“And got killed anyway.”
“Because he did not take the Raj Dood’s advice!”
“How does this dude know I’m here?”
“I told him and he ordered me to tell you it is very important he meet you and talk to you. Very important. He said that several times.”
“What the hell could a nutty guru want with me except my money and influence?”
“He is not like that! He is very spiritual and never asks for donations. He has but one goal in life, to help the needy.”
“Sure he does.”
“He was very worried about me, that I might be attacked in here by a drunken legionnaire. He gave me a magical incantation for escape and told me to use it if I am in distress. And now he has told me to say the magic words when I am with you.”
“And then he gave you a little doll to stick pins in.”
“No, Lutt! The Raj Dood is no ordinary man. He has power, so much that he fears no one, not even the Legion. I knew if I told you this you would think it silly!”
Lutt grinned at her. “Are you distressed with me?”
“I am very distressed!”
“Then say your magic words but if they don’t work you have to get into bed with me. Okay?”
She stamped a foot. “Sometimes, men are just awful!”
“Let’s hear the guru’s magical incantation.”
“Very well! But I will never get into your bed unless we have the marriage contract and the proper ceremony! I think you are not to be trusted, Lutt Hanson, Jr.!”
“What’s supposed to happen when you use this incantation?”
“You will see!” She pressed her lips into a grim line and closed her eyes. In a low voice, she said, “Om Mani Come To Me My Melancholy Baby Padme Sayonara Hummmm Slide Down My Cellar Door.”
As she uttered the final word a brilliant flash of red light filled the room, forcing Lutt to close his eyes. He felt himself falling and was brought up short sprawled on a hard surface. He opened his eyes and found himself on a transparent floor inside a metallic cylinder that stretched upward as far as he could see. There was no sign of Nishi, the infirmary room, his bed . . . everything gone. He was alone in his infirmary pajamas.
That was a Spiral phenomenon! Ryll interjected.
Not really alone, am I!
Slowly, Lutt sat up and looked down at the transparent floor. The cylinder also stretched downward into infinity.
Lutt’s stomach lurched and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. The transparent floor felt suddenly insubstantial. There were no sounds here except those of his own movements, no smells except the acridity of his own fears.
What do you mean it was a Spiral phenomenon? Lutt asked.
Before Ryll could respond, a disembodied male voice, deeply resonant, intruded. “This is the Raj Dood.”
“For Crissakes, where am I?” Lutt got to his feet.
“You knew me as your Uncle Dudley,” the voice said.
“Uncle Dudley? You’re this Raj dude?”
“Think of me only as the Raj Dood. Look at the floor.”
Lutt looked down and again tasted bile.
“That floor is your will to live,” the voice said. “If you lose the will to live, the floor will disappear.”
“Come on, Uncle Dudley! No more jokes!”
“This is no joke!”
“Is that what you’ve been doing since you disappeared twenty-five years ago?”
“I have never disappeared. I have penetrated the secret of spiritual ascendancy. Observe!”
Static crackled at Lutt’s side and Nishi materialized there holding Lutt’s net bag. She stumbled and dropped the bag. It fell through the floor and soon vanished from sight.
“That bag has no will to live,” the voice said. “Hello, Nishi, my dear. The floor under you is Lutt’s will to live and yours now, too. It is all that supports you within infinity.”
“What are you doing, my guru?” she whispered.
“I am testing Lutt, my dear. I have a message for him.”
“Look here, Uncle Dudley,” Lutt said. “This is no way to treat your own nephew.”
“Lutt!” Nishi said. “What are you saying?”
“That’s my mother’s elder brother. He used to work with my father but they had a falling out and—”
“No falling out, Lutt,” the voice said. “I merely achieved enlightenment and your father remained in darkness.”
“Yeah? Well, I heard it was a question of something you two invented together. Is this place—”
“You display ignorance and a lack of proper respect,” the voice said. “Be serene and listen to my message.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, Uncle Dudley, but say what you have to say.”
“Your father himself has given me this message for you. He wishes me to warn you your brother has conspired with Senator Woon to have you killed on Venus.”
“Morey? Conspiring to do murder?”
I warned you about pushing him too far! Ryll intruded.
“I’m frightened,” Nishi whispered.
“My brother’s nothing to be afraid of,” Lutt said. “He’s a stumblebum who can’t get out of his own way.”
“I think the floor is getting soft under us,” Nishi whispered.
“Nuts! Uncle Dudley? You still there?”
A clipped, mechanical voice responded. “The Raj Dood has been called away on urgent business. This is his answering service.”
Nishi clutched Lutt’s arm. “The floor is definitely softer!”
“Whoever the hell you are,” Lutt flared, “we came here because this Raj dude said Nishi could use his stupid words for escape.”
“The escape clause, yes,” the mechanical voice said. “Ahhh, I see. There was a message he agreed to give you personally. Have you received the message?”
“I received his damn message!”
“Under the circumstances, perhaps it is better you await his return in the waiting room. I am sorry he left no instructions but his departure was quite abrupt.”
“Lutt!” Nishi gasped.
He looked down and saw her feet sinking into the floor.
“Hey!” Lull shouted. “Get us out of here! Send us back to the ship where we came from!”
“I am, indeed, sorry,” the mechanical voice said. “But I have only limited powers and there is the injunction of the escape clause. I can only send you to the Raj Dood’s waiting room.”
***
The Chinese on Venus want their enemies to believe they use only mindless masses and can conquer by sheer numbers and rocket inundations. This skillful propaganda is designed to undermine Legion morale. Anyone promoting this viewpoint must be considered an enemy of France, subject to the most stringent retaliation.
—Claude Speely DeCazeville, general commanding, Ninth Legion
“I have good news and bad news,” Mugly said.
He confronted Jongleur in the lowest anteroom of Habiba’s cone, a space she had set aside for him because of new demands on their time. It was a tiny, west-facing, dark space made even darker by the filter effect of their new planetary shield, which reduced the afternoon sunlight by at least half.
Through the single window behind Mugly, Jongleur could see the sun—a dim speck in a dull sky.
“Let’s hear it,” Jongleur said.
“But I was hoping to tell Habiba herself.”
“She has ordered me to hear all messages and relay only the most important. Habiba contemplates the shield and its effect on Dreenor.”
“I hear the flaps allowing sunlight to fall on seedhouses are working very well,” Mugly said.
“Is that your good news?”
“That is no part of my news. It was merely a comment.”
“Mugly, you are wasting my time. What is your news?”
“Which do you want first, the good or the bad?”
“In whatever order you care to give it.”
“The bad news has several
components. First, we have no contact with Prosik on Venus, although there are distinct signs that Hanson employs his crude Spiral technology there.”
Mugly cleared his throat portentously. “Second, Earthers continue to probe Patricia for her secrets. They appear jubilant about their latest efforts although we do not know what they have achieved.”
“You consider that news I dare convey to Habiba?”
“Why not?”
“Do you think she might order the immediate dispatch of the new erasure ship?”
Mugly shrugged. “You should know better than I. That brings me to the good news. The new ship should be ready within the week. We are putting in the finishing touches right now. Those new idmagers she sent me are superb.”
Jongleur groaned. “You call that good news?”
“You are a poor loser, Jongleur,” Mugly said.
“How dare you speak so lightly of this?”
“Jongleur! I apologize. I know your son is still there in that accursed solar system but we must think of all Dreendom.”
“Which is what I wish you would do. Earth is driving us insane! I sense disaster in whatever we do. Habiba . . . Blessed Habiba . . . Mugly, she is changed.”
“Changed? In what way?”
“It is hard to describe. She sits silently much more than ever before. And she is short with me. She has never been short with me before. And Mugly, I have heard her curse you.”
Mugly was aghast. “Curse . . . me?”
“And Wemply the Voyager who idmaged Earth. She curses him, too. I have heard her curse both of you in the same breath.”
“Jongleur, I must speak to her!”
“No! She forbids it.”
“Forbids . . . but do we not have a Thoughtcon to—”
“She forbids the Thoughtcon, too. I fear for her, Mugly. She looks and sounds so sad.”
“But the shield is working. We are protected. We have time to do whatever we—”
“Time? Is that not the very problem, Mugly? Have Dreens ever before been concerned with time? We possessed infinity. Now, what do we have? We have a dark sky and people who cower beneath it wondering how long it will endure. We have petitions from Dreens asking when Habiba will make her decision about Earth. When, Mugly! We mark time until her next pronouncement. All of us are concerned with time. We who had infinity now concern ourselves with bits and pieces of time. Earth has cursed us. Damn them and their finite impudence!”
***
When I contemplate the infinite, I see the vitality of Time. Our Spirals, infinitely engaged, cannot touch all being and all substance. Those require Time. If we ignore Time and accept infinity as our holy and unquestioned right, then we are less than we might be. Is that not the lesson of Earth?
—Habiba’s journal
They arrived with a roar of static and a flash of red light in Raj Dood’s waiting room. The place struck Lutt as surprisingly ordinary until he looked at the window wall on his left. This gave him an angled view onto the metallic tube where he had arrived from the infirmary.
Has it occurred to you to question your uncle about how he does this? Ryll asked.
Do you know?
As I said, it’s obviously a form of Spiral technology.
That cylinder doesn’t look like a Spiral.
But I can feel the tingle of Spiral contact when we move at your uncle’s command.
Keerist! Is that what he and Father fought over so many years ago?
I have no way of answering such a question. However, I would very much like to see his control center and observe the way it works.
“Lutt?” Nishi tugged at Lutt’s arm.
“What is it?”
“Is Raj Dood really your uncle?”
“That’s what he said.”
“How does he do this?”
“It’s magic and we’re the poor natives who’re supposed to shit green when he demonstrates his powers.”
“How can you treat this so . . . so . . .”
“I knew the old bastard. Look at this room—the chairs, that sofa, that table and those magazines.” He lifted a magazine and waved it at her. “The Weekend Golfer. And there—a copy of Modern Psychiatry!”
“But that!” She pointed to the view into the cylinder.
“Yeah, that’s something else.”
“Where is the answering service person?” she asked. “There’s no one here but us.”
“I am not a person. I am a device.” The mechanical voice came from nowhere and everywhere around them. “What is it you wish of me?”
“Can the Legion or anyone else hear what we say here?” she asked.
“The Raj Dood does not permit eavesdropping.”
“Lutt, while we wait, tell me about this Ryll person.”
Why not? Lutt thought. And he said, “He’s a Dreen who got into my body after I had an accident with my new spaceship.”
“Got into your body?”
“Yeah. He sneaked in while I was unconscious.”
I did not sneak! I saved your life!
But you didn’t give me any choice!
Ryll lapsed into sullen isolation, shocked by the truth in Lutt’s response. Would Lutt have chosen to die? He really was not asked.
“Can he talk?” Nishi asked. “I want to talk to him.”
“Of course I can talk!” The voice was a shuddery falsetto as Ryll took advantage of Lutt’s surprise and assumed control.
“Stop—that!” Lutt objected, but it was a voice that cracked and wavered. Face contorted and body twisted, Lutt and Ryll fought for control.
“I don’t. . . care . . . who . . . sees . . . this!” Ryll said. “I. . .will. . .talk to her!”
Lutt subsided into dismayed passivity. He sensed both anger and urgency in Ryll. And there was that floral odor.
“Earth and the solar system may be erased while this fool plays his petty power games,” Ryll said. And he explained quickly about the erasure ship, Patricia.
“How can all of this—” Nishi waved her arms “—be something you made?”
“I did not make it. Wemply the Voyager made it.”
“That’s crazy!”
“I, too, suspect Wemply of derangement.”
She shook her head, seeing they were talking at cross purposes. Another thought struck her. “But. . . but this ship, you said it was wrecked in the collision with Lutt’s ship.”
“They can always make another.”
Are you finished? Lutt demanded. You’ve frightened her.
I’m gratified that someone shares my fears.
Why haven’t you been ragging me about this?
I considered we had time but on mature reflection, I have begun to wonder.
Mature? You?
Stressful situations are known to mature one. It is odd how this does not apply to you, Lutt.
Go ahead! Insult me. But I’m in here with you and I know you’re a tricky liar.
I have been utterly candid with you under extremely trying circumstances and where the advantages of fabrication have been quite substantial.
Nishi had been staring at the window wall while she chewed her lower lip. She spoke without turning. “Ryll, you say you merged to save your lives. Can you be separated?”
“It is possible but I’m not sure I have the proper facilities.”
“And the Zone Patrol will imprison you if they learn you are a Dreen in human guise?”
Now see what you’ve done! Lutt raged. She can make me do whatever she wants by threatening to throw me to the ZP.
A gamble I thought worth taking. She desires a rich husband and you can make her promise of silence a provision of your marriage contract, cutting her off entirely if she speaks.
Say! You’re turning into quite a bargainer.
I am learning by observation. Look! Something is happening out there.
A throng of people occupied a cylindrical area visible through the window wall. In their midst stood a tall figure Lutt recognized.
&nb
sp; Uncle Dudley!
Time had been kind to his mother’s ne’er-do-well brother. The man’s angular features bore a benign expression. Skin smooth, blond hair caught in a gray sweatband and draping across his shoulders. His blue eyes twinkled. But that costume! Uncle Dudley wore a white robe emblazoned in red and blue letters: “Raj Dood . . . Raj Dood . . .” He strode through the throng as imploring hands reached out toward him, but no one touched him.
In the excitement of the moment, Lutt groped tentatively for control and Ryll allowed it.
He is your uncle. Best you deal with him. But find out how that cylinder works.
The window wall abruptly distorted the view and the scene wavered as though seen through water. But Uncle Dudley remained clear.
Spirit Glass! Lutt thought.
Uncle Dudley marched through the glass into the waiting room. The throng followed, distortion vanishing as they entered. The area around Lutt and Nishi became jammed with sweaty, pleading people. They pressed Lutt and Nishi into a corner with the Raj Dood.
The guru silenced the babble with a great shout: “Eczema!” He put a finger to his cheek. “Or is it Eureka?”
Noticing Lutt and Nishi, he said, “Forgive my abrupt departure but Osceola required my presence. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Morey and Woon, the conspiracy.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and looked across the people crowding the waiting room.
“I have places to go, places to be.”
“Raj Dood be praised!” the people shouted.
“Those two are deserters,” Nishi whispered in Lutt’s ear. She pointed at two men in Legion uniforms. “I have seen posters with their pictures.” She abruptly turned her attention to three Chinese in Mao Guard uniforms. “Heaven preserve us. Those are the enemy!”
Lutt, too, studied the throng as they pressed closer to the Raj Dood. He noted a woman with a crying baby, a quartet of singing drunks whose accents sounded Irish, a woman in the uniform of a spacetruck driver, two women in gowns that bore the tiny D’AA mark identifying them as D’Assas Anon employees, a Sephardic Jew, a fat man wearing swimming trunks . . . . Motley was the only word for this group.