His hearts were in his mouth. How long? Hours, hours, and all the time he was partying. Jube felt sick. He dropped himself into his chair and keyed the console to play the message it had recorded. The holocube lit from within, in a haze of violet light. In the center was Ekkedme, his hind jumping-legs folded under him so he seemed almost to crouch. The Embe nymph was obviously in a state of great agitation; the cilia covering his face trembled as they tasted the air, and the palps atop his tiny head swiveled frenetically. As Jube watched, code-violet background gave way and the crowded interior of the singleship took form. "The Mother!" Ekkedme cried in the trade tongue, forcing the words through his spiracles in a wheezy Embe accent. The hologram shattered into static.
When it reintegrated an instant later, the Embe lurched suddenly to one side, reached out with a stick-thin forelimb, and clutched a smooth black ball to the pale white fur of his chitinous chest. He started to say something, but behind him the wall of the singleship bulged inward with a hideous metallic screech, and then disintegrated entirely. Jube watched with horror as air, instruments, and Embe were sucked up toward the cold unwinking stars. Ekkedme slammed into a jagged bulkhead and slid higher, holding tight to the ball as his hind legs scrabbled for purchase. A swirl of light ran over the surface of the sphere, and then it seemed to expand. A swift black tide engulfed the Embe; when it receded, he was gone. Jube dared to breathe again.
The transmission broke off abruptly an instant later. Jube punched for a replay, hoping he had missed something. He could only watch half of it. Then he got up, rushed to the toilet, and regurgitated an evening's worth of eggnog. He was steadier when he returned. He had to think, had to take things calmly. Panic and guilt would get him nowhere. Even if he had been wearing the watch, he could never have gotten down here in time to take the call, and there was nothing he could have done anyway. Besides, Ekkedme had escaped with the singularity shifter, Jube had seen it with his own eyes, surely his colleague had gotten to safety . . . . . . only . . . if he had . . . where was he?
Jube looked around slowly. The Embe certainly wasn't here- But where else could he go? How long could he survive in this gravity? And what had happened up there in orbit?
Grimly, he linked to the satellite scanners. There were six of them, sophisticated devices the size of golf balls, loaded with Rhindarian sensors.
Ekkedme had used them to monitor weather patterns, military activity, and radio and television transmissions, but they had other uses as well. Jube swept the skies methodically for the singleship, but where it should have been he found only scattered debris.
Suddenly Jube felt very much alone.
Ekkedme had been . . . well, not a friend, not the way the humans upstairs were friends, not even as close as Chrysalis or Crabcakes, but . . . their species had little in common, really. Ekkedme was a strange solitary sort, enigmatic and uncommunicative; and twenty-three years in orbit, locked in the close confines of his singleship with nothing to occupy him but meditation and monitoring, had only made the nymph stranger still-but of course that was why he had been chosen out of all those the Master Trader might have pegged when the Opportunity came this way so long ago, in the human year 1952, to observe the results of the Takisian grand experiment. Unbidden, the memories came. The vast Network starship had circled the little green planet all that summer, finding little of interest. The native civilization was promising, but scarcely more advanced than it had been on their previous visit a few centuries earlier. And the vaunted Takisian virus, the wild card, seemed to have produced great numbers of freaks, cripples, and monsters. But the Master Trader liked to cover all bets, so when the Opportunity departed, it leftt behind two observers: the Embe in orbit, and a xenologist on the surface. It amused the Master Trader to hide his agent in plain sight, on the streets of the world's greatest city. And for Jhubben, who had signed a lifetime service contract for the chance to travel to distant worlds, it was a rare chance to dot important work.
Still, until this moment there had always been the knowledge that someday the Opportunity would return, that someday he would know starflight again, and perhaps even return to the glaciers and ice cities of Glabber, beneath its wan red sun. The Embe nymph had never quite been a friend, yet Ekkedme had been something just as important. They had shared a past. Only Jube had known the Embe was there, watching, listening; only Ekkedme had known that Jube the Walrus, joker newsboy was really Jhubben, a xenologist from Glabber. The nymph had been a link to his past, to his homeworld and his people, to the Opportunity and the Network itself, to its one-hundred-thirty-seven member species spread across a thousand-odd worlds.
Jube looked at the new watch his friends had given him. It was past two. The message had been received just before eight. He had never used a singularity shifter himself-it was an Embe device, still experimental, powered by a mini-black hole and capable of functioning as a stasis field, a teleportation device, even a power source, but fantastically expensive, its secrets zealously guarded by the Network. He did not pretend to understand its workings, but it should have brought Ekkedme here, where Jhubben could help him. If the shifter had malfunctioned, the Embe might have teleported into airless space, or the bottom of the ocean, or . . . well, anywhere within range.
He shook his massive head. What could he do? If Ekkedme was still alive, he would make his way here. Jube was powerless to help him. Meanwhile, he had a more urgent problem: something, or someone, had discovered, attacked, and destroyed the singleship. The humans had neither the technology nor the motives.
Whoever was responsible was clearly no friend of the Network, and if they were aware of his existence, they might be coming after him as well. Jube found himself wishing that he hadn't just given away his weapon to Doughboy.
He watched the Embe's last transmission one last time in the hopes of finding a clue to the unknown enemy. There was nothing, except . . . "The Mother!" Ekkedme had said.
What was that? Some Embe religious invocation, or was his colleague actually calling on the female who had hatched him? Jube spent the next few hours floating in his tub, thinking. He did not savor those thoughts, yet the logic was inescapable. The Network had many enemies, within and without, but only one truly powerful rival in this sector of space, and only one that might be violently disgruntled to find Earth under observation: a species so like and so unlike the humans, imperious and aloof, racist, implacably bloody-minded, and capable of most any atrocity, to judge from what they'd done on Earth, and what they so regularly did to each other.
When dawn neared, and he dressed after a sleepless night, Jube was virtually convinced of it. Only a Takisian symbiont-ship could have done what he had witnessed. The ghostlance or the laser? he wondered. He was no expert on things martial.
It was a gray, slushy, depressing day, and Jube's mood matched it perfectly as he opened his newsstand. Business was slow. It was a little after eight when Dr.
Tachyon came down the Bowery, wearing a white fur coat and mopping at an egg stain on his collar. "Something wrong, Jube?" Tachyon asked when he stopped for a Times. "You don't look well."
Jube had trouble finding the words. "Uh, yeah, Doc. A friend of mine . . . uh, died." He watched Tachyon's face for any flicker of guilt. Guilt came so easy to the Takisian, surely if he knew he would betray himself.
"I'm sorry," Doc said, his voice sincere and sympathetic. "I lost someone myself this week, an orderly at the clinic. I have a horrible suspicion that the man was murdered. One of my patients vanished the same day, a man named Spector."
Tachyon sighed. "And now the police want me to perform an. autopsy on some poor joker they found in a dumpster in Chelsea. The man looks like a furry grasshopper, McPherson tells me. So that makes him one of mine, you see." He shook his head wearily. "Well, they're just going to have to keep him on 'ice until I can organize the search for Mr. Spector. Keep your ears open, Jube, and let me know if you hear anything, all right?"
"A grasshopper, you say?" Jube tried to keep his voice casual. "A furry grasshopper?"
"Yes," Tach said. "Not someone you knew, I hope."
"I'm not sure." Jube said quickly. "Maybe I ought to go and take a look. I know a lot of jokers."
"He's in the morgue, on First Avenue."
"I'm not sure I could take it," Jube said. "I got a queasy stomach, Doc. What kind of place is this morgue?" Tachyon reassured Jube that there was nothing to be frightened of. To allay any misgivings, he described the morgueand its procedures. Jube memorized every detail. "Doesn't sound so bad," he said finally. "Maybe I'll take a looksee, in case it is, uh, the guy I knew."
Tachyon nodded absently, his mind on other troubles. "You know," he told Jube,
"that man Spector, the patient who vanished-he was dead when they brought him to me. I saved the man's life. And if I hadn't, Henry might still be alive. Of course, I have no proof." Folding his Times up under an arm, the Takisian slogged off through the slush.
Poor Ekkedme, Jube thought. To die so far from home . . . he had no idea what sort of burial customs the Embe practiced. There was not even time to mourn.
Tachyon did not know, clearly. And more importantly, Tachyon must not know. The Network presence on Earth must be kept a secret at all costs. And if the Takisian performed that autopsy, he would know, there was no doubt of that.
Tachyon had accepted Jube as a joker, and why not? He looked as human as most jokers, and he'd been in Jokertown longer than Doc himself. Glabber was a backwater, poor and obscure. It had no starflight of its own, and less than a hundred Glabberans had ever taken service on the great Network starships. The chances of him recognizing Jhubben were slight to nonexistent. But the Embe filled a dozen worlds, their ships were known on a hundred more; they were as much a part of the Network as the Ly'bahr, Kondikki, Aevre, or even the Master Traders. One glance at that body and Tachyon would know.
Jube bounced on his heels, feeling the first faint touches of panic. He had to get that body before Tachyon saw it. And the shifter, how could he forget that!
If an artifact as valuable as a singularity shifter fell into Takisian hands, there would be no telling what the consequences might be. But how?
A man he had never laid eyes on before stopped in front of the newsstand.
Distracted, Jube looked up at him. "Paper?"
"One cf each," the man said, "as usual."
It took a moment to sink in, but when it did, Jube knew he had his answer.
ASHES TO ASHES
By Roger Zelazny
The radio spat static. Croyd Crenson reached out, switched it off, and threw it across the room toward the wastebasket beside the dresser. He took it as a good omen that it went in.
He stretched then, flipped back the covers, and regarded his pale nude body.
Everything seemed to be in place and normally proportioned. He willed himself to levitate and nothing happened, so he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. He ran his hand through his hair, pleased to find that he possessed hair. Waking up was always an adventure.
He tried to make himself invisible, to melt the wastebasket with a thought and to cause sparks to arc between his fingertips. None of these things occurred.
He rose and made his way to the bathroom. As he drank glass after glass of water he studied himself in the mirror. Light hair and eyes this time, regular features; fairly good-looking, actually. He judged himself to be a little over six feet in height. Well-muscled, too. There ought to be something in the closet that would fit. He'd been about this height and build before.
It was a gray day beyond the window with patches of slushy-looking snow lining the sidewalk across the street. Water trickled in the gutter. Croyd halted on his way to the closet to withdraw a heavy steel rod from a crate beneath his writing table. Almost casually, he bent the rod in half and then twisted it. The strength had carried over yet again, he reflected, as the metal pretzel joined the radio in the wastebasket. He located a shirt and trousers that fit him well, and a tweed jacket only slightly tight in the shoulders. He turned his attention then to his large collection of shoes, and after a time he came up with a comfortable pair.
It was a little after eight o'clock according to his Rolex, and this being winter and daylight it meant morning. His stomach rumbled. Time for breakfast and orientation. He checked his cash cache and withdrew a couple of hundred dollars. Getting low, he mused. Have to visit the bank later. Or maybe rob one.
The stocks were taking a beating, too, the last time around. Later. . .
He equipped himself with a handkerchief, a comb, his keys, and a small plastic bottle of pills. He did not like to carry identification of any sort. No need for an overcoat. Temperature extremes seldom bothered him.
He locked the door behind him, negotiated the hall and descended the stairs. He turned left when he reached the street, facing into a sharp wind, and he began walking down the Bowery. Leaving a dollar in the outstretched hand of a tall, cadaverous-looking joker with a nose like an icicle-who stood as still as a totem pole in the doorway of a closed mask shopCroyd asked the man what month it was.
" December," the figure said without moving its lips. "Merry Christmas."
"Yeah," Croyd said.
He tried a few more simple tests as he headed for his first stop, but he could not break the empty whisky bottles in the gutter with a thought, nor set fire to any of the piles of trash. He attempted to utter ultrasounds but only produced squeaks. He hiked down to the newsstand at Hester Street where short, fat Jube Benson sat reading one of his own papers. Benson had on a yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt beneath a light-blue summer suit; bristles of red hair protruded from beneath his porkpie hat. The temperature seemed to bother him no more than it did Croyd. He raised his dark, blubbery, pocked face and displayed a pair of short, curving tusks as Croyd stopped before the stand.
"Paper?" he asked.
"One of each," Croyd said, "as usual."
Jube's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the man before him. Then, "Croyd?"
he asked.
Croyd nodded.
"It's me, Walrus. How're they hanging?"
"Can't complain, fella. Got yourself a pretty one this time."
"Still test-driving it," Croyd said, gathering a stack of papers.
Jube showed more tusk.
"What's the most dangerous job in Jokertown?" he asked. "I give up."
"Riding shotgun on the garbage truck," he said. "Hear what happened to the gal who won the Miss Jokertown contest?"
"What?"
"Lost her title when they learned she'd posed nude for Poultry Breeder's Gazette."
"That's sick, Jube," said Croyd, quirking a smile.
"I know. We got hit by a hurricane while you were asleep. Know what it did?"'
"What?"
"Four million dollars' worth of civic improvement."
"All right, already!" Croyd said. "What do I owe you?" Jube put down his paper, rose, and waddled to the side of the kiosk.
"Nothin'," he said. "I want to talk to you."
"I've got to eat, Jube. When I wake up I need a lot of food in a hurry. I'll come back later, all right?"
"Is it okay if I join you?"
"Sure. But you'll lose business." Jube began closing the stand.
"That's okay," he said. "This is business."
Croyd waited for him to secure the stand, and they walked two blocks to Hairy's Kitchen.
"Let's take that booth in the back," Jube said.
"Fine. No business till after my first round of food, though, okay? I can't concentrate with low blood sugar, funny hormones and lots of transaminases. Let me get something else inside first."
"I understand. Take your time."
When the waiter came by, Jube said that he had already eaten and ordered only a cup of coffee which he never touched. Croyd started with a double order of steak and eggs and a pitcher of orange juice.
Ten minutes later when the pancakes arrived, Jube cleared his throat.
"Yeah," Croyd said. "That's better. So what's bothering you, Jube?",