“Nat sent them back to Erie.”
“Gung. Let’s move it to Iceland.”
“What about this big canoe?”
“Gottenu! Who cares? We’ll leave it. Maybe it’ll start another Sargasso Sea in Lake Mitch. We’re for Retchvic.”
Erik’s pleasance in Iceland was a giant, steaming greenhouse festooned with exotic tropical plants. The guests from the Group were all there when we arrived and all in character; but as I’ve said, we’re all characters and always in character. A few touches: A drab little woman you wouldn’t look at twice was Tosca, the compelling actress who has been sweeping the media for generations with her electrifying performances. The flamboyant diva in eye-catching costume was Queenie in drag. We have never been able to persuade him to undergo a transsex transformation. He says he prefers remaining a faggot. Erik isn’t red and isn’t even a Scandy. He looks like a jolly Karl Marx.
There were greetings, of course, and the gallant M’bantu put Natoma on his arm and escorted her around, introducing her. He was particularly proud of the tremendous progress she’d made with her XX. I began to wonder whether I should shift my apprehensions from the Greek to the Zulu. Certainly both of them outclassed me, but when you get right down to it every member of the Group outclassed me with the exception of the nothing No-Name who now seemed on the verge of falling into a pitcher plant.
“This is Guig’s meeting,” Hilly said casually, “but I’d better brief you first. You’ll all recall that when I contacted you I handed you a slip of paper asking you to come to Erik’s immediately on an urgent matter. It warned you not to speak and to use cash transport without ID so that you couldn’t be traced. I didn’t use ear-beads or cassettes for a most interesting reason. The whole planet is enmeshed in the damndest electronic bugging network conceivable, the result of Guig’s recruitment of our newest and most splendid Group member. He’ll be our pride, but presently he’s created a crisis which you know about, more or less. Here’s the complete scene.” Hilly gave it to them, fast and acute. Then he turned the meeting over to me. I got to my feet and here is the conference, names withheld on the grounds of Group privilege.
“First, I must reenforce what the Jew has told you. The renegade is a savage, dangerous enemy. The murder of Poulos demonstrates that, and no one knows who will be next if we don’t stop him.”
“You don’t call him the Rajah?”
“No. I’m not so sure as Hilly because the Rajah doesn’t make sense to me as a vendettist. Why? There’s no reason I can think of. I hold that it might be anyone, including myself. Trust no one. Be on your guard.”
“D’you think it might be Guess?”
“Not likely. He’s merely the human switchboard that makes all this possible. The problem: How do you kill the switchboard? Shut up, Nat. You don’t know where I’m headed.”
“Poison is out. Just an hors d’oeuvre.”
“So is gas.”
“It’s got to be an external killing.”
“A stab through the heart, like Poulos.”
“Or a burn.”
“Blow him up, like the attempt on Guig.”
“Simple beheading.”
“Ugh!”
“Yes, we know. You nearly accompanied Danton in the tumbril.”
“Whatever happened to Dr. Guillotine, by the way?”
“Died in bed, not regretted.”
“If you want a neat, tasteful death, shoot Guess into space.”
“How would that kill him?”
“Radiation exposure. Vacuum malnutrition. Or he might explode from internal air pressure.”
“Be realistic. How can you shoot a naked man into space? Tie him to the nose of a rocket vehicle?”
“Then put him in a capsule and shoot him into the sun. That would ionize the package into a fizz.”
“And how would we put him together again?”
“What?”
“That’s the point. We can’t lose him.”
“Then why the talk about killing him?”
“To bring us face to face with the problem. How do we kill the switchboard without killing Guess? That’s where I was headed, Nat.”
“I apologize, Guig.”
“It is a puzzle.”
“Almost a paradox. How do you kill a man without killing him?”
“What about a time-shoot back six months so I can abort this damned crisis before it started?”
“It won’t work.”
“Why not, Herb?”
“You’ll be a ghost.”
“There ain’t no such thing.”
“I’ve tried it. I can’t shoot a man into his own lifetime. The cosmos won’t tolerate two identicals. One of them has to be a phantasma.”
“Which?”
“The second.”
“So possession is nine points of space-time, and we’re back where we started. How do we abort the contact-catalyst without harming Guess?”
“You’re not on target, Guig.”
“N? W?”
“It isn’t a question of killing the switchboard. Kill the computer.”
“S! P! C! So obvious that it never occurred to me.”
“You’re too close to it. That’s why you needed us.”
“I’ll deal some demurrers. The Guess-Extro symbiosis is unique. It should be explored.”
“Too dangerous to delay. The situation is critical. Gottenu! I can feel the hot breath of the Rajah breathing down my neck.”
“If the symbiosis is destroyed, a similar one may never occur again.”
“The sacrifice must be made if we’re to survive.”
“If the Extro is killed have we any guarantee that it will stop the renegade?”
“It will. Not altogether, but to a great extent.”
“How do you figure that?”
“He didn’t start his war until after the Guess-Extro connection was established. When that’s destroyed he’ll be crippled; still deadly but manageable.”
“The Group has always hated killing.”
“N hatred for killing the renegade. He’s a mad dog.”
“Y. I only wish I knew why; it might make the problem easier to solve. Now let’s tackle the next question: How do I get at the Extro?”
“You’re taking this on yourself?”
“I must. I’m driven. How do I kill the Extro?”
“Fire. Explosion. Metal-burn. Power cut. Etcetera.”
“Without its knowledge that an attack is being mounted?”
“Are you sure that it will know?”
“That goddamn Squatter with its ragtag network knows everything we do, every move we make.”
“Only provided Guess is in contact to make the circuitry possible.”
“Have we any guarantee he’ll remain buried in the salt mines?”
“N. We might try kidnapping Guess.”
“How, without the knowledge of the Extro? The moment we haul Guess up to the surface that spying network will be activated, and you know goddamn well that a Moleman can’t be drugged unconscious.”
“You’re driving too hard, Guig. Let’s cool it.”
“I can’t. When I think of Fee-5 and Poulos, the Shortie killings, the — No, I’ll cool it. Back to business. Calmly. The Extro knows everything we do and maybe everything we think. What can I use to outflank it?”
“Hic-Haec-Hoc,” No-Name said.
My jaw dropped. This? From Mr. Nothing? Outclassed even by him.
“He can’t think. He can’t speak. He’s a blank.”
“But he obeys signs. Thank you, No-Name. Thank you all. If Sam Pepys can be located and can tell me where to locate Hic, I’ll bring him and we’ll try.”
But I tried the time-shot first, anyway, and H.G. Wells was right; I was a ghost, invisible and inaudible. Worse, I was like a two-dimensional phone projection. I oozed. I oozed through bods and buildings and I felt damned sorry for ghosts. Herb and I had pinpointed my spot very carefully and I was shot to JPL and oozed my way to the astrochem lab just as the crowd of afflicted stockholders was hacking and coughing its way out right through me. Uncanny.
When I oozed in, Edison was barking with laughter. “That damn fool girl brought you fuming nitric acid. Fuming. And the fumes have turned this room into one big nitric-acid bath. Everything’s being eaten away.”