To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (28 page)

Rio and Blake had insisted on sleeping late and spending the afternoon talking with a now sober Walter Robinson. It was after six p.m. when, with Maya, they left Venus.

Maya stood on the public mall and pointed over the edge of the railing at the arcolog next to them. It was like pointing across a canyon to an adjacent mountain. "There, that pinkish dome, the one by the blue pyramid? That's Level Ninety. Go in there and ask for Linda Muirwood."

Blake took her hand and thanked her for all her help. She looked sad, but smiled anyway. "Maybe next time," she said.

Blake wished he had something to give her, but he had nothing that she had not given him. So he kissed her.

She started as if struck by lightning, and jumped back, blushing furiously. She looked around in fear, saying, "Don't, please! Oh, dear..."

Rio tugged at Blake, and they went down the escalator nearby, then took a drop elevator to an interark slideway and went over to the other arcolog.

"That wasn't too shrewd a move," she said as they slid between the man-made mountains. "But I know why you did it."

"I keep forgetting the way they feel around here," Blake said. "It just seems so foolish to deny perfectly natural feelings."

Rio nodded, her eyes on the upper levels of the arcolog they were approaching. "What next...?" she wondered aloud.

Blake's eyes were on a black-clad policeman standing just inside the slideway entrance to the arcolog. He was scanning the passing throng, and then his eyes lit on Blake and Rio and he didn't look away.

"Pretend you don't know me," Blake said quietly. "The blackcoat at the entrance–"

"I see him," Rio said in a whisper.

"You go left, I'll go right. If he follows me I'll lose him. If he follows you, I'll – I'll follow him."

"Blake..."

"You forget, I'm the terror of the Caligula Arena." Blake shifted his weight away from her and moved to get off the slideway first. He stepped off fairly close to the policeman and paused as if to get his bearings, then strode off purposefully to the right. Rio went the other way, down the mall, and Blake glanced around casually and saw the officer speak into a communicator. Blake started to walk faster, and the black-suited officer started after him.

I've got to do this quickly,
he thought. Blake rounded a corner and saw the entrance to a working-class saloon ahead.
I can't just lose him, I've got to stop him!

Blake slowed and turned into the saloon just as the policeman came around the corner.

Blake quickly took stock of the bar. It was neither as dark nor as disreputable as he would have liked, but it was all he had. He walked quickly toward a passage marked WASH ROOMS, smiling confidently at the bartender. The few customers paid no attention.

Without hesitation Blake stepped through the door marked WOMEN. No one was inside. He held the door open a crack and heard a rough voice say something and another voice grunt. Then the policeman was in the passageway. He passed the women's wash room as Blake hoped he would, holding a stubby black weapon in his hand. A jewel-like light pulsed steadily at the back of it.

Blake stepped out.

The policeman started to turn, but Blake hit him hard on the side of the neck. Two more blows and the blacksuit folded, his weapon tinkling to the floor. Blake grabbed his feet and tugged him through the door into the women's wash room and set him in a booth. He found the weapon was fastened to the man's locked belt by a thin but tough line.

Blake gave up trying to get it loose, and shut the booth door and walked swiftly out. The bartender looked up from a visionphone and Blake smiled.

The bartender watched him leave with expressionless eyes.

Blake took a direct elevator to Level Ninety and walked along until he found the pinkish dome Maya had described. He lingered near a food dispenser and looked for Rio. He found her near a pillar, and walked over to her. She acted as if they had never met.

"Were you followed?" Blake asked, scratching his face to hide it.

"No. What happened to you?"

"Tell you later." Blake looked around. "Come on, pawn of fate," he said. "Nothing looks suspicious around here."

"Do you think you'd know what
was
suspicious in this crazy world?"

"So I haven't had much experience being a fugitive. You wait behind. Look in those windows over there. No use both of us getting caught. If I don't come out, or if the forces of law and order come charging in, then go back to Maya and see what they can do."

Rio nodded, squeezing his hand in a quick gesture as she walked away.

Blake went along the mall, dodging a whispering electrocart filled with boxes, then stopped before the dome entrance. Scores of semi-autonomous domes fringed the arcolog on several levels, giving the illusion of being separate houses instead of being part of the massive, immovable ark mountain. The pink dome, a five-eighths globe, housed a retail store that sold religious artifacts. The name "Muirwood's" was scrawled across the curve of the dome in a glowing cerise line.

Blake went inside, walking between larger-than-life statues of saints, some with symbols that Blake found odd indeed. He also noticed figures that had a demon-like quality, something like gargoyles – fierce-faced and horned, fear-making statues designed to be impressive. Blake wondered what kind of religion needed to frighten its believers, but then he remembered that that wasn't so unusual in history, after all.

The dome opened up into several balconies overlooking the main floor, and everywhere there were robed figures shopping. Some were in black, some in gray, a few in blue and scarlet. Several of the uniforms made Blake accountably nervous, but no one seemed to pay any attention to him or to his conventional dress.

He walked through aisles displaying dozens of different bibles, crucifixes, statuettes, and animatronic Christs that blessed, turned, smiled, and glowed. Blake saw a door marked OFFICE and headed for it through a covey of green-clad nuns with sour faces.

Linda Muirwood was slim and blond, with pale white skin and large blue eyes. She looked at Blake across an ancient carved desk, now black with use, gleaming from polish. "You are Blake Mason," she said, making it a statement. She looked past him and raised her eyebrows.

"She's nearby."

Bake gave the room a quick look. Shelves covered two walls and overflowed with objets d'art. A Byzantine mosaic fragment sat next to an early-twentieth-century soft-drink tray. A child's skull, covered with small polished stones, was between a battered plastic object that looked like a peanut made in the shape of a man and a bell jar containing a child's doll with plastic hair and the look of a prostitute, wearing a lame dress. Across the room was a shelf holding old paperbound books, a small sensatron repro cube of a Caruthers landscape, several framed and faded bank checks, a jar of late-twentieth-century pennies, and dozens of odd plastic objects that Blake could not identify. There were boxes and chests, plastic stasis containers, jars of dark glass, and several very old soft-drink bottles on small wooden bases. A portrait of Linda Muirwood hung on the wall behind the desk – a spot Blake thought inappropriate, since the painting and the subject just below it were markedly different: the painting was the more alive of the two.

Blake took his time examining the room and the woman. She wore a curious pendant that looked something like an animal's head with horns and a long neck; it was wrought in metal. She fingered it as she inspected Blake in turn.

"So," she said with finality. "Are you satisfied?"

Blake shrugged. He was tired of running and of being sent from hither to yon. "I’ll get her," he said, and went back outside.

"Is everything all right?" Rio asked.

"I suppose so. If this is some kind of trap, they already have us. If it isn't, then we are only taking one more step."

"Where are they sending us now?" Rio asked anxiously.

"To where they think we will do the most good ... for them." He smiled reassuringly at Rio. "Fear not, all will be well."

Rio shivered, and hugged Blake's arm as a wind swept through the mall, which was open to the sky along one side. "Where is Jean-Michel...?"

Blake had no answer. He took her arm and they entered the Muirwood dome.

Linda gave Rio an even closer examination with her eyes than she had given Blake. As she did, she fingered a silver bracelet set with large blue-green turquoise stones. Abruptly she said, "We will have a reading." She reached into a drawer of her desk and withdrew a deck of large tarot cards.

"We don't have time for that," Blake said. "Please pass us on to the next step, or whatever it is you are supposed to do with us."

Linda Muirwood gave him a steady gaze, her face expressionless, but Blake sensed anger or possibly hatred. "Very well," she said at last, and put the deck back. She rose. "Follow me."

She went into the shop, down between display cabinets of robes both ancient and modern, past trays of rings and racks of ornamental swords. Blake and Rio followed her briskly walking figure, trying not to look nervous. Linda passed between counters of embossed silver trays and ceremonial cups and on into a storeroom.

Here the dome curved down and the walls were stacked high with boxes and shelves of merchandise. Several stock clerks noticed her passing, but gave Blake and Rio only a cursory look. Linda took a stairway down and the two fugitives followed. They came into a lower deck, below the surface of the mall, where the air-conditioning ducts and the various pipes, tubes, and conduits were located. Linda was still walking briskly, following a path that was twisting and turning.

Blake knew they were well past the mall and into the outer wall of the arcolog, but he was beginning to lose his sense of direction. They went through fire doors, utility access hatches, company ports, and anonymous arches until he was completely lost.

"Where are we?" he called ahead to Linda.

"Sector six, quadrant two, level three-four-seven, sublevel B."

"Thanks," Blake said. "I should have recognized it right away."

A few moments later, Linda took utility stairs up one level and stopped at a locked door. She produced a key from her clothing and pressed it to the lock panel. The door clicked open and the three of them entered and closed it after them. They were in the technical-services hall to a series of condominiums.

Linda walked quickly to the third of several doors and pressed another key to a blank spot on the wall near the door.

She paused, and looked at Blake and Rio. "A moment," she said.

They heard a noise, and Linda stepped onto the ident panel before the door. A few seconds later the door slid back and Linda walked through quickly. Blake and Rio hurried after her.

The condo was large and dark, except for candles. The person who opened the door was robed in black. Blake observed the figure putting a laser gun into a pocket of his robe, then all Blake could see was the gleam of eyes in the darkness of the cowl.
What have we fallen into
this
time,
he wondered.

The air was heavy with incense and the steady chant of a number of people. Blake came up behind Rio as she stood at the entrance to the main room. Linda had disappeared into the dimness and Blake sought her in the crowd of kneeling figures, but could not find her. Some of the figures wore black masks, and there were about as many of one sex as another. Against one wall an altar stood on a section of flooring raised up a few steps. The altar was made of some dark, polished stone and the candles on it were of black wax and were set in ancient holders of ornate silver. Before the altar stood a black man, in a black robe, speaking in a sonorous tone, reading from a heavy and ancient book. The language was unintelligible.

"It's black magic!" Rio said in a whisper.

Blake gripped her arm and gave the passing figure of the one who had opened the door a quick look. The man passed on across the room, and Blake saw him kneel with another small group of robed figures who were all but invisible in a corner. They seem to be praying, and all held candles.

"Perhaps it is
white
magic," he told Rio. He felt her shiver and he murmured reassuringly in her ear, "It's just another religion. If it were a black mass, they'd have an inverted stolen crucifix and would be reading the Mass backward. At least, I think that's what they do."

"We serve in a way far older than that," said a voice at their elbow. Startled, Blake and Rio turned to see Linda standing next to them. "Those who mock the Christian service with their blasphemies are but upstarts. We here follow a far more ancient form of worship. Listen!"

Blake and Rio listened, but all they heard was the chant of the group of kneeling people who were following the man before the altar.

The whole ceremony seemed to have significance to Linda. "Watch," she whispered. "Constantine is about to make a woman his slave."

The man at the altar stopped his chant and put away the book. He took a piece of parchment given him by one of the women and drew three large concentric circles upon it with a quill pen. Then the acolyte offered him a small pot, which seemed to be filled with ashes.