Time Bomb and Zahndry Others Part 14

It was, Kendal realized, as good as a death sentence. As long as the House needed tricorns as part of their diet, and the tricorns themselves were so hostile to the minersThe inspiration that abruptly struck could hardly be described as blinding. It was a hunch only, and the plan it evoked was nothing short of foolhardy. But Kendal was desperate. "Wait a minute, House. If we can supply live tricorns for your food, will you let us live here until our ship comes?"

The House, halfway into another crushing attempt, seemed to pause. "What trick is this?"

"No trick. I think I may know how to control the tricorns."

"I don't believe you."

"All right, I'll prove it." Kendal took a deep breath. "I'll go out right now and bring one back for you."

There was a long silence. "Very well," the House said slowly. "I will let you out. But you will leave your lightning-maker and talker here as proof that you will return."

The tone left no room for argument. "Okay," Kendal agreed at last. Going outside without his laser might be possible for the distance he would need to cover. Anyway, there was no choice.

The House's orifice opened, sending in a rush of cold air. "Go."

Swallowing hard, Kendal steeled himself and stepped outside into the dim light from Drym's three moons.

Pausing only long enough to check for nearby tricorns, he set off at a fast jog in the direction of the mine.

He had already done a quick mental inventory of the mining equipment in the nearby cave, and there was nothing there that had both the power and range to serve as an effective weapon. Speed and luck would have to do.

The three moons gave off a respectable amount of light, and as Kendal's eyes adjusted, he discovered he could see most of the plain ahead. Tricorns dotted the landscape, cropping tufts of gra.s.s-like plants, digging their snouts into the ground, or running about with triple their daytime speed. Kendal felt his jaw tighten at the thought of pa.s.sing among the deadly beasts. But he was committed now. He stopped briefly to establish the wind direction and, struck by a thought, stripped off his outer jacket, wadding it into a ball for easy carrying. Picking a path that would put him downwind of as many of the tricorns aspossible, he set off at a fast trot.

His luck held for perhaps three minutes. Then, a traveling tricorn happened to pa.s.s downwind of him and changed its path abruptly.

Kendal put on a burst of speed, even though his lungs were already beginning to ache from the frigid air.

It was no use; even with his lead, he was being steadily run down. Gritting his teeth, he waited until the tricorn was almost upon him. Then, in one quick motion, he unrolled his jacket and threw it across the animal's face. The tricorn broke stride and tossed its ma.s.sive head, throwing the jacket to the ground.

From the corner of his eye Kendal saw it turn to worry the garment; then he turned his attention forward.

His goal was just ahead: the stream that flowed past the ruin of his old prefab. He turned a bit upstream, making for a place where the stream widened into a relatively deep pool. Two tricorns, he saw, were drinking there, but they were upwind of him, and neither turned as he approached. He was almost to the water's edge when a motion to his right caught his eye. Another tricorn was charging.

Kendal had no choice. Running full tilt between the drinking tricorns, he leaped into the pool.

The shock of the icy water was paralyzing, and Kendal's legs instantly knotted into agonizing cramps.

Fortunately, the water was less than a meter deep, so keeping his head above the surface posed no major problem. Rubbing hard with hands already growing numb with the cold, he managed to work out the cramps and to get his clothes off, tossing them to the far side of the stream. Then, conscious of the speed at which his body heat was being sucked from him, he began to wash himself as quickly and thoroughly as possible. A few minutes was all he could stand; even as he waded ash.o.r.e he was staggering with the beginnings of hypothermia. The wind cut into his naked skin like nothing he'd ever felt before, and his whole body was racked with violent shivering, but he hardly noticed*his full attention was on the three tricorns now eying him. Docile and harmless, the Company exploration group had called them. Mentally crossing his fingers, Kendal stepped forward.

None of them made any move except to follow him with their eyes. Gingerly, Kendal reached out and laid his hand against the head of the closest animal. Two openings in its neck*its nostrils, Kendal had long ago decided*flared once, but otherwise it didn't seem to object to the familiarity.

Kendal withdrew his hand, and after a moment the animals returned to their drinking.

So his hunch had been right. But Kendal had no time for self-congratulation. He turned and headed back toward his House, keeping his eyes open. He was nearly there when he found what he was looking for: a grazing tricorn whose sides were heaving with the breathlessness of a long run. Walking boldly up to it, Kendal carefully gripped one of the horns and tugged. The action had no effect; if the tricorn was winded and therefore not inclined to run away, neither was it going to interrupt its grazing. Kendal tried again, then gave up and went instead to several nearby clumps of vegetation, pulling up the plants until he had a good handful of them. Returning to the tricorn, he waited until the animal had finished eating and then waved one of the plants in front of it. The tricorn bit off a piece, and when Kendal slowly backed away it willingly followed him.

They reached the House with two or three of the plants left. Dropping them onto the ground for the tricorn, Kendal stepped to the open orifice. "I'm back," he said through chattering teeth. "As you see, I've brought you some food."

"I see, but do not understand," the House said, its emotion unreadable.

"Never mind that for now. I'm going to come in now and get my stuff. You'll be able then to lure the tricorn in. Okay?"

"Yes." A pause. "Can you do this again?""I'll make a deal with you. If you and the other Houses will let us live inside you safely until our ship comes, we'll guarantee you each at least one tricorn every three days; maybe more. What do you say?"

"I agree," the House said promptly.

"You promised them what?" Cardman Tan said, eyes wide with disbelief. "Are you crazy, Kendal?"

m.u.f.fled to the eyebrows in his spare clothing and still just barely recovered from his overnight chilling, Kendal nevertheless managed to keep his temper. Tan was not dumb, but he'd clearly missed the significance of Kendal's account of his predawn activities. "Not crazy at all, Tan. With the proper precautions we can handle the tricorns."

"Look, I don't know how you lucked out last night, but you can't count on the tricorns always being in a good mood like that."

"Moods have nothing to do with it. It's the dust."

"Besides, we*what? What dust?"

"The rock dust from the mine. Remember the exploration group report on the tricorns?"

"Sure," Tan said bitterly. "Lousy rubber-stamping toadies*"

"Forget that. They were right. The tricorns aren't interested in us*they're attracted to the rock dust that sticks to our skin and clothes. Apparently they eat one or more of the minerals we dig up at the mine."

Tan opened his mouth, closed it again, and suddenly looked thoughtful. "That would explain why they hang around the mine all day and stomp through it at night. But why? And how come we've never caught them at it?"

"We have, or at least I have," Kendal pointed out. "I always a.s.sumed they were digging up small plants, myself. Anyway, most of their feeding's done at night, I think." He shrugged. "And why shouldn't they eat rock? We know the Houses have organo-mineral metabolisms*it only makes sense for the tricorns to be similar."

"Well... okay, suppose you're right. What then?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Here's my idea...."

It was a real pleasure, Kendal decided, to be able to head for home without that tense uncertainty as to what kind of reception he'd get. Now that it was being fed regularly, the House was consistently cooperative and*following the pattern of human societies through the ages*was beginning to take more and more interest in abstract and intellectual matters. The other Houses were behaving similarly, causing both surprise and some uneasiness among the miners and rekindling the old debates over the usefulness and origin of House intelligence. Kendal kept out of the arguments; the truth, he suspected, would only disturb them more.

His first stop was the corral behind his House. Fenced in by wire mesh attached to pipes, the four tricorns looked back disinterestedly as they munched on the rock and plants left there for them. Thefence couldn't keep them in at night, of course, but with a supply of food nearby they tended to stay put even during musth, and the one or two who had broken out in the last month had always returned by sunrise. Collecting food for them was a pain*as was supplying the mineral pile near the mine to lure away the tricorns there*but it beat guard duty hands-down. And in the long run, it was much cheaper.

Collecting his night things, Kendal stepped into the House. "Hi, House," he called.

"Good evening, Kendal. Did you have a profitable day?"

"Very. Will you be ready to start after I get my supper going?"

"Certainly."

We are, after all, what we eat, Kendal thought wryly*and if his theory was right, that was even more true of Houses. Their alien method of food absorption seemed to be gentler than its human equivalent, so much so that the Houses could evidently absorb intact the delicate and complex nucleic acids*or possibly even entire gray-matter nerve cells*of their prey. And as soon as enough had been absorbed.... Kendal wondered how many tricorns the House had had to eat before the unexpected light had dawned so long ago. Intact tricorns, that is*not ones whose brains had been fried by laser fire.

Accidental intelligence? Something inside Kendal rebelled at the idea... and yet, why not? And hardly useless, even if it had been sorely lacking in purpose until now.

Because there was one intriguing corollary to the theory. The Houses certainly had the necessary bulk to store great quant.i.ties of brain cells. If they were steadily fed, would their intelligence increase? And if so, was there any upper limit?

Kendal didn't know, and of course didn't have the necessary equipment or know-how to perform rigorous tests. But there were more informal ways... and he was determined to learn whatever he could in the time remaining.

The equipment was ready now. Looking up, Kendal nodded. "Okay, go ahead."

The reply was immediate; the House knew this part well. "p.a.w.n to king four," it said.

Time Bomb

I.

The bus station was stiflingly hot, despite the light evening breeze drifting in through the open door and windows. In a way the heat was almost comforting to Garwood as he stood at the ticket window; it proved the air conditioning had broken down much earlier in the day, long before he'd come anywhere near the place.

Puffing on a particularly pungent cigar*the smoke of which made Garwood's eyes water*the clerk looked down at the bills in front of him and shook his head. "Costs forty-one sixty to Champaign now," he said around his cigar.Garwood frowned. "The schedule says thirty-eight," he pointed out.

"You gotta old one, prob'ly." The clerk ran a stubby finger down a list in front of him. "Prices went up 'bout a week ago. Yep*forty-one sixty."

A fresh trickle of sweat ran down the side of Garwood's face. "May I see that?" he asked.

The clerk's cigar shifted to the other side of his mouth and his eyes flicked to Garwood's slightly threadbare sport coat and the considerably cla.s.sier leather suitcase at his side. "If you got proper identification I can take a check or card," he offered.

"May I see the schedule, please?" Garwood repeated.

The cigar shifted again, and Garwood could almost see the wheels spinning behind the other's eyes as he swiveled the card and pushed it slowly under the old-fashioned grille. Getting suspicious; but there wasn't anything Garwood could do about it. Even if he'd been willing to risk using one, all his credit cards had fallen apart in his wallet nearly a month ago. With the rising interest rates of the past two years and the record number of bankruptcies it had triggered, there were more people than ever roundly d.a.m.ning the American credit system and its excesses. And on top of that, the cards were made of plastic, based on a resource the world was rapidly running out of and still desperately needed. A double whammy. "Okay,"

he said, scanning the rate listing. "I'll go to Mahomet instead*what's that, about ten miles this side of Champaign?"

"Closer t' seven." The clerk took the card back, eying Garwood through a freshly replenished cloud of smoke. "Be thirty-six seventy-five."

Garwood handed over thirty-seven of his forty dollars, silently cursing his out-of-date schedule. He'd cut things a little too fine, and now he was going to look exactly like what he was: a man on the run. For a moment he debated simply turning around and leaving, trying it again tomorrow on someone else's shift.

But that would mean spending another night in Springfield. And with all the Lincoln memorabilia so close at hand...

"Bus's boarding now," the clerk told him, choosing one of the preprinted tickets and pushing it under the grille. "Out that door; be leavin' 'bout five minutes."

Gritting his teeth, Garwood picked up the ticket... and as he withdrew his hand, there was a sudden crack, as if someone had fired a cap pistol.

"d.a.m.n kids," the clerk growled, craning his neck to peer out his side window.

Garwood looked down, his eyes searching the ledge inside the ticket window grille. He'd heard that particular sound before... and just inside the grille, near where his hand had twice reached, he saw it.

The clerk's ashtray. An ashtray once made of clear gla.s.s... now shot through by a thousand hairline fractures.

The clerk was still looking through his window for the kid with the cap pistol as Garwood left, forcing himself to walk.

He half expected the police to show up before the bus could leave, but to his mild surprise the vehicle wheezed leisurely out of the lot on time and headed a few minutes later onto the eastbound interstate. Forthe first few miles Garwood gave his full attention to his ears, straining tensely for the first faint sound of pursuing sirens. But as the minutes crawled by and no one showed up to pull them over, he was forced to the conclusion that the clerk had decided it wasn't any of his business.

The thought was strangely depressing. To realize that the latest upswing in the "not-me" noninvolvement philosophy had spread its rot from the polarized coasts into America's heartland bothered Garwood far more than it should have. Perhaps it was all the learned opinions he'd read weighing upon him; all the doomsayings about how such a national malaise could foreshadow the end of democracy.

Or perhaps it was simply the realization that even a nation full of selfish people didn't make a shred of difference to the cloud of destruction surrounding him.

Stop it! he ordered himself silently. Self-pity... Taking a deep breath, he looked around him.

He'd chosen his third-row seat carefully*as far from the bus's rear-mounted engine as he could reasonably get without sitting in the driver's lap, and well within the non-smoking section. His seatmate...

He threw the kid a surrept.i.tious look, confirmed that his first-glance a.n.a.lysis had been correct. Faded denim jeans and an old cotton shirt. That was good; natural fibers held up much better than synthetic ones, for the same reason that plastic had a tendency to disintegrate in his presence. Reaching a hand under his jacket, Garwood checked his own sweat-soaked polyester shirt for new tears. A rip at his right shoulder lengthened as he did so, and he muttered a curse.

"Don't make 'em like they use'ta, do they?"

Startled, Garwood turned to see his seatmate's smile. "What?" he asked.

"Your shirt," the kid explained. "I heard it rip. Guys who make 'em just get away with c.r.a.pzi, don't they?"

"Um," Garwood grunted, turning away again.

"You headed for Champaign?" the kid persisted.

Garwood sighed. "Mahomet."

"No kidding!*I grew up there. You, too, or are you just visiting?"

"Just visiting."

"You'll like it. Small place, but friendly. Speaking of which*" he stuck out his hand. "Name's Tom Arnold. Tom Benedict Arnold, actually."

Automatically, Garwood shook the proffered hand. Somewhere in the back of his head the alarm bells were going off.... "Not, uh, any relation to...?"

"Benedict Arnold?" The kid grinned widely. "Sure am. Direct descendant, in fact."

An icy shiver ran up Garwood's back, a shiver having nothing to do with the bus's air conditioning. "You mean... really direct?" he asked, dropping the other's hand. "Not from a cousin or anything?"

"Straight shot line," Arnold nodded, the grin still in place. He was watching Garwood's face closely, and Garwood got the distinct impression the kid liked shocking people this way. "It's nothin' to be 'shamed of, you know*he did America a lot more good than he did bad. Whipped the Brits at Saratoga 'fore goin' over on their side*"

"Yes, I know," Garwood said, interrupting the impromptu history lesson. "Excuse me asecond*washroom."

Stepping into the aisle, he went to the small cubicle at the rear of the bus. He waited a few minutes, then emerged and found an empty seat four rows behind the kid. He hoped Arnold wouldn't take it too personally, though he rather thought the other would. But he couldn't afford to take the chance. Benedict Arnold's victory at Saratoga had been a pivotal factor in persuading France to enter the war on the rebels' side, and Garwood had no desire to see if he had the same effect on living beings that he had on history's more inanimate descendants.

The afterglow in the sky behind them slowly faded, and as the sky darkened Garwood drifted in and out of sleep. The thought of the boy four seats ahead troubled his rest, filling his dreams with broken ashtrays and TV sets, half-melted-looking car engines and statues. After a while the bus stopped in Decatur, taking half an hour to trade a handful of pa.s.sengers for an equally small number of others. Eventually they left; and back out in the dark of the prairie again, with the stars visible above, he again drifted to sleep....

The sound of the bus driver's voice jolted him awake. "...and gentlemen, I'm afraid we're having some trouble with the engine. Rather than take a chance on it quitting straight out before we get to Champaign, we're going to ask you to transfer to a bus that's being sent up from Decatur. It ought to be here in just a few minutes."

Blinking in the relative brightness of the overhead lights, Garwood joined the line of grumbling pa.s.sengers moving down the aisle, a familiar knot wrenching at his stomach. Had it been him? He'd been far enough away from the engine*surely he had. Unless the effective distance was increasing with time...

Forcing his jaw to unclench, he stepped carefully down the bus's steps, hoping desperately it was just a coincidence.

Outside, the only light came from a small building the bus had pulled alongside and from one or two dim streetlights. Half blind as his eyes again adjusted, Garwood took two tentative steps forwardAnd came to an abrupt halt as strong hands slipped smoothly around each arm.

"Dr. James Garwood?" a shadowy figure before him asked quietly.