The Infinity Link (60 page)

Denine poked at a fork on the table. "What if you don't think their guy can do the job?" she asked in a tone suggesting that she already knew the answer.

Payne let out a breath. "I'll ask them to send me."

He was aware of Denine sighing, shaking her head. She reached out and touched his arm. "Joe. Don't do anything—"
Stupid,
he imagined her saying, but she never finished the sentence.

He blinked and nodded as he thought, If someone has killed Donny to keep a story silent, I'll do every damn thing in my power to get that story into every home in this country, and half the world—even if it was our own government that did it.
Especially
if it was our own government.

* * *

Teri met him at the New Wash train station. She stepped forward and embraced him without a word. She pressed her face to his shoulder, squeezing him hard, and he returned the embrace by putting his arms around her, and resting his cheek against the crown of her head. Emotions that he'd been keeping secured began to shake loose and well up, and he trembled in an effort at self-control, not wanting to let it out yet.

Teri seemed to sense his struggle. She stepped back to gaze at him. "I'm so sorry, Joseph," she whispered. She tilted her head and kissed him briefly on the lips. Startled, he returned the kiss only as she was pulling away. A trace of a smile crossed her face, and she kissed him again, this time lingering a moment as their lips touched.

Payne exhaled silently, surprised at his own response, as they stepped apart. He glanced around the station lobby, avoiding Teri's eyes as he picked up his bag. A touch on his arm brought his gaze back to her. She seemed to understand the uncertainty of his feelings. "It's all right," she said, hooking a hand through his arm. "Let's go." Without answering, he followed her out into the street, where she had a cab waiting.

They rode in silence to the studio.

The day's meetings with the production unit did little to improve his mood. The production supervisor remained unconvinced that there was sufficient evidence of foul play to warrant sending Payne to the space colony; and he insisted that their correspondent at the station was capable of following up any leads. When Payne asked what
he
might do to pursue the story, the chief's answer was simple: Wait.

Leaving the studio in disgust, Payne secured a hotel room before going to dinner with Teri. "How can he expect me to do nothing?" Payne complained, as they waited for their orders to arrive. "I'll go crazy waiting for this guy at GEO-Four to report. And how do we know he's any good, anyway?"

Teri studied him sympathetically. "Joe, Karl Davis is an excellent reporter. You know that. If there's something going on, I think we can trust him to find it."

"But dammit—" he said, knotting his fists in frustration.

"Sometimes you have to trust to other people, Joe."

He fumed and said nothing.

"Forget your involvement, and remember that Karl knows the station. He knows the politics, who'll be help and who'll be hindrance, and probably what's hidden in some of the closets."

"That's why I want to work
with
him," Payne said. "He knows the station—but not the story."

Teri lowered a forkful of salad. "You don't want to give it up," she said gently. "It's your story—and Don was your friend."

Payne shrugged, looking down. "Maybe. But it's a story that has to be pursued." He paused as their waiter approached, and waited impatiently until their dinner was laid out and the waiter gone. He stabbed viciously at his steak. "You believe that, don't you?"

"What, that it needs to be pursued? Of course. But you can't cover everything yourself. You have your hands full down here. Who would take your story over if you went to GEO-Four?"

Payne shrugged. They'd been through it all before, of course, but that was before Donny's death. He worked on his steak angrily.

When he raised his eyes again, he found Teri watching him. He felt like a patient under scrutiny. "You think I'm too personally involved, don't you?"

Teri angled her head so that her hair fell across her brow. A tiny smile danced away from her lips. "Let it go for a while, Joe—okay?" she said. They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then she said, "How about going for a drink after dinner? Ed's out of town, so I don't have to rush home."

He took a small sip of wine, shrugging, nodding, gazing at her over the rim of his wineglass. Teri seemed so calm, so sure of herself even in difficult situations. It was one of the things about her he admired, and one reason he'd always been a little afraid of her. He didn't feel afraid now. He thought of Dee, wondering what she thought was going on when he came down here to meet with Teri. Just now, it seemed an unimportant question.

"Okay," he said softly.

Teri blew a strand of hair from her face. "Finish your dinner, then." She smiled. "Before it gets cold."

* * *

The place they decided on for drinks was Teri's apartment. Payne agreed, for no particular reason except to follow the path of least resistance. While Teri went to change and to make drinks, he phoned Denine. "It looks as though I'll be coming home the day after tomorrow," he said. "One thing, though. It's possible that Donny may have tried to get information to me. Could you keep a watch on my phone, and the mail—and if anything comes that looks suggestive, give me a call?"

"Where are you now?" Denine asked. She was peering into the screen, trying to recognize Payne's surroundings.

"I'm at Teri's. You can get me at the hotel later, or at the studio tomorrow." Payne glanced up, saw Teri with two drinks in her hands, keeping discreetly out of camera range.

"Okay." Denine nodded. "Otherwise, you'll call and let me know when you're coming?"

"I'll call tomorrow evening," Payne promised.

He signed off and sat quietly with his thoughts for a moment as Teri set the brandy snifters down and rounded the coffee table to join him on the sofa. He raised his eyes finally to look at her. A disquieting but pleasant feeling stirred in him. She had changed into a loose-fitting blouse and slacks. What had she been wearing before? A business suit? She returned his stare quizzically. Her hair, fine and brown, fell over her shoulders; her eyes watched the movements of his. Hazel brown, a touch more green in the right eye than the left. He rarely noticed her eyes, he realized. Or the shape of her face, a little less rounded and more vertical than Denine's. His gaze followed the line of her neck, down her throat, to where the collar of her blouse was left open.

He blinked his eyes back up to meet hers, and smiled a trifle foolishly, feeling his face redden.

"Try your brandy," she said.

He touched his snifter to hers, then swirled it, inhaled, and took a tiny sip. The fumes went straight to his head, heightening and blurring his senses.

They talked a while, about nothing in particular. When the conversation lagged, he studied the wallpaper on the far side of the room, fingering the snifter.

"What are you thinking about?" Teri said.

That I can't understand why I haven't thought of you this way in years, he thought, trying not to react visibly. Teri, he recalled, had what she referred to as a "semi-open relationship" with her friend Ed. "Oh—" he said, fixing his gaze on a light switch on the wall. It was made of cream-colored plastic, and didn't quite seem to go with the wallpaper.

"You don't have to tell me."

He shook his head, a smile creeping to his lips. "No secret." He was aware of a wisp of cologne, and Teri leaning ever so slightly toward him. She sipped her brandy; he did the same.

"So?" she said, touching his shoulder, then letting her hand drop.

He was torn by a moment of desire and fear. He recalled holding her in his arms, at the train station—a pleasant memory. She had been comforting him for the loss of a friend, not trying to seduce him, but . . . he remembered the brief kiss, and it occurred to him that she had been a greater comfort to him in his grief than Denine had been, and although he didn't exactly know what to make of that, he knew that just now there was a deep sorrow and grimness in him, and he would be a fool not to take comfort where he could find it.

Her eyes, questioning, did not leave his.

He touched her shoulder in return, then her hair. "Well—" he said, flushed with a kind of dizziness. In the years he had known Teri, he had probably touched her hair dozens of times in the affectionate gesture of a friend.

"Teri," he said, and when it came out as a croak, he chuckled self-consciously.

"What's funny?" she whispered.

He stroked her hair, trying to think of just what he
did
want to say. He was aware of a pressure in the crotch of his trousers, and he swallowed, shifting his position awkwardly. "Why did you choose this particular spot for us to have drinks?" he whispered, only his whisper sounded like a growl.

"Well—" she said, then shrugged with a tiny smile.

He hesitated only an instant, and then he leaned forward, cradled her face in both hands, and kissed her.

She responded gently at first, with uncertainty. Then her mouth opened against his, and their tongues met and touched and danced, and suddenly the pressure he was feeling doubled, and her breath escaped with a little sigh, and he felt a burning in his cheeks as Teri's tongue slid into his mouth. He felt her hands moving over him, pressing against his shoulders and then his chest; and he pulled her closer, caressing her, and sliding his hands up along the sides of her breasts. When their lips parted, their eyes met nervously. Teri laughed silently. "That's why," she whispered.

He nodded, his fingers playing at her collar, stroking her neck. Then, almost of their own accord, his fingers were unfastening the top button of her blouse, and sliding down to the next.

There were times, still, when it all made her dizzy—the images of the worlds, the songs, the constant activity. She was growing accustomed to letting much of the conversational chatter pass her by, listening only to what interested her moment by moment; but her attempts to understand how things worked here still confounded her. The beehive method of communication was often as challenging as the concepts she was seeking to understand.

Her questions about how the Talenki managed to coax their asteroid across light-years of space produced the closest thing she had received yet to a straight answer.

(Why, we all guide it—) (—even now we guide the world—) (—guide it together—) (—as you see—) (—do you not see—?) (—the union of mind—) (—directs and distributes the—) (—wave changes of our position.)

(Right,) she said. (That much I can see. You control it, as our ship was controlled by a computer.)

(Then what—) (—perplexes—?)

(How do you
propel
it?) she asked in exasperation.

There was a buzz of surprise and confusion. (Propel—?) (—do you mean—) (—to push—) (—with physical force?)

(Of course! How else?)

(Puzzling—) (—curious—) (—we do not understand—)

She grew impatient. (You move this ship—this world. Yes? You travel between the stars. Trillions of miles. More miles than I can imagine. You've shown me all over the inside of your world, but I've seen nothing that looks like a rocket, or a fusion drive, or even a light sail, or anything else that would propel this thing.
How do you do it?
) She paused in aggrieved silence. (Do you use tachyons?)

There was a murmur of amused and confused voices. Someone hummed a song, some joined in counterpoint and harmony. (We know of such processes—) (—as you say—) (—if we correctly understand—) (—fusion gives life—) (—to the suns.)

(Yes, exactly!)

(And light sails—) (—if we perceive your image—) (—ride the crests—) (—and currents of—) (—the sun's light.)

(Correct.)

(But of what use—) (—are such forces—) (—on such scale—) (—across such distances—?) (—the effort—) (—would be appalling!)

(That,) Mozy said, (is what
I
have always understood. But you've found a way. Can you tell me? Do you travel faster than light?)

More humming. The Talenki seemed as puzzled by her questions as she was by their answers. Other voices replied, (Light-speed is a barrier—) (—only within certain facets—) (—of certain space-times.) (From your perspective—) (—we do not move faster than light—) (—exactly.)

(Then how—?)

(You could say that we—) (—ripple—) (—through space.)

(You
what?
) she said.

(Ripple—?) (—is that not the word—?) (—how can we explain—) (—when basic perception is—) (—incomplete—) (—understanding of the process—) (—lacking—?)

(What process?) she yelled. (Tachyons? What process is it that I don't understand?)

(Reality—)

(
What?
)

(—the nature—) (—and structure—) (—of reality—) (—as you would call it—) (—the weave—) (—the fabric—) (—the holographic process—)

For a long moment, Mozy was silent. (I beg your pardon?) she said finally.

A ripple of laughter. (You need not beg.)

(What?)

(For our pardon—) (—you need not—) (—beg.)

(But I only meant—oh.) She realized that she was being teased. (What don't I understand?) she said stubbornly.

(The structure of—) (—the realities.)

(Do you mean the structure of matter?) She thought a moment. (I don't know much about it. I know there are subatomic particles, and quarks, and fields, and so forth.)

(Those are manifestations only—) (—patterns of what—) (—you think of as reality—) (—but only one aspect, one—) (—coded pattern, one—) (—informational matrix, one—) (—perceptual paradigm—)

(What?)

(Try again.) (We move through space by—) (—shifting ourselves through—) (—the informational matrix—) (—that defines space-time as you—) (—perceive it.)

She listened silently.

(Shifting across a coded—) (—pattern of information—) (—is easier than applying force—) (—against mass—) (—in space-time.)

Mozy growled, chafing in frustration.

(Try again.) (Imagine your old home—) (—your computer—) (—information changes which—) (—ripple across the system—) (—require little energy.)