02. The Shadow Dancers (14 page)

I wanted Sam, bad. I needed him. More, I needed just to know that he was still alive. That had been one hell of a bang, and I don't think they was the ones who triggered it.

Turned out, too, that Vogel wasn't out of the woods, neither, 'cause he didn't dare use much of his influence for anything that might get his location reported back to someplace where it could be noted by our people. He did, however, have money. That helicopter was outfitted partly as a permanent getaway car, complete with fake and convincin' Nazi IDs and a fair amount of money. He just got a charge out of using me instead when he could. Still, he couldn't keep outta notice and with farms and real small towns forever; he was gettin' nervous 'bout his own people here now. Three days after we set out, he made for this real hot, dry, dusty desert place with big, tall, purple mountains in the distance. There musta been mining there sometime long ago, 'cause on the desert floor but up against the mountains there was this tiny, broke-down ghost town. Not much, about a half dozen buildin's that looked worse than any slum.

He picked the place well. Nobody, not even no roads, around for a hundred miles, a hot baked nothin' of a place, but with a kind of sandy ground that showed every track around. Ain't nobody been 'round that place in a long time, I thought.
He's gonna get away with it!
I thought in somethin' of a panic.
That fucking son of a bitch is gonna do it, and take me with him!
I knew where he was headin'- sorta. There was all sorts of time lines in which people just never developed at all, or anything else, for that matter, that could think. Some of 'em was right in the middle of otherwise populated worlds, and some had been rigged up by bigwigs both in the Corporation and by traitors to it as safe worlds.

Vogel no longer even worried about me, even when I wasn't Beth. Truth was, even though I had my full knowledge and identity, most times, more and more I just was
actin' and thinkin' like Beth 'cause it didn't do no good to fight. The longer we kept from bein' caught by anybody, the harder it was to fight it. My last hope, the shit still in that tooth compartment, was dashed 'cause whenever I was under that kind of sexual thing Beth took over. It might as well not be there.

Vogel left me there while he checked out the buildings, bein' as cautious and sure as he could. He came back and pointed. "There's a trail up to an old mine there. Get the supply basket, particularly the water, and come with me."

I got it, although it was heavy and a little awkward.

That trail wasn't much these days, particularly for bare feet and carryin' that basket, but I kept up with him. It was a long way up from the town and hot and dry as could be, and Vogel stopped every once in a while and had me bring him a bottle to drink. He didn't give me none 'though I was dry as hell, and I was so far gone by that point it never even occurred to me to take a drink without permission. It wasn't until we was halfway there that he let me have the last half of a warm beer he was drinkin'. It was a strong brew on a mostly empty stomach on a hot day and I got feelin' a little high from it.

We was high, too. Lookin' down the helicopter was far enough below that it was blurry to me, and everything beyond was too blurred to see. On top of everything else, my vision treatments was wearin' off fast and I was goin' back to bein' legally blind without no glasses. We finally reached the ledge where the mine entrance was-more broke-down timbers and an old musty hole-and he let me have another beer and he had the last one.

"I put in this substation myself several years ago. Just me and three others, none of whom lived to tell of its existence," Vogel said. "It's a known weak spot, but the Company ignored it because it was clearly inside a mountain. They didn't know about this mine."

I giggled, feelin' pretty drunk on only one and a half beers. "Dat damn thecurity juth as fulla holes as always was," I muttered, more to myself than to Vogel. "But if you on the squah wit' th' Comp'ny, den why you build dis at all?"

"A good question, so I'll answer it. Graft, mostly. Most
stationmasters need a little just to do their jobs. That hypnoscan, for example, was wonderful for insuring loyalty and changing minds, but it's illegal here. Places like this make getting that kind of thing possible. I haven't had to use it in years, though. There are better methods. It's handy now."

He got up. "Stand up and stick close to me. Get me the flashlight out of the basket and hand it to me. We're going to leave this burning hellhole."

I got up and followed him into the mine. It was dirty and dingy but almost immediately it was cooler. The flashlight lit up the place, but it was still bad lookin'. It went in and then curved around and down a bit. Some of them rafters was real old, and every once in a while some dirt and stuff would come down on or around us.

There was an old iron gate at the end of it, with a thick, rusted lock on it. Vogel didn't have the key, but he didn't need it. With my help the whole gate came free, lock, door, and all, and we put it to one side. Beyond that was a bunch of machinery, painted black so it didn't show, and Vogel turned it on. Just beyond in the tunnel, there was a sound like an electric motor whine, then a pulsing, and then he threw another set of switches and the Labyrinth line appeared, then did its usual thing of dividin' and dividin' again.

For a minute I had a thought. Once in there, I had a place to run-anyplace but out into one of the other worlds. Just to a switch point. He wouldn't dare follow but so far. 'Course, he had the gun, but I still figured it was worth the chance. Vogel, unfortunately, had the same idea.

He grabbed the basket, moved some stuff, and came up with the arm and leg chains. My hopes sank. No way I was gonna dodge bullets wearin'
those.
If I'd'a known he put them in there, or had my full wits in me, I'd'a chucked them things.

He turned to me, his back to the Labyrinth, and turned me around and pulled my hands behind me. He fixed the chains, then turned-and looked straight into two mean-lookin' guys with big, fancy guns.

He turned back and saw two more guys with guns blockin' our way back out again. He grabbed me and put me in front of him, back against the wall, pistol out. This was one tough dude.

"Stay back or she's dead!" he shouted. "You let me through and I'll give her back to you!"

"You're in no position to deal, Vogel," said one of the men who had to have come in through the Labyrinth. "The idea was to get
you.
It was her job, too, and in a way she did the job anyway. Kill her and you have no leverage. Shoot any of us and we'll have to try and shoot you even if it's right through her."

"Oh, great," I muttered. He had one hand on his pistol, the other wrapped around the chain holding my hands in back of me. Freak-out Beth was nowhere around now. She couldn't handle this kinda situation. Me, it took two seconds to figure the odds-either we'd be there a long time, or Vogel would shoot and take his chances. He wasn't the type to surrender peacefully or they wouldn't'a needed me in the first place.

Using all my muscle power, I twisted my body and fell to the stone floor. Vogel, his hand wrapped in the chain, had no choice but to fall with me. His gun went off, and the shot ricocheted all over the place, but if it hit anybody it wasn't clear. They was on him in a minute, tossin' the gun away and haulin' him up back to his feet none too gentle. One of the men from in back, the entrance side, ran forward to me.

"Brandy! My God! You all right?"

"Tham!" I managed, and then we was huggin' and kissin' and both of us was cryin'. One of the men found the key to the chains and gave it to Sam, who undid them and handed them over. The leg chains got put on Vogel; they had plain old handcuffs for his hands.

"How did you-?" I managed.

"We didn't foresee this kind of getaway," he told me, "but we still had the monitor on to your encoder so we could tell when you went into the Safe Room and start the show. All of a sudden the thing went nuts, and we got a reading of straight up and over. We got everybody back and radioed the men in the station to get back in the Labyrinth. Most of them made it. We followed you by land for a while but it wasn't possible, and by the time we got something in
the air you were out of range. We've been going nuts trying to find you ever since."

He helped me up. I was still shaky and I knew I was gonna have a bunch of bruises. "Den how did-dis place . . .?"

"Every world where the Company has a station they have satellites to monitor communications and general conditions. Back home, ours can read a newspaper. Theirs can find all the encoded people and give a fix. He led a real zigzag route over two thirds of the country and he was real clever about it, but when we got two fixes on this spot we knew he had to be heading here, even though we didn't have it down as a possible. He couldn't use Oregon or Mendoci-no, the only other two possibilities over here, because we had them covered. It had to be here. We got here about an hour before you did-close-but time enough to radio back to Bill in Oregon and have him monitor the weak point on the Labyrinth side while Sergei and I staked this place out."

"Den why didn't you take him when we git heah?"

"First, we wanted him-and you-alive. This was the least risky. And we didn't really know where the substation was until we followed you up. We figured the tunnel was the best bet. You saw how he was even in here. Figure the odds if we'd tried to take him in the open."

It made sense. "Den-it's ovah? I kin get back to tawkin' normal?"

"It's over, babe. Let's go back to the doc and then home and collect. I figure they owe us a cool five million smackers. Haji-lead the way! We want
out!"

Bye-bye Beth. It's for your own good, too.

The two men from the Labyrinth side led the way, with Sergei and Sam and me bringin' up the rear and a very sour-lookin' Vogel in the middle. It felt real
good
to see
him
in chains. A coupla times we passed windows out to worlds that looked right for him and I half expected him to make a break for it, but he didn't.

We made a coupla switch points on the way back to headquarters and I was feelin'
good.
Fact was, the man had been right-they got Vogel 'cause Vogel had me. The crazy
thing was, if I had made any kinda break for it, or if he'd dumped me and gone it alone, he
might
just have made it out. He was just so damned arrogant that he was gonna break this uppity nigress that he never thought of this kind of trackin'.

We was in the main line now, almost home. Most of the world pictures mirrored to us looked a lot like headquarters.

They hit us first with a concussion grenade that knocked everybody silly, then came at us from the sides and top. I don't know how many there were, I was feelin' so groggy from the concussion, but I looked up and saw bodies everywhere and the flashes of guns we couldn't hear but could kill just the same. The concussion grenade didn't make no noise, neither, but it was like a big fist knockin' us flat.

There were six of them-I got the sense of both men and women, all dressed in black and hooded and with firearms. Our people managed to get two of 'em, but the others looked around and started firm' at random into just about everybody. I saw the whole thing like it was slow motion; I saw Sam jump as one of the black-masked killers brought his gun around on me and jump the guy from the front. I saw the flash and then saw part of Sam's head explode in blood and he was knocked down right on top of me. I guess they figured they got me, too, 'cause they lit out on the run to the next cubes and out of my sight.

Sam was a bloody mess and he looked as dead as the others, but I thought I saw some signs of life there. There was a switching cube just three back and I figured the best thing I could do to save what lives there was to save was to make it back there and get help on the double.

We wondered how the big man was gonna take Vogel put, and now we knew. It made perfect sense in 20-20 hindsight. Vogel was to be hauled to headquarters. They knew just where in the Labyrinth he'd have to pass, and, most of all, they knew it was us just twenty minutes or so after we nabbed him. I didn't think of anything like that right then, just Sam.

The last thing I expected out of this was for
me
to be the survivor.

5.

Just One More for Sam

I will say they came right quick-almost top quick, I remember thinkin'. I couldn't help wonderin' if some of them folks gettin' to the dead and dyin' and gettin' emergency medical and transport through the Labyrinth wasn't some of the same folks who done the shootin'. A security alert went out for all of 'em up and down the line, and nobody not authorized or unexpected came past either switch point. Now, sure, there was a lot of worlds goin' toward the headquarters junction, but these people had to know the Labyrinth, have almost unlimited access to it, and have some kind of communications that allowed them to know, at three different substation points, just when to jump in and jump us.

They not only had vehicles in the Labyrinth when they wanted them, they had at least one that was a small hospital all by itself, but Sam was the only one they loaded in and he didn't look long for this world. They pumped so many bullets into Vogel's fat head that it wasn't nothin' but a grease spot, but then they went and shot everybody else. They shot me, too, it turned out, only I didn't even notice until they rushed to give me medical help. The bullet tore a nasty gash right in my left side, but it didn't hit nothin' fatal or even cripplin'.

By the time this little scopterlike thing with a seat on it come for me, Sam and the big medical truck was long gone. All I wanted to do now was to follow them, to be with him at the last. Last thing I wanted was Sam dyin' without me there.

So help me, they still made us go through the whole routine at the entrance to headquarters, although I was
okay. The best medical knowledge anywhere was just inside, but I wondered how long it took 'em to test Sam and spray their damned rays before they got him where he had to go.