Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 Read online

  "What happened to you up there, Engel?" he asked me.

  "Stomach pains," I said. "Must have been something I ate. They were pretty bad for a couple minutes."

  "How are you feeling now?"

  "A lot better, thanks."

  "Hope you're not getting an ulcer. They're no fun. Something been bothering you?"

  "Yes. But it will be over soon."

  "Well, that's good. Take it easy."

  I nodded.

  "See you tomorrow."

  "Right."

  I moved away quickly. Damn! I had to find a collapsing place in a hurry. Every second counted now. Damn! How could I have been so complacent, so blind? So stupid! Damn!

  I slapped my instrument into its case, changed clothes in record time and ignored or avoided everyone and everything that might slow me as I made for the beltway. I got over into the fastest lane and began some evasive traveling. I switched belts at nearly every intersection. I jackpoled down three levels and walked until I was fairly certain I was not being followed. Then I took to the belts again and worked my way toward the Living Room.

  My sense of urgency was enormous by then, and I knew that I was near to the edge of hysteria. A small, hot core of anger was the only thing that kept my panic in check. Something I did not understand had reached me and struck me, twice. Then, almost without my realizing it, the anger was there, and I could feel it growing. It was strange and it was strong. I could not recall whether I had ever felt so before. I must have, since I recognized it and embraced it so readily. Whatever, it seemed to buoy me a bit. Perhaps it was this, that in its incipience had served to prevent my collapse this time around. I felt the slow beginnings of a desire to reach out and punish my murderers—for purposes of a personal accounting, rather than in the interest of justice. Though I recognized the aberrant nature of the impulse I did not seek to straitjacket it with self-discipline, for I had to have something to sustain me.

  ... And it was not an altogether unpleasant feeling.

  Now the faintest of smiles quirked the corners of my mouth upwards. No, it was not a bad thing to be angry. It was a natural, human feeling. Everybody knew that. It almost seemed a shame to waste it on aggression surro-

  I stepped down into the Living Room and walked through section after section. People sat, stood, reclined, talking, reading, napping, listening to music, viewing tapes, and there was always a quiet nook for someone who wanted to be alone. I hurried across the soft carpeting, rounding corner after corner, passing through a great variety of periods and styles, hoping I would not encounter anyone who knew me.

  Luckl

  A small, deserted alcove, dimly lit ... a fat, green chair that looked as if it might recline ...

  Sure enough. It did. I turned the light even lower and leaned far back. There were two entrances to the place and I could keep an eye on both, though I was certain I had not been followed.

  The first thing I did was try to relax and decide who I was. It is gratifying that the nexus-mesh occurs so smoothly. You always wonder, I guess, what it will feel like. Then it happens and you still do not know. You only know that it worked.

  I knew I was not the same Mark Engel I had been before the old man shot Lange. I was Lange, but Lange was also me. I mean, we were us. We had merged, more or less, with the shifting of the nexus, when his body was destroyed. It did not require a massive adjustment, since we had experienced the same phenomenon on a temporary basis countless times in the past. Now that it was for keeps, there were a number of things I had to do to tailor the arrangement, so to speak. But they would have to wait. We should have acted right away, after the first murder. Lange had dragged his heels, though, and it had proved fatal. I did not approve of his postponing an important action, regardless of his mental condition. I could feel this tendency warring with my own resolve even then. That part would be sacrificed—soon—when I inserted pin eight.

  Although the identity situation would ordinarily have precedence, it would have to take second place this time around.

  About three centimeters behind my eyes, that is where I seem to live. My mind, my consciousness ... I tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, there in my home. A mental heartbeat, a mindbeat . . . Then it was all diastole, and thoughts the mindblood flowing uncontrolled ...

  Then we were there and together—Davis, Gene, Serafis, Jenkins, Karab, Winkel and the others. Suddenly, I was all of us and we were all of us me. There was little hesitation as everyone slipped into place, recognizing the new position of the nexus. A good, comfortable, familiar feeling.

  I saw through many eyes, heard many sounds, felt the weight of all of our flesh. It was as though we were one body, our various limbs in all of the Wings. All but two, that is. And in a very special sense we were but one body.

  In a timeless moment, we were all of us aware of the conscious contents of all of our individual skulls. It was a brief eternity of realization, a plasmic state of being wherein our temporary surrender of individuality caused all of us to grow, instantly, by the sum of the new experiential units which had come to be since our most recent meshing, perhaps a month earlier.

  There was fear, and my surprise at the fact that there was so little anger other than that which I had brought to the meshing. My anger was countered by an attitude of mild reproval, tempered by the awareness that I had just received the nexus and had not had time to make the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, the anger might have been washed away, submerged. As it was, I saw that they also feared any reaction that might affect me before my new personality had solidified. Good. I felt the same way about it

  The first death had been that of Hinkley, in the Library, Wing 18. We knew that it had occurred in cubicle 17641, his private living quarters there, as we had all become instantly aware of his terminal impressions. He was with us still, but he was unable to supply any clues as to the motives or identity of his slayer. We had all reacted differently to the death, in keeping with our private temperaments, but none of us had any notion as to the reason for the killing and no one had done anything about it yet. As for Lange's/my body, it still lay in the Victorian drawing room of the Cocktail Lounge of Wing 19, unless the old man had done something with it.

  . . . And nobody recognized Mr. Black. No one knew him from anywhere. I assigned myself the task of running the search for him, as I would have access to the necessary equipment very soon.

  Davis was in the Library, Wing 18, keeping an eye on cubicle 17641. He had already seen to it that the quarters were shown as vacant and the phone switched to automatic answering. It was decided that he should not enter yet, but continue his watch until Serafis could get there. Serafis was a medic and could file the necessary papers showing death from natural causes. Then the body would be taken to Winkel's funeral home and disposed of quickly.

  Lange was a problem, though. It was not only that another natural-causes certification by Serafis would look peculiar, coming from a different Wing and so soon after Hinkley's—but Lange had just had a very thorough checkup and had been found to be in good condition.

  It was decided that Winkel would go after the body and dispose of the evidence while he was at it. He was in a position to make the pickup look legitimate if almost anyone else came upon the scene. The body would then be transported to Wing Null, causing it to vanish from known existence. There it would be frozen, until we decided upon its most suitable disposition. In the meantime, we would have Lange put on leave from his employment and use his card for transportation, meals and occasional small purchases, so that he would continue, officially, to exist.

  All available evidence would of course be gathered for our own private investigation of the killings. The fear that we felt was very strong. It had to be more than coincidence that two of us had gotten it as we had, and we were unable to come up with any guesses as to the reason which were not absolutely chilling. The exercise was somewhat futile, so we agreed to break the mesh for the time being and get on with the necessary actions immediatel
y. I was to proceed to Wing Null, to make the adjustments needed for a permanent arrangement between Lange and myself.

  I blinked away the shadows of their thoughts and rose quickly. I brightened the light, paced off a few tentative steps, reevaluating myself now that I was me once more-Well, almost me.

  As I saw it, someone was out to destroy the entire family. The motive was immaterial. The fact that the only two murders in recent times should be of family members was sufficient. There were not that many of us around. It indicated, to me, that what we had thought the best-kept secret in the House had somehow been found out—at least in part. Mr. Black was doubtless waiting, planning to strike again. I would begin seeking him from Wing Null as soon as I had taken care of my other business there.

  And when I found him, what?

  I pushed the question aside, still unwilling to consider the answer my anger was offering. Later, later ...

  And again the fear ... Not only my distress at the thought that death might be waiting for me anywhere now—but the Lange/me fear of the partial suicide we were now constrained to commit. You are not supposed to look at it that way, any more than you consider the removal of a throbbing tooth to be a small death. But there it was, and we had to go do it now.

  As I left the alcove, thinking along these lines, I do recall it passing through my mind that if we were capable of doing it to ourself ...

  I did not retrace my way through the Living Room, but traveled a circuitous route in the other direction, coming at last to a slow, narrow side-belt which I rode for a time. A flat, towering partition lay to my left, covered with an abstract design, dark-toned and seemingly endless. To my right were great, semi-lit sections of the Living Room, resting people haphazardly distributed within.

  When I switched to another belt, moving at right angles to the one I had ridden. I glanced back. There was a figure, several hundred yards to the rear, which had not been present when I had mounted the conveyance. I waited perhaps two minutes and looked again. He had switched also, was still there. In fact, he was nearer now, as he was walking on the belt.

  I waited several moments and began walking myself. Most likely, he was quite innocent, but I considered no precaution unwarranted at that moment. I changed again at the next intersection, but refrained from looking back. I saw that we were headed toward a somewhat crowded area.

  As we passed through that section of the Living Room, I stepped down beside a group of sofas, took a few paces and glanced back again.

  Yes, he was on this belt now, and he was looking at me.

  I turned, folded my arms across my breast and stared back at him. There were dozens of people about me, talking to one another, reading, munching snacks, playing cards. I felt quite secure in their presence. He must have thought I was, too, if he meant me harm, for he immediately looked away and continued on by. I felt a small satisfaction in watching him pass, a tribute to my alertness and ingenuity. This vanished as soon as I began to uncross my arms, when I realized that I had unconsciously parted the seam of my jacket beneath my left armpit and was fingering the nonmetallic tranquilizer gun we all carried there. Then the fear was there, full force, as I realized it had never, really, left me. Emotionally chastened, and stoking my anger in hope of sparking some courage to flame, I moved forward and remounted the belt

  I could still see the man, up ahead. I had gotten a fairly good look at him, what there was to see. He had shoulder-length brown hair and a slightly darker beard. He wore blue mirror-glasses, a matching jacket and white, knee-length trousers.

  A flash of blue, as he glanced back ...

  I began walking toward him, my heart pumping heavily. It was suddenly very important to me—more important than my fear, even—that I obtain his reaction.

  He turned away, stood still for perhaps half a minute, then looked back again. I had kept walking, continuing to close the distance between us. The second time he looked back, I raised my right hand and slipped it inside my jacket in the fiction-honored fashion of a man reaching after a deadly weapon.

  He moved quickly then, stepping down from the belt and darting behind a partition that projected out near to its edge. It was only then that I noticed his limp. I had not detected it when he had been walking straight toward me, but he tended to favor his left leg.

  I got off the belt immediately. It would not do to let it carry me right past him if he were armed himself. I hurried to my right, heading toward a different partition. So far as I was concerned at the moment, the fact that he had fled was sufficient to establish that he harbored nasty intentions toward me.

  Slipping along the partition, I worked my way back and in, cutting through an empty alcove and moving behind another partition that formed one wall of a corridor that bore off to my left—his direction—and dead-ended into a three-walled section containing four sofas, miscellaneous chairs and tables and a crackling fireplace. I dashed across its width and ventured a quick look around the near corner.

  There was no one in sight.

  I could see into several deserted sections before my view was blocked by more partitioning perhaps a hundred and fifty feet ahead. There were five or six crannies and chambers into which I could not see, however.

  Cautiously, I advanced, drawing my gun and palming it now. In the space of four or five minutes, I had worked my way through, discovering no one. A couple more minutes, and I was into the area where the man had fled, searching it carefully.

  He did not seem to be about. He had had time to slip off in any of several directions. I felt quite uncomfortable as I stood there, considering it. He might be circling, slipping up behind me, lying in ambush. The thought occurred to me that there might even be more than one person involved, that perhaps I was supposed to see this fellow while another...

  The safest thing for me to do, I decided, was to get out of there as quickly as possible, confuse any pursuit and beat it to Wing Null.

  I worked my way back to the belt, waited until it bore a group of passengers abreast of me and climbed on, moving immediately to a position in their midst. I received some foul glances and fishy stares from passengers I pushed by and elbowed aside, but that was all I got as we slid on through the area. I was a near-impossible target where I stood.

  "... You are very rude," a husky, redheaded woman with blue eye makeup was saying.

  I nodded my agreement and kept watching the furnishings and people we passed. The man was nowhere in sight.

  About half a mile farther along, we came to an intersection and I switched over, heading off to the left. The people I had used for shields continued on, sending a few remarks after me. They had all been together, apparently—a party coming or going somewhere.

  Traffic was heavier on the new belt, and before too long it bore me to a two-way, multilane beltway. Crowds of people, staler air and an increased sound level enfolded me. I got into its fastest lane and rode for several minutes. Then I began switching again, following signs to the nearest jackpole.

  It was a down tube, transparent, echoing, forever screwing itself into the House. A small boy came rushing upward, laughing and looking back over his shoulder. I reached out and seized his arm. He attempted to pull away, then turned and glared at me. A moment later, a woman—presumably his mother—came puffing upward, red-faced and looking even meaner. She slapped him and took hold of his other arm.

  "I told youl" she said. "I told you never to do thatl"

  Then she looked at me,

  “Thank you," she said, "for stopping him. I don't know why they like to run up the down ones and down the up ones.**

  I smiled.

  "Neither do I," I said, releasing my grip somewhat reluctantly.

  They got off at the next level, Kitchen, and while she was saying, "Wait till I get you home!" the boy turned around and stuck his tongue out at me.

  I tried to think what it must be like, to be a child, to have parents.

  I continued on down to the next level, the Recreation Room, disembarked there and f
ound a fast belt through the playing area. Every team sport I could think of seemed to be in progress somewhere in the field section. For a time, the beltway was elevated, and I could see for miles in all directions. Balls were hit, kicked, thrown, caught, dribbled, run with, on fields and courts, over nets, against walls, into cages. Banks of spectators cheered and stamped their feet; wide, towering boards flashed scores; overhead speakers emitted decisions and static. The ceiling was light blue, a pleasant, somehow appropriate color. At the moment, I could detect no crane activity upon that peaceful, gridded surface. Swimming pools glimmered, cast dancing ghosts on towers and stands. Air currents bearing smells of sweat and liniment swept by, seeking ventilation units into which they might retreat to cleanse themselves.

  The belt was fairly crowded, so it was impossible for me to tell whether I was being followed. I began switching down to smaller and smaller beltlines, heading in the general direction of a dimmed area. Traffic fell off as I came upon long rows of tables featuring more sedentary pastimes. Small groups and solitary players sat at cards and board games. Some competed against themselves, some against machines, their luck, skill, knowledge taxed to whatever degree they desired. Dice fell, wheels spun, cards were shuffled and dealt, counters pushed about; pieces advanced, retreated, jumped, captured, were captured themselves; numbers were called out, bids were made, tricks taken; people bluffed, attacked, sought wins, points, stalemates, proceeded directly to Go without collecting two hundred dollars, some money often changing hands beneath the table. I am not much of a gamester myself.

  The blue was beginning to darken overhead, the voices diminishing, when I heard a shrill, ringing sound: a phone in a callbox at the near end of a deserted aisle. A strange feeling, that: hearing it and seeing it there with nobody around to answer.

  There was a jackpole deep in the dimmed area, glowing beads marking its crystal spiral. I transferred again, onto an empty, one-lane belt. There was a weak light every hundred yards or so, and maintenance machines bumped and hummed in the gloom on either side of me. I kept looking back over my shoulder to see whether anyone else had come onto the belt. No one had.