Koontz, Dean - Soft come the Dragons Read online

  "With me?" he asked again.

  "With you."

  See me: doctor, diplomat—dramatic actor . . .

  Fifteen minutes later, insulated against Lin Chi's bugs, we stepped onto the tarmac that ringed the ruined complex, stepped over rubble and around turned-over, crushed vehicles. The blast had smashed things like the first of an angry god but had not stopped the bacteria. We checked for radioactivity, found it tolerable, and moved on.

  We stood expectant at the edge of the pit. Rubble lay packed from wall to wall, torn with channels that were sometimes deadends, other times seemed to go down and down and down for eternity. "You had better wait here," I said.

  "With me," he said. His voice was a bit metallic through the suitphone.

  We stepped onto the once-molten slag of the ruins, worming toward a particularly large hole fifty feet out. When we reached it, I shined my flashlight into it. There were many angles, but part of the main drop was always in sight. I thought I detected some glittering blue tile about eighty feet down, but I could not be certain in the confusing webs of shadows and semi-darks. "Follow," I said, "but not so close you could break my neck too if you fell."

  Using arms, legs, shoulders, and buttocks to brace ourselves, we moved down. Now and again, a recognizable piece of rubble jutted from the bubbled, rugged wall. A broken beam, the back of what had once been a lounge chair, a specimen freezer door, an oddly perfect piece of windowglass . . . But for the most part, the blast had fused everything into an amalgam of sameness, relieved only by the varying juxtaposition of slag layer to slag layer.

  Fifty feet down, the way widened to four times its previous expanse, and we had to go to traditional mountain-climbing procedures. I clung to the right wall, working precariously down the rubble, fingers and toes gripped in impossibly small crevices. So, hanging like a nervous spider, I heard the crunch of breakage, and watched as Shukon plunged past, kicking wildly, pulling twenty pounds of slag with him . . .

  Time . . .

  Time was a frozen corpse, mouth open . . .

  There was a scream from below. It was the first sign Shukon had given that he was human. In fear of Death, all mouths form the same.

  I clung to the rocks, desperate as they shivered, jelly-like, with the resettling of the slag. When the earth quieted, there was nothing but silence that clung to the walls like an oil film.

  "Shukon?"

  Silence.

  "Shukon?"

  Walls, walls, darkness . . .

  "Shukon!"

  I felt the blast of my own words, realized I was screaming. No time to get hysterical. And why hysteria over a ratty little mayor? Why over him? Because he was something like my ... I clamped my teeth together, found more handholds, started down.

  Thirty feet farther down, I found him on a ledge, one arm tucked under him, the hand reappearing at an unnatural angle. The Life Systems box on his chest showed him to be in good condition, though unconscious. Still, beneath that heavy, cushioning, germ-impregnable suit, there might be broken bones I couldn't feel. I prepared a hypodermic of stimulants, punched it through the rubberized, self-sealing skin of the suit, straight into (I hoped) a vein that (hopefully) would be directly beneath the thin blue line marking it on the exterior of the suit. (Luckily) it was. A few moments later, he opened his eyes.

  "You're okay—if nothing is broken."

  He struggled, sat up, his eyes bloodshot behind the faceplate.

  "Is anything broken?" I insisted.

  "Fingers,"

  "How many?"

  "Two."

  "Well take you up."

  "No." Even bloodshot, the eyes were cool.

  "You can't climb with broken fingers. I'll radio for help."

  "I go," he snapped.

  "Shukon—"

  His good hand had gone for his gun. "I'll kill you if you try to send me back."

  "That's insanity."

  He waved the barrel, stared me down. "You decide."

  I stepped back, swung onto the wall, shaking. "Come on then, you determined fool. We haven't time to argue."

  As I moved, I heard grunting and what seemed to be the beginnings of moans. But he choked the moans off short, held them between his teeth and bit them to death. When I slowed the pace for him, he pushed me hard to move faster. So I did. And, somehow, he kept up.

  Eighty-seven feet down, we came upon the glittering blue tile. It was irradiated, sparkling silver at the edges. Still, this was more like it. Suddenly the rubble was not unidentifiable slag, but recognizable objects crushed and pressure-welded. Fifteen feet later, we came through the ceiling of a low corridor that was still pretty much intact.

  I dropped to the floor. Shukon followed, cradling his wounded hand in the other. I pretended not to notice. I set out down the corridor, searching for significant door labels, for a room that might contain records. We had been searching less than ten minutes when my suitphone buzzed with a call from the train. I flipped the toggle on my chest pack. "Bill?"

  "Walt, where are you?"

  "We're through. We may have luck soon."

  "You better. We have seven dead now."

  "Seven?"

  "It's catching on with a vengeance. Thought you'd want to know."

  "Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Bill."

  The voice was gone.

  Eleven agonizing minutes later, we found the records room. Had we been gnomes, we would have danced. Rather, I would have. Shukon would have made a very depressing gnome. Too stoic. So much like . .. I hurried through the file drawers, searching. There was no project name to look for, no date when the research might have started. But I did know that the disease gave no symptoms, and I flipped through the folders, looking for pages of symptoms. And I found it. In Chinese characters in folder 2323222. SYMPTOMS: NONE.

  I was ready to dance, gnome or no gnome, when the ceiling cracked and dumped rocks on us with a thick dusty growl . . .

  There was dirt on my faceplate. I wiped it off. There was also a pain in my side, dull, that would not wipe away. A broken rib? Only cracked? I tried to move, found I was pinned by rocks. Carefully, I tensed, pain lashing sharply through my chest, and shoved out from beneath it.

  There was absolutely no light. I could hear something. What? A hissing. It was Shukon trying not to moan. "Where are you?" I called.

  "Never . . . mind."

  "I'll dig you out."

  "My arm . . . is broken. My . . . left leg . . . also."

  "I'll carry you"

  "You . . . have no . . . time."

  I fumbled with my headlamp, found it had been knocked off but not broken. I screwed it tight in the socket, flipped it on. There was a glint of plastiglass faceplate in the swirling dust cloud. Overhead, the ruins screeched, groaned. Screeched like a gull My father had taken me to the sea once, had sat with me on the moss-edged rocks, had shown me the gulls .. .

  "Leave me," Shukon croaked.

  I struggled over the rubble, began tossing stones off him, adrenaline almost pumping out my ears. He was right: broken leg. Smashed would have been a better word. The suit was ruptured above the knee, the bones splaying out of it, blood mingling with the dust and forming a thick black glue. The self-sealing rubber had formed a tourniquet to stop the worst of the flow. Bracing a foot against his good leg, grabbing his arm, I started to hoist him onto my shoulders.

  Then he struck me. Some impossible way, he swung his broken arm. It smashed against my faceplate, smearing blood over it. I staggered back, dropping his arm. I wiped the blood off my helmet, saw that he held a gun on me.

  "You . . . can't possibly get me . . . out of here. Let us have no . . . histrionics. Take the papers and . . . leave."

  I started to answer, was interrupted by the buzz of the phone My head was swirling toward hysteria. I couldn't leave him there to die. Not again. Not fail again . . . The phone buzzed. "What is it, Orgatany?"

  "This is Evret. Orgatany is dead."

  Son, son, son, must there be darkness now?

&nb
sp; "Dammit, let me talk to Bill!"

  "He's dead, doctor. He died ten minutes ago."

  An untruth, I thought. Must be an untruth, I thought. In truth, I did not think. "Evret, cut the bullshit! I have to talk with Bill. Let me talk to Bill. Bill. Bill, damn you to hell!"

  "Shut up!" Shukon shouted with more energy than he could possibly have had.

  I turned. There was still Shukon. Bill was gone, but there was still Shukon. There was still . . .

  "Grow up, doctor!" Shukon snapped. "Give him the information!"

  My head spun madly merry-go-round in the light-flash of memories. I fumbled the papers out, laid them on the rubble. I fought to steady the world in its dance. The world was so damnably big! The records said things about the brain. But I wanted a general synopsis. There would have to be a general synopsis, something Lin Chi could show to visiting party dignitaries . . . Time covers, yellowed and cracking with age, swirled like leaves down the canyons of recollection . . . Then I had it! "Evret?"

  "I'm here."

  "The virus settles in the mid-brain through the bloodstream. It only takes a single virus. One organism, Evret. Once settled, it releases minute quantities of toxin. But the toxin is not poisonous, for that would be traceable. It is merely a sedative. It puts the brain-stem to sleep. It simply paralyzes that area of the brain that controls circulatory, digestive, respiratory systems. It wears off in minutes, but by then the victim is dead."

  "Is there a toxin formula?" Evret asked, excited.

  I read it to him. "Tell Bill," I said. Up-down-up-down the old, old, old, old merry-go-round.

  "But Bill is—"

  "Tell him!" I roared.

  "Yes, sir." He signed off.

  "Now will you come with me?" I asked Shukon.

  He holstered the gun. "You . . . won't leave without me. I see that."

  I got him onto my shoulders, and started for the door." The rubble was like marbles beneath my feet. Past and present fled through my mind in cat-dog chase, tail-for-tail and teeth-for-teeth and foam about the edges of my thoughts . . .

  The hallway was now blocked in the direction we had come. I turned the other way. There had to be more exits. In time, we came across a fissure in the wall that slanted up. Dimly, far away, there was a white haze. I started up the slight incline, Sukon hissing his teeth, still refusing to groan.

  Forty feet into the wall, the pathway broke and swept vertical. My head pounded. There was blood all over me— Shukon's blood. "Hold on," I said. "I'll need both hands for climbing." I started up.

  My chest was afire, and the flames leaked up through my neck to play tag behind my eyes, incidentally setting fire to my brain too.

  On the merry-go-round of recollection, one horse/memory after another fled past the ticket taker, sliding up and down on brass poles. There was my father, lying on a white bed in a white room, his face and hands snow carvings. For a moment, he faded and became a spunky little Oriental mayor who cared desperately for the lives and pride of his people. Then he was my father again, dying from the new Chinese variation of smallpox. White, he was, white . . . Horse up, horse down . . . Then there was myself, telling my father that my A&I team would find the antitoxin for the pox. Then I was telling the same thing to a mayor in another time about another disease. Then again it was my father, and I was telling him not to worry. Telling him, telling him . . . Horse up, horse down . . . My father lay in the white bed, face too white. My father, dead nine minutes before the Duo had come up with the answer. White room, white bed, white father-corpse, and a view of stark and total whiteness from the hospital window to the lawn . . .

  My head spun with the old scenes. The wall before me flashed between them. My lungs ached, and breath was a stone in my chest. My fingers slipped, and I clutched, balancing on my toes.

  Shukon's arm struck my side. I howled in pain. "What is it?" he croaked.

  "Nothing." I caught the rock, shoved upward.

  "You are hurt."

  "A rib. Nothing—"

  My fingers scraped across rock, tore suit and flesh. Pain stabbed up my arms, but I clutched and held on.

  A third of the way up, I pulled onto a ledge that gave step to a shelf slashing seventy feet into the rubble. I stretched Shukon out, sat rubbing muscles and sucking in air. "We'll rest here. We're going to make it easily." It was someone else talking, or—perhaps—some liberated fragment of myself.

  "You'll make it," he said. "Not . . . me."

  I turned. The gun was pointed right between my eyes. "Put that down, for chrissakes!"

  "You won't make it with me. Well both die anyway. My people need you."

  "Don't be silly. Give me that."

  The rubble whined, settled. I took a step toward him. He shot me.

  I stumbled back, clutching my side. It was the barest possible of wounds, a sear, really. The bullet had done no damage. What little pain it had caused was directly over my broken rib. I had not suspected he was an expert shot.

  "I am happy," he said. "Death can be viewed as a blessing. You should think more—you Westerners—like we Orientals. Acceptance, Dr. Bronson. Acceptance is the key to existence. You have, I know, not learned that yet. It will take you some time. But you must, Dr. Bronson, learn that."

  Then he did something I shall never forget, something that has hung with me burning starlike forever. He turned the barrel of the gun on his own chest and blew his heart out. Blood fountained up. Flesh tore and flung itself free from his body. Acceptance . . .

  "Father!" I shouted, clenching his lifeless shoulders. Horses blended together on the carousel . . . He was ashen, his face very white behind the faceplate.

  "You can't leave me. It isn't far. It was so close! Father, damn you, father!"

  My mind merry-go-rounded madly, madly. My mind gave key to my heart, brimmed my eyes. I smashed my hands on the rocks, smashed and smashed to change what could not be changed. I stuffed my hands (white-white) into the gaping wound (white-white) in his chest, as if the blood could restore me, could reverse my life and take me back in time and make me whole again. I wanted to cure, father. Really. I'm in the military, but the individual still matters! Really, father! I didn't want to be late, father! Really (white-white)!

  But much later, when the blood had coagulated and dried upon my hands, I started climbing again—for Time—rigid Time—is but a one-way street.

  TO BEHOLD THE SUN

  I am probably the only living writer who can say he collaborated with the justly famed Isaac Asimov on the second story I ever sold. Admittedly, I am stretching things a bit, but it was this way: I sent "To Behold the Sun" to Ed Ferman at F&SF, and received it back with a note saying the story needed some scientific rationalization for the trip to the sun which is the center of the plot. This is the only time Mr. Ferman ever asked me to rewrite, and even then he enclosed two paragraphs of scientific rationalization which he had garnered from Isaac who was giving them to me to use in the story. The rationalization amounted to perhaps a hundred words, and I slipped it all in without disrupting more than two pages of the original draft. Ed bought the story and published it. When I met Isaac at the Philcon (a science fiction fan convention in Philadelphia) this past November, I reminded him of the fact we had collaborated and, jokingly, offered him a quarter for his share of the work. He smiled that Slavic yet somehow gnomish smile and said, "If you don't mind, I'd rather just kiss your wife." Whereupon he took Gerda in the famous Asimov arms and kissed her with the famous Asimov lips. Isaac, that is the last time I will ever collaborate with you—and you can forget the quarter, because I have already spent it!

  what would it be like

  to step quickly

  into the roaring

  of the sun

  and walk down its streets

  of golden apples

  and shapeless streetlamps . . .

  Amishi, Star Dreams

  "BECAUSE it's there," I said.

  There was an appreciative murmur of laughter from the press. The twinkli
ng lens of NBTri-D seemed like jeweled eyes of mythical dragons.

  Bacon of the Times raised his hand and waved.

  I suppressed an urge to wave back. "Mr. Bacon?"

  "Exactly how many days will the trip require?"

  "I believe the answer to that can be found on the data sheet that Space Cent handed out a half an hour ago." Twenty-four going and twenty-four coming home—x-plus days there. What we found would dictate the length of our fiery visit.

  There was a waving of hands. Again the silly urge. I fought another urge to scream. Instead, I said, "Time," rising and moving away from behind the small desk.

  Unasked questions burst forth from a dozen lips as if they had suddenly acquired a life of their own and refused to be restrained by lips and teeth and gum. "Sorry, sorry," I shook my head, exiting from the conference chamber via a small door at the rear of the stage.

  Krison was waiting in the hallway.

  "Fine," he said.

  Krison always said, "Fine—but—"

  "But," he said on schedule, "perhaps you shouldn't have been so abrupt, so—well, antisocial."

  "I can afford to be," I snapped.

  "But the project can't. We at Space Cent get our funds from Congress, and Congress, in turn, gets its funds from the public. Tell them what they want to know. Straight off the proverbial shoulder, tell them that unmanned probes have discovered as much as possible. Tell them that men must now go in a heavily armored ship to study surface turbulence at close quarters. Tell them about solar flares and solar wind and about how we must know these things before safe space travel is made cheap and easy. But for God's sake, don't brush off the people!"

  "My job isn't public relations. I promised to cybernet the ship to and from—not to answer a lot of foolish questions."

  "If you didn't want to be the center of public interest," he said with a moronic grin, "you shouldn't have had an affair with Mandy Morain."