Koontz, Dean - Soft come the Dragons Read online

  The Pentagon announced the discovery of the Bensor Beam, which shorted out all synapses in the human body, leaving the brain imprisoned in a mindless hulk. Named after Dr. Harold Bensor, the beam was already being referred to (by Pentagon officials) as "the turning point in the cold war." I knew the idea had come from Child; I recognized it—the way one recognizes a bad dream that is made into a movie. But the censors had learned from mistakes they had made with me; the public would never hear of Child.

  I wondered for a moment what kind of man this Bensor could be to want his name attached to such a device.

  Pictures on the screen showed two Chinese prisoners on whom the weapon had been used.

  I pushed breakfast away from me, unfinished, and got my coat from the closet. I was to meet Melinda at her apartment for another day's session. She had a ton of equipment there and preferred not to move it. That evening, we were going to the theater—and that was no business meeting! I was heeding the Mechanical Psychiatrist's advice, trying to persuade myself that it had been correct.

  The sky was now gray again and whispered snow. It was a regular old-time winter, a Christmas card sort of winter, sparkling and white. Somewhere, far above, floated Dragonfly.

  "Did the FBI mistreat you at any other time?" she asked.

  The black microphone dangled above us like a bloated spider.

  "It was not the FBI so often as the doctors who treated me not as a human being, but as something to be pricked, punched, and jabbed at. I remember once—"

  "Keep remembering," she said. "That's enough for one day. Besides, you said you had to leave by three o'clock. Sounded very important."

  I remembered Child. "Yes. Yes, it is."

  She was wearing a peasant blouse with a scalloped neckline, and I found myself staring and thinking. And that in itself was a shock. It did not seem as disgusting as before. In fact, the fullness, the roundness seemed quite attractive. Perhaps my Mechanical Psy had been correct.

  "I must hurry now," I said. "I'll be late."

  "Then seven this evening," she said, her eyes picking up the overhead light and glittering like two blue gems.

  "Yes. Certainly, yes."

  She kissed me when I left! She put two small hands around my neck and put her lips on my lips. I lost memory of the sixty seconds or so following that.

  I stood in the driveway a time before I managed to think enough to get in the car. And I sat in the car a time before I managed to think enough to start it. My mouth burned where hers had touched it.

  It burned all the way to AC.

  I was in love. No question about it. I hadn't even esped her since we'd met, and that in itself was unusual. I imagine I had been afraid at first that she would love me—and later, that she would not.

  "That's Marcus Aurelius. She writes all those pornographic novels, or nearly pornographic. Lily, Bodies in Darkness, those."

  Honey hair.

  "How would you like to . . ."

  I ignored what he was saying about her.

  Soft lips.

  "And those legs . . ."

  Blue, blue eyes.

  "Hey, she's looking this way."

  Smooth, lovely shoulders, a graceful curved neck.

  "Hey, she's looking at you. That girl's looking at you . . ."

  Honey hair smooth lips smooth hips blue eyes blue eyes blue eyes . . .

  "Hey, where you going, Sim? You can't leave yet. What's the rush. Hey. Hey!"

  How foolish I had been at that party. But that was long ago now. I was so much younger then—and I'm older than that now.

  By the time I reached the government building, I had made the decision. I loved Melinda. I feared Child. He could throw me out—perhaps he could swallow me up. There was something to his warnings to leave his thoughts alone. Something to do with the G association I had chanced upon—something to do with God. I loved Melinda. I would never again risk my mind; I would always save it to contemplate her beauty. I would tell them first thing. The job is ended; go in peace.

  But it didn't run that smoothly.

  They were waiting when I got there. Harry fidgeted nervously with his hands. I thought that I had never seen him as he had been the last few days—and especially as he was now. There were bags under his eyes; the old tic had reappeared in his left cheek; his hair was uncombed.

  I esped to see what was troubling him.

  It was floating on the surface of his mind, and the thought symbol his psyche had given it was a bloated body floating in a pool of blood. Beneath the image, I read it: WAR. The rumors were not just rumors anymore. Brushfire stuff had gotten hotter. Some Asian pilots had tried dropping a few plague bombs off England, covered by one of their newer inventions, a low altitude radar distorter that Harry did not understand. WAR. A bloated black body floating . . .

  Extremely shaken, I sat down at the table and looked across the shiny surface at Morsfagen. There were tiny beads of perspiration on his chin and forehead. Damn them! Damn them all! Trying to kill Melinda!

  "What have you come up with overnight?"

  "Nothing more than yesterday," I said. "He threw me out because I was reading some thought stream he did not want me to see. It was easy for him because I never expected it. No one else could ever do it, and it was a new sensation. Rest assured that it will not happen again."

  Damn them all! I had to go in now, to save my Melinda.

  "You're sure?"

  "I'm certain. But some steps must be taken before I can go in again. He must be told that I refuse to continue the experiment, and that you must continue without me. After he is drugged, I'll go in and delve into him secretly. He won't even know I'm there."

  A black, bloated body (Melinda) floating . . .

  Damn them to Hell!

  "Are you sure, Sim?" I thought Harry sounded as if he wanted me to quit. But now that I knew the world and my Melinda teetered on the brink of a chasm much darker than Child's mind (as I then understood it), I realized the only person who could develop the ultimate weapon (the weapon that would make war obsolete) was Child. He could invent the weapon that would nullify all weapons. I had to go in until he formulated it—possibly urge him into formulating it.

  The world was heavy on my shoulders, and Death was walking with me . . .

  VIII

  Like a cat with cotton feet, I went quietly . . .

  Like a ghost in an old house, I went without form . . .

  Like the breezes of spring, I walked softly . . .

  There was no echo of my steps, and the labyrinth was warmer than usual. I rounded a bend and saw the Minotaur. He was sitting on his haunches, unaware of my presence. He was reading a leather-bound Bible.

  Slowly, to disturb nothing, I passed. He never looked up.

  Pasiphae, here is your unholy child.

  Minos, your labyrinth is ugly.

  Theseus, keep your weapons girdled to your hip, for there will be no killing of a sad Minotaur.

  The pit was a tangerine orange, pulsating warmth flowing out of it. The center was a white hot dot.

  I reached out and grabbed the nearest thought. A weapon. Nothing that could serve my purpose, not the ultimate weapon that would make war impossible.

  A formula to cause ratlike mutations in unborn babies

  A beam that could dehydrate living tissue . . .

  Many of the G association thoughts, several different progressions that led toward one distant point . . .

  . . . An inordinately large number of them.

  Then I found it. A stray thought. An ultimate weapon.

  F . . . Field . . . Force Field capable of stopping all entry by anything, including air, permitting neither bombs nor bacteria passage . . . Field . . .

  I latched onto it and gently nudged it toward the main stream, toward the waterspout. The ultimate weapon—the weapon to make weapons obsolete.

  I thought I was being subtle, but I was underestimating Child.

  There was a clacking of hooves behind me.

  "G
et out!"

  No. You don't understand.

  "You don't understand!"

  He pounced. I stepped quickly aside, struck at him, and sent him falling over the brink into the pit . . .

  Far out at sea, the Force Field Theory was being shot up the waterspout. Soon, it would be spoken in a dark room.

  Sighing, I turned to go. But, with a low, animal grumble, the walls of the labyrinth began to sway, the floor shook, bucked.

  From somewhere down in the pit, there was a scream, a deafening scream that spread throughout the caverns, echoing and reechoing. Clutching the edge of the pit, the Minotaur was pulling himself onto the earthen ledge. I could see it was not he screaming.

  "What is it!" I yelled above the noise.

  His eyes were wild. He opened his mouth, and I watched horrified as snakes came slithering out.

  I kicked him. He fell back into the pit, all the way to the churning bottom this time.

  When I turned back to the caverns, the ceiling caved-in in front of me. Dirt and stones spilled over my shoes. And there was no longer an exit. I wasn't going to get out! I turned to the sea, and I saw the waterspout dying, withering. There was no hope in that direction either. No hope! And the situation was so ironic; like Jesus finally sealed in his tomb. But I had given up that delusion!

  "What for crissakes is going on?" I yelled above the constant screaming from the pit. Then I thought of catching a stray thought. I reached out into the turbulent river, and I found them all starting the same way:

  G ... G ... GGGGGGGGG . . . leadinG to Grass roll-inG over the hills . . . to G ... G ... GGG God God God like a tornado whirlinG across the Glen, relentlessly . . . GGG GGod GGODGODGOD . . . randomly what purpose . . . trap him like the wind to find a purpose . . . GGG . . .

  I realized it. Child's purpose in life had been shattered when he met me—just as mine had been shattered when I encountered him. He could no longer be the Final Coming, the virgin birth. But he had no Mechanical Psy to treat him and could find no woman to love. He had to search for an answer.

  GODDGOD GOD GOD . . . trapped in a cavern to tell answers . . . GGG .. .

  I followed the thoughts to their end; I was swept along with them. I never should have listened. It was the ultimate theory, and he had proven it. Proven it beyond a doubt . . .

  He had tried to contact God.

  He asked what meaning there could be to life, to the world.

  And he was answered; he solved his problem.

  He asked what was at the center of creation.

  And he found out . . . (oh, Melinda . . .)

  And now I'm trapped down here.

  There are three of us.

  Child, Simeon, and God.

  And we are all three quite insane.

  THE TWELFTH BED

  "The Twelfth Bed" has a strange history—and one which was maddening as it was unfolding. I sat down to write a grimly realistic story about death and old people—but with an upbeat ending. When I was finished, I thought I had something that might possibly sell to a major circulation magazine. I mailed the story to Playboy. A week later, I received a two page letter from an assistant editor there. They were rejecting the story, but thought it "brilliant." Why, then, you may well ask, were they rejecting it? Because, the editor went on to say, "it was too grim." Next, the piece went to Esquire. I was told, when they rejected it, that it was a miserably depressing story, and it was inferred I had a warped mind (that rejection was half a page letter). The New Yorker, Atlantic, and the Saturday Evening Post (then publishing) all returned it. Not one of them sent a form rejection, but came through with letters about the story—and all of them said it was depressing and antihumane and even "so horrid as to be obscene." Depressed, I decided to try the lower paying markets, though by now I was certain the story was an utter catastrophe. Ed Ferman, at F&SF, bought the story immediately with a note that said: ". . . yet it is so powerfully charged with Hope . . ." Hope? Could this be the same story that was "grim" and "obscene" and "miserably depressing"? Yes, of course. Because the editors of those slick magazines had taken the plot of the story and judged it only on that. They had failed to consider the lead character and his attitude at the end of the story. What our narrator says in that last paragraph is a testament to man's ability to come back from the worst possible blows to his psyche, to come back and make a go of it again, even if he believes that, this time, the twelfth bed is the one in which he sleeps. . . .

  Now in the dark and the silence with the metal nurses whirring and smiling and rolling around, now with everyone gone and everything lonely, now with Death hovering near me and now that I have to face him alone, I have decided to record the whole marvelous affair. I have crayons, pastels, and the art paper they gave each of us. Maybe they will find the art paper, like my voice echoing out of the past and whispering tales to them. Maybe.

  I'll have to hide the finished document; the supplies closet would make a fine depository, for there is already a great deal of paper in it, and this will be mistaken for unused stock. The metal nurses can't read, but they always burn all your papers when you die. This would not be safe in my desk. That is part of what makes this place a breathing, snorting Hell—not being able to communicate with the outside world. A man should be able to reach through and see progress and pretty women and children and dogs—and oh so many things. A man should not be bottled like a specimen and shoved away in some forgotten file. Batting my fragile wings against the bottle of my imprisonment, I write.

  In the beginning, there were eleven of us. The ward can hold twelve. We knew that several of our number were very close to death and that new vacancies would open up. It was nice knowing there would be new faces. There were four of us who lived through eight years or more in the place, and we valued new faces, for they were all that made life interesting (crayons, pastels, and checkers being limited in their attractiveness after a number of long, empty months).

  Once a real Englishman with fine manners came into the ward. He had been to Africa twice, and he had quite a number of safari experiences to talk about. Many a good hour was passed listening to the tales of cats, lean, well-muscled cats that lurked in the brush with glistening claws and yellow teeth to slash and rip and tear at the unwary. There were stories of strange birds. There were tales of strange temples, exotic rituals, narratives about smooth, dark native women.

  But then the Englishman died, spitting blood from his mouth and nostrils.

  So it was that new faces brought new ideas, making one feel that life still had something in its dried-out carcass to make you want to live. And like I said, there were always fresh countenances. Libby (his real name was Bertrand Libberhad), Mike, Kyu, and I were the only regulars. Old-timers of the first order, veterans. Libby topped me by being a patient for eleven years; my own term was nine years long. Kyu and Mike were the juniors, having put in only eight years each. And the others in the ward were temporary, here for a week, a month, two months, then gone, carted away to be thrust into the raging fires of the Flue and burned into ash. It was good for us veterans that so many of them died; new faces, you know.

  Yet it is because of one of these new faces that I am now alone, sitting here in the dark, listening for heavy wings of blackness—alone.

  The new face was Gabe Detrick. That wasn't odd, for every face has a name just like Libby and Kyu and Mike. But he was so young! He seemed to be no older than thirty. We went to sleep with the twelfth bed empty; when we woke, there was Gabe, a great, naked man not long ago a boy. Some eyeless moment of the night had seen him wheeled in and dumped on the bed like so much fresh meat.

  Much speculation ensued as to why a young man should be brought to the Old Folks Without Supporting Children Home. One had to be fifty-five before they came in the night, those lumbering crimson-eyed androids without mouths and with gleaming wire sensor grids for ears, and shot you with drug guns and carted you away. But this man on the bed was young—nearly a boy.

  When he finally shook off the d
rugs and came to, silence fell upon the room like the quiet after a giant tree has crashed upon the breast of the earth and now lies solemn and dead.

  Every eye fell upon him, even Kyu's blind one.

  "Where—"

  No one allowed him to finish; everyone scrambled toward him to explain his present predicament. When he finally forced his groggy senses to an understanding, he ranted almost as a mad man would. "I'm only twenty-seven! What the Hell is going on here?" He jumped out of bed, swayed slightly on his feet, and began to pace around the room, searching for an exit. We followed, him—the few of us who could walk—like sheep preparing to watch the shepherd kill the wolf.

  Eventually, he noticed the dim lines of the flush door and streaked toward it, mouthing everything foul he knew. He pounded on the blue paneling even though word was gotten to him that it would do no good. He pounded and pounded and swore and pounded until the decibels of his uproar reached sufficient quantity to stimulate the "ears" of a passing robot. The automaton rolled through the door and asked if anything were wrong.

  "You're damn right something is wrong!" Gabe shouted.

  The robot leered at him. Robots actually have no facial expressions comparable to a human being, but they had been assigned expressions by the patients. This one—who we called Doctor Domo—always seemed to be leering. Perhaps it was because his left eye glowed a dimmer red than his right.

  "My name is Gabe Detrick. I'm an accountant. Address: 23234545, Lower Level, Mordecai Street, Ambridge."

  There was a familiar crackling that always preceded ev-everything Dr. Domo said, then: "Do you want a bed pan?"

  We thought that Gabe was going to smash a fist right into the leering devil's alloy face. Kyu screamed as if it had already happened, and his terror seemed to dissuade Gabe from the act

  "Dinner will be served in—click, clack—two hours," Domo squeaked. "Is that the trouble?"

  "I want out!"

  "Are you dying?" crackled the metal man.

  "I'm only twenty-seven!" He said it like anyone older must be ancient papyrus cracking and flaking and ready to crumble to dust. I think we all disliked him a bit for his tone.