"Unbounded place of connectives," the Caleban said.
"We're right back where we started," Furuneo groaned. "What's a connective?"
"Uncontained opening between," the Caleban said.
"Between what?" Furuneo roared.
"Between one and eight."
"Ohhh, no!"
"Also between one and x," the Caleban said.
As McKie had done earlier, Furuneo buried his face in his hands. Presently he said, "What's between one and eight except two, three, four, five, six, and seven?"
"Infinity," the Caleban said. "Open-ended concept. Nothing contains everything. Everything contains nothing."
"You know what I think?" Furuneo asked.
"I read no thoughts," the Caleban said.
"I think you're having your little game with us," Furuneo said. "That's what I think."
"Connectives compel," the Caleban said. "Does this expand understanding?"
"Compels . . . a compulsion?"
"Venture movement," the Caleban said.
"Venture what?"
"That which remains stationary when all else moves," the Caleban said. "Thus, connective. Infinity concept empties itself without connective."
"Whoooooheee!" Furuneo said.
At this point he asked to be let outside for a rest.
Furuneo was no closer to understanding why the Caleban maintained such a high temperature in the Beachball.
"Consequences of swiftness," the Caleban said, varying this under questioning with "Rapidity convergence." Or "Perhaps concept of generated movement arrives closer."
"Some kind of friction?" Furuneo probed.
"Uncompensated relationship of dimensions possibly arrives at closest approximation," the Caleban answered.
Now, reviewing these frustrating exchanges, Furuneo blew on his hands to warm them. The sun had set, and a chill wind was beginning to move off the bluff toward the water.
Either I freeze to death or bake, he thought. Where in the universe is McKie?
At this point Tuluk made long distance contact through one of the Bureau Taprisiots. Furuneo, who had been seeking a more sheltered position in the lee of the Beachball, felt the pineal ignition. He brought down the foot he had been lifting in a step, planted the foot firmly in a shallow pool of water, and lost all bodily sensation. Mind and call were one.
"This is Tuluk at the lab," the caller said. "Apologies for intrusion and all that."
"I think you just made me put a foot in cold water," Furuneo said.
"Well, here's some more cold water for you. You're to have that friendly Caleban pick up McKie in six hours, time elapse measured from four hours and fifty-one minutes ago. Synchronize."
"Standard measure?"
"Of course, standard!"
"Where is he?"
"He doesn't know. Wherever that Caleban sent him. Any idea how it's done?"
"It's done with connectives," Furuneo said.
"Is that right? What are connectives?"
"When I find out, you'll be the first to know."
"That sounds like a temporal contradiction, Furuneo."
"Probably is. All right, let me get my foot out of the water. It's probably frozen solid by now."
"You've the synchronized time coordinate for picking up McKie?"
"I got it! And I hope she doesn't send him home."
"How's that?"
Furuneo explained.
"Sounds confusing."
"I'm glad you figured that out. For a moment there, I thought you weren't approaching our problem with sufficient seriousness."
Among Wreaves seriousness and sincerity are almost as basic as they are with Taprisiots, but Tuluk had worked among humans long enough to recognize the jibe. "Well, every being has its own insanity," he said.
It was a Wreave aphorism, but it sounded sufficiently close to something the Caleban might have said that Furuneo experienced a momentary angeret-enforced rage and sensed his ego shimmering away from him. He shuddered his way back to mental solidity.
"Did you almost lose yourself?" Tuluk asked.
"Will you sign off and let me get my foot out of the water?"
"I receive the impression you are fatigued," Tuluk said. "Get some rest."
"When I can. I hope I don't fall asleep in the Caleban hothouse. I'd wake up done just about right for a cannibal dinner."
"Sometimes you humans express yourselves in a disgusting fashion," the Wreave said. "But you'd better remain alert for a while. McKie may require punctuality."
***
He was the kind of man who created his own death.
It was dark, but she needed no light for black thoughts. Damn Cheo for a sadistic fool! It had been a mistake to finance the surgery that had transformed the PanSpechi into an ego-frozen freak. Why couldn't he stay the way he'd been when they'd first met? So exotic . . . so . . . so . . . exciting.
He was still useful, though. And there was no doubt he'd been the first to see the magnificent possibilities in their discovery. That, at least, remained exciting.
She reclined on a softly furred chairdog, one of the rare feline adaptives that had been taught to lull their masters by purring. The soothing vibrations moved through her flesh as though seeking out irritations to subdue. So relaxing.
She sighed.
Her apartment occupied the top ring of the tower they had had built on this world, safe in the knowledge that their hiding place lay beyond the reach of any law or any communication except that granted through a single Caleban - who had but a short time to live.
But how had McKie come here? And what had McKie meant, that he'd had a call through a Taprisiot?
The chairdog, sensitive to her mood, stopped purring as Abnethe sat up. Had Fanny Mae lied? Did another Caleban remain who could find this place?
Granted that the Caleban's words were difficult to understand - granted this, yes, there was yet no mistaking the essentials. This world was a place whose key lay in only one mind, that of Madame Mliss Abnethe.
She sat straight on the chairdog.
And there would be death without suffering to make this place forever safe - a giant orgasm of death. Only one door, and death would close it. The survivors, all chosen by herself, would live on in happiness here beyond all . . . connectives . . .
Whatever those were.
She stood up, began pacing back and forth in the darkness. The rug, a creature adapted like the chairdog, squirmed its furry surface at the caress of her feet.
An amused smile came over her face.
Despite the complications and the strange timing it required, they'd have to increase the tempo of the floggings. Fanny Mae must be forced to discontinue as soon as possible. To kill without suffering among the victims, this was a prospect she found she could still contemplate.
But there was need for hurry.
Furuneo leaned, half dozing, against a wall within the Beachball. Sleepily he cursed the heat. His mindclock said there was slightly less than an hour remaining until the time for picking up McKie. Furuneo had tried to explain the time schedule to the Caleban, but she persisted in misunderstanding.
"Lengths extend and distend," she had said. "They warp and sift with vague movements between one and another. Thus time remains inconstant."
Inconstant?
The vortal tube of a S'eye jumpdoor snapped open just beyond the Caleban's giant spoon. The face and bare shoulders of Abnethe appeared in the opening.
Furuneo pushed himself away from the wall, shook his head to restore alertness. Damnation, it was hot in here!
"You are Alichino Furuneo," Abnethe said. "Do you know me?"
"I know you."
"I recognized you at once," she said. "I know most of your stupid Bureau's planetary agents by sight. I've found it profitable. "