Beyond The Barrier Part 13

"How did you know where to find me?" he asked in BoDen.

"Were you watching, all that time I was with Lall and Churan?"

"Of course. Uglies are very stupid. They thought you would simply drop into the Earth and never come out again. But I knew better. I computed your orbit, and-" She shrugged.

"Then it was easy."

Her fingers were slowly stroking one of the b.u.t.tons on the control box she held on the floor. Naismith said, "You know, of course, that it was on your account the Uglies decided they couldn't trust me?"

"I know."

"Then why can't you trust me?" he demanded. "Either I'm on one side or the other."

"Because there's something wrong about you," she said, and blew green smoke at him. "I felt it when I kissed you, and I am never mistaken. I don't know what it is-you seem to be just what you say, a Shefth who has lost his memory. But there is ... something. Oh, well-forget it." She touched the control box, then leaned back against the wall. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

At once Naismith was again acutely aware of both needs.

Watching nun, the girl reached behind her to the wall, with- drew a cup of foaming white liquid and a brownish, solid cake.

She broke the cake in half, offered him the cup and one piece of the brownish stuff.

Naismith accepted both, but cautiously watched the girl nibble at the cake before he tried it himself. It was chewy and rich-tasting, something like figs. He sipped the liquid, found it agreeably astringent.

The girl laughed suddenly.

"What is it?" Naismith demanded, lowering the cup.

"You were so easy," she said. "How do you know I did not put ten-day poison in the fruit or wine?"

Naismith stared at her. "Did you?"

"Maybe." Her eyes glittered with amus.e.m.e.nt. "If I did, you can only get the antidote from me. So if I ask you a favor, later on, you may want to do it instead of taking a chance.""What sort of favor?" Naismith asked. He glanced at the food, laid it down.

"Go on, eat! If there is poison in it, you've had enough already-the rest won't make any difference."

Naismith looked at her grimly, then nodded and took another bite of the cake. "What sort of a favor?" he repeated.

"I don't know," she said indifferently. "Things were becom- ing a little difficult when I left. The Barrier is so close now. It doesn't hurt to have friends at a time like that."

In spite of himself, Naismith smiled. "Is that your idea of a friend-someone who has to do what you say because you've poisoned him?"

"Please don't be dull," she said, with a moue of distaste.

"After all, we are going to be in this traveler together for another ten minutes."

"Then what happens?"

"I hand you over to the Circle," she said without interest.

She thrust out one hand, looking complacently at the nacrous violet of her nails. "Do you like this color?"

"It's very pretty. The Circle-what do they want from me?"

"They think you can kill the Zug. They are terribly worried about it."

"Then that part was true?"

"About the Zug? Oh, yes. This is total-access clothing, did you know that?" She touched the curved and ornamented plaques that clung to her body one after another. Each one winked briefly out of existence, revealing an arm, a breast with a rather startling violet nipple, a hip, a thigh.

Naismith felt an intense, momentary interest in that tender- looking flesh, but he put it aside. "Which faction is ascendant in the Circle now?" he demanded.

The girl frowned. "What a dull thing you are! You Shefthi, actually ..." She yawned once more and stretched back against the curved blue-mist wall. "I think I shall take a little rest," Her eyes closed.

Naismith gazed at her in annoyance, but before he could speak, something new in the sky caught his attention. It was a ma.s.s of spectral blue globes, hanging motionless at eye level: it had not been there a moment ago.

"What is that?" Naismith demanded.

The girl opened her eyes briefly. "The City," she said.At first her words seemed irrelevant. Then a shock went through Naismith's body. "Do you mean that is the City?" he demanded.

She sat up, eyes wide open. "What's wrong with you?"

Naismith did not reply. His pseudo-memories of the City were all of gigantic rooms, corridors, floating shapes, crowds of people.

Now that he looked for it, the knowledge was there: but it had never once occurred to him that the City was not on Earth.

His inner agitation increased. Here was the danger, not in Liss-Yani's petulant threats.

His knowledge of essential things was incomplete, badly organized, not readily available. What other blunders might he not make at some crucial moment? . . . And how much longer did he have to prepare himself?

Outside, the huge, complex shape ponderously revolved as they drew nearer. A bull's-eye pattern rolled into view, centered itself in the ma.s.s, grew steadily larger. The inner circle yawned and swallowed them. They were inside.

Chapter Thirteen.

Through the walls of the time vehicle, Naismith found him- self looking into a huge globular room-a hollow, pale-green sphere, with regular markings at intervals on its surface, in which floated a confusing array of objects.

Liss-Yani smiled at him sidelong, her hand on the control box. "Are you ready?"

He stared back at her, said nothing.

Smiling, she did something to the controls. The time vehicle winked out of being.

At the same instant, something dark and incredibly swift flapped toward them, enclosing them. Naismith flung up his arms in instinctive defense, then relaxed. Somewhere a bell was ringing.

"What is this?"

"A precaution," she said, enjoying his reaction. "What if we had been Uglies?"

Through the dark transparency around them, Naismith could dimly perceive motion in the great globe. Angular machines drifted nearer, lenses glowing sullen red, like coals in the heart of a fire. A little above them, another shape was moving: Naismith realized suddenly that it was a man. Some- thing was wrong with the legs, but he could make out pipe- stem arms, a head, the glint of eyes staring.Abruptly the bell stopped; the darkness winked out. They were floating in the middle of the green sphere, surrounded by machines in whose lenses the red glow was dying. Nearer, the man Naismith had seen before was floating towards them, body at an angle to theirs, hands gripping his forearms, like a Mandarin. He was dressed in a fantastic, puffed and ruffled garment of yellow and white stripes, the top a short-sleeved singlet, the lower part a tube covering both legs and closed at the bottom with a yellow bow. His face was lean and gnomish, at once anguished and ironic. His eyes glittered; his wide mouth twitched. "You got him, I see," he said.

"Yes, here he is, Prell."

"Is he dangerous?"

The girl turned slowly in mid-air and gazed at Naismith.

"I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully.

"We'd better keep the automatics on him, for the time being.

Later they'll give him a collar." Prell turned in the air, spoke a single, harsh word.

Out of the clutter of objects hanging in the vast s.p.a.ce, one drifted nearer: it was a miniature sarcophagus, with a design painted on it in blue and yellow. The drawing was a crude sketch of a young girl with yellow hair, eyes closed, lips demurely smiling. Her hands were crossed over her breast.

"Tell the Highborn," said Prell, "the attempt was successful.

We have the Shefth."

The sarcophagus clicked, hummed, drifted away again.

"Probably it will take a while to get her attention," said Prell. "Do you want to look at the work, in the meantime?"

"Yes, all right," said the girl indifferently. The two of them turned, drifted rapidly away from Naismith. After a moment, already tiny in the distance, they paused and looked back, with comical expressions of surprise on their faces.

"I forgot," said Prell's distant voice; "he doesn't have a director. Wait a moment." He spoke the harsh word again; another machine drifted toward him. This one was box-shaped, ornamented with red and green arabesques on a black ground.

"A director for that man," said Prell, pointing.

The box dipped slightly, turned, and came rocketing down at Naismith. At the last moment it slowed, came to a halt facing him a yard away.

"For my information, sir," said a musical voice from the box, "what is that man's name?"

"Naismith," said Naismith, looking at it curiously.

"Excuse me, sir, but that is not a catalogued name," saidthe box politely.

The voices of Prell and the girl murmured together a moment; then Prell said, "We'll get him a name presently. For now, just call him 'that man.'"

"Thank you, sir," said the box. A hopper in its center slowly opened; out floated a narrow, flexible band of some cream- colored substance.

"Put it on your wrist," called the girl. Naismith did so, and the stuff curled around his wrist as if half-alive, clung to itself and seemed to melt together; the seam disappeared.

"Now point in the direction you want to go and just tense your wrist slightly," her voice went on.

Naismith did as he was told, and found the vast green sphere rotating slowly around him, while certain distant clumps of machines drifted nearer. When Prell and the girl came into view again, he pointed toward them, and this time managed to keep them centered. He lowered his arm, came to rest a few feet away.

"You'll get used to it," said Liss-Yani. "Come on!"

She and Prell moved off again, but came to a halt almost immediately. Naismith jockeyed up beside them. Prell was moving some small glittering object across the vacant air before him: suddenly there was a shimmer, a crackle, and a great round sheet of silvery reflection came into being.

Prell touched it again; the disk turned transparent, and they were looking into another room, darker and even more enor- mous than the one they were in. In the vast s.p.a.ce myriads of tiny shapes were moving: some were human, some were the symmetrical forms of machines-boxes, sarcophagi, vase shapes. As Naismith's vision adjusted to the scene, he began to make out serried ranks of dark objects, not visibly con- nected to one another, among which the human and robot forms came and went.

Prell reached out again, and the scene appeared to drift nearer. They were looking down upon one of the thousands of ranked machines, over which a gnomish young man in a dress like Prell's was hovering.

"This is the Barrier control network," the girl's voice ex- plained. "They've been working on it for five years. It's almost finished."

"Is this an actual entranceway into that room," Naismith asked, fumbling for words, "or a-a viewscreen?"

Prell looked at him curiously. "What is the difference?"

Naismith realized, in confusion, that there was no difference, in the question as he had asked it: the two phrases, in BoDen, were almost identical.While he was still thinking dazedly of the implications of this, Prell reached out again.

"Would you like to see what they're doing?" he asked. With- out waiting for a reply, he gestured once more with the shining object in his hand.

Part of the scene before them seemed to expand. Where one of the floating machines had been, there was a dim lattice of crystals, growing more shadowy and insubstantial as it swelled; then darkness; then a dazzle of faint prismatic Light-tiny complexes in a vast three-dimensional array, growing steadily bigger . . .

Naismith caught his breath. He realized that he was seeing the very molecules that made up the substance of the machines that were being built in the next chamber.

"This is why it takes so long," Prell said, rubbing his fore- arms nervously. He grimaced. "Every channel has to be built up molecule by molecule, under rigid control. Like to see it closer?"

The magnification increased. In luminous darkness, Naismith saw molecules scattered like tiny planets. A moving dot of light appeared, slowly traced a mathematical arc across the blackness. Other arcs of light sprang out from it, like ribs from a spinal column; slowly, the dots that were molecules drifted across to take position upon them.

"Is that direct vision, or a display of some kind?" Naismith demanded, fascinated.

"It's a mathematical a.n.a.logue," Prell answered. "Just a toy, really." His mouth twitched; he scrubbed at his wrists as if in pain.

"It's beautiful," said Naismith.

Prell shot him a startled glance, then seemed to go into a reverie.

The sarcophagus robot drifted up, said discreetly, "The Highborn has received your message. She asks you to send that man to the social room."

"All right," said Prell. "Liss-Yani, you might as well take him over. Come back later, I want to talk to you."

"Yes," she said. Turning, she took Naismith's arm. "This way."

Naismith's body was trembling in alarm. The thought came: Prell is dangerous. He knows what I am.

Brain working furiously, he allowed the girl to lead him away from Prell. His reactions are slow-he is still thinking about it. But in another few seconds . . .The girl came to a halt in mid-air; awkwardly, Naismith stabilized himself beside her. Before them, faintly, he could make out a silvery circle in the air. Liss-Yani reached out, touched it with a glittering object, as Prell had done before.

The ten-foot circle quivered, rippled: they were looking into a gigantic room full of color and motion. "Come," said the girl again, pulling him through.

On the opposite side, Naismith brought himself to a halt, looking back. He could still see the scientist, hovering in thought beside one of his machines. The girl's arm reached past him, touched the circle, and the scene blanked out, was gone.