"Just a place to be buried," Frog insisted nervously. This interrogation was not his idea of an interview.
Plainfield's smile broadened. "You might get there quicker than you want. El Dorados, dreams that come true, they have a way of devouring their dreamers."
"What the hell kind of newsman are you, anyway?" Frog was so nervous his customary act was slipping.
"Call me a dream shaper. I make fantasies come true. Mostly my own, but sometimes other people's, too. Those sometimes turn out to be nightmares."
Frog stopped being nervous and started being scared. He looked around for a weapon.
He was in over his head. Bluster was useless, and his condition denied him his customary alternative, attack.
Frustration kindled anger. Hadn't his flesh always betrayed his spirit? Hadn't he always been just a little too short, too small, or too weak? Why wasn't somebody from Blake doing the questioning?
"Why'd you do it, anyway? I mean, make the run. Reasons after the fact could be supplied, I suppose, but I want to know what makes a man try something impossible in the first place. I've studied everything known about Brightside and the Shadowline. There's no way you could have known that you'd find anything out there."
What does make a man throw himself into something for which there is neither a reasonable nor rational justification? Frog had done a lot of thinking during his run. Not once, even remotely, had he been able to make his motives add up. Most of the time he had told himself that he was doing it for Moira, but there had been times whan he had suspected that he was doing it for Frog, to salve a scarred ego by showing humanity it was wrong about his being a clown. Yet that had not taken into account the probability of failure, which would have done nothing but underscore his foolishness.
Why, then? A badfinger for Blake? Because he had had some crazy, deep-down conviction that he would find something? No. Not one of those reasons was good enough in itself.
All that time alone and still he had not figured himself out.
The man who hides from himself hides best of all.
"What did you find?"
Frog strove to focus on Plainfield. And realized that his earlier assessments were incorrect. The man was neither vulture, fox, nor wolf. He was a snake. Cold-blooded, emotionless, deadly. Predatory, and unacquainted with mercy. Nor was he owned. This news business was cover. He was a dagger in his own hand.
Plainfield moved toward him. A slap hypo appeared in his palm. Frog struggled weakly. The hypo hit his arm.
Wrong again, he thought. He's worse than a snake. He's a human.
"What did you find?"
Frog knew he would not make it this time. This man, this thing that called itself August Plainfield and pretended to be a newsman, was going to strip him of his victory, then kill him. Even God in heaven could not stop him from talking once the drug took hold, and then what value would he have alive?
Frog talked. And talked. And, as he knew he must, he died. But before he did, and while he was still sufficiently in possession of his senses to understand, another man entered the dark door before him.
Smythe burst into the room, alerted by his monitors. Moira trailed him as if attached by a short chain. The doctor charged Plainfield, opening his mouth to shout.
A small, silent palm weapon ruined Smythe's heart before any sound left his lips. Moira, as if on a puppeteer's strings, jerked back out of the room. Plainfield cursed but did not pursue her.
A sadness overwhelmed Frog, both for himself and for Smythe.
On Blackworld, as on all but a few worlds, the dead never saw resurrection. Even the Blakes remained dead when they died. Resurrection was too expensive, too difficult, and too complex in social implication. And why bother? Human numbers made life a cheap commodity.
Plainfield finished with Frog, then disappeared. The murders went on record as unsolved. Corporation police hunted the newsman, but no trace turned up.
They wanted him for theft. They wanted him for destruction of municipal and Corporate property. They wanted him for suborning municipal and Corporate employees. They wanted him for a list of crimes. But most of all they wanted him because of Frog and Smythe.
Blake had a long, long memory.
Stimpson-Hrabosky News denied ever having heard of Plainfield. How, then, Blake's cops demanded, had the man reached Blackworld in a Stimpson-Hrabosky charter? How, if he was an unknown, had he managed to get himself elected pool man?
Stimpson-Hrabosky responded with almost contemptuous silence.
Their reticence was itself informative. Plainfield obviously carried a lot of weight outside.
In the furor of pursuit the killer's motives became obscured. Only a handful of men knew about Frog's claim and will, and they were the men Plainfield had bribed. They were on trial and no one was listening to them. They were sent into exile, which meant that they were given outsuits and put out of the city locks to survive as best they could.
Blake reasserted its contention that it never left a debt outstanding, though it might take a generation to repay.
Frog's original will left Moira more than anyone had anticipated. It set up a trust that assured her a place in Edgeward's life.
And life went on.
Twenty: 3052 AD
We were not a cuddly, loving family, but we had our moments. Most of them were a little bizarre.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
Twenty-One: 3031 AD
The Faceless Man smiled and reached out to Benjamin. He wore nothing. He had no hair, no sex. Benjamin cowered, whimpering. The Faceless Man came toward him with a steady, confident step.
Benjamin whirled with a weak wail, ran. The gooey street grabbed at his feet. He pumped his legs with everything he had, yet they barely moved, pistoning in slowed motion.
The streets and walls of the city were a uniform, blinding white. The buildings had no windows. The doors were almost imperceptible. He flitted from one to another, pounding, crying, "Help me!"
No one answered.
He looked back. The Faceless Man followed him with that smile and confident stride, hand outreaching, his pace no greater than before.
Benjamin fled again, along the molasses street.
Now they opened their little peepholes when he pounded. They looked out and laughed. He flung himself from door to door. The laughter built into a chorus.
His tears flowed. Sweat poured off him. He shuddered constantly. His body ached with his exertion.
He looked back. The Faceless Man was at exactly the same distance, walking steadily, hand outstretched.
He ran in a straight line, trying to gain ground. They laughed at him from the rooftops. They called his name, "Benjamin! Benjamin!" in a feral chant. "Run, little Benjamin, run."
He gasped around a corner into a cul-de-sac. He moaned in terror, whirled, and... The Faceless Man was corning to him, reaching.
He threw himself against the walls. He tried to find a foothold, a way to scale their ivory slickness. "Please! Please don't!"
A hand touched his shoulder. The palm and fingers were icy. Thumb and forefinger squeezed together. Fire lanced through his muscles.
He spun and flung himself at the Faceless Man, clamping his fingers around the throat beneath the unyielding smile.
An unseen hand slapped his face, back and forth, back and forth. He did not relax his grip. A tiny fist began pounding his nose and cheeks.
The real pain reached through his terror. He shook all over, like an epileptic in the first second of seizure.
His eyelids rose. He stared into Pollyanna's terrified face. His hands were at her throat. Her bed was a sweat-soaked disaster. She had scratches on her face and marks on her throat that would become bruises. She kept punching weakly.