Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07

by Bridge of Ashes

  I was awakened.

  I had come around suddenly from a very deep sleep, a strong feeling of pursuit filling my mind. For several moments, I was Leishman again, wondering at the enemy's identity, assessing the unfamiliar surroundings, dim in the darkened room. Then I knew a sense of wrongness. This was someone else's game.

  Look up, old man! We must answer! The blade comes out of the scabbard. ...

  I grew with the shudder which followed, and Irishman faded to something more than memory, less than controller.

  I was in a better position than Leishman to understand the situation.

  Some TP was attempting to scan us. I set up a partial block, covering my main thinking, leaving a jumble of reverie for his consideration: moonlight, shadow, the texture of the bedclothes, a small thirst, bladder pressure, the various night sounds from beyond the window. Within this fortress, I was troubled that he had already had a look at the Leishman persona.

  I slid out of bed, crossed to the window, stood beside it and looked out.

  The night was warm and a dank breeze was blowing from the direction of an irrigation ditch we had crossed earlier. The nearest streetlight was on a corner far to my right. Carefully, with thoughts and eyes, I sought the mental eavesdropper.

  I became aware of a figure in a shadowed doorway up the street.

  Still blocking, I retreated, moved to Quick's bedside. I placed a hand on his shoulder.

  He gave no physical sign of having come awake, but said softly, "What is it?"

  I moved to cover his thoughts, also. I said, "There is a TP trying to read us. I am preventing it. He is across the street, in a doorway to the right. What should we do?"

  He did not answer, but sat up, reached for his trousers, pulled them on. He stuck his feet into his boots and rose, running both hands through his hair.

  "Keep preventing him," he said, drawing on his shirt and crossing to the door, buttoning it as he went. "Lock the door after me."

  "The gun is still under your pillow."

  "That's a good place for it."

  I locked the door and followed him with my mind, holding a total shield about his thoughts. I found it easier than I thought it would be to maintain my own partial shield while doing this—slow stream of consciousness, surface thoughts leaking. I returned to my bed and lay down.

  As the minutes passed, I realized that the observer was not merely observing. A gentle but definite pressure began to occur as he tried to influence my exposed train of reverie. It was something I had never attempted myself: taking control of another mind. I permitted him to gain his simple objectives, wondering the while whether I should make an effort to try the same maneuver on him.

  Before I could make the decision, however, the pressure was off and the sounds of a scuffle occurred beyond the window. I dropped my shields and raced across the room. I could make out little beyond the movement of shadows within a courtyard to the left of the doorway our observer had occupied. I moved into Quick's mind and was swept up by a sequence of motor activity.

  ... We were blocking a knife thrust, then chopping with the edge of our hand. We kicked then and closed for a succession of blows. There was a brief pause, then a final, calculated chop. ...

  I broke off contact immediately. I lay quietly and attempted to still my mind.

  Later, when I let Quick in, I asked him, "What did you do with the body?"

  "Irrigation ditch," he said.

  "I suppose it was necessary . . . ?"

  "He didn't give me much choice."

  "And if he had?"

  "I hate hypothetical questions."

  He returned to his bed, got in. I went back to mine.

  "How much do you know about where we are going, what we are going to find there?" I asked him.

  "Absolutely nothing. Lydia says it is important. That is enough."

  "How is it that you know her?"

  He coughed. Then, "I'd supposed you had found that in my mind."

  "I don't go poking around in my friends' heads."

  "Good to hear," he said.

  "So how did you meet her?"

  "She saved me once when I was running from the police. Came up to me on the street in Omaha, called me by name and told me I had better go with her if I wanted to be safe. So I did. She put me up for a couple of days and got me out of town. She got me fake papers and a legitimate job while I was lying low. Later, I did some work for her."

  "What sort of work?"

  "Oh, you might say courier, guard, delivery boy."

  "I don't quite follow you."

  "That's all right. Go to sleep."

  "Is she COE?"

  He was silent for a time. Then, "I don't really know," he said. "Sometimes I think so. But I have never been certain. She is certainly sympathetic."

  "I see."

  "Probably not. G'night."

  " 'Night."

  In the morning we had a bad breakfact and found transportation out to the site. I did some probing but was unable to discover any sign that a body had been found in the ditch. Perhaps it had not yet been located. Or perhaps it was a common occurrence and excited no special interest.

  It took over an hour to get out to the mine and the temperature was already beginning to rise out of the comfort range when we arrived. A number of our fellow passengers proved to be part of a tour. We stayed near them to benefit from their guide's explanations.

  Following, we approached an abandoned open pit mine, taking a trail that led around to its far side. We drew up besid'e a railed-in area. As we walked, the guide had explained that it once was a uranium mine, from which over 800 tons of the metal had been extracted annually in the late twentieth century, until it finally gave out. Most of it had gone to France.

  ". . . And here," he said, leaning on the rail and gesturing, "is the truly interesting area. It was here that, back in the last century, the miners suddenly came upon strata bearing abnormally rich ore. It was about 10 percent per weight of the soil, as opposed to 0.4 percent elsewhere in the area. The deposit was also unusual in that the uranium 235 isotope which normally occurs in natural uranium was almost entirely absent. This discovery, of course, led to considerable interest and study, resulting in the conclusion that you are looking at the remains of a natural nuclear reactor."

  There were appreciative mumblings from the dozea or so persons before us. I moved nearer to the rail for a better look. It was not especially impressive—a big, rocky pit, scarred, gouged, gravelly at the bottom.

  Fitting. A place like this perhaps, where the Galilean went to be tempted. ... Is this irony necessary, new Lord? You have wrested the earth from its keepers to throw it away. ... It is another world you claim to lead them to. . . . You care no more for the green, the brown, the gold, the glades, the glens, than this dry, hot place of rock and sand ... and of death. What is death to you? A gateway .. .

  "... It was a spontaneous fission process which ran for over a million years," the guide went on. "We still have no idea as to what set it off in the first place. Nor can we say what genetic effect it may have had on local life forms. It could well have been quite spectacular. The resultant mutants could have spread themselves throughout the world in those millions of years since it burned itself out. Who knows what plant or animal, common today, owes its origin to the atomic pile which once smoldered here? Makes you stop and think." He paused to grin. "The world might be an entirely different place than it is today, were it not for the rocks from this strange hole in the ground—the only natural atomic pile of which we have ever found evidence."

  "Didn't mankind originate in Africa?" one of the tourists asked.

  "Many researchers believe so," answered the guide.

  "Then could it be possible that this place had something to do with it?"

  The guide smiled again. I could see in his mind that he had heard the same question countless times before. He began a measured reply.

  "Of course no one can say for certain. But it is curious that..."

>   I tapped Quick's shoulder.

  "I get the idea," I said. "Let's go."

  He nodded, and we turned away and made our way back to the transportation stand.

  "It was very interesting," he said. "But I wonder why she wanted us to see it?"

  "My benefit," I said. "I had never heard of it."

  "Really? I thought everyone had."

  "My education is still pretty limited. She wanted to prove something to me."

  "What?"

  "That something I was already positive I had experienced was not just some sort of psychic plant, from back when she was my therapist—and that the story I heard under those circumstances had something like a factual basis. All this, in case I started to wonder. All right. I believe her. Damn it!"

  "I am afraid I do not understand."

  "That's okay. I guess I am really talking to myself. Quick, I'm scared."

  "Of what?"

  "That guy last night. They have human agents. I had not known about that until just recently. I should have guessed as much, but I didn't."

  "Who has human agents? What are you talking about? You are going too fast for me."

  "She never told you about the enemy?"

  "No."

  "She must know, if she knows the man I am looking for, knows as much else as she does "

  "Then I guess she just did not see fit to tell me."

  "Well, I do. I've got to tell someone."

  I did not finish till we were back in town, back at the hotel. When I had, he shook his head. He lit a cigarette.

  "Damnedest story I ever heard," he said.

  "You don't believe it?"

  "I do believe it. Wish I didn't. It makes a kind of ghastly sense. I do not understand what you are going to do to help the situation, though."

  "Neither do I."

  "Let's get packed and go eat. Then we had better find that airfield."

  I nodded, and we did.

  Night. Crossing the Congo in a small flier. Quick, me, a nameless pilot. The only light in our small box in the sky came from the dim dials of the instrument board and the glow of Quick's cigarette. We flew low. I watched the night sky and communed with my other selves. Slowly, I began to appreciate what might lie ahead.

  "Something out there," Quick said.

  He was looking to the left, his head tilted slightly downward. I unfastened my belt and rose partway from my seat to follow his gaze.

  Sixteen or seventeen meters off and three down, a dark shape paced us. Its form was birdlike, but its wings did not move. It was perhaps a meter in length, and half again that from wingtip to still wingtip. I probed, but no infrahuman awareness met my scrutiny.

  "That is no bird," Quick said, "at this speed, gliding that way."

  "You are right," I told him.

  He swung his side window farther open and rested his left forearm on the frame. He lay his right wrist atop it, and I saw that he had the pistol in his hand. I raised my voice to be heard over the wind.

  "I do not think that is going to do any good."

  "Let's find out."

  He fired. There caine a bell-like tone.

  ... And I remembered the beast, driving in among the rocks, its horns slashing toward my belly. Inches short, it began to throw its weight from side to side, spatulate legs continuing their paddlelike movement, body ringing like a great bell each time that it struck against the stone. I could smell the dried brine. ...

  "Didn't faze it," he said.

  The pilot shouted a query, and Quick yelled, "Take it up."

  We began to climb.

  "No good," he muttered half a minute later.

  "Quick, I do not think we are going to get rid of it," I said, "and it has not made any hostile moves."

  He nodded and put the pistol away. He adjusted the window.

  "Just an observer, huh?"

  "I think so."

  "Ours or theirs?"

  "Theirs."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "It reminds me of something else—from long ago."

  "And we should just let it be?"

  "I think we have no choice."

  He sighed. He lit another cigarette.

  It followed us that entire night, all across the Congo. The first time we landed—a fueling stop at a primitive field, used mainly by smugglers, according to our pilot's thinking—the bird-thing simply circled overhead.

  Aloft again, it took up its position once more. I slept for a time, and when I awoke we were over Uganda and a pale light was infusing the sky before us. I was still feeling fatigued but was unable to return to sleep. Our escort was a piece of the night, reflecting nothing of the morning's illumination. Each time we fueled it waited, joining us again when we resumed flight.

  The full light of day flashed upon Lake Victoria. I searched ahead with my mind. Something. For a moment, I detected something bright and powerful, and then it was gone. I ate a sandwich and drank some tea. We crossed into Kenya, kept going. I thought back to whatever it was I had touched upon, and I began to grow nervous. Toward what were we rushing and what would be expected of me? In myself I was nothing, possessed of no special skills beyond my TP abilities. Was this the desired quantity? Or would it be better to confront whatever lay ahead in the person of some greater individual I had been? I could reach out so easily to touch once again those minds.... But then, I had no way of knowing which to choose. I watched the land pass beneath us—green, brown, yellow. Quick had finally nodded and was breathing gently. The pilot's mind indicated that our next stop would be at the Somali coast, our destination.

  The bird-thing left us when we disembarked at that final landing, streaking eastward, dwindling, gone. I was feeling faintly feverish, a combination of the fatigue and the tension, I supposed. It was a sunny afternoon, and we were near the center of a freshly cleared area. A new-looking hut stood across from us. Both the hut and a stack of fuel drums were concealed beneath thatched canopies. I sensed two presences within the structure—a mechanic and his assistant, who would shortly be checking over the flier and fueling it. Our pilot entered and spoke with them in Swahili. Neither knew what we were to do next.

  "Quick, I don't feel so good," I said.

  "I'd imagine. You don't look so good. How about a drink?"

  "Okay."

  I thought he meant water, but he produced a small flask from one of the many pockets in his bush trousers and passed it to me.

  I took a long swallow of brandy, coughed, thanked him and passed it back.

  "Have you any idea what we do now?" he asked.

  I realized suddenly that I did. My tension, my physical distress, my anxiety, my curiosity and my desire were instantly fused into an aching from which I reached out, moving in the direction of the vanished shadowbird. I felt once again the presence I had touched upon earlier, and in that moment realized that it now lay upon me to make my own way. I turned east and began walking toward the sea, of which we had had a glimpse on the way down. Yes, it felt right to be doing that. There was some sort of easing of pressure as I moved.

  Quick was beside me, reaching toward my shoulder.

  "Hey! Where you going?"

  "This way," I said, avoiding his hand. "Stay here. There is nothing more for you to do."

  "The hell you say! I am your bodyguard till Lydia discharges me." He fell into step beside me. "Now, what happened?"

  "I know where I must go."

  "Great. You could have told me, though."

  "It may be better if you do not accompany me."

  "Why?"

  "You could be injured."

  "I'll take my chances. I have to be certain you get where you are going—all the way."

  "Come on, then. I have warned you."

  There was a trail through the brush. I followed it. When it turned right, I did not. By then the brush had thinned, however, and we were able to make steady progress. The way slanted gently downward for a time.

  "Heading toward the water?" Quick asked.


  "I think so."

  "You said I could be injured. Can you be more particular as to the nature of the threat?"

  "No. I do not know what it is. It is just a feeling that I have. They really only want me."

  "Who are 'they'?"

  "I haven't any idea now."

  Walking. The way grew steeper. I continued to feel feverish, but I now regarded myself in an almost abstract fashion. It was as if, having hosted so many minds, my body might be something of a way station, a place where I, too, was but a passing fragment of the humanity come to temporarily inhabit it, ready to abandon it to another when my stay was done. I steered it over outcrops of shale, occasionally using my hands in steeper spots.

  "Dennis, I think we ought to stop to rest," Quick said after a time.

  "No. I have to go on." ^ "You are breathing hard and you've cut your hand. Sit down. There!" He indicated a flat-topped stone.

  "No."

  He seized me by the shoulders. I found myself seated on the flat-topped stone.

  "Drink some water." He passed me a canteen. "Now let me see that hand."

  He dressed my right hand as I drank. Then he lit a cigarette and readjusted his belt holster to place the pistol in a more accessible position.

  "I cannot believe that Lydia wants you to get there in less than good shape."

  "It doesn't matter, Quick. Something is drawing me toward it now, making me regret every moment I waste like this. It does not matter if I get there tired. It is my mind that is important."

  "Never slight your body, Dennis. You might be capable of all manner of mental gymnastics—but these days everybody talks so much about psychosomatics that I think they sometimes forget it works the other way around. If you want that mind of yours in good shape for whatever lies ahead you will be a little kinder to the anatomy and psysiology that go along with it"

  "I cannot look at it that way just now."

  "Then it's a good thing I came along."

  We rested for several more minutes. Then Quick ground out his cigarette and nodded to me. I got to my feet and continued down the slope. I decided against further thinking. My emotions were numb and I no longer trusted my intellect. I concentrated on moving in the direction which summoned me with greater authority with each step that I took. I felt that I was no longer in a position to judge anything, but that I could only respond to what was presented to me. Whether this feeling itself was a response planted in my mind long ago by Lydia, or whether it was a totally appropriate reaction dictated by the physiology of survival I would probably never know.