Whipping Star Part 17

"I wish it."

"Your friend converses through a Taprisiot."

"Ahhh," McKie said. "You can listen in on his conversation, then?"

"Message content not available. Connectives visible. I possess awareness that your friend exchanges communication with sentient of other species."

"What species?"

"One you label PanSpechi."

"What'd happen if you sent Furuneo to . . . his home here on Cordiality right now?"

"Shattering of connectives. But message exchange concludes in this linearity. I send him. There."

"You sent him?"

"But connectives you convey."

"He's here on Cordiality right now?"

"He occupies place not his home."

"I hope we're together on that."

"Your friend," the Caleban said, "desires presence with you."

He wants to come here?"

"Correct."

"Well, why not? All right, bring him."

"What purpose arises from friend's presence in my home?"

"I want him to stay with you and watch for Abnethe while I attend to other business."

"McKie?"

"Yes."

"You possess awareness that presence of yourself or other of your kind prolongs impingement of myself upon your wave?"

"That's fine."

"Your presence foreshortens flogging."

"I suspected as much."

"Suspected?"

"I understand!"

"Understanding probable. Connectives indicative."

"I can't tell you how happy that makes me," McKie said.

"You wish friend brought?"

"What's Furuneo doing?"

"Furuneo exchanges communication with . . . a.s.sistant."

"I can imagine."

McKie shook his head from side to side. He could sense the mora.s.s of misunderstanding around every attempt at communication here. No way to steer clear of it. No way at all. At the very moment when they thought they had achieved closest communication, right then they could be widest of the mark.

"When Furuneo concludes his conversation, bring him," McKie said. He hunched back against the wall. G.o.ds of the underworld! The heat was almost unbearable. Why did Calebans require such heat? Maybe the heat represented something else to a Caleban, a visible wave form, perhaps, serving some function other sentients couldn't begin to understand.

McKie felt then that he was engaged in an exchange of worthless noises here -- shadow sounds. Reason had gone, swinging from planet to planet. He and the Caleban were striking false bargains, trying to climb out of chaos. If they failed, death would take away all the innocent and the sinful, the good and the guilty. Boats would drift on countless oceans, towers would fall, balconies crumble, and suns would move alone across unmarked skies.

A wave of relatively cold air told McKie that Furuneo had arrived. McKie turned, saw the planetary agent sprawled beside him and just beginning to sit up.

"For the love of reason!" Furuneo shouted. "What're you doing to me?"

"I needed the fresh air," McKie said.

Furuneo peered at him. "What?"

"Glad to see you," McKie said.

"Yeah?" Furuneo brought himself to a squatting position beside McKie. "You have any idea what's just happened to me?"

"You've been to Landy-B," McKie said.

"How'd you know? Was that your doing?"

"Slight misunderstanding," McKie said. "Landy-B's your home."

"It is not!"

"I'll leave you to argue that with f.a.n.n.y Mae," McKie said. "Have you started the search on Cordiality?"

"I barely got it going before you . . ."

"Yes, but you've started it?"

"I've started it."