Ahead, the hut. She was at its threshold in seconds, the door opening on cue.
"Come on in," Kissoon said. "It's been too long."
Left behind in Tesla's apartment, Raul could only wait. He had no doubt of where she'd gone, or who'd claimed her, but without a means of access, he was helpless. Which wasn't to say he didn't sense her. His system had been touched by the Nuncio twice, and it knew she was not that far from him. When, in the car, Tesla had attempted to describe what her trip into the Loop had felt like, he'd badly wanted to articulate something he'd come to understand in the years he'd spent at the Mission. His vocabulary was not equal to the task, however. It still wasn't. But the feelings had borne strongly upon the way he now sensed Tesla.
She was in a different place, but place was just another kind of being, and all states could, if the means were found, speak with every other state. Ape with man, man with moon. It was nothing to do with technologies. It was about the indi--isibility of the world. Just as Fletcher had made the Nuncio from a soup of disciplines, not caring where science became magic, or logic nonsense; just as Tesla moved between realities like a dreaming fog, in defiance of established law; just as he had moved from the apparently simian to the apparently human, and never known where one became the other, or if it ever did, so he knew he might reach now, if only he had, the wit or the words, which he didn't, through to the place where Tesla was. It was very close, as were all spaces at all times; parts of the same landscape of mind. But he could shape none of this into action. It was beyond him, as yet.
All he could do was know, and wait, which in its way was more painful than believing himself forsaken.
"You're a fuckhead and a liar," she said when she'd closed the door.
The fire was burning brightly. There was very little smoke. Kissoon sat on its far side, staring up at her, his eyes brighter than she remembered. There was excitement in them.
"You wanted to come back," he said to her. "Don't deny it. I felt it in you. You could have resisted while you were out there in the Cosm but you really didn't want to. Tell me I'm a liar about that. I dare you."
"No," she said. "I admit it. I'm curious."
"Good."
"But that doesn't give you the right to just drag me here."
"How else was I to show you the way?" he asked her lightly.
"Show me the way?" she said, knowing he was infuriating her deliberately but unable to get the sensation of helplessness out of her head. She hated nothing more vehemently than to be out of control, and his hold of her made her mad as hell.
"I'm not stupid," she said. "And I'm not a toy you can just pull on when it suits you."
"I don't mean to treat you as either," Kissoon said. "Please, can't we make peace? We're on the same side after all?"
"Are we?"
"You can't doubt that."
"Can't I?"
"After all I told you," Kissoon said. "The secrets I shared with you."
"Seems to me there's a few you're not willing to share."
"Oh?" Kissoon said, his gaze moving from her to the flames.
"The town, for instance."
"What about it?"
"I wanted to see what was in the house, but no, you just hauled me away."
Kissoon sighed. "I don't deny it," he said. "If I hadn't, you wouldn't be here."
"I don't follow."
"Don't you sense the atmosphere there? I can't believe you don't. The sheer dread."
Now it was she who expelled breath, softly, between her teeth.
"Yes," she said. "I felt something."
"The Iad Uroboros has its agents everywhere," Kissoon said. "I believe one of them is in hiding in that town. I don't know what form it takes, and I don't want to know. But it would be fatal to look, I suspect. Anyway, I'm not about to risk it, and you shouldn't either, however curious you are."
It was difficult to argue with this point of view when it so closely approximated her own feelings. Only minutes ago, back in her apartment, she'd told Raul she sensed something about to happen in that empty Main Street. Now Kissoon was confirming her suspicion.
"I suppose I have to thank you then," she said reluctantly.
"Don't bother," Kissoon replied. "I didn't save you for your sake, I saved you for more important duties." He took a moment to dig at the core of the fire with a blackened stick. It blazed higher, and the hut was illuminated more brightly than ever. "I'm sorry," he went on, "if I frightened you when you were last here. I say if. I know I did and I can't apologize enough." He didn't look at her through this speech, which had a rehearsed quality to it. But coming from a man she suspected had a major ego, it was doubly welcome. "I was...moved, shall we say...by your physical presence in a way I hadn't quite taken account of, and you were right to be suspicious of my motives." He put one hand between his legs and took his penis between forefinger and thumb. "I'm chastened now," he said. "As you can see."
She looked. He was quite limp.
"Apology accepted," she said.
"So now, we can get back to business I hope."
"I'm not going to give my body to you, Kissoon," she said flatly. "If that's what you mean by business, no deal."
Kissoon nodded. "I can't say I blame you. Apologies sometimes aren't enough. But you must understand the gravity of this. Even now, up in Palomo Grove, the Jaff is preparing to use the Art. I can stop him. But not from here."
"Teach me then."
"There isn't time."
"I'm a quick learner."
Kissoon looked up at her, his face sharp.
"That really is a monstrous arrogance," he said. "You step into the middle of a tragedy that's been moving towards its final act for centuries and think you can just change its course with a few words. This isn't Hollywood. This is the real world."
His cold fury subdued her; but not much.
"All right, so I get feisty once in a while. Shoot me for it. I've told you I'll help but I won't do any of this body-swapping shit."
"Maybe, then..."
"What?"
"...you can find someone who is willing to give themselves over to me."
"That's a tough call. What am I supposed to tell them?"
"You're persuasive," he said.
She thought back to the world she'd stepped out of. The apartment building had twenty-one occupants. Could she persuade Ron, or Edgar, or one of her friends, Mickey de Falco perhaps, to step back into the Loop with her? She doubted it. It was only when her seeking centered on Raul that she glimpsed a little hope. Might he dare what she wouldn't?
"Maybe I can help," she said.
"Quickly?"
"Yes. Quickly. If you can get me back to my apartment."
"Easily done."
"I'm not promising anything, mind you."
"I understand."
"And I want something from you in return."
"What's that?"
"The woman I tried to speak to; the one you said was a sex-aid?"
"I wondered when you'd get to her."
"She's hurt."
"Don't believe it."
"I saw for myself."
"It's an Iad trick!" Kissoon said. "She's been wandering around out there for a while now, trying to get me to open the door to her. Sometimes she pretends she's hurt, sometimes she's all purrs, like a sex-kitten, Rubs herself against the door." He shuddered. "I hear her, rubbing herself, begging me to let her in. It's just another trick."
As with almost every statement Kissoon made Tesla found herself not knowing whether to believe or disbelieve. On her last visit he'd told her he thought the woman was most likely a dream-mistress. Now he was saying she was an Iad agent. One but not both.