by E. E. Knight
In Valentine's opinion, the Lifeweaver lurking in the depths of the rabbit warren offered strong evidence that excluded two of the above schools of thought.
* * * *
Valentine hadn't slept since he set off on his courier flight. Thirty-six, no, forty hours now, he corrected himself.
Someone knocked on his door. "Yeah?"
Thunderbird's voice through the steel: "You wanted your interview, you got it."
Valentine wondered if he should shave. No, the sooner the better. Shaving wouldn't make a difference one way or the other. He opened the door.
Thunderbird stood there with two of his bigger Bears.
The enmity that had sprung up between himself and Thunder-bird had turned into a wary truce back in the warren. As there was nothing Valentine could do on a battlefield—or a multiblock killing floor, in his mind—without getting arrested at the very least, he'd followed orders and flown back to Grizzly Ridge. He took the precaution of landing at the fuel depot to refuel, found Gide, and had her guide him up into the hills above the motor pool to a vacant house with an even more vacant garage. She sensed that there was something wrong and asked him about it, but Valentine didn't want to explain, couldn't without following the cowardly urge to flee the Cascades entirely.
But flight wouldn't save any lives but their own.
He trotted back to Grizzly Ridge, explained that his engine was misfiring and being maintained back at the motor service yard. He had written up both a request to see the Lifeweaver and a letter of resignation from Delta Group by the time the column returned. He waited outside Thunderbird's office and told him that unless the request was immediately granted, the resignation would follow.
In all probability he'd resign anyway, but Valentine didn't add that. He needed the interview.
That rated six clucks of Thunderbird's tongue, then an order to return to his quarters and get cleaned up.
Thunderbird walked him to one of the big, gurney-sized two-door elevators that served the medical center. Shielding the control panel with his body, the colonel pressed buttons using both hands.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Thunderbird said as the elevator dropped. "I figured you knew about your old man's solution."
Valentine didn't want to ask the question on his mind, and luckily the elevator stopped, and he had a brief reprieve as they met two more Bears at a duty desk in a rough-hewn, unpainted tunnel. Under bare bulbs projecting from boxes linked by a conduit, Thunderbird handed over an order sheet and he and Valentine turned in their IDs. Thunderbird checked his sidearm and they submitted to a pat down and being wanded by a metal detector as one of the Bears spoke into a phone.
A woman in a medical uniform appeared. "He'll see them," she told the Bear at the duty desk.
"Pass nine-nine," the Bear shouted down the hallway.
"Pass nine-nine," a voice shouted back.
The big Bears sat down opposite the duty desk to wait. Thunderbird and Valentine walked down the darkening corridor, following the woman in white, the bulbs becoming less frequent and finally giving out. Valentine spotted an old hunk of armored vehicle crammed into a turn in the tunnel, a turreted gun that looked like a 30mm cannon covering the tunnel back toward the duty desk. Two layers of thick metal cage kept the Bears inside—Valentine guessed there were two, but it was hard to tell—at their station. Valentine saw a portable toilet between the layers of cage.
They turned the corner past the dug-in vehicle and came upon a set of bars worthy of a rhino cage, a small door in a heavy frame offering access to the other side. Valentine heard dripping. The medical officer fought down a yawn, took a key looped around her neck, and put it in a lock at the half door.
They crouched to pass through.
There was another turn ahead, and Valentine felt the space and light around the corner through the transmitted drippings.
"I want to see him alone," Valentine said.
"Don't try anything funny. If the medical staff calls, I'll come in and put an end to you."
"Maybe," Valentine said.
The medical officer looked to Thunderbird, who nodded. "Take him in," he said.
She looked Valentine up and down. "You look tired. Are you okay ?"
"Fine."
"Don't be nervous—he's just a bit eccentric. Remember, he's not a human."
"I've met them before," Valentine said.
She took Valentine into a—grotto was the only word Valentine could use for it. It was warm and humid. Banks of what he guessed were grow lights fed thick ferns, palmettos, rhododendrons, and other plants Valentine hadn't seen since he'd been in the tropics. Off to one side a pool, fed by a sheet of water coming down the wall that most people would call a leak rather than a falls, moved quietly, stirred by some unknown current. The banks of plant boxes and platforms made something of a maze, but the medical officer guided him past the pool and into the center of the plant life.
"What's his name?" Valentine asked.
She led him past a bank of purple flowers. Valentine heard a bee buzz. Something was wrong with that, but he couldn't remember what. "He said we couldn't pronounce it. We just call him 'Sir.' It's quick and easy.
"Don't let his appearance throw you off. Remember, it's just a show," she said, coming to a gauzy tent. She lifted a flap.
"David Valentine to see you, Sir," she said.
Valentine saw a hairy mass and several sheet-covered floor mats within.
"Enter, sojourner," a slightly lisping voice said.
Valentine went into the tent. Enough light from the intense bulbs penetrated the thick white gauze to make him feel as though he were inside some kind of cottony womb.
The creature within made a startling contrast to the whites and pale greens of the sheets covering the mats on the floor. The Life-weaver looked like a half daemon, half satyr, right down to thick hairy legs hinged like a goat's. Overlong fingers and toes with nails that weren't quite claws displayed delicately painted, mysterious glyphs. Pointed of ear, flat-nosed and slant-eyed, it was barrel-chested but thin-hipped, covered with limp, stringy, dirty hair and the odd bubo about the neck and groin. Valentine couldn't say whether he was faced with a combination of legends or nightmares.
"Sit," it said, with an artful wave of the wrist and overlong fingers. Valentine was reminded of an exhibition he'd once seen after his return from Nebraska where a martial artist showed how to use a war fan. "Cross-legged is best, for your kind." Valentine sat.
It reclined on one of the mats, lounging. "Speak your mind, sojourner."
"Why do you look like that, Sir?"
The medical officer brought in a wide, water-filled bowl. A candle and some flower petals floated within. She set a small stainless steel cup in front of Valentine.
"Suits the profession. Suits of the profession. War, famine, disease, and death. All I've known, watching these thousands of years. It's all that's left of me. I stayed on, you see, though others left after the old battles of your ancestors' time. I stayed and watched, for I loved and admired you. But I'm afraid it's driven me a bit mad."
He smiled, showing brown and green teeth. "Valhalla awaits, if you have the courage and survive your ordeal," Sir said, reaching out with arms that thinned as they extended. Valentine felt the greasy touch of its hands, the prick of its claws, as it cradled his head.
"You will be death, destroyer of worlds," Sir whispered in his ear, despite the fact that his head remained on the other side of the tent.
Valentine broke away from Sir's grasp. "Wait. I think there's a mistake. I'm not here to become a Bear."
The arms pulled back. "Not a Bear?"
"No, I need your help. I'm from Southern Command," Valentine said hurriedly, wondering just how much of this the nurse was hearing.
"A Wolf once, now a Cat, and more in your blood besides," Sir said.
Valentine didn't bother to ask for hows and whys. "They need the help of the Dau'weem."
"I never accepted that
title. We were right, not backward," Sir said. The shape blurred and returned. "Southern Command, where is that again? Argentina?"
"The Ozarks, Texas, parts of Oklahoma now—"
"Mississippi River, oh yes, of course. Louisiana Purchase and all that. One of your better specimens, Jefferson, though I've only known him secondhand. I met Washington once. A good man and true. You're not fighting with the Britons again, are you? You've got to settle these squabbles yourselves or you'll never get anywhere as a people. All Rome's fault, of course—if they'd only stayed the course and not become addicted to slavery. It's like an opiate."
Valentine wondered how to drag Sir's mind back out of lost millennia.
"We need your help. I have to get in touch with the other Lifeweavers."
"That can be dangerous," Sir said. "Very dangerous indeed. I can't take that step without revealing myself in the process. Never mind the danger to you."
"I know it's a lot to ask," Valentine said.
"Do you ask?"
"Yes."
"No matter the consequences, the possible harm?"
"I would think that would be your decision. But it's important."
"Not my forte. Not my forte at all. But I'll try."
"Thank you."
Sir slipped out one side of the tent.
Valentine wondered if an all-out assault on Grizzly Ridge would be entirely a bad thing. The medical officer poked her head in. "You got him all stirred up."
"I hope that's all right," Valentine said, wondering if Thunderbird would bust in and start beating him to death with a shovel.
"He needs the activity. He lies around too much, not that we really know what's healthy for his kind. How do you feel? Hot yet? You should have another—"
"I'm fine," Valentine said. "Wait, I think there's been a mistake. I didn't come here for an Invocation."
She blinked. "No?" She knelt and looked in each of his ears, folding his lobes back to peer behind. "That's a relief. But that's all he really does for us. Just a moment." She disappeared.
"Success," Sir said, returning to the tent. He held a small, slightly curled rubber-tree leaf in his hand. Valentine saw a small green stone on the strange presentation leaf. "Took some time to find the right one. Ready?"
"For what?" Valentine said, warily.
"To speak to our kind. You needed to communicate with us, yes?”
"Yes," Valentine said.
"This will do the trick." He passed the leaf to Valentine, waddled around behind, and put his hands on Valentine's shoulders. The hands turned into tentacles, soft grasping veined leaves at the ends. "Just touch it with your fingertips."
Valentine looked at the shard of jade. Some kind of hieroglyph of a bird was carved on the side. "I'm ready, if your ka is," Sir said. "It's quite painless."
Valentine reached down and touched it.
It felt like ordinary jade, cool and smooth.
A roar, hundreds of voices in his head, the static noise of an excited crowd. It overwhelmed him, incendiary butterflies opened their full-spectrum wings in his mind, and he spun around, looking for a way out, but the voices—
He opened his eyes, found he was lying on one of the mats. The medical officer hovered anxiously, Thunderbird behind.
Sir looked at him, eyes narrow and calculating.
"Are you still with us, David Valentine?"
Valentine felt as though he were in another time and space. "I think so. What does that thing do again?"
"It's a touchstone. It opened up your mind."
"Nothing made sense," Valentine said.
"It takes a great mind to comprehend a touchstone on contact. But everything you need to know is—"
The medical officer put a hand to his cheek. "He's hot. Sir, is he entering up as a Bear?"
"No, I simply opened the channels. He shouldn't have the biological resour—wait... . Design help us! I forgot. Oh me! Oh me! Your father was a Bear, I believe."
"I think so."
Sir licked his lips with a pustule-coated tongue. "You may have had the talent passed down to you."
The medical officer looked at Thunderbird. "We'd better isolate."
Thunderbird nodded, hurried off out of the grotto. Valentine heard a plant crash to the floor.
"Oh, and he needs calm now more than anything. Oh me, oh me, I've been a fool. Careless! I expect he'll go mad. They said I was useless and they've been proven right again."
"Tell Thunderbird," Valentine said, feeling like he was floating away on a river. "Danger. Sir, you revealed yourself. Don't forget."
"We'll take care of it," the medical officer said. "What's that about?"
"He's confused," Sir said. "He must have thought... I had to take my true shape to guide him to the right part of the touchstone, make sure it didn't rush in all at once. I meant the danger was to him, not to me. Oh, this has been bunkum and confusion from the first."
"I'm going to sedate him," the medical officer said. She yanked a big white case from within a stand of ferns and opened it. The needle squirted something on Valentine as she positioned it above his arm. "I doubt it'll last—," Sir said.
"Long enough for him to get on the gurney."
Valentine, disoriented, half-awake, and anxious, didn't even feel the needle going in....
"Don't let him get up. Don't let him up," someone was shouting. A weight pressed on his chest. Valentine saw lightbulbs passing above, one after the other, each leaving a snail trail glowing on his retinas. His heart began to hammer.
Something was in his mouth, he bit down, it snapped, a tooth gave way.
And then a convulsion. Even though he felt that he was lying on his back, someone still managed to clobber him across the small of his back with what felt like a baseball bat. His arms and legs forgot how they worked. He smelled eucalyptus.
"Zap him again!" a voice shouted.
The gurney's wheels chattered as they passed over the uneven surface below. Valentine felt calm and collected, even as his body jumped under another jolt. The world faded away, but whispered to him that it would be back, new and improved.
Madness, fighting in vain against tentacles, bludgeons, ropes, the world had turned crimson and black, shadows surrounded him, baying like a wolf pack. But above and behind it was singing, the most perfect singing he'd ever heard, an angelic choir majestic. He sang along as he fought until he sagged in exhaustion.
* * * *
He awoke to find himself in a dark room, his arms bound around his own waist as though he were mummified. No, straitjacket, it was a straitjacket, made out of thick leather. His legs were swathed in some kind of padding and buckled down flat. He sensed he was lying faceup, somewhere underground, but beyond that, he could tell nothing, except that he felt dirty all over, particularly itching and filthy between his legs.
"Hello?" he croaked.
Thirsty. So thirsty.
A presence at his side. He felt a plastic nozzle enter his mouth.
"Get ready to swallow, okay?" a voice said. Gide's, it was Gide.
He nodded, vaguely aware of tubes and wires connected to him. He suspected one of the wires could give him a jolt.
Water, just a tablespoon or two, went in his mouth, and he swallowed. So salty it tasted sweet. They repeated it. Twice.
"Good," the voice said. It wasn't Gide.
Valentine felt a gap in his teeth on the upper left side. He probed with his tongue, felt a missing tooth, or rather the stump of one. The other felt good and cracked.
* * * *
The next day—at least they told him it was the next day—he could sit. The tubes were gone, but he still had wires running the length of his body, individual ends attached to forehead, Adam's apple, chest, stomach—a couple more on his back. They hung off the bed and met at a black box.
He had the run of a two-person berth on the hospital floor. It was in the "security" wing—the doors were solid steel, hinged on the outside and closed with what sounded like a heavy bar reinforced by bo
lts dug into stone beneath the linoleum. The man in civilian clothes sitting opposite, under two painted panels masquerading as windows, didn't have many answers.
His name was Wholmes, and thanks to burned and reconstructed skin, he looked like he'd been freeze-dried and rehydrated. He spelled it as he said it, though Valentine could read it on his ID card.
"How do you feel?" Wholmes asked.
"Better," Valentine said. "I had eggs and oatmeal for breakfast."
"You're on soft foods until those teeth get taken care of. Tomorrow or the next day."
"Has anyone figured out what went wrong?"
"Nicely put?"
"Clearly put."
"You were a pig who wandered into a bacon factory in hopes of speaking with the management. But when a pig visits a bacon plant, there are obvious hazards. Sir doesn't direct or guide or advise this freehold. He's used strictly for creating Bears."
"Who are you, Mr. Wholmes?"
"I help new Bears with their adjustments to transhumanism. You're an interesting case, though, Valentine."
"Why's that?"
"Sir didn't do anything to you. Well, anything much. To the Life-weavers, the human body is like a big, locked-up factory with all the switches turned off. How we got that way—well, I'm not going into the various theories. I'll leave that to the philosophers."
Valentine felt a little jolt of recognition; Wholmes talked a little like the general who'd offered him a choice of death or the possibility of eternal life in service of the Kurians.
"Are you feeling all right?" Wholmes asked.
"Yes. Closed factory and all that."
"Now, throughout history a few individuals have managed to turn on bits of their factory on their own, transcending normal human limits, like some of the great athletes or, with mental discipline, astrophysicists and yogis and the odd musician and so on. Some combine the two; I'm told there were martial artists who could do the same sort of tricks you Cats can.
"Now, of course when the Lifeweavers go into the factory and turn on a couple of machines, sometimes it takes the mind a little while to catch up and learn to channel the new outputs. That's where I come in, and were you aware your crystal-spark-snorting mother sucked off drovers in station bars to get her fix?"