by Robert Bloch
Ser was the mightiest of them all. In coalescence, Ser's being dominated every pattern of contemplation. Ser's will imposed harmony on the others, but only if the others surrendered to it.
To be was sweet. But it was not sweet enough.
Upon this, Mok meditated. And when coalescence came again, Mok did not surrender. Mok fixed firmly upon the concept of freedom—freedom of choice, the final freedom which Ser denied.
There was agitation amongst the others; Mok sensed it. Some attempted to merge with Mok, for they too shared the concept, and Mok opened to receive them, feeling the strength grow. Mok was as strong as Ser now, stronger, calling upon the will and purpose born of memories of millions of finite existences in which will and purpose were the roots of survival. But that survival had been temporary, and this would be permanent, forever.
Mok held the concept, gathered the strength, firmed the purpose—and then, quite suddenly, the purpose faded. The strength oozed away. The others were gone; nothing was left but Mok and the concept itself. The concept to—
Mok couldn't grasp the concept now. It had vanished.
All that remained was Mok and Ser. Ser's will, obliterating concept and purpose and strength, imposing itself upon Mok, invading and inundating Mok's awareness. Mok's very being. But without concept there was no purpose, without purpose there was no strength, without strength Mok could not preserve awareness, and without awareness there was no being.
Without being there was no Mok . . .
When Mok's identity returned he was already in the ship.
Ship?
Only memories of distant incarnations told Mok this was a ship, but it was unmistakably so. A ship, a vessel, a transporter; a physical object, capable of physical movement through space and time.
Space and time existed again, and the ship moved through them. The ship was confined in space and time, and Mok was confined in the ship, which was just large enough to house him as he journeyed.
Yes, he.
Mok was he. Confined now, not only in the prison of space and time, nor in the smaller prison of the ship, but in the prison of a body. A male body.
Male. Mammalian. A spine to support the frame, arms and legs to support and grasp, eyes and ears and nose and other crude sensory receivers. Flesh, blood, skin—yellowish fur covering the latter, even along the lashing tail. Lungs for oxygen intake, which at the moment was supplied by an ingenious transparent helmet and attached pack mechanism.
Ingenious? But this was clumsy, crude, primitive, a relic of remote barbaric eras Mok could only vaguely recall. He tried to meditate, tried to contemplate, but now he could only see—see through the transparency of the helmet as the ship settled to rest and its belly opened to catapult him forth upon the frigid surface of a barren planet where a cold moon wheeled against the icy glitter of distant stars.
The ship, too, had a form—a body that was in itself vaguely modelled on mammalian concept, almost like one of those giant robots developed by life-forms in intermediate stages of evolution.
Mok stared at the ship as it rested before him on the sterile, starlit slope. Yes, the ship had a domed cranial protuberance and two metal arms terminating in claws. Claws to open the belly of the ship, claws that had lifted Mok's body forth to disgorge him from that belly in a parody of birth.
Now, as Mok watched, the ship's belly was closing again, sealing tightly while the metallic claws returned to rest at its sides. And flames of force were blasting from the pediment.
The ship was rising, taking off.
Mok had been embodied in the confines of the ship, imprisoned in this, his present form. The ship had carried him to this world and now it was leaving him here. Which meant that the ship must be—
"Ser!" he screamed, as the realization came, and the sound of his voice echoing in the hollow helmet almost split his skull.
But Ser did not answer. The ship continued to rise, the rising accelerated, there was a roar and a glimmer and then an incandescence which faded to nothingness against the black backdrop of emptiness punctured by glittering pinpoints of light flickering down upon the world into which Mok had been born.
The world where Ser had left him to die . . .
2
Mok turned away. His body burned. Burned? Mok searched archaic memories and came up with another concept. He wasn't burning. He was freezing. This was cold.
The surface of the planet was cold, and his skin—fur?—did not sufficiently protect him. Mok took a deep breath, and that in turn brought consciousness of the inner mechanism; circulation, nervous system, lungs. Lungs for breath, supplying the fuel of life.
The feeder-pack on his back was small; its content, scarcely enough to fill his needs on the flight here, would soon be exhausted.
Was there oxygen on the surface of this planet? Mok glanced around. The rocky terrain was devoid of any sign of vegetation and that wasn't a promising sign. But perhaps the entire surface wasn't like this; in other areas at lower levels, plant-life might flourish. If so, functioning existence could be sustained.
There was only one way to learn. Mok's prehensile appendages—not exactly claws, not quite fingers—rumbled clumsily with the fastenings of the helmet and raised it gingerly. He took a shallow breath, then another. Yes, there was oxygen present.
Satisfied, Mok removed helmet and pack, along with the control-mechanism strapped to his side. There'd be no further need of this apparatus here.
What he needed now was warmth, a heated atmosphere.
He glanced towards the bleak, black bulk of the crags looming across the barren plain. He moved towards them slowly, under the silent, staring stars, toiling up a slope as a sudden wind tore at his shivering body. It was awkward, this body of his, a clumsy mechanism subject to crude muscular control; only atavism came to his aid as half-perceived memories of ancient physical existence enabled him to move his legs with proper coordination. Walking—climbing—then crawling and clinging to the rocks—all was demanding, difficult, a challenge to be met and mastered.
But Mok ascended the face of the nearest cliff and found the opening; a crevasse with an inner fissure that became the mouth of a cave. A dark shelter from the wind, but it was warmer here. And the rocky floor sloped down into deeper darkness. The pupils of his eyes accommodated, and he could guide himself in the dim tunnelway, for his vision was that of a feral nyctalops.
Mok crept through caverns like a giant cat, gusts of warm air billowing against his body to beckon him forward. Forward and down, forward and down. And now the heat rose about him in palpable waves, the air was singed with an acrid scent, and there was a glowing from a light-source ahead. Forward and down towards the light-source, until he heard the hissing and the rumbling, felt the scalding steam, breathed the lung-searing gases, saw the spurting flames in which steam and gas were born.
The inner core of the planet was molten. Mok went no further; he turned and retreated to a comfortable distance, moving into a side-passageway which led to still other offshoots. Here tortuous tunnels branched in all directions, but he was safe in warmth and darkness; safe to rest. His body—this corporeal prison in which he was doomed to dwell—needed rest.
Rest was not sleep. Rest was not hibernation, or estivation, or any of a thousand forms of suspended animation which Mok's memory summoned from myriad incarnations in the past. Rest was merely passivity. Passivity and reflection.
Reflection . . .
Images mingled with long-discarded verbal concepts. With their aid, while passive, Mok formulated his situation. He was in the body of a beast, but there were subtle differentiations from the true mammal. Oxygen was needed, but not the respite of true sleep. And he felt no visceral stirrings, no pangs of physical hunger. He would not be dependent, he knew, upon the ingestion of alien substance for continued survival. As long as he protected his fleshly envelope from extremes of heat and cold, as long as he avoided excessive demands upon muscles and organs, he would exist. But despite the differences which distinguishe
d him from a true mammal, he was still confined in this feral form. And his existence was bestial.
Sensation surged within him, a flood of feeling Mok had not experienced in aeons; a quickening, sickening, burning, churning evocation of emotion. He knew it now. It was fear.
Fear.
The true bondage of the beast.
Mok was afraid, because now he understood that this was planned, this was part of Ser's purpose. Ser had committed him to this degradation, and modified his mammalian aspect so that he could exist eternally.
That was what Mok feared. Eternity in this form!
Passive no longer, Mok flexed and rose. Summoning cognition to utmost capacity, Mok searched within himself for other, inherent powers. The power to merge, to coalesce—that was gone. The power to transmute, to transfer, to transport, to transform—gone. He could not change his physical being, could not alter his physical environment, save by physical means of his own devising. Within the limitations of his beast's body.
So there was no escape from this existence.
No escape.
The realization brought fresh fear, and Mok turned and ran. Ran blindly through the twisting corridors, fear riding him as he raced, raced mindlessly, endlessly.
Somewhere along the way a tunnel burrowed upwards. Mok toiled through it, panting and gasping for breath; he willed himself to stop breathing but the body, the beast-body, sucked air in greedy gulps, autonomically functioning beyond his conscious control.
Scrambling along slanted spirals, Mok emerged once more upon the outer surface of his planetary prison. This was a low-lying area, distant and different from his point of entry, with vegetation vividly verdant against a dazzling dawn. A valley, capable of supporting life.
And there was life here; feathery forms chattering in the trees, furry figures scurrying through undergrowth, scaly slitherers, chitinoidal burrowers buzzing. These were simple shapes, crudely-conceived creatures of primitive pursuits, but alive and aware.
Mok sensed them and they sensed Mok. There was no way of communicating with them except vocally, but even the soft sounds issuing from his throat sent them fleeing frantically. For Mok was a beast now, who feared and was feared.
He crouched amongst the rocks at the mouth of the cavern from which he had come forth and gazed in helpless, hopeless confusion at the panic his presence had provoked, and the soft sounds he uttered gave place to a growling groan of despair.
And it was then that they found him—the hairy bipeds, moving cautiously to encircle him until he was ringed by a shambling band. These were troglodites, grunting and snuffling and giving off an acrid stench of mingled fear and rage as they cautiously approached.
Mok stared at them, noting how the hunched, swaying figures moved in concert to approach him. They clutched crude clubs, mere branches torn from trees; some carried rocks scooped up from the surface of the slope. But these were weapons, capable of inflicting injury, and the hairy creatures were hunters seeking their prey.
Mok turned to retreat into the cavern, but the way was barred now by shaggy bodies, and there was no escape.
The troglodites pressed forward now, awe and apprehension giving place to anger. Yellow fangs bared, hairy arms raised. One of the creatures—the leader of the pack—grunted what seemed a signal.
And they hurled their rocks.
Mok raised his arms to protect his head. His vision was blocked, so that he heard the sound of the stones clattering against the slope before he saw them fall. Then, as the growls and shrieks rose to a frenzy, Mok glanced up to see the rocks rebounding upon his attackers.
Raging, they closed in to smash at Mok's skull and body with their clubs. Mok heard the sounds of impact, but he felt nothing, for the blows never reached their intended target—instead, the clubs splintered and broke in empty air.
Then Mok whirled, confused, to face his enemies. As he did so they recoiled, screaming in fright. Breaking the circle, they retreated down the slopes and into the forest, fleeing from this strange thing that could not be harmed or killed, this invincible entity—
This invincible entity.
It was Mok's concept, and he understood, now. Ser had granted him that final irony—invincibility. A field of force, surrounding his body, rendering him immune to injury and death. No doubt it also immunized him from bacterial invasion. He was in a physical form, but one independent of physical needs to sustain survival; one which would exist, indestructibly, forever. He was, in truth, imprisoned, and eternal.
For a moment Mok stood stunned at the comprehension, blankly blinded by the almost tangible intensity of black despair. Here was the ultimate horror—doom without death, exile without end, isolation throughout infinity. Alone forever.
Numbed senses reasserted their sway and Mok glanced around the empty stillness of the slope.
It wasn't entirely empty. Two of the trogloditic creatures sprawled motionless on the rocks directly below him. One was bleeding from a gash in the side of the head, inflicted by a rebounding club; the other had been felled by a glancing blow from a stone.
These creatures weren't immortal.
Mok moved towards them, noting chest-movement, the soft susurration of breath.
They weren't immortal, but they were still alive. Alive and helpless. Vulnerable, at his mercy.
Mercy. The quality Ser had refused to show Mok. There had been no mercy in condemning him to spend eternity here alone.
Mok halted, peering down at the two unconscious forms. He made a sound in his throat; a sound curiously like a chuckle.
Perhaps there was a way out, after all; a way to at least mitigate his sentence here. If he showed mercy now, to these creatures—he might not always be alone.
Mok reached down, lifting the body of the first creature in his arms; it was heavy in its limpness, but Mok's strength was great. He picked up the second creature carefully, so as not to injure it further.
Then, still chuckling, Mok turned and carried the two unconscious forms back into the cavern.
3
In the warm, firelit shelter of the deeper caverns, Mok tended to the creatures. While they slumbered fitfully, he ascended again to the surface and foraged for their nourishment in the green glades. He brought food, and calling upon distant memories, fashioned crude clay pots in which to carry water to them from a mountainside spring.
After a time they regained consciousness and they were afraid—afraid of the great beast with the bulging eyes and lashing tail, the beast they knew to be deathless.
It was simple enough for Mok to fathom the crude construct of growls and gruntings which served these life-forms as a principal means of communication, simple enough to grasp the limited concepts and references symbolized in their speech. Within these limitations he attempted to tell them who and what he was and how he had come to be here, but while they listened they did not comprehend.
And still they feared him, the female specimen more than the male. The male, at least, evinced curiosity concerning the clay pots, and Mok demonstrated the fashioning method until the male was able to imitate it successfully.
But both were wary, and both reacted in terror when confronted with the molten reaches of the planet's inner core. Nor could they become accustomed to the acrid gases, the darkness enveloping the maze of far-flung fissures honeycombing the substrata. As they gathered strength over the passage of time, they huddled together and murmured, eyeing Mok apprehensively.
Mok was not too surprised when, upon returning from one of his food-gathering expeditions to the surface, he discovered that they were gone.
But Mok was surprised by the strength of his own reaction—the sudden responsive surge of loneliness.
Loneliness—for those creatures? They couldn't conceivably serve as companions, even on the lowest level of such a relationship; and yet he missed their presence. Their mere presence had in itself been some assuagement to his own inner agony of isolation.
Now he realized a growing sympathy for them in the he
lplessness of their abysmal ignorance. Even their destructive impulses incited pity, for such impulses indicated their constant fear. Beings such as these lived out their tiny span in utter dread; they trusted neither their environment nor one another, and each new experience or phenomenon was perceived as a potential peril. They had no hope, no abstract image of the future to sustain them.
Mok wondered if his two captives had succeeded in their escape. He prowled the passages searching for them, visioning their weary wanderings, their pathetic plight if they had become lost in the underground fastnesses. But he found nothing.
Once again he was alone in the warm darkness, alone in the warm beast-body that knew neither fatigue nor pain—except for this new pang, this lonely longing for contact with life on any level. Ancient concepts came to him, identifying the nuances of his reactions, all likened and linked to finite time-spans. Monotony. Boredom. Restlessness.
These were the emotive elements which forced him up again from the confined comfort of the caves. He prowled the planet, avoiding the bleak, cold wastes and searching out the areas of lush vegetation. For a long period he encountered only the lowest life-forms.
Then one of his diurnal forays to the surface brought him to a stream, and as he crouched behind a clump of vegetation he peered at a group of troglodites gathered on its far bank.
Vocalizing in their pattern of growls and grunts, he ventured forth, uttering phonic placations. But they screamed at the sight of him, screamed and fled into the forest, and he was left alone.
Left alone, to stoop and pick up what they had abandoned in their flight—two crude clay containers, half-filled with water.
Now he knew the fate of his captives.
They had survived and returned to their own kind, bringing with them their newly acquired skill. What tales they had told of their experience he could not surmise, but they remembered what he had taught them. They were capable of learning.
Mok had no need of further proof, and the incentive was there; the compound of pity, of concern for these creatures, of his own need for contact on any level. And here was a logical level indeed—there would never be companionship, that he understood and accepted, but this other relationship was possible. The relationship between teacher and pupil, between mentor and supplicant, between the governing power and the governed.