RAINBOW RUN (18 page)

She shook her head. "Not you specifically. Errox asked me to contact him if Boget or any other rainbow brought around anyone for a new wristlock."

I didn't have any more questions. Arvon had a few more questions about the Freedom Crusaders but didn't get any new information. When he finished his questions, I motioned him aside and asked, "What's being done about the Rainbow Room? The whole Color Wheel is a deadly hoax. People are risking their lives for a run at the rainbow, seeking an immortality that doesn't exist."

"We closed the Color Wheel down, ostensibly for repairs. We intend to demolish it without ever opening it again."

I found that information very reassuring. My experiences in the Rainbow Room and other parts of the Color Wheel were memories that I hoped would fade in time. Once the building was destroyed maybe those experiences wouldn't come into my mind every time I passed the site.

Eventually Dreena was disconnected from the vericator and led away by two VIS officers.

I asked Clandine what was going to happen to Dreena.

"She'll be put in a holding cell for now. Later she'll be examined at the Medical Complex. The medics will decide whether or not she can be rehabilitated by a re-education program."

"And if she can't?"

"Then she'll be brainwiped, given a new appearance along with a new name, and she'll start life all over."

"Oh," I replied, hiding my own feelings on the subject. Clandine’s casual attitude abouthaving all of one’s memories eliminated bothered me a lot. I wondered how dismissive Clandine would be about brainwiping if it were done to her.

"Rathe, you seem fatigued. Let me get a dwell assigned to you here in the overseers' urbode so you can get some rest."

I acquiesced. I was exhausted from trying to assimilate all the new information I had learned today.

Although I was exhausted, I slept only a short time in the dwell assigned to me in the overseers’ urbode. My dreams had been chaotic, consisting of hurried trips on dead end slideways, whispered directions of confusing complexity and unexpected twists to any path I took. I awoke in a sweat. I cleaned myself and took a fresh tunic from the ample supply in the dwell.

As I ate some food cubes, I pondered about what I could do to aid the Alliance. I could recognize Errox on sight but I had no idea where to find him. I didn’t want to see him, just locate him so I could tell the Alliance where he was so they could arrest him for the murder of Boget. Errox wouldn't be in the Simulike Palace because VIS personnel were searching it for the Cainenol supply.

He wouldn’t be at Dreena’s place because he would have no difficulty discovering that she had been arrested and her dwell was under surveillance. Maybe he was out looking for Ozerta, hoping to learn when the next shipment of Cainenol was coming in. I didn't think he knew that the Cainenol had been stopped at the source.

I mentally reviewed all the people I had met who were acquainted with Errox. Only one, other than Dreena, seemed to know much about him. That person was Kahalyton of the Counter Colors. I remembered him saying to me about Errox, "Someday when I've drunk my fill of jarva, I will tell you about him."

I needed to find Kahalyton, but I had no idea of the location of his dwell or how to get in touch with the Counter Colors who would know. I wished that I could access the Delphic method techniques and get some direction, some oracular information full of sage advice. Sage! Kahalyton had appeared in my Simulike experience as a sage. Maybe there was something I could recall from that episode that would lead me toward Kahalyton.

I stopped pacing, sat down, and took deep, even breaths. I reviewed the entire encounter in my mind. I remembered meeting the sage at a bend in the path. He told me that death didn't lie and gave me a vision to help me understand, a vision in which a rainbow turned upside down. I couldn't identify any rainbow that had been turned upside down although the Alliance was working toward ending the rainbow status of Flantel, Ozerta, and Wanklurm. Boget had been upended in the sense that he had died, verifying the sage's statement that the apparition representing death did not lie.

The bend in the path where I found the sage, what did it represent? All the walkways were straight. There were no bends. Then I remembered walking through the Medical Complex where I'd seen an outdoor pavilion and a path that curved around it. Was I reading more into my Simulike experience than it contained? I didn't know but I was going to find out.

I took two jars of jarva from the supply cabinet in the dwell, put them in my waist pouch, and went to the Medical Complex pavilion in search of Kahalyton. Twilight was deepening as I walked along the curving path. I could hear a voice but I could not understand the words. It wasn't Kahalyton's voice. It was a woman's voice. As I got closer I could see her, a gray-haired woman speaking to a small group who gave her their attention. I realized that she was one of the gray storytellers I had heard of. I sat down in the back of the group.

The storyteller noticed me joining the group but she didn't stop telling the audience her tale. When I heard her next words I realized that she was winding up her story. She said, "So many ages ago on a world called Arth, four people—Dotto, Scarow, Tinmun, and Lineguy—penetrated the illusions of the wizard and found a new reality that enabled them to live happier and more fully, cherishing what they had learned and sharing it with others."

I joined in the applause when she stopped speaking. Some of her audience left. Others clustered around her, expressing their appreciation of the entertainment. When I got a chance to speak to her I said, "I regret that I didn't arrive in time to hear the entire tale."

She looked at my white wristlock and said, "I'm surprised that you showed up."

"Do you know me?"

"No. It's just that my audience has always consisted only of grays. How did you learn about our gathering?"

"I didn't. I came here looking for a way to contact a friend named Kahalyton. Can you help me?"

"Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Rathe. Kahalyton befriended me when I was a blanc."

"You were a blanc and now you wear a white wristlock?" She studied me curiously out of owl-like eyes.

"Yes. I'm now a member of the Alliance."

"Is your friend Kahalyton also a member of this Alliance?"

"No, he's a member of the Counter Colors. I want to give him some information I've learned from the Alliance and get his help in locating someone the Alliance wants to find."

Most of the members of the audience had drifted away, having recognized that the storyteller and I were engaged in a serious discussion that precluded small talk interruptions. I wanted the storyteller to trust me. I said, "I know from Yondoka and Nordel that the Alliance is promoting folk tales intended to help prepare people for the changes that must take place in this culture. I want to help the Alliance and the Counter Colors communicate with each other."

"Wait right here," she said, before walking over to a man and woman who had been listening to her story. I was unable to overhear what she said to them. They talked briefly.

Then the three of them came over to where I was waiting. The storyteller said to me, "These people will take you to a meeting place. Perhaps you'll find someone there who will help you."

She hadn't introduced me to the couple nor had she told me her name. It was just another indication of the rising level of tension in the society—not telling strangers your name as a way of preserving anonymity, a way of keeping distance between yourself and the people who might have power over you if they knew who and where you are.

The storyteller left.

The woman took a strip of tunic out of her waist pouch and said, "You'll have to be blindfolded if you want to go with us."

I nodded my agreement.

She put the cloth over my eyes. I tried to keep a surge of paranoia from overpowering me. I was giving my trust to strangers, but I felt I had no other option that would lead me anywhere.

"What do you have in your waist pouch?" It was the deep voice of the man who hadn't spoken previously.

"Just some jarva for Kahalyton." I felt his hands search my waist pouch and establish that I had told the truth.

He took me by one arm and she by the other. They led me away from the pavilion, taking many turns and sometimes doubling back part way over the previous route. By the time we reached a slidestrip I had no sense of what direction we were going in or where we were in relation to the mental map I had put so much effort into making. Once on the slideway the couple kept me between them. I saw nothing because of the blindfold. I wondered if any other slidestrip travelers noticed my blindfold. Then I remembered that it was twilight time and unless we approached someone no one would notice.

Even if they did, they would probably assume we were playing some kind of a game or conducting an initiation. It didn't feel like a game to me. Eventually we got off the slideway. They led me to a walkway and then to a dwell in an urbode.

I was still wearing my blindfold when I heard Kahalyton's voice say, "Yes, that's my friend Rathe. You can leave us alone."

I heard several people leave. Then Kahalyton spoke, "Welcome, Rathe. You can take off the blindfold."

The light was dim, but it still hurt my eyes briefly. When they had adjusted, I looked at Kahalyton. He didn't look quite the same, a bit tired perhaps, as if he hadn't slept well for several days.

"Hello, Kahalyton. I'm glad to see you."

He looked down at my wrist. "Rathe, I see you have a white wristlock. I was hoping that you had come to join the Counter Colors but you seem to have taken a different path."

"I think our paths may converge." I took the jarva out of my waist pouch and handed him a bottle. "You once told me that sometime when you had your fill of jarva you would tell me about Errox. I'd like for you to tell me now. I need to find him."

"Errox will be hard to find these days. Wherever he is, you can be positive that he will be protected by his brainwashed Freedom Crusaders. Dealing with them can be dangerous. They are true believers who can't hear or understand any questions that the rhetoric they'd been fed doesn't answer. I think it would be dangerous for anyone other than a Crusader to approach Errox right now."

"I don't want to approach him. I want to locate him to report his whereabouts to the people who are interested in stopping him from distributing Cainenol. I want to know anything you can tell me about Errox."

Kahalyton and I both drank some jarva. Then Kahalyton said, "I'll tell you what I know about Errox, but in exchange you must tell me what you know about Cainenol. You seem to have information that confirms some of my suspicions. Is it a deal? Do we trade information?"

"Yes, we've got a deal," I replied.

"I first met Errox when he was seeking personal power among the permanent grays. Several of the Counter Colors had heard about him and suggested that I meet him to see if he might be an asset to our organization. I met and talked with him on several occasions. I never told him of the Counter Colors because I suspected that he was the kind of person who would not join any organization unless he wanted to take it over and run it. I got reports on his associates and activities. I say associates because he had no friends—only people he could use.

"His activities, which included riplocking, showed that he had a flawed character. The man has no moral center. His style is expediency without ethics, maneuvers without morality, reactions without respect." Kahalyton paused, took a sip of jarva, and continued. "He tried running multiple-player schemes in unsuccessful efforts to outsmart the Game, using a smitty so that each player wore the same wristlock when he or she played the Game. When those projects failed he abandoned his cohorts, leaving them in the hands of the VIS. He takes only those lovers who might be useful to him and when their usefulness ends, he discards them like worn out sandals. Have I told you enough or do you need more details?"

"Do you have any information that might help me locate him?"

"No, Rathe, I don't. Tell me what you know about Cainenol. I know that Errox has used it to indoctrinate and control his Crusaders and others."

"Errox entered into a conspiracy with several influential rainbows to import Cainenol so they could use it to increase their power, create love slaves, and turn people into pawns—"

Kahalyton interrupted by asking, "How did you learn of this conspiracy?"

"I was arrested by the VIS who thought I was Errox because I was wearing his wristlock. When they discovered that I was a blanc, one VIS officer convinced me to become an undercover agent who would try to find Errox."

"Are you working for Wanklurm?"

"No, he's part of the conspiracy. I'm working for the Alliance for Cultural Transformation, a group consisting mostly of rainbows and non-corrupt VIS personnel. They called in two off-world rainbows as investigators."

"Off-worlders! Kahalyton exclaimed. "How do they fit in to all of this?"

I quickly told him what little I knew about the off-worlders, and what they had told me.

"Do you trust them?"

"No, I don't. Although they cut off the Cainenol supply at its off-world source, I think they want to downplay the conspiracy and minimize or ignore the problems of this culture."

"So there will be no more Cainenol?" he asked.

"The last shipment hasn't been distributed. Errox probably has it. He's wearing a rainbow wristlock that he took from the Simulike Palace overseer Boget who was dealing in unauthorized wristlocks."

"What's being done about Boget?"

"Errox killed him to take over the Cainenol trade. I was unconscious when he broke Boget's neck, but I have no doubts that he was responsible."

"Then you should keep your distance from Errox. He would have no compunctions about killing you as well."

"I know,” I said, taking a deep breath. “That's a major motivation for finding him and getting him arrested by members of the Alliance. Do you know that Alliance members are the principal suppliers of the folk tales your storytellers relate?"