Страница:
Go. Flee. Cover your trail, tracker. I will give you what I
judge to be an hour - and I am fairly good at estimating
time - and then I will pursue you. You tracked me for nearly
eight days. Let us call it a week. Keep alive for that long and
I will renounce my claim upon your life. We will go our ways,
free of one another.
And what will be the rules? Billy asked.
Rules? If you can kill me before I kill you, by all means do
so. In any manner. Go anywhere that you wish by any means
that you choose. Anything is fair. There are no rules in the
hunt. Live out the week and you will be rid of me. You will
not make it, though.
Who can say?
What is your answer?
Billy turned, took several quick steps and leaped, catching
hold of the top edge of the wall. He drew himself up in a
single, swinging motion.
Start counting, he said, as he dropped down onto the
other side and broke into a run.
Cat's laughter followed him for over a minute.
Things that flee and things that pursue
have their seasons.
Each of us hunts
and each of us is hunted.
We are all of us prey;
we are all predators.
Knowing this, the careful hunter
is wary. The prey, too, learns boldness
beyond its normal reach.
And then there is luck,
and then the gods.
The hunt is always uncertain.
We skinned the wolf
and in the morning
a human hide hung there.
At night, it became again
the pelt of a wolf.
There is no certainty,
there is no law
in the hunt.
Talking-god be with me.
Black-god be with me.
Luck and boldness
be with me, too.
The First Day
WITHOUT SLOWING, HE ILLU-
minated the dial of his watch and checked the time. An hour.
He smiled, because it seemed that Cat had overlooked the
obvious. He could get far in that time, and all was fair....
He maintained the steady pace which he could keep up for
most of a day. To give in to fears and sprint now would be to
leave himself exhausted in the face of possibly necessary
exertions later.
The wind whipped by him, and deeper patches of shadows
took on an ominous character, hiding eyes, fangs, move-
ment....
Dead. The Stragean was dead, A being able to cause fear
in the highest circles. Dead. And Cat had slain her. Soon Cat
would be bounding along, coming this same way. Cat's
enormous, faceted eye could, he believed, see into the
infrared, distinguish polarized light. He was still not certain
as to all of the senses Cat possessed. He could see Cat now,
like a giant chindi, not even slowing as he followed the trail.
Beads of perspiration formed on Billy's brow. A part of
him saw the beast's powers from a completely rational
standpoint. He had fought Cat before when Cat was much
more naive. But Cat had had fifty years in which to become
sophisticated in the ways of this world. Cat suddenly be-
came phantomlike at another level, no longer the -beast that
had been, but something returning, as from the north....
He fought back a renewed desire to increase his pace.
There was ample time, he told himself, a sufficiency in which
to make good his getaway. And why should there be fear?
Bare minutes ago he had been ready to die. Now at least
there was a chance. He strove to contain himself within the
present instant. The past was gone. He had some say in the
making of the future, but this was contingent upon his
behavior now. It was going to be all right. Long before the
hour had run out, he would be totally safe. It was only a
matter of minutes, really....
He jogged on, his mind fixed upon his goal. At last it came
into sight, the trip-box station which would place him be-
yond Cat's reach in the barest twinkling. He saw the lights of
the small building at the crossroads beyond the field he was
now entering. Something about it, though...
As he moved nearer, he realized that the front window of
the place was broken. He slowed his approach. He could see
no one about.
He halted and looked inside. There were three units, lined
against the far wall. All of them were wrecked. It was as if a
piece of runaway heavy equipment had passed through,
snapping or twisting the gleaming standards, upsetting the
control units. The power banks, he noted, were untouched.
Cat...
That last time Cat had gone out, ranging far to scout the
area... Cat had foreseen a possible escape on his part with
flight in this direction, had acted to remedy this means of
retreat.
He looked about. The damage should have registered
itself at the area control center. But the hour was late. No
telling when a repair crew might be by.
A map. There would be a line map inside for the area. He
moved to the doorway and entered.
Yes. On the wall to his right. He studied the disposition of
the red dots representing boxes in the area, located his own
position, looked for the next several.
Four miles to the nearest one.
Would Cat know its location? Would Cat have bothered to
look at this thing on the wall, realizing it was a map? And
even if this were the case, would Cat have gone to the
trouble to wreck another? True, he might have wanted to
cover all bets....
But no. Cat's surprise at his failure to flee had seemed
genuine. Cat had expected him to run. While it might be
possible for him to elude the beast and make it this far, it
seemed unlikely that he could reach the next one under these
circumstances. So even if Cat did know about it, chances
were that the next box remained unmolested.
Still, a map and the land itself were two different things.
He was not exactly certain as to the disposition of that next
red dot. Even with the grace period, he could be cutting
things short.
He departed the wrecked station, took his bearings and
recommenced his steady stride, cutting through a skeleton-
limbed orchard that rattled about him as he passed. A rabbit
sprang from behind a clump of grasses to veer across his
path and vanish into the shadows to the left. The grasses
were damp, and soon the lower portions of his trousers were
soaked through. Somewhere a dog began barking. He sud-
denly felt as if he were being watched, from no particular
direction. Again the fleeting shadows writhed images.
For a moment, he wondered what time it was, and then
the desire to know this thing fell away. Abruptly, he found
that he was happy. A part of his mind was almost cheering
for Cat, hoping that even now the beast was on his trail. Let
it be close. Let it be very close and clean, he felt. Or else
what the joy in such a context? This was the most alive he
had felt himself in years. There was a new song inside him
now, accompanied by his drumbeat footfalls.
He did not try to analyze the shifting of his mood. The
clutter of circumstance was far too dense for introspection,
even had he felt so inclined. For the moment, it was suffi-
cient to ride with the beat of his flight.
There were times when he felt certain that Cat was right at
his back, and it did not seem to matter. Other times, he felt
that he had already won, that he had far outdistanced his
pursuer, that there was no chance of his ever being overta-
ken. All of his senses now seemed touched with an unusual
acuity - the tiniest night movement was instantly identified,
from the faintest rasp, thump or crackling; shadowy forms
grew far more distinct, and even odors took on a new
significance. It had all been this way once, yes, long ago....
It was before everything that the world had been this way,
that he had been this way. Running. Into the east. Vision as
yet unclouded by veils life was later to drop upon him. He
had been eight or nine years old before he had learned to
speak English....
But after all of this, he wondered, what traces really
remained of his shift from a near-neolithic to a high-tech
society? He had lived more years under the latter than under
the former, if these things were to be measured solely in
years. The shift had been made successfully, and both ends
of his personal spectrum were available to him.
But it was the primitive which ruled as he ran. Yes. And
this part preferred the day to the night. Yet the joy remained.
It was not that there was an absence of fear. Instead, the fear
was contributing something to that peculiar species of ela-
tion which had risen within him.
As he pounded along, he wondered what the situation was
back at the mansion. What had Walford, Tedders, the de-
fenders and the Strageans made of that sudden attack fol-
lowed by the death of the adept - with no explanation as to
what had occurred? Naturally they would suspect his part in
it, but they must be puzzled by his absence. Even now they
must be trying to reach him - though this time he was not
even wearing the paging unit.
Would they ever learn? He wondered for the first time
what Cat might do later - if things were all over and he, Billy
Singer, had walked into the north. Would Cat retire to some
wilderness area and spend his days passing as some garden
variety predator? It seemed possible, but he could not be
certain. He could not tell whether Cat's hatred was.focused
upon him solely or whether he might hold all of humanity
responsible for his captivity. Images moved within Billy's
mind - crouching in a cage day after day, year after year,
being stared at by passing knots of people. If their situations
had been reversed, he felt that he would hate all mankind.
A sense of irritation began to grow. Why shouldn't Cat
consider him a sacrificial lamb and let it go at that?
He shook his head. No real reason for assuming that Cat
would run amok later. He had given no such indication.
What was he doing thinking these thoughts, anyway? Look-
ing for trouble? It was him that Cat wanted, not him plus
everybody else. And after he had gotten him, it would all be
over with....
Sacrificial lamb... He thought again of the sheep he had
herded as a boy. Long, slow days under skies hot and cool,
big skies... Lying on a hillside. Whittling. Singing. Foot-
races with other children. His first tumble with that girl from
over the ridge. What was her name? And later with her
sister. Hard breasts under his hands. The sheep about them
unconcerned. Clouds like sheep on the horizon. Sheep.
Lamb of God. Dora in the sky with turquoise. Running...
Cat. Running. How will you track me, Cat? Do you follow
the same signs I would? Or does your alien eye trace
different marks of passage? Either way, there is no time to
mask this trail. Escape first. Hide afterwards, Speed now is
all. Speed, opportunity. Chance. How. near might you be,
anyway? Or are you still waiting for the time to run?
Turquoise in the sky with Dora to the drumbeat footbeat
here below. On the hillside, far ahead, lights. Night air
comes in, goes out again. Stride is steady. Veer left, beyond
the death-shaped boulder. Up then. Cat come. Into the black
bag. Full entropy is all. But first.
Minutes melting, one to the other. In the distance, the
hum of a super battery-powered vehicle above the cleared
trail which had once been a roadway, lights raking tree
trunks. Heading for the station perhaps. Ay-ah! We live.
Unless Cat even now...
Drawing nearer, he slowed. This would be the place for an
ambush. Why not check the time? Because Cat might have
lied to gain this much of a chase. Once through the box and
the beast would be baffled. Wouldn't he?
Walking now, he examined a new proposition. What had
Cat said about understanding the boxes?
No. Even if he could black-fare his way, he would not
know where to go....
Cat is a telepath.
But of what sort? He had estimated Cat's ability as a
hunting/locator thing, refined, to be sure, during his long
confinement, but basically quarry-intensive, at about a quar-
ter of a mile. Still, there were human telepaths he knew of
who could send and receive around the world and through
outer space. Yet, again, such sophisticated ones he felt he
could block to some extent by slipping back to boyhood
thought patterns. But Cat, too, was primitive. It might not
serve to hide him from the beast. In which case.
The devil with you, Cat! - on all fours now, carefully
clearing the way before him of anything which might give
rise to the slightest sound, his jewelry wrapped in a handker-
chief and stuffed into his pocket, hands moving deftly, knees
and toes advancing into the cleared area in total silence.
Find me if you can. Fight me if you-do.
No response. And nothing between here and there that he
could conceive of as a transformation of his adversary. The
car drew up before the building and hovered. No one de-
parted it.
He was on his feet and sprinting across the final meters
of the field, through a fringe of trees, over the road-bed
trail. A glimpse through the station window: the units were
intact.
Almost laughing, he thrust the door open and crossed the
threshold. Empty. Safe. Breathe easily. He straightened
from his half-crouch, removed his hand from the handle of
his knife. Closed the door. All right. Five paces to liberty.
The unit to his far left was humming in preparation for a
transfer. Curious, he watched it. It was an odd hour and a
fairly isolated station; he wondered who might be coming
through. Shortly, the outline began to form. It was that of a
woman, somewhat stocky, with close-cropped brown hair.
She wore a dark suit and carried a recording unit bearing the
insignia of a major news service in her left hand. Her eyes
fixed upon him as she took on solidity.
"Hello," she said, studying his garb.
She stepped out of the unit.
"Hello."
"Coming or going?" she said.
"Just going. I only waited to see if you were someone I
knew."
"You're a real Indian, aren't you? Not just someone
dressed that way."
"I am. If you called ahead for a car I just saw one pull up
out front."
"I did. That must be it." She started forward, then hesi-
tated. "Do you live in this area?" she asked him.
"No. Just visiting."
He moved toward the nearest unit.
"Just a second," she said. "I've come here on a story, or
what could be a story. Maybe you'd know something about
it."
He forced himself to smile as he took another step.
"I doubt that. Haven't seen anything newsworthy."
"Well," she persisted, "there have been reports of pecu-
liar security measures being taken at the Walford place for
some time now. Then suddenly -this evening there was
apparently a power failure and some disturbance. Now
they've gone completely incommunicado. Would you know
anything about this?"
He shook his head, moved forward and stepped into the
unit.
She followed him and took hold of his arm just as he
inserted his strip into the slot, effectively blocking his tran-
sit.
"Wait. There's more," she said. "Then we learned that
the trip-boxes nearest to the place had been damaged. Are
you aware that the next station to the east is out of order?"
"Could it be a part of that power failure?"
"No, no. They have their own power packs - the same as
Walford's place, for that matter."
He shrugged, hoping her hand would slip away.
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about it. Listen, I'm in
a hurry -"
"You haven't seen or heard of anything unusual in this
area?"
He noted that her recorder was switched on.
"No," he said. "I've got to be going now -"
"It's just a feeling," she said, "but I think you know
something about this."
"Lady," he said, "your car is waiting. Go and see for
yourself like a good reporter. I wouldn't hang around here,
though."
"Why not?"
"Maybe something will happen to this one, too."
"Why should it?"
"How should I know? But if there's something dangerous
going on, you want to be in its path?"
She smiled for the first time.
"If there's a story in it, yes."
He pushed coordinates.
"Good luck."
"Not yet," she said, still holding his arm. "Have you been
by that way at all?"
"Get out of here," he told her, "in the car, or by one of the
other booths. Hurry! This place isn't safe. Don't hang
around."
"I'll be damned if I'll let you go now!" she said, reaching
toward a penlike device clipped behind her lapel.
"Sorry," he said, and he jerked his arm free and pushed
her backward. "Do what I said!" he cried. "Get out!" and
the fading began.
When he stepped from a unit in London's Victoria Station,
pocketing his strip, he had to restrain himself from running.
He drew the back of his hand across his brow and it came
away wet.
He headed for the nearest exit. The light of a gray morning
shone through it. He was arrested momentarily by the smell
of food from a twenty-four-hour diner. Too near, he decided,
and he moved on outside.
He passed a line of sightseeing hover-vehicles, another of
taxis, their operators nowhere in sight. He continued along
the way for a time, turned at random in a vaguely northward
direction and left the sidewalk. He followed a footpath
among trees leading down what had once been a wide
thoroughfare. There were fewer streets now than there had
been a hundred or even fifty years before, on the occasions
of earlier visits he had made. Some main arteries were kept
cropped for freighters and the occasional personal hov-
ercraft, some had become malls, some had simply deterio-
rated, most had become inner-city wilderness areas, or
parks, as he used to call them.
He followed the twisting ways for about half an hour,
putting a good distance between himself and the station, as
the day continued to lighten about him. Muffled by the trees,
the sounds of the awakening city grew. He bore to his right,
moving into the fringe area.
Above, beyond the walkway, he scanned the faces of
opened and opening establishments. Farther ahead, beyond
an archway, off a courtyard, he glimpsed a cafe's sign. He
mounted a stair to the walk and headed in that direction. He
was, he judged, somewhere near Piccadilly Circus.
Right at the archway, he froze, overwhelmed by a recur-
rence of the feeling that he was being observed. He looked
about. There were a number of people on the walk and in the
courtyard, several of them as distinctively dressed as him-
self for different parts of the world, but none of them seemed
to be paying him particular heed, and none seemed large
enough to represent the total mass of his adversary.
Of course, it could be something behind him in the woods....
He did not feel like discarding any sort of warning, even a
premonition. So he began walking again, passing the arch- '
way. In an alcove near the corner ahead, he could see a trip-
box. Giving in to nervousness might be a sign of weakness as
well as caution, but there was also much to be said for
holding onto as much peace of mind as possible when one
was running. He quickened his pace.
As he advanced, he saw that the alcove also contained a
police callbox. A jerking of its alarm handle should result in
the in-tripping of a bobby within seconds, a setup similar to
that in use almost everywhere these days. Not that he could
see this as helping him very much if he suddenly discovered
Cat at his back. A delaying action, at best. And he would
probably be condemning the cop to death by calling him. He
moved a little more rapidly.
He saw the head of a coyote - no, it was a small dog -
appear around the corner of the alcove, looking in his
direction. His sense of urgency grew. He fought but could
not resist a desire to look back.
When he did, he felt a sudden wave of dizziness. A large
man wearing a black cloak and glasses was just emerging
from among the trees. Billy broke into a run.
He located and withdrew his credit strip as he raced
ahead. He turned it to the proper position for immediate
insertion into the machine's slot. A wave of fear washed
over him, turning quickly to despair. He was suddenly
certain that he could not make it in time. He felt a powerful
impulse to halt and wait for his pursuer.
Instead, he plunged into the box, thrust the strip into the
slot and rapped out a set of coordinates. Turning then, he
saw that the man had dropped to all fours and was racing
toward him, changing shape as he came. Someone
screamed. Overhead, a dirigible was passing. The entire
tableau grew two-dimensional and began to fade. Good-bye,
Piccadilly....
Run, hunter, he heard faintly amid his thoughts. The next
time...
He stood in a booth at Victoria Station, shaking. But now
it was reaction rather than fear. The fear, the despair, the
certainty of doom had vanished at the instant of transport. It
was then he realized that Cat must have been projecting
these feelings onto him, a slightly more sophisticated version
of his old prey-paralysis trick - a thing he had several times
felt in its more blatant form years ago. He was startled at the
extent to which Cat had developed it since then.
He keyed a chart onto the directory screen and took a new
set of coordiaates from it. His pursuer might have caught
Victoria Station from his thoughts, and -
As he faded, he saw something beginning to take shape
two booths up from him, something resembling a tall,
cloaked, less-than-human figure still in the process of widen-
ing its shoulders and lengthening its forelimbs.
"Damn!"
Yes!
Coming through in Madrid... Bright sky through a dirty
window. A crowd of commuters. No time...
He keyed the directory, hit more coordinates. He looked
about as Madrid began to go away. No sign of an incoming
torglind metamorph. He began to sigh. Finished sighing at
the Gare du Nord box-section in Paris. He summoned the
local directory and tripped again.
Walking. Day brighter yet. From the Tuileries Station.
Safe now. No way for Cat to have followed this time.
Passing up the Champs Elysees. Crossing from the fringes
of the park over the cyclists' trail and onto the walkway, he
smelled the aromas of food from the nearest sidewalk cafe.
He passed several before he settled upon one with a vacant
table, close to a trip-box, commanding good views in both
directions. He seated himself there and ordered a large
breakfast. When he had finished he lingered, drinking count-
less cups of coffee. Nothing threatening appeared and he felt
the flickering beginning of a sense of security. After a time, a
feeling of lethargy settled upon him.
Night. It was late morning here, but it was night in the
place he had left. He had been a long while without sleep.
He got up and walked again. Should he jump to another
city to obscure his trail further? Or had he covered his tracks
sufficiently?
He compromised and tripped to the Left Bank. He walked
again. He knew that his thinking was foggy. Filled first with
the necessities of his flight, his mind was now reduced to
slow-motion movement by reaction, by fatigue. It would be
easy to obtain a stimulant to restore full alertness, by
communication with his medical computer and a request for
transmission of a prescription order to a local pharmacist.
But he felt relatively safe now, and he would rather rest and
restore his natural energies than proceed by artificial means
at this stage of affairs. His body might ultimately prove more
important than his mind, his feelings aid his reflexes surer
guides than any elaborate plan. Hadn't he already decided
that primitive was best against a dangerous telepath? Sleep
now, pay later, if need be.
He located a hotel called the St. Jacques near the Univer-
sity. There were several trip-boxes in the neighborhood and
one off the lobby. He took a third-floor room there and
stretched out on the bed, fully dressed.
For a long while he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
Images of his recent flight came and went. Gradually, how-
ever, other images intruded, none of them pieces of recent
things. He drifted with them, his breathing slowing, and
finally they bore him off.
... Watching Dora before the video console, summoning
up swarms of equations, fingers moving across the keyboard
as his mother's had across the loom, introducing new varia-
bles, weaving the fresh patterns that resulted. He did not
understand. But it did not matter. Her hair long and blond,
her eyes very pale. He had met her on his return from a long
expedition, when the Institute had sent him back to school
for an update on astrophysical theory and improved naviga-
tional techniques. She had taught mathematics there....
The equations turn to sandpaintings and finally to skulls,
animal as well as human. Dora is smiling. Dimly he remem-
bers that she is dead. Would she still be alive if she had never
met him? Probably. But... The screen has become a slot
machine now, and the skulls keep turning and stopping,
coming up different colors.... The colors line the walls of
the canyon through which he walks. Long bands of strata in
the roughness to right and left. Strewn at his feet are the
skulls and other bones, some of them gray and gnawed,
cracked and weathered, others ivory fresh, some of them
inset with turquoise, coral and jet. There comes a sound at -
his back, but he turns and nothing is there. It comes again,
and he turns again, and again there is nothing. The third time
it comes, he thinks that he detects a fleeting shadow as he
spins around. The fourth time, it is there, waiting. A coyote
stands laughing beside a pile of bones. "Come," it says, and
it turns away. He follows, and it leads him among the
shadows. "Hurry," it says, loping now, and he increases his
pace. A long time seems to pass as they move through
hidden places. Dark places. Places of forgetfulness. Dora
following. Firelight and dancers. Sounds of rattles and
drums. Nightclub through a whiskey haze. The dusty sur-
face of Woden IV; the tanklike beasts which dwell there.
Bones underfoot, bones all about. Falling, falling ...
Sounds at his back. His shadow preceding him as he pursues
the furry tail of the Trickster. "Where are we going?" he
calls out. "Out and up, out and up," comes the reply. His
shadow is suddenly enveloped by that of a larger one, from
something just at his back. "Hurry! Out! Up! Hurry!"
Awakening to urgency: day grown dimmer beyond the
window. And what was that sound on the stair?
Out and up? Too strong a thing to ignore. He could almost
still hear the coyote beyond the window.
He rose and crossed the room, looked out. There was a
fire escape. Had he noticed it on checking in? He did not
recall.
He raised the window and stepped outside. He did not
question the warning. He still seemed to be moving within
the dream. It seemed perfectly reasonable that he continue
on the course he had been following. The evening air was
cool, trail lights illuminated the way below. That damp,
pungent smell on the breeze... The Seine?
Up!
He climbed. With some difficulty, he was able to draw
himself onto the slanting roof. People were moving along the
Rue des Ecoles trail, but no one looked upward. He began
moving to his right, toes in a rain gutter, hands sliding along
slate. The dreamlike quality persisted. He passed chimneys
and a dish antenna. He saw a corner ahead. There came a
faint, hollow, hammering sound, as of someone pounding on
a door, below and to his left. He hurried.
The crashing, splintering sound which followed stirred his
imagination but vaguely. There was a booth fairly near now,
were he on the ground....
He moved as if following a magic trail, leading toward
another fire escape he now had sight of. Even the sounds of
pursuit, as a large body passed through his hotel window,
ringing upon the metal stair, and then reared to scrabble at
the roof's edge, seemed but part of some drama of which he
was not even an interested spectator, let alone a principal.
He continued to move mechanically, barely aware that his
pursuer was addressing him - not with words, but with feel-
ings which he would normally, under the circumstances,
have found disquieting.
He glanced back as he took a turn, in time to see the large,
oddly shaped figure in black begin to draw itself upward onto
the roof. Even when the guttering tore loose beneath its
weight and the figure clawed unsuccessfully to gain purchase
on the building, he felt no surge of adrenalin. As its down-
ward plunge began, he heard it call: Today luck is with you.
Make the most of it! Tomorrow
Its words and movements ceased when it landed in a
clump of shrubbery below. And it was only then that he felt
as if he were suddenly awakening, realizing that the world
actually existed, that his position had been precarious. He
drew a deep breath of the night's cold air, swung onto the fire
escape and began his descent.
When he reached the ground, the figure was still a dark
mass within the rue's trailside growth. It was making small
movements and a wheezing noise, but it seemed unable to
rise and continue the pursuit.
It was only after he had hurried into the box, summoned
forth new coordinates and encoded them that Billy began to
wonder.
DISK III
COMPUTER FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT
BRG-118, recipient of the 2128 Nobel Prize in Medicine,
this morning filed suit in the district court in Los Angeles
claiming that J & J Pharmaceuticals
SATELLITE THIEF STRIKES AGAIN
Valuable experimental components were removed from
Berga-12 by a person or persons unknown during a power
failure now believed to have been induced by
SOLAR REGATTA TO SAIL THURSDAY
REPORTER FOUND BRUTALLY SLAIN
In an out-of-the-way trip-box station in upstate New York,
reporter Virginia Kalkoff's mangled
Don't know what I'm gonna do...
SPRING STORMS HIT SOUTHWEST
SERIES-12 ARTIFICIAL HEART RECALLED
Apologizing for the inconvenience
IN THE DAYS BEFORE NAY-
enezgani, Old Man Coyote once came upon the Traveling
Rock in his journeying about the land. It had spoken to him
and he had answered. Amused that a huge pile of stone
should possess sentience, he quickly set about mocking it.
First he painted a grotesque face upon its side.
"Old Man Stone, you are frowning," he said.
"I do not like this face you have given me," it replied.
"And you are bald," Coyote said. "I will fix that."
He climbed atop the stone and defecated.
"Brown curly locks suit you well."
"You annoy me, Cayote," it said.
"I will be back in a while to build a fire at your base and
cook my dinner," Coyote said, "as soon as I have hunted."
"Perhaps I, too, should hunt," it said.
Coyote set off through the woods. He had not gone very
far when he heard a rumbling noise behind him. When he
looked back he saw that the stone, rolling slowly, had
commenced following him.
"Holy shit!" said Coyote, and he began running.
As he ran along, he saw Mountain Lion resting in the
shade.
"Mountain Lion!" he called out. "Someone is chasing
me. Can you help me, brother?"
Mountain Lion rose, stretched and looked back.
"You've got to be kidding," Mountain Lion said when he
saw Traveling Rock. "I've no desire to be a flat cat. Keep
going."
Coyote ran on, and later he passed Bear just emerging
from his den.
"Hey! Bear, old buddy!" he cried. "I've got someone
after me. Will you help me?"
"Sure," said Bear. "There aren't many things I'm afraid
of..."
Then Bear heard the noise of pursuit and looked back and
saw Traveling Rock.
"... But that's one of them-," he said. "Sorry."
"What should I do?" Coyote yelled.
"Cultivate philosophy and run like hell," said Bear, re-
turning to his den.
Coyote ran on, down to the plains, and Traveling Rock
picked up speed behind him.
At length, Coyote saw Old Buffalo grazing amid long
grasses.
"Buffalo! Save me! I'm being chased!" Coyote cried.
Old Buffalo turned his head slowly and regarded the
oncoming boulder.
"You can have all the moral support I've got," Buffalo
replied. "But I just remembered it's time to move the herd.
We've about grazed this area out. See you around, kid. Hey,
gang! Let's get our tails across the river!"
Coyote continued to run, gasping now, and finally he came
to the place where the hawks were resting.
"Help me, lovely fliers, mighty hunters!" he called. "My
enemy is gaining on me!"
"Hide in this hollow tree and leave the Rock to us," said
the chief of the hawks.
The Hawk Chief gave a signal then and his entire tribe
rose into the air, circled once and fell upon the Traveling
Rock. With their beaks, they prized away all of its loose
covering, and then they went.to work along its fracture lines,
opening, widening, removing more material. In a short time,
the Rock was reduced to a trail of gravel.
"There," said the Hawk Chief to Coyote, "it is over. You
can come out now."
Coyote emerged from the tree and regarded the remains of
his enemy. Then he laughed.
"It was only a game," he said. "That's all it was. I was
never in any real danger. And you dumb birds actually
thought I was in trouble. That's funny. That's real funny. No
wonder everyone laughs at you. Did you really think I was
afraid of that old rock?"
Coyote walked away laughing, and the Hawk Chief gave
another signal.
The hawks fell upon the stone chips, gathered them and
began reassembling them, like pieces of a gigantic puzzle.
When the Traveling Rock found itself together again, it
groaned and then, slowly at first, began rolling, off in the
direction Coyote had taken upon his departure. It picked up
speed as it moved and soon came in sight of Coyote once
more.
"Oh, no!" Coyote cried when he saw it coming.
He began running once again. He came to a downhill slope
and began its descent. Traveling Rock picked up speed
behind him, narrowed the distance that separated them,
rolled over him and crushed him to death.
A circling hawk saw this take place and went back to
report it to the others.
"Old Man Coyote has done it again," he said. "He never
learns."
The Second Day
NIGHT, WITH MIST BANKS
drifting down rocky slopes, stars toward the center of the
sky, moonrise phosphorescence at the edge of things. The
floatcar followed the high, craggy trail, winding between
rock wall and downward slope, piercing stone shoulders,
turning, dipping and rising. Sheep wandered across the way,
pausing to browse on spring grasses. There were no lights in
the countryside; there was no other traffic. The windshield
occasionally misted over, to be cleared by a single, auto-
matic movement of its blade. The only sound above the low
buzz of the engine was the occasional urgent note of a gust of
wind invading some cranny of the vehicle.
Billy entered a curve bending to his right, a steep rise to
his left. He felt more secure with every kilometer that
passed. Cat had proved more formidable than he had antici-
pated when it came to using the trip-boxes and functioning
within cities. He was still uncertain as to how the beast had
been able to determine his whereabouts with such accuracy.
A gimmicking of the boxes he could understand, but know-
ing where to go to find him... It almost smacked of
witchcraft, despite the fact that Cat had had a long time in
which to plan.
Still, a change of tactics now ought to provide him with the
leeway he would need for a total escape. He had tripped
back to the Gare du Nord after fleeing the stunned Cat on the
Left Bank. From there he had transported himself to Dublin,
a city he had visited a number of times during Irish excur-
sions, consulted the directory and tripped to Bantry, from
which he had once spent several weeks sailing and fishing.
There, in that pleasant, quiet corner of West Cork, he had
taken his dinner and known the beginning of this small
aecurity he felt. He had walked through the town there at the
head of the bay, smelling the salt air and recalling a season
that might have been happier, though he now saw it as one of
his many periods of adjustment to yet another changed time;
He remembered the boat and a girl named Lynn and the
seafood; these, and the fact that it was a small, unhurried
place, permitting him to slip gradually into a new decade.
Could something like this be what he really most needed
now? he wondered. He shook his head. His grip tightened on
the wheel as he negotiated a twisting descent.
Time to think. He needed to get to a safe place where he
could work things out. Something was very wrong. He was
missing important things. Cat had come too damned close.
He ought to be able to shake him. This was still his world,
for all of the changes. An alien beast should not be able to
outwit him here. Time. He needed some time in which to
work on it.
Vary the pattern, he had decided. If he had left some trace
behind him in the boxes, some means by which his destina-
tion choices might become known, this move on his part
should cancel that effect. He had rented the vehicle in
Bantry and begun the northward drive along the trail he
remembered. Passing through Glengariff, he had continued
onto this way toward Kenmare, moving through a country-
side devoid of trip-boxes, For the moment, he felt free.
There was only the night and the wind and the rocky
prospect. He had been caught off balance by Cat's releasing
him the previous evening. He had done nothing but impro-
vise since then. What he had to come up with now was a
plan, a general defense to sustain him through this trial. A
plan...
A light in the distance. A pair of them now., Three... He
raised a container and took a sip of coffee. His first mistake,
he decided, had probably been in not tripping enough. He
should have continued his movements to really cloud the
trail. Cat had obviously been close enough to pick his
destination from his mind. Even when he had jumped more
than once, Cat could have been coming in as he was tripping
out, and so could have learned the next stop.
Four... Kenmare would still be some distance beyond
the first scattered farms and rural residences. This night was
crisp. He descended a long slope. Abruptly, the trees were
larger along the trailside.
The next time he would really mix it up. He would jump
back and forth among so many places that the trail would be
completely muddled. Yes, that was what he should have
done at first -
The next time?
He screamed. The mental presence of Cat suddenly hung
like the aroma of charred flesh about him.
"No -" he said, fighting to regain control of the vehicle
which he had let swerve at his outburst.
He bounced across a field at a height of perhaps two feet,
heading toward a steepening rise. Too abrupt a change in
attitude would overturn the car.
Pulling the wheel around, he succeeded in veering away
from the slope. Moments later, he was headed back toward
the trail. Although he peered in every direction his light
traveled, he saw no sign of the hunting beast.
Back on the trail once more, he accelerated. Shadows fled
past. Tree limbs were stirred by the wind. Bits of fog drifting
across his way were momentarily illuminated by the vehi-
cle's beams. But this was all that he saw.
"Cat...?" he finally said.
There was no reply. Was he so on edge that he had
imagined that single phrase? The strain...
"Cat?"
It had seemed so real. He struggled to reconstruct his state
of mind at the time of its occurrence. He supposed that he
could have triggered it himself; but he did not like what this
implied about his mental equipment.
He-spun through a number of S-shaped curves, his eyes
continuing their search on both sides of the trail.
So quickly... His confidence had been destroyed in an
instant. Would he be seeing Cat behind every rock, every
bush, from now on?
Why not?
"Cat!"
Yes.
Where are you? What are you doing?
Amusing myself. The point of this game must be maxi-
mum enjoyment, I have decided. It is good that you cooper-
ate so well for this end.
How did you find me?
Nore easily than you might think. As I said, your coopera-
tion is appreciated.
I do not understand.
Of course not. You tend to hide things from yourself.
What do you mean?
I know now that I can destroy you at any time, but I wish
to prolong the pleasure. Keep running. I will strike at the
most appropriate moment.
This makes no sense at all.
No. Because you will not let it. You are mine, hunter,
whenever I choose.
Why?
He came onto a long, tree-lined curve. There seemed to be
more lights far ahead.
I will tell you, and it will still not save you. You have
changed from what you once were. I see that within you
which was not there in the old days. Do you know what you
realty want?
To beat you, Billy said. And I will.
No. Your greatest wish is to die.
That is not so!
,You have given up on the thought of keeping up with your
world. For a long while you have waited and wished for an
appropriate way out of it. I have provided you with such an
occasion. You think that you are running from me. Actually,
you are rushing toward me. You make it easy for me, hunter.
Not true!
...And the lovely irony is that you do not admit it.
You have been in the minds of too many Californians.
They're full of pop psychology...
... And your denial of it makes it that much easier for
me.
You are trying to wear me down mentally. That's all.
No need for it.
You're bluffing. If you can strike now, let's see you do it.
Soon. Soon. Keep running.
He had to slow the vehicle for a series of turns. He
continued to scan both sides of the trail. Cat must be near in
order to reach him, but of course he had the advantage of
straight-line travel whereas the trail -
Exactly.
Overhead, s piece of the night came loose, dropping from
the top of a high boulder which leaned from the right. He
tried to brake and cut to the left simultaneously.
A massive, jaguarlike form with a single, gleaming eye
landed on the vehicle's hood forward and to the front. It was
visible for but an instant, and then it sprang away.
The car tipped, its air cushion awry, and it was already
turning onto its side before he left the trail. He fought with
the wheel and the attitude control, already knowing that it
was too late. There came a strong shock accompanied by a
crunching noise, and he felt himself thrown forward.
DEADLY, DEADLY, DEADLY...
Kaleidoscope turning... Shifting pattern within unalter-
able structure... Was it a mistake? There is pain with the
power... Time's friction at the edges... Center loosens,
forms again elsewhere... Unalterable? But - Turn out-
ward. Here songs of self erode the will till actions lie
stillborn upon night's counterpane. But - Again the move-
ment ... Will it hold beyond a catch of moment? To
fragment... Not kaleidoscope. No center. But again...
To form it will. To will it form. Structure... Pain...
Deadly, deadly... And lovely. Like a sleek, small dog...
A plastic statue... The notes of an organ, the first slug of
gin on an empty stomach... We settle again, farther than
ever before... Center. The light!... It is difficult being a
god. The pain. The beauty. The terror of selfless - Act! Yes.
Center, center, center... Here'! Deadly...
necess yet again from bridge of brainbow oyotecraven
stare decesis on landaway necessity timeslast the arnings ent
and tided turn yet beastfall nor mindstorms neither in their
canceling sarved cut the line that binds ecessity towarn and
findaway twill open pandorapack wishdearth amen amenu-
ensis opend the mand of min apend the pain of durthwursht
vernichtung desiree tolight and eadly dth cessity sesame
We are the key.
HE AWOKE. TO STILLNESS AND
the damp. The right side of his forehead was throbbing. His
judge to be an hour - and I am fairly good at estimating
time - and then I will pursue you. You tracked me for nearly
eight days. Let us call it a week. Keep alive for that long and
I will renounce my claim upon your life. We will go our ways,
free of one another.
And what will be the rules? Billy asked.
Rules? If you can kill me before I kill you, by all means do
so. In any manner. Go anywhere that you wish by any means
that you choose. Anything is fair. There are no rules in the
hunt. Live out the week and you will be rid of me. You will
not make it, though.
Who can say?
What is your answer?
Billy turned, took several quick steps and leaped, catching
hold of the top edge of the wall. He drew himself up in a
single, swinging motion.
Start counting, he said, as he dropped down onto the
other side and broke into a run.
Cat's laughter followed him for over a minute.
Things that flee and things that pursue
have their seasons.
Each of us hunts
and each of us is hunted.
We are all of us prey;
we are all predators.
Knowing this, the careful hunter
is wary. The prey, too, learns boldness
beyond its normal reach.
And then there is luck,
and then the gods.
The hunt is always uncertain.
We skinned the wolf
and in the morning
a human hide hung there.
At night, it became again
the pelt of a wolf.
There is no certainty,
there is no law
in the hunt.
Talking-god be with me.
Black-god be with me.
Luck and boldness
be with me, too.
The First Day
WITHOUT SLOWING, HE ILLU-
minated the dial of his watch and checked the time. An hour.
He smiled, because it seemed that Cat had overlooked the
obvious. He could get far in that time, and all was fair....
He maintained the steady pace which he could keep up for
most of a day. To give in to fears and sprint now would be to
leave himself exhausted in the face of possibly necessary
exertions later.
The wind whipped by him, and deeper patches of shadows
took on an ominous character, hiding eyes, fangs, move-
ment....
Dead. The Stragean was dead, A being able to cause fear
in the highest circles. Dead. And Cat had slain her. Soon Cat
would be bounding along, coming this same way. Cat's
enormous, faceted eye could, he believed, see into the
infrared, distinguish polarized light. He was still not certain
as to all of the senses Cat possessed. He could see Cat now,
like a giant chindi, not even slowing as he followed the trail.
Beads of perspiration formed on Billy's brow. A part of
him saw the beast's powers from a completely rational
standpoint. He had fought Cat before when Cat was much
more naive. But Cat had had fifty years in which to become
sophisticated in the ways of this world. Cat suddenly be-
came phantomlike at another level, no longer the -beast that
had been, but something returning, as from the north....
He fought back a renewed desire to increase his pace.
There was ample time, he told himself, a sufficiency in which
to make good his getaway. And why should there be fear?
Bare minutes ago he had been ready to die. Now at least
there was a chance. He strove to contain himself within the
present instant. The past was gone. He had some say in the
making of the future, but this was contingent upon his
behavior now. It was going to be all right. Long before the
hour had run out, he would be totally safe. It was only a
matter of minutes, really....
He jogged on, his mind fixed upon his goal. At last it came
into sight, the trip-box station which would place him be-
yond Cat's reach in the barest twinkling. He saw the lights of
the small building at the crossroads beyond the field he was
now entering. Something about it, though...
As he moved nearer, he realized that the front window of
the place was broken. He slowed his approach. He could see
no one about.
He halted and looked inside. There were three units, lined
against the far wall. All of them were wrecked. It was as if a
piece of runaway heavy equipment had passed through,
snapping or twisting the gleaming standards, upsetting the
control units. The power banks, he noted, were untouched.
Cat...
That last time Cat had gone out, ranging far to scout the
area... Cat had foreseen a possible escape on his part with
flight in this direction, had acted to remedy this means of
retreat.
He looked about. The damage should have registered
itself at the area control center. But the hour was late. No
telling when a repair crew might be by.
A map. There would be a line map inside for the area. He
moved to the doorway and entered.
Yes. On the wall to his right. He studied the disposition of
the red dots representing boxes in the area, located his own
position, looked for the next several.
Four miles to the nearest one.
Would Cat know its location? Would Cat have bothered to
look at this thing on the wall, realizing it was a map? And
even if this were the case, would Cat have gone to the
trouble to wreck another? True, he might have wanted to
cover all bets....
But no. Cat's surprise at his failure to flee had seemed
genuine. Cat had expected him to run. While it might be
possible for him to elude the beast and make it this far, it
seemed unlikely that he could reach the next one under these
circumstances. So even if Cat did know about it, chances
were that the next box remained unmolested.
Still, a map and the land itself were two different things.
He was not exactly certain as to the disposition of that next
red dot. Even with the grace period, he could be cutting
things short.
He departed the wrecked station, took his bearings and
recommenced his steady stride, cutting through a skeleton-
limbed orchard that rattled about him as he passed. A rabbit
sprang from behind a clump of grasses to veer across his
path and vanish into the shadows to the left. The grasses
were damp, and soon the lower portions of his trousers were
soaked through. Somewhere a dog began barking. He sud-
denly felt as if he were being watched, from no particular
direction. Again the fleeting shadows writhed images.
For a moment, he wondered what time it was, and then
the desire to know this thing fell away. Abruptly, he found
that he was happy. A part of his mind was almost cheering
for Cat, hoping that even now the beast was on his trail. Let
it be close. Let it be very close and clean, he felt. Or else
what the joy in such a context? This was the most alive he
had felt himself in years. There was a new song inside him
now, accompanied by his drumbeat footfalls.
He did not try to analyze the shifting of his mood. The
clutter of circumstance was far too dense for introspection,
even had he felt so inclined. For the moment, it was suffi-
cient to ride with the beat of his flight.
There were times when he felt certain that Cat was right at
his back, and it did not seem to matter. Other times, he felt
that he had already won, that he had far outdistanced his
pursuer, that there was no chance of his ever being overta-
ken. All of his senses now seemed touched with an unusual
acuity - the tiniest night movement was instantly identified,
from the faintest rasp, thump or crackling; shadowy forms
grew far more distinct, and even odors took on a new
significance. It had all been this way once, yes, long ago....
It was before everything that the world had been this way,
that he had been this way. Running. Into the east. Vision as
yet unclouded by veils life was later to drop upon him. He
had been eight or nine years old before he had learned to
speak English....
But after all of this, he wondered, what traces really
remained of his shift from a near-neolithic to a high-tech
society? He had lived more years under the latter than under
the former, if these things were to be measured solely in
years. The shift had been made successfully, and both ends
of his personal spectrum were available to him.
But it was the primitive which ruled as he ran. Yes. And
this part preferred the day to the night. Yet the joy remained.
It was not that there was an absence of fear. Instead, the fear
was contributing something to that peculiar species of ela-
tion which had risen within him.
As he pounded along, he wondered what the situation was
back at the mansion. What had Walford, Tedders, the de-
fenders and the Strageans made of that sudden attack fol-
lowed by the death of the adept - with no explanation as to
what had occurred? Naturally they would suspect his part in
it, but they must be puzzled by his absence. Even now they
must be trying to reach him - though this time he was not
even wearing the paging unit.
Would they ever learn? He wondered for the first time
what Cat might do later - if things were all over and he, Billy
Singer, had walked into the north. Would Cat retire to some
wilderness area and spend his days passing as some garden
variety predator? It seemed possible, but he could not be
certain. He could not tell whether Cat's hatred was.focused
upon him solely or whether he might hold all of humanity
responsible for his captivity. Images moved within Billy's
mind - crouching in a cage day after day, year after year,
being stared at by passing knots of people. If their situations
had been reversed, he felt that he would hate all mankind.
A sense of irritation began to grow. Why shouldn't Cat
consider him a sacrificial lamb and let it go at that?
He shook his head. No real reason for assuming that Cat
would run amok later. He had given no such indication.
What was he doing thinking these thoughts, anyway? Look-
ing for trouble? It was him that Cat wanted, not him plus
everybody else. And after he had gotten him, it would all be
over with....
Sacrificial lamb... He thought again of the sheep he had
herded as a boy. Long, slow days under skies hot and cool,
big skies... Lying on a hillside. Whittling. Singing. Foot-
races with other children. His first tumble with that girl from
over the ridge. What was her name? And later with her
sister. Hard breasts under his hands. The sheep about them
unconcerned. Clouds like sheep on the horizon. Sheep.
Lamb of God. Dora in the sky with turquoise. Running...
Cat. Running. How will you track me, Cat? Do you follow
the same signs I would? Or does your alien eye trace
different marks of passage? Either way, there is no time to
mask this trail. Escape first. Hide afterwards, Speed now is
all. Speed, opportunity. Chance. How. near might you be,
anyway? Or are you still waiting for the time to run?
Turquoise in the sky with Dora to the drumbeat footbeat
here below. On the hillside, far ahead, lights. Night air
comes in, goes out again. Stride is steady. Veer left, beyond
the death-shaped boulder. Up then. Cat come. Into the black
bag. Full entropy is all. But first.
Minutes melting, one to the other. In the distance, the
hum of a super battery-powered vehicle above the cleared
trail which had once been a roadway, lights raking tree
trunks. Heading for the station perhaps. Ay-ah! We live.
Unless Cat even now...
Drawing nearer, he slowed. This would be the place for an
ambush. Why not check the time? Because Cat might have
lied to gain this much of a chase. Once through the box and
the beast would be baffled. Wouldn't he?
Walking now, he examined a new proposition. What had
Cat said about understanding the boxes?
No. Even if he could black-fare his way, he would not
know where to go....
Cat is a telepath.
But of what sort? He had estimated Cat's ability as a
hunting/locator thing, refined, to be sure, during his long
confinement, but basically quarry-intensive, at about a quar-
ter of a mile. Still, there were human telepaths he knew of
who could send and receive around the world and through
outer space. Yet, again, such sophisticated ones he felt he
could block to some extent by slipping back to boyhood
thought patterns. But Cat, too, was primitive. It might not
serve to hide him from the beast. In which case.
The devil with you, Cat! - on all fours now, carefully
clearing the way before him of anything which might give
rise to the slightest sound, his jewelry wrapped in a handker-
chief and stuffed into his pocket, hands moving deftly, knees
and toes advancing into the cleared area in total silence.
Find me if you can. Fight me if you-do.
No response. And nothing between here and there that he
could conceive of as a transformation of his adversary. The
car drew up before the building and hovered. No one de-
parted it.
He was on his feet and sprinting across the final meters
of the field, through a fringe of trees, over the road-bed
trail. A glimpse through the station window: the units were
intact.
Almost laughing, he thrust the door open and crossed the
threshold. Empty. Safe. Breathe easily. He straightened
from his half-crouch, removed his hand from the handle of
his knife. Closed the door. All right. Five paces to liberty.
The unit to his far left was humming in preparation for a
transfer. Curious, he watched it. It was an odd hour and a
fairly isolated station; he wondered who might be coming
through. Shortly, the outline began to form. It was that of a
woman, somewhat stocky, with close-cropped brown hair.
She wore a dark suit and carried a recording unit bearing the
insignia of a major news service in her left hand. Her eyes
fixed upon him as she took on solidity.
"Hello," she said, studying his garb.
She stepped out of the unit.
"Hello."
"Coming or going?" she said.
"Just going. I only waited to see if you were someone I
knew."
"You're a real Indian, aren't you? Not just someone
dressed that way."
"I am. If you called ahead for a car I just saw one pull up
out front."
"I did. That must be it." She started forward, then hesi-
tated. "Do you live in this area?" she asked him.
"No. Just visiting."
He moved toward the nearest unit.
"Just a second," she said. "I've come here on a story, or
what could be a story. Maybe you'd know something about
it."
He forced himself to smile as he took another step.
"I doubt that. Haven't seen anything newsworthy."
"Well," she persisted, "there have been reports of pecu-
liar security measures being taken at the Walford place for
some time now. Then suddenly -this evening there was
apparently a power failure and some disturbance. Now
they've gone completely incommunicado. Would you know
anything about this?"
He shook his head, moved forward and stepped into the
unit.
She followed him and took hold of his arm just as he
inserted his strip into the slot, effectively blocking his tran-
sit.
"Wait. There's more," she said. "Then we learned that
the trip-boxes nearest to the place had been damaged. Are
you aware that the next station to the east is out of order?"
"Could it be a part of that power failure?"
"No, no. They have their own power packs - the same as
Walford's place, for that matter."
He shrugged, hoping her hand would slip away.
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about it. Listen, I'm in
a hurry -"
"You haven't seen or heard of anything unusual in this
area?"
He noted that her recorder was switched on.
"No," he said. "I've got to be going now -"
"It's just a feeling," she said, "but I think you know
something about this."
"Lady," he said, "your car is waiting. Go and see for
yourself like a good reporter. I wouldn't hang around here,
though."
"Why not?"
"Maybe something will happen to this one, too."
"Why should it?"
"How should I know? But if there's something dangerous
going on, you want to be in its path?"
She smiled for the first time.
"If there's a story in it, yes."
He pushed coordinates.
"Good luck."
"Not yet," she said, still holding his arm. "Have you been
by that way at all?"
"Get out of here," he told her, "in the car, or by one of the
other booths. Hurry! This place isn't safe. Don't hang
around."
"I'll be damned if I'll let you go now!" she said, reaching
toward a penlike device clipped behind her lapel.
"Sorry," he said, and he jerked his arm free and pushed
her backward. "Do what I said!" he cried. "Get out!" and
the fading began.
When he stepped from a unit in London's Victoria Station,
pocketing his strip, he had to restrain himself from running.
He drew the back of his hand across his brow and it came
away wet.
He headed for the nearest exit. The light of a gray morning
shone through it. He was arrested momentarily by the smell
of food from a twenty-four-hour diner. Too near, he decided,
and he moved on outside.
He passed a line of sightseeing hover-vehicles, another of
taxis, their operators nowhere in sight. He continued along
the way for a time, turned at random in a vaguely northward
direction and left the sidewalk. He followed a footpath
among trees leading down what had once been a wide
thoroughfare. There were fewer streets now than there had
been a hundred or even fifty years before, on the occasions
of earlier visits he had made. Some main arteries were kept
cropped for freighters and the occasional personal hov-
ercraft, some had become malls, some had simply deterio-
rated, most had become inner-city wilderness areas, or
parks, as he used to call them.
He followed the twisting ways for about half an hour,
putting a good distance between himself and the station, as
the day continued to lighten about him. Muffled by the trees,
the sounds of the awakening city grew. He bore to his right,
moving into the fringe area.
Above, beyond the walkway, he scanned the faces of
opened and opening establishments. Farther ahead, beyond
an archway, off a courtyard, he glimpsed a cafe's sign. He
mounted a stair to the walk and headed in that direction. He
was, he judged, somewhere near Piccadilly Circus.
Right at the archway, he froze, overwhelmed by a recur-
rence of the feeling that he was being observed. He looked
about. There were a number of people on the walk and in the
courtyard, several of them as distinctively dressed as him-
self for different parts of the world, but none of them seemed
to be paying him particular heed, and none seemed large
enough to represent the total mass of his adversary.
Of course, it could be something behind him in the woods....
He did not feel like discarding any sort of warning, even a
premonition. So he began walking again, passing the arch- '
way. In an alcove near the corner ahead, he could see a trip-
box. Giving in to nervousness might be a sign of weakness as
well as caution, but there was also much to be said for
holding onto as much peace of mind as possible when one
was running. He quickened his pace.
As he advanced, he saw that the alcove also contained a
police callbox. A jerking of its alarm handle should result in
the in-tripping of a bobby within seconds, a setup similar to
that in use almost everywhere these days. Not that he could
see this as helping him very much if he suddenly discovered
Cat at his back. A delaying action, at best. And he would
probably be condemning the cop to death by calling him. He
moved a little more rapidly.
He saw the head of a coyote - no, it was a small dog -
appear around the corner of the alcove, looking in his
direction. His sense of urgency grew. He fought but could
not resist a desire to look back.
When he did, he felt a sudden wave of dizziness. A large
man wearing a black cloak and glasses was just emerging
from among the trees. Billy broke into a run.
He located and withdrew his credit strip as he raced
ahead. He turned it to the proper position for immediate
insertion into the machine's slot. A wave of fear washed
over him, turning quickly to despair. He was suddenly
certain that he could not make it in time. He felt a powerful
impulse to halt and wait for his pursuer.
Instead, he plunged into the box, thrust the strip into the
slot and rapped out a set of coordinates. Turning then, he
saw that the man had dropped to all fours and was racing
toward him, changing shape as he came. Someone
screamed. Overhead, a dirigible was passing. The entire
tableau grew two-dimensional and began to fade. Good-bye,
Piccadilly....
Run, hunter, he heard faintly amid his thoughts. The next
time...
He stood in a booth at Victoria Station, shaking. But now
it was reaction rather than fear. The fear, the despair, the
certainty of doom had vanished at the instant of transport. It
was then he realized that Cat must have been projecting
these feelings onto him, a slightly more sophisticated version
of his old prey-paralysis trick - a thing he had several times
felt in its more blatant form years ago. He was startled at the
extent to which Cat had developed it since then.
He keyed a chart onto the directory screen and took a new
set of coordiaates from it. His pursuer might have caught
Victoria Station from his thoughts, and -
As he faded, he saw something beginning to take shape
two booths up from him, something resembling a tall,
cloaked, less-than-human figure still in the process of widen-
ing its shoulders and lengthening its forelimbs.
"Damn!"
Yes!
Coming through in Madrid... Bright sky through a dirty
window. A crowd of commuters. No time...
He keyed the directory, hit more coordinates. He looked
about as Madrid began to go away. No sign of an incoming
torglind metamorph. He began to sigh. Finished sighing at
the Gare du Nord box-section in Paris. He summoned the
local directory and tripped again.
Walking. Day brighter yet. From the Tuileries Station.
Safe now. No way for Cat to have followed this time.
Passing up the Champs Elysees. Crossing from the fringes
of the park over the cyclists' trail and onto the walkway, he
smelled the aromas of food from the nearest sidewalk cafe.
He passed several before he settled upon one with a vacant
table, close to a trip-box, commanding good views in both
directions. He seated himself there and ordered a large
breakfast. When he had finished he lingered, drinking count-
less cups of coffee. Nothing threatening appeared and he felt
the flickering beginning of a sense of security. After a time, a
feeling of lethargy settled upon him.
Night. It was late morning here, but it was night in the
place he had left. He had been a long while without sleep.
He got up and walked again. Should he jump to another
city to obscure his trail further? Or had he covered his tracks
sufficiently?
He compromised and tripped to the Left Bank. He walked
again. He knew that his thinking was foggy. Filled first with
the necessities of his flight, his mind was now reduced to
slow-motion movement by reaction, by fatigue. It would be
easy to obtain a stimulant to restore full alertness, by
communication with his medical computer and a request for
transmission of a prescription order to a local pharmacist.
But he felt relatively safe now, and he would rather rest and
restore his natural energies than proceed by artificial means
at this stage of affairs. His body might ultimately prove more
important than his mind, his feelings aid his reflexes surer
guides than any elaborate plan. Hadn't he already decided
that primitive was best against a dangerous telepath? Sleep
now, pay later, if need be.
He located a hotel called the St. Jacques near the Univer-
sity. There were several trip-boxes in the neighborhood and
one off the lobby. He took a third-floor room there and
stretched out on the bed, fully dressed.
For a long while he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
Images of his recent flight came and went. Gradually, how-
ever, other images intruded, none of them pieces of recent
things. He drifted with them, his breathing slowing, and
finally they bore him off.
... Watching Dora before the video console, summoning
up swarms of equations, fingers moving across the keyboard
as his mother's had across the loom, introducing new varia-
bles, weaving the fresh patterns that resulted. He did not
understand. But it did not matter. Her hair long and blond,
her eyes very pale. He had met her on his return from a long
expedition, when the Institute had sent him back to school
for an update on astrophysical theory and improved naviga-
tional techniques. She had taught mathematics there....
The equations turn to sandpaintings and finally to skulls,
animal as well as human. Dora is smiling. Dimly he remem-
bers that she is dead. Would she still be alive if she had never
met him? Probably. But... The screen has become a slot
machine now, and the skulls keep turning and stopping,
coming up different colors.... The colors line the walls of
the canyon through which he walks. Long bands of strata in
the roughness to right and left. Strewn at his feet are the
skulls and other bones, some of them gray and gnawed,
cracked and weathered, others ivory fresh, some of them
inset with turquoise, coral and jet. There comes a sound at -
his back, but he turns and nothing is there. It comes again,
and he turns again, and again there is nothing. The third time
it comes, he thinks that he detects a fleeting shadow as he
spins around. The fourth time, it is there, waiting. A coyote
stands laughing beside a pile of bones. "Come," it says, and
it turns away. He follows, and it leads him among the
shadows. "Hurry," it says, loping now, and he increases his
pace. A long time seems to pass as they move through
hidden places. Dark places. Places of forgetfulness. Dora
following. Firelight and dancers. Sounds of rattles and
drums. Nightclub through a whiskey haze. The dusty sur-
face of Woden IV; the tanklike beasts which dwell there.
Bones underfoot, bones all about. Falling, falling ...
Sounds at his back. His shadow preceding him as he pursues
the furry tail of the Trickster. "Where are we going?" he
calls out. "Out and up, out and up," comes the reply. His
shadow is suddenly enveloped by that of a larger one, from
something just at his back. "Hurry! Out! Up! Hurry!"
Awakening to urgency: day grown dimmer beyond the
window. And what was that sound on the stair?
Out and up? Too strong a thing to ignore. He could almost
still hear the coyote beyond the window.
He rose and crossed the room, looked out. There was a
fire escape. Had he noticed it on checking in? He did not
recall.
He raised the window and stepped outside. He did not
question the warning. He still seemed to be moving within
the dream. It seemed perfectly reasonable that he continue
on the course he had been following. The evening air was
cool, trail lights illuminated the way below. That damp,
pungent smell on the breeze... The Seine?
Up!
He climbed. With some difficulty, he was able to draw
himself onto the slanting roof. People were moving along the
Rue des Ecoles trail, but no one looked upward. He began
moving to his right, toes in a rain gutter, hands sliding along
slate. The dreamlike quality persisted. He passed chimneys
and a dish antenna. He saw a corner ahead. There came a
faint, hollow, hammering sound, as of someone pounding on
a door, below and to his left. He hurried.
The crashing, splintering sound which followed stirred his
imagination but vaguely. There was a booth fairly near now,
were he on the ground....
He moved as if following a magic trail, leading toward
another fire escape he now had sight of. Even the sounds of
pursuit, as a large body passed through his hotel window,
ringing upon the metal stair, and then reared to scrabble at
the roof's edge, seemed but part of some drama of which he
was not even an interested spectator, let alone a principal.
He continued to move mechanically, barely aware that his
pursuer was addressing him - not with words, but with feel-
ings which he would normally, under the circumstances,
have found disquieting.
He glanced back as he took a turn, in time to see the large,
oddly shaped figure in black begin to draw itself upward onto
the roof. Even when the guttering tore loose beneath its
weight and the figure clawed unsuccessfully to gain purchase
on the building, he felt no surge of adrenalin. As its down-
ward plunge began, he heard it call: Today luck is with you.
Make the most of it! Tomorrow
Its words and movements ceased when it landed in a
clump of shrubbery below. And it was only then that he felt
as if he were suddenly awakening, realizing that the world
actually existed, that his position had been precarious. He
drew a deep breath of the night's cold air, swung onto the fire
escape and began his descent.
When he reached the ground, the figure was still a dark
mass within the rue's trailside growth. It was making small
movements and a wheezing noise, but it seemed unable to
rise and continue the pursuit.
It was only after he had hurried into the box, summoned
forth new coordinates and encoded them that Billy began to
wonder.
DISK III
COMPUTER FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT
BRG-118, recipient of the 2128 Nobel Prize in Medicine,
this morning filed suit in the district court in Los Angeles
claiming that J & J Pharmaceuticals
SATELLITE THIEF STRIKES AGAIN
Valuable experimental components were removed from
Berga-12 by a person or persons unknown during a power
failure now believed to have been induced by
SOLAR REGATTA TO SAIL THURSDAY
REPORTER FOUND BRUTALLY SLAIN
In an out-of-the-way trip-box station in upstate New York,
reporter Virginia Kalkoff's mangled
Don't know what I'm gonna do...
SPRING STORMS HIT SOUTHWEST
SERIES-12 ARTIFICIAL HEART RECALLED
Apologizing for the inconvenience
IN THE DAYS BEFORE NAY-
enezgani, Old Man Coyote once came upon the Traveling
Rock in his journeying about the land. It had spoken to him
and he had answered. Amused that a huge pile of stone
should possess sentience, he quickly set about mocking it.
First he painted a grotesque face upon its side.
"Old Man Stone, you are frowning," he said.
"I do not like this face you have given me," it replied.
"And you are bald," Coyote said. "I will fix that."
He climbed atop the stone and defecated.
"Brown curly locks suit you well."
"You annoy me, Cayote," it said.
"I will be back in a while to build a fire at your base and
cook my dinner," Coyote said, "as soon as I have hunted."
"Perhaps I, too, should hunt," it said.
Coyote set off through the woods. He had not gone very
far when he heard a rumbling noise behind him. When he
looked back he saw that the stone, rolling slowly, had
commenced following him.
"Holy shit!" said Coyote, and he began running.
As he ran along, he saw Mountain Lion resting in the
shade.
"Mountain Lion!" he called out. "Someone is chasing
me. Can you help me, brother?"
Mountain Lion rose, stretched and looked back.
"You've got to be kidding," Mountain Lion said when he
saw Traveling Rock. "I've no desire to be a flat cat. Keep
going."
Coyote ran on, and later he passed Bear just emerging
from his den.
"Hey! Bear, old buddy!" he cried. "I've got someone
after me. Will you help me?"
"Sure," said Bear. "There aren't many things I'm afraid
of..."
Then Bear heard the noise of pursuit and looked back and
saw Traveling Rock.
"... But that's one of them-," he said. "Sorry."
"What should I do?" Coyote yelled.
"Cultivate philosophy and run like hell," said Bear, re-
turning to his den.
Coyote ran on, down to the plains, and Traveling Rock
picked up speed behind him.
At length, Coyote saw Old Buffalo grazing amid long
grasses.
"Buffalo! Save me! I'm being chased!" Coyote cried.
Old Buffalo turned his head slowly and regarded the
oncoming boulder.
"You can have all the moral support I've got," Buffalo
replied. "But I just remembered it's time to move the herd.
We've about grazed this area out. See you around, kid. Hey,
gang! Let's get our tails across the river!"
Coyote continued to run, gasping now, and finally he came
to the place where the hawks were resting.
"Help me, lovely fliers, mighty hunters!" he called. "My
enemy is gaining on me!"
"Hide in this hollow tree and leave the Rock to us," said
the chief of the hawks.
The Hawk Chief gave a signal then and his entire tribe
rose into the air, circled once and fell upon the Traveling
Rock. With their beaks, they prized away all of its loose
covering, and then they went.to work along its fracture lines,
opening, widening, removing more material. In a short time,
the Rock was reduced to a trail of gravel.
"There," said the Hawk Chief to Coyote, "it is over. You
can come out now."
Coyote emerged from the tree and regarded the remains of
his enemy. Then he laughed.
"It was only a game," he said. "That's all it was. I was
never in any real danger. And you dumb birds actually
thought I was in trouble. That's funny. That's real funny. No
wonder everyone laughs at you. Did you really think I was
afraid of that old rock?"
Coyote walked away laughing, and the Hawk Chief gave
another signal.
The hawks fell upon the stone chips, gathered them and
began reassembling them, like pieces of a gigantic puzzle.
When the Traveling Rock found itself together again, it
groaned and then, slowly at first, began rolling, off in the
direction Coyote had taken upon his departure. It picked up
speed as it moved and soon came in sight of Coyote once
more.
"Oh, no!" Coyote cried when he saw it coming.
He began running once again. He came to a downhill slope
and began its descent. Traveling Rock picked up speed
behind him, narrowed the distance that separated them,
rolled over him and crushed him to death.
A circling hawk saw this take place and went back to
report it to the others.
"Old Man Coyote has done it again," he said. "He never
learns."
The Second Day
NIGHT, WITH MIST BANKS
drifting down rocky slopes, stars toward the center of the
sky, moonrise phosphorescence at the edge of things. The
floatcar followed the high, craggy trail, winding between
rock wall and downward slope, piercing stone shoulders,
turning, dipping and rising. Sheep wandered across the way,
pausing to browse on spring grasses. There were no lights in
the countryside; there was no other traffic. The windshield
occasionally misted over, to be cleared by a single, auto-
matic movement of its blade. The only sound above the low
buzz of the engine was the occasional urgent note of a gust of
wind invading some cranny of the vehicle.
Billy entered a curve bending to his right, a steep rise to
his left. He felt more secure with every kilometer that
passed. Cat had proved more formidable than he had antici-
pated when it came to using the trip-boxes and functioning
within cities. He was still uncertain as to how the beast had
been able to determine his whereabouts with such accuracy.
A gimmicking of the boxes he could understand, but know-
ing where to go to find him... It almost smacked of
witchcraft, despite the fact that Cat had had a long time in
which to plan.
Still, a change of tactics now ought to provide him with the
leeway he would need for a total escape. He had tripped
back to the Gare du Nord after fleeing the stunned Cat on the
Left Bank. From there he had transported himself to Dublin,
a city he had visited a number of times during Irish excur-
sions, consulted the directory and tripped to Bantry, from
which he had once spent several weeks sailing and fishing.
There, in that pleasant, quiet corner of West Cork, he had
taken his dinner and known the beginning of this small
aecurity he felt. He had walked through the town there at the
head of the bay, smelling the salt air and recalling a season
that might have been happier, though he now saw it as one of
his many periods of adjustment to yet another changed time;
He remembered the boat and a girl named Lynn and the
seafood; these, and the fact that it was a small, unhurried
place, permitting him to slip gradually into a new decade.
Could something like this be what he really most needed
now? he wondered. He shook his head. His grip tightened on
the wheel as he negotiated a twisting descent.
Time to think. He needed to get to a safe place where he
could work things out. Something was very wrong. He was
missing important things. Cat had come too damned close.
He ought to be able to shake him. This was still his world,
for all of the changes. An alien beast should not be able to
outwit him here. Time. He needed some time in which to
work on it.
Vary the pattern, he had decided. If he had left some trace
behind him in the boxes, some means by which his destina-
tion choices might become known, this move on his part
should cancel that effect. He had rented the vehicle in
Bantry and begun the northward drive along the trail he
remembered. Passing through Glengariff, he had continued
onto this way toward Kenmare, moving through a country-
side devoid of trip-boxes, For the moment, he felt free.
There was only the night and the wind and the rocky
prospect. He had been caught off balance by Cat's releasing
him the previous evening. He had done nothing but impro-
vise since then. What he had to come up with now was a
plan, a general defense to sustain him through this trial. A
plan...
A light in the distance. A pair of them now., Three... He
raised a container and took a sip of coffee. His first mistake,
he decided, had probably been in not tripping enough. He
should have continued his movements to really cloud the
trail. Cat had obviously been close enough to pick his
destination from his mind. Even when he had jumped more
than once, Cat could have been coming in as he was tripping
out, and so could have learned the next stop.
Four... Kenmare would still be some distance beyond
the first scattered farms and rural residences. This night was
crisp. He descended a long slope. Abruptly, the trees were
larger along the trailside.
The next time he would really mix it up. He would jump
back and forth among so many places that the trail would be
completely muddled. Yes, that was what he should have
done at first -
The next time?
He screamed. The mental presence of Cat suddenly hung
like the aroma of charred flesh about him.
"No -" he said, fighting to regain control of the vehicle
which he had let swerve at his outburst.
He bounced across a field at a height of perhaps two feet,
heading toward a steepening rise. Too abrupt a change in
attitude would overturn the car.
Pulling the wheel around, he succeeded in veering away
from the slope. Moments later, he was headed back toward
the trail. Although he peered in every direction his light
traveled, he saw no sign of the hunting beast.
Back on the trail once more, he accelerated. Shadows fled
past. Tree limbs were stirred by the wind. Bits of fog drifting
across his way were momentarily illuminated by the vehi-
cle's beams. But this was all that he saw.
"Cat...?" he finally said.
There was no reply. Was he so on edge that he had
imagined that single phrase? The strain...
"Cat?"
It had seemed so real. He struggled to reconstruct his state
of mind at the time of its occurrence. He supposed that he
could have triggered it himself; but he did not like what this
implied about his mental equipment.
He-spun through a number of S-shaped curves, his eyes
continuing their search on both sides of the trail.
So quickly... His confidence had been destroyed in an
instant. Would he be seeing Cat behind every rock, every
bush, from now on?
Why not?
"Cat!"
Yes.
Where are you? What are you doing?
Amusing myself. The point of this game must be maxi-
mum enjoyment, I have decided. It is good that you cooper-
ate so well for this end.
How did you find me?
Nore easily than you might think. As I said, your coopera-
tion is appreciated.
I do not understand.
Of course not. You tend to hide things from yourself.
What do you mean?
I know now that I can destroy you at any time, but I wish
to prolong the pleasure. Keep running. I will strike at the
most appropriate moment.
This makes no sense at all.
No. Because you will not let it. You are mine, hunter,
whenever I choose.
Why?
He came onto a long, tree-lined curve. There seemed to be
more lights far ahead.
I will tell you, and it will still not save you. You have
changed from what you once were. I see that within you
which was not there in the old days. Do you know what you
realty want?
To beat you, Billy said. And I will.
No. Your greatest wish is to die.
That is not so!
,You have given up on the thought of keeping up with your
world. For a long while you have waited and wished for an
appropriate way out of it. I have provided you with such an
occasion. You think that you are running from me. Actually,
you are rushing toward me. You make it easy for me, hunter.
Not true!
...And the lovely irony is that you do not admit it.
You have been in the minds of too many Californians.
They're full of pop psychology...
... And your denial of it makes it that much easier for
me.
You are trying to wear me down mentally. That's all.
No need for it.
You're bluffing. If you can strike now, let's see you do it.
Soon. Soon. Keep running.
He had to slow the vehicle for a series of turns. He
continued to scan both sides of the trail. Cat must be near in
order to reach him, but of course he had the advantage of
straight-line travel whereas the trail -
Exactly.
Overhead, s piece of the night came loose, dropping from
the top of a high boulder which leaned from the right. He
tried to brake and cut to the left simultaneously.
A massive, jaguarlike form with a single, gleaming eye
landed on the vehicle's hood forward and to the front. It was
visible for but an instant, and then it sprang away.
The car tipped, its air cushion awry, and it was already
turning onto its side before he left the trail. He fought with
the wheel and the attitude control, already knowing that it
was too late. There came a strong shock accompanied by a
crunching noise, and he felt himself thrown forward.
DEADLY, DEADLY, DEADLY...
Kaleidoscope turning... Shifting pattern within unalter-
able structure... Was it a mistake? There is pain with the
power... Time's friction at the edges... Center loosens,
forms again elsewhere... Unalterable? But - Turn out-
ward. Here songs of self erode the will till actions lie
stillborn upon night's counterpane. But - Again the move-
ment ... Will it hold beyond a catch of moment? To
fragment... Not kaleidoscope. No center. But again...
To form it will. To will it form. Structure... Pain...
Deadly, deadly... And lovely. Like a sleek, small dog...
A plastic statue... The notes of an organ, the first slug of
gin on an empty stomach... We settle again, farther than
ever before... Center. The light!... It is difficult being a
god. The pain. The beauty. The terror of selfless - Act! Yes.
Center, center, center... Here'! Deadly...
necess yet again from bridge of brainbow oyotecraven
stare decesis on landaway necessity timeslast the arnings ent
and tided turn yet beastfall nor mindstorms neither in their
canceling sarved cut the line that binds ecessity towarn and
findaway twill open pandorapack wishdearth amen amenu-
ensis opend the mand of min apend the pain of durthwursht
vernichtung desiree tolight and eadly dth cessity sesame
We are the key.
HE AWOKE. TO STILLNESS AND
the damp. The right side of his forehead was throbbing. His