The Whipping Star (3 page)

"Those things are supposed to be indestructible," McKie said.

The Beachball was some six meters in diameter.  It sat solidly on the shelf, about half a meter of its bottom surface hidden by a depression in the rock, as though it had melted out a resting place.

McKie led the way up to the lee of the Ball, passing Furuneo in the last few meters.  He stood there, hands in pockets, shivering.  The round surface of the Ball failed to cut off the cold wind.

"It's bigger than I expected," he said as Furuneo stopped beside him.

"First one you've ever seen close up?"

"Yeah."

McKie passed his gaze across the thing.  Knobs and indentations marked the opaque metallic surface.  It seemed to him the surface variations carried some pattern.  Sensors, perhaps?  Controls of some kind?  Directly in front of him there was what appeared to be a crackled mark, perhaps from a collision.  It lay just below the surface, presenting no roughness to McKie's exploring hand.

What if they're wrong about these things?" Furuneo asked.

"Mmmm?"

"What if they aren't Caleban homes?"

"Don't know.  Do you recall the drill?"

"You find a 'nippled extrusion' and you knock on it.  We tried that.  There's one just around to your left."

McKie worked his way around in that direction, getting drenched by a wind-driven spray in the process.  He reached up, still shivering from the cold, knocked at the indicated extrusion.

Nothing happened.

Every briefing I ever attended says there's a door in these things somewhere," McKie grumbled.

"But they don't say the door opens every time you knock," Furuneo said.

McKie continued working his way around the Ball, found another nippled extrusion, knocked.

Nothing.

"We tried that one, too," Furuneo said.

"I feel like a damn fool," McKie said.

"Maybe there's nobody home."

"Remote control?" McKie asked.

"Or abandoned -- a derelict."

McKie pointed to a thin green line about a meter long on the Ball's windward surface.  "What's that?"

Furuneo hunched his shoulders against spray and wind, stared at the line.  "Don't recall seeing it."

"I wish we knew a lot more about these damn things," McKie grumbled.

"Maybe we aren't knocking loud enough," Furuneo said.

McKie pursed his lips in thought.  Presently he took out his toolkit, extracted a lump of low-grade explosive.  "Go back on the other side," he said.

"You sure you ought to try that?" Furuneo asked.

"No."

"Well --"  Furuneo shrugged, retreated around the Ball.

McKie applied a strip of the explosive along the green line, attached a time-thread, joined Furuneo.

Presently, there came a dull thump that was almost drowned by the surf.

McKie felt an abrupt inner silence, found himself wondering, What if the Caleban gets angry and springs a weapon we've never heard of?  He darted around to the windward side.

An oval hole had appeared above the green line as though a plug had been sucked into the Ball.

"Guess you pushed the right button," Furuneo said.

McKie suppressed a feeling of irritation which he knew to be mostly angeret effect, said, "Yeah.  Give me a leg up."  Furuneo, he noted, was controlling the drug reaction almost perfectly.

With Furuneo's help McKie clambered into the open port, stared inside.  Dull purple light greeted him, a suggestion of movement within the dimness.

"See anything?" Furuneo called.

"Don't know."  McKie scrambled inside, dropped to a carpeted floor.  He crouched, studied his surroundings in the purple glow.  His teeth clattered from the cold.  The room around him apparently occupied the entire center of the Ball -- low ceiling, flickering rainbows against the inner surface on his left, a giant soup-spoon shape jutting into the room directly across from him, tiny spools, handles, and knobs against the wall on his right.

The sense of movement originated in the spoon bowl.

Abruptly, McKie realized he was in the presence of a Caleban.

"What do you see?" Furuneo called.

Without taking his gaze from the spoon, McKie turned his head slightly.  "There's a Caleban in here."

"Shall I come in?"

"No.  Tell your men and sit tight."

"Right."

McKie returned his full attention to the bowl of the spoon.  His throat felt dry.  He'd never before been alone in the presence of a Caleban.  This was a position usually reserved for scientific investigators armed with esoteric instruments.

"I'm . . . ah, Jorj X. McKie, Bureau of Sabotage," he said.

There was a stirring at the spoon, an effect of radiated meaning immediately behind the movement:  "I make your acquaintance."

McKie found himself recalling Masarard's poetic description in Conversation With a Caleban.

"Who can say how a Caleban speaks?" Masarard had written.  "Their words come at you like the coruscating of a nine-ribbon Sojeu barber pole.  The insensitive way such words radiate.  I say the Caleban speaks.  When words are sent, is that not speech?  Send me your words, Caleban, and I will tell the universe of your wisdom.  "

Having experienced the Caleban's words, McKie decided Masarard was a pretentious ass.  The Caleban radiated.  Its communication registered in the sentient mind as sound, but the ears denied they had heard anything.  It was the same order of effect that Calebans had on the eyes.  You felt you were seeing something, but the visual centers refused to agree.

"I hope my . . . ah, I didn't disturb you," McKie said.

"I possess no referent for disturb," the Caleban said.  "You bring a companion?"

"My companion's outside," McKie said.  No referent for disturb?

"Invite your companion," the Caleban said.

McKie hesitated, then, "Furuneo!  C'mon in."

The planetary agent joined him, crouched at McKie's left in the purple gloom.  "Damn, that's cold out there," Furuneo said.

"Low temperature and much moisture," the Caleban agreed.  McKie, having turned to watch Furuneo enter, saw a closure appear from the solid wall beside the open port.  Wind, spray, and surf were shut off.

The temperature in the Ball began to rise.

"It's going to get hot," McKie said.

"What?"

"Hot.  Remember the briefings?  Calebans like their air hot and dry."  He could already feel his damp clothing begin to turn clammy against his skin.

"That's right," Furuneo said.  "What's going on?"

"We've been invited in," McKie said.  "We didn't disturb him because he has no referent for disturb."  He turned back to the spoon shape.

"Where is he?"

"In that spoon thing."

"Yeah . . . I, uh -- yeah.  "

"You may address me as Fanny Mae, "the Caleban said.  "I can reproduce my kind and answer the equivalents for female.  "

"Fanny Mae," McKie said with what he knew to be stupid vacuity.  How can you look at the damn thing?  Where is its face?  "My companion is Alichino Furuneo, planetary agent on Cordiality for the Bureau of Sabotage."  Fanny Mae?  Damn!

"I make your acquaintance," the Caleban said.  "Permit an inquiry into the purpose for your visit."

Furuneo scratched his right ear.  "How're we hearing it?"  He shook his head.  "I can understand it, but. . . ."

"Never mind!" McKie said.  And he warned himself:  Gently now.  How do you question one of these things?  The insubstantial Caleban presence, the twisting away his mind accepted the thing's words -- it all combined with the angeret in producing irritation.

"I . . . my orders," McKie said.  "I seek a Caleban employed by Mliss Abnethe."

"I receive your questions," the Caleban said.

Receive my questions?

McKie tried tipping his head from side to side, wondered if it were possible to achieve an angle of vision where the something across from him would assume recognizable substance.

"What're you doing?" Furuneo asked.

"Trying to see it."

"You seek visible substance?" the Caleban asked.

"Uhhh, yes," McKie said.

Fanny Mae? he thought.  It would be like an original encounter with the Gowachin planets, the first Earth-human encountering the first froglike Gowachin, and the Gowachin introducing himself as William.  Where in ninety thousand worlds did the Caleban dig up that name?  And why?

"I produce mirror," the Caleban said, "which reflects outward from projection along plane of being."

"Are we going to see it?" Furuneo whispered.  "Nobody's ever seen a Caleban.'°

"Shhh."

A half-meter oval something of green, blue, and pink without apparent connection to the empty-presence of the Caleban materialized above the giant spoon.

"Think of this as stage upon which I present my selfdom," the Caleban said.

"You see anything?" Furuneo asked.

McKie's visual centers conjured a borderline sensation, a feeling of distant life whose rhythms danced unfleshed within the colorful oval like the sea roaring in an empty shell.  He recalled a one-eyed friend and the difficulty of focusing the attention on that lonely eye without being drawn to the vacant patch.  Why couldn't the damn fool just buy a new eye?  Why couldn't. . . .

He swallowed.

"That's the oddest thing I ever saw," Furuneo whispered.  "You see it?"

McKie described his visual sensation.  "That what you see?"

"I guess so," Furuneo said.

"Visual attempt fails," the Caleban said.  "Perhaps I employ insufficient contrast."

Wondering if he could be mistaken, McKie thought he detected a plaintive mood in the Caleban's words.  Was it possible Calebans disliked not being seen?

"It's fine," McKie said.  "Now, may we discuss the Caleban who . . ."

"Perhaps overlooking cannot be connected," the Caleban said, interrupting.  "We enter state for which there exists no remedy.  'As well argue with the night,' as your poets tell us."

The sensation of an enormous sigh swept out from the Caleban and over McKie.  It was sadness, a doom-fire gloom.  He wondered if they had experienced an angeret failure.  The emotional strength carried terror within it.

"You feel that?" Furuneo asked.

"Yes."

McKie felt his eyes burning.  He blinked.  Between blinks, he glimpsed a flower element hovering within the oval -- deep red against the room's purple, with black veins woven through it, Slowly it blossomed, closed, blossomed.  He wanted to reach out, touch it with a handful of compassion.

"How beautiful," he whispered.

"What is it?" Furuneo whispered.

"I think we're seeing a Caleban."

"I want to cry," Furuneo said.

"Control yourself," McKie cautioned.  He cleared his throat.  Twanging bits of emotion tumbled through him.  They were like pieces cut from the whole and loosed to seek their own patterns.  The angeret effect was lost in the mixture.

Slowly the image in the oval faded.  The emotional torrent subsided.

"Wheweee," Furuneo breathed.

"Fanny Mae," McKie ventured.  "What was . . ."

"I am one employed by Mliss Abnethe," the Caleban said.  "Correct verb usage?"

"Bang"' Furuneo said.  "Just like that."

McKie glanced at him, at the place where they had entered the Ball.  No sign remained of the oval hole.  The heat in the room was becoming unbearable.  Correct verb usage?  He looked at the Caleban manifestation.  Something still shimmered above the spoon shape, but it defied his visual centers to describe it.

"Was it asking a question?" Furuneo asked.

"Be still a minute," McKie snapped.  "I want to think."

Seconds ticked past.  Furuneo felt perspiration running down his neck, under his collar.  He could taste it in the corners of his mouth.

McKie sat silently staring at the giant spoon.  The Caleban employed by Abnethe.  He still felt the aftermath of the emotional melange.  Some lost memory demanded his attention, but he couldn't bring it out for examination.

Furuneo, watching McKie, began to wonder if the Saboteur Extraordinary had been mesmerized.  "You still thinking?" he whispered.

McKie nodded, then, "Fanny Mae, where is your employer?"

"Coordinates not permitted," the Caleban said.

"Is she on this planet?"

"Different connectives," the Caleban said.

"I don't think you two are talking the same language," Furuneo said.  '

"From everything I've read and heard about Calebans, that's the big problem," McKie said.  "Communication difficulty."

Furuneo wiped sweat from his forehead.  "Have you tried calling Abnethe long distance?" he asked.

"Don't be stupid," McKie said.  "That's the first thing I tried."

"Well?"

"Either the Taprisiots are telling the truth and can't make contact, or she's bought them off some way.  What difference does it make?  So I contact her.  How does that tell me where she is?  How do I invoke a monitor clause with someone who doesn't wear a monitor?"

"How could she buy off the Taprisiots?"

"How do I know?  For that matter, how could she hire a Caleban?"

"Invocation of value exchange," the Caleban said.

McKie chewed at his upper lip.

Furuneo leaned against the wall behind him.  He knew what inhibited McKie here.  You walked softly with a strange sentient species.  No telling what might cause affront.  Even the way you phrased a question could cause trouble.  They should have assigned a Zeno expert to help McKie.  It seemed odd that they hadn't.

"Abnethe offered you something of value, Fanny Mae?" McKie ventured.

"I offer judgment," the Caleban said.  "Abnethe may not be judged friendly-good-nice-kindly . . . acceptable."

"Is that . . . your judgment?" McKie asked.

"Your species prohibits flagellation of sentients," the Caleban said.  "Fanny Mae orders me flagellated."

"Why don't you . . . just refuse?" McKie asked.

"Contract obligation," the Caleban said.

"Contract obligation."  McKie muttered, glancing at Furuneo, who shrugged.

"Ask where she goes to be flagellated," Furuneo said.

"Flagellation comes to me," the Caleban said.

"By flagellation, you mean you're whipped," McKie said.