Sunburst: 12

“That business with Prester…” Shandy pulled herself up wearily. “Every country with its own Dump and Pack?”

Helmi stared out at the desolate street. “I hope not! I don’t even want to think of it!”

“What’s happening now?” Shandy asked.

“I don’t know…” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “They’re in the Dump, I guess. I can’t even get a scrambler.”

Peter spoke from the doorway, “I think you are not feeling well.”

“I feel all right. It’s just… I’m alone.” At the intensity of the silence behind her, she turned. “I didn’t mean anything by that, Peter. I know…I have a hell of a nerve saying it, don’t I? When I have you, and the baby coming. But you know how I feel. Peter? You know what I am.” Her voice was pleading. “I never misled you.”

Shandy went to the front door and looked out through the tiny window at a square of sky. Even being Impervious was no help. Helmi’s voice trembled behind her: “You always knew what I was. Peter?”

“I knew. And I accepted it.”

“You tried, but—”

“Don’t tell me what I have in the depth of my soul! If I say I accept it must be enough!”

She whispered, “Don’t make it worse for me. I can’t help being what I am.”

“I have always thought you were making me a—a—”

“A buffer against the world? It’s true, but it’s only part of the truth. It’s not a bad thing, Peter.”

“Fools are made that way.”

“Peter… I could reach into your brain and make you marvelously, idiotically happy with me…then you’d be a fool. Or I could make you miserable. But I’ve never touched you with psi. And there’s never anyone else I’ve wanted to live with. The others—they’re only children.”

Peter said bitterly, “And suppose there were another in the world? An older one whom you do not know now?”

“I’d be scared silly to have a baby by another psi.” Her voice shook with tears. “I’m scared now.”

“Please. I love you, Helmi.”

“I know. And I wish, I wish you knew how I love you.”

Shandy wanted to scream. Her emotions were flayed to the bone. Her weariness penetrated to the narrow. Her spirit ached. Helmi came into the hall. “It’s all right, Shandy. Come on, I’ll make some more coffee and we’ll sweat it out together.”

But there was no time. As Helmi was bringing the coffeepot to the table, a noise began to grow downward out of the sky. Peter’s eye flickered with fear and he leaped up. Helmi caught at his arm. “Wait, Peter.”

“What is it?”

“It’s…Shandy?”

Shandy echoed, “What is it?”

Helmi said faintly, “Will you go outside, and—and see?”

“She must not—”

“It’s all right…let her go.”

Mystified, Shandy opened the front door. There was someone standing there whom she knew. It was Davey, an old enemy, fist foolishly raised in the air, about to knock.

“You!” she said.

“Yeah, me.” He glowered at her. Behind him she saw a helicopter in the vacant lot across the street, engine still running.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t want to have anything to do with you! Prothero sent me to pick you up.”

She glanced helplessly at Helmi. Helmi said, “You’ll have to go, Shandy.”

“I—all right…good-bye Helmi, Peter…” The door closed. She gave him a guarded look. “What would he want with me?”

He snapped. “Maybe he wants to give you a medal!” Then he sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to trick you or anything. I figure we’re about even.” He preceded her down the steps and turned. “He said he needed you.” She came down slowly and followed him. One of her life’s aims was about to be accomplished: she was going to become useful. And she was not at all eager to learn how.

* * * *

The helicopter rose in the air, the earth fell away eerily below, and she saw Sorrel Park as the little place it was, narrow, bitter, twisted, not even an appreciable part of the world. She squeezed close to the window with her head turned away so that the others should not see the fear in her face. Not of death or the Dumplings; she had faced them. But of coming out into the world for good, becoming an organic part of the humanity she had shrunk from without knowing why. The prospect that had made her retreat from Urquhart’s probing; a formless fear, but a real one.

From high in the air she saw the green rim of the world surrounding Sorrel Park; the Outside. It was immense and frightening. She had not been afraid for Sorrel Park when the Dumplings were rampaging there—but now she was afraid for the world.

* * * *

The helicopter landed in the courtyard by headquarters. As the crewmen jumped out, Davey said to Shandy, “Not you. You wait here.”

She waited, gripping her knees with sweating palms. The engine was idling, and the sagging rotors trembled. Urquhart ran out a moment later, with a flustered gait, his thin hair ruffling in the wind. He climbed in. “Shandy? How are you, are you frightened?”

Not the way he meant. “Not yet.”

“Good girl.” He sat beside her and took her hands. His palms were as wet as her own. “Kiddo, you’re going to have to listen very carefully, because I’ve a lot to say, and not much time to say it in. We’ve worked out a set of alternative plans here, and their success will depend mostly on you. Believe me, if we had another Imper…do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take all the care we can. I—anyway, in a couple of minutes a crew of three will come in here, and then Jason with Doydoy and Prester. They’ll give you the creeps because they’re all under hypnosis, they won’t know you, and it’s no use talking to them. I’ve blocked off all their psi except what they need to track the Dumplings, and the non-psis mustn’t know anything they could give away when you come up against them. That kind of thing can’t last very long or we’d have used it on the Dumplings long ago—and they mustn’t be disturbed or distracted till it’s necessary. You understand that.”

She smiled a little. “I won’t pester them.”

“I know you’ll be all right, dear.” He gripped her hands tighter. “But the group of you will be alone. And you’ll be alone as long as they’re in that state. You know what I mean. There’ll be plenty of us coming along behind you, but in this group you’ll be alone. The pilot will be radioing back all the time, but he won’t know what it’s all about.

“Now: if you find them within six hours, and they’re all together in a bunch, or at least a majority, as I think they’ll be, you’ll have to get as close as possible before they know you’re there. That’ll be pretty close, because the psis will be shielding within an hour of picking up the first weak trace. Then you will judge whether there’s enough of them grouped together to warrant going on with the plan.”

“Couldn’t we radio back the information and let you decide?”

“That might draw their attention to us telepathically. We won’t send at all. Of course if they’re out in the open they’ll hear the rotors, but you should be able to get within a mile of them, and there may be enough noise from other traffic to cover you.

“When you’re close, you’ll have to alight and disembark because you won’t need the machine any more. Then you keep close together till you’re within sight of them. With luck, they won’t know what’s going on, and we’ll surprise them. Then if things are okay you’ll speak the code-phrase that will bring your group out of hypnosis—and Jason will know what to do from there.”

“Won’t the Dumplings know as well?”

“Jason can use any one of a number of plans designed to meet any conditions—or the pilot can radio back for changes. None of them knows exactly what they’re going to do right now. It’s the only way we can keep the Dumplings from forestalling us at every move.”

“What happens if we can’t find them in six hours or they’re hopelessly scattered?” Shandy asked.

“You use the code-phrase as soon as you realize that—and it should be fairly early—and we regroup and go ahead with the next plan. But this is how it stands for the time being. Have you got it all straight?”

“Yes…it’s in my head.”

“Not all of it, Shandy. Too much…I know.” He sighed. “Now: the code—and I repeat it depends on you to judge when to use it—the code-phrase is: new insight carries new delight. Something you wouldn’t be likely to say over the back fence.”

“New insight carries new delight…did you choose that?”

He blinked. “No. Jason did. Why?”

“It’s out of Margaret Mead.” You look like you forgot to ask yourself what would Margaret Mead have done. He had answered, Maybe I’ll ask you that one day. “From a passage I liked very much. He knows I read her books, but I never mentioned that bit to him.”

“Well, he can’t read your mind,” said Urquhart, “but I guess he feels he knows your style.” In spite of the time limit he had stressed, he kept sitting there, clutching her hands. “You’re sure you’ve got it straight,” he said doubtfully.

“I’ve got it straight,” she said. “I give the word when we’re in sight of a reasonable concentration of them, or as soon as I see it’s all a flop. New insight carries new delight.”

“Yes. Well.” He pulled his hands away and fished out a handkerchief to swab his head. And he added in a low voice, “You haven’t asked what was going to happen to you after all this.”

She shrugged ruefully. “I guess I was afraid to.”

He shifted in his seat. “You know we want to take the best possible care of you.”

“You want to get the Dumplings back.” She grinned. “Gee whiz, don’t get guilty. I’ve made a choice and I’m not running away.”

“You’ll have to do that, too.” He gripped her shoulder. “After you give that code I want you to run like hell to the first police station you can find and stay there until we come for you. Promise?”

“I promise.”

“We’ll take care of you, I swear it. Now good-bye, Shandy.” He jumped out to the ground and was gone.

She leaned back. No-one had as yet wished her luck.

She supposed it was because they were depending—and wanted her to depend—on her brains.

* * * *

A pilot and two crewmen ran across the yard, leaped into the cabin, and took their places without a word. She said nothing. Out of the window she saw Jason running, with Doydoy on his back as he had been yesterday when he flew out of the cage. Prester was close behind them. Their eyes were blank; their bodies, in spite of Jason’s burden, moved with fatigueless grace.

Prester climbed in first, Jason handed up Doydoy, and they settled him with three cushions piled to support his legs. When they had found their places, the helicopter rose.

She looked at them. Doydoy’s eyes were closed, his glasses had slipped down on his nose, and his hands lay at his sides as though they were as dead as his feet. Prester sat gaping like an idiot boy, hands folded loosely in his lap. Urquhart was right. They gave her the creeps.

Jason most of all. He sat back with his arms folded; his eyes slid back and forth in their sockets. They did not rest on her, though she was in his line of vision; for him she was simply not there. The muscles of his brow twitched and puckered, and when he shifted his shoulders every once in a while the dogtags slid in sweat on his neck.

New insight carries new delight. She also had a power, and as she had expected, it weighed her down. She wanted comfort, but there was none she could ask them to give her.

They were still low in the sky; as soon as Sorrel Park had fallen away behind them, the pilot turned the craft and it seemed as if they were heading back again. She had a moment of panic, but when they swung about in a wide arc she realized they were going to follow the slow course of a widening spiral till they could catch the first trace of the Pack.

So, she saw Sorrel Park from east, west, north, south; dirty, crammed, jumbled, spirit defiled by barbed wire, smoke from the coal plant staining the pale sky, narrow river carrying detritus out to a distant watershed. The low spiral widened till the town was blued with haze and almost pretty. She thought wryly: at least we’re getting out of Sorrel Park.

The silence within hung like a weight beneath the noisy rotors. None of the psis stirred, and she had time to consider the implications of Prester Vernon’s black skin. If his grandfather had been exposed to radiation…if Nigeria had a Blowup and a Dump of its own…if the Dumplings were not found soon…

“Go down here.”

The voice startled her. It was metallic, toneless, and perfectly articulated—and it was coming from Doydoy.

“Now?” The pilot’s voice was equally toneless.

“Yes. A few minutes, please.” Shandy was gaping at Doydoy, unable to believe her ears. After a moment, she realized what had happened. Doydoy, reason divorced from emotions under hypnosis, had been freed of his stutter.

The helicopter sank into the middle of an overgrown field, and they waited. No-one moved. Shandy aligned her thoughts as best she could with Doydoy’s unimaginable mind: with images in the multifaceted eyes of grasshoppers; with twigs and grasses bruised, stones whose structures had been twisted and distorted, in the wake of the Djinns.

Doydoy opened his eyes and looked around.

The pilot called over his shoulder, “Been here?”

“Yes. Go on.”

The pilot sent his message to HQ and they rose and began the new spiral around the X of the field.

Before they had gone round twice Doydoy began to twist in his seat. “He is upset.” The metallic voice startled her once again because it was quivering with an amusement he could not have been consciously feeling.

“Who?”

“The farmer. He heard a noise in the chicken-coop and when he went out to look there was nothing left but feathers, bones and heads. It gets him, he says.”

“Where is he?”

“On the road two miles west by north, going north with the sheriff in the jeep.” The helicopter turned west and the pilot began to murmur over the radio once again.

“He is telling his story over and over. What got him, he says, was the smell of roasting in the air.”

The Dumplings were still too civilized to eat raw meat, but they made their own instant cooking arrangements. Five minutes later the helicopter passed over the head of the farmer gesticulating beside the sheriff in the jeep; swung north, found the farm and circled it. And drew its invisible line between field and farm, an arrow pointing out into the world, toward the Dumplings.

“The animals are disturbed,” said Doydoy.

Beyond the arrow, the helicopter began to swing back and forth in a widening fan-shaped course. It swung and swung like a cradle suspended from a tree-branch until, though she was not sleepy, she became numb from rhythm, vibration, weariness.

It was noon, a fantastic unreal zenith of the day. The sky was empty.

“Go down here.” A cropped field this time; a flock of sheep scattered bleating for the fence-rails. They had not been eaten—perhaps they had narrowly escaped being slaughtered for fun. “Northwest now.” The incorporated mind drew a new arrow-line between farm and field; again they rose and began a splayed course outward.

At the peak of the third pendulum-swing, Doydoy cried out. “It’s terrible!” There was no amusement in his voice.

The pilot turned. “What?”

“The pain.”

“Huh?”

“Woman…left for dead by the roadside. Three miles north of Pineville, Highway 18.”

Shandy pressed her face to the window; a crumpled shape half-hidden by leaves was down there by the side of the road. But they would not stop. She began to tremble. She wanted to yell Stop! There was life down there, ebbing. She felt the pain and the warm wet of the blood seeping in the pebbled earth, and memories enough to drive one mad. New insight carries new delight. She crammed the knuckles of her forefingers in her mouth and bit down. She was alone.

The course was now a straight one, due north. Doydoy said, “We are shielding.” Shandy glanced at the watch on Jason’s wrist. Four hours more for the limit in which she must speak the phrase. Left for dead by the roadside, she thought bitterly, would not wake them.

There was no escape. The course ran north, eating miles, and a blue line threaded itself across the horizon. It looked like the boundless sea to Shandy, but she knew it was Lake Michigan, and the smoky blur before it, Chicago.

In a brief fantasy she saw the helicopter landing and stopping, herself jumping out without a word to the blind blank figures beside her, and losing herself in the great city, out in the world and free. But she was in no more danger of doing that than of being able to fly like Doydoy.

The countryside thickened with houses and gas stations, planes appeared overhead, noise drowned out by their own; further away, gnat swarms of hovercraft were buzzing over the city. The distant haze resolved itself, not smoke as it would have been in Sorrel Park, but the mist of a lakeside city steaming in a drizzling June day.

The mist thinned on approach; towers still unbroken rose like marvels, a million windows flickering against the pale sky. She had imagined them, but had never expected to know them, and she reveled in them. The Pack was loose, the woman was bleeding by the roadside, and she was merely happy to be alive.

There were no visible scars on the surface of the city. It extended itself beneath them in squares, segments, triangles, rhombuses, parallelograms, and the traffic moved in a metallic many-celled stream from narrow streets into twisting knotted entries to multiple-laned freeways furious with urgency and complex as the vascular tree. White lights glared in the dull day from every shaft of glass and steel. The upper air quivered with its own traffic, and on distant fields there were ships rising beyond the air.

Within a mile there were forty-five people who could destroy it all with wish.

They moved forward slowly. She looked down; something was happening to the surge of mid-day traffic. It was beginning to ebb, with much snarling and clogging, from the crowded center. Small black-and-white saucer-shaped police-copters were buzzing over intersections, leading automobiles and buses away from the center. Storm-warnings were up.

“Right there,” Doydoy said.

“That’s the Loop.”

“No. South. The computers.”

The pilot whistled, impressed even under hypnosis. “The Chicago Pentagon!”

Now Doydoy began to twitch and thresh in his seat, caught in an unconscious terror. Shandy watched helplessly. But the pilot was calm. He circled in a slow downward spiral, like a gull wheeling toward the sea. Doydoy’s legs had slid from the pile of cushions; Jason and Prester were still and gaping beside him, but he clawed at the air in an extremity of fear; sweat broke out on him so sharp and sudden the splotches flared on his shirt like spattered raindrops. He twitched and stuttered, “Com-Com-munica-cations Cen-Cen-Center in-in Depar-par-par—”

“Department of Strategic Services!” the pilot yelled. “Right!”

Shandy pressed her face to the down slanting window and saw a remarkably insignificant office building surrounded by a great swathe of grass dotted with flowerbeds. The buzzing craft around them had withdrawn; the sky was empty.

And Doydoy began to wail. The sound was terrifying; the power of his fear of the Dumplings was something no hypnosis could control.

The grounds below were deserted. Shandy pulled at Jason’s arm. “Quick! Are they down there? Are they all there?”

Jason blinked. “Yes, I—”

Above them, with a savage rip, the rotors broke off and flew to the four winds; the helicopter plunged out of the sky. Shandy, trying frantically to force the codephrase between her lips, found her throat torn open in an endless scream.