Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07

by Bridge of Ashes

  I withdrew the weapon, tried it in different positions in the sling. It was least apparent toward the back. Snug enough. Easy to reach. Almost a shame to pass up such a neat means of concealment.

  I removed it and returned it to the place beneath the mattress. Something to think about, anyway...

  Still chilled. I took a long pull at the bottle. Better, that. Better than aspirin. No reason not to be a little high.

  After a time, we slowed, turned off the road and ground along a rocky surface. Moments later, we halted and he came around and opened the back.

  "Okay, we're here," he told me.

  "Where's here?"

  "McKinley, Wyoming."

  I whistled.

  "We've come a good distance."

  He gave me his hand, helped me down. Then he climbed inside. He gathered the blanket, the pillow, the water bottle, the fifth, placing them within easy reach on the floor behind him. He groped beneath the mattress and drew out the pistol. He glanced at me, glanced at the weapon, then back at me.

  "You taking this, too?"

  "Why not?" I said, and I accepted the piece and thrust it into my sling.

  A glister of sleekshifting starlight, low, to my right ...

  "What lake is that?"

  "Glendo Reservoir."

  He stepped down, turned, picked up the stuff.

  He rounded the van and I followed him, becoming aware of a parked vehicle beneath some trees, perhaps a hundred feet away. The damp air was still, the night empty of sound except for that of our own progress. As we neared, I saw that it was a long green sedan. The driver sat smoking, watching us approach. I greeted him, did not recognize him. No names were exchanged.

  My driver nodded to him, loaded my things into the back, clasped my good shoulder.

  "Good luck," he said.

  "Thanks."

  I got in, made myself comfortable.

  "How are you holding up?" said the new driver.

  "Pretty well. Considering."

  I heard the engine chuckle and whisper. An arc, a spatter of fire as the driver disposed of his weed. The headlights came on. We moved forward.

  A little later the driver said, "It's in all the news. What was it like?"

  "It's mostly waiting," I said. "Doing it just takes a few seconds. A mechanical action. Then you are thinking about getting away."

  Those few seconds went through my mind again. I saw them fall. I had already made the mark. I wiped the weapon and leaned it... so. Then I was crouched, running. I heard the noises behind me, below. The shot ... my shoulder ... I had left blood. They had probably typed it by now.

  "Nothing special," I said. "It's all over."

  "McCormack is still hanging on, last I heard."

  "It doesn't matter. The gesture is enough. Hope he makes it."

  "Him?"

  "A lot of people have learned something. That's enough. I want to stop thinking about it now."

  "You think it will really do some good?"

  "Who can say? I hope so. I tried."

  "It might take a few more incidents like this to really get the point across."

  "Incidents, hell! It was a killing. Someone else can do the next one, if it's got to be. I'm retired."

  "You deserve a rest."

  My shoulder was throbbing again. I opened the bottle.

  "Want a drink?"

  "Yeah, thanks."

  He took it, took a slug, passed it back.

  I thought of the waiting, of the image of the Earth in my mind and how I hoped I had changed it ... I looked out the window at the shadow shapes of rock and scrub, plain and hill. I wished for a little rain, to rinse things over, for some wind, to blow them dry and clean. But the land lay still and rugged. So be it. I may dislike it this way, yet it pleases me also that the grasses are dry and the animals in their burrows. The pleasure and the pride of humanity are best enjoyed against the heedlessness, the slumbering power of the Earth. Even when it moves to crush, it adds something. To isolate oneself too much from it detracts from both our achievements and our failures. We must feel the forces we live with....

  I opened the window and breathed deeply.

  Yes. The world was still breathing life into my lungs, and I was grateful to give it back...

  "I really do not like keeping him awake this long," Lydia said, staring down at her empty coffee cup.

  Robertson clamped his jaws, loosened them.

  "I don't think it will be too much longer," he said, "now that the office in Casper has been alerted. He may make it out of Wyoming before they reach him, though. But with the Rapid City people heading out, too, a flier should reach him before he is too far into South Dakota. A green vehicle heading east at this hour ... Shouldn't be too hard to spot. Another half-hour, I'd say."

  Lydia glanced over at Vicki, asleep on the sofa.

  "Care for some more coffee?" she asked Robertson*

  "All right."

  As she poured, he asked her, "Dennis' condition ... Isn't it rather unusual for a telepath to be able to operate at this distance? Leishman is well over five hundred miles from here."

  "Yes, it is," Lydia said.

  "How does he do it?"

  She smiled.

  "We are not even certain why it works at any distance," she said. "But you are correct about the range. It is unprecedented to sustain contact for this long at this distance."

  Robertson drained his cup.

  "Then Dennis has never gone out this far before— even for short periods?"

  "No. Frankly, I had thought we would just be giving you a lead, and that Dennis would have lost contact long before this."

  "It must be hard on the kid. I am sorry."

  "Actually, I feel no signs of strain in him, other than normal fatigue at being up this late past his bedtime. You know that is not my main concern—"

  "I know, I know. I don't want to damage the kid's mind either. Listen, I've been thinking. Since Dennis is in such good contact, couldn't he transmit as well as receive? Try to talk Leishman into giving himself up?"

  "No. Dennis would not know how to go about it."

  "What about you, then? Could you operate through Dennis, get a message to Leishman that way? Tell him to stop and wait, to hand over that gun?"

  "I do not know," she said. "I have never tried anything like that."

  "Will you?"

  She took a sip of coffee, then leaned back and closed her eyes.

  "I will tell you in a few moments whether it can be done."

  I placed the empty bottle on the floor, rearranged the blanket for the dozenth time. Beyond the window, the world swam pleasantly. Perhaps I would sleep now....

  A misty, gray, humming thing of indefinite duration ...

  Roderick Leishman.

  I shuddered, I rubbed my eyes and looked about Nothing had changed.

  Roderick Leishman.

  "What?"

  "I didn't say anything," said the driver.

  "I thought someone did."

  "You were asleep. Must have been dreaming."

  "Must have."

  I sighed and settled back again.

  No, you were not dreaming, Roderick. I addressed you.

  . . . The Earth Mother is aloof, heedless. She speaks to no man. I felt the bottle against my foot and chuckled. I had never heard voices before. I did not feel that drunk, but then the participant is seldom the best judge. When I awoke it would seem a dream. I closed my eyes.

  . . . Neither drunk nor dreaming, Roderick. I am with you now.

  "Who are you?" I whispered.

  You have named me.

  "What I did today could not have been that important."

  There are other considerations.

  "What is it that you want?"

  Your life.

  "Take it. It is yours."

  I wish to preserve it, not take it.

  "What do you mean?"

  At this moment, you are being pursued by federal agents. They are aware of your location.
They will reach you before too long.

  I drew my slung arm tight, feeling the pistol against my ribs.

  No. You must surrender, not fight. 50

  "I might be worth more as a martyr."

  A trial would be much better. Your motive would be detailed at great length.

  "What do you want me to do now?"

  Park the car and wait. Surrender yourself. Do not give your pursuers an excuse to harm you.

  "I see. Will you stay with me—through it all?"

  I am always with you.

  I pushed back the blanket, let it fall. I leaned forward.

  "Pull over for a minute, will you?" I said.

  "Sure."

  He braked and turned off the road. When we were halted, I said, "Do you have a gun?"

  "Yes. In the glove compartment."

  "Get it out."

  "What's the matter?"

  "Just do it, damn it!"

  "Okay! Okay!"

  He leaned over, opened the compartment, reached inside.

  When he began to swing it in my direction, I was ready. Mine was pointed.

  "Not that way," I said. "Put it down on the seat"

  "What is this?"

  "Do it!"

  He hesitated a moment too long, and, "I've already shot two men today," I said.

  He put it down.

  "Now reach over with your left hand and pick it up by the barrel."

  He did this.

  "Pass it over. Drop it on the floor back here.*

  "What's going on?" he asked.

  "I am trying to keep us from getting killed. Do you mind?"

  "I'm all for it," he said. "I think it's a great idea. But I don't understand how disarming me will do it."

  "I want to avoid a shootout. I think we are about to be arrested."

  He chuckled. He opened his door.

  "Don't get out!"

  “I’m not." He gestured outward. "Look, though. We're all alone. No one coming, either way. Listen, I know you're very tired, you've had a lot to drink and your nerves have to be shot after everything that's happened. I understand. With all due respect, I think you're a bit delirious. Why don't you—"

  "Don't move! Both hands on the wheel!"

  "Look, we are going to seem suspicious if anyone comes by and sees us this way."

  "Better than the alternative."

  "Getting away?"

  "Getting dead. We can't get away."

  "Mind if I ask what makes you think so?"

  "You do not have to know," I said.

  He was silent for a long while. Then, "Is this some sort of setup?" he said. "A part of the plan I'm not in on? Or is it just your own idea?"

  "It is not just my own idea."

  He sighed.

  "Oh. Why didn't you tell me sooner? I would have gone along with it, so long as you know what you're doing."

  "Better you don't know."

  "You can put the gun away. I—"

  "I'm tired of talking. Just sit there."

  Richard Guise approached his son, who rested on the courtyard bench.

  "How do you do," he said.

  "Hello."

  "My name's Dick Guise."

  Dennis rose, extended his left hand upward, turning the palm out. He held his right across his chest. His dark eyes met his father's.

  "Rod Leishman," he said, as Dick clasped it and released it.

  "Mind if I sit down?"

  "Sit," Dennis said, seating himself.

  "How are you—feeling?"

  "Shoulder's still giving me some trouble." He reached across and rubbed it. "You a lawyer?"

  "Friend of the court," Dick said, seating himself. "They treating you all right?"

  "Can't complain. Listen, I am not sure I should be talking with you without Mr. Palmer—my regular attorney—around. Just my ignorance. Nothing personal. Okay?"

  "Sure. May I ask you something not connected with the case?'

  The green eyes, like Vickfs, fixed him once again.

  "Go ahead."

  "What do the Children of the Earth really hope to accomplish with all their violence?"

  "Our only desire is to preserve the Earth and maintain it as a suitable habitation for mankind."

  "By killing people? By blowing up power plants and dams?"

  "It seems the only way to convince those in authority that we are serious."

  "Let me put it this way. If you were actually to succeed in removing the large sources of energy, you would probably defeat your own aim of maintaining the Earth as a suitable habitation for mankind. Wait! Let me finish. I do not know whether you have ever read Robert Heilbroner's The Future as History, written back in the middle of the last century, but he makes a good case for the premise that the major outlines of the future were already history in that they followed ineluctably from the forces already in operation, that they were so powerful we could barely oppose the general course they were determining for us. Technology, for example, would have to advance. This, in turn, would lead to an increasingly bureaucratic state. Abundant production would make living sufficiently easy that economic pressure would not, in itself, be enough to keep people in the less attractive occupations. He proved right on these matters, and on the lesser developed countries springing for whatever political system promised the most rapid industrialization. From there, their futures will follow as ours did—"

  "Heilbroner was a shrewd man," Dennis said, "but you cannot project a curve like that forever. The system breaks down before—"

  "Technology is proving capable of finding answers to the problems it has created."

  "But not enough and not fast enough. The world keeps growing, complicating, overproducing the wrong things. The standard of living is too high when people exist for the sake of industry instead of the other way around. Thoreau—"

  "Thoreau and Rousseau and that whole crowd would like to see us all living in the woods again."

  "Rousseau has generally been misunderstood, and Thoreau never said that. What they were all getting at, I think, was something like a science of the optimum, an understanding of just how large, how complex, how mechanized, how populous a society should be so as to provide the best life for its people—a science to determine these things and a will to be guided by them. They did not want to go back to the woods, but to find the most suitable middle ground between the basic and the complex. That is what the Children really want."

  Dick was silent a moment, then said, "That sounds very noble, and it seems that you are sincere. I am certainly not against idealism. We need ideals. But I feel Heilbroner was correct. We write the history of the future a long time in advance. I hope, and believe, that it will go your way one day. But we have to lose a lot of momentum first, rechannel a lot of energies. Something like that takes generations. It cannot be accomplished overnight. Least of all, it cannot be accomplished by random acts of violence against what has already been built up."

  "We haven't got that kind of time," Dennis said. "And I believe Heilbroner can be made wrong about the way we write the history of the future, if we are sufficiently determined to learn from the errors of the past."

  "And if we do not, I still do not see chaos waiting around the next corner."

  "Then I hope yours is the right comer, but I doubt it."

  Dick rose.

  "I have to go inside now. Ill see you around."

  Dennis nodded.

  "Be seeing you."

  He hurried away from the small form on the bench without looking back. Entering the house, he passed through the living room without speaking to Vicki and Lydia, who were seated on the sofa. In the kitchen, he poured himself a stiff drink, downed it, poured another, turned, walked slowly back to the front room.

  "I still do not believe it," he said, lowering himself into an armchair. "A few weeks ago he was a vegetable. Now ... Lydia, you told me he was in contact with the guy, not that he had assumed his entire personality."

  "This is a new development," Lydia explained
. "It occurred after we spoke with you, before you returned."

  "He is not even acting out the man's predicament. He is responding to new stimuli as if he were Irishman."

  "Yes."

  "How long is this going to last?"

  "There is no way of telling."

  "Is it a good sign or a bad one?"

  "Good, I would say. No matter what happens now, there should be some residue, some remnant of the synaptic processes that have been taking place."

  "But is he going to grow up thinking he is Leish-man?"

  "Not if we intervene—which we will, if the effect continues too long. The important thing now is that there is something there, some activity within his skull. His brain needs the workout it is getting. It has been idle too long."

  "But those aren't kid thoughts going through it They are adult thoughts. Mightn't the premature exposure warp him for whatever is to come later?"

  Vicki chuckled, and Dick seemed to notice her for the first time,

  "You seem to be forgetting that a bombardment of adult thoughts is what caused his problem in the first place. Now, at least, he has learned to filter them and focus on one mind at a time. So what if he is doing it exclusively with Leishman? I have spoken with him at length since this occurred. This Leishman is not all that bad a chap. In fact, I rather like him. He is an idealist and—"

  "—a murderer," Dick finished. "Yeah, a great guy our son picked. Lydia, is this going to hurt him later on?"

  "Did it hurt you?" she asked. "Or you, Victoria? You were both exposed to adult thoughts at an early age. Were either of you permanently damaged by the experience?"

  " 'Exposed,' not totally absorbed," Dick said. "There is a big difference."

  Lydia nodded.

  "All right," she said. "Of course there is the possibility of long-term influence. I am convinced, however, that therapy can correct it if it does occur. But I would rather wait until there is more to work with before I tackle the problem of identity."

  "How dependent is Dennis on Leishman? I mean, supposing the man were to drop dead right now? What would happen to Dennis? Would he go on thinking he is Leishman, or would he fall apart again?"

  "That is one of those questions which simply cannot be answered from the facts that we have. There is still a connection. He is apparently aware of everything that happens to the man. Yet he also acts independently in terms of the other's identity. I do not know where the line is drawn."