Perchance. Michael Kurland
eh?” Edbeck pursed his lips. “Faineworth, just what does that mean?”
Delbit, feeling as though his ears were burning, got off his stool and walked across the room to the door. He had two excuses ready for leaving, lunchtime and going to the bathroom. Would the doctor stop him? Would the doctor see through his excuse? Delbit felt as though the truth were written on his face.
Dr. Faineworth launched upon an explanation of alternate universes, waving a finger at Edbeck, and Delbit passed unnoted from his sight. Delbit climbed the stairs and, drawn by some unexamined emotion, approached the girl’s cell. “Got to ask Exxa some questions,” Delbit mumbled to Fenton, when he reached the closed ward. Fenton, unquestioningly, unlocked the girl’s door and Delbit passed inside.
“Yes?” The girl was sitting on the side of her cot, and she looked up as Delbit entered. It was the first time he had seen her—outside of her dreams—since the day Dr. Faineworth had introduced them.
Delbit closed the door. “You’ve got to get out of here,” he said urgently, after making sure that Fenton had moved away from the cell.
“You’re the boy—” the girl said, pointing a slender finger at him. “And you—” She paused thoughtfully, and then smiled. “My dream partner,” she said. “How nice to see you between dreams. This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No,” Delbit said “And you’ve got to get out of here.”
“How do you suggest I do that?” the girl asked.
“I don’t know, but we’ll have to think of something. The doctor is going to start his funny business tomorrow.”
“Funny business?”
“He’s not just going to take signals out of your brain—he’s going to put one in. Something about trying to find out how you disappear.”
“Damn!” the girl said. “I don’t want that man prying around inside my head any more than he’s doing already.”
“That’s what I thought,” Delbit told her. “That’s why I think we’d better get out of here.”
“You’ll help me?”
“Of course I will.”
“You shouldn’t. You’ll get in trouble if we get caught.”
“I have a feeling that I’m already in trouble. I think we’d better both get out of here, if we want to stay healthy.”
The girl patted him on the arm. “You’re nice,” she said.
Delbit felt his ears go red again. “Come on,” he said in a sudden burst of decision. “We’ll leave now. Never be a better time, although this isn’t very good. Have you anything to take?”
“Your hand,” she said. “I believe I shall take your hand.” She put her hand in his.
Delbit pounded on the cell door. “Going to take the girl downstairs,” he told Fenton. “Let the doctor talk to her.”
“I don’t know,” Fenton said, pausing to scratch his nose.
Delbit laughed a hearty laugh. It rang hollow in his ears. “You think I can’t handle her?” he asked.
“Well, I guess it’s okay,” Fenton agreed, stepping aside to let them out. He followed them down the corridor and unlocked the ward door for them. “I mean, it’s not like she’s one of the nuts,” he said.
“I should say not!” Delbit agreed.
Delbit took her around through side corridors and down the servants’ stairs to the back door. It was locked.
“We’ll have to chance the front door,” Delbit said. “It’s usually fairly busy this time of day; with luck, nobody will notice us.”
“Luck is not my strong point these days,” the girl said, “but let us go.”
“It’s a good thing you got your clothes back,” Delbit commented, leading her through the ground-floor warren toward the front door. “We’d never have gotten you out of here in a bathrobe.”
They had made it to the front hall when Delbit heard the familiar high voice of Dr. Faineworth approaching down the main stairs. He paused, holding the girl back.
Edbeck was trotting down the stairs at the doctor’s side. They both had their coats on.
“Quick!” Delbit whispered. “In here!”
He opened the door by his hand, and he and the girl slipped into a small, dark room.
For about ten minutes Delbit stood there with his ear to the door. “That’s funny,” he murmured to the girl. “Someone has just entered the building, and they’re just staying there in the hall talking. Dr. Faineworth sounds angry.”
They cautiously cracked the door open and peered out. The doctor and Edbeck were standing just inside the front door, talking to three tall, thin men who were wearing identical red-and-black cloaks with hoods. Dr. Faineworth was gesticulating violently. He looked angry.
“I wonder what that’s about,” Delbit asked.
“I don’t like this,” the girl said. “I think—oh, Xerxes!”
One of the thin men had turned around, and was staring right at them. He began walking forward.
The girl clutched Delbit. “The Bee!” she said.
“What?”
The man was almost at the door.
She closed her eyes and twisted her face into a strange, strained expression.
The man touched the doorknob.
There was a soft plopping sound, and the little room was empty, save for a pile of clothes on the floor.
* * * * * * *
They were surrounded by trees.
“You came with me,” she said.
“You have no clothes on,” he said, trying not to look. He almost succeeded.
“But you do,” she said. “How unaccountable.”
He looked down at himself. “That’s right,” he said. “Perhaps it’s because you were clutching at me through my clothes that you brought them along with me. Did you do that on purpose? Shift, I mean, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Not exactly. That man frightened me. I’m not sure why. But I knew him, I think, from another place. So I—reacted.”
“Here,” Delbit said. “Let me give you my shirt. That way we’ll both be, ah, clad.”
“Very kind,” she said. “Now what do we do?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” Delbit said.
* * * * * * *
“We call ourselves Friends of the Bee,” the tall man said, looking malevolently down at Dr. Faineworth. “The reasons will not concern you.”
“What do you want?” Faineworth demanded.
The man spread his hands. “The girl,” he said. “What else?”
They were now upstairs in Dr. Faineworth’s office, he and Edbeck and the three tall men. A crumpled pile of women’s clothing rested on the desk. Faineworth and Edbeck sat together on the red couch and tried not to look frightened as the three men with their faces hooded towered over them with strange-looking weapons in their hands. The weapons, as Faineworth had discovered when he made a dash for the door, made only a slight barking sound, but gave out a beam of intense brightness that charred what it touched. The one tall man seemed to be the spokesman for the three; at least the other two did no questioning, although they seemed just as interested in the answers.
“You