Jack L. Chalker - God inc 2 - THe Shadow Dancers

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THE SHADOW DANCERSTHE SHADOW DANCERS

ebook ver. 1.0

For Will F. Jenkins,

who as "Murray Leinster"

took the parallel world concept

and made it infinite so the rest of us

could play in his yard.

A Summons From G.O.D.

Cleopatra Jones stared down at the twinkling lights of the city from her

luxurious penthouse apartment; her city, the city she protected and watched

over. Her slim, glamorous face and form reflected back from the window, a

ghostly angel of perfection against the night scene . . .

Oh, hell, who was I tryin' to kid, anyway? Yeah, it was dark and I was lookin'

out the window, but all cities look glamorous and mysterious at night, even

Philadelphia, and only thing the woman starin' back at me in the glass had in

common with tall, lean Cleo was that we were both black females who'd come up in

the world.

It hadn't taken me long to put the weight back on that I'd lost back in that

Garden place, though I wasn't as bad as I had been. Truth is, the most fattenin'

stuff in the world is also about the cheapest, and when you're dirt poor you

wind up with lots of peanut butter and real fatty stuff cause it goes further

and fills better. Oh, the tummy was still okay, but the hips were growin' and so

were my tits, which seemed oversized even when I was down at my model weight

(thanks, Ma!). At five six, with a naturally round face and lots of bushy hair

(I know it's not in fashion but it's the only way I could ever control it

without spendin' two hours a day on it) I looked, well, plump, anyway.

I guess we was the only self-made poor folk in the Camden ghetto back then.

Daddy was a retired Army colonel; he coulda done better by just bein'

retired-there weren't too many retired black colonels then. But, no, he'd been a

cop in the Army and he was a little too old to be a cop after and a little too

black in that day and time to be a commissioner or police advisor, and he had

this dream.

Back then there wasn't a single black-owned and operated private detective

agency in the area-those that had the background didn't have the bread to get

started. He pumped it all into settin' that agency up. Not much-a dingy office

overlookin' a side street in one of the lousier sections of the ghetto even back

then, some secondhand furniture and files, and a phone and a sign on the

directory and the glass door to the office. Spade & Marlowe, PI. With Ma as his

secretary he got enough clients to pay the bills, with a little help from his

pension. Trouble was, the clients weren't exactly the well-to-do types and we

pretty much got peanuts even when he did his job right-if we got anything at

all.

My comin' along pretty well finished off any surplus, although I always knew

that I was the one thing Daddy loved as much as that agency. We got by, but then

Ma died young-she always had a real blood pressure problem and never did much

take them pills-and he had the agency and me and the agency was the money for us

to live. I dunno, I guess maybe I wanted all his attention and got very little,

since he was in and out at all hours and I had to be pretty much on my own. I

got to be somethin' of a wild child, runnin' with a bad pack, never carin' 'bout

school or the future or nothin', just blowin' reefer and drinkin' booze and

gettin' into lots of trouble. Just about the only thing I really paid attention

to was makin' sure Daddy didn't know-we used to steal blank report cards and

fill 'em out real convincing-like, and I could always come up with the right

answers for his questions. I guess now I was rebelling against him in a way, and

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maybe against the whole world as I saw it, but I didn't see no future and no

purpose to nothin'. Lost my virginity real young, too; when I finally got

knocked up good, I stole some stuff from a store and hocked it for enough to get

an abortion. It weren't no easy thing to do, but there was no way to keep a baby

from Daddy's knowin', and that settled that.

That kind of neighborhood you was always around users and dealers, pimps and

whores, and they weren't no creatures of evil and sin to me. I knew 'em by their

first names, and they knew me. To a kid like me, they were romantic kinds of

figures, and if nothin' else they was the only black folks who seemed to me to

be makin' it. I'd slept around so much by the time I was sixteen that all my

fantasies were about bein' a hooker. Dress up real sexy-like, and have the dudes

pay you to get laid. Easy money, easy work. Only who my Daddy was kept me from

either joinin' up with a string or bein' taken in by a pimp. Ain't no way no

pimp in that part of town wanted the Colonel as an enemy.

Finally, of course, Daddy found out about it. Had to, sooner or later. We had

one big hell of a scene, and for the first and only time in his life he actually

beat me good, and I was ready to pack up, run away, and go to some other city

like New York and sell myself on the streets, but I got so mad I came out first

to tell him, knowin' it would hurt him, and I couldn't find him at first. Then I

figured he was in the bedroom, and he was, only I didn't go in or show myself

and my bad mad just kinda faded out.

He was cryin'. Colonel Harold Parker, U.S.A. (Ret.), one of the toughest dudes

in the world, was cryin'. John Wayne woulda cried before Daddy. It must have

been the first and only time in his life he did it. This was the man who had dug

a bullet out of his own side with a knife, then driven himself twenty miles to

the hospital.

Pretty soon, I was cryin', too, and I ran into him and we held each other and

cried it out. After that, we made a deal. I didn't want to go back to school,

and he didn't want me in with that crowd no more anyway, so he agreed, though he

didn't like it, to let me come in and take over Ma's old job as the secretary,

receptionist, you name it. In exchange, when things got straightened out in the

office and we got a little ahead on the bills, I'd take some night classes, get

my G.E.D. high school equivalency, and maybe more if we could figure a way to

afford it. 'Cause I was his business manager, he'd know where I was and what I

was doin', and our free time would be our free time.

Well, I never did take to school, and I never got through eighth grade, but I

managed. I always read-Ma and Daddy had seen to that from early times, and I

kept doin' it even when the gang made fun of it-so I had a leg up on some of

them kids who have high school diplomas and straight A averages who couldn't

spell cat or write much beyond their name. I got a big vocabulary, but I never

could keep all that grammar shit right. Well, you know, you speak black English

on the streets and white English around Daddy and it's kinda like thinkin' in

one language and talkin' another. I got one of them ghetto-southern accents I

ain't never gonna lick, and I gave up years ago tryin' to correct my grammar.

It's a lost cause. I'm a low-class hick with a big vocabulary, so sue me.

I got the bug, though, helpin' Daddy on cases and gettin' things mostly in

shape. The files might not have had the best grammar but they was complete and

up to date. I never was no good at math, but after we got the free calculator

for subscribing to PI Magazine I always knew we was deep in a hole. Still, I

learned the business, for what it was worth. It's a damned dull, boring job with

no respect and few rewards, no matter what the books and TV and movies tell you.

No big action, either. Daddy had a gun, a big magnum, but he almost never

carried it and I don't think he ever fired it as a PI. I did a lot of practicing

with that sucker and I got pretty good, but that thing has a kick they don't

show you on them TV shows and it ain't much good at any range. I also took

karate and judo lessons at the Y and got pretty good at that, though I never had

much call to use 'em.

I also just about cut out any social life. It weren't none of Daddy's doin', it

was just me. Truth was, I just didn't have much self-image, as they call it.

Never did. When Ma died and Daddy was away so much, I couldn't be on my own, so

I got into the gang and did what the gang did. I figure now that's what all that

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fantasizing 'bout bein' a hooker was all about. Any girl who has that trade as

her sole ambition ain't got much sense of herself. When men pay, then you got

worth, right there, in dollars and cents. I was fat and slow and no matter how

good a shape I whip into I ain't never gonna be no Tina Turner.

Daddy and the agency, then, became my whole life, my whole identity. I don't

blame nobody, but it's just the way I am. I can't change that any more than I

can change how I look or how I talk. Nobody would believe it if I told 'em,

anyway-except maybe Sam, who knows it but just can't figure it.

But one night Daddy didn't check in-the cops did, and I had to go down and

identify the body. He hadn't even taken his gun with him on that job, but he got

far too many holes to go anywhere afterwards. It was kinda weird standin' there,

in the morgue, lookin' at his water-soaked and bloody, bullet-ridden body. One

part of me said it was him, but with all the life out of him he just didn't look

real, somehow. I couldn't even cry, but all through that night and the next few

days I just got madder and madder. The cops had no real leads and he'd been

pretty closemouthed about it all even to me, 'cept that it was something big,

bigger than he'd ever had before.

I cracked the case, after two months, when the cops couldn't, and I got some

reputation as hot shit for it but it wasn't all that damned hard. Sure, I didn't

know anything about that case, but whoever it was didn't know that and I just

began to put out the word that I had leads and knew more than I did and set

myself up as a target. The cops thought it was real gutsy of me, but truth was

I'd just had all I had left in the world snatched from me and I didn't really

care if they killed me so long as I got at least one of the bastards involved.

Detective shit is more guts and dull routine than anything else; there ain't no

real Sherlock Holmeses. The only thing is, most of the crooks around ain't all

that smart, either-they just got smart lawyers. I set myself up, got invited to

a meet just like Daddy, and I went, just like Daddy, only I took the magnum.

'Course, the gun didn't do no good, but the fact that I also called the cops

helped nab the triggermen in the act of tryin' to kill me and led eventually to

the indictment and conviction of a popular young black politician on the way up

who just happened to be in the mob's pocket.

All that didn't help, though. Fact is, I got no new cases worth much and lost

some old clients even though I got a reputation as a PI at least as good as

Daddy out of it. Big Tony and the mob never did get touched by it all, even

though they ordered it; the white folks had gone scot-free and the black folks

had taken the fall, as usual, and for some reason I got blamed for that. Crazy

thing was that the only folks who would toss a case or two my way were the

smalltime crooks in the ghetto. Seems they were impressed and wanted me on their

side.

Still, not enough came in to make even the basic bills, and I sold the house and

lived on that for a while, takin' a one-room dump near work. I was just goin'

through the motions, though, and I knew it. I just didn't know anything else to

do. Oh, I had a bunch of relatives, mostly cousins, in the area, but about the

best I could hope for was some kind of job as a domestic or cab driver or

something. I didn't have no skills to speak of, no real contacts, no diploma-

and you needed that just to collect garbage-and only me as a job reference.

Couldn't get no unemployment-I was self-employed-and welfare didn't mean shit

unless you had a couple of illegitimate kids. The only guys I knew who might be

marriage bait were either ones I couldn't stand, ones who wanted some kind of

house nigger, or ones that were already as high as they were gonna go and were

like street cleaners or handled the drive-in window at McDonald's.

Here I'd done somethin' the cops couldn't or wouldn't do, and dumb luck or not I

done it good, and instead of gettin' the gold stars and thanks and all the rest

I got shut out. I got to admit that my fantasies turned back again, and every

time I passed one of the hookers I got more and more tempted-and without Daddy

around I had offers from a couple of local pimps.

The cops, though, had at least a little soft spot for me, since I'd given them

some good collars. I mean, a couple of white cops got to bust a bunch of

meddlesome black dudes in Camden, and that was gold stars on them. That's why,

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at just about this time, they sent Sam around to me.

Sam was older than me by a good ten years, pudgy, balding, but kinda cute. He

was also the first white man I ever took a liking to, and a big shock. It was

the first time I found out Jewish white guys could be about as poor and out of

it as me. He was a cop from Bristol, up north a bit in Jersey, and he was down

tryin' to track down a ring that snatched little kids and turned them into

kiddie porn objects. Fact was, I took to him right off, not just 'cause I needed

somebody right then but even though he was white and Jewish he reminded me one

hell of a lot of Daddy. He had that same sense of moral outrage Daddy always

did, more than I ever could bring up, and when he was after bad guys he wanted

their asses bad. He also had a real passion for the old detective stories and

for all them old detective movies on the Late Late Show starring Bogart or

Robert Montgomery or Lloyd Nolan, the kind my Daddy always loved and grew up on.

And, like me, he wasn't too thrilled to be a detective, he just didn't know how

to do nothin' else. He also had a college education and real brains. He goes on

them brains, too; I go on feelin's and sometimes guts but I ain't never gonna be

no brain and I know it.

In the end, we busted those suckers, got back one kid, and exposed a crooked cop

who shielded them, but it didn't stop there. Fact was, I knew what I saw in Sam,

but I never will know just what he saw in me, but he's the only white man I ever

been around who never showed one ounce of racism or racial hangups. Sam quit the

Bristol force-he never was too comfortable on the vice squad anyway-and came

down with what little he had to try and make the agency work. We kinda hoped if

maybe a white ex-cop was around some of the black folks would give us more

business, and it did bring in some, but not nearly enough. We got married at

city hall-the bride wore jeans-and even that had a price. My relatives didn't

approve at all, and his relatives were even madder than mine. I was still poor

and broke, but it didn't really matter no more.

Fact was, I grabbed for Sam 'cause I needed somebody bad, but I really fell in

love with him. Real bad. I ain't never been in love with nothin' or nobody

before or since like this. From the moment we moved in together, he was the only

thing important in my whole life. He kept the agency goin' by sheer willpower

mostly for my sake, as it turned out, and he never would believe me when I told

him I'd be happy if he got a salaried job doin' most anything and I played house

and mommie, but it's true.

I know, I know-on the outside it looks like black woman makes it in the cold

world, but I never saw my case written up in Jet or Ebony or even the National

Enquirer. If you got the brains and the education and the skills and the drive

then go for it, baby, but I ain't ever gonna have them things and I just ain't

one for crusades. If Women's Lib wants to nail me for it, that's all right, but

I didn't see no cases from them when I was a woman-owned business. Sam told me

he didn't mind if I kept my name, but I minded; outside of the bed, it was the

only way I could really show him just how much he meant to me. Besides, I like

the look I get from people when they find out somebody who looks and talks like

me is Brandy Horowitz. A Jewish American Princess I'm not.

The trouble is, my life's still all cliffhangers. I was about to pack it in when

Sam showed in the nick of time and saved me. When we both were gonna pack it in

as detectives and him take a security guard's job down in Delaware and me be a

housewife, in walked a case that changed everything. Started out as a little

mob-related thing and wound up with us discoverin' the biggest secret since the

A-bomb, maybe bigger.*

*For a complete account of this case, and all the gory details, read The

Labyrinth of Dreams, Tor Books, 1986.

Don't ask me how it works, or how it's possible, but it's so. It ain't possible,

but it is and that's that. Sorta like if God came down and worked miracles in

front of everybody -it would convince even most atheists. Well, this thing's

like that. I ain't sure I believe in flyin' saucers, neither, but if one landed

in front of me and little green men got out and asked for directions, I think I

would.

There ain't just one universe, there's millions of 'em, maybe more, and they all

exist smack dab on top of each other. No, that's not right-they're all in the

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same place, only nobody and nothin' in one can see or hear or sense the

existence of the others. They all started from the same creation, but they

spread out at different speeds and don't ask me no more. I ain't the smart one,

and even Sam can't really explain it. They say there seems to be no end to

them-they stretch onwards to eternity on both sides of us. Because there's so

many, almost anything that mighta happened in our universe but didn't happened

somewheres else. Like, everybody says how lucky I am-I always seem to get better

when it can't get no worse, like I told you. But there's maybe a couple of

hundred other worlds so close to ours that I exist, and this is the only one in

which I married Sam. The other me's wound up whores and maybe addicts or stuck

in lousy marriages or dead or somethin', but I'm the lucky one.

Now, not too many people know about this, but one world found out that this was

so and figured out a way to go between the worlds. How the hell they ever did

that, or even figured out that the other worlds existed, I can't imagine, but

they did. This network to go between is kinda weird, like a long tunnel, but it

runs mostly like a railroad, with switchmen and stations and stuff like that. Of

course, even the ones who run the thing, called the Labyrinth, which Sam tells

me is a word that means a maze and comes from one of them ancient mythology

stories, only have stations on a few hundred, or maybe thousand, worlds. They're

pretty closemouthed about that. They keep explorin', keep lookin' in at ones,

until they find ones that have somethin' they might need. Might be an invention,

or just a bright idea, or some raw material they need-anything. When they find

somethin' like that they set up a station and put in a permanent crew and then

they also recruit locals to help run things.

They don't really care about the worlds they move into, 'cept as how they can

make a profit from it, and one of the things they move into and eventually take

over is organized crime, which seems to exist one way or another everyplace.

Like here the Mafia and a bunch of other big crime groups are really wholly

owned and operated by these dudes from another world-and most of the crooks

don't even know it. They also got a legit arm, the General Ordering and

Development Corporation, or G.O.D., Inc. as we all call it when we don't just

say 'the Company.' You may never have heard of it, but chances are you're one of

their customers. You know all those things they advertise on late-night UHF TV

stations and all them cable stations-knife sets, pen sets, crazy gadgets that

never really work, discontinued and outdated merchandise, cheap imports, that

kind of shit. You know what I mean. They have an 800 number to call to order or

an address at the station, but down right at the bottom, in real small print,

they have to put their name and headquarters address of who they really are and

where they're really at. Well, that's where you find General Ordering and

Development, Inc.

Most all the folks who work for that company don't know who or what it really

is, neither. Just the ones at the very top, and some of the company security

people, and them that run and secure the stations.

They can't have a station just anywhere. First of all, most places each world is

totally isolated from the others, but there's always a bunch of weak points. A

lot of disappearances, people bustin' into flame, visions, ghosts, you name it

come from them weak points. Most of them ain't too useful, though; I mean, you

build a station in downtown Philadelphia somebody's gonna find out sooner or

later. They go for the isolated, middle-of-nowhere places, which are few and far

between these days, and they also got to be ones they can buy up lock, stock,

and barrel. The big station here's out in a hick town in redneck Oregon called

McInerney-the only place they could buy up and control that was away from

everything and everybody. They got a second little station up near State College

in Pennsylvania, which is also middle-of-nowhere wilderness, but since they

stuck both Penn State University and the biggest state pen up in there it ain't

the favorite spot. It's mostly automated and used only when necessary.

They got the company headquarters smack in the middle of downtown Des Moines,

Iowa. It's on a weak point, but they can't risk usin' it. All they can do there

is send messages back and forth through it.

They don't have but a fraction of the worlds with stations. They only been here

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