Part 13 (1/2)

The car sped down toward what even Peerssa would have called a city.

It showed black outlined in red, with the red sun almost behind it. There had been a geodesic dome. A piece of the frame, a dozen linked hexagons, lacy-thin, still stood along one city border. But the city itself retained the dome shape. In the center of a polar coordinate grid of streets sat an enormous cube with bulging sides: the transportation nexus. Spires and gla.s.s slabs sloped away from it; the tips of the tallest buildings defined the shape of the lost dome.

A tall gla.s.s slab near the center had fallen against the great cube, where, bent in the middle, it leaned for support like a drunk against a large friend. Otherwise this city, Four City, was almost undamaged. One City had largely been ruins. Perhaps Four City was younger than One City; perhaps its dome had protected it from the elements longer.

Green dwarf forest and green-and-gold gra.s.sland, the vegetation ran downslope to surround the city on three sides. It stopped sharply at a nearly straight borderline that ran past the city's far edge. Beyond that line, a five-to-ten-mile width of barren borderland stretched to meet the bright blue of ocean.

Strange, Corbell thought. Then it came to him that Four City must have been built before the world grew hot and the oceans receded. It was that that old, anyway. But something else was strange about Four City. It had not spread out along the sh.o.r.e. What must once have been a curved line of beach was bare of buildings. No roads joined it to the city. Corbell, peering, made out regularly s.p.a.ced black dots that might have been ”phone booths.” old, anyway. But something else was strange about Four City. It had not spread out along the sh.o.r.e. What must once have been a curved line of beach was bare of buildings. No roads joined it to the city. Corbell, peering, made out regularly s.p.a.ced black dots that might have been ”phone booths.”

He asked, ”Do you know this city well?” Play tour director. Where's your private jail, Mirelly-Lyra Play tour director. Where's your private jail, Mirelly-Lyra She said, ”Yes.”

He dropped it. ”From here we go to the west coast of-”

”I know. My machines watched your landing.”

He had almost grown used to the car's reckless speed, but when they swooped into the city his composure self-destructed. The streets had teeth: big chunks of fallen masonry, jagged sheets of gla.s.s. The car swerved around them, tilted forty-five degrees and more to take corners, straightened and tilted again, while Corbell strangled the padded bar.

The Norn studied him with shrewd old eyes. ”You're badly frightened. I wonder what your people used for transport.”

”Phone booths,” he said at random. ”For long-distance travel we used dirigibles, lighter-than-air craft.”

”You traveled so slowly?”

Sweating, he said, ”We weren't in a hurry. We lived a long time.” For an instant he considered telling her the truth. Get it over with. Her deal could work for him. They would use her medicines to make him young. Young Corbell would search out the dictators' immortality while frail old Mirelly-Lyra waited it out in a rocking chair. It made good sense.

But Mirelly-Lyra was crazy.

The car swerved violently, ducked under something huge and solid. Corbell looked back. Embedded in the street like a t.i.tan's spear was a girder of Z-shaped cross section. It was as long as the average Four City skysc.r.a.per was tall.

The car slowed and eased to a stop beneath the great rectangular face of an office building. Corbell let his death grip relax. The old woman was prodding him with the cane, gesturing him out. He got out. She followed.

The design of windows on the face of the building was not rectangular; the panes (largely missing) were laid out like a pattern in stained gla.s.s. And there were curlicues above the great gla.s.s doors. Corbell, still shaking in the aftermath of terror, pulled himself together. He needed to remember these; they might be an address. Two commas crossed, an S reversed, an hourgla.s.s on its side and pushed inward from the ends, and a crooked pi.

Two sets of doors dropped into the floor to let them through, then slid back up.

Mirelly-Lyra took them through a lobby padded in cloud-rug, then through a corridor lined with handleless doors. ”The lifting boxes don't work,” she explained. They climbed stairs: three flights, with pauses to rest. They were both panting when Mirelly-Lyra turned down a hallway.

Corbell's fingers worked steadily at a b.u.t.ton on his undersuit.

He'd been wearing it since Don Juan Don Juan took off. He'd washed it several hundred times. He twisted and twisted at the b.u.t.ton. One thick flexible ”thread” joined it to the fabric. It would have to part all at once. took off. He'd washed it several hundred times. He twisted and twisted at the b.u.t.ton. One thick flexible ”thread” joined it to the fabric. It would have to part all at once.

More doors without handles. Mirelly-Lyra stopped beside the sixth door. She pressed something in her hand against the center of the door. As the door swung open she put the unseen thing back in a pocket and gestured. Corbell pa.s.sed through ahead of her. He dropped the b.u.t.ton as his fingers brushed the jamb.

It was the first big risk he'd taken. He had no choice. He had to be able to re-enter this place.

Mirelly-Lyra kept her eyes on Corbell as the door closed behind her. It closed on the b.u.t.ton... and she didn't notice. Corbell was looking around him, everywhere but at the door.

Desk covered with widgetry; cloud-rug; ”phone booth”; picture window. The offices were ma.s.s produced too. There were minor differences. The ”phone-booth” door was transparent. The picture window was intact, and rain had not ruined the desk or the rug.

Corbell's pressure suit and helmet had been dumped on the desk. He picked up the helmet in his bound hands. He called, ”Peerssa! This is Corbell for himself calling Peerssa for the State.”

There was no answer.

”Peerssa, please answer. This is Corbell calling Peerssa and Don Juan.” Don Juan.”

Nothing. Not a whisper. And Mirelly-Lyra was watching.

”My s.h.i.+p may be around the other side of the planet,” he told her. But Peerssa set up relays! ”Or the autopilot may still be holding an equatorial orbit.” But he wasn't, he'd changed it! Where was Peerssa? But he wasn't, he'd changed it! Where was Peerssa?

Then he remembered. Mirelly-Lyra had altered the subway system. Wherever Corbell had come out, wherever he was now, it wasn't where Peerssa had aimed his instruments. As far as Peerssa was concerned, Corbell had never emerged from the subway system.

I will wait until I am sure you are dead, Peerssa had said. Then I will search other systems for the State. Then I will search other systems for the State.

He would have to bluff. ”If he's still in equatorial orbit, we'll have to call from my landing craft.” He had to explain equatorial orbits to her by drawing in the dust on the desk. Then she understood.

She said, ”We must use the tunnel cars. Take your pressure Suit. Mine is in the terminal.”

The ”phone booth” was too small. Mirelly-Lyra clearly did not trust Corbell that close to her. She held him covered while she drew a symbol in the dust: the crooked pi. pi. ”Push this key four times,” she said. ”Then wait for me. You cannot outrun my cane.” ”Push this key four times,” she said. ”Then wait for me. You cannot outrun my cane.”

He nodded. She watched him through the door. He paused to note that four of the eight symbols on the keyboard matched the four he'd seen over the entrance.

He pushed the crooked pi pi four times. four times.

Zap, he was elsewhere. The world beyond the door snapped into another shape. Vast empty s.p.a.ce, rings of couches humping from the floor: Here was another intercontinental subway terminal. Corbell fumbled in the belt pouch of his pressure suit, found a circle shape. His hands were trembling violently. Clear plastic disk: right. With both hands he guided it into the coin slot. He stabbed at the compressed hourgla.s.s symbol, 4 4 4 4.

Nothing at all happened. The ”phone booth” in the Four City Police Station must be out of order.

Mirelly-Lyra Zeelas.h.i.+sthar stepped into view from another booth and looked about her, eyes narrowed and jaw thrust forward. She saw him, still in the booth with the door closed.

He jabbed frantically at the crossed commas. Remorse, terror, guilt, death-wish flashed in his brain and were gone, and so was the light. In blackness he rammed his shoulder against the door and ran blindly out into...

Corridors... corridors with pale-green walls and glowing-white ceilings. Wide doors with no k.n.o.bs, only small plates of golden metal that might have been electromagnetic key plates. He turned right, left, right, and stopped, face to a wall, sucking air. Fatigue soaked into his legs like an acid solvent.

Would she know how to trace his ”call”? He couldn't know. He ran.

A bigger door at the end of the corridor dropped open to reveal stairs. One long flight ran diagonally between a sheer wall and the tinted gla.s.s-mosaic face of the building, with doors at landings along the flight. He froze in fear. If she was out there, she'd see him!

Then he remembered. They'd pa.s.sed a building with this pattern on its face. From the outside it was a mirror.

He was (he counted) three stories up. He still didn't know what kind of place this was; but it must be some kind of public service facility.

All right. By the time she got here, if she ran as he'd been running, the old lady would be exhausted. She'd want to go down. So did he, and she'd guess that. He went up. At the fourth story the door dropped for him, then closed as he pa.s.sed it. He climbed another flight, then looked back and saw footprints in the dust.

He stopped, resting, listening.

No sound.