The settings presently took on an increasingly bizarre aspect. A grotesquely costumed bloated corpse swung by its neck from a tree branch, turning slowly as Trigger went by below. Immediately afterwards, she was in a place where she saw multiple replicas of herself all about, placed in other scenes. In one, she swayed in death beside the bloated horror, suspended from the same branch. In another, she strode across a desert, unaware of a gaunt gray shape moving behind her. An on-the-spot computer composition, initiated by her appearance in this part of the maze—
A few minutes later, she sat down on a simulated beach. There was nothing bizarre here. The white sand was real, and water appeared to sweep lazily up it not many yards away. Sea smells were in the windy air; and there were faint sounds which seemed to come from flying creatures circling far out above the water.
The maze section she’d just emerged from was one she’d passed through before. The illusion view had been new, but she’d recognized the formation of the ground. And when she’d gone through it before, she hadn’t come out on the beach.
So the maze wasn’t a static construction. The illusion views could be varied and exchanged, and there might be easily thousands of such views available. The positions of force screens and transfer points could be shifted, and had begun to be shifted. The actual area of the maze might be quite limited; and still she could be kept moving around in it indefinitely. If she came near an exit point, she could be deflected past it back into the maze. In fact, nobody needed to be watching to take care of that. The controlling computer would maneuver her about readily enough if that was intended.
Whatever purpose such an arrangement served the satellite’s owners, it was no friendly one. The multiple-image area showed malice; a number of displays were meant to shock and frighten. Others must have walked in the maze before this, bewildered and mystified, while their reactions were observed. She’d been tricked into entering it as she attempted to follow Perr Hasta, perhaps to reduce her resistance and make her more easy to handle.
At any rate, she had to get out. The satellite was a complex machine; the machine had controls. The smaller the staff employed by Torai Sebaloun—and there’d been no indications of any staff so far—the more intricate the controls must be. Somewhere such a system was vulnerable. But she had no more chance here to discover its vulnerabilities and try to change the situation in her favor than she would have had behind locked doors.
Therefore, do nothing. Stay here, appear reasonably relaxed. If somebody was studying her reactions as seemed likely, that couldn’t be too satisfactory; and if they wanted to prod further reactions out of her, they’d have to make some new move. Possibly one she could turn to her advantage.
“Hello, Trigger!” said Perr Hasta. The Symbiotes
Trigger looked around. The blond child figure stood a dozen feet away.
“Where did you come from?” Trigger asked.
Perr nodded at a stand of bushes uphill, which Trigger had reason to consider part of the beach scene’s illusion setup. “I saw you from there and thought I’d come find out what you were doing,” Perr said.
“A short while ago,” Trigger remarked, “there was a force screen between that place and this.”
Perr smiled. “There still is! But there’s a way around the screen if you know just where to turn—which isn’t where you’d think you should turn.”
She sat down in the sand, companionably close to Trigger. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. “There’s an odd thing you have that didn’t want you to be hypnotized.”
Which seemed to be a reference to the Old Galactic mind shield. Trigger didn’t intend to discuss that, though she might already have told them about it. “I’ve never been easy to hypnotize,” she said.
“Hm-m-m,” said Perr. “Well, we’ll see what happens. You’re certainly unusual!” She smiled. “I was hoping Torai would let Attuk bring your psi friend here. It should have been an interesting situation.”
“No doubt.”
“Of course, Attuk doesn’t really care what Telzey knows,” Perr went on. “Her dossier shows what she looks like, and Attuk forms these sudden attachments. He can be quite irresponsible then. He formed a strong attachment to you, too—but you’re Torai’s! So Attuk’s been sulking.” She chuckled.
Trigger looked at her. The three of them might be deranged. “What kind of being is he?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“Attuk?” Perr shrugged. “Well, he is what he is. I don’t know what it’s called. A crude creature, at any rate, with crude tastes. He even likes to eat human flesh. Isn’t that disgusting?”
“Yes, I’d call it disgusting,” Trigger said after a moment.
“He says there was a time when he had human worshipers who brought him human sacrifices,” Perr said. “Perhaps that’s when he developed his tastes. I’m sure he’d like it to be that way again, but it’s not so easy to arrange now. So he makes himself useful to Torai and she keeps him around.”
“How is he useful to her?” Trigger asked.
“This way and that,” said Perr. “What are you, Perr?”
Perr smiled, shook her head. “I never tell anyone. But I’ll show you what I do, if you like. Would you? We’d have to leave the playground.”
“This is the playground?” Trigger said.
“That’s what we call it.”
“Where would we go?”
“To the residence.”
“Where I was before?”
“Yes.”
Trigger stood up. “Lead the way!”
Getting out of the maze without running into force screens was, as Perr Hasta had indicated, apparently a matter of knowing where to turn. The turning points weren’t detectably marked and there seemed to be no pattern to the route, but in less than two minutes they’d reached an open doorway with a room beyond. They went through and closed the door. There was nothing illusory about the room. They were back in the residence.
“Torai controls the satellite from the residence?” Trigger asked.
Perr gave her a glance. “Well, usually that’s where she is. But she could control it from almost anywhere on it.”
“Ordinarily that’s done from a computer room.”
“We go through here, Trigger. No, hardly anyone goes to the computer room. Only when something needs adjusting or repairs. Then Torai has someone brought out to do it.”
“You mean you don’t have a computer technician on hand?” Trigger said. “What would happen to the satellite if your main computer broke down?”
“Goodness. There’re three main computers. Any one of them could keep the satellite going perfectly by itself—and they’re hardly likely to break down all together, are they? Here we are!” Perr stopped at a passage door and slid back a panel covering a transparent section in the upper part. “There! That’s what I do, Trigger.”
The room was small and bare. Blethro sat on a bench with his back against the wall, facing the door. His hands were loosely folded in his lap. His head lolled to the side, and a thread of spittle hung from a comer of his mouth. His eyes were fixed on the door, but he gave no sign of being aware of visitors.
“What have you done to him?” Trigger said after a moment.
Perr winked at her.
“I drank what Torai would call his personality,” she said. “Oh, not all of it, or he’d be dead. I left him a little. He can sit there like that or stand, or even walk if he’s told to. But I took most.”
Drugs could account for Blethro’s condition, but Trigger felt a shiver of eeriness.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“Why not? It was a kindness really. They weren’t going to let Blethro live. He’s Attuk’s meat. But that won’t bother him now.” Perr Hasta slid the window shut. “Besides, that’s what I do: absorb personalities or whatever it is that’s there and different in everybody. Some seem barely worthwhile, of course, but I may take them while I’m waiting for a prime one to come along. Or I’ll sip a bit
here and there. That’s barely noticeable. I’m not greedy, and when I find something that should be a really unusual treat, I can be oh-so-patient until the time comes for it! But then I have a real feast!” She smiled. “Would you like me to show you where the computer room is?”
Trigger cleared her throat. “Why do you want to show me that?”
“Because I think you want to know. Not that it’s likely to do you much good. But we’ll see. It’s this way, Trigger.”
They went along the passage. Perr glanced sideways up at Trigger. “Blethro wasn’t much,” she remarked. “But you have a personality I think I’d remember for a long, long time.”
“Well, keep away from it,” Trigger said.
“That odd mind thing of yours couldn’t stop me,” Perr told her.
“Perhaps not. There might be other ways to stop you.”
Perr laughed delightedly. “We’ll see how everything goes! We turn here now. And that’s the passage that leads to the computer room. The room’s probably locked though—”
She took a step to the side as she spoke, and a door that hadn’t been noticeable in the wall was suddenly open, and Perr Hasta was going through it. Trigger reached for her an instant too late. She had a glimpse of the smiling child face turned back to her as the door closed soundlessly. And even before she touched it, Trigger felt quite sure there’d be no way in which she could reopen that door. Its outline had disappeared again, and there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the passage wall.
VI
There was another door at the end of the passage Perr Hasta had said led to the computer room. The computer room might very well lie behind it. It was a massive-looking door; and while there were no visible indications of locks, it couldn’t be budged.
Its location, at any rate, was something to keep in mind. And now, before she ran into interference, she’d better go through as much of the residence area as possible to see what useful articles or information it might provide.
The search soon became frustrating. The place seemed to be laid out like a large house with wings, extending through a number of satellite levels. Some of the doors she came to along the passages and halls wouldn’t open. Others did. The rooms they disclosed were of such widely varying styles that this might have been almost a museum, rather than a living place furnished to someone’s individual preferences. As a rule, very little of the furnishing would be in sight when Trigger first came into a room; but it began to emerge from walls and flooring then, presenting itself for use. The computers were aware of her whereabouts.
Unfortunately, they weren’t concerned with her needs of the moment. Nothing they offered was going to be of any help on the Sebaloun satellite. There must be some way of controlling the processes, but she didn’t know what it was. Verbal instructions produced no effect.
She came back presently to the green and gold room to which she’d been conducted when she came awake. The door through which Torai had gone was closed. Trigger glanced at it, went to the passage along which Attuk had disappeared. The first door she opened there showed a fully furnished room. Something like an ornate bird cage with a polished black nesting box inside was fastened to one wall about five feet above the floor; and standing in the cage, grasping a bar in either hand, and gazing wide-eyed at Trigger as she peered around the door, was Salgol.
She came quickly inside, drew the door shut and went to the cage. “Where are Smee and Runderin?”
Salgol nodded at the box. “In there. They’re afraid of these people!”
“I don’t blame them.” Trigger gave him a low-voiced condensed account of her experiences. Runderin and Smee came out of the box while she was talking, and Salgol passed the information on in the Marell language. “Do you think they really aren’t human?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Trigger admitted. “So far I’ve seen no evidence for it. But at any rate, it’s a bad situation because they control the satellite. They may not intend to harm you three physically.”
“We’d still be prisoners, and that’s bad enough,” Salgol said. “Isn’t there something we can do to help?”
“There might be. Let’s see if I can open the cage lock.”
The lock wouldn’t open, but Trigger found she could bend the bars with her hands. She pried two of them far enough apart to let Salgol squeeze through. “Now,” she said, “I know where Torai probably is keeping my gun. If you found it, do you think you could move it?”
“Perhaps not by myself. But two of us could.” Salgol spoke to his companions. They replied quickly in voices like miniature flutes. “They both want to help,” he told Trigger.
“Good. But if two of you can handle the gun, one of them will help best by staying in the cage.”
“Why that?”
“To make it seem you’re all still there, in case someone comes into the room.”
Salgol spoke to his companions again, reported, “Runderin will come. She’s the stronger. Smee will stay.”
Runderin peeled out of her colorful but cumbersome outer clothes, and Salgol took off his purple coat. They arranged the clothing in the sleep box so it could be seen indistinctly by someone looking into the cage. Then the two squirmed out between the bent bars, and Trigger set them on the floor. She squeezed the bars back into place, gave Smee, who was now sitting on display in front of the box and looking rather forlorn, a reassuring smile, and left the room with two Marells tucked under her sweater.
The reduced furnishings in the green and gold room would have given her no place to hide; but Salgol and Runderin were quickly concealed behind chair cushions near the door Torai had used. From what Torai had said, Trigger’s personal belongings should be in the room beyond the door. If she came out and left the door open, the two would try to get the gun as soon as she was out of sight. If they found it, they’d hide it and wait for an opportunity to let Trigger know where it was.
With the gun, she might start to even up the odds around here rather quickly.
Trigger resumed her wary prowling. The Sebaloun residence remained silent. In empty-seeming rooms, the satellite’s mechanisms responded to her presence and produced the room equipment for inspection. She inspected, went on.
Then a door let her into a wide low hall. Not far ahead, the hall turned to the right; and on the far side of the turn was another door. Trigger stood listening a moment before she went down the hall, leaving the door open behind her. Thirty feet beyond the turn, the hall was open on a garden. She glanced over at it, went to the door in the far wall, and found it locked.
She’d had no intention of checking the garden, nor did she go into the branch of the hall that led to it. It seemed too likely it would prove to be another trick entry point to their playground maze. But as she came back to the door by which she’d entered the hall, she found it blocked by a force screen’s glow.
It sent a jolt of consternation through her, though it had been obvious that the satellite’s masters would act sooner or later to limit her freedom of motion. But if the only exit from the hall was now the garden, and if the garden was in fact part of the maze, she’d been driven back to her starting point. Venturing a second time into those shifting computer-controlled complexities would be like stepping deliberately into quicksand.
She went part way down the branch of the hall and looked out at the garden from there. It was of moderate size, balanced and beautiful, laid out in formal lines. A high semicircular wall enclosed it; and above the wall was the milky glow of a light dome. There was no suggestion of illusory distances.
It might be part of the residence, and not a trap. But Trigger decided she wouldn’t take a chance on it while she had a choice. If she stayed where she was, something or other must happen presently.
And then something did happen.
Abruptly, the figure of a man appeared on one of the garden paths, facing away from Trigger. He glanced quickly about, turned and took a few steps along the path before he caught sight of her.
<
br /> It was Wrann, the Sebaloun detective who’d engineered her kidnapping in the Orado City hotel.
VII
Trigger watched him approach. He showed marks of their encounter on the yacht—bruises around the eyes and a plastic bandage strip along the side of his head where she’d laid him out with the barrel of his gun. Wrann’s feelings toward her shouldn’t be the friendliest, but he was twisting his mouth into an approximation of a disarming grin as he came quickly through the garden toward her. He stepped up into the hall, stopping some twelve feet away. She relaxed slightly.
“I’ll be as brief about this as I can,” he said. “My employers haven’t forgiven me for nearly letting you and Blethro get away. I’m in as bad a position as you two now! I suggest we consider ourselves allies.”
“Somebody may be listening,” Trigger said.
“Not here,” Wrann told her. “I know the place. But they may find out at any time that I’m no longer locked up and block our chance of escape. Minutes could make the difference!”
“We have a chance of escape?”
“At the moment,” he said impatiently. “The delivery yacht we arrived in has left. It never stays long. But there’s a separate spacelock where Sebaloun keeps her private cruiser. Unfortunately, I found an armed guard there. I didn’t expect it because they rarely allow personnel on the satellite when they’re here themselves. Sebaloun may have considered the circumstances unusual enough to have made an exception. At any rate, the man is there. I didn’t let him see me. He knows me and isn’t likely to know I’m no longer Sebaloun’s trusted employee. But he’d check with her before letting me into the lock. So I came back to get a weapon.”
“You know where to find a weapon?”
“I know where Attuk keeps his guns. It seemed worth the risk of being seen.”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 253