The leader raises his hand and pauses to wait for his men to reach their positions. The men raise their guns and aim them. Still there is nothing I can see that I can be sure of. But their quarry, realizing that he/it is discovered, bursts like a black thunderbolt from its hiding place in the crowd of shadows.
At first glance I think that it is a man, unclothed above the waist despite the bitter cold. Then I perceive that the creature is naked below the waist as well, but unhuman. His abdomen sweeps from pale flesh to thick bay fur, short and straight. Where a man would have possessed stocky, heavily muscled legs, he had long, graceful ones tapering to small hooves. Behind, there is a second abdomen, supported by powerful hind legs. A long tail swirls out at the base of the spine.
It is a centaur.
Soundlessly, the guns go off, their operation betrayed only by the livid splashes of color accompanying the explosions. The centaur zigzags madly through the trees, apparently unhurt by the first blast. It finds a lone human blocking its way and careers away to its right, charging straight into the sights of the main party of three. The leader aims his rifle, but it is kicked away by flying hooves as the centaur rears to an awesome height. The gun flies away, and the hunter falls back, his arms protecting his face. The second gunman drops to his knees, and the man with the staff thrusts it fiercely into the human solar plexus. The man-beast collapses to one knee, and the kneeling man lets loose a blast of fire. The pole is raised to strike again, but the creature, blood pouring from a shoulder wound, stumbles away from the men.
The other two draw in, firing twice each, quickly. The centaur falls, its skull shattered and its body bleeding from two or three more wounds.
The leader staggers to his feet, brushing off the snow, while the others tie the centaur’s feet together and thread the pole under the knots so that it can be carried. They set off clumsily, boots sinking deep into the soft surface, four supporting the pole and the dead beast, the erstwhile leader bringing up the rear, carrying two of the guns. Their faces are averted from the direction of the driving snow, and for a moment I think they will not see me.
But one looks up, and they stop. Sudden shock registers on their faces. Their eyes grow wide, and their foreheads crease, with surprise, disbelief, and fear . . . and something else. I think it must be guilt. I watch the shock die away, and all that remains is the savage hunger and perhaps a hint, no more, of guilt.
The leader opens his mouth to speak to me.
this is titan base calling harker lee. come in harker lee. acknowledge please. acknowledge, harker lee.
But no sound comes out.
As I pass by a rock-surrounded pool, which is replenished at every tide by gray salt water, I hear the voices of the Medusae. I pause to listen, but I do not dare look over the rocks to taste the horror of their snake-limbed features.
harker lee
“Sister,” wail the two who guide the third (for she is blind, with eyes of black jet), “do not look into our faces. Already they are frozen into terrible masks.”
“Where are you
harker lee
?” asks the blind one, and I can imagine her head turning as her black eyes wander in their futile quest.
“Sister,” they implore, “turn not your head.”
“I cannot see you,” she complains in anguish.
acknowledge
“Sister, look out
harker lee
to sea!”
“I am
harker lee
lonely,” says the blind one, and she weeps. As the sea waves beat around her crab-clawed feet, her tears dissolve the jagged spurs of stone around the pool and envenom the sea.
this is titan base
and envenom the sea.
this is titan base
and envenom the sea. . . .
calling
calling
calling
Titan Nine
Where No Man Has Gone Before, Beyond the Split Infinitive
I said something, but it wasn’t words.
There was silence. Shock silence. More silence than shock.
Then . . .
“Is that you? Harker, is that you? We hear you, Harker. This is titan base. We hear you, Harker.”
My throat was dry. I felt as though I had a king-sized hangover. I could hear burbling from the speaker. It was panic. Rushing about. Disbelief. Anguish.
“I heard him. I tell you I heard him. He didn’t say anything, but I heard him. I heard him.”
Silly bastard.
“Ta . . . ke it . . . ea . . sy,” I said. It was difficult. I coughed.
“There! That’s him. You heard him. Never mind me. Talk to him. Give it to me. Harker! Harker! We hear you. Take it easy yourself, Harker. Just take it easy. You made it, Harker. You made it.”
I didn’t say anything. For the moment. I didn’t have anything else to say. I waited. I could hear the action still drifting wordlessly over the radio as people moved beyond the microphone at the other end. They sounded right next door. They were right next door, there was hardly any lag. Where was I? I didn’t like to ask. What a line! I must be late. I’m too close. The ship must be almost home.
“Hello, Harker.”
“Not so loud,” I told him, almost before he started.
“Sorry, Harker. This is Fred Jacobson. Are you all right?”
“As well as can be expected.”
I heard him exhale noisily. “Am I glad to hear your voice,” he said. “Am I just glad?”
“Didn’t you think I was coming?”
“Man, you been away a long time. You’re late, do you realize that? You’re very late. You been out there for days without a peep. You had us all very worried, you know that?”
“If I’d known about it I’d have been very worried myself,” I told him. “I just now woke up with a head like a furry teacup.”
“You’re days late,” said Jacobson, repeating himself like a parrot.
“Yeah,” I said, quietly. “Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?” And I laughed. Weakly.
“Take it easy, man,” said Jacobson. “No rush. Take your time.”
I found to my surprise that I could flex my fingers and wriggle a bit inside the clamps. I did, and it felt terrible. Painful. I really was back. All the way. I was cold-sweating something terrible, and I felt as though I’d left my legs behind.
“What’s my pulse rate?” I asked.
Pause.
“Sixty-nine, Harker. Your pulse is sixty-nine.”
“Stop saying everything twice,” I told him. “That’s great. Sixty-nine. I’m almost healthy.”
“You’re okay,” Jacobson confirmed, as if it were a miracle. “The important thing is how you feel.”
“Ugly,” I said. “Just a bit. How long do I have to stay in this thing?”
“Till touchdown.”
“I know that. How long?”
“Two hours and eleven minutes.”
“Two hours!”
“I told you you were late.”
“Dammitall, I could have had a couple of hours’ sleep.” I laughed too long and too loud. I sounded hysterical. “Reception committee all gone home, have they?” I said. “President back in the White House, Hurst in the doghouse, crowds gone back to rent-a-crowd? The band didn’t have to learn the Stars and Stripes after all?”
“You’re so right, Harker,” he said, entering into the silly spirit of the thing. “It’s like a wet Sunday in Beverly Hills down here. But we’ve got the phones jammed right now. The news is spreading.”
“Lucky old Hurst,” I said. “This is the moment he’s always dreamed of.”
Silence.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Four-twenty. Afternoon.”
“I didn’t get you
out of bed, then.”
“Nobody sleeps these days,”
“Really? You can get good pills, you know.”
He sighed. “You sound really great,” he said. He sounded really paternal. “Just like you never went away.”
“I’ve been right by the phone all the way,” I said. “Never even stepped outside to take a look at the view. No postcards from Proxima this trip.”
“What happened, Harker?”
“Just a little trip.”
“Bad?”
“Not good.”
“You remember?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“Why were you late?”
“My alarm clock didn’t go off.”
“We’ve been calling virtually nonstop throughout the time since you came back to normal space. A signal went out every four minutes. We’ve had a man here every second. There was never a sound, no matter how hard we shouted. Your medical checkout was fine. As soon as Dr. Segal saw your monitor trace she said you’d be fine, but when we couldn’t raise you . . . Well, I guess even she had her doubts. She’s on her way here now. Henneker’s been chewing the carpet. I’ve lost hair.”
“How about Mike?”
Silence. Not pregnant silence, but the kind I was more used to. Deflated silence. Have you ever killed a good conversation by saying exactly the wrong thing?
He must have figured the silence had already told me, because when he spoke, it was only to confirm what I knew.
“He’s dead, Harker.”
“Poor bastard,” I said, all but under my breath. “He shouldn’t have done that. He should have waited.”
Silence.
“When?” I asked.
More silence.
“He died about an hour before you took off, Harker. We didn’t tell you.”
“You didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” I said, dryly. “All those days of small talk. I sent messages back to him. Any kind of stupid crap, just to keep me from being pig-sick and fed up. But you couldn’t tell me. Not you, not anybody. Whose idea was it?”
“We didn’t dare,” said Jacobson.
“You thought it might upset me.”
“Yes.”
“Well it damn well has. And you reckon I was late. What the hell did you think? That if I knew the old man had died I’d die myself of despair? Did you?”
“No,” he said. “But it couldn’t help. We wanted to help. We couldn’t tell you.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said. “It’s nice to know that people really feel for me.”
“I run a Project, Harker.”
“So do I, friend. So do I. The same damn Project, if you want to know. You know, I like to know these little details.”
It was a good time to be quiet. He was saved by the appearance of someone I’d much rather talk to. He passed over the microphone.
“Hi, Jenny,” I said.
There was a shuffle.
“Hello, Harker,” she said. The warmth that came a thousand miles to meet me had to be felt to be believed.
“You were right,” I told her.
“I know,” she replied.
I was temporarily at a loss. The radio was about as private as a World Heavyweight Boxing Championship fight. It was a great opportunity for insulting enemies, pushing our PR department copy, and being a big bore. It wasn’t actually the right place and time for talking to Jenny, saying things I wanted to say.
“Do I go into quarantine?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said.
“You be there?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I want a cigarette, a drink — not beer — and some food. Mush, I guess. All I can stand is mush. I want to be human enough to take a shower.”
“I’ll get it.”
“You don’t have to prepare the mush. Light the cigarette yourself, okay?”
“I will.”
“How’s everything?”
“Running smoothly.”
“You miss me?”
“Yes.”
“You still expecting me back?”
“Are you late?” she asked, sounding infinitely tired and infinitely relaxed. “There’s been so much to do. I hadn’t really noticed.”
“Never a dull moment in the secondhand marble business.”
“My time’s all taken up,” she said.
“I know how you feel,” I said.
“No you don’t.”
“I hope you can fit me in.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I’ll see you,” I promised.
“I’ll put the routine boys back on,” she said. “I’ll be here. But posterity is listening. Take it easy.”
“Hello, routine,” I said. “Happy New Year from the stars.”
“It’s July,” said somebody.
“Forget it,” I said.
“Hi,” she said.
“No crowds,” I said.
“No crowds.”
“No cameras, no microphones? Off the record for once? They owe me that.”
“No cameras and no microphones. Medical privilege.”
“Damn. Alone at last.”
“It sure as hell didn’t do you any harm did it?” she said, and I could see that she was in tears. Happy tears, which didn’t affect her voice, but just oozed and crept down her cheeks.
“No,” I said. “It didn’t do me any harm. No worse than a big drunk or having a tooth out with gas. I’ve seen bigger space monsters sitting up trees.”
“I’m glad,” she said. Simple as that.
It was as simple as that.
“I’m the same,” I said. “You weren’t looking for a miracle?”
“After all that time,” she said, “wouldn’t you be looking for miracles?”
“Sorry about that. I guess I just couldn’t tear myself away.”
“You did it, though.”
“I did it, though.”
She put a hand on my forehead. The cold sweats were finished. The hangover was dwindling.
“Am I here?” I asked her. “Am I here and not laid out in the bed next to Lindquist?”
“You’re here,” she told me.
“You could be just saying that.”
“Then you’ll never know.”
“I want to be here,” I said. “Not in the bed next to Lindquist. I couldn’t stand that.”
“It’s real,” she told me.
“Back in the cage.”
“Aren’t we all? Did you ever leave it?”
“I left it. I think. So what? One cage, another cage . . .”
“Stop it,” she said.
“Poor Johnny Lindquist,” I said. “He’d have made a great hero. A really first-class hero. Hurst won’t. Not really.”
“You’re the hero.”
“Mike Sobieski is the hero. He died before I came back, before I even went up. It doesn’t matter. It’s his triumph. He’s the hero.”
“Maybe.”
“So we reached that great big asylum in the sky,” I said to her. “A ray of light in a cage of darkness . . . no, that’s silly. We reached the stars. There might be a way, you know. There might be a way for you, and for them, and for Lindquist. Even for Mike. You could be wrong, you know.”
“I hope I am,” she said.
The tears had all dried up.
I hope she is, too.
Madman’s Dance
Adeste Fideles, Laete Triumphantes
Adrift in a crystal ball.
All that is visible in a maelstrom of shadows and specters and colored chaos is a dendritic cloud: a mighty silver oak whose acorns are drops of golden starshine, whose leaves are burnished copper shades of sunset, whose buds are shafts of light, whose fleurs du mal are
sandstorms.
It stretches unattainably into the unimaginable distance. I am one with its network of roots, its web gleaming from the soil of shadows. It grows away from me in all directions like a crystal lattice, like a reta mirabile, like tangled silken hair, like great staring eyes mirroring love and fire.
The sinuous twisting of its leaves in a nonexistent breeze tantalizes my blind mind. They twirl themselves into my skull like corkscrews and stir the emptiness of my brain.
The buds, like navels, stark in the sheaths of the growing points, radiate light and a sound which penetrates deep into my bowels. A voice from the dark, into the dark again. A voice from beyond the grave and beyond the stars. A voice from seven hells aflame, a voice which strikes deep into my frozen being, denying, defying the soul which looks on, unafraid and without understanding.
The blooming flowers like the eyes of hell’s gate. The twin pools of blurred heaven that meet in love and kindness, and might almost manage to communicate. The spring of existence. Dead eyes. Mine. No reply. In the dream of deathlessness, they reject everything. Utterly and absolutely. Renounce the whole universe. Forbid even laughter. No understanding.
The seed of the tree, like blind, swimming sperm, singing in the lacework branches, falling slowly so slowly so slowly so . . .
harker, this is jenny.
They turn in flight, head over heels, changing shape like drops of water on a hot plate. And to the soul, they are water — immaterial. And slowly still they fly. Down deep into the heart of heartless mind, a brokenhearted mind, a broken-minded heart. Diving for the cool calm cool calm cool . . .
harker, i know you can hear me. all you have to do is listen, harker. you can hear me. you’re alive. listen to me, harker.
ocean of emotion. And never reaching. Always a little further on, dreaming in the dankness of absolute nothing. The emotions are a cipher, a zero, a nonmeaning. Their stillness is a perfection.
And they land, in the dry dusty dry dusty dry . . .
this is jenny, harker. say something. say anything. just make a noise. show us some way that you know what’s happening, that you know what’s going on. let us know that you’re coming back, harker. this is jenny, harker. answer me, harker. please answer me.
desert of the emptiness, where only the soul lives in a cave, coming out to pick the bones of consciousness at dawn and evening.
Man in a Cage Page 23