Gorgon Child

by Steven Barnes

  Quint and Ibumi whispered briefly. Then Quint returned to the dais. "All right, that's true—but I choose the test."

  Behind him, Ibumi smiled grimly.

  "And if he passes, he may challenge you. And if he wins ..." The small Gorgon shrugged, and Aubry thought he saw the hint of a smile.

  "All right," Ibumi said. "Tomorrow. The Hell Run. Monument Valley."

  Leslie lay in a state between wakefulness and sleep, drifting high in the stars.

  The computer fed him information of the target, on the assignment.

  But he asked the computer for information as well.

  Where did the sperm and egg that created him originate?

  The computer answered classified.

  Leslie laughed. His mind reached out. Few of Leslie's skills manifested on the conscious level. There were simply many things that he could do, had been trained to do, bred to do, that were so thoroughly ingrained that they were as automatic as the thousands of tiny physical and mental adjustments an ordinary child makes when riding a bicycle or climbing a tree.

  To Leslie, the barriers erected by the computer system were like physical things, the abstract electronic gates converted by tricks of programmed perception into walls lined with screaming jaws, and raging flaming rivers, and flower beds planted with rabid cobras. And one obstacle at a time, he met them, and conquered them, the twitching of his muscles, the hallucinogenic responses to phantasmal threats converted to their electronic analogues.

  One after another, the barriers fell, and Leslie found himself in a shadow-world of pure information.

  He took a moment to enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done, perhaps the only true pleasure in his short life, and then got down to business.

  Interesting. So the man Aubry Knight and the woman who nursed him, Promise Cotonou, actually were his mother and father.

  Did it make a difference? Of course not. His family was here. And they would be proud of him when he killed Sterling DeLacourte.

  But something within Leslie warmed when he thought of his father, magnificent in the long shadows, fighting for a child he had never known.

  Or his mother, throwing her body over Leslie as the crash became imminent.

  Was this love?

  It was something to think about.

  After the assignment was over.

  After DeLacourte was dead, and everything was right again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Hell Run

  Thursday, June 29

  The sensors were small white circles glued into place at Aubry's forehead and spine. Fine wires transferred their messages in turn to the transmitter at his hip.

  It was still dark out, and chilly. The sun was just beginning to rise out behind the buttes. Aubry knew that soon, too soon, its heat would wash across the valley, sparing nothing.

  The delegation from Gorgon was there, and a selected group from the NewMen.

  "This is the Hell Run," Quint said expressionlessly. He held a rock twice the size of a man's head cradled in his arms. "A ritual practiced by various Native American nations. Their young men would pledge to endure it, retrieve an object, or to climb a mountain. It is a quest, a kind. A quest for your personal vision."

  "What are the sensors for?"

  "They represent a modern refinement. Everyone has different tolerance. With these monitors, we can check your heartbeat rate, your level of moisture loss. And we can be far more precise than they ever were. We know exactly what we want to test."

  "And what is that?"

  "You don't need to know. All you need to do is run."

  He handed Aubry the stone. He hefted it, adjusted muscles for the stress. He figured that it weighed ab sixty pounds.

  The cut in Aubry's neck still burned. His leg ached, and he felt rust in every joint.

  But back at the camp were Promise and Leslie and Bloodeagle. And there was something else, something dreadful that had to be stopped.

  "How will I know when it's over?" he asked.

  "We'll alert you. Don't stop running. Stay with the pacer. Don't fall. Keep going."

  He nodded without speaking. Aubry took another sip of water from the bottle at the starting line.

  "One more thing," Quint said. Gently, he ran his fingers through Aubry's beard. "Take the rest of the water from the bottle—and hold it in your mouth. You have to spit it out at the end."

  "Would you like me to carry you on my back?"

  "You really are quite lovely, you know."

  Aubry swallowed deeply, then took the next mouthful and held it. He'd hold it, all right. He wanted the pleasure of spitting it in this monkey's face.

  He inhaled once, harshly, and then the pacer button in his ear beeped, and he set off at a steady jogging pace.

  Ibumi clapped Quint on the shoulder. "Knight is a fine man. Too bad he ended up on the wrong side of this."

  "We didn't deal the hand," Quint said dully. "We're just playing it out."

  He touched a button in the top of the sensor, and a plastic card slid out. Quickly, surreptitiously, he slid in a second card. "Good-bye, Aubry," Ibumi murmured.

  The sun was high now, and Aubry felt the first real stab of heat. The flat, spiny leaves of the cactus wavered in mirage, and the very rocks rippled in' the searing breeze.

  He sank to his knees, balancing the rock, and wiped his forehead with an elbow. He had to keep going. The perspiration from his forehead beaded on his hand, and he wanted to suck at it. Water. He craved water. But he couldn't even swallow what he had in his mouth. He let a trickle of it down his throat, and groaned with pleasure, lie could make it, whatever they threw at him. He knew, in the bottom of his heart, that he was the best, the toughest, the strongest man in the world. And as long as he held that image in his mind—

  The beeper trilled a warning at him. All right! All right, already!

  He pushed himself back up, and started off again. The pacer's tone was relentless. A hundred and eighty beats to the minute. Ten thousand eight hundred steps per hour.

  His arms were set in a curve, holding the rock. He studied it as he ran. It was grayish, with silver speckles. Almost perfectly round, and fit his arms perfectly.

  It all seemed so pointless, though. He wasn't running anywhere. He wasn't running from anything. He was just running. On and on into the desert, until a noise in his ear told him to stop, and the black shapes of the hovercraft dropped from the sky to claim him.

  He had to move.

  There, in the distance, sat a horse and rider. Their centaur silhouette wavered in the morning heat. They shimmered and clarified, then disappeared again.

  Maybe they were there. It was possible.

  He shook his head. Sweat drooled down into his eyes, and for the first time he noticed that his arms were aching. He slammed down the pain barrier in his mind, and kept going.

  He was the best.

  The sun was a blinding yellow orb, slamming down on him, the day beginning to heat now. The shale beneath his feet was hard-packed, gave good support to his feet, and he could keep moving.

  The best.

  But, God, it was hot.

  He could look up at the sun and see that it was after noon. The sweat had stopped drooling now. His skin was beginning to feel tacky and dry, and then hot. So hot. Everything was hot—the sand beneath his feet, in the sun overhead, the air he breathed, his skin. His blood boiled.

  His arms! The rock, the damned rock that he carried in his arms felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. It was pulling his shoulders out, twisting his back, setting his elbows aflame. The muscles knotted, trying to maintain tension. Twice his sweat-slimed hands almost opened, and twice he bore down, linked fingers beneath its prodigious weight and ran on.

  The best, the best, the best—

  Aubry sucked air through his nose, each lungful more scalding than the one before. His throat felt as if it had been napalmed.

  He stumbled, and fell, smashing his face against the rock. He groaned in pain, and lost
water from his mouth, choked trying to seal in the rest.

  He wiped wetness from his nose, looked at the red smear on the back of his hand, momentarily wondering what it was.

  Oh, yes. Blood.

  Dazedly, he looked around—where was he? What was happening?

  Run. Yes. He had to run. He forced himself back to his feet, felt the muscles in his back creak as he pulled the rock back up, and began again. He coughed, choking, lost a precious spoonful of water, almost spewed out what was left in a frantic attempt to breathe.

  thebestthestrongestthebestthestrongesttheycan'tbreakme,can'tstopmenotevereverever

  He was wobbling now. Everything around him was spinning, a kaleidoscope of browns and dull greens. And yellows.

  And he ran. The air was too hot, every breath scalded his lungs, and he had to stop. Had to . . .

  But couldn't.

  There was something that he had to do. His head felt as if it was going to burst, throbbing and pounding at him now, and he felt himself slow . . .

  No. thebestthebestthebest . . .

  He trotted again, the sun pounding down on him. His arms felt swollen, numb but filled to bursting with blood.

  God. Where was he? The beeper pulsed angrily at him.

  Run. Run.

  He began to move again, the sound of the pacer a constant, rhythmic buzz in his ear.

  Keep moving. There was something— (but he was beginning to forget what) —that he had to do. Blood was drooling down from his nose, and his neck wound again. The silica gel bandage was working its way open, and blood was trickling, flowing now, pulsing warmly.

  He sniffed, hard, swallowing blood and water, struggling for air. Aubry twisted his head to the side, managed to rub some of the blood up onto his shoulder. He smeared his face in it, rubbed its sticky thickness against his parched lips.

  The pulse beat in his ear, and he kept moving. I'm the . . . the . . .

  He was suddenly confused, terribly confused. Who or what was he? He was somehow up, outside of his body, watching it running, staggering through the sand, trailing droplets of blood like Hansel and Gretel's crumbs. Carrying that silly-assed rock, telling himself that he was unconquerable, and the toughest human being in the world, and all of that other tired macho bullshit, when it was so obvious that he was dying.

  What difference did it make? Why had he clung to that image for so long? How much energy had he wasted, violence had he wreaked, loves had he lost, to preserve that image? What had it cost? And could anything be worth it?

  There was a blurry sensation, and suddenly Aubry felt his consciousness peel away from his body. Illusion, but a fascinating one: outside of himself, floating up above his head, watching his body staggering wildly now along the— And trip. In the body again, sliding down the side of a dune, exhausted, the world spinning. The beeper pulsed on. Quicker now. Was that possible. No. Cheating. He sobbed for breath. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair . . . His strength, vaunted, inexhaustible, was draining away. His image of self, sufficient for so long, was no longer enough to keep him going. All right then. For Leslie and Promise.

  Where was the rock? He found it, and wrapped his hands around it and wrenched, pulling himself from his feet, and the rest of the water sprayed from his mouth in a mist. He barely noticed.

  Promise. How could he . . .

  What?

  Oh, yes. How could he do anything for her? He didn't love her. It was just the drug. Just Cyloxibin. He couldn't love her. Couldn't love anyone. Didn't need anyone.

  Aubry wrenched himself to his feet, staggering now like a wind-up toy with a broken spring.

  There. There was the separation again. There was him, his body . . .

  And then, what was he? If he wasn't his body?

  Who was he, if he wasn't his feelings, his sensations, his experience? He had no answer, and yet there was a part of him, unsuspected all of these years, which stood back from the agony, back from the torn body, which watched dispassionately.

  Which urged onward without wanting victory. Which kept heart beating and lungs pumping without attachment lo life. Which pushed his body to the limits of its tolerance without seeking death.

  Apart from life, or death. Pain, or pleasure. Hope, or tear. Without denying any of them. A part of him which found a curious peace in the center of the storm.

  No sound now. He watched his feet silently striking the earth, a hundred and eighty times a minute.

  The path he ran had been run by innumerable feet before him. Did they have water? Drugs, perhaps? Were they bleeding from the neck, their joints aching from mortal combat?

  He didn't know. The pain was part of his body, that wonderful, monstrous body, which had so eclipsed his mind, his feelings, his spirit. Had stolen his identity until he craved . . .

  Its death.

  With a burst of light, Aubry saw it, saw it so clearly lit, staggering utterly exhausted through the sand, he knew.

  Not "knew about." Knew. Saw his body for what it was, a ridiculous meat puppet. An automaton fiercely defending its absurd attachment to life while simultaneously seeking death, thereby guaranteeing his eventual defeat.

  No man escapes Death. So Death must not be the enemy. Life must not be the prize. It must be the gameboard, on which Death teaches its savage lessons. You could heed those lessons, or ignore them, but never evade them.

  Death, then, was the ally. Not to be sought, but heeded.

  Attachment to life was the enemy.

  He chuckled hysterically, silently, until tears began to roll down his cheeks, cooling them with their evaporation.

  Something hard hit him on the knees.

  Oh, yes. The ground. Up! Up!

  His body laughed at him. He pulled the body up, and it balanced unsteadily on its heels, then fell again.

  Oh.

  Well, if this was the place for dying, that wasn't so bad. He had finally learned the lesson he had ignored all his life.

  And the lesson of the day, class—

  (repeat after me—)

  He felt himself drifting up farther from the body, could see it, curled small and almost insignificant on the sand. It was a nice body, he supposed, and bodies were good while you needed them, but he didn't need his anymore.

  Oh. An image of Leslie, and of Promise, came to him. Promise. Still, here at the threshold of death, her image, the thought of her face, the remembrance of the silky depths of her body, came to him, made him weep with remembered pleasure.

  Promise. Even here, his body wasted, she came to him. And at last he realized that what he felt for her was the realest thing that had ever existed in his world, and it was only his fear of deaths large and small that had made him such a fool.

  He, and Leslie, were not creatures of Life. They were Death incarnate, and had known each other in that first instant. Father and Daughter/Son. Unholy trinity.

  How simply, absurdly true.

  It would have been a terrible thing to die a fool and a liar. Truth, at any cost, is worth the price.

  Up. Get up now.

  As if pulled by strings from above, as if a marionette with no life of its own, Aubry's body rose again, following the bidding of his mind.

  It lurched on, in a bizarre parody of running now, past pain, skating along a razor edge between life and death. Eyes staring glassily, and legs twitching mechanically, even as the shadows descended from the sky, drumming the sand into a storm, and plucked him up.

  Sound. Coolness. Slowly, the presence of faces, images. What . . . ?

  He was in a room, and there was a respirator attached to his mouth, breathing for him. He coughed, hacked, thrashed, and tore the respirator out.

  Where . . . ?

  He sat up suddenly, and gentle hands pushed him back down.

  "Rest, Aubry. You need rest. You almost died yesterday."

  "Yesterday ..."

  Promise was over the bed, Bloodeagle beside her. His friend's face was a mass of bandages, and when he spoke, his voice was a whisper. "Quint sabota
ged the monitor. We lost track of you—didn't know where you were when we found out that a false, prerecorded reading was coming through. You lost almost fifteen percent of your body fluid. I don't know how you kept going."

  "I . . ." He could barely make the sounds. "I didn't. I died."

  Promise squeezed his hand. "Aubry?"

  There were no tears, but Aubry cried, great racking sobs that were mixed with laughter, powerful gusts that shook the bed.

  "Miles ..." Promise whispered, alarmed.

  "He's not back with us yet," Bloodeagle said. "It will

  pass."

  In a few minutes Aubry curled onto his side, and looked up at them, eyes wide and guileless.

  "Leslie. Wh—" He stopped. A nurse offered him a bottle. Aubry pulled at the nipple like a nursing infant. "Where is Leslie?"

  "Gone. All of the children gone. Quint and Ibumi have disappeared, with about sixteen of the Gorgons. That's half."

  "Gone where . . . ?"

  "Los Angeles."

  Aubry tried to fight himself to a sitting position, but his strength failed him. "We've got to stop him ..."

  "How?" Promise asked bitterly. "If we admit what Quint was trying to do, Gorgon and the NewMen are finished. DeLacourte will see to that. Quint won't surrender without a fight. Leslie will die."

  "All of that ... to save that bastard's . . . life?"

  Let him die. Let DeLacourte die ...

  The voice was seductive.

  But it was the voice of his body, and not the voice of his spirit, and his body had died on the Hell Run.

  It simply didn't matter what his body wanted. His body walked the path of Life, a path filled with fear, and would lie to him in its terror of the Void.

  He had to walk the path of Death, without seeking Death. Death need not lie, would never deceive him. Death was Truth itself.

  Death knew that love was the truest, sweetest comfort in a lonely world. Cyloxibin was a joke: mushrooms don't create love. They might, at the very most, open the loving heart.

  Life might deny Death, but Death knew all Life's truths, and kept them holy.

  Truth could not be spawned in lies and deceit.