F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

“On the other hand,” Dr. Harris said, “you could be a con man looking to pull some kind of slimy scam.”

“Like what?” Jack was interested in hearing this.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but Florida’s got more con men per square mile than any other state in the union.”

“I’m not a con man”—at least not today—“and I’m concerned about my father. In fact, you’ve got me worried now. What’s wrong with him that you won’t tell me? What are you hiding?”

“Not a thing.” Dr. Harris wiggled the fingers on his still outstretched hand. “We’re wasting time. Just show me some ID and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Shit.

“I don’t have it with me. I left it at my father’s place.”

Dr. Harris’s features hardened. He shook his head and stood up. “Then I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you.” He hit a buzzer. “I’ll have the nurse show you out.” “All right,” Jack said, rising. “But will you at least call Dr. Huerta and tell her what you know?”

Dr. Harris obviously hadn’t expected that one.

“I…well, of course. I can do that. I’ll call her this afternoon.”

As frustrated and worried as he was, Jack had to respect this guy’s ethics. He forced a smile and thrust out his hand.

“Thanks. Nice to meet you, doc. You could be classified as a real pain in the ass, but I’m glad my dad has someone like you looking after his privacy. My doc at home is the same way.”

Of course, Doc Hargus was a different case. His license to practice had been pulled, so no one was supposed to know he evenhad patients.

Jack didn’t wait for the nurse. He left the thoroughly befuddled Charles Harris, MD behind and headed for the clinic exit.

Along the way he paid close attention to the windows and the walls—especially the upper corners near the ceiling—and the door frame as he stepped through it. No alarm contacts or release buttons, no motion detectors.

Good.

10

“Is it workin?” Luke said. “Can you see?”

Semelee sat on a bench in the galley of theBull-ship . Some of the clan was in town, beggin, while others was ashore, dozin in the shade. She and Luke were the only ones aboard. She wished he’d get away and stop hangin over her shoulder and leave her be. But his heart was in the right place and so she bit her lip and kept her voice low.

“Just give me a minute here, Luke,” she said as she adjusted her one remaining shell over her right eye. “Just give me a little space so’s I can see if I can get this to work.”

It was so different with only one shell. With two she could focus right in. With one…

With only one eye-shell she could still get into the heads of higher forms like Dora, but the lower forms…they were hard even with two. They didn’t have much goin for them brainwise, and that meant she had to concentrate all the harder. If only she had that other shell.

“I could take a few of the guys and hop the fence and watch him ourselfs. We—”

“Just hesh up, will you? I think I’m gettin it.”

“Yeah?”

She could hear the hope, the excitement in his voice.

She didn’t see any way she or one of her clansmen could sneak into the hospital to hunt down that other eye-shell, but if she could keep an eye on the old guy’s son, the special one who’d been sent to her, maybe she’d find out if he had it.

But she had to get control here.

Control…back in her teens she’d thought her power was limited to only seein through a critter’s eyes, but she soon learned that was just part of the story. She found out in her junior year when Suzie Lefferts paid her a visit on the beach.

Semelee had been comin down to the ocean almost every day, except for the rainy ones, to put on her eye-shells and fly, soar, and dive with the flocks, or swim and dart through the depths with the schools. She could even get into a crab and crawl along the sandy bottom. These was the only times she felt truly alive…truly free…like she belonged.

The sudden sound of a too-familiar voice behind her jarred her back to the beach.

“So this is where you spend all your time.”

Suzie must have realized that she was no longer getting to Semelee, that her taunts and tiny tortures weren’t having their usual effect. So she’d followed her to see why.

“I thought you might’ve had a new boyfriend or something,” Suzie said, “but all you do is sit here with those stupid shells over your eyes. You were always a loser, Semelee, but now you’ve totally lost it.”

When Semelee didn’t even remove the shells from her eyes or bother to reply, Suzie flew into a rage. She grabbed the shells and put them over her own eyes.

“What is it with these things anyway?”

Oh, no! She’d see! She’d know!

But Suzie mustn’t’ve seen anything. She called them junk and tossed them toward the surf.

Terrified they might wash out to sea, Semelee screamed and ran down to the tide’s edge. She found what she thought was them—they were freshwater clamshells after all—but wasn’t sure. As Suzie walked up the dune laughing, Semelee wanted to choke her, but she couldn’t go after her, not until she made sure she had the right shells…to see if they still worked…

They did. She put them on and there she was, glidin high over the beach, watching Suzie strutting toward her car. The bitch!

Suddenly she was divin toward Suzie, beak open, screechin. She plowed into the back of her neck, staggerin the bitch. And then she was peckin at her head, cuttin her scalp and tearin out her teased blond hair in chunks.

Semelee was so surprised she dropped her shells. She watched the squawkin gull leave Suzie’s head and flap away while Suzie ran screamin for her car. The truth smacked Semelee right between the eyes then: She couldn’t just get inside things and look through their eyes, she could control them, make them do what she wanted.

This cool feelin of power surged through her. She wasn’t just a tiny bit special, she wasreally special.

But was she all that special with only one shell?

She clapped a hand over her left eye and focused all her will, all her concentration through her right. Something was coming into focus. A blade of grass, dry and brown, loomed huge in her vision, like the trunk of a tree.

“I’m there!” she cried. “I got one. Now I got to get another.”

And another after that, and another, and another…

This was going to take time and effort. Lots of effort.

“I got to spread myself around the old guy’s house and get in if I can.”

“You really think he has it?”

“Don’t know. But I’m gonna do my damnedest to find out.”

“And if he got it, then what?”

“We ain’t come to that bridge yet, Luke. When we do, we’ll figure somethin out.”

And maybe in the meantime I’ll just test this guy’s inner stuff, she thought. See if he’s worthy of me.

11

Jack’s head was spinning. Not from the wine he’d been drinking but from this damn game he was trying to learn.

He’d spent the latter part of the afternoon in his father’s hospital room with Anya—and Oyv, of course. No change in Dad’s condition—still the same random, involuntary movements and incomprehensible sounds. He’d been hoping to see Dr. Huerta and find out if Dr. Harris had contacted her. He figured he might be able to get her to tell him what the doc was hiding about his father’s pre-accident condition.

But she didn’t show, and finally he drove Anya and Oyv back to Gateways. She didn’t let up on his joining her for a drink, so after a shower and a call to Gia to reassure himself that she, Vicky, and the baby were fine, he ambled next door.

He found Anya outside on her front lawn, cigarette in one hand, wineglass in the other, reclining face up on a chaise lounge next to a big liter-and-a-half bottle of red wine chilling in an ice bucket. She wore huge sunglasses with turquoise frames. Her flat breasts were encased in a pink halter top over skimpy black shorts. She’d coated the exposed areas of her wrinkled, leathery brown skin with some sort of sun-tanning oil and lay marinating in the sun.