02. The Shadow Dancers (35 page)

It turned out they had a real setup here. One of the huts had a communal shower with real hot water-it looked like they collected rainwater, purified, and stored it-and toilets. Not our kind, but waterless round types that somehow got rid of the stuff with a chemical spray. Every time you went you had to wash off in the shower, though; nobody thought to pack toilet paper.

The third contained your basic headquarters roughin'-it kitchen, which was a bunch of gadgets that stored food in these funny boxes, then you stuck 'em, box and all, into one of these compartments or another dependin' on if they matched the symbols on the box, waited until a bell rung, and took 'em out. Some was hot, some cold, and others at room temperature, but while we didn't recognize much of what we ate it didn't taste all that bad and the juice approved.

They stuck us in this little hut that was furthest away from the bathroom, but that figured. It wasn't much-a woven straw mat floor, one bed that was barely a double that seemed to be just a big air mattress covered in some soft stuff and all blown up at one end to form a kinda pillow, plus a bowl if you wanted to get water from the supply and keep it handy, and that was it. We waited to take our showers after them, and stuck our nice, new clothes in to soak, although we kinda figured we'd never get that stink out.

None of the others bothered with no clothes 'cept Carlos, who put on some kind of flowered ankle-length skirt and
belt. We figured he was both bein' modest as the only man in the world and also it looked right on him, like the kind of thing his people wore wherever they was.

They mostly ignored us and let us do our own thing 'cept for a few hours after we arrived when Carlos and Addison called us into the big hut and he gave us each a cup of some dark liquid. "Drink it-all of it," he ordered.

It tasted lousy goin' down, but after a little while it really revved us up. We went through our needs and routines extra long and extra hard that day, then just dropped into sleep. It wasn't till the next day that Brandy Two said, "We didn't get no juice last night."

"Huh? 'Course we did, 'cause I feel fine."

"We didn't get it. We should both be well into withdrawal right now, but we're fine. I'm even a little higher than usual. You?"

"The same." I got puzzled. This wasn't possible-was it? Not that we kicked it. We hadn't. It was all there, all the same, only we didn't get no jolt and we both felt cheated by it, even a little let down. No super high at all for the first time in almost a year. No mellow comedown. Nothin'. The juice was still runnin' our bodies and our routines okay, but it was kinda on its own.

Later that day, the juice made that same shit in the cup taste like the world's most wonderful wine. "This is it, huh? This is the stuff?"

He nodded. "Not a lab production, though. It is the product of a plant. A very common plant in certain areas. The locals in the world where it grows call it something like ogroppa, or that is as close as we can come to a name that is part word, part grunt. Literally speaking, the name means 'rainbow weed,' since it is quite colorful. It is their staple, as we use maize, rice, bread, or potatoes. Its chemical composition is quite complex and unique to any botany I have known. Even this world's strange plants are distant relatives to ones in our worlds, but this seems to be a crossover between the botany of basic humanity and the botany of the other sentient peoples who are out along the boundaries of Type Two. At some point, a common organism that was parasitic on higher animals in that world moved into the lifeform that are humans there, and a strange relationship
developed among a viral organism, a plant, and the humans of that world. The plant will grow most anywhere except in the Arctic and immediate subarctic regions, deserts, and above roughly two thousand meters. The natives take it for granted and have never related it to this parasite inside them, which becomes a symbiont with the plant. They do not even understand that there is anything inside them at all."

"They ain't real clever, huh?" Brandy Two asked.

"Oh, they have the same potential as we do, but this shapes their development. They do not get sick, therefore they have not developed real medicine and biology as we know it. They are excellent farmers and herdsmen, but high mountain barriers, stretches of desert, and wide seas limit them, as the plant will not travel well or for very long without going bad. They are a generally happy people; they have a rich art and folklore tradition, and some remarkable cities similar to those of the ancient native American empires or those of the early Middle East. They progress, but they are not very ambitious. As you can guess, they have a great deal of sex, but they reproduce very slowly. Females there ovulate only a couple of times a year. The only reason you have this irrepressible sex urge is that it thinks you are one of them; it senses potential reproduction almost constantly in you, and not being smart or clever it acts."

"But there ain't no super high with this shit!" I protested. "That ain't fair, when you got to do all the other stuff."

"You will always want it, but we think you will get used to this. We will take specimens and samples from you daily, from now on. Otherwise, you are free to roam about. Later, when we begin to move, you will gain even more freedom."

"Hold on," I said. "You say you knew 'bout this whole thing, this plant, long ago? Then why all this exper-imentin'?"

"The biochemical problem is, I think, beyond you. It has to do with the way in which the plant's molecules are constructed. The architecture is very alien to what we understand now, and we haven't had the resources of the Corporation or institutions like the Center. Its own requirements for growth and development are not understood. It
grows in most Type Zero and all Type One worlds, and looks chemically identical to the original, yet it will not interact with the symbiont. This is the first one that tested out in the lab for interaction, only a week ago. You two are telling me whether it is functionally identical to the parent."

So that was it. They couldn't use Vogel's world no more, 'cause we blew it before they made their breakthrough. And they couldn't test it on them shadow dancers, 'cause that was their own and needed for the plot. They could make more addicts, but that'd require them importin' more juice when the heat was on, and that wouldn't tell them nothin' 'bout long-time addicts. So they had Brandy Two left over from their idea of switchin' for me, and they had me, so we was handy. Guinea pigs, just like Sam said.

It wasn't a hundred percent, but where it failed it wasn't no pain. Some times you just had so much energy you had to burn it off; other times, you got real droopy and just sorta lay around lazily and tripped a little on raindrops or clouds or grass or somethin', just starin' for hours. I could see why they was good artists; probably would blow mean jazz, too.

You really ached for that jolt and high, but we both knew deep down that Carlos was right. We'd always want it, but we didn't
need
it. We was on our own form of methadone.

After we'd get into our horny fever pitch and go at it, Carlos would be there takin' vaginal samples and scrapin's. Took me a couple days to figure out what he was lookin' for, and took him about ten days to find it. In the meantime, Addison left for someplace, come back briefly once, then left again. She was back about four days after Carlos made his discovery, and this time there wasn't no doubt I guessed right all down the line. She didn't have no disguise on, and she was gorgeous.

"I can't believe that's the same girl," my twin remarked. "Jesus! She even turns
me
on and I'm sick of doin' it with women-nothin' personal."

"I know what you mean." Did I
ever!
"They got this, they ain't never gonna have ta go back to the origin world, though. We're dead-ended and it should be clear by now. I can't figure why nobody's moved."

"You
sure
that Sam was your man? I mean,
real
sure?"

"Sure as I can be," I replied without much hesitation. "You heard him and saw him. They wouldn't'a had much prep time to get him ready, and they didn't have Sam under a hypnoscan like they did you and me. I don't think he could have faked it. Besides, even if they coulda, I just
felt
it. I couldn't explain it, I just
felt
it."

"I thought I did, too. He loves you an awful lot, sister. An awful lot. And this hurt him real bad."

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

Addison seemed both nervous and excited when she came over to see us. "Come. Get into the clothing I have brought for you. After all this time, we are finally beyond the testing and the skulking."

She brought two of the sari and sandal combinations common to the world of headquarters, and they fit just fine. Addision, Carlos, and Aeii also got new clothes, but with an added touch. Each had a small, light, but real nasty-lookin' gun. You wasn't real sure how it worked or what it shot, but no matter how futuristic it was, I could recognize a machine gun when I saw one. They checked 'em out, but then put them in a carryin' bag which Carlos carried for now. Clearly you didn't want to be seen with them things when you reached a switch point.

"You two will stay close to each other at all times," she warned us, "and give no warnings or alarms. Come."

Carlos killed the protection gizmo and we walked out. I dunno how that thing guarded when nobody was there; I guess they had some kind of switch down at the Labyrinth entrance.

Carlos carried with him a gadget I'd heard the Company dudes call a forcer, a small but impressive-lookin' little machine that could force a weak point open, briefly, to gain entrance to the Labyrinth from a world at that weak point or to maintain a small signal so that you could do it with the right code the other way. It made safe worlds like this one possible, and I bet that the bright boy who invented it spent the rest of his life wishin' he hadn't.

We got cubin' okay, but the thing looked weak, unsteady, and not too big. Even so, we stepped into it and everybody made it. We walked immediately down one to the switch
point, which was bein' handled by a guy in a red uniform who had a face sorta like an orangutan. "Headquarters, security clearance-" and then she gave one of them words or phrases in the headquarters language. Ape-face checked his board, then made a kinda circle with his face which I guess was the same as a nod, and replied through the translator, "Very well. The male, however, is not cleared. Do you wish me to call in for special clearance?"

"That will not be necessary," she replied, real cool now like she usually was. "Only two of us will enter, the rest will remain in a holding cube until we take care of our matter."

"Very well. Cleared in. Specify the two to go at the final switch control point."

We kept goin', wonderin' just what was goin' on. Headquarters? It didn't make no sense. We couldn't take no guns in, and if I guessed right 'bout what this was all leadin' up to, neither Brandy Two or me was much good there. It was a real surprise, then, when we got to the final security checkpoint and Addison specified herself and me to go in.

And suddenly I figured what we was doin', and I got real scared.

We got cleared all right, but when we got to the entry cube and she motioned for the others to wait, I refused to move. That got 'em a little mad, but confused 'em, too. Finally Carlos reached in the gun bag and I thought he was gonna shoot one of us to pet the other in, but instead he brought out a pair of them little headsets, givin' one to Addison and one to me, so we could talk to each other.

"What is your problem?" she asked, nervous and irritated. "I won't leave you there."

"Don't make no difference. Once we do this, I figure you don't need us no more. I might just as well yell 'security' once I'm inside as come back out with you and get dumped in some world where they ain't got no juice or no weed or nothin'. If I'm gonna die I'd rather it be with a gun, here and now, then slow from withdrawal, and we know too damn much to be stuck someplace with a pile of the stuff."

"I thought of that," she told me. "Look, right now you are registered in the log as coming in with me, and you will be registered going out and at every switch point from then on. They may never make the connection that there's
something odd about it, but we can't take that chance. If we could, there are other ways to force you to do this. After this, we will take you up to the origin world, the world where the thing is natural and the rainbow weed runs wild. It's no paradise, and the people aren't quite human, but there are a few other humans stuck there-men, too-so you will survive. After we have taken over, we will come to liberate all of you, as you will be very useful when we begin to reform the other worlds. Now, come. They will grow suspicious if we wait too long."

I wasn't too sure whether to believe her or not, but I figured I had very little to lose now that the point was made. I went through with her into the entry chamber. We stripped down, got sterilization baths and super scans and everything, then got cleared to come on back, take that little code verification test on the combination eye and scale gadget, then walked into reception. The small staff was there with new clothes like before, and we had no trouble walkin' from there to the high-speed elevator and up to the surface station.

"You're takin' a real risk with this, ain't you?" I whispered to her.

"It had to be done and I had to see it. There was no other way. Now, I will make my call on mundane business from here and we will exit and rejoin the others."

"You mean what you said back there?"

"Why not? Soon you will be joined by many more, from all the worlds the Company now exploits." And, with that, she made her call. I don't know to who or why, but I figured it was some routine thing not at all connected to our business, though I thought it might have been a code call to her high-class lover that all was goin' well.

It was over quick enough, and we made our way back down. The way out was on a different floor from the way in, and not nearly so complicated. You just had a code check, to make sure nobody was sneakin' out who shouldn't be, and then you stepped into the Labyrinth that was always on at this end.