“I can tell that I am in a woman’s body,” she— it—said.
Kickaha nodded and then shot the drug into her arm. He waited sixty seconds before beginning to dredge the information he needed. It took less time to get the facts than it had for the drug to take effect.
The Lords had been mistaken about the exact number of missing Bellers. There had been fifty-one, not fifty, and the Bellers, of course, had not enlightened their enemies. The “extra” one was Thabuuz. He had been down in the palace biolabs most of the time, where he was engaged in creating new Bellers. When the alarm was raised about Kickaha, he had come up from the labs. He did not get a chance to do much, but he was able to help Graumgrass knock out Nimstowl and then transfer him.
Graumgrass, as the little Lord, was to make one
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more attempt to kill the two remaining enemies of the Sellers. In case he did not succeed, Thabuuz was to gate to Earth with his bell and his knowledge. There, on Earth, that limbo among the universes, hidden in in the swarms of mankind, he was to make new Sellers for another attempt at conquest.
“What gate did he use?” Kickaha asked.
“The gate that Wolff and Chryseis used,” Graumgrass-Anana said. “It leads to Earth.”
“And how do you know it does?”
“We found the code book and cracked the code, and so found that the gate was to Earth. Thabuuz had orders to take it if an emergency required that he get out of the palace to a place where he could hide.”
Kickaha was shocked, but, on reflection, he was pleased. Now he had two reasons to go to Earth. One, and the most vital, was to find Thabuuz and kill him before he got his project started. Two, he must find Wolff and Chryseis and tell them they could return home. That is, they could if they wished. Undoubtedly, Wolff would want to help him and Anana hunt down the Belter.
He replaced the bell on Anana’s head. In fifteen minutes, the withdrawal of Graumgrass’ mind into the bell was completed. Then he put the bell containing Anana’s mind on her head. In about twenty minutes, she opened her eyes and cried out his name. She wept for a while as she held him. Being in the bell, she said, was as if her brain had been cut out of her head and placed in a dark void. She kept thinking that something might happen to Kickaha and then she would be locked up forever in that bell. She knew she would go mad, and the
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idea of being insane forever made her even more frenzied.
Kickaha comforted her, and when she seemed to be calmed, he told her what he had learned. Anana said they must go to Earth. But first, they should dispose of Graumgrass.
“That’ll be easy,” he said. “I’ll embed the bell in a plastic cube and put it in the museum. Later, when I have time—that is, when I come back from Earth—I’ll gate him to Talanac. He can be discharged into a condemned criminal and then killed. Meantime, let’s get ready for Earth.”
He checked the code book for information that the Beller had not given him. The gate transmitted to an ancient gate in southern California, the exact area unspecified. Kickaha said, “I’ve had some twinges of nostalgia for Earth now and then, but I got over them. This is my world, this world of tiers, of green skies and fabled beasts. Earth seems like a big gray nightmare to me when I think about having to live there permanently. But still, I get just a little homesick now and then.”
He paused and then said, “We may be there for some time. We’ll need money. I wonder if Wolff has some stored somewhere?”
The memory bank of an underground machine told him where to locate a storage room of terrestrial currency. Kickaha returned from the room with a peculiar grin and a bag in his hand. He dumped the contents on the table. “Lots of U.S. dollar bills,” he said. “Many hundred dollar bills and a dozen thousand dollar bills. But the latest was issued in 1875!”