'He's picked a great time for it.'
'He always does. Where are the metal men?'
'They're out in the city someplace. They seemed to feel the need to move around.'
The Minstrel Boy broke the seal on the first jug of wine. The staff of the communication center looked a little askance at their pristine inner sanctum being turned into a party place, but they appeared too intimidated to say anything. The hours passed, and the mysterious blip crawled painfully slowly toward the merge point.
Renatta was the first one to grow angry at the waiting. 'This is like watching paint dry.'
'So don't watch it. Go on getting drunk.'
After eleven and a half hours the object entered Palanaque reality. There was a brief flash on the detector screen as it made the transition.
'This is it. They're here.'
Renatta stared a little wearily at the now-empty screen. 'Do you realize that they probably watched us come in just like this?'
Blaisdell laughed. 'They probably weren't drinking.'
'Maybe they should have been.'
Reave stood up and stretched. 'Let's hope these guys don't cause any more trouble than we did.'
Renatta looked up at him.'How do you know they are guys?'
One of the communication staff members came into the detector room and bowed. 'There's a signal coming through from the company at the lake.'
Reave looked up. 'Can you patch it in here?'
'Easily.'
'Then please do so.'
The technician bowed again and hurried away. Within a matter of seconds the detector room was filled with an urgent voice that was almost drowned in static.
'. . and the nothings have started to glow. . major transition flux is being created.' The static increased, and the voice came through only in brief snatches. '. . something coming through. . can't make. . just shadows against the. . a lot of. .'
The clear voice of a military operator in the city cut in. ' Please say again, Company A. You are breaking up very badly. I repeat, please say again. Check your equipment and say again.'
'. . moving in. . I don't know. . it looks. . hard to. .'
'We are losing you altogether, Company A. Dispatch the runners now. I say again, dispatch the runners now.'
'Holy shit!'
The Minstrel Boy clapped his hands to his ears. The signal was gone, and the room was filled with violent shrieking feedback. It lasted for almost a half minute and then cut out. Thie static returned, but this time there was not even the semblance of a voice. The Minstrel Boy sighed. 'They're off the air.'
Renatta put down the wine jug she had been cradling. Her voice was suddenly sober. 'Do we ask ourselves why?'
The Minstrel Boy stood up. 'I've been trying to avoid doing that, but I haven't found a way around it. I also have this terrible feeling that the best thing we could do would be to go up to that lake and take a look for ourselves.'
Reave looked at him as though he were mad. 'Are you kidding?'
'No, I'm not.' He motioned in the direction of the communication staff. 'But I'd rather not discuss it in front of them. Little pigs often have big ears.'
Reave picked up his jug and stood up. 'So let's go stretch our legs.'
As soon as they were out in the open, the Minstrel Boy started to outline his plan. 'The way I see it, we volunteer to go up the river and see what's going on by the lake.'
'And do we?'
'Sure we do. It's what we do next that counts.'
'And what's that?'
'We'll have two options. If whatever's come out of the nothings proves to be harmless, we come back to the city and spread the good news.'
Blaisdell pushed his fingers through his hair. 'And if it ain't harmless?'
'Then we try and creep through and make it to the nothings.'
'But why go all the way up to that lake? Why don't we just hit the nothings at the nearest point?'
The Minstrel Boy allowed himself a small superior smile. 'Because if you'd check out the stasis field on this place, you'd know that it's one of those spiral fold deals. The only way in or out is through a quite small access window up by the lake. '
Reave shook his head. 'I'm not so sure about this.'
The Minstrel Boy halted. 'Listen, it's only just after sunset outside. We would make it before dawn. We can take a boat most of the way.'
Renatta blinked. 'A boat?'
The Minstrel Boy was confident. 'We can get a boat.'
'We can?'
'Sure we can. I figure they'll be about ready to give us anything right about now if we can shed some light on the situation.'
Clay Blaisdell was nodding his agreement. 'The Minstrel Boy's right. If this is a raiding party and they're moving on the city, they won't bother to hide their position. They'll be coming with fire and sword, and we'll see them when they're still miles off.'
Reave sighed. 'I guess you're right. I've got to tell you, though, trekking up that river is the last thing I feel like doing. '
The Minstrel Boy ignored that final objection. 'So we ask for a boat.'
He started toward the Great Pyramid, but Reave caught him by the arm.
'What about Billy?'
The Minstrel Boy had temporarily forgotten their third musketeer.
'Oh, hell. Yes. Billy. .'
Renatta stepped in. 'Clay and I will get Billy. You guys get the boat. We'll meet you at the dock.'
As the Minstrel Boy had predicted, the beloved Master and General Zeum were more than willing to help anyone who wasfoolhardy enough to go upriver and find out what was going on. Forty-five minutes saw Reave and the Minstrel Boy at the river pier closest to the pyramid. A light, fast galley with a prow like a painted sea monster, a single tier of epsilon rowers, and the sleek stylized lines of racing craft of the Elite was moored there. Torches burned on the canopied quarterdeck, their flames reflecting off the oiled bodies of the rowers. Reave and the Minstrel Boy were, however, a little too preoccupied to spend very long admiring the beauty of the craft. The Minstrel Boy looked anxiously back down the dock.
'Where the hell are the others?'
Reave scowled. 'They're probably still looking for Billy.'
'I swear the bastard's capacity for fucking up increases in direct proportion to the system breaking down. It gets worse, he gets worse.'
'Maybe he's the one who's responsible for it all.'
The Minstrel Boy laughed despite the tension. 'The whole world's an analogue of Billy's rotting psyche?'
'Got to blame someone.'
A further ten minutes brought an end to the waiting but a hardly satisfactory answer. There were just two figures coming down the dock toward them, Renatta and Blaisdell — but no Billy.
'We looked in all the usual places, but there's no sign of him. He could be racked out in any one of a dozen discorp dens.'
Reave glanced at the Minstrel Boy. 'We can't leave Billy behind.'
The Minstrel Boy shrugged. 'We've left him behind before. '
Reave looked unhappy. 'Yeah, but this time's different.'
'A bit more terminal?'
