"And as long as I"m not yelling for help, the Tappy breaks off," McKie said. "Good."
"I don"t like it," Bildoon said. "What if . . ."
"You think they"ll talk openly to me if they see the place full of enforcers?" McKie asked.
"No, but if we can prevent . . ."
"We can"t, and you know it."
Bildoon glared at him.
"We must have those contacts between McKie and Abnethe, if we"re going to try cross-charting to locate her position," Tuluk said.
Bildoon stared at the table in front of him.
"That Beachball has a fixed position on Cordiality," McKie argued. "Cordiality has a known planetary period. At the instant of each contact, the Ball will be pointing at a position in s.p.a.ce -- a line of least resistance for the contact. Enough contacts will describe a cone with . . ."
"With Abnethe somewhere in it," Bildoon supplied, looking up. "Provided you"re right about this thing."
"The call connectives have to seek their conjunction through open s.p.a.ce," Tuluk said. "There must be no large stellar ma.s.ses between call points, no hydrogen clouds of any serious dimensions, no groups of large planetary . . ."
"I understand the theory," Bildoon said. "But there"s no theory needed about what they can do to McKie. It"d take them less than two seconds to slip a jumpdoor over his neck and . . ." He drew a finger across his throat.
"So you have the Tappy contact me every two seconds," McKie said. "Work it in relays. Get a string of agents in. . . ."
"And what if they don"t try to contact you?" Bildoon asked.
"Then we"ll have to sabotage them," McKie said.
It is impossible to see any absolute through a screen of interpreters.
-Wreave Saying
When you came right down to it, McKie decided, this Beachball wasn"t as weird a home as some he"d seen. It was hot, yes, but that fitted a peculiar requirement of the occupant. Sentients existed in hotter climates. The giant spoon where the Caleban"s unpresence could be detected -- well, that could be equated with a divan. Wall handles, spools there, lights and whatnot -- all those were almost conventional in appearance, although McKie seriously doubted he could understand their functions. The automated homes of Breedywie, though, displayed more outlandish control consoles.
The ceiling here was a bit low, but he could stand without stooping. The purple gloom was no stranger than the variglare of Gowachin, where most offworld sentients had to wear protective goggles while visiting friends. The Beachball"s floor covering did not appear to be a conventional living organism, but it was soft. Right now it smelled of a standard pyrocene cleaner-disinfectant, and the fumes were rather stifling in the heat.
McKie shook his head. The fly-buzz "zzzt" of Taprisiot contact every two seconds was annoying, but he found he could override the distraction.
"Your friend reached ultimate discontinuity," the Caleban had explained. "His substance has been removed."
For substance read blood-and-body, McKie translated. He hoped the translation achieved some degree of accuracy, but he cautioned himself not to be too sure of that.
If we could only have a little air current in here, McKie thought. Just a small breeze.
He mopped perspiration from his forehead, drank from one of the water jugs he had provided for himself.
"You still there, f.a.n.n.y Mae?" he asked.
"You observe my presence?"
"Almost."
"That is our mutual problem -- seeing each other," the Caleban said.
"You"re using time-ordinal verbs with more confidence, I note," McKie said.
"I get the hang of them, yes?"
"I hope so."
"I date the verb as a nodal position," the Caleban said.
"I don"t believe I want that explained," McKie said.
"Very well; I comply."
"I"d like to try again to understand how the floggings are timed," McKie said.
"When shapes reach proper proportion," the Caleban said.
"You already said that. What shapes?"
"Already?" the Caleban asked. "That signifies earlier?"
"Earlier," McKie said. "That"s right. You said that about shapes before."
"Earlier and before and already," the Caleban said. "Yes; times of different conjunction, by linear alteration of intersecting connectives."
Time, for the Caleban, is a position on a line, McKie reminded himself, recalling Tuluk"s attempt at explanation. I must look for the subtly refined differences; they"re all this creature sees.
"What shapes?" McKie repeated.
"Shapes defined by duration lines," the Caleban said. "I see many duration lines. You, oddly, carry visual sensation of one line only. Very strange. Other teachers explain this to self, but understanding fails . . . extreme constriction. Self admires molecular acceleration, but . . . maintenance exchange confuses."
Confuses! McKie thought.
"What molecular acceleration?" he asked.
"Teachers define molecule as smallest physical unit of element or compound. True?"
"That"s right."
"This carries difficulty in understanding unless ascribed by self to perceptive difference between our species. Say, instead, molecule perhaps equals smallest physical unit visible to species. True?"
What"s the difference? McKie thought. It"s all gibberish. How had they gotten off onto molecules and acceleration from the proper proportion of undefined shapes?