My Name is Legion
Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
My Name is Legion
PART ONE. The Eve of RUMOKO
I was in the control room when the J-9 unit flaked out on us. I was there for purposes of doing some idiot maintenance work, among other things.
There were two men below in the capsule, inspecting the Highway to Hell, that shaft screwed into the ocean's bottom thousands of fathoms beneath us and soon to be opened for traffic. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have worried, as there were two J-9 technicians on the payroll. Only, one of them was on leave in Spitzbergen and the other had entered sick bay just that morning. As a sudden combination of wind and turbulent waters rocked the Aquina and I reflected that it was now the Eve of RUMOKO, I made my decision. I crossed the room and removed a side panel.
Schweitzer! You're not authorized to fool around with that! said Doctor Asquith.
I studied the circuits, and, Do you want to work on it? I asked him.
Of course not. I wouldn't know how to begin. But ...
Do you want to see Martin and Demmy die?
You know I don't. Only you're not ...
Then tell me who is, I said. That capsule down there is controlled from up here, and we've just blown something. If you know somebody better fit to work on it, then you'd better send for him. Otherwise, I'll try to repair the J-9 myself.
He shut up then, and I began to see where the trouble was. They had been somewhat obvious about things. They had even used solder. Four circuits had been rigged, and they had fed the whole mess back through one of the timers ...
So I began unscrewing the thing. Asquith was an oceanographer and so should know little about electronic circuits. I guessed that he couldn't tell that I was undoing sabotage. I worked for about ten minutes, and the drifting capsule hundreds of fathoms beneath us began to function once again.
As I worked, I had reflected upon the powers soon to be invoked, the forces that would traverse the Highway to Hell for a brief time, and then like the Devil's envoy or the Devil himself, perhaps, be released, there in the mid-Atlantic. The bleak weather that prevails in these latitudes at this time of year did little to improve my mood. A deadly force was to be employed, atomic energy, to release an even more powerful phenomenon, live magma, which seethed and bubbled now miles beneath the sea itself. That anyone should play senseless games with something like this was beyond my comprehension. Once again, the ship was shaken by the waves.
Okay, I said. There were a few shorts and I straightened them out I replaced the side panel. There shouldn't be any more trouble.
He regarded the monitor. It seems to be functioning all right now. Let me check ...
He flipped the toggle and said, Aquina to capsule. Do you read me?
Yes, came the reply. What happened?
Short circuit in the J-9, he answered. It has been repaired. What is your condition?
All systems returned to normal. Instructions?
Proceed with your mission, he said, then turned to me. I'll recommend you for something or other, he said. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I didn't know you could service the J-9.
I'm an electrical engineer, I replied, and I've studied this thing. I know it's restricted. If I hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong, I wouldn't have touched it.
I take it you'd rather not be recommended for something or other?
That is correct.
Then I will not do it.
Which was a very good thing, for the nonce, as I'd also disconnected a small bomb, which then resided in my left-hand jacket pocket and would soon be tossed overboard. It had had another five to eight minutes to go and would have blotted the record completely. As for me, I didn't even want a record; but if there had to be one, it would be mine, not the enemy's.
I excused myself and departed. I disposed of the evidence. I thought upon the day's doings.
Someone had tried to sabotage the project. So Don Walsh had been right. The assumed threat had been for real. Consume that and digest it. It meant that there was something big involved. The main question was, What? The second was, What next?
I lit a cigarette and leaned on the Aquina's rail. I watched the cold north sea attack the hull. My hands shook. It was a decent, humanitarian project. Also, a highly dangerous one. Even forgetting the great risks, though, I could not come up with a good counter-interest. Obviously, however, there was one.
Would Asquith report me? Probably. Though he would not realize what he was doing. He would have to explain the discontinuance of function in the capsule in order to make his report jibe with the capsule's log. He would say that I had repaired a short circuit. That's all.
That would be enough.
I had already decided that the enemy had access to the main log. They would know about the disconnected bomb not being reported. They would also know who had stopped them; and they might be interested enough, at a critical time like this, to do something rash. Good. That was precisely what I wanted.
... Because I had already wasted an entire month waiting for this break. I hoped they would come after me soon and try to question me. I took a deep drag on the cigarette and watched a distant iceberg glisten in the sun. This was going to be a strange one, I had that feeling. The skies were gray and the oceans were dark. Somewhere, someone disapproved of what was going on here, but for the life of me I could not guess why.
Well, the hell with them all. I like cloudy days. I was born on one. I'd do my best to enjoy this one.
I went back to my cabin and mixed myself a drink, as I was then officially off duty.
After a time, there came a knocking on my door.
Turn the handle and push, I said.
It opened and a young man named Rawlings entered.
Mister Schweitzer, he said, Carol Deith would like to speak with you.
Tell her I'm on my way, I said.
All right, and he departed.
I combed my sort of blond hair and changed my shirt, because she was pretty and young. She was the ship's Security Officer, though, so I had a good idea as to what she was really after.
I walked to her office and knocked twice on the door.
As I entered, I bore in mind the fact that it probably involved the J-9 and my doings of a half hour before. This would tend to indicate that she was right on top of everything.
Hello, I said. I believe you sent for me?
Schweitzer? Yes, I did. Have a seat, huh? and she gestured at one on the other side of her expensive desk.
I took it.
What do you want?
You repaired the J-9 this afternoon.
I shrugged. Are you asking me or telling me?
You are not authorized to touch the thing.
If you want, I can go back and screw it up and leave it the way I found it.
Then you admit you worked on it?
Yes.
She sighed.
Look, I don't care, she said. You probably saved two lives today, so I'm not about to fault you for a security violation. What I want to know is something different.
What?
Was it sabotage?
And there it was. I had felt it coming.
No, I said. It was not. There were some short circuits ...
Bull, she told me.
I'm sorry. I don't understand ...
You understand, all right. Somebody gimmicked that thing. You undid it, and it was trickier than a couple of short circuits. And there was a bomb. We monitored its explosion off the port bow about half an hour ago.
You said it, I said. I didn't.
What's your game? she asked me. You cleaned up for us, and now you're covering up for somebody else. What do you want?
Nothing, I said.
I studied her. Her hair was sort of reddish and she had freckles, lots of them. Her eyes were green. They seemed to be set quite far apart beneath the ruddy line of her bangs. She was fairly tall, like five-ten, though she was not standing at the moment I had danced with her once at a shipboard party.
Well?
Quite well, I said. And yourself?
I want an answer.
To what?
Was it sabotage?
No, I said. Whatever gave you that idea?
There have been other attempts, you know.
No, I didn't know.
She blushed suddenly, highlighting her freckles. What had caused that?
Well, there have been. We stopped all of them, obviously. But they were there.
Who did it?
We don't know.
Why not?
We never got hold of the people involved.
How come?
They were clever.
I lit a cigarette.
Well, you're wrong, I said. There were some short circuits. I'm an electrical engineer and I spotted them. That was all, though.
She found one someplace, and I lit it for her.
Okay, she said. I guess I've got everything you want to tell me.
I stood then.
... By the way, I ran another check on you.
Yes?
Nothing. You're clean as snow and swansdown.
Glad to hear it.
Don't be. Mister Schweitzer. I'm not finished with you yet
Try everything, I said. You'll find nothing else.
... And I was sure of that.
So I left her, wondering when they would reach me.
I send one Christmas card each year, and it is unsigned. All it bears, in block print, is a list of four bars and the cities in which they exist. On Easter, May Day, the first day of summer, and Halloween, I sit in those bars and sip drinks from nine until midnight, local time. Then I go away. Each year, they're different bars.
Always, I pay cash, rather than using the Universal Credit Card which most people carry these days. The bars are generally dives, located in out-of-the-way places.
Sometimes Don Walsh shows up, sits down next to me and orders a beer. We strike up a conversation, then take a walk. Sometimes he doesn't show up. He never misses two in a row, though. And the second time he always brings me some cash.
A couple of months ago, on the day when summer came bustling into the world, I was seated at a table in the back of the Inferno, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It was a cool evening, as they all are in that place, and the air had been clean and the stars very bright as I walked up the flagstone streets of that national monument. After a time, I saw Don enter, wearing a dark, fake-wool suit and yellow sport shirt, opened at the neck. He moved to the bar, ordered something, turned and let his eyes wander about the tables. I nodded when he grinned and waved. He moved toward me with a glass in one hand and a Carta Blanca in the other.
I know you, he said.
Yeah, I think so. Have a seat?
He pulled out a chair and seated himself across from me at the small table. The ashtray was filled to overflowing, but not because of me. The odor of tequila was on the breeze, make that draft , from the opened front of the narrow barroom, and all about us two-dimensional nudes fought with bullfight posters for wall space.
Your name is ... ?
Frank, I said, pulling it out of me air. Wasn't it in New Orleans ... ?
Yeah, at Mardi Gras, a couple years ago.
That's right. And you're ... ?
George.
Right. I remember now. We went drinking together. Played poker all night long. Had a hell of a good time.
... And you took me for about two hundred bucks.
I grinned.
So what've you been up to? I asked him.
Oh, the usual business. There are big sales and small sales. I've got a big one going now.
Congratulations. I'm glad to hear that. Hope it works out.
Me, too.
So we made small talk while he finished his beer; then, Have you seen much of this town? I asked.
Not really. I hear it's quite a place.
Oh, I think you'll like it. I was here for their Festival once. Everybody takes bennies to stay awake for the whole three days. Indios come down from the hills and put on dances. They still hold paseos here, too, you know? And they have the only Gothic cathedral in all of Mexico. It was designed by an illiterate Indian, who had seen pictures of the things on postcards from Europe. They didn't think it would stay up when they took the scaffolding down, but it did and has done so for a long time.
I wish I could stick around, but I'm only here for a day or so. I thought I'd buy some souvenirs to take home to the family.
This is the place. Stuff is cheap here. Jewelry, especially.
I wish I had more time to see some of the sights.
There is a Toltec ruin atop a hill to the northeast, which you might have noticed because of the three crosses set at its summit. It is interesting because the government still refuses to admit it exists. The view from up there is great.
I'd like to see it. How do you get in?
You just walk out there and climb it. It doesn't exist, so there are no restrictions.
How long a hike?
Less than an hour, from here. Finish your beer, and we'll take a walk.
He did, and we did.
He was breathing heavily in a short time. But then, he lived near sea level and this was like 6,500 feet, elevation.
We made it up to the top, though, and wandered amid cacti. We seated ourselves on some big stones.
So, this place doesn't exist, he said, the same as you.
That's right.
Then it's not bugged, no, it couldn't be, the way most bars are these days.
It's still a bit of wilderness.
I hope it stays this way.
Me, too.
Thanks for the Christmas card. You looking for a job?
You know it.
All right. I've got one for you.
And that's how this one started.
Do you know about the Leeward and Windward Islands? he asked me. Or Surtsey?
No. Tell me.
Down in the West Indies, in the Lesser Antilles system, starting in an arc heading southeasterly from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands toward South America, are those islands north, of Guadeloupe which represent the high points of a subterranean ridge ranging from forty to two hundred miles in width. These are oceanic islands, built up from volcanic materials. Every peak is a volcano, extinct or otherwise.
So?
The Hawaiians grew up in the same fashion ... Surtsey, though, was a twentieth-century phenomenon: a volcanically created island which grew up in a very brief time, somewhat to the west of the Vestmanna Islands, near Iceland. That was in 1963. Capelinhos, in the Azores, was the same way, and had its origin undersea.
So? But I already knew, as I said it. I already knew about Project RUMOKO, after the Maori god of volcanoes and earthquakes. Back in the twentieth century, there had been an aborted Mohole Project and there had been natural-gas-mining deals which had involved deep drilling and the use of shaped atomic charges.
RUMOKO, he said. Do you know about it?
Somewhat. Mainly from the Times Science Section.
That's enough. We're involved.
How so?
Someone is attempting to sabotage the thing. I have been retained to find out who and how and why, and to stop him. I've tried, and have been eminently unsuccessful to date. In fact, I lost two of my men under rather strange circumstances. Then I received your Christmas card.
I turned toward him, and his green eyes seemed to glow in the dark. He was about four inches shorter than me and perhaps forty pounds lighter, which still made him a pretty big man. But he had straightened into a nearly military posture, so that he seemed bigger and stronger than the guy who had been wheezing beside me on the way up.
You want me to move in?
Yes.
What's in it for me?
Fifty thousand. Maybe a hundred fifty, depending on the results.
I lit a cigarette.
What will I have to do? I finally asked.
Get yourself assigned as a crewman on the Aquina, better yet, a technician of some kind. Can you do that?
Yes.
Well, do it. Then find out who is trying to screw the thing up. Then report back to me, or else take them out of the picture any way you see fit. Then report back to me.
I chuckled.
It sounds like a big job. Who is your client?
A U.S. Senator, he said, who shall remain nameless.
With that I can guess, I said, but I won't.
You'll do it?
Yes. I could use the money.
It will be dangerous.
They all are.
We regarded the crosses, with the packs of cigarettes and other various goodies tied to them in the way of religious offerings.
Good, he said. When will you start?
Before the month is out.
Okay. When will you report to me?
I shrugged, under starlight.
When I've got something to say.
That's not good enough, this time. September 15 is the target date.
... If it goes off without a hitch?
Fifty grand.
If it gets tricky, and I have to dispose of a corpus or three?
Like I said.
Okay. You're on. Before September 15.
No reports?
... Unless I need help, or have something important to say.
You may, this time.
I extended my hand.
You've got yourself a deal, Don.
He bowed his head, nodding to the crosses.
Give me this one, he finally said. I want this one. The men I lost were very good men.
I'll try. I'll give you as much as I can.
I don't understand you, mister. I wish I knew how you ...
Good. I'd be crushed if you ever knew how!
And we walked back down the hill, and I left him off at the place where he was staying that night.
Let me buy you a drink, said Martin, as I passed him on the foredeck on my way out of Carol Deith's cabin.
All right, and we walked to the ship's lounge and had one.
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