Doc Sidhe (19 page)

Back to his room for a bath and clothes. Then he'd descend to the lab floor to graze from the food perpetually laid out on one of the tables. He might bump into anyone there, but it was usually Alastair, eating, smoking, reading Neckerdam's newspaper, happy to talk. Doc was sometimes on hand, doing tests on Gaby, assembling a piece of equipment, or testing the reactions of chemicals introduced to one another; at such times, he would usually not notice any greeting short of a gunshot.

Then it was back up to his room to watch the talk-box for the rest of the day.

The programming was mostly local broadcasts from Neckerdam nightclubs—live music. Good stuff. Some sounded like big band music, torch songs, swing—but with more strings than brass. Some was the vigorous, fast-paced stuff that sounded like Irish dance music.

After a couple of hours, he'd had a month's worth of Neckerdam music. But he left it on and kept watching.

Because if he went down to the lab, he'd get in the way of Gaby's tests. If he went to the library, he'd probably bump into Gaby there, too—it seemed to be her retreat for the occasions she could escape Doc and Alastair. If he went for a walk outside, the Changeling's men might be waiting, might kill him on sight. Maybe he should take a brisk walk out on the eightieth-floor ledge and say hello to the gargoyles and griffins.

He'd get hungry in the evening, go down to the lab floor for another grazing run, then return to his room to lie awake on the bed until he could drift off to sleep.

By the second day of his new routine, he was sick of it.

At breakfast of the third day, Alastair took a call from the lobby. He hung up and said to himself, "This should be interesting."

Harris, Jean-Pierre, and Gaby heard him; Doc, across the room, did not. Harris asked, "What should?"

"That was the elevator captain. Joseph is on his way up."

"You're right. It should." Harris rose and looked around.

"What do you need?" asked Alastair.

"A hammer and chisel. I'm going to try to get Doc's attention."

They were waiting for him when Joseph, somber as ever, stepped off the Foundation elevator. The giant was dressed in lighter, brighter garments than before, not work dress, and carried an enormous green cloth bag over his shoulder. Harris saw Gaby shudder; doubtless she was remembering her last experience with large cloth bags.

Doc stepped forward. "Grace on you, Joseph. I'm surprised. I thought that this was the last place you'd ever wish to visit."

"It was," Joseph said. "But I am ruined for work. Ruined for living. The dreams wouldn't let me go. You stirred them up. I cannot work or sleep. So I am here."

Doc considered a brief moment. "Joseph . . . Duncan is still alive."

"On the grim world. I know." He gestured at Gaby. "She told me."

They all gave her a look. She shook her head and asked, "Was it on the talk-box?"

"Yes."

"Then it was Gabrielle. The twin I've never met."

"It does not matter," Joseph said. "Duncan must die, or I must. So here is the place I must be."

"And you are welcome," Doc said. "Jean-Pierre, would you set him up in a room?"

Jean-Pierre and Joseph left for the residential floor; Gaby, visibly upset, took the stairs up to her room. Doc returned to his experiments, Alastair and Harris to their breakfast.

"Joseph acts like he expects the hammer to fall at any time," Harris said. "Poor guy."

"One of several." Alastair gave him a sympathetic look. "Harris, why don't you go home?"

"Back to the grim world?"

"You can go back anytime. It's not a trivial effort, but we can do it. Doc has recovered, and I can also do the ceremony. All we have to do is find a spot that's usually clear on both worlds. You were talking about a spot on something called Liberty Island."

"No, thanks."

"Why not?"

"Do you want to get rid of me?"

"No. I just want to know why you're so determined to stay in a place that makes you so unhappy."

Harris grimaced. "I don't want Gaby to feel alone. You know, surrounded by strangers."

"
Strangers.
Harris, she's fitting in better than you. We haven't had one jot of success trying to figure out how she can use that well of Gift power she has, but she learns, she asks questions, she suggests, she makes Doc think—I'm a betting man, and my money says Doc will ask her to stay as an associate when all is said and done."

Harris scowled. "She won't."

"Perhaps not." Alastair drew on his pipe and blew a perfect smoke ring toward the ceiling. "You know she's fretting. Says it's almost time for the homelords to collect her rent. Says her parents have to be going mad with worry."

"Yeah, mine too, probably."

"But you won't go back, not even for a day, to straighten out affairs. Why not? Are you afraid you wouldn't be able to return?"

"That's not it." He chewed over his reply. "Alastair, if I go back . . . maybe people would be relieved if I didn't return to the fair world at all."

The doctor gave him a puzzled look. "Even if it's true, and I don't think it is, what does that matter?"

"It matters. If I go, I might lose my nerve and not come back. If I don't go, that can't happen."

"Have you lost your nerve since you've been here?"

"I guess not. But I don't want to give myself the chance."

Alastair's expression remained confused. He stared up at the ceiling as if enlightenment might be waiting there.

Day four.

As he rose past up ninety, the laboratory floor, on his way to the residential floor, Harris heard his name called. He pulled the elevator's lever back to neutral and beyond, bringing the car down level with up ninety.

Jean-Pierre waited there and yanked the exterior cage open. Harris did the same for the interior cage.

Jean-Pierre held a folded paper packet out to him. "Almost missed you. Gods, you stink." He looked over Harris' boxing shorts and the towel around his shoulders. "You're spending far too much time in the gymnasium."

"I just get in the way up here." Harris accepted the packet; it was heavier than he expected. "What's this?"

"You know, there's a shooting range on the same floor."

"I know. Noriko offered to teach me to shoot."

Jean-Pierre beamed. "Did she? I made the same offer to Gaby." His face fell. "Not the only offer I made. I haven't quite persuaded her to bed with me. Do you know the trick?"

Harris glared. "You could kill yourself. Play on her sympathy."

"Ah."

Harris tried to let go of the sudden flush of anger. "So what is this?"

"Your pay, of course."

"Pay?" Harris popped the wax seal on the packet. Out from the folded paper slid a dozen libs, the big silver coins Harris had seen before, plus a few of the smaller silver decs and copper pennies.

"Every half-moon on the chime. Doc pays all his associates and consultants while they're working with him. It doesn't do to accrue indebtedness; there are devisers out there who could take advantage of it. So he pays off as fast as he accrues." He pulled the elevator exterior grate shut again.

Harris hefted the coins. "Well, that settles it. I'm going out."

"Out of the building? Not a good idea."

"You're damned right, it's not. But neither is staying here until I blow up from boredom." Harris pulled the interior grate closed. "I think I need to find a tailor. And do you know where Banwite's Talk-Boxes and, uh, Electrical Eccentricities is?"

Jean-Pierre looked surprised. "Brian Banwite? Doc sometimes uses him for specialty work. Good man. He's on Damablanca in Drakshire. Walk six blocks east, take the uptown underground to the Damablanca station. And look for Brannach the Seamer on the same street. My tailor."

"I'll do that, thanks." Harris sent the elevator into motion again.

Forty-five minutes later, he was clean and presentable, but instead of heading straight for the lobby he descended only one floor. Up ninety-one was where Doc kept his offices . . . and his library. Odds were good that he'd find her there.

Gaby was in her usual place, in the stuffed chair at the end of the smaller of the two long tables, where the light was best, and as usual she had a stack of books beside her. She didn't notice him as he entered; he silently closed the door behind him and studied her.

She was in the jeans she'd worn from the grim world and a flowing yellow blouse they'd given her here. She bent over her books, intent on them, her hair half-concealing her face.

So many times he'd seen her in just that pose. He found that his mouth was dry. It was suddenly impossible to look away from her. Impossible to accept that he couldn't just walk up to her, take her head in his hands, twining his fingers into the glossy heaviness of her hair, tilting up her chin to kiss him . . .

She brushed her hair back from her face and caught sight of him. She looked up, startled. "Hi."

"Hi."

"I haven't seen much of you lately. What have you been up to?"

"Actually, I was just obsessing about your hair."

She winced. "Harris."

"Yeah, I know. I shouldn't. I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's all right." He could tell from her expression that it wasn't. "Jean-Pierre was just looking for you."

"He found me. He forced a small fortune into my unwilling hands."

"So you're all dressed up to go out and spend it?"

He settled into the seat next to her. "Yeah, basically. I'm going to pay off a debt, then find a tailor and commission some blue jeans."

Her eyes got round. "I never thought of that. What a great idea! If I give you some of my money and my measurements—"

"Sure."

She tore a page from the back of the notebook she was writing in and began scribbling. Harris saw that she did already know the measurement system the people of Neckerdam used—a standard value called a "pace" broken down into fifty "fingers."

He glanced over the books she was browsing through.
Events of the Reign of Bregon and Gwaeddan in Novimagos, Volume One
.
The Full History of the World Crisis
. "Catching up on history?"

She slid the piece of paper and several of her own coins to him. "Yes, and you should be, too. Noriko told me a little about the recent history of the fair world, and it was too strange—I had to check up on some things."

"Oh, God, the journalist is running amok again." He folded the paper and tucked it and the coins away. "Things such as what?"

"Such as . . . about twenty years ago, in the Old World, which is what they usually call Europe, they had this deal called the Conclave of Masallia. A lot of the kings of the Old World swore undying affection for each other. A mutual protection pact. Then one of them flipped out and invaded his neighbor. Everybody was obliged by the treaty to side with both of them, so they sort of split down the middle and everybody attacked everybody. And since they all owned colonies in the New World and in their versions of Africa and Asia, pretty soon half the planet was at war. Sound familiar?"

"Like World War Two?"

"Well, closer to World War One, actually." She tapped another volume,
Mechanics of Systemic Economic Collapse
, the first one Harris had seen with a title that wouldn't have looked strange in one of his own college courses. "And here. About five years ago, the economic alliance of the League of Ardree, most of the nations of what should be North America, had a crash. For the last long while, they'd gone increasingly industrial, whole nations turning to production and importing almost all their food. Then there was a trade glut, a repayment problem at the international level, foreclosings, treasuries folding, an economic collapse affecting pretty much the whole world. The fair world is still recovering from it. You see it?"

"History was never my strong point. But you're trying to draw a parallel with the Great Depression."

"I sure am."

"I think you're reaching. A war followed by an economy going bust and you're talking about history repeating itself. That's pretty thin."

"Okay, try this. In the grim world, about the time we were having the Depression, Japan was at war with China."

"So?"

"So Noriko told me yesterday that her people, the Wo, are involved in a pointless war with the nations of Shanga. I looked them up on the map. Any guesses as to what Wo and Shanga correspond to?"

"I already know." Harris frowned.

"So it sounds like another mystery for Doc to go funny about. Like why English and Low Cretanis are the same language. Between that, and the routine with the guns and pepper gas and my wristwatch being all twisted when they got here when nothing else was, he's chewing on the furniture in frustration. How about you?"

"You know I don't chew furniture."

She gave him an exasperated look.

"Okay, okay, it's weird." He rose. "Did you find a Civil War?"

"War of the Schism, eighty years ago. The League of Ardree split into two pieces, basically north against south."

"American Revolution."

"The Great Revolt, about a hundred and fifty years back. When the League of Ardree was formed. The people of Cretanis call it the Ingratitude."

"Jesus."

"The Carpenter Cult."

"I
meant
, `Jesus H. Christ, you're freaking me out.' Okay?"

"Sorry. I got carried away."

Harris stood. He did some mental calculations. "I don't know whether you ought to tell Doc about this."

"Why not?"

"Because if you're right, events here are sort of following the history of the grim world, and we have a general idea of things that are going to be happening over the next forty or fifty years."

"So?"

"So we can predict the fair world's version of World War Two. Should we?"

She frowned, considering.

"I'll think about it, too. But first I'm going to order us some jeans."

Once he was gone, Gaby finished up with the broader histories and returned to another subject: Duncan Blackletter.

Reports of him appeared occasionally in the newspapers, and Doc's library had scores of bound volumes of crumbling periodicals. Of course, there tended to be a problem figuring out when things happened.