George Martin - Jokertown Shuffle

"Who will help the widow's son?" he asked.

Rifles clattered as they were brought to bear. But Shad was standing too close to Kafka for them to fire, and the other jokers couldn't see what was going on.

Kafka's astonishment was clear, even on his inhuman face. He looked frantically left and right, then leaned closer, his eyes glittering in the light of the flash. "Who are you?"

"A stranger going to the West, to search for that which was lost."

"Where do you come from?"

"From the East."

"What is your task?"

"To trample the Lilies underfoot."

Kafka goggled at him. Shad gave him a severe look. The most difficult trick, he'd found, was to speak all this nonsense with an absolutely straight face.

"Will you not aid me, brother?" he asked. "In the name of the widow's son?"

"Who are you?"

"In the Brotherhood, my name is Gains Gracchus." He pretended to lose patience. "Do I have to do the fucking handshake, or what?"

Kafka seemed puzzled. "I seem to remember the name."

"I've been away for a long time."

"Kafka! Kafka!" The jokers were shuffling, trying to play their flashlights through the darkness that Shad had set up between them. "Are you okay?"

"I'm all right." Kafka tried to peer out past Shad. His mouth parts worked nervously. "What do you want of me?" he asked.

"Nothing. I need to know where the jumpers are quartered."

"Kafka!" The high-pitched voice shouted from the walkie-talkie. "There aren't any Egyptian Masons anymore! You know that as well as anyone. He's just trying to trick you!"

"That is the governor, I take it?" Shad said. "I have no business with him. Just with the jumpers. Will you let me pass or not?"

Kafka hesitated. Shad expanded the darkness that surrounded him, eating photons, surrounding Kafka with night.. The joker guards behind began to scuttle backward from the expanding sphere.

"Kafka," said the governor. "Bring him to me. I will give him an interview"

"I don't know that I need an interview," Shad said. "I don't know that we have a lot to say to each other."

"Yes we do, shad," said the high voice.

Surprise rolled through Shad's mind. No one called him that.

"Yes, I know your name for yourself," the governor said. "And I know more than that, including a few things you don't know" A small pause. "And we have to discuss your friend, little Chalktalk."

" Who?"

The voice turned impatient. "Governor Bloat knows all and sees all, my son. I know you didn't come alone, and I have another group of guards watching your friend. I don't think you have time to interfere with them before they follow any orders I should care to give, particularly if the order is swift and violent."

Indecision fluttered through Shad's mind. He'd been spinning this out with the intention of giving Chalktalk a chance to get away.

Images of Barker and Penn floated through his mind. "How do I know this isn't a trap?" he asked.

"If it is, you can kill me. I know it's within your capabilities. It's a small island, and I'm-" a strange little high-pitched giggle, "I'm not exactly built for running."

Kafka told his troops to return to their quarters. Shad let the darkness fall from Kafka's path. The joker led him down a lengthy stone corridor, then up a surprising staircase, all pink-veined marble like something out of Phantom of the Opera. Once up the stairs, they were in a building. The walls were covered in layers of flaking white paint, and there were doors on either side.

Ellis Island. Beneath which, Shad knew, there was not supposed to be an extensive cavern complex. Things had obviously changed around here.

A penguin, wearing a funnel for a hat, appeared from one door, made a graceful figure eight on its ice skates, disappeared through another door.

Shad stared. He'd hung out in Jokertown for a long time, but he'd never seen anything like that. And it was on ice skates. There wasn't even any ice here.

Another giggle came from the walkie-talkie. "Brother Shad, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Kafka led him out into a balcony overlooking a large hall filled with well, filled with the governor, the sluglike body gleaming with moisture, dappled with oozing black matter.

Bloat's smell clawed its way up the back of Shad's throat. His arms, shoulders, and head were those of a boy of maybe eighteen. He looked as if the slug were in the process of eating him.

"Welcome," the governor said, "to the Rox."

"Thank you." Shad walked up the wall, then stepped onto the ceiling. He strolled inverted across the plaster till he hung over Bloat's little head. Bloat's eyes tracked him as he moved, even though he was in darkness.

Kafka stayed behind on the balcony, pacing nervously. With all Kafka's phobias, Shad wondered, how could he stand even to be in the same room with his boss?

"You seem to have given poor Kafka a crisis in loyalties," Bloat said. "He thought all that was long behind him."

"Once a Mason, always a Mason."

"He knows you were supposed to have been killed. He fears you might be one of the Astronomer's surviving agents. That you might kill him."

Kafka's mouth parts worked as he listened to this.

"If I'd wanted him dead," Shad said, "he'd be dead." He wondered if the firing squad was lined up outside the doors, waiting for him to leave.

"If we're going to talk," Shad said, "let's do it." Bloat's look was mild. "Why are you here, Shad?"

"My plan is to snap the neck of every jumper in the place."

"And get Tachyon out if you can. I can read that."

"Then why did you ask the question?" Sharply.

"I think," Bloat said, "that I'll let you do one, and not the other."

"Which one? Which other? And how could you stop me if I wanted to do both?"

"Your notion of killing the jumpers has a certain attractiveness, I must admit. And if you could get Blaisehe's their leader, you see, and a very disturbed person-that would be… well, it would end any number of problems."

"I'll get him first thing, if you like."

"He's not on the Rox at the moment, unfortunately. He gets restless, and he's off bringing in supplies."

"I can wait."

"For God's sake, Governor!" Kafka's voice cut the silence. "Why are you bargaining with him? Do something!"

"I don't have a whole lot of choice, do I?" For once, Bloat sounded like a sulky adolescent. "Considering that my prime minister hasn't quite worked out which side he's on." Then Bloat looked up at Shad, his eyes glittering. "There are over a hundred jumpers on this island, Shad. Can you really kill them all? Could you kill them all?"

Shad hesitated. Kids, he thought. Not all of them killers, not all of them crazy.

"There aren't enough lampposts to hang them all from," Bloat said. "That's your usual method, isn't it? But a coldblooded massacre-that's not your style. Never was. You just start the ball rolling, and the bad guys kill each other." Bloat gave a sour laugh. "It may happen yet. This is not a happy island. Not happy at all." His eyes narrowed as he looked at Shad. "You think you're a killer, though, don't you."

"Cut the shit, Governor. Say what you've got to say." Bloat's look grew more searching. Shad felt cold crawling along his nerves. "You think you're a berserker. You've gone berserk; therefore, you must.. ." Bloat shook his head. "You've been tampered with."

Shad gave a laugh. "Believe what you like, Bloat."

"Your mind-it shares some mental characteristics with some of our other citizens. Shroud, File, Video, Peanut. Even the Oddity. And I've talked to Tachyon, and he knows…" The high-pitched voice trailed away.

Shad's nerves wailed at him to get away, kill Bloat, turn his head into an ice cube, and fight his way out before Bloat could spring whatever trap he was setting up.

"I'm getting impatient, Governor," he said.