Anthony, Piers - Race Against Time

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Race Against Time

Piers Anthony

*Contents*

1. Three Wishes

2. Outside the Zoo

3. A Strange Mistake

4. Escape from Newton

5. Gomdog

6. The Walled City of Wei

7. Chase

8. The Empty Enclave

9. Captives

10. Rescue and Reunion

11. Guerrilla Tactics

12. Spacejack

13. Monument Earth

14. Decision

_Three Wishes_

Canute raced ahead as John skirted the overgrown pasture. The grass was waist high and ready for

cutting. There were perpetual rustles within it, leading the dog a happy chase.

"One man went to mow," John sang, slightly off-key, "went to mow the meadow. One man and his dog

went to mow the meadow."

Canute, thinking he was being called, returned to peer at his master inquiringly. His brow was

wrinkled vertically, one ear was inside out, and there was a bit of dirt on his nose.

"Two men went to mow, went to mow the meadow," John continued, patting the dog affectionately.

"Two men, one man, and his dog went to mow the meadow."

Canute heard something and shot away into the grass again, tail wagging.

"Three men went to mow...."

John was up to twelve men--and a dog--by the time he reached the spruce grove. Canute rejoined

him, sniffing this new ground as avidly as ever. The layered needles were spongy, the air abruptly

still. John reflected that he must have been here a thousand times, and the dog a hundred, yet

there was always something to intrigue the human mind and the canine nose.

_Had_ been something. John realized that today he was bored with it and had in fact been bored for

some time without being aware of it. Everything in the township was overfamiliar. He knew every

house, every yard, every tree of the surrounding countryside. He stopped beside the largest tree.

Most of its lower branches had been broken off, leaving dead spokes or sappy wounds in the trunk.

He would get filthy if he climbed it.

So he climbed it, hoisting himself by hand and foot. Canute paced worriedly beneath, his spotty

forehead wrinkling again. The dog did not like to be left alone, even for a few seconds. Though

sleek and hefty, he was at six months still a puppy. He demanded a lot of attention and usually

got it. He could howl soulfully and with considerable volume when neglected.

John paused to peer down. Canute was standing against the trunk, his paws against the lowest

spoke, head tilted back appealingly. One black spot impinged on an eye, making him seem lopsided,

and his open mouth showed pink and black. He began to whine.

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"Well, come on up!" John called.

Canute watched him, tail wagging hopefully.

"Up! Up the tree, mutt," John said, smiling.

The dog fidgeted, making his spots ripple. He whined louder and added a yip. Then suddenly he

curved his front paws around the spoke, scrambled with his hind legs, and pulled himself up.

"You can do it!" John cried. "Keep climbing, boy!"

Canute struggled upward. As he ascended, he gained proficiency, until he was making fair progress.

John resumed his own journey. "I'll race you, pooch!" he called.

At first he outdistanced the dog. Then, as the narrowing trunk and thicker foliage inhibited him,

the gap between them shortened. By the time there was visibility above the small forest they were

almost together. John noted with interest that Canute's paws no longer wrapped around the

branches. Instead, his claws dug into the main trunk, retracting when he let go to find higher

purchase. No wonder he could climb faster!

The tree swayed. "We'd better stop," John gasped. "Top might snap off." He didn't really believe

that, of course... then another gust of wind touched them, and he _did_ believe.

They stopped, clinging to opposite sides of the slender trunk. From this vantage, with head and

tail out of sight, Canute looked very much like a leopard. John wondered fleetingly whether

Dalmatians had any leopard blood. No--leopards were basically cats, he was sure; they couldn't

interbreed with dogs.

"I didn't know dogs could climb," he said as an afterthought. "Well, let's go down before we're

late for supper."

Canute, always ready for food, needed no coaxing. He backed down, those marvelous claws operating

smoothly. John had to hurry to keep the pace. It bothered him, though. He _hadn't_ known that dogs

could climb trees.

They dusted themselves off at the bottom and trotted on toward home. Mom was cooking supper. Green

beans and chicken, the smell announced before they entered. Every second Tuesday, the same. He had

memorized the schedule long ago.

It occurred to him to ask Mom about the tree-climbing ability of dogs, but he reconsidered

immediately. Three years ago, when he was thirteen, he had had a kitten. The little cat had had a

prehensile tail. John hadn't realized that this was remarkable until he researched cats in the

encyclopedia and found no reference to this characteristic in felines. He had mentioned this to

Mom, just as a matter of passing curiosity, but she had been quite upset. Next morning the cat was

gone, never to return, and questions about its fate were turned aside. John had become more

cautious about his remarks thereafter.

No--he would keep silent about Canute's talent. He liked the big dog too well to have him

disappear abruptly.

He went up to his room and started to clean it while Canute chewed contentedly on an old shoe.

John was not addicted to neatness, as the entrenched mess attested; he just needed time to think

things over.

Canute's ability, John realized as he poked the broom under the bed and stirred up curly dust

mice, followed a pattern of sorts--a pattern of little inconsistencies. The Smiths were an

ordinary family, Newton was an ordinary town, and the United States was America. But:

Item: That kitten's tail had been prehensile--the way a monkey's tail was supposed to be, not a

cat's.

Item: Canute could climb a tree--catlike.

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Item: John had never been out of the township.

Item: Some of his schoolmates had skin that could peel off, like furniture varnish. Underneath it

was tan. John's skin would not peel; it became tan in summer but faded to a pale color in winter.

Item: His parents didn't like him to remark on such things.

That was enough for a start. Five items--was there a consistent framework for these things? A

common explanation? A ripple of goose pimples went up his arms and across his shoulders and on

into the back of his head. He was not cold; that was the way he reacted to discovery. Five items--

and suddenly he was certain they _were_ linked! The connection was really fundamental, affecting

his entire outlook, maybe his life.

Mom appeared. "Dear, have you written to Betsy yet?"

Someone always interrupted him when he started to _think!_ It never failed.

"Not yet, Mom," he said, glancing at her with frustration. She was verging on fifty and getting

stout; her hair was inclining toward gray. She had a round affectionate face, and her hands were

wrinkled. Would they also peel if scratched?

"Maybe I'd better get started, though," he added quickly. "I was just thinking about her." That

was a lie, but he didn't care to admit the true direction of his thoughts.

"That's good, John," she said. "Supper in fifteen minutes. Be sure to wash your hands." She left.

John looked at Betsy's picture, propped on his cluttered desk.

Item: He was going steady with a girl he had never met.

Well, now he was committed to that chore. He would have to write to Betsy Jones. Mom would fret if

he didn't.

He brushed aside comics, magazines, and wood carvings to make a space for his typewriter. This was

a battered portable with a broken bell and faded ribbon, but it worked well enough. He had taught

himself to type by hunting and pecking with gradually increasing facility. He could now type

slightly faster than he could write, and that was adequate. His composition was limited more by

the speed of his thoughts than of his two fingers. He rolled through a sheet of paper and typed

the date: August 12, 1960. Then, "Dear Betsy."

About then his mind went blank. What should a sixteen-year-old boy say to a sixteen-year-old girl

he had never seen in his life? He had written to her every week for the past six months, but that

didn't help. It meant only that he had exhausted the possibilities in routine description and

query. In reply he had her weekly letters describing _her_ house (pretty much like his), _her_

town (ditto), _her_ family, pet (a parakeet), school studies. She had to be as bored with it all

as he. By mutual and unwritten consent they had never discussed romance. This contact had been

arranged by their parents, and neither John nor Betsy could work up any enthusiasm for it.

Probably the letters were snooped on, anyway.

John touched the keys without depressing them. How about: "Dear Betsy--how many inconsistent items

can you count? Do your friends have the same fake white skin mine do?" Sure--if he really wanted

to convince her he was crazy!

He picked up the picture, less for inspiration than to justify his failure to get on with the

missive. She was a rather pretty girl, brown-haired, brown-eyed, cute curved nose, small mouth. In

fact it would have been easy enough to like her had she been _here_ instead of _there_ and had she

not been forced on him.

John liked to make his own decisions, such as they were. He had precious little opportunity. His

school curriculum had been set by others, his homelife was ordered by his parents, and his summer

wanderings were circumscribed by the township limits. About the only real freedoms he had were in

his mind and heart. Unfortunately he did not have enough information to think really independently

and had little interest in girls. That did not affect the principle. Certainly he was not about to

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get sloppy about Betsy Jones. Now or ever.

"Dear, are you feeling well?" Mom inquired.

He jumped. She was catlike on those stairs--no sound at all! "It's hard to say anything to a girl

I've never met," he said lamely.

"You _will_ meet her, John. When you graduate."

"But that's a year off!" He made it sound impatient. Actually he didn't care if it was a century.

"I know it's hard, dear. But it is for the best." She left again.

For the best? _Whose_ best? Why did it have to be this way? Why these empty motions of remote-

control courtship? He glanced at Canute, now snoozing on the rug. It was all part of the mystery--

the girl, the dog, the cat, the fake skin, the subtle supervision. How could he unriddle it all,

let alone overcome it?

He unfolded Betsy's last letter. She had waxed philosophic, and he had only skimmed it

disinterestedly upon receipt a couple of days ago. Did Betsy find this charade as frustrating as

he did? Had she expressed her rebellion by writing high-sounding nonsense?

"Dear John," she had written. "Have you ever wondered what you would do if you had just three

wishes? Three fairy-tale wishes, I mean, that you could make once and never again, and they could

never be changed afterward. And whatever you phrased as a wish would be honored literally, even if

it were only 'I wish I didn't have so much homework' or 'I wish you'd shut up.' And you couldn't

cheat by wishing for a thousand more wishes or half a wish at one time."

Pointless speculation, but now that he considered her remarks at leisure, they did make some

sense. He _had_ dreamed about wishes, deciding what he might do with one wish or a hundred. He had

decided that if one wish were used to ask for a thousand wishes, each of those would be only one-

thousandth the strength of the first, so nothing could be gained. So he established a standard

format of three medium-potent wishes; no more and no fewer could be used. When he was eight, he

had settled on a toy store, a candy store, and a pet shop. At twelve it had been a spaceship (he

had seen the design in a science-fiction magazine), a billion dollars in gold coin, and a purebred

Dalmatian puppy.

Actually, it was high time he updated that list. Like a last will and testament, the latest

edition remained in force until superseded. He wasn't at all certain the wishes of a twelve-year-

old boy should be binding on a young man. He no longer wanted the spaceship, since his interest in

stellar navigation had waned. Gold coin was passé; an unlimited charge account would be better and

far easier to carry around. And the Dalmatian he had now.

He returned to Betsy's letter: "At first I thought money or material possessions would make the

ideal wish. But before long I realized that I have all of that sort of thing I need. My folks take

care of me, clothe me, feed me; I have an allowance to cover other things. A million dollars would

not make me happier, and it might make me sadder.

"Then I thought that all I had to wish for, really, was happiness itself. Nothing else means

anything without that, and _with_ it I would be independent of the other things. If wealth were a

legitimate part of happiness, I would automatically have wealth; if residence in a palace were

required, I would have that. Maybe I'd marry a prince. Everything would be taken care of.

"But now I am convinced that shallow, artificial happiness is not the answer, either. You can get

that from drugs. If everyone settled for that estate, the world would shortly come to an end."

John considered that. Betsy was a pretty smart girl. She refused to accept the easy answers. She

knew she wanted happiness, but she was choosy how she got it. Here was something he could comment

on. It tied in, not too remotely, with his own problem: that of the inconsistencies in his

surroundings. In fact, what he had here _was_ a kind of make-believe happiness that he found empty

in practice. He didn't want satisfaction in ignorance. He wanted to know the truth. It might be

ugly; it might even hurt him, but....

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"Supper, John," Mom called.

The important chain of thought had been broken again! He grasped at the last link, determined to

have the meaning. The truth might be ugly, painful, but it would be _real._ Not a cardboard....

"John?"

"Coming, Mom!"

Talk of three wishes! He wished he had a decent chance to _think!_ Morosely, he went downstairs.

_Outside the Zoo_

After supper John washed the dishes. This was not a chore he had to do. He had volunteered one

evening, surprising and pleasing Mom. Then, ashamed to confess that he had only needed a pretext

to postpone particularly dull homework, he had stayed with it, night after night. This time it

provided him with another mindless exercise while he thought things out.

He had been pondering things he couldn't explain. Betsy had written of the fallacy of artificial

happiness. The two jibed, almost. He had drawn a mental parallel between them, made them add up to

something significant... almost.

Something was wrong. He had to find a situation that accounted for a cat with a prehensile tail, a

tree-climbing dog, and the strange restrictions on his freedom.

Betsy's letter-essay suggested that the best wish of all was for information. Well, it didn't say

so in so many words, but it seemed to be leading up to that. To know, or to have the means to

discover, the truth, whatever it might be. And if the truth made the knower miserable, that was

still better than contented ignorance.

He agreed with her. He didn't exactly _like_ her, but he realized that she could be a valuable

ally. By pooling their two sets of information they might indeed come at the truth. Maybe that was

why they weren't allowed to meet yet. They might compare notes and discover something vital. If

their letters were censored... well, it might be possible to get around that.

He finished the dishes and called Canute for the evening walk. He still needed thinking time. The

only way he could communicate with Betsy was by letter, censored or not. He could not just put his

suspicions into writing, so what could he do?

Canute stopped to sniff at a tree. John was momentarily tempted to tell the dog to climb it, but

he suppressed the urge. He was lucky the hidden watchers--the ones that he had long ago invented

as a game but now firmly believed in--hadn't been alert during that first climb, _If_ they had

missed it; if not, the dog might be gone in the morning, like the kitten.... No! He wouldn't let

anyone take Canute! He would be alert and stop them somehow, even if he had to fight in the night!

He needed more information before deciding anything. Betsy might help. If he could just write to

her privately....

A code! One she would comprehend, but not the censor. It would have to be a very simple code, and

that increased the risk. He couldn't work it out on paper in advance, either, because a watcher

might see his notes. That made it a real challenge. Every tenth word? She would never pick that up

unless she were looking for just that type of thing. Forlorn hope. First word in each sentence?

Maybe, but still pretty clumsy. Either way he'd have to write a long, wordy letter to put across a

short message--a message that would probably be wasted.

If he could only give her some hint--but the censor would pick it up, too! He was still stuck.

And when he came down to it, how could he be sure that Betsy herself was real? He had never met

her. All he knew of her was her letters and her picture. Obviously _somebody_ wrote the one and

posed for the other, but that was hardly proof that Betsy-as-he-knew-her existed. Maybe his

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correspondent _was_ the censor!

But again: If Betsy were _not_ real, why should they have taken all the trouble to invent her? He

hadn't wanted to correspond. There were girls in school, some fairly attractive, even if their

skins weren't real. There was no point in signing him up with a stranger, particularly not another

imitation.

He had picked up a useful rule of thumb from his readings: Accept the simplest explanation he

could find--for anything. He chuckled. By that token his whole project was useless! The simplest

explanation for Betsy was that his folks thought she was a better match for him than any of the

local girls, but she lived too far away for immediate visits. For Canute's climbing, the simplest

explanation was that dogs _could_ climb trees, and the encyclopedia hadn't thought this needed

mentioning. For the kitten....

The kitten was harder, because cats were _not_ supposed to have prehensile tails, and his folks

_had_ been upset when he mentioned it (upset but not surprised?!), and the cat _had_ disappeared.

It was pushing coincidence to dismiss the connection. It was as though the cat had not been a cat

at all, and once he was on the verge of discovering that....

He felt the chill across his shoulders, up his neck. _Not a real cat!_ Talk of simple

explanations!

Maybe Canute was not a real dog, either. And the kids at school were not real kids. And his folks

not real parents. Maybe the whole town of Newton.... But this line of thinking didn't seem to lead

to any answers.

He would query Betsy. Two heads were better than one. She might not answer, or she might not exist

as a person, but the effort wouldn't cost him much, and it might bring out something important.

Canute was sniffing his way back toward the house. John had to set up his message and his code

before he got there so that he could type without seeming to make much of it.

Let's see... something simple and direct for the message. "Let's compare notes. Something is

wrong. Does your dog climb trees?" But she didn't have a dog. She had a bird. Great show! All

right: "Have you ever been out of town?" Not good, but he was pressed for time. Now how to encode

it. Why not every third word? That wouldn't be too complicated to figure out. With an opening

hint: "Sometimes I think we'd learn more just by reading every third word." Yes, that was good. He

was at the doorstep. He'd have to work out the rest extemporaneously.

In his room he began the letter:

"Dear Betsy, I've been thinking about your recent comments but must admit they confuse me.

Sometimes I think we'd do better just reading every third word. I mean, let's start to compare

some such notes. I think something might develop. Is there any wrong or right--does any of your--"

Oops! He had started on the dog query instead of the out-of-town query. And the letter wasn't too

bright, generally. This was harder to fit together than he had thought. His third words, after the

key sentence, were okay: "let's... compare... notes... something... is... wrong... does... your"--

but the overall text was ridiculously clumsy. Well, he was stuck with it now.

"...does any of your thinking." Stuck again. How could he fit in "dog" without being too obvious.

And he didn't even want to ask her about her nonexistent dog! He kept confusing himself, trying to

concentrate on three things at once.

He could write a horrible letter, then make a show of rereading it and tearing it up in disgust.

If he had to. That might fool the watchers.

"...does any of your thinking fly bird or moth like out the strange cage of stuff?" Ugh! This was

getting ridiculous. He had to stop.

"Sorry," he typed. "I can't seem to organize my thoughts tonight. Maybe you get the idea." Up to

"does... your... bird... like... strange... stuff?" anyway. That would have to do.

He filled out the letter with routine chaff: how he looked forward to meeting her, the recent

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weather, etc. He had pretty well mangled his code letter; it wasn't as good an idea as it had

seemed at first, but he was too stubborn to give it up now. He addressed the envelope, sealed it,

stuck on a postage stamp, and put it in the box at the front door for the mailman to pick up next

day. At least that took care of his weekly missive!

* * *

Betsy's reply, a few days later, amazed him. She had picked up the gambit and replied in kind. Her

message, spaced every third word far more skillfully than his own blundering effort, was this:

"I have known for some time that it wasn't real. All the pets are alien creatures. You and I are

zoo specimens, due to be mated next year so as to preserve the species in captivity. I tried to

break out last year, so they watch me closely now. I will help you escape if you agree to rescue

me in return."

John pondered the letter, so innocent on the surface, so forceful in code. Was she pulling his

leg? He hadn't really _believed_ this watchers business, had he? Was she laughing her head off

over his gullibility?

Maybe--but somehow he didn't think so. Her bluff was too easily called, and what she said jibed

too nicely with his own observations. All he had asked her was whether her bird acted strangely;

he had not mentioned his suspicion that everything else, including the people, was a mock-up. And

if Betsy were the censor, she certainly wouldn't encourage his suspicions!

She must be like him, with similar experiences and suspicions. Now she proposed to bargain with

him, and why not? But there was one more check he had to make before he committed himself.

That night he did something he had not done in years: He sneaked out. He simply waited until the

household was asleep, then got up and walked out the front door. He didn't think about the

watchers.

He heard a noise just as he was closing the door. Canute had heard him and wanted to come along.

If he shut the door, the dog would scratch at it and howl, alerting everybody. He had either to

let Canute join him or to give up the venture. Also, he suddenly realized that he dared not leave

the dog alone, tonight or any night. That would be the moment Canute disappeared....

"Quiet!" he whispered, opening the door and feeling a marked relief. However alien the dog might

be in reality, he was comforting to have along. There was no question about Canute's personal

loyalty. Together they faced the cool, still, dark outside.

They walked toward the township limit. John used his flashlight once he was clear of the house. He

had never been beyond the Newton line, but tonight it would be different. Something had always

happened to stop him before--the road would be temporarily blocked, or a severe storm would come

up, or he would meet someone going the other way and be distracted. He had been frustrated but not

suspicious--until now.

Betsy claimed they were both zoo specimens. Well, modern zoos put their animals in superficially

compatible habitats so that the stupid ones might not even be aware of their confinement. They

were supposed to be happier and healthier that way and would breed in captivity. Rage surged

through him. Not _this_ animal!

Canute woofed, thinking John's reaction meant danger. John reached down to pat the speckled

shoulder reassuringly. If Newton were a zoo, Canute was still a friend!

This was too slow. John switched off the flashlight and let his eyes adapt to the night. There was

some moonglow, hazed by clouds. "Lead the way, Canute!" he whispered, beginning to run. "To the

fence!"

Canute led. He had done this before, picking out the best trail. John followed with confidence,

knowing the dog would not betray him into any rut or bush. The strikingly marked fur was easy to

see, in contrast to the ground. He judged they were making ten or twelve miles an hour before he

got winded and had to take a walk-break.

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In half an hour they reached the fence that marked the town limit. It was not an auspicious

barrier--just a four-foot-high wire mesh with a double strand of barbed wire along the top. To

keep the cows clear, he had been told. He paced along it, pretty sure the fence was bugged. If he

touched it anywhere, someone would come. It would seem accidental, but his exploration would be

halted. He was sure of that. He had to get through without any contact.

He used his flash, casting about in the growing-up pasture here. He might construct a stile, but

that would take time, and he didn't have a hatchet or any cord or hammer or nails, and he couldn't

afford the noise even if he knew how to assemble it, and he would have real trouble in the dark.

He had to get over that fence in a hurry.

He walked farther, frustrated. Such simple things were balking him! The flash splashed against a

rock. There was an old stone wall, falling apart. These massive but ineffective barriers had been

used, he understood, to fence in sheep, maybe a century ago. Pretty dumb animal to be restrained

by no more than this. Anybody could climb over! Just how stupid did the keepers figure John Smith

was?

He realized that he had come to accept Betsy's theory, even though he had not verified it yet.

Anyway, here was his stile: He could build a rampart of rocks.

Half an hour later he was dirty and tired, but he had a crude pyramid as high as the fence. He

could jump over easily from its top, and so could Canute. Coming back would be more of a problem,

but that was the least of his worries at the moment.

He flung himself over, landing hard and rolling before he could get righted. "Come, Canute!" he

called softly. The dog leaped down with surprising finesse.

They were outside the township of Newton--the presumed limit of his prison. But John couldn't

detect any difference. He let Canute lead the way through the semidarkness, away from the fence.

He felt let down. He had been keyed up for something spectacular, or at least a change. If there

were nothing but empty countryside....

There _had_ to be something else! Dad had to go somewhere when he drove off for work. The truck

supplying the local stores had to come from somewhere. Newton could not exist in a vacuum. It

didn't matter whether it was a legitimate town or a zoo; there was a framework of some kind.

Assured, he moved on, running, walking, running, following Canute. The forest continued while his

nervousness increased. _Had_ he imagined it all, and was he now trekking through perfectly

innocent, ordinary countryside, making a fool of himself?

After twenty minutes he saw a light. His heart pounded, and not just from the running. Now he

would find out! He warned the dog to silence and approached, ducking behind trees and bushes. It

was a house of sorts. Not like any in Newton. This one was half-round, like a soap bubble on

water, and it shimmered: a glowing twenty-foot hemisphere with boxes stuck to it.

As he crept closer, he discerned more detail. The house was not bubble-shaped after all--it was

octagonal. Its main diameter was about twelve feet, and the four cubes bracing it were about five

feet on a side. The cubes were opaque, but the walls between them were transparent. He was sure it

was a house because he could see people inside.

They were brown people. A brown girl slept on a cushion against one outer panel, her hand touching

the glass. A brown man, probably her father, sat poring over something on a table. John didn't see

any others, but they could be hidden in the cubicles.

Brown people. If all the artificial skin were peeled away from the people of Newton, they might be

like this. Betsy's statement had been confirmed. Or had it? This was not like any zoo he had heard

of!

More important: this house. It was futuristic. He could tell without further investigation that it

beat anything of 1960 by a century of progress, at least. It hung in the air a yard above the

ground, but nothing held it there. It had internal illumination, but there were no power wires

leading to it. It was tiny, but the evident comfort of its visible occupants proved that it wasn't

stuffy. John saw no kitchen or closets or sanitary facilities--and if those things all fit in the

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cubicles, they had to be mighty efficient. This wasn't any setup for his benefit. He had come in

secret and struck it randomly, following Canute's nose. Most likely it was typical of the

dwellings outside of Newton.

Brown people in a house of the future. What an item! It was exciting, and more than enough to

think about. Time for him to get home. He would just about have time to straddle the fence--he

realized belatedly he could prepare a pole to vault over--and lift Canute past, dismantle his

unwieldy rampart, and get into bed before morning. He didn't want to get caught outside the zoo

the way Betsy had been and have his freedom restricted more stringently.

And he'd better agree to her terms! Now he was sure he didn't want to stay in staid Newton, when

the future lay outside. Literally.

_A Strange Mistake_

The better part of a year passed. John graduated from high school and dutifully wrote his weekly

letters to Betsy, making sure they were dull. He whistled as he performed household chores and did

not ask awkward questions. He took up gymnastics, becoming quite proficient at running and

jumping, and he trained Canute to do some remarkable tricks. Mom and Dad were very pleased.

Those dull letters exchanged with Betsy, however, were in increasingly sophisticated code, and

some of Canute's tricks were meaningless within the Newton existence. And occasionally John

applied brown makeup and hurdled the fence and explored the surrounding region. He raided an

unoccupied floating house and learned by trial, error, and more error how to handle modern

facilities, including the fantastic communicator. His grades in the Newton school were

indifferent, but had he been graded on the total amount he learned in that year, he would have

been the township champion.

The date outside was 2375, and the planet was "Standard." John was apparently the last healthy,

sane, young, purebred Caucasian human male in existence, and Betsy was the last healthy, etc.,

female. They were to be mated so that this unique line could be continued. The rest of humanity

was Standard: an evenly melted mixture of the assorted human stocks of the planet earth.

Neither John nor Betsy could ascertain why this time and place in history had been chosen for this

oasis of the past. Was there some prejudice against the purebred Caucasian stock, and had these

two white subjects been kept in seclusion and ignorance so that they would not be ravaged by the

horrors of their ancestry? If so, what had happened to the world they thought they knew?

Yet if the Caucasian heritage was so evil, why had they been kept alive at all, let alone in such

an elaborate setting? The zoos were a good deal more elegant than seemed necessary. But a zoo,

whether as fancy as a palace or simple as a manacle on the ankle, was still a zoo. Two things John

and Betsy agreed on: to thwart this mechanically calculated mating plan and to learn the truth

about the vanished white race. They worked out their escape, refining the details week after week.

Once they were free and safe, and once they knew the full story, they would go their separate

ways.

Then, only two weeks before they were scheduled to meet, Betsy wrote in code: "There is a third

zoo." That was all she knew. Her father had a wrist TV disguised as an old-time watch. He had

forgotten it one night after removing it for a shower, and she had sneaked into his room and

watched it for half an hour. The picture was three-dimensional, even though barely an inch across;

she had had to put her eye up close to make out the detail, and it was like looking through a

telescope. She saw routine news and a weather report, and they had flashed maps of the continent

to mark the scheduled rain regions. Population densities and similar factors were overlaid in

color, but she hadn't had time to analyze them. She spotted her own area, and it was blank. So was

John's Newton. And one more.

They had no time to hash it out thoroughly. She might have misread the maps or misinterpreted the

coding of the overlays. Even if she were correct, there could be a separate explanation for the

third blank--a supply depot, perhaps. But they could not dismiss the possibility that they were

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not quite alone. They agreed to modify their program accordingly. They would somehow check out the

third zoo before they split.

* * *

John spent his last night in Newton quietly. He wondered if his parents--actually two bleached-

white Standards assigned to this task--suspected that he planned to leave the zoo forever

tomorrow. Of course, Mom and Dad were good people, even if they lived a lie. They were dedicated.

The other inhabitants of the Newton zoo could peel and scrub and resume their natural skin color

and their normal existence each evening, but Mom and Dad had to maintain their roles constantly.

They had done everything they were supposed to and never once let on that it was only a job. It

was not their fault that he had seen through the masquerade that day when he had jokingly ordered

Canute to climb the tree, and the dog had not been smart enough to reject the directive.

Did Mom and Dad approve of what they were doing? He doubted it. If there had been a certain

coldness, it had not been directed at him. Things had always been harmonious but not that close;

though he certainly bore them no enmity, he was not strongly attached. Would they be punished for

letting him escape? The question struck him with greater misgiving than seemed warranted, and he

was surprised to find his eyes moist. He was suddenly aware that Mom and Dad were more important

to him than he had realized. They must love him a little, just as he loved Canute, and the feeling

was reciprocal. It did not matter, on the personal level, that they were not his true parents and

Canute not a true dog. The relationships were more binding than the facts.

He would have to leave a note to exonerate them. He went to the typewriter, then caught himself

and passed by it to the closet, pretending to check his suit for the forthcoming occasion. The

watchers could be watching. If he made a note, someone would see it too soon, and the whole thing

would be ruined. Twenty-fourth-century technology could keep him under perpetual observation

without any direct "bugs," he was quite certain now. His nocturnal excursions had escaped notice

only because there had seemed to be no reason to watch him sleeping every night. He had kept them

to a minimum, though, refusing to push his luck unnecessarily.

Mom and Dad would just have to take their chances. He regretted it, but there was no other way.

* * *

The telephone rang. Mom pounced on it immediately, though she had never been the nervous type.

"Hello," she said and listened for a moment. "Where?" Another pause, then: "Thank you," gravely.

"She's come," Dad said, touching his little moustache, and Mom nodded. Oddly, they both seemed as

much on edge as John himself.

"At the bus station," Mom said. "She--she's alone."

"I'll go pick her up," John volunteered, knowing that this was what they wanted. Some kind of

mistake had been made in the delivery, and they were embarrassed and nonplussed.

Betsy was supposed to arrive on the train with a chaperon. That way the Standards would be sure

she remained under control and that nothing was given away. But she had turned up on the bus and

alone. Had she thumbed her nose at the system by giving her chaperon the slip? No wonder Mom and

Dad were covertly shaking! What if she had escaped entirely? They wanted time to recover from the

shock--and to bawl out someone on the phone.

John rode his bicycle, though he realized that this would not do to bring her back. Well, the two

of them could walk--and anyway, he would not bring her to the house.

This confusion of arrival actually played into his hands. He would need no ruse to get out from

under the supervision of the elders. He and Betsy could put their escape plan into effect at once.

But he was upset, too. What fool stunt had Betsy pulled? Their plan required everything to be

absolutely routine until it was time for the big break; it was important that the Standards have

no hint of what was planned. Betsy's rash behavior could have alerted the watchers and destroyed

any chance to flee!

He pedaled faster, knowing that he was overreacting. Once more he felt remorse at what this would

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file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Piers%20Anthony%20-%20Race%20Against%20Time%20(v3.0).txtRaceAgainstTimebyPiersAnthony*Contents*1.ThreeWishes2.OutsidetheZoo3.AStrangeMistake4.EscapefromNewton5.Gomdog6.TheWalledCityofWei7.Chase8.TheEmptyEnclave9.Captives10.RescueandReunion11.GuerrillaTactics12.Spaceja...

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Anthony, Piers - Race Against Time

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