They stopped at Alfred's office long enough to tell him what they'd done. Not that he didn't know; it was a courtesy. Then the three of them rode the elevator to the everyday side of reality and stepped out into snow and subzero cold.
They couldn't see anyone.
"If a hit squad had been waiting for us here, could they have killed us?" Frank asked. "If they were standing here at arm's length with guns or axes?"
"I don't know all the legalities," Vic said, "but it seems to me like we'd be safe."
"Hnh!" Frank scanned the surroundings. "Maybe they just gave up and went home when they saw us go through the gate. They must have seen us.
"You know," he went on, "it would make more sense for you guys to wait inside the gate while I go get the radio. It ought to be warmer and safer down below. Warmer, anyway."
"I'm going with you," said Paul.
"Me, too," said Vic. "We'll stay together at least as far as where they tried to shoot us and couldn't."
Frank stood looking at that for a moment, then started out, the others following. It still seemed to him that only one should risk himself—that Vic and Paul should go back below. As he snowshoed, he reached around psychically for the ghosts of Carol, Jerry, and Ole, but they were gone now. Instead, he touched an unseen someone he didn't know: one of the allies Vic had mentioned, it seemed to him. There was no sense of threat there, and after the touch, the other had drawn away with neither fear nor distaste.
Frank turned his attention to his physical environment and looked about him at the world of snow and starshine, Lake Superior black in the distance. Then their backtrail led them into the forest.
He noticed again how easy it was to see at night when the ground was snow-covered, even with no moon at all. Even in the timber, where most of the trees—aspens and birches—were bare. He glanced up at the forest canopy, its network of branches and twigs vaguely visible against the night sky's deep black, then briefly forgot himself in the pleasure of snowshoeing in that wild place.
Paul's near-whisper broke the spell. "It was about here where they first shot at us and missed. We were probably already in the neutral zone."
They stopped. "The packs are about three or four hundred yards farther," Frank murmured. "Five at most. I still think I ought to go alone from here. Not that I feel like anything's going to happen, but it makes better sense for two of us to stay in the neutral zone."
"There're three packs back there," Vic said. "You can't carry all three."
"If nothing happens, then you could go get your packs," Frank insisted quietly. It struck him as odd, then, how careful and uncertain he was being.
Vic stood thoughtfully for several seconds, and this was even odder; ordinarily, Vic knew exactly what he wanted to do, and acted without hesitation. He'd been tentative ever since they'd come back out the gate.
"Vic," Frank asked, "is anything wrong?"
Vic nodded. "I've got a feeling like something's going to happen, but I don't have any idea what it is, or what's the correct action. It's as if I've really thoroughly cloaked myself from knowing anything about it." He paused again. "All right," he said after a moment, "Paul and I'll wait here. And if you're not back in ten minutes, we'll follow you."
Frank nodded and set off alone, feeling edgy. It was about a quarter mile farther that he found the Duluth pack, but he went on to Paul's pack and then Vic's, draping one over each shoulder before turning back. He had set them down in the snow and was hoisting the bulky Duluth pack when he heard Paul's bellow of anger, faint with distance, perhaps hearing it more psychically than aurally.
For a moment Diacono stood there with the pack in his hands, his scalp crawling. He had no weapon except his body and the light cruiser's ax in the pack. Quickly he removed the ax, intending to leave the pack there for better speed, but on an impulse slung it onto his back instead, shrugging into the straps. With the ax in one hand, he started for where he'd left Vic and Paul, removing the ax sheath as he went and putting it into a mackinaw pocket. That done, he increased his pace to a swinging gallop on the now well-packed trail.
He'd gone about two hundred yards when he glimpsed movement ahead and left the trail down-slope, intending to hide behind a thicket of young balsam fir. Whoever they were, they'd see his diverging tracks and come after him, and if they weren't Vic and Paul, he'd take them with the ax.
But he'd been seen; he got only three strides from the trail when automatic rifle fire began, bullets thudding and singing into and off the frozen trees around him. One struck his right deltoid, numbing shoulder and arm, and he felt another strike his pack. If there'd been any uncertainty about being outside the neutral zone, that settled the question. He speeded his pace down the ridge.
Even as he fled, his mind looked at the question: Should he be running? Or should he stay and try to help his friends? But the answer was unavoidable—the only product of staying would be his own death.
What was it Lampi had said? Down the ridge into the valley, and follow the creek there to Siskiwit Lake. But in this case, he wouldn't radio from there. He would bypass Siskiwit Lake, where he'd be too good a target on its snow-covered ice. He'd go on instead to Lake Superior and lose himself on its snow-free new ice, where he'd be hard to see and leave no tracks. He'd wait to radio until he was sure he'd shaken his pursuers—out where Lampi's plane, with its running lights off, wouldn't be spotted.
Assuming Lake Superior was frozen out far enough on the south side of the island. He'd have to take the chance. God knew, it was cold enough.
As soon as he'd seen Merlin and the other two disappear into the gate—just disappear!—Gracco had told the chopper pilot to swing around to Hatchet Lake and pick up the ambush party stationed there. He wanted ground troops. He radioed ahead, and they were waiting for him on the ice, inconspicuous in their white combat uniforms. When they were aboard, the helicopter lifted again, and he had it land on a stretch of open crest about half a mile west of the gate.
There Gracco himself, with five men, got out and snowshoed eastward along the crest to take cover in a patch of scrub. Crouching, they waited, watching the gate a hundred and fifty yards farther on, glad they'd been able to get electrically heated gloves and socks.
The next question was whether his quarry would pick up his presence psychically. If they did, they did.
Gracco didn't even try to raise Shark; something had clearly gone wrong there. He told himself that Shark had screwed up too often on this operation anyway—that he was better off operating on his own observations and judgment now. And he'd had a hunch again; he always felt better when he was acting on a hunch.
All he needed was for Merlin and his men to come back out. He knew just what he wanted to do then; he didn't need any goddamn kibitzing. He'd briefed his men when they had loaded; now, waiting, he took the opportunity to go over his full game plan with them. Maybe they could even pull it off in the neutral zone if they had to.
When the three reappeared, as if from nowhere, Gracco held back patiently, watching. Briefly the quarry stood by the gate, apparently in conversation, then turned east and began to backtrack. At that, Gracco led his white-clad men after them in a half crouch, moving without packs, their rifles slung. They had closed the gap to a hundred yards by the time Merlin and his men entered the timber, then speeded up, depending on the trees to hide their approach.
Things were looking good; there was no sign that Merlin had detected them. Now all he had to do was follow them outside the neutral zone and either shoot them down or drive them into the guns of the Chickenbone Lake party that was on its way now to take them from behind.
And if Merlin spotted them still inside the neutral zone, well, maybe he had that figured out, too.
Suddenly, Gracco saw two of them standing in the snowshoe trail not thirty yards ahead, and they saw him at the same time. Gracco broke into an awkward lope, his men following without unslinging their rifles. When Vic did not run, Paul too stood his ground.
At little more than arm's length, Gracco suddenly stopped. Vic, eyes calm, simply waited for whatever might develop, but Paul, abruptly, attacked, and the punch he started to throw locked his body immobile. Calmly then, even gently, Gracco removed Paul's mittens and cap, then clamped a handcuff on one of the Indian's wrists and its mate on one of Vic's, chaining the two men awkwardly together.
This done, Gracco took a knife from his belt and casually cut their snowshoe bindings, then sent two men ahead to catch Diacono.
Vic might have avoided his own manacles simply by withholding his wrists. Then Gracco would have had to apply force, and been himself immobilized. But Vic had let it happen. Somehow it had seemed the thing to do.
Now Gracco was grinning at him. His hunch had paid off; Merlin was outsmarted.
After a minute the cramps faded from Paul's body and the glare from his eyes. "I couldn't move," he said to Vic. "It was a gate effect, wasn't it?"
"Yep," Vic said. "I figured the neutral zone would keep them from even touching us here, but it seems like it only responds to violent actions, not harmful intentions."
He turned to Gracco. "That was really pretty slick," he went on, "coming up with that idea. But you're too late. You needed to catch us on our way in."
Gracco's grin didn't fade; it just hardened. He reached out to Vic's manacled hand, pulled its mitten off, and handed it to a grinning henchman. "Not too late for what comes next," he said. "I'm taking you to see the boss." He gestured with his knife, eastward along their old trail. "That's the way we're going now. Move it, or we'll stand here and watch you two freeze." Lightly he plucked Vic's hat away. "You won't last very long out here like that.
"But if you behave, maybe I'll give your mittens and caps back."
Paul sized up the situation. The only way back to the gate was over these guys, and that would take violence. Without snowshoes they couldn't outflank them. He looked questioningly at Vic.
"Let's go, Paul," Vic said, and they started wading slowly through the snow, side by side because of the way they were shackled together.
"How come we didn't feel them coming?" Paul muttered.
Vic never got his answer out; instead, just then, they heard a burst of rifle fire ahead. Paul's lips tightened: the enemy had caught up with Frank. For just a moment they stopped, almost crotch deep in snow, then went on. Neither had any illusions now about where they were going.
When they had gone another hundred yards, it occurred to Gracco that this felt far enough. He raised his rifle and fired a burst at each of them. Both prisoners went down, and quickly the snow darkened where they fell.
Diacono moved fast, his powerful legs striding rhythmically. He knew he was being chased: it had felt that way since he'd been shot. Then he'd been shot at again, perhaps blindly, some two or three minutes after the first time.
He had snowshoed quite a bit in the past—it avoided the waxing problems of ski touring in Arizona—and he knew how to make good speed without excessive effort. But presumably the men chasing him were competent snowshoers, too; whoever was in charge would have brought in men who could operate in these conditions.
Then he heard a double burst of shooting far back on the upper slope, and a pang of grief struck him with unexpected intensity, hurting his throat. Frank knew at once what had happened, and for a moment thought of turning back—finding and killing. But the urge, like the grief, passed quickly, for he and Vic had stripped away the positive feedback circuits that beefed up harmful emotions and held them in place.
So he simply kept striding through the forest at a half lope.
He knew his bullet wound wasn't severe—certainly not as bullet wounds go. It didn't hurt too much, and the arm still functioned despite the initial numbness of the shoulder. He had felt what had to be blood running down his arm, but it hadn't been enough to reach his mittened hand. Probably, he thought, the bullet had first struck a tree, losing most of its momentum before hitting him.
He became aware of blood drying on his arm and forearm, tugging the hairs and drawing the skin. Hopefully, that meant the bleeding had stopped. After a bit the shoulder began to hurt more and then to stiffen, but he'd played football with worse pain than that, he told himself, and probably with more damage.
It wasn't long before the ridge toed out into alder swamp. There the thick brush slowed him markedly, but also screened him effectively from the men who now would be closing the gap behind him. When they reached the brush, they too would slow down.
Then the brush thinned, gave way to a narrow open bog with scattered small spruce and dead tamarack snags. Frank speeded up then because he'd be exposed while crossing. The open bog presented another problem, too—one he hadn't anticipated: its sedges and dwarf shrubs had kept the snow from settling, so that he sank to his knees at every step, despite the snowshoes.
Giving it all he had, Frank lowered his head and charged forward, bull-like. He made it across without being shot at, puffing violently, even sweating a little despite the cold, plunged into the brush and trees, and angled off to his left before his pursuers reached the opening.
When they did reach it, they paused long enough to spray bullets down his trail into the brush on the other side, then hurried after him, hoping to find him dead or down. But if they didn't, it would just be a matter of time, they were confident. He was breaking trail for them; he would wear down sooner or later, and they'd kill him then.
In the valley, Frank found the going rough, with abundant underbrush and blown-down timber. Even hiking on the creek he came to was not as much help as he'd expected. It was narrow enough that the tag alder which overhung its banks sometimes met over the middle, and there was no shortage of windthrown cedars lying across it. Furthermore, except on the small beaver ponds, the creek level had fallen notably since freezeup, and the ice had sagged, slanting down from the banks, now and then threatening audibly to break beneath his weight. So after a little he left it and forced a cross-country route away from the creek.
Diacono tired more than he thought he should, and credited this to the bullet wound. He was slowing, and began to entertain the possibility that he might not make it—that he might well be run down and killed. So when he came at last to Siskiwit Lake, he could not resist the faster, easier travel of its open, windpacked snow. It seemed to him he might as well chance it.
Even so, he did not strike off across its exposed width, but struck off eastward, virtually within arm's reach of its forested shore.
Pete Haugen snowshoed with an economy of motion, his eyes alert on the forest ahead, missing little. He'd grown up in the backwoods near Ely, Minnesota, as a kid had trapped mink and beaver, poached deer, moose, and wolf. Bodi snowshoes and alder brush were long familiar to him, yet he told himself he'd never gotten mixed up in a pile of shit like this before.
Several times he seemed to catch his webs on snow-buried obstacles and fell sprawling face down in the snow. Once he pitched headfirst among dead branches, one of which stabbed him in the cheek. Getting to his knees, he'd taken off an electrically heated glove to feel the injury with his fingers; the goddamn sonofabitching branch could have put out an eye, he told himself.
As he knelt there, he heard Graham call softly behind him. "Jesus Christ, Pete, this is a fucking nightmare in here!" The man panted between sentences. "Every fucking branch I come to hits me in the fucking face. I vote for turning around. We're never going to catch that sonofabitch anyway!"
Haugen got up, turned, and waited for the man. "Look, asshole," he hissed as Graham caught up with him, "I'm telling you just once—I ain't quitting and you ain't quitting. We're going to catch that bastard and kill his ass for leading us in here, and then we'll take his scalp back with us for proof. You go back empty-handed and Olson'll gut you. Now quit your goddamn bellyaching. The quicker we get this done with, the better."
Then he turned and something caught a snowshoe again; again he fell. He got up cursing with every epithet he knew, and started rapidly down the trail.
Graham had exaggerated his snowshoeing experience. He'd been doing collections for more than a month, and that was dull shit; a secret mission had sounded interesting. His actual experience had been rabbit hunting on snowshoes a couple of times with his brother-in-law up by Mille Lacs, and it hadn't been that hard. He'd gotten the feel of it pretty good. But that hadn't been a footrace through the brush at night.
Something whispered in his mind that he ought to shoot Haugen for talking to him that way. But Haugen was a real killer, and Graham was afraid of him; Haugen was one of the guys Olson sent to take care of hard cases. If he shot at Haugen and didn't kill him instantly...
No way was he trying that! He'd just tough it out, that was all. Haugen was almost out of sight already, and Graham speeded up, lowering his head to do so. Nonetheless, somehow a branch slashed across his face, as if it had been drawn back and released. He swore, grabbing the branch in midstride and jerking, intending to snap it off, then stepped on one snowshoe with the other and fell again. A voice laughed, a voice soft but real, right there beside him. He raised his face and couldn't see anyone, not even Haugen up ahead.
The chill that ran through Graham wasn't from cold.
Diacono had gone the first hundred yards on the lake ice with as much energy as he thought he had to give, not even glancing back over his shoulder. Distance was what he needed; if they shot him, they shot him. After the first hundred yards, though, he looked back. There was no one in sight, and suddenly he found a little more energy, picking up the pace again. Maybe he'd been widening his lead all along, despite breaking trail; he must have!
Now he started glancing back every few paces.
"You don't need to look back," a voice whispered. "It slows you down." Frank almost stopped, it surprised him so. "I'll tell you when they come out," it went on. The 'voice,' though non-sonic, seemed clearly female, and for a moment he thought it was Carol's ghost, then knew that it wasn't. It was someone he didn't know, the same one he'd touched when they'd come out the gate.
Nonetheless, he was spooked for a few seconds, but kept going and stopped looking back. When there was no repetition, he wondered if perhaps he'd imagined it. But if it actually was a spirit—a ghost, or someone away from their body—at least it had been friendly, an ally. And he could use an ally out here, even an imaginary ally.
At three hundred yards he heard the shot, just one, and angled for cover. "Stay on the ice!" the presence commanded. "Something's wrong with his gun. Go as fast as you can!"
Frank went, as fast as he could. A minute later there was a short burst of fire—three rounds. But in the night there was no aiming—one could only point and fire—and he raced along unhit. And there were no more shots. He didn't let up for another minute, but then he had to slow. His breath was a heavy gasping, and it was beginning to burn in his throat, as if the subzero air was freezing his windpipe.
It occurred to him that with the lead he had, it was time to begin angling across to the southeast corner of the lake, where his mental image of the map told him there was a short trail leading to Lake Superior.
Except for its crystal decor, it could have been a corporate boardroom on the everyday side of reality. The principal furnishings were a long table and surrounding chairs.
Certainly it didn't look at all like a courtroom, though it was about to be the scene of a trial. Around it sat the principals and others involved in the matter at issue, along with the Games Master for planet Earth, two of her aides, and a master-at-arms. The master-at-arms, looking small and mild, was capable of immobilizing anyone there, simply by intention.
The principals were Peter Shark, Vic Merlin, Vincent Gracco, Kurt Hardman, Gandy, and Alfred. The others were Paul David, Olaf Sigurdsson, Jerry Connor, and Carol Ludi. There was no court recorder; the proceedings and the events at issue could be actually re-viewed at any time, in whole or in part, by the Games Master or any future authority.
Everyone wore a body, even those who had been without one when the court was convened.
Most of those present had no idea where the court was; they had simply and without warning found themselves there, in place, without traveling. But because of the history of man, screened though it ordinarily was, they were neither shocked nor confused at suddenly being there.
In a gown-like robe of pale lavender blue, the Games Master arose, tall, handsome, commanding, and looked around the table. "Everyone required to be here is here," she observed amiably, "so let us begin; Court is in session." She looked at one of the aides flanking her. "Malo, please read the questions which the Court is to examine and pass upon."
Malo did not stand, merely straightened and glanced down at a small object he held in one hand, reading easily in a mellow baritone. "The following are accused of deliberate and knowing violations of the neutral zone of the Isle Royale Gate: Peter Shark and Vincent Gracco. There are accessories, but none of them are chargeable in this court.
"The following is accused of deliberately and knowingly tampering with a reality generator in such a way as to alter in an illegal manner the broad course of events on the entire space-time-energy-matter field known as the Tikh Cheki Matrix: Victor Merlin. Accessories who are chargeable in this court are: Paul David, Olaf Sigurdsson, and Frank Diacono. Mr. Diacono is not present; he is currently completing a cycle of action within the matrix, which will be allowed to run its course unless the findings of this court cancel that cycle before its completion."
Again Malo paused, to glance around briefly.
"The following are accused of malfeasance as gate guardians: Gandy and Alfred.
"The following is accused of illegal technical abuse of disembodied players: Kurt Hardman."
Malo scanned the assembly again. "That is the statement of charges against the named persons. The other individuals present before the court are knowledgeable accessories not presently charged."
Malo drew his hand into his robes and sat back.
"Very well. Thank you, Malo." The Games Master looked the group over again. Two hands stood raised, and she looked at their owners: "Questions and comments will not be entertained except as I specifically request them. The first issue before the court is the violation of gate neutrality. The first principal is Peter Shark." She looked at him. "Peter Shark, you have heard the charge against you. How do you plead?"
"Don't I get a counselor?" Shark asked. "What land of court is this?"
The Games Master was unperturbed. "If a counselor were necessary, I would provide one. As for the kind of court this is, it is an ethical court of absolute and unappealable judgment. And with the complete availability for viewing of all pertinent actions, the adversary system has no pretension to applicability here." She held Shark with mild eyes. "Would you care to be tried mute? That can easily be arranged."
Shark shook his head.
"How do you plead?"
"Not guilty."
"On what grounds?"
"On the grounds that there was no violation of gate neutrality. No one was harmed within the neutral zone around the gate."
"Um. Do you deny that an armed helicopter, indirectly under your command and inside the neutral zone, attacked and killed persons outside the neutral zone? And that those persons were on business within the gate? We can re-view any of this if necessary."
Shark looked jarred by the question. "But—Your Honor, I didn't realize that was a violation."
"Your claim of ignorance is noted. However, in this court, for anyone deemed sufficiently responsible to stand trial, there is no ignorance. There is only acting in disregard of the law."
Her calm eyes fixed him in his seat. "You are herewith found guilty as charged."
Shark stared agape. "And that's all there is to it?"
"Correct."
"But I haven't been confronted by my accusers! There's been no cross-examination! There's..."
"Your accusers are not persons. Your accusers are the facts. The events have been replayed and the facts are not arguable. You may argue only with proposed corrections and amends which the Court, in due course, will impose. You might also have argued with interpretations of the law, had there been any. But the law and your actions are and were unequivocal in this instance."
She looked at the others around the table. "Because of the interrelatedness of the various charges, corrections and amends will not be decided until after all charges have been examined and found upon."
Her eyes went then to Gracco. "Vincent Gracco, you have heard the charge against you. How do you plead?"
Gracco grunted. "Well, at the time, I thought... Oh, hell. Guilty. Besides the chopper, I also caught two of them inside the neutral zone and took them outside and killed them." He grinned. "Guilty as hell." Then, turning, he looked at his recent victims. "Although right now they don't seem any the worse for wear."
"Thank you, Mr. Gracco, but I'm afraid you deprived them illegally of game and roles." Her eyes went to Vic Merlin.
"Victor Merlin, you have heard the charges against you. How do you plead?"
"Not guilty, on the grounds that what we did was remove an unauthorized addition to the reality generator."
The calm eyes regarded him thoughtfully. "Unauthorized? Please elaborate for the court."
"My time track research shows that the original reality generator was designed and installed by High Interest Playgrounds." Vic glanced at his teammates. "That's a pretty close translation of what it was called," he added.
He turned again to the Games Master. "Afterwards, unauthorized circuits were patched in from time to time by Prank and Associates, known later as the Seven Lords of Disaster and similar names—one more reason why every now and then the equipment had to be redesigned and overhauled.
"The most recent redesign resulted in the present equipment, which generates the Tikh Cheki Matrix. It includes ingenious design characteristics that keep anyone, including Prank, from getting access to the generator and altering it except from the everyday side. And being on the everyday side, Prank and his folks had to operate within the constraints of that side. Apparently they got less and less powerful the longer they stayed there, until after a while they weren't able to design system-compatible alterations anymore."
"Remarkable!" said the Games Master. "How did you manage to access this information from the everyday side?"
"I looked. I'm good at that, although I'm not sure why."
"Hmm. Continue."
"Now this next part I only got onto recently, and it's partly induction from things that other folks came up with. But somewhere down the line—it almost had to be in the first cycle of Tikh Cheki—Prank and his folks were able to design and install an adjunct to the Tikh Cheki reality generator that introduced destructive impulses into the matrix. It's been called the surprise generator, and it sure makes for surprises all right, but 'chaos generator' might fit it better. I suppose maybe some guardian or other got busted for letting it get installed.
"Anyway, although the matrix has been reprogrammed quite a few times since then, the surprise generator has never been removed. But apparently it was never formally approved and authorized; it was just sort of left on because it made the matrix more interesting."
He smiled at the Games Master. "You can see I'm doing some supposing in here. Anyway, somewhere along the line, Prank installed an addition to the surprise generator: call it an output accelerator. That probably had to be in the first cycle, too. And when some feedback indicator read at a critical level, the accelerator would begin to increase the output of 'surprises,' or destructive impulses.
"Anyway, that's how I put it together."
He met the Games Master's eyes.
"The way it looks to me," he went on, "this accelerator was set to kick in whenever the players were about to develop a major new level of games—like interstellar space flight, or an effective and legal psychic technology. Anyway, about three years ago it kicked in, and ever since then, things have been going to hell fast. But by the time we got enough information to realize what was going on, there were only a few months left before the chaos level in human activity would go critical and shut the matrix off for reprogramming—'the end of the world'—and we'd have to start over again.
"Well, it seemed like about time to break that climb-and-crash routine, so we got together to disconnect the chaos generator.
"But we never tampered with the reality generator itself. No way! What we did was 'untamper' it. That's why we're not guilty as charged."
The Games Master's eyes had withdrawn; she looked contemplative. "A very interesting position," she said. "But the surprise generator—the 'chaos generator,' as you so colorfully put it—has been accepted as a de facto part of the reality generator ever since, as you supposed, the first cycle of Tikh Cheki, even though it had not been part of the formally agreed-upon design. From that point of view, you did tamper with the reality generator. Certainly you changed reality, rather drastically.
"But insofar as it pertains to the question of your guilt, you have a viable argument."
She stood up. "This court is herewith recessed while the Games Master confers with the Board of Adjudications."