The Whipping Star (12 page)

McKie, still sitting on the table, gave a neatly abbreviated chronological report.  It sounded as though he were talking about a third person.  He wound it up with a flat statement; "I have no idea at all where I was."

"They were going to . . . chop you up?" Bildoon asked.

"The ax was coming down," McKie said.  "It was right there."  He held up a hand about six centimeters from his nose.

Siker cleared his throat, said, "Something's wrong with Tuluk."

They all turned.

Tuluk remained propped against the support, his face slit closed.  His body was there, but he wasn't.

"Is he . . . lost?" Bildoon rasped and turned away.  If Tuluk failed to come back . . . how like the PanSpechi ego-loss that would be!

"Somebody down there shake up that Taprisiot," McKie ordered.

"Why bother?"  That was a human male from the Legal Department.  "They never answer a question about . . . you know."  He glanced uneasily at Bildoon, who remained with face averted.

"Tuluk made contact with the Caleban," McKie said, remembering.  "I told him . . . it's the only way he could've done it with Furuneo dead.  "He stood up on the table, walked down its length to stand towering over the Taprisiot!

"You!" he shouted.  "Taprisiot!"

Silence.

McKie drew a finger along an arm of speech needles.  They clattered like a line of wooden clackers, but no intelligible sound came from the Taprisiot.

"You're not supposed to touch them," someone said.

"Get another Taprisiot in here," McKie ordered.

Someone ran to obey.

McKie mopped his forehead.  It required all his reserves to keep from trembling.  During the descent of the Palenki ax he had said goodbye to the universe:  It had been final, irrevocable.  He still felt that he had not returned, that he was watching the antics of some other creature in his own flesh, a familiar creature but a stranger, really.  This room, the words and actions around him, were some sort of distorted play refined to blind sterility.  In the instant when he had accepted his own death, he had realized there still remained uncounted things he wanted to experience.  This room and his duties as a BuSab agent were not among those desires.  The odd reality was drowned in selfish memories.  Still, this flesh went through the motions.  That was what training did.

A second Taprisiot was herded into the room, its needles squeaking complaints.  It was hoisted onto the table, objecting all the way.  "You have Taprisiot!  Why you disturb?"

Bildoon turned back to the table, studied the scene, but remained silent, withdrawn.  No one had ever been brought back from the long-distance trap.

McKie faced the new Taprisiot.  "Can you contact this other Taprisiot?" he demanded.

"Putcha, putcha . . ." the second Taprisiot began.

"I'm sincere!" McKie blared.

"Ahseeda day-day," the second Taprisiot squeaked.

"I'll stack you with somebody's firewood if you don't get cracking," McKie snarled.  "Can you make contact?"

"Who you call?" the second Taprisiot asked.

"Not me, you fugitive from a sawmill!" McKie roared.  "Them!"  He pointed at Tuluk and the first Taprisiot.

"They stuck to Caleban," the second Taprisiot said.  "Who you call?"

"What do you mean, stuck?" McKie demanded.

"Tangled?" the Taprisiot ventured.

"Can either of them be called?" McKie asked.

"Untangle soon, then call," the Taprisiot said.

"Look!" Siker said.

McKie whirled.

Tuluk was flexing his facial slit.  A mandibular extensor came out, withdrew.

McKie held his breath.

Tuluk's facial slit opened wide, and he said, "Fascinating."

"Tuluk?" McKie said.

The slit widened.  Wreave eyes stared out.  "Yes?"  Then, "Ah, McKie.  You made it."

"You call now?" the second Taprisiot asked.

"Get rid of him," McKie ordered.

Squeaking protests -- "If you not call, why disturb?" -- the Taprisiot was removed from the room.

"What happened to you, Tuluk?" McKie asked.

"Difficult to explain," the Wreave said.

"Try."

"Embedment," Tuluk said.  "That has something to do with planetary conjunctions, whether the points linked by a call are aligned with each other across open space.  There was some problem with this call, discontinuous through a stellar mass, perhaps, And it was contact with a Caleban . . . I don't appear to have the proper words."

"Do you understand what happened to you?"

"I think so.  You know, I hadn't realized where I lived."

McKie stared at him, puzzled.  "What?"

"Something's wrong here," Tuluk said.  "Oh, yes:  Furuneo."

"You said something about where you lived," McKie prodded.

"Space occupancy, yes," Tuluk said.  "I live in a place with many . . . ahh, synonymous?  yes, synonymous occupants."

"What're you talking about?" McKie asked.

"I was actually in contact with the Caleban during my call to you," Tuluk said.  "Very odd, McKie.  It was as though my call went through a pinhole in a black curtain, and the pinhole was the Caleban."

"So you contacted the Caleban," McKie prompted.

"Oh, yes.  Indeed I did."  Tuluk's mandibular extensors moved in a pattern indicative of emotional disturbance.  "I saw!  That's it.  I saw . . . ahhh, many frames of parallel films.  Of course, I didn't really see them.  It was the eye."

"Eye?  Whose eye?"

"That's the pinhole," Tuluk explained.  "It's our eye, too, naturally."

"Do you understand any of this, McKie?" Bildoon asked.

"My impression is he's talking like a Caleban," McKie said.  He shrugged.  "Contaminated, perhaps.  Entangled?"

"I suspect," Bildoon said, "that Caleban communication can be understood only by the certifiably insane."

McKie wiped perspiration from his lip.  He felt he could almost understand what Tuluk had said.  Meaning hovered right at the edge of awareness.

"Tuluk," Bildoon said, "try to tell us what happened to you.  We don't understand you."

"I am trying."

"Keep at it," McKie said.

"You contacted the Caleban," Bildoon said.  "How was that done?  We've been told it's impossible."

"It was partly because the Caleban seemed to be handling my call to McKie," Tuluk said.  "Then . . . McKie ordered me to call the Caleban.  Perhaps it heard."

Tuluk closed his eyes, appeared lost in reverie.

"Go on," Bildoon said.

"I . . . it was.  .  .  ."  Tuluk shook his head, opened his eyes, stared pleadingly around the room.  He met curious, probing eyes on all sides.  "Imagine two spider-webs," he said.  "Natural spiderwebs, now, not the kind they spin at our command . . . random products.  Imagine that they must . . . contact each other . . . a certain congruity between them, an occlusion."

"Like a dental occlusion?" McKie asked.

"Perhaps.  At any rate, this necessary congruity, this shape required for contact, presumes proper connectives."

McKie expelled a harsh breath.  "What the devil are connectives?"

"I go now?" the first Taprisiot interrupted.

"Damn!" McKie said.  "Somebody get rid of this thing!"

The Taprisiot was hustled from the room.

"Tuluk, what are connectives?" McKie demanded.

"Is this important?" Bildoon asked.

"Will you all take my word for it and let him answer?" McKie asked.  "It's important.  Tuluk?"

"Mmmmmm," Tuluk said.  "You realize, of course, that artificiality can be refined to the point where it's virtually indistinguishable from original reality?"

"What's that have to do with connectives?"

"It's precisely at that point where the single distinguishing characteristic between original and artificial is the connective," Tuluk explained.

"Huh?" McKie said.

"Look at me," Tuluk said.

"I am looking at you!"

"Imagine that you take a food vat and produce in it an exact fleshly duplicate of my person," Tuluk said.

"An exact fleshly . . ."

"You could do it, couldn't you?" Tuluk demanded.

"Of course.  But why?"

"Just imagine it.  Don't question.  An exact duplicate down to and including the cellular message units.  This flesh would be imbued with all my memories and responses.  Ask it a question you might ask me, and it would answer as I might answer.  Even my mates wouldn't be able to distinguish between us."

"So?" McKie said.

"Would there be any difference between us?" Tuluk asked.

"But you said . . ."

"There'd be one difference, wouldn't there?"

"The time element, the . . ."

"More than that," Tuluk said.  "One would know it was a copy.  Now, that chairdog in which Ser Bildoon sits is a different matter, not so?"

"Huh?"

"It's an unthinking animal," Tuluk said.

McKie stared at the chairdog Tuluk had indicated.  It was a product of genetic shaping, gene surgery and selection.  What possible difference could it make that a chairdog was an animal -- however remotely descended?  '

"What does the chairdog eat?" Tuluk asked.

"The food tailored for it, what else?"  McKie turned back to the Wreave, studied him.

"But neither the chairdog nor its food is the same as their ancestral flesh," Tuluk said.  "The vat food is an endless, serial chain of protein.  The chairdog is flesh which is ecstatic in its work."

"Of course!  That's the way it was . . . made."  McKie's eyes went wide.  He began to see what Tuluk was explaining.

"The differences, these are the connectives," Tuluk said.

"McKie, do you understand this gibberish?" Bildoon demanded.

McKie tried to swallow in a dry throat.  "The Caleban sees only these . . . refined differences?" he asked.

"And nothing else," Tuluk said.

"Then it doesn't see us as . . . shapes or dimensions or . . ."

"Or even as extensions in time the way we understand time," Tuluk said.  "We are, perhaps, nodes on a standing wave.  Time, for the Caleban, isn't something squeezed out of a tube.  It's more like a line which your senses intersect."

"Hahhhhh," McKie breathed.

"I don't see where this helps us one bit," Bildoon said.  "Our major problem is to find Abnethe.  Do you have any idea, McKie, where that Caleban sent you?"

"I saw the constellations overhead," McKie said.  "Before I leave, we'll get a mindcord on what I saw and have a computer check on the star patterns."

"Provided the pattern's in the master registry," Bildoon said.

"What about that slave culture McKie stumbled on?" one of the legal staff asked.  "We could ask for a . . ."

"Haven't any of you been listening?" McKie asked.  "Our problem is to find Abnethe.  I thought we had her, but I'm beginning to think this may not be that easy.  Where is she?  How can we go into a court and say, 'At some unknown place in an unknown galaxy, a female believed to be Mliss Abnethe, but whom I didn't really see, is alleged to be conducting . . .' "

"Then what do we do?" the legal staffer growled.

"With Furuneo dead, who's watching Fanny Mae?" McKie asked.

"We have four enforcers inside, watching . . . where she is, and four outside, watching them," Bildoon said.  "Are you sure you've no other clue to where you were?"

"None."

"A complaint by McKie would fail now," Bildoon said.  "No -- a better move might be to charge her with harboring a" -- he shuddered -- "a PanSpechi fugitive."

"Do we know who that fugitive is?" McKie asked.

"Not yet.  We haven't decided the proper course yet."  He glanced at a Legal Department representative, a human female seated near Tuluk.  "Hanaman?"

Hanaman cleared her throat.  She was a fragile-looking woman, thick head of brown hair in gentle waves, long oval face with soft blue eyes, delicate nose and chin, wide full mouth.

"You think it advisable to discuss this in council now?" she asked.

"I do, or I wouldn't have called on you," Bildoon said.

For an instant McKie thought the reproof might bring real tears to Hanaman's eyes, then he saw the controlled downtwist at the corners of her mouth, the measuring stare she swept around the conference room.  She had brains, he saw, and knew there were those here susceptible to her sex.

"McKie," she said, "is it necessary for you to stand on the table?  You're not a Taprisiot.  "

"Thanks for reminding me," he said.  He jumped down, found a chairdog opposite her, stared back at her with a bland intensity.

Presently she focused on Bildoon, said, "To bring everyone up to date, Abnethe with one Palenki tried to flog the Caleban about two hours ago.  Acting on our orders, an enforcer prevented the flogging.  He cut off the Palenki's arm with a raygen.  As a result, Abnethe's legal staff is already seeking an injunction."

"Then they were prepared ahead of time," McKie said.

"Obviously," she agreed.  "They're alleging outlaw sabotage, misfeasance by a bureau, mayhem, misconduct, malicious mischief, felonious misprision . . ."

"Misfeasance?" McKie demanded.

"This is a robo-legum case, not a Gowachin jurisdiction," Hanaman said.  "We don't have to exonerate the prosecutor before entering the . . ."  She broke off, shrugged.  "Well, you know all that.  BuSab is being held to answer for collective responsibility in the consequences of unlawful and wrongful acts committed by its agents in pursuance of the authority permitted them . . ."

"Wait a minute!"  McKie interrupted.  "This is bolder than I expected from that crowd."

"And they charge," Hanaman went on, "that the Bureau is guilty of a felony by criminal neglect in its failure to prevent a felony from being committed and in not bringing to justice the offender after such commission."

"Have they named names, or is it all John Does?" McKie asked.

"No names."

"If they're this bold, they're desperate," McKie said.  "Why?"

"They know we aren't going to sit idly by and allow our people to be killed," Bildoon said.  "They know we have copies of the contract with the Caleban, and it gives Abnethe sole control of the Caleban's jumpdoor.  No one else could've been responsible for Furuneo's death, and the perpetrator . . ."