"Did you get Weiss and Lupov?" he demanded.
Von Einem said, "Yes. As near as I can determine. I'm still waiting for the certified results, but it seems hopeful. If I may explain about these mutually exclusive delusional worlds — "
"Forget it," Ferry broke in harshly. "I have to get out of here." If they could come this close, then he was hardly safe, even now; they had spotted him, prepared for him — Lupov and Weiss might be gone, but that still left others. Rachmael ben Applebaum, he thought. We didn't get you, I suppose. And you have done us a good deal of harm already, harm that we know of. Theoretically you could do much, much more.
Except, he thought as he groped in his clothing for the variety of miniaturized weapons he knew were there, we're not going to let you. Too much is at stake; too many lives are involved. You will not succeed, even if you have outlasted Mat Glazer-Holliday, Lupov and Weiss and possibly even that Freya girl, the one who was Mat's mistress and now is yours — you still don't stand a chance.
Thinly, he smiled. This part I will enjoy, he realized. My taking you out of action, ben Applebaum. For this I will operate out of my own ship, Apteryx Nil. When I'm finally there, I'll be safe. Even from you.
And you, he said to himself, have no place equal to it; even if the Omphalos were here at Whale's Mouth it would not be enough.
Nothing, ben Applebaum, he thought harshly, will be enough. Not when I've reached Apteryx Nil. As I enter it your tiny life fades out.
Forever.
16
To Freya Holm the flapple repeated in high-pitched anxiety, "Sir or madam, you must evacuate at once; all living humans must leave me, as my meta-battery is about to deteriorate. Due to various punctures in my hull, which punctures having been caused by the demolition of the simulacrum of Mr. Ferry, or rather because of which — in any case I am no longer able to maintain homeostasis, or whatever the phrase is. Please, sir or madam; do heed me: your life, sir or madam, is being risked each moment!"
Furiously, Freya grated, "And go where, once I leave here?"
"Down to the surface of the planet," the flapple said, in a tone of voice suggesting ultimate mechanical smugness; as far as the flapple was concerned it had solved everything.
"Jump?" she demanded. "Two thousand feet?"
"Well, I suppose your point is well-taken," the flapple said in a disgruntled tone; it evidently was displeased to have its solution dealt with so readily. "But the enormous inter-plan and -system ship which I am now attached to; why not hie yourself there? Or however the expression goes."
"It's Ferry's!"
"Ferry's, Schmerry's," the flapple said. "This way you'll perish when I do. You want THAT?"
"All right," she snarled, and made her way unsteadily toward the entrance hatch of the flapple, the link between it and the huge ship blowing its ceaseless wisps of fuel vapor, obviously ready to take off at an instant's command.
"My meta-battery has nowwwaaaa foooof," the flapple intoned hazily; its expiration had accelerated by leaps and bounds.
"Goodbye," Freya said, and passed out through the entrance hatch, cautiously following the shorter of the two THL agents.
Behind her the flapple murmured in its dim fashion, "Tttturnnn uppp yrrrr hearing aaaaaaiddddd, misssszzzz." And drifted into oblivion.
Good riddance, she decided.
A moment later she had entered the great ship — Theo Ferry's post from which he — obviously — operated when on Fomalhaut IX.
"Kill her," a voice said.
She ducked. A laser beam cut past her head; instantly she rolled, spun to one side, thinking, They did it to Mat, but not to me; they can't do it to me. A second last try for us, she thought desperately; if Rachmael can do anything. I can't. "Ferry," she gasped. "Please!"
The prayer proved worthless. Four THL agents, in military brown, deployed strategically at several compass points of the ship's central cabin, aimed at her emotionlessly, while at the controls, his face a dull mask of almost indifferent concentration, sat Theodoric Ferry. And, she realized, this was the man himself; this did not constitute a simulacrum.
"Do you know," Ferry said to her quietly, "where Rachmael ben Applebaum is at this moment?"
"No," she gasped. Truthfully.
At that Ferry nodded toward the four THL agents; the man to his
See Note on page V
pseudopodia several remaining unchewed eyes, and these it had placed close to its stomach in order to see properly. "Yes, it's still in there — and you can have it, free! No, but seriously, folks, the twentieth edition is worth a lot more to a collector than the seventeenth; get it while the getting's good or this free money-back offer expires forever."
After a pause Rachmael shut his eyes and reached his hand gropingly into the midsection of the cephalopodic life form.
"Fine, fine," the eye-eater chortled. "That feels really cool, as the ancients said. Got hold of it yet? Reach deeper, and don't mind if the digestive juices destroy your sleeve; that's show biz, or whatever it was they formerly said. Tee-hee!"
His fingers touched something firm within the gelatinous, oozing mass. The edge of the book? Or — something else. It felt very much as if — incredibly — it consisted of the crisp, starched, lower edge of a woman's bra.
"For god's sake!" a female voice declared furiously. And at the same instant a small but wildly intent hand grabbed his, forced it back toward him.
Immediately he opened his eyes. The eye-eater glowered at him in indignation. But — it had changed. From it long strands of women's hair grew; the eye-eater had a distinctly female appearance. Even its pawful of eyes had altered; they now appeared elongated, graceful, with heavy lashes. A woman's eyes, he realized with a thrill of terror.
"Who are you?" he demanded, almost unable to speak; he jerked his hand back in revulsion and the pseudopodium released him.
The pseudopodia of the eye-eater, all of them, terminated in small, delicate hands. Like the hair and the eyes, distinctly female.
The eye-eater had become a woman. And, near the center of its body, it wore — ludicrously — the stiff white bra.
The eye-eater said, in a high-pitched voice, almost a squeal of indignation, "I'm Gretch Borbman, of course. And I frankly don't believe it's very funny to — do what you did just now." Breathing hotly, the eye-eater glowered even more darkly.
"I'm — sorry," he managed to say. "But I'm lost in damn paraworld; it's not my fault. So don't condemn me."
"Which paraworld is it this time?" the eye-eater demanded. "The same one as before?"
He started to answer... and then noticed something which froze him into silence where he stood. Other eye-eaters had begun to appear, slowly undulating toward him and Gretch Borbman. Some had the distinct cast of masculinity; some obviously were, like Gretch, female.
The class. Assembling together in response to what Gretch had said.
"He attempted to reach inside me," the eye-eater calling itself Gretchen Borbman explained to the rest of them. "I wonder which paraworld that would indicate."
"Mr. ben Applebaum," one of the other eye-eaters, almost certainly Sheila Quam by the sound of her voice, said. "In view of what Miss Borbman says, I think it is virtually mandatory for me to declare a special emergency Computer Day; I would say that beyond a reasonable doubt this situation which you've created calls for it."
"True," the eye-eater named Gretch agreed; the others, to varying degrees, also nodded in unison. "Have his paraworld gestalt fed in so it can be examined and compared. Personally I don't think it's like anyone else's, but of course that's up to the computer to determine. Myself, I feel perfectly safe; I know that whatever he saw, or rather sees, bears absolutely no resemblance to anything I ever perceived."