Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

  The Mouse paid their entrance fee, and they spent the next few hours shouldering their way through the crowds of tourists, walking up and down the rows of games and exhibits, past the hustlers and grifters, the strip shows and the freak shows, the alien exhibits, the pleasurepain palaces, the cheap rides, the display of cattle and hogs from Earth itself.

  “I'm about ready to give up for the day,” said the Mouse as the midafternoon heat became more intense. She sat down at an empty table near a row of food stands and gestured Penelope to join her. “There must be ten thousand people here,” she continued as the little girl sat next to her. “We could have walked right past him and never known it.”

  “He'll be here,” Penelope said firmly.

  “Soon?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Today? Tomorrow? Next week?” continued the Mouse. “I don't mean to worry you, but we're almost broke. The Forever Kid has most of my money, and I've just about run through the rest of it. Whether we keep looking for your mysterious friend or book passage off the planet, we're going to have to find a way to make some more money. I've got enough to keep us going for maybe three more days, four if we find a cheap enough place to stay.” She paused. “Do you know if your friend will show up by then?”

  Penelope shrugged. “I don't know.”

  “You're sure we're at the right place?” asked the Mouse. “There are a lot of other carnivals around New Gomorrah.”

  “We're in the right place.”

  The Mouse sighed deeply. “Then we might as well stay right here at the carnival. The less we move around New Gomorrah, the less likely we are to be spotted.”

  “Will they let us stay here?” asked Penelope.

  “Not as tourists. But I saw a few empty booths and tents. All we have to do is come up with some kind of scam and convince the manager to let us go to work for him.”

  “What can we do?”

  “That's a problem,” admitted the Mouse. “I suppose I could hire on as a stripper, but I'm so scrawny and ugly that people would pay me to put my clothes back on.”

  “That's not true,” said Penelope heatedly. “You're very pretty, Mouse.”

  “That's a matter of some debate,” replied the Mouse wryly. “Anyway, take my word for it—no one would hire me.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  The Mouse lowered her head in thought for a moment, then looked up and smiled. “You know what I didn't see when we walked up and down the aisles?”

  “What?”

  “A fortune teller's booth.”

  “What's that?” asked Penelope.

  “A fortune teller? It's someone who pretends to do what you really can do: foresee the future.” She paused briefly. “Do you remember how you saw my cards back at the casino on Last Chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think you could see who's going to win a particular race or fight?”

  “I think so,” said Penelope. “I'm much better at it now than I used to be.”

  “When you can't, will you know that you can't?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think we may be in business.”

  “Good!” said Penelope happily. “Then, after we make some money telling fortunes, I can tell you who is going to win a race or a fight, and you can bet on it, and—”

  “No,” interrupted the Mouse. “If I win too much money, I'll call attention to myself. Much better to make it in bits and pieces.” She stared at Penelope and frowned. “We've got another problem, too. If word gets out that a little girl is picking winners, we're going to have some very unwanted company.”

  “Maybe we could do what we did on Last Chance,” suggested Penelope.

  “I just told you—I can't risk being a big winner.”

  “No,” said the girl. “I meant the way we worked the card game. You were the player, and I signaled you. Maybe you could read the fortunes, and I could signal you what to read.”

  The Mouse considered her suggestion.

  “It's a possibility,” she admitted at last.

  And when no better possibility presented itself, they spent the remainder of the afternoon going over an intricate set of signals by which Penelope could give the Mouse certain basic information about each client who visited her. Then, at dusk, the Mouse hunted up the manager of the sideshow exhibits, gave him a brief demonstration of her skills, offered him a 60-40 split for the carnival in exchange for the use of a booth plus their food and lodging, and they were in business ten minutes later.

  They spent the evening decorating their booth and creating a suitable costume for the Mouse, then ate a late dinner in the crew's mess tent and collapsed on the cots that had been provided in the back of their booth.

  They awoke early, ate breakfast, and then waited for the carnival to open. Penelope was so excited she could hardly stand still.

  “Relax,” said the Mouse. “They won't open the gates for another half hour yet.”

  “I know,” said Penelope. “But isn't it wonderful? We're working together again! And look at all the colorful people and all the aliens!”

  “A grifter by any other name,” said the Mouse.

  “What?”

  The Mouse smiled. “Nothing. I'm glad you're happy.”

  “Oh, I am. Can we always work together, Mouse?”

  “I'd much rather retire in luxury together,” said the Mouse wryly. “But until that happy day, we're still a team.”

  The other carnival workers began gathering on the midway, setting up their tents and booths. About two-thirds of them were gaudily-dressed humans, but there were Canphorites, Lodinites, Mollutei, Domarians, and, just across from them, running a game that seemed to make no sense, was an alien of a race the Mouse had never seen before. It was bipedal, covered with light green scales, and seemed to have a gray, shell-like hump that extended from the back of its neck to just above its buttocks. It stood no taller than five feet, but its thick body and heavy limbs gave an unmistakable impression of great strength. The Mouse nodded a greeting to it, and it opened its horned beak in what she hoped was an answering smile.

  Then the gates opened, and a new day's throng of tourists invaded the carnival. It took the Mouse almost three hours to get her first client, and two hours more for her second—but when a 23-to-1 shot came in at the local racetrack, and word went out that a fortune teller on the carnival grounds had predicted the victory, they were soon lining up to speak to her.

  She read the future for unhappy husbands and unfaithful wives, hopeful gamblers and hopeless addicts, the rich and the poor, humans and aliens, good beings and bad. Penelope was never more than ten yards away, acting the part of her shill, collecting her money, urging bypassers to seek her services.

  And then, on the third morning, right after she had given a Lodinite the anticipated result of a heavyweight freehand match that would be held later in the day, she looked up and saw a familiar bearded face staring at her.

  “You gave us a good run for our money, I'll grant you that,” said the Yankee Clipper without any animosity. He held Penelope firmly by the arm, and obviously was pressing a hand weapon against her.

  “How did you find us?” said the Mouse.

  He chuckled. “Just how many winners did you think you could give away before the press started suggesting there was some kind of racket going on here?”

  The Mouse looked around for the pirate's subordinates, but couldn't spot them. “Where are your men?”

  “They're hunting for you all over New Gomorrah,” replied the Yankee Clipper. “Some are at the track, some are at the arena, some are in the casinos. But I thought I'd try the carnival—and what better place for you to hide than right here, as a fortune teller?” He smiled in amusement. “It's like a deserter hiding out in the middle of a battlefield.”

  “And now what?” demanded the Mouse.

  “Now you're free to go.”

  The Mouse frowned. “I don't understand.”

  “You're a bad influence o
n the child,” said the pirate. “I'm taking her back alone.”

  “No!” cried Penelope.

  “Yes, my dear,” said the Yankee Clipper. “I know that having the Mouse around was supposed to make you more tractable, but the fact of the matter is that she helped you to escape and thereby caused me considerable embarrassment, to say nothing of the cost of hunting you down. And,” he concluded, “since I plan to be rid of you within a day, I really don't care whether your new ... ah ... host has the means to control you or not.”

  “You can't separate us!” pleaded Penelope.

  “I can and I will,” replied the pirate. He turned to the Mouse. “If you attempt to follow me, please know that I will not hesitate to kill you.”

  The Mouse stared at him helplessly, her mind considering and rejecting various alternatives, each more unlikely than the last. Finally her shoulders slumped and she emitted a soft sigh of defeat.

  “Then, as we have nothing further to say, I'll be taking my leave of you,” announced the Yankee Clipper, tightening his grip on Penelope's arm.

  Suddenly the broad, scaled alien from across the aisle approached them.

  “I beg your pardon,” it said in heavily-accented Terran, “but I must speak to the Soothsayer.”

  “Well, I won't keep you from your work,” said the pirate with a grin. He pulled Penelope by the arm. “Come along, young lady.”

  “No,” said the alien, blocking their way. “I must speak to the Soothsayer.”

  “There she is,” said the Yankee Clipper, gesturing toward the Mouse. “Now step aside.”

  “I have been observing them for days,” continued the alien calmly. “I know which is the Soothsayer and which is the imposter.”

  “What you know doesn't interest me,” said the Yankee Clipper irritably.

  “It should,” said the alien, “for among the things I know is that you have made a serious mistake.”

  “Oh? What mistake?”

  “You may not lay hands on the Soothsayer without her permission.”

  “Do you know who you're talking to?” demanded the Yankee Clipper.

  “Yes,” replied the alien tranquilly. “A man who should have known better.”

  And just as calmly, just as tranquilly, the alien suddenly produced a weapon of a type that was totally unfamiliar to the Mouse. It aimed it at the pirate, there was an almost inaudible humming sound, and the Yankee Clipper collapsed, dead, on the ground.

  The alien held out a hand to Penelope.

  “Come with me, Soothsayer,” it said gently. “I have been waiting for you.”

  Penelope looked into the alien's hideous face with a happy smile.

  “My friend,” she said.

  Part 4:

  THE MOCK TURTLE'S BOOK

  25.

  It seemed reptilian, but in truth it was neither a reptile nor in any other way analogous to any life form with which the Mouse was acquainted. It's powerful limbs and thick torso seemed masculine, but it did not possess a gender, or at least not in a way that any human could comprehend. It had killed the Yankee Clipper in an act of cold-blooded murder, but its behavior was polite and well-mannered, and almost deferential where Penelope was concerned.

  Its name was unpronounceable, so the Mouse looked at its green scales and grayish hump and soft beak and double-lidded eyes, and decided to call it the Mock Turtle. It neither approved nor disapproved, but it answered to the name, and that was really all that mattered.

  Since its weapon had made no noise and attracted no attention, it simply summoned a doctor when the pirate fell to the ground, and during the ensuing confusion the Mock Turtle waited patiently for Penelope to retrieve Maryanne from the booth, then took her by the hand and calmly led her out the carnival's gate. The Mouse quickly took their money from the cash box and followed them to the gate. From there they took a courtesy vehicle to the spaceport and walked directly to the Mock Turtle's ship.

  The Mouse was certain they would be spotted by one of the Yankee Clipper's men, but Penelope showed no sign of fear or tension, and a short time later they had left Calliope far behind them and were heading deeper into the Inner Frontier.

  “We will have to put down on a human colony soon,” announced the Mock Turtle, after they had cleared Calliope's star system. The three of them were sitting in the ship's cockpit, which had not been designed with humans in mind. The ceiling was much too low, and the chairs were built for beings with the Mock Turtle's hump. The colors, even on the control panels and computer keys, were so washed out that the Mouse decided that the race that designed the ship saw colors very differently from the way that human beings saw them.

  “I have no foodstuffs that would be suitable for Men,” continued the alien.

  “Then you weren't expecting us?” asked the Mouse.

  “No.”

  “Then why did you help us?”

  “She is the Soothsayer,” said the Mock Turtle.

  The Mouse frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? Does your religion anticipate some soothsayer?”

  “My religion is a private matter,” answered the alien calmly, but in tones that implied the subject was closed.

  “Then I must repeat my question,” said the Mouse, trying to make herself comfortable on the alien chair. “Why did you help us?”

  The Mock Turtle turned to the little girl. “You are Penelope Bailey, are you not?”

  “Yes,” said Penelope, propping up Maryanne next to her on the broad seat.

  “That is why.”

  “You sound like just another bounty hunter,” said the Mouse. “But that can't be. First, you didn't know we were going to show up on Calliope, and second, Penelope trusts you.”

  “That is true,” agreed the Mock Turtle tranquilly. “I did not anticipate your arrival on Calliope, and I am very trustworthy.”

  “Then perhaps you'd like to tell me what your interest in us is?”

  “I am not interested in you at all.”

  “You are a very difficult person to talk to,” said the Mouse in frustrated tones.

  “I am not a person at all,” replied the alien. “I am a—” it uttered a word the Mouse had never heard and could not pronounce. “But you may call me the Mock Turtle.”

  “All right, Mock Turtle,” said the Mouse, “let's try again: why are you interested in Penelope?”

  “She is the Soothsayer.”

  “You keep saying that!” snapped the Mouse.

  “It is the truth.”

  Penelope giggled as the Mouse tried to control her temper.

  “Why do you care whether or not she's the Soothsayer?” continued the Mouse.

  “Because if she is not, I have killed a Man for no reason,” answered the Mock Turtle.

  “Why did you kill the man? And don't say it's because she is the Soothsayer.”

  The Mock Turtle remained silent.

  “Well?” demanded the Mouse.

  “You instructed me not to answer you,” explained the alien patiently.

  “You are driving me crazy!” said the Mouse. She started to stamp her foot in anger, but quickly stopped when she realized that the act would upset her balance and cause her to slide back into the hollow that had been made to accomodate the alien's shell. “Can't you just explain in nice, simple terms why you felt it incumbent upon you to rescue her?”

  “Certainly. You had not asked that before.”

  The Mouse resisted the urge to argue the point, and waited for the alien to continue speaking.

  “My world is not a member of the Democracy,” said the Mock Turtle, “nor is it a member of the Confederation. We have been nonaligned for many centuries, even before there was a Confederation, and even longer, before the Democracy replaced the Republic.”

  “What has this got to do with Penelope?”

  “You have asked,” said the Mock Turtle with no show of annoyance. “Allow me to answer.”

  “Sorry,” said the Mouse. “Go ahead.”

  “My wor
ld wishes only to remain neutral. We desire no commerce or treaty with any other world or any other race.” The alien paused, as if translating its thoughts into Terran concepts. “We would resist any effort to assimilate us.” It paused again. “Men have always hungered for new worlds. The day is not far off that they will hunger for mine. Thus far we have been able to maintain our neutrality by balancing one force against the other ... but if the men who rule the Democracy obtain the services of the Soothsayer, they will eventually destroy the Confederation, and then the day will come when they no longer request us to join them, but instead demand it.”

  “She's just a child!” protested the Mouse. “She can barely keep one jump ahead of the people who are chasing her. How can you possibly believe that she could alter the outcome of galactic power struggles?”

  “Children grow up.”

  The Mouse stared at the Mock Turtle for a long moment, trying without success to discern a facial expression.

  “It doesn't sound to me like you have any intention of allowing her to grow up,” she said slowly. “The only way you can be sure she doesn't fall into your enemies’ hands is to kill her.”

  “That is because you are a fool,” said the alien calmly.

  “It's all right, Mouse,” said Penelope, laying a hand on the Mouse's arm. “The Mock Turtle is my friend.”

  “He sure as hell doesn't sound like a friend,” answered the Mouse.

  “You are mistaken,” said the Mock Turtle.

  “Then suppose you tell me what you plan to do with us,” insisted the Mouse.

  “I will take you to my home world, where you will be safe.”

  “Will we be guests or prisoners? Or do you consider the two terms synonymous?”

  “You will be guests,” said the Mock Turtle. “She is the Soothsayer. We could not keep her prisoner even if we wanted to.”

  “And we'll be free to leave whenever we want?” persisted the Mouse.

  “You will be free to leave whenever you want.”

  “Then why not set us down on a human world now?”

  “You will not be safe on any nearby world,” answered the Mock Turtle.

  The Mouse turned to the girl. “Penelope?”

  “It's true,” she said. “The Yankee Clipper's men are looking for us already.”