InterWorld (InterWorld 1)

He raised a hand to greet me. Then he stripped off his raincoat and his hat. He was covered from head to foot in a silver suit of some kind, like a man wearing a mirror. He rolled the unconscious Scarabus behind the bed and put the coat over him.

I could hear the sink running. I knew that my Lady Indigo was washing her hands with the pink rose-smelling soap. I had to warn her that the Jay man was there and that he meant her harm. I tried to speak, but she hadn’t given me permission to talk, and so the words would not come.

Jay—if that was who the man in the mirror suit was—raised a hand to the suit and adjusted something above his heart.

The suit flowed and changed and . . .

Scarabus standing there in front of me. If I hadn’t been able to see the real tattooed man’s foot peeping out from under the coat on the other side of the bed, I would have thought Jay really was him. The illusion was that good.

My Lady Indigo came out of the bathroom.

Tell me to speak, I thought, pleading with her, tell me to speak, and I will tell you you’re in danger. This is not your friend. I am the only person who truly cares about you, and I cannot warn you.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s go up on deck. How’s your headache?”

The man who looked like Scarabus shrugged. I guessed that the suit didn’t work for voices. Lady Indigo didn’t press the point. She turned and went out of the room. “Follow me, slave Harker, and stay close,” she called.

I followed her up onto the deck. I couldn’t even begin to imagine not doing so. (The Joey buried deep inside me could—he kept on yelling and screaming that I should resist, run, anything. I kept walking. His words meant nothing.)

Above us star fields spun and blinked and whorled. Neville the jelly man hurried over as soon as he spotted us.

“I’ve checked all the instruments and portents,” he said self-importantly, in his sucking-mud voice, “and consulted the astrolabe, and they are all quite certain. We are carrying a stowaway. Some presence arrived on the Lacrimae Mundi about an hour ago. Just when I said I felt something in the pit of my stomach.”

“And a mighty stomach it is, too,” said the mirror man pretending to be Scarabus in Scarabus’s voice. I was wrong, then; the suit could do voices, too.

“I shall ignore that comment,” said the jelly man to Scarabus.

“What kind of stowaway, Neville?” asked Lady Indigo.

“Could be one of Graceful Zelda’s people trying to grab the Harker, so they can take all the credit,” said Scarabus. “You know how much she hates you. If she took your Harker back to HEX, it would make her look very good.”

“Zelda.” Lady Indigo made a face, as if she’d bitten into something that had turned out to be mostly maggots.

Neville hugged himself with his jellyfish hands and looked miserable. “She wants my skin,” he said. “Has for years. Wants a coat, Zelda does, one that’ll let her show off and still be warm.”

Before he could continue, Scarabus—Jay pretending to be Scarabus—looked at me and squinted. “My lady,” he said, “how do you know this is still your Harker? What if it’s some kind of changeling? They could have already stolen the boy away and left something behind that only looks like him. Some kind of spell creature, perhaps. Easy enough to do, even here.”

Lady Indigo frowned and looked at me. Then she gestured in the air with one hand while she sang three clear notes. “Now,” she said, “any spell that is on or around you is removed. Let us see what you truly are.”

I realized that I could speak again if I wanted to.

I could do anything I wanted to now.

I was back in charge, and, boy, did it feel good to be back.

“Right, Joey,” said the Scarabus imposter, his face and body flowing back into silver.

“Jay? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me! Come on!” He picked me up in a fireman’s carry and ran.

We made it almost to the rail when there was a small green explosion, like a firecracker going off, and Jay made a noise of pain. I shifted my head, stared at his opposite shoulder. The mirror stuff covering it was seared and gone, exposing a mass of circuitry and skin, and most of the skin was bleeding. I could see the bizarre, distorted images of Lady Indigo, Neville and Scarabus reflected from his back.

He dropped me.

We were up against the edge of the ship. On the other side of the bulwark was . . . nothing. Just stars and moons and galaxies, going on forever.

Lady Indigo raised her hand. A small bead of green fire hung in her palm.