Eschaton 03 Far Shore of Time

by Frederik Pohl

  "Copy a lot; there isn't going to be a gun shop where he's going. And you'll have to make something for him to carry them in." I thought for a moment, then, with some reluctance, told the Wet One, "I think you'd better keep the safety off; you might have trouble handling it if you need to shoot in a hurry. Just don't touch that trigger until you want to fire. Now, let's see how good you are at reloading."

  He wasn't good at that, either, but he eventually got the idea, after a fashion. That was as far as we got, because Beert was fidgeting. "I must go back to my laboratory to make these changes in the equipment," he told the Wet One. Who made no response, except to turn and head for the stream. Just as he was entering the water, he paused, turned ponderously around and spoke to me, in that horrible roaring voice:

  "Your metal killing device may be valuable to me, also your instruction in its use. For this I owe you the debt of thanks. If I can repay it, I will."

  Then he slipped into the stream and was gone. A couple of those electric-shock appendages appeared briefly above the water, fluttering in the air almost as though he were saying good-by. Then nothing showed but those two knobby eye sockets and a pair of V-shaped ripples in the water, leaving Beert and me looking after him.

  Beert made that hissing sort of sigh. "He is a brave person," he informed me. I just nodded. I had formed that opinion of the Wet One myself-along with a fair amount of residual envy- and anyway, I had something else on my mind.

  Beert wasn't giving me much chance to bring it up. "As soon as I am finished in the laboratory," he said happily, "I must go to my cousins to talk to the Greatmother of the Eight Plus Threes, so that we may schedule a time when Mrrranthoghrow may operate the transit machine for him. I will send Pirraghiz to you, Dan."

  I swallowed and took the plunge. "There's one other thing," I said.

  "Yes?"

  "I've been thinking about what you said. You were right. So let's just forget about making that copy of Pat for me," I told him.

  Horch can't smile, don't have the facial muscles for it, but I could have sworn he was looking at me in an affectionate way. "It is forgotten, Dan. I am glad." And he gave my arm a gentle pat before he turned and hurried away.

  Listen, I'm only human. Get me depressed enough and you might see a person selfisher than you would have believed. But I didn't have to stay selfish all the time.

  PART SIX

  Fighting Back

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  There was another lesson that old drill instructor of mine had taught us, in between the pushups and the ten-kilometer runs. What she said was, "Listen, ass-holes. It's always better to do something than nothing, you hear me? If it don't do nothing else, it'll make you feel better."

  She was right. It did. My situation hadn't improved a hair in any tangible way, but I felt different. I felt for the first time that I was playing some part, however insignificant, in an action that might cause the Beloved Leaders some aggravation, even if only a little. Morale-wise, that was a big plus. It almost made me feel as though this interminable lonely life that stretched ahead of me might be worth living after all.

  So I decided to start looking for other ways to do the Others harm. I don't know exactly what I was thinking of. Maybe leading a charge of Horch fighting machines into some Beloved Leader stronghold, the way they had taken over the prison-planet base. But whatever I was going to do to the Others, the first step was to get to where the action was.

  Beert was the logical person to talk to on that subject, but he wasn't available. When he wasn't over in the Horch base to negotiate with the cousins, he was locked up in his workshop, making the changes in the Wet One's armament. I decided to pester Pirraghiz about it. She was in her room, sterilizing my chamber pot for me, and Mrrranthoghrow was with her.

  I hesitated in the doorway. Pirraghiz's room was no bigger than mine, but she had somehow found time to put in homey touches of her own: some of those tiny flowers in a planter, clothing neatly hung, her own much larger bed. She had turned the room into a very personal habitation and, belatedly, it crossed my mind that they might have preferred being alone in it.

  Apparently not. As soon as Pirraghiz saw me she waved me in with a spare arm. "Are you hungry?" she asked at once, but I shook my head. I wasn't looking for food.

  "I want to know about the Wet One," I said. I

  She looked surprised, but recited: "He is being sent back to his own planet, so that-"

  "I know that. Tell me how he's getting there."

  She looked at Mrrranthoghrow, who answered for her. "He will be transmitted on the captured transit machine of the Others, of course."

  "And how does he know how to get there?"

  "Ah," the Doc said, enlightened. "You want to know how the Wet One will find his way to his home. The Horch have been working on such problems ever since they occupied this base. Capturing a transit machine of the Others is very useful to them. Once we had it disassembled, the robots began tracing its channels."

  "That is the one great advantage the Horch have over the Others," Pirraghiz added. "The Others are very strong, but the Horch have in some cases been able to enter the Others' channels, while the Others have never been able to enter theirs."

  I mulled that over. I could see the strategic importance of that. "Does that mean there's a channel direct to the Wet One's planet?"

  "Of course not, Dannerman," Mrrranthoghrow said. "Not from this outpost. But there are channels to a nexus, which has many channels. One will take the Wet One to his destination."

  He was annoying me. "What is a 'nexus'?"

  "It is a sort of center where many channels come together," he said patiently. "In this case it is a large installation which also was captured from the Others. Now it belongs to the Horch. There was great damage in the fighting, but much of its equipment is intact-just as is the case here."

  "What kind of installation?"

  He gave me one of those massive shrugs. "I had no reason to ask such a question, Dannerman. I only know that it is much larger than this installation here."

  Pirraghiz had been silent, watching me, but then she spoke up. "Dannerman, I think you are jealous of the Wet One. Do you want to go with him?"

  I started to shake my head, then decided to admit it. "I think I could help him fight against the Others. I'm a lot better with those guns than he is."

  She made a clucking sound with those thin lips. "You would be discovered at once, Dannerman, and then you would die."

  "It's my risk to take!"

  "And his as well. His only hope is secrecy, Dannerman, and even so, he has very little chance to survive there. In company with someone as conspicuous as you, he would have no chance at all."

  I said stubbornly, "I'm going to ask Been if I can go along anyway. When will I see him?"

  She waved that off impatiently. "Soon. This afternoon, I think, but what is the use of that? He will simply say no."

  "And then I will ask him again, and keep on asking him, until he says yes. This is something I have to do. You don't understand what it's like not to be able to do anything for my friends."

  She sighed. "Do I not? I am jealous of the Wet One, too."

  I hadn't expected to hear that from her. "Because you'd like to try to rescue your own planet?" I guessed.

  "Rescue it? But we have no planet anymore, Dannerman. It is long destroyed. Our people no longer exist except as slaves of the Others, countless numbers of them, all over the universe." She sighed. "No. I am jealous because he has a home to return to." She paused, fingering her little amulet, and then added somberly, "Even though it is certain that he will see it only long enough to die there."

  I didn't want to accept what Pirraghiz said, but I couldn't get rid of the sneaking suspicion that she was right. Did it make any sense for me simply to get myself killed on some planet not even my own? Would it even inconvenience the Beloved Leaders at all?

  Logically I had to agree that it would not. But did I have any other way to strike a blow at t
hem? I couldn't think of any.

  I told Pirraghiz to call me when Beert was available and went back to my room, and what I did there was to put on that helmet again. Mrrranthoghrow had selected another set of taps on the bugged people on Earth for me, and I wanted to see them. I think maybe what I had in mind was to remind myself of what the Beloved Leaders were doing to my own people.

  It didn't work that way. The first person I saw was me, and what I was doing was flying out of a transit machine. And when the person whose eyes I was looking through turned, I saw Jimmy Lin and Dopey and a pair of Docs, and Rosaleen Artzybachova and Martin Delasquez and Pat. My Pat. Looking scared and worn and generally shook up, but looking mostly very good indeed to me.

  It didn't take me long to figure out where I was. I was in Starlab, and the bunch of us had just made our escape from the prison planet. It was Patrice who I was eavesdropping on-had to be, because she was the only one of us who was bugged at that time. But it was Pat I wanted to see and touch, and be with.

  I didn't switch to any other file. I stayed with that one. I listened to us congratulating ourselves on having got away from the damn Beloved Leaders, I watched myself destroy the transit machine so we couldn't be followed, I listened as I-that other I-called the Bureau on Starlab's ancient radio and painfully worked out a way of communicating with them that the rest of the world, and especially the Beloved Leaders, might not hear. With all the rest of the gang I got into the rickety old crew-rescue vehicle that had been berthed at Starlab since the last time any astronomer visited it. I stayed with them as its engines fired up and we started the long, bouncing, bucketing drop toward Earth, and I would have stayed a lot longer if I could, in spite of the fact that a suspicion was dawning in my mind.

  What stopped me in the end wasn't that I got tired of seeing Pat, or that that new thought needed to be pursued. It was Pirraghiz. "Dannerman? I have brought you some food. And Beert is here now, if you want to see him."

  I took the helmet off and blinked at her. She was taking little fruits and biscuits out of a coppery mesh bag and laying them before it. I ignored them. "Didn't you tell me that the transit machine on Starlab wasn't working anymore?"

  She blinked back at me. "Why, yes, Dannerman. That is so."

  "That's what I thought," I said-the other possibility having been that that other Dannerman hadn't done as thorough a job of destruction as he thought. "All right, let's go. I want to see Beert right away."

  "To ask him if you can throw your life away with the Wet One? At least take the meal with you," she said, scooping it all back into the bag. As she handed it to me she said, "It is a foolish idea, and he will surely say no."

  "You might be right," I agreed. "But maybe I have a better idea now."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When I knocked on the laboratory door Beert let me in at once. "Look here," he said, neck and arms awriggle. "I have taken your advice. Give me one of the ammunition carriers."

  That last part was aimed at his Christmas tree, not me. The thing was hovering over a workbench, littered with the usual cryptic array of gadgets. The robot immediately picked one up and brought it over to hand to Beert. Who handed it happily to me. It was heavy. It was also streamlined and curved, like the other things Beert was attaching to the Wet One, and it had the same clamp arrangement to hold it in place. Which meant, I thought, that the Wet One would have had more sockets carved into his flesh. I admired his dedication. "See," Beert was saying proudly, reaching to touch the thing in my hand, "this release will fit the Wet One's digits. It is this button here; he needs only to touch it and it flies open." Beert did. It did, revealing half a dozen gleaming clips for the twenty-shot. "Also there are eight sixteens of additional clips and several others of the projectile weapons in those containers there-" gesturing at a pair of oblong boxes of that same rubbery material-"but those he will not be able to carry with him. Perhaps he can hide them somewhere, and come back to them when they are needed."

  His little head was close to mine, the curly eyelashes fluttering excitedly. He was waiting for a compliment, I thought, so I obliged. "That's fine," I said, and glanced at the hovering robot. "Can you turn that thing off?" I asked.

  Beert pulled his head away to regard me. "But I have told you, Dan, there is nothing to fear from this machine-"

  I reached out and caught his neck, pulling his head toward me so that I could whisper. "I want to ask you about something I don't want the cousins to hear. I don't want that thing listening."

  Beert went suddenly tense. He didn't pull away, as he easily could have, and I felt his warm breath on my face as he thought that over. "This robot does not interface with the others, as I have told you."

  "Please, Beert."

  He sighed. "Go into inactive mode," he ordered the Christmas tree. Then to me, warningly, "Dan, you recall what the Greatmother said to us. We do not agree with the cousins in all things, but they are still Horch."

  "I don't want to harm the cousins. I just want a favor from you, and I think it is better if they don't know about it." I hesitated, looking at the Christmas tree, needles retracted, immobile- but could it still hear? I had to hope not. So I began. "Check me out on this, Beert. When the Wet One goes he won't be heading for his home planet; he'll be going to something they call a 'nexus,' where there are all sorts of channels that belong to the Others."

  "Yes?"

  "That's true, then? And another thing. When I was using the helmet I saw something funny," I went on. "I was in Patrice's mind, and we were in Starlab. I saw myself destroy the transit machine there. But I didn't lose contact even after it was destroyed. I think that means that there's another transit machine somewhere nearby that's still working-I don't know where. Maybe in the scout ship that found Earth in the first place? But still working, anyway, and somehow or other you're still tapping into that channel, I guess from this nexus."

  "Yes, yes," Beert said testily. "I suppose all that is so, but I still do not know what favor you want of me."

  And then he took a deep breath, because Beert was not a stupid being. By then he did know.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It took a lot of persuasion, and he fought me all the way. "Transmit you to this scout ship? But you do not know for sure even that it exists! The one that visited your planet's system may be long gone on some other errand."

  "Or," I said doggedly, "it may not. At least there's some sort of contact, and what else could it be?"

  "Oh, Dan," he said, sorrowful though sympathetic, "do you know what you ask? I do not believe the cousins would permit it."

  "That's why I don't want them to know about it. But I give you my word, I mean no harm at all to the cousins."

  "What about harm to yourself? A ship of the Others is not like your tiny Starlab orbiter. Such ships are quite large, and they are well guarded. There will be fighters of the Others standing by at the transit machine, watchful that they may be invaded by the cousins as this base was."

  "I know. Pirraghiz told me all about the Others' ships."

  "Then you also know that they will kill you as soon as you appear."

  I shrugged. "Maybe I can kill them first."

  "More likely you cannot, Dan," he scoffed. "You? Alone against well-armed fighters?"

  "Oh," I said, "we Earth people have a pretty good combat record. Pirraghiz said so herself."

  He waggled his neck at me reprovingly, then tried a different tack. "And even if they do not kill you, what can you accomplish? Do you think you can simply leap through space from the scout ship to your planet?"

  "Whatever I can do, it will be more than I can do sitting here in your jail."

  That silenced him for a moment. "I do not think of myself as your jailer, Dan," he said sorrowfully.

  "Then set me free!"

  He was silent again for quite a while, his head swerving indecisively about-darting toward the immobile robot as though about to start it up again, returning to search my face at close range.

  While
I-

  I was estimating the distance to the nearest workbench.

  I could see that there were all sorts of things there that I thought the Bureau's techs would have liked to play with. More immediately important, I saw a sort of chisel, a pink ceramic blade with a handle shaped for Beert's grip, not mine. But I thought I could hold it well enough in a pinch. What's more, I was pretty sure that the blade could cut right through that sinewy neck of his.

  Well, let me make that clear. I certainly wasn't intending to kill Beert. I was merely hoping that he would believe I would, once I put the knife to his throat. The real question was whether threatening his life would force him to help me.

  I wasn't proud of myself for thinking of taking a knife to a being who had befriended me. I wasn't even sure that I could bring myself to do it. But then I thought of what awaited my whole world-including Pat-and I inched a bit closer to the workbench.

  Finally Beert gave one of his whispery sighs. "I do not see that this would directly threaten the interests of the cousins," he said reluctantly, "though perhaps it is better if they are not consulted. But even if I were willing to do what you wish, I do not know how to do it."

  Well, I did. Or hoped I did, anyway. "When you transmit the Wet One to this nexus, transmit me too." I had been thinking it all out, as far as I could, and I laid it all out for Beert. The Horch in this nexus probably could find a channel to the scout ship for me. If not, at least to whatever Beloved Leaders relay station was passing on the data from the bugged humans. If they could find the channel, presumably they could use it to send me there. And then I would take my chances.

  Beert listened in brooding silence, then finally raised his serpentine arms to stop me. He said somberly, "Do you know, Dan, I was sure that, if I helped you at all, sooner or later you would ask me to do something that the cousins had not approved."