A Darkness In My Soul Part 9

I do not know how long the battle lasted. It seemed that perhaps days pa.s.sed, though there was no sunrise and sunset down there-and I did not tire in my a.n.a.logue body, did not need to stop for food and drink. I was the irresistible force, wading into the legs and tails and shining carapaces. In time, the numbers of the scorpions began to grow smaller, and at last the air refused to disgorge more of them. I knew they were not gone forever, because they were nothing more than psychic energy, and that could never be truly destroyed. But by then, I would not care if they encircled him.

Child still sat on the ice, staring where the scorpions had marched but where there was now nothing but scored ice. Approaching his a.n.a.logue cautiously, I touched him, hunkered before him.

"Child?"

Quiet.

"Child? Speak to me?"

He looked at me. He blinked his eyes. And then chaos broke loose as his insanity boiled through the surface tension of the a.n.a.logue and swept over me!

I was swept up, up, on a tide of human flesh, of torn arms and legs, of bleeding mouths, broken teeth, shattered bones, burning flesh, splintered eyeb.a.l.l.s. Monsters rose in the swell and came toward me, lumbering ogres and swimming reptilian horrors. The arms and mouths in the ocean of human parts attacked me, grasped me and tried to pull me down, bit me and chewed at my unreal psychic flesh.

I felt myself losing hold of my own equilibrium. In a moment, I would spiral over the edge, into madness for the second time. I had recovered only recently, and I knew a second plunge to the bottom of that well would be the last I would ever make. I would fall back into gibbering incoherency, and I would remain there forever. Twice mad is once too often, and the sh.o.r.es of detached logic would never be available to me again.

The nearest ogre reached for me, with his sevenfingered hands, each finger tipped with the fanged mouth of a yellow-eyed snake.

I rolled across the rippling floor of human parts, kicking pieces of bodies up as I went.

The snake fingers missed by inches.

A flurry of mutilated corpses clutched me and pulled me under the surface of the sea.

I fought to air again, through nightmare conglomerations of dead men and women, "CHILD!" I screamed.

Another ogre thundered down on me.

In the last moment before I could be grasped and dismembered, I did the only thing that would save me. Giving myself over to the basest of my id l.u.s.ts, radiating bloodhunger and s.e.xual need of the vilest sort, I repelled the ogres and the dragons, forced back the tide of human bodies that tore at me. In seconds, I was back on the blue ice floor where again the a.n.a.logue of Child sat, tranced.

I circled him. Now I was in the form of one of the great scorpion beasts, mandibles chattering, forked stinging tail raised above my back, ready to attack.

His psychic energy formed a wall against me, but I danced on, broached that wall with my own mind, and leaped upon him, thrashing with him on the floor. This time, rather than argue with him, rather than plead with him, I devoured his psychic energy, destroyed him, absorbed him, and dissipated his shattered mind throughout my own.

Child no longer existed. I had killed him. But now I was in total control of his body. I left that place, made it dissolve around me. I made the mountain appear, and I climbed it, entered the caves through which I had first come down into Child's subconscious mind. In moments, I had freed myself, and was looking out at the world through Child's eyes, encased, again, in real flesh*

THREE.

The Incomplete Creation*

I.

I found myself in Child's body, lying in a hospital bed with the barred sides raised to provide the illusion of a prison. The room was a private one, somewhere far up in the tower of Artificial Creation, no doubt. There was no light but that from a small blue bulb plugged directly into a floor socket. In that eerie glow, I could see that there was no nurse in attendance. How long had Child lain like this, dazed, almost comatose, unable to speak or see or hear anything of the real world as his madness kept him sealed in the a.n.a.logue of his subconscious? Days or weeks? Perhaps even years?

Somewhat frantic at that last thought, I pushed up, weak and dizzy. My frail, bony arms felt as if they would crack, but they got me to the edge of the bed just the same. My short legs dangled a foot from the tiles after I got the barred slats down, and that measly twelve inches looked more like two or three miles. I built my courage, dropped, felt skinny legs buckle. I crashed forward on my face and lay there for a while, collecting my wits.

Was this what it was like for Child, this inability to cope with the inadequacies of his own body, this helplessness and dependence? No wonder his own search for a purpose and ident.i.ty had been so much more thorough and extensive than my own.

I got on hands and knees and gripped the edge of the bed for support, gained my feet again. The door was but a dozen steps away. I toddled toward it, collapsed against it, holding on to the k.n.o.b to keep from taking another serious fall.

Opening the door was a major ch.o.r.e, compounded by the fact that I wanted to do it quietly. I didn't want anyone to know that I was awake now and moving around. First, I wanted to find out a few things, attempt to discover how long I had been trapped in Child's mind.

And if I could somehow locate my own body-for, surely, they were keeping it somewhere close at hand, in another dark hospital room-and re-enter it before they were aware I had returned, I would be in a better position to take care of myself. I didn't trust Morsf.a.gen or any other super-patriot professional soldier. The more ignorant I was about what had transpired since I had gone mad within Child, the further removed I was from my own body and, therefore, autonomy, the more power they would hold over me, the more they could demand and perpetrate.

The door finally opened and gave a view of an empty corridor that was painted a flat, unreflective blue. I stepped out of the room, closed the door, and hung by the wall, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the pain in the sunken chest of the mutant body which I inhabited.

I didn't care if I destroyed Child's body during this trek, for I had already destroyed Child himself by absorbing his psychic energy back there in that blue-floored room beneath the broken, ebony plain. He would never own his body again. I could feel his intellect, devoid of any personality now, within my own mind, magnifying my intelligence and perceptions. But that was the only minim of Child's real self that would ever survive.

Pushing away from the wall, I started down the corridor. I could not expect it to remain empty for long, and I would gain nothing by being seen here, before I had learned anything of my situation. I weaved from wall to wall, barely managing to keep my feet. And when the tall, uniformed man appeared at the head of the stairwell and shouted in surprise, I collapsed on my face*

When I woke, I was in the same hospital room, in the same bed, with the metal slats raised around the sides to keep me from falling out. There were differences, though.

There was plenty of light, and there was a nurse, a buxom, gray-haired matron with a bland, pleasant face and a concerned look plastered all over it. There was a guard by the door, on the inside, his holster unsnapped.

Why I should be considered that much of a threat when I could hardly even walk, I did not know. Morsf.a.gen and a white-smocked physician stood by the right side of my bed, looking down at me. The physician exhibited concern and professional interest. Morsf.a.gen had a look of hatred and sheer animal cunning.

"Welcome back," he said.

"I'm thirsty," I croaked, realizing for the first time how parched my throat was.

The nurse brought me water, which I gulped eagerly.

The chips of ice rattled against my teeth, stung my gums.

But it was all quite good, better than expensive wine.

"No more water, no more anything until some questions are answered," the general said.

"Yes," I replied.

"What has happened to Simeon Kelly?"

For a moment, I was surprised. Then I realized that they had no way of knowing this wasn't Child who had awakened. It meant that there were other things they could not know, things which would give me the upper hand.

"I am Kelly," I said.

"No games," he snapped.

"This isn't."

He looked at me closely. "Maybe you had better explain."

So I told him about Child's investigation into the nature of G.o.d. He did not seem moved by the discovery that the universe held no purpose, that G.o.d is insane and always has been. Perhaps he did not believe me. I rather think that was the case with the doctor and the nurse and the guard by the door. But there was a crisp, cold gaze there that said Morsf.a.gen did believe-and not only that he believed, but that he had come to the same conclusions himself some time ago, though he had simply lacked the proof that Child had managed to obtain. There was no room for G.o.d in Morsf.a.gen's life, I realized. He had always operated outside a belief in heaven and h.e.l.l and retribution for sin.

I carefully avoided mentioning that I had absorbed Child's energy, that he would never regain his body. If they thought that all could soon be returned to normal, they would be more eager to see me back in my own flesh, wherever it was kept.

When I was done, I asked: "How much time has pa.s.sed?"

"A month," he said.

It was startling, yet it could have been worse. I had steeled myself to accept the word "years," and this was a blessing by comparison. A lot could have happened in a month. But Melinda might still be free, might still be waiting. Harry would be alive. My house would not have been sold to creditors. Yes, there was still time to regain normality.

"I want my own body," I said. That was the first step to that normality.

"Perhaps," Morsf.a.gen said.

I looked around at the others to see whether they understood the cruelty in that tease. None of them seemed to pay any attention. Perhaps part of their jobs included paying no attention to such things.

"What is this-perhaps?" I asked.

Child's voice box made the words seem sinister when they were actually spoken in fear.

"Perhaps," he said, his face impa.s.sive, "it would be better for all of us if no one outside of this room ever discovered that you have regained sanity and are ready to return to your own body. It would be less trouble to get you doing work for us. We would not have to pay you anything. All in all, perhaps it would be a wise idea."

The nurse paid no attention. But her pleasant face mirrored her tacit agreement with Morsf.a.gen.

The doctor took my pulse, listened at my chest with a stethoscope, checked my eyes and ears, ignoring what transpired around him.

The guard, by the door, had Morsf.a.gen's impa.s.sive look.

I was alone.

Except for Child's intellect, which had expanded my own. There was a cunning about me now that I had not possessed before. Morsf.a.gen would think he knew me: fast on the cutting remarks, but low on cleverness. But that had changed, and I was now every bit as devious as he.

"One problem," I said.

"What's that?"

"I've told you that it took me this full month to shake loose of my own madness and to free myself from Child's insanity. I nearly lost my mind again trying to find a way through his subconscious landscape. You scanning all this so far?" He indicated that he was by saying nothing.

"Now, if I'm trapped in this frame, welded so closely to his mind, I'm going to succ.u.mb to his insanity again-and this time it will be permanent. I couldn't stand the ordeal of recovery again." In that whispered, deathlike rattle of Child's, the words took on even more sincerity than I had tried to give them.

Morsf.a.gen looked doubtful. It was almost as if he could sense the change in me, sense the expanded awareness and cunning. But he could not take the chance that I was not telling him the truth, and he knew that I had won. He was going to have to console himself with the fact that at least he now had me in full mind for future use; if he tried to play for full stakes and keep me locked in Child's body, he might very well wind up with nothing. And military careers are not built on blunders.

"Bring him along," he ordered the doctor. "We'll let him have his body back." He smiled at me, but it was not a pleasant smile. "But you'd better cooperate, Kelly. It's time of war now, and that rules out your brand of frivolity."

"I understand perfectly," I said, not without a touch of sarcasm.

"I'm sure you do."

And he left the room.

Minutes later, they wheeled me into the corridor to keep my rendezvous with my own coma-ridden flesh*

All the while, I gloried in the thought that I was swiftly getting the upper hand and that before they realized what had happened, I would be in my former position of dominance. There were two minds' worth of energy within me, plus the complex intellect of Child now amplifying my own. They were mere men, I told myself, and they stood no chance at all.

I did not realize that I was making the same mistake that I had made twice before. In the old days, I had convinced myself that I was a G.o.d of sorts, the Second Coming, and my life had been disastrous because of that fantasy. In Child's subconscious, I had eagerly sought to be transformed into the mythic images of Tibetan wolves, into something transcending humanity, and that might have cost me my mind and my eventual recovery. And now, as I was wheeled down the corridor, I again looked at myself as more than a man, as a minor G.o.d soon to prove his power. Because I had never allowed myself to a.s.sociate with "mere men," I did not understand them, or myself. And my latest delusions of grandeur were bound to lead to ultimate disaster*

And did*

II.

My legs were cramped, and even a slight bit of movement made my shoulders ache, for the staff had not been exercising my body with the proper degree of enthusiasm during the month it had been vacant. I felt weak, and my stomach was a hard knot. Having been fed intravenously for some four weeks, the stomach had shrunk and felt like a clenched fist in there, squeezing my guts. Otherwise: fine. And since it was such a delight to be housed in my own flesh once again, I was willing to overlook the little aches and pains of readjustment to life. I didn't complain, and I tried not even to grimace.

Morsf.a.gen seemed disappointed by that.

They wheeled Child's carca.s.s out of the room. It would continue to live, though it would never exhibit intelligence again. It was a husk, nothing more. I still had not told them, for I was still not free of the AC complex and out of their immediate reach. Morsf.a.gen would not take kindly to such a trick, and I didn't want to be around whenever he discovered it.

I showered, washed away the weeks of sickbed smell.

The hot water seemed to loosen my cramped muscles, and dressing was only half the ordeal I had expected. When I slipped into my jacket and checked my reflection in the mirror, Morsf.a.gen said, "Your shyster is waiting downstairs."

I held back the witty reply designed to demolish him, for I knew that was exactly what he wanted. He was searching for some reason to slap me down, either with his fists or with a preventive detention arrest. Why we had hit it off so miserably from the start, and why our hatred for each other was now twice what it had been, I didn't know. True, we were altogether different types, but the antagonism we felt for each other was deeper and more unremitting than a mere clash of personalities.

"Thank you," I said, leaving him with nothing to attack. I walked to the door, opened it, and was halfway into the corridor before he replied.

"You're welcome."

I turned and looked at him and saw that he was smiling, that same cold smile of hatred which I had grown used to by then. He had said "you're welcome," but not with any seriousness-which meant that he understood me and knew that I understood him too.

"We'll contact you day after tomorrow," he said.

"There's a lot of work to do. But, after what you've been through, you deserve a little rest."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome."

Again. And grinning this time too*

I closed the door and walked down the hall to the bank of elevators with a dark-haired, blue-eyed, six-foot-fourinch guard as company. We didn't say much of anything to each other on our way downstairs, not so much out of any particular dislike for each other as out of a sheer lack of anything to say, like a nuclear physicist and an uneducated carpenter at the same c.o.c.ktail party, neither exactly superior, but both separated by a mammoth communications gap.

Down*

Harry was in the lobby, tearing his hat apart, and when the elevator doors opened, he gave the thing a particularly vicious mangling with his big hands and started toward us.