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Chapter 11

"Do come in."

The voice came from a mural on the wall of what looked like a reception room—except that there was no one visible to greet them. Tamika looked as puzzled as Ruskin, and Max's expression was hidden behind his visor. They had entered a low, brick-fronted building at the edge of the city—having followed a tortuously evasive route here at the request of the man they were scheduled to see. Ruskin had thought the request odd, until they'd passed through a commercial security screen, which had informed him of the presence of a tiny locator-transponder in his wallet. They'd gotten rid of that, and taken extra care the rest of the way here.

Ruskin studied the mural. It filled the wall: a winter forest scene, trees capped and frosted with snow. "Where do we go in?" he asked, looking for an inner door. As he spoke, a mound of snow fell from a tree in the mural. It puffed into the air, sparkling, and drifted out of the wall. He felt a tingle of bracing cold on his cheeks.

"Follow the trail," answered the voice. A line of footsteps appeared in the mural, leading away through the trees. Ruskin's gaze narrowed. They were supposed to walk into a hologram, then?

Exchanging glances with the others, he stepped forward through the wall. He shivered, blinded momentarily by a swirl of snow. When he blinked his eyes clear, he looked down and saw a path at his feet, through real snow that scrunched underfoot. The path behind them led across a whitened meadow; there was no sign of a wall or of the reception room they had just left.

"What the hell?" Tamika said. "I thought this was supposed to be a laboratory."

Ruskin glanced at Ali'Maksam, who was staring straight ahead, showing no reaction. Ruskin thought that Max looked worn. They all did; they had not left one another's company in twenty-four hours, and in that period, Max had five times kept Ruskin from blacking out—each time at great cost to himself. "You okay, Max?" Ruskin asked.

The Logothian turned first one way, then the other, his eyes blinking one at a time behind his visor. "It's not precisely what I expected. But I understand that E'rik Daxter is . . . unusual. He's nearly three hundred years old as a nonincarnate, and I suppose one's tastes might . . . evolve, in that time."

"Nonincarnate? You mean, cyber-consciousness?"

"One of the very first. He died, physically, several centuries ago."

Ruskin was impressed. One of the first? There weren't many, even now, who chose—or could afford—that form of immortality. Ruskin looked up into the treetops. The leaves and needles seemed to glimmer in the fading "daylight." He thought he'd seen something move overhead. Shading his eyes, he searched the high branches. He had seen something, and there it was again—a dark shape jumping from one tree to the next. A small animal? Perhaps just the image of one.

Was this whole scene an illusion? No—when he reached out to brush snow from a branch, his fingers touched icy grains and prickly-soft needles. There was a chill in the air, but he didn't feel cold.

"Please come!" said a voice deeper in the woods.

Ruskin moved on, followed by his friends.

The path led through a dense thicket of trees, into a small clearing. The light was fading rapidly, but over their heads appeared a number of softly luminous globes, drifting among the branches. As Ruskin turned, Max's eyes looked like two points of light floating in blackness, behind his visor. The Logothian spoke before Ruskin could ask. "I believe we are in the right place."

A cloud of what looked like fireflies floated over their heads and alighted among the branches. The cloud coalesced into a glowing man-shape, sitting in the tree. "Welcome," it said. "How may I help you?"

Ruskin took a deep breath. "Well—"

And Tamika finished, "We were told that there was a laboratory here, and that a Dr. Daxter could examine Willard and find out what's wrong with him. Are you E'rik Daxter, or can you tell us where he is?" Impatience was plain upon her face.

The shape answered without expression. "I am E'rik Daxter. Whether or not I can help remains to be seen."

"Then—excuse me, but what's all this?" Tamika gestured around them.

The glowing shape seemed to solidify further, until an identifiable face appeared, narrow and bony, with real-looking eyes. Daxter chuckled, the first sign he had shown of human emotion. "If you had three hundred seventy years behind you, you might be more relaxed about the urgencies of the moment, too. Please excuse my foibles."

He was interrupted by a hiss from Max. The Logothian had drawn away from the tree nearest him. "Max?" Ruskin asked, and at once saw the answer. A small creature in the tree, about the size of a large squirrel, was peering at Max with great interest. It had glistening black fur, two eyes on each side of its head, and a tapered snout that gaped open, displaying long rows of gleaming teeth. It was panting slowly.

"What the hell?" Ruskin said, allowing Max to edge past him. The creature seemed to have eyes only for the Logothian.

Daxter's eyes followed the movement. "Oh dear—"

He was interrupted by another hiss. Now Ali'Maksam was backing away from another tree. Peering out of this one was a red, oblong thing that looked as though it were made of gelatin. It was full of eyes, and it was oozing forward toward Max. "Terrakells!" the Logothian whispered, drawing into a crouch.

"What are they?" Tamika asked. "They're creepy."

Ruskin realized that his own hands were clenched—a reaction to the others' fear. Or was it just that? He felt a strange tingling at the back of his neck. What were these things?

"They are terrakells—quite harmless, really." Daxter muttered something that was a mix of squeaks and guttural hiccups. "But they are curious. I'm afraid they have a tendency to fixate on those who are most wary of them."

One after another, the creatures twittered and drew back into the trees. Ruskin could have sworn he saw the flutter of a silvery wing on the first. The second extended a rubbery pod backward, then recoiled out of sight.

Max slowly rose from his crouch. "I . . . apologize."

"Quite all right. My fault," Daxter said.

Ruskin felt an almost physical sense of relief where the uneasy tingling had been.

"My fear is quite irrational," Ali'Maksam explained quietly. "It is their empathic faculties. I cannot, for some reason—they do not mesh with my own, without—" The Logothian was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. "Well, I find them upsetting; that is all I can say."

"Terribly sorry," Daxter said. "They are excellent company to me. But I will try to keep them out of your way."

Max bowed slightly.

"Would someone explain to me?" Tamika demanded.

"The terrakells are empathic shapechangers. Marvelous companions, if one has a rapport with them," Daxter said. "But they can be rather alarming otherwise, I suppose." He turned his glowing head. "Ali'Maksam, I did not realize that Logothians were shy of terrakells."

"They are not, generally," Max said. "It is my own . . . foible."

Ruskin recognized the embarrassment in Max's voice. Defensively, he interrupted: "Perhaps now you could let us in on the meaning of all this, Dr. Daxter."

"My forest? Why, that's simple enough . . ."

Daxter's voice suddenly became indistinct, as did the woods.

Blurring . . .

* * *

An iron-hot poker brought him back to reality with a gasp. He struggled to catch his breath. Ali'Maksam, beside him, was in worse distress, his breath hissing in and out rapidly. But Daxter was speaking, and his voice was full of urgency. " . . . can wait. I did not realize the immediacy of your danger. We must begin the examination immediately."

Ruskin heard Tamika say, "That's what we're here for. Where's your laboratory?" Then he felt himself growing light, as though his feet were leaving the ground.

As though he were floating.

A warm radiance from somewhere seemed to envelop him. A relaxing glow filled his thoughts and his consciousness. He blinked drowsily and saw a moonbeam breaking through the treetops, illuminating him. He drifted among the trees, bathed in a surreal moonglow; and he was aware of his friends on the ground, peering up at him.

A creature with gossamer wings fluttered out of the darkness and flew around him, circling; its breath, glittering like a cloud of tiny swarming sprites, enveloped him in a haze of light. He wondered sleepily what the creature was doing. . . .

 

* * *

 

A voice reached him through a luminous, cottony ether. It was a familiar voice, though it took some time to recognize it as the voice of E'rik Daxter—dead to human form for three hundred years, but alive and well in an organocrystalline cogitative system. It was the voice of the man whose expertise Ali'Maksam had sought out, in hopes of solving the mystery that was destroying Ruskin's life. It sounded like the tinkling of a hundred chimes, all lost in the haze of mist and light that surrounded him.

It was difficult to remember where, exactly, he was. He had the feeling that he had blacked out more than once recently—that personalities that were not his own had rampaged through his soul.

(Can you hear me . . . ?)

Hear? Yes, of course he could hear. What was he supposed to do? Where was the flying creature? He remembered a flying creature.

(If you can hear me, I want you to know what I am doing.)

Doing . . .

Chimes in the middle of a pleasant, drifting doze . . .

(You are being examined. If you feel unusual sensations, do not be alarmed and do not resist; however, please report them to me as they occur. Can you hear me, and can you reply?)

Ruskin opened his mouth, but couldn't quite make a sound. What was wrong?

(You won't be able to move until we're done. But if you can formulate the words in your mind, I should be able to pick them out of the noise without too much trouble.)

Out of the noise?

(That's right. You're hooked into the cogitative thinktank, which should speed things up a bit.)

What are you doing to me?

(Medical scan, including molecular-scale sampling. I think, frankly, that someone's been tampering with your molecules.)

Is that a joke?

(Yes and no. Can you feel what I am doing now?)

Prickling sensation. You're poking me with needles.

(Yes. And you are healing almost instantly from the wounds. I am investigating the process on a microscopic and molecular level. I would like to try a slightly greater injury, if you don't mind—)

The hell you—ow!

(Remarkable. The incision is closing already. Well, my basic hypothesis is confirmed. But I must refine my understanding.)

Damn it, tell me what's happening!

(I would almost like to try something more drastic—say, the amputation of a limb—to observe healing in a more extreme instance—)

WHAT?

(—but in fairness, you came for help, not to be used as a guinea pig—so I will refrain.) There was a chuckling sound.

Jesus, Max, who is this guy . . . ?

The cottony feeling closed in around him again, and he felt himself drifting off into a nether realm of not-quite-sleep. He was aware of Daxter muttering in the background; he was aware of changes in the light-field that surrounded him; he was aware of a prickling electrical presence. He was aware of impulses to move, to run, to hide, to strike and kill—and of the impulses evaporating even as they arose. He was aware of voices, some of them his own:

 

Buy a starship and prepare for . . .
* * *
Enemies . . . must be willing to destroy . . .
* * *
The one who tried to kill you will return . . .
 

And some of them the voices of his friends, indistinct at first and then becoming clearer:

Max: (. . . as I suspected, but there was no way to be certain without scanning completely.)

And Tamika: (Are you sure? How could they have done this without his being aware?)

And Daxter again: (A simple injection would suffice; the NAGs are self-replicating and could populate his body in a matter of hours. It's the programming and design that's hard. But even if he had known and agreed, his knowledge might have been altered after the fact. It is clear that his cognitive processes are being manipulated . . .)

He struggled to bring himself to full consciousness, to form the thoughts clearly in his mind:

What are you talking about?

The others stirred in the nonphysical realm around him, and Daxter answered, (Sorry. We have confirmed that you are infected with NAGs.)

I beg your pardon?

(Molecular-sized, invasive agents. Nano-agents. NAGs. A bit smaller than viruses, but not actually living. Machines. Intelligent cell-repair machines. Except that—)

Wait a minute. Cell-repair machines don't—

(As I say, these are not conventional medical cell-repair machines. Their programming is . . .)

That's what I mean, they—

(. . . quite illegal, actually. And that's what makes this so interesting.)

Interesting? Ruskin simply blanked for an instant and floated in a dreamy space of wind and light. There were the chimes again, speaking to him. They rang with a clear, melodic sound; and Daxter's voice was present in the center of his mind, speaking with urgency:

(It is vital that you understand this. You are familiar with the uses of cell-repair NAGs in medicine?)

The answer floated into his thoughts from some packet of information learned long ago:

Healing, at the cellular level: molecule by molecule, controlled by intelligence units far smaller than the organelles within cells. They were self-replicating—

—and incredibly fast by human standards.

(Exactly. Your healing is faster than anything I've ever seen. But medical units are designed to heal and then to self-destruct harmlessly in the bloodstream. The legal regulations are quite strict, because of the potential for abuse. They could be programmed wrong, or used to create genetic monsters, or to deliberately manipulate . . .)

Manipulate!

(Yes. And now, are you beginning to understand?)

I am being controlled by these—

(Not only controlled. Altered. The changes in your facial appearance were caused by a deliberate disassembling and reassembling of your bone and tissue structure.)

But that fast?

(The time scale of molecular-repair operations is utterly beyond your experience. Consider the difference between manual arithmetic and organocrystalcore operations. The difference is similar.)

But WHY?

(Ah. That is the question. Why. I do not know. But we can assume that the manipulation of your consciousness is the primary tool—for whatever objective. The changing of your physical appearance probably is a secondary tool.)

But . . . who would want me to go crazy like this? Who would want me to . . . kill Tamika?

(I cannot say. But someone went to a great deal of trouble to do this to you. It would be staggeringly difficult to program NAGs for reliable manipulation of thought or behavior. I am astonished—and impressed. To repair a billion strands of DNA causing a genetic defect is simple, compared to the difficulty of altering the chemical and neurological structure of the brain in order to manipulate a man's thoughts, emotions, actions. I cannot even say what degree of control is possible. It may in fact be that this effort, whatever its purpose, has gone awry.)

Then that is why I am blacking . . .

(Your blackouts may indicate a struggle between your own mind and the nano-agents.)

Dear God. Can't you help me? Max!

(Ruskin, we are trying. But Ali'Maksam cannot continue saving you from the blackouts. It is killing him. Therefore we must find another countermeasure.)

What can you possibly do?

(If we cannot beat them, perhaps we can join them.)

Funny.

(Not meant to be. If the replicating agents in your system were designed for longevity, and to deliberately control you for someone else's purposes, then we probably have no hope of removing them from your body. But we can design new NAGs, programmed to act defensively, which you could communicate with through their direct interaction with your brain chemistry.)

That sounds—

(Frightening? Perhaps, but—)

How can I control things I can't even understand? How can I defend myself when I can't see what the enemy is doing?

(I am going to try to make it possible for you to see. And to understand. And to take appropriate action. But you are going to have to trust me.)

Trust? Why do I have the feeling that I was told that once before? And that is why I am here now.

(Indeed—you trusted Max. And you came here.)

That's not what I meant.

(I know it's not.)

I meant the people who did this to me. Was it Broder? Or Jeaves?

(I cannot tell you whom to trust. That you must decide for yourself.)

Max. Tamika.

(Would you like to confer with your friends?)

Yes. Please . . .

 

* * *

 

Perhaps he lost consciousness, or perhaps he simply blinked, but without knowing how, he found himself back in communication with Ali'Maksam and Tamika. The first thing he realized was that Max was trying to reassure him. Max trusted E'rik Daxter.

That meant a lot. But it wasn't enough.

Where am I, Max? What has happened to me?

(You are being held suspended in a medical scanning field which looks like a cloud of forest sprites in a moonbeam. Your link with E'rik in the thinktank is protecting you against lapses or violent blackouts. You could not move or harm anyone even if you wanted to.)

Should I want to?

(Rus'lem, what do you mean?) That was Tamika.

Well, I tried to kill you, and I don't know why. Who is this man, really—and why should I trust him?

Max answered carefully: (He was one of the original experts in the field of artificially intelligent nano-agents. You don't know him because he's out of the public eye now. He does his own eccentric brand of research, and you can see the results of some of it in his lab. The forest is part holo, part forcefield manipulation, part artificial substance created by—)

Nano-agents?

(Yes.)

He is very clever, then. But that doesn't tell me: Is he honest? Is he wise?

Max's reply came as a mixture of thought and feeling, and echoes of images they had shared over the years: trust and caring shaped by knowledge of one another and by faith, and sometimes by fear, as well. He felt echoes of Max's own fear, minutes ago, of the creatures that Daxter kept as companions or pets. (He keeps beings that frighten me, yes. But my reaction to his creatures is not his fault. Just as Tamika's fear and distrust of me are not my fault. Or so you judged in the past. You have trusted Tamika and me both.)

Tamika's voice: (Max, I don't—)

(Yes, you do, Tamika—though your fears are lessening. And yes, Willard—I trust this E'rik Daxter. And he is trusted by people whom I trust.)

Then I, perhaps, should trust him, too.

 

* * *

 

(Have you decided?) Daxter queried.

Yes.

(You wish me to try to help you in this way?)

Yes.

(Then I am going to have to ask you to sleep for a time. When you awaken, you will have a great deal to learn. A very great deal. . . .)

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