Chapter 4 — Pursuit

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~ 1 ~ Esther had a strong feeling that events were coming to a head, now that she knew that Gabrielle and Eugene were flying to Quinceañera Beach. And she felt certain that the next of Herbert’s journals which she intended to read would shed light on the true nature of Mortimer Kane’s business. Neither Herbert nor Gabrielle had discovered that Esther had been reading their secrets in Herbert’s journals, and this one, which dated from well over a thousand years in the past, would surely be the last one that she would need to read. Knowing that Gabrielle had read no farther, she reasoned that Gabrielle had learned everything that she wanted to know after reading that volume. And she, herself, would know it, too, after she had read it. But, in following Gabrielle’s journey backward in time through the journals, Esther had come to know that woman’s cold, calculating mind so well that now her dread was as great as her eagerness was, to unveil the journal’s contents.

Esther knew that the nagging mystery of Swinthila’s Left and Right Hands—who they were and what they were doing—would be revealed to her. She wondered what dark vista would open before her. Am I alone? Helpless? Never! I have to make Het read the last journal with me.

Setting aside thoughts of flying at once to New Jersey and taking counsel with Rabbi Cohen, Esther went looking for Het in his campus office that morning.

Het was unaware that Esther’s knowledge of Herbert’s and Mort’s business was so much greater than his own. In fact, ever since Esmeralda had broken off their relationship, Het had been actively trying not to know anything which would distract him from his focus on the science of meta time.

However, now that Scott, too, had abandoned him, leaving Het without intellectual companionship on meta time theory, he had begun to brood over things which he had long kept from his mind: Who were Thersa and the Friend, and what was their real game? Het knew enough of the Maker’s art to suspect that very strange answers might exist, to questions about the real business of Herbert and Mort. More than once he had considered trying to get Ricardo to level with him about the whole business. But what was Ricardo’s game? And who could trust Rhoda? Did he want to know? And now he deeply distrusted Esther, because of her intimacy with Herbert and Mort. She always holds things back from me! Het had given up asking her what it was from which she was supposed to be protecting him.

Esther entered his office just as he was recalling his mother’s words of two years earlier. Winthy had said, “You certainly do have intriguing associates.” The perfume of vast, dark intrigues entered his nostrils with Esther’s arrival, and—rather than greet her—Het closed his eyes and set his elbows on his desk, covering his head with his hands, for Esther was the sign of all that he had been trying to ignore. His ears, however, were unable to shut out Esther’s voice: “Het, it’s me, your old friend.” Her voice and her perfume caressed him, drawing him to her as they filled him with eager longing for her open arms and her naked body. But the effect of that perfume—charmed for Esther by Yohanna—was too violent.

“Esther, your perfume is a Device!” After the words had burst from him, Het became motionless. He did not even open his eyes. He felt as though he were drunkenly fighting to keep his car on the road. When he at last looked up at Esther in a rage, he was confounded by his surge of erotic feelings.

Esther recoiled. “Crap! Then stew in your own juices—not mine!” She spun around and stalked out, suddenly fearing the new violence in Het’s look.

Het sat transfixed. After a few moments he got up and strode angrily after her on the path to the Keep.

At the Keep’s college-side entrance, Esther glanced back and saw Het, his body language unsoftened as he emerged brusquely from the eucalyptus grove. She entered the building hastily. My car or the Workshop?

The Keep was nearly empty, the Institute for Ancient Art and Relics having begun a scheduled two-week shutdown, ostensibly for its first annual maintenance. Esther suspected that the true purpose of the shutdown was to create a window for the imminent vesting of the Friend in the Soma. The hidden Arch side of the Keep was teaming with her Shade “friends”, and she shuddered as she entered the empty grand hallway having at its far end the Arch guard station. She marched up to it, struggling to appear calm, and addressed the man on guard duty. Lightly touching his hand and looking into his face, she said, “Raymond, when Dr. Kerrigan asks about me, tell him I’ve gone to the Workshop.”

“I’ll do that Miss Rosen.” Raymond knew that she was deadly serious, and that she ranked higher than Dr. Kerrigan. Esther smiled at him before striding rapidly down the corridor which led to Arch headquarters and the parking lot. To Raymond, her smile was like Bauda’s evil smile. A minute later, he gave to Het her false information.

Het thanked him, not believing a word of it, and took the route which had been taken by Esther. Raymond hoped that Dr. Kerrigan’s response was the one intended by Esther. In a few minutes, Het returned, passing Raymond without a word. Having seen Esther driving away, Het strode off to the Campus to get his car.

Esther returned within minutes, now feeling that Het simply needed time to cool off, after which he would look for her at her place and at the Ontario Workshop. She asked, “Raymond, has Dr. Kerrigan left the Keep?”

“Yes, Miss Rosen.”

“I’ll be in the Workshop, if anyone—even Kerrigan—asks for me.”

Het was driving to Esther’s place while Esther was walking to the Workshop, amid the heightened activity of Shades in the Arch side of the Keep. Among these Shades, Esther—who had never touched a drop of Elixir—enjoyed near Overlord status. She slipped into the Workshop’s locker room to prepare for reading, alone, this last one of Gesalec’s journals, to learn the secret which had satisfied Gabrielle.

Esther donned her laboratory garb in the locker room, and went across the corridor to the Workshop to read the journal. She was thinking that she would explain to Het with a full-body book review, the “book”which she had discovered..

Esther’s anxiety had clouded her mind, preventing her from recalling that she needed to go to Ontario to enter the Workshop, now that the Wagon Workshop had been wheeled there. She was not surprised, therefore, to find the Workshop in its old location.

Because the Wagon Workshop truly belonged to Rhoda, being her inheritance from Ingundis the Maker, Rhoda had twinned it when she had established the Workshop for Herbert’s fabrication of the Soma in Ontario. Thus, the Wagon Workshop existed potentially in two places, and it would exist actually only in the location in which was its owner, Herbert. Herbert had died, and the ownership of his part of the Workshop had passed to Esther, without her knowledge.

Het had waited for a few minutes outside Esther’s place after ringing the bell. Then he had let himself in and had stood looking at the key given to him by Esther. She trusts me. Shit, the problem is with what’s going on. Esther’s okay. And her perfume Device might have been a real buzz. He had made himself a drink and had sat down to wait for her on the second-story deck opening off her tidy, luxurious bedroom.

Het finished his drink. Starting on a second one, he decided to leave Esther a conciliatory note, and—thinking that she might be in the Ontario hangar Workshop—he decided to drive out there after finishing the note. He sat down to write on the notepaper on her desk, noticing then the flashing of her answering machine’s light. He flicked it on, hoping to find out where she was.

“Esther. Herbert here. Go to the Ontario Workshop and see that the Masens do not try to commandeer the Commons Crawler. I know that you can control them. I’ve been delayed at the Beach, and I’ll be back in the next day or two. Let’s do bed before the big show.”

Lines connected dots in Het’s mind. His blood ran cold. “Shit!” He smashed the answering machine with his fist and stomped out of Esther’s place, leaving his unfinished note fluttering to the floor. Revitalized by a frenzy of anger, he drove off. Pull yourself together, Het! Don’t let this car kill you! After a blurred mile, he parked his car on some city street and got out. Pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, he was now thinking, instead of driving blind.

A police car was driven up behind Het’s, and its driver sat in the parked patrol car, watching the pacing man for a minute. Not drunk. Angry. The officer got out and caught up with Het.

“Sir, you were driving far beyond the speed limit, and now you’re walking almost as fast. Consider your fellow pedestrians!”

The touch of humor reached Het. He had seen that people were getting hastily out of his way.

“That’s why I stopped. Things—Esther’s things—were going past me too fast.”

“Esther? Good looking?”

“Rich, too. Her tits are out of this world!”

“I know there’s a difference. But…”

“But what?”

“A woman is a package deal.”

“That’s just it. It’s what she’s packaged with.”

“My name’s Rudy.” Officer Rudy offered Het his hand.

“Mine is Het.” Het clasped Rudy’s hand and they shook.

“Look, Het, I think I know where you’re coming from. I’ve just gotten out of a package deal myself. I’ll be off duty in five minutes. Let me drive you back to the station with me. After I change we’ll come back here and I’ll buy you a beer at the bar across the street.”

Het nodded, appreciating the offer of space.

Esther returned to the locker room, her face very pale. God! What can I do? People in the corridor had given her space, as they always did. Alone inside, she sat on the bench, thinking. She now knew, after reading the journal, about the Wild Way, about Swinthila’s Left and Right hands and their horrible business, and about her own likely place in the whole stinking business. While she had breathed the putrid stench of the hideous work in the temple performed by Swinthila and the Left and Right Hands, her reading had been illustrated by Herbert’s Living Memory, and by coolly conniving Gabrielle’s Living Memory. Now, recalling her enjoyment of the embraces of Mortimer Kane/Swinthila and Herbert/Gesalec, she shuddered. God! Were they even human?

The locker-room’s telephone rang, and Esther knew that the call was for her.

“Locker-room, cleaning service speaking.”

“Esther?”

“Yes.”

“Esther, this is Gabrielle. I am calling from Quinceañera Beach, where I have just now learned that Herbert is dead.”

Esther smiled grimly.

After a long discussion with Gabrielle, Esther agreed to act exactly according to her instructions, and they hung up their phones.

When Hell freezes over I’ll do that! Esther again considered dropping everything and flying to New Jersey to seek Rabbi Cohen’s help. But he would never believe me.

Esther entered the Workshop’s Inner Sanctum again and retrieved the new general-purpose Calipers fabricated by Herbert, about which he had told her. She had used them already, secretly, not needing Herbert’s instructions, and she had found them to be far superior to any other Calipers of her experience. They would serve for the task which she was planning. Carrying them in a case, she returned to the locker room and dressed, then carried the case to her car.

Esther sailed to the Ontario Workshop before a steady wind of fear.

“Het, have a drink.” Rudy poured out a glass of beer from the pitcher. “That’s a nice Austin-Healey Sprite you’ve got there.”

They were sitting at a table near the window, through which Het was staring blankly at his Sprite—the car chosen for him by Esther to enable him to cut a better public image than he had cut in his old Malibu. For the first time, he recognized that neither Esther nor he had expected him to pay back the down payment loan which she had made to him.

Het had waited outside the police station for a few minutes for Rudy to change his clothes and get his car—a new Malibu. Het habitually parked his old Malibu in the campus lot, next to the space where he parked his Sprite. He had barely even noticed its existence until he had begun planning to part with it. It was junk, but it still ran, and he occasionally drove it. He had been thinking about Rudy while he waited outside the station, and now he said, “Thanks for the beer, Rudy. You’re not a regular cop, are you?”

“You guessed it. I’m part of Esther’s package—one of her bodyguards. We keep an eye on her from a distance, and we’re paid by her father. She may not even know we’re around.”

“Christ! Rhoda had a bodyguard, too. Leo was one of my buddies and I didn’t know he was her bodyguard. He got me to go on a drinking bout with him, too, after everything blew up. That’s how this whole pit opened up in front of me.” With a thud, Het set down his glass of barely-touched beer.

“Rhoda? A pit? Het, I just wanted you to cool off, so you won’t attempt to do any violence to Esther Rosen. That’s my job.”

Het looked at Rudy silently. Then he laughed and drank down his beer.

~ 2 ~ After she had arrived at the hangar, Esther surveyed the cars parked in the lot. She recognized each of them, knowing to whom each belonged: a person working on the Commons Crawler, a member of Rhoda’s and Ricardo’s crew, Lisa, or Lingyun. All was well, so far.

In the previous week, Herbert’s Wheeled Workshop had been transported, with the Separator inside it, on the highway from the Keep to the Ontario Workshop. Esther, Herbert, Mortimer Kane and Gabrielle had been involved in transporting it, but Het had not known that it was being moved. Esther and Herbert had closed the Wagon Workshop while it was in the Keep, to restore its visible Wagon form before moving it. Then, when they had opened the Wagon Workshop at the Front Gate of the Ontario Workshop, the Workspace of Herbert’s Wagon had merged with Herbert’s Workspace in the hangar, while the visible Wheeled Workshop remained standing in the hangar outside the Front Gate, attached to its towing van. Herbert had explained that it was only the essential presence of the Wagon which they were seeing, and that the Wagon’s interior, containing the Separator, was now merged with the Ontario Workshop’s Workspace. In the merged Workspace had lain the coiled, worm-shaped Soma which Herbert, Het and Esther had fabricated there in Ontario. Next to it had stood the Separator, which they had transported by road to Ontario.

With Esther’s help, Herbert had brought together the two Devices so that only the seal fabricated by Esther separated them. Esther had observed, during the procedure, the avaricious approval on Kane’s face, while Gabrielle’s face had remained enigmatic.

Esther had expected that they would return immediately to the Keep with the joined Separator and Soma, where it would be ready for the Friend’s vesting. But Herbert had explained the need for several days of mellowing between the two slightly-separated parts, before their move back into the Keep. “In order to complete the fabrication of the living Soma,” he had said, “we must unite the Miner to the Separator within the Friend’s territory, which is the Keep. If it is not the Friend’s territory in which the two parts are united, the Friend’s Soma will be dead.”

Gabrielle had remarked, “I suspect that in the case of uniting outside the Keep, all of us would be as good as dead.”

“It is only I who know the procedure for uniting the parts,” Herbert had said.

Now, Herbert was dead. Esther had agreed with Gabrielle to make the vesting preparations with her, following the instructions which Gabrielle claimed to have learned from Herbert. Esther had thought it most likely that Gabrielle had read those instructions in Herbert’s current journal, which he had kept always with him. While conversing with her on the telephone, Esther had cast a Net to the journal most recently read by Gabrielle, in order to learn the fabrication procedure for uniting the two joined parts, and she had also read Gabrielle’s Living Memory of reading about that procedure.

Gabrielle had said, “You must prepare the Wagon Workshop for transporting the nearly united Soma and Separator back to the Keep at once.”

“I can have it ready by the end of the day,” Esther had replied, while her own plan was beginning to take shape in her mind.

“Good. When it is ready, contact Mortimer and have him join you in escorting the Wagon Workshop back to the Keep. We must proceed with the Friend’s vesting as quickly as possible, before the Clan discovers that their slaying of Herbert has not thwarted the vesting, as they had intended.”

“The Wagon Workshop is still hooked to the van, Gabrielle, so I can drive it back easily.”

By the time of Esther’s arrival at the hangar, several hours had passed since she had talked with Gabrielle. A few raindrops were hitting her windshield as she parked and lifted out her Calipers case. She was thinking that she would be able to use Herbert’s new Calipers to unite the Separator and the partial Soma there in Ontario—not in the Keep. And you will have a dead Soma, un-Friend!

Esther eyed the short distance between her and the hangar’s open flight door. She locked her car door as rain began to fall in a more insistent rhythm—pelting her face when she looked up at the storm-dark sky—and a torrent fell from heaven as she sprinted to the open hangar door.

~ 3 ~ “Lisa, have you seen Esther? I want to talk to her at once!” Het was breathless.

“Is her car in the lot?”

“Yes.”

“She might be in your Workspace, or in the ladies room.”

“But I followed her into your Workspace.”

“This is a very labyrinthine space, Dr. Kerrigan.” Minutes earlier, Esther had, in fact, passed near Lisa without seeing her. Lisa had felt the fear driving Esther, empathically sensing fear of the Evil One—the fear which had driven her from the stone cabin when she had comprehended the meaning of the I Ching’s oracle for Het which Rhoda had read aloud.

“Get out of the Pit Dr. Kerrigan. It is not too late.”

Lisa’s words, spoken with solemn firmness, struck Het powerfully. He stared at Lisa, recalling vividly the events of that disastrous party, and Lisa screaming, “The Pit! The Pit! Get out of the Pit!”

“Miss Su, are you telling me that I’m trespassing in your Workspace?” he demanded in an offended manner.

“No, Het. You are confused. I believe that you are in an unstable Workspace Meander which is now near to my location.” Lisa was wearing Gauging Calipers for her work; she raised her hands in Het’s direction, moving the fingers of the Calipers slowly and rhythmically in the space separating them—and discovered that there was little overlap between the Essential suite of her Calipers and the Essential Dimensions of the Meander in which Het stood glowering at her. Meander? No! There are two Meanders twisted around each other, and writhing! With her own senses, Lisa was aware of Esther’s fear of the Foe lingering in one of them.

Lisa’s brother Lingyun, busy at a nearby workbench, looked up, sensing that Lisa had suspended her work. Because her work was coordinated with his, his fabrication step had become refractory. He was unable to see Het or to hear Lisa, whom he saw gauging the Air in front of her. His burst of anger—The work is lost! We’ll have to start over!—was replaced then by concern: Why is she gauging the Airs? Quickly, he exchanged his work Calipers for directional Calipers to navigate the essential differences between him and Lisa. With his Calipers fingers, he formed a window framing Lisa. Keeping her within the frame, he walked toward her, and became aware of Het. Lingyun stopped and framed a view of Het, who was near to him in only a few Essential Dimensions, being mostly very remote. Those few dimensions, however, carried the meaning of speech.

“Het,” Lisa was saying, “you are moving toward a very deadly place. Please, for your own sake, return by the way in which you have come, to the hangar floor. Lingyun and I will join you there, and we will help you to get your bearings in order to find Esther.”

“I am here, Lisa,” whispered Lingyun, setting his calipered hands on her workbench to bring him completely into her Place in the Inner Sanctum. At the same time, Lisa saw Esther appear suddenly behind Het, looking like a striding giantess. Sensing that a deluge of changing Essential differentials was following Esther, Lisa tightly gripped Lingyun’s arm.

When Het became aware of Esther’s passage, he wheeled around and ran after her, crying, “Esther! Esther!” As he followed her through the Soma’s Workspace, she wove in and out of his vision as the separate Meanders in which they were moving twisted and turned. At the Antechamber’s Front Gate, which opened onto the hangar’s floor, their Corridors converged into one.

~ 4 ~ Esther paused in the hangar’s doorway, shaking with fear.

After entering the Soma’s Workspace, she had at once removed the separating seal which she had fabricated for Herbert, allowing the two parts of the Device—the mushroom-shaped Separator and the long, coiled, worm-like Soma—to mellow into the same Niche. The stolen Calipers had served her well. After ending the uniting Chant which she had read in Herbert’s journal through Gabrielle’s Living Memory, she had stepped back quickly and watched: The Separator seemed to flow into the coiled Soma, causing it to swell all along its length without moving. Herbert had said that if the two Devices were united in the Ontario Workshop, the Soma would be dead. Esther, unsure of the possible nature of that death, had—several minutes after the Soma’s swelling had ceased—approached it with her Calipered arms and hands. Tensions were gathering and growing! It’s alive! I’ve activated it! In a vertigo-caused haze she had seen, waveringly, an enormous green head bearing fangs like giant pincers, arching above her—the head of an enormous snake, poised to strike! Wild with terror, she had fled.

Panting as she stood in the open hangar doorway, Esther recalled a brief vision of Lisa and Lingyun which she had experienced during her flight from the Soma’s Workspace. She had not been in their Workshop since she and Herbert had slipped in under cover of darkness over a year earlier, to make measurements of the Su siblings' project. An idea came to her of going to find them. What was she afraid of? The wrath of the gods vengefully pursuing her? She recalled Rabbi Cohen telling her, “All of your actions have consequences, Esther. With each act, you make yourself a little more the person who will, when she dies, come face-to-face with God.” At the time, Esther had rolled her eyes at his words.

Oh, crap! They’re still on! Quickly, Esther removed the Calipers which she had used to complete the fabrication of the Soma. She stuffed them into her purse, from which they dangled. She was thinking that since the Soma, although not exactly dead, was not in the Keep, the Friend would not be able to vest. Then she remembered that she had been in the Inner Sanctum of the Wheeled Workshop—in the Keep—that morning! That was impossible! She looked back and saw the Wheeled Workshop standing there in Ontario. It could not be in two places!

Esther heard behind her, then, such massively heavy footfalls that they banished all thoughts. The dark figure of a huge man appeared next to the Wheeled Workshop. He was approaching her swiftly, and she knew that his intent was lethal!

She fled for the security of her Porsche. Although the rain had slacked off, the sky was still storm-dark, promising more to come as she slammed her car’s door and locked it. Starting the engine, she noticed Het’s Austin Spright parked next to hers. Esther drove fast, out through the gate.

Being in her own familiar car, she found her mind clearing as she steered onto the highway, seeing in her rearview mirror no sign of immediate pursuit. She switched on her car’s headlights after a mile, as dark and rain were falling.

The last person who had sat in the car’s passenger seat had been Esmeralda, whose scent Esther was breathing. The common ground which she had shared with her former rival had been Het's lovemaking, and recollections of her conversational sparring with Esmeralda about Het diverted her attention for a few moments, slightly relaxing her foot on the accelerator. Then, a glance into her rearview mirror caused her to exclaim to the empty passenger seat, "I'm being followed!"

The fear gripping her was nightmare-like: He’s going to kill me! I'm the next sacrifice for Swinthila! Esther increased her foot’s pressure on the accelerator, and her pursuer matched her speed but did not close the gap. He'll call for others to help him! She noticed her location. I can elude them; I know these roads. Esther exited the highway and took the winding road up to the mountains, on which her pursuer—being not as skilled a driver—began to fall back from her on the turns on that rainy evening.

After a final acceleration and a performance turn, Esther turned off her car’s lights and turned onto Old Turkey Road at the tee. She sped in the dark on its initial straight section, then turned on the car’s lights on the road to the Eyrie, which was paved to the Eyrie’s entrance and gravel beyond it. The downpour suddenly increased in intensity, so that Esther was barely able to see anything as she passed the entrance to the Eyrie onto the gravel road.

She was planning to drive past the Eyrie to the first turnout and park her car on the edge. Leaving the car’s door open and its motor running, she would hide next to the large, partially exposed boulder and shoot her pursuer when he stopped to investigate.

Esther's heart skipped a beat when she saw that in the swirling rainfall and on the wet roadway, she had stopped nearer to the edge of the cliff than she had intended. She sat very still, her car shaking in the wind. Then a glimpse of her pursuer's headlights sent her into action: She quickly opened the car's door and stepped out into a sudden furious, driving wind which caught the door and whipped her skirt up into her face as it drove her against the door—and the car pivoted behind her, pushing her with it over the edge. The sounds of the car tumbling down the steep cliff were accompanied by Esther’s death wail.

Het’s Austin Spright skidded to a stop near the edge of the cliff. In his hurry, he had not taken time to close the top, so he was drenched, and the car’s floor was awash in water. He swung his feet out cautiously and stood, then began weaving about in the confusion of raging wind and rain, shouting, "Esther! Esther!" into the storm. The wind brought to him an answer: the abrupt end of Esther’s death wail.

Het was afraid to try turning his car around or backing it, in the storm. The road on which he stood was crumbling and being carried away by torrents of water which were sinking his car’s tires as he watched. Unable even to start the car, he staggered to the cliff face on the other side of the road and groped along in its meager shelter until he came to the Eyrie’s driveway. He debated with himself over the wisdom of seeking help there. What help did he want?

Standing there, pummeled by the rain and gnawed by distress, Het looked into the past, the present and the future. Then headlights emerged from the dark storm and a car leaving the Eyrie stopped next to him. Its driver leaned over and pushed open the passenger door against the wind. Het grasped it as the dome light shone on the driver.

"Het, for chrissake get in! What happened? Where's your car?"

Het was immediately calmed by Victor’s unexpected, familiar voice and his perpetual naivety. His mental abilities restored, Het said, "I was racing Esther, and this rain began. I lost her at the tee and I guessed she might have come up this way. Rivers of water were running over the road up there where it makes that big turn and runs along the cliff. I got stuck and the engine stalled. The car’s top was down and I was soaked, and I couldn't see shit in the storm. It’s worse up there. So I walked down the road to beg a ride. Damn that car! ...I don't think Esther came this way."

"Where do you want to go?"

"To the campus, where my old Malibu is parked. I've got some dry sweats in my office.”

~5 ~ Esther had not returned to her apartment for three days. Rudy let himself in and found only one unusual sight: Esther’s smashed answering machine. He thought the single unfinished drink was likely to have been made by Het Kerrigan for himself. Rudy was disconnecting the broken answering machine in order to salvage the tape, when the telephone rang and he answered.

“Miss Rosen’s apartment. This is electrician Rudy Hansen. Miss Rosen asked me to answer and take messages.”

“I don’t have a message to leave,” answered a man’s voice. “I’ve been worried about Esther. You must have seen her today; that’s good news. I was afraid she was missing.”

“Okay, I’m not really an electrician. I’m an investigator hired by her father to watch out for Miss Rosen’s safety. She hasn’t been here for at least three days. Am I speaking with Victor Epstein?”

“Yes. How do you know me? I don’t recognize your voice.”

“When you lived with Esther, I was keeping watch over her for Isaac Rosen.”

“It’s not good, boss.” Rudy was pale as he spoke to the Keep’s Chief of Security. He had noticed the near emptiness of the offices surrounding Chief Byron’s in the Turret, but the few remaining occupants had been unable to give him any explanation for the absence of Dr. Kane’s staff members.

Byron and all of the other workers remaining in the Turret were not Shades. Byron, who had steadfastly looked the other way from Kane’s real business, had developed a growing conviction in the past few months, that Kane’s business was darker than he had at first thought. He felt very uneasy now, about Esther Rosen having been missing for the past few days. Byron had been loath to report to Isaac and Liz that Esther was missing, but he knew that he would have to do it today.

“Before Miss Rosen when missing,” Rudy began, “I’d followed her current boyfriend, Het Kerrigan, and talked with him. Then, when I saw him in a stew leaving her empty apartment, I finally let myself in to find out what I could from her answering machine. The apartment was as tidy as usual, but the answering machine was smashed, one unfinished drink was sitting out, and the liquor wasn’t put away. It looked to me like Kerrigan had fixed himself a drink before listening to the machine, and he had heard something that enraged him so much that he smashed it. I caught up with Het and talked to him, and he was pretty worked up, but I thought I talked him out of his upset. I thought, from the way he talked, that the problem was more than a quarrel between him and Miss Rosen. It was about whatever business they’re into.”

“Can you salvage the tape to find out what upset him?”

“I don’t have to. I do have Joey working on the tape, but Esther’s telephone rang while I was there and I answered. It was Victor, her old boyfriend. Victor said that on the night before the day I’d talked with Het Kerrigan, he had found Kerrigan standing beside the road in the foothills near that place called the Eyrie that we’ve talked about. Victor had been leaving his work there, in the pouring rain of that last big storm, and Het Kerrigan was on foot because his car had gotten stuck on the road beyond where the pavement ends. Het told Victor that he’d been car racing with Esther for many miles, and she was ahead of him when he lost her. Maybe she hadn’t made the turn at the tee. Het guessed that she had, but the road was washed out beyond where his car was stuck, so maybe Esther was washed out, too. Victor gave Kerrigan a lift back to the college and called the sheriff. Two days later they found Miss Rosen’s wrecked car, which is now in our possession. Then I searched the location, and I found her body this morning.”

Byron felt sick.

Rudy set a package of photographs on Byron’s desk.

“Before you look, Byron, I’ve got to tell you that what I saw and photographed just isn’t possible, but here it is.” He slapped the package of photographs. "Her body looked like it had been turned into soft putty and twisted like a corkscrew, then allowed to become flesh again. I touched it, and it was cold and stiff. I started photographing it—and there was a flash of green, like cold green fire, and the body just vanished!” Rudy collapsed into a chair, shaking. “What in God’s name, Byron, have you all been into?”

Byron was incredulous, and angry. He ripped open the package and pulled out the photographs, one at a time. They were far worse than Rudy’s description. The extremity of horror on Esther’s distorted face caused all color to drain from Byron’s face, and his anger to drain away as quickly. His voice barely audible, he said, “I’ll have to inform her father in person.”

Millie stepped out of Representative Rosen’s office. “It couldn’t be a worse time, Byron. Go right in; Isaac is waiting.” They had just then learned that Enrico had been sacked by President Leandro, and that their California candidate, Dr. Steuben, had died. That promising alliance, which might have enticed Esther back into the fold, had failed. They had also discovered that there was some relationship between Arch Company and the Knox-Okubo syndicate. There were threads leading from this syndicate to Enrico, Leander and the late Dr. Steuben, and Esther was mixed up in it somehow. After hearing this bad news Isaac had declared, “The damn West (meaning Texas and California) is a stumbling block for an honest politician.”

Millie knew Byron well, and she knew that he was bringing more bad news to Isaac—most likely having to do with Esther, since he had been keeping an eye on Esther, using the cover of his position as security chief for the Keep.

While Byron was speaking with Isaac, Millie called Liz. “Byron has just arrived with more bad news, Liz. I’m afraid it has to do with Esther. Brace yourself for whatever it is.”

“Millie, I telephoned my baby yesterday and her answering machine was disconnected. I let the telephone ring forever, but she didn’t answer. I hope she hasn’t gone off to some remote place with that Het Kerrigan. If something was wrong with her, she’d let me know.”

Byron and Isaac sat for a long time in silence. Isaac stood up at last, looking vacantly from a window.

“Do I need to see those photographs, Byron?”

“No.”

“Keep them, then. Does Victor know that she’s dead?”

“No. Rudy has told Victor that he will get back to him. I’ll have Rudy report to Victor that he found nothing; in a way, it’s true.”

“I’ll tell Liz that both Esther and Dr. Kerrigan have been reported missing after that big storm, and they were reported to have left together on a road trip.”

~6 ~ “Honey, I’ve been thinkin’.”

“Leo, don’t think. You’re back safe and sound; you’ve done your part.”

Leo looked up from his coffee, smiling into Antonia’s slightly plump face and admiring her body’s very pregnant profile. “Yeah, honey, I know what you’re thinkin’. I guess I did get the Russians and their A-bombs back together, and Martin did say I can hang up my spurs. But he’s said that before.” Leo winked at Antonia. “And maybe we wouldn’t be here waiting for baby if he hadn’t said it before.” He stood up and hugged her.

“Leo, what are you thinking?”

“You just told me not to think. You don’t really want to know, do you?”

“Maybe not, dear. Does it have anything to do with atomic bombs and Russians?”

“Absolutely not. It’s about Home Ranch.”

“What about it?”

“Oh, just what it looks like from the air.”

Leo and Antonia continued to hold each other loosely, and Antonia shook her head in Leo’s face. “You must have seen it a dozen times flying to and from the Aeronauticas airfield.”

“Yeah, honey, that’s just it. From the air it always looks the same, but not like it oughta look. It’s not the way it looks here on the ground.”

Antonia sighed and nodded. “That’s how the Garth Keepers’ guild wants it to look. Mom told me that.”

“It’s weird; that’s all. The place is so big to be hidden like that.”

“Leo, are you thinking of trying to outsmart the Keepers?”

“What you do see and what you can’t see are worked by some Device, aren’t they?”

Antonia shrugged, annoyed. She gave her husband a dirty look and dropped her arms from around his neck.

“And how it works, Antonia, is constrained by the Ethical Force; right? At least that’s the story I’ve heard a thousand times from our Keen Maker friends.”

“Leo, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing just out of curiosity.”

“But my plan is so clever.”

“Tell me, Leo.”

Leo detected a glimmer of curiosity in Antonia’s resigned smile. “You won’t tell on me?”

“I might, but tell me anyway, darling.”

“I figure a helicopter with a genuine operational problem would have to be allowed to land, to fix the problem.” In particular, Leo knew of an old Bell two-seater with so great an appetite for oil that its pilot carried extra cans of it. “When the engine’s temperature warning light starts to flash, the ‘copter’s gotta be landed as fast as possible; then the pilot gets out and replenishes the oil. It’s just like my old truck. It takes just a few minutes, and then the ‘copter takes off again.”

“And you’ve picked a remote place that you’re familiar with for this emergency to occur in, so you can check it out while the pilot is pouring oil and before the Bush Hopper patrol surrounds you to escort you out.”

“Right! That’s exactly my plan! I can rent that helicopter from a guy I know. He’ll fly it in, low on oil, to the spot I’ve got in mind near the Barracks.”

“It might work, Leo. You’d get a brownie point for exposing a weakness in the Keepers’ Device.”

“And I’d satisfy my curiosity. I’d find out if what’s there under my feet is the same as what I’ve seen from the air.”

“Leo, what if the pilot is found to be some kind of hostile person?”

“Nah. Big Red’s a regular guy. I knew him in Special Forces.”

“Like Cherokee, Leo?”

“Big Red and Cherokee never had anything to do with each other.”

“Maybe not, but…Well, if you’re really stupid enough to attempt this stunt, at least I don’t see how it can kill you.”

Four Bush Hoppers were on them, just as the engine’s temperature began to rise.

“Go straight down and change your oil,” were the instructions given to Big Red, after he had explained his situation. Big Red winked at Leo and dropped them down at maximum descent speed.

“Knox Ranch, Leo?” Big Red grinned. “Awhile back, a couple of ‘news reporters’ rented a fly-over of that place, to take some pictures. The air dogs were on us right away, and they made my chopper rock and roll. The ‘reporters’ couldn’t get their pictures, and I had to retreat. Because I’d known that would happen, I’d made them pay in advance.”

Leo climbed out while Big Red was emptying the gurgling oil can. The four hovering Bush Hoppers surrounding them were kicking up a wall of dust and debris through which little was visible, but Leo was able to determine that the place itself—the earth beneath his feet and the vegetation growing from it—was not like that of the region which he had explored near the Barracks. He shook his head. He had turned to take the few steps back to Big Red’s helicopter, when he heard Rhoda’s voice.

“Leo, you’re as much trouble as Yohanna once was at getting yourself into an extremely perilous place by a clever trick—and leaving poor me to get you out of it. Don’t look around for me; I’m only in your head. Just think your words to me.”

Shit! Like you’re a god?

“Please, Leo: a goddess—but only a minor deity.”

What place is it that I’m in, Rhoda?

“What do you know about Big Red, your pilot?”

He’s a regular guy I knew in the Forces. Antonia asked me the same question.

“And she let you do this?”

She said she didn’t see how it could kill me, and maybe I’d get a brownie point from the Garth Keepers for finding a weak point in the Ranch’s defensive Device.

“That was sarcasm, cowboy. Your ‘regular guy’ is both a Soviet agent and a Shade. The good news is, your prank has provided us with useful knowledge by revealing his existence to us.”

The bad news is that I’m dead?

The Bell helicopter lifted off and their “air dog” escort rose with them. Leo looked around and smiled approval at Big Red.

But I seem to be alive, Rhoda.