"But you'll be gone for twelve years!" Vance said. "More!"
"Think again. Most people never consider the backward time displacement you undergo when you shoot a portal. But when you go back through normal space, you eat all that time back up. I should get back to T-Maze almost exactly at the same time I left. No Paradox, and it all works out very neatly." Wilkes licked his lips, his eyes focused somewhere in the air, "Or…" he went on abstractedly, ".. or I just might try to find that backtime route. You did, Jake ― or will, or shall… damn it, these verb tenses give me a headache! Anyway, if you can, I can, once I have the map."
"What about the Reticulans?" I asked.
Wilkes' face split into a gray-toothed grin. "We'll part company in Seaborne, where I'll rent a long-distance vehicle and floor it for the planet where the Ryxx launch their ships. You can be sure I'll scour the buggy for mrrrllowharrr. I'll fumigate the punking thing."
Silence.
Vance was deeply depressed. Finally, he said, "Pendergast is going to be very interested in hearing this."
"But you won't be telling him. Van." Wilkes took out Darla's gun from under his jerkin. "Sorry, but until your last dose wears off, this will be necessary. Darla? You'd better come over here and sit with your dad."
Darla got up and began to walk over, but stopped when a knock came on the hatch.
"Get it," Wilkes told her.
Just then Jimmy came through the connecting hatch, shoving a sleepwalking Lori before him. He pushed her onto the bed, where she sprawled, naked and still out cold.
Darla threw the door open. It was John.
"Darla! Are you all right? You vanished… oh, dear." He saw Lori and stood there gawking.
"Come in!" Wilkes called brightly.
John averted his eyes from Lori, then smiled nervously. "Mr. Wilkes, I presume. I've heard a great deal―"
Jimmy reached out, grabbed'him by the collar, and yanked him into the room. He checked the corridor and closed the hatch.
"And you are…?"
"John Sukuma-Tayler. A friend of Jake's."
Wilkes rose. "John, it's a pleasure, but you caught us at a bad time. Won't you join your friends there on the bed? Jimmy, check him over."
Jimmy patted him down and pushed him toward the bed, made sure his boss was covering everybody, then went back into the Rikkis' stateroom. A moment later he returned, herding another zombie. It was the Chevy kid. Jimmy sat him down, and the kid keeled over onto a pillow.
"Couldn't you have dressed her?" Wilkes scolded his bodyguard.
"Ever try dressing a corpse?" Jimmy retorted.
"Check out the hall one more time, then go get her clothes, for God's sake."
"Right."
The pills Darla had dissolved in the coffeepot were taking full effect, but I couldn't be sure if I was free of the wand completely. Nevertheless, I was ready to make my move when Jimmy left ― but a split second after Jimmy cracked the hatch, Vance stood up suddenly, pointing the revolver shakily at Wilkes' back.
"Drop the gun, Corey."
"Van, sit down," Wilkes said irritably over his shoulder. "You'll hurt yourself with that old… Van!"
Wilkes' jaw dropped as Vance's finger jerked against the trigger. Vance clenched his teeth, finding it harder than he had thought to bring the hammer back without cocking it first. His left hand came up to help.
Surprised, Wilkes was slow to bring his pistol around, but Jimmy was quick. His shot sent a bolt scorching through Vance's skull, the mass of white hair exploding into flame. But the hammer came down. A thunderous explosion shook the room, and a weird dance of bodies began. Wilkes was spun around and yanked up and back like a puppet on strings, went lurching back toward the table. Vance's body marched backward like a ghost with a fiery head, hit the wall and rebounded, then teetered over. I was on the floor going for the dropped.44, trying to get furniture between me and Jimmy, but by the time I got to the gun he and Roland ― who had come bursting through the hatch ― were waltzing arm-in-arm into the room, each holding the other's gun arm, until Darla cut in with a chop to the back of Jimmy's neck, sending him down. Wilkes hit the table and the top part of it flipped up from the base, sending cups and silverware catapulting across the room to crash and ricochet off the walls. I was on my feet, rushing toward him. The gun was still in his hand, but I reached him just as he brought it up, and kicked it away. The fight was over. I picked up Darla's pistol and stood over him. Darla tore the blanket off the bed, sending Lori flopping to the floor, and rushed to Vance. Wilkes looked up at me, his face blank and stunned, a red flower blooming on his pretty white blouse.
"Roland!" I called. "Close the hatch!"
"Wait." He went to it and peeked out, then beckoned to someone. Susan poked her head in, and Roland pulled her through, then shut the hatch. Susan saw that John and everyone she knew was all right, then burst into tears and flung her arms around Roland.
John was picking himself off the floor. I went to the connecting hatch and turned the mechanical lock, then took John's arm and slapped the grip of Darla's pistol into his hand. "Keep an eye on that hatch," I told him. "If you so much as hear something, shoot." He nodded.
I went for the wand, picked it up off the floor. It throbbed faintly in my hand, and I rotated the silver band until it stopped. Lori began screaming, rising to her feet with her arms flailing at phantoms. I ripped the sheet off the bed and covered her, wrapping her in my arms. "It was all a dream, honey, all a dream," I whispered in her ear as I walked her over to the overturned coffee table. I scooped up the key and called Sam.
"Sam, it's Jake."
"Jesus Christ! What's going on up there?"
"Everyone's okay. How's your situation?"
"What the hell's all that caterwauling?"
"We're all okay, never mind. What's happening at your end?"
"Everybody left. Went topside, I guess. Something's going on up there."
Just then I heard shouting come from out in the hall. "Yeah, the ship's being attacked. Exactly by what, I don't know. Can you get free down there like you said you could?"
"Sure."
"Then do it and wait for us. We have to find Winnie, and―"
"Winnie's here."
"What! How in hell did she…? Never mind, never mind. Good. Okay, listen." I thought fast. "We'll try to make it down there somehow. Be ready to roll."
"Fine. Where to?"
"We're going to find a place to hide until we can negotiate our way off this tuna hotpak dinner."
"But where?"
"Pack plenty of antacid."
23
The kid was awake now, looking around at everyone and blinking. "Good morning," he said. He got up from the bed. I handed him the still-howling Lori and told him to try and calm her down. I went to Darla. She was on her knees, curled into a ball over the unmoving, blanket-shrouded form of her father. The stench of burning flesh and hair filled the room.
"Van," she was moaning. "Oh, Van."
I gripped her shoulders. "Darla, we have to go. The Rikkis."
She began to weep, great violent sobs shaking her body, but there was no sound.
"Darla. We have to leave." I let her go on for a while, then took her arms and gently pulled her away. Her body became rigid, then slowly relaxed. I pulled her to her feet and turned her around. Her face was a contorted mask of pain. I escorted her to the other side of the room and helped her on with her backpack, which I had found near the table. I told Roland to check the corridor. Susan calmed down and he moved her aside. "It's okay," he said, peering out. Far down the corridor came the sound of screaming and general commotion.