"No? Okay. Van, it looks to me like you're going to be up merte creek without a paddle. Wilkes doesn't want to change reality, he just wants the map. Once he has it, he'll sell it to the Authority. Or to the Ryxx, or the Hydrans, or to the highest bidder."
"Beautiful, Jake, beautiful," Wilkes marveled.
Vance lowered his eyelids in deep thought. When he came out of it, he exhaled noisily. "I'm getting the distinct feeling that I've been very, very stupid."
The hatch opened, and Wilkes' bodyguard showed Pender-gast in.
"Where the hell is the Peters girl?" the Captain bellowed at Wilkes.
It was the first time I'd seen Wilkes slightly embarrassed. "George, just a moment."
"She's a crewmember, Wilkes. You may be running the drug thing, but I'm still captain of this ship. If you've done anything to―"
Wilkes got up and hastened toward him, extending a placating hand. "In the hall, George, please…."
"Oh, Captain? May I have a word with you?"
Pendergast spun around. "Who the bloody hell was that?"
Even I had forgotten that Sam's key was still silting on the coffee table.
Wilkes motioned to his bodyguard. 'Turn that thing off." To the Captain he said, "It's nothing. An open circuit to McGraw's rig computer."
Pendergast shouldered past him into the room. "What do you want? ― wherever you are," he said looking around the room.
"Tell Mr. Wilkes what happens to the gizzard of a whale when it gets perforated by a floater missile. Go on, tell him."
Pendergast's brow furrowed into dark lines. He turned slowly to Wilkes. "You say this is a computer?"
"Entelechy Matrix," Wilkes murmured. "On the table there."
The Captain's eyes finally found it. "Let me tell you what happens," he barked at Sam. "The entire GI tract of the beast goes into convulsions. You wouldn't survive―" He halted, tongue-tied with the absurdity of what he had said. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.
"I might even stop breathing, huh?"
"What do you want?" Pendergast said evenly, walking toward the table.
"First, I want this hold cleared of your crew. Everyone. And I mean up the elevator and out of scanner range. Second, I want my son and his companions delivered down here safe and sound."
"Your son?"
"McGraw," Wilkes supplied.
"It'll he done," Pendergast said.
Wilkes walked back into the room. "Captain, we can't, not just yet. He's bluffing."
"You know me well enough to know I'm not, Corey."
"I won't take chances with this ship!" Pendergast shouted.
"Sam," Wilkes said. "You'll have them when we have the creature."
"I said I wanted my son and his companions, and I meant all of them."
"You'll have them," Pendergast said, "and you'll have safe conduct to debark this ship. But I guarantee that you'll never make it off Splash."
"We'll take our chances."
"George," Wilkes said soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You forget that we don't have the creature to give. Another thing ― the Reticulan's tracking technique is inoperative at this point. We could lose him for good."
Pendergast's eyes widened, and he turned his head sharply to the connecting hatch. "Is she in there?" he breathed. "With them?"
"You don't have to worry. Captain," I broke in, as things began to lose their dreamlike quality. I now realized why the coffee had tasted bitter. 'They won't rip her apart. She's not sacred quarry."
Pendergast strode to the connecting hatch and threw it open savagely.
"No, but you are, Jake," Wilkes said darkly.
The Captain lunged at Wilkes, but the bodyguard got in the way. Pendergast elbowed him aside, but the boy brought his gun up menacingly. Pendergast stopped, his face dark with fury. "You think you can threaten me?" he growled at Wilkes.
"George, take it easy. I thought she was hiding something when you talked to her, and she was. Jake paid her a lot of money to hide the creature. I had to question her myself. She was in no danger."
Pendergast put a hand to his forehead, his rage suddenly ebbing. "What's going on?"
"The wand, George. You haven't taken the antidote."
The ship's warning siren keened again.
"What is it, George?"
"The pirate mega," Pendergast said, his voice detached.
"Pirate?"
"Yes. We've been tracking her. We're expecting an attack at dawn." He shook his head to clear it and rubbed his temples. His communicator began beeping inside his pocket, but he ignored it. "I've got to get out of here. I'm needed on the bridge." There was a distant look in his eyes, as if none of us were present. "Winds must have changed," he mumbled, then walked unsteadily out of the room.
"Jimmy, close the door," Wilkes said. He went to the coffee table and picked up Sam's key. "Sorry, Sam. He probably won't remember your threat, not for a while anyway."
"Corey, sometimes I have trouble understanding how you could be the same person who founded TATOO with me."
"We all change, friend."
"It's all unraveling, Corey."
"Not just yet," Wilkes said tightly, and shut the key off. "Tell Twrrrll to release the girl," he told Jimmy. "And the other one, too."
"Is it true, Corey?"
Wilkes turned to face Vance. "Is what true?"
"That you'll sell the map to the highest bidder?"
"No." Wilkes sat in the armchair. "Not to the highest bidder. I'd be a fool to sell it to nonhumans. What do you think homo sap's chances would be in a galaxy dominated by some alien race that got hold of the Roadbuilders' technology? What if, for instance, they" ― he pointed toward the adjoining stateroom―"got hold of it? No, I'll give it to the Authority."
"I think your Rikki friends got the idea of going after the map a long time ago," I said.
"No doubt they did," Wilkes conceded.
Vance was struggling to understand. "But… you realize that to return with the map you'll have to travel through twelve thousand kilometers of Reticulan maze?"
"I'm not going back that way."
Vance was baffled. "How?"
"I'll go back by Ryxx starship."
"What?"
"Yes, they've got the time dilation down to three years, ship time. A long haul, but they have cold-sleep technology. Surprised? Didn't you know that the Ryxx don't mind taking
human passengers? It's expensive, and they don't get many takers, but…"
"Yes, I knew. But the Ryxx want the map too!"
"Yes, but they don't know I have it ― or will have it. They're after Jake, not me. They don't know me from Human One. And as far as I can tell, they don't know about Winnie either. How could they, if what Darla says is true?"
"What makes you think you can sell anything to the Authority?" Vance asked, disbelieving. "The Authority takes, it doesn't buy."
"It'll buy from me. You must know that yours isn't the only friendship I've cultivated in high places. Some of them are your friends, or were before you became an unperson. The transaction has already been arranged. And part of the price will be immunity from prosecution."
Vance paled. "What?"
Wilkes spoke to me. "You may remember that I mentioned something about your queering deals I had set up. I got word that our drug operation had been compromised. I really don't know who was responsible. As Sam said, things tend to unravel. Van, you didn't get wind of it for obvious reasons. But the deal was null and void long before any of this."
"So the Authority does know about the Roadmap," I said.
"Of course they do, and they've given up trying to get it from the dissidents ― or rather, they're having a hard time. I told them I could get it for them."