Whipping Star Part 56

The Caleban's Beachball might be the last house in the universe, the last container for sentient life. And it contained no bed where a sentient might die decently.

Wreaves didn't sleep in beds, of course. They took their rest in slanted supports and were buried upright.

Tuluk had gray skin.

Lead.

If all things ended now, McKie wondered, which of them would be the last to go? Whose breath would be the final one?

McKie breathed the echoes of all his fears. There was too much hanging on each counted instant here.

No more melodies, no more laughter, no more children racing in play. . . .

"There," Tuluk said.

"You ready?" McKie asked.

"I will be ready presently. Why does the Caleban not speak?"

"Because I asked her to save her strength."

"What does she say of your theory?"

"She thinks I have achieved truth. "

Tuluk took a small helix from his instrument case, inserted it into a receptacle at the base of the glowing ring.

"Come one, come on," McKie jittered.

"Your urgings will not reduce the necessary time for this task," Tuluk said. "For example, I am hungry. I came without stopping to break my daily fast. This does not press me to speed which might produce errors, nor does it arouse me to complain."

"Aren't you complaining?" McKie asked. "You want some of my water?"

"I had water two days ago," Tuluk said.

"And we wouldn't want to rush you into another drink."

"I do not understand what pattern you hope to identify," Tuluk said. "We have no records of artisans for a proper comparison of . . ."

"This is something G.o.d made," McKie said.

"You should not jest about deities," Tuluk said.

"Are you a believer or just playing safe?" McKie asked.

"I was chiding you for an act which might offend some sentients," Tuluk said. "We have a hard enough time bridging the sentient barriers without raising religious issues."

"Well, we've been spying on G.o.d -- or whatever -- for a long time," McKie said. "That's why we're going to get a spectroscopic record of this. How much longer you going to be at this fiddling?"

"Patience, patience," Tuluk muttered. He reactivated the wand, waved it near the glowing ring. Again the instrument began humming, a higher note this time. It grated on McKie's nerves. He felt it in his teeth and along the skin of his shoulders. It itched inside him where he couldn't scratch.

"d.a.m.n this heat!" Tuluk said. "Why will you not have the Caleban open a door to the outside?"

"I told you why."

"Well, it doesn't make this task any easier!"

"You know," McKie said, "when you called me and saved my skin from that Palenki chopper -- the first time, remember? Right afterward you said you'd been tangled with f.a.n.n.y Mae, and you said a very odd thing."

"Oh?" Tuluk had extended a small mandible and was making delicate adjustments to a k.n.o.b on the case below the glowing ring.

"You said something about not knowing that was where you lived. Remember that?"

"I will never forget it." Tuluk bent his tubular body across the glowing ring, stared back through it while pa.s.sing the wand back and forth in front of the ring's opening.

"Where was that?" McKie asked.

"Where was what?"

"Where you lived!"

"That? There are no words to describe it."

"Try."

Tuluk straightened, glanced at McKie. "It was a bit like being a mote in a vast sea . . . and experiencing the warmth, the friends.h.i.+p of a benign giant. "

"That giant -- the Caleban?"

"Of course."

"That's what I thought."

"I will not answer for inaccuracies in this device," Tuluk said. "But I don't believe I can adjust it any closer. Given a few days, some s.h.i.+elding -- there's an odd radiation pattern from that wall behind you -- and projection dampers, I might, I just might achieve a fair degree of accuracy. Now? I cannot be responsible."

"And you'll be able to get a spectroscopic record?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then maybe we're in time," McKie said.

"For what?"

"For the right s.p.a.cing."

"Ahhh, you mean the flogging and the subsequent shower of sparks?"

"That's what I mean."