Electric Forest (18 page)

"No. I accept as much. Neither of us, strangely, feels like dueling with the other. That at least is a correct
appraisal of myself. You?"

"The same."

"Why not? We are Armageddon to each other, surely?"
"I don't know why not."

"Is it simply that you hate Claudio fractionally more than you are prepared to hate me?"

Magdala shut her eyes. She could not think while the icon of Christophine was before her. From a vast depth within herself, and from the sea which covered her, she dredged up a name.

"Paul Hovak," Magdala said.

"What?" Without looking at her, Magdala was conscious of Christophine's alertness. "I wanted to ask you about Paul Hovak."

"Why?"

Rather as Magdala had done earlier, Christophine was synchronizing her retaliatory questions like a
drum-beat to hit squarely at the ends of Magdala's sentences. Instinctive on Christophine's part?

"Claudio took me to a hotel on the mainland. Paul Hovak was there. Claudio wanted you to be discredited with Hovak, and I didn't know who Hovak was."

"My God," said Christophine. "Oh, my God."

Magdala raised her lids cautiously, as if against fierce light. Christophine was revealed in profile, body and
face. Sculptured, gorgeous, the glass hanging loose from her grip, spilling its liquor on the floor.

"Yes, I see," Christophine said. She let go the glass, and moving about, stepped on it, inadvertently or

purposely, Magdala was not sure. Full face now, Christophine came to Magdala. Christophine leaned down into the pneumatic and drew Magdala out of it, upward, toward her, as if to lift her

into her arms.

And Christophine was indeed holding her now, like a

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lover, like Claudio, holding Magdala pressed to her, their eyes, nostrils, mouths a few centimeters apart.

"Hovak," Christophine said. Her breath was sweet, lightly glazed with alcohol and smoke. The scent of her
skin and hair was the scent of Magdala's skin and hair, no divergence save for the faint amber-color hint of sandalwood. "I must hear everything that occurred between you and Hovak."

Magdala saw herself reflected in the eyes of Christophine. Blue on blue, image upon image, mirror upon

mirror.

Christophine blinked, Magdala blinked.

Magdala began to tell Christophine about Paul Hovak. First, the holostet. Next the scene on the pier of

Sugar Beach, recognition and unrecognition, Irlin and his textbook blow. Hovak later in the suite, checking
the rooms, humorously warning, altering to anger. But while she said all this, she had no positive sense of what she said. Merely of Christophine.

After a time, silence. Magdala had ended her narrative of Paul Hovak.

"And Claudio," Christophine murmured. Her eyes were nearly closed, as Magdala realized her own must again have become.

"Claudio?"

"He would want more than simply to discredit me with Paul. I can rectify that. Claudio understands that I

can."

"Claudio recorded our conversation in the suite," Magdala whispered. Standing like this, against

Christophine, she felt no excitement, no stress. It was almost as if she were near to sleep. To blissful, dreamless, infinite oblivion...

The hands which were holding her arms bit into her. Hovak had held her this way. And Claudio. Now

Christophine. Magdala did not mind that Christophine was hurting her. But spontaneously, Magdala's own
hands, acquiescent at her sides before, slid forward and seized in turn the flesh of Christophine. So she felt Christophine's sudden fear pass, as if by osmosis of their tissue and blood, into her own self.

"Why did he record your conversation?" Christophine

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said. "He could have listened through the device by relay, heard what Paul said to you directly. Why

record? Christ. I know why. Magdala," Christophine said, "Magdala." Her face drained white as a stone
beside a beach, its pale gold fleckings growing dark and livid on the whiteness. Magdala felt herself
emulating, blanching, a slow sickening wave of blood abandoning her head. "Listen," said Christophine,
"would you like to destroy me? Claudio would. He isn't content with what he did to me before. He wants

my bones. But you. How about you?"

"I
don't want to harm you."

"No?"

"No. No."

"Because I can tell you something now that would assist you to crucify me. Assist Claudio to crucify me.
Would you like tor

"No, Christophine."

"Listen, then. Paul and I are connected in this way. We plan to sell the data for the C. T. Project off-planet,
outside of Earth Conclave. It isn't as bad as it sounds. We feel that once Consciousness Transferal has
been solved, the method should be available to all planetary Federations, not simply within E.G. Peace, for
example, with its unstable volcanic zones, has a high rate of crippling accidents. Are we expected to leave
people without hope of a conclusive painless salvation simply because but no, no politics. You accept
what I mean."

Magdala nodded. But she nodded because Christophine burned before her, her fires seeping in through Magdala's pores, consuming heart and brain.

"But," Christophine said, "if E.G. learns what Paul and I mean to promote, we're finished. In all ways,

fi
nished. Claudio knows. He will do this: He will use the recording of Paul's conversation with you to make
a simulate voice which will register on any machine that checks it, as Paul's natural voice there is no other
method of successfully faking a voice save by simulate. Gadgetry genius again, you

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see. Claudio will then signal Marine Bleu. He will ensure that the signal seems to originate as a call from
the mainland. Claudio will use Paul's simulate-voice in the signal. The sim-voice will disclose our plans.

How will it go? Something like this: 'Christophine del Jan has double-crossed me. She has already sold the
secrets of C.T. out-Conclave, cutting me out of the deal. Thus, vengefully, I betray her to you/ That will settle both of us. I will be arrested. The machines will trace Paul and he will be arrested. Our activities will be uncovered swiftly. We'll be shipped back to Earth to face a Traitor's Tribunal. God help us."

"Claudio has no machinery with him," Magdala said. *If he's on the island, how can he-"

"He has the big car, I suppose does he? The car contains chassis-storage. There would be room for all he
would need in that, and to spare. Don't underestimate him. He didn't even tell you where he would be. If
only he had told you."

They stood together, breathing each other in, softly.

But I know where he is, Magdala suddenly thought. There is only one place he would go to ground.

She was amazed Christophine could not see it too. On this island, all rock and cement, cloaked by holostets, otherwise naked. How was it Christophine had not guessed?

She could give Christophine this gift of Claudio.
Should she?

Why not. Claudio was the enemy.
Christophine was was

"Christophine," Magdala said. "Claudio and the car. They're on the north side of the island. In one of the caves at the foot of the cliff.

Christophine had pulled the traveling bag wide. She had removed from it a dust pink dress and handed the dress to Magdala.

"Put this on. Claudio has an eye for detail. He saw what was in the closet. It should be a garment he didn't
spot. One I must have brought with me. Proof of the homecoming."

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Magdala had taken off the white dress, donned the dust pink dress.

Christophine watched her, but Magdala was not unnerved by this. And suddenly Christophine quoted at her,
musingly, something that was vaguely familiar, something purely opposite, and it seemed to lift both of them
into another sphere, their condition honored and
immanent. "The one so like
the other as could not be
distinguished but by names/*

When Magdala was re-dressed, (there was a note of sandalwood in the fabric), Christophine discarded her
velvon robe, took up the white zipless, still warm from Magdala, and put it on. "It seems applicable. Do you agree? The closet's single un-knifed dress."

/ slashed with a knife also,
Magdala thought. But it was foolish and laughable to think of that.

Then Christophine offered her a drink. Christophine did not comment on the fact that the drink, in

Magdala's case, would be superfluous. She offered in courtesy, as if to a whole and human woman. They
drank together. It sealed, without words, their pact.

The course to be followed was straightforward.

They would drive together back along the road to the north side of the island. The tables would be
exquisitely turned. Claudio's scenario pre-empted.

Their preparations, the exchange of garments, the symbolic drink, occupied brief minutes. The total

sequence they had shared had not lasted long. And yet, was timeless.

Before they left the bungalow, Christophine had called Two Unit, utilizing, as off-handedly as Claudio, a
code.

Presently, Doramel had manifested herself in the vision plate.
Christophine said:

"How did Val manage with Emilion's autopsy? Find anything?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary, M. del Jan. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Any calls?"

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"No, M. del Jan."

"All right, Doramel. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, M. del Jan," said neat dark Doramel.

Christophine came from the panel. She laid one hand gently upon Magdala's shoulder.

"So far, so good. Claudio believes he has unlimited space to indulge in cat and mouse, but he hasn't. I can
stop him from making that call, with your help. You won't fail me?"

"No."

"And afterwards-" Christophine said.
Quietly, Magdala said:

"You have me. The first success of Transfer. You can study me, learn Claudio's secret."
"Not if it would distress you."

"How could it?"

Magdala wanted to say something else. She wanted to say
I love you.
Not sexual love, not even love,

perhaps. A special, unheard-of foreign thing, marvelous, pervasive. But there was no necessity to express this verbally. Her eyes expressed it, her body.

She had never been able to come close to anything before. She and Claudio had clashed glancingly in
shadow and raw glare. But now, finally, to touch and to be touched. Not physically but with the soul.

I would die for her. It cant matter if I die, while she lives. We're indivisible. One.

In Christophine's car, Christophine gave her, unspeaking, a miniature delectro. Ivory was inlaid beside the barrel. It was like the delectro in the Tri-V drama at Sugar Beach, when the rich man shot himself.

Ill

As each breaker came in over the rocks, about once every eleven seconds, there was a sound like tearing
cloth. As if the night itself were being torn down its black seams, torn

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open on a further blackness, from which the white spume gushed like plasma. The slender concrete

promenade between the base of the cliff and the detonating sea was viscous and shining from a recent

attempt the waves must have made to overpower the land. Under the cliff, in a line westward from the

f
f
luorescent
metal road, the nine caves (they had now been counted) continued extravagantly to gape. They were just too high for the invading ocean to have probed them. Too low for the forest to mask them. They
suggested a hunger for something. Like starving mouths or obscene wombs, they seemed begging to be
f
i
lled. The woman stood thirteen meters from the road and from the closed car. She was roughly level with
the rocky slope which led into the fifth cave, the middle cave. The wind from the sea, tepid, omnipresent and saline, struck against her hair, the material of her rose-beige frock. Only the open zip pocket of the frock did not respond to the wind. The pocket was weighted, and immovable.

The woman had stood there in the loud night, before the fifth cave, for forty-one seconds.

Between the breakers, there was always a hesitation of spurling half-silence. In the lull that came at the
forty-seventh second, the woman shouted: "
Claudio! I killed her, Claudio.

Another breaker interrupted at this point. When the lull resumed, around the sixty-fourth second, the woman
shouted again.

"I killed her, Claudio! I killed Christophine." The seventy-fifth second, the breaker. The eighty-first second
the lull: "Claudio! I'm wearing Christophine's dress. I -w The breaker. The ninety-eighth second, the lull: "I
knifed her, Claudio. The blood went all-" The breaker. The hundred and fifteenth second, the lull: "The
blood, Claudio. All over my white dress." The breaker. The one hundred and thirty-third second, the lull:

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"So I took a dress from her bag, Claudio. Come and see
The breaker. The hundred and forty-ninth second, the lull.
"Come and look at me, Claudio,
I killed Christophine!"
The hundred and sixtieth second: the breaker.
Claudio walked out of the seventh cave, to her left.

He wore black; black trousers, black shirt. She might not have seen him but for the pallor of neck and

hands and face, the extreme pallor of the hair. His face was bland, which meant that her voice, shouting through the night and the sea, had startled him and the startlement needed to be masked.

He did not shout back at her. He did not approach any nearer.

"Come here," she called in the next lull.

The breakers crashed, ebbed, crashed. At last, not answering her, he began to walk toward her down the
rock.

Claudio. He had been himself with both of them, both Christophine and Magdala. He had twisted them and
played with them, sneered, damaged, put them to use. But she did not have to have this sisterhood of hate
with Christophine to strengthen her. She did not even hate Claudio any more. She did not require the
weapon of hate against him. Indifference made her invulnerable. Christophine made her invulnerable.

He was on the concrete promenade, and she could see him better. His mouth was white as his face. His

eyes, the pupils dilated, were black as his shirt. He had now advanced sufficiently near. As if he knew that,

he stopped.

"You killed Christophine," he said.

She dropped her hand into her pocket, withdrew it, the delectro ready clasped, slipping the gauge along its