The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga)
Page 44
My legacy, he thought, in a rare moment of self-analysis. Instantly, he regretted the introspection, for it brought to the surface vaguely unpleasant images from his former life. He had been told over and over again by his counselors that cribloc injections and neural restructuring were never one hundred percent perfect. Sometimes, former memories would leak through.
This time, Spigot saw a beautiful golden-haired woman. She was sitting next to him, on a wide plush sofa. She was whispering in his ear.
Come to me, Corelli-Paul. I desire you.
Spigot had no idea who Corelli-Paul was. Perhaps that had once been his own name. But it remained a mere phonetic sound, detached from identity. In fact, none of the words meant anything to him. Even the golden-haired woman's obvious sexual advance produced no corresponding desire. Other injections had neutralized those sorts of longings.
Spigot squeezed his eyes shut—a technique which usually provided quick mnemonic relief It worked. The images rapidly faded.
"Downsiders—get ready!” announced the matron.
Spigot—from his spot on the field where his board had stopped when the caution lights came on—leaned slightly forward. His helmet lights went green. His board leaped forward.
The game restarted.
* * *
"Thank you for seeing me,” said Susan. She remained standing in the doorway, abruptly uncertain about her reasons for coming here. After all, this man was almost a complete stranger; their few meetings had occurred over two years ago, during those debriefing sessions following her recovery.
"Please,” offered the Lion, waving his arm toward one of the chairs in the center of his private office.
Susan forced a quick smile and sat down. She folded her hands tightly, squeezed them between her knees. The Lion assumed a seat directly across from her. She swallowed, began tentatively.
"Your retreat ... it's very beautiful. The woods ... this house..."
"Thank you."
"It must have been completely rebuilt ... following the ... Paratwa.” She hesitated. “A great deal of effort must have gone into its restoration."
"A great deal,” said the Lion. “Calvin's attack did horrendous damage to the A-frame."
"I saw the memorial,” she blurted out. “On the lawn ... the plaque listing the names of the dead..."
"Thirty-two of them,” murmured the Lion, “fifteen from E-Tech and seventeen from the clans.” His thoughts automatically returned to that terrible day, and he wondered again, Why are you here? He hoped Susan Quint had good reason for stirring up the past.
"It's good not to forget,” she said, in a tone of voice suggesting just the opposite.
The Lion frowned. “Costeaus have always prided themselves on having long memories. The recollection of injustice, of tragedy—these things are part of our heritage."
Susan dug her palms even deeper between her knees.
"Would you like ... refreshment?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. Thank you."
He waited. She said nothing, keeping her gaze locked on her bundled knees. Finally:
"I've been seeing a psych counselor for a while now. But recently, it's been ... especially difficult for me..."
"Gillian?” asked the Lion.
She wagged her head, as if thankful he had been the first to utter the name.
"Yes, Gillian.” Susan squirmed in the chair. “In the beginning ... in the months after he went away, I used to have intense dreams about him. Almost every night. I could barely sleep. That phase eventually passed.
"For a while, things were all right again. I went back to work. I actually found a job without Aunt Inez's help.” A hesitant smile crossed her face, then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
"But lately, the strangest thing has been happening to me. My psych counselor ... she's a bit stymied. I mean, I'm a genuine one-of-a-kind. A human—a genejob, actually—who briefly became the tway of a Paratwa. And as my psych counselor frequently points out, our current comprehension of T-psionic forces is little better than the pre-Apocalyptics’ understanding of such phenomena.
"Still, my counselor has a theory. She believes that since my subconscious mind no longer dreams about Gillian, I may have undergone something called a mnemonic transposition. In other words, those tremendous feelings occasioned by my brief fusion with Gillian—the very power of that binary interlace which placed us in such extraordinarily intimate coalescence—those feelings may be coming back to haunt me. Since those emotions can no longer find release in my dream life, they're being expressed in another way."
"In what way?” the Lion asked gently.
Susan drew a deep breath. “I guess you could call it ... a mental affliction."
The Lion frowned. “Your psych counselor ... did she suggest that you come here?"
"Not exactly ... not in so many words. But she did say that it might be a good idea if I sought out people from Gillian's past. People who knew him well."
"I see.” He turned away to gaze at a permanent holo occupying the corner of his desk. The statue showed his wife Mela, posed beside a replica of a twentieth century sailing ship. The surrealist artwork had been created just last month, in the sea colony of Aegean, during a glorious three-week vacation.
Mela looked happy; her smile was a composite of cool but vibrant colors, the most clearly discernible element of the 3-D artist's juxtaposition of hue and form. Warmth infused the Lion as he recalled the day of the holo's creation.
He turned back to Susan. “The truth is, I did not know Gillian very well. He was someone who had an extraordinary impact upon my life ... someone whose actions altered the course of my existence. Yet, at a certain level, we were barely more than acquaintances."
She nodded. “From what I've read, I was sort of left with that impression. Still ... I thought that you would be the easiest person to approach. Gillian did not have many friends. I was going to see Nick, but ... well, I was watching some of his telecasts recently and ... he seems so ... I'm not sure how to describe it..."
"Utterly outrageous?” suggested the Lion, chuckling. Susan forced a smile. “I suppose so. I never paid much attention to the freelancers. I've seen Zork-Morgan a few times. But Nick ... his presentation is even more ... intense."
"Yes,” murmured the Lion, “he is intense. Did you know that his show has recently surpassed Zork-Morgan's in popularity? Reckoning with the Czar is now the top-rated daily freelancer report."
"I'm not surprised. At any rate, I decided to come here first. The only other real choice was ... Meridian. Do you know him well?"
"I know him."
"Since he was released from quarantine last month, he's theoretically ... accessible."
"Theoretically,” agreed the Lion. “But the doctors still keep him quite occupied.” He paused. “The fountain of youth ... it remains a zealous quest."
She nodded. “I suppose so."
The Lion prodded. “So what is this ... mental affliction of yours?"
Susan forced her knees apart, withdrew her fisted hands, laid them in her lap. “As I said, my counselor thinks that it might be merely old feelings being expressed in a new way. But ... I'm not so sure."
The Lion waited patiently.
"You see, I just can't figure out why my memories of Gillian would be continually expressed in this one specific way.” She stopped again, feeling suddenly—inexplicably—flustered.
"Say what must be said,” he advised.
"Yes, you're right. My counselor tells me the same thing—sometimes I don't come to the point."
She took another deep breath. “It's my hands. You see, every time I look at my hands, and then close my eyes, a certain phrase—a phrase endowed with strange feeling—comes into my mind."
Susan opened her fists, extended the fingers, stared down at her open palms.
"I see two hands. I see ten fingers. I see a broken nail. A couple of wrinkles. I see knuckles. Lines through the skin. I see fingerprints. Normal images, right?"
She closed her eyes.
"And now ... I see something else. Now I see hands that could reach out to destroy the fabric of all that they touch. Now I see the hands of chaos."
The Lion frowned.
Susan opened her eyes, swallowed hard. “I don't know what it means. I thought maybe ... you might know. ‘The hands of chaos?’ Is that an expression ... something Gillian used to say?"
The Lion remembered. It had been the day of the massacre. Gillian's written message, delivered by Buff. He had kept the actual slip of paper, but there was no need to retrieve it.
He closed his eyes and quoted:
"The pressure never yields. Being more than one and less than one—simultaneously—is like living within a cracked sphere. And every day, fractures grow larger, threatening to shatter my life into fragments. I want to fight and destroy. I want to be fought, be destroyed. The hands of chaos cannot be denied."
He related the origins of the message.
Susan looked down at her palms. But with her eyes open, the word/feeling was gone. Her hands were merely hands again.
The Lion shrugged. “That's the only reference I can recall."
For a long moment, she stared at him, and he was left with the impression that Susan Quint contained desires which transcended any hope for gratification.
Abruptly, she stood up. The Lion rose with her.
"Thank you again for seeing me."
"It was my pleasure."
He walked her to the door. But as the portal opened, as she prepared to step through it, the Lion placed an arm across her path.
She turned slowly back to him. Her eyes, brimming with expectation, met his.
"I have to know,” she whispered.
"I understand,” he said gently. “And I realize that you did not come here for advice ... not really. But I'm going to give you some anyway.
"Learn to live with it, Susan. Keep it inside, no matter how awful that seems, no matter how hard it is for you. Especially, don't go to Nick or Meridian."
"But I have to know."
"They'll make your life hell."
She sighed. “One way or another, I have to answer the question. Is Gillian still inside me? Is he still a living amalgam within the deepest whirlpools of my subconscious? Or is the ‘hands of chaos’ just some mental trick I'm playing on myself, or some weird memory residue, a useless bit of flotsam from the days when we were together?"
"But that's not your real question, is it?"
Susan shook her head. “No. Not really. I suppose what I really want to know is...
"Is he coming back?"
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 by Christopher Hinz
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-1977-7
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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