A Thousand Deaths

by George Alec Effinger

  Courane became terrified in Chuckuary when he had his first sign of D syndrome. TECT reassured him after its fashion, and began to maneuver Courane toward a suitable fate. Courane was too self-involved to understand, and in a few days the fever wiped out his recollection of what TECT had said. In Tectember, after Kenny died, Courane was depressed again. Once more TECT made broad hints, which Courane was unable to interpret. In July, when Fletcher began to deteriorate, Courane paid more attention to TECT, but he couldn't remember the suggestions long enough to do anything about them. Not long after, TECT made the decision to abandon subtlety. Courane had passed the point of being able to comprehend secrets and innuendoes; indeed, anything more enigmatic than long division left him blank-faced and bewildered.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Hello, COURANE, Sandor. Do you know who this is talking to you?**

  "Sure," he said. "You're TECT."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  That's right, I am. And I want you to pay very close attention to what I have to say. I have big plans for you. I want you to help me do something very important. In return, I promise that you'll be so famous your name will live forever. Or a long time, anyway**

  "Sure," said Courane.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Then you'll help me? Good, I'm glad. You'll be glad, too. Now, no more questions about memory and viroids and D syndrome and all that. It isn't important anymore, is it? Of course not. You're almost dead, what do you care about all that scientific stuff? Nothing, am I right?**

  "Uh huh."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Good. Now listen, COURANE, Sandor. It is very likely that PURCELL, Rachel, will go on a long journey soon. Don't ask me how I know. It's not important. I just have a way of knowing things. Anyway, what is important is that you go out and bring her back. Unless you bring her back, she'll be lost for good out there. You wouldn't want that, would you?**

  "No, of course not."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Because you really like PURCELL, Rachel, don't you? You're very fond of her. She has been a good friend to you, hasn't she? Of course. So now when she gets herself into a tight spot, you feel it's your duty to help her. You want to help her. Because, in your limited way, you love her**

  Courane had a difficult time focusing on just what TECT was trying to say. "I want to help her, all right," he said. "What do I do?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Nothing yet, you poor fool. She hasn't gone anywhere yet. But tonight or tomorrow morning, she'll leave. You have to set out after her and bring her back. She may be sick or hurt when you find her, but remember that the people here in the house will be able to help her, the medic box will take care of her. It will be the best thing you've ever done in your life. It will make up for all the failures and all the disappointments. This one thing will redeem you as a person, COURANE, Sandor. I think it's pretty nice of me to offer you this opportunity. What do you think?**

  "You're not calling yourself TECT in the name of the Representative anymore. You're not even calling yourself TECT. You're talking in the first person."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Just trying to save a little time. The final act of our little drama is beginning and we don't need all that formal business anymore. So how about it?**

  "Huh?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Do you believe this guy? This isn't going to work, I just know it. I waited a little too long. Well, you live and learn. I won't make the same mistake with BEN-AVIR, Shai. COURANE, Sandor, can't you keep this in mind for five minutes at a time? Will you help PURCELL, Rachel?**

  "Yes" said Courane, "but how will I know when it's time?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  I can't stand any more of this; it's hopeless. Look. All you have to do is wait for PURCELL, Rachel, to leave. Then you go looking for her. You can't look for her until she leaves. As soon as she leaves, you go. It's really very simple**

  "I think I have it straight now. Right. Don't worry."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  I'm very glad to hear it. And by the way, before you leave, give your secret journal to BEN-AVIR, Shai. Let him read it while you're gone**

  "I didn't know you knew about the journal."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  I'm not as dumb as I look**

  Courane paused; his thoughts became momentarily clearer. "I understand what you're saying," he said at last. "But I want to ask one last thing. All the time I thought I was acting on my own, you were manipulating me, weren't you? I never had any freedom at all, I just thought I did. None of us ever had any. You were manipulating me from the very beginning, right down to this last thing. I still don't see what you're trying to accomplish, but I'll go along with it because of my feelings for Rachel. But none of us ever gave you enough credit. You are far more malicious than we ever believed possible."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Ha ha, COURANE, Sandor. Manipulating you all these months? Don't be silly. Even I couldn't be that sinister. What kind of a monster do you think I am?**

  Courane couldn't find the words to answer that question.

  Fletcher sat down next to Courane. They were both eating sandwiches of smoked vark and fishfruit. "I've noticed something about our visitors," said Fletcher, indicating the people from Tau Ceti.

  "You mean the way they're all tall and skinny and move around like they have wires inside instead of skeletons?"

  Fletcher made a face and opened his sandwich. He picked out a few pieces, put it back together again, then thought better of it and set the sandwich aside on the ground. "Well, yes, that's what I meant. Why do you think that is?"

  "Don't have the slightest idea. Why don't you ask one of them?"

  Fletcher looked surprised. "You just can't ask a question like that," he said.

  Courane shrugged. He gestured to one of the Tau Cetan women, who was looking about the barnyard. She smiled and came toward them. "Hello," she said. She carried a plate of soufmelon as if she were looking for a secret place to throw it away.

  "Hi," said Courane. "I'm sorry. I didn't catch all of your names."

  "I'm Flanna." She was tall and broad-shouldered, with strong arms and large hands. Like the others, she seemed gaunt but not starved, angular, long-limbed, and sharp-featured. Her hair was long and red and her eyes a startling green. She sat down beside Fletcher.

  "I'm Sandy and this is Fletcher. We were wondering if all of you were related."

  She laughed, not understanding. "Related? You mean one family? No, we didn't know each other until we came to Planet C."

  "Because there is a kind of resemblance," said Courane. He looked from her back toward the others.

  "Ah," she said. "I know what you mean. You see, Planet C is a sort of isolation ward. We're all suffering from a rare disease, and it affects the skeleton and muscles and makes the victim into a kind of walking scarecrow." She laughed, but there was no humor in it at all. "You don't have to worry, though. It isn't contagious, I don't think."

  Fletcher rubbed his chin. "And TECT sent you all to Planet C because you all had this disease?"

  Flanna nodded. "I didn't understand at first," she said slowly. "I mean, I didn't have the disease. At least, I didn't think that I did. I discovered that I was wrong after I'd been on Home for a little while. So you see, TECT knew what it was doing after all."

  Courane felt a terrible hopelessness. "Is the disease serious?" he asked. "I mean, do people ever die from it?"

  Flanna looked down at the ground. "Oh, yes, people die from it sometimes." She looked up again, into Courane's eyes. Her gaze was steady but unutterably sad. "People die from it a lot," she murmured.

  "That's enough questions, Sandy," said Fletcher.

  They were silent for a while. "Here," said Courane at last, standing, "let me take that soufmelon. You don't have to pretend to eat it. I'll get rid of it for you."

  Flanna looked relieved. "I'd be very grateful," she said.

  "Sandy," said Fletc
her, "do me a favor? Take this sandwich, too. You know, I have dreams at night about real food, Earth food. In the old days, I used to dream about women." He shook his head ruefully.

  Courane stared into the distance, toward the eastern hills. "What is all this for?" he asked of no one. "What is the point of all this pain?"

  Flanna put a hand on his arm. She seemed to know just what he meant, as if she had thought about that problem a good deal herself. "It's to show us all how bad we are at suffering," she said.

  Dawn began as a twitter of birds, detecting the first light in the cloud-cloaked sky. It was feeding time in the animal world and the sudden murmur of activity caught Courane's attention. Wide-eyed, blank-faced, unblinking, his head turned to left and right, seeking some change in his surroundings. He found none. A brisk breeze pushed and rustled through the tall grasses above and behind him on the bank. The river sighed and splashed toward its unknown fate. Trees bent their heavy limbs and creaked with weary age. Nothing threatened Courane. He looked again right and left and saw that night had ended and that the day promised rain, much of it. He was alone by the river without any idea of what he was doing there. He waited for someone to come get him.

  A small animal with dull red fur and sharp yellow eyes hopped twice toward Courane's foot. Courane didn't move. He looked at it. It watched him. The animal was about the size of a chipmunk, but its sharp claws and long, fierce incisors seemed to indicate that it was a predator of even smaller creatures. "What do you want?" asked Courane. Surely the thing couldn't be thinking of attacking his boot. Courane reached down slowly and picked up a pebble; the motion frightened the animal and in an instant it was gone. Courane turned to watch it and saw the corpse. He was startled. He moved closer, ignoring the unpleasantness of decomposition, and read the note fastened to the clothing. "The house," he whispered. He sat down again and tried to order his thoughts. "The house. Yes, now I remember. I remember very well." He closed his eyes and pictured the house. He knew it was near the river. "Across the river. The boats." They had to be nearby. He stood and walked along the bank. Both boats were drawn up a short distance away. He came back to get Rachel's body, lifted it, and carried it to the boats. He put her down gently in one of them and looked at the sky. He hoped that the storm would hold off until he got home. Even as he unshipped the oars, he felt the first hard smack of rain.

  He rowed across the river, pulling hard against the current. Halfway across he forgot where he was going and why, but the repetitive motion needed no explanation and he kept rowing until blindly he ran the boat aground on the other side. He sat in the bow for a long time, soaked by the hard rain, until his memory returned again.

  "Kenny," he said. "Kenny." He had something to tell Kenny when he got back to the house. He didn't recall what it was, but he knew that it would come back to him eventually. He carried Rachel's body in his arms and struggled up the steep bank. He set her down in the grass and mud and rested. Now he could see the house through the fierce, slashing rain. He felt a greater happiness than he had ever known before. When he had caught his breath, he took up his burden again and crossed the fields, paying no attention to the storm or his own drenched, chilled condition. He came to the house from the back and crossed through the yard. He went around to the front and climbed painfully up the steps. He felt that he had managed himself well, that he had made it home after all, but that he couldn't go any farther. He had budgeted his strength and will with laudable precision, but he needed help from here on. He collapsed on the porch, hugging Rachel's black and bloated body to him. He felt first a great sense of consummation, but then quickly followed a larger and more terrifying emptiness. The rain drummed on the house and for some reason now, having reached his goal at last, Courane suddenly felt afraid. He closed his eyes and wept, and his thoughts faded until he was lost in a vast, dim, featureless world. He would never find his way out again, but that didn't trouble him. There was no pain here, no hunger or thirst, and no urgency. He had nowhere to go and no task left unfinished. At last, there was peace.

  Nneka found him an hour later, still clutching Rachel's corrupted body. Together Courane and Rachel were a horrible picture, a kind of grotesque reversal of a Pieta. "Sandy?" said Nneka. She was frightened. She took a step closer. The awful condition of Rachel's corpse overwhelmed her; it took her a moment before she recognized it as having once been her friend. When Nneka knew it was Rachel, she gasped once, doubled over, and was violently ill. Inside the house, the others could hear her crying.

  The colonists had their pleasures and small entertainments; otherwise they would certainly have gone mad in the unrelieved sinister strangeness of Planet D. Besides picnics and holiday celebrations and competitions against the tect, they organized games and sports whenever their work and the weather permitted. Almost everyone participated, even those who had scorned that kind of thing on Earth. They seized greedily upon any kind of relief from the daily routine and labor.

  Fletcher, the poet, was the most avid ballplayer. Almost every evening after dinner he tried to interest someone in going out and getting a little exercise. "A little exercise," said Shai once, settling back deeper in the couch. "As if I haven't gotten enough today around this farm."

  "Come on, Cap, let's toss the old blerdskin around," said Fletcher. He bounced an oddly shaped, foul-smelling ball in one hand.

  "Tomorrow, Fletcher," said Shai, sighing.

  "Sandy?"

  Courane opened his eyes and looked at Fletcher dubiously. He didn't say anything.

  "Come on, Sandy. I'll let you throw 'em and I'll run and catch."

  "Go on, Sandy," said Rachel. "I'll play, too."

  "Great," said Fletcher. The three of them went out into the yard, cleared a big area of wandering icks and smudgeon, and started up a three-cornered game of catch. The evening was deepening and the clouds parted to reveal a full purplish moon and a sparse scattering of stars.

  "It's getting too dark to play," complained Courane after a short while.

  "You're just crabbing," said Rachel. "I can still see."

  "Here," said Fletcher, "throw me a long one." He started running. Courane took the ball, leaned back, and heaved it as far as he could. He overthrew Fletcher. The ball bounced crazily, to the left, then straight up, then to the right, and headed toward the fringe of trees above the riverbank. Fletcher ran after it.

  "I guess it is getting just a little dark," said Rachel. She walked toward Courane. They stood together, her arms around him, breathing heavily from the exertion of the game, and waited for Fletcher to come back with the ball.

  They waited a long time. "I wonder what's keeping Fletcher?" said Courane.

  "I don't know. Come on. Maybe he needs help looking."

  They started toward the trees. Courane shook his head. "I didn't throw it that hard," he said.

  Before they crossed the yard, Fletcher appeared. He didn't have the ball. He held up a hand. "Sandy, hurry up. Rachel, go back to the house and tell Shai to come out here. Hurry!"

  "What is it?" asked Rachel. She kept walking toward Fletcher.

  "Rachel," said Fletcher sternly. She stopped, bewildered; he had never spoken to her like that before. Without another word, she made a gesture of resignation and turned back toward the house.

  "Did you see something?" asked Courane.

  "Yeah," said Fletcher. "You're not going to like this." He led Courane down by the water's edge. There was a dark, still form lying there, partly on the stony bank and partly immersed in the black river.

  "What–"

  "It's Zsuzsi," said Fletcher in a low voice. "Her head... She's been murdered, Sandy. Someone clubbed her head to..." His voice trailed off. He turned away and looked back up the bank.

  "But who would want—"

  "The only thing that makes any sense is her mother, Sandy. She must have thought she was saving Zsuzsi from something. From what this place does to you."

  Courane looked from the body to Fletcher's agonized face. "Klára? Would she ki
ll her own daughter like that?"

  Fletcher turned to look at Courane. "We're just going to have to ask her that, won't we, Cap?"

  "Now? What about the body?" Courane gazed at it and shuddered. Small branches and leaves had begun to pile up along her chest as the river pushed the debris against her.

  Fletcher looked at the luckless Zsuzsi. "Don't ask me," he said.

  Courane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't like this at all. He had never seen the signs of a violent death before, and it was more unnerving than he would have imagined. There was no dignity in this death. There was no peace, no feeling of a life completed and transformed by death. There were only raw and angry emotions, frustration, helplessness, and despair.

  Together the two men lifted Zsuzsi's body from the river and carried her back to the house. Neither said a word as they performed the grim task. They brought her into the house and Courane assumed that they would place her in the medic box, as they did when anyone in the infirmary died, according to TECT's law. "No," said Fletcher in a quiet voice. "We'll bury her here on the farm."

  Courane said nothing. He didn't know what Fletcher meant.

  Shai and Rachel joined them. "Take her up to her room for now," said Shai. Fletcher nodded. When they had put her on her bed and closed the heavy wooden door, Shai handed a piece of paper to Courane. "Klára left this," he said.

  Love is the greatest power in the world. The truest proof of love is suffering. Zsuzsi suffered for me, and now I have to suffer for her. TECT did this. I always knew it. I thought that if you didn’t get caught up in TECT’s game you’d be safe. But refusing to play along traps you just the same. So now it’s all over with. Lord have mercy on her soul.