The Whipping Star (14 page)

"Oh, hell!"  McKie said.  "I'm not getting the half of . . ."

A brawny Palenki arm carrying a whip inserted itself into the space above the giant spoon.  The whip cracked, sent a geyser of green sparks into the purple gloom.  Arm and whip were gone before McKie could move.

"Fanny Mae," McKie whispered, "you still there?"

Silence . . . then, "No laughter, McKie.  Thing you call surprise, but no laughter.  I break line there.  An abruptness, that flogging."

McKie exhaled, noted the mindclock timing of the incident, relayed the coordinates at the next Taprisiot contact.

There was no sense talking about pain, he thought.  It was equally fruitless to explore inhaling whips or exhaling substance . . . or maintenance exchanges or hunger or stellar masses or Calebans moving other sentients by the energy of seeing.  Communication was bogged down.

They'd achieved something, though Tuluk had been right.  The S'eye contacts for the floggings required some timing or periodicity which could be identified.  Perhaps there was a line of sight involved.  One thing sure:  Abnethe had her feet planted on a real planet somewhere.  She and her mob of psycho friends -- her psycho-phants! -- all of them had a position in space which could be located.  She had Palenkis, renegade Wreaves, an outlaw PanSpechi -- gods knew what all.  She had Beautybarbers, too, and Taprisiots, probably.  And somehow the Beautybarbers, the Taprisiots, and this Caleban all used the same sort of energy to do their work.

"Could we try again," McKie asked, "to locate Abnethe's planet?"

"Contract forbids."

"You have to honor it, eh?  Even to the death?"

"Honor to ultimate discontinuity, yes."

"And that's pretty near, is it?"

"Position of ultimate discontinuity becomes visible to self," the Caleban said.  "Perhaps this equates with near."

Again arm and whip flicked into being, showered the air with a cascade of green sparks, and withdrew.

McKie darted forward, stopped beside the spoon bowl.  He had never before ventured quite this close to the Caleban.  There was more heat near the bowl, and he felt a tingling sensation along his arms.  The shower of green sparks had left no mark on the carpeting, no residual substance, nothing.  McKie felt the insistent attraction of the Caleban's unpresence, a disturbing intensity this near.  He forced himself to turn away.  His palms were wet with fear.

What else am I afraid of here?  he asked himself.

"Those two attacks came pretty close together," McKie said.

"Positional adjacency noted," the Caleban said.  "Next coherence more distant.  You say 'farther away'?  True?"

"Yeah.  Will the next flogging be your last?"

"Self not know," the Caleban said.  "Your presence lessens flogging intensity.  You . . . reject?  Ahhh, repel!"

"No doubt," McKie said.  "I wish I knew why the end of you means the end of everyone else."

"You transfer self of you with S'eye," the Caleban said.  "So?"

"Everyone does!"

"Why?  You teach explanation of this?"

"It's centralizing the whole damn universe.  It's . . . it's created the specialized planets -- honeymoon planets, gynecology planets, pediatrics planets, snow sport planets, geriatrics planets, swim sport planets, library planets -- even BuSab has almost a whole planet to itself.  Nobody gets by without it, anymore.  Last figures I saw, fewer than a fraction of one percent of the sentient population had never used a S'eye jumpdoor."

"Truth.  Such use creates connectives, McKie.  You must hang this.  Connectives must shatter with my discontinuity.  Shatter conveys ultimate discontinuity for all who use jumpdoor S'eye."

"If you say so.  I still don't understand."

"It occurs, McKie, because my fellows choose me for . . . coordinator?  Inadequate term.  Funnel?  Handler, perhaps.  No still inadequate.  Ahhh!  I, self of I, am S'eye!"

McKie backed away, retreating from such a wave of sadness that he felt he could not contain it.  He wanted to scream in protest.  Tears flowed down his cheeks unbidden.  A sob choked him.  Sadness!  His body was reacting to it, but the emotion came from outside of himself.

Slowly it faded.

McKie blew air soundlessly through his lips.  He still trembled from the passage of that emotion.  It had been the Caleban's emotion, he realized.  But it came out like the waves of heat in this room, swept over and immersed every nerve receptor in its path.Sadness.

Responsibility for all those impending deaths, no doubt.

I am S'eye!

What in the name of all devils in the universe could the Caleban mean by such a strange claim?  He thought of each jumpdoor passage.  Connectives?  Threads, perhaps.  Each being caught by the S'eye effect trailed threads of itself through the jumpdoors.  Was that it?  Fanny Mae had used the word "funnel."  Every traveler went through her . . . hands?  Whatever.  And when she ceased to exist, the threads broke.  All died.

"Why weren't we warned about this when you offered us the S'eye effect?" McKie asked.

"Warned?"

"Yes!  You offered . . ."

"Not offer.  Fellows explain effect.  Sentients of your wave expose great joy.  They offer exchange of maintenance.  You call this pay, not so?"

"We should've been warned."

"Why?"

"Well, you don't live forever, do you?"

"Explain this term, forever."

"Forever . . . always.  Infinity?"

"Sentients of your wave seek infinity?"

"Not for individual members, but for . . ."

"Sentient species, they seek infinity?"

"Of course they do!"

"Why?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"But what about other species for which yours must make way?  You not believe in evolution?"

"Evo --"  McKie shook his head sharply.  "What's that have to do with it?"

"All beings have own day and depart," the Caleban said.  "Day correct term?  Day, unit of time, allotted linearity, normal extent of existence -- you hang this?"

McKie's mouth moved, but no words came out.

"Length of line, time of existence," the Caleban said.  "Approximately translated, correct?"

"But what gives you the right to . . . terminate us?"  McKie demanded, finding his voice.

"Right not assumed, McKie," the Caleban said.  "Given condition of proper connectives, another of my fellows takes up S'eye . . . control before self reaches ultimate discontinuity.  Unusual . . . circumstance rejects such solution here.  Mliss Abnethe and . . . associates shorten your one-track.  My fellows leave."

"They ran for it while they had time; I understand," McKie said.

"Time . . . yes, your single-track line.  This comparison provides suitable concept.  Inadequate but sufficient."

"And you are definitely the last Caleban in our . . . wave?"

"Self alone," the Caleban said.  "Terminal end-point Caleban -- yes.  Self confirms description."

"Wasn't there any way to save yourself?"  McKie asked.

"Save?  Ahhh . . . avoid?  Evade!  Yes, evade ultimate discontinuity.  This you suggest?"

"I'm asking if there wasn't some way for you to escape the way your . . . fellows did."

"Way exists, but result same for your wave."

"You could save yourself, but it would end us, that it?"

"You not possess honor concept?" the Caleban asked.  "Save self, lose honor."

"Touche," McKie said.

"Explain touche," the Caleban said.  "New term."

"Eh?  Oh, that's a very old, ancient term."

"Linear beginning term, you say?  Yes, those best with nodal frequency."

"Nodal frequency?"

"You say -- often.  Nodal frequency contains often."

"They mean the same thing; I see."

"Not same; similar."

"I stand corrected."

"Explain touche.  What meaning conveys this term?"

"Meaning conveys . . . yeah.  It's a fencing term."

"Fencing?  You signify containment?"

McKie explained fencing as best he could with a side journey into swordsmanship, the concept of single combat, competition.

"Effective touch!" the Caleban interrupted, her words conveying definite wonder.  "Nodal intersection!  Touche!  Ahhh-ahhh!  This contains why we find your species to fascinate us!  This concept!  Cutting line:  touche!  Pierced by meaning:  touche!"

"Ultimate discontinuity," McKie snarled.  "Touche!  How far away is your next touche with the whip?"

"Intersection of whip touche!" the Caleban said.  "You seek position of linear displacement, yes.  It moves me.  We perhaps occupy our linearities yet; but self suggests another species may need these dimensions.  We leave, outgo from existence then.  No so?"

When McKie didn't answer, the Caleban said, "McKie, you hang my meaning?"

"I think I'm going to sabotage you," McKie muttered.

Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.

-Gowachin Aphorism

Cheo, the ego-frozen PanSpechi, stared out across the forest toward sunset over the sea.  It was good, he thought, that the Ideal World contained such a sea.  This tower Mliss had ordered built in a city of lesser buildings and spires commanded a view which included also the distant plain and far away mountains of the interior.

A steady wind blew against his left cheek, stirred his yellow hair.  He wore green trousers and an open-mesh shirt of dull gold and gray.  The clothing gave a subtle accent to his humanoid appearance, revealing the odd ripples of alien muscles here and there about his body.

An amused smile occupied his mouth, but not his eyes.  He had PanSpechi eyes, many-faceted, glistening -- although the facets were edge-faded by his ego-surgery.  The eyes watched the insect movements of various sentients on streets and bridgeways below him.  At the same time, they reported on the sky overhead (a faraway flock of birds, streamers of sunset clouds) and told him of the view toward the sea and the nearby balustrade.

We're going to pull it off, he thought.

He glanced at the antique chronograph Mliss had given him.  Crude thing, but it showed the sunset hour.  They'd had to disengage from the Taprisiot mindclock system, though.  This crude device showed two hours to go until the next contact.  The S'eye controls would be more accurate, but he didn't want to move.

They can't stop us.

But maybe they can. . . .

He thought about McKie then.  How had the BuSab agent found this place?  And finding it, how had he come here?  McKie sat in the Beachball with the Caleban right now -- bait, obviously.  Bait!

For what?

Cheo did not enjoy the contradictory emotions surging back and forth through him.  He had broken the most basic PanSpechi law.  He had captured his creche's ego and abandoned his four mates to a mindless existence terminating in mindless death.  A renegade surgeon's instruments had excised the organ which united the pentarchal PanSpechi family across all space.  The surgery had left a scar on Cheo's forehead and a scar on his soul, but he had never imagined he would find such delicate relish in the experience.

Nothing could take the ego from him!

But he was alone, too.

Death would end it, of course, but all creatures had that to face.

And thanks to Mliss, he had a retreat from which no other PanSpechi could extricate him . . . unless . . . but there'd be no other PanSpechi, very soon.  There'd be no other organized sentients at all, except the handful Mliss had brought here to her Ark with its mad Boers and Blacks.

Abnethe came hurrying onto the observation deck behind him.  His ears, as multiplanar in discrimination as his eyes, marked the emotions in her footsteps -- boredom, worry, the constant fear which constricted her being.

Cheo turned.

She had been to a Beautybarber, he observed.  Red hair now crowned her lovely face.  McKie had red hair, too, Cheo reminded himself.  She threw herself onto a reclining chairdog, stretched her legs.

"What's your hurry?" he asked.

"Those Beautybarbers!" she snapped.  "They want to go home!"

"Send them."

"But where will I find others?"

"That is a proper problem, isn't it?"

"You're making fun of me, Cheo.  Don't."

"Then tell them they can't go home."

"I did."

"Did you tell them why?"

"Of course not!  What a thing to say!"

"You told Furuneo."

"I learned my lesson.  Where are my legal people?"

"They've already gone."

"But I had other things to discuss with them!"

"Won't it wait?"

"You knew we had other business.  Why'd you let them go?"

"Mliss, you don't really want to know the other matter on their minds."

"The Caleban's to blame," she said.  "That's our story, and no one can disprove it.  What was the other matter the legal numbheads wanted to discuss?"

"Mliss, drop it."

"Cheo!"

His PanSpechi eyes glittered suddenly.  "As you wish.  They conveyed a demand from BuSab.  They have asked the Caleban for Furuneo's head."

"His . . ." She paled.  "But how did they know we . . ."

"It was an obvious move under the circumstances."

"What did you tell them?" she whispered.  She stared at his face.

"I told them the Caleban closed the S'eye jumpdoor just as Furuneo was entering it of his own volition."

"But they know we have a monopoly on that S'eye," she said, her voice stronger.  "Damn them!"

"Ahhh," Cheo said, "but Fanny Mae has been moving McKie and his friends around.  That says we have no monopoly."

"That's exactly what I said before.  Isn't it?"

"It gives us the perfect delaying tactic," he said.  "Fanny Mae sent the head somewhere, and we don't know where.  I've told her, of course, to deny this request.

She swallowed.  "Is that . . . what you told them?"

"Of course."

"But if they question the Caleban . . ."

"They're just as likely to get a confusing answer as a usable one."

"That was very clever of you, Cheo."

"Isn't that why you keep me around?"

"I keep you around for mysterious reasons of my own," she said, smiling.

"I depend on that," he said.