I took another step back.
Queue was burning now, the orange-red flames superseding the blue glow. His flesh exploded outward with flame as if his bones had ignited. Within a minute he was a smoking caricature of charred flesh, the body reduced to the ancient dwarf-boxer posture of burning victims everywhere. I turned away and put a hand over my mouth, searching the faces of the few watchers to see if any of them could have done this. Wide, frightened eyes stared back. Far above, gray security uniforms burst from the farcaster.
Damn. I looked around. The treesails surged and billowed overhead. Radiant gossamers, beautiful even in daylight, flitted among tropical vegetation of a hundred hues. Sunlight danced on blue ocean. The way to both portals was blocked. The security guard leading the group had drawn a weapon.
I was to the first hawking mat in three strides, trying to remember from my one ride two decades earlier how the flight threads were activated. I tapped designs in desperation.
The hawking mat went rigid and lifted ten centimeters off the beach. I could hear the shouts now as security guards reached the edge of the crowd. A woman in gaudy Renaissance Minor garb pointed my way. I jumped off the hawking mat, gathered up the other seven mats, and jumped aboard my own. Barely able to find the flight designs under the tumble of rugs, I slapped the forward controls until the mat lurched into flight, almost tumbling me off as it rose.
Fifty meters out, thirty meters high, I dumped the other mats into the sea and swiveled to see what was happening on the beach. Several gray uniforms were huddled around the burned remains. Another pointed a silver wand in my direction.
Delicate needles of pain tingled along my arm, shoulders, and neck. My eyelids drooped and I almost slid off the mat to my right. I gripped the far side with my left hand, slumped forward, and tapped at the ascent design with fingers made of wood. Climbing again, I fumbled at my right sleeve for my own stunner. The wristband was empty.
A minute later I sat up and shook off most of the effects of the stun, although my fingers still burned and I had a fierce headache. The motile isle was far behind, shrinking more each second. A century ago the island would have been driven by the bands of dolphins brought here originally during the Hegira, but the Hegemony pacification program during the Siri Rebellion had killed off most of the aquatic mammals and now the islands wandered listlessly, carrying their cargo of Web tourists and resort owners.
I checked the horizons for another island, a hint of one of the rare mainlands. Nothing. Or, rather, blue sky, endless ocean, and soft brushstrokes of clouds far to the west. Or was it to the east?
I pulled my comlog off my belt lock and keyed in general datasphere access, then stopped. If the authorities had chased me this far, the next step would be to pinpoint my location and send out a skimmer or security EMV. I wasn’t sure if they could trace my comlog when I logged in but I saw no reason to help them. I thumbed the comm-link on standby and looked around again.
Good move, Brawne. Poking along at two hundred meters on a three-century-old hawking mat with who knows how many … or how few! … hours of charge in its flight threads, possibly a thousand klicks or more from land of any sort. And lost. Great. I crossed my arms and sat back to think.
“M. Lamia?” Johnny’s soft voice almost made me jump off the mat.
“Johnny?” I stared at the comlog. It was still on standby. The general comm frequency indicator was dark. “Johnny, is that you?”
“Of course. I thought you’d never turn your comlog on.”
“How did you trace me? What band are you calling on?”
“Never mind that. Where are you headed?”
I laughed and told him that I didn’t have the slightest idea. “Can you help?”
“Wait.” There was the briefest second of pause. “All right, I have you on one of the weather-mapping sats. A terribly primitive thing. Good thing your hawking mat has a passive transponder.”
I stared at the rug that was the only thing between me and a long, loud fall to the sea. “It does? Can the others track me?”
“They could,” said Johnny, “but I’m jamming this particular signal. Now, where do you want to go?”
“Home.”
“I’m not sure if that’s wise after the death of … ah … our suspect.”
I squinted, suddenly suspicious. “How do you know about that? I didn’t say anything.”
“Be serious, M. Lamia. The security bands are full of it on six worlds. They have a reasonable description of you.”
“Shit.”
“Precisely. Now where would you like to go?”
“Where are you?” I asked. “My place?”
“No. I left there when the security bands mentioned you. I’m … near a farcaster.”
“That’s where I need to be.” I looked around again. Ocean, sky, a hint of clouds. At least no fleets of EMVs.
“All right,” said Johnny’s disembodied voice. “There’s a powered-down FORCE multi-portal less than ten klicks from your present location.”
I shielded my eyes and rotated three hundred and sixty degrees. “The hell there is,” I said. “I don’t know how far away the horizon is on this world, but it’s at least forty klicks and I can’t see anything.”
“Submersible base,” said Johnny. “Hang on. I’m going to take control.”
The hawking mat lurched again, dipped once, and then fell steadily. I held on with both hands and resisted the urge to scream.
“Submersible,” I called against the wind rush, “how far?”
“Do you mean how deep?”
“Yeah!”
“Eight fathoms.”
I converted the archaic units to meters. This time I did scream. “That’s almost fourteen meters underwater!”
“Where else do you expect a submersible to be?”
“What the hell do you expect me to do, hold my breath?” The ocean rushed toward me.
“Not necessary,” said my comlog. “The hawking mat has a primitive crash field. It should easily hold for a mere eight fathoms. Please hang on.”
I hung on.
Johnny was waiting for me when I arrived. The submersible had been dark and dank with the sweat of abandonment; the farcaster had been of a military variety I’d never seen before. It was a relief to step into sunlight and a city street with Johnny waiting.
I told him what had happened with Queue. We walked empty streets past old buildings. The sky was pale blue fading toward evening. No one was in sight. “Hey,” I said, stopping, “where are we?” It was an incredibly Earthlike world but the sky, the gravity, the texture of the place was like nothing I’d visited.
Johnny smiled. “I’ll let you guess. Let’s walk some more.”
There were ruins to our left as we walked down a wide street. I stopped and stared. “That’s the Colosseum,” I said. “The Roman Colosseum on Old Earth.” I looked around at the aging buildings, the cobblestone streets, and the trees swaying slightly in a soft breeze. “This is a reconstruction of the Old Earth city of Rome,” I said, trying to keep the astonishment out of my voice. “New Earth?” I knew at once that it wasn’t. I’d been to New Earth numerous times and the sky tones, smells, and gravity had not been like this.
Johnny shook his head. “This is nowhere in the Web.”
I stopped walking. “That’s impossible.” By definition, any world which could be reached by farcaster was in the Web.
“Nonetheless, it is not in the Web.”
“Where is it then?”