Signifying what?
There is an ancient custom known as 'dating.' Let's do it for a little while.
You don't like me? I've checked our compatibility indices. They show that we would be okay together, buying you at face value, that is, but I think I know more of you than that.
Outside of the fact that I'm not for sale, what does that mean?
I've made lots of guesses and I think I could also get along with an individualist who knows how to play the right games with machines.
I knew that the commissary was bugged, and I guessed that she didn't know that I did. Therefore, she had a reason for saying what she had said, and she didn't think I knew about it.
Sorry. Too quick, I told her. Give a man a chance, will you?
Why don't we go someplace and discuss it?
We were ready for dessert at that point.
Where?
Spitzbergen.
I thought about it, then, Okay, I said.
I'll be ready in about an hour and a half.
Whoa! I said. I thought you meant, like, perhaps this weekend. There are still tests to run, and I'm scheduled for duty.
But your job here is finished, isn't it?
I started in on my dessert, apple pie, and pretty good, too, with a chunk of cheddar, and I sipped coffee along with it. Over the rim of the cup, I cocked my head at her and shook it, slowly, from one side to the other.
I can get you off duty for a day, she told me. There will be no harm done.
Sorry. I'm interested in the results of the tests. Let's make it this weekend.
She seemed to think about this for a while.
All right, she said finally, and I nodded and continued with my dessert.
The all right instead of a yes or an okay or a sure must have been a key word of some sort Or perhaps it was something else that she did or said. I don't know. I don't care any more.
When we left the commissary, she was slightly ahead of me, as I had opened the door for her, and a man moved in from either side.
She stopped and turned.
Don't bother saying it, I said. I wasn't quick enough, so I'm under arrest. Please don't recite my rights. I know what they are, and I raised my hands when I saw the steel in one man's hand. Merry Christmas, I added.
But she recited my rights anyway, and I stared at her all the while. She didn't meet my eyes.
Hell, the whole proposition had been too good to be true. I didn't think she was very used to the role she had played, though, and I wondered, idly, whether she would have gone through with it, if circumstances dictated. She had been right about my job aboard the Aquina being ended, however. I would have to be moving along, and seeing that Albert Schweitzer died within the next twenty-four hours.
You are going to Spitzbergen tonight, she said, where there are better facilities for questioning you.
How was I going to manage it? Well ... As if reading my thoughts, she said, Since you seem to be somewhat dangerous, I wish to advise you that your escorts are highly trained men.
Then you won't be coming with me, after all?
I'm afraid not.
Too bad. Then this is going to have to be 'Goodbye.' I'd like to have gotten to know you somewhat better.
That meant nothing! she said. It was just to get you there.
Maybe. But you will always wonder, and now you will never know.
I am afraid we are going to have to handcuff you, said one of the men.
Of course.
I held my hands out and he said, almost apologetically, No, sir. Behind your back, please.
So I did, but I watched the men move in and I got a look at the cuffs. They were kind of old-fashioned. Government budgets generally produce such handy savings. If I bent over backward, I could step over them, and then they would be in front of me. Give me, say, twenty seconds ...
One thing, I asked. Just for the sake of curiosity and because I told it to you straight. Did you ever find out why those two guys broke into my room to question me, and what they really wanted? If you're allowed to tell me, I would like to know, because it made for some rough sleeping.
She bit her lip, thought a moment, I guess, then said, They were from New Salem, a bubble city off the North American continental shelf. They were afraid that RUMOKO would crack their dome.
Did it? I asked.
She paused.
We don't know yet, she said. The place has been silent for a while. We have tried to get through to them, but there seems to be some interference.
What do you mean by that?
We have not yet succeeded in reestablishing contact.
You mean to say that we might have killed a city?
No. The chances were minimal, according to the scientists.
Your scientists, I said. Theirs must have felt differently about it.
Of course, she told me. There are always obstructionists. They sent saboteurs because they did not trust our scientists. The inference ...
I'm sorry, I said.
For what?
That I put a guy into a shower ... Okay. Thanks. I can read all about it in the papers. Send me to Spitzbergen now.
Please, she said. I do what I must. I think it's right. You may be as clean as snow and swansdown. If that is the case, they will know in a very short time, Al. Then, then I'd like you to bear in mind that what I said before may still be good.
I chuckled.
Sure, and I've already said, 'Good-bye.' Thanks for answering my question, though.
Don't hate me.
I don't. But I could never trust you.
She turned away.
Good night, I said.
And they escorted me to the helicopter. They helped me aboard. There were just the two of them and the pilot.
She liked you, said the man with the gun.
No. I said.
If she's right and you're clean, will you see her again?
I'll never see her again, I said. He seated me, to the rear of the craft. Then he and his buddy took window seats and gave a signal. The engines throbbed, and suddenly we rose. In the distance, RUMOKO rumbled, burned, and spat.
Eva, I am sorry. I didn't know. I'd never guessed it might have done what it did.
You're supposed to be dangerous, said the man on my right. Please don't try anything.
Ave, atque, avatque, I said, in my heart of hearts, like.
Twenty-four hours, I told Schweitzer.
After I collected my money from Walsh, I returned to the Proteus and practiced meditation for a few days. Since it did not produce the desired results, I went up and got drunk with Bill Mellings. After all, I had used his equipment to kill Schweitzer. I didn't tell him anything, except for a made-up story about a ni-hi girl with large mammaries.
Then we went fishing, two weeks' worth.
I did not exist any longer. I had erased Albert Schweitzer from the world. I kept telling myself that I did not want to exist any longer.
If you have to murder a man, have to, I mean, like no choice in the matter, I feel that it should be a bloody and horrible thing, so that it burns itself into your soul and gives you a better appreciation of the value of human existence.
It had not been that way, however.
It had been quiet and viral. It was a thing to which I have immunized myself, but of which very few other persons have even heard. I had opened my ring and released the spores. That was all. I had never known the names of my escorts or the pilot. I had not even had a good look at their faces.
It had killed them within thirty seconds, and I had the cuffs off in less than the twenty seconds I'd guessed. I crashed the 'copter on the beach, sprained my right wrist doing it, got the hell out of the vehicle, and started walking.
They'd look like myocardial infarcts or arteriosclerotic brain syndromes, depending on how it hit them.
Which meant I should lay low for a while. I value my own existence slightly more than that of anyone who wishes to disturb it. This does not mean that I d
idn't feel like hell, though.
Carol will suspect, I think, but Central only buys facts. And I saw that there was enough sea water in the plane to take care of the spores. No test known to man could prove that I had murdered them.
The body of Albert Schweitzer had doubtless been washed out to sea through the sprung door.
If I ever meet with anybody who had known Al, so briefly, I'd be somebody else by then, with appropriate identification, and that person would be mistaken.
Very neat. But maybe I'm in me wrong line of work. I still feel like hell.
RUMOKO from all those fathoms fumed and grew like those Hollywood monsters that used to get blamed on science fiction. In a few months, it was predicted, its fires would desist A layer of soil would then be imported, spread, and migrating birds would be encouraged to stop and rest, maybe nest, and to use the place as a lavatory. Mutant red mangroves would be rooted there, linking the sea and the land. Insects would even be brought aboard. One day, according to theory, it would be a habitable island. One other day, it would be one of a chain of habitable islands.
A double-pronged answer to the population problem, you might say: create a new place for men to live, and in doing so kill off a crowd of them living elsewhere.
Yes, the seismic shocks had cracked New Salem's dome. Many people had died.
And Project RUMOKO's second son is nevertheless scheduled for next summer.
The people in Baltimore II are worried, but the Congressional investigation showed that the fault lay with the constructors of New Salem, who should have provided against the vicissitudes. The courts held several of the contractors liable, and two of them went into receivership despite the connections that had gotten them the contracts in the first place.
It ain't pretty, and it's big, and I sort of wish I had never put that guy into the shower. He is all alive and well, I understand, a New Salem man, but I know that he will never be the same.
More precautions are supposed to be taken with the next one, whatever that means. I do not trust these precautions worth a damn. But then, I do not trust anything anymore.
If another bubble city goes, as yours did, Eva, I think it will slow things down. But I do not believe it will stop the RUMOKO Project. I think they will find another excuse then. I think they will try for a third one after that.
While it has been proved that we can create such things, I do not believe that the answer to our population problem lies in the manufacturing of new lands. No.
Offhand, I would say that since everything else is controlled these days, we might as well do it with the population, too. I will even get myself an identity, many identities, in fact, and vote for it, if it ever comes to a referendum. And I submit that there should be more bubble cities, and increased appropriations with respect to the exploration of outer space. But no more RUMOKO's. No.
Despite past reservations, I am taking on a free one. Walsh will never know. Hopefully, no one will. I am no altruist, but I guess I owe something to the race that I leech off of. After all, I was once a member ...
Taking advantage of my nonexistence, I am going to sabotage that bastard so well that it will be the last.
How?
I will see that it is a Krakatoa, at least. As a result of the last one, Central knows a lot more about magma, and as a result of this, so do I.
I will manipulate the charge, probably even make it a multiple.
When that baby goes off, I will have arranged for it to be the worst seismic disturbance in the memory of man. It should not be too difficult to do.
I could possibly murder thousands of people by this action, and certainly I will kill some. However, RUMOKO in its shattering of New Salem scared the hell out of so many folks that I think RUMOKO II will scare even more. I am hoping that there will be a lot of topside vacations about that time. Add to this the fact that I know how rumors get started, and I can do it myself. I will.
I am at least going to clear the decks as much as I can.
They will get results, all right, the planners, like a Mount Everest in the middle of the Atlantic and some fractured domes. Laugh that off, and you are a good man.
I baited the line and threw it overboard. Bill took a drink of orange juice and I took a drag on my cigarette. You're a consulting engineer these days? he asked.
Yeah.
What are you up to now?
I've got a job in mind. Kind of tricky.
Will you take it?
Yes.
I sometimes wish I had something going for me now, the way you do.
Don't. It's not worth it.
I looked out over the dark waters, able to bear prodigies. The morning sun was just licking the waves, and my decision was, like, solid. The wind was chilly and pleasant. The sky was going to be beautiful. I could tell from the breaks in the cloud cover.
It sounds interesting. This is demolition work, you say?
And I, Judas Iscariot, turned a glance his way and said, Pass me the bait can, please. I think I've got something on the line.
Me, too. Wait a minute.
The day, like a mess of silver dollars, fell upon the deck.
I landed mine and hit it on the back of the head with the stick, to be merciful.
I kept telling myself that I did not exist. I hope it is true, even though I feel that it is not. I seem to see old Colgate's face beneath an occasional whitecap.
Eva, Eva ...
Forgive me, my Eva. I would welcome your hand on my brow.
It is pretty, the silver. The waves are blue and green this morning, and God! how lovely the light!
Here's the bait
Thanks.
I took it and we drifted.
Eventually, everybody dies, I noted. But it did not make me feel any better.
But nothing, really, could.
The next card will be for Christmas, as usual, Don, one year late this time around.
Never ask me why.
PART TWO. Kjwalll'kje'koothai'lll'kje'k
After everyone had departed, the statements been taken, the remains of the remains removed, long after that, as the night hung late, clear, clean, with its bright multitudes doubled in their pulsing within the cool flow of the Gulf Stream about the station, I sat in a deck chair on the small patio behind my quarters, drinking a can of beer and watching the stars go by.
My feelings were an uncomfortable mixture, and I had not quite decided what to do with what was left.
It was awkward. I could make things neat and tidy again by deciding to forget the small inexplicables. I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I needed but stamp CLOSED on my mental file, go away, collect my fee and live happily, relatively speaking, ever after.
No one would ever know or, for that matter, care about the little things that still bothered me. I was under no obligation to pursue matters beyond this point.
Except ...
Maybe it is an obligation. At least, at times it became a compulsion, and one might as well salve one's notions of duty and free will by using the pleasanter term.
It? The possession of a primate forebrain, I mean, with a deep curiosity wrinkle furrowing it for better or worse.
I had to remain about the station a while longer anyway, for appearances' sake. I took another sip of beer.
Yes, I wanted more answers. To dump into the bottomless wrinkle up front there.
I might as well look around a bit more. Yes, I decided, I would.
I withdrew a cigarette and moved to light it. Then the flame caught my attention.
I stared at the flowing tongue of light, illuminating my palm and curved fingers of my left hand, raised to shield it from the night breeze. It seemed as pure as the starfires themselves, a molten, buttery thing, touched with orange, haloed blue, the intermittently exposed cherry-colored wick glowing, half-hidden, like a soul. And then the music began ...
Music was the best term I had for it, because of some similarity of essence, although it was actually like nothing I had ev
er experienced before. For one thing, it was not truly sonic. It came into me as a memory comes, without benefit of external stimulus, but lacking the Lucite layer of self-consciousness that turns thought to recollection by touching it with time, as in a dream. Then, something suspended, something released, my feelings began to move to the effect. Not emotions, nothing that specific, but rather a growing sense of euphoria, delight, wonder, all poured together into a common body with the tide rising. What the progressions, what the combinations., what the thing was, truly, I did not know. It was an intense beauty, a beautiful intensity, however, and I was part of it. It was as if I were experiencing something no man had ever known before, something cosmic, magnificent, ubiquitous yet commonly ignored.
And it was with a peculiarly ambiguous effort, following a barely perceptible decision, that I twitched the fingers of my left hand sufficiently to bring them into the flame itself.
The pain broke the dream momentarily, and I snapped the lighter closed as I sprang to my feet, a gaggle of guesses passing through my head. I turned and ran across that humming artificial islet, heading for the small, dark cluster of buildings that held the museum, library, offices.
But even as I moved, something came to me again. Only this time it was not the glorious, musiclike sensation that had touched me moments earlier. Now it was sinister, bringing a fear that was none the less real for my knowing it to be irrational, to the accompaniment of sensory distortions that must have caused me to reel as I ran. The surface on which I moved buckled and swayed; the stars, the buildings, the ocean, everything, advanced and retreated in random, nauseating patterns of attack. I fell several times, recovered, rushed onward. Some of the distance I know that I crawled. Closing my eyes did no good, for everything was warped, throbbing, shifting, and awful inside as well as out.
It was only a few hundred yards, though, no matter what the signs and portents might say, and finally I rested my hands against the wall, worked my way to the door, opened it, and passed within.
Another door and I was into the library. For years, it seemed, I fumbled to switch on the light.
I staggered to the desk, fought with a drawer, wrestled a screwdriver out of it.
My Name is Legion Page 6