The Devil's Eye

A: You can certainly guess.

Q: Would I be right? A: (Smiles.) Honestly, Henry, it's in the air. I'm still making up my mind.

'She seems upbeat,' I said. This Vicki bore little resemblance to the woman who'd sent that original transmission to us. 'Whatever the problem is,' Alex said, 'it hasn't happened yet.' We watched the rest of the interview. When asked what she planned to do while she was in town, Vicki said she just intended to look around. 'This is a nice place. I'd like to just take it easy.' 'Will you be visiting the Tomb?' 'Oh, I don't think so, Henry. It's a bit scary out there.'

There was a Barryman Museum. And Graveyard Books. And the Occult Transit Company, which provided virtual trips into the hereafter. You could get shirts with a picture of the monster on them. A sim that dramatized the event. A hologram of the monster itself stood in front of the gift shop. A family were getting their pictures taken beside it when we arrived. Everybody seemed to be doing a thriving business. We went looking for people who might have seen Vicki Greene. Everybody at the Point seemed to be a fan of horror fiction. Most of the locals we talked to said yes, they'd heard she'd been in town. Most said they'd seen her, and several even claimed to have talked with her. But nobody was particularly helpful. Several told us she'd been writing about the Barryman Monster. 'Why else would she have come here?' one demanded. The word that she'd been lost hadn't gotten around, and her fans were reluctant to believe the news. On the whole, we had trouble finding reliable sources. The details didn't match. Vicki was described as wearing different clothes. Her hair was a different color. Sometimes she spoke with an accent, sometimes she didn't. We asked whether they believed that the Barryman story had any basis in fact. I thought we'd find some skepticism there, especially among the kids. But no. Of course it had happened. Ask anybody. Or go out to the cemetery when Callistra's in the sky.

***

They ran tours out to Barryman's grave during the daylight hours, using a light-grav bus marked ANDROID LOCAL. When I asked the hotel host whether there was a night tour, he looked startled. 'Absolutely not, young lady. Nobody goes out there at night. It's not allowed.' He couldn't quite resist a smile. They picked us up at the hotel, made one more stop, and headed north to the cemetery. About fifteen of us were on board, half of whom were kids. It was a holiday crowd, full of laughter, and I could hear a little girl saying, 'Is it really true, Mommy?'

'No, darling,' Mommy said. 'There are no such things as ghosts.' Alex looked for his chance to show the tour guide a picture of Vicki. 'Do you recall whether she ever rode with you?' 'Mister,' he said, 'do you have any idea how many people go out there?' We passed through the town and drove about three kilometers on a flat straight road. Turned right onto a cutoff. And approached a pair of iron gates. They swung open for us. (As a security measure, they were of doubtful use because the fence was broken in any number of places.) The cemetery was old. Markers dated back more than six hundred years, to the beginning of the Bandahriate. The tour guide, a middle- aged guy who was trying his best to look nervous, told us the town advisory committee was talking about putting the cemetery off-limits to visitors, because everybody knew it was just a matter of time before Forrest Barryman broke loose from his grave and nobody knew what he might do then. He looked around at the children, some of whom giggled while others nestled closer to their mothers. 'Of course, most of us at the Point think they're worried over nothing,' he said with a straight face. 'But you know how people are. One restless grave's enough to give the entire town a bad name.' Alex leaned my way. 'You look a little nervous, Chase.' Anything to put me on the defensive. I smiled at him and let it go. The cemetery was a dusty, dry place, not at all like the green, almost lush graveyard near the Country House back on Rimway. Signs reading DO NOT APPROACH AFTER DARK were posted throughout the area. 'I don't think I'd want to bury anybody here that I cared about,' I said. Alex looked past me, and I could have predicted his response: 'At the end, I can't imagine it matters much.' A burst of wind rocked the bus. 'Forrest is quiet in the daytime,' said our tour guide. 'Nothing to worry about.' The bus made its way among the headstones. Eventually we topped a low hill, and the block came into view. It was higher than I could have reached and half as long as the bus. We swung into a parking area, and the doors opened. The tour guide was first off the bus. He helped the ladies navigate down, lent a hand to the kids, all the while explaining that we were perfectly safe, that there was nothing to worry about in the daytime. 'It's only active when Callistra is in the sky.' He drew the word Callistra out, rolling the consonants and savoring the vowels. The guy really enjoyed his work. 'They're putting on a nice show,' whispered Alex. The LIE STILL inscription was, of course, the first thing that caught my eye. There was another inscription, on the far side, consisting of three rows of unfamiliar symbols. 'They're Arrakesh,' the tour guide explained. 'They're from the Enkomia , which is an ancient text that some people think is sacred. The first line translates to his name, Forrest Barryman. The second is the date of his first burial. And the bottom says Gone to Glory .' He touched the rock cautiously. 'We certainly hope so,' he added. 'Why the strange language?' I asked. 'It's supposed to help keep him in the ground,' he said. 'Most of the people who lived here at the time were Travelers. They were the faithful. Their name came out of their emphasis on the notion of life as a journey from a wicked world to salvation. If you look around, you'll notice quite a few of the graves have a star emblem. Those are the Travelers.' 'Callistra,' said a woman behind me. 'That's correct,' said the guide. 'Travelers believed Callistra was God's star, placed in the heavens as a sign of His presence.' The star, of course, was central to a number of that world's religions although I didn't know that at the time. The site seemed peaceful enough. The block would have required a good-sized antigrav engine to move it. 'He's not really at rest,' said the guide, who was obviously not one to let go of a good thing. 'If you come out here on a windy night, which is strictly prohibited, by the way, but come out here anyway, when Callistra is directly overhead, you can hear him down there, trying to get free.' There was a big bald-headed guy who asked him to stop. 'You're scaring the kids,' he said.

When we'd finished at the cemetery, the tour bus took us out to look at the android laboratory. It was a cluster of small buildings with specimen tables and tubs and exotic-looking equipment. It was, the driver explained, not the real lab, which had gone away centuries ago. But it was an 'accurate replica.' 'Furthermore,' he said, 'this is the ground on which it stood.' He continued as if everything were still standing. Here and over there were the quarters of the scientists, directly to your right the dining room. The main laboratory itself was the one-story white building on your right. He stopped in front of it. 'Some of the damage was done by the government when it came to recover whatever might connect it with the monster. We think it was the creature itself, though, that really leveled the place.' 'They must think we're all idiots,' I told Alex. 'No, no. It's all showbiz. They know no one buys it, but what they want is a momentary suspension of disbelief. Like in a sim. Kick back and enjoy yourself, Chase.' 'Okay.' 'Of course, who really knows?' 'About things like this? Would you please stop? You've been reading Greene's books again, haven't you?' He smiled, and we both had a good laugh. 'Seriously, though, I wonder whether the story has any basis in fact? Whether they might have tried to build androids out here?' He shrugged. 'Sure. They might have tried to put together a better cop. In a dictatorship, you'd pretty much expect it. It's what makes technology so scary, Chase. Sometimes, the wrong people get to make use of it.' 'You think Vicki took this tour?' 'You think there's any chance in the world she came all the way out here and didn't take the tour?' For a long minute I kept my peace. Then: 'How about we come back out tonight?' 'Where? Here? ' 'Yes. Here. ' 'Why?' 'Because that's what Vicki would have done. She would have wanted to feel the emotional impact of the android story. And the grave at night was part of that impact. I doubt she could have resisted it.' 'You're probably right, Chase. But I don't see any point in pushing this any further. What we need to do is find out where she went from here.' 'That seems like cheating. I think we should repeat the experience.' 'You really want to do this, don't you?' 'Yes,' I said. 'I'd like to be here when the star gets overhead. That's the way she'd have done it.' 'Chase-' 'We came to repeat the experience. To do what she did. It seems to me, this might be at the center of things.' 'Okay.' His voice was resigned. 'If you insist.' I shook my head. 'No.' 'No what?' 'I'll go alone.' 'Why?' 'Because she did.' 'Chase, you're not fooling anybody.' 'What do you mean, Alex?' 'You're still a little kid.'

He didn't like the idea. It's dangerous, he said. No place for a woman. Who knows who's hanging around out there at that time of night? There might even be predators in the area. I told him not to worry, that I'd call him if anything out of the ordinary happened. Anyhow, I was armed. I'd bought a 21k scrambler, which I would have with