Spaceling

by Piserchia, Doris

  Solvo and his people did a good job cleaning up the mess. Troops were sent into Gothland and Waterworld to destroy machinery and capture the last of Gorwyn’s soldiers. Sloks were rounded up and shoved through rings where they muted back into unintelligent simians.

  24

  It was a day much like any other when I put on the goggles and went after Orfia Kint and her sleeping companions. What kind of planet the place would become was impossible to say. Conceivably giant reptiles would flounder here in deep swamps a few eons hence or land masses might never form and the world would remain a flaming ball of gas. It could only matter to a universe that hadn’t yet come into existence. For now, I stood on the brief oasis inside the green double ring and wondered what would have become of my life had I never seen the goggles in the carton in the house of Croffs niece. What would have happened if a man named Trundle hadn’t gotten scared and mailed his responsibilities to Croff? What if Erma hadn’t killed them?

  Without the glasses I couldn’t see the double green ring that had led the three here, and with them I had to be careful not to drift away. D-4 was like a thousand openings in a winding, confining corridor. Maintaining a predetermined course was arduous.

  I had brought a hooked pole with me, something I couldn’t have done without the glasses, not that I needed it but I had a decided aversion to the idea of touching any of them. With the pole I made like a fisher, snared around the neck the man whose name was probably Folgay, applied a little pressure and watched as he floated from his foggy environment toward me.

  He was blinking his eyes and twitching his fingers as I continued applying pressure so that he went through the ring and vanished into Earth.

  Next came the man named Busine. Orfia was last and then I followed them home, deliberately landing well away from them. The first thing I did was take off the glasses and lay them on the ground. When the Kint woman moved toward them or me, I didn’t hesitate but backed away. I didn’t need or want them. Let them rot for all I cared.

  “Where’s Trundle?” said Busine, yawning and trying to look alert. “It was supposed to be Trundle who released us.” Squinting his eyes and scratching his partially bald head, he said, “What the devil is going on?”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Appy’s henchwoman killed him a long time ago.”

  Orfia Kint smiled at me, stepped toward me and I kept backing up so that we circled the area like a pair of cautious combatants.

  “What about Appy?” said Folgay. He was tall and lean and tried not to seem confused.

  “He’s gone,” I said. “He, Bud Jupiter and Tedwar went back through the blue ring.”

  “Tedwar? You mean there were three?” Folgay was wide awake now, businesslike and a little alarmed. “You mean everything is all done?”

  “Yes, the police are in charge now.”

  “Daryl, what’s the matter with you?” said Orfia. “Can’t you see I want to get close to you?”

  “There’s something odd about her, I believe,” said Busine. “Come and give me a kiss,” said Orfia. “I could tear my hair out thinking of you involved in any of this.”

  “You he,” I said, backing away.

  She suddenly looked scared. “Do you think I deliberately placed you in danger?”

  “Why not? I might be part of you but you’d consider me as someone out of your past, like an unwanted relative.”

  “She’s off her shelf,” said Busine. “I told you she had too much imagination. It’s been too much for her.”

  “One thing’s for sure” said Folgay. “She doesn’t remember us and I think we can do something about that.”

  “Don’t do anything,” I said, preparing to get close to a handy blue ring. I looked at Orfia. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d have the courage to walk through a double blue ring with you so you could get rid of me. I know I’m like Gorwyn and Tedwar. I’m you as a child. You split yourself in two and sent me off to act as a catalyst and get things happening.”

  “I hired a man to drive you to your uncle’s and I’d like to know what you’re doing herel”

  “Being nuts, I think,” said Busine.

  “You’re my flesh and blood!” said Orfia.

  “No doubt,” I said. “We’re the same flesh and blood, more so than any two people in the world, but I don’t care. I want to live no matter what kind of an existence it is.” Ignoring her expression, I side-stepped to the ring. There had to be somewhere I could stay and at least be satisfied if not happy. The worlds stertched all around me and I could pick and choose my spots.

  Not being very selective, I ended up making camp in a familiar labyrinth in Gothland. They didn’t allow me to remain unmolested in the dimension for very long before they sent Kisko after me. I believe he volunteered.

  “You don’t owe me anything!” I growled, not caring if he misunderstood me, but evidently he knew what I meant or he had decided to be tolerant of anything and everything I said and did.

  He had the advantage over me where conversation was concerned because he was wearing Orfia’s famous goggles and stood in his human form. “Today you’re being rockheaded,” he said. “Your imagination has never been normal, but really, this has to constitute some kind of record.”

  “You trust her?” I scratched on a rock.

  “She’s that type and she seems to trust me. Why don’t you just shut up and listen to me for a minute? First of all, you were hypnotized and sleeping that day when you were involved in the car wreck. You were on your way to Sonny. Ectri. You know. That guy. They’re always taking different names for their jobs, remember.”

  I groaned without sound.

  “Gorwyn took the job at Mutat in hopes of finding you, but you were amnesiac, so he thought maybe seeing Ectri would jolt your memory. He particularly hated your mother, was jealous of her special D talents and the fact that she had been continuing Bud Jupiter’s work. Ectri had already been investigated to make sure he knew little about Orfia’s work or where she was hiding. Had you arrived safely at his house as you were supposed to, he probably would have taken you to a doctor to try and find out why you couldn’t remember anything, and then he would have waited for Orfia to show up. Gorwyn deliberately sent a report about you through Ectri’s Washington office and since Ectri’s sister and niece, who were both immune to truth drugs, were missing, he came to have a look at you. Incidentally a post-hypnotic suggestion was given you to contact Solvo in New Mexico if you were ever threatened.”

  “Glasses?” I croaked, even that much effort making my throat sore.

  “Their full potential isn’t known. That’ll be decided through experimentation. Trundle had them and was supposed to visit the hideaway planet every six weeks, the idea being that he should drop hints to police and politicians on the east coat until the honest law here got after Appy and his crews. Which, incidentally, is what got me into the act. They were simply willing to do nearly anything to keep the glasses out of the hands of a maniac. Anyhow, it wouldn’t be too difficult for Appy to find one person out of four but it wouldn’t be so easy to find just one, and that was why the three hid in the first place. Appy, or Gorwyn, made more than one mistake. First of all, an old maintenance man at the university who had once worked for him recognized him and told Orfia and the others he was Bud Jupiter reincarnated. A little snooping proved he was almost exactly right. Another mistake was in wasting so much time with you. You didn’t know that much about the situation. Your mother tried to protect you by wiping what little you did know out of your head. She also turned you against friends and cleaned out your vision of double rings.”

  “Croff?” I scratched on the rock.

  “He was never really all the way in it. He unwittingly led Erma to Trundle. He knew where Trundle’s summer place in Vermont was so he went there trying to gain some more information. Trundle was frightened and sent him away without telling him anything. Figuring Erma and Appy were onto his whereabouts, Trundle got desperate and mailed the glasses along with some junk to C
roff. Before he could contact Croff and give him instructions, Erma killed him. Later, on Deron’s order, she killed Croff because he was trying to help you.”

  “Didn’t Trundle have a transmitter in his arm?”

  “He probably got rid of his in about the same way you disposed of CrofFs. By the way, before Orfia and the others went into hiding, they tried to find Croff to help him, but he went into D and got lost.”

  I didn’t write anything so Kisko paused for a moment and then said, “How about it? I’m getting hoarse and this is a complicated situation. You can always spend the next year or two listening while your relatives explain it to you.”

  It took me a long time but I wrote my response on the side of the escarpment: I DON’T HAVE ANY RELATIVES AND I’M GOING TO BE A HERMIT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Hey, that reminds me, I’ve a recording here I’m supposed to play. Folgay would have done it before but you skipped out too fast.”

  He fiddled with the knobs on a little box he carried and shortly thereafter three voices spoke out of it, one after another.

  They all said the same thing and they must have put a great deal into it since their words accomplished some pretty shattering things.

  “Daryl, remember,” said Busine.

  “Daryl, remember,” said Folgay.

  “Daryl, remember,” said Orfia Kint.

  Something collapsed in my head so suddenly I almost fell down, though I stood solidly enough on four feet. Old Chameleon had tried to get rid of that wall in my brain and she had been good but still she failed because she hadn’t known the correct formula. What was it? “Daryl, remember,” said by Busine, Folgay and Orfia, in that order.

  So I remembered it all and went back home to see my mother and have her explain everything to me.

  Life was different after that and not all of it was unpleasant. I got to keep the farm and Olger stayed to look after things, though I was there enough hours of nearly every day to get underfoot. Bandit perplexed us by showing up one day with big Komo and two little ones. In their homeworld the babies are beautiful but in my paddock they can only be described as chips off the maternal block. Funny thing, my horse treats them like his offspring no matter which dimension they’re in.

  Uncle Sonny’s dogs tried to lick my skin off when I visited him. And to think they once terrified me and forced me into D.

  I’ve decided to be an agent when I grow up, and Kisko and Lamana promise to show me the ropes during my summer vacations from Mutat Another funny thing, being part of a family and being wanted and needed is fine, but every once in a while I experience a little stab of nostalgia when I remember those other days. Nobody wanted me then but I was as free as a bird.