Halo: First Strike (30 page)

She put her hands on the touch-sculpture in the center of the

floor, the work of a blind sculptor named Dernier, then closed her

eyes and felt its familiar rough texture and odd curves let her

hands trace a form other than the visual.

Behind her Jerry's voice said, "Diana."  She turned to him,

and there he stood as he had more than twenty years agohe was

younger than she'd ever have imagined, and beautiful, and filled

with the same desire as she.

Blind and seeing, young and old, Diana went across the room

to him, but he held up a hand and said, "Stop.  If you come to me

now, then you take up an obligation that you can never put down."

"I can't let you die."

"I have lived long past any reasonable reckoning; I am dead."

"I can't leave you dead."

"Can you stay with me in the unreal worlds, forever?  Until

the city stops turning or its animate spirit dies?  Until one or

the other of us disappears, caught in some freakish storm or

catastrophe?  Until one self or the other or both are dissipated

in time?"

(Something prompted her, then, counselled her, asking in an

unspoken voice, Do you think rationally about such an election

adding and subtracting the credits and debits and settling upon

that which is most to your advantage?  Or do you use some organ of

choice beneath the purview of consciousness and the articulate

self?  Saying, Remember, mind is a make-shift thrown together out

of life's twitching reflexes, and over it consciousness darts to-

and-fro, unfailingly over-estimating its own capabilities and

reach; thinking itself proper arbiter or judge.  Choose as you

will:  what will be, will be.)

And she said, "Yes, I can stay with you."

There was one more question:  Jerry asked, "Why would you do

this?"

All her life's moments funneled into this one.  Her voice

light, final inflection upward, the older, sighted woman said: 

"Oh, for love."

"Well, then"

#

Gonzales stood next to her on the endless plain, HeyMex next

to him, then Lizzie.  The Aleph-figure and Jerry hovered above

them, and a voice came from the suspended figures:  "Diana, wake

for a few moments.  Tell everyone to come here who can, and we

will do certain things."

Before she could ask for clarification or question the

voice's intent, she heard herself say these words, then saw

Toshi's face in front of her and heard him ask, "What things?" 

Sitting up on her couch, she said, "Save a life, build a world,

redeem an extraordinary self."

"Indeed," Toshi said.

She lay back down and was once again among the unreal worlds.

They gathered on the endless plain, coming in quickly, one-

by-one:  first one twin, then another, then Stumdog, the Deader

(her white hair streaked with red, crying, "Blood party"), Jaani

23, the Judge (huge and hairless, looming over them all), the

Laughing Doctor, J. Jerry Jones, Sweet Betsy, Ambulance Driver, T-

Tootsie  all of the collective who could be spared.

The Aleph-figure and Jerry still hovered, with light storms

bending and breaking around them in crazy patterns of reflection,

refraction, diffraction; phosphorescing and luminescing, dancing

an omniluminal photon jig.

All were there who would be there, so it began.

#

Patterns more complicated and colorful than any Gonzales had

ever seen filled all creation.  Rosette and seahorse and seething

cloud, nebulosities on the brink of determinate form, cardioid

traceries of the heart  the patterns wrapped around him until he

became a fractal tapestry, alive, every element in constant

motion.  He put his hands together, and they disappeared into one

another, then something urged him to keep pushing, and he did so

until he entirely disappeared

And felt the stuff of Jerry's past and present mingling in

him, seemingly at random, from the store of memory and capacity:  

throwing a particular ball under a particular blue sky, yes, and

catching it, but also ball-throwing and catching themselves, the

solid presence of muscular exertion coupled to the almost-occult

discriminations required to make an accurate throw or a difficult

catch

As it later became known, each of them received portions of

the vast fluent chaos that manifested "Jerry," dealt to them by

Aleph according to principles even it could not articulate.  What

it was to be "Jerry" mingled among them, and they among it and the

vast medium that supported them all, Aleph, in a promiscuous

rendering of self-to-self.  Female was suffused with male, male

with female, both with the ungendered being of Aleph and HeyMex. 

They were all changed, then, something deep in the core of each

made drunk in this vast frenzy or bacchanal of Spirit.

With each dispersal of Jerry's self among its human helpers,

Aleph recovered its own.  In a process of steadily accelerating

momentum, the city's parts and states began to flow through it,

restoring self to self, until Aleph acknowledged itself (I am that

I am), looked back again over Halo, and in a triumphant

manifestation of the Aleph-voice, began to speak what only it

could hear, the words of the sentence that defined it unfolding in

every dimension of its being.

#

Still sitting watch over Diana, still meditating on his koan,

Toshi felt something rise like electricity through his spine, and

all the contradictions of in fact dissolved in satori.  "Hai!"

Toshi called, laughing as he was enlightened.

22. Out of the Egg

Gonzales's egg split, and he saw from the corner of his eye

that Lizzie's was coming apart at the same time.  Standing between

the eggs, Charley said, "Congratulations."  He turned to Eric, who

waited at a console across the room, and said, "Let's do it."  He,

Eric, and a pair of sams began to disconnect Lizzie.

Toshi appeared briefly, coming from behind the screen where

Diana lay, then returning.

Oddly, Gonzales felt better than he ever had coming up from

the eggmentally clearer, emotionally stronger.  He couldn't see

Lizzie, could hear only whispers as she was moved onto a gurney

and wheeled away.

"Is Lizzie all right?" Gonzales asked as soon as the tubes

were out of his throat and nose.  "And what about Diana?"

"They're both fine," Eric said, his high-pitched voice

welcoming and familiar.  "But we have to take more time with

Doctor Heywood.  You and Lizzie we're moving into the next room. 

You can sleep here tonight and go home in the morning.

"What about the memex?"

"It's still working with Aleph but left a message for you

that all is well."

#

Sitting in full lotus on a mat beside the couch, Toshi heard

a change in Diana's breathing and looked up to see her open her

eyes.  "I'll get Charley," he said.  "He's with Lizzie and

Gonzales."

"Don't bother.  I'm all right."

"They must disconnect you."

"No, not now  almost never, in fact."

"What do you mean?"

"We have saved Jerry, but there are  conditions."  Her head

lying sideways on the pillow's rough white cloth, she smiled at

Toshi, and said, "When I sleep there, I can wake here, as I do

now, and for very brief periods leave that world.  But I can only

visit here; I must live there.  Otherwise, Jerry will die."

"You have resurrected your dead, then, but at what price,

what sacrifice?"

"Nothing I would not willingly give.  There was no choosing."

"No?"

"I am only doing what I want."

"So the arrow finds the target," Toshi said.

#

Gonzales woke the next morning, showered, dressed, and was

drinking coffee when the room said, "Mr. Traynor is here to see

you."

"Send him in," he said.  One account about to be reckoned up,

he thought.

When he came in, Traynor looked chastened, a state Gonzales

would not usually have associated with the man. "Good morning,"

Gonzales said.

Traynor looked around as if unsure of himself.  He said, "I

am leaving this evening.  You may come with me, if you wish."

Gonzales was looking for his i.d. bracelet, found it on the

nightstand next to the table, and said, "I don't understand.  I'm

not fired?"

"I said that only in the heat of the moment, you know  this

place, these peopleI'm afraid I did not handle things well."

"I see."  Gonzales snapped closed the bracelet's clasp.  "Is

that my only choice?"

"No.  Showalter's been reinstituted as Director SenTrax Halo

Group, and she's gotten the board to agree that you may take the

position offered by the Interface Collective.  The choice is

yours."

"Really?  And what about Horn?"

"He will be returning to Earth."  Traynor laughed.  "I will

have to find something to do with him."

"Indeed.  That all seems clear enough.  When do I have to

tell you my decision?"

"Soonbefore I leave."

"I'll let you know."

Traynor left, and Gonzales took a last look around and went

to see what was happening.  He found Charley looking at monitor

screens dense with lists of data.  The two eggs had been removed,

but the screen around Diana's couch remained.  "What's up,

Charley?" Gonzales asked.

"Look" Charley pointed to the hologram displays of

superimposed wave-forms, red and green.  He said, "The green

curves show the calculated limits of Diana's interface, the red

ones the actual state."

To Gonzales, the red curves seemed huge, perhaps twice the

size of the green ones.  He said, ""What does it mean?"