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39.
Tedda's aim was true, as she raised the stone high and tossed it with all her might. Confessor Gruen shrank back and tried to shield his face. The rock embedded itself in Confessor Gruen' face, which spattered apart in all directions like a smashed egg. As Tedda, Lindy, and Eduard watched, the Confessor Gruen rule shimmered into many tiny mosaic pieces that drifted apart and then all at once fell to the ground and vanished. Tedda had a disgusted glimpse of the robes opening, revealing a large, grayish spiral like s mollusk inside its shell. It was attached to the wall, and where it had been, was a round wet spot that slowly dried up. Only a dry, foul mushroom smell lingered.
"Murderer!" Lindy screamed hoarsely. Her voice tore at Tedda's eardrums in this confined space. Eduard slowly let Lindy go. Tedda strode past her, saying "Let's get out of this foul place."
Eduard followed to make sure Lindy wouldn't become violent. Lindy ran alongside Tedda speaking in gleeful, cruel tones. "I know why you are in here. It's for killing a woman, isn't it? You bitch. You drove your man mad and when you found him playing around, you killed her. What did he see in her that he didn't see in you? Bitch!"
"Shut up, Lindy," Tedda said, "you don't know what you're talking about." She resisted the urge to yell back that it was Moira she had killed, and that she felt sick about it, but what was done was done and they must all live on as best they could. She said simply: "Whatever I did, and may I remind you, miss righteousness, whatever you did, we did in another time and place."
Eduard caught up with them. "You're right, Tedda. Lindy, the worst thing you can do is beat each other up over imaginary wrongs."
Lindy turned on him with fierce eyes. "Imaginary! You have a nerve talking."
Eduard said calmly: "Do you know whom she is accused of murdering?"
Lindy shook her head in confusion and denial. Her eyes suddenly radiated dread and anticipation as the veil of falsehood began to crack.
Eduard said: "Does the name Moira Lindy mean anything to you?"
Lindy shook her head, but her eyes widened as memory apparently poured in. She raised her hands to her face and began to scream loudly. "No-o!"
"I'm sorry," Eduard said dutifully. "The truth can only help us, even if it is painful."
"I didn't want you to know," Tedda.
Lindy regarded her with unbelieving and speechless outrage.
They all heard a shout, and turned, just in time to see a terribly upset Wally Tonsonby. He must have looked into the Confessor's slot, guessed something had happened, and cried out in horror. As he turned, he slipped on wet loam and fell to one knee. Lurching up, he ran toward them pulling a revolver from his pocket. "What's going on here?"
Tedda realized it was the same weapon his rule had brandished down in Monopol City before dying in a hail of bullets. She faced Tonsonby and said: "You aren't just a technician or a lead software engineer, are you?"
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"I think you do," Tedda said. She did flinch then, because he cocked the hammer with a click that seemed to echo across the park under the wind-blown trees. For a long moment the four figures stood looking at one another. "Are you going to kill me?" Tedda asked. He stared at her, and she continued: "If the fatherland wanted me dead, they would have killed me long ago. You need me for some reason, don't you?"
Eduard cleared his throat. "They want to hunt down Hedrock. That's what it seems to be."
"Who is Hedrock?" Lindy said, her eyes still slits of hurt and fury, her fists balled at her sides.
"Your lover," Tedda said. "My husband."
Lindy's eyes opened wide in horror. "You—bitch! That is ridiculous. This gets more crazy by the moment."
"Easy," Eduard whispered to Tedda, "spare her."
"What are you talking about?" Wally said, aiming the revolver at Eduard.
Eduard regarded him coldly. "You're most likely a rule just like I am. Like Lindy here. Shoot me, and you accomplish nothing."
Wally looked from one to the other, and slowly uncocked his revolver and put it back in a secret holster at his back, under his jacket. "One of you killed the Confessor."
"Just another rule," Eduard quickly countered, before Wally could single out Tedda as the likely perpetrator.
"I've reached the end of the line," Tedda said. She was amazed at her own calmness and coldness. "I am tired of being screwed around with. I'd rather be dead than have to go near another horror like that snail thing in the hole there." She indicated the now-lifeless Confessor slot in the long white wall. Then she turned to Eduard. "Will you help me find my way back to my laboratory so I can read my papers and figure out what is going one, what I have to do next for our country?"
Eduard regarded her sympathetically. "I'll be glad to help, but I have only a vague idea where it is." He pointed away from the fortress, out over the university, and toward the cloudy horizon where East Gotha lay. "Somewhere out that way near the border."
Tedda looked at Wally. "Do you know where my laboratory is?"
He looked slightly confused. "I don't know now." He seemed to try to think. "I have a car, and we could take that. I guess you are right. The fatherland must need you, if they have gone to all this trouble to lock you up and keep you alive and even give you so much freedom."
Lindy said: "If she gets out, I'm going along."
"No," Eduard said quickly, "for your own sake, please don't do it."
Lindy pointed at Wally and yelled: "If you don't take me along, I'm going straight to the top. I'll turn you in as a traitor for letting this woman out of prison. They may spare her, but they'll execute you."
"Easy," Wally said.
"Lindy," Eduard said, "you don't understand. You and I are rules. That means we are people spun off from other people. We are created to do a job, to accomplish a purpose."
"What kind of nonsense is that?" Lindy looked close to tears.
Tedda started to explain: "Lindy, I think they wanted you close to me to keep an eye on me."
"Oh shut up!" Lindy yelled in Tedda's face.
Tedda tried once more: "Lindy, I'm accused of killing Moira, your source."
"Shut up, liar! Bitch!"
Eduard said: "It's important that you understand this, Lindy. Rules are not VR programs nor artificial beings. We are real people, spun off as part of the environment around us. We are copies, in a way, but we are each totally original, just like our source people. We don't die like they do, and the rules for our survival are a little different. If we stay in our realm of creation, like I was created or born in Monopol City, we live normal lives and die like any flesh and blood. This is all driven by the Go-dot subquark layer of reality, which is the basement of the basement of the basement of the house, so to speak. Its rules aren't magic but science; a science far ahead of its time, though Dr. Tedda took us on a great leap forward. My source and Wally's source are still alive, Lindy, but yours isn't. That's the problem. If you leave here, then I'm not even sure you can get back here even if you believe us and try to turn around."
"Lies," Lindy said. "I've been cooped up here for years, and I'm sick of it. Like this bitch here, I've had it. I'd rather die than stay here another day. I think it's terribly unjust that she killed someone and gets to leave here, but I only killed the man who was raping me, and I have to stay here forever." She bawled heartbrokenly: "They don't even tell you how long your sentence is. That's part of their cruelty. I can't stand this anymore!"
"Don't," Eduard cautioned, but Wally relented. "Okay, Lindy, you're in. Let's go." They walked together down the cobblestone walkway.
"Sh!" Wally said at one point, spreading his arms. They stood silently and listened. All Tedda heard was the brushing back and forth of long willow fronds dappled with sunshine. "I thought I heard hooves riding on the hill there," Wally said, pointing to the far end of the fortress. "Never mind, I must have been hearing things."
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