Jumper Cable (37 page)

Eve said.

“Just as well,” the woman said. “I could have made myself ill with a deadly contagious disease that would have taken him out. But then it might have spread.”

“Just as well,” Jumper agreed, relieved.

“Thank you for saving me from that bottle,” the woman said to Eve.

“You’re welcome,” Eve said.

They mounted their bikes again and rode on, leaving the woman behind. “Why don’t the people here seem to care about the edge of Xanth?”

Jumper asked.

“They’re used to it. They take it for granted.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that.”

“Well, you’re not human,” she said. “I think that’s part of what makes you so appealing.”

“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure whether she was joking. Finally they came to the cable.

The thick mass of wires descended from the sky beyond the edge of Xanth, and plunged into the ground, going where only it and perhaps Com Pewter knew. Up near a cloud it was torn, with a segment ripped out. The segment that had fallen into the possession of the talented children, who would not give it up. Eve stepped up and touched it with one finger. “Oh, my,” she breathed, clearly awed.

“Yes?”

“Now I know its purpose, and why it is so important that it be fixed.”

He waited a full moment, knowing that the explanation would be impressive.

“It is a conduit,” she said, “for an exchange with Mundania, which is now separated from Xanth by a virtually impassible gulf. A trading deal that both worlds need.”

He waited another moment.

“We send Mundania magic for special effects,” she continued, “such as rainbows, that can be seen only from one side. Perspective, in which distant things hurry to keep up with near things despite looking smaller. The way Earth’s moon grows larger on romantic fall eve nings. And of course the randomness that accounts for free will. Mundanians will really miss these things.”

“But what is Mundania sending us?”

“Gravity.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The magic of Demon Earth is Gravity. It holds all things to the surface of the planet so they don’t float away and get lost. Without it, Mundanians would also float away. They wouldn’t much like that.”

“Of course. But what has that to do with us?”

“It is not our magic, so we import it from Mundania. It keeps our things, and us, from floating away. Now it is surely fading.”

“The jumping!” he exclaimed. “That’s why

we’re lighter. Less

gravity.”

“That would be it,” she agreed. “Xanth really needs it.”

“No wonder the Good Magician didn’t tell us why the mission was so urgent. Xanth would panic if news leaked out.”

“And we well might have let it slip,” she agreed somberly.

“And if we don’t repair the cable, gravity will fade entirely, and we’ll all be lost,” he said. “Now at last I understand why this mission was important enough to warrant two Sorceresses.”

“As do I,” she agreed. “Yet we seem to have failed. Pluto must just be waiting for us to admit it. Then by the terms of the Demon deal, he can pounce on me.”

“And Sharon can pounce on me,” he agreed.

“And we can’t fix it,” she said, stepping into his consoling embrace. This time it was nothing but mutual commiseration. “Oh, Jumper, is this the end?”

“It can’t be,” he said. But he feared it was.

Yet though failure stares us in the face, they have not pounced,” Eve said. “What factor are we missing?”

“There must be a way to fix it, if only we can figure it out,” Jumper said.

She touched the cable again. “There is some slack, because it curves while wending its way between realms. Enough to pull the ends together, despite the missing section, if we just had the strength to do it.”

“I am strong, but not that strong,” he said. “We would need considerable help.”

“The other members of the mission,” she said. “Maybe that’s why all of them are needed. To pull it tight so you can splice it.”

“They are girls, no offense. Are they strong enough?”

“No. It would take twice as much strength as they have. Maybe more.”

“So there must be something else.”

“Something else,” she agreed. “But what?”

Jumper brought out the Prophecy. “Let no maiden fair, Yield to despair,” he read. “It will be nice, If you can splice.”

“It certainly will be,” Eve agreed. “But the Prophecy didn’t know that we wouldn’t get that missing section of cable from the children.”

“It didn’t actually say we had to have it,” Jumper said. “Just that we’d find it when, in the Ogre Fen. We did find it when we were there. We didn’t get it, but the mission doesn’t seem to have ended yet.”

“We found it when we were in the Ogre Fen,” she agreed. “But I’m afraid the maidens fair did yield to despair.”

“Actually they all found happiness. But they wouldn’t have left if they hadn’t believed it was over.”

“I just got a weird thought. We had to pass three bad obstacles. One was the challenge of getting the cable, after you promised not to take their trea sure. Maybe the real test was of honor. We might have stolen their cable section, but none of us questioned the need to keep our promise. So maybe we passed that after all. Could another have been the belief that we had lost? So that we would give up when maybe we didn’t need to?”

“That could be!” he agreed, surprised. “Demon bets can be devious, as we know. And the third is to splice the cable back together, if we can.”

Two people approached. “How are yew?” one called.

“Wenda!” Jumper and Eve said together.

“I just could knot let yew go on alone,” Wenda said as she came up.

“So we came to help, if we can.”

“Prince Charming too?” Jumper asked.

“I haven’t done anything useful in a de cade,” Charming said. “Now Wenda has motivated me. How can I help?”

“Well, we will need to pull the two sections of the cable together,”

Jumper said, pointing to the gap. “If we can get enough people, maybe we can do it.”

“Yew have the two of us,” Wenda said.

Two more people appeared, one carry

ing a baby. “Halloo!” the

woman called, her sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight.

“Maeve!” Eve said.

“I remembered that line in the Prophecy, about the maiden fair yielding to despair,” Maeve said. “I refuse to be the one.”

“Warren too?” Jumper asked.

“This is a kind of battle,” Warren said. “Fit business for a warrior.”

Eve caught Jumper’s eye. “If this continues . . .”

“We might have enough people,” Jumper agreed. “The girls are not yielding to despair.”

Soon two more arrived: Olive Hue and Dick Philip. “We had this crazy notion that maybe it wasn’t over,” she said. “So we came to check.”

And Phanta with Shepherd. “I had this ghost of a thought that maybe you could use some help.”

A harpy flew in. It was Haughty. “Charon can’t come; he has to stay out of it. But I told him I had to help my friends, and would return to him later. He couldn’t stop me.”

Finally Dawn reappeared. “Did you find a prince?” Eve asked.

“Not exactly. But I got a great idea.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t say what it is yet. But it will be perfect if it works out. Meanwhile I’m here to help.”

Jumper looked at Eve. “Now we are twelve. Is that enough?”

“Just barely,” she said. “We can haul the cable together, but there are a couple of caveats. I’m not sure what they are, but they need to be dealt with.”

“Then let’s get started,” Jumper said. “We’ll deal with them as they occur.” He glanced at Olive. “It would help if you could summon a strong friend.”

“I know just the person,” she said. “Not strong, but with a relevant talent.”

A woman appeared. “Hello, Olive,” she said, looking around. “Who are your nonimaginary friends?”

“Hello, Leslie. This is a crew of us with a mission to re-connect two cables. I thought your talent would be ideal. You can put any two things together.”

“Not exactly,” Leslie said. “I can blend any two different objects, like a bottle and a stuffed animal to make a bottlemal, or even living and nonliving. Such as a man and a book, to make a manual. Or a woman and a mirror, which becomes a looking lass. But re-connecting two

cables would be merging the same thing, and that’s really fixing something broken, which is not my talent. So I can’t help you there.”

“Oh,” Olive said. “Sorry. My mistake.”

“Some other time, perhaps,” Leslie said, and faded out.

“So this time I’ll try strong,” Olive said. “Hoping to get it right.”

A huge shape appeared beside her. It was an ogre. He looked dully around. “Uh, duh?”

“Welcome to our mission,” Olive said to him. Then to the others,

“This is Online Ogre. He was really annoyed when the cable broke so he couldn’t indulge his surfing passion.”

Oho! “Yes, we can certainly use a motivated ogre,” Jumper said. Because ogres were almost as strong as they were stupid, and they were exceedingly stupid. At least, that was how they preferred to seem; Smash Ogre had not been at all stupid once Jumper got to know him. Probably neither was Online, because it surely required some wit to surf, what ever that was.

They or ga nized. Four people climbed to the far cable, including the ogre, using sticky web bits on their feet and silk web safety harnesses Jumper spun, and seven went to the near side. They took hold of the strong strands Jumper had attached loosely to the cables and hauled. Haughty was among them, using her claws and wings. So was Maeve, now with Baby Mae on her back in a makeshift carrier so she could keep her hands free. The two sections started coming together.

“Now I will need a pair of eyes to guide my connections,” Jumper said. He was of course in spider form. “Because it will be all I can do to grasp the individual strands, and my color perception is not great. So you—”

He broke off, because Eve was looking pained. “I can’t,” she whispered. He had forgotten her fear of heights! That was one of the caveats. But he had to have help.

“Maybe if I spin you a cocoon,” he suggested doubtfully.

“Then I couldn’t see to guide you.”

There was no help for it. “I will do my best alone.”

But then the two ends started separating. There was not enough

strength in one team to maintain sufficient pull. They were losing it regardless. Eve gulped. “If the mission fails because of me, then I am condemning myself to a lifetime of degradation. I might as well end it now.”

“No, Eve! We’ll manage somehow.”

“No, you won’t. Not without me.” She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and took hold of the slanting cable. She started climbing. And quickly let go, dropping back to the ground. “I can’t,” she said. Indeed, she looked as if she had aged three de cades; her jaw was slack, her breathing shallow. She looked considerably less beautiful than usual.

Jumper hastily flung a safety harness about her. “If you lose your grip, you won’t fall,” he said. “You will merely hang below it.”

“Thanks,” she said through gritted teeth. But she still couldn’t do it. Jumper searched his mind desperately for something that might help. He came up with a faint notion. “You are close to your sister,” he said. “You two argue, but you’re close.”

“Yes, we are twins,” she agreed. “Almost identical.”

“You might almost identify with her. That’s why the two of you have quarreled about boyfriends. You have very similar tastes.”

“Yes. She’ll be wanting a Demon consort too.” She smiled briefly through her pain. “Which she just might get, the hard way, by changing genders.”

“In fact you are almost telepathic. You generally know where each of you are. That’s why she returned.”

“Yes, we relate.”

“Can you put yourself in her frame of mind? Think of yourself as her?”

“I suppose. Sometimes when we were younger we switched clothing and fooled our parents, just for fun.”

“She’s afraid of depths. If you relate to her, maybe you can exchange fears. For a while.”

She looked at him sharply. “I wonder.”

“If you close your eyes and think Dawn thoughts, maybe you can get up that cable.”

She kissed his mandible. “Maybe.” Then she closed her eyes again and concentrated.

Her aspect subtly changed. Bright highlights seemed to appear in her hair, and she became almost fair. Then she smiled, and sunlight seemed to flash. “Who’s afraid of the big bad sky?” she asked. She took hold of the cable. He could see that she was not quite convinced, but the mind change enabled her to fight off enough of the fear. He watched as she climbed, eyes closed, to the end. Then, guided by the instructions of the others there, she caught hold of a strand and pulled. The cable ends started coming together again. It was working!

But now he lacked a partner to guide his detail work. Could he manage to do it anyway? He went up and tried. The torn ends had multicolored wires sticking out wildly in every direction. He simply could not tell them apart. The valiant effort of the girls and men was being wasted. Sharon appeared. “So you are doing it,” she said.

“Sharon! I need help! I can’t see the fine wires well enough.”

“Too bad,” she said. “I suppose that means your mission will fail. Pluto will be pleased.”

“Please! I can’t do it without you.”

She sighed. “If I do it, will you marry me?”

Jumper hesitated. He didn’t want to marry her, but did he have a choice? “Yes.”

“Exactly what is it you need?”

“The wires are of many colors. I need to match the colors from each cable, so I can tie them together correctly.”

“Like this?” She reached out and found two yellow wires.

“Yes!” He reached for them.

She drew back, holding them just out of his reach. “These?”

“Sharon, this is no time for teasing,” he said. “Give me the wires.”

She let them go. “You fool! Did you really think I would help you, let alone marry you? You’re a spider! I’m going to marry Pluto, and Eve will be my scullery maid.”

“But you promised!”

“Funny thing about Demon promises,” she remarked. “They don’t mean anything unless couched as Demon bets or disciplined by half a soul. Deception is merely a means to an end. So long, sucker!” She vanished. So she had betrayed him when it really counted. She was still Pluto’s minion. Jumper was more disgusted than heartbroken. That was the second caveat: the help that could have made the difference, and chose not to.