I turned to Mel, but before I could speak I heard a pleasant female voice. "Sit down," it said to me, "in the white chair. Make yourself comfortable. As for you, Mel Fury, you will be punished later. You have been warned, many times, about unauthorized trips to the outside. Yet you continue to make them."
So there was the reason for Mel's discomfort. And so much for her "education elective." She had been running wild when she found me, just the way I suspected. The difference that I had sensed between her and the other girls was apparently a real one.
But at the moment I had bigger worries. I sat down in the white middle chair, and at once thin wires as fine as spider silk crept out from its arms to swathe themselves around my body. They tickled my arms and neck, and touched my ears and scalp. "Relax," the voice said again, "you will not be harmed. This is for inspection only."
I didn't relax, but I did kind of collapse and sag down in my seat. Of course I should have realized, long before, that the controller had to be a machine. No human could do the thousand and one jobs that the controller performed. We had control computers on Erin, even if they were not this capable.
Well, why didn't I realize it? Because so much was different here, it was easy to make the mistake of assuming that nothing learned on Erin was likely to apply.
Anyway, the Home controlling computer really was different. It was kind of creepy, to sit and chat with a machine just as though it was a human being. For one thing, you didn't know where to look. I stared at the vertical cylinder, for lack of anything better, but I had no reason to believe the controller's computer "brain," if it had a brain, sat in there. More likely, the controller was spread all over the interior. For another thing, no computer on Erin was a hundredth as advanced as this. If it hadn't been for Mel, sitting there and talking to that machine as though it was the most natural thing in the world, I don't know if I could have handled it. But anything she could do, I decided I could match.
So I talked with the controller. I didn't think it was God, though, the way that Mel and the other girls seemed to. She had bossed me around since we met, any chance she got, but now even feisty Mel sat meek as a mouse. No wonder. I learned that the controller set their whole lives for them—or tried to: everything but the time they would die, and maybe that, too, eventually, although they had no experience of it, because no one had been developed in the wombs and born inside Home until twenty years ago, when the controller had initiated a female birth program.
"Why no boys?" I asked, when it told me that everyone was a girl. It seemed like an obvious question, but Mel stared at me in amazement. To her, I guess it seemed natural that people should be female.
"My analysis of Home and its resources suggested that male children might actually be physically preferred here," the controller said softly. "Examination of you confirms this. However, for psychological reasons the female choice was made, at least until such time as external contact had been reestablished; which has now occurred."
That statement about male children being physically preferred turned out to be important, but I missed its significance at the time because I thought that the "external contact" the controller was talking about was Danny Shaker and his crew. I was struck dumb with horror, until I realized the controller was actually referring to me. But recalling yesterday, which today's weird events had made like some awful dream, started me worrying again about Doctor Eileen and the rest of our party. I had to warn them that Danny Shaker and his men were killers, and now the presence of two dead bodies on Paddy's Fortune provided evidence that could not be talked away.
I decided it would take days to explain everything to the controller—I had been explaining for Mel since we met, and I still hadn't finished. So this time I didn't even want to try.
Instead I said, "I need to return to the outside, as soon as possible, and leave this world."
It was a reasonable request, and I saw no reason why the controller would object. After all, I wasn't one of its precious charges, raised from some frozen fertilized egg.
But instead of answering at once, which it had done in every other case, the controller remained silent. To my relief, the web of wires that had enmeshed my body retreated back into the arms of the chair. I was free to wriggle nervously in my seat—and I did.
"Tell me why you came here," the controller said at last.
So much for my idea of a quick and easy escape to the surface. I had to start all over again, with the whole messy explanation that I had given Mel.
This time it went a lot faster, though, because unlike Mel the controller didn't interrupt me with a stupid question every two seconds. It knew all about the Forty Worlds, in far more detail than I did. It also apparently contained detailed data on every worldlet in the Maze. I decided it was a lot smarter than Mel and the other girls—particularly when I got to the Godspeed Drive and our journey to search for it.
The controller took that idea in its stride. "This world was established as a biological reserve against future need, which has now arrived, never as a reservoir of space hardware. There is no Godspeed Drive on Home."
That news was going to devastate Doctor Eileen—if ever I had the chance to tell her. And if I had been Mel Fury, I would not have been pleased by my role as part of a sort of as-required supply house for humans. But the controller was continuing: "There may be no Godspeed Drive anywhere in the Maveen system. If there is, that information is not available here."
And then, just when I was ready to sink into the gloom of a wasted months-long journey, it added: "There is, however, a logical place to look. There are several related references in data storage that possess space hardware associations."
I could hardly breathe. "References—to places? In the Forty Worlds system?"
"It is not clear that all are places. They are names: the Net, the Needle, the Eye . . . The Net lies within the Forty Worlds system, and even within the Maze itself. It carries a designation as a 'hardware reservoir.' "
"Do you know how to get there?"
"Coordinates are available for the Net. However, the information is not easily conveyed orally. You must use a navigation aid. This one is appropriate."
A little machine no bigger than my hand came scuttling out of nowhere and extruded long, spindly legs that brought it up to the level of the table. Just when I was thinking that this was the most peculiar-looking navigation aid I could imagine, it reached out a thin arm and placed in front of me a flat black oblong and a little silver box.
I was speechless as I fumbled in my pocket and brought out an identical copy of the plastic object sitting before me: Paddy Enderton's mystery "calculator/display unit."
Naturally, I then had to explain how I came by that, and again reveal the news of the death of the two women on the scoutship. This time I was wide awake instead of totally exhausted, so I could observe the distress on Mel's face. The controller's voice showed no sign of emotion, and I assume it could feel none—or perhaps it just had no way to show it.
"Take the new one," it said, when I was done. "This navaid has been loaded with information about the Net itself, also with all that is known, conjectured, or rumored about the Godspeed Drive. Connect the aid to your navigator and it will define an optimum trajectory to the Net. Take the silver box also. The capsules that it contains are diet supplements. Swallow one each morning after you leave here, until none is left."
After you leave. I was going to be allowed to leave Paddy's Fortune! And the sooner the better. I absolutely had to get all this new information back to Doctor Eileen and Jim Swift.
But there were problems. I picked up the little plastic wafer and fingered the familiar indents on its surface. "We don't have a navigator on our ship. I mean, we do—but it's a person, not a machine. I don't have anywhere to connect this."
"Then you must employ it in manual mode. You know how to interact with it directly?"
"Not really. I tried for days and days."
"I know how!" Mel Fury exclaimed. "I've trained on
those for years. I can do it."
Maybe she had, and maybe she could, but the last thing I wanted was Mel Fury up on the surface with me, or worse yet on the Cuchulain. She was a female. One sniff of a woman—or even a young girl—and the crew of the Cuchulain would be wild beasts. Mel had no idea of the risk she proposed to run.
Fortunately, the controller was on my side. "You appear to be suggesting that you might accompany Jay Hara away from Home," it said to Mel. "That is forbidden. The biological reserve must not be further depleted." And then to me, "She cannot go, but you are expendable. Therefore you must learn to use the navaid yourself. It should not be difficult, even for someone of your limited capacities."
I realize it makes no sense to dislike a machine, but there are limits. After those last couple of cracks, I would never feel the same about the controller of Paddy's Fortune.
CHAPTER 20
Looking back, I see my time inside Home as a dream, a strange period where everything was touched with fantasy.
Strangest of all, I had the illusion of safety. Certainly, I knew that danger walked the surface above my head, and at any moment some crewman might find a way to the interior. But everything else around me was so different from what I knew, danger became unreal, too. Inside Home I could think about Danny Shaker rationally, even affectionately, and wonder if I was totally misjudging him. As Mel Fury pointed out, Shaker had killed Sean Wilgus only to defend himself, and it was no more than his good fortune that he happened to have acquired Walter Hamilton's gun to do it with. She did not see him as a cold-blooded killer. When she talked that way, I had trouble with the idea myself.
Well, all dreams ended six hours after my session with the controller. Reality came back like a plunge into cold lake water as I watched the circle of plant-covered earth descend toward me, stepped onto it, and was lifted through the access point to the drenched surface of Paddy's Fortune.
I was dressed again in my torn and ragged clothes. They were clean now, but that would not last long in the mud and undergrowth. In my pockets I had Walter Hamilton's electronic book and the new navigation aid. The hours of tutoring that Mel Fury had given me were not nearly enough, but at least I knew how to read out the coordinates and general information I needed. I would have liked instruction in the hundred other capabilities that the navaid possessed, but I dared not stay longer in the interior. The rain on the surface had ended. Danny Shaker, if no one else, would suspect the truth if the search for me continued unsuccessful for much longer.
Maveen was rising. In its pale dawn light I stared around me at the world of Paddy's Fortune.
The tall vegetation was water-logged and bowed down, and the ground underfoot was a swamp into which I sank ankle-deep. The controller had certainly done its job in providing rain.
Now I had to do my job. When I described the plan to Mel Fury she frowned and shook her head, although I made it sound simple and straightforward. I would return to the surface at the access point closest to the cargo beetle in which I had landed. From there, according to the controller, all I had to do was head slightly north of east, almost toward the rising sun. In a few minutes I would see the beetle itself. Then it was a matter of lying low, waiting until the beetle was unattended so that I could go aboard. I was sure that I knew enough to fly it away from the surface of Paddy's Fortune and up to the translucent shield. Even if I had trouble after that, I could send my warning to Doctor Eileen and the others aboard the Cuchulain.
Simple and straightforward—in principle. The trouble began with the first step I took on the surface. I had to assume that the crewmen were still hunting for me, so I dared not lift my head above the plants. But now the leaves were so heavy with water that the tops of the tallest plants came only to waist height. I had to squelch along doubled over, moving as silently as I could with one eye out for danger and the other on the golden circle of Maveen. Twice I had to detour sideways, to avoid a couple of the long, narrow crevices that were scattered across the surface of Paddy's Fortune. In such low gravity I could probably have cleared them with a high, running jump, but I dared not take the risk of exposure.
After a few minutes the vegetation around me began to steam in the sunlight. Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. My body must have been sweating, too, but I couldn't be sure because my clothes had been soaked through in the first steps.
Encouraging myself with the thought that at any moment I would see the cargo beetle, I plodded on.
And on, and on. Finally I stood up to my full height and stared ahead over the top of the plants. Nothing.
I stopped and squatted down on my haunches. It couldn't be this far to the beetle. Somehow I had gone astray, too far north of east or not far enough.
I stood up, turned, and looked back the way I had come. As the rain water evaporated from the leaves of the plants they were beginning to lift and straighten. I might be able to follow my own track to the access point and start over—or I might not.
But there was really no choice. I had to go back. Otherwise I would be reduced to wandering randomly around the surface. Chances were that the crewmen would then find me long before I found the cargo beetle.
I stood upright, prepared to take a first disconsolate step.
And I saw the topmost leaves swaying, maybe twenty paces away and directly in front of me.
I froze. If I ran, the noise would make my presence obvious. If I did not, I would be caught without making any effort to escape.
The only other option was to stay and fight. That didn't hold much hope, either, because even if the crewman following me was as weaponless as I was, any one of them was twice my size.
I took a couple of steps back along my own faint track, eased into a small gap between the plants that grew beside it, and as an afterthought bent down and scooped up a double handful of wet mud. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was all I had.
I waited.
And heard nothing. It seemed incredible that any of the hulking crewmen, wheezing and broken-winded as they were, could be moving so silently toward me. Maybe what I had seen was no more than one of the little native animals, bustling along at the base of the plants and making their tops shake.
I stood with muscles locked, unable even to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Then, when I had to move or die of unrelieved tension, the curtain of leaves in front of me was swept aside.
"I knew it!" A familiar voice whispered, right in my ear. "You goofbrain. You're totally lost, aren't you?"
I dropped my handful of wet mud, though now I almost wish I had thrown it. Because peering in on me, grinning all over her bony and self-satisfied face, was Mel Fury.
* * *
She was mud-spattered and sweaty but she wasn't nervous and breathless, as I was. Mostly, she seemed terribly pleased with herself.
"What do you mean, why did I follow you," she said. "Don't forget I've seen you blundering around out here before. You may have fooled the controller, saying you knew what you were doing, but you sure didn't fool me."
"You'll be in trouble when you go back." We were both talking in whispers.
"Of course I will. Big trouble. If I go back."
"You can't come! You mustn't follow me any more."
"Follow you!" Her voice was fiercely indignant. "You dummy. If you're going anywhere on this world, I'll have to lead you."
I didn't argue, because she was right. Paddy's Fortune was her home ground, and in her rambles she had been over every square meter of it. She knew exactly where we were, exactly how to get to the cargo beetle with minimal exposure. I knew neither where I was, nor where I was going.
We set out, I following in her footsteps as silently as possible. In less than five minutes, she paused. With one finger she pointed up. I saw the top of a cargo beetle, and realized that we were moving through the tall purple-flowered succulent plants that I had seen on our first landing.
I moved to Mel's side and leaned to put my mouth near her close-cropped head. "Is there anyone aboard
?"
"How would I know?" Her whisper had the rising tone of irritation. "You should be able to answer that question a lot better than I can."
She was right. But I couldn't. It was something else I had not thought through before I left the interior. I think it was embarrassment more than anything that gave me the resolve to take the next step. I would have to learn the answer to my own question the hard way.
"Wait here. And I mean wait. Don't move!"
I crept forward, until I could see the whole of the cargo beetle and the area in front of its entry port. There was no sign of anyone now, but plenty of evidence of earlier activity. The plants in the area around the port were trampled flat, and the ground beneath them was mashed into mud like a hog wallow.
I could guess what had happened. When the heavy rain began, the crewmen would have refused to remain unsheltered on the open surface. They would have rushed back here, and waited in the cargo beetle until the storm was over. Then they had gone off again to hunt me down.
The big question was, had anyone stayed behind, to sleep or eat or keep watch?
I couldn't answer that. All I could do was wait, knowing that Mel Fury was becoming more and more impatient behind me. At last I couldn't stand it any longer myself. I tiptoed forward through the disgusting squishy mud, until I could stand at the side window and see through to the interior. It was completely empty, and the rush of relief that gave me is indescribable.
I turned and nodded. It was not necessary to speak—Mel was sure to be watching my every move. Without waiting for her to appear I went to the hatch and climbed into the beetle.
As soon as I was inside I knew that I had been right. The crew had been here during the rain—there was mud and mess everywhere. But the area over by the control panel was relatively clear, and that was all I cared about. I went across to it and scanned it briefly, making sure that I knew what I had to do to take off. I didn't want another debacle, when I stood baffled and Mel Fury snootily watched my hopeless incompetence.
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