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22

 

Cainsville, April 11

"RIGHT! NO! STOP! I think . . . Yes, right!"

Alya's head was splitting, ready to fall apart. She seemed to have been wheeling and spinning around Cainsville for hours. Time had lost all meaning. Corridors and echoing tunnels and open plazas had come and gone by the thousand, and she had not the faintest clue where she was. She had no idea how much remained of the hour Baker had promised her. Any minute now he might call her in, and she was certain that he could override her commands to the golfie. Urgency ate at her like acid. She teetered on the brink of panic.

Finding Cedric was turning out to be impossible. She was running two satori at the same time—that was the problem. She had never heard of that happening to anyone in her family before, not even in any of the strange old tales.

Tiber's was the stronger, by far. Time and time again she arrived at de Soto Dome, where the window was waiting for her. The surprised guards had moved to challenge her the first time, but she had merely referred them to Baker Abel. They had checked in, then shrugged and let her go. By her fifth or sixth visit they were openly laughing at her.

Eventually she had learned to stop at every branching, every choice, and ask System which way led to de Soto. Then she tried to compensate for that in her hunches. but sometimes the right path—if there was a right path—had to be in that direction.

There might not even be a second satori. She might be fooling herself. She might have gone crazy, like all those terrified schizophrenic ancestors.

Then the golfie emerged from a narrow passage into a much larger one. Cold and metallic and sinister in the dim night lighting, it stretched off endlessly in both directions. It had rails on the floor, which she had not seen before.

"Does either of these lead to de Soto Dome?"

"Negative."

She cringed, puzzling. Left? Or right?

She was going mad.

She did not know.

"Left," she whispered. System ignored that tone. "Left!"

The golfie swung left and hummed along the big tunnel. The walls and floor were bare metal, rushing past. Lights streamed toward her and vanished behind. Her shadow leaped and leaped, hiding from the lights.

Then the little cart slowed and came to a stop before a large, implacable, circular steel door. Corridor and rails ended also.

"What's this? I mean, What's inside this door?"

"Bering Dome," the golfie said.

"Am I allowed inside?"

"Affirmative."

There was no decon, so Bering was not one of the transmensor domes. She sat and stared at the forbidding door for a minute or two, wrestling with indecision and self-doubt and that over-powering hunch that she must hurry back to de Soto and the safety of Tiber.

There was no comset on the wall. The round door was not of standard type and did not quite reach the floor—there would be a sill several centimeters high. "What is this door used for?"

"Data confidential."

But she had no choice, except to retrace her path. She dismounted and felt her knees shake with fatigue.

"Open the door!" she told the golfie, and walked forward as the great circle swung inward. She stepped over the lip, noting how very thick the wall was. She strode a few paces down a sloping floor before she realized that despite the lack of decon facilities, the place looked very much like a transmensor dome. Perhaps it was an old one, now used for something else? The inside was even dimmer than the corridor, with lights twinkling near the center, filled with a quiet murmur, as of many people. She caught a curious odor of—of curry?

The door thumped closed behind her, and she wheeled around in alarm. Damn! Now she'd done it! There was no comset on the inside, either, and she had no wrist mike.

She began to separate out the threads of noise: muttering voices and babies crying. Her eyes were adjusting, too, seeing a huddled little settlement down where the floor was flat. The central object plate was blank, but the railing around it seemed to be hung with laundry. Ramshackle fences of canvas zigzagged around, providing some minimum privacy. She could hear a guitar strumming, and a distant group seemed to be chanting prayers. The baby noises were the worst, though—crying babies could drive anyone mad. Kiosks on the far side were obviously portable toilets.

Sadly, Alya started down the long slope. She had stumbled on the secret refugee entrance to Cainsville, and here were Baker's two thousand. Bering Dome was a refugee camp. And when she gave him the go-ahead, all Baker would have to do was to close the window in de Soto Dome and open the same string here. She had failed! This was another door to Tiber, and the Tiber satori had won out over whatever she had felt for Cedric—which might have been all self-delusion, she supposed.

The scents and sounds were becoming clearer—and more familiar. Hubbard had played fair so far, for she could hear distinctive Banzaraki voices, her own people. That explained so much activity in the middle of the night—they were in the wrong time zone. Any minute now she would be recognized, and quite likely Jathro was somewhere in the mob, demagoguing, building loyalties.

The clamor of babies was as nerve-scratching as a nettle rash. And older children—from the noise, there were an awful lot of children. And the guitar . . . someone singing.

She knew that voice! With a cry of joy, Alya began to run, seeking that guitar.

She raced along pathways lined on both sides with bedrolls, sleeping people, people sitting cross-legged, people talking, people weeping, people looking up in astonishment, people calling out. She zigged and zagged, ever drawing closer. She ran around the central object plate with its fence of drying diapers. She could smell babies now! She began to notice paler faces. Not all Banzarakis, then.

And there he was!

He was standing with his back to her, but his height was unmistakable. Strumming inexpertly on a guitar, he was singing to a semicircle of seated children.

"Cedric!" She rushed up and grabbed him. She hauled him around, ending the song in a discordant jangle as she threw her arms around his skinny neck and kissed him. The children yelled delight.

Appalled, she backed off and stared.

It was Cedric! And Cedric's blush. But not quite tall enough? His hair was too long. His nose was uninjured. He was maybe a couple of years younger, and he was aghast at this aggressive female who had just kissed him.

Her satori had not found Cedric after all. It had found a Cedric clone.

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Framed