He had talked about mother and the key under her pillow to these people who denied that women even existed!
With the realization of the enormity of his crime in the eyes of the Paradisians I felt a sudden overwhelming fear for his safety. Would they kill him-or worse-had they killed him already? They were certainly capable of anything, I was sure now of that.
What next? Communication with our backup team in the spacer above was very much in order. I had to get into the open, away from the bugs, and contact Tremearne. Bring him up to date. Something had happened to Steengo. And the rest of us surely were in danger as well-and Madonette, this might affect her. This entire affair was getting a nasty and dangerous edge to it.
And thinking about dangerous, there was the other dangerous always hanging over my head. My computer flashed me the highly unwelcome message of a flickering red nine. I had been asleep longer than I had realized.
Artifact or no I was just nine days away from my personal destiny. When I had first heard the thirty-day deadline on the poison I had not been too concerned. Thirty days is a lot of time. I thought.
Nine days was definitely not a lot of time at all. And with Steengo suddenly vanished I had more problems, not less.
“Going for a run,” I called out to Floyd, leaping to my feet in a spasm of fear-sponsored energy. “Feel logy after all that sleep. Got to clear my head.”
I slammed out the door and down the road even as he was answering. Taking a different route from my usual one-then changed direction at random. Up ahead was a field of polpettone trees, laid out in neat rows and bulging with fruit. I jogged into a path beside the trees, looking around as I ran. No one in sight. There was little chance the Paradisers would put bugs in among the trees.
But they could have. I turned into a freshly plowed field and ran between the furrows. I should be safe enough here. I clamped my jaw twice.
“Hello, Tremearne, are you there?”
“Very much so, Jim. We have all been awaiting your report. Can you tell us what is happening-the recorder is running.”
I jogged in position for a bit, then bent to tie my shoe then gave up and just sat on the ground while I finished the detailed report. I was tired; the chemicals still kicking around in my system had not been kind to me.
“That’s it,” I finished. “Steengo is gone. Might be dead . . .”
“No. I can reassure you on that score. A few hours ago we had a radio message from him, just a few words, theca contact was lost again. He must be somewhere deep in the city, behind walls the radio signals can’t penetrate. He might have been moved from one site to another, was in the open long enough for a brief transmission.”
“What did he say?”
The recording was brief and scratchy. Beginning with static and dying in static. But it was pure Steengo all right.
“. . . never enough! When I get my fingers on you, you . . . ” The next word was hard to make out-but I could think of a half dozen that filled the bill.
“What do you think we should do? Break out of here?”
“No-go along with everything. You will be contacted.”
“Contacted? By whom, what, which? Come in, Tremearne.
There was no answer. I rose and brushed off my shorts. Very mysterious. Tremearne was up to something-but he was not talking about it. Must be worried about eavesdroppers. Maybe he knew something that I didn’t.
I started back at a slow run, changed that to a fast walk. To a slow walk, then a crawl. If there had been any farther to go I would probably have done it on all fours. As it was I stumbled into our quarters and collapsed, gasping, onto the couch. Floyd looked astonished.
“You look like you’ve been dipped and rolled.”
“I feel even worse than that. Water, quickly, lots of it!”