Soothsayer Read online

  The Mouse was silent for a moment, trying to understand what she had been told, and to determine how much of it was true.

  “It's my turn,” said Penelope.

  “Your turn?”

  “To ask you more questions.”

  “All right,” said the Mouse.

  “Were you always called the Mouse?”

  “No. I had a real name once.”

  “What was it?”

  The Mouse smiled a bittersweet smile. “That was a long time ago, and I never think about it any more.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Very.”

  “How old are you?” asked Penelope.

  “Thirty-seven Standard years.”

  “You're much older than Merlin,” observed Penelope.

  “Not that much,” said the Mouse defensively. “Six or seven years, that's all.”

  “What did you do before you met him?”

  “All kinds of things,” said the Mouse.

  “Were you ever married?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever want to be?”

  The Mouse shrugged. “I thought I did once. I was wrong.”

  “Is that when you became the Mouse?”

  The Mouse smiled. “Not quite.”

  “How does Merlin do his tricks? Are they really magic?”

  “No, not really; they're just illusions. And he never tells me how they work.”

  “But he's your friend, isn't he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he should tell you.”

  “But because I'm his friend, I never ask.”

  “I don't understand,” said Penelope.

  “When you get a little bigger, you will.” Suddenly the Mouse became aware of a large man staring at them through the doorway that faced the lobby. When she met his gaze he looked away.

  “Penelope,” said the Mouse softly, “I want you to turn your head very slowly and tell me if you recognize the man standing by the pillar just beyond the door. Not quickly, now; just casually, as if you're bored and are looking around.”

  Penelope did as she was instructed, then turned back to the Mouse.

  “Have you ever seen him before?” asked the Mouse.

  Penelope shook her head. “No.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I may be wrong, but I've got a feeling that he's staring right at us.” She reached out and took Penelope's hand in her own. “There's no reason to be afraid. He won't make a move while there are so many witnesses. We're safe for the moment.”

  “I knew it wouldn't stop,” said Penelope unhappily.

  The Mouse let go of Penelope's hand and began checking her weaponry beneath the table: the knife in her boot, the acid spray in her pocket pouch, the tiny sonic pistol tucked beneath her belt. When she was sure everything was in order, she instructed the computer to bill her room, and then got to her feet.

  “Well, we might as well find out if I'm right or wrong,” she announced. “Stay near me, but always keep me between you and that man, do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “And don't be afraid. No one's going to hurt you.”

  “I won't be afraid,” promised Penelope.

  The Mouse took Penelope by the hand and walked out of the restaurant toward the airlift. The large man fell into step about forty feet behind them.

  “Damn!” muttered the Mouse under her breath.

  She pulled Penelope onto the invisible cushion of air and let it propel them to the eighth floor. The large man took the airlift just to the left, about ten seconds behind them.

  They stepped off at the eighth floor and began walking toward their room. The large man remained some forty feet behind them.

  The Mouse reached her door and began entering the computer lock combination, then felt a small hand on her wrist.

  “Don't,” whispered Penelope.

  The Mouse turned to her.

  “There's someone inside.”

  “How do you know?” asked the Mouse.

  “I just know,” said Penelope with total conviction.

  The Mouse took her at her word, grabbed her hand again, and began walking down the corridor, away from the large man.

  “There'd better be a stairway!” she muttered.

  They turned a corner and saw an exit sign above one of the doors.

  “Faster!” said Penelope, breaking into a run, and the Mouse followed suit.

  They entered the stairwell and the door slammed shut behind them, just as the large man reached the corner. The Mouse pulled her knife out and crouched in the shadows, waiting.

  “That won't work!” whispered Penelope.

  “It'd damn well better work!” said the Mouse.

  “It won't,” she repeated. “Follow me.”

  She darted down the stairs, and the Mouse raced after her. When she reached the fifth floor, they could hear the large man coming down the stairs behind them.

  On the fifth floor, Penelope stopped and looked into the darkness behind the door for an instant, then reached into the shadows and grabbed a broom.

  “You go first,” she said.

  “Not a chance!” whispered the Mouse, tightening her grip on her knife.

  “You can't hurt him with a knife!” hissed Penelope. She held up the broom. “This will stop him.”

  The Mouse stared at her as the little girl placed the broom on the stairs, then ran down to the next landing.

  “Hurry!” urged Penelope, as the large man came into view.

  The Mouse raced down to the landing, then turned and prepared to do battle.

  The man had a sonic pistol in his hand, and as he surged down the stairs he was so intent upon his quarry that he didn't see the broom until he tripped over it. He careened off a wall, grunted in surprise, then fell heavily down the stairs, bellowing in pain. As he rolled onto to the landing, the Mouse crouched down and expertly slit his throat.

  Suddenly Penelope began crying, and wrapped her arms around the Mouse.

  “Won't they ever stop?” she whimpered.

  The Mouse, breathing heavily, stroked Penelope's blonde hair for a moment, then stepped back and held the little girl's face between her hands.

  “Don't ever disobey my orders again,” she said. “I told you to keep me between you and him.”

  “Now you're mad at me, too!” wept Penelope. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are friends,” said the Mouse. “That's why I'm mad at you. You might have been killed because you didn't obey me.”

  “But your knife wouldn't have hurt him,” protested the little girl.

  “Hurt him? It killed him.”

  “But you wouldn't have cut his neck. You would have stabbed his chest or his belly.”

  “It would have killed him just as dead.”

  Penelope shook her head. “It wouldn't have hurt him,” she repeated stubbornly.

  “Why do you keep saying that?” demanded the Mouse.

  “Look,” said Penelope, pointing to the dead man.

  The Mouse knelt down and examined him, then looked up, surprised.

  “He was wearing body armor!” she exclaimed.

  “That's what I was trying to tell you.”

  “But it was hidden under his tunic,” continued the Mouse. “How did you know it was there?”

  “I didn't.”

  “But you said you did.”

  Penelope shook her head again. “I said I knew your knife wouldn't hurt him.”

  The Mouse frowned. “But you didn't know why?”

  “No.”

  “And how did you know there was a broom behind that door?”

  Penelope shrugged.

  “I thought we were friends,” said the Mouse. “Friends don't keep secrets from each other.”

  “I saw it,” said Penelope.

  “You've never been in this stairwell.”

  “I know.”

  “Then how could you have seen it?” persisted the Mou
se.

  “I saw it"—Penelope pointed to her head—"in here.”

  5.

  “Let me get this straight,” said the Mouse. “Are you telling me that you can see the future?”

  “There are lots of futures,” said Penelope. “I don't see all of them.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see what's going to happen next ... sometimes.”

  “But you were wrong,” said the Mouse. “You saw me stabbing the armored vest, and I didn't.”

  “I try to make the best future happen,” said Penelope. She frowned. “But it doesn't always work. People still try to hurt me.”

  “You mean you could see what would happen if I tried to stab him, and also what would happen if I didn't?”

  “It's not like reading a book,” explained the girl. “I could see that if you stabbed him, he'd kill us. So I ran, and when we came to the fifth floor, I saw that if I picked up the broom and placed it a certain way on the staircase, he'd trip over it.”

  “And what about our room?” continued the Mouse. “Did you see someone inside it?”

  Penelope nodded. “There was a man there. If we had gone in, he'd have shot us.”

  “How did you ever get captured by Jimmy Sunday or the alien or this man you call 32?”

  Penelope shrugged. “Sometimes I can't get away in any of the futures I can see.”

  “How long have you been able to do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “See into the future.”

  “Always, I guess.”

  “How far ahead can you see?”

  “It changes.”

  “A minute? An hour? A week?”

  “Not a week,” answered Penelope. “Usually just a few seconds. Sometimes maybe a minute.” She paused. “And I can't always do it. Usually just when I have to.”

  “Like when someone's going to do something bad to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does it work?” asked the Mouse. “Do you read their minds?”

  “No. I just see what's going to happen, and then if I don't like it, I try to change it.”

  “That's quite a gift,” said the Mouse. “Now I know why they want you back so badly.”

  “I don't want to go back,” whined Penelope. “I want to stay with you.”

  “Nobody's sending you back,” said the Mouse. She suddenly became acutely aware of the dead man at their feet. “We've got to get out of here.” She began walking down the stairs.

  “What about our clothes?” asked Penelope.

  “Is the man still in our room?”

  “I don't know.”

  “It's not worth the risk. We'll buy some new clothes on the next world. Come on.”

  They descended to the lobby, walked out the front door, and hailed a landcab.

  As it approached the spaceport, Penelope tugged at the Mouse's sleeve.

  “We shouldn't get out here,” she said. “It's not safe.”

  “You're sure?”

  Penelope nodded.

  “But we have to get off the planet. Can you see how they plan to attack us?”

  “No. I just know it's not safe.”

  “Then you don't know if we can elude them?”

  “What does elude mean?”

  “It means to keep away from them.”

  “I don't know,” answered Penelope.

  “All right,” said the Mouse. “We'll play it safe.” She leaned forward and instructed the driver to take them to the vehicle rental section. Once there, she paid off the driver and rented a landcar.

  They drove through the streets of Haggard, found an all-night grocery store, bought a dozen sandwiches and a few drink containers, and then headed out of town.

  “Where are we going?” asked Penelope, hugging Jennifer protectively.

  “Away from anyone who wants to hurt you,” answered the Mouse.

  “Good,” said Penelope. “You're my only friend.” She leaned against the Mouse, and was sound asleep a moment later.

  The Mouse drove through the night. The vegetation became increasingly sparse, and by sunrise she found herself on the outskirts of a vast desert. She pulled off the road, brought the vehicle to a stop, and began sorting through maps on the viewscreen.

  “Where are we?” asked Penelope, waking up and rubbing her eyes.

  “I'm not sure,” said the Mouse, still going through maps. “Ah, here we are.”

  “Where?”

  “The Devil's Anvil.”

  “What's that?”

  “That's the name of the desert.” She pointed to a tiny dot in the middle of it. “And this is a village called Ophir.” She hit two buttons on the vehicle's computer, and the map was replaced by a readout. “One bar, one store, one hotel.”

  “Why would anyone build a city in the middle of a desert?” asked Penelope.

  “Good question,” said the Mouse. “Let's find out.” She issued another command to the computer. “Hmm. We may be in luck.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there's a diamond pipe about five miles from Ophir.”

  “What's a diamond pipe?”

  “A mine,” replied the Mouse. “They're still pulling diamonds out of it, or Ophir would be a ghost town.”

  “Why does that make us lucky?” persisted Penelope.

  “Because where there's that kind of money, there's usually a ship or two. No mine owner is going to drive 300 miles into the Devil's Anvil to check on business.”

  “He'd take a plane, not a spaceship.”

  “Maybe,” said the Mouse. “But if he's from off-planet, he'll have a ship—and between you and me, I don't know why anyone would choose to live on this ugly little dirtball if he could afford to live somewhere else.”

  “And if he owns a diamond mine, he can afford to live somewhere else,” concluded Penelope, inordinately proud of herself for following the Mouse's train of thought to its logical conclusion.

  “Right,” said the Mouse. She sighed. “Well, there's no sense wasting any more time. Let's go.”

  She pulled back onto the road and headed off across the Devil's Anvil.

  After about 65 kilometers the road vanished, and the Mouse immediately slowed down.

  “You can keep going fast,” said Penelope. “The ground is hard here.”

  “I know,” said the Mouse. “But if I don't slow down, we're going to leave a cloud of dust and sand, and that will make us easier to spot if anyone's following us.” She turned to the girl. “Are they?”

  Penelope shrugged. “I don't know.”

  “Well, since we don't know that they aren't, we'll do it the safe way.”

  “But it's hot.”

  “The air conditioner can only do so much,” answered the Mouse. “The ground temperature must be close to 60 degrees Celsius. Just try not to think about it.”

  Penelope was silent for a moment. Then she turned to the Mouse. “The more I try not to think about it, the more I do,” she complained.

  “Then take a nap.”

  “But I just woke up.”

  “Then let's talk,” said the Mouse. “Maybe that will take your mind off the heat.”

  “All right,” agreed Penelope.

  “Tell me about this man called 32.”

  Penelope shook her head. “I don't want to talk about people who were mean to me,” she said adamantly.

  “Suits me,” said the Mouse. “Who hasn't been mean to you?”

  “You and Merlin.”

  “There must have been someone else in your whole life.”

  The little girl was silent for a moment, lost in thought. “Maybe my mother,” she said.

  “Only maybe?”

  “She let them take me away.”

  “She may not have had a choice.”

  “You had a choice,” Penelope pointed out. “You didn't have to save me, but you did.”

  “You're not saved yet,” said the Mouse. “First we've got to get off this world, and then connect with Merlin again.”<
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  “And then what?”

  The Mouse shrugged. “I don't know.”

  “You won't make me go back?”

  “No, I won't make you go back,” said the Mouse. “I already told you that.”

  “Lots of people tell me things.” Penelope paused. “Most of them lied.”

  “You're too young to be that cynical.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Penelope.

  The Mouse sighed. “It means too many people have lied to you.”

  “We're talking about me again,” complained Penelope. “I thought we were going to talk about you.”

  “I have a better idea,” said the Mouse. “Let's talk about us.”

  “Us?”

  “You and me.”

  “What about us?” asked the girl.

  “Well, we're a team now.”

  “We are?” said Penelope, her face brightening.

  The Mouse nodded. “We're together, aren't we?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the same men who want you are after me, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And if we get away, you're going to work with Merlin and me, aren't you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That makes us a team.”

  Penelope considered the statement for a moment, then smiled. “I like being a team with you.”

  “I like it too,” said the Mouse. “And the first rule of being on a team is that you never keep secrets from your teammates.”

  “I don't know any secrets.”

  “Everyone knows some secrets.”

  “Not me.”

  “Even you,” said the Mouse. “For example, you never told me where Jennifer came from.”

  Penelope looked at the battered doll, which was propped up next to her.

  “My mother gave her to me.”

  “Where?”

  “In the living room, I think.”

  “I mean, on what world?”

  Penelope shrugged. “I don't remember.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Jennifer's not dead. She's right here with us.”

  “I meant your mother.”

  “I don't know if she's dead,” answered the girl.

  “But you think she is.”

  Penelope nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because she would have saved me if she was alive.”

  “Not if she didn't know where you were.”

  “You found me.”

  “I wasn't even looking for you,” said the Mouse. “It was just a lucky accident.” She paused. “If that's the only reason you have, then your mother might very well be alive. How about your father?”