Four for Tomorrow Part 18

I didn't doubt she knew how and she didn't doubt that I 106 didn't doubt, but then- 142.

"In case you're wondering." she said, "you're not going to be anywhere near. this thing. You were hired as a bait- man remember? Not a Slider operator! A baitman! Your duties consist of swimming out and setting the table for our friend the monster. It's dangerous, but you're getting well paid for it. Any questions?"

She squashed the Inject b.u.t.ton and I rubbed my throat.

"Nope," I smiled, "but I am qualified to run that thing- amajigger-and if you need me I'll be available, at union rates."

"Mister Davits," she said, "I don't want a loser operat- ing this panel."

"Miss Luharich, there has never been a winner at this game."

She started reeling in the cable and broke the bond at the same time, so that the whole Slider shook as the big yo-yo returned. We skidded a couple of feet back- wards. She raised the laterals and we shot back along the groove. Slowing, she transferred rails and we jolted to a clanging halt, then shot off at a right angle. The crew scrambled away from the hatch as we skidded onto the elevator.

"In the future. Mister Davits, do not enter the Slider without being ordered," she told me.

"Don't worry. I won't even step inside if I am or- dered," I answered. "I signed on as a baitman. Remem- ber? If you want me in here, you'll have to ask me."

"That'll be the day," she smiled.

I agreed, as the doors closed above us. We dropped the subject and headed in our different directions after the Slider came to a halt in its berth. She did say "good day," though, which I thought showed breeding as well as determination, in reply to my chuckle.

Later that night Mike and I stoked our pipes in Mal- 143.

vem's cabin. The winds were shuffling waves, and a steady spattering of rain and hail overhead turned the deck into a tin roof.

"Nasty," suggested Malvem.

I nodded. After two bourbons the room had become a familiar woodcut, with its mahogany furnis.h.i.+ngswhich I had transported from Earth long ago on a whim) and 107 the dark walls, the seasoned face of Malvem, and the perpetually puzzled expression of Dabis set between the big pools of shadow that lay behind chairs and splashed in corners, all cast by the tiny table light and seen through a gla.s.s, brownly.

"Glad I'm in here."

"What's it like underneath on a night like this?"

I puffed, thinking of my light cutting through the in- sides of a black diamond, shaken slightly. The meteor- dart of a suddenly illuminated fish, the swaying of gro- tesque ferns, like nebulae-shadow, then green, then gone-swam in a moment through my mind. I guess it's like a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p would feel, if a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p could feel, crossing between worlds-and quiet, uncannily, preter- naturally quiet; and peaceful as sleep.

"Dark," I said, "and not real choppy below a few fathoms."

"Another eight hours and we shove off," commented Mike.

"Ten, twelve days, we should be there," noted Mal- vem.

"What do you think Ikky's doing?"

"Sleeping on the bottom with Mrs. Ikky if he has any brains."

"He hasn't. I've seen ANR's skeletal extrapolation from the bones that have washed up-"

"Hasn't everyone?"

". . . Fully fleshed, he'd be over a hundred meters long. That right, Carl?"

144.

I agreed.

". . . Not much of a brain box, though, for his bulk."

"Smart enough to stay out of our locker."

Chuckles, because nothing exists but .this room, really.

The world outside is an empty, sleet drummed deck. We lean back and make clouds.

"Boss lady does not approve of unauthorized fly fish- ing."

"Boss lady can walk north till her hat floats."

"What did she say in there?"

"She told me that my place, with fish manure, is on the bottom.".

"You don't Slide?"

108 "I bait."

"Well see."

"That's all I do. If she wants a Slideman she's going to have to ask nicely."

"You think she'll have to?"

"I think she'll have to."

"And if she does, can you do it?"

"A fair question," I puffed. "I don't know the answer, though."

I'd incorporate my soul and trade forty percent of the stock for the answer. I'd give a couple years off my life for the answer. But there doesn't seem to be a lineup of supernatural takers, because no one knows. Supposing when we get out there, luck being with us, we find our- selves an Ikky? Supposing we succeed in baiting him and get lines on him. What then? If we get him s.h.i.+pside, will she hold on or crack up? What if she's made of sterner stuff than Davits, who used to hunt sharks with poison- darted air pistols? Supposing she lands him and Davits has to stand there like a video extra.

Worse yet, supposing she asks for Davits and he still stands there like a video extra or something else-say, some yellowbellied embodiment named Cringe?

145.

It was when I got him up above the eight-foot horizon of steel and looked out at all that body, sloping on and on till it dropped out of sight like a green mountain range . . . And that head. Small for the body, but still im- mense. Fat, craggy, with lidless roulettes that had spun black and red since before my forefathers decided to try the New Continent. And swaying.

Fresh nareo-tanks had been connected. It needed an- * other shot, fast. But I was paralyzed.

It had made a noise like G.o.d playing a Hammond organ. . . .

And looked at me!

I don't know if seeing is even the same process in eyes like those. I doubt it. Maybe I was, Just a gray blur behind a black rock, with the plexi-reflected sky hurting its pupils. But it fixed on me. Perhaps the snake doesn't really paralyze the rabbit, perhaps it's Just that rabbits are cowards by const.i.tution. But it began to struggle and I still couldn't move, fascinated.

Fascinated by all that power, by those eyes, they found me there fifteen minutes later, a little broken about the head and shoulders, the Inject still unpushed.

And I dream about those eyes. I want to face them 109 once more, even if their finding takes forever. I've got to know if there's something inside me that sets me apart from a rabbit, from notched plates of reflexes and in- stincts that always fall apart in exactly the same way whenever the proper combination is spun.

Looking down, I noticed that my hand was shaking.

Glancing up, I noticed that no one else was noticing.

I finished my drink and emptied my pipe. It was late and no songbirds were singing.

I sat whittling, my legs hanging over the aft edge, the chips spinning down into the furrow of our wake. Three days out. No action.

146.

"You!"

"Me?"

"You."

Hair like the end of the rainbow, eyes like nothing in nature, fine teeth.

"h.e.l.lo."

"There's a safety rule against what you're doing, you know."

"I know. I've been worrying about it all morning."

A delicate curl climbed my knife then drifted out be- hind us. It settled into the foam and was plowed under. I watched her reflection in my blade, taking a secret plea- sure in its distortion.

"Are you baiting me?" she finally asked.

I heard her laugh then, and turned, knowing it had been intentional.

"What, me?"

"I could push you off from here, very easily."'

"I'd make it back."

"Would you push me off, then-some dark night, per- haps?"

"They're all dark. Miss Luharich. No, I'd rather make you a gift of my carving."

She seated herself beside me then, and I couldn't help but notice the dimples in her knees. She wore white shorts and a halter and still had an offworld tan to her which was awfully appealing. I almost felt a twinge of guilt at having planned the whole scene, but my right hand still blocked her view of the wooden animal.

"Okay, I'll bite. What have you got for me?"

"Just a second. It's almost finished."

110 Solemnly, I pa.s.sed her the wooden jacka.s.s I had been carving. I felt a little sorry and slightly jacka.s.s-ish myself, but I had to follow through. I always do. The mouth was split into a braying grin. The ears were upright.

147.

She didn't smile and she didn't frown. She fust studied it.

"It's very good," she finally said, "like most things you do-and appropriate, perhaps."

"Give it to me." I extended a palm.

She handed it back and I tossed it out over the water.

It missed the white water and bobbed for awhile like a pigmy seahorse.

"Why did you do that?"

"It was a poor joke. I'm sony."

"Maybe you are right, though. Perhaps this time I've bitten off a little too much."

I snorted.

"Then why not do something safer, like another race?"

She shook her end of the rainbow.

"No. It has to be an Ikky."

"Why?"

"Why did you want one so. badly that you threw away a fortune?"

"Man reasons," I said. "An unfrocked a.n.a.lyst who held black therapy sessions in his bas.e.m.e.nt once told me, 'Mis- ter Davits, you need to reinforce the image of your mas- culinity by catching one of every kind of fish in existence.'

Fish are a very ancient masculinity symbol, you know. So I set out to do it. I have one more to go. -Why do you want to reinforce your masculinity?"

"I don't," she said. "I don't want to reinforce anything but Luharich Enterprises. My chief statistician once said, 'Miss Luharich, sell all the cold cream and face powder in the System and you'll be a happy girl. Rich, too.' And he was right. I am the proof. I can look the way I do and do anything, and I sell most of the lipstick and face pow- der in the System-but I have to be able to do anything."

"You do look cool and efficient," I observed.

"I don't feel cool," she said, rising. "Let's go for a swim."

148.

"May I point out that we are making pretty good time?"