Sure. And see the clone die too. And the clone wouldn’t love him. Not the way Simone had. Not even if they programmed near-worship responses into her.
He decided to kill himself.
But when it came to it, he could not. So he joined the military and killed others. And killed. And killed.
When the anesthetic wore off, and he could move and speak, he began to scream. To roll about beneath the robot sensor loop. Sob. The memories were back, firmly planted. He ripped at his hair, his scalp, as though to tear them away.
An alarm sounded. Soon a medic was by his side. Human.
Quickly she gave him a small hypo-sedative. It gave him the grip, the control he needed.
The woman wore a modest white shift. She carried a readout slip. “Well, Mr. Amber. We’ve diagnosed your problem. A quite peculiar problem, but easily enough remedied.”
He gazed up at her. The blurry face gradually resolved into sufficient focus and in his surprise he momentarily forgot his pain.
Standing over him was the woman who had been running from those Security Officers. The one who had whispered into his ear. Been dragged away ...
“But we have to prepare for surgery,” she finished, smiling prettily, professionally. “I have you down for nine-hundred hours ship’s time, tomorrow afternoon. Is that satisfactory with you?”
* * *
The bank of omnis floating about Ort Eath surged and thundered with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. The piece from Die Walkure was his favorite. The music reminded him of the vast unknown of underspace through which the Star Fall was flung. The eternal night of space. The sea between the stars. The dimension of darkness that had bared itself to the technologically equipped to travel distances in days and weeks that would take years and centuries in normal space, limited by the laws of normal physics.
Ah. But at what price?
What tolls did the journey extract from sentient minds? In the vast wormhole-like blackness, the bases of matter itself were somehow—different. Mathematics itself was askew here. Two and two seldom came to four. Only after nothingness swallowed up human ship after human ship did the dunces finally come up with new mathematical systems. The Morapn race owned the essential secrets for centuries before the Terrans. And now, they used the dimension only when absolutely necessary. Sharn’bleth, they called it. Plane of Uncertainty. It had, eventually, changed their whole civilization. Transformed their philosophy. Stopped their growth through the Milky Way instead of encouraging it.
The race did not even care to analyze why this occurred—or warn the Terrans of its numbing effects over centuries of use. Subtly, it twisted the mind. And the gene-pool. Slowly it stultified ambition and drive and curiosity like a peculiar dull opiate emptied to the drains of a race.
However, it fascinated Ort Eath.
He could lose himself for hours, absorbed in the cloying nothingness that swarmed, sucking, about the hull of a traveling starship. He could simply sit in his reclining chair, as he did now, his orgabox immobile beside him dreaming its metal-meshed-flesh dreams, and stare. Stare up through the glassteel of the blistertop of his observatory/study, the horns of Wagner trumpeting majestically. Oh, grandeur and glory, my inheritance, my destiny he thought. I have purchased you so dearly.
“Null-stasis field established,” came the familiar nasal tones of Captain MacNeil. “Insertion in fifteen seconds.”
Yes—of course. If you stared out there into space hard enough, you could see the glimmering energy fields, building, building, wrapping themselves like silky steel over the circumference of the space-liner, a cocoon of almost magical force that would side-slip the ship into an entirely different universe.
The symphony pounded, and the musical tension mounted, building to the perfectly timed climax—
“Five ... four ... three ...” droned the Captain’s voice.
Streamers of color began to break off from the field like a shattered prism. Dazzling spectrums grew, intensely bright starbows formed, arching, and beginning to spin...
“Two ...”
The colors melted together and shattered, crystalline memories of their previous forms; tears of some ice Jotun for the fall of his face to a new Odin.
“’One.”
Now it was like staring up into the mouth of some gargantuan well mouth that held, not water—
“Penetration completed. Underspace drive operative. Course set. All’s well, sir.”
—but primordial sludge. Ort Eath felt invigorated by the darkness, the descent and the final rebirth at the destination. The resurrection, the rebirth, the reaffirmation of life with a superior understanding of the bordering endless stuff of death.
The last orchestral chords blew from the speakers. Silence fell down, the aural equivalent of the darkness shrouded over the Star Fall’s hull.
The orgabox came alive, indignantly lighting up, screen-face filling with a checklist of tasks that needed attention.
Ort Eath gazed up once more, lingeringly, at the face of death. No, it was already in him. There would be time enough for sleep—once his duty was done, his task of tasks completed.
He rose and walked from his study, the orgabox following at the end of its umbilical like a fretful, shambling shadow.
* * *
They ranged about her, a regular freak show of aliens.
Five of them. That would be enough.
A sysiphun. Its chitin clattered noisily, almost nervously as its three optical orbs ogled her. Two lobster-like claws raised and clacked together with the deadliness of mobile guillotines.
Two Deevians; tall lumps of solid destruction. They had cost. But they’d be worth it, in the end.
A man. A big man. She’d watched him in an exercise area, doing incredible feats of acrobatics, displays of martial arts. Shinto, judo, karate ... all of them. The way he moved she knew he must be structurally augmented. Chromalloy plating on the skeletal grid. Webbing through the muscles. An implanted transformer, stepping up his power to incredible heights. If he came through this gig, she’d have to put him through another sort of paces ...
And finally, the plum of the lot. The gigamex. It looked now merely like some craggy boulder. No eyes. No ears. But it would definitely be able to do the job she had in mind with, of course, much help from the others.
“All right. Listen up. You haven’t been paid to just stand here.” Absently, she stirred her crème de cocoa in its tumbler. The ice tinkled merrily. “You’ll do exactly what I say.”
* * *
He was running.
Leaping, loping ... jumping cracked chasms in concrete. Moving through swirling mists of ancient sacrificial burnings that hung like animate draperies darkly festooning the halls of collective unconsciousness.
Something chased him.
He would catch glimpses of it, limned in strobe-flickering torches, ever on his heels, slinking, pursuing, and clacking against the wall from time to time like a collection of bones covered in ash-cloth.
On and on he staggered, scrambling over obstacles, sidling along ledges, a cowardly Theseus· retreating through the never-ending labyrinth of life.
“I never asked for this,” he muttered. “It’s not fair. Not fair.”
His whispery echoes sarcastically mocked him. Astral resonances, giving the cosmos sadistic voice.
He slipped and sprawled in a thick pool of congealing blood. Mumbling with fear, he tried’ to splash out—but was suddenly restrained by a hard, bony hand. Shuddering, he turned around.
Hovering over him was himself. His sad-faced body, his pseudo-doppelganger, the fleshy reflection of his troubled psyche. Fat, fat. Morose and big, with those sad, infinitely pained eyes searching his, hungry for the soul that had once backed them. An empty zombie. Solid ectoplasm, come back to haunt.
His heritage. His destiny.
Abruptly, the face befo
re him began to metamorphize. The grip on his shoulder tightened. Shook him. “Todd?” a voice said. “Todd, wake up.” The features reassembled themselves, slowly melding into softer lines, unblemished skin, long lashes ... a feminization of his features. And suddenly, this shadowy self seemed terribly beautiful ... something to be desired before and above all else. Something he had always been reaching for but had never attained. Something ultimately fulfilling.
“Todd?”
The face changed again, and he found himself looking deep into smiling green eyes.
“Angharad,” he mumbled groggily. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“Yes. You drank a lot of champagne.”
“How long ...?”
“Only as long as it took me to change.”
“Change?” Sweeping his tousled hair back from his eyes, he stared at her. Indeed, she had changed. Smiling, she posed for him.
“It’s an ‘Ethereal Vision’ by Baudelaire,” she said.
“I’ll say.”
“No, that’s the name of the outfit.”
“Oh,” he said. Her body was sheathed in a thin skein of murky, moving fog, variably opaque and translucent. Varicolored scarves rippled about her arms, neck, and ankles.
“Uhm,” said Todd, swallowing. “Yes. You certainly fit that garment.”
Cheerful laughter. Blasé shrug. “Lounging attire,” she said.
“You should see the decadent things I have to wear as a model.” She sat down beside him, the mists curling slowly about her. She took a dope-stick from a platinum case on the side table, lighted it and took a long drag. “However, if we are going to get to know each other, and I’m going to help you, I should tell you something about myself.”
“You’re a model. A beautiful one, probably in great demand. You live in a big city, you like to show off, and you have much to show off. But you’re bored with your job so you took this long cruise looking for adventure. And now you think you’ve found it in me.”
“Don’t know about that. You say you’re going straight to the authorities. It will probably end right there.”
“It ... it doesn’t have to. For right now, I’d just like to hear about you.”
She smiled. “What? About how sophisticated, knowledgeable in the ways of the universe I am? About how rich and beautiful I am? How bored I am, eager for a good time, a wandering wastrel, looking for cheap thrills, trying to forget the plasticity of her shallow life.”
“I never thought ...”
“But of course you did, darling. It’s the going cliché of the ages. The sour grapes from which a very satisfying wine is tramped. You say your true body is fat and ugly. And so you must absolutely delight in hearing about how unhappy we beautiful people are, how callow, depthless, worthless we are. Sub-human.”
“Wait a second. You said before fat makes no difference.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to be fat or ugly, or anything like that.” She waved her cigarette airily. “There’s nothing wrong with being fat and ugly or thin and beautiful, in themselves. It’s all in the way you look at yourself. You may not know it, but beauty is taken for granted on Earth. My job is not really all that glamorous. It’s as mundane on Earth as any occupation.”
“But what’s all this stuff about being bored then?”
“Oh, everyone gets bored once in a while. You need a change, different ways of looking at things. Besides, it’s such a romantic stance to take with a man, don’t you know. The dissipated beauty looking for a manly shoulder upon which to lean. All a game. A game within a play, and we all have strutting roles. But how nice it is to change roles sometimes, get some perspective on our play so that when we step off that stage, there will be something more left than what the script and the rules have dictated.”
“What’s it like on Earth?”
“Very nice. A little crowded perhaps, a little hectic sometimes. Some struggle, inner and outer. After all, games and plays implicitly need some kind of conflict, tension, or no growth would result. Stagnation, Todd. You exercise to tear apart useless muscle tissue to form healthy muscle tissue. It hurts, but it’s ultimately for good. Emphasis is placed, on Earth, upon the individual studying himself in context with society, growing in the way that they are meant to grow. Of course there are failures, but ...”
“Hold on.” He pointed a finger at her. “I’ve heard so many bad things about Earth. Read books ...”
“Yeah, sure. You know, Earth used to be a real pit. Read your history. God, horror story! But as for what you get now, again, it’s mostly from sour-grapes sections of human-settled planets going through the growth pangs of developing the sort of culture, the sort of society that we’ve got, and they’ll have, eventually, if they can survive their little bloody wars, their own egocentricities.”
“I don’t know. I’ve read a lot of very pessimistic books about how bad things could be in the future.”
“Yes, those things are fun. Bleak though. I mean, for example, there were some people who were scared shitless of genetic engineering. Same way they were afraid of the steam engine, I guess. Something to ponder over, worry about. We humans are still great worriers.”
“Is Earth all that great?”
She shrugged. “I like it.”
“I hate my planet.”
“Then stay on Earth!”
“Not possible. Like I said, I’m only renting ... and my mother ...”
“Oh, screw your mother. Too bad Oedipus didn’t kill both his folks. Would have performed a great service as an example of a psychological complex.”
“Hold it. Don’t you have ... oh, that’s right. You’re from a sort-of family.” He said it with a trace of disdain.
“Listen, pal. We still see each other. We still care about each other, all twenty of us. We’re as much a family as the kind you come from ... maybe more so. We don’t mess each other’s minds up.” A suck from the cigarette. “Much.” She changed the subject, looking at him with great curiosity. “Todd, if what you told me is true—I mean about yourself and your planet ... then you’re rather inexperienced ...” Her eyes bright with concern.
“To tell you the truth, that’s one of the reasons I took this cruise, rented this body.” He looked away, chuckling ruefully to himself. “Really sophisticated, huh? I blow the whole thing.”
“I think it’s sweet,” she said, quite sincerely. “Listen. You can’t force a thing like sex—or love. It’s not right. All those stupid romantic thrills, fantasies ...” she gestured toward her cloud-gown. “Are tools of seduction. They’re fun, if not taken too far. It’s fun to flirt. Twirl some skirt and play footsie. I like you, fantasy or no fantasy. So let’s enjoy. What happens, happens. Okay?”
“You’re so strange,” Todd said. “Paradoxical. I don’t know. I used to dream about ... well, someone like you. But now it seems ... so different.”
“Great. Friends then? We’ll see this out, and maybe more things than we expect will develop. In fact, I find that quite likely.”
She leaned over to kiss. He put out his hand to support her and felt the smooth bare skin of her abdomen arch. “Yes,” he said, leaning into the kiss.
This is it, he thought. I didn’t muck things up after all! Glossy wet lips touched his face in sudden passion.
The entrance buzzer began to ring, persistently. Todd jerked away from Angharad, as though not to be stung. “Security?” he whispered. “Back again?”
“We just won’t answer,” she said.
The door slid open.
A humanoid-type alien walked in trailing a peculiar mechanism implanted to its back by a thick hose-like apparatus. Shocked, Todd could only stare. A Morapn ...
“Pardon me for a most untimely intrusion.” said the box. “My name is Ort Eath. I am the owner and builder of this ship. Mister Todd Spigot, I believe.” He pointed a gloved finger. “I must talk t
o you immediately.”
“Just one moment!” said Angharad, shooting to her feet, stalking forward. “This is a private compartment. Even if you do own this liner, you’ve no right to break in here.”
“My apologies for a lack of tact. However I must speak with Mister Spigot.”
“Well, I never ...!” said Angharad. “You’re not going to go with him, are you, Todd?”
“Well—he’s exactly the sort I want to talk to. He may solve the problems I find myself in.”
“Ah yes,” said Ort Eath. “That is how I knew you were here. Process of elimination after the security report. Agents Arman and Pahlix have been reprimanded. You may be sure you’ll have no further problems with them.” Ort Eath stood statue still. But the box moved from leg to leg, almost impatiently. “You will find generous compensation will be made for your discomfort. All I request is a few moments of your time. But if you would care to complete your mating, I suppose I might spare a few quick minutes while you finish.” Ort Eath folded his oddly articulated arms in an almost human gesture.
Angharad’s face flushed beet red. “Out. Both of you!” She gave an angry, dismissing signal with both hands.
“But Angharad! Will I see you again?” Todd said, caught between this sudden possible resolution to his dilemma and a breach with this beautiful, exciting woman.
“You’d better,” she said, going over for a drink. “You are part of my adventure, aren’t you?” Tinkle of ice. Gurgle of liquor. “Everyone knows every piece of fiction—or of tail—has got to have its climax.” She slurped the drink, wearing a sardonic smirk.
“You’ll know where you can find her when the time comes,” commented Ort Eath. “Now follow. My time is most valuable.”
Todd gave an insecure smile and a wave of goodbye to the obviously discomfited Angharad Shepherd, and then followed the odd-looking creature.
Star Fall Page 15