Angharad stood uncertainly, bloodshot eyes wide in the glare, horn reflecting the weird flashes. “I don’t think this is supposed to happen.”
Scrambling to his feet, Todd stood swaying, finding it hard to maintain his balance. The ground he stood upon seemed to be wobbling. A gale-force wind snapped through the forest, carrying swarms of black dots that zipped through their bodies, momentarily riddling them with holes, then swept away, an agitated dance of nothingness.
“Something seems to be wrong with the computer!” Angharad cried.
And then the ground began to break apart.
A crack ripped through the grass between Todd and the rest of the party. The rift slowly widened, revealing nothingness beneath; a depthless blank. Clumps of grass and soil fell into the maw, immediately disappearing.
The ground shook again with renewed frenzy. The wind whipped the silhouettes of the trees frenetically.
All existence was suddenly leeched of color. The monochromatic result was a ghostly supernatural vision. Todd could feel his senses shifting, losing their foundations in his mind.
Blinded by torn-off branches that hurled into his face, Galahad staggered over the precipice’s edge with a wretched scream. The dark swallowed him hungrily.
Realizing his own danger, Todd turned and tried to increase his distance from the ever-widening rift. The whole mass of land upon which he stood began to crumble, tearing itself from the edge, tilting.
Todd lost his balance. He was tumbling head over heels down the soft, steep incline of grass.
“Todd!” he heard Angharad’s anguished voice cry out helplessly.
He banged into something, grabbed hold.
A bush. He’d managed to grip the base of a small bush with his left hand. He could feel his lower torso and legs dangle into nothingness. Panicking, he kicked against it as though to find some kind of foothold.
Amber’s voice: “Todd! Hang on!”
However, words a decent rope do not make: the roots of the bush pulled from the soil with excruciating slowness. Flail as he might, Todd could not achieve any other purchase.
Finally, the roots ripped free, and Todd Spigot found himself hurtling downward with an awful sound which he realized, before he lost awareness, was his own scream.
* * *
“Don’t touch that handle!” Charley Haversham said. “I’ve fallen in!”
The giant hand disregarded his objection and flushed the toilet.
The noise was thunder in his ears as the water in the bowl began to whirlpool and Charley was dragged into a tunnel of darkness.
A replay. Lots of nothingness between that and this.
This? What was this, anyway?
The rug was soft beneath him, but he lay in an uncomfortable position, arms akimbo as though he had been in the middle of a tumbling exercise and then conked out. He opened his eyes and the light hurt them. Squinting, he groped out and caught hold of the edge of the bed. Vague forms before him solidified. Computer screen. Chairs. A half-naked woman.
“Oh my,” Charley said. “That must have been some party!”
The woman spun around, brunette hair swirling. Automatically, her hands tugged the blouse up between her delightful breasts and Charley’s vision. Her eyes were filled with surprise and horror.
“Todd! Todd, you’re awake!”
“Must have fallen on my back,” Charley murmured, getting to his feet. “Hurts like hell.”
“Oh, Todd.” His arms were suddenly full of her. The blouse, forgotten, fluttered to the floor as she trembled against him. “Todd, I’m sorry, so sorry. I really like you. I didn’t know that this would happen.”
“Must have been fun,” Charley said, looking at the rumpled bed. He folded his arms around the woman, savoring her warmth. “Wish I could remember it. I don’t know what I told you, but my name’s Charley, not Todd.”
She separated from him, arms folded over bosom, blinking. “No ...” Then she smiled. “Of course. Charley. That’s your assumed name.” Quickly she shrugged into a jump suit and remagnetized its seams, which disappointed Charley Haversham no end. “Oh, Todd, I’m so ashamed of myself.” Delicate hands covered a strikingly pretty face. “I had no idea what Hurt was up to. If I did—”
“Whoa there, lady! You’ve lost me.” Charley sat on the edge of the bed. “You wouldn’t have a glass of water, would you? My mouth tastes like bargain day at a slophouse.”
“Of course.” She got him a cup of water. He drank it, then looked up at her. She was staring at something on his back. “What’s wrong? I rip them or something?”
“You’ve still got the Disbelief Suspender on. I don’t understand. Something must have gone wrong. I felt the ship shake, the lights went out for a minute ... but I didn’t think—”
“Hey, lady, if any introductions were made before, I’ve forgotten them. My name is Charley Haversham. I’m a simple flunky in the maintenance division of the Star Fall and I’ve never heard of anybody named Todd or of anything called a Disbelief Suspender ...” He groped behind him, felt a rod of hard metal attached to his back. “Hello! What the hell is this?” He tried to pull it off. Agony paraded along his back in storm trooper boots. He ceased the attempt. “Yikes! What’s going on!”
“Oh, it’s absolutely awful,” Veronica said, choking out a heartfelt sob. “To think that I trusted him.” She collapsed into his arms and her comfortable, needful softness made him rapidly forget his own aches. “He must be mad. He’s using everyone for his insane scheme.”
“Who’s using everyone? By the way, if I’ve ever met you before I’ve quite forgotten your name.”
She drew back, looking at him with a bemused, faintly astonished expression. “Veronica. How could you forget after—”
“Listen. Please believe me. I honestly don’t know what’s going on. This is getting me very upset.”
Her face suddenly brightened. “If you’ve awakened, maybe the others have as well.” She slipped from his hold, grabbed his hand and tugged him through the open door. The corridors were surprisingly dim, a swath of mottled shadows. Heaps of bodies lay sprawled in the distance. Haversham could distinguish strips of metal on their backs, connected just below the neck and just above the buttocks.
“Holy Plumber’s Helper—you’re right!” Charley said. “How come then they’re horizontal and I’m vertical?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Veronica said. “There must have been a computer foul-up. But you’re not the same person you were before. Maybe there’s been some kind of short-circuit in the overlay system and you’ve been plucked out of the Fabricated Reality. Goodness, this could be everyone’s hope. If we could just find a way to—”
“You’re talking way over my head, sweet face. I just signed on to make sure the sewers run smooth. I didn’t expect this. The last thing I remember was getting to my cabin and seeing this—my God, that’s right—I remember seeing this leg hopping from my omnicleaner!”
Veronica looked at him strangely. “Let’s go back in my room and see if we can dig up a weapon. I’m not about to go back to Hurt’s compartments now if there’s something I can do elsewhere—and someone to do it with.” She dragged him back. “Or maybe that’s the wrong approach. Maybe I can do more upstairs. I dunno.” She shook her head. “I know I’ve got to do something.”
“Okay,” Haversham said, suddenly feeling the emotional impact. “I take it we’re in trouble.” Disorientation set in.
“Not only us, Charley, but the whole human race from star to shining star.” He followed her as she went back into her cabin and began to root among her luggage.
“Don’t tell me. You’re really a secret agent!” Charley said.
“I wish!” A piece of flossy lingerie was tossed into the air. It landed on Charley Haversham’s head. “Where is that stupid thing?”
“What are you look
ing for?”
“Something Earnie—I mean Earnest Evers Hurt—gave me a while back, after I was attacked by a psychotronic.”
“That must have been pleasant.”
“It’s a screamer-shock. Ah. Here we go.”
Veronica produced a bulbous thing that looked like a cigarette lighter. Her fingers accidentally touched a control button. Jags of lightning jetted, accompanied by a howl worthy of a banshee. Startled, the woman dropped it. Charley, his engineering instincts engaged, advanced and managed to tap the Off button with a careful shoetip.
Breathless, hair disarranged, Veronica said, “Thanks.”
Charley picked up the hot weapon gingerly, handed it back to Veronica. “You’ll be more careful in the future, I trust?”
Veronica took her hand from her chest, accepted the weapon. “Perhaps we’ll be able to find something better somewhere else.”
“Just what are we supposed to do? Seek out and alert the authorities as to the possible presence of psychotronics aboard the Star Fall?”
“No. We have to stop Earnest Evers Hurt from taking over the Human Collective Unconscious and becoming a god.”
“Look, lady, I’m a fancy janitor and a simple plumber. I don’t get involved in no theological matters. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ is about the extent of my devotions.”
Emphatic hand on his arm, she gazed deep into his eyes. “You’ve got to trust me.” Something deep and electric tingled through Charley Haversham, stilling his objections.
“All right. Something fishy must be going on for me to be stone cold for such a long time. And I do want to get this thing off my back. What do I do?”
“Go back with me to Hurt’s control room—” she patted her pockets. “Oh dammit! I must have left the mag-key there!”
“Stop the guy in control of the Star Fall with a screeching zap gun? You’ve got to be kidding—”
“There’s also the biobot.”
“Oh, great. Peachy keen.” He stormed off to look in a closet.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a spare proton bazooka you might have overlooked. You know, maybe we should check my section first. There ought to be something down in the computer maintenance division that we might be able to jerry-rig into an item resembling a weapon.” He resumed his futile search in silence, then turned to see that they had company.
The biobot stood a few steps into the cabin, bulging huge, mandibles clacking, optical sensors fixed on Veronica. In one claw it held a Disbelief Suspender. It did not seem to be aware of Charley Haversham’s presence.
“What are you doing here?” Veronica said. The screamer-shock was hidden behind her.
“Hurt has changed his mind,” the biobot said, moving forward. The Disbelief Suspender wiggled in its grasp. “He wants you to join the rest of the passengers for a while. Be very still, Veronica, and this won’t hurt a bit.”
As quietly as he could, Charley edged the two meters toward the dresser, fortunately immediately behind the biobot.
“No,” Veronica said, backing away. “I don’t believe you.”
“Terribly sorry,” the Arachnid said, “but it’s true.”
Two bottles stood on the dresser top. Gin. Brandy. Half full. Charley grabbed their necks, eased them up. Aimed.
Flung.
One bottle crashed into the Arachnid’s head. The other smashed on its metal carapace, splashing liquid all over it.
“Veronica! The shocker!” Charley cried.
Eyes wide, Veronica pulled the weapon from behind her back.
A screech. The rush of electricity singeing the air, connecting with the Arachnid’s metal armor. The alcohol ignited, roaring into a ball of flame around the thing. It fell to the floor, clicking and writhing.
“No insect spray, pal,” Charley said. “That will have to do. Come on, Ronnie. Let’s bug out of here!” He grabbed her hand and together they raced from the room.
Minutes later, after weaving an erratic trail of flight through the hallways of that section of the Star Fall, they stopped to haul in a few deep breaths.
“You think we killed it?” Veronica asked hopefully.
“Hard to say. It’s a bodyguard model. I suspect we just slowed it down some. This is our chance, though. Quick, show me where we can find Hurt! And tell me what we have to do to stop him.”
“You believe me!” she said, grabbing him jubilantly, holding him tightly.
“His flunky gave you a prime testimonial. Right. We’ll head up to this guy’s quarters, prevent him from taking over the known universe, and then whatsay I buy you a drink to replace those bottles I smashed? I’d prefer it the other way around, but there is the time factor.”
“This way,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along so quickly he almost lost his balance.
TODD SPIGOT woke up underneath the ground.
Static seemed to swirl about him. Matrix dots shivered and eddied around his limbs and torso in peculiar currents. In the distance, vague outlines of circuitry, solid-state and otherwise, glowed and pulsed like spectral after-images.
Striking out with his arms caused him to move in what he discerned to be an upward direction. He drifted through the thickening computer specks—like loosened atoms slowly collecting into the molecules of matter—up, up through strata of rock, clay, sand, dirt, topsoil. Finally, he broke surface, peering up at pseudo-Creation through a fringe of long grass.
Some stars were back in the sky—standing out in relief against the fuzzy black background like connect-a-dot patterns. The landscape was a shambles of unearthed trees and leveled hills; a nearby stream flowed into a yawning crevasse. All in a sketchy, vague watercolor, rather than the previous tempera-like hues.
Standing nearby, staring at the changed land of Fabricated Reality, was Angharad the donkey-unicorn, looking lost.
“What happened?” Todd asked, lifting himself past grass level, careful to control his lightness so that he didn’t shoot up into the sky.
The animal turned. Obviously the disaster had affected the quality of her “animation.” Stiff and jerky, like a Gumby model, she strode to Todd, eyes bulging ludicrously with surprise.
“Amber tried to grab you—he slipped into the crevasse too. I thought you were all gone for good. My God ... look at you! You’re—you’re like a ghost!”
So that was why he’d been able to drift back through the ground after his fall. He examined his arm. Indeed, it did look like the arm of an apparition: milky-white, translucent. He covered his eyes with his hands; he could plainly see his companions through its outlines. He glanced down at his torso, legs and feet.
Spooksville stuff.
Also: sensory awareness, save for hearing and seeing, had dimmed somewhat. For some reason, his brain, his consciousness, was only partially active in Hurt’s Fabricated Reality.
If that were so, then where was the rest of him?
“Something must have gone wrong with your connection,” Angharad said, examining Todd closely, floppy ears twitching. Have you any awareness of anything else besides us and the countryside?”
Todd concentrated on that, straining to see through the bright washes of color that surrounded him to perceive the nature of the true surroundings of his real body, presumably still sprawled in Veronica March’s cabin. He closed his eyes, recalling the details—the bed, dresser, computer console. He dredged up the painful memory of the Arachnid grabbing him, holding him down. Sympathetic trickles of agony coursed down his spine as the needles and neuroconnectors of the Disbelief Suspender again seemed to bury themselves in his flesh.
“No,” he admitted finally. “Nothing.”
“Damn,” Angharad said. “You’re obviously not all here.” She glanced around. “But then, neither is much of the Fabrication. Better focused now than before. Maybe you’ll eventually solidify as w
ell.”
“Think Hurt’s machines fouled up or something?” Todd leaned over and tried to grab a clump of grass. His hand passed through the vegetation; the stalks merely swayed, as though with a breeze.
“On such a massive scale? Unlikely,” Angharad said. “Hurt no doubt set up fail-safe systems on top of fail-safe systems. Something outside must have affected the Fabrication. Quite possibly the Star Fall has reached its destination.”
“Wonderful,” Todd said. “I’m a ghost for the rest of the journey.”
“Could come in handy,” Angharad countered. “You can levitate. Walk through walls ... We could have used Amber, though. I hope he’s okay.”
Todd shivered as he gazed at his translucent arm. “Gives me the creeps.”
“It’s not exactly a load of fun being progressively jerkier lumps of modeled clay,” Angharad said. “I can’t even take a piss anymore!” With her teeth she picked up the pouch containing the map from the ground. “Fortunately you dropped this before you, Galahad and Amber took your respective tumbles.”
“Are you saying that we should keep on looking for what Hurt wants us to look for, despite what’s happened?”
“Call it unicorn intuition if you like, but that’s the feeling I have. As far as I can tell, Hurt’s purpose in constructing this mode of existence, as I said before, was not merely to attract the Energy Pool but to create some kind of portal, an entranceway into its very heart. This, apparently, is the purpose of the Grail.”
Since Todd’s fingers were no longer solid, they had to resort to donkey hooves once more to consult the map. This took some doing.
Certain detours, it seemed, had to be made to allow for the cracks and crevasses that had appeared in the ground. Otherwise the course was reasonably plain.
The two struck out in a renewal of their Quest.
As they traveled, they passed bewildered, lost inhabitants of the Fabrication. An occasional knight galloped by, unlike Galahad, ignoring them. Dragons wheeled in the distance; maidens pined from the parapets of castles. Before dawn, constellations similar to those seen from Earth appeared in the sky. Slowly, the watercolor gave way to strong vibrant oils.
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