Z-Sting Read online

  Leaving them with their heads up, she turned to Croyd and asked low: “What do you know about Commander Marana?”

  “When I last talked to him, Moon to ship,” Croyd told her, “his exact words to me were: ‘My God, how much of an ass can a commander be? She’s Keri Andhra—Andhra, get it? The Chancellor’s daughter!’ ”

  He stopped. Keri, lips compressed, was breathing deeply.

  Croyd added, “He then told me that he had wanted me to be at your wedding.”

  She stopped breathing entirely. She turned to survey him. She said, “You can’t be the old man that he said he’d like to have—”

  “Thank you. I like Marana, and I think I will like you if you give me a chance.” His time was running out, but he didn’t dare frighten her away—she was the impossibly lucky key to his key lead.

  “But he said old—”

  “So how old am I?”

  “Fifty, maybe?”

  “That’s got to be old to Marana. Do you want to know the next thing he said?”

  She warned, “They are starting to get tired of the ceiling.” She announced: “We have to move on now to the next station.” She started walking, murmuring, “Please talk.”

  “You are Keri Andhra, the Chancellor’s daughter?”

  “Yes. What did Dana say next?”

  “I’m cautiously leading up to this. What do you know about Z-waves?”

  Suddenly taut: “What do you know about Z-waves?”

  “You and I have reached a Vendic stand-off that is going to take close talk along with some ID exchange—and we can’t wait two hours for the end of this tour.”

  She walked a few steps farther. Then she spoke softly into a wrist intercom: “Guide Central. This is Keri, moving from Statuary Hall into Gallery Hinayana. I have to cut out immediately, please send a substitute. Over.” She listened, and Croyd heard the minimal squawk: “Sending Sita soonest. Out.”

  Walking, Keri told Croyd: “You and I have to drop this mutual favoritism. Fall back into the group. When Sita gets here, I’ll make the switch publicly and walk away over there. You drop behind the group for a minute or two—then meet me there.”

  He acknowledged, and fell back. Pay dirt. Only—in time! God grant that Carlton was buying him time by buying Senevendia!

  The danger dial at COMCORD Central, Manhattan, hesitated at 2•89 and quivered there for a full minute. Automatic triggering would occur at 3•0.

  The dial sagged at 2•84.

  Ziska’s top man, Grissom, tense, muttered, “Looks like maybe some of our stuff is working. Can you tell me why the slowdown?”

  2•76. Hesitation. 2•61 . . .

  A florid fortyish man named Tannen, Secretary-General of the Erthworld Union, informed him: “The indicator says it is automatic correction of economic grievances. Beyond that, we’ll have to wait for a factor analysis.”

  “How long will that take?”

  2•5. Right on critical again, only backwards . . .

  “No telling. Analysis of causal interaction is buried very deep in the coding.”

  “Now, why in the hell,” fumed Grissom, “wouldn’t the Secretary-General who bosses this thing be able to tell me—"

  Still 2•5 and quivering . . .

  Tannen’s melic bass consoled him: “The machine is rarely asked for an analysis of the GB. It is programmed to handle the GB without human consultation. I have repeatedly protested this, but—”

  “GB?”

  “Grievance Balance. Sorry, sir.” Tannen, whose effective power was greater than that of the President of Erth-world and second only to the power of Marta Vensen and of Ziska, courteously addressed Grissom as a peer—even as a superior. There was no evident need for a test of superiority, so Tannen tested not.

  Grissom insisted: “But you are the boss!”

  Somewhat interiorized, Tannen murmured: “Boss? This thing has no boss. Indeed, this thing is no boss. It has no will, it balances grievances; automatically it triggers consequences. If I survive this disaster politically, I will kill this thing—”

  2•4. Hesitation. 2•3 . . .

  Silence infused the room.

  The dial hovered at 2•3.

  The Secretary-General whispered: “Mr. Grissom, the countdown has been suspended.”

  “Why?”

  “The fallback below the 2•5 critical imbalance has exceeded significance at the five percent level. This automatically suspends the countdown. If the dial again rises to 2•5, countdown will resume.”

  “From where it left off?”

  “From where it left off. And that could happen within an hour. I have a feeling about this imbalance, Mr. Grissom, and it is that the machine itself is somehow imbalanced, not the grievances. And if for the instant some mystical spate of compensatory redresses is trending back toward balance, it will not last: imbalance will return. Excuse me, sir, I have thought of some things that this lull could be good for.”

  Tannen departed. Grissom phoned the moon.

  Keri led Croyd through a narrow low corridor to a private updraft. They emerged into a large feminine apartment with salon windows overlooking the River Pradhras which along this stretch was virgin rapids. In the center of her salon she turned and quiveringly lapeled him, pleading: “Let’s get on with this!”

  He grasped her by her slender strong upper arms, steadying her. “Tell me very fast: what do you know about Z-waves—what special secret knowledge?”

  Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. “You have me in a rough spot, I am trying to think how to answer.”

  Releasing her, he rummaged in a breast pocket, brought out a billfold, handed her his ID card—the one that said Croyd, 6-U. “I’m an agent of Galactic,” he told her, “but working also for Chairman Marta Evans. There is a crisis on Erth, involving COMCORD and the Z-waves and very particularly your Senevendia. State what the real crisis is, Miss Andhra.”

  She stared at the card. She stared at him. Her father was all her concern . . .

  “All right,” Croyd snapped, “I think you know but you won’t tell me. Then, will you lead me to your father?”

  “Perhaps. Why should I—”

  “Let me tell you what Marana said next. He said, ‘She knew all the damn time, and that was why—’ Sound like what you’d expect?”

  She had his upper arms. “Then what?”

  “Marana begged my permission to let him leave duty so he could come back here and get you. But I wouldn’t let him, because the nature of his duty just might save Erth and you and your father with it.”

  “Does he know this?”

  Grim: “I told him this, but I had no clear way to explain it—”

  Flanking baritone: “He’s right, Keri.” They turned; Marana stood just inside an open double window, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back, surveying them hesitantly. Dana added, “Croyd ordered me to stay with my ship’s mission. I disobeyed, I had to run out; I had to get you, Keri.”

  “Had you stayed aboard ship,” Croyd commented coldly, “you would have been here anyway; I tried to raise you on the ship, to send for you—”

  Behind them, a chime. They turned again: a visiphone was flashing. Keri hesitated, then whistled two notes. A dark matronly face appeared on the screen, saying in a deep melancholy voice: “Keri, I have to see you at once.”

  Keri went swiftly to sit before the phone, turning on her own visual transmission; Croyd and Dana were out of range, “Something wrong, Auntie?”

  “I have to see you at once.”

  “Auntie, I can’t see you now. Just tell me what it is.”

  Tears appeared. “Keri, I want to be with you when I tell you—”

  Keri’s back stiffened. “Anything about my father?” Choking sob. “Keri, I want to be holding you when I—”

  Toneless: “He’s dead?”

  The woman broke down.

  Keri said sharply: “Auntie! Auntie, listen to me—”

  Slowly the woman looked up at her, great lips quiv
ering.

  Keri’s voice, near break, held steady-harsh. “I think it is I who should be holding you. Auntie, come right out and say it. Is he dead—or what?”

  The woman bit hard on her lower lip. Ultimately she found it possible to articulate: “Not dead. Took the hundred-year sleep.”

  Keri, inwardly lacerated, face distorted, swiveled around to the men. Croyd understood. Her father-god had lost courage to face dehumanization with his people, without finding courage to kill himself; he had taken the narcotic that depresses animation below the point of consciousness for approximately a century, assuming continuous body care, obviously hoping to awaken with the trouble gone. But Andhra’s Keri too would be gone.

  His daughter turned back to the phone with controlled composure, indeed with outgoing sympathy. “Auntie, I can’t see you right now, I am doing my father’s business. I will be with you eventually, I hope, but don’t count on it. Will you be strong, Auntie?”

  Helpless staring.

  “Will you be strong, Auntie?”

  The big head nodded.

  Keri’s voice went broken-gentle. “I realize he’s your brother, Auntie. We both love him. Lots of people love him. He’s all right, he’s found rest. Remember that, Auntie. Will you remember that?”

  Again the woman nodded, her face drenched.

  Keri disconnected. Keri sat for a full minute while the men watched. In rapid replay she was reliving the time five days ago when she had surprised Saguni with her father, when afterward she had been alone with her father while he droned out all his enormity against Erth . . .

  Dully, she said, “My father wanted to terminate the human race on Erth. He had the director of COMCORD in his blackmail-pocket. Dr. Saguni had a thing going with a male official, and my father knew it. So my father had Saguni arrange a 3•0 imbalance against Senevendia. Also he had Saguni program the Z-sting to make a three-point strike on Chihattan, Senevendia, and Moskov. That would enshroud Erth—permanently. So now, having brought off his sacrificial-Satanic heroism, my revered courageous father has—”

  She got up slowly, stood with her back to the men for half a minute, turned to Dana; her eyes were wild. She advanced a few steps toward Dana. She ran to him and grabbed his neck and jammed her head against his shoulder, sobbing uncontrolled, while his arms tried to comfort her.

  Her assistance now was indispensable, and Croyd could only wait for her self-control to return. He had been right, but it was no joy to be right; Erth without stars would tear itself apart, with no hope for rescue . . .

  Her sobbing quieted. Rubbing her face against Dana’s shoulder, she said in a voice that scraped, “I could stay with him—but he couldn’t stay with us—”

  Dana gazed past her at Croyd, and Dana was three ways troubled. “Sir, discipline me later; what can we do now? My scouter is air-anchored outside the window there, I activated invisibility—”

  “Jog her around so she’s looking at me.”

  When her face came around to Croyd, it was contorted by her self-driving into something approaching composure.

  “Keri,” said Croyd with compassion, “you understand that I have no time for sympathy now, although I feel it. Since your father is now unavailable, instead of taking me to him, can you take us to the constellational COMCORD controls? By a private way, preferably, if you know one.”

  The men filed after her along the spider-corridor for a distance of fifty short cautious paces. Then they came to a dead end, and her hand magic opened a hidden door. “Downdraft,” she cautioned, stepping in and disappearing; and they dropped after her to a deep subterranean level.

  Emerging into another passageway, for the first time they encountered armed guards—who merely presented arms, recognizing Miss Andhra and respecting the two fleet-uniformed officers who followed her. She nodded to the guards, and Croyd and Marana responded to the present-arms with curt salutes, and the guards moved apart to let the woman and the officers pass between.

  A few paces beyond, Keri paused before a durundium vault door. “This is the rear entrance—my father’s private entrance.”

  Croyd asked, “Can you tell whether people are in there now?”

  She pointed to a green light beside the door. “Nobody is in there now, and the main entrance is closed. Shall we enter?”

  At their nods, she incantated; and the vault door disappeared into the wall, revealing another at the far end of a shallow vestibule. Motioning them inside, she closed the outer door behind them and opened the inner. Croyd and Marana now stood before the sleepily glow-beeping input-output panel of COMCORD-Senevendia, unmonitored at the moment because input and output had been quarantined and there were monitors just beyond in the Grievance Room.

  They stood in precisely the locus where Keri five days ago had surprised her father with Saguni—the one man in all the world who knew all about COMCORD, the man whom her Dhurga-paranoid father had soul-blackmailed Into tampering with COMCORD.

  Croyd inquired: “Might Mare Stellarum enter and surprise us here?”

  Touching a button on the control panel, Keri answered: “Not now.”

  “Good. Keri, have you ever seen Saguni in this room?”

  “He was with my father here five days ago, at around 1100 hours.”

  “All right, we will go there then. Dana, take Keri in your arms. Good. Hang on, Keri. Now I hang on to both of you, like this—” Knee-bending, he arm-encircled both their waists, locking his fingers together; both of them noted his strength, and, surprised, Dana noted also that the short auburn hair of Croyd was now almost innocent of gray . . .

  Abruptly Keri saw her father talking to Saguni.

  Highly trained, Keri did not utter a sound. “Well done,” Croyd commented, “your self-restraint, I mean. Keri, can you identify those men?”

  She uttered: “The tall one is my father. The small one is Saguni.”

  “Good,” sighed Croyd, releasing them and straightening. “Now listen: we are in uptime; normally you can’t breathe here, but I am providing you with a rekamatic oxygen substitute.” He was field-generating it off the intensified gravity-pull of concrescent uptime nuclei—he’d worked out the theory this morning on the tube. “You two stay rooted to this spot and don’t move until I come back to you. Don’t move! Exception: if you see anybody or anything except me approaching you, dodge it—on pain of contact-death. Got it?”

  They nodded, not understanding at all, and therefore ready to obey fully. Keri was gazing at the zombie of her father.

  Ignoring Andhra, Croyd went to Saguni—and appeared to merge with him.

  Keri and Dana lost interest in her father and stared at the blurred Saguni-Croyd image. Yet they could see that the Saguni-Andhra conversation was continuing uninterrupted, as though Croyd were not there—and then, he had not been there . . .

  Marana swung ninety degrees left and gasped. Keri, turning also, choked and put both hands over her mouth. She saw herself entering the room, moving toward her.

  Keri Two, ignoring Keri One and Marana, stopped short, shocked, staring at Andhra and Saguni while they turned to stare at her (but Croyd continued blurred into Saguni). Keri Two blurted: “Pardon me, Mr. Chancellor. It is the scheduled VIP visitation, I was checking before going transparent—” By this time Marana understood; but Keri One, cold-pale, watched while herself repeated, with her father and Saguni, the entire charged interview of five days earlier.

  As Chancellor Andhra finished, “Are you clear on all this, Keri?” Croyd detached himself from Saguni, grasped the situation, manifested alarm, and incised: “Keri and Dana—if she approaches you, back away—under no circumstances let her touch you!”

  Keri One was frozen. Dana seized her around the waist with both arms, prepared to move her bodily if necessary.

  Keri Two turned her back, departed slowly, vanished.

  Croyd let out harsh breath. “That was a close one!”

  Live Keri did not move, her hands were still fixed against her open mouth. Marana spat; “Expl
ain, Croyd—I get it, but she’s wild with soul-fear!”

  Croyd came to her, took hold of her shoulders, gazed deeply into her eyes. Quickly she began to relax, her hands came down, her breath and her heart quickened, her pupil-dilation eased, her lips began to suggest the presence of blood. Croyd released her and stood back. In a moment she licked lips and said: “All I saw was my cinema image of five days ago, and Dana Marana is married to an ass.”

  While Dana hugged her to him, Croyd returned curtly, “It’s understandable, but don’t do it again. In uptime, a fear-paralyzed person can be slain by his own double—or by anything else that happens to barge into him. Now you people stay motionless, here alone, a few minutes longer—I want to scout actuality.” He disappeared.

  Keri told Dana, “You can cut me off right now. I’ll understand.”

  Up went Marana’s eyebrow. “If I can love one of you, I can love two of you.”

  Up stole her mouth corners. Then Keri's hand slipped around his neck, her lips went to his ear. “I have to tell you, Dana—”

  “Shh. I know now, I’m sorry.”

  “No, but I have to say it. There was going to be a quarantining of Erth from space, eternal isolation from moon and stars—”

  “Shh—”

  "Listen, Dana. It’s no good if I don’t say it to you, and time is fearfully short. I went out to find a spaceman, so that at least space could give me a child before space would be closed out forever. But during two nights I saw only three spacemen, and them I shied away from. And then I saw you, through God’s love! And I said: NOW, Keri! You have to have meaning! So I—call it what it was! I accosted you—”

  “No, Keri!”

  “Yes, Dana! But listen. Two minutes later, Dana, you were the love of my life, and for the rest of the night and into the morning I was thanking God more and more fervently. What god, Dana? The Godhead generally, but special avatars also: Brahma for creating our impossible meeting, and Siva for driving me to you, and Kali for our fiery fertility, and Vishnu-Krishna for the wonderful hero you are, and Vishnu-Rama for the strong child you have surely given me, and Vishnu-Kalki for my redemption between your big hands, and the great impersonal Brahman just for our existence—”