Unlike the others, he did not see darkness inside the GATE—only a bright, secure future for Lisa and himself, a future where they would blend in with relaxed, easygoing settlers of high intelligence, a place where no Earthly authority could trouble them anymore. Because the GATE was a one-way street.
Gateway to paradise, he thought. GATE: Gigamplified Amorphous Transspatial Element. Praise Allah, praise Jesus, praise Jehovah, Buddha, Zoroaster, and praise especially the physicists who’d stumbled unexpectedly across this bizarre but wondrous distortion of the space-time continuum. Praise them all. They would be his and Lisa’s salvation.
The single mother and her two children stepped into the waiting circle and awaited word from the GATE master. Eric and Lisa were just alongside and ready to cross over to join them when heaven collapsed like a drifting soap bubble.
“ERIC ABBOTT!”
It was a loud voice, a voice accustomed to having its orders obeyed instantly. The GATE master and the rest of the GATE crew turned curiously toward the source of the interruption. Eric took another step, only to hear his name repeated more forcefully. As he turned slowly toward the lockway joining GATE Terminus to Departure Lounge, he was filled with despair.
A small black man wearing the uniform and insignia of a major of security forces stood staring back at him. The officer looked anxious. His sideburns were white and the gun in his hand oversize. Similar weapons filled the palms of the men and women who clustered around him.
Senior scientists and engineers began to talk among themselves, commenting on the extraordinary intrusion. It didn’t take long for their attention to shift from the security team to the couple lying under their weapons.
Behind Eric the GATE hummed softly, tantalizingly. It was very expensive and complicated to shut it down completely. The GATE master still had not said the fateful words—“Step through”—to mother and offspring. Only “Ready.” How important was it to wait for the other? Was the pause important, or merely ceremonial? Eric didn’t know, and he had to know.
The abyss was so close. Did they dare it? Once lost, the moment would not present itself again. They were more than a few steps from the GATE boundary. Plenty of room for the guns to bring them down.
He could cover a lot of space in a single leap. That much he knew from recent experience. But could he do it while pulling Lisa along with him? He was fast, faster than was reasonable, but he couldn’t outrun a needle-beam. He struggled to evaluate the stance and aim of each member of the security team, tried to guess how accurate they were, how firm their grips on their weapons.
Even if they were wounded and made the step, they should still be safe, once through to the other side. He fought with himself. It all took much less than a second.
“I am Major Orema,” said the small man in command. “I’m in charge of GATE security. You are Eric Abbott.” His eyes barely shifted. “And you are Lisa Tambor. You are wanted for questioning and you must both come with me, please. NOW.”
“Tarragon,” Eric mumbled. “Questions mean Tarragon.”
Orema frowned, then the look turned to one of recognition. “Yes, I know the name. The request does not come from him, only through him. Important people have put their names to the request.”
Better to chance it, Eric thought. Better to try and fail and die here after having come so far than to be sedated and shipped back to Earth.
“If not Tarragon, then who? People have been working to keep us apart as though it meant something. Am I at least permitted to know the names of my persecutors?”
“It’s not persecution, Eric Abbott. I’m not privy to all the details. I’m only a policeman. I have been informed, however, and was not told to keep it from you, that you are to be taken to Zurich and thence to the Authority, where you will be questioned by the Colligatarch Council itself.” Mutterings from the crowd, different glances cast Eric’s way.
“What have I to do with the Colligatarch, and it with me?”
There was anxiety on the major’s face. Did he know what Eric was capable of? Had he been told? There was no harm, Eric decided, in trying to stall with a mild bluff. “If you want my cooperation, I want an explanation.”
The major looked uncomfortable. Another officer leaned low to whisper in his ear and he listened before nodding.
“I was told to tell you that you are being used, Eric Abbott.”
Eric frowned. “Me, used? No, no, you’ve got it backwards. It’s Lisa who’s being used. It’s her I’m trying to save.”
“That is not relevant,” Orema replied. “I have been informed that she is an artison and not properly human.” More murmurs from the watching crowd. “Of course she is being used. She was constructed with use in mind.” Lisa did not stiffen, did not react. She’d heard it often enough before.
The major fastened his tiny, piercing eyes on Eric’s, and there was a look in them he’d never seen before. It made him uncomfortable without knowing why.
“And you’re not human either, Eric Abbott, and you are being used.”
Despite the thin edge of the moment on which the confrontation was balanced, Eric managed a slight smile. Here, in this one thing, they could be proven wrong. He could catch them in a lie.
“I’ve run all the right tests. I know I haven’t been acting”—he hesitated—“normally these past couple of weeks, but I’ve run the tests. I’m no robot, no android, no artison. I know there’s something different about me,’ but those aren’t the answers. I’ve checked myself for it, and there’s nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise. Furthermore, I don’t care that Lisa’s an artison, and it doesn’t bother her that I know.”
Suddenly he thought he understood the peculiar look in the security chiefs eyes. It was simple, naked fear. The major was terrified of him. A glance showed that his people, to a greater or lesser extent, were also afraid. They held their weapons in steady hands, but their souls were shaking.
But why? Sure, he had demonstrated certain impressive abilities, but they had him trapped. There should be exultation in their expressions, not fear.
“No, you’re not a robot, Eric Abbott, and you’re not an android, and you’re not an artison. That much I’ve been assured, though as I said before I’m not privy to all the information. What I have been told has come from Colligatarch Authority directly to GATE Station.” He hesitated and Eric saw his finger trembling on the trigger of his pistol. .
He wants to kill me, Eric realized wonderingly. He’s been told to bring me in for questioning, but he would prefer to kill me. And now he thought he could detect something else in the major’s face, living there alongside the fear.
Revulsion.
He pressed for specifics. “That doesn’t leave much for me to be, does it, except a man who’s been treated unjustly.”
“Eric Abbott, the Colligatarch says that you are a construction of the Syrax.”
XVII
Better perception, Eric thought dazedly. Only with better perception could he tell which of them was insane. As matters stood, he wasn’t sure.
Lisa was staring up at him, disorientation in her gaze, but she still clung tightly to his arm. The major had not spoken. The accusation had come from a younger man standing behind him. Eric noticed that he was wearing a white science uniform, not the black of security.
“Abbott, my name is Joao de Uberaba. I’m with the research detachment at GATE Station. I’m a bioengineer. I understand that you’re a design engineer working mostly with microcircuitry.” Eric nodded weakly while next to him Lisa listened and watched out of vast blue eyes.
“We can talk on the same level, then.” He glanced downward. “Nothing personal, Major Orema.”
“Pretend I’m not here,” Orema murmured.
