Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 (4 page)

 
          
 
"Killed or ruined, or backed and
assisted—as the case may be."

 
          
 
"It is a terrible picture that you
paint," said Van Duyn. "Why have you told me all these things?"

 
          
 
The dark man looked away, out over the city,
fingering a medallion he wore about his neck.

 
          
 
"I have fought them," he finally
said, "for ages. At best, I might have succeeded in slowing things a bit.
Now, though, our struggle is rushing to a conclusion— the conclusion toward
which they directed the race so long ago. I am not certain how much of a chance
remains. It would almost seem necessary to effect some change in the nature of
man in order to defeat them. What or how, I do not know. What I am attempting
now is to buy time, to slow things as much as possible, while I continue to
search for an answer. The passage of the resolution now before the General
Assembly would help in this—considerably. I was aware that the voting would run
very close. This is why I arranged for a spectacle—your assassination. I felt
that with the endorsement of a martyr, its chances of passage would be
considerably improved. At the last moment, however, I realized that my respect,
my fondness for you, would not permit me to proceed quite so coldbloodedly. I
owed you this much of explanation. By then, though, it was too late to stop the
assassin. And unnecessary. While no one has ever succeeded in controlling time,
that bridge of ashes man leaves behind him, I possess the ability to manipulate
a person's physiology to the point where the effect is the same as a
time-stoppage. So I did this, to give you this explanation, to give you a
choice."

 
          
 
"A choice?"

 
          
 
The other nodded.

 
          
 
"I am capable of using almost anyone.
Almost..."

 
          
 
"I see," said Van Duyn. "I also
see that my death could make the difference Who are you, anyway?"

 
          
 
The dark man shook his head.

 
          
 
"There is simply no time to tell you my
story, as it is longer than all of history. As for names ... I have lost count
of them. You might say I am an early experiment of theirs that went bad. And I
managed to steal a few things from them before they caught up with me. They
make periodic attempts to destroy me and my woman, but they have never been
able to recall our lives entirely. They were handicapped in many ways by the
uncongenial environment—and over the ages we have acquired many defenses. I am
. . . their adversary. That is all. That is enough."

 
          
 
"All right," said Van Duyn,
straightening. He glanced out over the city once more, turned, crossed the roof
and regarded the dark river. "All right."

 
          
 
After a time, he turned away and looked at the
dark man.

 
          
 
"Take me back down."

 
          
 
The other reached into his satchel. Moments
later, he took his hand. They left the roof.

 
          
 
Below, they entered the building. Van Duyn
headed toward the assembly hall. He looked back once, to say something to the
dark man, and discovered that the other was no longer with him.

 
          
 
He continued on, entering the hall, moving
back along the aisle he had previously followed. He paused beside the man with
the pistol, studying his contorted face. He checked the position of the bullet,
which had advanced considerably in his absence. Then he remounted the podium,
returned to the lectern.

 
          
 
He reached for his notes, took them into his
hand. He glanced up then at the United Nations flag, blue, with the white
circle of the world at its center. From the corner of his eye, he seemed to
detect a movement. Then something struck and we— He— I—

 
          
 
Slumped across the lectern now, he— We regard
the white circle on the field of blue as everything else grows dim and—

 
          
 
He—I—

 
          
 
I... I am— L

 
          
 
I!

 
          
 
I am! I am! I am!

 
          
 
... He lies there, breathing gently. The
bleeding has stopped. It is night, and she has built a fire and covered him
over with the skins of animals. He has been very cold. She has brought him
water in a large shell. I begin to understand.

 
          
 
Richard Guise walked in the hills, beheading
flowers with a stick. Northern New Mexico is an extraordinary bump on the Earth
and summer brings it to its clement best. But Richard Guise had no eye for
scenery that day. His vision was turned in upon himself.

 
          
 
He descended into an arroyo, followed it to a
place where it branched, then stood undecided. Finally, he sighed and seated
himself on a stone in the shade of the farther wall, sat tracing patterns in
the dust.

 
          
 
"Damn!" he said, after a time, and
again, "Damn!"

 
          
 
Richard Guise resembled the countryside in
some ways, though he had been born forty-some years before in urban New Jersey:
heavy-set, well-tanned; hair a mix of sand and gray, darker across the backs of
the big-knuckled hands that guided his stick; dark eyes wide of a once-broken
nose.

 
          
 
But he was not fond of the mountains, the
pinons, the rocks, the cacti, the cottonwoods. He was President of the
International Telepathic Operators Union, and despite the enormous efficiencies
of twenty-first-century communication, of which he was a significant part, he
would have felt far more comfortable in a large urban environment, preferably
Eastern. He maintained offices in such locations, true, but his was the same
problem which had caused all telepaths with young children to seek residence in
remote areas. Only, with Dennis, something had gone wrong....

 
          
 
He reached with his special sense, down into
the infra-awareness of a stinkbug picking its way among pebbles.

 
          
 
... A world of coarse texture and massive
forms, of striking odors and peculiar kinesthetic sensations ...

 
          
 
He swung his stick and observed the sensations
dwindle to nothing, the kinesthetics fading last. It was not at all true that
empathy bred sympathy. Sometimes the best thing about a channel of experience
was the ability to cut it off.

 
          
 
These walks had become more frequent in recent
weeks, as it became increasingly apparent that something was still wrong with
their son. Beyond the fatigue factor and the possibility of broadcasting his
feelings near the child, he simply did not like shielding his thoughts around
Vicki. He had to get off somewhere to think them, though.

 
          
 
"Damn!"

 
          
 
He stirred the mashed beetle into the sand,
smoothed it over, glanced at his watch. Perhaps the doctor would have something
good to say this time.

 
          
 
Victoria Guise tended her plants. She watered,
misted, cultivated; she plucked off dead leaves, added nutriments, shifted pots
from courtyard to patio, win-dowsill to bench, sunlight to shade and vice
versa; she fondled them with her thoughts. Blue shorts, white halter, red
bandana, leather sandals, hung, clung, wrapped her thin, pepper-haired,
five-&nd-a-half-foot, randomly mole-flecked person. Whenever she was
particularly troubled the plants received more than usual attention. Green eyes
squinted, she sought and dealt with burn, droop, dryness, mold, wither and insect
depredation. She was aware that this was a piece of emotional misdirection.
Even so, it was generally effective.

 
          
 
For now, she did not have to shield her
thoughts and feelings. Except— It was taking much longer than she had
anticipated. The doctor was still in with Dennis, and Dick would probably be
returning before much longer. If only— She decided that the impatiens could use
a little more light, and the navy petunias still looked thirsty. She returned
to the tap.

 
          
 
As she was pinching back the asparagus fern, a
faint, inquiring thought reached her: Is it all right? She felt Dick's
presence, sensed the landscape through which he moved, dry, rocky, house up on
the hill ahead. He was passing along the small arroyo to the north.

 
          
 
I do not know, she replied. He is still in
there with him.

 
          
 
Oh.

 
          
 
She felt him slow his pace, caught a whisper
of his feelings.

 
          
 
It cannot be too much longer, she added.

 
          
 
I would not think so.

 
          
 
Several minutes later, she heard a door close
inside the house.

 
          
 
Hurry, she sent suddenly.

 
          
 
What is it?

 
          
 
I —I think he is finished.

 
          
 
All right. A sense of their house, nearer.

 
          
 
She passed through the gate, closing it behind
her, walked around to the south wall. Only marigolds here. They never seemed to
need anything special. She inspected them.

 
          
 
"Mrs. Guise?"—faintly, Dr.
Winchell's voice from within the house.

 
          
 
She paused, studying the flowers. Another
moment or so ...

 
          
 
"Mrs. Guise—Oh!"

 
          
 
Voices then from the courtyard. Conversation.
Dick had returned. She sighed and moved back in that direction.

 
          
 
Entering, she glanced at her husband and the
doctor, who had just seated themselves on the chairs near the geraniums. Dr.
Winchell was a young, big man, florid, overweight. His straw-colored hair was
already thinning, and he ran his fingers through it several times as they
spoke.

 
          
 
"Mrs. Guise," he said, nodding, and
he made as if to rise as she approached.

 
          
 
She seated herself on the bench across from
them, and he eased back into his seat.

 
          
 
"I was just telling your husband,"
he said, "that it is simply too early to venture a prognosis, but—"

 
          
 
Let us have the bad of it straight, Dick
interrupted.

 
          
 
Winchell nodded, glanced at Vicki. She
inclined her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his own.

 
          
 
"All right," he said, declining the
opportunity to switch away from the purely verbal. "It is not the most
encouraging situation, but you must bear in mind that he is still a child—a
very adaptable creature—and the fact that this relocation was to a spot as
isolated—"

 
          
 
"Has he been permanently damaged?"
Richard asked.

 
          
 
"I— It is impossible to answer that at
this point. You have only been here a short while and—"

 
          
 
"How long until you can tell for
certain?"

 
          
 
"Again, I can't answer you—"

 
          
 
"Is there anything you can tell me?"

 
          
 
"Richard," Vickie said. "Please
..."

 
          
 
"It's all right," Winchell said.
"Yes, as a matter of fact I can tell you more about what caused it."

 
          
 
"Go ahead."

 
          
 
"When I first saw Dennis, you lived over
twenty miles from the nearest city—a good safety margin, based on accepted
range figures for telepathic phenomena. At that distance, a telepathic child
should have been sufficiently removed from the urban thought bombardment that
he would remain unaffected. Dennis, however, exhibited all the signs of early
reception reaction and retreated into catatonia. Neither of you were undergoing
anxieties of the sort which might have induced this. At that time, it was
suggested that some physical anomaly of the locale might have enhanced
reception, or some nearer habitation be housing a broadcaster of thoughts
exceptionally distressful to the child. So we recommended you relocate to an
even remoter site and see whether the condition would clear up of its own
accord."

 
          
 
Richard Guise nodded. "Six times now we've
moved. For the same so-called reasons. The kid is thirteen years old. He
doesn't talk, he doesn't walk. The nurse still changes his pants and bathes
him. Everyone says an institution would be the worst thin g, and I am still
able to agree. But we have just moved again and nothing is different."

 
          
 
"Yes," Winchell said, "his
condition has remained virtually unchanged. He is still suffering the effects
of that initial trauma."

 
          
 
"Then the move was of no benefit
whatever," Richard said.

 
          
 
"That is not what I said. Simple
relocation could not alter what had already occurred. The purpose of the move
was to avoid further exposure to adverse stimuli and to give the child's
natural recuperative powers an opportunity to effect his return to some sort of
equilibrium. It is apparently too early to see evidence of such recovery—"

 
          
 
"Or too late," Richard said.

 
          
 
"—but the move was certainly well
advised," Winchell continued. "Just because our study of the few
thousand known telepaths has provided certain norms, we should not accept them
as gospel—not with a brand-new mutation in human stock. Not this early, not
when so much still remains to be learned,"

 
          
 
"Are you trying to say he was
abnormal—even for a telepath—from the very beginning?"

 
          
 
Winchell nodded.

 
          
 
"Yes," he replied. "I have
tried some recently developed tests, including an experiment in which two other
telepaths were involved. I entered Dennis' mind and used his receptive
abilities to reach them. The nearer is thirty miles from here, the second forty."

 
          
 
"Dennis picked up thoughts from forty
miles away?"

 
          
 
"Yes, which explains his initial
reception reaction. You were never that far removed from sources of trouble at
your previous addresses. Here, though . . . Here, even with a forty-mile range,
you have room to spare—plenty of it. His condition appears to be purely
functional, and we do have numerous case histories from which to draw
encouragement, dating from the days before the mutation was recognized."

 
          
 
"True, there is that," Richard said.
"So ... What do you recommend now?"

 
          
 
"I think we should have one of the new TP
therapists come out and work with him—every day, for a while—to reorient him.'*

 
          
 
"I've read a bit about those early
cases," Vicki said. "Sometimes the trauma was too strong and they
never developed personalities of their own.... They just remained schizoid
collections of the bits and pieces with which they had been imprinted. Others
withdrew from everything and never—"

 
          
 
"There is no point in dwelling on the
worst," Dr. Winchell said. "A good number recovered too, you know.
You have already done a beneficial thing in bringing him here. Also, remember
that the therapists know a lot more about the condition now than anyone did a
generation ago—or even ten years back. Or five. Let's give it a chance. Try to
think about the positive aspects. Remember how easily your attitudes, your
feelings can be communicated."