“There it is,” said the Iceman as his ship braked to light speeds in the Alpha Crepello system.
The Silicon Kid walked over to the viewscreen. “You mean, there is isn't.”
The Iceman looked away from the whirling dust and rocks that were the only things left in Alpha Crepello III's orbit.
“I had to make sure,” he said. “Well, now I'm sure.”
“And this Penelope Bailey did this just by wishing it?” said the Kid, staring at the dust and trying to imagine a planet in its place.
“Essentially,” replied the Iceman. “It's much more complex, but that's the gist of it.”
The Kid let out a low whistle. “That's some lady,” he said. “She makes you and the Gravedancer look like pikers.”
“Have you got yourself a new hero now?” asked the Iceman, amused.
“Not me,” said the Kid. “She scares the shit out of me.” He continued to stare at the viewscreen. “People just can't do things like that.”
“She's not a person,” said the Iceman. “Not anymore. She hasn't been for a long time.” He paused thoughtfully. “Maybe she never was.”
“They say she killed the Forever Kid when she was the Soothsayer. Is that right?”
“Not exactly.”
The Kid frowned, confused. “I don't understand.”
“She didn't kill him,” explained the Iceman. “She could have saved him, but she chose not to. Legally it's not the same thing; morally it is.”
“All these legendary men and women—and you're the only one who survived,” said the Kid. “What's your secret?”
The Iceman shrugged. “I was lucky.”
“Maybe once was luck. Not twice.”
“Kid, if I knew the answer to that, I'd be willing to go up against her again.”
“Maybe you've got some kind of power, too,” suggested the Kid. “One you don't even know about.”
“If I had it, I'd know about it by now.” The Iceman took one last look at where Hades had been. “She killed one hell of a lot of Blue Devils,” he remarked. “A lot of Men, too.”
“I didn't know any Men lived on Hades.”
“They didn't—but Hades had three terraformed moons that were all populated by Men: Port Maracaibo, Port Marrakesh, and Port Samarkand. You don't see them now, do you?”
“What happened to them?”
“They probably fell into the sun when the planet blew,” answered the Iceman.
The Kid was silent for a long moment, and then spoke. “Well, to be fair about it, she had some justification,” he said. “She'd been a prisoner there for 16 or 17 years.”
“And that justifies killing every living thing on Hades and all its moons?”
“They didn't have any reason to imprison her in the first place,” said the Kid. “From what you told me, they just spotted her talent and locked her away.”
“What would you have done?” asked the Iceman.
The Kid shrugged. “I don't know. Talked to her, tried to find out what her plans were, seen if there was any way to get her to work for me.”
“You're a fool.”
“How do you know that she doesn't plan to use her powers for good?”
“Whose good?” responded the Iceman. “Hers or ours?”
“They might be the same.”
“They've never been the same,” said the Iceman. “You're making the same mistake 32 and all the rest made. You think because she looks human and had human parents, she must be human.” He paused. “Take it from me, Kid—she hasn't been a human being for a long, long time—if indeed she ever was.”
The Kid turned in his seat to face the Iceman. “How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because I know the way her mind works—as much as any Man can know, anyway,” answered the Iceman. “What frightens me—and what ought to frighten the shit out of you and everyone else—isn't that she has the power to blow Hades to bits; hell, the Navy can do that, too.” He shook his head. “No, what frightens me is that I know she did it without a single regret or second thought. By the time she became the Oracle she had evolved past all human reference points: we mean no more to her than a grain of sand means to us.”
“She was human once,” said the Kid doggedly. “You told me she was just a frightened little girl when you first met her. There must be a shred of that humanity still remaining somewhere within her.”
The Iceman sighed heavily. “Fine. You search for it.”
“I plan to—if I get the chance.”
“I wish you luck,” said the Iceman, closing the subject. He commanded the ship's computer to break orbit and take them out of the Alpha Crepello system. “I've seen everything I needed to see. No sense staying here any longer.”
“What do we do now?” asked the Kid.
“Now", said the Iceman, selecting a world from the holographic display of the Inner Frontier and directing the navigational computer to lay in a course for it, “we head for Confucius IV.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It's an ugly little world on the edge of the Frontier.”
“Why are we going there?”
“Because you can usually buy information there.”
“What kind of information are we after?” asked the Kid, staring at the holographic display until it faded into nothingness.
“We're trying to get a line on the Prophet.”
“The Prophet?” said the Kid, surprised. “Isn't he some bandit on the Frontier?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?” repeated the Kid. “You think it might be Penelope Bailey?
“I don't know,” answered the Iceman. “That's what I plan to find out.” He walked carefully to the galley, pulled out an exotically-shaped bottle and poured himself a drink. “You want some?” he asked.
“Sure,” said the Kid. “What is it?”
“Alphard brandy,” said the Iceman, handing the bottle and a glass to the Kid. “Not as good as the stuff they make in the Terrazane system, but it keeps better at light speeds.”
“Thanks,” said the Kid, filling his glass and returning the bottle to the Iceman. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“You didn't pick the Prophet out of a hat,” said the Kid, taking a swallow of the brandy and deciding that he liked it. “There's hundreds of bandits with strange names out there. What makes you think the Prophet might be Penelope Bailey? Why not Father Christmas or Undertaker McNair or the Border Lord?”
“Well, the name fits,” said the Iceman, returning to his seat and setting his glass down on a panel in front of the navigational computer. “But that's secondary; there have been Prophets before. There will be again.” He paused. “It was something 32 told me.”
“What?”
“That the Anointed One was thought to be building up his forces for some military action against the Democracy, but during the past year he seems to have changed his target. Now he's hunting for the Prophet.”
“So what?”
“Think it through,” said the Iceman, returning to his seat with his glass in his hand. “Here is this fanatic with two hundred million armed followers, all set to take on the Democracy—and suddenly he decides the Prophet is a greater threat.” He stared at the Kid. “The Democracy's got a navy of almost a billion ships, and a standing army of maybe ten billion men. Now, what do you think could possibly pose a greater threat than that?”
“You make it sound logical enough,” admitted the Kid. “But it's also possible that the Anointed One decided that he wasn't up to defeating the Democracy ... or maybe he's out to assimilate all the Prophet's followers into his fold.”
“What followers?” demanded the Iceman. “According to 32, the Democracy hasn't got any hard information on the Prophet. Don't you think they'd know if she had millions of men ready to fight on her command?” He paused again. “You say that the Prophet is just a bandit on the Frontier. All right. Who has she robbed? What sector is she operating out of?”
“I don't know,” said the Kid. He stared at the Iceman. “But neither do you. For all you know, the Prophet is just some small-time bandit.”
“Like I said, it's possible.”
“Then why go on some wild goose chase after her—or him, as the case may be?”
“I'm going after Penelope Bailey because the Democracy thinks she's dead. They sure as hell aren't going to go looking for her.” He paused. “And the reason I'm going to try to find the Prophet is even simpler: I don't have any other leads.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “And there's one other thing.”
“Oh? What?”
“I've never met the Anointed One in my life,” said the Iceman. “I never even heard of him until a couple of weeks ago.”
“What has that got to do with the Prophet?”
“Maybe nothing,” admitted the Iceman, picking up his glass and taking another sip. “But if we've never met and I haven't hampered him in any way, then I can think of only one reason he wants me dead.” He paused again. “I'm the only person ever to meet Penelope Bailey and live to tell about it. That could imply that I'm working for her.”
“But you're not,” the Kid pointed out.
The Iceman smiled. “You know it and I know it, but the Anointed One has no reason to know it. The only thing he knows is that I've been in her presence a number of times, and I'm still alive.”
“You're working with even less information than he is,” responded the Kid, finishing his brandy in a single gulp. “Both in regards to the Anointed One's motives and Penelope Bailey's identity—if she's still alive.”
“You're supposed to sip your brandy,” said the Iceman.
“I'll remember next time,” said the Kid.
“Please do. It's expensive stuff. If you're just thirty, I've got water and beer.”
“All right,” said the Kid irritably. “I said I'd remember, and I will.” He paused. “So how do we go about learning if you're right or wrong about the Prophet?”
“We assume that I'm right, and that she's Penelope Bailey, and we proceed based on that supposition,” said the Iceman. “We'll start on Confucius IV. I don't know anything about the Prophet, you don't know anything about the Prophet, even the Democracy doesn't know anything about the Prophet. But we do know that the Prophet exists. People have heard of her. People talk about her. You've heard of her. Even Lomax mentioned her to me back on Last Chance. And we know that the Anointed One is searching the Inner Frontier for her.” The Iceman paused and drummed his fingers on the computer panel. “So we start going from one likely world to another, until we find someone who knows something more about her than her name. Maybe we'll get a location, maybe the scene of a recent crime, maybe the name of an associate—but sooner or later we'll get something.”
“And then?”
“Then we keep piecing together bits of information until we know if she's Penelope Bailey or not.”
“I don't know about this,” said the Kid doubtfully. “This whole scenario you've built, everything you've said—it's all supposition.”
“True,” agreed the Iceman. “But it feels right.”
“So we're going all over the Inner Frontier chasing some bandit because it feels right?” said the Kid displaying a sardonic smile.
“When you pay the bills, we'll do it your way,” said the Iceman. “In the meantime, if you have any objections, I can let you off on the nearest oxygen world.”
“No, I'll stay with you,” said the Kid. “I've still got a lot of worlds to see. I might as well see them on salary.” He paused thoughtfully. “And if she really is alive, I want to see her.” Suddenly he smiled. “Who knows? Maybe I'll go down in history as the man who killed Penelope Bailey.”
“I wouldn't bet my last credit on it,” said the Iceman dryly.