Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 (27 page)

 
          
 
"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.

 
          
 
The man hurries toward the meadow his party
had crossed earlier. There had been a rocky knoll in its midst... .

 
          
 
He breaks into the open, running toward the
hillock. From the thunder at his back, he is already aware that he will be
unable to attain a sufficient vantage in time to roll rocks down upon his
pursuer.

 
          
 
He races toward a stony cleft, slips within it
and turns, crouching.

 
          
 
The ground leveled off and we entered an area
of heavier brush. I located a trail, though, and we continued to make good
progress. Perhaps twenty minutes later, the foliage began to thin. At the same
time, the trail took a downward turn. We moved along until it lost itself in
the place where the brush dwindled to low shrubbery and dry grasses. I still
knew the way—better than ever, for the strength of the summons continued to
grow—and I bore toward my left through an area of sandier soil.

 
          
 
At length, we came to a hill and climbed it.
From its top, the sea was now visible, perhaps two miles distant, green,
sparkling.

 
          
 
Old.

 
          
 
The sea and this land, both.

 
          
 
I halted for a moment. It was the first time
in my life that the concept of vast ages struck me in just that fashion. I
suppose that my youth had something to do with it. I had not existed long
enough for the accumulation of much personal history; consequently, I had never
reflected on the nature of duration as it applied to me. As for those other
lives I had touched during my stay on the moon, the time spans which separated
us meant nothing when I could simply reach them as I would call to a friend
across a room. But this, this prospect of rock and water, told me of geological
chronology in a way that even the view from the moon had not. There, though I
had seen the world in toto, bright and lovely, I was too removed, too
distant—too new to the fact of seeing, perhaps—to look upon it as more than a
celestial artifact, cunningly wrought, existing in the moment And the moon
itself, about/above me . .. The static character of its airless surface, its
mo-tionlessness ... It was a place where time was frozen, process outlawed....

 
          
 
_ And so the present vista made me think for
the first time, as my own thoughts, of the age of the world, of its—lifetime.
It made me think of all the tamperings with its life systems. And suddenly, in
the play of the afternoon light upon water and this small corner of Africa's
old estate, I saw my movement as something more than a compulsion. More, even,
than a duty; though this, too, was of it. There rose in me the desire to do
anything to preserve the ancient land and waters of my world against the
planned obsolesence which had pursued them across countless afternoons—perhaps
since the stoking of the now-dead reactor in Moanda. I realized, too, that I
might not be what I am but for that ancient device. Yet, I had to be more than
a windup toy. We all did, or life was meaningless. The dark man had told Van
Duyn that the one answer to the course of human affairs, the answer no longer
taken seriously—the teleological one—was correct. We had had a rule of
determinism forced upon us. Only by breaking it, somehow, could we save our
home, our lives....

 
          
 
Whatever was asked of me, that now was my
desire.

 
          
 
But tell me ... Is anything ever done?

 
          
 
I headed down the hill, my eyes on the
coastline. The beach was dun, rock-strewn; the sea drew creamy curves along its
length. I smelled it now in the racing wind. Dark birds circled, slid above its
waves. A finger of land almost touched the water below and to my left I could
not see beyond it, to where my course led me.

 
          
 
Fifteen minutes later, we trod the sand and
the pebbles, moving to round that prominence. I could hear the calls of the
birds, the splash of the waves, feel the cold force of the winds....

 
          
 
The wind blows on, the world goes as it will,
coursing the same route it would have taken had I never been at all. ...

 
          
 
The force that was drawing me grew into
vision, so that I saw the dark man standing facing the sea before we passed the
rocky bill and beheld him with our eyes.

 
          
 
He knew that I was there, though he did not
look in my direction. I could sense this awareness within his consciousness.
Most of his attention, however, was focused on something farther east, beneath
the waters.

 
          
 
Quick halted, his hand upon the butt of his
weapon.

 
          
 
"Who is it?" he asked.

 
          
 
"The dark man," I said, "who
spoke with Van Duyn. The ancient enemy of our ancient enemies. He who was
gored."

 
          
 
The man turned and regarded us. He was of
medium height. He had on shorts and unlaced tennis shoes. He wore a medallion
about his neck. He leaned upon a lance of dull metal. I felt the full force of
his attention shift toward me.

 
          
 
Dennis Guise. This is the time and the place.
Things are ready. Are you?

 
          
 
Yes. But I do not understand.

 
          
 
He smiled across the ten or twelve meters that
separated us. Neither of us moved to draw nearer.

 
          
 
. . . The vision of Van Duyn as he looked at
the
East River
, as he looked out across the silent city
...

 
          
 
I have seen. I remember. It is not this which
I do not understand.

 
          
 
Quick caught my eye.

 
          
 
"What is happening?" he asked.

 
          
 
I raised my hand.

 
          
 
Quick nodded.

 
          
 
"I hear him," he breathed.

 
          
 
They dwell out there, the man indicated,
gesturing with his spear, beneath the waters. I come to this place
periodically, to speak with them. As always, I have been attempting to convince
them that their plan is failing, that mankind is more complex, has become less
responsive to their promptings than they had anticipated, that sufficient
remedial action has been taken to thwart them, that something has been learned
from all man's missteps, that it is time for them to concede the game and
depart.