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She spoke gibberish. An old man's voice translated: "You found it. Where is it?"
"Give me the cane and I'll tell you."
Her answer was a wave of guilt and mental agony. Corbell waded through it, hands outstretched for her throat. She backed away. Corbell moaned and came on. Suddenly she turned something on the cane's handle.
Sleep dragged him down toward the cloud-rug. Sleep and red rage warred in him. He was on his knees, but he waded toward her, two steps, three.
Musty smell.
Soft stuff cradling his cheek.
Mirely-Lyra was in one of the shapeless couches.
Corbell got his arms under him and lifted himself out of the cloud-rug. He pulled himself toward her. She tried to cringe back without moving. Terrified.
"I caught her from behind," said Gording. He was seated facing her, holding the silver cane.
The old woman spoke rapidly. An old man's voice translated, "You don't dare kill me. I have something you want."
Corbell got to his feet with some effort. "The pressure-suit helmet," he said. "Give it to me or I'll let you live... as you are."
Her mouth compressed. "Immortality first."
"How many settings are there on that cane?"
"Five. Two that kill. Others might kill me. Can you find the helmet then?"
"Probably." Corbell smiled; he saw by her face that he was right. "But so what? I'll make you young. Then I'll kill you if I don't get what I want." He changed to Boyish. "Hold the cane ready. But I think she won't try to escape now. We're going to get dikta immortality."
Gording looked dubious.
Corbell wasn't about to trust the Norn in a "phone booth." They wedged themselves into a tchiple with Mirelly-Lyra between, for a cramped ride through Four City. As the car swerved and darted through glass and concrete rubble, Corbell wondered. Should he have forced the helmet from her first?
Yes. But he couldn't wait that long. He had to know.
They unfolded themselves out of the car. Gording said, "I might have known it would be a hospital."
"Did your hospital have a... guarded place on the third floor?"
Mirelly-Lyra was looking up at the glass-mosaic face. "But I searched this place!"
"You were desperate, too," Corbell said smugly. "You just weren't desperate in the right way." He led the way up the stairs. Dust puffed beneath their feet. At the third floor he found two sets of footprints to remind him of his panic flight through these halls. He glanced back; but Mirelly-Lyra seemed docile enough, and Gording was behind her with the cane.
He turned into the hallway... and was lost. "Mirelly-Lyra, where are the 'phone booths'?"
"To your left at the next corner."
They found the line of prilatsil. A moment to orient himself: There was the corner where he'd been hiding when the Norn came to hunt him down. He led off... and here was the vault door, open.
Gording said, "They guarded their immortality well."
"Wouldn't you?" Corbell pointed to the skeletons and the hole smashed high up in the wall. "But not well enough. We're lucky they didn't use it and then wreck it. Maybe they thought they'd be back in fifty years."
Gording looked around at the guard emplacements, the empty shelves, the computer console, the pair of "phone booths." "Where is it, if they didn't destroy it? Not through the prilatsil, unless the destination was equally well guarded."
"Through the prilatsil. Give me the cane first."
Would Gording balk? He didn't; he handed Corbell the weapon, then stepped forward to study the pair of glass booths. Only one had a door. He stepped inside.
Mirelly-Lyra snarled something. The box translated: "Are you mocking me?"
Corbell waved the cane under her nose. "Suppose I am?"
She came at him with her fingernails. He didn't bother with the trigger. He rapped her on the head with the cane, twice, before she backed out of range.
Gording had found the button on the post. He pushed it.
Corbell shouted, "Heeeyaa!" The other booth danced with drifting dust motes.
Gording opened the door and said, "Nothing happened."
"Not quite true," said Corbel. To Mirelly-Lyra he said, "You don't have to if you don't want to. You can trust me or not." Gloat, gloat, he mocked himself, and was a little ashamed. But he'd fought for this!
She swallowed whatever words were on her tongue. She was truly desperate. As she entered the booth Corbell caught Gording's eye and pointed to the booth with no door.
The dust floating in the booth suddenly thickened. Gording smiled and said, "Ah."
The Norn had caught it too, but she didn't understand... and Corbell was bubbling with it. "Inert molecules from your cells! Chemical medicines won't reach that stuff, but the 'phone booth' does. It takes just those dead molecules and does the instant-elsewhere trick with them. Just the stuff that builds up over ninety years of life. See it now?"
"I don't feel any different," she said uncertainly.
"You should. I did. It was like I'd caught my second wind. Of course I was moving at a dead run. It's nothing obvious. What did you expect? In a couple of days you'll find dark roots in your hair."
"Red," she said. "Fiery red."
"Where's the helmet?"
She smiled. She still looked like an old woman; but was there something malicious in that smile?
Chapter NINE: PEERSSA FOR THE STATE
I
The cat-tail sprang from the desk as they entered Mirelly-Lyra's office. Its grey-and-white face watched them mistrustfully from the safety of a ceiling light fixture.
Corbel's pressure suit sat limp in one of the guest chairs. Gording and Mirelly-Lyra watched him detach the helmet and set it on his head. He cleared his throat and said, "This is Corbell for himself calling Peerssa for the State. Come in, Peerssa."
Nothing, nothing, nothing... "He's got to be in range by now. Peerssa, dammit, answer!"
Gording pushed the suit aside and took the chair. The silver cane remained fixed on the old woman. She didn't notice. Malice and victory! She gave Corbell the shivers.
Corbell jumped when the cat-tail abruptly dropped from the ceiling into the old woman's lap. It landed soft as a snowflake and coiled there, ears up, watching Corbell make a fool of himself.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, n- The voice came faintly, fading in spots. "Peerssa for the State, Peerssa for the State calling Jaybee Corbell. Please allow for a delay of sixty-seven seconds in transmission. Corbel, I have a great deal to tell you."
"Yeah, you do! I've got a great deal to tell you, too! I can tell you most of the history of the solar system. Tell me first, have you taken control of the planet Uranus? If so, what do you plan to do with it?" To Gording he said, "I'm asking him now. We'll know in a minute."
"What takes so long?"
"Speed of light. Uranus must be thirty-three and a half light-seconds away."
Gording nodded. He was not impatient. Even his handling of the cane seemed negligent... but it never left the old woman. Good. Because she still had that look.
When Peerssa spoke he was irritatingly placid. "Yes, I am guiding a planet I believe to be Uranus. You were right in guessing that this is the solar system. After losing contact with you I flew to investigate the most easily available anomaly, the new planet between Jupiter and Saturn. I found a satellite with control systems which would respond to-"
"I know all about the motor! The question-" He bit it off. The delay was going to drive him nuts. Peerssa was still talking: "-my broadcasts. I was able to probe the fail-safe programs first. Otherwise I might have damaged something. Eventually I found an object in the planet's upper atmosphere radiating strongly in the infrared. I found a tremendous motor, a fusion pulse drive clearly intended to move the entire planet. Oh, you know about the motor. All right. I've already started the braking sequence. In twenty-two days Uranus will be inserted into orbit two million miles ahead of the Earth. I'm going to move the Earth further from Jupiter. We'll cool it down to normal."