They stood there pointing guns in my general direction, then a screen I hadn’t noticed until just then lit up, and an old man looked at me. If he was happy to see me, he hid it well. Then his eyes got even harder, and I thought it must be Colonel Oberst’s father from the family resemblance. Another part of my aching brain woke up and I remembered that was over fifty years ago, and the Colonel’s father was elderly even then, judging from newsflash pics of him which I’d seen.
“Pat Oberst?” I was thinking, then realized I’d said it out loud. The Colonel had always referred to his brother as Pat, and I had repeated his example, without thinking. I was coming out of the stunner-induced fog, but not fast enough.
There was a pause, indicating that he was a couple of light seconds away, then, “My father and mother called me Pat,” the man on the screen said, “and they’re dead. My brother also called me Pat, but you murdered him somehow. To everyone still living, I’m Mr. Patrick Oberst, or just Mr. Oberst. But you’re an exception, Mr. Kelly. How many languages do you speak?”
It was a crazy question, but my brain was still trying to come out of the fog, so I answered in detail, “One fluently, two others good enough for conversation, and a little of several more.” Then I thought maybe I should be careful about answering questions.
“You probably know several words for death, then. And several for pain. I’ll answer to all of them. And you’ll have a choice of languages to scream in, Mr. Kelly.” He took another look at me and seemed to find yet another reason to dislike me. “Votara, are you sure this is the right man. He looks like his photograph—too much like his photograph. He looks decades younger than he should be.”
Maybe it was because of the Shadow, but I didn’t seem to be aging much as the years passed. Maybe I wasn’t aging at all, but there was no way I would go to a medtech to find out. I didn’t seem to ever get sick, either. Maybe I’d live forever, just me and my pet monster, oh joy! Or maybe I was the pet.
“Positive, sir,” said one of the women. “Fingerprints, retinas, DNA, brainechoes all match. If he isn’t the right James Kelly, he’s a perfect clone.”
“You become more interesting, Mr. Kelly. I owe you for murdering my brother, but I was going to offer you an easier death than I would otherwise demand if you turned over the alien weapon you brought back through the gate and used to kill him. But if you also have a way of suspending or significantly slowing the aging process, and will share the secret, I might let you depart the world of the living with hardly any screaming at all. An hour or two at most.”
“I wish I could hand them both over to you, but you wouldn’t like the side effects.” Then I woke up enough to realize what the slight time lag meant. “Where are you?” I yelled.
After a pause of two or three seconds, he said, “No need to shout, Mr. Kelly. Save your lungs for what you’ll need them for very soon. Why do you want to know where I am? I’m certainly out of your reach.”
I looked more closely at the screen. He was sitting behind a huge polished desk. “You’re in an office,” I said. “Where is it?”
“A lot of people would give a lot to know that, Mr. Kelly. Just as I want to know where that alien weapon you’ve been using is hidden.”
“Are you on Earth?”
He was not amused. “I suppose it’s safe to tell you that I’m on Earth. Now it’s your turn to answer questions . . .”
I was on the edge of panic. “This ship is in orbit around the Earth, isn’t it? You’ve got to move it! Get it far from Earth immediately!”
The pause before he answered gave the thugs watching me time to look uneasy and grip their weapons more tightly. This time most of the weapons were lethal. I wondered if they could shoot through the transparent barrier.
Oberst spoke again, “Mr. Kelly, why do you want to get away from Earth? I doubt that even your unknown weapon can make the whole planet explode.”
Forget about being on the edge of panic. I was neck-deep in it and trying to stay afloat. If they landed the ship, the Shadow would be loose on Earth. Maybe that was what it had been waiting for.
Then I realized that one of the thugs had left my sight while I was yelling, and was now returning with someone else. A woman. And then I saw her face—
She had a strip of tape over her mouth, but even so she looked like Angie. But it couldn’t be Angie, because she looked like Angie had looked fifty years ago. For a wild second I wondered if the Shadow had somehow kept Angie from aging too. I didn’t know what the thing was capable of doing . . .
Then my memory did a rewind and playback. I realized that Oberst had said, “Please bring in Ms. Maxwell now, Votara.”
I was back in realtime, whatever “real” meant anymore, and Oberst said, “May I introduce Ms. Callie Maxwell? Ms. Maxwell, this is James Kelly, and he is reacting much the way I expected upon noticing your close resemblance to his former fiancée. And, no, Mr. Kelly, I’m not planning on torturing her in hopes that the resemblance would make you disclose your secrets. Instead, I’m betting that if you somehow have the weapon concealed on your person, her resemblance to Angela Graham Hanson will keep you from using it on her. And perhaps the fact that she isn’t here voluntarily will also make you hesitate.”
Hanson! So she had married someone else. After that sank in, I wondered why Callie Maxwell was here . . .
“I’m guessing that you’re wondering why she’s here,” he said.
Check.
“And possibly you’re wondering if your former fiancée is in danger from me.”
Double check.
“It happens that she is beyond my, or anyone’s reach. She died fourteen years ago in a flyer collision. I had people watching her for long before that in case you tried to make contact with her, so they were on the spot quickly to get her out of the wreckage and to a hospital, but she was dead on arrival. I did not cause the accident. She was no use to me dead. Neither is Ms. Maxwell, so I hope you’re not going to wreak carnage in the ship.”
I was beginning to think that I was going to die since I couldn’t give Oberst the secret of a weapon I didn’t have. Or an anti-aging secret. If I died, what would happen to the Shadow. Would it find a new—host, pet, anchor, whatever I was to it? And maybe switch to someone else on the ship. Someone who would go back to Earth. Maybe what I had feared for five decades would happen. I had stayed away from planets because maybe if the Shadow was on a planet it would start a brood of little Shadows. And we were close to Earth . . .
I noticed that Maxwell no longer had handcuffs on, but she still had the tape over her mouth. She was working a little keypad, which must have been on a direct line to Oberst because he suddenly said, “Ms. Maxwell, are you making all this up? An invisible—well. There are plenty of other—ah, you can easily be replaced, and not pleasantly at all. If you thought being abducted was upsetting, understand that much worse can happen.”
I realized what word he had almost said. She was a telepath.
“What you are sending is ridiculous,” Oberst said. “What and where is his weapon?”
And words began to appear to me, as if written on the inside of my eyelids in luminous paint.
HE HAS A BOMB ON THIS SHIP. HE CAN SET IT OFF BY A SWITCH UNDER HIS DESK.
I’d heard about this, but never seen it before. Most telepaths can only receive. A few can send, making the receiver “hear” a silent voice. But others can send pictures—including pictures of words. Which was what she was doing.
I wondered if the bomb could kill the Shadow. I often wondered if anything could kill the Shadow. If the ship were blown up—but was the bomb nuclear or just chemical?