The Kid was having breakfast across the street when Mboya entered the restaurant and walked over to his table.
“She'll see you,” he said.
“When?” asked the Kid.
“Now.”
“Just wait until I finish my breakfast and I'll be right with you.”
“You're finished,” said Mboya. “You don't keep the Prophet waiting.”
“I do,” said the Kid, taking another mouthful and chewing it thoughtfully.
“If you're doing this to impress, you're wasting your time,” said Mboya. “You're less than an insect to her.”
“You may be less than an insect,” said the Kid. “I'm not.”
“What makes you think so?” asked Mboya contemptuously.
“Because you don't invite insects for interviews,” said the Kid. He spent a few more minutes finishing his meal while Mboya watched him, then drank his coffee, left a pair of New Stalin rubles on the table, and finally got to his feet. “All right. Let's go.”
He followed Mboya to a groundcar, and a moment later they were speeding south, out of the city. They passed a number of farms, then came to still another farm, no different in any respect from the last dozen, and pulled up to a geodesic dome that overlooked a small pond.
“No guards,” noted the Kid.
“She doesn't need any.”
“Not even you?”
“Not even me,” said Mboya.
“Well, let's go on in.”
“She wants to see you alone,” said Mboya. “I'll be waiting for you out here.”
“What room is she in?” asked the Kid, getting out of the landcar.
“How should I know?”
The Kid shrugged, let the slidewalk take him from the car to the front entrance, and waited for the door to open. There were no cameras, no retina identification scanners, no signs of any security system. The door slid into the wall after a moment, and he walked into a circular foyer.
“I am here,” said a feminine voice, and he followed it into a large room that possessed a window wall overlooking the pond.
Seated on an exotic chair carved from some alien hardwood was Penelope Bailey. She was blonde, slender, dressed in a loose white gown. The Kid decided that she should have been rather pretty, but somehow she seemed to possess no sexuality, and precious little humanity. There was something about her eyes, something he couldn't quite put his finger on; even when she looked at him, she seemed to be focusing on something beyond him, something that only she could see.
“Welcome, Mr. Cayman,” she said, and even her voice seemed remote, as if her mind were elsewhere and the rest of her was going through some pre-ordained performance.
“Good morning, Prophet,” replied the Kid.
“Please be seated.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you choose.”
“Thank you,” said the Kid, sitting down on a couch covered in a metallic fabric that continually changed colors as the sun shone in on it.
Suddenly Penelope shifted her position, and raised her right arm above her head for just an instant.
“Is something wrong?” asked the Kid.
“No.”
“You seem uncomfortable,” he noted.
“You are very transparent, Mr. Cayman,” she said with an almost alien smile.
“I don't think I understand what you're saying.”
“You know why I changed my position, so why pretend that you do not?”
“I have no idea why you moved the way you did,” answered the Kid.
She shook her head, still smiling, her eyes still focused on some unimaginably distant point. “You come to ask for my advice, Mr. Cayman, and yet you refuse to be honest with me.”
“I am being truthful with you.”
“No, Mr. Cayman.” She arose and walked over to the window. “You were sent to Mozart to find me, and I know that you were not sent by that bizarre criminal who calls himself the Anointed One.” She paused. “That means whoever sent you knew me many years ago, before I became the Prophet. Only two such men are still living, and one of them is retired.” She turned to him, her eyes staring into his, but focusing beyond them. “You were sent by Carlos Mendoza, who is known as the Iceman, and since he would not send you here without telling you who and what I am, you know that when I make sudden movements or commit acts that seem incomprehensible to you, as many of them must, I am controlling or manipulating various futures.”
The Kid stared at her without answering for a long moment. “You're as good as he said you were,” he replied at last.
“I take that as high praise,” she said. “He is the one man who has ever stood against me, the one man in the whole of creation whom I have ever feared.”
“Are you still afraid of him?” asked the Kid.
She shook her head. “No, I am not.”
“You haven't got much reason to be,” said the Kid. “He's a fat old man with a limp.”
“A limp I gave him twenty years ago,” she said, staring off into the distance.
“Why didn't you kill him then?”
“I was very young,” replied Penelope. “I thought he would die of his wounds, and I wanted him to suffer.”
The Kid was about to make a comment when she held up a hand.
“What is it?” he said.
“Watch,” she said, indicating the far side of the pond.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” he asked, staring out through the window.
“There is a small animal atop its burrow, is there not?” she asked, still looking into his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “Kind of a muddy red in color.”
“Watch closely,” she said.
A few second later an avian swooped down, grabbed the animal in its claws, and flew off with it.
“You knew that was going to happen.”
“I know everything that is going to happen,” she said. “I am the Prophet.”
“Could you have saved the rodent?”
“Certainly,” she said. “There are an infinite number of futures. In some of them, the rodent spotted the avian in time to retreat to its burrow. In others, the avian was distracted and did not see the rodent.”
“How could you have changed what happened?” asked the Kid.
She smiled again, but did not answer him.
“Would you care for something cool to drink, Mr. Cayman?” she asked after a moment. “It promises to be a warm day.”
“Why don't you make it cooler?” suggested the Kid.
“The house is climate-controlled,” she replied. “And I have more important things to do.”
“In that case,” said the Kid, “I'll have some water.”
“Follow me, please,” she said, walking down a gleaming white corridor to the kitchen.
“Don't you have any servants?” asked the Kid, as he looked around the gadget-filled room.
“Millions of them,” she replied, holding a glass under a tap. “Cold,” she whispered, and the water poured out. When the glass was filled she said, “Stop", the flow of water ceased, and she handed the glass to the Kid.
“Thank you,” he said, draining the glass with a single swallow.
“You are welcome, Mr. Cayman,” she said. “Come sit outside with me, beneath the shade trees.”
“Are you sure you want to go out?” he asked. “As you pointed out, the house is climate-controlled.”
“I had an unpleasant experience, which I am certain you were told about,” she replied, leading him out to a shaded patio. “I don't like feeling confined.”
The Kid recalled the dust and asteroids circling Alpha Crepello. “No, I guess you don't.”
He sat down on a wooden bench and she seated herself on an identical bench about ten feet away from him, then stood up instantly.
“What's the matter?” asked the Kid.
“Nothing is wrong, Mr. Cayman.”
“Then why—”
She smiled. “There is an event—its nature need not concern you—that must come to pass on a world called Cherokee. The past is a fixed event, Mr. Cayman, but there are literally an infinite number of futures. In every future in which I remained seated, it did not come to pass. In a handful of those in which I stood up, it may yet happen.”
“But how can standing up on Mozart effect something light years away?” asked the Kid.
“I neither know nor question the why of it; I only know the truth of it.” She paused. “Now shall we get down to business, Mr. Cayman?”
“That's what I'm here for.”
She stared at him, and for just a moment her eyes focused. He decided uneasily that he preferred her to stare off into what he imagined was the future.
“You must excuse me, Mr. Cayman, but I'm not at all sure what you're here for.”
“I thought you knew everything,” said the Kid.
“I know the plethora of futures that will be,” she replied. “I do not know everything that was.”
“That doesn't make any sense.”
“It makes sense to me,” she said. “Now perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me why you have come to Mozart.”
“If you know the future, you already know what I am going to say.”
“You might say any of a hundred things,” replied Penelope. “You are quite a liar, you know, and a bit of an egomaniac as well. I wish to hear whatever it is that you will say.”
“How will you know if I'm lying?” asked the Kid.
“Because I already know most of the answer to any question I ask.”
“Then why ask at all?”
“To determine how trustworthy you are, Mr. Cayman.”
“Why do you care?”
“All in good time, Mr. Cayman,” said Penelope, staring off into time and space again. “Please answer my question now.”
“I've come to Mozart to sell computer chips,” said the Kid.
“That is the fact of it,” she said serenely, “but not the truth of it.”
“All right,” he said with a shrug. “I was sent here by the Iceman.”
“I know.”
“That's it, then.”
“Why did he send you?”
“He doesn't think anything can kill you, so when he heard about Hades blowing up, he figured you had escaped before it happened.”
“And does the Democracy agree with him?”
“No.” The Kid paused. “He thinks they're fools.”
“He is correct.”
“Anyway, he wants to know what you plan to do.”
“Of course.”
“Not your immediate plans,” continued the Kid, “but your long-term plans.”
“I plan to survive in a universe that has proven itself hostile to me at every opportunity,” answered Penelope without emotion.
“Well, from what I've seen, survival seems to be the least of your problems—assuming you have any problems at all.”
“I am just flesh and blood, Mr. Cayman,” she replied. “Someday I will die, just as any other human being dies.” Suddenly she smiled in amusement. “It will not be at your hands, Mr. Cayman. If you pull out your laser weapon and attempt to fire it, as you are considering doing, it will misfire and explode in your hand.”
“I wasn't considering any such thing,” lied the Kid.
“You have been warned, Mr. Cayman,” she said. “Your fate is in your hands.”
The Kid withdrew his pistol and studied it. “It was working just fine last night,” he said.
“In a million futures, it will function correctly this morning,” said Penelope. “I will not allow any of those futures to come to pass.”
The Kid stared at his pistol for a moment, then shrugged and replaced it in its holster.
“Now I've got a question for you,” he said.
“About investments?” she asked in a mocking tone.
“No.”
“Ask your question, Mr. Cayman.”
“Why haven't you made yourself ruler of the whole damned galaxy? It doesn't seem to me that anyone's got the power to stop you.”
“Perhaps someday I shall,” she replied. “I have other, more pressing things to do first.”
“Such as?”
“You wouldn't understand.”
“Try me.”
She stared at him, and a contemptuous smile crossed her face. “If you could see what I see, if you tried to make sense of it and bring order to it, it would drive you quite mad. Even as we speak, a starship on its way to Antarres must malfunction, a miner on Nelson 5 must dig a mile to the west of his camp, a politician on New Rhodesia must accept a bribe, a chrystaline alien on Atria must receive a subspace message from far Orion. There are a thousand events that must transpire, each in its exact order; a million futures must vanish every nanosecond; and you ask me to explain all this to you? Poor little human, who seeks only a full belly and a fat wallet, who dreams of heroic deeds and grateful maidens, and who is doomed only to become a speck of dust in a galaxy already overflowing with dust.” She paused. “No, Mr. Cayman, I do not think you could comprehend my goals or my explanations.”
The Kid stared at her for a moment. “Whatever your goals are, you need a better lieutenant than James Mboya,” he said.
“You have a candidate in mind to replace The Black Death?” she asked, and he got the distinct impression that she was laughing at him.
“You're looking at him,” he said.
“I thought you worked for the Iceman.”
“I work for winners,” said the Kid. “You're a winner.”
“I am very happy with The Black Death's services,” replied Penelope.
“I'm better than he is.”
“In what way?”
“I'm quicker, stronger, faster,” said the Kid. “And I can make you just as quick and strong.”
“With your chips?” she suggested.
“That's right,” said the Kid. “You fire Mboya and take me on and, as much as you are, I can make you more.”
“You can make me even less human than I am?” she asked mockingly. “That's an interesting proposition, Mr. Cayman.”
“You don't even have to fire him,” said the Kid. “I can kill him as soon as I leave the house. He's waiting outside for me.”
“But I don't want you to kill him, Mr. Cayman,” she said. “Nor do I want your chips.” She stared at him, and once again her eyes seemed to focus on the here and now. “I never wanted to be the Prophet, Mr. Cayman. What seems a gift to you has often seemed a curse to me. I wanted to be like every other human being, and I have been harassed and chased and imprisoned for most of my life because I was different. And now you offer to make me even more different? You'll have to do better than that.”
“If you want to be like everyone else, why not just take a new identity and move out to the Spiral Arm or the Outer Frontier?” asked the Kid.
“Because I am different,” replied Penelope. “I didn't wish to be, but I cannot deny the fact of it. Wherever I go, they will seek me out; wherever I hide, they will find me. Fate has been very cruel to me, Mr. Cayman; now that my powers are mature, I plan to defend myself as best I can.”
“You can defend yourself by hiding.”
“I can defend myself by making sure that no one alive or yet to be born can ever harm me again,” she said. “I will do whatever must be done to protect myself.”
“Including blowing up planets?” asked the Kid.
“An eye for an eye, Mr. Cayman—and there were a lot of eyes on Hades. What happened there was justice on a grand scale.” She paused. “You might consider that before opposing me.”
“I'm not trying to oppose you,” said the Kid. “I'm trying to join you.”
“If I allow you to serve me, I must have your complete obedience,” she said.
“You'll have it.”
“You will be well paid, but you will also be asked to do many things that you may find unpalatable.”
“You just pay me the money, and let me worry about the rest of it,” said the Kid.
“One of the first things I will have you do is betray Carlos Mendoza.”
“I kind of thought you might,” said the Kid with a grin.
“That doesn't bother you?”
“No.”
“Even though he is your friend?”
“He's on the wrong side of the fence,” said the Kid. “There's no way he can win. If I don't deliver him to you, someone else will—so I might as well get paid for it.”
Penelope stared thoughtfully at him. “You seem like a very practical young man, Neil Cayman,” she said. “I think you may prove useful to me in ways you do not even comprehend.”
“Then I'm hired?”
“You are hired.”
“We haven't talked about money yet,” he noted.
“You will find that I am more than generous,” answered Penelope. “And if you are loyal, you will wield such power as you have heretofore only dreamed about.”
“Sounds good to me,” said the Kid. “And by the way, I'm not Neil Cayman any longer.”
“Oh?”
“Everyone out here on the Frontier seems to choose a new name for themselves. I'm the Silicon Kid.”
She smiled. “That is a very impressive and descriptive name. It will suffice for the time being.”
“You've got another one planned for me?” he asked.
“Perhaps.”
“I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what it is?”
“When the time comes,” said Penelope. She got to her feet. “And now our interview is over. The Black Death will take you back to your hotel. I know that you wish to pit your skills against his.” She paused. “From this day forth, you are not to fight with anyone except on my express orders. Is that clear?”
“It's clear,” he said reluctantly.
“Good. You will hear from me when I need you.”
“You can see the future,” said the Kid as she ushered him through the house. “So why not tell me now when you'll need me?”
“Because I do not exist to serve you, Mr. Cayman.”
He walked out the front door and climbed into Mboya's groundcar. Penelope watched them pull away, then walked to her bedroom and emerged, a moment later, with a small rag doll. She clutched it lovingly to her bosom and continued to stare blindly into time and space, occasionally making a gesture or striking a pose that would help bring the particular future she envisioned into being.