Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER FIFTEEN,

wherein safe harboring is
found in a nest of
bodiless souls.

No longer content to strip the legends of everything mystic and supernatural, the biocybes proceed to rid this myth of even the natural aspects of becoming, substituting elaborate machinery and fabricated biochemicals.
RNA transfer of molecular memory is not only "natural" and "human," but is the basis for the biocybes' own thinking processes. Have the Great School's computers, inundated with conflicting data, developed quirks? *
But let us not doubt. Instead, let us ask what must follow from literal acceptance of this tale. One is forced not only to accept the one-world hypothesis, but to carry it further by throwing population genetics and paleontology aside and postulating a single common ancestor for all humanity, and another explanation for becoming besides convergence. Then, credulity already stretched to breaking, one must accept that our hypothetical ancestor arose not in a planetary paradise, but as an evolutionary response to the mutagenic cesspool his own ancestors had made of his world. It is neither elevating nor flattering. It may even be ominous.
(Saphooth, Project Director)



INTERLUDE

The Great School, Midicor IV

 

"Most Sapient One," Kaledrin addressed Saphooth, suppressing his anger. He did not venture beyond the open door to the latter's office.

"Ah! Kaledrin," Saphooth replied jauntily. "I trust you enjoyed your rest? Your body-plates gleam, and your eyestalks no longer droop."

"I'm quite well, thank you," Kaledrin answered. "But I'm puzzled by the direction this project has taken in my absence."

"Ah? Of course you are. As am I. Is that new? From the very first, the biocybes have taken us by surprise again and again."

"I refer to your commentary, not the text," Kaledrin spat, committing himself. "It goes beyond the bounds of our study. What, exactly, are you leading to? Either these tales are—as you state on one hand—a farce and a fantasy, or they are not—as you equally fervently avow elsewhere."

"I state nothing. I avow nothing. My words are meant only to illuminate the pitfalls of simplism and linear thought."

Saphooth was always quick to smooth his path with equivocal words. Nevertheless, Kaledrin pressed on. "You have an agenda, Elevating One, and the editorial commentaries on these installments are not the place for it. The Board of Trustees will surely agree. Publish your speculations in the popular media, not under MYTHIC's aegis."

Saphooth was taken aback. Perhaps, he thought, I'd have been wiser to have let him collapse from overwork. But he remained quick on his mental feet. "Very well then," he said with hardly a pause. "Be as noncommittal as you wish. Others will speculate, and you'll know nothing about it until it hits you right in your sensorium." Saphooth drew himself up to full height, towering over Kaledrin's bulk. "There is," he said with oratorical majesty, "nothing like heated controversy, even notoriety, to advance an otherwise stodgy and undistinguished career."

He spun upon one heel, an action particularly well suited to his spindly simian form. The door irised shut behind him. It was an eloquent gesture, one Kaledrin was sure he had long rehearsed.

The confrontation was over. It was just as well, Kaledrin admitted, because he had nothing further to say. He had gotten what he wanted, at any rate. What he thought he wanted. The project was once again under his control. The threat that the mere mention of the Board of Trustees represented had been the key. But Saphooth, as usual, had the last word. Kaledrin uneasily wondered if he would have the last laugh, too.

 

Ten days later—thin, haggard, brown as nuts—three exhausted travelers drew their algae-stained, battered boat ashore in a tiny cove. Above and around them steep talus slopes gave way to steeper black cliffs, so high that the midmorning sun had yet to shine directly on the valley floor. Achibol was optimistic about finding a way to the top, and thus out of the morass.

They scuttled the boat offshore, weighted with blocks of frost-broken basalt. They laid Achibol's trunks on a travois of light poles and distributed a few tools and belongings between three rude knapsacks sewn from an old sail.

The winding animal paths to the top of the cliff were the most arduous part of their ensuing journey, and once behind them, the going was easy. Open grasslands stretched to the north, with a hint of purple-gray hills on the horizon. Game was plentiful; they dined on great-rabbit and ground-pig stews thickened with oystery primrose root, flavored with sage and salt. Benadek and Teress began to fill out healthily. Achibol gained no weight, but regained the wiry bounce in his stride, and only occasionally became gray and waxy-skinned when their daily trek stretched on close to sunset. He assured his companions that his "malfunction" was minor.

They walked for seven days. Achibol was pleased to confirm that the truce between his companions was holding. A casual observer might have called it friendship. They walked together much of the time, or in a rank of three with the old man.

Perhaps, indeed, Benadek was maturing, Achibol thought. Perhaps, indeed, he will become a man, and less obnoxious. But whenever the sorcerer entertained such hopes Benadek the boy, the urchin, surfaced again, farting noisily and obnoxiously while walking ahead of the others, or pulling a six-legged toad from a pocket when they stopped to rest, and . . .

Occasional streams caused them to break their stride, but those were slow and shallow. There were no signs of habitation. That, Achibol told them, was not much different than in ancient times, when the land had been used to graze beasts. Ruins of farmsteads and small towns were now grassy mounds and jutting artificial stones.

They saw Sufawlz's ruins from a distance. Their true destination was on the outskirts, a discrete settlement once pent within high metal fences, now no different from other mounds and irregularities.

The mage drew out his talisman, the universal interface, and tapped several keys. He turned in a full circle, watching the readout. "This way." He headed southwest. Whenever he wavered, the talisman gave a chirp, and he corrected his course. He had only gone a few hundred yards when he stopped. "It's right here," he said.

There was grass aplenty, and sky, but nothing else. Seeing Benadek's and Teress's expressions, Achibol said "The ancients were like squirrels—they buried everything valuable." He tapped other keys. Underneath his feet, Benadek felt the earth shudder. Teress grabbed his arm. "Whoo!" the mage exclaimed, "I don't think there's much soil over it. I hope there's enough juice."

"His devices need sunlight," Benadek explained to Teress, "from which they squeeze the juice. Like tiny cider-presses."

Teress, who had been taught about such things, said, "It's called electricity." She refrained from telling him that the "juice" Achibol was concerned about was that in the facility below. Benadek was nicer now, and she was careful not to bruise his fragile ego and chance causing him to revert. She need not have been concerned; the changes in Benadek went beyond appearance. He was different for his traumatic experience, though all that could be observed was that he was quieter and less inclined to make wisecracks.

"What's happening, Master Achibol?" she asked tremulously.

"Beneath us, the `gate' into the Sioux Falls Experimental Complex—Biopsych Three—is pushing against the soil that's blown over it. It's a miracle it's functioning at all, a thousand years beyond its designers' intentions . . . but then, I'm surprised anything has survived—not least myself. Temples, satellites . . . I must force myself not to believe in some god overseeing all that we petty mortals strive for, and aiding us, perchance."

Benadek sprung back. The ground bulged upward. With sudden déjà vu, he expected some kin of the unfortunate Dispucket, but what emerged was a dull metal cylinder, eight feet high and of equal diameter. Its top remained heaped with soil but its sides looked brushed clean. With a ratchety groan, part of its surface slid aside.

"Good," Achibol said. "The door needs lubricating, though. Well? Let's go." He stepped inside the cylinder. Benadek followed. Teress clung to his arm. The inside chamber was small and they had to squeeze together. "Now we go down," Achibol explained. The far wall, Benadek observed, was transparent like glass, but without bubbles or flaws. It looked out on metal patched with whitish efflorescence, a wall that suddenly began to move.

Achibol seemed relaxed—though their strange conveyance rumbled and shuddered ferociously—so Benadek and Teress remained outwardly calm also. The metal wall beyond the window disappeared at the top of the clear pane, replaced by progressive layers of gray and dark reddish rock. They were dropping below the surface of the earth. At least it was not dark; the very walls seemed to glow. The ride went on and on.

"What part of the plan was served here?" Benadek asked, to take his own mind off the vibrating floor. "And why is it no longer?"

"The idea was to reconstruct ancient humanity via the temples and the simples, and then pack them with the memories stored here—all the skills to rebuild the world. Some hoped to restore themselves with their personalities intact. Immortality, of a sort."

"You mean they planned to take over the ones who took on their memories? And you expect me to do it? What'll happen to me?"

"They never solved the problems of personality transfer. There was no way to get rid of the original personality. Electric erasure proved temporary, while chemical means left residues that resulted in madness; brain-burn destroyed too much, too indiscriminately. There's little danger to anyone with a strong self-image—unless more than one or two `memories' are taken. Then there's no telling what might happen. There are horror stories . . ."

"What's it like down there—down here?" Benadek was not ready for horror stories. Maintaining a superficial calm was hard enough in the groaning, shuddering little room. He didn't even want to guess how far down they had come.

"It's probably no different than the inside of a temple, but on a grand scale."

A new view rose in the window, contradicting him. Their tiny room was dropping slowly past a great, open chamber dimly lit by scattered points of light, reflected from crystal windowpanes and glittering balcony-rails. Silvery footbridges stretched like spiderwebs between brick, stone, and textured metal towers that reached from unimaginable depths to the cavern roof they had come through. There were arched loggias, crenelated walkways, stepped corbels carved with ornate swirls, and cantilevered platforms that jutted wildly and defied conviction that they must surely bend beneath their own weight.

"What are they?" Benadek asked in a hoarse murmur.

"Living quarters, I imagine," Achibol replied emotionlessly, though his own fixed stare belied his tone. "See how the cavern roof has been smoothed and painted blue? From below, with proper lighting, it must look like the sky."

Already, the sky-ceiling was dim grayness far above. Balconies, fenestrations, and rococo buildings rose past them and out of sight. The cavern floor rose toward them. "I wonder if those trees are dead, or merely dormant," Achibol asked, pointing. "I can't conceive of their remaining alive all this time. The planners must have intended to live here themselves, but there's no sign that any of this was ever used."

Their conveyance dropped below the city floor. Intervals of dull stone passed before their window, broken by openings onto white, utilitarian rooms and corridors, irregularly lit by glowing patches in the ceilings. Benadek thought he saw something move—a floor-hugging shape no larger than his head. He might have been fooled by shifting perspectives.

He counted eighteen levels. At the nineteenth, the elevator screeched shrilly, and ground to a halt. Outside, white walls glared shinily in bright, diffuse light. A blue panel with white lettering flashed monotonously: INCOMING PERSONNEL.

The door opened. The air that wafted in was fresh and forest-scented. "Good!" Achibol said, sniffing noisily. "That means domestic services are functioning." He went immediately to a panel much like the face of his talisman, and punched keys in rapid sequence. "My codes are valid here. The system's accepting me. Teress, put your thumb on that sensor-pad—the shiny spot. Push on it. Good. Look into the eyepiece. There'll be a flash of light, but don't be alarmed." As she pressed and peered, Benadek saw words appear on the talismanlike screen: [Surname?] Achibol typed "FELIX." Then: [First Name?] "TERESA." [Rank?] "CAPTAIN." Captain Teresa Felix? What was a "Captain," and a "Felix"? Benadek had never heard of a surname, except that Achibol was "the sorcerer," and others were called "the miller," "the scribe," "the . . ."

"Now you, Benadek," Achibol commanded. The boy uneasily pressed his thumb on the shiny rectangle, and peered into the "eyepiece." Thus he could not seek what mysterious characters appeared on the screen, or what responses Achibol typed.

"What's happening?" Benadek muttered.

"I'll explain fingerprints and retinal IDs later," Achibol said. "We're cleared for the entire facility. Let's see what happens." He spoke, but not to Benadek or Teress. "Query: location of dormitory facilities and refectory."

Benadek heard a faint susurrus, like a breeze over dry stones. A mellow voice came from nowhere. "Welcome to Biopsych Three, Commander Scribner. It's not necessary to use comspeech with this command-level interface. English, or any recognized dialect, will do." Teress, already close to the apprentice, drew closer.

Who was "Commander Scribner"? Couldn't the voice's owner see who they were, through its spy-hole? Benadek could not find the hole. Perhaps it was among the rusty water-spots that marred the otherwise perfect white walls . . .

"Your suite will be activated in forty-five minutes," the voice continued. "Follow the green guideline. The Incoming Personnel cafeteria is on permanent standby."

"Ah . . ." Benadek said.

"You have a question, Lieutenant Benedict?" The voice was female. Lieutenant Benadek? The pronunciation had been odd, but . . . "Ah . . . No question." Achibol seemed to enjoy his discomfiture.

"Shall we find the cafeteria?" the mage asked. A thought struck him. "Wait," he told his companions, raising a finger for silence. "Query: what is your monitor status?"

"I am in full interactive mode. As base commander pro tem, you may order me to shift to record-only mode with keyword access. Full privacy mode is restricted to conference rooms and general officers' suites."

"Hmm," Achibol mused. "We're field officers, used to our working personas. Will it confuse you if we continue to use them?"

"Not at all. I am programmed to respond to alternate names and nicknames, and to ignore persona-generated anomalies. Just state your full name, and the alternate you wish to be recognized, and I will voiceprint it. May I suggest that I assume record-only mode to eliminate possible confusion? Such records are stored unedited and unreviewed unless recalled by a grade seven security officer or general staff."

"Please do," Achibol said, "but not quite yet . . ."

"Do you have a specific keyword you wish me to respond to?"

"How about `Circe'?"

"An excellent choice, Commander. It creates multiple resonances in my integrative nodes."

"A good pun?"

"An excellent one."

"Very well, Circe. Please recognize me as Achibol the Scrivener, an itinerant charlatan. Lieutenant Charles Benedict is Benadek, my apprentice, and Captain Teresa Felix is Teress, our sometime companion. Assume record-only mode at this time." Benadek felt as if a presence left the room "You may both speak freely, " Achibol said. "Our resident sorceress won't interfere. But shall we eat? Who knows, there may be wine, if it's not all gone bad."

True to Circe's words, a green line glowed in the center of the hallway floor, leading around a corner. Parts of the line were missing where the light sources had failed, but there were enough to follow. As they walked, the green telltale behind them faded. A door ahead was bordered with the same shade. It opened by itself, causing Benadek to jump back. "Food," Achibol said.

Over a substantial if bland meal of pasty meats and unrecognizable vegetables, Benadek and Teress began the long process of attaching real significance to words he had never known and she had known only as dead history: fluorescent light, freeze-dried, terrazzo, Salisbury steak, rubber chicken, paper napkin, pop, and instant Liptons®. Achibol explained Circe—the legend and the cybernetic device to which he had given the name. It was hard to believe no human mind lay behind the disembodied voice.

Benadek's eyes roved across the fifty-odd white (formica) tables, the two hundred glittery-slick (chrome and vinyl) chairs. There was no more than the thinnest film of dust on anything. "Cleaning robots," the mage explained. "You'll probably see them now and again—small canisters like fat, geometrical rats." Benadek, remembering the moving thing seen from the elevator, nodded knowledgeably.

While Achibol lingered happily over his third glass of wine, Benadek directed his attention to the machinery that had delivered their food. He studied pushbuttons, holo-pictures, florid descriptions and flapper-doored slots. His favorite was the wall cabinet with a spigot that flowed with bubbly, fruit-flavored drinks. He experimented with its simple keyboard and sipped the products it produced until he hit upon a combination of keys that produced a water-clear beverage like bitter pine sap. He spat explosively.

Achibol chuckled. "You have to develop a taste for gin." Benadek's fascination with the machinery waned rapidly, as had his interest in temple gimmickry. There, his function had been only to hand Achibol tools. Here, he reminded himself, it was to eat. He punched for "cherry pie," and later vowed he would never forget that particular button.

Teress was content that Benadek, even with "cherry pie" all over his face, was less obnoxious than he had been. Perhaps it was only because there were no juicy bugs or six-legged toads in this underground place. Or perhaps he really was trying to be mature, and just did not know how. After all, he had only her and Achibol for role models, and neither of them were . . . suitable.

Benadek grew impatient once his physical appetite was satisfied. At the root of his restlessness was a mental picture of a room with buttons like the food machines, but with pictures of ancient men, and descriptions of the talents and abilities he would gain from draughts of their memories

Achibol's eyes drooped from fatigue and wine. At his request, Circe provided a new green line to guide them to the "Commander's" suite. Benadek was too tired to marvel at the great soft bed that lowered itself from the wall of his room, adjacent to Achibol's. The bedding had a dry, unpleasant odor, but looked soft and inviting. He stripped off his dusty clothes and lay down.

Before he could fall asleep, Achibol entered with a tray of odd things. First was a metal-mesh hat like the honches had worn. "Put it on," he ordered. "It will help you learn while you sleep." When Benadek hesitated, he said, "Do you want to drink gin the rest of your time here? Put it on. Tonight, you'll learn the layout of the complex, and how to work things." He gave the lad a tiny cup of something sweet and flavorless. "That will make you receptive to the learning."

He went out, quietly shut the door, and opened another. "And you?" he asked Teress. "You'll need to know your way around, too." Reluctantly, she repeated Benadek's actions.

The old man could not fall asleep. Was he doing the right thing? Benadek did not take his admonitions seriously. Whenever augmented memory was mentioned, the boy's eyes brightened with avid desire. Achibol knew him too well to misinterpret it. By morning, Benadek would be able to operate the facility by himself. It was tempting to slip over to the boy's bed, shut off the sleep-teacher, and pretend that the machinery would no longer work. He scolded himself for those thoughts. He had been in control too long, and had not had to trust anyone else. The boy would justify his trust. The alternatives were unthinkable.

 

In the morning there were minor marvels to satisfy Benadek and Teress as they tested the extent of their new knowledge. The white ceramic toilet whisked waste away, beds and tables folded themselves from the walls with a whine of servomotors and only an occasional creak, and doors opened to the touch of a palm on glassy surface-mounted plates. "Limit your experimentation to a few tries," Achibol admonished. "Everything here is as old as I am, and less durable. The doors could fail, and then where would we be?"

The sleep-teaching program left strange gaps. Ordinary folk of the old times had already known the meanings of the "H" and "C" on plumbing fixtures. Benadek and Teress had learned more about Biopsych Three's innovations, like waterless toilets and housekeeping automatons, than about its basics, like light switches.

They decided to explore, with Circe's help. "I'll see to the reactivation of the laboratories," Achibol said, pleading off from a long, tiring tramp through corridors all alike but for differing corrosion and water damage. "Don't touch anything you don't understand," he cautioned them.

They wanted to see the "crystal city." Following Circe's guidelines, they reached it in an hour, after several elevator rides. Emerging at the edge of a great square, they peered upward at towers that disappeared into dim twilight. Obligingly, the command interface showed them what it would have looked like occupied. One by one and in clusters, lights came on. Faint echoes of unfamiliar music filled the air, and a fountain splashed merrily, its jets and sprays dancing in ever-changing patterns, lit from the pool below with shifting color. A few patches of windows remained dark, a few pools silent.

As they explored luxurious suites, plush even by the ancients' elevated standards, and leaned from crystal bridges that turned out to be polished metal, they became used to Circe's cooperative presence. "There are five hundred and twenty residential units in the `city' complex," she told them. "It was designed to provide the illusion of greater population, believed necessary for the mental health of its residents."

"How large is the rest of the facility?" Benadek asked, consciously adopting the precise inflections he believed "Lieutenant Charles Benedict" might use. "It seems to have been made for more than five hundred."

"The entire complex has slightly over twenty square miles of accessible floor area, on seventy levels of a million square feet each. The design population is eleven thousand four hundred and eighty, including transients."

After several minutes of thoughtful silence, Teress raised a question. "Then nine or ten thousand people were to live in the rest of the complex, and about two thousand here?"

"That's roughly correct," Circe replied. "The design workforce is nine thousand two hundred ninety-six."

"What about their families?" Teress pressed. "The workforce, I mean?"

"The workforce was intended to be military personnel whose families would live elsewhere." Was it Teress's imagination, or did Circe sound defensive? As well she might, Teress thought. It was another example of the planners' callous elitism. The "crystal city" was only for the powerful. She probed deeper. "How were residents of this . . . residential complex . . . to be chosen?"

"That information is not in my records. Do you wish me to speculate, based on available data?"

"Please do."

"Many names on the roster are prefaced with political titles like Senator, Congressman, and Judge, or military ones of equivalent rank. Most refer to adult males. Others with the same names may have been wives and children. I speculate that reservations were awarded based on potential value to the community that this facility was to become."

Teress saw Benadek's face grow livid, and heard his intake of breath. She quickly said "Circe: assume record-only mode at once."

"Why did you do that?" Benadek spat. "I was going to tell her why they were really chosen!"

"That's why I did it! Now whatever we say will be unavailable to her unless she's ordered to examine her recordings. There's no sense confusing her. She's got enough troubles already."

"But she thinks those corrupt . . ."

"She doesn't `think.' She was programmed—the way the ones you were going to criticize wanted her to be. What if she decided that `Lieutenant Charles Benedict' was disloyal?"

"I never thought about that."

"What were you doing last night? Didn't you learn anything?"

"Not the same things you did, I guess."

They compared notes. Beyond the basic orientation module, Achibol had indeed given them different knowledge. Teress had a better overview of the facility's history, systems, and purposes, while Benadek knew more about the labs and information centers. Hers was a supervisor's view and his a technician's.

"What did you mean `she's got enough troubles'?" he asked.

"This place is falling apart, and I don't think Circe can do anything about it. I think she's failing too. See how that light is flickering? And the dust everywhere? I saw one of those little metal scurriers lying in the street. I think it wore out."

"What makes you think Circe herself is failing?"

"That humming when she's in interactive mode. And coming here, she led us the long way around, when there was a straight hallway leading here."

"I heard you ask about that. She said there was no information about it."

"She knew nothing about a whole block of offices and labs she's supposed to be maintaining. There are blanks in her memory."

"I suppose we should let Achibol know," he said. Teress agreed.

When they were at the edge of the great cavern, she told Circe to turn everything back to standby. "There's no sense keeping it lit."

They found Achibol in the cafeteria, sampling wines. His eyes would not come into focus, but his voice was unblurred. He agreed that Biopsych Three was deteriorating, and that they'd best hurry to accomplish what they must. "We must give you the memory-tools you'll need to understand, and thus control, your mutability," he told Benadek. "Though you've made great strides, stress or shock could send you the way you were going in the swamp, the way Dispucket went. Only when you fully understand your own workings will you be able to visualize and control your changing."

"How do we go about it? When?"

Benadek was a little too eager, his master thought. "The files for stored memories are separate from the Circe system," the mage said. "We'll have to go to the laboratory and examine the listings. You're not afraid?"

"It wouldn't matter if I was, would it? I am afraid of changing again, and being out of control of it." In truth, Benadek felt no fear. He felt burning eagerness to begin, to know not only himself and his workings, but everything.

His blood surged with the excitement he had felt when first he fantasized becoming Achibol's apprentice—but now, having lived and traveled with the old charlatan, he understood that Achibol's "powers" were trickery and technology. The true power was superior knowledge.

Benadek wanted that power, though not for the base reasons he once had wanted to be a sorcerer. He wanted to avenge his dead parents, Teress's village, and Achibol's melancholy solitude as the last of his race—and Sylfie. Above all, Sylfie. It was one with the rage he had felt in the crystal city at the fat, powerful ancients in glittery palaces, their slaves doomed to the bleak, white corridors of Biopsych Three. It was one also with his disgust that the best of the ancients had become mere memories, packets of skills to be fed to a new generation of slaves, while the powerful were to have come back entire, their personalities intact, to impose their corruption on the fresh, clean world that was his, Benadek's inheritance. But of that, he said nothing to the mage.

 

Achibol led him to the lab—white, antiseptic, and bleakly lit. An anteroom had once served as a lounge. Chairs were dried and cracked with age, and a sideboard with utensils and cups was dusty and cluttered with crumbling, ancient refuse. Within the lounge was another door. A sign above it lit when Achibol opened it, and stayed lit as long as one of them was in the room the door gave upon:

 

EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS

 

The laboratory air was dry and stale, colder than midwinter. Metal tables supported keyboards and screens, wired together with a chaos of colored strands taped, tied, and twisted to the table legs, wires which ran in seemingly careless fashion across the floor. The back wall was all doors—small, thick doors with heavy, shiny hinges and latches. When humid air from the outside hit them, their shiny finishes dulled with frost—the source of the chill, he realized, and guessed that whatever was behind them was colder still. The other walls were lined with gray metal shelves of electronic equipment encrusted with dials, readouts, and lights. Unlike the carefully mounted devices in temple rooms, these were piled helter-skelter, wired together carelessly, and covered with dust.

Benadek began to be scared. The machinery had a temporary look; he was not about to be exposed to tried and proven technology, but something that, to the ancients, had been dangerously new.

The most frightening article was the padded chair in the middle of the room. It was connected to peripheral equipment and computer terminals by more wires, but what caught his eyes and held them were the straps, positioned to restrain arms, wrists, thighs and ankles. Hanging above the seat was a globular helmet with its own collection of spidery filaments. Sharp needles lined the inside.

Resisting a strong desire to sidle from the room in search of a safe place to urinate, Benadek walked directly to the terrifying throne.

The mage opened a frost-covered door. With what seemed an evil chuckle, he said, "Sit, and we'll begin."

* * *

His eyes were encrusted as if he had slept for days. Achibol's face swam into view as the helmet rose from Benadek's head. His scalp felt as if thousands of tiny fleas had bitten it. His hands and feet tingled. As he regained the ability to focus, he glimpsed the tubes taped to his bare arms and thighs, now filled with dark redness like blood. Other tubes rattled at his neck as he twisted his head to watch Achibol. The sorcerer flicked switches and twisted dials. Glowing lights and readouts faded. The tubes connecting him to the chair paled, then ran clear. Hot flashes coursed along his nerves. Why should he be more afraid now than before?

Achibol's voice sounded loud but fuzzy. "It's done, boy. You have the memories. Now you must integrate them." The oldster spread a curved, metallic screen before his face. "This will show images as fast as your eyes can register them. Through your earphones, you'll hear words for what you see, speeded up but intelligible. Don't try to memorize them."

Achibol peered at a monitoring device on the chair. "Do you remember what I told you? The fear you're feeling is adrenaline injected into your blood, a chemical of fear that will fix your new memories firmly. We remember best what we experience when we are afraid." The screen in front of his eyes lit up, and meaningless sounds murmured in his ears.

 

Benadek remembered. He remembered DNA and RNA. He recalled how memory is bound not only in brain cells, in neural connections, but how its pathways are mapped on chromosomes. Genes coded for life and the memory of life past, the chemical trickeries that made him what he was. He remembered instincts and race memory (dark forests, deep caves, raw, charred meat, and the screams of great beasts).

If Benadek had been an ancient, he would have recognized Achibol's brisk, artificially cheeriness, a doctor's bedside manner. As it was, it only made him uneasy. "How do you feel, lad? Look around and tell me what you see."

He saw an EKG, a blood sampler, the induction helmet now suspended over his head. In an orgy of naming, he called out CRT, IV, catheter, light switch, and return air grille. He even knew, after a fashion, what they were.

He remembered Teress and Achibol half-carrying him from the laboratory. He remembered foreign stuff surging in his blood and brain, and understood what it was doing: no false memories were imposed on his own, only patterns. New connections were made among his own cells, fabricating "memories" where none had been before, using the raw stuff of his own thinking to create knowledge where before had been randomness.

He remembered thumbprint-ID locks and electroluminescent panels. Finally, he remembered falling asleep, and waking to see Teress asleep in a chair with her head against the wall.

 

Days passed. Teress continued to learn via sleep induction. They wandered the depths of Biocybe Three with Circe as guide, cementing abstract knowledge with continuing exposure to the solid realities it represented.

Then one morning, as Teress sipped coffee and Benadek ate cherry pie (Achibol had finished his meal, and had departed), Benadek told her how he had spent the night.

"You did what?" she exclaimed.

"I took another memory dose last night. By myself." He looked as if he had not slept in days. "I had to. The first one helped—I can understand myself and my body better now. I can visualize what I need to stave off or even control the change." He shrugged. "But those were the memories of a biochemist, not a computer specialist. I'm trying to work my way through the data banks, but they're hiding things I need to know."

Teress gave him a skeptical look. "They? Who?"

"Circe. And the military computers on the lowest level."

"They're just machines. Just because Circe can talk . . ."

"They were programmed by clever, secretive men. I'm trying to find out about the honches, and what's behind them."

"Somebody named Jorssh. We know that."

"Who's behind him? Where are his troops getting lasers? Even those mesh headpieces are electronic mind-screens, not just little fences that keep out emissions from Achibol's gadgets. There's a storeroom in the armory, with hundreds of them. Does Jorssh have access to a place like this, with data banks and a command interface like Circe? Did someone actually succeed with complete-personality transplants? Perhaps that's what Jorssh is. Are there ancient planners in new bodies, preparing to take over? I have to know, and Achibol won't help. He wants to go back to business as usual as soon as I'm `stabilized.' "

Teress eyed him uneasily. This new—admittedly more "mature"—Benadek was an unknown quantity. Was it the infusions he had taken, the new words that rolled off his tongue as if he had used them all his life, or was he really growing up? If so . . . what was he growing into? "Master Achibol believes that pure-humans like us—like you, really—will be enough," she said cautiously. "That we're evolving into an adaptable human species that will take over naturally."

"The ancients didn't plan us. Do you think they'll let us continue to evolve? They were callous monsters, and their honch tools still are. I've got memories of two burnt villages to prove that."

"I've got some too, you know."

Seeing the pain in her eyes, Benadek put his arm around her. "It doesn't get any easier, does it? I'm sorry."

"It's not too bad. It's like it happened to somebody else." She shrugged.

"Teress? Will you tell me what happened to you before we found you?"

"I suppose it's only fair, isn't it? After all, I saw what happened to you . . ."

"It was the change, wasn't it? The hooded robe, the baths . . . You were changing back from . . . from a cat."

Teress spun around at him, her eyes blazing. "You knew!" she spat. "How?"

"I knew something right away. I even told Sylfie. I had dreams, nightmares, about you, and about hunting-cats."

It took a moment or two, but she calmed herself. "Resonance!" she exclaimed. "I should have known. But I didn't know you were a pure-human then, so I thought my secret was safe."

"Resonance?"

"That's Achibol's word for it. Most pure-humans can't just change. We have to resonate with something, identify with it, like you were doing with the swamp reptiles." She shuddered. "Like I did with the wild cats—and like you did, with me. But none of us did it completely. We only made superficial changes. The genes are all there, Achibol says, whole coils of extra, mutable ones that radiation and chemicals can't touch, that can change us back, if we're damaged, or into something else . . . . We should be able to change like you can, by visualizing, superimposing cat genes or whatever upon them, but there isn't enough resonance."

"There's nothing in my adopted memories about that, and Achibol won't talk about changing. He tells me I have all the answers, and I just have to find them in myself. Sylfie said that too, when she was . . . before she . . ." He shut his own eyes tightly, squeezing back tears. Teress hugged him.

"Tell me more," he asked when he recovered his composure.

"Achibol calls it telepathy. Not mind reading. It's more like getting on the same level as another mind so when it thinks something, you think it too. When that mind reads its own genes—don't ask me how—your mind reads them too, and changes yours to match."

"I'm going to need more memory-doses, I can tell."

"You can't! Two are all anyone can take. The ancients proved that. I've seen recordings of the ones who went mad."

Benadek's knowing smile frightened her. "That may be—for the ancients. But I know things they never could. I could take on a dozen `souls,' or a hundred, and know more than any living being has ever known."

 

Back | Next
Contents
Framed