Mute

by Piers Anthony

  And Piebald must have discovered that very soon after he took over, and realized that if they blocked out precognition, they would not succeed in this. So he could have chosen a precog to help him—by making sure that that precog remained nonfunctional. Piebald needed to take no other steps, with that reassurance. He had ignored Knot’s intrusion because Knot represented no present threat.

  Meanwhile, Hermine was explaining the situation to Finesse. “Of course!” she agreed. “A good code is not static; it changes with the times, so only people with contemporary authority can use it. Mit would have to precog the time factor—and now he can’t.”

  “But if we move Harlan far enough away to free Mit’s precog, we’ll also be opening ourselves up to Piebald’s precog,” Knot said. “I’m sure that’s the nature of this trap. Precognition is much more dangerous to us than clairvoyance, because Piebald can’t be checking on us continuously. He needs to precog our time and nature of arrival, and trap us then and there. We’ve been continuously covered by Harlan’s psi. If we make even a small opening, they’ll nab us.”

  “Of course we can’t separate from Harlan,” she agreed. “It’s bad enough having to bring him here when we promised to protect him from CC. We’ll just have to risk using the old code. After all, it was still current a few days ago, when Piebald used it.”

  “But I don’t remember it!”

  “Obviously I do,” Finesse said. “Piebald got it from me. Maybe Hermine can derive it from my mind.”

  I will try, Hermine thought. But after a pause she added: I cannot. I can read only surface thoughts, and this is deep.

  “Try enhancement,” Knot suggested urgently, indicating Henny, the amplification hen. They had brought her instead of the original amplification rooster because the latter had been too interested in the psi insects.

  Hermine tried it—and this time she was able to read it. Knot began tapping it out as she relayed the code.

  An alarm sounded. Suddenly a holograph of Piebald appeared, looking around. “So it is you!” he exclaimed. “You must have chosen a teleport to assist you.”

  So the lobo didn’t know about the chickens, yet. Good. Knot continued tapping, hoping to complete the override before the lobo could stop it. Then CC would be neutralized, and it would be just the two sides fighting it out.

  “That’s no good,” Piebald said. “I changed the code. Did you suppose I was so stupid as to neglect such a detail, after the trouble I had with you on Chicken Itza? I made sure I would not be vulnerable to that again. The old code only calls my attention to its use; CC notified me instantly.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Finesse said. “The lobo suckered us. We’ve lost this round.”

  “You cannot get out; the trap has been sprung. I have a lot more than a single will-controller psi working for me now.”

  Yes; Piebald had all of CC. But CC was to a great extent helpless, without its great battery of psi-mutes.

  Finesse and Cocksure disappeared. “Catch us if you can,” Knot said.

  Piebald snapped an order to someone off projection. “Flood the chamber with stungas!”

  Immediately the gas hissed from concealed nozzles. But already Cocksure was back, and Knot and his party were being wrenched to the freezer compartment. Cocksure was a powerful teleport; he could handle more mass than the first hen-teleporters they had encountered, and take it farther. And he could, it now developed, do it without crowing. That helped! “So it’s a chicken teleport!” Piebald was exclaiming as they left. “Not a CC psi!”

  “We’re in trouble now,” Finesse said grimly as Knot arrived. “Piebald will be out after our rooster, to pin us down. He won’t come within range of my phobia-psi.”

  “Don’t I know it! If he has a clairvoyant, he’ll locate us in minutes, now that we have so kindly informed him of our presence. He no longer needs a precog.”

  “But we’d better keep blanking out precognition, or he’ll anticipate our next move,” she pointed out.

  “We can’t go back to Chicken Itza in the crates. That ship is already on its way to other ports. But without having the current override code, we can’t—”

  “We’ll have to go for our backup plan,” she decided. “Make for the master switch—the one that turns CC off completely. But I don’t know where it is.”

  Hermine, can Mit tell?

  No. It is hidden in too-complex wiring, and is not within his range. If we get closer to it, he might locate it.

  “We’ll just have to keep jumping around, avoiding Piebald, until we find that switch,” Knot said. “We have to depend on chance to get Mit in range of it.”

  “We could jump right into trouble.”

  “Worse trouble than if we stand still? Who jumps first?”

  “I do,” she said firmly. “I can scare off anyone I come upon, and protect your arrival.”

  Knot remained uncertain of that. She was spearheading their motion, protecting him from danger, and might find herself in trouble before she could use her psi. But he didn’t argue; at this point, everywhere was dangerous. “Get going!”

  She popped out. Do they have a psi detector operating? he asked Hermine while they waited.

  The machines are operating, but there are so many neutral psis they can’t distinguish us yet. CC is still isolating our pattern.

  That was a help! The neutrals were neutral, yet really assisting Knot’s party—at the moment.

  The rooster popped back. Teleportation intrigued Knot; there was never any problem about air displacement. People and things were moved instantly from one place to another without any atmospheric consequence. The psi handled it, obviously—but how? His private theory was that the air was exchanged with the object, so precisely that there was nothing more than that slight noise.

  And he was with Finesse again. They were in a storeroom, but not a freezer. Squared-off beams of genuine wood were stacked to the low ceiling.

  “What does CC need wood for?” Knot asked.

  Mit says for paneling conference rooms.

  “Don’t distract Mit and Hermine for minor things,” Finesse snapped. “We’re trying to locate the master switch. Mit is having trouble orienting on it.”

  “Probably because CC was not constructed to have that particular switch easy to get at. We can be sure it will be a challenge to reach it, even when we pinpoint it exactly. Check out-of-the way places.”

  “What do you think we’re doing?” She popped out.

  A CC sensor located us, Hermine thought urgently. Trouble!

  Already the chase was heating up. Knot couldn’t wait for Cocksure’s return. He dived for the door.

  The bees flew up from his shoulder, startled. At the same time, a stasis unit came on. The air behind him seemed to freeze. Knot was clear of it, barely; he righted himself and looked back.

  Two bees had not made it out in time; they hung suspended in air, motionless.

  Maybe they’ll escape unnoticed when the stasis is switched off, Knot thought without great hope. Bye, Pyridoxine. Bye, Thiamin.

  Bye, the two bees thought back. They did not seem unduly alarmed.

  Then Cocksure teleported back. “No!” Knot cried, realizing the danger. Hermine, warn him away!

  But it was too late, even before he formulated the protest. The rooster had landed in the stasis field, and now was frozen there. The party had lost its teleporter.

  Can you locate Finesse? Knot asked Hermine. Can we get to her?

  Uncertain, Hermine replied. She is near the master switch.

  Which meant she would try to take over the switch and reprogram CC her way. Which was perhaps why she wanted to travel first: to be sure it was she, not he, who did it. Their split in intentions might be manifesting overtly now. If she could locate it by herself, and act before he arrived, she would be in control.

  Wait—what was he thinking of? This was not the override code, it was the master switch. It did not matter who turned off CC; the result would be the same. Civili
zation would grind to a halt, until CC was turned on again. The tension of this mission was making Knot paranoid, and he couldn’t afford that.

  The more Knot thought about the old order, CC’s prior program, the less he liked it. The lobos represented disaster, surely—but so, to his way of thinking, did the status quo. The horrors of the chasm enclave—

  But the first priority was to stop the lobos. So—no more suspicious thoughts about his associates! We’ll go to her, he thought. Have Mit show the way.

  There is an alarm barrier between us.

  And they could no longer teleport safely past it. Yes, the game was getting harder! What alternative route offers?

  A human search party approaches. We must pass it.

  Knot worked it out: while that search party went through the machine checkpoint, the press of people would conceal Knot from detection. The machines could not readily tell people apart in a crowd. The trick would be to do this without being noticed by the people. Time to draw on his other assets. Tell Henny to amplify the roaches’ psi. For the roaches were nervous now, fading out. And stay close to me.

  The search party arrived. Sure enough, these were lobos, the only people Piebald really trusted. Knot stood still, hoping the psi was working. He could see the chicken at his feet, and the three bees on his shoulder, and Hermine and the rats in his pockets—but the party paid no attention. His whole group was imperceptible.

  He still had not discovered how to make the roaches imperceptible to machine surveillance, though. They were helping him now, but he had not been able to help them. How could psi work on something that was not affected by psi?

  Satisfied that he could not be seen, he picked up Henny and merged with the group of lobos. He would have to stay with the lobos until they crossed the machine checkpoint, which might be a little while. Had he been quite certain this would work, he could have dived across the checkpoint as they came in—but that would have been chancy. The machine might recognize the motion as being contrary to that of the rest of them, and sound another alarm. So Knot walked in step with the man at the end as they moved toward the room that remained in stasis.

  “All right, spread out, in case there’s trouble when I turn off the stasis,” the group leader said. “Probably a false alarm, but you never know.” He glanced about. “Jol and Ent, you go round to the far side—” He cast about. “Ent? Where are you?”

  Knot hastily stepped away from the man he stood beside. “What do you mean, where am I?” Ent was saying. “You blind, all of a sudden?”

  The leader blinked. “Must be. I looked right at you and didn’t see you. Get on around.”

  Knot knew he would have to be more careful. The fringe of the amplified psi had fogged out the other man, and that could have called attention to Knot—especially if Ent had happened to turn while inside the field and see Knot.

  The leader waited until all were in their place, then touched a hand control. The stasis abated. Cocksure squawked and fluttered for the nearest exit, and the two bees zoomed in confused circles. Fools! Knot thought. Get out of there! Hermine, tell Cocksure to teleport himself out!

  One of the lobos sprayed a jet of stungas from a portable tank he carried, and the rooster fell unconscious. The bees escaped, but did not know where to go.

  We cannot help them, the three who remained with Knot thought. They cannot perceive our thoughts.

  We can’t emerge from hiding until we get through the machine checkpoint, Knot reminded them.

  The party of lobos re-formed and carried the unconscious rooster with them. When they passed the checkpoint, Mit let Hermine know, and Knot dropped back. One hurdle navigated.

  All right—tell Henny to ease off. But he suspected they were already returning to visibility, because the roaches were no longer alarmed. It was hard to be sure, when they were all in the roaches’ amplified psi-field.

  Now it was fairly simple to rejoin Finesse and Harlan. Mit guided them through unerringly. There were other checkpoints, but it was possible to avoid them, and Mit did; it made their route circuitous, but delayed them only slightly.

  The others were on a lower level. Knot descended a spiral access staircase and turned right, knowing he was getting close. He took several steps—

  “So good to meet you again, unmemorable one,” Piebald said. Knot whirled. The lobo stood there with two uniformed men behind him, each wearing the CC insignia. He held a box in his hands.

  For a moment Knot just stood there, chagrined. “How—?”

  “You are so psi conscious, you overlook the physical,” Piebald said, gesturing behind him. There was the open door to a private passage. The door had been closed; Knot simply had not thought to have Mit check behind it.

  “Meet Gwant, my clairvoyant, Hoscow, my telekinetic,” Piebald said, gesturing to the two men with him. He set down the box. “Hoscow, dispose of this man.”

  Suddenly objects floated out from the passages: small metallic stars with flashing edges and points. The ancient Shurken, or throwing stars, in this case wielded by the mind.

  We need help, Knot thought to Hermine. Summon one of the psis we have coming to us. A fighting talent. A—a pyro, maybe.

  I will try.

  And tell Henny to amplify the roaches’ psi. We can confuse them a while.

  But already the stars were flying toward him. “The chicken!” Piebald cried as Knot began to fade. “Get the chicken first!”

  “It’s faded out!” Hoscow complained. But his barrage of stars swerved in air to cut through the space where Henny had been visible. One struck. The hen squawked in pain. The amplification stopped, and they became visible again.

  “That did it!” Piebald cried. “Now they can’t hide.”

  Knot, in a rage, launched himself at Piebald. The three bees lifted from his shoulder and shot forward to sting the telekinetic.

  But Piebald, no slouch at combat, dodged, and Knot crashed into the wall. Dull pain gathered in his right shoulder as the instant numbness of the shock abated. For a moment all Knot could do was lean against the wall, recovering.

  The kinetic was slapping at bees. One bee dropped, then two, then the third. Then the stars lifted again, spinning in the air like malevolent powered flight toys, orienting.

  The mental knockout! Knot thought, and felt the weasel’s assent. He framed an imaginative supernova, and detonated it, and saw the stars drop as Hoscow reeled from the mental blast. Even in this strife, Knot appreciated the irony: a nova to abolish stars.

  “The weasel!” Piebald yelled. “She’s a the telepath! Get her next!” And he jumped at Hermine, who had dropped from Knot before the collision with the wall, and was standing a short distance away. Piebald’s booted foot came down in a stomp, and Hermine scooted away.

  “We know how to deal with the weasel,” Piebald shouted. “Release the vipers!”

  Oh, no! Knot thought. Not snakes again! The lobos seemed to have an affinity for poisonous things.

  The clairvoyant, who had stood inactive after the nova, now recovered enough to reach to the box. He unsnapped the catch and jumped back. Immediately snakes boiled out—small, fast, evil-looking serpents, surely poisonous species from assorted regions. They ignored the people and slithered rapidly after Hermine. They seemed to have no difficulty with the smooth floor.

  Knot knew there was no place the weasel could go where these predators could not follow. It would be extremely risky for Hermine to turn and fight even one of them; any scratch could be fatal to her. It might take time, but she was probably doomed. Come to me! Knot thought. I can lift you up.

  But the snakes were already between them. They will kill me, Hermine thought. They are trained to hunt small animals. I must flee. She disappeared.

  Now the kinetic was back in shape. A swelling was rising below his right eye where he had been stung, but that was discomfort, not incapacity. The deadly stars lifted again. They wobbled, showing that he had not yet thrown off the effect of the nova, but in moments he would be in fighti
ng fettle.

  Another person arrived. An old woman, with gray hair floating out like a ragged mop. She looked faintly like a witch, but wore the CC emblem. “Desist, Hoscow,” she snapped.

  “My pyro!” Knot cried with desperate hope.

  “The same. Nostra, at your service.” She looked again at the telekinetic. “You know me, Hoscow. I will not warn you again.”

  “Throw your stars!” Piebald shouted. “Wipe them both out!”

  The stars began to move—and a sheet of fire appeared. All three men on that side of the hall burst into flame. Their clothing and hair were burning. They danced in agony, trying to put out the blazes.

  “Sorry I had to do that,” Nostra said calmly. “But I did give fair warning.”

  “You certainly did!” Knot agreed, moving in on Piebald. All he needed to do now was overpower or kill the man, and the issue should be settled. The lobo had made a mistake, confronting Knot personally; he might be able to make Knot look like a fool in physical combat three times out of four, but the odds were worse than if he had his lobo minions do it for him.

  Then the CCC fire-extinguishing system came on. Fog sprayed out of nozzles chokingly. Knot had to retreat, knowing that if Piebald recovered, the war was not yet over. But the chemical was irritating his eyes and lungs; he could not accomplish much in its midst, and might only be handicapped so that Piebald would kill him instead. Piebald was tough; he would surely be able to fight well in this medium, and would likely recover quickly from his burns. What harm could fire and chemicals do to his complexion, anyway?

  At least Knot could use the fog as cover for his own getaway. He charged down the hall in the direction he had been going when intercepted. Finesse was somewhere ahead.

  The encounter had been a draw. But Knot had lost his teleporter and psi amplifier and three remaining bees and, effectively, Hermine. She could not come within psi range of him without encountering the snakes. Which meant he could not utilize Mit’s clairvoyance either. He had to rejoin Finesse and get to that master switch before Piebald got back into action.