Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series)
Page 19
In a darkened room filled with exotic plant life and caged birds and earthbound predators, Didi and Childriss stood and studied their floating children. Some had oversized eyes, extra fingers, lengthened bodies. A few were already taking on their distinct coloration.
“Their individuating qualities are expressing themselves,” said Didi.
“Yes,” said Childriss. “Why... gods, look at the pecker on that one! Didi, did you go to the trouble to specifically encode that?”
“I did not,” said Didi, shaking his head violently. “You know I was remixing and splicing in broad ranges with little focus on specifics, William.”
Childriss muttered and eyed Didi with suspicion.
* * *
Nearly a week later they pulled more than forty surviving babies from the incubation vats. Childriss ran about in a frenzy gluing thick tiles to the walls for soundproofing while Didi tried to coax the babies to cease their shrieking.
“Hurry, William!” said Didi. “Someone will hear!”
“God dammit!” yelled Childriss, holding up one tile while another fell from the wall. “Who would have thought the bastards could make so much noise? And why didn’t we plan for this?! You’d think that the two greatest researchers in all of Haven would have foreseen something so commonplace!”
“Just hurry! Before we’re found out!” Didi finally soothed one child, a long-armed freak lying on a table that fell asleep gripping Didi’s ear. When Didi turned to a blue-skinned child to rub its belly, the long-armed babe was pulled along with him, and shrieked aloud once more as it nearly fell to the ground.
“The birds!” said Childriss. “Stir up the birds and get them to cover the sounds!”
“No, Childriss, that will only upset the children even more!”
Childriss looked over his shoulder and saw dozens of rainbow-colored, angry heads wailing and crying. “These brats should be grateful that we gave them life at all!”
* * *
Didi sat with a fat little baby sitting up on its own. A many-colored bird flapped in its cage and, when it did so, the child clapped with delight and laughed with its entire face.
“How goes the ‘research’?” said Childriss, dropping a large bundle near a stack of others.
Didi wiggled a finger at the cage, causing the bird to flap, and the child laughed again.
“What is this bird called, little one?” Didi said to the child. Childriss crinkled his nose with distaste, for Didi spoke in a lilting voice that Childriss thought unbecoming of him. “Come, little Number 27, what do you call this bird?”
The babe stared at Didi for a long time, then leaned back and forth as its eyes glossed over, considering the matter.
“No sense grilling the child,” said Childriss.
“Poo-tah-tah!” said the babe.
“That’s what you want to name it?” said Didi, smiling.
The babe laughed and clapped again.
Childriss shook his head, then sorted through his bundles. He felt cold, stiff arms and legs inside. He started up the grinder, a machine of his own devising, and prepared to liquefy the things that had been aborted by Mother Nature. Soon the toilet and its recycling system would take the dead unfortunates, and no one outside of their lab would be the wiser.
* * *
Days passed and the babes grew into children. The Guardians had found no demons during their patrols. Childriss no longer allowed any researchers to even come near their territory.
In the Play Room, Childriss wore a shit-smeared apron and stalked about while Didi stirred a large bowl of porridge. On the floor, one purple-skinned child rolled empty vials into one another, an orange-skinned boy made chirping sounds to which his floppy-eared cousin answered with shrill barks, and a pale-skinned lad who already had a full head of white hair played with the locking mechanism on an open cage, eyeing his parents all the while.
“Ten children,” said Childriss. “It’s amazing, Didi. I think they’ve all taken root. All are healthy. None have shown any debilitating sicknesses.”
“Healthy is debatable,” said Didi, glancing at the far corner. Number 39 sat in his cage, a blue-skinned hellion they could not trust around the others. “He’s showing increased aggression and psychotic tendencies. His social retardation will only be enforced with his constant incarceration. Not only that, but if you can get close enough to see it, William, I think the child already has some pubic hair growth.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad, Didi. He’s a troublemaker, he’s misunderstood. Why, they used to say the same thing about me, you know.”
Didi gestured to another cage. Its door was open. At its rear sat a red-skinned girl with very large eyes and a terrible scratch down the length of her face. “But, William, Number 23 has refused to move at all since she was attacked. Number 39 is a monster.”
“She’s weak,” said Childriss, refusing to look at her. “Hardy organisms endure stress every day. If she doesn’t get over it, then she’ll die. It’s as simple as that.”
Suddenly the blue-skinned child lashed out at the door of his cage, hissing and barking as if he’d been stabbed by an invisible dagger. He glared at Childriss.
“Ah-h-h,” said Childriss, “I guess we should keep an eye on him, at the very least.”
* * *
Pale-skinned Number 27 sat on Didi’s knee and traced the edges of his leg-brace with a little finger. Didi rocked him slightly. The child looked up at him and said, “Da Da.”
“Didi. It’s pronounced dee-dee.”
“Da Da!”
“Didi.”
“Da Da!”
“Well, alright.”
* * *
“Lights out, children,” said Didi. The rainbow heads of the little children looked at him from their cages, some snuggled up in their blankets, others looking about idly. The blue child, his cage separate from the others, glared at Didi malevolently. Didi turned out the lights, then left the room.
Didi creaked through the hallway. He saw Childriss sitting on his cot. Childriss watched him for a while, then Didi turned and moved on. Didi keyed in the code to the exit and left the research station.
Childriss sat in thought for a long time. These days with Didi weighed on him. It wasn’t the morally disturbing territory that worried him. It was Didi. His behavior with the children went beyond clinical curiosity. Childriss could tell that, on some level, Didi cared for them. He stared at the gray ceiling panel overhead, a shadow that stretched down from one corner, and he realized that all this time he had thought of Didi as a tool.
Didi was a genius. On more than one occasion Childriss had seen him pick out and identify a section of genetic code from their files without looking at any of the annotations that they fixed to sections of the code. A human should not be able to do that. The fact that Didi was a polymath, but still sat firmly within the autistic spectrum, had only contributed to Childriss thinking of him as a tool.
But it wasn’t only his “human” behavior with the children that disturbed him. He had spied Didi speaking to the soldier, Sevrik Clash, on more than one occasion. The two should have had nothing in common. Childriss had seen Clash interact with the other Guardians; he was a hard-faced lout, the same as any other, except for a quiet emotional reserve he sometimes displayed. But even that, really, seemed no different from usual Guardian posturing. Strangely enough, Clash and Didi seemed to enjoy one another’s company. Childriss had seen a novel look on Didi’s face - comfort? stimulation? - when around the Guardian. Rationally, it made little sense.
Childriss admitted to himself that he no longer trusted his friend. Not that he thought Didi would ever betray him, not outright. But that he was more than a tool, more than a mere lackey to Childriss’s own will, could no longer be denied. And then Childriss admitted to himself that, much as he despised weak men, he despised even more men who were just as capable as himself when it came to manipulating other people. That must be what Didi was doing by hanging around Clash – manipulating him.
Having no idea where his friend could be, Childriss walked without aim. As he circled their research station, he saw a slight break in the dark woods. His heart kicked in his chest. Somehow, beyond any rational explanation, he knew that Didi had taken that path. Childriss followed.
The hum of the generators faded almost immediately in the nearly complete darkness of the forest. There was the slithering of invisible forms, shrieking of insects - and, punctuating it all, the creak of a metal leg brace. Childriss stalked ahead.
All fear of the deep darkness and eternal cacophony receded as Childriss became aware of a distant calling. Something silently beckoned him. He soon forgot that he had been following the sound of the creaking leg brace. He followed the summons.
Childriss entered a moonlit clearing where a tall tree stood on a hilltop. Didi stood dwarfed under the tree, staring ahead. Childriss rose to join him. A warm breeze shivered the limbs of the tree, the silver flowers along its branches danced about, and a cloying perfume glided into Childriss. His awareness slid into timelessness. It took an eternity for Didi to turn around. Childriss saw all the workings of a thousand muscles that went into his friend’s movement, and even the ideas behind those movements, then the generations of development that went into the crafting of those thought-movements - then, all of a sudden, Didi was before him, and Didi’s smile stretched his face and folded its edges up into wrinkles such that Childriss’s mind was blasted, for nothing, nothing, in all of creation could explain the utterly blasphemous ridiculousness of such a gesture. Childriss felt soft grass touch at the back of his head, and even as he was aware that the world itself was the nightmare of a god, he heard himself laughing uncontrollably. He felt cold grass rubbing, wet, against his arms as he rolled back and forth, then felt the feeling of his action of rolling, then felt Didi watching him and his awareness painfully divided as he felt the joy and confusion in Didi’s mind just as sure as he felt it in himself.
“Didi! What in the hell!”
He heard himself say the phrase, then became painfully aware of each syllable, the movement of tongue and wind against throat. Each syllable was meaningless by itself, so he repeated each one again, slowly, then repeated the entire phrase backwards, very quickly, to prove to himself that a mirror image could have a life, an identity, all its own.
“Childriss!” said Didi, laughing. “Merlin calls from the crystal cave! Don’t you hear its voice? It’s been waiting for so long!” Then Didi raised both arms, like some wizard in a television program, and Childriss laughed even harder. He felt his ribs aching painfully and wondered, in some detached way, if his ribs would shatter from laughing harder than the human body was designed to laugh. Didi must have understood, for he laughed as well, turned about, and with arms still upraised he descended the far side of the hill.
Childriss laid alone on the hill for hours, perhaps longer. He heard the airships from Haven starting up in the distance. He heard them leaving, for they only had food and supplies for a few weeks, and Childriss laid on the hill that night until it was far past time for them to go. When all was quiet Childriss heard the babbling of a stream. Syllables... words? No, only a few syllables, over and over. It was a word. Was it a word? If it was a word, then it was a language... Childriss stopped himself. One word did not make a language, nor even a statement. The stream spoke meaninglessness, over and over. Every day it said the same, until the end of time… one great Nothing.
Childriss rose, passed under the great sweet-smelling tree, then descended the far side of the hill. Somehow Didi had not even made it down the other side of the hill yet, despite the fact that nearly one thousand years had passed. When Childriss caught up with him, Didi said, “It’s about time! Nearly starved to death waiting for you.”
“Time, starving, death,” said Childriss. “Yes. One, two, three. No four.”
“No, not even three. Or even two. Just one. Over and over.”
“Like the syllable in the stream.”
“What?”
“You know - kssshhhh...”
“Like that?”
“Yes,” said Childriss.
“Wait - like what?” said Didi, stopping suddenly.
“It’s as if... damn it! Forgot.”
Didi nodded as if he understood. Finally he pointed to the thin stream that wove in a ribbon around the base of the hill. The stream traveled over a shallow bed of stones. At the far end, under a slab of cold gray rock that jutted out from the earth, waited a black hole. Childriss felt it calling to him... and repelling him. A threatening being that waved its hand toward him, beckoning. It was alive. He knew in a rush that the thing was conscious, but without form.
The two entered the cave.
* * *
They stumbled out together, hacking and choking. Didi was doubled over in agony and Childriss held his friend close while throwing about fearful looks.
“The storm!” shouted Didi. “We’ll be hit by the lightning!”
“No, Didi! The sky is clear. Just be still.”
Childriss hauled Didi across the stream. His heart thundered out of control. He could still hear the unimaginable thing in the cave screaming at them, tearing their minds to shreds.
“The Ancients,” Didi muttered. “Oh gods, gods in hell, it could not have been like that…”
“Be still, Didi. Please, please, just shut up!”
They reached the edge of the stream and Childriss tripped, casting them both to the ground. Childriss dropped the thing he was holding but quickly scooped it back up. It was a manuscript written on thin, nearly-translucent paper. He had already tried to tear it to pieces, but could not. He saw Didi clutching his own strange treasure, a small steel orb with one hole on its surface. Didi held the thing as if letting it go would cast him into an endless black abyss. Childriss picked him up once more and roughly led him back up the hill. The awful, terrible tree stood over them, watching with a hundred thousand eyes, judging them. As they made their way uphill with awkward, lurching steps, Childriss saw the white moon staring through the branches, a wheel that the gods pushed through the sky in an endless dream. The thing looked alive, predatory, and Childriss tried to break into a run to escape the entire world.
When they reached the woods and the cover of darkness, Childriss almost felt relieved. Here the dangers were only mortal. If an animal sprang forth and devoured them it would be a blessing, a death easily understood.
He knew now, beyond any doubt, that his habit of cynicism was only the posturing of a child. The cave had stripped him of his innocence.
* * *
The next day they barely rose from their cots. Even when the children cried out for food, they could not summon the strength to feed them or clean them. Eventually the blue psychotic shrieked out a clearly-enunciated death-threat. They could not fully remember the night before, when…
Childriss rose once near midday and used the restroom. He found the small orb of steel and the lengthy manuscript, stuffed them into a chest, and locked the thing shut. With the key in hand he went to a sink, poured himself a drink of water, then swallowed the key and took a long drink. Exhausted, he laid down once more.
* * *
“You must never leave these rooms, children,” said Didi. “Never.”
“The doors are locked, the cages are secure,” Childriss called from the next room. “And it’s not like any of them can really understand you.”
“I can! I can! I can!” several of the children cried out.
Childriss shivered inside. Something about the act of speech, combined with what happened in the strange place they’d visit
ed, shook him to the core. He knew that he was playing with forces vastly larger than himself. Even the green child, Number 11, who cried out, “Myip! Myop! Myurp!” in her own babbling language, no longer brought him any comfort as she sometimes did to Didi.
“William!” Didi cried suddenly. “Come look at this!”
Childriss ran into the room. Didi pointed. Blue-skinned Number 39, the psychotic, lay still in his cage.
“Ah... he was not so hardy after all,” said Childriss. He went to the cage, stuck a finger in to feel that its leg was indeed cold, then opened the cage.
The creature stared upward, his face bloated, frozen in fury. His neck was indented all around, imprinted by ten little fingers. Childriss stepped back.
“Didi. The child’s been murdered. Strangled.”
“But the cage... was locked.”
“All of their cages were locked.”
Usually attentive and observant, the children suddenly became preoccupied with trifles. One fluffed a pillow absentmindedly while another picked at its toes.
Didi turned to the children. “Did any of your cages come open, children? Was there an electronic malfunction with the locks? It’s okay, you can tell Didi.”
But the children had lost their ability to speak.
* * *
Childriss glared at Didi from across the table.
“Didi!” he said through clenched teeth. “We should have cameras installed in here! Audio recorders at the very least!”
“No. We need no more incriminating evidence than we already have. All that we have here, now, can be disposed of. But electronic data... it has a way of getting loose.”
“More than just data can get loose, Didi! This thing that we’re doing here...”
“The only thing that you should worry about controlling,” said Didi, “is yourself. Our plan is sound. Our work is bearing fruit. Now is not the time to panic. How can we? We have already been to a place that…” Childriss turned away suddenly. “ To a place that has shown us that nothing we have done, or can ever do, is capable of matching the scale of abominations practiced by the Ancients. We are just men, Childriss. Miniscule, insignificant men.”