Soothsayer Read online

  “Will you watch Maryanne for me?” asked the little girl. “I don't want her new clothes to get dirty.”

  “I'd be happy to,” answered the Mouse, taking the doll from her.

  “Thank you,” said Penelope. “I guess I'll go now.”

  “Have a good time,” said the Mouse.

  Penelope paused at the door, a worried expression on her face.

  “What's the matter?” asked the Mouse.

  “I don't know any games,” said Penelope. “I haven't seen another little girl since I was five years old.”

  “Then they'll teach you.”

  “What if they don't like me?”

  “Nonsense,” said the Mouse. “You're a very likeable little girl.”

  “But if they don't?”

  “They will,” the Mouse assured her.

  Penelope stared at the doll. “Maybe I should bring Maryanne after all. If they don't like me, maybe they'll like her.”

  “Don't worry so,” said the Mouse soothingly. “Who wouldn't like a sweet little girl like you?”

  “Lots of people,” said Penelope seriously. “Like the Iceman.”

  “You'll be fine,” the Mouse assured her. “Just introduce yourself and I'm sure they'll be happy to meet you.”

  “I hope so,” said Penelope uncertainly. Then she ordered the door to open, stepped out into the corridor, waved a very nervous good-bye to the Mouse and Merlin, and began walking away as the door closed behind her.

  “Who's the Iceman?” asked Merlin, finally inspecting the inexpensively-furnished room with an expression of distaste. “Kind of a personal boogeyman?”

  “Not exactly,” said the Mouse, seating herself on a large chair and tucking her feet beneath her. “I used to work for him, a long time ago.”

  “I never heard you mention him.”

  “He had a different name then,” said the Mouse. “Enough about the Iceman. How did you ever find us?”

  “It's a long story.” He stared at a holographic print of an alien landscape that hung above the bed. “God, that's ugly!”

  “Maybe you should begin at the beginning,” said the Mouse. “How did you get away from all those bounty hunters after you dropped us off on Binder X?”

  “I didn't.”

  The Mouse frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn't get away from them all,” repeated Merlin. “I thought I had lost them, but Three-Fisted Ollie caught up with me on a little hellhole called Feathergill.” He sighed. “Six billion birds, fifty billion fish, and one ugly little Tradertown with two run-down hotels. I'll swear every other person on the planet was an ornithologist or an ichthyologist. If there was one place in the whole galaxy I could have sworn no one would look for me, it was Feathergill.”

  “Obviously you were wrong.”

  “I spent almost a month there,” replied the magician. “Three-Fisted Ollie found me a few days ago.”

  “Obviously he didn't kill you.”

  Merlin chuckled. “Obviously.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He wanted the little girl. He and Cemetary Smith had gotten word that the Yankee Clipper was putting her up for auction to the highest bidder, and their employer wanted her pretty badly. But they had a problem: neither of them had ever seen Penelope close up. Ollie knew I had, and he wanted to make sure no one was selling a ringer, so he and Smith offered me a deal—half a million credits if I could make a positive identification, whether their employer is the high bidder or not.”

  “So that's how you knew where the Yankee Clipper was keeping us!”

  “Of course that's how I knew,” replied Merlin with a smile. “I'm an illusionist, not a magician.” He walked across the faded carpet to a plain wooden chair and sat down on it, grimacing in discomfort. “All interested parties were allowed to make sure the girl was as advertised. In fact, I almost bumped into a pair of mean-looking bounty hunters coming out before I got into my waiter's outfit.”

  The Mouse looked amused. “You're a man of many talents, no question about it,” she said. “Today you were a waiter, and tomorrow you can go back to being an illusionist—but for tonight, you're a hero for rescuing Penelope and me.”

  “I rescued you,” Merlin corrected her. “I just borrowed Penelope.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Mouse warily.

  “If she's worth half a million credits just to identify, think of how much the Yankee Clipper will pay to get her back.” He paused. “Or if we can find a safe enough place to hide her, maybe we'll even conduct the auction ourselves.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You're being awfully dense, Mouse,” said Merlin. “We're sitting on a gold mine. We could make a big enough killing so both of us could retire. I've heard that the bidding is going to start at ten million credits.”

  The Mouse stared at him for a long moment.

  “You're a fool,” she said at last.

  “I thought I was a hero,” he said.

  “I thought so, too. I was wrong.”

  “I don't supposed you'd care to tell me why?”

  “First, I'm very fond of that little girl, and I'm not about to let you or anyone else sell her as if she was some kind of animal. Second, hasn't anyone told you that there's a reason why she's worth so much?”

  “Who cares why?” said Merlin with a shrug. “She's worth a bundle, and we've got her. That's all I need to know.”

  “No, that's not all you need to know,” said the Mouse, looking out the grubby window at Penelope, who was standing by herself, watching a trio of girls at play.

  “All right,” said Merlin, shifting uncomfortably on the straight-backed wooden chair. “Suppose you tell me why she's so valuable.”

  “She's valuable because she has a gift, an ability, that a lot of people, and even governments, want to control.”

  “What gift?”

  “Precognition.”

  “Bunk,” said Merlin. “If she's got precognition, she must know I plan to hold her for ransom. Why did she agree to come with us?”

  The Mouse looked at Merlin and smiled. “Try not to let it hurt your sensitive feelings,” she said, “but you are the least menacing alternative that was presented to her. Compared to the Iceman and the Yankee Clipper and some of the others, you're so low on the scale that she hasn't even bothered getting rid of you.”

  “What do you mean, getting rid of me?” scoffed Merlin. “She's just a kid with a talent. You make her sound like Three-Fisted Ollie.”

  “Don't you understand what precognition means?”

  “Of course I do. It means she can predict the future. It may be a pretty handy talent to have at the racetrack, and I can see why all these high rollers want her around, but I sure as hell don't see why you find it so frightening.”

  “Then I'll spell it out for you,” said the Mouse. “There isn't just one future. There are an infinity of them. She has the ability to see huge numbers of them.”

  “I still don't follow you.”

  “She can help to bring about the one she most wants to happen.”

  “Everybody tries to do that,” he said, still not comprehending.

  “Everybody tries; she succeeds.” The Mouse paused. “Let me give you an example. In maybe half the futures she saw, something went wrong with our escape—the cord broke, the guard woke up too early, she lost her grip on you when you were going up to the roof. She has the ability to see each of those futures, and to figure out what she has to do to stop them from coming to pass.”

  “You're crazy!” he scoffed.

  “Remember those two dead bodies we found next to our ship back on Cherokee?”

  “Are you trying to tell me she killed them?”

  “She chose a future in which they died. That's not the same thing,” said the Mouse. “She's not a killer. She's just a little girl who protects herself the best way she can.”

  Merlin considered what the Mouse had said. “If you're right—and that'
s a big if—it's one hell of an effective way to protect herself.”

  “Yes it is,” agreed the Mouse. “So you see, if she thought you were anything more than a minor irritant, you'd probably have had a stroke or a heart attack on the way over here. At the very least, you'd have tripped on the way to our room and broken a leg.”

  “I don't know whether to be insulted or grateful,” he said wryly. He paused and stared at her. “And you like this kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She's got the whole galaxy against her,” said the Mouse. “I'm the only friend she has.”

  “That's no reason. Half the people we know have prices on their heads, and you don't like them.”

  “She's very sweet, and very lonely.”

  Merlin looked out the window, where Penelope was now playing with the other girls. “I'd hardly call that a lonely little girl,” he said sardonically.

  “I don't have to justify my reasons to you,” said the Mouse, suddenly annoyed. “All you have to know if that she's staying with us.”

  “All right,” said Merlin. “If that's the way it is, that's the way it is. She joins the team and we get the hell out of here first thing in the morning.”

  “We'd better,” said the Mouse, wondering if Merlin had given in too quickly. “You've probably got every bounty hunter on the planet looking for us, to say nothing of the Yankee Clipper and his men.”

  “Right,” he said. “That's a lot of manpower out there. The sooner we get off the planet, the better.”

  “Do you have your own ship?” asked the Mouse.

  “No. I came with Three-Fisted Ollie.”

  “Then we're going to have to find some way to catch a commercial space flight without being spotted.”

  “It won't be easy,” said Merlin. “They'll be watching the spaceport.” He grimaced. “And while they want Penelope alive, I don't think the same applies to you and me.”

  “No, it doesn't,” she agreed.

  Merlin got to his feet. “There must be a bar around here, and I do my best thinking in bars. Care to join me for a drink?”

  The Mouse shook her head. “I'd better stay here in case Penelope come back.”

  Merlin stared at her and finally smiled. “Funny,” he commented. “I never thought of you as the maternal type.”

  “Neither did I,” said the Mouse.

  The magician walked to the door. “I'll be back in half an hour or so. Maybe sooner, if I can figure a way out of this mess.”

  “I'll be here.”

  He left the room, and the Mouse began walking around, checking the holovision and the octaphonic sound system, examining the cabinets in the bathroom and the closets in the bedrooms, more from habit than any particular need.

  Penelope entered the room a few minutes later.

  “You're back early,” noted the Mouse. “Weren't you getting along well with the girls?”

  “They were very nice,” said Penelope.

  “Well, then?”

  “We have to leave, Mouse.”

  “Leave? You mean, leave the hotel?”

  Penelope nodded. “Soon.”

  “Somebody knows we're here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much time have we got?” asked the Mouse.

  “Maybe ten minutes, maybe a little less.”

  “All right,” said the Mouse. “Merlin's in the bar. We'll pick up him and get the hell out of here.”

  “No!” said Penelope.

  “He just risked his life to rescue us,” said the Mouse.

  “We don't want him, Mouse.”

  “We don't desert our friends, Penelope,” replied the Mouse. “I thought I explained that to you before.” She paused. “I wonder how they found us so quickly? I thought we'd be safe here for a few days.”

  “Merlin is telling them right now.”

  “They're here?”

  “No. He's talking to them on a vidphone—but they'll be here very soon.”

  “You actually saw him calling them?”

  Penelope placed a finger to her temple. “In here.”

  The Mouse stared long and hard at the little girl. “You're sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “That double-crossing bastard!”

  “Come on, Mouse,” said Penelope, tugging at her arm. “We have to hurry!”

  “Where is this friend of yours who we were going to meet on Calliope?” asked the Mouse. “We sure as hell could use a friend right now.”

  “I don't know.”

  The Mouse entered the corridor, looked around to make sure Merlin wasn't on his way back to the room, and nodded. “This way,” she said, heading off to her left. “The other way takes us by the bar, and I don't want him to see us leaving.”

  Penelope, her doll clutched against her body, reached out for the Mouse with her free hand.

  “Come on,” said the Mouse, increasing her pace. “If we're lucky, we can catch a groundcab and be out of here before Merlin knows we're gone.”

  They walked past a small holo theater, a coffee shop, and a large indoor pool, then carefully approached the lobby.

  “Have Merlin's friends arrived yet?” whispered the Mouse.

  “Not yet,” said the girl.

  “All right. Let's go.”

  They walked rapidly through the lobby, then stood in front of the hotel as the Mouse tried to hail a groundcab.

  “Isn't it ever going to end?” said Penelope wearily.

  24.

  If Xanadu showed off Calliope's scrubbed, wholesome face to hundreds of thousands of eager tourists, then New Gomorrah displayed its less affluent side. The city rose up out of the grasslands, a carbunkle on the smooth surface of the Western Savannah. It possessed seven multi-environmental hotels, and almost all of the aliens who landed on Calliope immediately made their way to New Gomorrah.

  There were tourist attractions, to be sure, and the streets were not unsafe, and many a safari started off from the veranda of the Norfolk II—but, perhaps because the aliens had less money to spend, or perhaps simply because they were aliens, the attractions New Gomorrah offered were seemed less enticing that those of its eastern sister.

  Where Xanadu offered circuses with fabulous acrobats and exotic animals, New Gomorrah offered carnivals with sideshows and crooked games. Where Xanadu offered theater, New Gomorrah offered holo shows. Where Xanadu's hotels were palatial, New Gomorrah's were plain, functional structures. Where Xanadu offered fine restaurants with elegantly-prepared dishes, New Gomorrah offered a plethora of alien restaurants with foodstuffs most humans had never seen and could not metabolize.

  Moreover, there was something about New Gomorrah that seemed to bring out the bloodlust in its clientele. It was here that one came for hunting, rather than holographic, safaris. It was here that animals and occasionally men and aliens fought to the death before crowds both large and very small. It was here that truly huge fortunes were won and lost in the back rooms of gaming parlors. And it was here that almost every perversion known to man or alien could be experienced if enough money changed hands.

  The Mouse and Penelope had avoided the spaceport, knowing that it would be under surveillance. With the rest of the planet to choose from, Penelope had looked at a map and immediately selected New Gomorrah. It had taken them three full days to get there via the most obscure and circuitious routes, by which time both their energy and their bankroll were equally depleted. The Mouse, who hadn't seen a bed in three days, had wanted to spend their last hundred credits on a hotel, but Penelope insisted that they go directly to the carnivals the were clustered on the outskirts of the city.

  “Why?” asked the Mouse wearily.

  “Because we'll meet my friend at one of them.”

  “You're sure this friend actually exists?” said the Mouse. “I mean, it's not as if he showed up when we needed him before.”

  “We need him even more now,” said Penelope.

  “If he's here now, he'll be here in the morning
,” replied the Mouse. “Let's get a room and catch up on our sleep first.”

  “I don't want to miss him,” insisted Penelope.

  “You make him sound like a traveling salesman.”

  “I don't know what he is. I just know he's here.”

  “And you think he's at one of these carnivals?” asked the Mouse.

  “I don't know. I just have a feeling we should go there.”

  “Well, your feelings have been pretty accurate so far,” said the Mouse with an exhausted sigh. “Let's go.”

  They caught a courtesy vehicle to the nearest carnival, a relatively small establishment that catered to families with small children. They could hear screams of delight from within the tents, and a number of clowns, both human and alien, mingled with the crowd, passing out free tickets to minor attractions.

  “Well?” asked the Mouse.

  Penelope shook her head. “This isn't the place.”

  “Thank God for that,” said the Mouse. “All those well-scrubbed, vacant-faced families would drive me crazy.”

  “Don't you like families, Mouse?” asked Penelope.

  The Mouse shrugged. “I don't know. I never had one.” She smiled down at the girl. “You're family enough for me.”

  “You're my family, too,” said Penelope earnestly. “You and Maryanne.”

  “Where to now?” asked the Mouse.

  “Let's just keep going,” said Penelope. “I'll know when we've arrived.”

  “Whatever you say,” said the Mouse, flagging down another courtesy vehicle.

  They passed an open-air zoo that specialized in alien animals, a huge stadium that seemed not to have any events scheduled that day, and a farm that bred gigantic reptiles from Antarres, and then they came to a sprawling carnival.

  “This is it,” whispered Penelope, and the Mouse signaled the driver to let them off.

  “This thing must cover 30 acres or more,” said the Mouse, standing before the entrance with Penelope. “Do you have any idea what he looks like?”

  “I don't even know if it is a he,” answered Penelope. “But I know we'll find him here, or he'll find us.”

  “Will you know him when you see him?”

  Penelope shrugged. “I suppose so.”