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struck up an inane conversation about what we'd do when we reached Yugarin,
and during that time she wiped herself all over with a towel, then I set up
the clothes on the chair and then checked her with the meter and hoop. Not a
hundred percent clean, but she would maybe show up real close as a ghost
trace, of which there were bound to be many, and not as anything solid. She
also had every
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20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt intention of ducking out of the cube
when possible and waiting until I was well away before coming back in and
getting on her way.
There wasn't much danger of her being naked in the Labyrinth in and of itself;
there were often naked or nearly naked folks in there. Some of these worlds
were interesting, and others required some prep at the station end. If it was
kill or be killed and for the kind of stakes I was playing for, I guess I'd do
it, but I
probably wouldn't consider it in her position. Well, we were different, and in
this case the difference was in my favor.
Maria entered the tunnel with me in her birthday suit, it was true, but hardly
defenseless. The computer had given directions on how to find Yugarin; I
wasn't gonna get lost in the process, so we started off, her a bit in front of
me and pushing that chair, making one hell of a sight.
The guy was good; I'll give him that. But if you know you're being followed,
and you train yourself to spot a tail, there's almost nobody who can stay
completely hidden or nondescript, particularly in the barrenness of the
Labyrinth. What was real impressive was how he hung back from us, not just in
the third cube back, which was about the limits of our visibility, but near
the back of that cube, just beyond our sight. The thing was, nobody you're
following ever keeps a steady pace unless you're following soldiers on the
march or a precision drill team, so by just easing up a bit or occasionally
stopping, as if to adjust a shoe or something, anyone that far back would
become visible for a short while until they realized that we'd slowed or
stopped and faded back.
In a way, I kind of felt sorry for him. In the sterile confines of the
Labyrinth there wasn't any real way to follow somebody without going a little
bit nuts.
Kind of like when I had a small-time punk back in Bristol try and use me to
locate a witness he wanted to ice and that I had to talk to. I wasn't real
sure he was back there, so instead of taking the police car I took a bus.
Busses stop every block or two and even when they're going they stop and start
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and keep to the curb side. Imagine you're in a car following a transit bus
sometime when you're in a city and you'll begin to see what I put that punk
through. This was kind of like that-now that we knew he was there.
The other thing was, if he was far enough back for us not to see him clearly,
then the same was true in reverse. He was depending more on his little tracker
than his eyeballs, and we counted on that. Maria had already picked her spot,
and now we were there. She gave me a hand signal, and I could see a nice,
tropical kind of scene on the right cube face that looked like the sort of
place
I wouldn't mind going to myself, and I suddenly stopped, whirled, and began
walking briskly back towards the shadow.
He was real startled for a moment, and for just an instant I caught a detailed
glimpse of him- fairly tall, dressed in some kind of brown uniform, and I got
the idea he was young, somehow, as well. He stopped as soon as he saw me
walking, of course, and immediately began back-tracking, but by this time I'd
left Maria two cubes behind. As soon as I saw the tail vanish to my eyes, I
stopped, turned again, and walked back, this time to my trusty office chair.
There was no sign of Maria, not even in the tropical scene, so I wasn't sure
whether that was the one she used or if it was some disguised one on one of
the black faces or what, but that one nice scene was the one I'd use.
I began walking forward again, casually pushing the chair with the clothes
draped over it ahead of me. It was well made; the casters were a dream to
push.
Now I'd really started the tail, and he'd acted the way you or I might act
when faced with an instant decision, but now he'd recovered, and checking his
board, he still got two close blips, and since neither of us seemed to be
challenging him and both of us were going in the other direction, he took no
other action but just reestablished his tail. That was just fine.
I was a little nervous that Yugarin's switch might be attuned to the two of
us, or at least might balk at registering an office chair, but when I got
there I
was automatically shoved to a siding, chair and all. The thing was obviously
keyed to my code as well as Maria's, and I began to relax. When I'd gone three
cubes in on the siding, though, I did another panic stop and reverse and was
surprised to find that the shadow was no longer there. Either that or he was
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20-%20The%20Maze%20in%20the%20Mirror.txt being doubly cautious.
Well, there wasn't any reason to give the trick away more than I had to. When
I
got to the exit, the only exit allowed, I left the chair and clothes in the
cube just outside. If the shadow made it in he'd know he'd been tricked but
then it would be his problem explaining that. Me, I didn't want to push that
damned chair any more.
I came out inside some structure. Not really a station, more a substation and
of fairly limited access, kind of like the one in my back yard. It wasn't
staffed or heated, and it was damp and chilly, although not super-cold. The
thing seemed to be a wooden shack, and I spotted a door, went over to it, and
pushed, walking out onto a pastoral scene of rolling hills and far-off trees
and lots and lots of grass. I turned and examined the structure and, so help
me, it looked from this side like one double pot outhouse. Not that it would
fool anybody if that was what it was intended to look like; no smell and no
flies.
I had kind of expected a welcoming committee or something. The place looked
pretty but uninhabited and desolate. I wondered if I had been stood up, or if
maybe Yugarin was going to come in behind me. I hoped not. Wherever it was it
was autumn-maybe forty, forty-five degrees with a light wind and half the
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leaves colorfully on the trees and the other half decomposing on the ground. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]