"All that activity around you."
"Attempt making self visible on your wave."
"Can you do it?"
"Possible."
A bell-shaped red glow formed above the spoon, stretched into a straight line, resumed its bell curve, began whirling like a child"s jump rope.
"What see you?" the Caleban asked.
McKie described the whirling red rope.
"Very odd," the Caleban said. "I flex creativity, and you report visible sensation. You need yet that opening to exterior conditions."
"The open port? It makes it one h.e.l.luva lot more comfortable in here."
"Comfort -- concept self fails to understand."
"Does the opening prevent you from becoming visible?"
"It performs magnetic distraction, no more."
McKie shrugged. "How much more flogging can you take?"
"Explain much."
"You"ve left the track again," McKie said.
"Correct! That forms achievement, McKie."
"How is it an achievement?"
"Self leaves communicative track, and you achieve awareness of same."
"All right, that"s an achievement. Where"s Abnethe?"
"Contract . . ."
". . . prohibits revealing her location," McKie completed. "Maybe you can tell me, then, is she jumping, around or remaining on one planet?"
"That helps you locate her?"
"How in fifty-seven h.e.l.ls do I know?"
"Probability smaller than fifty-seven elements," the Caleban said. "Abnethe occupies relatively static position on specific planet."
"But we can"t find any pattern to her attacks on you or where they originate," McKie said.
"You cannot see connectives," the Caleban said.
The whirling red rope flickered in and out of existence above the giant spoon. Abruptly, it shifted color to a glowing yellow, vanished.
"You just disappeared," McKie said.
"Not my person visible," the Caleban said.
"How"s that?"
"You not seeing person-self."
"That"s what I said."
"Not say. Visibility to you not represent sameness of my person. You visible-see effect."
"I wasn"t seeing you, eh? That was just some effect you created?"
"Correct."
"I didn"t think it was you. You"re going to be something more shapely. I do notice something though: There are moments when you use our verb tenses better; I even spotted some fairly normal constructions."
"Self hangs this get me," the Caleban said.
"Yeh, well . . . maybe you"re not getting the hang of our language, after all." McKie stood up, stretched, moved closer to the open port, intending to peer out. As he moved, a shimmering silver loop dropped out of the air where he had been. He whirled in time to see it snake back through the small vortal tube of a jumpdoor.
"Abnethe, is that you?" McKie demanded.
There was no answer, and the jumpdoor snapped out of existence.
The enforcers watching from outside rushed to the port. One called, "You all right, McKie?"
McKie waved him to silence, took a raygen from his pocket, held it loosely in his hand. "f.a.n.n.y Mae," he said, "are they trying to capture or kill me the way they did with Furuneo?"
"Observe theyness," the Caleban said. "Furuneo not having existence, observable intentions unknown."
"Did you see what just happened here?" McKie asked.
"Self contains awareness of S"eye employment, certain activity of employer persons Activity ceases."
McKie rubbed his left hand across his neck. He wondered if he could bring the raygen into play quickly enough to cut any snare they might drop over his head. That silver thing dropping into the room had looked suspiciously like a noose.
"Is that how they got Furuneo?" McKie asked. "Did they drop a noose over his neck and pull him into the jumpdoor?"
"Discontinuity removes person of sameness," the Caleban said.
McKie shrugged, gave it up. That was more or less the answer they got every time they tried to question the Caleban about Furuneo"s death.
Oddly, McKie discovered he was hungry. He wiped perspiration from his jaw and chin, cursed under his breath. There was no real a.s.surance that what he heard in the Caleban"s words represented real communication. Even granting some communication, how could he depend on the Caleban"s interpretations or the Caleban"s honesty? When the d.a.m.n thing spoke, though, it radiated such a sense of sincerity that disbelief became almost impossible. McKie rubbed his chin, trying to catch an elusive thought. Strange. Here he was, hungry, angry, and afraid. There was no place to run. They had to solve this problem. He knew this for an absolute fact. Imperfect as communication with the Caleban actually was, the warning from the creature could not be ignored. Too many sentients had already died or gone insane.