“N.”
“Who’s that with you?”
“Oldest member of the Group. Hic-Haec-Hoc.”
“Ah, yes. The Neanderthaler. What’s that cape-thing on his back?”
“A creature we brought back from space.”
“No! You don’t mean to tell me—”
“I do. Highly advanced exobiology for you to research, if you can persuade Tycho to let you keep it.”
At this moment the broadcasts began their regular carousel of commercials, and the complex filled with men, women, girls, children, doctors, lawyers, cartoon characters, all selling something. It was bedlam and it drove Twink mad with curiosity. It took off to examine the host, but since they were only three-dimensional illusions Twink kept flapping through them.
“I’ve been waiting for you for ages, Guig.”
“Didn’t you know where I was?”
“Not after Mexas City.” He hesitated. “How is she?”
“Fine. Still angry with our naughty brother.”
“She has a temper.”
“Why wait for me here, Chief?”
“I had a lot of work, weeks of it, debugging a program for the production of hermos here on Earth. And I knew you’d show up, sooner or later.”
“D’you know why?”
“To make a deal with me and the Extro.”
“Including the Rajah?”
“Who?”
“Ah! Then you don’t know his identity yet. The renegade killer who’s joined forces with the Extro to use you. He’s murdered Poulos. He nearly got Hillel. I’m probably next.” I turned to Hic and made forceful signs and grunts. He got the idea again, at last, and headed for the Extro. The Injun was perplexed.
“What’s all this, Guig?”
“Not a deal, a hit. We’re going to take the monkey off your back. We’re going to kill the Extro.”
He let out a yell that scattered the frightened cryos and made a dive at Hic, who was attacking the panels and fascia of the damned machine with his powerful hands. I made a dive at Guess, tackled him knee-high, and pulled him down.
There was no need for Sequoya to defend the computer; it had heard everything I said and was defending itself. Lights were shattering, with the fragments aimed downward; the air-cond blew up, more shrapnel; electronic locks on doors and software files burst and barraged us, circuits shorted and high-tension cables came sizzling down. Then the satellite computers were sacrificed. They began to blow up, and it seemed that the Extro would sacrifice every human in the complex, too.
An animal howl from Hic cut through the darkness and dementia. Guess and I froze and stared. One panel had been ripped from the Extro and we saw a lion within, glaring at us. The commercial carousel cast a confusing kaleidoscopic light on it. After a moment I saw that the lion was standing on its hind legs. After another I saw that it was a man wearing a lion mask. And then I realized it wasn’t a mask. It was a deformed face.
“Oh God! The big L.”
“What, Guig? What? What?”
The Chief and I climbed to our feet. “Lepcer … The final leonine stage… . It… . He… .”
He shambled out of a dim clearing in the Extro that looked like a small camp walled with electronic units. He was crook-gaited and spastic, yet with ominous power; the strength that comes with loss of control and the agonizing hypersensitivity of terminal Lepcer, the honing of the senses that precedes final anesthesia. And he stank. He filled the center with his big L. Hic-Haec-Hoc whined and disappeared.
“So many years since the spa, my dear Curzon,” the Rajah said, poised and courteous as ever. His voice was hoarse and broken, but still singsong. My mind squealed and darted, trying to escape what had to be faced.
“And this, of course, is the latest addition to the beautiful Group. I was beautiful myself once. Can you believe it, Dr. Guess? Yes, I know you. I have been watching you from the shadows for some time. I have been watching the entire Group. Give Dr. Guess my name, Curzon. My name and rank.”
It took all my courage to speak. “His Serene Highness, Prince Mahadeva Kauravas Bhina Arjuna, Maharajah of Bharat. The Group calls him the Rajah.”
“Delighted, Dr. Guess. I do not offer to shake hands or smite palms. Royal princes do not so greet commoners. It might be permitted to kiss my hand, but the touch of my skin is loathsome, even to myself. My dear Curzon, you did not tell him that I am also the avatar, the transfiguration of Siva on Earth.”
“I didn’t know, sir. Apologies.” My heart was watery but I was not to be outdone in poise. “So the renegade is really you, your Serene Highness. I could not believe it when Hillel told me.”
“Renegade, Curzon? Only a Jew unbeliever would say that. God, Curzon.” Abruptly he bawled, “God, Curzon. The divine Siva. We are Siva!”
I was convinced at last. Lepcer was the missing factor. The big L had turned an exquisite into a malignant enemy; stalking, lurking, destroying, literally a lion. This was the animal Long Lance had seen in the salt caverns. This was what had spooked the cryos and was deranging the Extro.
“I congratulate you on your choice of a hiding place, Rajah,” I said. “Your command post at the center of action? No one would ever dream of looking for you here. How did you make room for yourself in that damned clutter?”
“Discarded a few units, Curzon. It was less than a prefrontal lobotomy for the Extro, although it protested. Why is your pulse chattering, Dr. Guess? Are you fearful of Siva? Deny nothing. I hear it. I see it. A god senses all; everything is known, and this is why Siva’s destruction and creation are received with humility and love. Yes, humility and love for my destruction and regeneration of the void.”
“God in heaven!” I burst out. I was shaking. “Where is the regeneration for Fee, Poulos, Hillel’s arm, my home. Our—”
“Alas, not the little girl. I regret I did not destroy her. That was before my advent. The Greek, yes; a beautiful death. The Jew escaped me, but not a second time. No one escapes Siva twice.”
“Alas, not the little girl?” Sequoya repeated in a choked voice. “You regret you did not—! Alas?”
“Humility and love, Dr. Guess. It is the true worship of Siva.” Suddenly he raged in the Chief’s face. “Humility and love! I am the all, the one, the destruction and regeneration, and the linga is my sacred symbol. See! See with humility and love.”
He displayed his enormous, rotting symbol. We backed away in revulsion.
Abruptly the rage was replaced by sweet reason. “You will love me even as I destroy you, for I am the maker of miracles by virtue of the penance and meditation of fifty years.”
“You’ve suffered from Lepcer for half a century, Rajah? I—” But I was stammering so badly that I had to stop.
The lion head nodded graciously. The lion face almost smiled. “It is permitted to address me by that name, my dear Curzon. Siva is only one of our thousand names. Above all, we prefer Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer. So we are most often idealized in sacred images.”
He uttered a croaking, sawing song, “Ga-ma pa-da-ma pa-ga-ma ga-ri-sani-sa-ni ga-ri-sa… .” This is a slow 4/8 and 3/2 rhythm. Then faster, “Di na a na di na a na di na a na ka a ga a ka ga dhina na dhina na dhina-gana… .”
And he danced to it; solemn ritual stances, quick jerking movements, then pauses for poses; around us, around the Extro center, through the broadcast bedlam, through the debris and the crackling sparks of the shorted cables. He danced his cosmic dance with the convulsive frenzy of a spasmic rubber doll with arms, legs, hands and feet that seemed to crook the wrong way and flung their own debris. Each time he jerked his head left and right, tatters of hair scattered. Nails dropped off his fingers and toes. Each gasp for breath sprayed blood.
“This is the horror that’s been using me?” Sequoya squeezed out.
“With the Extro,” I mumbled. “They’ve been going steady.”
“I’ll take the goddamn machine. You take the damned god.”
“Wilco. Give the word.”
; We were both in a fever. The Rajah swept up to us. “Dhina na dhina na dhinagana… . ” The lion face glaring at us as hypnotic as the dance. The rubbery arms swung wide with tremendous power and knocked us apart.
“Now!” the Chief exploded, stumbled to the Extro, and began tearing at it. The burner was slung around my neck and I swung it forward to make the hit. It had to be a brain or heart shot. Siva was posturing before me in a sacred pose, arms high, hands cocked down, but there was a katar in one hand, sidebars protecting the sides of the wrist, fist clenched around the crosspice, and the broad blade punched down at my heart. All that hypnotic singing and cosmic dancing for this one moment.
I was absolutely confounded, but the burner saved me. I’d swung it before my chest and the katar plunged through it and muscle-deep into me. The burner shattered, blew widdershins, and I went over backward with the Rajah all over me; one blunted hand crunching my neck, the katar thrusting at me like a goring bull. I thrashed desperately, trying to escape a severed throat or a split heart. I couldn’t yell to Guess for help and I was blacking out when I was released as unexpectedly as I’d been attacked.
There was the Rajah, squirming and hissing in Hic’s hands. Hic loyal? Helpful? Coming to my rescue? Imposs. It must have been the instinctive hatred and loathing that makes so many animals turn on their sick and rend them. Hic transferred his powerful grip to the lion head, held it firm, and whirled the body in the air in a tremendous circle around the neck. There was one crack. The Rajah’s neck was broken.
I gimped to my feet again, staring. Hic had hit the wrong target, and yet it was the right one. Only I saw that there were two bodies. The other was Sequoya, with Twink wrapped around his head. Much later I reasoned that its electrotropism must have been attracted by the powerful combination of Uncas and the Extro; particularly after the frustration of the shadow broadcasts.
A strong voice spoke. “That’s enough, Curzon. He’s dead. Get that thing off.”
“Dead? No. I wanted—” Then I looked around in bewilderment One of the cryos repeated, “Get that thing off.”
“But—but you can’t talk.”
“We can now. We’re the Extro. Get the thing off Guess. Quick, Curzon. Move!”
I pulled Twink off the Chief.
“And no more demolition. Don’t let your friend start again.”
“Give me a good reason.”
“We’re in control now. It’s shifted to us. You know us. Will we permit it to go on making war?”
It had to be a quick decision and it was a tough one. I pulled Hic back from the Extro (he’d probably forgotten his mission anyway) and let him keep company with Twink again. The cryos knelt around the Chief and examined him with hands and ears.
“Dead, all right.”
“Everything’s stopped.”
“No, the heart is still spasming.”
“That’s like the case with electrocution.”
“We’ll have to regulate it again. That’s the least we can try.”
I wondered whether they were speaking from their own knowledge or the Extro’s; probably the latter, which was all right provided the hateful thing was properly humbled. They began an extraordinary cycle of operations. The Chief was pummeled, bent, flexed, stretched, loted, dangled, prone-pressured, and mouth-to-mouthed; again and again, always in the identical tempo, 78 to the minute. My own pulse was running much faster. At last they stopped and put ears to the Chief’s chest.
“Nominal,” they said. “We’ve got him back from the edge.” They looked around with their blind eyes.
“I’m here,” I said. “He’s going to live?”
“For a long time. Do you trust us, Curzon?”
“I have to, don’t I?”
“No. You can kill us easily. If that’s the way you want it, get it over with now.”
“After that, I trust you.”
“Ta. We won’t let you down. We’ll make the Extro behave. Why lose it?”
“Why indeed.”
“We’re going to repay your trust. Give us all available data on Lepcer. Maybe the Extro can suggest a line of research leading to a remedy. Don’t count on it?”
“Thank you.”
“Try to get some viable tissue from the remains of that girl to us. It may not be too late for cloning. Don’t count on it.”
“Would you lovable freaks care for a few bars of ‘Hail to the Chief’?”
They burst out laughing. “Take Guess, Curzon. He’s all yours. Keep in touch.”
I knelt alongside Guess. “Cherokee,” I said, “it’s me, your brother. Everything’s going to be gung.”
“Ha-ja-ja,” he burbled.
“You’re rid of the Extro. The cryos have taken it over and I believe they can be trusted to do right.”
“Ha-ja-ja.”
I looked at the cryos, who were busy restoring the damage Hic and the Chief had begun. “Hey, bods, he sounds like a baby.”
“Oh, he is, Curzon. When the Extro pulled out it left nothing behind. He’ll have to grow up all over again. Not to worry. He has plenty of time.”
15
Hic had to help me carry Sequoya out. The Chief couldn’t walk. He couldn’t talk. He was helpless. And he peed and shat in his tutta; he’d have to be diapered. I was relieved to get out of the complex before the cryos asked me to get rid of the Rajah. I flagged a pogo, we hauled Tecumseh in and made the tepee in one jump. The Group was waiting there, worried and tense. When they saw us lug the infant in they were flabbergasted.
“It’s all over now,” I said wearily. “We can talk and think out loud. We can take transport. We can do any damn thing we please. No more war.”
“But what happened to Guess?”
“He’ll be his old self in about twenty years. Just now all he needs is cleaning up. Give me a stiff belt and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
I tell and they listen, taking turns looking over the six-foot baby. Natoma was so fascinated by the events and so relieved that our brother had come out of the crisis alive that she forgot to be upset by his regression. All of them were delighted by the end of the Rajah threat, particularly Hilly, and no wonder. I could see he wanted to thank Hic-Haec-Hoc, but he knew better. There was no doubt that the Neanderthaler had forgotten all about it by now.
I said, “I know you all want to leave and go about your business, but please stay a little longer. I have one more mission and I may need your help afterward.”
“What is it?” Ozymandias asked in an asthmatic voice as thick as his body.
I told them about the cryo offer.
“Too late,” Hilly said. “I’m sorry. She’s been in too long.”
“I’ve got to try anyway. There’s always hope.”
“Not much.”
“It’s too dark, Guig. Dangerous. Wait until morning.”
“The longer I delay, the less hope.”
“Don’t go, Edward. You’ll never find her.”
“I’ve got to try, Nat.”
“Please listen to me. I—”
“Damn it, don’t you think I know it’s a ghoulish search?” I shouted. “I know it’s a rotten job, but I’ve got to try and get a part of the body for DNA-Cloning. If you can’t support me in my try because you’re jealous or whatever, at least don’t dissupport me, or whatever I mean.”
“You’ve made yourself v. clear, Edward.”
“R. Forgive my manners. I’ve had a hell of a day and the worst is yet to come.”
“We’ll go with you,” M’bantu offered.
“Thank you, no. More than one would only make it easier for a patrol chopper to spot us. I’ll go it alone. Sit tight, all. I’ll probably need you for messenger service. Back in an hour.”
I took a pogo to the edge of the burial ground and as I got out a chopper thrummed overhead playing its brilliant beam down and around. The light held on me for a moment and then moved on. I had no idea when the patrol would be back. It depended on how many private ops it had to police.
> It was night. It was nightugly, not because of the fear of death but from the revulsion of the living for rot and decay. You could smell the decomposition choking you as you approached; ammonia, nitrates, potash, phosphates, carrion putrefaction. Death couldn’t be wasted these days; every end product of life went into compost.
El Arrivederci filled about five acres—the public composts occupied ten times that space—and used the concrete foundations of the old Waldorf West Hotel which had been torn down forty years ago to make room for an office complex never built. The two thousand evictees had blocked the entire undertaking with a squatters’ rights lawsuit. The case had not yet come to trial and most of the parties concerned were rotting in composts themselves. Progress.
The foundations looked like a squared-off labyrinth; odd-sized boxes, squares, rectangles, even a few diamonds and pentagons, depending on what stress supports the original architects had designed. They were concrete walls, six feet high, three feet wide, and flat on top providing a walkway for workmen and funeral corteges. There weren’t many of the latter. You go to a compost once and never again, and the word gets around. The corpses are layered in with other organic refuse and chemicals, and the piles are kept flat on top to collect rain. After a long wet spell bones thrust up out of the decay.
Bones are always a nuisance when it comes time to empty a pit and ship the matured compost out. There’s a giant steel mesh mounted on pillars in the loading area. It’s used to screen out the coarse rubbish, and the heaped bones and skulls make it look like a danse macabre. I’d seen all that the day I followed Free-5’s body to the pit to make sure she was treated respectfully.
This was night. The night was dry … the whole week had been dry … and I was startled by the “fire-fang,” as it’s called, shuddering in some of the pits. It’s generated by the intense heat of fermentation and the flames were parti-colored from the chemicals. I could see by the light of the fire-fang and didn’t need the lampland torch I’d brought to find my way.
I threaded across the compost on the walkways to the small pit where I remembered Fee being placed. The miasma was strangling me. The pit was dark, no flames, so I switched on the torch. Just a flat surface of straw some three feet below. I steadied my nerve and dropped down. The straw was spongy. The heat was burning, and I knew I’d have to work fast or I’d be roasted unconscious. I clawed the straw aside, reached a layer of crushed limestone, shoveled that back with my hands, and there was a bloated body, peeling, shredding, rotting. Not Fee. A man. I vomited.
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