She stood, and backed away. Conservation of mass-energy required that the mass that left her time return to it in some form. And the girl was dying to begin with.
/rest, sister,/ she said, and she was not sure who she was talking to, herself or the girl from the karz. /rest. you have a long journey, and you will not survive it./
There seemed to be some barely perceptible response from the unconscious form. "In time," she added in a blurred, inaudible mixture of silverspeech and Corvichi v'chak, "in time the journey takes us all."
The rainbows began again; purple, blue, green, yellow...
On the other side of the earth divider, something came roaring out of the darkness, moving faster than Jalian had ever seen anything move before--understanding rushed in on her, it was a karz, moving on the Big Road....
With a sudden disorientation, she realized she was not on the Big Road. This was smaller, there were no divider fence in the center, no stumps where poles of some sort had once been.... The Big Road had not been built yet, a part of her thought with clear, detached amazement.
Something in the karz at her side must have been sensitive to the electromagnetic energies being released by the call-back remote, Jalian reasoned later.
She was walking away from the glowing rainbows, on legs that seemed not a part of her body, watching the karz, and it was moving down the empty, rain-wet road, it was impossible that anything should move so quickly....
The car behind her exploded.
Standing mere meters away, Jalian had a brief, pleasant impression: she was flying.
She ceased flying abruptly.
Dateline 724 A.T.F.
Ghess'Rith was asleep when the captains called for him.
He slept rarely, like all Corvichi; it was more an art form than a physical necessity. He allowed his brain to process data randomly without the oversight of his superego, and upon awaking reviewed his dreams to see whether they contained anything of interest. Often they did; as often they did not.
His current dreaming was going badly; he was as pleased as not when the captains roused his superego from unconsciousness--until he realized where he was.
His physical self, he knew, was still curled in his feathernest, on the planet below them; still his senses insisted that he stood in the Great Ship's Machine of Decision, and he knew that if he was found wanting he would not leave the Machine alive.
The captains were arrayed about him in a semi-circle. They were none of them young enough to retain their minor tentacles; three were beginning to lose their major tentacles. Even the glowfloats were closer to purple than blue; the energetic blue light waves tended to cause strain on their delicate traveling eyes.
The toolbot that was the symbolic representative of the Shipmind was positioned in a niche in the Ship wall just to the right of the raised dais upon which ghess'Rith's senses told him he stood.
/these be Shipmind conceptualizations, captains concerns/
/these be?/ Ghess'Rith asked apprehensively.
/of the female person Jalian of the Fires/
/?/
The Shipmind spoke in an infowhisper. *These are her gene complexes. Examine.*
A bewilderingly complex storm of information whirled through the edges of ghess'Rith's mind; it slowed, stabilized. There was a brief pause as the odd binary-spiral amino acid chain upon which the person genetic code was based was explained to him. Particular molecule patterns were assigned functions and potentials in the binary spirals; and then the genetic pattern that was on store for Jalian d'Arsennette was arrayed for his inspection.
One of the younger captains said dryly, /the obvious is seen/
Ghess'Rith whistled in srheman; it was an emotion that Jalian had privately translated as amazement-at-the-perversity-of- the-universe. In fact her translation was only a crude analog of a sophisticated concept that no person was ever likely to understand. /she survived the -entropy timeline/ He considered briefly. /the body that returned to this timeline?/
*A pre-Catastrophe person,* said the Shipmind. *Radiation analysis, after compensation for sustained radiation damage during negative entropy timeline exposure, posits a background radiation level for this body far smaller than that of contemporary Silver-Eyes persons. Fire damage makes body identification unlikely for Silver-Eyes.*
Ghess'Rith wrinkled his lace in comprehension; without genetic analysis, it was not likely the persons would realize the body that was returned to them was not that of their sister. /posit:/ he said, too well aware that his existence depended upon what answer he gave the Shipmind and captains concerning his person protege, /you have observed probability stress. following conclusion, Jalian of the Fires lives/
*Probability stress is minimal, but definite. possibility of growth cycle is 6% and running.*
Ghess'Rith tentacles curled. /new timelines,/ he said flatly.
/your person,/ said an elder without inflection, /remarkable, is/
One of the captains directed a question at ghess'Rith. /three cycles of existence in balance. your actions in responsibility. what action now?/
Ghess'Rith's responsors and muscles froze. Even his minor tentacles were unmoving. A time change would erase twelve years of their existence; and even for Corvichi that was no small thing. The loss of twelve years, of the persons they had become in that time, was little better than death. He saw it so; kisirien, of course the captains would also. /her exit date?/
*Pre-Catastrophe. No more is certain.*
/the time of the Big Roads ... other Silver-Eyes, similar gene-complexes?/
*Three children; Ralesh and Morine d'Arsennette.*
Ghess'Rith said decisively, /advise sending Ralesh d'Arsennette after her daughter. what Jalian survived, her mother will not allow herself to be killed by/
There was a brief pause. Ghess'Rith, waiting on the Machine of Decision, could not help himself; his tentacles curled in uncertainty.
One of the captains, ghess'Rith was not sure which one, said, /well reasoned. decision is. send Ralesh/
The Shipmind's whispery data pulse said, *Concerning Jalian of the Fires; her genetic potentials are impressive.*
/so?/ Ghess'Rith considered briefly. /ah ... knowing Jalian/
*Transformation wavefront*
/could be on way now/
"Ralesh," said the alien machine, in a voice that Ralesh was altogether weary of, "we must speak to you of your daughter."
Dateline 1969 Gregorian.
Jalian had the feeling they were being followed.
She knew intellectually it could not be so. The cars that sped by them at distances of less than a meter did not worry her; certainly no follower could be in one of those. It was just as certain that no human of this time could trail her afoot without Jalian being aware of it.
Still, it bothered her.
The Pacific Coast Highway hugged the cliffs closely at this point, and the wind was brisk. Even walking along the shoulder of the road, the sound of the waves smashing into the cliffs below was all but inaudible. The cliffs rose thirty meters above the rocks. There was no beach as such, simply a jumbled collection of water-cut boulders.
They were walking north; Jalian wanted to see Oregon. The sun was low, thirty degrees or so above the line where sea met sky. Georges was reminiscing about his involvement with the French Foreign Legion. Jalian wasn't sure if he was telling the truth or not. Despite his long and remarkable life, Georges lied as often as not. She listened with half her attention as Georges rambled on about somebody named Beau Geste. After Georges ran down she could ask him more about how peanut butter cookies and chocolate doughnuts were made.
The sun was a hand's breadth over the horizon when the road widened out. Set about forty meters back on the east side of the freeway was a dingy, run-down 7-11. Jalian interrupted Georges in mid-sentence. "Georges, I'm hungry."
"Well, aren't you always?" he asked rhetorically. They walked over the dirt parking lot to the 7-11. "Who has money?"
Jalian chuckled. She f
ound the idea of money tremendously amusing. "You have some right now," she said. "I know because I counted it the last time you were asleep, and I've been doing all the buying since then." She waved a hand at the entrance to the 7-11. "Go buy some food. I'll make a phone call to get some more money."
"You counted my money?"
Jalian pushed him to the door. "Go buy food. Don't forget the doughnuts."
Georges shrugged in resignation. He pushed through the doors, little bells tinkling overhead as he did so. (He remembered Jalian telling him about the first time she'd seen a door with bells set to tinkle when someone entered. She'd laughed herself sick.)
Through the large glass windows that fronted the store, Georges could see Jalian standing in a phone booth, one of two, at the other end of the parking lot. The door to the phone booth was open. Georges didn't know who she talked to when she needed money. She wouldn't tell him, and he disliked shuffling through the memories he'd taken from her; it took all the fun away.
The evening attendant, a tall, thin young man with acne and a bulging Adams apple, nodded cheerfully to Georges. "Good evening, sir."
Georges nodded agreeably, and continued into the refrigerated section. The refrigerator was running raggedly; as Georges rummaged through the shelves, the sound steadied, and became a smooth hum. "Let's see," he mumbled, "Coke and sandwiches and barbecued potato chips and chocolate doughnuts." The sandwiches were for him; Jalian refused to eat meats. "Cheesecake and almond cookies." Satisfied, he took the pile up to the cash register and laid it out on the counter.
The attendant wasn't paying attention to him. In the parking lot outside, a pickup truck full of locals was pulling up. Five men in their late teens and early twenties came piling out of the pickup and into the 7-11.
It was nearly dark outside; the outer fluorescents clicked on, casting bright white around the parking lot. One of the fluorescents, set into the roof that shielded the sidewalk immediately outside the store, blinked fitfully, as though it were not sure that it wanted to glow.
Through the window, Georges could see Jalian in the phone booth. She did not appear to be watching the entrance.
The attendant, who moments before had suffered from a clear case of hypertension, was standing motionless behind the counter. He seemed to be practicing some form of Zen, under the erroneous impression that if he emptied his mind of all thought, he would vanish from the perceptions of lesser mortals.
One of the new arrivals, a tall, handsome redhead in faded jeans and a brown plaid shirt, said companionably, "Hey, Charlie! How's it going?"
The attendant came back to life. He smiled weakly. "Pretty good, Stan. Can I help you?"
The redhead didn't reply. He was looking at Georges. After a moment of surprise--Georges' eyes were level with his own--he smiled slightly.
Georges could hear the others, talking loudly in the background. They were discussing the relative merits of the brands of beer on sale.
Jalian talked into the dead phone. "The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might, he did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright, and this was odd because it was the middle of the night, the moon was shining sulkily because she thought the sun, had got no business to be there after the day was done, ‘It's very rude of him,' she said ..."
Leafing through the white pages, she had already located six offices of the Army, Coast Guard, and Air Force. She memorized the addresses, still talking into the phone. "'Oh, oysters, come and walk with us,' the Walrus did beseech ..." In the seven years she had been in this time, she had robbed more soldiers than she could recall. Soldiers were easy. On weekend nights she could get three or four of them, and they always had money.
Probably there were easier ways to get money, had Jalian bothered to think about it; Jalian doubted there were any that she would enjoy more. Even after seven years of getting used to the concept, she still had difficulty with the idea of men with weapons.
Jalian finished memorizing, and hung up. She glanced into the 7-11 again. She decided that it was time to go inside; the men from the truck looked like they might be violent.
That would be fun.
Half of the sun had disappeared behind the edge of the horizon. At the limits of Jalian's hearing, as she was walking back to the 7-11, a familiar melody seemed to be playing. She stopped and listened for a second, but there was no sound. It must be her imagination.
But she could not shake the feeling that she was being watched.
The redhead was pushing Georges' junk food to the side of the counter when Jalian entered. "You'll forgive me, but you're obviously not done shopping, and we do have purchases to make," the redhead was saying politely.
"Uhm, well," said Georges, "actually ..."
The man was not listening. He had turned to look at Jalian. There was an odd expression on his face. "Why ... hello," he said slowly. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Stan Mildwood, and these four gentlemen are my friends." He waved a hand at the men standing around them. He grinned suddenly at the attendant. "You know Charlie, of course." Stan leaned over the counter, and clamped one hand down on Charlie's shoulder. "Charlie, would this happen to be one of your many girlfriends?" Stan studied Jalian; Jalian studied him back with cold indifference.
"There's something interesting about you," the redhead said conversationally. He took a step closer to Jalian. He stopped because there was blood trickling down his neck from the knife that he found himself walking into.
It took a moment for the other four to realize what was happening. While the realization was sinking in, Georges pushed his junk back into the center of the counter. He gestured to Charlie. "Would you mind ringing this for me?"
Two of the four men--the younger two, probably not out of their teens, one with a strong resemblance to Stan--produced knives, and crouched slightly into proper knife-fighting form.
Georges shook his head. Jalian said, "I will kill him before any of you can move." She edged the knife into Stan's throat with slightly greater force. Blood trickled down the knife blade. The redhead was standing very still. He seemed unafraid, watching Jalian the way a mongoose would watch a rattlesnake. Jalian was not even looking at him.
Charlie didn't seem to be listening to Georges. Georges sighed in frustration, and muttered in French concerning a resemblance between the redhead and Rabelais' backside. He turned away from the counter, surveying the scene as though he had noticed it for the first time. "Oh, my," he said in tones of mild surprise. He looked at the two boys with knives. "You two are quite healthy boys, aren't you?"
For a second nothing happened. Then the two holding the knives began to tremble. "Very healthy indeed," continued Georges cheerfully. "Why ..."
The two knife-holders collapsed. "Unfortunately," Georges noted, "your ability to withstand massive and immediate growth is limited." He turned slightly to face Stan. Jalian withdrew her knife and backed away.
"Now you, Stan Mildwood, you have an excellent memory."
The redhead blinked once. The cut on his neck had closed already; scar tissue was forming and fading. "I ... I ..." His eyes closed, and he slumped to his knees. "God," he gasped, "how funny." He clutched his stomach, and rolled to the dirty tile floor. His laughter grew louder and harder to control. "Oh, Jesus ..."
Georges wondered, briefly, what it was that the man was remembering. He decided that he really didn't want to know. Georges picked up his packages, and, neglecting to pay for them, began stuffing them into a bag.
The two men left standing stirred slightly as though they might be thinking about doing something. Jalian glanced up from cleaning her knife in Stan Mildwood's shirt. "I wouldn't do that. He gets mad sometimes."
The men reconsidered and retreated. Jalian and Georges were backing to the double doors ...
... and Jalian heard the music.
It was music she recognized.
She stood, frozen in place, for several heartbeats. Her mouth was dry and refused to work. Finally she forced out, "Georg
es."
"Hmm?"
"The music."
Georges listened a moment. "I don't hear anything."
Jalian could not sustain English; she lapsed into silverspeech. The music was clear to her now, and through the music, a presence began to make itself felt ... "The arreyaho, Georges. My clan ... we play it, when there is time, before entering battle to the death. It means that there will be no quarter asked, and none given." She moved back away from the door; without thinking the young men scattered away from her. Jalian stretched one hand out to Georges. "Georges, there are ken Selvren out there."
Georges regarded her in silence. He said at last, "There can't be. If ..." He saw the expression on her face and broke off. "So let's check." He strode through the double doors, and as the doors opened Jalian perceived clearly that there was no sound, that it was all as silent as death itself, and that the melody was only in her mind.
Jalian d'Arsennette did not hesitate; she had never hesitated in her life. So it could not be hesitation that was keeping her pinned in place. There was another Silver-Eyes out there and she knew it and she knew why she had felt that somebody was following her all day, and why was she letting Georges go out the door?
Far too late, she screamed, "Georges, no," and it echoed, /Georges, no./
The flickering fluorescent lighting tube, which had been preparing to burn out for over a week, steadied into an even, unflickering glow.
The attendant's acne was gone.
Georges Mordreaux stepped outside.
The sun set with a green flash.
A knife twisted out of the darkness, and buried itself to the hilt in Georges' throat. He sank to the ground limply, quite without his customary grace.
The window of the 7-11 shattered outward, and Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren came through with the shower of glass. She held knives in both hands. She came rolling up to her feet, bits of glass in her hair and skin and clothing, standing over Georges' fallen body, knives upraised. "I call challenge!" she screamed in silverspeech. "I call battle to the death! Murderers, cowards!" She screamed the words again "I call challenge!"
The Armageddon Blues Page 6