The Ophiuchi Hotline

16

Saint Peter's Casino was on fire, just as it had been the last time Lilo visited. Flames licked upward from the bottom edges of hanging tapestries, crackled through blistered oak paneling. The row of pews in the nave was an inferno, a whirling fire storm that reached to the ceiling. Smashed furniture had been heaped around the Pietà and set to the torch; the white marble was now coated with soot. Lilo took a sandwich and a drink from the snack bar that had been set up on the altar. She had been standing around the crap table all night and her feet hurt. St. Pete's bored her. But it was almost closing time. Soon Jesus would be there.

She went back into the Sistine Pit and worked her way over to the tables as one of the walls of the building crumbled. The smoke that had been trapped in the upper reaches of the chapel cleared enough for her to see Michelangelo's ceiling, by now considerably the worse for wear. There were cracks where holes had been drilled to anchor the crystal chandeliers which hung over every table. Beyond the vanished wall an angry Vesuvius could be seen belching fire and brimstone. Someone had a better sense of the dramatic than of historical geography, Lilo thought.

"Twenty on fifteen," she said, taking a seat to the left of the man she had been watching all night. He had lost heavily on the dice, and had shifted to roulette in a desperate effort to change his luck. The croupier in her black-and-white habit spun the wheel and the ball clattered into number eight. Lilo watched her chips being raked away along with the man's.

"Pardon me," said someone at Lilo's left. "Are you available?" She glanced at him. His eyes were glassy and his breath was sweet with the smell of Zongo, a powerful aphrodisiac. It was obviously not all he had ingested, and Lilo wondered what he saw when he looked at her. But she laughed when she looked down at him. His genitals had been radically modified according to the dictates of some new fad.

"Get out of here," she scoffed. "What good would that thing be to me?"

"It's okay," he slurred, nearly falling against her. "I've got an adapter." He brandished something pink and soft that seemed to be breathing. Lilo pushed him, and he staggered into the arms of a bouncer.

"Hey! You brought me luck!" the man next to her cried. The croupier was pushing a tall stack of chips in his direction.

"What'd I do?"

"You hit my elbow. I was going for twenty-six, you hit me, and it went to twenty-eight. I left it there. I mean, what the hell? I couldn't do worse than I've been doing, huh?"

If the aggressive little man had still been in sight, Lilo would have kissed him. The holehunter had ignored every conversational advance Lilo had made all night as he sank deeper into a black mood.

"Are you going to quit while you're ahead?" she asked.

"Ahead?... I don't know. You're lucky; what do you think?"

"I don't think we have much choice. J.C.'s coming."

And indeed he was. Bloody, naked, thorn-crowned, the bearded figure was driving the moneychangers from the temple before starting the task of rebuilding it.

"Saint Peter's will be in limbo for one hour, my children," he called out. "No need to leave, but you'll have to clear out of the gaming areas while we clean up. Refreshments are being served in the Pope Agnes Library, upstairs. Y'all come back, now, and bring money." He pulled a wall switch, and everything changed. Half the patrons vanished, along with most of the cathedral. There was a low white ceiling set with bare lights. Cleaning robots began to whir down the aisles, beeping angrily when they encountered the feet of slow-moving patrons.

"What do you say?" Lilo asked. "Are you tired of being taken?"

He laughed. "Maybe I ought to get out, for a little while anyway. You brought me luck. I'm at your disposal."

"All right. I think a bath might do us both some good. How long have you been here, anyway?"

Lilo knew very well that he had been in the casino for thirty-seven hours. Vaffa and Cathay had spelled her, keeping an eye on him, though Vaffa had stayed strictly in the background. She also knew his name, which was Quince, but she didn't tell him that. He was a holehunter, and a slightly unusual one, which was the cause of her interest.

Lilo had been working hard for the six days since Vaffa had given her a degree of freedom. Vaffa had decided that Lilo would be the one to operate on her own, because, while she did not really trust either one of them, she trusted Cathay less. But it had been a tough decision, and one she was still sweating over.

The job had not been easy, even without Vaffa. Quince was the best bet so far. The problem seemed to be that those hunters who owned their own ships didn't display the slightest interest in chartering them. A holehunter hunts holes, as she had been told many times and with great disdain; taxi drivers sell rides. The few working hunters who were on Pluto were there waiting for ships to be overhauled before setting out again, and they damn well did not intend to stop off at the Hotline.

Quince was a little different. Vaffa's research had turned him up. He had made three trips, all about thirty years in duration. He had been lucky the first time out and returned a very rich man. That money had financed his second trip, and his third, and he had not found a hole either time. When a hunter returns empty it generally falls to a bankruptcy court to divide the spoils. But Quince still owned his ship. He had a little money left, but not enough to outfit himself for a fourth trip. He had had no luck in finding backers; speculators tend to superstition, and have little desire to back a two-time loser. So he had tried for a year to win enough at the tables to go back out once more.

Saint Peter's was on the eighteenth level of the entertainment complex beneath the spaceport. They took a lift to the concourse and soon found a public bath. They stripped, and plunged into the soaking pool. Lilo floated on her back and listened to him complain about what a terrible run of luck he had been having. She commented sympathetically now and then, and gradually began to talk more about herself. He was easier to get into conversation than most hunters she had met. She decided it was because he'd been on the ground so long.

They moved to the sauna and didn't say anything as the heat baked their bodies. Then it was a quick plunge in ice water, and a more leisurely session in the shallow pool as steam curled around them. Lilo was scrubbing his back when she first brought up the subject of a trip.

"To nowhere?" he said. "What's the point of that?" He had not failed to notice the stacks of hard Lunar currency she had thrown away while sitting at his elbow. Lilo was "a rich tourist from Luna."

"No point. It would be fun. I could tell all my friends how far out I'd been. Everyone's been to Pluto."

"How far did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know. I could think about that later." She sat on the side of the pool while he soaped her feet and legs. "But you don't really sound like you're interested."

He didn't say anything, and she didn't want to push. He seemed preoccupied as they moved through a small tropical garden where sprays and waterfalls rinsed the soap from them. They paused on a wooden footbridge, leaning on the rail. There was another couple shimmeringly visible behind the veil of a waterfall. She put her arm around his waist and stroked him as they watched, but he didn't respond. They moved through a corridor of hot-air blowers and a spray of powder. Lilo bought a brush from a machine and sat on a cushion combing the hair on her legs.

"What would you be willing to pay for a trip like that?"

"Oh, gee. I don't know. What do you think it would cost?" Another thoughtful silence threatened; she decided to prime him. "I guess—well, your expenses, of course. Whatever it actually costs you to get out there. Plus a fee."

They moved to the lamps and reclined on a long table with a dozen other people like pink and brown strips of bacon lined up on a griddle. After ten minutes they turned over.

"You still didn't say where you want to go."

"How about the Hotline?" She could hear the gears turning in his head, estimating costs and times. She already knew to a nicety what his expenses would be, given the size and acceleration of his ship. "I'd really like to go out there and listen to it. Just think, thousands of light-years away, people talking to me!"

"Seventeen light-years," Quince said, absently. "And you can't really—" He seemed to change his mind. "You might enjoy it," he finished.

They rinsed again, were blown dry and powdered. They skipped the massage, dressed, and went back into the concourse. Quince still seemed to be pondering a decision, so Lilo left him alone. She steered him into a lounge and ordered drinks for both of them. They found a secluded booth with dim lighting. Lilo glanced nervously at the glowing numbers on the cuff of her shirt; she was late. She knew Vaffa had tailed her the first two days she had been allowed out alone. Now she was supposed to be punctual about meetings. It would not be long before Vaffa began searching for her, and Lilo didn't know what would happen when she was found. She began to fear Vaffa would burst in on them and ruin the deal, so she decided to give him one more push.

"Okay, so I'll pay your expenses, plus... oh..." she named a figure fifty percent over what he would need to outfit and fuel his ship for a hunting run. He seemed tempted. Reflexively, he named a higher sum. It was half what Lilo had been authorized to pay.

"It's a deal," she said, holding out her hand. He shook it, and she felt a great relief. Vaffa could hardly fault her for being late because she had to close the deal.

"I'll have the money to you in lagtime, as soon as it clears my bank on Luna. Then you can call me as soon as you're ready to go." She held her breath for a moment, then plunged on. It had to work, it just had to. "Oh, there's one other thing. So you can figure weights and masses or whatever it is. My husband and my wife will be coming along."

"Three of you?"

It wasn't a question, but a way of saying the deal was off.

"Where have you been?"

Vaffa was as much relieved as angry, but she hid it well. She had been waiting near the edge of Center Park for half an hour, trying to decide how much tardiness would indicate desertion. Now she nearly broke Lilo's wrist as she grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the park. They took a wicker cable car to the three-hundred-meter level of one of the huge trees. Lilo could have used another drink, but instead of going inside Vaffa led her out on one of the broad, flat limbs. Soon they were among concealing foliage and hanging vines.

"I don't like the look of this," Lilo said, glancing down.

"You shouldn't. You're going straight down unless you give me a very good reason why you were late. I told you I would tolerate no—"

"Stop it. Stop it! You can throw me down if you decide to, but I won't listen to any more threats from you. Damn it, I'm doing my best, and I want to be treated like a human being." She waited. Vaffa slowly released her hand. It seemed to take a great deal of effort.

"Thank you. Now we had a deal. I'm talking about the promise I made on the way here. You either trust me or you don't, and if you don't, what's the point of making deals?"

"I don't know how far to trust you. My instincts tell me not to."

Lilo shrugged. "Your instincts are right. But not right now. Our time will come later, I imagine. But I'm going with you to the Hotline, I've already decided that."

"Does that mean you—"

"Hold on. I'm not through yet." Lilo was breathing hard, and realized she was spoiling for a fight. She could not be a match for Vaffa physically, so it would have to be with words. She felt a bit light-headed; she had talked back and got away with it.

"You're driving me crazy, you know that? We're not a good match, and yet we've been constantly in each other's company. When I made that promise to you, I frankly didn't know if I'd keep it. But now I see the value of it, if you will honor it as I am doing."

Vaffa looked tortured. Lilo thought the blood ritual must mean a lot to her, and that Vaffa felt badly about not trusting someone who had gone through it with her.

"How? How can I trust you? If I was in your position, I don't think I'd ever think of anything but escaping."

"I didn't, at first. And it's never far from my mind. But I can give you two reasons why I won't be running now, and I hope they'll ease your mind, or else you might as well push me. First, I'm virtually certain you're not the only one of Tweed's loyalists here on Pluto. There's probably someone, maybe two or three, who follow us everywhere. Even if there's not, Tweed is operating on the assumption I'll assume there is. I think either one is just as likely, the first maybe a little more so. Anyway, that means if I ran I'd have no better than a fifty-fifty chance of getting away with it, not counting the things you'd do to get me back. When I run, it's going to be a lot better than that."

"And the second reason?"

"I don't know if you'll believe this one, so you'd better think hard about the first. But for the record, I'm worried, I don't like the sound of that Hotline message. I don't like it at all. I think someone had better look into it, and it might as well be me. So I want to go out and hear it for myself."

Vaffa lowered her eyes for a moment and rubbed her bare scalp. Then she nodded, and sat down cross-legged on the tree limb.

"All right. I'm... I'm sorry. I said I'd trust you, and I will from now on. On the same terms as before, though, don't forget that. If you betray me, I'll hunt you down and kill you, no matter how long it takes."

"That's all I'm asking for." Lilo sat beside her. She stretched out with her arms behind her head.

"So how did it go with the holehunter?" Vaffa asked.

"Washed out. He won't do it."

"What?"

"Put your shirt on. That's why I'm late. I had him that close. We were talking terms."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You. Oh, not you personally. You and Cathay. He flatly refuses to take more than one passenger. None of us can go alone, for obvious reasons, so the deal had to fall through."

"But why? I checked him out. His ship would handle four easily over that distance."

Lilo sighed. "I know. You have to try and understand what these people are like. They don't like people. It was torture for him to consider taking me alone. Three people scared him so badly he could barely talk."

"I guess I still don't understand."

Lilo tried again, because she didn't, either. "Put yourself in his place. He's spent most of his life alone on that ship. It's like part of his body. He's slowly going insane here on Pluto, and he knows it. To him, sharing his ship is as repulsive as..." she flailed her hands helplessly, "...I don't know. Sharing a toothbrush. Think of your own metaphor. He just won't do it, not for anything."

"Then we're back where we started."

Lilo pursed her lips, then turned her head and smiled.

"Nooo. As it happens, we're not. I hired him as an expert consultant. Gave him enough for a stake at the tables. Asked him the big question: Is there anyone who might do what we need, do it faster than we could do it ourselves by buying our own ship? Or was it hopeless? Would every hunter react as he did?"

"Go on. What did he say?"

"He gave me a name. No promises, you understand. But if anyone will do it, she will. She's crazy, even by holehunter standards. And I'm going up to see her in two hours, on the next shuttle."

"Why didn't you say so in the first... no, never mind. I suppose I can't go."

"That's right. No sense in spooking her with the three of us right off. This will take finesse."

"Then that's you, obviously."

Lilo turned her head, looking to see if the other woman had been trying to make a joke. That would be a first. But Vaffa's face was as stolid as ever.

"What's her name?"

"Javelin."