The Cyborg from Earth

by Charles Sheffield

  She turned to Billy Jexter. "Come on, Billy. You say you know the interior better than anyone. Prove it. Show us a way into that room."

  Chapter Thirteen

  BILLY had never been into the actual chamber. As he explained, the man had always been there when he looked through the grille. Billy wasn't sure he ever left. It took a couple of tries, but Billy regarded Lilah's words as a challenge, and finally they were standing at a huge pair of doors wide enough to drive a bus through.

  "Nonstandard specification," Lilah said. She was eyeing the doors. "You'd have to give the Logans special instructions for them to make something this size. Are you sure, Billy?"

  "I'm not sure he's still there. But I'm sure this is the room, the one we were looking into."

  "That's all I need. Give me a hand." Lilah grabbed one door handle and gestured to Jeff to take the other. Working in unison, they pulled the doors wide. Lilah went through at once, with the other two close behind.

  The man had not left. In fact, he didn't seem to have moved at all. He was still sitting in the chair and staring at nothing.

  As the doors opened he turned his head. "Hello," he said mildly.

  And that was all. He ignored them, rubbing at his bearded chin with the fingers of his left hand and from time to time pursing full lips.

  Billy looked ready for instant retreat. Jeff wasn't sure what he would have done, but he didn't have to find out. Lilah walked forward to stand right in front of the stranger. She put her hands on her hips.

  "Did you fix the locators' databases so this room doesn't show on them?"

  "I did." The words were spoken quietly, in a soft, precise voice.

  Lilah had been ready for denial, and the open admission surprised her. She regarded the seated man, then said in a voice no louder than his, "Why would you do a thing like that?"

  "For privacy, of course. Why else?" The man slowly rotated his head for a good look at Lilah, Jeff, and Billy. Jeff saw eyes of pale gray that even when they stared right at you seemed to be seeing through and beyond you.

  "I used to think that privacy was easiest to find far away from people," the man went on. "But it didn't work. No matter where I went, someone seemed able to track me down and ask me questions. So I adopted a different principle, one I read of long ago. If you want to hide a leaf, the best place to do it is in a forest. So the best place to hide a person should be in a crowd. If I stayed right here in Confluence Center, among so many swarming tens of thousands, then surely I would pass unnoticed. Unfortunately . . ." The man smiled for the first time, and Jeff thought it was a gentle, friendly smile. "Unfortunately, your presence proves that idea is also false. I am now in need of a different principle."

  The way he put it made Jeff feel they ought to apologize for intruding. But the man went on, "Never mind. I would have been forced to put in a personal appearance, anyway, within the next twenty-four hours."

  "Why?" Lilah asked. "I mean, if we hadn't found you . . ."

  "I tend to lose myself in my work, enough to ignore most external distractions. However, it is hard not to notice when the body-force field changes around you and affects half a dozen delicate experiments. Someone is experimenting with the Confluence Center's Anadem field. I see no way that they can do any damage, but I would rather seek direct confirmation of that." Jeff didn't remember moving, but he found himself standing in front of the man.

  "You are," he said. "Aren't you? Simon Macafee. I mean, are you—"

  "I am indeed," the man said. "I am Simon Macafee. And now you three have the advantage of me, because although you were perspicacious enough to track me to my lair, I have no idea at all of any of your names."

  "I'm Billy Jexter," Billy said promptly. Now that he had met the mysterious stranger, all his fears had gone away. "I'm the one who found you."

  "I will not go so far as to thank you for that."

  "And I'm Lilah Desmon."

  "Whose father, as I recall, is in charge of Cloud boundary exploration, and whose mother is the general administrator." Macafee turned to Jeff questioningly. Once again Jeff was aware of a look that went all the way through him.

  "I'm Jeff." He paused. Did his last name matter? He was likely to be disowned and disinherited anyway, as soon as the false report of his destruction and desertion of the Aurora reached Earth. But it was still his name. "I'm Jefferson Kopal."

  "Kopal?" The gray eyes took on a new light. "A famous name indeed, in Sol's military and commercial circles. Might you be a member of that family?"

  For a hermit and a recluse, Simon Macafee seemed to know an awful lot. Jeff nodded. If you went all the way to the edge of the universe, would that be far enough to escape the shadow of your name?

  "A descendant, possibly, of the redoubtable Rollo Kopal?" There was a twist to Macafee's lips that suggested he did not altogether approve of Rollo's reputation.

  "My great-grandfather." Jeff lifted his chin. His mother had told him, You are responsible for your own actions—but not the actions of your ancestors. "My father was Nelson Kopal."

  Was. He regretted the word as soon as it was out of his mouth. He had implied what he should have kept secret, that his father was no longer alive.

  If he hoped that the comment would glide by unnoticed, he was disappointed. Simon Macafee said at once, "Was? You mean your father is dead?"

  "Yes. He died in a space accident." And let's hope there's no way that statement can ever find its way back to Earth.

  "I am sorry to hear it." Macafee was not just mouthing the words, he actually did sound sorry. "But what are you doing here, so far from Earth and Sol? The Cloud is remote territory for any descendant of Rollo Kopal."

  Simon Macafee had an uncanny ability to ask questions that Jeff did not want to answer. But there was no choice. Jeff gave a short and edited version of the events leading up to his joining the Space Navy, mentioned his assignment to Border Command, and spoke of the injuries that had caused him to be brought here following the Aurora's close encounter with a space sounder after passing through Node 23 into the Messina Dust Cloud. The last point took Macafee's thoughts off in some other direction. He sat silent for a few moments, then said, "A space sounder, you say, over by the Lizard Reef?"

  "Fairly close. But not as near the reef as other people claimed it ought to be. It was out in open space."

  "Now that is most interesting." Macafee stroked absent-mindedly at his beard. "Were you frightened by the experience?"

  "I was terrified." Jeff's gaze was fixed on Simon Macafee, but from the corner of his eye he thought he saw Lilah frown at the admission of fear. She was probably like Myron, scared of nothing.

  "I am sorry to hear that," Macafee said. "I suspect, Jefferson Kopal, that I may have done something with my experiments much worse than anything you did in disturbing my privacy. I think I owe you."

  "What are you talking about?" Lilah asked.

  "I will not tell you now. But if you three come here tomorrow, I may be able to show you something to reduce your fear of space sounders." Then Macafee added, as though he were having second thoughts, "Show you, that is, if you are permitted to leave Confluence Center. Are you?"

  "I am," Lilah said at once.

  "I can go anywhere I like," added Billy.

  From the expression on his face, that was an absolute lie. As for Jeff, he had no idea where he could go and where he couldn't go. No one had told him anything. But Macafee was done with that subject. He was moving on.

  "As I have often said, successive anomalies are more likely to be causally linked than to be independent events." He saw from the looks on Lilah and Billy's faces that they had no idea what he was talking about. "What I mean is, if two peculiar things happen, one after another, the second one often follows as a result of the first. For instance, a Kopal"—he nodded at Jeff—"comes to the Cloud, is hurt, and arrives at Confluence Center. Soon after that, the strength of the Center's Anadem field is varied, for the first time ever. Are these events independent, or does
one derive from the other?"

  "They are linked." Lilah jumped in before Jeff could answer. She explained that the loss of the Aurora was being blamed on Jeff by that ship's captain. "Though of course he had nothing to do with it; Muv says it's just a pretext for aggression. Sol government is making threatening noises, and now they have this other ship, the Dreadnought, on the way, and maybe a fleet to follow. So, just to be on the safe side, mother wants the Center to be moveable at high acceleration. For that, we need to be able to change the field if we have to."

  Jeff stared at Lilah. She didn't actually blush, but she had enough conscience to avoid his eye. All her claim to have no idea at all about the Anadem field, or why it was being worked on, had been pure nonsense. It had been done to annoy him. She probably knew more about the field than he did.

  "I'll take care of changing the field strength." Simon Macafee spoke absently, and his gray eyes remained fixed on Jeff. "If I may offer you a word of advice, Jefferson Kopal, you should be extremely careful when the ship from Sol arrives here. Perhaps things are not what they seem. I must think now. There are many factors to be considered."

  Macafee was saying much the same thing as Hooglich and Russo. Jeff waited for him to explain or elaborate, but he did not. He leaned back in the chair, and it was as though a light was extinguished behind the gray eyes. Once again he was staring at nothing.

  After a few seconds Lilah coughed. "Er, Mr. Macafee. About tomorrow."

  The head with its shaggy mane of hair turned.

  "You still here?" Simon Macafee waved a long-fingered hand. "Away, avaunt. As I said, you may come back tomorrow. Provided that all of you"—he speared Billy in particular with a skeptical look—"by that time have adult permission to make a trip with me. If not, there is no point in returning." He pointed to the right. "You will find that direction leads you most easily to the central levels."

  The dismissal was so inarguable, not even Billy tried to say another word. The three moved in thoughtful silence, until after five minutes of wandering through chamber after deserted chamber, Lilah said, "My locator is working again! This is Level Nineteen, Eighth Sector, Fifth Octant. We're back in known territory."

  "I know that," Billy said. "I know the way from here." The silence had been unusually long for him, and now the words came tumbling out. "He didn't say we ought not to tell people about him being back here in Confluence Center, did he? I mean, he said he'd be coming himself, so he could work on the field, and then everyone will know where he was hiding. And if I don't tell anyone we met him, how can I get somebody to write and say it's all right for me to go with him? I really want to go. I will be going, won't I?"

  "Depends," Lilah said. "I think he intended us to tell people he'll be fixing the field himself. He doesn't really like the jinners messing with the controls, even if he's sure it's safe for them to do it. I don't like it, either. I'm going to pass word along to Muv. As for you" She turned on Billy, who was hovering close to her side. "I'll see if I can get permission for all of us to go with Macafee—provided that you stay out of my way, and you don't bug Jeff or me at all for the rest of today."

  "Deal!" Billy bounced with excitement. "Do you know the way home?"

  "The locator will tell me."

  "Then I'm out of here. See you tomorrow." They were standing in the connecting section between two tunnels. Billy ran forward five steps and turned the corner. Jeff, following, saw two long, straight corridors—and no sign of Billy.

  "Where is he?"

  Lilah came to his side. "Don't ask. It's a Billy Jexter specialty, instant disappearance. He's just showing off for your benefit. Come on. I need a change of clothes."

  Jeff didn't blame her. It was hard to believe that an hour or two ago her suit had been so gleaming white and spotless. Now she was as smeared and streaked and striped as the grubbiest jinner in the Cloud. Jeff was just as dirty, but a change of clothing was the least of his worries. Why couldn't Lilah have banished him from her presence until tomorrow, instead of Billy Jexter? He had dozens of things to think about; he could use a few hours to himself to put his problems in order.

  There was the Dreadnought, still far off but with an approaching, ominous presence that he could almost feel. Simon Macafee's perplexing warning, to be careful when the ship from Central Command arrived, only made the situation more disturbing. Hooglich and Russo, from the look of them, were quite happy to be listed as deserters, and they might choose to stay in the Cloud permanently. But Jeff's position was not so simple. He was a Kopal, with the Kopal name to protect—even if he hadn't chosen to be born one, and even if he didn't like most of what the family stood for. What would he do, if he was ordered to return to Sol aboard the Dreadnought? He didn't have a choice. He was still a navy ensign—unless he had been drummed out already, without the chance to make a statement in his own defense.

  Then there was Macafee, the mysterious Cloud wanderer whom Jeff somehow trusted for no reason he could put a finger on. Maybe it was because Macafee seemed to be interested, like Jeff, in knowing the why of things, more than in money or fame or position. To be free to spend years wandering the reefs, just to learn what was there—that was better than being an admiral. Even the peculiar statement, "I may be able to show you something to reduce your fear of space sounders," was tolerable when Simon Macafee said it. Jeff tried to imagine those same words spoken by Uncle Giles Lazenby. The thought made him shiver. And yet, although Simon Macafee and Giles Lazenby seemed as different as any two human beings could be, there was a peculiar resemblance that Jeff could not begin to explain.

  That was what he ought to be doing: sitting alone, thinking through everything that had happened since the day of his acceptance into the Space Navy, trying to form a rational picture from it all. Instead he was going to spend the next few hours listening to a sermon in praise of horses.

  Why had he been stupid enough to suggest today as a good time for his postponed visit to see her rooms? Only because he felt guilty about using Lilah's family connections, and so far he had not used them at all; his promise, judging from the frozen look on her face, had earned him not a scrap of credit with her.

  It was too late to back out now. They had been moving steadily inward, toward the middle of Confluence Center, and Jeff was starting to recognize his surroundings. Lilah led them through a big cafeteria-recreation area, down three floors in a little service elevator, and through a wide transparent pipe that ran across a no-man's-land filled with unfamiliar and riotous vegetation.

  Ten more steps, along a corridor marked with identifying purple and orange stripes, and Lilah halted in front of a sliding door.

  "Here we are," she said lifelessly. "After you."

  Jeff went in. It was as bad as he had feared. The living room was four meters by four meters, with a high ceiling. One of the walls, opposite the entrance, had two more doors in it and was relatively plain. The other three provided a hymnal of horse worship. A life-size 3-D projection showed a white stallion, rearing up and pawing the air with his forelegs. The walls offered a changing sequence of holograms, realistic depth images of show horses grazing, galloping, foaling, nuzzling, or trotting. Small horse statues, plastic and stone and glass and even wood, stood on every available surface.

  Jeff waited for the gush of words that in his experience horse fanciers offered to anyone who would listen. Instead, Lilah avoided looking at him, gestured to one of the inner doors, and said, "If you'd like to take a shower, go ahead. It's in there."

  "I have no change of clothes."

  That finally earned him a look, a very odd one. "I guess you're not used to Cloud service. Just put your old clothes in the disposal, next to the shower. The Logans will have a new set for you before you're out and dry." As he moved toward the door, she added, still in the same dead voice, "I'll fix food while you shower. Is there anything particular that you would like?"

  "Whatever you dial." The mention of food made Jeff hungry. "I'm easy to please. You order it, I'll eat it." He hurrie
d through the door before she could change her mind. If she preferred to put the horse talk on hold, that was fine with him.

  He found himself in Lilah's bedroom, dominated again by the horse motif. A bathroom, surprisingly large, lay beyond it. He took his time with the shower, using water as hot as he could stand and hoping it would sluice his worries away along with the dirt. It didn't quite work, but he felt a lot better when he emerged lobster pink, dried himself slowly and put on the new clothes provided by the dispenser. He returned to the living room prepared to suffer. Lilah had earned the right to talk. All he had to do was sit and listen and nod agreement in the right places.

  There was no sign of her. He followed the smell of hot food, went through the other door, and found himself in a little kitchen. Lilah was there, bringing half a dozen filled dishes out of a compact autochef and setting them on the table.