“Monel thinks he’s their leader.”
“Monel!” Linc heard anger and disgust in his voice. “He can play at being a leader, but if you tell the people that we’ve got to fix the machines, they’ll do it no matter how much Monel hollers.”
“You’re really certain…?”
“I know what we have to do,” Linc said firmly.
For a moment, Magda said nothing. Then, “All right, Linc. I want to believe you. I don’t think I even care if you’re right or wrong. I want to believe you.”
He smiled into the darkness. “Magda—”
“Where will we start, Linc? What has to be done first?”
“The bridge,” he said. “We’ve got to get the bridge back into functioning condition.”
“Bridge?” she echoed. “Where is that?”
He hesitated. “Um… it’s what we call… the Ghost Place.”
Magda sat bolt upright. “The Ghost Place?” Her voice was a horrified whisper. “The Ghost Place? Linc, how could you even think of that? It’s impossible! You can’t go there!”
“We’ve got to.”
“No!” Magda screamed. “Never! That’s a place of death. I’ll never let you go there. You, or anyone else.”
13
Linc got slowly to his feet.
“Magda,” he said, forcing his voice to stay steady and calm, “this is something that I understand and you don’t. I’ve been with Jerlet; I know what has to be done.”
She stood beside him, fists planted stubbornly on her hips. “You don’t understand anything! You can’t go to the Ghost Place. It’s death—”
“That’s wrong. I know how to go there. I’ve got to clear out the bodies and fix the machines so that—”
“Linc, listen to me!” Her voice was more pleading than angry now. “I couldn’t stand it if you died.”
“I won’t die.”
“Jerlet died! You could, too.” She took a deep breath. “Besides, if you go there it’ll give Monel the chance he’s been waiting for. He’ll drive us both out.”
“Monel?”
“I don’t have the strength to fight him,” Magda said. “He wanted to make Jayna priestess. But when I stopped fighting against him so much and let him have things his own way… he let that drop. I’m still priestess, but Monel tells everybody what to do.”
Linc could feel his face pulling into a frown in the darkness. He couldn’t see the expression on Magda’s face, only the glint of highlights in her hair and the outline of her determined jaw, silhouetted against the fluorescent pictures on the walls.
“I’m here now,” he said. “I’ll take care of Monel.”
“How?” she snapped. “By going to the Ghost Place? By killing yourself? Or by making everybody so scared of you and what you’re doing that they’ll listen to whatever Monel tells them?”
He reached out toward her. “Magda, it’s got to be done, or we’ll all die.”
“No, I don’t believe that. Jerlet wouldn’t—”
“Jerlet has no control over it! He never did! He was a man, an ordinary man. He couldn’t even move out of the weightless area. He couldn’t control the ship.”
Someone knocked at the door. Two sharp raps, loud and demanding. Their argument ended.
“Who is it?” Magda called.
“Monel.”
Before Linc could say anything, Magda answered, “Come in.”
The door slid open and Monel wheeled himself into the room.
“No lights?” His voice was mocking, a thin knife blade of sound. “Are you two meditating in the dark?”
Linc couldn’t see Monel’s face, but his two guards out in the softly-lit corridor were grinning. He went over and closed the door with one hand, while palming the light switch with the other. The room brightened.
“You two have had enough time to walk around the Wheel,” said Monel. “How about telling the rest of us what you’re up to.”
The rest of us. Linc thought, meaning you.
“Linc has been telling me about his time with Jerlet,” Magda said guardedly.
“Yes? You must tell us all about it.” Monel was smiling, but there was neither friendship nor warmth in his face.
“Jerlet sent me back to fix the machines,” Linc said, “so that we can be saved from the yellow sun.”
“And you say that Jerlet has died,” Monel added, “so that he can’t tell us what he wants us to do. We’ve got to learn about it from you.”
“That’s right.”
“And we must trust that you’re telling the truth about what Jerlet desires.”
Linc felt his fists clenching. “Do you think that I’m a liar?”
“Did I say that?” Monel countered smoothly.
Long ago, when he was only a tiny child and Jerlet still lived with the kids, Linc saw a pair of cats getting ready to fight one another. They glared at each other, made weird wailing sounds, and paced stiffly around one another. It took a long time for them to actually fight, but they finally worked themselves up to it.
That’s what we’re doing now. Linc realized as he and Monel traded questions and demands. Just like the cats; we’re getting ready to fight.
“I’ve got to repair the machinery on the bridge,” Linc heard himself saying. “It’s necessary, if we’re to reach the new world.”
“The Ghost Place,” Magda added.
Monel didn’t seem surprised.
“I’ve forbidden it,” Magda said. “No one can go there and live.”
“I can,” Linc insisted.
“Jerlet told you how to do it?” Monel asked.
“Yes.”
Magda shook her head violently. “It’s wrong! You mustn’t disturb the ghosts!”
“It’s either that, or we all die.”
Monel laughed. He threw his head back and laughed, a scratched, harsh, cackling laughter that grated against Linc’s nerves.
“You really think anybody will believe you?” he demanded of Linc. “Do you think that the people will let you tamper with the machines—or go to the Ghost Place?”
“They will,” Linc answered, “if Magda tells them it’s all right.”
He turned to look at her. She stared straight back at him, her space-black eyes hard and glittering. But she said nothing.
“Magda will say what I want her to say,” Monel told Linc. And he wheeled his chair over to her. She stood unmoving as he reached an arm around her waist. “Magda is mine.”
Linc felt the flames of anger flare within him.
But before he could say or do anything, Monel added, “And all you have is this crazy story about Jerlet. You have no proof. No one will believe you. No one at all.”
Linc took a step toward the smirking rat-faced thing in the wheelchair. He wanted to silence Monel, wipe the evil smile off his face, close his ratlike eyes forever.
Magda stopped him with a word.
“Linc.”
He stood there balanced on the balls of his feet, hanging between his desire to smash Monel and his desire to make Magda his own.
“Go in peace, Linc,” she commanded.
And suddenly Monel’s smile evaporated. He looked displeased, angry. That’s it! Linc realized. He wants me to attack him. Then the guards outside can come in and save him, and he’ll have me for the sin of violence.
Linc felt ice replacing the fire inside him. He stood there for an uncertain moment, then said to Moneclass="underline"
“I know what has to be done. All you offer the people is death, but I bring the gift of life from Jerlet. And I’ll show you—and all the people—proof of what Jerlet demands from us.”
Monel’s voice was low and ominous. “How will you do that?”