The Pure Cold Light

by Gregory Frost

  Kosinus rose as fast as he was able, but was too far away to prevent Shikker’s third pull of the trigger. His invisible hands clutched at her—the ragged clothes plucked and jumped in his grip, but she wrestled free of his weak hold, twisted, and fired back at him. He retreated from the danger she represented.

  Lyell stood her ground. As cold and hard as the lens she wore, she held her place and disked what happened without interfering. Later, Neebergall could zoom in to extract every nuance, every moment he wanted. “You chose,” she muttered, “when you said his name—one cruelty too many.”

  Angel and Glimet stood by like judge and jury, and she made sure she captured them, too. Glimet’s eyes were closed as if in prayer. Gansevoort stood trembling behind them, his teeth bared in feral repulsion.

  Around the table, Sherk had slunk down in his chair, as if he hoped to be overlooked. She couldn’t see the last one, Gotoh. His chair had cranked away immediately from the action.

  Rajcevich shrieked in terror. Her pouchy eyelids stretched wide, tracking the approach of a horror she alone could see. “No, no, no, stop them!” she called, “don’t let them near me.”

  Of an instant her head ceased to exist. Its disappearance made a “pop” like that of a champagne cork. A tiny spurt of blood, as from a nosebleed, spattered the table in front of where she’d sat.

  “Aw, God,” Gansevoort groaned.

  Meanwhile, the head of Kosinus had begun to bob and weave through the air. He opened his mouth and a yowl emerged, a yowl echoed by Gansevoort, who then slumped down with his arms wrapped around his head.

  Shikker’s first blind shot must have hit Kosinus somewhere, enough to disorient him. Her second missed his temple and fired into his forehead. His skin reddened where the chemical opened his capillaries. He spun around with surprising speed for an Orbiter, ululating all the while, like a screeching three-year-old trying to make himself dizzy. His wail swelled with fear, and he halted his crazy spin. Shikker ruthlessly gave him a third shot for good measure, and a moment later, he, too, was gone. His cries seemed to continue long after, but again it was Gansevoort, mewling where he huddled.

  Huston Sherk had drifted from the table. He stood against the wall. Shikker ignored him, and closed on the chair ostensibly containing Gotoh. Lyell circled carefully toward it. Shikker turned it from the wall.

  Gotoh floated calmly, not a hint of fear in his eyes. He focused on the atomizer bulb. “Please,” he asked, as if desiring a cup of tea. His eyes closed. Shikker fired twice into his head. His reaction was unlike the others.

  He hissed and his face scrunched up. The veins stood out on his forehead, but he was smiling—a grotesque sight, since he had no lower jaw. He faded away like a ghost. Shortly, there was nothing of him to be seen.

  Sherk begged. “Don’t, I don’t want to go over. Please don’t let her do this.”

  Shikker said, “You done this to a lotta people. Been trying for years to make me take it, you and your pitchmen. I don’t see why we shouldn’t give it back, if it’s so damn good. You think you’re special, but you ain’t special, bastard. You got the urge like Glimet, ya want some of this, don’t ya? Hunger that bitch was on about—yeah, you got that particular hunger. I been surrounded by people itching your way. Ain’t no supreme will when you got to have a taste. So, I guess I’m giving you my share. I want you to join the party, don’t be late for your own funeral.” She stalked him around the table. He couldn’t move his altered limbs fast enough to escape. He tried to pull himself over the glass. Shikker had him like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Lyell asked Angel, “Are you making her do this? Is he?” She indicated Glimet.

  “She’s doing this on her own.”

  “Then what’s he doing, communing?” she asked, indicating Glimet.

  “He acts as a focus, a beacon. Drawing the others in twelve-space to himself. From him they can locate the transformed COs and be there to take them as they arrive. She’s doing them a favor, really. Easing their passage. Best to get it over with.” He stared meaningfully at her. “Believe me, it’s a journey better avoided.”

  “Lying, fucking bastards,” muttered Gansevoort.

  Sherk cried out, in pain, in pleasure, then in mortal terror for his life.

  The tabletop cracked at one end, but nothing remained on top of it.

  “What happens now?” asked Lyell.

  “Now,” said Angel, “I bid you adios, Thomasina Lyell.”

  “You’re going to ride off into the sunset just like that?”

  “I have no choice.”

  Shikker was turning, glancing all round herself in search of another head to attack. As she passed by Glimet, he reached out and touched her and she stopped. She gazed lovingly at him. “Never again,” she said, “Never again for you.” She flung the atomizer against the large screen. It bounced harmlessly off.

  “No,” he promised, “never.” He hugged her to him. The gesture reminded Lyell more of a parent than a lover, and made her ache with an emptiness she had not felt for years. She wondered which side of Glimet initiated the hug, then decided it really didn’t matter. Certainly it didn’t to Shikker. Lyell sensed more than saw Angel Rueda start to collapse.

  He doubled over, one hand stretched out as though clutching for support. Then he pitched headlong into the debris.

  She knelt beside him and flipped him over, intending to apply whatever lifesaving techniques she could. He was no more than a husk, his body already collapsing, cast off. The energy—whatever it was—that had kept the spark of him alive was gone. She covered her mouth and nose against the sudden stench, and stood away. Behind her, Gansevoort flopped over, unconscious.

  “Glimet,” she asked, “what happened, why did he—”

  “He told you, he had to. He’d made a promise.”

  “I don’t understand. Promised who?”

  “Angel Rueda. His work was done, and he granted release to the human host. So it’s agreed, each of us with our hosts. Glimet’s time isn’t long off, either. I hope you’ll help Amerind—she won’t realize the true nature of the event as you do.”

  Lyell bowed her head over the body of the man who had brought her into this, and bade farewell to the soul released from strange purgatories.

  A presence moved into the room. Like a shadow passing, it drew her attention.

  In front of the wide window, phantom threads unfolded out of a dark core. By the moment these joined and gained in complexity, like a living Julia set, crystalline but somehow supple. The evolving form was familiar to her already—call it lotus or mandala. A circle, vaguely.

  Trash on the floor sprang up and danced. A frisson like that preceding an electrical storm filled the air; a glow akin to St. Elmo’s fire outlined each bit of flying debris, none of which touched them. Its flight had a pattern to it, or, rather, hundreds of patterns coexisting. The table split its length and collapsed. Its tubular supports stuck up like animal legs in rigor mortis. The trash spun ever more slowly, lower and lower, dying down like dry leaves abandoned by a wind. They skittered to a stop.

  Glimet turned toward Lyell and said, “Behold, and I’ll show you a mystery.”

  The dark, thousand-petaled form, flowing in a continuous cycle from center to tips, had fully eructed into the here and now of the room. Held in the air by whatever unseen forces, it blocked the view of the towers. Lyell moved past him to disk it in detail. As she did, the first of its new offspring began to push through.

  Epilogue: The Big Broadcast

  “It’s the President Odie Show! With Veep Schnepfe! The Capitol Hill Synthestra! And tonight’s very special guests in an exclusive interview: the Chief Officers of ScumberCorp! That’s right, folks, you’ll never see them anywhere else. So give me a big assist and say ‘To Hail with the Chief!’ It’s President Odie!”

  The curtain parted and out shuffled the president of the United States, Malcolm Odie. His suit gleamed only slightly brighter than his teeth. He waved warmly to his constituency, waved the
one-man synthestra down as a Dixieland send-up of “Hail to the Chief” filled the hall.

  “Thank you all, every registered voter out there. Good God, you’d think I was in charge of something.” Laughter. “Yeah, yeah. Well, here we are, on what promises to be an eventful night, the kind of night that goes down in TV history as the night where everybody remembers where they were. They used to say that sort of thing about Jack Kennedy and the New York nuke and Schnepfe’s piles.” A synthetic rimshot spanged like a bullet across the stage.

  “You get your sets warmed up, you’re going to wanna record this. Okay? Ready out there? Schnepfe, show ’em your penis. Ha!—just kidding. No, no, this has to be bigger than that.” Rimshot, more laughter. “Tonight, four people who have controlled the destiny of our nation—dare I suggest our entire planet and way of life?—are here with us, live on this very soundstage. Because of their unprecedented appearance here, and, really, because ScumberCorp owns the puking network and can do whatever it pleases, we’re not going to plug any products tonight, no cutaways, which means Schnepfe’ll have to fall off his stool if he plans to crawl off and drink. Yeah, yeah.

  “Okay now, let’s get this great show moving before Congress thinks up something for me to veto. Let’s bring ’em out here. Ladies and germinals, the Chief Officers, the Fearsome Foursome, of ScumberCorporation!” He jumped to his feet and began clapping enthusiastically. The music worked a wild variation on “La Marseillaise.”

  The curtain drew back on four darkly silhouetted figures. Overhead lights blazed in tight, tracking beams, and the COs paraded out. Shots intercut of an audience on its feet and pounding out a standing ovation.

  The foursome, like a caterpillar, chugged across the stage and sat down. Dorjan Kosinus, looking fit and distinguished, sat nearest Odie.

  “How’s it going, Mr. Chairman?” the president asked. “You and all the other—uh…”

  “Scums?” Kosinus suggested, politely.

  Odie laughed, reddening slightly. Did people so high up actually make fun of themselves? “Not from me did you hear that. Tell us, what brings you four out in the public eye this first time in, what, ten years?”

  “Well, Odie, a very troublesome state of affairs has arisen and we’ve finally decided to do something about it.” The other three nodded. “As you know, we are involved in nearly every aspect of daily life on this planet. There’s hardly an industry, a technological advance, that we don’t have some hand in.”

  “Can’t spot any flaw in that argument, no sirree.”

  “Odie, I’ll speak plainly. It’s come to our attention that government has all but become the utter enemy of the people.”

  Odie’s mouth hung loosely for an instant. He tried to guffaw his way out. “Not me, I’ve got nothing but friends, Dorjan.”

  Kosinus did not bend. “Not on the streets, you haven’t,” he said. “Not where more than thirty million people are living in squalor, many of them mentally deficient, in need of attention of every kind, while we seal ourselves in and build up into the sky to get away from them, away from our responsibilities.”

  “Well, you know what I say, I keep both feet firma-ly on the terra.” He appealed to Capitol Hill for a snare and cymbal but got nothing. He was starting to sweat copiously.

  “That’s why we’ve come out of our long hibernation. We’ve deliberated this carefully. ScumberCorp has decided to turn a few things around. As the largest single employer in the world, we believe we have a voice that will be heard. That must be heard if we’re to continue as a civilization.”

  “This sounds damn exciting,” Odie said, trying to recapture territory. “What’s your plan?”

  “Well, for starters, Malcolm, we’re asking for your resignation on the grounds of unparalleled incompetency. You can take the besotted baboon on the stool there with you as you leave. I’m certain there’s a street corner someplace where you and Schnepfe can perform for idiots. We’ll see to it that you get a few assigned to you.

  “In case you’re thinking of fighting this, let it be known that Congress, at our behest, has already put in motion impeachment proceedings against you. I would read the list of charges but that could take up the whole hour.”

  To Odie’s horror, Capitol Hill fired a rimshot for Kosinus.

  “Go quietly, Odie. We would prefer to get on to matters of importance, such as tearing down walls, rebuilding cities, and starting a rehabilitation program for Orbiters. As I speak, bulldozers are clearing land here in Philadelphia to begin construction on the Remington Mingo Memorial Rehabilitation Center for the Orbitol-Diminished. It’s a big step, I think.”

  “The who?” squawked Schnepfe in his fractured, frightened delirium.

  Before Kosinus could answer, Odie jumped up and pointed accusingly at all four of them. “I work for you. Anybody out there watching who doesn’t think so, I can prove it. These policies of mine they want to get rid of, these four are the ones who created them! They’re the villains! How do you answer that, Kosinus, huh?” he asked gleefully.

  “Like this: ScumberCorp pleads guilty to various ethical violations—manipulations of mutual funds and futures markets, crimes against competitors, and a program of cold-blooded elimination of the underclass. We’ve halted all production of Orbitol and begun the dismantling of the lunar facility where we’ve been manufacturing it.” The other three nodded in agreement on each of these points.

  “What about the shareholders, the directors? They’ll never go along with this liberal crap!”

  “Why do you suppose we’ve made this a public announcement, Malcolm? It’s no longer a matter of choice but one of setting precedent.”

  Odie looked as if all the blood had oozed from his body.

  ***

  Seated beside Nebergall on his freshly covered bed, Lyell said, “This is the fourth time I’ve watched the broadcast, and I still get chills at the look on his face.”

  “Yeah, he’s special, the little dork,” Nebergall replied. “I couldn’t have manufactured a better look of panic with a stylus and week to do it. I hear he’s lined up a job headlining in an undersea supper club off the Caymans. Let’s hope he stays down a good long time.”

  “I was referring to Kosinus. It makes me wonder if the Gang of Four’s true personalities realize what’s happened to them, what’s going on out here. You remember, on the disk, where we’re sitting in that weird tent, and Angel starts explaining about how he knew he’d died before because the part of him that was still Angel recalled it? I was just wondering if that holds true for each of them.”

  “If it does, then everyone of them’s gone through the trip that Rueda went through, seeing as how they’re sharing the same puppeteers. If you ask me, it’s hellish poetic justice after all they did—fucking up the world for a handful of nothing. Having Rueda and Glimet driving them is just fine by me. Although, I’ll tell ya, on a slow day I may actually miss the four bastards. Don’t get me wrong, I think the extruded versions are a quantum improvement. ‘O brave new world’ and all that.”

  After a moment, she said, “When we finally archive our Orbitol documentary, I think we ought to get away for a while.”

  “You mean like a vacation? Like they gave Gansevoort?”

  “Not like they gave Gansevoort, thank you. I don’t consider rehabilitation a holiday.”

  “I’ve never had a vacation, Tommie. I wouldn’t know what to do with one, except chew my fingernails worrying about being back on the job.” He glanced sadly toward his edit suite. “All that technology, and we didn’t need to splice in anything to get this.”

  “Sounds like you’re sorry you agreed to let them handle Odie.”

  “Goes against the grain. Doesn’t it for you? Don’t you have a twinge of conscience that you’ve sold out by agreeing?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “I think selling out has to do with principles, and we haven’t changed ours. It just feels the way it does because this used to be the enemy, and now we’re working for them.”


  They sat without further comment for a time, until suddenly he asked, “Where would we go on this vacation?”

  “I was thinking, New Zealand.”

  “What am I supposed to do, crawl up the mountains?”

  “With your salary from ScumberCorp, you can afford one of those exoneural systems now—there’s no excuse. You’ll outdistance me with one of those.”

  “I don’t know about that job offer,” he said, and stroked the cat in his lap. “The idea of money and stability kinda scares the crap outta me.”

  “Only because you’ve never had either one. Listen, Neeb, something is going to replace the Alien News Network, why shouldn’t it be something you and I create? A new entity, a viable one, slapping some real, ugly, naked truth on the screen for a change. God knows, you’ve got enough of it stored away in there. Hey, we can even do the ‘slow-food’ story now, with a slightly different spin. ScumberCorp’s out of the business and everyone else is in it. Torsion perspective.”

  He pursed his lips. “Does that mean I have to give up my state of the art, intercutting, image-synthesis animation facility?”

  “Move it into your new office.”

  He pondered that. “No, I think I’ll keep it in the closet at home. You never know. Eventually, this new batch is going to rot, and ol’ SC will be left in the hands of people again. Somebody’ll snort the power and get crazy. The world’s still big—they’re bound to fuck it up. And even if they don’t, the competition won’t toe the line unless forced to. Naw, I think my secret identity oughta stay secret, same as twelve-space. Who knows when we’ll have to disseminate by night again?” He grinned crookedly her way but she didn’t notice.