Soothsayer Read online

  “You're not worried about that?” asked the Mouse.

  “No,” answered the little girl.

  “Why not?” persisted the Mouse. “He'll probably take twenty or thirty of his men down with him to guard us.”

  “That's all right,” said Penelope with no show of concern.

  “Why is it all right?”

  “Because I'll find a friend there.”

  “But you don't know who?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know this friend will be able to help us?”

  Penelope shrugged. “I just know.”

  “You're putting an awfully big burden on a friend you've never met,” said the Mouse.

  “Oh, he's not the only one who can help us,” said Penelope with a shrug.

  “He isn't?” said the Mouse, surprised. “Who else is there?”

  “There's the Forever Kid.”

  “He's on this planet?”

  “He will be, once his ship tells him we've landed.”

  “You didn't mention Carlos Mendoza,” noted the Mouse. “Isn't he still with the Kid?”

  Penelope frowned. “Yes, he is—but he doesn't want to help me.”

  “I've told you before: I won't let him hurt you.”

  “You can't stop him,” said the girl. She sighed. “Maybe my new friend will be able to.”

  “Don't worry about Carlos,” said the Mouse firmly. “Trust me: he does a lot of things I disapprove of, but killing children isn't one of them.”

  “He frightens me.”

  “I can't figure out why,” said the Mouse. “You've seen Three-Fisted Ollie and Cemetary Smith and the Golden Duke and all these other killers. Why does a small, middle-aged man frighten you worse than they do?”

  “Because none of the others wanted to kill me,” explained Penelope. “They were just doing their jobs.”

  “The Golden Duke would have killed you if King Tout had ordered him to.”

  “That's different,” said Penelope.

  “How?”

  “He didn't hate me. Neither did any of the others, not even 32.” She paused. “But the Iceman doesn't want to kill me for money, or because someone tells him to.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “He doesn't even know me, and he wants me dead.” Two more tears followed the first one. “I don't know why. I've never done anything to him.”

  “You're wrong,” said the Mouse soothingly. “He really doesn't want to hurt you.”

  “I'm not wrong,” insisted Penelope.

  “Then he's destined to be disappointed,” said the Mouse earnestly.

  “Why did you ever like him, Mouse?” asked Penelope.

  “I was lonely,” said the Mouse with a sigh, “and sometimes lonely people make poor choices.”

  “Were you lonely when you found me?”

  “No,” said the Mouse, hugging her. “You were the best choice I ever made.”

  “Really?” asked Penelope, brightening somewhat.

  “Really.”

  “And we'll always be together?”

  “Always,” promised the Mouse.

  Then Penelope remembered Maryanne, and brought her out of the bathroom and began playing with her. The Mouse watched her for almost an hour as the little girl lavished her love and attention upon the rag doll. Then the Mouse fell asleep, and a few moments later Penelope followed suit.

  It was early morning when the door slid into the wall and the Yankee Clipper entered their compartment.

  “Doesn't anyone ever knock?” demanded the Mouse irritably.

  “Wake up and pay attention,” announced the pirate, walking over he announced, walking over to a chair and seating himself. “There's been a change of plans: It seems that some of the parties who are interested in the girl have decided that they wouldn't feel comfortable transacting their business aboard what they consider to be the flagship of a pirate fleet.” He smiled wryly. “I suppose I'd feel much the same way if I were in their place.” He paused. “So we'll be transferring the two of you to a nearby planet, and we'll complete our business there.”

  “Could you identify these parties?” asked the Mouse.

  “Why bother yourselves with details?” he replied. “You'll know who makes the high bid for her, and the rest don't really matter.”

  “So it's to be an auction?”

  The Yankee Clipper laughed. “She won't be placed on a block, with an auctioneer showing off her teeth, if that's what you mean. I'll allow the various interested parties to ascertain that she's in my possession, and then I'll determine which reward I choose to accept.”

  “The highest one, no doubt,” said the Mouse dryly.

  “Not necessarily,” said the Yankee Clipper seriously. “The Democracy wants her, as does the Canphorite Confederation. I've had certain, shall we say, disagreements with both governments; a blanket pardon from either one, in addition to money, might weigh heavily in my consideration of the various rewards.”

  “Why?” asked the Mouse, curious. “Do you plan to stop being a pirate?”

  “Certainly not,” he answered. “But at the moment, I cannot invest my money within the Democracy or the Confederation without putting it at risk. Furthermore,” he added, “I would like to think that if worst came to worst, there would be a government somewhere that would allow me sanctuary.”

  “Seems like a defeatist attitude to me,” said the Mouse.

  “Does it?” asked the Yankee Clipper. “It seems like a fiscally and politically sound attitude to me. After all, who knows what tomorrow may bring,"—suddenly he grinned—"other than a certain little girl, that is?”

  “When do we leave?” asked Penelope.

  “1100 hours, ship's time,” answered the pirate. “This ship is too large to land, so we'll transfer to a shuttlecraft.”

  “'We?'” repeated the Mouse.

  “Absolutely,” said the Yankee Clipper. “I'm coming with you.” He smiled. “I know it's irregular for a captain to leave his vessel in unsecured territory, but I think unusual situations call for unusual responses.” He turned to Penelope. “I have no idea what you can do to me if I stay aboard the ship. Probably I have nothing to worry about, but I try never to deal in probabilities when I can deal in certainties. And it's certain that you won't cause the shuttlecraft to crash if you're in it, so I plan to be in it too.” He paused. “We're going to become great friends, Penelope, my child. I don't plan to let you out of my sight until the transaction is complete, and I'll always have at least half a dozen armed men surrounding us.” He smiled at her again. “If I choke on a meal, if I have a stroke, if anything at all untoward befalls me, they will have orders to kill you instantly. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” said Penelope.

  “Good,” said the Yankee Clipper. “Then we might as well make the best of the circumstances.” He paused. “At least we shouldn't be bored. We'll be transacting our business on one of the most interesting planets in the Cluster.”

  “Oh?” said the Mouse.

  He nodded. “It's a world I've always meant to visit, but I simply haven't found the time until now.”

  “What's it's name?” asked the Mouse.

  “Calliope,” replied the Yankee Clipper.

  21.

  Calliope was known throughout the Quinellus Cluster as a pleasure planet and, to be sure, it had more than its share of whorehouses and drug dens and perverse amusements—but that is a very narrow definition of the word “pleasure", and Calliope was, after all, not just a small section of a jaded city, but an entire planet.

  In the western hemisphere it boasted a dinosaur park, a 22,000-square-mile reserve housing some 80,000 gargantuan, warm-blooded reptiles from the primeval planet of Quantos VIII. An inland ocean was filled with imported predators and prey from Pinnipes II, and each of the hundreds of hotels lining the beaches supplied not only a fleet of fishing boats but also a number of small but comfortable submarines for their clientele's viewing pleasure.

  There were enormous
ranches on which the customers could participate in real cattle drives, huge rings where the matadors would face the brave bulls (and whatever other brave but doomed animals were released in them), a dazzling array of safari excursions, and golf courses by the thousands.

  Just beyond the 19,000-hectare amusement park near the eastern hemisphere's spaceport was a racetrack that could accomodate any of the seventeen species of animals from as many oxygen worlds upon which pari-mutual betting was permitted. There were even clones of the now-extinct horse of Earth, and Man o’ War, Citation, Secretariat and Seattle Slew met one another and their most famous competitors on a regular basis.

  Fully one-third of the Great Eastern Continent was set aside as a hunting reserve for safari enthusiasts, and so well-known was it among the afficionados of blood sports that, far from bragging about the trophies that had been taken, the government actually boasted about the number of hunters who had been killed by the animals they were stalking.

  Mount Ramsey boasted the second-longest continuous ski slope in the galaxy, and it was said that an enthusiast could begin his descent before dawn and still be racing downhill when nightfall occurred.

  There were daily vehicle races on the salt flats, daily boat races down the River Jordan, daily sporting championships of a thousand different types in the dozen huge stadiums that had been erected across the planet. There were nine cities, of which Xanadu was the largest. Each city supplied an endless array of round-the-clock entertainment, restaurants, and shopping; two of the nine catered almost exclusively to aliens, while a third, which bore the name of New Gomorrah, possessed seven different multi-environment hotels as well as an enclosed amusement park for chlorine-breathers.

  Though it was within the Quinellus Cluster and hence officially a part of the Inner Frontier, Calliope was actually run by a number of cartels from the Spiral Arm and the Galactic Rim, and was patronized, in increasing numbers, by vacationers and sightseers from within the Democracy itself.

  The Yankee Clipper's party, consisting of himself, the Mouse, Penelope Bailey, and eighteen armed guards, landed at the space port near Xanadu, and soon checked into a very exclusive, very private hotel on the outskirts of the city, not too far from one of the smaller amusement parks. The Mouse and Penelope shared the pirate's palatial suite, but the doors and windows were under constant surveillance by his men, who worked their jobs in six-man shifts. Food, drink, and even new clothing for Maryanne, was brought to the suite, but neither Penelope nor the Mouse was allowed to leave it, and whenever the Yankee Clipper found it necessary to leave, one of his men entered and kept his weapon trained on the Mouse until the pirate returned.

  On the morning of their second day there, the Yankee Clipper, his beard newly trimmed, his clothes even more brilliant than usual, entered the parlor of their suite and seated himself on a large leather sofa.

  “Well, another day or two and you'll be on your way, young lady,” he said to Penelope.

  “Who's bidding for her?” asked the Mouse.

  The pirate chuckled. “You might better ask who isn't. This is a very popular little girl we've got here. The Democracy wants her, the Confederation wants her, two scientific institutions want her, a religious foundation wants her, and nine private parties want her.” He paused, lit a cigar, and balanced it on the edge of an equisite crystal ashtray. “Potemkin tells me that they should all have arrived here by tomorrow night. We'll have a nice dinner, exchange a few pleasantries, and transact our business—and then,” he added, “I can finally stop worrying about what you might do to me.”

  “I can't do anything to you,” said Penelope, standing before a huge window that overlooked the city center. “I'm your prisoner.”

  “You've been other people's prisoner in the past,” said the pirate. “Most of them aren't around to tell what happened to them, but I'll wager that it wasn't pleasant.”

  “They were bad men,” said Penelope with a shrug.

  “I hope you'll remember just how well I'm treating you,” said the Yankee Clipper.

  “You're the worst of them all.”

  “Nonsense. I saved you from King Tout, didn't I?”

  “That doesn't make you a good man,” replied the girl. “Just a greedy one.”

  “I'm also a very untrusting one,” shot back the Yankee Clipper, picking up his cigar and taking a puff of it. “If anything happens to me while I'm on the planet, my men have orders to kill your friend here.”

  “If anything happens to you, Mouse will have nothing to do with it,” said Penelope, unable to hide a worried expression from her face.

  “Oh, they'll try to kill you too,” said the pirate. “But I don't know if it can be done. On the other hand, I'm sure they can kill the Mouse, and she'll be the one they shoot first.” He smiled at her. “I hope you'll remember that.”

  “You're a bad man,” said Penelope. “You're going to be very sorry you treated us like this.”

  “Nonsense,” scoffed the Yankee Clipper. “I've treated you like visiting royalty.” He gestured vaguely with a hand. “Look at this parlor. Elegant furniture, beautiful views, original oil paintings on the walls, room service to cater to your every whim. I even had the bar stocked with fruit juice and soft drinks, just for you.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Penelope seriously. “I may just be a little girl, but I have a good memory. Someday you'll be sorry.”

  “Someday I'll be dead of old age, too,” said the pirate with a shrug. “In the meantime, though, I suggest you think about what will happen to your friend if any harm befalls me.”

  He walked out of the parlor, and the door closed behind him.

  “You've got one Standard day to find your unknown friend,” remarked the Mouse. “Or, more to the point, he has one Standard day to find us, since it doesn't seem very likely that we're going to get out of this suite unless someone kills all of the Clipper's guards.”

  “We'll get out,” said Penelope with certainty.

  “How?”

  The little girl shrugged. “I'm not sure yet. There are a lot of futures.”

  “There always were,” said the Mouse. “The question is: can you influence some of them enough to get us out of here?”

  Penelope made no reply, and since she seemed to be concentrating on something that only she could see or fathom, the Mouse slipped a disk into the holo player and watched a selection of three-dimensional advertisements of the local entertainments. She learned that she had just missed a Wild West pageant, recreated from Earth's ancient past, as well as a much-ballyhooed match for the freehand middleweight championship of the Inner Frontier. Upcoming attractions included a visit from the Cluster's most famous circus, the conclusion of a foot race around Calliope's equator that had begun 82 days previously, and a recreation of the decisive battle of the Sett War, which would take place on the sprawling savannah some 15 miles to the west of Xanadu.

  “Damn!” muttered the Mouse. “It just isn't fair!”

  “What isn't?” asked Penelope.

  “All my life I've dreamed of a world like this, teeming with fat men and fatter wallets,” said the Mouse, “and now that I'm finally here, I'm locked away in a hotel so close to all that money I can almost taste it.” A wistful expression came over her face. “Do you know what Merlin and I could do here, how much money we could make?”

  “I thought I was your partner,” said Penelope in hurt tones.

  “You are,” the Mouse assured her.

  “Then why are you talking about Merlin?”

  “Because Merlin is my partner, too—and he had the deftest fingers I ever saw,” answered the Mouse. “You and I are good at other things—but Merlin could have started at one side of this hotel's lobby, walked to the other side, and picked up 20 wallets by the time he got there.” She smiled. “And oh, what he could have done circulating in the crowd at the racetrack.”

  “I can make you more money than he could,” said Penelope.

  “I don't doubt it.”

 
“We don't need him.”

  “We need all the help we can get, from anyone who will give it to us,” said the Mouse.

  “Not from Merlin.”

  “Why are you suddenly so concerned with Merlin?” asked the Mouse. “You haven't mentioned him in weeks.”

  “We were happy without him,” said Penelope.

  The Mouse sighed. “You have to understand that you don't stop liking a friend, or being loyal to him, just because you've found someone you like better.”

  Penelope stared at her.

  “Do you really like me better?”

  “Yes,” said the Mouse. “But don't forget—Merlin has been leading Three-Fisted Ollie and Cemetary Smith and some other bounty hunters away from us for weeks now.” She paused. “What kind of friends would we be if we didn't want him back after he risked his life for us?”

  “You're right,” said Penelope after some consideration. “I'm sorry.”

  “It's all right,” said the Mouse soothingly. “You don't have to apologize.”

  “I just worry about being alone again.”

  “I worry about how we're going to get out of here,” responded the Mouse. She started making another round of the parlor—her fourteenth since arriving—testing the walls, the windows, the floors, the ventillation system, looking for weak points and finding none.

  “There are lots of ways,” said Penelope, as the Mouse continued walking around the parlor, probing for possible means of escape. “I just don't know which one I can make happen yet.”

  “Do they concern your friend?”

  Penelope shook her head. “He doesn't even know who we are.”

  “Then how can he be your friend?”

  The little girl shrugged helplessly. “I don't know.”

  “Are you certain you're right?”

  “I think so,” said Penelope. “Picking the right future isn't as easy as it used to be. I see more things now, things I don't always understand.”

  “What kind of things?” asked the Mouse, finally completing her latest inspection of the premises and turning back to the little girl.

  “I don't know,” said Penelope. “Just things.”