“The Reader will see you now,” said the wallspeak. “Inside and just to the left.”
Tris moved ahead past the sliding wall and turned left.
Reader Sterning was ready for her, a tall man in flowsilks. His smile was warmly professional. They touched palms and Tris sat down.
“Well, well,” said Sterning. “I can surface why you’re here, and believe me when I tell you that I sympathize.”
“Thank you, Reader,” said the girl softly.
“How long were you a Saint?”
Tris knitted her fingers in her lap, twisting her hands nervously. She’d never been deeped before and it was a little frightening. “Could you turn off the wall?” she asked.
“Of course,” smiled Sterning, and killed the hypnowall. The swirl of colors faded to black. “I really don’t need it in your case. I want you to be as comfortable as possible. Now...” He tented his hands. “How long were you a Saint?”
She blinked rapidly. “For almost a year. One of the Gods selected me in Omaha. They were there to flare and I offered...”
“You offered your Eternal Self?”
“Yes, that’s right. And they accepted me. One of them did, I mean.”
“The one called Denbo, am I correct?”
She nodded, flushing. “He took me. He sainted me.”
Sterning bowed his head. “A rare sexual honor. A beautiful selection. And you are. Quite.”
Tris blinked again. “Quite?”
“Quite beautiful. Thighs... hips... breasts. You are ideally qualified for Sainthood.” He sighed. “Your situation is most unfortunate. But let’s get to it.”
He moved around the desk, sat down close to her on the flowcouch, his dark eyes probing. “Lean back and relax. I’m going to deep you now. Close your eyes.”
Tris shuddered; she knew there would be no pain, but the nakedness of it all! Her inner mind laid bare to another!
“You needn’t be concerned about opening to me,” Sterning said. “It’s all quite normal. Deeping is a natural process for those of us who read. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
“I know that,” said Tris. “But... it isn’t easy for me.”
“Relax... just relax.”
She settled back into the chair, her mind opening to his.
Sterning shifted to a below-surface level, sighed. “Ah, sadness and guilt.” He began reading. “You were a truly passionate Saint and the Gods were pleased. And you got on well with all the other Saints, sharing their life and dedication until...”
He hesitated, probing deeper. “Until you made a mistake which cost you Divine Favor.”
“Yes,” murmured Tris. Her down-closed lashes quivered against her white cheek. “A mistake. I should never have—”
“—criticized.” Sterning finished the thought. “You criticized a God and they banished you. Your comments were cruel, caustic.”
“I was angry,” said Tris. “With Denbo.”
“Because he was sexually favoring other Saints.”
“Yes.”
“But you had no right to be angry. A God may bestow his sexual favors where he will. That is his Divine right, is it not?”
“I know, I know,” said the girl. “But I thought Denbo—”
“—would consider your feelings. But of course no God need consider a Saint’s feelings. That is your mortal flaw. You cannot accept nor abide by Divine rule.”
“I tried to obey, to accept.” The girl was beginning to cry, her eyes still closed. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Sterning continued to probe, unmoved by emotion. “You failed out of sheer stubborn self-pride. You felt...” He moved to a deeper level. “You felt equal to Denbo, equal to a God. You desired more than Sainthood.”
“Yes.” Softly.
“And what do you want from me?”
“An answer. Surely, within my brain, somewhere within it, you can read a way back.”
The Reader stood up, breaking contact. He walked to his desk, sat down heavily. “Your self-will is too strong. There is noway back. Sainthood is behind you.”
“Then I’ll die,” she said flatly, opening her eyes. “Will you aid me?”
“I dislike this kind of thing. I don’t usually—”
“Please.”
He sighed. “All right.”
“Thank you, Reader Sterning.”
And he killed her.
-3-
MORGAN
The laser sliced into the right front wheelhousing of Morgans landcar and he lost control. Another beam sizzled along the door as he rolled free of the car. It slewed into a ditch, overturned, flamed, and exploded. The heavy smoke screened him as Morgan worked his way along the ditch, a fuse pistol in his right hand. Not much good against beamguns, but his other weapons had been destroyed with the car.
The screening smoke worked both ways; he couldn’t see them, verily their number. But maybe he could slip around them. It was quite possible they believed him dead in the explosion.
He was wrong about that.
A chopping blow numbed his left shoulder. Morgan hit ground, rolled, brought up the fuser, fired. His assailant fell back, grunting in pain. Morgan whipped up the pistol in a swift arc, catching a second enemy at chin-level, firing again. Which did the job.
Morgan rubbed circulation back into his numbed shoulder, his body pressed close in against the night-chilled gravel at the edge of the road. Behind him, in a flare of orange, the Iandcar continued to burn. He listened for further movement. Were there more of them out there, ready to attack him?
No sound. Nothing. No more of them. Only two, both dead now.
He took their beamers, checked the bodies. Both young, maybe fifteen to seventeen. Probably brothers, but Morgan couldn’t tell for sure, since the face was mostly gone on the smaller one. At close range, a fuser is damned effective.
Morgan recharged the pistol and inspected the beamguns, breaking them down. They were fine. He could use them.
It was too late to find another car. Better to sleep by the lake and go on in the morning.
The lake would be good. It would cool him out, ease some of the tension which knotted his muscles. He’d grown up near lakes like this one, fishing and swimming with Jim Decker. Ole Jimbo. Poor unlucky bastard. The police got him in Detroit, lasered him down in a warehouse. Jimbo never believed he could die. Well, thought Morgan, we
all
die—sooner or later.
Lake Lotawana lay just ahead, less than a mile through the trees. Morgan threaded the woods, slid down the leaf-cloaked banking to the edge of the water. The lake flickered like a soft flame, alive with moonlight. Morgan bent to wash his face and hands; the water rippled and stirred as he cupped it, cold and crystalline.
He drew the clean air of September into his lungs. Good autumn air, smelling of maple and oak. He savored the smells of Missouri earth, of autumn grass and trees. A night bird cried out across the dark lake water. Morgan hoped he would live long enough to reach Kansas City and do what he was sent to do. He could easily have been killed in the Iandcar explosion—or in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or a few nights ago in Kansas. They’d been close on his tracks most of the way.
He prepared a bed of leaves, spreading dry twigs in a circle around it for several feet in each direction. The twigs would alert him to approaching enemies. Morgan lay down with a beamer at his elbow. Tomorrow, he would find another car and reach Kansas City. The girl and the money would be waiting there. He smiled and closed his eyes.
Morgan was sleeping deeply when they came down the bank, shadows among shadows, moving with professional stealth. They knelt beyond the circle of twigs and began scooping the branches away quietly. They planned to use blades, and that meant close body contact.
Morgan heard them at the last instant and rolled sideways, snatching up the beamer as he rolled. Too late. They were on him in a mass of unsheathed steel.
He broke free, stumbled, dropped the useless weapon, blood rushing to fill his open mouth. Morgan folded both hands across his stomach. “I...” He spoke to them as they watched him. “I’m a dead man.”
And he fell backward as the dark waters of the lake, rippling, accepted his lifeless body.
-4-
DAVID
“I
hate
bookstores,” said David.
“You’re still a child,” his Guardian told him. “As an adult, you II see the value in books.”
David, who was eleven, allowed himself to be guided into the store. You don’t get anywhere if you argue with a Guardian.
“May I be of service?” A tall old man smiled at them, dressed in the long gray robe of Learning.
“This is David,” said the Guardian, “and he is here to rent a book.” The old man nodded. “And what is your choice, David?”
“I don’t have one,” said David. “Let Guardian decide.”
“Very well, then...” The Bookman smiled again. “Might I suggest some titles?”
“Please do,” said the Guardian.
The old man pursed his lips. “Ah... what about
Moby Dick
? Splendid seafaring adventure, laced with symbolic philosophy.”
“I hate whales,” said David. “Sea things are disgusting.”
“Hmmm. Then I shall bypass Mr. Melville and Mr. Verne. Let us move along to Dylan Thomas and his spirited
Under Milk Wood
.”
“Let’s hear part of it,” said David.
The old man pressed a button on the wall and a door opened. A rumpled figure stepped into the room. His nose was red and bulbous; his hair was wild. He walked toward them, voice booming. He spoke of a small town by night, starless and bible-black, and of a wood “limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea.”
“I don’t like it,” said David flatly. “Send him back.”
“That will be all, Mr. Thomas,” said the Bookman.
The rumpled figure turned and vanished behind the door.
“I want a hunting story of olden times,” said David. “Do you have any?
“Naturally. We have many. What about
Big Woods?
”
“Who wrote that?” asked David.
“Mr. Faulkner. You’ll like him, I’m sure.”
David shrugged, and the Bookman pressed another button. A tall man with sad eyes and a bristled mustache stepped into view. He spoke, with a drawl, of woods and rivers and loamed earth, and of “the rich deep black alluvial soil which would grow cotton taller than the head of a man on a horse.”
“We’ll take him,” said David.
“Indeed we will,” said the Guardian.
“Splendid,” said the Bookman.
William Faulkner waited quietly while the rental sheet was signed, then walked out with them.
“There is a story in my book,” he said to David, “which I have titled ‘The Bear’ Do you wish to hear it?”
“Sure. I want to hear the whole book if its all about hunting.”
“The boy has a strange fascination with death,” the Guardian said to Mr. Faulkner.
“Then I shall begin with page one,” drawled the tall man as they were crossing a grid way.
David, looking up into the sad eyes of William Faulkner, did not see the gridcar jetting toward him. The Guardian screamed and clawed at the boy’s coat to pull him back, but was not successful. The car struck David, killing him instantly.
“Am I to be returned?” asked Mr. Faulkner.
-5-
BAX
They were having shrimp curry at the Top of the Mark in San Francisco when the sharks began to bother the girl.
“They’re so
close
,” she said. “Why are they so close?”
Bax snapped his fingers. A waiter appeared at their table. “Do something about those damn things,” Bax demanded.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but our repel shielding has temporarily failed.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Oh, of course, sir. That’s being attended to now. We have the situation under control. At any moment the shielding should be fully operational.”
Bax waved him away. “Are you satisfied?” he asked the girl.
She picked at her food, head lowered. “I just won’t look at them,” she said.
The sharks continued to bump the transparent outer shell, while a huge Manta Ray rippled through the jeweled waters. Far below, streaks of rainbow fish swarmed in and around the quake-tumbled ruins of office buildings, and the lichen-covered trucks and cable cars. An occasional divecab sliced past the restaurant, crowded with tourists.
Bax leaned across the table to take the girl’s hand; his eyes softened. “I thought you’d enjoy it here. This place is an exact duplicate of the original. You get a fantastic view of the city.”
“I feel trapped,” she admitted. “I’m a surface girl, Bax. I don’t like being here.”
Bax grinned. “To tell you the truth, I don’t like it much myself. But, at the moment, we really don’t have any choice.”
“I know.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “And it’s all right. Its just that I—”
“Look,” Bax cut in. “They’ve fixed it.”
The nuzzling sharks thrashed back abruptly as the energized shielding was reactivated. The outer dome now pulsed radiantly, silvering the sea. The sharks retreated deeper into the green-black Pacific.
“It’s something about their teeth,” the girl said to Bax. “Like thousands of upthrust knives...”
“Well, they’re gone now. Forget them. Eat your curry.”
“When is the contact meeting us?” she asked.
“He’s overdue. Should be here any minute.”
“You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you?”
Bax shook his head. “What
could
be wrong?” He patted the inside of his coat. “I have the stuff. They pay us for it and we leave San Fran for the islands. Take a long vacation. Enjoy what we’ve earned.”
“What about a crossup?” Her voice was intense. “What if they hired another agent to take the stuff and dispose of you?”
He laughed. “You mean dispose of us, don’t you?”
The girl stared at him coldly. “No. I mean you, Bax.”
Bax dropped his half-empty wine glass. “You lousy bitch,” he said softly, slumping forward across the table.
The girl darted her hand into his coat, withdrew a small packet, and placed it inside her evening bag as a waiter rushed toward them.
“I think my husband has just had a heart seizure,” she said. “I’ll go for a doctor.”
And she calmly left the bar.
Outside, beyond the silvered fringe of light, the knife-toothed sharks circled the dome.
-6-
LYNDA
The wind was demented; it whiplashed the falling snow into Lyndas eyes, into her half-open mouth as she stood, head raised to the storm, taking it in, allowing it to engulf her. The collar of her stormcoat was open and the cold snow needled her skin.