Oracle (17 page)

And couldn't find a door.

Whispering a curse to himself, he began circling the structure, looking for some means of ingress. He finally came upon a miscolored section and leaned tentatively against it.

Nothing happened.

He pushed harder, with no results. Finally he stood back a few feet and waved a hand, hoping that some hidden scanner might react to the motion. Still nothing.

He walked once more around the building, and came back to the miscolored section, convinced that it was the entrance. He stood a few feet away from it, trying to determine how to trigger the locking mechanism. Obviously it didn't react to force, or to motion. He chanced shining his flashlight on it for a second, just long enough to make sure that there were no buttons, buzzer, bells, or computer locks.

Next he looked around the ground, hoping he might find some mechanism there, but he couldn't see anything remotely promising.

Vrief Domo lived on the third level. He looked up, wondering if he could scale the building, and decided that he couldn't.

He spent another five minutes trying to figure out how to gain entrance to the building, and couldn't come up with an answer. At last he leaned against a wall next to the miscolored portion, mentally exhausted—and almost fell over backward when a four-foot-wide section of the wall slid behind the miscolored part of the building.

He looked around quickly, before the wall slid back and plunged the interior of the building into total darkness, and found a narrow staircase. He shone his light on it just long enough to fix the height of each stair in his mind, and then slowly, carefully, began ascending. Fourteen stairs later he reached a landing, felt around for the railing, couldn't find one, flashed his light again for an instant, and discovered that the stairwell ended on the second level.

Deciding that he hated alien buildings even more than he hated 32, he stood still and tried to reason things out. As far as he could determine, there was only one door to the building, the one he had inadvertently triggered. If that was so, this was the only set of stairs leading up from the ground floor. Therefore, everyone living on a higher level had to come to this point before proceeding. Then what did they do?

He activated his flashlight again and examined the landing more carefully. There were four doors, each more familiar in shape than the one downstairs. Three of them possessed various markings; the fourth was absolutely plain.

Realizing that it was just as likely that there was only one apartment on this level and three stairwells leading up, he nonetheless decided to try the unmarked door. It slid up as he approached it, revealing another narrow staircase, and he decided to keep his light on. After all, if someone was coming down while he was going up, having his light in his pocket wasn't going to keep his presence secret for very long, anyway.

When he reached the next landing—he was annoyed but not surprised to find that it took thirty-one stairs to reach it—he came to five doors, four marked and one plain.

Now he pulled out the map once more, turned it over, and looked at the symbols Broussard had drawn on the back.

The teardrop signified the domicile of a communal or family group of young Blue Devils, old enough to leave home but still bound together by some social custom that was beyond the comprehension of human psychologists. That eliminated the door on the left; Vrief Domo was a mature Blue Devil with a responsible position in the government.

He shone his line on the next door: there were seven symbols he didn't understand, and one that Broussard had duplicated. It looked like a broken dagger, or perhaps a very twisted cane. Broussard hadn't explained it, but had said that it was the most common symbol, and that for reasons that were too esoteric to go into, it wouldn't be on the door he wanted.

That left the two right-hand doors. Each possessed the symbol that looked like a crescent moon, the one that Broussard said would signify a government employee.

The Injun was barely able to resist the urge to curse. Two government employees! How the hell was he going to know which was the one he wanted? They looked alike, sounded like, dressed alike—and if he chose the wrong one, he'd waste so much time before he discovered his error that the Whistler could wind up so far ahead of him that he'd never catch up.

Think, Redskin, he told himself silently. Think!

He studied both sets of symbols, trying to find something, anything, that matched the other symbols Broussard had said might be on Vrief Domo's door. There weren't any.

All right, he decided. Let's try it the other way around.

He had a list of eleven symbols that would definitely not be on the door of the Blue Devil he wanted. He couldn't find any of them on the second door from the right.

He turned his light on the right-hand door, carefully studying each symbol—and then he found it: the off-balance trapezoid with two right angles that denoted a member of the military. Both Blue Devils worked for the government—but Vrief Domo was a civil servant.

The Injun turned his attention to the second door from the right—Vrief Domo's door. He had been prepared to spend hours decoding a computer lock, but instead all he found was a large keyhole, so large that he could insert his finger all the way through it. It took him less than thirty seconds to spring the latch, and then he was inside the Blue Devil's quarters, his body tensed, listening for any sign that his quarry might be awake.

He remained absolutely still for almost a minute. Moonlight filtered in through the single window, and his right eye gradually adjusted to the semi-darkness. He hadn't wanted to remove the eyepatch from his prosthetic left eye, hadn't wanted 32 to have any idea of what he was doing, but he needed his depth perception, and he took the patch off and put it into a pocket.

He took a tentative step into the room, then another, searching for the object he sought. He carefully examined the furniture, both the functional pieces and the totally incomprehensible ones, but he couldn't find it.

There were three doorways leading from the room, in addition to the one through which he had entered. The smell of spoiling meat wafted out from the doorway on his right, and he knew that it must be the kitchen. He quickly walked to it, considered using his flashlight once he determined that the room was empty, and then decided that he'd have too much difficulty readjusting to the darkness once he left the room.

The kitchen was small, filled with gadgets that he had never seen before, and arranged in a way that made no sense whatsoever. A slab of meat lay on a counter that had been constructed no more than eighteen inches above the floor. Chairs faced the walls, spices were piled on the floor in a corner, there was what seemed to be a sink with seven spigots, and there was nothing that remotely seemed to resemble a stove or a refrigerator. A large hectagonal chart was tacked on the wall at an odd angle; he studied it for a moment, but couldn't begin to guess whether it was a calendar, a recipe, or something else.

Finally he returned to the room that he had originally entered, and tried to figure out which of the other two doorways led to the sleeping Vrief Domo. He paused, undecided, for almost a minute. Then he heard a gurgle of water running through a pipe off to his left, and immediately walked through the left-hand doorway.

He found himself in a large room, and this time he had no choice but to use his flashlight, as there were no windows, and the room was set at such an angle that none of the moonlight from the first room reached it. Now that he could see clearly, he took the eyepatch out of his pocket and put it back over his left eye to prevent 32 from monitoring his actions.

The walls were made of a beautiful alien hardwood that was streaked with various shades of brown and gold, and had intricate designs carved on each panel. The floor was covered by a hand-woven carpet; at first he thought the fabric was metallic, but then he realized that it was a finely-spun silk. There was a strong smell of chemicals in the air, and there were four large, hand-painted ceramic basins, each with drains at the bottom and gold-plated pipes running into the walls. He couldn't tell which constituted a sink, which was a commode, and which served as a tub—and he had absolutely no idea what the fourth basin was for—but there was no question in his mind that he was in a Blue Devil bathroom. There were six fixtures on the walls, none of which seemed at all functional to him—all of which glistened with a plating that seemed like a dull chrome but on closer inspection proved to be a hand-rubbed alloy, not unlike pewter.

You guys take your ablutions seriously, I'll give you that, he thought wryly.

There was a series of small porcelain boxes stacked against one of the walls, and he knelt down, placed the flashlight in his teeth, and began opening them one by one.

He found what he was looking for in the third box: a large triangle, the same type that he had seen so many of the Blue Devils wearing in the street.

He reached into another pocket and pulled out the small vial that Broussard had supplied him, opened it, and, using a clean cloth that had been supplied for this purpose, moistened it and then carefully rubbed it on the surface of the triangle. He waited a moment until it dried, then replaced the triangle in the box, put the other two boxes back the way he had found them, walked to the doorway, and shut off the flashlight.

He waited almost two full minutes for his eyes to adjust to the filtered moonlight, then, enormously relieved that he wouldn't have to enter the sleeping Blue Devil's bedroom, carefully walked across the main room of the apartment and gently opened the door, pulling it shut behind him. He reached into the enormous keyhole and manipulated the lock back into place.

He had no difficulty finding his way back to ground level, and a moment later he was back in the street, darting from shadow to shadow, hugging the wall as he reached the incredibly broad section, and then carefully squeezing between building as the street narrowed to less than a meter.

Broussard was waiting for him, and he entered the vehicle with an enormous feeling of relief.

"You did it?” asked Broussard.

"Yeah,” replied the Injun. “You'd just better be right about it."

"I am,” answered Broussard confidently. “There were microscopic particles of a unique uranium isotope in that solution; some of them have to have stuck to his triangle. The radiation won't do him any lasting damage, but with the equipment we've got back at the embassy, we'll be able to trace him anywhere he goes.” He paused. “We'll just wait for him to pick up his next shipment of human foodstuffs at the spaceport and then follow him right to the Oracle."

"Sounds good to me,” said the Injun. “Now let's get the hell out of here."

"Right,” said Broussard, speeding off down a crazily-twisting street.

"Take it easy,” cautioned the Injun. “I didn't risk my life back there to die in a goddamned traffic accident."

"I'm sorry, sir. I guess I'm a little excited.” Broussard paused. “I would think you'd be running on pure adrenaline right about now."

"This was just the first step. The next one might be a little more difficult."

"Following the Blue Devil? No problem at all, sir."

"The problem comes when we're all through following him,” said the Injun, and suddenly his feelings of triumph and exultation faded away as he wondered exactly what he would do once he found himself in the presence of the Oracle. Parlor tricks like the one he had pulled off tonight certainly wouldn't fool her, and he realized that it was time to begin considering exactly what would let him get close enough to her to accomplish his mission.

Then, as he relaxed and felt the tension finally leave his muscles, an old craving returned—and with it, the germ of an plan.

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The Injun staked out the cargo area of the spaceport for four days with no success.

On the fifth morning, Vrief Domo finally showed up.

"He's here, sir,” announced Broussard, pointing to a blinking indicator on the control panel grid.

"Damned near time,” said the Injun, leaning forward from the landcar's back seat to look at the blinking light. “I was starting to think the Oracle had gone on a hunger strike."

"He's approaching the cargo dock."

"How long will it take us to find out what he's picked up?"

"We're tied in to the embassy computer, and it in turn is monitoring the spaceport's cargo manifests. I think we should have corroboration before he leaves the gate."

"Just be ready to move out fast,” said the Injun.

Broussard nodded without replying, and concentrated on the panel.

"Okay,” he announced after another two minutes. “He's made his pickup, and he's on his way out."

"Follow him."

"The embassy computer hasn't verified that he's picked up foodstuffs yet. He could be carrying almost anything."

"Follow him anyway,” ordered the Injun. “If he leaves the spaceport, there's no need for us to stay here—and if he's got food for the Oracle, I don't want to lose him.” He paused. “Let him get a kilometer ahead of us."

"I don't dare, sir,” said Broussard. “The way these streets wind, that could give him a ten-minute lead."

"So what?"

"If the Oracle's not in the city, and he leaves Quichancha ten minutes before we do, he could get so far ahead of us that we lose his signal."

"All right,” said the Injun. “But stay far enough behind so he doesn't spot us. If he thinks he's being followed, he could lead us all over the goddamned planet, or right into a trap."

"I'll do my best, sir,” said Broussard, moving the car into the heavy spaceport traffic and keeping a watchful eye on his panel. Another light blinked. “The computer just confirmed it!” announced Broussard excitedly. “He picked up human food at the cargo dock."

The Injun made no comment, and Broussard began concentrating on his panel, making certain that he didn't lose Vrief Domo's vehicle on the small grid.

The Blue Devil didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. He passed through a residential area, then turned to the south.