Fill me in. Are we going to get Lloobee back?»
«Lloobee and your friend, too.» Satisfaction was rich in her voice; she was almost purring. «The kidnappers settled for a contract of amnesty and antipublicity, with a penalty of ten thousand stars to the man who causes their names to be published anywhere in known space. Penalty to apply to every man, woman, and child on Gummidgy — you and me included. They insisted we list the names. Did you know there are half a million people on Gummidgy?»
«That's a big contract.»
«But they never made a tenth star. They were lucky to get what they did. With their ship wrecked, they're trapped here. Lloobee and your friend should be arriving any minute.
«And Bellamy's death should satisfy Kdatlyno honor.»
«Mm hm.» She nodded, happy, relaxed. What an actress she could have been! How nice it would have been to play along …
«I didn't kill him deliberately,» I said.
«You told me.»
«That leaves us only one loose end.»
She looked up over the snifter. «What's that?»
«Persuading Emil to leave you out of it.»
She dropped the snifter. It hit the indoor grass rug and rolled under the coffee table while Margo stared at me as at a stranger. Finally she said, «You're hard to read. How long have you known?»
«Practically since your friends took Lloobee. But we weren't sure until we knew Bellamy really had him. You'd lied about his ship.»
«I see.» Her voice was flat, and the sparkle in her eyes was a long forgotten thing. «Emil Home knows. Who else?»
«Just me. And Emil owes me one. Two, really.»
«Well,» she said. «Well.» And she went to pick up the snifter. Right then, the rest of it fell into place.
«You're old.»
«You're hard to fool, Bey.»
«I've never seen you move like that before. It's funny; I can tell a man's age within a few decades, but I can't tell a woman's. Why don't you move like that all the time?»
She laughed. «And have everyone know I'm a crone? Not likely. So I hesitate when I move, and I knock against things occasionally, and catch my heel on rugs … Every woman learns to do that, usually long after she's learned not to. Too much poise is a giveaway.» She stood with her feet apart, hands on her hips, challenging. Now her poise was tremendous, a shocking, glowing dignity. Perhaps she had been an actress, so long ago that her most devoted admirers had died or forgotten her. «So I'm old. Well?»
«Well, now I know why you joined the kidnappers. You and Bellamy and the rest; you all think alike. No persuasion needed.»
She shook her head in mock sadness. «How you simplify. Do you really think that everyone over two hundred and fifty is identical under the skull?
«Piet Lindstrom disliked the idea from the beginning, but he needed the money. He's been off boosterspice for years. Warren's loved hunting all his life. He hadn't hunted a civilized animal since the kzinti wars. Tanya was in love with Larch. She'll probably try to kill you.»
«And you?»
«Larch would have gone ahead without me. Anything could have happened. So I saw to it that I was flying Lloobee's ship, and I declared myself in.»
She was so damn vivid. I'd thought she was beautiful before, but now, with the little-girl mannerisms gone, she glowed.
I thought of the brandy.
«You loved him, too,» I said.
«I'm his mother.»
That jolted me to my toes. «The brandy,» I said. «What was in the brandy?»
«Something I developed long ago. Hormones, hypnotics … a love potion. You're going to love me. Two years from now I'll abandon you like an empty beer bulb. You won't be able to live without me.» Her smile was cruel and cold. «A fitting revenge.»
«Finagle help me!» I hadn't drunk the brandy, of course, but what the hell … Then it penetrated. Two years. «You know about Sharrol?»
«Yes.»
«I didn't drink the brandy.»
«There's nothing in it but alcohol.»
We grinned at each other across the length of the couch. Then the ghost was between us, and I said, «What about Bellamy?»
«Larch took his chances. He knew what he was doing.»
«I can't understand that.» I couldn't understand why she didn't hate me. Worse, all my questions were sure to be the wrong ones. I picked one that might be right and asked, «What was he doing?»
«Dying. He'd run out of things to do. He'd have taken greater and greater chances until one of them killed him. One day I'll reach the same point. Maybe I'll know it in time.»
«What will you do then?»
«Don't ask me,» she said with finality. I never did again.
«And what will you do now?»
«I have an idea,» she said carefully, watching me. «Sharrol Janss is bearing children on Earth for you to raise. I can't have children myself. My ovaries have long since run out of ova. But is there any reason why we shouldn't spend two years together?»
«I can't think of any. But what would you get out of it?»
«I've never known a crashlander.»
«And you're curious.»
«Yes. Don't be offended.»
«I'm not. Your flattery has turned my head.» After all, there were two years to fill, and Margo was lovely.
* * *
I was alone on Jinx two years later, waiting for the next ship to Earth. As it turned out, Lloobee's latest works were there, too, on loan to the Institute of Knowledge. To the Institute I went, to see what my protégée had produced.
Seeing them was a shock.
That was the first shock: that they should make sense when seen. Touch sculpture is to be felt: it has no meaning otherwise. But these were busts and statuettes. Someone had even advised Lloobee on color.
I looked closer.
First: a group of human statuettes, some seated, some standing, all staring with great intensity at a flat pane of clear glass.
Second: a pair of heads. Human, humane, handsome, noble as all hell, but child's play to recognize nonetheless. I touched them, and they felt like warm human faces. My face and Emil's.
Third and last: a group of four, a woman and three men. They showed a definite kinship with the ape and a second admixture of what must have been demon blood. Yet they were quite recognizable. Three felt like human faces, though somehow repellent. But the fourth felt horribly dead.
The kidnappers had neglected to include Lloobee in their contract. And Lloobee has been talking to newsmen, telling them all about how his latest works had come to be.
GHOST: FIVE
«Can I
ghost that story for you?» Ander asked. «Might be money in it.»
«Old news. Everyone's seen Lloobee's version,» I said, thinking that my story, even edited, could call too much attention to Margo. Lloobee hadn't known of Margo's involvement in the kidnapping, and I hadn't told Ander. I watched him, wondering if he knew.
«I've never turned on to a … mature woman,» he said. «What's it like? Why did you break up?»
I shrugged. «It was supposed to be temporary. It stayed that way … didn't have to, just did. Ander, it boggles me a little, too, Margo contracting for a two-year date the way I used to angle for a hot weekend. Aliens scare you; do you ever worry about elderly humans?»
«No.»
«They've learned too much. They don't like change. If they could stop civilization in its tracks, they would.»
He didn't exactly think that over; he disliked the taste, so he spit it out. «I always figure, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. So I've decided to get older. Beowulf, General Products gave you a number —»
«I take it as being for my use only.»
His eyes narrowed, but he let it slide. «But you could use it if we needed to know something.»
«I might ask a properly phrased question. Ander Smittarasheed, I am out of the aliens business.»
Again he let it slide. «After Margo, where?»
«Earth. I had a hell of a time getting back.»
«Did you go back for Sharrol Janss?»
I stared. «Of course, for Sharrol and the children.»
«Carlos Wu's children!»
I stood up, knowing it was a mistake, and so what? «I'm leaving. If you want to apologize, my phone is —»
«Beowulf Shaeffer, I just can't see you losing your head over a woman.»
I lost my breath. It was as if he'd punched me in the belly. I sat down, but my vision was still graying. Ander watched in amazement. When my eyes would focus again, he asked, «What was that about?»
«Not now.» I couldn't breathe.
He sighed. He tapped at the menu board. A squeezebulb popped up, and he handed it across. I found my hand massaging my throat, removed it, took the bulb, and drank. Brandy and soda. Just right.
He watched me drink again. «Stet. Sigmund told me how you got back to Sol system.»
«He might possibly have left something out.»
«Go ahead.»
THE BORDERLAND OF SOL
Three months on Jinx, marooned.
I played tourist for the first couple of months. I never saw the high-pressure regions around the ocean because the only way down would have been with a safari of hunting tanks. But I traveled the habitable lands on either side of the sea, the East Band civilized, the West Band a developing frontier. I wandered the East End in a vacuum suit, toured the distilleries and other vacuum industries, and stared up into the orange vastness of Primary, Jinx's big twin brother.
I spent most of the second month between the Institute of Knowledge and the Camelot Hotel. Tourism had palled.
For me that's unusual. I'm a born tourist. But –
Jinx's one point seven eight gravities put an unreasonable restriction on elegance and ingenuity in architectural design. The buildings in the habitable bands all look alike: squat and massive.
The East and West Ends, the vacuum regions, aren't that different from any industrialized moon. I never developed much of an interest in touring factories.
As for the ocean shorelines, the only vehicles that go there go to hunt Bandersnatchi. The Bandersnatchi are freaks: enormous, intelligent white slugs the size of mountains. They hunt the tanks. There are rigid restrictions to the equipment the tanks can carry, covenants established between men and Bandersnatchi, so that the Bandersnatchi win about forty percent of the duels. I wanted no part of that.
And all my touring had to be done in three times the gravity of my homeworld.
I spent the third month in Sirius Mater, and most of that in the Camelot Hotel, which has gravity generators in most of the rooms. When I went out, I rode a floating contour couch. I passed like an invalid among the Jinxians, who were amused. Or was that my imagination?
I was in a hall of the Institute of Knowledge when I came on Carlos Wu running his fingertips over a Kdatlyno touch sculpture.
A dark, slender man with narrow shoulders and straight black hair, Carlos was lithe as a monkey in any normal gravity, but on Jinx he used a travel couch exactly like mine. He studied the busts with his head tilted to one side. And I studied the familiar back, sure it couldn't be him.
«Carlos, aren't you supposed to be on Earth?»
He jumped. But when the couch spun around, he was grinning. «Bey! I might say the same for you.»
I admitted it. «I was headed for Earth, but when all those ships started disappearing around Sol system, the captain changed his mind and steered for Sirius. Nothing any of the passengers could do about it. What about you? How are Sharrol and the kids?»
«Sharrol's fine, the kids are fine, and they're all waiting for you to come home.» His fingers were still trailing over the Lloobee touch sculpture called Heroes, feeling the warm, fleshy textures. Heroes was a most unusual touch sculpture; there were visual as well as textural effects. Carlos studied the two human busts, then said, «That's your face, isn't it?»
«Yeah.»
«Not that you ever looked that good in your life. How did a Kdatlyno come to pick Beowulf Shaeffer as a classic hero? Was it your name? And who's the other guy?»
«I'll tell you about it sometime. Carlos, what are you doing here?»
«I … left Earth a couple of weeks after Louis was born.» He was embarrassed. Why? «I haven't been off Earth in ten years. I needed the break.»
But he'd left just before I was supposed to get home. And … hadn't someone once said that Carlos Wu had a touch of the flatland phobia? I began to understand what was wrong. «Carlos, you did Sharrol and me a valuable favor.»
He laughed without looking at me. «Men have killed other men for such favors. I thought it was … tactful … to be gone when you came home.»
Now I knew. Carlos was here because the Fertility Board on Earth would not favor me with a parenthood license.
You can't really blame the Board for using any excuse at all to reduce the number of producing parents. I am an albino. Sharrol and I wanted each other, but we both wanted children, and Sharrol can't leave Earth. She has the flatland phobia, the fear of strange air and altered days and changed gravity and black sky beneath her feet.
The only solution we'd found had been to ask a good friend to help.
Carlos Wu is a registered genius with an incredible resistance to disease and injury. He carries an unlimited parenthood license, one of sixty-odd among Earth's eighteen billion people. He gets similar offers every week … but he is a good friend, and he'd agreed. In the last two years Sharrol and Carlos had had two children, who were now waiting on Earth for me to become their father.
I felt only gratitude for what he'd done for us. «I forgive you your odd ideas on tact,» I said magnanimously. «Now. As long as we're stuck on Jinx, may I show you around? I've met some interesting people.»
«You always do.» He hesitated, then, «I'm not actually stuck on Jinx. I've been offered a ride home. I may be able to get you in on it.»
«Oh, really? I didn't think there were any ships going to Sol system these days. Or leaving.»
«This ship belongs to a government man. Ever heard of a Sigmund Ausfaller?»
«That sounds vaguely … Wait! Stop! The last time I saw Sigmund Ausfaller, he had just put a bomb aboard my ship!»
Carlos blinked at me. «You're kidding.»
«I'm not.»
«Sigmund Ausfaller is in the Bureau of Alien Affairs. Bombing spacecraft isn't one of his functions.»
«Maybe he was off duty,» I said viciously.
«Well, it doesn't really sound like you'd want to share a spacecraft cabin with him. Maybe —»
But I'd thought of something else, and now the
re just wasn't any way out of it. «No, let's meet him. Where do we find him?»
«The bar of the Camelot,» said Carlos.
* * *
Reclining luxuriously on our travel couches, we slid on air cushions through Sirius Mater. The orange trees that lined the walks were foreshortened by gravity; their trunks were thick cones, and the oranges on the branches were not much bigger than Ping-Pong balls.
Their world had altered them, even as our worlds have altered you and me. And underground civilization and point six gravities have made of me a pale stick figure of a man, tall and attenuated. The Jinxians we passed were short and wide, designed like bricks, men and women both. Among them the occasional offworlder seemed as shockingly different as a Kdatlyno or a Pierson's puppeteer.
And so we came to the Camelot.
The Camelot is a low, two-story structure that sprawls like a cubistic octopus across several acres of downtown Sirius Mater. Most offworlders stay here for the gravity control in the rooms and corridors and for access to the Institute of Knowledge, the finest museum and research complex in human space.
The Camelot Bar carries one Earth gravity throughout. We left our travel couches in the vestibule and walked in like men. Jinxians were walking in like bouncing rubber bricks, with big happy grins on their wide faces. Jinxians love low gravity. A good many migrate to other worlds.
We spotted Ausfaller easily: a rounded, moon-faced flatlander with thick, dark wavy hair and a thin black mustache. He stood as we approached. «Beowulf Shaeffer!» he beamed. «How good to see you again! I believe it has been eight years or thereabouts. How have you been?»
«I lived,» I told him.
Carlos rubbed his hands together briskly. «Sigmund! Why did you bomb Bey's ship?»
Ausfaller blinked in surprise. «Did he tell you it was his ship? It wasn't. He was thinking of stealing it. I reasoned that he would not steal a ship with a hidden time bomb aboard.»
«But how did you come into it?» Carlos slid into the booth beside him. «You're not police. You're in the Extremely Foreign Relations Bureau.»
