"We've discovered something you might like to know," McKie said.
"What could you discover that would possibly interest me?"
"Tell him, Tuluk," McKie said.
"Fanny Mae exists somehow in intimate association with a stellar mass," Tuluk said. "She may even be a stellar mass - at least as far as our dimension is concerned."
"Not dimension," the Caleban said. "Wave."
Her voice barely reached McKie's awareness, but the words were accompanied by a rolling wave of misery that rocked him and set Tuluk to shuddering.
"Wha-wha-what w-w-was th-th-that?" Tuluk managed.
"Easy, easy," McKie cautioned. He saw that Cheo had not been touched by that wave of emotion. At least, the PanSpechi remained impassive.
"We'll have Fanny Mae identified shortly," McKie said.
"Identity," the Caleban said, her communication coming through with more strength but with an icy withdrawal of emotion. "Identity refers to unique self-understanding quality as it deals with self-label, self-abode and self-manifestations. You not me hang yet, McKie. You hang term yet? Self-I overstand your time node."
"Hang?" Cheo asked, jerking the noose around Abnethe's neck.
"A simple old-fashioned idiom," McKie said. "I imagine Mliss gets the hang of it."
"What're you talking about?" Cheo asked.
Tuluk took the question as having been directed to him. "In some way," he said, "Calebans manifest themselves in our universe as stars. Every star has a pulse, a certain unique rhythm, a never-duplicated identity. We have Fanny Mae's pattern recorded now. We're going to run a tracer on that pattern and try to identify her as a star."
"A stupid theory like that is supposed to interest me?" Cheo demanded.
"It had better interest you," McKie said. "It's more than a theory now. You think you're sitting in a safe hidey-hole. All you have to do is eliminate Fanny Mae, that's supposed to eliminate our universe and leave you out there the only sentients left at all? Is that it? Ohhh, are you ever wrong."
"Calebans don't lie!" Cheo snarled.
"But I think they can make mistakes," McKie said.
"Proliferation of single-tracks," the Caleban said.
McKie shuddered at the icy wave which accompanied the words. "If we discontinue, will Abnethe and her friends still exist?" he asked.
"Different patterns with short limit on extended connectives," the Caleban said.
McKie felt the icy wave invade his stomach. He saw that Tuluk was trembling, facial slit opening and closing.
"That was plain enough, wasn't it?" McKie asked. "You'll change somehow, and you won't live very long after us."
"No branchings," the Caleban said.
"No offspring," McKie translated.
"This is a trick!" Cheo snarled. "She's lying!"
"Calebans don't lie," McKie reminded him.
"But they can make mistakes!"
"The right kind of mistake could ruin everything for you," McKie said.
"I'll take my chances," Cheo said. "And you can take . . ."
The jumpdoor winked out of existence.
"S'eye alignment difficult," the Caleban said. "You hang difficult? More intense energy requirement reference. You hang?"
"I understand," McKie said. "I hang." He mopped his forehead with a sleeve.
Tuluk extended his long mandible, waved it agitatedly. "Cold," he said. "Cold-cold-cold-cold."
"I think she's holding on by a thin thread," McKie said.
Tuluk's torso rippled as he inhaled a deep breath into his outer trio of lungs. "Shall we take our records back to the lab?" he asked.
"A stellar mass," McKie muttered. "Imagine it. And all we see here is this . . . this bit of nothing."
"Not put something here," the Caleban said. "Self-I put something here and uncreate you. McKie discontinues in presence of I-self."
"Do you hang that, Tuluk?" McKie asked.
"Hang? Oh, yes. She seems to be saying that she can't make herself visible to us because that'd kill us."
"That's the way I read it," McKie said. "Let's get back and start that comparison search."
"You expend substance without purpose," the Caleban said.
"What now?" McKie asked.
"Flogging approaches, and I-self discontinue," the Caleban said.
McKie put down a fit of trembling. "How far away, Fanny Mae?"
"Time reference by single-track difficult, McKie. Your term: soon."
"Right away?" McKie asked and he held his breath.
"Ask you of intensity immediate?" the Caleban inquired.
"Probably," McKie whispered.
"Probability," the Caleban said. "Energy necessity of self-I extends alignment. Flogging not . . . immediate."
"Soon, but not right away," Tuluk said.
"She's telling us she can take one more flogging and that's the last one," McKie said. "Let's move. Fanny Mae, is there a jumpdoor available to us?"
"Available, McKie. Go with love."
One more flogging, McKie thought as he helped Tuluk gather up the instruments. But why was a flogging so deadly to the Caleban? Why a flogging, when other energy forms apparently didn't touch them?
***
The most common use of abstraction is to conceal contradictions. It must be noted that the abstracting process has been demonstrated to be infinite.
At some indeterminate moment, and that soon, the Caleban was going to be lashed by a whip, and it would die. The half-mad possibility was about to become apocalyptic reality, and their sentient universe would end.
McKie stood disconsolately in Tuluk's personal lab, intensely aware of the mob of enforcer guards around, them.
"Go with love."
The computer console above Tuluk's position at the bench flickered and chittered.
Even if they identified Fanny Mae's star, what could they do with that new knowledge? McKie asked himself. Cheo was going to win. They couldn't stop him.
"Is it possible," Tuluk asked, "that the Calebans created this universe? Is this their 'garden patch'? I keep remembering Fanny Mae saying it would uncreate us to be in her presence."
He leaned against his bench, mandibles withdrawn, face slit open just enough to permit him to speak.
"Why's the damn computer taking so long?" McKie demanded.
"The pulse problem's very complicated, McKie. The comparison required special programming. You haven't answered my question."
"I don't have an answer! I hope those numbies we left in the Beachball know what to do."
"They'll do what you told them to do," Tuluk chided. "You're a strange sentient, McKie. I'm told you've been married more than fifty times. Is it a breach of good manners to discuss this?"
"I never found a woman who could put up with a Saboteur Extraordinary," McKie muttered. "We're hard creatures to love."
"Yet the Caleban loves you."
"She doesn't know what we mean by love!" He shook his head. "I should've stayed at the Beachball."
"Our people will interpose their own bodies between the Caleban and any attacks," Tuluk said. "Would you call that love?"
"That's self-preservation," McKie snarled.
"It's a Wreave belief that all love is a form of self-preservation," Tuluk said. "Perhaps this is what our Caleban understands."
"Hah!"
"It's a probability, McKie, that you've never been overly concerned about self-preservation, thus have never really loved."
"Look! Would you stop trying to distract me with your babbling nonsense?"
"Patience, McKie. Patience."