02. The Shadow Dancers (8 page)

"Identification and purpose, please," came a real boom-in' man's voice from all 'round us, kinda like the Voice of God. I jumped.

"Bill Markham, Brandy Horowitz, Sam Horowitz, on Security Committee business. We are expected."

"Remove and drop all clothing and anything else brought with you to the floor and stand at least arm's length from one another," the Voice commanded.

"I wondered why we didn't even bring a suitcase," Sam muttered.

"He means
everything?"
I asked, seein' Bill already droppin' his pants in public.

"Everything," Markham replied. "Except for special communications channels and the area for cargo quarantine and inspection, nothing is allowed in or out. Don't worry-we'll get new clothes when this is done."

"But what 'bout my glasses?" I protested. "I'm damned near blind without 'em."

"Those, too, I'm afraid. They'll fix you up when we get through."

Well, I never was all that shy, so in a little while there the three of us were, stark naked, and spread out in a room that reflected us in all directions into forever. I couldn't see none too good-even Sam was a little blurry and he was closest -but I could see what happened next.

Suddenly the place was filled with a whole series of colored lights. They didn't feel like nothin', but one or two tickled some, and they seemed to come like see-through globs of color from all the mirrors. The first one was kinda lavender, then pink, then purple, and there was reds and blues, too. Then they switched off, and the mirrors did, too. Now it was a creamy white all 'round us, and I looked and our clothes and stuff was gone. I didn't know how they did that and I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

A part of one wall went back with a little whine, and we followed Bill through into a second room. This one was kinda warm and had real plush furry brown carpeting on it and a gizmo that looked like a cross between a doctor's scale
and an eye doctor's gadget. Bill stepped up on it, stood straight, and looked through the two lenses of the thing. I really couldn't see the thing much till I was led up to it by Sam. I looked through it, then got a sudden little flash in my eyes, and that was it.

"Well, that done it," I muttered. "Now they've gone and made me completely blind."

"It'll wear off," Bill promised. "It's not as much as a flashbulb. This thing is a final check of our identity. They know who we are, and they can take a basic code reading even at the switch points, but this is detailed to the last billionth of a millimeter. This thing makes absolutely sure that you're not only Brandy but the Brandy they expect to see and no other. Nobody has ever fooled it. The encoder implanted in you long ago is almost like a tiny, microscopic computer, and it even monitors and records changes in your body as they happen. Never mind the rest," he said, seein' my blank look. "Just believe that the best and brightest of security, computers, and electronics have tried to fool this system and never have."

When Sam got his okay, he took my hand and another one of them doors appeared. This one actually had some people there, two men and a woman. They was kinda blurry to me, but they looked both human and not real human, dressed in some kind of satiny clothing. They had one for me, a kind of sari that went on real neat and fastened without no buttons or snaps or anything. Funny thing was, though, it kept me up, big tits and all, even though it seemed kinda soft and, well,
breakable.
It was cream colored and felt a lot like silk. They also had sandals that were so light you hardly knew they was there, but held with only one small strap that also seemed to know its place all by itself.

They also handed me a pair of real thin, light plastic glasses that also looked kinda shiny, and I put 'em on and at first couldn't see no change 'cept everything was tinted a little bit rosy. The longer I wore 'em, though, the clearer I could see, till in a little bit I was seein' better than I ever did with my regular glasses.

I could see the people of headquarters real clear. The best way I can describe their complexion is
golden,
deep but real
goldlike, not just yellow or light brown. They had thick lips and them Japanese kind of eyes, and looked kinda Oriental, but not really. Their eyes all seemed to be jet black and kinda shiny, and their hair was all thick, dark brown. None of 'em seemed to have any face or body hair 'cept, of course, on their heads, and I guessed that none of the men ever needed to shave, nor the women, neither.

They wasn't small like the Chinese and Japanese usually are, but about average height. The girl was maybe a little taller than me, the men both about six two or three. What really hit me when lookin' at 'em was that none of 'em seemed to have a single mark or zit or nothin', now or in the past. All three seemed to be teenagers, but their skin was soft and smooth and
unworn
as a baby's. The girl wore a sari pretty much like mine, but of satiny crimson with golden designs in it. The two men wore a different kind of getup, kinda like a cross between what you wear for your judo lessons and what the politicians wear in all them Roman Empire movies. You know, the kind where the guys wear skirts and still look real normal.

Both the men and the girl were
gorgeous,
too. They had the kind of looks everybody always dreams of but nobody ever has.

I looked over at Sam and Bill and had to laugh. They was both bein' dressed in cream-colored versions of what the golden boys had on and somehow it just didn't look the same with their white skin and hairy legs.

Sam gave me a look but Bill just chuckled and said, "Don't worry, Sam. Since everybody wears these things here, you'll get used to it."

One of the golden boys said somethin', and the girl nodded and also said somethin', both in a kinda soft, pleasant, singsong kinda voice. The words didn't sound like nothin' human, and I knew I for one could never make them notes.

"I think we're being told to move on," Markham told us. "Their language is unique and nearly impossible to learn or even understand. I think their vocal equipment includes a few things ours doesn't, but don't worry. They do that for their security, too. The folks we'll be with will have been prepped and know English by now, at least as long as they
need to. I can assure you, too, we've been observed by security, both people and machines, since we came in the entry room and
they
understand English quite well, or any other language."

"Quite right, sir," said a man's voice from another of them doors that just opened. We looked over and saw him come in, wearin' the same kind of Roman-karate outfit as the rest, but he looked a little different. For one thing, he looked older, though not
real
old and real good for his age, and his clothes seemed fancy and tailored even if they was the same style. He also had two gold-plated thick watches, one on each arm, or at least they
looked
like watches. He went up and shook Bill's hand.

"Folks," Markham said, "May I present Executor Aldrath Prang. My boss. These are the Horowitzes."

He shook Sam's hand then took and kissed mine. It was kinda sensual and neat. He got right to the point, though, in a neutral American-type accent that coulda been from anywheres. I guessed he learned it all by machine.

"We must go quickly," he told us. "We need to allow others in and I really would like to get you out to Vice President Mayar's estate as quickly and quietly as possible for security reasons. The fewer who know you're here, the better. We don't want any slips."

I could agree with
that
tune. "What about them here?" I asked, suddenly gettin' a little nervous. I didn't bargain for no public sessions here at headquarters.

"Everybody you'll meet outside the estate works for me," Aldrath Prang assured me. "They get their minds probed and cleaned so often they don't think of it as anything more of a big deal than taking a shower. Now-come."

We made it over to an elevatorlike contraption, but you didn't have no feelin' you was goin' up or down. One last security precaution, I guessed, and this Executor read my mind.

"All the weak points are well covered and blocked," he told us. "All but this one, which happens to be very deep inside a mountain of granite and basalt. Even if somebody managed to infiltrate and blow their way through and capture the station, it would do no good. They can't get into the world any way but one, and we control that from the
surface. It's nothing personal, but it's somewhat ironic that we must isolate ourselves pretty much from any universe but our own even as we master the others. All our records are here, all the knowledge is here, all the computer controls and administration are here. Our culture is also very tight and devoted to our mission, and we dare not have it polluted lest some culture without our sense of responsibility come in and take control."

"You mean you never leave this world?" Sam asked, amazed.

"I don't, no. Particularly not me, although I was out when I was younger and didn't know too much. Some of our people go out, of course, particularly when they're young and idealistic or ambitious. We have research projects all over the place, and special needs and interests, and it's essential that those who will have the responsibility of running the Labyrinth and the Corporation get a sense and feel for just what we're dealing with-not just its size and complexity, but its differences. You see, there's been no disease here of any kind for generations. That's why you received a sterilization treatment among others when you arrived. It kills any microorganism that might be harmful to us and at the same time virtually halts mutation, freezing in place those which our bodies must have to help in digestion, for example. There also hasn't been a war here in thousands of years now, nor any kind of unpredicted natural disaster, nor famine nor in fact even real crime as you think of it, except for crimes of passion."

We saw. A whole world of peace and plenty with none of the dirty shit. If you just grew up here, and lived here your whole life, how would you ever be able to understand them other worlds, let alone make decisions that might cost lives? If you ain't never felt no pain or sufferin' or misery firsthand, if your idea of bein' hungry is that you're stuck in a city after all the restaurants are closed, if you never had nobody look at you funny 'cause your skin was black or you talked funny, then how you gonna understand the problems and see the big picture. Not that these folks would care in the end if they killed a bunch if it was for somethin' they wanted, but at least they had to look into the faces of some of the folks they'd be doin' in.

They'd been at this a long, long time.

We got to the surface and saw that the whole place had been cleared for us. We walked across a kinda lobby area that looked like some luxury airport waiting lounge, out a side door, and right into a funny-lookin' big car with no wheels that just kinda floated there at the door. A side of it was dropped down so there was steps leadin' up and in. The whole thing looked like some roast beef plate with a half a cigar on top. There was windows all the way along, although it'd looked solid from the outside. We could see out, but nobody could see in.

Inside it was kinda like a millionaire's camper van. Nice furlike carpets even on the walls, real plush recliner chairs around a table that looked like polished marble, and compartments all over the place. I expected the thing to wobble when we got on, but it was steady as a rock. I couldn't figure what was holdin' it all up.

There wasn't no driver, neither; not even a driver's seat. This fellow Aldrath-we found out quick that they said their first names last and last names first, like the Orientals do-he just went up front, took some kind of card out of a little pocket in his toga, and stuck it in a slot. The door closed, and off we went, no seatbelts or nothin'. You had to look outside to see that we was even movin'-and
was
we movin'! Up, up, and away real fast.

I could see the place below us clearly now, just a little round dome of a building in the middle of a bunch of trees in the middle of a bunch of low mountains kinda like the Poconos, but with no roads, no power lines, no nothin'.

It was a sunny day with just them cotton candy clouds, but we stayed just below them, so you had a right good view of the country below for miles and miles. Here and there you could see round towers and groups of domes and cubes and other funny shapes, but none of the places were real big and there was no roads at all.

Aldrath punched something in one of them compartments and brought out some drinks. I kinda figured they was somethin' like that. He saw that Sam and me were mostly lookin' out and down at the country, which didn't look the least bit familiar but really didn't look all that strange, neither. Sorta like central Pennsylvania or upstate
New York, only before all them folks stuck all them roads and wires through it. 'Course, if your cars and buses and trucks all fly like this thing we was in, you don't need all that.

"If you are looking for major cities, we have them," Aldrath said, "but not in this area. Our cities are mostly in the subtropical and tropical climates. When you can control or eliminate all the pests and divert big storms and manipulate the rainfall, those places are like gardens. This is mostly an area of wilderness and balance, with a few towns for special purposes or simply because people like to live here, and a number of broad estates mingled with forests and game reserves."

"Id've thought sheer numbers would have populated a lot of this," Sam replied. "Or is the population stable?"

"It's stable, but reasonably large. We keep it worldwide at about a billion, which is more than adequate to preserve what should be preserved. It's not that we're restrictive, but we have many outlets for a population, both in settling and preserving certain other Earths that are truly wonderful places to live but which never developed a higher race and also the planets and to a limited extent the stars."

Even I was startled at that one. "You mean you don't just go next door, you're also up
there?"

He smiled. "Getting to the near planets is no great trick, nor is colonizing a place like Mars. The stars are trickier, and we're still in our infancy regarding them, but who is better qualified to go than we if there are in fact alien civilizations out there? It provides us with a limitless and exciting future, you see. The parallel worlds go from infinity to infinity, and each universe is in itself so vast and varied it will end before anyone can explore more than a fraction of it. That's the secret to keeping a civilization as successful and prosperous as ours from rotting and decaying, you see. There is always someplace new to go, something new to learn, something wonderful waiting to be discovered. We have never become jaded or yielded to rot."