Fire Pattern

CHAPTER 12

“Hello,” the Government man said as he manoeuvred himself into the seat beside Jerome. “My name is Dexter Simm, and the first thing I’m going to do is copy your fingerprints. I’m sure you won’t mind, but even if you do mind I’m going to copy them anyway, and if necessary I’ll get these gentlemen to hold you down while I’m doing it.”

Simm inclined his head in the direction of two impassive young men who sat at the front end of the shuttle’s passenger compartment. They wore business suits which conspicuously had been chosen to look inconspicuous, and they gave Jerome the impression of being expert at physically subduing people.

“I don’t mind,” he said lightly, offering Simm both his hands, “But is this the way you greet all Russian visitors?”

“Russian my ass! I don’t know where you’re from, big man, but you’re not Russian.”

Working swiftly, Simm pressed Jerome’s fingertips against a slip of plastic which he then slid into a flat black box. One of his subordinates left his seat and came down the central aisle, swinging along awkwardly in the absence of gravity. He took the box from Simm, carried it up front and disappeared into the screened-off flight deck. Jerome guessed that a worldwide computer check on his prints would have been completed before the shuttle entered the atmosphere, and he derived perverse satisfaction from the thought. If there was one line of enquiry which was guaranteed to draw a blank it was looking for Dorrinian fingerprints in Terran files.

“Nice ring you’ve got there.” Simm tried to touch the jewel on Jerome’s left hand and looked up in amusement and surprise when Jerome snatched his hand back. “What are you so jumpy about?”

“What are you so hostile about?” Jerome countered. “Was it something I said?”

“As a matter of fact, that just about sums it up.” Simm stared at Jerome for a moment with open dislike. He was a thick-shouldered man, fiftyish and balding, whose body still looked powerful in spite of the fat which had been layered on it by years of sedentary work. His face was that of the corporate hard man—shrewd but unimaginative, knowledgeable but uncultured.

“I’ve had the job of studying every statement you’ve made in the last three months,” he said, “and I can tell you I’ve never seen such a total crock of…” Simm broke off as a bell sounded to announce that the shuttle was casting free of the space station. A second later he gripped the arms of his chair in evident alarm as the craft gave a wallowing lurch and the night-black observation ports along one side of the compartment suddenly blazed with sunlight. Engines sounded intermittently, sending vibrations racing through the wall and ceiling panels. Jerome, having voyaged from beyond the Sun, was unaffected, but Simm’s face had developed a greyish pallor and there was the transparent ghost of a moustache on his upper lip.

“And you have the nerve to ask why I’m hostile,” he said, apparently deciding to sublimate fear into anger. “Just look at the state of me! I shouldn’t be up here in this aluminum bucket, playing spacemen. Do you know we nearly had to set up a special department just to deal with you? Nobody would decide if you were an immigration problem, or an FBI problem, or a military problem, or a NASA problem, or a CIA problem, or a KGB…Well, no—the Soviet connection got scrubbed pretty fast. Like I said before, you’re no Russian.”

“I never claimed to be a true Russian,” Jerome said. “The Far East Region isn’t…”

“Don’t start splitting hairs! I’m not in the mood.”

Jerome had been too wrapped up in the bizarre complexities of his own life to have thought previously about how various US agencies would react to his claims and his actual arrival on Earth. The one thing he could predict about the near future was that Dorrinian supertelepaths would get to him, no matter where he was, but what was going to become of him after he had handed over the Thabbren? Would the Dorrinians free him from detention, or would he be left to fend off inquisitors until that unimaginable moment when the Great Secret ceased to be a secret?

“If everybody is so convinced that I’m some kind of impostor,” he said, buying time in which to think, “why was the Quicksilver allowed to bring me back to Earth?”

“Because you’re going to be a real mine of information, big man. You don’t seem to think so, but you are going to blab everything about how you got to Mercury. The complete works. You’re going to name the country that put you there, and you’re going to…” Simm paused, apparently beginning to feel more at ease, and for a moment looked out at the phosphorescent whiteness of the space station which was now moving above and ahead of the falling shuttle. “Besides, it wouldn’t have been neighbourly to leave you out there—especially after Chuck Baumanis was considerate enough to make room on the ship.”

There it is again, Jerome thought. Instinct rushes in where logic fears to tread. It’s part of our nature to look for connections. We need them…

“I’m sorry about Baumanis,” he said. “I don’t suppose it’s much consolation to you that his death made it possible for another man to live.”

“Not much.” Simm ran a gloomily critical eye over Jerome. “You know, you’re a real mess. Are those the only clothes you’ve got? Apart from the Mickey Mouse space suit, that is.”

Jerome, who had lost the habit of thinking about standards of dress, abruptly realized that he had to be a strange spectacle to Terran eyes. His Dorrinian-made shirt and slacks were in a sack along with the cumbersome vacuum suit in which he had made his break from the tunnel. Aboard the Quicksilver he had been provided with disposable plastex coveralls which he had been forced to sever at the waist to accommodate his elongated frame, and the resultant two-piece garment—coupled with the grey socks which were his only footwear—was anything but elegant.

“I see what you mean,” he said, “but I guess I’m all right for Florida in January.”

“We’re not going into the Cape.”

“Why not?”

“Too much media interest in you. Too many people milling around. We don’t want that, so we’re going to an Air Force base in North Dakota.”

“I see.” Jerome considered the new information, wondering if the arrangement would make it difficult for the Dorrinians to contact him. “You might have picked a warmer spot.”

Simm was maliciously amused. “I thought you Russians were used to the cold.”

Jerome turned away from him, resolving to say as little as possible during the rest of the descent. Much sooner than he had anticipated the shuttle dipped into the upper levels of the atmosphere and the circles of sky he could see in the ports began to turn blue. Within the space of ten minutes the rush of air over the pressure skin and control surfaces had become audible and the shuttle, exchanging the characteristics of a ballistic missile for those of an aircraft, began to hint at having a mechanical personality of its own, expressed in occasional yaws and tilts and flirts of its tail.

As far as Jerome could determine from his fragmentary glimpses, much of central Canada and the USA was under cloud cover. The prospect of a buffeting descent through bad weather prompted him to tighten his safety harness, and it was while working with the connectors that he realized his arms were laden with invisible weight. He had allowed the problems of Earth’s gravity to drift out of his thoughts, hoping he had been unduly pessimistic about his ability to compensate, but this was an unpleasant foretaste of things to come.

Aware that his neck muscles were protesting about the extra strain, Jerome inclined his head forward and was shocked when his chin came down on his collar-bone with a tooth-clicking impact. He brought his head upright with an effort, feeling as though it were encased in a lead helmet, and found that Simm was looking at him in obvious concern.

“Say, are you all right?” Simm said, his gaze darting over Jerome’s face. “Do you need a medic?”

“Too long in zero gravity,” Jerome told him, trying to come to terms with the discovery that three months of weightlessness had seriously weakened his already inadequate Dorrinian musculature. “I’m not even sure I’ll be able to walk.”

“Just so long as you can talk.” Simm turned back to his study of the sculptured cloudscapes into which the shuttle was plunging.

Jerome swore silently at him and concentrated on keeping his neck straight and his head upright as the observation ports abruptly greyed out and the descent became rough. All the sensations of motion were enhanced by his weakness, and for him the flight became a continuous sequence of falls, twists and shimmies which made him feel that the unseen pilot was barely winning the battle for control. The reality of the return to his home world was at a far remove from the nostalgic visions which had made the long nights in the Precinct seem endless. Threatened by elemental dangers, feeble as an invalid, he was being thrust into a dark arena in whose shadows hid a malign and terrifying superman who wanted him dead. Belzor was a being who unhesitatingly killed those who obstructed the most minor of his interests—and as long as Jerome carried the Thabbren he embodied the threat of death itself to Belzor…

Feeling isolated and vulnerable, Jerome cupped his right hand over the opal ring and clenched it in a double fist as the shuttle dropped below the cloud ceiling. There were glimpses of barren snowfields stretching away into greyness, of thinly etched roads running sparsely from nowhere to nowhere. Earth was not in a welcoming mood. Turbines at the rear of the shuttle were spun into life for the final part of the flight and made a new contribution to the forces acting on Jerome’s body, drawing his head back each time they surged. Minutes later there was a blurring rush of lights outside, a lingering moment of near-silence and the shuttle clumped solidly on to concrete. Jerome sat still, gazing straight in front during a thunderous landing run, and only when the shuttle had come to a halt did he turn the precariously balanced weight of his head to look at Simm.

“Now that that’s over,” he said, “I demand to be taken to the Soviet Embassy in Washington.”

“Sure, sure,” Simm replied jovially, rising to his feet and clicking his fingers at the two watchful young men. “One of you guys is going to have to do without his overcoat here—we can’t risk our visitor catching cold.”

Interested in testing the extent of his disability, Jerome unfastened his harness and forced himself into a standing position. He was relieved to find that he could in fact stand alone, albeit with some circling of his knees, which showed there had been a real benefit from the exercise machine in the Quicksilver. It was unfortunate that he had not thought of trying to strengthen his neck, but at least he was going to be spared the indignity of having to be carried off the shuttle. Feeling as though he had been burdened with more than his own weight of sandbags, he advanced along the central aisle to the front of the compartment on quivering legs, with Simm following close behind.

One of Simm’s men, looking distinctly unhappy, helped him into a tweed overcoat he had taken from a locker. While he was buttoning the coat he became aware of uniformed flight crew at work in the airlock section which lay immediately forward of the passenger compartment. A few seconds later there was the thunk of a massive door settling into its open position and tendrils of chilly air invaded the warmth of the ship.

“Let’s go, big man.” Simm squeezed past Jerome and preceded him down a metal stair which someone on the ground had wheeled into place beside the shuttle’s fuselage. Jerome glanced wordlessly around the group who were waiting for him to leave, then ventured uncertainly on to the stair. The afternoon sky was a leaden grey, much darker than the snow covered ground, and only a few specks of amber lights close to the horizon indicated the existence of airfield buildings. The shuttle had come to rest in a lonely avenue of runway marker beacons, and was surrounded by an entourage made up of fire tenders, rescue vehicles and two dark-windowed black limousines.

Jerome had barely taken in the scene when the cold closed in on him like an assassin pouncing from ambush. He gasped with shock, unable to recall such savagery in even the hardest winter, then came the realization that physically he had never experienced any real coldness. As well as being pitiably frail, his inherited Dorrinian body was adapted to the unvarying warmth of Cuthtranel. Already shivering violently, Jerome groped his way down the stair and almost cried aloud when his stockinged feet touched the thin coating of snow on the runway. The crews of the encircling vehicles had remained in their cabs, probably under orders, but Jerome knew they were watching him and some remnant of pride forced him to stand upright and conceal his distress.

This is going to kill me, he thought Belzor doesn’t need to get involved.

“Okay, here’s what we do,” Simm said, addressing the two agents who had descended the stair behind Jerome. “I’ll go with my new pal here in my car, and you follow us to the Boeing in the second. Stay on the ground and keep everything under surveillance while we’re getting ready for take-off, then join us on board. And for God’s sake don’t look so miserable, Dougan.” He paused to slap the coatless agent on the shoulder. “I’ll see to it that you get your Abercrombie and Fitch back in good shape. Okay? Now let’s go!”

Simm grabbed Jerome by the upper arm and urged him towards the nearer of the two limousines. Jerome was resentful of the casual manhandling, but was totally unable to offer any resistance. Chilled and barely able to stand, he was swept along by Simm’s bulk as though he had been caught up in some irresistible machine. As they reached the limousine someone inside opened a rear door, facilitating Simm in the task of guiding Jerome’s helpless body into the back seat. Simm came in after him, closed the door and sat opposite on an aft-facing fold-down.

The limousine moved off immediately, its driver invisible behind a smoked glass partition. Simm’s companion, who had moved on to the other fold-down, was a lean, blade-nosed man of about forty, dressed in the bland suiting of his trade. He was staring solemnly at Jerome’s left hand. After a few seconds he slid down on to his knees and Simm did likewise, also gazing at the opal ring, his face rapt. A new uneasiness penetrated Jerome’s physical discomfort.

“Rayner Jerome,” Simm said, “we honour you as the Bearer of the Thabbren.”

His companion nodded. “We honour you.”

“I…” Jerome exhaled shakily. “I ought to know what’s going on here…but it’s all so…”

“You’ve been through a long ordeal and naturally you’re confused,” Simm said. “I didn’t help matters with the way I treated you on the shuttle, but I had to put on a good show for the benefit of Dougan and McAllister and the crew. They are all Terrans.”

Jerome had to utter the redundant words. “But you’re a Dorrinian.”

“Yes,” Simm said. “I am a Guardian, as is Peter Voegle here, and Cy Rickell, who is driving the car. We will continue to use our Terran names for the present. The last-minute switching of your landing from the Cape caused some difficulties, but we still have the situation under control.”

“That’s true, but we have to act quickly now,” Voegle added, beginning to remove his jacket. “I’m going to put on your clothes, Rayner. Then I will go on the plane to Washington with Dexter in your place.”

Floundering, still numb with the cold, Jerome could only assimilate one new idea at a time. “You’re going to pretend to be me?”

“That’s correct.”

’But if Dougan and McWhatever are Terrans…I mean, they’ll remember my face.”

“No, they won’t,” Simm said, almost smiling. “They’ll remember what we want them to remember. All the others who saw you will be outside our control, of course, so we won’t be able to maintain the deception for more than a day or two…but that should be long enough. Now, let me help you out of that overcoat.”

“Hold on,” Jerome pleaded. “What about me? What’s going to happen to me?”

“We’ve brought a complete set of clothing which should fit someone your height. Cy Rickell will drive you to a private airfield near Grand Forks. It’s only about an hour from here. An aircraft belonging to CryoCare will be waiting to fly you to Amity. It will have to follow an overland route the whole way down the two American continents, because we can’t risk an accident in which the plane comes down at sea, but the journey won’t take more than…”

“Stop!” Desperation prompted Jerome to raise his left hand, knuckles outwards, borrowing the talismanic power of the jewel. “I’ve gone far enough…done enough…I’m not going to the Antarctic. Somebody else can take the ring—I’m finished with the bloody thing.”

“Please don’t speak that way, Rayner.” Simm glanced unhappily at Voegle, who had frozen in the act of peeling off his shirt. “Don’t speak about the Thabbren in that way.”

“I’m sorry,” Jerome replied. “But I meant what I said. Somebody else has to take it.”

“But you are the Bearer of the Thabbren. It has accepted you and now you are a direct instrument of the Four Thousand. Have you ever tried taking the ring off?”

“No.” It suddenly struck Jerome as odd that he had never removed the jewel from his finger.

“Try it now.”

“Fine!” Jerome calmly gripped the opal ring between his right thumb and forefinger, and then—just as calmly—let go of it and allowed his hand to fall to his side. There had been no neural shock, no telepathic thunder, but he understood that the ring had to stay on his finger. It was something he knew with the clean, uncomplicated certainty of a small child—the ring had to stay on his finger.

“This isn’t fair,” he said. “Why do you people have to work this way? If you want me to take the Thabbren down to Amity, why don’t you blank me out and make me a zombie, or make me think I’m going somewhere on vacation? Why do I have to go scared?”

“We are a very ethical people,” Simm said, his voice persuasively gentle. “We don’t want to rob you of your free will or turn you into a biological machine. It would be much more in keeping with our ethic if you made a free choice to do what is right.”

“That’s beautiful,” Jerome said bitterly. “While you sit back and congratulate yourself on your wonderful ethics, I have to go up against Belzor.”

“Belzor!” Simm exclaimed, his expression a blend of surprise and pleasure. “I’m so sorry, Rayner. It was criminal of me not to have told you at the start, but we have all been under a lot of pressure.”

Jerome looked from one man to the other. “What about Belzor?”

“He’s dead,” Simm said peacefully. “The Prince is dead.”