I jammed my pistol back within my shirt and tore the stiletto loose from where it rode my forearm. It was moist and slightly bent, and it occurred to me that it had been grazed by a bullet and driven to break my skin—the stinging I had felt earlier.
I swung wide at the corner where he had turned, dropping into a crouch, blade low.
He sprang at me. He had a blade of some sort—I saw its faint gleam as it came toward me—but he held it awkwardly and his first strike, which I was able to push aside, was faster than anything that followed. He blocked mine with his forearm and slashed at my abdomen. My armor deflected this, and after a few feints I was able to sink my blade up to the hilt in his stomach. He made a bubbling noise, stiffened and sagged against me. I caught him and lowered him to the floor.
I struck a light to better study his face. I tugged at his hair and it came away; it was a dark wig. Beneath, his own hair was white. Yes, it was indeed the same man who had occupied the power chair, who had gotten Lange to order him a drink and then shot him. Mr. Black.
And he stared at me and smiled.
"Jordan . . . ?" he said.
"Winton," I replied.
"Close, close ... It couldn't have been anyone later. Those creampuffs . . ."
"Why?" I said. "Why did you do it?"
He shook his head.
"You'll find out. Soon," he said. "Oh, very soon!"
"What?"
He grimaced, then forced the smile once more.
"I could have taken you—with the knife—if I had wanted . . ." he said. "Think about it—"
He died then, grinning at me, and suddenly I realized what he had meant.
8
Mesh—No!
He was old, and somewhere along the line he had changed the facial structure a bit more radically than the rest of us, but as I felt his death within my own being and fought to block an abrupt mesh-effect, I realized that Mr. Black was the missing clone.
Gritting my teeth, squeezing my temples, I built walls of resistance about my mind. There is always a meshing when one of us dies, and its effects vary. It does not matter too much, though, since we are all of us contained within one another, "nexus" only being the term by which we refer to the oldest among us, who is automatically head of the family.
Black was indeed one of us, since the terminal mesh-effect was occurring. For all of his life he must have been blocking the ordinary meshings each time that they occurred. Still, as a silent party to our telepathic bond, I could understand his uncanny ability when it came to pursuing us, knowing our whereabouts.
Having dwelled apart from us all of his Kfe, he was totally unfamiliar. The effects of his personality on our own could be catastrophic. They would of course vary in each instance. I had a strong feeling that he would tend to dominate, however.
I held him off. The impulse that had been beating against my mind died down, faded, was gone.
For an instant, Winkel, Gene and Jenkins would think it was me that had died.
Then it would be too late.
Which of them would break first? I wondered. And what would he do when he did?
Damn!
I twisted the blade out of his belly and wiped it on his jacket. Our wayward brother had certainly stacked the deck. I had to get back to Wing Null immediately to try to deal with whatever catastrophe was about to break loose there. And I was taken by the feeling that I might not be able to.
I dropped the blade into an inside pocket and turned away. Glenda was standing about ten feet up the corridor, digging at her cheek with her fingertips.
"He's dead," she said. "Isn't he?"
"I'm afraid not," I said, going to her and taking her hand away from her face.
I did not release her arm, but used it to turn her gently, back in the direction from which we had come.
"Come with me," I said. "There are things we must talk about, later."
She did not resist as I led her away from the smiling figure and back toward the flier. The fights continued to brighten as we went
It was not until we were airborne and on our way to the jackpole that she spoke again:
"Where are we going?"
"To a place called Wing Null," I said.
"Where is that?"
"It is too complicated to explain just now."
She nodded.
"I understand about your secret place—that you have one, I mean."
"How is it that you do? Mr. Black?"
"Yes," she said. "What did you mean when you said that he was not dead? I saw you—kill him."
"Only a body died. He still exists."
"Where?"
"Wing Null, I fear."
"How? The same way as you—do it?"
"Perhaps. What do you know about it?"
"I am sure that you are somehow Mr. Engel, the man I was with earlier, the man I saw die. You transmigrated some way, and you came to the address I gave you then. I have no idea as to the mechanism involved."
"Mr. Black again? That is where you heard of this?"
"Yes."
"What is he to you?"
"He was my guardian, after my father died and my mother had to be sent away, for treatments. He volunteered and the plat council appointed him. He had been a friend of my father."
"What did he do? What was his occupation?"
"He was a teacher. Classics. He used the name Eibon then. Henry Eibon."
"Why?"
"Originally, he had told me it was a game. You see, I had known him as Mr. Black when he used to visit us. He began using the other name when he became my guardian. Later, of course, I realized that it was more than a game, but I kept my mouth shut because I loved him. He was very good to me. —You say there is a chance that I will see him again soon?"
"I am afraid so."
"Suppose you tell me what he is to you?"
"We have been enemies for a long while. He started the vendetta. I have no idea why."
She was silent as we traveled the remaining distance and I located a deserted area not too far from the jackpole and landed the flier in a three-walled reading lounge. As I helped her out, I said, "Do you?"
"What if I were to say 'yes'?"
I seized her by the shoulders and spun her, so that her face was about eight inches from my own.
"Talk!" I said. "Tell me why!"
"Let me go! I didn't say that I knew!"
I tightened my grip, then relaxed it. I slid my hand down her arm and turned her by the elbow.
"Come on," I said. "We have to go up a couple levels."
If she did not want to talk, I did not have the time to shake the answers out of her. I had wanted to reach her for two reasons: to protect her and to obtain the information it seemed she possessed. Now she seemed to be in no need of protection and unwilling to part with information. But now that I was aware of her special relationship with Black, I felt myself automatically begin thinking of her as something of a hostage. I was not pleased with the discovery of this reaction, but I was not about to abandon it either.
"Basically," she said, as we headed toward the jackpole through the growing light, "you want to keep people in the House, don't you?"
"Well," I said, "to be basic and general about it, yes. I think it is a good idea."
"Why?"
"It is the best way I know for people to learn to really live together."
"By forcing them?"
"Of course. When the alternatives to proximity have been removed and aggressive energies are rechanneled, people tend to cooperate rather than compete. Some measure of coercion is needed, though, to set up such a state of affairs."
"Then what happens?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have people changed much, from living in the House?"
"I think they have."
"Will they continue to change?"
"I believe so."
"They will be allowed to go outside when they have reached some ideal point of adaptation?"
"Of course."
>
"Why 'of course'? Why not right now? Why do you want to see them prisoners until they have changed?"
"They are not prisoners. They can come and go as they please."
"In the House!"
"In the House."
"Why not outside, too?"
My head began to hurt and I became acutely aware of all my other aches and pains. I did not feel like answering her.
Do you want me to?
"Why not?" I decided. "Go ahead, Jordan. Say whatever you want."
Give me your mouthy your throat, your breathing. Relax.
I did this, and moments later he began to speak.
“Turn them loose?" he said. "To diversify, accentuate their differences, to stimulate competition, aggression, violence toward one another? They very nearly succeeded in destroying themselves that way once. Given similar circumstances, they might succeed the next time. To prevent this, man himself needs to be changed. He is not yet what he will be, but he is better than he was. When he has learned to live with himself, peacefully, here in the House, then he will be ready to go outside it."
"But will he still be human?" she said.
"Whatever he is will be human, for that will then be the measure of humanity."
"What gives you the right to make all these judgments?"
"Someone must. Anyone who wants can."
"Mr. Black did. And he disagreed with you. To make the House safe for your nonaggressive, nonviolent ideals, you killed him."
"I shall exist only for so long as I am needed to promote tranquillity, then I, too, shall pass."
"Who is to decide when this time has arrived?"
"I am."
She laughed.
"Can we count on it?" she said.
"I see no reason not to. I have done it many times before."
She shook her head, turned to stare at me. She tried to halt, but I still had hold of her arm and I continued to propel her toward the pole.
"I get the feeling we are talking two different languages or something," she said. "One moment you sound rational, and the next you go off on a tangent. Are you one entity, or is your name Legion?"
I tightened my will like a vise, and "Get thee behind me, Jordan," I said within myself.
All right, I'm going, and he was gone.
"I am myself," I said.
"Should I call you Engel?"
"Why not? It is as good as anything. Tell me why Black wants to get people out of the House."
"He felt it was lobotomizing the race, turning people into vegetables—and that if they finally did make it outside, they would be in no condition to survive."
"Our disagreement then is too basic for argument, since it centers on a matter of interpretation. What has he told you about me?"
"He told me there is a multibodied enemy of the people who feels as you say you feel about things."
"Did he tell you how he came to be aware of this state of affairs?"
"No.”
"What did he tell you concerning his own—background?"
"Nothing at all."
"You are lying."
She shrugged.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing, just now."
We entered the jackpole. People kept hurrying past us, all of them heading downward.
"What if I were to scream?" she said. "What if I were to refuse to accompany you any farther?"
"You will not. You will come without causing any difficulties."
"What makes you think so?"
"I have totally engaged your curiosity, and yours is one of the most active minds in the House."
"What do you know about my mind?"
"I know just about everything there is to know about you."
"Now you are lying."
This time I shrugged, and smiled. We made our way around and upward, upward and around.
"... You would have tranked me," she said after a time, "and acted as if I had been taken ill."
"Perhaps."
Moments later, I collapsed against the wall, an involuntary cry escaping my lips. She caught my left arm as it flailed the air, and helped to support me as I was taken by spasm after spasm, the world advancing, receding, coming apart, being reassembled about me and within me.
"What is it?" she said.
But I could only gasp, "Wait. Wait. . ."
Finally, things fell together, the center held. I regained my balance, sucked a couple of deep draughts of stale air and began to move once again. Glenda kept hold of my arm and repeated her question several times.
"Good old Mr. Black just murdered two more people," I said, hurrying. "He thinks he has the upper hand now, and if it is any consolation to you, he may be right."
She did not respond, but hurried along with me. A few people rushed past us, heading downward. They ignored us completely. I wondered what had become of the little boy who liked to run in the wrong direction. In my mind's eye, I saw him standing before an enormous hole in the wall, turning to stick out his tongue, then racing on through and out across a starlit field.
When we reached the level of the Chapel things were brighter than they had been, though still not much better than twilight. The soft glow of candlelight came from several new directions. The belts remained dead. I aimed us in the direction from which I had come, wondering if the apostate preacher had passed out yet.
It was Gene and Jenkins who had died, Winkel who had yielded to Black's personality assault A moment's work with the handiest weapon and he held Wing Null. What now?
Me, of course.
I was the last one left Once I was out of the way, he could get on with his plans, whatever they might be. I regretted that, if he won, I would probably never understand the exact nature of our relationship, would never know what it was that he had had in mind all along. Finding out would almost be worth the ultimate risk. ... I shelved that thought for the time being, however.
I wanted to run. I wanted to reach the black door as soon as possible, plunge through it and get things settled, finally. But I was hurting enough as it was and I knew that my reactions had been slowed. There was no sense in arriving all out of breath, too.
I also wanted to say things to Glenda. I wanted to say, "All right, what was it you wanted to tell me when you invited me to your place as I lay dying?" I wanted to tell her that I knew her story about having lost a pack of jobs was a lie, that I knew she held a professorship in engineering. I wanted to ask her why, since she had set me up for an ambush, she had pushed me out of the line of fire at the last moment. I wanted to ask her why she was being so cooperative in accompanying me now. And I was curious whether she was carrying a weapon.
But of course I said none of these things.
We hurried along, passing a few people, ignoring them and being ignored. All of them seemed headed for one or another of the services. In due course, we neared the area of my arrival. There was, unfortunately, a service in progress too near for me to utilize the facility I desired. It took me close to ten minutes to locate another one in a deserted area. I sprang the door and swung it open, climbed up, turned, held out my hand and helped Glenda inside. She did not balk or question this, but followed me down the incline, her hand on my shoulder.
At the rear, I opened the box and fiddled with it, knowing she was watching everything that I did. Well, I could fiddle with her memories, too, later, if there was a later.
The door closed above and behind us. I snapped the box shut and I took up a position in front of Glenda, a primed grenade in my left hand, the pistol in my right. If the defense system was set on automatic, it would not fire when it scanned me, though. If he had it on manual, I was hoping that Glenda's presence would make him hesitate to push buttons. If he did not, we still had my body armor between us and a host of deadlies. Maybe I could knock them out in time.
"I take it this is not a standard procedure," I heard Glenda say.
"Shift your weight backward. Well be landing on a level surface," I said.<
br />
By the time I finished saying it, we already had.
9
I lurched slightly forward despite my stance, I heard the klaxon begin its warning and I hurled my grenade at the weapons bank.
I pushed Glenda against the far wall and shielded her from the explosion that followed Before the echoes had died, I turned and dashed through the opening portal.
There was no one in sight. The klaxon kept wailing. I raced ahead.
Rounding the curved corridor's first big blind spot, I saw that the door to the Comp vault was still open. I swung around the massive metal frame and entered low, weapon extended.
But there was no need for such an entry. Only Gene and Jenkins were present, and I already knew that they were both dead. The manner of their passing was not especially important to me, though I noticed that Gene had been shot in the left temple and Jenkins had blood on his chest and abdomen. Faint memories of the attack came into my mind as I looked upon the scene. It is strange how a terminal mesh works. Had things been the other way around, they would know my final moments with a terrible clarity. It always seems to pass with more clarity from older members of the family to the younger, painfully enforcing a kind of seniority system in the descent of the nexus. Why this should be so, I do not know. Not that it really matters, I guess.
I crossed the room and killed the klaxon. Glenda entered as I was turning away from it, then halted and turned pale. I went to her, turned her about and pushed her back outside.
"This way," I said, and I led her on up the corridor.
The door to the Files vault was open also. I halted when I saw this and proceeded toward it on my own. I edged close, went in quickly.
It was empty. But before I could relax, sigh, straighten, my eyes automatically moved to the most important part of the room, and there they remained.
Pins five, four, three and two had been pulled. The chair had been swiveled to the right. The helmet hung at a lopsided angle above it.
It was the ache in my shoulders that made me realize how tense my muscles had become. I took a deep breath, mopped my brow, turned.
Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 Page 14