And the vortex in turn drew back, away from her, freeing the entry to the room. Once more it changed, became the descending river of fire it had first appeared to be. Faces and shapes came sweeping down with the flow, sometimes seen distinctly, sometimes only as dim outlines within it. They whipped past, now beautiful, now horrible, growing more menacing as Trigger came closer. Then another abrupt blurring; and what took form was a squat anthropoid demon, mottled and hairless, with narrow pointed ears, standing in the room. He wasn’t as tall as Trigger, but he seemed almost as broad as he was tall; and his slanted cat eyes were fixed avidly on her. The image was realistic enough to give her a start of fright and revulsion. Then, as she reached the room, it simply vanished. There was a musical giggle on her right.
“You’re hard to scare, Trigger!”
“Why were you trying to scare me?” Trigger asked.
“Oh, just for fun!”
She might be twelve or thirteen years old. A slender, beautiful child with long blond hair and laughing blue eyes. She closed the instrument she’d been operating, an instrument about which Trigger hadn’t been able to make out much except that it seemed to have multiple keyboards.
“I’m Perr Hasta,” she announced. “They told me to watch you until you woke up, and I’ve been watching almost an hour and you were still just lying there, and it was sort of boring. So I started playing with my image-maker, and then you did wake up, and I wanted to see if I could scare you. Did I?”
“For a moment at the end,” Trigger admitted. “You have quite an imagination!”
Perr Hasta seemed to find that amusing. She chuckled.
“By the way,” Trigger went on, “who are ‘they’ ?”
“They’re Torai and Attuk,” said Perr Hasta. “And don’t ask me next who Torai and Attuk are because I told them when you woke up, and I’m to take you to see them now. They can tell you.”
“Do you live here on the satellite?” Trigger asked as they started toward a doorway.
“How do you know you’re on the satellite?” Perr said. “That was hours ago they brought you there. They could have taken you somewhere else afterwards.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Perr smiled. “Well, you are still on the satellite. But don’t think you can make me take you to a boat lock. Torai is watching you now, and we’d just run into force screens somewhere. She’s anxious to talk to you.”
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint her,” Trigger said.
Attuk was a rather large, healthy-looking man with squared features and a quite bald head, who dressed with casual elegance and gave the impression of enjoying life thoroughly. Torai appeared past middle age—a brown-skinned woman with a handsome face and fine dark eyes. Her clothes and hair style were severe, but her long fingers glittered with numerous rings. Something ornate, which might have been a musical instrument in the general class of a flute, or perhaps a functional computer control rod, hung by a satin strap from her belt. Trigger decided it was a computer control rod.
A place had been set for Trigger at a small table near the center of the room, and refreshments put out-fruit, a chilled soup, a variety of breads, two loaves of meat. The utensils included a sizable carving knife.
The others weren’t eating. They sat in chairs around the wide green and gold room, which had a number of doors and passages leading from it. Torai was closest to Trigger, some fifteen feet away and a little to Trigger’s left. Perr Hasta, beyond Torai, had tilted her chair back against the wall, feet supported by one of the rungs. Attuk was farthest, on Trigger’s right, beside a picture window with an animated seascape at which he gazed when he wasn’t watching Trigger.
“I had the impression,” Torai remarked, “that you recognized me as soon as you saw me.”
Trigger nodded. “Torai Sebaloun. I’ve seen pictures of you. I’ve heard you’re one of the wealthiest women on Orado.”
“No doubt I am,” Torai said. “And Attuk and Perr Hasta are my associates in the Sebaloun enterprises, though the fact isn’t generally known.”
“I see.” Trigger sliced a sliver of meat from one of the loaves and nibbled at it.
“You created something of a problem for us, you know,” Torai went on. “In fact, it seemed at first that it might turn into a decidedly serious problem. But we moved in time, and had some good fortune in those critical first few hours besides. You’ve talked freely meanwhile and told us what we needed to know. You don’t remember that, of course, because at the time you weren’t aware of doing it. At any rate, there’s nothing to point to us now—not even for the Psychology Service’s investigators.”
Trigger said, “I’ve seen something of the Service’s methods of investigation. Perhaps you shouldn’t feel too sure of yourself.”
Attuk grunted. “I must agree with our guest on that point!”
“No,” Torai said. “We’re really quite safe.” She smiled at Trigger. “Attuk favors having Telzey Amberdon picked up, to find out what she can tell us about the Service’s search for you. But we aren’t going to try it.”
“It would be a sensible precaution,” Attuk observed, looking out at the restlessly stirring seascape. “We could have a new mercenary group hired, with the usual safeguards, to do the job. If anything went wrong, we still wouldn’t be involved.”
Torai said dryly, “I’d be more concerned if nothing went wrong and she were delivered safely to our private place!” She looked at Trigger. “We obtained a dossier on Amberdon, as we previously had on you. What we found in it hardly seemed disturbing. But what you’ve told us about her is a different matter. It appears it would be a serious mistake to try to maintain control over a person of that kind.”
Attuk made a disparaging gesture. “A mind reader, a psi! They can be handled. I’ve done it before.”
“Well, you are not having that particular mind reader brought to the satellite for handling!” Torai told him. “The information we might get from her isn’t worth the risk. She can’t harm us as long as we keep well away from her. My decision on that is final. To get back to you, Trigger. Your interference made it necessary to terminate the very lucrative Marell operation at once. Now that it’s known such a world exists, we can’t afford to retain any connections with it.”
Trigger said evenly, “I’m glad about that part, at least! You three have all the money you can use. You had no possible excuse for exploiting the Marells. They’re as human as you are.”
They stared at her a moment. Then Attuk grinned and Perr Hasta chortled gleefully.
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” said Torai Sebaloun.
Trigger shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, but truly you are! The Marells may be human enough. We aren’t.”
The statement was made so casually that for a moment it seemed to have almost no meaning. Then there was a crawling between Trigger’s shoulder blades. She looked at the smiling faces in turn. “Then what are you?” she asked.
Torai said, “It may sound strange, but I don’t know what I am. My memory never goes back more than fifty or sixty years. The past fades out behind me. I keep permanent records to inform me of past things I should know about but have forgotten. And even the earliest of those records show that I didn’t know then what I was. I may have forgotten that very long ago.” She looked over at Attuk. “Attuk isn’t what I am, and neither is Perr Hasta. And neither of them is what the other is. But certainly none of us is human.”
She paused, perhaps expectantly. But then, when Trigger remained silent, she went on. “It shouldn’t be surprising, really. A vast culture like this one touches thousands of other worlds, often without discovering much about them. And it alerts and attracts other beings who can live comfortably on its riches without revealing themselves. An obvious form of concealment, of course, is to adopt or imitate the human form. With intelligence and experience and sufficiently long lives, such intruders can learn in time to make more effective use of the human culture than most hum
ans ever do.”
Trigger cleared her throat, then: “There’s something about this,” she remarked, “that doesn’t fit what you’re telling me.”
“Oh?” Torai said. “What is it?”
“Torai Sebaloun herself. The Sebaloun family goes back for generations. It was a great financial house when the War Centuries ended. It’s less prominent now, of course, but Torai must have been born normally. Her identification patterns must be on record. She must have grown up normally. Where a member of the Sebaloun family was involved, nothing else could possibly have escaped attention. So how could she be at the same time a long-lived alien who doesn’t remember what it really is?”
Torai said, “You’re right in assuming that Torai Sebaloun was born and matured normally. I sought her out when she was eighteen years old. I’d been watching her for some time. She was a beautiful woman, in perfect health, intelligent as were almost all members of the Sebaloun line, and wealthy in her own right, not to mention her family’s great wealth. So I became Torai Sebaloun.”
“How?”
“I transferred my personality to her. The body I’d been using previously died. I forced out Torai’s personality. I acquired her body, her brain and nervous system, with its established habit patterns and memories. I was Torai Sebaloun then, and I let the world grow gradually accustomed to the various modifications I wanted to make in its image of her. There were no problems. There never are.
“That’s how I exist. I’m a personality. I take bodies and use them for a while. Before I discovered human beings, I was using other bodies. I know that much. And when my host body no longer seems satisfactory, I start looking around for a new one. I’m very selective about that nowadays, as I can afford to be! I want only the best.”
She smiled at Trigger. “Of late, I’ve been looking again. I was on Orado when you took my property from Blethro. Since he’s shown himself to be a most capable individual, I was interested in the fact that you’d been able to do it. As soon as we had your name, I was supplied with a dossier on you. I found that even more interesting, though it left a number of questions unanswered. So I had you brought to our satellite to make sure of what I’d come across. You’ve had a medical examination during the past hours, which confirms that you’re in superior physical condition. Our interrogation revealed other excellencies. In short, I find no disqualifying flaw in you.”
Trigger glanced at the other two. They had the expressions of detachedly interested listeners.
She told Torai carefully, “Perhaps you’d better go on looking! There are obvious reasons why it wouldn’t be advisable for you to try to take over my identity.”
“No, I couldn’t do that,” Torai agreed. “So this time we’ll create a new one. Your appearance will be surgically altered. So will your identification patterns. And, of course, I don’t intend to give up the Sebaloun empire. All the necessary arrangements were made some while ago. Torai is the last of her family, and her sole heiress is a young protégé to whom the world will be gradually introduced after Torai’s death. All that remained then was to find the protégé. And now—”
Torai broke off.
Barely fifteen feet between them, Trigger had been thinking. She could be out of her chair and across that distance in an instant. Attuk sat a good eight yards away. Perr Hasta, relaxed, chair tilted back against the wall, could do nothing to interfere.
Then, with the carving knife held against the brown neck of Torai Sebaloun, and Torai herself held clamped back against Trigger, they could bargain. Torai was in charge here; and whether it was insanity that had been speaking or an entity which, in fact, could make another’s body its own, Torai obviously placed a high value on her life. She could keep it, on Trigger’s conditions.
So, as Torai seemed about to conclude the outline of her plans for Trigger, Trigger came out of the chair.
She’d almost reached Torai when something stopped her. It was neither solid barrier nor energy screen; there was no jolt, no impact—all she felt was its effect. She could come no closer to Torai, whose face showed startled consternation and who’d raised her hands defensively. Instead, she was being forced steadily away. Then she was lifted into the air, held suspended several feet above the carpet, and something pulled at her right arm, drawing it straight out to the side. She realized the pull was on the blade of the knife she still held; and she let go of it, which was preferable to getting her fingers broken or having her arm hauled out of its socket by what she knew now must be an interacting set of tractor beams. The knife was flicked away and dropped lightly to the surface of the little lunch table.
Torai Sebaloun was smiling again. Her hands remained slightly raised, fingers curled, knuckles turned forward, toward Trigger; and all those glittering rings on her fingers clearly had a solid functional purpose.
“Quick! Oh, she was quick!” Perr Hasta was saying delightedly. “You were right about her, Torai!”
“Yes, I was right.” Torai didn’t turn her eyes away from Trigger. “And still she was almost able to take me by surprise! Trigger, it was obvious from what we’d learned about you that at some early moment you’d try to make me your hostage. Well, you’ve tried!”
Her fingers shifted. Trigger was carried back across the room, still held clear of the carpet, lowered and set on the edge of a couch against the far wall. The intangible beam complex released her suddenly; and Torai dropped her hands and stood up.
“The transfer is made easier by suitable preparations,” she said, “and they’ve now begun. It’s why I told you what I did. A personality that knows what is happening is more readily expelled than one which has remained unaware and unsuspecting until the last moment. You may not yet believe it’s going to happen, but you won’t be able to avoid thinking about it; and that’s enough to provide a satisfactory level of uncertainty. Meanwhile, be at liberty to discover how helpless you are here, in fact, in every way. I’ll be engaged in sensitizing myself to the personal articles I had brought to the satellite with you.”
Perr Hasta also had come to her feet. “Then I can go to Blethro now?”
Torai shrugged. “Why not?”
She turned toward a door. Perr Hasta darted across the room to another door, pulled it open and was gone through it. Attuk got out of his chair, glanced at Trigger and smiled lazily as he started toward a hallway.
Somewhat incredulously, Trigger realized that they were leaving her here by herself. She watched Torai open the door, got a brief glimpse of the room beyond it before Torai shut it again. Attuk had gone off down the hall.
She looked around. The lunch table was sinking through the richly patterned carpet, accompanied by the chair she’d used. Both were gone before she could make a move to recover the knife. The seascape Attuk had studied shut itself off. The chair on which Torai had been sitting followed the example of the lunch table. The one used by Perr Hasta moved ten feet out from the wall, did a sharp quarter turn to the left and remained where it was. The green and gold room was rearranging itself, now that three of its four occupants had left.
Possibly she didn’t rate as an occupant of sufficient significance to be considered. Trigger got up from the couch and started toward the door left open by Perr Hasta. She glanced around as she got there. The couch had flattened down and was withdrawing into the wall.
From the doorway, she looked out at a vast sweep of wilderness—a plain dotted with sparse growth, lifting gradually to a distant mountain range. Somewhat more than a hundred yards away, Perr Hasta was running lightly toward a great sloping boulder. A dark rectangle at the base of the boulder suggested a recessed entrance.
Blethro was there? What was this place?
Perr Hasta could answer that. Trigger set off in pursuit.
She checked almost at once. For an instant, as she came through the door, she’d had the impression of the curving walls of a large metallic domed structure, in which the door was set, on either side of her. Then the impression vanished; and, looking back in momentary bew
ilderment, she saw neither structure nor door, but only the continuation of the great plain on which she stood.
No time to ponder it. Perr Hasta already was halfway to the boulder. Trigger started out again—and, within a hundred steps, she again slowed to a stop, rather abruptly. What halted her this time was the sudden appearance of a sheet of soft, rosy light in the air directly ahead. She’d come up to a force screen. And the whole view beyond the screen had blurred out.
V
When she passed through the door leading from the green and gold room, she’d entered a maze, a series of stage settings blending a little of what was real with much more that was projected illusion. To the eye, the blending was undetectable, and other senses were played upon as skillfully. Force screens formed the dividing walls of the maze, unnoticed until one reached them, responding then with a soft glow which extended a few feet to right and left. Trigger would turn sideways to such a screen, feeling its slick coolness under her fingertips, and move on along it, accompanied by the glow. Perhaps within a dozen yards, the screen would be gone, and she’d find herself in another part of the maze with a different set of illusions about her—and, presently, other force screens to turn her in new directions.
She’d simply kept moving at first, trying to walk her way out, while she watched for anything that might be an indication to the pattern of the maze. One point became apparent immediately. She couldn’t go back the way she had come; the maze’s transfer mechanisms operated only in one direction. She passed through a forest glade where a light rain dewed her hair and sweater, and a minute later, was walking along the crest of a barren hill at night, seeing what might be city lights in the distance, while thunder growled overhead. Then a swamp steamed on either side and sent fog drifting across her path. Sounds accompanied her— animal voices, an ominous rustling in a thicket, sudden loud splashes. Something else soon became established: nothing had been left lying carelessly around here that might be considered a weapon. Trigger saw stones of handy size and broken branches, but they were illusion. Vegetation that wasn’t illusion was artificial stuff which bent but wouldn’t break. She hadn’t been able to pull off even a leaf or pry loose a tuft of springy moss.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 252