Whipping Star

"We have twenty-eight examples, you say. Twenty-eight is one of the euclidean perfects. It's four times the prime seven. The number strongly indicates randomness. But we're faced with a situation apparently excluding randomness. Ergo, an organizing pattern is at work which is not revealed by analytic numbering as far as we've taken it. I would like to subject the spacing - both in time and physical dimension - to a complete analysis, compare for any similarities we . . ."

"You'd put an assistant on the other whips and arms to check them out?"

"That goes without saying."

Bildoon shook his head. "What Abnethe's doing - it's impossible!"

"If she does a thing, how can it be impossible?"

"They have to be somewhere!" Bildoon snapped.

"I find it very strange," Tuluk said, "this trait you share with humans of stating the obvious in such emphatic fashion. "

"Oh, go to hell!" Bildoon said. He turned, slammed out of the lab.

Tuluk, racing to the door after him, opened it and called at the retreating back, "It is a Wreave belief that we already are in hell!"

He returned to his bench, muttering. Humans and PanSpechi - impossible creatures. Except for McKie. Now, there was a human who occasionally achieved analytic rapport with sentients capable of higher logic. Well . . . every species had its exceptions to the norm.

***

If you say, "I understand." what have you done? You have made a value judgment.

By an effort of communication which he still did not completely understand, McKie had talked the Caleban into opening the Beachball's external port. This permitted a bath of spray-washed air to flow into the place where McKie sat. It also did one other thing: It allowed a crew of watchers outside to hold eye contact with him. He had just about given up hoping Abnethe would rise to the bait. There would have to be another solution. Visual contact with watchers also permitted a longer spacing between Taprisiot guard contacts. He found the new spacing less tiresome.

Morning sunshine splashed across the lip of the opening into the Beachball. McKie put a hand into the light, felt the warmth. He knew he should be moving around, making a poor target of himself, but the presence of the watchers made attack unlikely. Besides, he was tired, drugged to alertness and full of the odd emotions induced by angeret. Movement seemed an empty effort. If they wanted to kill him, they were going to do it. Furuneo's death proved that.

McKie felt a special pang at the thought of Furuneo's death. There had been something admirable and likable about the planetary agent. It had been a fumbling, pointless death - alone here, trapped. It had not advanced their search for Abnethe, only placed the whole conflict on a new footing of violence. It had shown the uncertainty of a single life - and through that life, the vulnerability of all life.

He felt a self-draining hate for Abnethe then. That madwoman!

He fought down a fit of trembling.

From where he sat McKie could see out across the lava shelf to the rocky palisades and a mossy carpeting of sea growth exposed at the cliff base by the retreating tide.

"Suppose we have it all wrong," he said, speaking over his shoulder toward the Caleban. "Suppose we really aren't communicating with each other at all. What if we've just been making noises, assuming a communication content which doesn't exist?"

"I fail of understanding, McKie. The hang doesn't get me."

McKie turned slightly. The Caleban was doing something strange with the air around its position. The oval stage he had seen earlier shimmered once more into view, disappeared. A golden halo appeared at one side of the giant spoon, rose up like a smoke ring, crackled electrically, and vanished.

"We're assuming," McKie said, "that when you say something to me, I respond with meaningful words directly related to your statement - and that you do the same. This may not be the case at all."

"Unlikely."

"So it's unlikely. What are you doing there?"

"Doing?"

"All that activity around you."

"Attempt making self visible on your wave."

"Can you do it?"

"Possible."

A bell-shaped red glow formed above the spoon, stretched into a straight line, resumed its bell curve, began whirling like a child's jump rope.

"What see you?" the Caleban asked.

McKie described the whirling red rope.

"Very odd," the Caleban said. "I flex creativity, and you report visible sensation. You need yet that opening to exterior conditions."

"The open port? It makes it one helluva lot more comfortable in here."

"Comfort - concept self fails to understand."

"Does the opening prevent you from becoming visible?"

"It performs magnetic distraction, no more."

McKie shrugged. "How much more flogging can you take?"

"Explain much."

"You've left the track again," McKie said.

"Correct! That forms achievement, McKie."

"How is it an achievement?"

"Self leaves communicative track, and you achieve awareness of same."

"All right, that's an achievement. Where's Abnethe?"

"Contract . . ."

". . . prohibits revealing her location," McKie completed. "Maybe you can tell me, then, is she jumping, around or remaining on one planet?"

"That helps you locate her?"

"How in fifty-seven hells do I know?"

"Probability smaller than fifty-seven elements," the Caleban said. "Abnethe occupies relatively static position on specific planet."

"But we can't find any pattern to her attacks on you or where they originate," McKie said.

"You ca

The whirling red rope flickered in and out of existence above the giant spoon. Abruptly, it shifted color to a glowing yellow, vanished.

"You just disappeared," McKie said.

"Not my person visible," the Caleban said.

"How's that?"

"You not seeing person-self."

"That's what I said."

"Not say. Visibility to you not represent sameness of my person. You visible-see effect."

"I wasn't seeing you, eh? That was just some effect you created?"

"Correct."

"I didn't think it was you. You're going to be something more shapely. I do notice something though: There are moments when you use our verb tenses better; I even spotted some fairly normal constructions."

"Self hangs this get me," the Caleban said.

"Yeh, well . . . maybe you're not getting the hang of our language, after all." McKie stood up, stretched, moved closer to the open port, intending to peer out. As he moved, a shimmering silver loop dropped out of the air where he had been. He whirled in time to see it snake back through the small vortal tube of a jumpdoor.

"Abnethe, is that you?" McKie demanded.

There was no answer, and the jumpdoor snapped out of existence.

The enforcers watching from outside rushed to the port. One called, "You all right, McKie?"

McKie waved him to silence, took a raygen from his pocket, held it loosely in his hand. "Fa

"Observe theyness," the Caleban said. "Furuneo not having existence, observable intentions unknown."

"Did you see what just happened here?" McKie asked.

"Self contains awareness of S'eye employment, certain activity of employer persons Activity ceases."

McKie rubbed his left hand across his neck. He wondered if he could bring the raygen into play quickly enough to cut any snare they might drop over his head. That silver thing dropping into the room had looked suspiciously like a noose.

"Is that how they got Furuneo?" McKie asked. "Did they drop a noose over his neck and pull him into the jumpdoor?"