Again, Dangerous Visions Part 85

"They had cities, you say. Tell me about them."

He wanted to say it was time for the transit, to stop talking. But he found he was telling the dark ghost about the cities. The cities of his lost world, of Paradise...

"-dim ruby light. And music. The music of many, and the mud-"

"Mud?"

His heart jolted, raced. Staring mutely at the ghost-angel.

"Oh, keep on the track," the angel said severely.

Suddenly Timor knew.

"You've drugged me." Santiago's long lips flickered.

"The people. You say they were beautiful?"

"Fairer than all the children of men," said Timor helplessly, worlds sliding within him.

"They flowed?"

"They flowed." Timor's head weaved, tortured. "More than any Human. More than you.

"They loved me," he groaned, reaching his arms to ghosts. "You look a little like them. Why..."

Santiago seemed to be doing something at the console.

"I do?" White teeth made haloes.

"No," said Timor. Suddenly he was very cool. "You're only Human. It's just that you're not pink and you're tall. But you're nothing but a Human. To them, Humans are Crots."

"Humans are Crots?" Blue-black knife-face over him, lethal. "You're trying for it, newboy. So your aliens are something better than Humans? Mere Humans make you vomit? That makes you something very very special. And how convenient, they're all dead, and no one's ever seen it. You know a thing, Timor son of Crot Timor, I think you're lying. You know where it is."

"No!"

"Where is it?"

Timor heard himself yell, saw the ebony mask check and change.

"All right, don't freak. I caught enough of your specs to know the sector they picked you up in. It's not far off course. You said the primary was dim and red, true? Computer will sort it, there can't be too many Cla.s.s M dwarfs out here."

He turned away. Timor tried to launch himself to stop him, but his drugged hands were flailing empty bulkhead.

"I am not lying, I am not lying..."

The computer was droning.

"-cla.s.s M Beta primaries Sector Two zero point zed point delta solution one four repeat one four."

"Ah," said Santiago. "Fourteen's too many." He frowned at Timor who was now quiet.

"There must be something you know. Some criterion. I want to find this Paradise."

"They're all dead," Timor whispered.

"Maybe," said Santiago. "Maybe not. And maybe you're lying and maybe not. Either way I want to see it. If the cities are there there'll be things we can use. Or I'll get you off for good. Why do you think you're on this trip, newboy? Somebody's hiding something and I'm going to find it."

"You can't find it. I won't let you hurt them!" Timor heard his voice break, struggled through sh.e.l.ls of unreality. He could see the cabin lights reflected in violet bloom on Santiago's brow. Black stars probed him, golden edged. The face of dream.

"I wouldn't hurt them." The voice was velvet again. "Why would I harm Paradise? I want to see them. The cities. We could see the cities together. You could show me." The dream loomed, swelled closer. Warmth. Melting. "You could show me.

"You want to go back, to Paradise."

Timor's eyes blurred.

"Maybe some of them are still alive. Maybe we could help them."

Depths shifted in him, oozed scorching springs. "Santiago..." His hands were on richness now, kneading the throb. If it were not so dry, so bright- The lights dimmed to a blue glow.

"Yes," Santiago said. His tunic was peeling away, the dark flesh glimmered. "I would like to share the beauty. You must be very lonely."

Timor's lips moved, wordless.

"Tell me a little how it was...the light..."

...No, no, no, no, no, no...

His mouth was on fire, even his lungs were dry. Somewhere the voder-voice gabbled, quit. His eyes were crusted. "No, no," he croaked, his face striking plastic.

"Suck, stupid."

Liquid gushed in. He sucked greedily and the blue-blackness above him came in focus.

"That wears off. You'll be fine when we get to Paradise."

"No!" Timor jerked upright, clutching after the long shape that weaved away. He remembered now, the drug and Santiago.

He had been hyped.

The thing that must not, must not ever be.

But Santiago was grinning at him.

"Oh yes, little Timor-whatever-your-name-is. You put out. Those sunless periods. It was a binary, did you know that? Dark-body system. And that cl.u.s.ter you called the Swarm. Computer had it all."

"You found it? You found Paradise? You found Paradise?"

"We're one transit out."

A cool bursting inside him, fountains of dissolving light unbearable. Santiago had hyped him and found Paradise. He could not believe it.

Slowly he sank back, drank some more, dreamily watching Santiago. Belief grew. They would walk the streets of Paradise. His proud Human would see. The signaller was flashing. Santiago's eyes slid round.

"Recall presignal. But they can't know we've gone off-course." He shrugged. "We'll see when the message clears. I'm not turning back."

"Santiago." Timor smiled. "We flowed. I've never said it to a Human before."

But the black stars came no closer.

"Maybe. I wonder. You said a lot of things. If your Paradise turns out to be a Crot world-" Santiago's nostrils wedged. "A Crot's thing into Humans-"

"You'll see. You will see!"

"Maybe."

The boards chimed for transit, and suddenly Timor's head cleared.

"But they're dead!" he cried. "I don't want to see it, Santiago. Not all dead. Don't take us there!"

Santiago ignored him, went on setting course. Timor floundered up, pulled at his arms and received a chop that sent him into the stays.

"What's wasting you? Why are you so sure they're all dead?"

Timor's mouth opened, closed. How was he so sure? Armor seemed to be dissolving from his brain. Who had told him that? He had been so young. Could it have been a mistake? A lie?

"In which case," Santiago's eyes roved the boards, "would they be friendly?"

"Friendly?" A fearful joy was rising in Timor, perilous, unstoppable. Alive. Was it possible? possible? "Oh, yes." "Oh, yes."

"But maybe after that disease," Santiago persisted. He started a check-run. "Just make sure our Ambax is operational."

Timor hardly heard him, moved like a zombie through the drill. Finally Santiago pushed him at the shower.

"Clean up. In case you meet your friends."

He seemed to be floating at less than the scouter's nominal gee, roiled by waves of alternate joy and dread. Timor concentrated on the vision of himself and Santiago entering empty cities. No music, but the spires and the...his bitter lover would see what a flowing world had been.

They were braking into the system. To their side a sullen star swelled, eclipsed, reappeared.

"That one. Third out."

The grav-webs took hold. Timor saw a great star-cl.u.s.ter wheel across he screen. "The Swarm!"

Paradise. They were landing on Paradise They were landing on Paradise.

"Where are the cities?"

"Under the clouds."

"It's nine-tenths ocean. I don't see any roads. Or fields."

"That's right. They don't need them. The open s.p.a.ces are-were just for sport or water-dancing."

"A hole there. Go down by the sea."

As the braking bit the signal print-out chattered. Santiago slapped it aside. Overcast churned around them crescendo, thinned. Then the webs grabbed them and they were set down, cooling, in dim ruby light.

Before them the screen showed milky smoothness; sea. With a level sh.o.r.e, and behind them low fronds. And a long crenellated line which fingered Timor's heart. This was not real. This was real.

Santiago was frowning at the message.

"Out of their heads. A medical medical recall?" recall?"

Timor scarcely heard him. The cycling lock was a vortex tugging him to the beautiful dimness, the garnet-gleaming light. Real.

"Your moment of truth, newboy."

The port opened and they went out into Paradise. Healing moisture rushed into Timor's lungs.

"Agh, what a fug. You sure this is breathable?"

"Come on. The city."

"Where are your spires?"

Twilight, the ground sluiced with sweetness, lapped by the quiet shallow sea. Impatiently he pulled at Santiago's arm, felt him stumble. Not real.

"Where is the city?"

"Come on." In dimness they splashed through a grove of short, flabby trees that oozed fruit. The sea curved beside them, barely ankle-deep.

"Is that that supposed to be a town?" supposed to be a town?"

Timor looked at the low crenellated walls lit only by the dusk. They seemed lower than he remembered, lower and-but he had been a child.

"It's been abandoned, it's crumbled."

"Mud-what are those?"

Gray rotten little things were humping toward them out of the walls, stopping to stare.

"They," said Timor. "They must be the-the servants. The workers. I guess they didn't die."

"They make Crots look Human."