Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero (15 page)

The speck of light grew, becoming a small yellow ball, drawing him ever on, bringing on pungent hallucinations of food smells: coffee, beer, beans, and bacon. As he neared it, he became certain he was having some kind of psychotic episode, that's what the shrinks called it. Brought on, no doubt, by stress, hunger, and disorientation. Either that or he'd gone completely around the bend.

Yes, that had to be it. What other explanation could there be for a campfire in a mine? Perhaps the short, grizzled old man squatting by the fire could tell Bill. Or if not him, maybe his burro knew a thing or two.

As he got near, Bill was impressed with the consistency of the hallucination. The fire gave off heat, the bacon popped in the pan, and the old man smelled as though he couldn't even spell the word bath.

Just because the man was a hallucination, though, was no reason not to be polite. “Excuse me, Mr. Hallucination,” Bill began, “my name is Bill.”

“Eh?” The old man looked up from under the broad brim of his hat, hooked a thumb in the strap of his overalls, and asked, “What can I do for you, sonny?”

“I know you're just a figment of my starved imagination, sir, but could you possibly spare some of that make-believe food? I'd be very grateful.”

“I ain't no hallucination, sonny. I'm a prospector. Can't you tell? Burro, beard, overalls, bacon and beans, campfire? Heh heh heh,” he heh-hehed. “Those are the sure signs of the stereotypical prospector right down through history, and that's what I am, dagnabbit. Gabby Gormless, prospector. Got a union card here somewheres.” The hallucination searched through his pockets in vain. “But hunker on down by the fire. Here's a plate and spoon.”

Bill had never hunkered before, and in his weakened state it wasn't an easy skill to master, but he didn't worry about it. After all, if he pitched face-first into the fire, he'd only hit his head on bare rock, since it was a hallucination. And he'd taken enough blows to the head in the past that it would be a familiar experience.

Still, the tin plate seemed real enough, and the beans, right out of the cookpot, felt as though they were burning his mouth. In a lifetime that had seen its share of hallucinatory experiences, this one was remarkably realistic. But among the many useful skills Bill had picked up in the Troopers was the ability to ignore completely the difference between fantasy and reality, which in the Troopers didn't really exist, so he just enjoyed it and tried not to think about all the sinister implications.

The chief implication, of course, was that he was dying. Considering how much work he'd put into not dying, if Bill had let himself think about this he would have found it terribly unfair. Not to mention depressing. So he didn't think about it.

He just settled in and enjoyed his hallucination. It was wonderful how the illusory beans seemed to taste so good, and the bacon seemed to be just on the borderline between tender and crisp, and the coffee — the coffee seemed to be real coffee, without acorns or petroleum byproducts or any kind of recycled fillers. And the beer for afters, really beery beer. That was the part that convinced Bill it had to be a hallucination. Even though the apparent second portion seemed to fill him up, and he seemed to have more energy after he finished, he knew that all this was an illusion.

So was the great belch that followed.

“You must 'o been right hungry, there, young feller.”

Bill sucked his teeth and considered. He had just eaten an entirely imaginary meal, and now his equally imaginary host wanted to strike up a conversation. Definitely — the signs pointed toward completely woo-woo.

But when insane, as the saying goes...

“Yep, pretty hungry. You're a hallucination of mine, aren't you?”

“Waall, sonny, it don't feel that way to me, but I suppose it wouldn't, if 'n I were your hallucination. Interesting epistemological question, ain't it? Like the one about am I a man awaking from a dream of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I'm a man.”

“I don't know that one,” Bill said. “How does it go?”

“Never mind. Old Zen parable. But what about you? What brings you down here? How long you been wandering around without food or lights?”

“Gee, I don't know.”

The illusory prospector gave Bill a piercing look. “Consarn it, I useta know a feller who said 'gee' all the time. 'Course, he was a lot shorter than you. But that's another matter. How come you don't know how long you been here? Seems the kind o' thing a feller should know.”

Bill felt a little silly, humoring someone who didn't exist, but he had nothing better to do. “I've been down here since the coup. I ran away from the soldiers with my two friends Sam and Sid so we wouldn't get arrested, and I lost them — that is, the soldiers, but then also Sid and Sam. Ever since then, I've been looking for them and trying to stay away from the search parties.”

“Have you seen any search parties?”

“No, not really, but I've heard some people in the distance who might have been looking for me.”

“I see. So why'd you come up to my campfire?”

“You're not real,” Bill explained.

“Waall, I reckon that makes sense.” The imaginary geezer chuckled. “So tell me about this dang coup. When'd it happen, and who got overthrown? I been out here in the tunnels for a month, completely out o' touch. Is Snorri Yakamoto out of a job?”

“Last I heard, they were breaking down his door. But the coup was against President Grotsky.”

“The generals got Millard!” Gabby seemed genuinely shocked. “It musts been the generals. 'N if'n they wuz after you, you must be a pal o' Millard's, right?”

“Sort of. We had a few beers together.”

“Waall, that's good enough fer me! I'm gonna do what I can to help you! Just tell me what you want.”

What the hey, Bill thought. There was no harm in talking to the guy. What could the guy do to Bill, if he wasn't real? Maybe get him out of this mine. Sure, why not ask?

“Hmmm.” The imaginary prospector stroked his imaginary, yet still filthy, beard. “OK.”

Bill was pretty sure the nap was real, even if nothing else was.

But when he woke up, Gabby Gormless and the burro were still there, along with the ashes of the campfire.

“You're a mighty persistent mirage,” Bill told him.

“Waall, I reckon I am, at that. You want some cold coffee 'fore I pour it out?”

Bill took a cup. For a hallucination, it was remarkably strong. If it had been real, it would have shocked him out of any hallucinations. Since he could still see Gabby and the burro, the coffee must have been imaginary, too.

They set off down the tunnel, their way lit by a lamp hanging around the burro's neck. It was an electric lamp, but it had been designed to look like an old-fashioned kerosene lamp, down to the flickering, unsteady flame. Gabby whiled away the time by telling incredibly boring and repetitive stories of his adventures and explorations. Bill figured that since he — or his subconscious, which in his case was very nearly the same thing — was inventing these stories himself, he wouldn't miss anything by ignoring them.

There was no real way of measuring time down here on the bottom of the mine, at least not without a watch. Bill couldn't be sure that time passed at the same rate in a hallucination, but they stopped for another illusory meal on the way. Bill was impressed with how well the imaginary inflatable logs burned (there was no other source of wood down here, so Gabby had to carry his fuel with him), and noted how he even felt as though he was getting stronger after each meal, although that was clearly impossible. The coffee was doing the same, and that was even more impossible, considering where it had started. And he had learned to avoid the imaginary muleshit after sitting on a pile.

All in all, it was much more pleasant than stumbling around in the dark and waiting to die. Of course, Bill was still convinced that that was exactly what he was doing, but this version of it was undoubtedly superior. Bill was enjoying the mirage so much that he was shocked and stunned when he suddenly realized he was walking alone and in silence. He gasped as he grasped the meaning of it — that he was probably very close to death now, and would have to go on alone from here. He sobbed, and he pushed a few tears, for his wasted youth, his lost homestead on Phigerinadon IV, his boon companions Sam and Sid, whom he would never see again, and even for the lost companionship of his mirage.

He wept bitterly, Bill did, until at last he heard the sound.

“Psst.”

Bill looked up.

“Psst.”

There was nothing ahead of him but another of the many intersections in the tunnels.

“Psst.”

Bill looked back.

Gabby! He had not vanished after all! Bill leaped up, ran, and embraced the fantastical prospector, so overjoyed was he.

“Tarnation, Bill,” Gabby whispered, “get ahold of yerself. An' keep yer yap shut. There may be guards up around that next corner. Wait back here with the burro while I go check it out.”

This was becoming an extraordinarily complex mirage. Bill tried to protest that none of this was really necessary, but Gabby shushed him again and strolled up and around the bend. Bill leaned up against the stolid, if nonexistent, burro. It was comforting, since it reminded him of his robomule back on the farm, but it lacked the warm, reassuring smells of metal and lubricants. It smelled instead like a dirty old mule.

After what may or may not have been a long time, Gabby came back.

“Waall, young feller, I had me a piece of luck. One o' my old friends is the assayer in these parts, and he put me in touch with the resistance. They're gonna help you get outa here. How you like them apples?”

“Just fine, sir. I'll take a dozen. So you're going to vanish now?”

“Not exactly, sonny. First you've got to meet your contact. You go up to the intersection, take a left, take the first right, walk exactly one hundred paces, and wait there. When someone says to you, 'The blind fox sleeps at the midnight crossroad,' you say 'But does the midnight crossroad know that the blind fox is sleeping there?' That's yer recognition code. Got it?”

“Sure,” Bill said offhandedly. He assumed that anyone this mirage put him in touch with would also be an illusion. How much difference could a code make to a hallucination?

“Fine. Good luck to ya, Bill. Now me and the burro gotta go back to lookin' fer the great neutron mother lode. Burros got a good nose for neutrons, you know. Just like pigs with truffles. See ya around!”

And Gabby and his pack animal plodded slowly off into the tunnel, leaving Bill in the darkness again.

He turned around so as to face the right way, stuck his hands out, so he'd know when he reached the wall, and started off to meet his contact: He found the wall with no trouble, and by keeping his right hand on the wall found the right turn easily enough. Bill got into position and waited.

After a while, a small bobbing light appeared at the far end of the passage. In case this wasn't his contact, Bill tried to look nonchalant. Unfortunately, his supply of nonchalant activities was very limited, and by the time the light got close enough for Bill to see what he was doing, he was on his third round of whistling while buffing his nails on his shirt.

“The blind fox sleeps at the midnight crossroad,” said a voice behind the light.

Since the light was in his eyes, Bill couldn't see who was speaking. “The something or other does something,” Bill said feebly, wishing he had made some attempt to remember.

“That's not it. Not even close.”

“No? How about 'The crossroad slumbers neath the midnight sun?'”

“That's not even close. You a spy?”

“No, I'm Bill.”

The voice sighed. “That's what Gabby said your name was. You could have made some effort at the password, you know.”

“I don't remember so good in the dark,” was Bill's feeble response.

“Not the world's best excuse. Look, I'm with the Underground. That mean anything to you?”

“We're all underground. It's a mine.”

“Come on, Bill. Gabby sent me.”

“That's nice.”

“Shut up. Just follow me.” The light turned and started moving away again.

And so Bill was saved.

Smuggling Bill into the worker's barracks was almost embarrassingly simple. After all, no one expected an outsider to sneak into the mine from deep in the ground. The search for Bill, never very thorough in the first place, was long over. The soldiers were long gone. Orders had been left to grab him if he appeared and shackle him and put him to work in the mine.

So, whistling with forced casualness, Bill just strolled into the barracks, traded his incredibly filthy cleansuit for a fresh one with a number stenciled across the back, then blended in with the crowd.

There once had been a time, before he had come to the mine, when Bill would have been recognized, when people would have surrounded him, asking for autographs and recognition and the magical touch of a celebrity. But now, with a stylish growth of designer stubble all over his face, no one recognized him.

No one, that is, except two of his barracks-mates.

The Underground Resistance had organized itself pretty quickly here in the neutron mine. Of course miners have always been well organized, as well as exploited and killed in rock falls and such. With all the new political prisoners checking in right after the coup there was no problem recruiting ringleaders. They realized at once the importance of a real live enemy Trooper and figured out lots of ways that he could be useful to their cause. So in order to protect him they kept his options limited.

Purely for his own good, naturally.

But the resistance saw to it that he didn't talk with anyone they didn't approve first, while nobody even got a good look at him unless they were part of the inner circle.

Nevertheless, there were those two guys that Bill noticed, who kept looking at him from across the barracks. One of them pointed to Bill, and the two spoke for a while, and the first one started over toward Bill, but the Resistance leader who had collected Bill, Commandante Luther Anastasius Lambert Hendricks Bavan Drosophila Melanogaster Farkleheimer, cut them off before they could get within speaking distance, ordered them out of the room. He warned Bill they had to be careful of assassins.