Authors: Mike Resnick
He closed his eyes, and a moment later he was sound asleep.
Jade stared at him for a long moment, then left his room and returned to her own. And sat down. And for the first time, tried to decide whether she really wanted the Oracle to come to Port Maracaibo looking for Chandler and his confederates.
Chandler awoke just after sunset, ordered dinner, and spent the next half hour watching various sporting events on the holo screen. Then Jade entered his room and approached him.
"Are you ready?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Let's wait another two or three hours. I want to give Timo's bodyguards a little time to get sleepy."
"Good,” said Jade, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “Because we have to talk."
"What about?"
"About the Oracle."
Chandler stared at her. “Go ahead,” he said. “I'm listening."
"Why are you trying to lure her to Port Maracaibo?"
"I told you why,” said Chandler.
"I know what you told me,” she said. “Now I want you to tell me something else."
"What?"
"How do you know this is your idea?"
"She's no telepath,” he replied. “The man who hired me actually spent some time with her some years ago."
"She doesn't have to be a telepath,” persisted Jade.
"I don't think I follow you."
"You told me yourself: she can see an infinite number of futures, and manipulate things so that the future she wants will come to pass. Maybe she chose the one future in which you came to Port Maracaibo and devised this particular plan."
"I doubt it,” said Chandler. “But even if it's true, so what? My job is to bring her out."
"What if she doesn't want to go with you?” said Jade. “What if she just needs an excuse to leave Hades?"
"For what reason?"
"How should I know what reason?” responded Jade. “I just want to know how you can be sure she's not pulling your strings right this moment."
He sighed. “The answer to that is that I don't know. I don't think she is. I don't think she has that kind of power, or, if she does have it, then I don't think she can be held anywhere, even Hades, against her will. But even if she is manipulating me into getting her off Hades, why should I care about it? She's just making my job easier."
"I don't know,” said Jade. “But I feel very uneasy about it. If she's manipulating you, then she's manipulating me, too, and I don't like being manipulated."
"I don't know exactly what we can do about it either way,” replied Chandler.
"We can quit right now."
"Not a chance,” he said. “I've got a contract to fulfill."
"How do you know that she isn't planning to go to war with the Democracy? Maybe Kraef Timo is the only voice in opposition to hers, and she's manipulating us into killing him."
"If she can do that from 300,000 miles away,” answered Chandler, “why doesn't she just choose a future in which he chokes to death on his food, or trips down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck?"
"I don't know,” admitted Jade. Her face hardened. “In fact, the more I think about this situation, the more things I don't know."
"Look,” said Chandler. “Either we've got free will or we don't. If we do, then we're doing the right thing. If we don't, then we can't do anything else anyway. So what's the point of worrying about it?"
"Because we can stop right now if we decide to."
He smiled. “And how will you know that the Oracle didn't change her mind and choose a future in which we stopped?"
She wearily leaned back on the chair. “Where does it end?"
"Second-guessing fate?” asked Chandler. “Never. That's why it's a good idea not to start."
"Doesn't it bother you to think that your actions, your very thoughts, might not be your own?” she asked.
"But they are my own. Even if we're being manipulated, the Oracle didn't choose these thoughts and put them into my mind. She just arranged things so that these were the ones I'd think and act upon.” He paused. “Besides, I don't see any viable alternative. If I assume she's controlling me, then she's controlling me whether I kill Kraef Timo or walk away from him."
Jade considered his statement. “Well, it's a practical approach,” she conceded. “But it's not very satisfying. I think an animal in the forest might have that same viewpoint."
"I spend most of my life with animals in the forest,” replied Chandler. “Very few of them have high blood pressure or heart attacks. Maybe they know something we don't know."
"They don't know anything,” said Jade. “They just react."
"They stay warm and dry and well-fed,” he noted. “When all is said and done, that's all most humans are really trying to do."
"You're not a very comforting person to talk to, Javier,” she said. “I come to you with serious doubts, and you give me a lecture on animals."
"I'm not in the comfort business."
"I know. I suppose I'll have to make my decision without any help from you."
"What decision?"
"Whether I should help you or stop you,” Jade said bluntly.
"I'd very much like your help, though I can accomplish my mission without it,” said Chandler with equal bluntness. “I'd strongly advise you not to try to stop me."
She stared at him for a long moment. “I still have to make up my mind,” she said at last.
"Let me know when you do."
"You'll be the first to know."
She got up and left the room.
Chandler waited another twenty minutes, then got up and walked to the false closet. It opened after scanning his retina and registering it against its database, and a moment later he was standing in the sunken garage. He decided against borrowing Jade's vehicle, since he didn't know Port Maracaibo's traffic laws and also had no idea where he could leave it while he went about his business.
He walked over to a gentle incline, followed it up to a door at ground level, opened it, and a moment later found himself in a small alley behind The Womb. He followed it for two blocks, then turned onto a main street, asked a passerby how to find The Uncut Diamond, and caught a coach that seemed to be going in the right direction.
He was annoyed that Jade had forced him to change his schedule: he'd have been much more comfortable visiting Kraef Timo after midnight, when the Blue Devil's bodyguards had relaxed and a couple of them had perhaps gone off to bed. But if she decided to oppose him, there was no telling how she might go about it, and bringing in some hired killers was certainly not beyond her capabilities.
The coach passed The Uncut Diamond, a small, rather ordinary-looking hotel, and he got off at the next street, then walked back to the main entrance. He felt no need to keep to the shadows or hide his presence, since nobody here knew him anyway.
He walked into a darkened cocktail lounge off to the left of the registration desk, was struck by the rancid odor of alien intoxicants, realized that he was one of the few humans in the room, and dialed a beer on the computer menu. He nursed it for about fifteen minutes, keeping an eye on the hotel entrance. Though the hotel catered almost exclusively to aliens, no Blue Devils entered or left—he hadn't really expected to see any—and he decided that it was time to find out where Kraef Timo's suite was located.
There was no guest register, nor could he have read one if there was. The house vidphones were out of the question, too; he was sure the desk wouldn't release the room number, and asking would just alert Timo to his presence. The hotel was only five floors tall; he could simply check each floor for Blue Devils, but it was unlikely that any of Timo's bodyguards were posted outside the suite.
Finally he walked over to a public vidphone booth, entered it, checked the directory, and found a restaurant down the street that delivered around the clock. He quickly punched out its combination, then smiled into the camera when the connection was made.
"This is Mr. Timo at The Uncut Diamond,” he said. “I've been displeased with room service the last two nights. Can I get a sandwich and a beer sent over?"
The man at the other end took his order and asked for his room number.
"It's in some alien script,” answered Chandler. “But you can't miss it. It's the third door to the right of the lift, on the seventh floor."
He hung up, walked back to the cocktail lounge, and waited. Half an hour later a young man carrying a bag that obviously contained food entered the hotel, walked to the airlift, stepped into it, and stepped right back out, frowning. Chandler left the lounge and slowly approached the airlift as the young man walked to the desk and exchanged a few words with the Lodinite clerk. The two of them arrived together and floated up to the fourth level in silence.
The delivery man turned to his left, checking the numbers on the doors, and Chandler waited a few seconds, then began following him at a leisurely pace.
The man stopped at a door, touched a sensor, and waited for it to slide open. Chandler saw a Blue Devil approach the delivery man, after which the two exchanged heated words for a minute or two, and finally the man left and returned to the airlift.
Chandler leaned against a wall until he was sure the man wasn't going to come back and make a second attempt to deliver his package and get his money. Then he walked silently down the corridor, stopped in front of Timo's door, and reached out to touch the sensor.
The door opened instantly, and a powerful-looking Blue Devil appeared.
"I told you to go away!” it said in thickly-accented Terran.
Chandler reached out and slit his throat without a word, then leaped into the room. Three Blue Devils were seated in odd-looking chairs. He killed all three with a sonic pistol before they realized he was there.
A laser beam missed his ear by inches, and he hurled himself to the floor, rolling and firing back as he did so. A Blue Devil shrieked in agony and staggered across the room, an ugly green fluid trickling from its ears. He fired again and the alien fell motionless to the floor.
"Who are you?” demanded another voice, less heavily accented but definitely not human. “What do you want?"
The voice seemed to be coming from a bedroom off to his left, and, changing his sonic pistol for a laser gun, he fired a beam that seared through the wall at a height of about four feet.
"Who are you?” repeated the voice. “Why does she want me dead?"
Chandler felt a brief surge of satisfaction: the she that the alien mentioned could only be the Oracle, which meant that he had indeed chosen the proper target. For a moment he considered trying to take Timo alive and grilling it thoroughly about the Oracle and her plans, but he recalled that Boma, the Blue Devil they had questioned on Port Marrakech, took its own life rather than reveal any information about the Oracle, and with at least one more bodyguard unaccounted for, Chandler didn't think the risk was worth it.
He fired through the wall once more, lower this time, and heard a body fall to the floor.
He waited a full minute for another sound, a movement, any indication of life within the bedroom, then cautiously approached it. When he reached the doorway he peered in, and saw a Blue Devil lying on the floor, a huge burn mark running the length of its torso.
He entered the room, turned the corpse on its back, and looked for some sign or symbol of identification. As he was examining the body, he saw a sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, and as he turned to face the final bodyguard a blue foot kicked the weapon out of his hand.
The huge Blue Devil leaned forward, reaching out for Chandler. He responded with two quick kicks against the Blue Devil's leg joints, and as the surprised creature was struggling to maintain its balance, Chandler made a quick slashing motion with his hand, then stood back as blood spurted out of the bodyguard's throat. It rasped hoarsely once, glared at Chandler for a moment, and died.
Chandler locked the door to the corridor and spent the next few minutes making sure there were no more Blue Devils around, then withdrew a small knife, made the Oracle's mark on each corpse, and began thoroughly inspecting the suite, looking for anything, however insignificant, that might tell him something more about the Oracle and her organization.
He was rummaging through the very last compartment when Jade walked in, a pistol in her hand.
"You've had a busy night,” she said, glancing briefly at the corpse-strewn floor.
"How did you get in here?” he demanded.
"I own this building."
"What are you doing here?"
"I came to stop you,” said Jade.
"Why?"
"Because I hadn't decided whether or not I wanted you to kill these Blue Devils—and on my world, nobody kills anyone unless I give my permission.” She paused, then continued speaking with a cold fury. “You said you'd wait in your room for two more hours. You lied to me."
"I changed my mind,” he said.
"You lied to me, and that's all that matters,” she replied. “It could be that, for various reasons, you didn't want me to come along. It could be that you're simply a liar by nature. Or it could be because she made you lie."
"You're getting paranoid about her,” said Chandler.
"How can you be paranoid about someone with the ability to shape the future?” she retorted. “You can underestimate her capacity for harm, but I hardly think you can overestimate it.” She stared at him. “However, that's not the issue here. You lied to me, and you killed seven Blue Devils without my permission. That's tantamount to disobeying me."
"How can I disobey you?” said Chandler irritably. “That implies that I take orders from you—and nobody gives me orders."
"There are only two options for you while you're on Port Maracaibo,” said Jade. “First, you can clear your plans with me and obtain my permission."
"And what's the second?"
She pointed the pistol at him. “I can kill you."
"Put that away,” said Chandler. “You want to expand your operations to Hades, and I'm the only man who can make that possible. We're still on the same side."