Madame Ruth wiped sweat from her forehead with one sleeve. I didn't think the sweat had anything to do with wearing the helmet. "Jesus," she muttered. "It tried to follow us back."
Too bloody right it did." Cholmondeley also sounded shaken to the core. "I think it used Mistress Ather as its conduit: it controls her spirit, after all."
"I never heard of that," I said.
"Nor had I," Cholmondeley answered. "Nor, so far as I know, has any practitioner of virtuous reality. Of course, there is the caveat that anyone encountering the phenomenon at full strength, so to speak, is unlikely to remain a practitioner of virtuous reality, or, indeed, of any trade thereafter." He essayed a laugh; it came out as a series of nervous little barks.
The procedure was unsuccessful?" Hr. Murad asked. He hadn't been there with us. Lucky him.
"Buddy, you're lucky - we're lucky - it's us sittin' here talking to you, and not the One Called Night," Madame Ruth said. Nigel Cholmondeley's nod in support of that was as herky-jerky as his laugh had been.
I stood up. I felt as if I'd been away from my body for a long time, slogging through the steaming, lighdess swamps of the Nine Beyonds. The physical part of me, though, the part that hadn't left the chair, rose now so smoothly that I knew virtuous reality had fooled me again, Before Hr. Murad could turn Judy the right way around on her bed, I leaned over the footboard and looked down into her face. Her eyes were open, and looking back at me.
Nothing showed in them, any more than it had before: no recognition of me, no awareness of where she was.
I kept looking, down into the blackness other pupils. Was the One Called Night hiding in that blackness, peering back at me through those portholes into This Side while it held her spirit trapped in the Nine Beyonds? I had no way to tell.
When I stepped back, the healer did put Judy back where she belonged. Nigel Cholmondeley was glumly packing the virtuous reality helmets back into their travel case. He set a hand on my arm. Terribly sorry, old man, I truly am. I'd hoped for better results."
"So did I." I looked at Judy again. If we couldn't get her spirit back from the Nine Beyonds, she was going to stay in that bed for the rest of her life, eating when they fed her, drinking when they gave her water, wiggling every now and then for no reason at all. And what would happen when she died? Could her spirit break free of the One Called Night even then?
I shivered all over, and the room wasn't that cool. In a way, she was even worse off than Jesus Cordero. With no natural soul of his own, he at least had hopes of getting an artificial one from Slow Jinn Fizz. But what could Ramzan Durani do for Judy, whose spirit was stolen rather than absent?
What could anyone do?
Hr. Murad stepped in front of Madame Ruth as she was about to go out the door. "Wait, please," he said in the tone of somebody trying - not too hard - to be polite about giving an order. "We have not yet fully examined the etiology of your treatment's failure."
Madame Ruth looked down her nose at him. She was taller than he was, as well as wider. "If you don't get out of that doorway, sonny, I'm gonna squash you flat. You ask nice, maybe we'll talk about it later. Right now I need a drink or two a whole lot more than I need you." She advanced. Hr. Murad retreated. Nigel Cholmondeley followed in her massive wake.
I followed, too. Leaving Judy was a knife stuck in my heart, but staying there, with her like that, hurt even worse. I felt another sleepless night coming up. I'd had too many of those lately, and earned every one of them.
"Excuse me," I called to Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth as they were about to step on the slide back down to the lobby.
They both paused. "Sorry like anything we couldn't help ya, Mr. Fisher," Madame Ruth said. Tm just glad we got ourselves back to This Side in one piece. Too bad we couldn't bring your girl friend with us."
"Most unfortunate," Nigel Cholmondeley agreed.
"For Judy especially," I said, at which the two of them had the grace to nod. That gave me the nerve I needed to go on:
"If I can come up with anything that would give us a better chance, would you be willing to take another try at rescuing her from the Nine Beyonds?"
They looked at each other. I didn't like the look; it said, Not on your life, bud. Madame Ruth opened her mouth to answer, and I'd bet a big pile she was about to say that out loud. Cholmondeley raised a finger to stop her; he was the smooth man of the pair. What he said was, "It would have to be something quite extraordinary, Mr. Fisher." Which was also no, but sugar-coated so it went down sweeter. Besides, he wouldn't want to drive away business by coming right out and saying virtuous reality just couldn't do some tricks.
So he let me hope - a needle - eye's worth, maybe, but hope. The last thing at the bottom of Pandora's box, and generally running too many lengths behind trouble ever since.
But it was all I had, so I clasped it to my bosom.
What I didn't have was any idea of what I might come up with that would give us a better chance in the Nine Beyonds.
The One Called Night seemed to rule the roost there. Why not? It was his roost If we could make him confront us on neutral ground, so to speak, we'd have a better chance of making him release Judy's spirit. But how? The Nine Beyonds were his home on the Other Side. I didn't see any way to force him out. Beat him on his home ground, then? We'd tried that already, with no luck.
That left - nothing I could see.
Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley had already slid away. I stood by the slide, doing my best to come up with the brilliant idea to save the day. It's always easy in the adventure stories. I'd even done it myself, when I summoned the Garuda Bird to the Devonshire dump.
Not this tone.
Another sleepless night. This time I mean it literally.
When it got to be about one in the morning, I just gave up and made myself a cup of coffee. If I was going to be awake, I might as well be awake, I figured. Somehow I'd stagger through the next day and somehow, after that I'd sleep.
Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, I prowled around my flat For want of anything better to do, I cleaned it cleaner than it had been since just before the High Holy Days the year before. When I moved the couch and chair to clean under them, I found close to a crown and a half in loose change, so I even turned a profit on the deal.
I read an adventure story, paid some bills, wrote some letters, all the things you do in slack time. I wrote to people who hadn't heard from me in so long, I hoped the shock wouldn't send 'em on to the Other Side.
Every so often, I'd get up from the kitchen table - which doubled as desk - and go back in the bedroom. Not to try to go to sleep: I'd given up on that I'd push back the curtain and look out at the night. It was very dark out there, no moon, just a couple of stars I could see. I might have thought it looked really black if I hadn't almost been trapped in the Nine Beyonds that afternoon. Next to that place, Angels City night was high noon in the desert.
Back out to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. As I had once or twice before, I wished for an ethemet set to give me some noise to be lonely with. With quiet all around me, I couldn't keep from thinking, and none of my thoughts were ones I wanted.
I went back to the bedroom again. Still night outside. What a surprise. My alarm clock told me it was half past four.
Maybe I was imagining things, but I thought the horological demon sounded slightly worried at having me awake and prowling around at that hour. Maybe I alarmed it for a change.
I sat down on the bed. The state I was in, that proved another mistake. It made me remember all the times Judy and I had lain there together, and how unlikely we were to do it again. My eyes filled with the easy tears that can come when you're half underwater with exhaustion. An effect of the law of contagion? I don't know.