"I can imagine."
McKie shook his head from side to side. He could sense the morass of misunderstanding around every attempt at communication here. No way to steer clear of it. No way at all. At the very moment when they thought they had achieved closest communication, right then they could be widest of the mark.
"When Furuneo concludes his conversation, bring him," McKie said. He hunched back against the wall. Gods of the underworld! The heat was almost unbearable. Why did Calebans require such heat? Maybe the heat represented something else to a Caleban, a visible wave form, perhaps, serving some function other sentients couldn't begin to understand.
McKie felt then that he was engaged in an exchange of worthless noises here -- shadow sounds. Reason had gone, swinging from planet to planet. He and the Caleban were striking false bargains, trying to climb out of chaos. If they failed, death would take away all the innocent and the sinful, the good and the guilty. Boats would drift on countless oceans, towers would fall, balconies crumble, and suns would move alone across unmarked skies.
A wave of relatively cold air told McKie that Furuneo had arrived. McKie turned, saw the planetary agent sprawled beside him and just beginning to sit up.
"For the love of reason!" Furuneo shouted. "What're you doing to me?"
"I needed the fresh air," McKie said.
Furuneo peered at him. "What?"
"Glad to see you," McKie said.
"Yeah?" Furuneo brought himself to a squatting position beside McKie. "You have any idea what's just happened to me?"
"You've been to Landy-B," McKie said.
"How'd you know? Was that your doing?"
"Slight misunderstanding," McKie said. "Landy-B's your home."
"It is not!"
"I'll leave you to argue that with Fanny Mae," McKie said. "Have you started the search on Cordiality?"
"I barely got it going before you . . ."
"Yes, but you've started it?"
"I've started it."
"Good. Fanny Mae will keep you posted on various things and bring your people here for reports and such as you need them. Won't you, Fanny Mae?"
"Connectives remain available. Contract permits."
"Good girl."
"I'd almost forgotten how hot it was in here," Furuneo said, mopping his forehead. "So I can summon people. What else?"
"You watch for Abnethe."
"And?"
"The instant she and one of her Palenki floggers make an appearance, you get a holoscan record of everything that happens. You do have your toolkit?"
"Of course."
"Fine. While you're scanning, get your instruments as close to the jumpdoor as you can."
"She'll probably close the door as soon as she sees what I'm doing."
"Don't count on it. Oh, one thing."
"Yes?"
"You're my teaching assistant."
"Your what?"
McKie explained about the Caleban's agreement.
"So she can't get rid of us without violating the terms of her contract with Fanny Mae," Furuneo said. "Cute." He pursed his lips. "That all?"
"No. I want you and Fanny Mae to discuss connectives."
"Connectives?"
"Connectives. I want you to try finding out what in ten billion devils a Caleban means by connectives."
"Connectives," Furuneo said. "Is there any way to turn down the furnace in here?"
"You might take that as another subject: Try to discover the reason for all this heat."
"If I don't melt first. Where'll you be?"
"Hunting -- provided Fanny Mae and I can agree on the connectives."
"You're not making sense."
"Right. But I'll try to make tracks -- if Fanny Mae'll send me where the game is."
"Ahhh," Furuneo said. "You could walk into a trap."
"Maybe. Fanny Mae, have you been listening?"
"Explain listening."
"Never mind!"
"But mind possesses ever!"
McKie closed his eyes, swallowed, then, "Fanny Mae, are you aware of the information exchange just concluded between my friend and myself here?"
"Explain conclu . . ."
"Are you aware?" McKie bellowed.
"Amplification contributes little to communication," the Caleban said. "I possess desired awareness -- presumably."
"Presumably," McKie muttered, then, "Can you send me to a place near Abnethe where she will not be aware of me, but where I can be aware of her?"
"Negative."
"Why not?"
"Specific injunction of contract."
"Oh." McKie bent his head in thought, then, "Well, can you send me to a place where I might become aware of Abnethe through my own efforts?"
"Possibility. Permit examination of connectives."
McKie waited. The heat was a tangible thing inside the Beachball, a solid intrusion on his senses. He saw it was already beginning to wilt Furuneo.
"I saw my mother," Furuneo said, noting McKie's attention.
"That's great," McKie said.
"She was swimming with friends when the Caleban dumped me right in the pool with them. The water was wonderful."
"They were surprised, no doubt."
"They thought it was a great joke. I wish I knew how that S'eye system works."
"You and a billion billion others. The energy requirement gives me the chills."
"I could use a chill right now. You know, that's one weird sensation -- standing one minute talking to old friends, the next instant yakking at empty air here on Cordiality. What do you suppose they think?"
"They think it's magic."
"McKie," the Caleban said, "I love you."
"You what?" McKie exploded.
"Love you," the Caleban repeated. "Affinity of one person for another person. Such affinity transcends species."
"I guess so, but . . ."
"Since I possess this universal affinity for your person, connectives open, permitting accomplishment of your request."
"You can send me to a place near Abnethe?"
"Affirmative. Accord with desire. Yes."
"Where is this place?" McKie asked.
He found, with a chill wash of air and a sprawling lurch onto dusty ground, that he was addressing his question to a moss-capped rock. For a moment he stared at the rock, regaining his balance. The rock was about a meter tall and contained small veins of yellow-white quartz with flecks of reflective brilliance scattered through them. It stood in an open meadow beneath a distant yellow sun. The sun's position told McKie he'd arrived either at midmorning or midafternoon local.
Beyond the rock, the meadow, and a ring of straggly yellow brushes stretched a flat horizon broken by the tall white spires of a city.
"Loves me?" he asked the rock.
Never underestimate the power of wishful thinking to filter what the eyes see and what the ears hear.
-The Abnethe Case, BuSab Private Files
Whip and severed Palenki arm arrived at the proper BuSab laboratory while it was temporarily unoccupied. The lab chief, a Bureau veteran named Treej Tuluk, a back-bowing Wreave, was away at the time, attending the conference which McKie's report had precipitated.
As with most back-bowers, Tuluk was an odor-id Wreave. He had an average-appearing Wreave body, two and a half meters tall, tubular, pedal bifurcation, vertical face slit with manipulative extensors dangling from the lower corner. From long association with humans and humanoids he had developed a brisk, slouching gait, a predilection for clothing with pockets, and un-Wreavish speech mannerisms of a cynical tone. The four eye tubes protruding from the top of his facial slit were green and mild.
Returning from the conference, he recognized the objects on his lab floor immediately. They matched Siker's description. Tuluk complained to himself briefly about the careless manner of delivery and was soon lost in the intricacies of examination. He and the assistants he summoned made initial holoscans before separating whip and arm.
As they had
expected, the Palenki gene structure offered no comparatives. The arm had not come from one of the few Palenkis on record in the ConSentient Register. Tuluk filed the DNA chart and message sequence, however. These could be used to identify the arm's original owner, if that became necessary.
At the same time study of the whip went ahead. The artifact report came out of the computers as "Bullwhip, copy of ancient earth type." It was made of steerhide, a fact which gave Tuluk and his vegetarian aides a few brief moments of disgust, since they had assumed it was a synthetic.
"A sick archaism," one of Tuluk's Chither assistants called the whip. The others agreed with this judgment, even a PanSpechi for whom periodic reversion to carnivorous type in his creche cycle was necessary to survival.
A curious alignment in some of the cell molecules attracted their attention then. Study of whip and arm continued at their respective paces.
There is no such thing as pure objectivity.
-Gowachin Aphorism
McKie took the long-distance call while standing beside a dirt road about three kilometers from the rock. He had come this far on foot, increasingly annoyed by the strange surroundings. The city, he had soon discovered, was a mirage hanging over a dusty plain of tall grass and scrubby thornbushes.
It was almost as hot on the plain as it had been in the Caleban's Beachball.
Thus far the only living things he had seen were some distant tawny animals and countless insects-leapers, crawlers, fliers, hoppers. The road contained two parallel indentations and was the rusty red color of abandoned iron. It seemed to originate in a faraway line of blue hills on his right, plunging straight across the plain to the heat-muddled horizon on his left. The road contained no occupant except himself, not even a dust cloud to mark some hidden passage.
McKie was almost glad to feel the sniggertrance grip him.
"This is Tuluk, " his caller said. "I was told to contact you as soon as I had anything to report. Hopefully, I intrude at an opportune moment. "
McKie, who had a journeyman's respect for Tuluk's competence, said, "Let's have it."
"Not much on the arm," Tuluk said. "Palenki, of course. We can identify the original owner, if we ever get him. There'd been at least one previous regrowth of this member. Sword cut on the forearm, by the look of it."
"What about the phylum markings?"
"We're still checking that."
"The whip?"
"That's something else. It's real steerhide."
"Real?"
"No doubt of it. We could identify the original owner of the skin, although I doubt it's walking around anywhere."
"You've a gruesome sense of humor. What else?"
"The whip's an archaism, too. Bullwhip, ancient earth style. We got an original ID by computer and brought in a museum expert for confirmation. He thought the construction was a bit on the crude side, but close enough to leave little doubt it was a copy of a real original. Fairly recent manufacture, too."
"Where could they get an original to copy?"
"We're checking that, and it may provide a lead. These things aren't too common."
"Recent manufacture," McKie said. "You sure?"
"The animal from which that hide was removed has been dead about two standard years. Intracellular structure was still reactive to catalyzing."
"Two years. Where would they get a real steer?"
"That narrows it down. There are some around for story props in the various entertainment media, that sort of thing. A few of the outback planets where they haven't the technology for pseudoflesh still raise cattle for food."
"This thing gets more confusing the deeper we go into it," McKie said.
"That's what we think. Oh, there's chalf dust on the whip. "
"Chaff! That's where I got the yeast smell!"
"Yes, it's still quite strong."
"What would they be doing with that much quick-scribe powder?" McKie asked. "There was no sign of a chalfmemory stick -- but that means little, of course."
"It's just a suggestion," Tuluk said, "but they couldn've chaff-scribed that design on the Palenki."
"Why?"
"Give it a false phylum, maybe?"
"Perhaps."
"If you smelled chalf after the whip came through, there'd have to be quite a bit of it around. You thought of that?"
"The room wasn't all that big, and it was hot."
"The heat would explain it, all right. Sorry we didn't have more for you."
"That's all?"
"Well, it might not be any use, but the whip had been stored in a hanging position supported by a thin length of steel. "
"Steel? Are you positive?"
"Positive."
"Who still uses steel?"
"It's not all that uncommon on some of the newer planets. R&R has even turned up some where they build with it."
"Wild!"
"Isn't it, though?"
"You know," McKie said, "We're looking for an outback planet, and that's where I seem to be."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
McKie explained his predicament.
"You field agents take awful chances sometimes," Tuluk said.
"Don't we just."
"You wear a monitor. I could ask this Taprisiot to identify your location. Want to invoke the monitor clause?"
"You know that's an open payment clause," McKie said. "I don't think this is a sufficient emergency yet that I can risk bankrupting us. Let me see if I can identify this place by other means first."
"What do you want me to do, then?"
"Call Furuneo. Have him allow me another six hours, then get the Caleban to pick me up."
"Pick you up, right. Siker said you were onto some doorless S'eye thing. Can it pick you up anywhere?"
"I think so."
"I'll call Furuneo right away."
Facts can be whatever you want them to be. This is the lesson of relativity.
-BuSab Manual
McKie had been walking for almost two hours before he saw the smoke. Thin spirals of it stood in the air against the backdrop of distant blue hills.
It had occurred to McKie during his walk that he might have been set down in a place where he could die of thirst or starvation before his legs carried him to the safe companionship of his civilized fellows. A self-accusatory moroseness had overtaken him. It wasn't the first time he had realized that some accident of the machinery he took for granted might prove fatal.
But the machinery of his own mind? He cursed himself for using the Caleban's S'eye system this way when he knew the unreliability of communication with the creature.
Walking!
You never thought you might have to walk to safety.
McKie sensed the eternal flaw in sentient relationship with machinery. Reliance on such forces put your own muscles at a disadvantage in a universe where you might have to rely on those muscles at any moment.
Such as right now.
He appeared to be getting nearer to the smoke, although the hills looked as remote as ever.
Walking.
Of all the stupid damn foul-ups. Why would Abnethe pick a place like this to start her kinky little game? If this were the place it had started. If the Caleban hadn't made another communication error.
If love could find a way. What the devil did love have to do with all this?
McKie plodded on, wishing he had brought some water. First the heat of the Beachball, now this. His throat felt as though he'd built a fire in it. The dust kicked up by his feet didn't help. Every step stirred up a puff of pale red from the narrow track. The dust clogged his throat and nostrils. It had a musty taste.
He patted the toolkit in his jacket pocket. The raygen could burn a thin hole in this parched earth, might even strike down to water. But how could he bring the water up to his demanding throat?
Plenty of insects around. They buzzed and flew about, crawled at the edge of the track, attempted at times to alight o
n his exposed flesh. He finally took to carrying his toolkit's stim like a fan, setting it at medium potency. It cleared the air around his face whenever a swarm approached, dropped jittering patches of stunned insects behind him.
He grew aware of a noise -- low, indistinct booming. Something being pounded. Something hollow and resonant. It originated out there in the distance where the smoke stood on the air.
It could be a natural phenomenon, McKie told himself. Could be wild creatures. The smoke might be natural fires. Still, he brought the raygen from his kit, kept it in a side pocket where he could get at it quickly.
The noise became louder in slow stages, as though it were being amplified to mark consecutive positions of his approach. Screens of thornbush and gentle undulations in the plain concealed the source.
McKie trudged up a gentle rise, still following the road.
Sadness transfixed him. He'd been cast away on some poverty-stricken backyard world, a place that stiffened the eyes. He'd been given a role in a story with a moral, a clipped-wing fairy story. He was a burned-out wanderer, his thirst a burnished yearning. Anguish had lodged in him somewhere. He pursued an estranged, plodding dream which would dissolve in the awakening doom of a single Caleban.
The toll that Caleban's death would bring oppressed him. It turned his ego upside down and drained out all the lightness. His own death would be a lost bubble burst in such a conflagration.
McKie shook his head to drive away such thoughts. Fear would pluck him of all sensibility. He could not afford it.
One thing sure now; the sun was setting. It had descended at least two widths toward the horizon since he'd started this stupid trek.
What in the name of the infinite devils was that drumming? It came at him as though riding the heat: monotonous, insistent. He felt his temples throbbing to an irritating, counterpoint -- beat, throb, beat, throb. . . .
McKie topped the low rise, stopped. He stood at the brim of a shallow basin which had been cleared of the thornbush. At the basin's center, a thorn fence enclosed twenty or so conical huts with grass roofs. They appeared to be made of mud. Smoke spiraled from holes in several of the roofs and from pit fires outside others. Black dots of cattle grazed in the basin, lifting their heads occasionally, with stubby whiskers of brown grass protruding from their mouths.
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