She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “No, Eric. It’s important. It might explain everything. I’m not supposed to be capable of loving you like this, and a nonprofile man is not supposed to fall in love with me. But I do love you, and you love me. I can only think of one thing that explains what’s happened to us, explains what you’re done.

  “Eric, you have to be an artison yourself.”

  He wasn’t shocked by the suggestion. She thought he might be, but he wasn’t.

  “I’m not an ignorant person, Lisa. I’ve considered the same possibility. There are certain tests you can do. I applied some of them to myself, when I was left alone back in Nueva York. Attisons are perfectly human, to all outward appearances. But there are tests that can tell.” She stared anxiously at him.

  “I’m not an artison, Lisa. It was one of the first things that occured to me when”—he hesitated—“when I began doing things no human being should be able to do. I know that somehow I’m special. Only a blind man could deny it. But I’m not an artison. I failed every one of the tests. I didn’t have access to a laboratory, but I did have access to the Nueva York library, and to local drugstores. I failed every test, Lisa. I didn’t pass a single one.”

  “Then what are you, Eric Abbott?” she asked softly. “What are you?”

  “I don’t know. Different, but not like you. Different in some other way. I’m a design engineer. I know how to run tests and interpret results. I agree it would have explained everything, and I almost wish it had. But it didn’t. I’m no artison. More than a human, certainly, but in what way I’ve no idea.

  “It doesn’t matter, truly it doesn’t. Someday we’ll find out. All that matters now is that we love each other. Can you accept that, for now, as enough?”

  “If you can accept what I am and still love me, Eric, then I can accept anything.” She searched the cathedral’s interior. “We need to start thinking, start planning our escape. Not from London, but from Britain. I know it’s impossible to stay free forever, but you’ve made me want to try. They’ll track us down eventually, but a few days, or weeks, of happiness will help me live out the rest of my life. I’ll always have those memories to turn to.” Her eyes were bright and she looked more alive than he’d ever seen her.

  “We’ll give them a run for it, Eric! It won’t be easy. You’re a wanted man, and me, I’m an expensive product, difficult to replace. Let’s make them work for me!”

  “We’ll do more than that,” Eric assured her. “You keep saying there’s no place we can hide from them, nowhere outside Tarragon’s reach? Well I’ve been thinking, and there is such a place. We’ve been talking about it for the last ten minutes. WOSA needs colonists? Well, it’s just acquired another two.’ ’

  She tried to hide her smile. “That’s a wonderful idea, Eric. Unfortunately, it can’t work. It’s impossible. Of course, my falling in love with you is impossible. Your falling in love with me is impossible. Sitting here now, holding you close, instead of lying dead downriver or back in Nueva York is also impossible. So I suppose I shouldn’t be intimidated by still another impossibility.”

  “No indeed,” he told her, eyes shining. “But we have to wait here a few minutes longer before we can begin.” He settled himself against the ancient bench.

  “But why?”

  There was a strange, beatific expression on his face. Beneath the dome, the voices of the choir soared. “I’ve always loved Vaughn Williams.”

  Tarragon was accustomed to operating independent of government interference. He reported to an authority which regarded regional governments as nuisances, relics of a dying past.

  Despite that, or more likely because of it, he regarded the upcoming interview with apprehension. The trip across the frozen surface of Lake Lucerne had been made in eerie silence, the skifoil skimming the ice while fat snowflakes drifted down to melt against the windows, and the craggy majesty of the Alps rose like pale ghosts behind the storm clouds.

  The entrance to the mountain was deceptively calm, the immense metal doors moving aside to admit him quietly, the ranks of armed, alert guards noting his every step. Inside he found himself plunged into an organized maelstrom of activity, bumped and nudged by rapidly, moving programmers and processors while his escort maneuvered them both ever deeper into the bowels of the Authority.

  Then the escort left him alone outside a door. It was a perfectly ordinary door, identical to dozens he’d passed during his descent. The voice that bade him enter, however, sent a chill through him, a new sensation for Tarragon. Every informed human being on Earth knew that voice.

  “Come in, please.” He entered.

  The elderly man who sat staring at several optos matched the voice. Tarragon looked past him, at the optos. The information displayed was incomprehensible to him.

  How tired he looks, Tarragon thought. He always looked tired during his public appearances, but never this worn. He wondered if they used makeup on him for his opto speeches.

  “It’s me, sir. I have an appointment. Tarragon?”

  “Tarragon? Oh, yes, the man from North America.” Oristano swiveled round in his chair and extended a hand. He did not rise.

  “How do you do, Tarragon.” He gestured toward a nearby couch. “Please take a seat.”

  Tarragon did so, feeling a little more at ease. While the Chief of Operations and Programming still presented a formidable appearance, it was much less impressive than he’d anticipated. What Martin Oristano represented, however, was more than enough to awe his visitor.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I still don’t know why I’ve been told to report to you. I’m not used to being yanked from an unfinished assignment, especially one as baffling and frustrating as the one I’ve been concentrating on this past month.”

  “I am quite familiar with the problems you’ve been having, Tarragon, and believe me, I sympathize.”

  Tarragon nodded, unsurprised. The CPO had access to everything that happened on the planet. “Then there’s more to this business than I’ve been told?”

  “Quite a bit more.”

  “That still doesn’t tell me why I’m here, or why I’ve been pulled from the case.”

  “You haven’t been ‘pulled from the case,’ Tarragon. You’re still assigned to it. You’ve been brought here to be filled in. You see, the Colligatarch itself has become interested in the exploits of your Mr. Abbott.”

  “I knew it.” Tarragon nodded as he shifted nervously on the couch. It was too soft for his taste. It made him want to relax. “I knew there had to be more to that man than met the eye. I didn’t believe the reports until he slipped out of our grasp in Nueva York. And then when he escaped from us a second time outside London, and then right in front of … have you been told what he’s done?”

  “As I said. I am familiar with the relevant details.”

  “I’m sure you are, sir, but it’s one thing to read about them on an opto screen and another to stand in front of a hole in a solid concrete wall that your quarry’s just walked through. It’s another thing to watch him vanish before your eyes before sleep gas and a dozen shells reach his body. What am I dealing with here, sir? I have to know what I can expect in the future.”

  “I understand, Tarragon. In turn you must understand that this business has put many important people, including myself, under a considerable strain. I’ve spent more time on this matter than intended, and now it appears little enough time remains.”

  “There is still enough time,” said a new voice. Tarragon’s eyes swept the room, saw no one. Then the small hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized who the voice must belong to.

  Suddenly he wished he was elsewhere. He was just a poor city boy from the back alleys of Ankara who’d risen far in a difficult profession. He didn’t belong here. There were forces in motion around him beyond his comprehension, forces that would use him or cast him aside with cold indifference. The role of pawn didn’t appeal to him.

  “Excuse me, your lordship.” Immediately he felt a fool. That couldn’t be correct. But neither could “your computership.”

  The machine sensed his distress. It was not uncommon in humans conversing with the Colligatarch for the first time.

  “Colligatarch will be fine, Kemal.”

  He relaxed a little, wondering that the machine would be thoughtful enough to address him in the familiar. His professional curiosity quickly overcame his awe.

  “Colligatarch, I was told that certain things that should not have happened have, indeed, happened. They progress toward the absurd. Who or what is this Eric Abbott I have been asked to capture?”

  “Eric Abbott is a threat, Kemal. A threat not only to the Lure program to which you are attached by WOSA, but to a great deal more. Everything that has happened up to now has been part of an elaborate deception, designed to mask the actual nature of this threat.

  “I have entertained suspicions as to the true nature for some time now, but only suspicions. We have all been cleverly drawn down an entirely wrong path. Now I believe I have divined their actual intentions. We are at a crisis point.

  “I could deal with the immediate danger posed by your Eric Abbott, but that would result in his destruction. There is a small but finite opportunity to change the moral and ethical polarities involved. I would prefer to do this, but it entails considerable risk.”

  “I didn’t think the Colligatarch took risks.”

  “I am, in the last analysis, Kemal, nothing more than an elaborate counting machine. I consider probabilities and make suggestions based on them. I would like to employ the best probabilities to ensure that Eric Abbott is not used against us again … and if events can be manipulated, to ensure even more than that.”

  “Us?” Tarragon blurted.

  “Mankind and myself. We are tied together, you know.”

  “Yeah,” said Tarragon softly, not knowing.

  “Delay involves certain risks,” Oristano put in. “The Colligatarch is trying to tell you that there’s an outside chance we may be able to turn Eric Abbott against those who are using him.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Tarragon muttered. “He strikes me as a pretty independent sort of person. I don’t think he’s in the mood to listen to anyone. Or anything,” he added pointedly, eyeing the opto pickup across the room.

  “Our success may lie in that very independence you have so correctly observed. Kemal,” said the machine. “But we must move quickly. Martin, you may listen or return to your own work. This does not involve you.”

  Tarragon readied himself. It was one thing to take orders through a machine, quite another to receive them from a machine. But this was no mere machine. This was the Colligatarch.

  There was only a little resentment, and as the machine instructed him, he soon forgot it.

  Truly there was much to learn, and a great deal he hadn’t even suspected.

  XVI

  Eric felt Lisa’s hand on his arm. The movement caused her body to move against his, drifting within the limits imposed on her by the harness that kept her safely anchored to her seat.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she whispered.

  “It’ll work,” he assured her. “It has to work. It’s worked so far.”

  “Only because we shocked them so badly back in London. I still wish I knew how you managed that.”

  “So do I,” he said feelingly. He leaned back slightly so that she could look past him. “We might as well enjoy the trip. It’ll be over soon enough. Ever been off-planet before?” She shook her head, staring past his chest. “Me neither. It’s more of a wrench than leaving Phoenix was.”

  Below them the Earth was a lambent blue-and-white globe, electric against the blackness of space. Ahead lay their destination and, if they were extremely lucky, safety.

  GATE Station was much more than a vast orbiting laboratory. It was the largest inhabited facility circling the Earth, positioned in geostationary orbit above the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where it intersected the equator. Thousands of lights sparkled along its sides, giving it the appearance of an exploding snowflake. The actual design was similar.

  Branching arms extended for a kilometer and more in every direction possible. Rising from top and bottom relative to the heavily inhabited axes were many square kilometers of solar panels composed of amorphous metallic glass solar cells that drew enough energy from the distant sun to power the floating city.

  One particular arm caught the eye of every passenger the instant it hove into view. It was familiar to everyone from numberous appearances on the opto: a long, thin cylinder that ended in a modest, well-lit bulge tipped by a parabolic dish two kilometers in diameter.

  GATE Terminus.

  At the base of the immense curving dish was Departure Lounge, and immediately beyond that the GATE itself, the GATE that led to Eden or Garden according to how the projector was aligned. The GATE that led through an as yet undefined limbo to paradisiacal worlds of milk and honey, a fifth-dimensional subway across the galaxy, a journey still better understood in philosophical than physical terms.

  No one understood quite how the GATE worked, or why it worked. Its development arose out one of those wonderful accidents of science, those exquisite serendipitous discoveries that occur every few millennia or so.

  The men and women who’d discovered the principle that led to the building of the GATE hadn’t been looking for it. When they found it, it took several years more to understand what they had.

  Now the GATE had been operational for nearly 150 years. Mathematically it still made no sense, but like the bumblebee too heavy to fly, it still worked. It enabled mankind to extend two tenuous threads to the stars while sneering at the tyranny of light-speed.

  Barnard’s Star, Alpha Centauri, all the nearby suns were easily bypassed. Eden and Garden lay further in on the galactic lens but were as near as a complexly charged chamber. In terms of actual travel time they lay closer to GATE Station than Earth. No GATE could be built on a planet, of course. Gravity and magnetosphere made it impossible. So men were forced to resort to travel via sturdy, slow ships to reach GATE Station or the solar colonies.

  From time to time there was talk of building a second GATE. The enormous expense made it unlikely, and the physics made it impossible. To be able to operate without cross-over interference, a second GATE, according to the mathematicians, would have to be constructed several trillion miles outside the orbit of Pluto. Until the actions of the GATE field were better understood, mankind would have to get along with a single GATE. No one worried about it much anymore, not after a century and a half of successful operation.

  No one greeted the shuttle passengers as they disembarked. There were no customs officials on GATE Station. It was open to the citizens of every nationality.

  A moving walkway carried them to a large, domed reception area. Children bounced delightedly around their parents, laughing as they played in the three-quarters normal gravity. Through a two-story-high port the Earth rotated mechanically.

  They settled into a moderately elegant restaurant, where Lisa blanched at the prices. Eric didn’t glance at them, assigning everything to his malleable credit card. There was no reason to stint, since within a short time the card would be useless no matter how deftly altered.

  “I still don’t understand how you plan to try this,” she told him later that night. Around them the dimmed lights of the walkways glowed softly yellow. A few couples and groups strolled among the fountains and the soaring roses that benefited from the light gravity, drinking in the sight of Earth and stars.

  “We can’t pass ourselves off as colonists. Everyone’s screened prior to GATing. For that matter, I don’t see how you expect us to get as far as the Departure Lounge.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about passing ourselves off as colonists,” he told her as they turned a rounded corner. “The quota is tight, and the final ID must be exacting. Don’t you remember the story of that murderer—what was his name?—Griss or something like that. He tried to do it ten years ago. Figured once he was through the GATE he was free to start a safe, new life. He was right about that much.

  “He did everything. Got himself a counterfeit departure suit and identification card, memorized the procedure, learned all the right responses. Hell of a scandal about it. And then he failed at the last minute, having passed all the checks and autocurbs, because his group leader didn’t recognize him.

  “The colonists spend six months preparing to buy the GATE. They’re too well known to one another for a stranger to slip in with them.”

  “Then how are we going to do it?”

  “We’re not going to try and pass ourselves off as colonists, Lisa. We’re going to pass ourselves off as GATE technicians.”

  She shook her head. “Suppose someone asks us to fix something?”

  “I can do that. I know how portions of the GATE are put together.”

  She gaped at him. “How could you know that?”

  “Selvern, the company I’ve worked for, is one of the major suppliers of replacement components for the GATE. I’ve helped to design newer, more compact parts for the Station off and on for the last ten years. I don’t know how everything works, of course. No one man does. But I know enough to fool an unsuspecting supervisor.

  “I have something like an eidetic memory, Lisa. I remember every project I’ve ever worked on. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to advance so fast in my career. My old career, I should say. I can make it sound like I know what I’m doing, and you can be my apprentice. That way you shouldn’t have to answer any technical questions.”

  “Assuming it works, what then?”

  “It only takes a second to actually make the passage. I’m hoping we can make a run for the GATE and slip through ahead of the assigned colonists in front of us. I won’t know for sure until I see the actual layout of the GATE chamber. If that doesn’t look like it’s possible, I may be able to operate the Station myself. We’ll study the procedure.”