Shadrach in the Furnace

by Robert Silverberg

  “Oh, no,” Crowfoot says. “We don’t intend to let the Genghis Mao material remain in any of the experimental subjects. That sort of redundancy is absolutely not wanted here. We’d expunge each subject once we were done testing him. We’d do a complete mindpick after we’ve run our tests.”

  “Ah. Yes. Assuming the subject will let you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember, you won’t be dealing with a helpless flunky, once you’ve done your transplant. You’ll be dealing with Genghis Mao wearing a new body. You’ll be up against the dominant spirit of the age. You might have problems.”

  “I doubt it,” Nikki says breezily. “We’ll take precautions. Come this way, will you?”

  She leads him forward, to a vast computer bank, a wall of gray-green metal studded with incomprehensible apparatus. In here, she tells him, the coded essence of Genghis Mao is stored, everything that has been recorded so far, a nearly complete digital persona-construct that is capable of responding to stimuli precisely as the living Genghis Mao would, to a probability of seven or eight decimal places. Nikki offers to demonstrate the constructs Genghis Mao-ness with a few quick simulation runs, but Shadrach, suddenly disheartened, shows little interest; she marches him on to some of the other Avatar wonders, to which he reacts with no greater enthusiasm, and, as though at last noticing that Shadrach has ceased to pretend to be delighted by her technological miracles, she ushers him into her private office and locks the door.

  They stand facing each other, less than a meter apart, and he feels sudden surprising excitement, physical, intense. The intensity astounds him. He had thought all desire for her had gone from him forever, once he discovered how she had betrayed him. But no. Still there, strong as ever. The lore of her sleek tawny body, the memory of her fragrance, the glitter of her huge piercing dark eyes. His Indian princess, Pocahontas. Sacajawea. Even now he is drawn to her, even now. He ceases to see the ingenious woman of science whose ingenuity has altogether undone him; he sees only the woman, beautiful, passionate, irresistible. He feels the pull of her body and he is sure she feels the pull of his.

  It ought not to be such a surprise. Here they are, man and woman; they have been lovers for many months; they are alone, the door is locked. Why should desire not come over them, despite everything? But still, this sudden shifting of gears into the erotic mode amazes him. Somehow sex, unexpectedly obtruding itself against this background of betrayal, depression, impending doom, seems irrelevant and inappropriate, bizarre and unwelcome.

  He pretends he feels nothing. He makes no move.

  “How are you managing, Shadrach?” she asks tenderly, after a moment. “Is it very bad?”

  “I’m holding on.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  “A little. More angry than frightened, I guess.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “I don’t hate anyone. I’m not a hater.”

  “I still love you, you know.”

  “Quit it, Nikki.”

  “I do. That’s what’s been ripping me apart for weeks.”

  The force of Crowfoot’s concern for him is like a tangible presence in the small office.

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” he says.

  “You do hate me.”

  “No. I’m just not interested in your remorse.”

  “Or my love?”

  “Such that it is.”

  “Such that it is.”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t want my head messed up any more than it already has been.”

  “What will you do, Shadrach?”

  “What do you mean, what will I do?”

  “You aren’t going to stay in Ulan Bator.”

  “Everybody’s been telling me to run.”

  “Yes.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good.”

  “You could save yourself,” Crowfoot tells him.

  He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t get away. The whole planet’s bugged, Nikki. Watch Surveillance Vector One for fifteen minutes and you’ll realize that. You know that already. You’ve told me yourself that escape’s impossible. There’s a tracer on everyone. Anyway, it would spoil your project again if I disappeared.”

  “Oh, Shadrach!”

  “I mean, I’m the key man, right?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “You’d have to find another host for Genghis Mao. Then you’d have to recalibrate all over again. You—”

  “Stop it. Please.”

  “All right,” he says. “At any rate, it’s futile to try to escape from the Khan.”

  “You won’t even try?”

  “I won’t even try.”

  Crowfoot regards him levelly for a long silent moment. Then she says, “I should feel relieved about that, I suppose.”

  “Why?”

  “If you won’t take responsibility for saving yourself, then I don’t have to take responsibility for—for—”

  “For what’s going to happen to me if I stay here?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right. You don’t need to feel any guilt at all. I’ve had fair warning, and nevertheless I freely choose to stay and face the music. You’re absolved, Nikki. Your hands are washed of my blood.”

  “Are you being sarcastic, Shadrach?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I can never tell when you’re being sarcastic.”

  “Not this time.” he says.

  They stare at each other strangely again. He still feels that mysterious sexual tension, that grotesque and inappropriate lust. He suspects that if he reached for her and dragged her down on the carpeted floor, down between the desk and the filing cabinets, he could have her right here, right now, in her own office, one last crazy and frantic screw. Then he thinks of Eis and his colleagues running around on the other side of the locked office door, busy with their computers and their chimps, doing simulated transfers of the persona of Genghis Mao into the bodily hull of Shadrach Mordecai, and his ardor cools a little. But only a little.

  Nikki laughs.

  “What’s funny?” he asks.

  “Do you remember,” she says, “that time we spoke about the concept of you and Genghis Mao being one life system, one self-corrective information-processing unit? That was before any of this happened. Mangu was still alive, I think. I talked about how the chisel and the mallet and the stone are aspects of the sculptor, or, more precisely, that the sculptor and his tools and materials together make up a single thinking and acting entity, a single person, and how you and Genghis Mao—”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “It’s going to be even truer now, won’t it? In the most literal sense. That seems awfully ironic to me. Your nervous system and his, entwined, interlocked, indistinguishable. When we spoke then, you said no, it wasn’t a true analogy, that Genghis Mao can send data to you but you can’t send it to him, so that there’s a limitation on the information flow, a discrete boundary. That’ll change, now. It’ll be impossible to tell where one of you leaves off and the other begins. But even then, I wanted to tell you that you weren’t really grasping the idea—that the marble can’t design a sculpture but is nevertheless part of the total sculpture-making system, and that you can’t feed metabolic data into Genghis Mao but are nevertheless part of the total Genghis Mao system; there is an interaction, there is a feedback relationship that links you to him and he to you, there is—” She has been talking very rapidly, a torrential flow of words. Now she halts and in an altogether different voice says, “Oh, Shadrach, why don’t you want to hide yourself?”

  “I told you. It’s useless. I keep telling people that, but they don’t seem to want to believe me.”

  He thinks about himself as part of the total Genghis Mao system. He considers the analogies. No doubt of it, his sensors and implants link him to the Khan in a very special way. But he is no more—and no less—important to the total Genghis Mao system than Michelangelo’s lump of marble was to the total stat
ue-making system. Michelangelo, if he fell that a given lump of marble was no longer necessary to the needs of the total system, would casually discard it and introduce another into the system.

  Nikki is trembling.

  “If you won’t try to save yourself,” she says, “then nobody else can do anything for you.”

  After he and Genghis Mao come to share one body, they will truly be an integrated information-processing unit. Of course, such a unit needs only one biocomputer, one brain, one mind, one self. And that self will not be the self of Shadrach Mordecai.

  He says, “I know that. We’ve already discussed that. I take full responsibility.”

  “Don’t you care?”

  “Maybe not. Not any longer. I don’t know.”

  “Shadrach—”

  She starts to reach toward him, a tentative gesture, perhaps sexual, perhaps merely some sort of reflexive grab at a sinking man. He pulls back. There is a wall between them, an impermeable barrier of words and fears and doubts and hesitations and guilts. He does not mind that. He takes refuge behind that wall. But still there is that sexual pull between them, that taut hot line of erotic tension, spanning the barrier, drilling through it, eroding it, breaching it. And then the barrier is gone. He loves her, he hates her, he wants her, he loathes her. He makes a tentative gesture toward her and halts. They are like two adolescents, absurdly unsure of themselves, feinting foolishly, making silly false starts and finicky nervous withdrawals. He smiles tensely. So does she. She is obviously as conscious as he is of the minute shifts of balance that are rapidly occurring within them and between them. It is as though they are voyagers aboard an ocean liner that is struggling through turbulent, stormy waters, and they are trapped together in a tiny cabin with a massive metal safe that slides wildly about, careening across the floor with every convulsion of the waves, crashing into the walls as they jump about, threatening to crush them if they do not succeed in scampering out of its way as it bears down on them. There is something undeniably comic about their predicament, but the peril is real, too, and not at all funny. How much longer can they hold out? The safe is so heavy, the sea so rough, the cabin so small, and they are getting weary—

  And suddenly they come together, embracing, grappling, mouth seeking mouth, fingers digging furiously into flesh. He is terrified by the power of the blind, irrational force that has been unleashed in him, that he has unleashed in himself. “No,” he mutters, even as he claws at her clothes, even as he pushes himself against her, even as he finds the fullness of her breasts beneath the sexless lab smock. “No,” she whimpers, seemingly equally appalled. But neither of them resists. They stumble about ridiculously, sway, topple to the floor. On the carpet, between the desk and the filing cabinet.

  Neither of them undresses. Down with zipper, up with skirt; this is no tender act of love, this is not even a display of sexual athleticism, this is mere savage coupling, a desperate and unsophisticated cleaving-together of flesh. His hands slide along the smooth firm columns of her thighs and his fingers find and probe the secret slit between them, already hot and moist, and she gasps and thrusts her pelvis at him and, quickly, blindly, he drives himself into her. There is barely room for their bodies to move on the floor; she tilts herself upward, feet pointed at the ceiling, and he reaches below to grasp her buttocks, supporting her, and rams himself against her with lunatic vigor. Almost at once, so it seems to him, she comes with unfamiliar little shivers and giggles, and moments later so does he, in wild galvanic spasms that wrench a hoarse strained cry from him. Inelegantly Shadrach slumps down on her chest, exhausted, and she holds him tightly, with loving rocklike patience, as if she would be willing to hold him this way for hours or weeks, but after two or three minutes he pulls free, stunned, dazed, hardly believing what has just passed between them.

  They look at each other. He blinks; so does she. There are thin faint smiles of embarrassment.

  Shakily he rises. Nikki lies there, her legs lowered now but still spread wide, her rumpled skirt pushed up around her hips, her face shiny with sweat, her eyes bloodshot, unfocused. Shadrach averts his glance from her body in peculiar fastidiousness: he is not exactly repelled by the sight of her exposed loins, but somehow he does not want to look. Perhaps he is frightened by the power that that dark hairy humid cavern has over him, the primordial female chasm, irresistible, all-engulfing. At any rate he adjusts his clothes, coughs self-consciously, stoops to offer Nikki a helping hand. She shakes him off gently and gets to her feet unaided, and they stand facing each other. He has nothing to say. It is a sticky moment, but she rescues them from it by taking his hand, by giving him a warm loving smile, by pulling him toward her for a quick chaste kiss, lips lightly brushing lips, a kiss that simultaneously acknowledges the intensity of what has just taken place and brings down a curtain on it. It is time for him to go.

  “Save yourself,” she whispers. “No one can do it for you.”

  “I need to think about things some more.”

  “Go, then. Do your thinking. I love you, Shadrach.”

  He knows what he is supposed to reply to that, but the words are impossible. He squeezes her fingers instead. And swiftly leaves.

  19

  He has been saying for days that he will not run away. He has said it to Ficifolia, to Horthy, to Nikki, to Katya, to all of the well-meaning friends who want him to try to save himself. But then he decides to get out of Ulan Bator after all.

  It is not exactly an escape attempt, for Shadrach still believes there is no way ultimately of avoiding the spy-eyes of Genghis Mao. He will not try to be secretive about it: he intends even to notify the Chairman himself that he is going. No, it is more like a holiday trip, a vacation. Shadrach is going to go because of that remark of Horthy’s—some people think better when they’re on the run—and because Nikki, once again bringing up her notion that he and Genghis Mao constitute a single system, has given him some ideas. He is not sure how useful the ideas may be, and he needs to consider them at length. Perhaps he really will think better on the run. He will go, at any rate. He looks forward to the trip. It will be a diverting entertainment, and possibly instructive as well. He feels buoyant and cheerful. Shadrach the Glorious, striding splendidly from continent to continent in what may very well be the last great adventure of his life.

  In the evening he visits Genghis Mao. The Khan is making his usual magnificent recovery from his latest surgery. He looks a little feverish, a trifle flushed, his keen narrow eyes unnaturally glossy, but generally he appears hale, vigorous, alert. He has spent much of the day going over the plans for the spectacular state funeral of Mangu, postponed on account of the aortal transplant and now scheduled for ten days hence. As Shadrach runs through his brisk diagnostic routines, the palpation and the auscultation and all the rest, Genghis Mao, shuffling documents and paying no attention to his physician’s earnest probings, speaks with bubbling boyish enthusiasm of the great occasion. “Fifty thousand troops massed in the plaza, Shadrach! Rockets going back and forth overhead, flights of military planes, a thousand flags, six separate marching bands. Lights, color, excitement. The whole Committee on the dais under a tremendous purple-and-gold spotlight. The catafalque drawn by thirteen wild Mongol mares. Platoons of archers, a canopy of fiery arrows. An immense pyre on the very spot where Mangu fell. Teams of gymnasts who—” The Khan pauses. “You aren’t going to find something new to slice out of me, are you? I don’t want any more surgery just now. The funeral mustn’t be postponed a second time.”

  “I see no reason why it should be, sir.”

  “Good. Good. It’s going to be an event to be remembered for centuries. Whenever a great man dies, they’ll talk about giving him a funeral as great as the funeral of Mangu. You’ll sit beside me on the dais, Shadrach. At my right hand. A special mark of my favor, and everyone will know it.”

  Shadrach takes a deep breath. This may be difficult.

  “With your permission, sir, I intend not to be in Ulan Bator when the funeral take
s place.”

  The imperial eyebrows lift in surprise, but only for a moment.

  “Oh?” says Genghis Mao, finally.

  “I want to get away for a while,” Shadrach tells him. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

  “You do look pale,” The Khan says dryly.

  “Very tense. Very tired.”

  “Yes. Poor Shadrach. How devoted you are.”

  “You’ve grown much stronger since the liver transplant, sir. You won’t be needing me on a day-by-day basis in the weeks just ahead. And of course I could get back to Ulan Bator in a hurry if there’s any emergency.”

  The beady eyes study him calmly. The Khan is oddly undisturbed by Shadrach’s announcement, it would seem. There is something mildly disquieting about that. Shadrach does not want to be indispensable, with all the burdens that indispensability entails, but on the other hand he wishes the Khan would think of him as indispensable. His only salvation now lies in indispensability.

  “Where will you go?” Genghis Mao asks.

  “I haven’t decided that yet.”

  “Not even tentatively?”

  “Not even tentatively. Away from here, that’s all I know.”

  “I see. And for how long?”

  “A few weeks. A month, at most.”

  “It will be strange, not having you at my side.”

  “Then I have your permission to go, sir?”

  “You have my permission. Of course.” The Khan smiles serenely, as if very satisfied with his own graciousness. And then a sudden mercurial shift, a darkening of the face, furrowing of the forehead, a tense fretful gleam coming into the eyes. Second thoughts? Yes. “But what if I do fall ill? Suppose I have a stroke. Suppose my heart. My stomach.”

  “Sir, I can return at once if—”

  “It worries me, Shadrach. Not having you close by.” The Khan’s voice is hoarse, ragged, almost panicky now. “If organ rejection starts. If there’s some intestinal obstruction. If my kidneys begin to fail. You know of trouble so soon, you react so swiftly. If—” The Khan laughs. His mood seems to be shifting again; the fears of a moment ago vanish abruptly, and a strange blank smile plays across his face. In a new, sweet voice he says, almost crooning, “Sometimes I hear voices, Shadrach, did you know that? Like the saints, like the prophets. Invisible advisers come to me. Whispering, Whispering. They always have, in time of need. To warn me, to guide me.”