It moved toward her and she retreated, not wanting to come into bodily contact with it. E. B. Black reminded her too much of the other, the one against which they had played—played and won and then been cheated out of their victory.
“Not cheated,” E. B. Black contradicted. “Your victory has merely been—held back from you. It is still yours and you will obtain it.” It added, “In time.” There was a faint tinge of relish in its tone. E. B. Black was not particularly saddened by the plight of Pretty Blue Fox, the fact that its members were scattered, frightened and confused. In chaps.
“May I go to Carmel?” she asked.
“Of course. You may damn well go anywhere you wish,
Miss McClain. But Joe Schilling is not in Carmel; you’ll have to search elsewhere.”
“I will,” she said. “I’ll look until I find him. Pete Garden, too.” Until the group is back together again, she thought. As it was before, when we sat across the board from the Titanian Game-players; as we were in Carmel, just a little while ago this evening.
A little while—and a long way ago.
Turning, she left the apartment. And did not look back.
A voice, eager and querulous, prodded at Joe Schilling; he moved away from it—tried to, anyhow—but it crept after him.
“Urn,” it gibbered. “Uh, say, Mr. Schilling, you got a minute?” In the darkness he floated closer, always closer until it was right on him, throttling him; he was unable to breathe. “I’ll just take a little of your time. Okay?” It paused. He said nothing. “Well,” the voice resumed, “I’ll tell you what I’d like. As long as you’re here, visiting us and I mean, it’s really a distinct honor, you know.”
Schilling said, “Get away from me.” He pawed at it and it was as if his hands broke through webs, sticky, mislinked sections of webs. And accomplishing nothing.
The voice bleated, “Uh, here’s what we both wanted to ask, Es and I. I mean, you hardly ever get out to Portland, right? So by any chance do you have that Erna Berger recording of—what’s it called? ‘From Die Zauberflote you know.”
Breathing heavily, Joe Schilling said, “The Queen of the Night aria.”
“Yes! That’s it!” Greedily, the voice crept over him, pressing him inexorably; it would never turn back now.
“Da dum-dum DUM, da dee-dee da-da dum dum,” another voice, a woman’s, joined in; both voices clamored at him.
“Yes, I have it,” Joe Schilling said. “On Swiss HMV. Both of the Queen of the Night arias. Back to back.”
“Can we have them?” the voices chimed together.
“Yes,” he said.
Light, gray and fragmented, fluttered before him; he
managed to get to his feet. My record shop in New Mexico? he asked himself. No. The voices had said he was in Portland, Oregon. What am I doing here? he asked himself. Why did the vug set me down here? He looked around.
He stood in the unfamiliar living room of an old house, on bare, soft wooden floors, facing a moth-scavenged old red and white couch on which sat two familiar figures, short, squat, with ill-cut hair, a man and woman leering at him with avidity.
“You don’t actually have the record with you, by any chance?” Es Sibley squawked. Beside her, Les Sibley’s eyes glowed with eagerness; he could not sit still and he got to his feet to pace about the barren, echoing living room.
In the corner a phonograph played, loudly, The Cherry Duet; Joe Schilling, for once in his life, wished he could stuff his fingers in his ears, could cut out all such sound. It was too screechy, too blaring; it made his head ache and he turned away, taking a deep, unsteady breath.
“No,” he said. “It’s back at my shop.” He wished like hell for a cup of hot black coffee or tea; for good ooh long tea.
Es Sibley said, “You all right, Mr. Schilling?”
He nodded. “I’m okay.” He wondered about the rest of the group; had all of them been dispersed, dropped like dry leaves to flutter over the plains of Earth? Evidently so. The Titanian could not quite give up.
But at least the group was back. The Game was over.
Schilling said, “Listen.” He phrased his question carefully, word by word. “Is—my—car—outside?” He hoped so. Prayed so.
“No,” Les Sibley said. “We picked you up and brought you out here to Oregon; don’t you remember?” Beside him Es giggled, showing her large, sturdy teeth. “He doesn’t remember how he got here,” Les said to her and they both laughed, now, together.
“I want to call Max,” Joe Schilling said. “I have to go. I’m sorry.” He got totteringly to his feet. “Goodbye.”
“But the Erna Berger record!” Es Sibley protested, dismayed.
“I’ll mail it.” He made his way step by step toward the
front door; he had a vague memory—or sense—of its location. “I have to find a vidphone. Call Max.”
“You can call from here,” Les Sibley said, guiding him toward the hall to the dining room. “And then maybe you can stay a little—”
“No.” Schilling found the vidphone and, snapping it on, dialed the number of his car.
Presently Max’s voice sounded. “Yeah?”
“This is Joe Schilling. Come and get me.”
“Come and get your fat-assed self,” the car said.
Joe Schilling gave it the address. And then he made his way back down the hall to the living room once more. He reseated himself on the chair where he had been sitting and groped reflexively, hopefully, for a cigar or at least his pipe. The music, even more than before, filled his ears and made him cringe.
He sat, hands clasped together, waiting. But, each minute, feeling a little better. A little more certain what had happened to them. How they had come out.
Standing in the grove of eucalyptus trees, Pete Garden knew where he was; the vugs had released him and he was in Berkeley. In his old, original bind, which he had lost to Walt Remington who had turned it over to Pendleton Associates who had in turn sold it to Luckman who now was dead.
On a rough-hewn bench, among the trees, directly ahead of him sat a silent, motionless girl. It was his wife.
He said, “Carol. Are you all right?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, Pete. I’ve been here a long time, going over things in my mind. You know, we’re very fortunate to have had her on our side, that Mary Anne McClain, I mean.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He walked up to her, hesitated, and then seated himself beside her. He was glad, more so than he could say, to see her.
Carol said, “Have you any idea what she could have done to us, if she were malevolent? I’ll tell you, Pete; she could have whisked the baby out from inside me. Do you realize that?”
He had not; he was sorry, now, to even hear about it. “True,” he admitted, his heart becoming cold with fear again.
“Don’t be afraid,” Carol said. “She’s not going to do it. Any more than you go about running people down and killing them with your car. After all, you could do it. And as a Bindman you might even get away with it.” She smiled at him. “Mary Anne isn’t a danger to either of us. In many ways, Pete, she’s more sensible than we are. More reasonable and mature. I’ve had a lot of time to think this out, sitting here. It seems like years.”
He patted her on the shoulder, then bent and kissed her.
Carol said, “I hope you can win Berkeley back. I guess Dotty Luckman owns it, now. You should be able to. She’s not such a good player.”
“I guess Dotty could spare it,” Pete said. “She’s got all the East Coast titles that Lucky left her.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to keep Mary Anne in the group?”
“No,” he said.
“That’s a shame.” Carol looked around her, at the huge old eucalyptus grove. “It’s nice, here in Berkeley. I can see why you were so unhappy at losing it. And Luckman didn’t really enjoy it for itself; he just wanted it as a base for playing and winning.” She paused. “Pete, I wonder if the birthrate will return to normal, now. Since we beat them.”
“God help us,” he said, “if it doesn’t.”
“It will,” Carol said. “I know it will. I’m the first of many women. Call it a Psionic talent, pre-cognition on my part, but I’m positive of it. What’ll we call our child?”
“In my opinion, it depends on whether it’s a boy or a girl.” Carol smiled. “Maybe it’ll be both.”
“Then,” he said, “Freya would be right, in her schizoid jibe when she said she hoped it was a baby, implying she wasn’t convinced of it.”
“I mean of course one of each. Twins. When was the last pair of twins born?”