"Yes, that's so," said Azure, quickly divining Evan's intent. "Let him go."
"No. I am not so easily tricked. Within myself are many purely organic lifeforms. Some contribute while others have proved useless, but I would not deny to any the fulfillment that comes from being wholly integrated. I will learn from this one as I did not have the chance to learn from the other."
"You won't learn a damn thing from me," Evan assured it. "I'm not a sun-eater. When this goo covers my head I'll die."
"It will not matter. I will learn from your parts, as I have learned from and made use of similar soft bodies." By way of illustration a dozen brown limbs emerged from the slick surface nearby and waved at him. They had been removed from a dozen unfortunate deceased owners. Evan was nearly sick.
"When you are fully integrated you will be more cooperative," the Integrator assured him blithely.
It veneers itself with reason, Evan told himself tiredly, much as a cheap piece of furniture is plated with expensive wood, and so it convinces itself it is sane. He wasn't going to be able to argue himself out of this deathtrap. The Integrator was composed of hundreds, thousands, of bodies of similar unfortunates, and Evan was going to join them. It would pick his imprisoned body apart, move his brain to the section reserved for brains, use his eyes and ears as it saw fit. And there was no reason to doubt that one day, unless it was stopped by some natural disaster, it would indeed have consumed every intelligent being on the planet. What would happen then, when it finally realized that it was no more successful than when it had begun? Would it finally recognize its own insanity?
An interesting and totally moot question, which Evan would not be around to learn the answer to. He and Azure and all the others were going to suffer the bliss of integration, whether they wanted to or not.
He could still broadcast to his friends by means of the device they had implanted in his head, but they did not reply to his repeated queries. Perhaps they were being blocked, or perhaps their own communications facilities had been taken over already. They might be able to hear him but not to respond. He was sure they were still alive. So long as sunlight reached their receptors and their bodies remained intact they would continue to live. Not like him, when his head was finally submerged. Heart pounding, lungs exploding. He wondered if his teeth would have any effect on the yellow silicate that was slowly entombing him and resolved come morning to find out.
And if he could hold it off, then what? Slow death from thirst or starvation? The alternatives were not promising.
The fear and tension, the worry and anxiety, combined to exhaust him. He welcomed the exhaustion, as he welcomed inevitable sleep. If he was extremely fortunate he might suffocate before he awoke.
Chapter Thirteen
Even that small favor was to be denied him. The rising sun woke him in bane to discover that the enveloping yellow syrup had almost reached his chin. He was completely imprisoned now except for his head. Soon he was going to be able to try his teeth on the stuff. He thought of swallowing some. It might kill him a little quicker.
There was no response to his queries from Azure or any of his companions. Possibly the Integrator had begun to take control of their minds as well as their bodies. At least he could still see, thanks to the superb surgery of the physicians. He was facing toward the rising sun but was not blinded.
Unique discoveries which he had barely had time to enjoy. The Integrator heaved beneath him, a violent lurch that was as impressive as it was unexpected. Taking over another patch of ground, Evan told himself. He licked his lips, wondering what the yellow death would taste like.
An intense blast of rich red light that was brighter than the sun caused the Integrator to convulse a second time. The light struck the curving bulk several meters below Evan's location. The yellow silicate began to melt and flow like hot butter.
"STOP— NOW!"
The deafening warning had no effect on the persistence of the red beam, which continued to slice across the surface of the Integrator. Huge tentacles and massive groping hands thrust out of the earth lining the valley, straining to rend the source of the annihilating light. They had no more effect on it than had the mental shout.
Unable to move, Evan could only pray the light would miss him. If it touched him he'd go up like a wick in a candle.
Library managed a frighteningly weak response to his query. "I can't imagine what the source is, but it can do no more harm to us than we have done to ourselves already. What damages the Integrator helps us— unless we are unlucky enough to be torched by the light as well."
"It is like a barrean." Evan had to strain to identify the source, finally recognized it as belonging to one of the surviving trio of warriors. "Very much like a barrean, though more powerful still."
"What the hell is a barrean?"
"A solitary and infrequently encountered creature which defends itself against its enemies by striking them with intense beams of colored light." Evan could sense library's frustration. "I wish I could see. As warrior observes, this is much like a barrean's work, except for its sense of purpose. There is a pattern to its destruction."
Evan had a much better view than any of them but could see little more. The source of the beam lay in the direction of the rising sun and despite his specially altered eyes, he could not see through the glare.
"Wait! I believe I can see something." Second physician, sounding tired and far away. "It is no larger than a barrean, but differently shaped. When the sun rises higher I may be able to make an identifica-"
The Integrator spasmed. A large section of the creature broke away from the main body and slid to the ground. It did not tumble, which was fortunate or Evan would have been crushed between the excised material and the unyielding gravel below.
The involuntary biopsy sent the Integrator into a frenzy. Tentacles and cilia lashed the ground in all directions. The earth shook as the entire enormous mass lifted and fell back against the valley floor.
Evan saw the red beam swing toward him. He closed his eyes. At least the end would be far quicker than if he'd been left to suffocate. But the deadly light did not touch him. Instead, it seemed to focus precisely on the hardened silica in which he was encased. The stuff liquefied and ran. The beam was hellishly hot and some of the heat was conducted to his body through the churning silica, but sooner than he dared hope he was free of his prison. Cramped from disuse, his leg muscles refused to function and he fell over on his side.
His companions suffered no such lingering dysfunction and hurried over to make certain he was all right. Two warriors gripped his arms and began to haul him away from the flailing Integrator. It ignored their flight, wholly absorbed in trying to destroy its unreachable tormentor.
He was halfway up the hill and trying to stand when he heard the voice. It came out of the rising sun, full of impatience and self-assurance. It was startlingly clear.
"Hurry up! This way. The Integrator's truly dangerous only when it has time to stop and think."
There were none of the shades of uncertainty which marked the voices of his friends. It was almost as though he was being addressed by— another human.
"Yes, I'm Ophemert. Now get a move on."
Somehow she'd escaped with a station weapon, a survey laser or better. It might even be a component of an undamaged survival suit. He struggled to his feet, forcing his agonized leg muscles to work, and staggered into the glare. Azure and the rest followed, their receptors straining thirstily toward the unscreened sunlight.
He half ran, half crawled, up the steep slope, shoving blindly through needlelike flora and ignoring the scratches they made on his face. His limbs were still protected by the remains of his froporia armor, and the transparent skin covering his torso did not bleed.
Finally they reached the top of the hill and were able to turn and gaze back down into the valley. The organosilicate ocean that was the Integrator was still thrashing about. No doubt it was roaring its defiance. Unlike Evan's companions, though, it cou
ld only communicate through tendrils. It had never learned how to communicate without intimate contact, just as it had not learned how to come to terms with its own insanity.
"Thanks." He squinted, trying to separate a mobile shape from the surrounding growths and the sunlight. "I thought my friends and I were dead. You saved our lives."
"The rest of you are welcome to your lives." What Evan hadn't had a moment to consider earlier struck him forcefully now: he was not hearing Martine Ophemert's speech. He was hearing her as he heard Azure and library and physician, through the device they had implanted in his brain. Somehow Martine Ophemert had also been given this gift. Another mystery to add to the top of a pile that Prism raised a little higher every day.
"You may leave, associatives. As for you, you must know that I am going to kill you." A stunned Evan realized immediately she must be talking about him. It was one comment he had no ready reply for. "You didn't think I'd let the Integrator have that pleasure, did you? I thought I'd watch you sweat for a while, though. But I couldn't see your face from here while you died. And I've been wanting to watch you die ever since"— Evan tasted of a mental sob— "what you did in camp. You rotten, sorry bastard, I'm so glad you came after me. Followed the beacon, didn't you? I hoped you would, oh, how I prayed you'd follow the beacon! You couldn't quit and leave any work undone, could you?"
Evan was stumbling backward, shielding his eyes and searching desperately for his unseen assassin-to-be. "But why do you want to kill me? I didn't do anything at the station! I'm here to rescue you." He tripped over a broken stump and fell backward onto the sand.
The red death was very close to his feet now. It had been tracking him ever since Ophemert had spoken. Now it moved away. The voice of Prism station's sole survivor suddenly sounded confused.
"You're not Humula. Where's Humula?"
Evan sat up and tried to see into the concealing forest. Even his newly modified eyes could not fight off every reflection, search out every possible hiding place. And what if they could? He had nothing to fight with.
"Hum— who? That name means nothing to me— no, wait a minute. Arin Humula, wasn't he a repair tech or something at the station?"
"Aram, not Arin," she corrected him. "That was his name, yes. I thought it was him, come to finish me off. Come to finish his work."
"Maybe we could have something like an intelligent conversation if you'd tell me what the hell you're talking about." He took a deep breath. "My name's Evan Orgell. I'm from company HQ on Samstead. I was put down here quietly to find out why there's been no report from the station for months."
"They put you down here by yourself— like that?" Her tone was disbelieving, understandably so. Evan didn't believe what had happened to him either.
"No. I had an MHW, the latest and best model available. Right out of the prototype lab. It wasn't good enough."
A light feminine chuckle. "Nothing is— for Prism."
"I decided to try and locate your beacon anyhow. I was fortunate enough to make some friends along the way"— he waved to where Azure and the others were cleaning yellow goo off themselves— "and when a choice specimen of local life tore me up, they fixed me up the best they knew how. I know it's a little hard to get used to, but— "
"Not at all." He felt he was being examined closely. "They seem to have done a fine job. Associative physicians are natural wonders. They're going to revolutionize the whole course of Commonwealth medicine."
"I followed your beacon. It led me to that." He nodded down into the valley. The Integrator already seemed but a distant nightmare, though if Ophemert was to be believed they weren't entirely out of danger.
"The Integrator tried to integrate me. I don't integrate easily."
"Well, you had a weapon. I'm unarmed."
"Yes, I have a weapon," she said strangely. "The Integrator sought to use me for its own purposes. I decided I could use it. I made it a gift of my beacon, knowing that in tracking me Humula would follow its signal. I'm sorry that you were almost sucked in instead of him. I couldn't imagine another single man coming after me. I was sure you were him, though I couldn't imagine why or how he'd come to have Associative members traveling with him. So you got down and came looking for me without running into Humula? I find that hard to believe."
"Oh, I found him. Dead, like everyone else at the station. You didn't know that?"
"I know everyone else is dead. Everyone but me. I didn't know he was, obviously, or I wouldn't have thought you were him. How did he die?"
Evan shrugged. "I can't give you any details. Prism killed him."
She was silent for a long time before replying. "First time a planet ever deprived me of an anticipated pleasure. Somehow I don't feel cheated. I'm going to come out and join you now. Do you have a weak stomach, Evan Orgell?"
He frowned. What the devil was she talking about? "You think I'd have been given this assignment if I did?"
"I don't know. Here lately I don't have much confidence in the company's method of selecting offworld personnel."
A shape emerged from a stand of green crystalline growths and came toward Evan. He shaded his eyes with a hand just as it stopped and raised its right arm. Four fingers clustered together and from their tangent tips emerged that murderous shaft of red light.
Evan tried to dodge, falling to one side, while the two physicians who were resting behind him scattered. But the beam was not aimed at them. It thrust past him to slice into humping, twisting segments the two long tentacles which had crawled all the way up the slope from the valley below.
"I told you it was still dangerous here. The Integrator's persistent." The arm was lowered and the red light vanished. "I don't think it will try anything else for a while, but if we're going to talk there are safer places to do so." She half smiled at him.
It was only a half smile because she only had half a face.
Beautiful, she had been, in figure as well as face, and the sad dichotomy that was Martine Ophemert continued all the way down to her remaining foot. Only the left side was still fashioned of flesh and bone, and even it had been patched in several places. The color match of the patches was good, but the artificial skin was still painfully obvious.
The right side of her body was composed of an even deeper blue material than Azure's.
Something had rebuilt slightly more than half of Martine Ophemert. So deep was the royal blue that it was almost opaque. He could not see the artificial organs that lay inside. He did not have to see them to know they existed. Even the right half of the skull was of blue crystal, smooth and inflexible except for the lighter blue lens which substituted for the missing eye. It swiveled and rotated in tandem with its fleshy companion. He wondered how the brain correlated what must be two entirely different sets of visual messages. For that matter he wondered how much of the original brain was left.
Cosmetic detail had been attended to along with more practical concerns. From the right side of the head, long blue fibers trailed toward the ground. They were identical in length and diameter to Ophemert's natural black hair, except for their color— and the minute bit of light that danced at the tip of each fiber.
She stopped when she was barely a meter away and studied him as intently as he was studying her. What the physicians had done to him was wondrous, but Martine Ophemert was a miracle. A blue miracle.
His friends formed a curious circle around them both. "I see a couple of physicians. Did they do this work on you?" A hand of sapphire reached out to touch the transparent skin covering his abdomen.
"A necessary repair job." He was shaking his head in disbelief. "Nothing compared to what's been done to you. I wouldn't think that that much of human body could be rebuilt if I wasn't looking at the proof of it right now."
"Neither would I" Again that quirky yet charming half smile. The right side of her face— did not move. Whoever had saved her had managed to give her a new heart, half a new body, and more. But they had not been able to rebuild her smile.
"I w
ent racing through the forest to escape what happened back at the station. Had on my survival suit so I thought I was safe enough." Maybe she could manage only a half smile, but she could still produce a hearty laugh. "A top-heavy condarite fell on me. My right side was crushed. Members of an Associative found me and, well, you know how they work. They're as curious as they are skillful. In order to ask me questions they had to keep me alive."
"I can't claim to begin to understand the medical engineering that made it possible for me to live. All I can do is marvel at it."
"The light you used to save us," said library, "we thought it was a barrean."
"Oh, that. They told me about the barrean. I was fascinated. That's part of my work. So they offered to make another modification." She turned and raised her right arm again.
As soon as the tips of all four fingers were brought into alignment the shaft of coherent red light reappeared. It vanished as quickly when she spread the fingers apart.
"My very own laser. I've got artificial rubies in my fingers and hand— it's just corundum to them— and argon gas in my arm. Something in my back collects and stores enough energy to make the whole setup lase when I bring all the elements into proper alignment. They did it because I kept expressing concern for my personal safety. Humula, you know." She lowered the arm and flexed shining blue fingers. "I can vary the intensity by moving my fingers slightly. It's funny. I've always been an admirer of bioengineering. Just never thought I'd experience it firsthand."
"Same here," Evan told her.
She glanced down into the valley. "The Integrator hasn't forgotten you. Let's take a walk." They turned and followed her down the other side of the ridge, leaving the baffling, maddening thing that was the Integrator to rage at their escape.
"I was sure you were Humula," she told him as they picked their way down the slope. "The only thing that made me hesitate was the presence of Associative members. I couldn't imagine how someone like him could induce physicians and a library to travel with him."
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