Beast Of The Heartland And Other Stories Part 20

...In the dance of the Spider, in his patterned changes in color, the rhythmic waving of his fiery arms, was a kind of language, the language that the Equations sought to clarify, the language of my dreams. I sat for hours watching him; I recorded several sequences on pocket holographs and carried them about in hopes that this propinquity would illuminate the missing portions of the Equations. I made some progress, but I had concluded that a journey sunwards was the sort of propinquity I needed -- I doubted I had the courage to achieve it. However, legislating against my lack of courage was the beauty I had begun to perceive in the Spider's dance, the hypnotic grace: like that of a Balinese dancer, possessing a similar allure. I came to believe that those movements were signaling all knowledge, infinite possibility. My dreams began to be figured with creatures that I would have previously considered impossible -- dragons, imps, men with glowing hands or whose entire forms were glowing, all a ghostly, grainy white; now these creatures came to seem not only possible but likely inhabitants of a world that was coming more and more into focus, a world to which I was greatly attracted. Sometimes I would lie in bed all day, hoping for more dreams of that world, of the wizard who controlled it. It may be that I was using the dreams to escape confronting a difficult and frightening choice. But in truth I have lately doubted that it is even mine to make.

--Reynolds Dulambre, Collected Notes.

4.

Reynolds.

I remember little of the party, mostly dazed glimpses of b.r.e.a.s.t.s and thighs, sweaty bodies, lidded eyes. I remember the drift, which was performed by a group of techs. They played Alex's music as an hommage, and I was taken back to my years with the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d-maker, to memories of beatings, of walking in on him and his lovers, of listening to him pontificate. And, of course, I recalled that night in Mozambique when I watched him claw at his eyes, his face. Spitting missiles of blood, unable to scream, having bitten off his tongue. Sobered, I got to my feet and staggered into the bedroom, where it was less crowded, but still too crowded for my mood. I grabbed a robe, belted it on, and keyed my study door.

As I entered, Carolyn leaped up from my computer. On the screen was displayed what looked to be a page from my deep files. She tried to switch off the screen, but I caught her arm and checked the page:I had not been mistaken. "What are you doing?" I shouted, yanking her away from the computer.

"I was just curious." She tried to jerk free.

Then I spotted the microcube barnacled to the computer: She had been recording. "What's that?" I asked, forcing her to look at it. "What's that? Who the h.e.l.l are you working for?"

She began to cry, but I wasn't moved. We had betrayed each other a thousand times, but never to this degree.

"d.a.m.n you!" I slapped her. "Who is it?"

She poured out the story of Brent's plan, his demands on her. "I'm sorry," she said, sobbing. "I'm sorry."

I felt so much then, I couldn't characterize it as fear or anger or any specific emotion. In my mind's eye I saw the child, that sc.r.a.p of my soul, disappearing down some earthly sewer. I threw off my robe, stepped into a jumpsuit.

"Where are you going?" Carolyn asked, wiping away tears.

I zipped up the jumpsuit.

"Don't!" Carolyn tried to haul me back from the door. "You don't understand!"

I shoved her down, locked the door behind me, and went storming out through the party and into the corridor. Rage flooded me. I needed to hurt Brent. My reason was so obscured that when I reached his apartment, I saw nothing suspicious in the fact that the door was open... though I later realized he must have had a spy at the party to warn him of anything untoward. Inside, Brent was lounging in one of those ridiculous glowing chairs, a self-satisfied look on his face, and it was that look more than anything, more than the faint sc.r.a.ping at my rear, that alerted me to danger. I spun around to see a security guard bringing his laser to bear on me. I dived at him, feeling a discharge of heat next to my ear, and we went down together. He tried to gouge my eyes, but I twisted away, latched both hands in his hair, and smashed his head against the wall. The third time his head impacted, it made a softer sound than it had the previous two, and I could feel the skull s.h.i.+fting beneath the skin like pieces of broken tile in a sack. I rolled off the guard, horrified, yet no less enraged. And when I saw that Brent's chair was empty, when I heard him shouting in the corridor, even though I knew his shouts would bring more guards, my anger grew so great that I cared nothing for myself, I only wanted him dead.

By the time I emerged from the apartment, he was sprinting around a curve in the corridor. My laser scored the metal wall behind him the instant before he went out of sight. I ran after him. Several of the doorways along the corridor slid open, heads popped out, and on seeing me, ducked back in. I rounded the curve, spotted Brent, and fired again... too high by inches. Before I could correct my aim, half a dozen guards boiled out of a side corridor and dragged him into cover. Their beams drew smoldering lines in the metal by my hip, at my feet, and I retreated, firing as I did, pounding on the doors, thinking that I would barricade myself in one of the rooms and try to debunk Brent's lies, to reveal his deceit over the intercom. But none of the doors opened, their occupants having apparently been frightened by my weapon.

Two guards poked their heads around the curve, fired, and one of the beams came so near that it torched the fabric of my jumpsuit at the knee. I beat out the flames and ran full tilt. Shouts behind me, beams of ruby light skewering the air above my head. Ahead, I made out a red door that led to a docking arm, and having no choice, I keyed it open and raced along the narrow pa.s.sageway. The first three moorings were empty, but the fourth had a blue light glowing beside the entrance hatch, signaling the presence of a s.h.i.+p. I slipped inside, latched it, and moved along the tunnel into the airlock; I bolted that shut, then went quickly along the mesh-walled catwalk toward the control room, toward the radio. I was on the point of entering the room, when I felt a shudder go all through the s.h.i.+p and knew it had cast loose, that it was headed sunward.

Panicked, I burst into the control room. The chairs fronting the instrument panel were empty, the panel itself aflicker with lights; the s.h.i.+p was being run by computer. I sat at the board, trying to override, but no tactic had any effect. Then Brent's voice came over the speakers. "You've bought yourself a little time, Reynolds," he said. "That's all. When the s.h.i.+p returns, we'll have you." I laughed.

It had been my hope that he had initiated the s.h.i.+p's flight, but his comments made clear that I was now headed toward the confrontation I had for so long sought to avoid, brought to this pa.s.s by a computer under the control of the creature for whom I had searched my entire life, a creature of fire and dreams, the stuff of souls. I knew I would not survive it. But though I had always dreaded the thought of death, now that death was hard upon me, I was possessed of a strange confidence and calm... calm enough to send this transmission, to explore the confines of this my coffin, even to read the manuals that explain its operation. I had never attempted to understand the workings of the suns.h.i.+ps, and I was interested to read of the principles that underlie each flight.

As the s.h.i.+p approaches the Sun, it will monitor the magnetic field direction and determine if the Archimedean spiral of the solar wind is oriented outward. If all is as it should be, the s.h.i.+p will continue to descend and eventually will skip off the open-diverging magnetic field of a coronal hole. It will be traveling at such a tremendous speed, its actions will be rather like those of a charged particle caught in a magnetic field, and as the field opens out, it will be flung upward, back toward Helios... that is, it will be flung up and out if a creature who survives by stripping particles of their charge does not inhabit the coronal hole in question. But there is little chance of that.

I wonder how it will feel to have my charge stripped. I would not care to suffer the agonies of my father.

The closer I come to the Sun, the more calm I become. My mortal imperfections seem to be flaking away. I feel clean and minimal, and I have the notion that I will soon be even simpler, the essential splinter of a man. I have so little desire left that only one further thing occurs to me to say.

Carolyn, I...

...A man walking in a field of golden gra.s.s under a bright sky, walking steadfastly, though with no apparent destination, for the gra.s.slands spread to the horizon, and his thoughts are crystal-clear, and his heart, too, is clear, for his past has become an element of his present, and his future -- visible as a sweep of golden gra.s.s carpeting the distant hills, beyond which lies a city sparkling like a glint of possibility -- is as fluent and clear as his thought, and he knows his future will be shaped by his walking, by his thought and the power in his hands, especially by that power, and of all this he wishes now to speak to a woman whose love he denied, whose flesh had the purity of the clear bright sky and the golden gra.s.ses who was always the heart of his life even in the country of lies, and here in the heartland of the country of truth is truly loved at last...

--The Resolute Lover, part of The White Dragon Cycle.

5.

Carolyn.

After Reynolds had stolen the suns.h.i.+p -- this, I was informed, had been the case -- Brent confined me to my apartment and accused me of conspiring with Reynolds to kill him. I learned of Reynolds' death from the security guard who brought me supper that first night; he told me that a prominence (I pictured it to be a fiery fis.h.i.+ng lure) had flung itself out from the Sun and incinerated the s.h.i.+p. I wept uncontrollably.

Even after the computers began to translate the coded particle bursts emanating from the Spider's coronal hole, even when these proved to be the completed Solar Equations, embodied not only in mathematics but in forms comprehensible to a layman, still I wept. I was too overwhelmed by grief to realize what they might portend. I was able to view the translations on Reynolds' computer, and when the stories of the White Dragon Cycle came into view, I understood that whoever or whatever had produced them had something in particular to say to me. It was The Resolute Lover, the first of the cycle, with its numerous references to a wronged beautiful woman, that convinced me of this. I read the story over and over, and in so doing I recalled Brent's description of the feelings he had had while studying the Equations. I felt in the focus of some magical lens, I felt a s.h.i.+mmering in my flesh, confusion in my thoughts... not a confusion of motive but of thoughts running in new patterns, colliding with each other like atoms bred by a runaway reactor. I lost track of time, I lived in a sweep of golden gra.s.ses, in an exotic city where the concepts of unity and the divisible were not opposed, where villains and heroes and beasts enacted ritual pa.s.sions, where love was the ordering pulse of existence.

One day Brent paid me a visit. He was plumped with self-importance, with triumph. But though I hated him, emotion seemed incidental to my goal -- a goal his visit helped to solidify -- and I reacted to him mildly, watching as he moved about the room, watching me and smiling.

"You're calmer than I expected," he said.

I had no words for him, only calm. In my head the Resolute Lover gazed into a crystal of Knowledge, awaiting the advent of Power. I believe that I, too, smiled.

"Well," he said. "Things don't always work out as we plan. But I'm pleased with the result. The Spider will be Reynolds' great victory... no way around that. Still, I've managed to land the role of Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, the rationalist who guided the madman on his course."

My smile was a razor, a knife, a flame.

"Quite sufficient," he went on, "to secure my post... and perhaps even my immortality."

I spoke to him in an inaudible voice that said Death.

His manner grew more agitated; he twitched about the room, touching things. "What will I do with you?" he said. "I'd hate to send you to your judgment. Our nights together... well, suffice it to say I would be most happy if you'd stay with me. What do you think? Shall I testify on your behalf, or would you prefer a term on the Urban Reserves?"

Brent, Brent, Brent. His name was a kind of choice.

"Perhaps you'd like time to consider?" he said.

I wished my breath was poison.

He edged toward the door. "When you reach a decision, just tell the guard outside. You've two months 'til the next s.h.i.+p. I'm betting you'll choose survival."

My eyes sent him a black kiss.

"Really, Carolyn," he said. "You were never a faithful wife. Don't you think this pose of mourning somewhat out of character?"

Then he was gone, and I returned to my reading.

Love.

What part did it play in my desire for vengeance, my furious calm? Sorrow may have had more a part, but love was certainly a factor. Love as practiced by the Resolute Lover. This story communicated this rigorous emotion, and my heartsickness translated it to vengeful form. My sense of unreality, of tremulous being, increased day by day, and I barely touched my meals.

I am not sure when the Equations embodied by the story began to take hold, when the seeded knowledge became power. I believe it was nearly two weeks after Brent's visit. But though I felt my potential, my strength, I did not act immediately. In truth, I was not certain I could act or that action was to be my course. I was mad in the same way Reynolds had been: a madness of self-absorption, aconcentration of such intensity that nothing less intense had the least relevance.

One night I left off reading, went into my bedroom and put on a sheer robe, then wrapped myself in a cowled cloak. I had no idea why I was doing this. The seductive rhythms of the story were coiling through my head and preventing thought. I walked into the front room and stood facing the door. Violent tremors shook my body. I felt frail, insubstantial, yet at the same time possessed of fantastic power: I knew that nothing could resist me... not steel or flesh or fire. Inspired by this confidence, I reached out my right hand to the door. The hand was glowing a pale white, its form flickering, the fingers lengthening and attenuating, appearing to ripple as in a graceful dance. I did not wonder at this. Everything was as it should be. And when my hand slid into the door, into the metal, neither did I consider that remarkable. I could feel the mechanisms of the lock, I -- or rather my ghostly fingers -- seemed to know the exact function of every metal bit, and after a moment the door hissed open.

The guard peered in, startled, and I hid the hand behind me. I backed away, letting the halves of my cloak fall apart. He stared, glanced left and right in the corridor, and entered. "How'd you do the lock?"

he asked.

I said nothing.

He keyed the door, testing it, and slid it shut, leaving the two of us alone in the room. "Huh," he said.

"Must have been a computer foul-up."

I came close beside him, my head tipped back as if to receive a kiss, and he smiled, he held me around the waist. His lips mashed against mine, and my right hand, seeming almost to be acting on its own, slipped into his side and touched something that beat wildly for a few seconds, and then spasmed.

He pushed me away, clutching his chest, his face purpling, and fell to the floor. Emotionless, I stepped over him and went out into the corridor, walking at an unhurried pace, hiding my hand beneath the cloak.

On reaching Brent's apartment, I pressed the bell, and a moment later the door opened and he peered forth, looking sleepy and surprised. "Carolyn!" he said. "How did you get out?"

"I told the guard I planned to stay with you," I said, and as I had done with the guard, I parted the halves of my cloak.

His eyes dropped to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Come in," he said, his voice burred.

Once inside, I shed the cloak, concealing my hand behind me. I was so full of hate, my mind was heavy and blank like a stone. Brent poured some wine, but I refused the gla.s.s. My voice sounded dead, and he shot me a searching look and asked if I felt well. "I'm fine," I told him.

He set down the wine and came toward me, but I moved away.

"First," I said, "I want to know about my daughter."

That brought him up short. "You have no daughter," he said after a pause. "It was all a hoax."

"I don't believe you."

"I swear it's true," he said. "When you went for an exam, I had the tech inform you of a pregnancy.

But you weren't pregnant. And when you came for the implantation procedure, he anesthetized you and simply stood by until you woke up."

It would have been in character, I realized, for him to have done this. Yet he also might have been clever enough to make up the story, and thus keep a hold on me, one he could inform me of should I prove recalcitrant.

"But you can have a child," he said, sidling toward me. "Our child, Carolyn. I'd like that, I'd like it very much." He seemed to be having some difficulty in getting the next words out, but finally they came: "I love you."

What twisted shape, I wondered, did love take in his brain?

"Do you?" I said.

"I know it must be hard to believe," he said. "You can't possibly understand the pressure I've been under, the demands that forced my actions. But I swear to you, Carolyn, I've always cared for you. I knew how oppressed you were by Reynolds. Don't you see? To an extent I was acting on your behalf. I wanted to free you."

He said all this in a whining tone, edging close, so close I could smell his bitter breath. He put a handon my breast, lifted it... Perhaps he did love me in his way, for it seemed a treasuring touch. But mine was not. I laid my palely glowing hand on the back of his neck. He screamed, went rigid, and oh, how that scream made me feel! It was like music, his pain. He stumbled backward, toppled over one of the luminous chairs, and lay writhing, clawing his neck.

"Where is she?" I asked, kneeling beside him.

Spittle leaked between his gritted teeth. "I'll... find her, bring her... oh!"

I saw I could never trust him. Desperate, he would say anything. He might bring me someone else's child. I touched his stomach, penetrating the flesh to the first joint of my fingers, then wiggling them. Again he screamed. Blood mapped the front of his jumpsuit.

"Where is she?" I no longer was thinking about the child: She was lost, and I was only tormenting him.

His speech was incoherent, he tried to hump away. I showed him my hand, how it glowed, and his eyes bugged.

"Do you still love me?" I asked, touching his groin, hooking my fingers and pulling at some fiber.

Agony bubbled in his throat, and he curled up around his pain, clutching himself.

I could not stop touching him. I orchestrated his screams, producing short ones, long ones, ones that held a strained hoa.r.s.e chord. My hatred was a distant emotion. I felt no fury, no glee. I was merely a craftsman, working to prolong his death. Pink films occluded the whites of his eyes, his teeth were stained to crimson, and at last he lay still.

I sat beside him for what seemed a long time. Then I donned my cloak and walked back to my apartment. After making sure no one was in the corridor, I dragged the dead guard out of the front room and propped him against the corridor wall. I reset the lock, stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind me. I felt nothing. I took up The Resolute Lover, but even my interest in it had waned. I gazed at the walls, growing thoughtless, remembering only that I had been somewhere, done some violence; I was perplexed by my glowing hand. But soon I fell asleep, and when I was waked by the guards unlocking the door, I found that the hand had returned to normal.

"Did you hear anything outside?" asked one of the guards. "No," I said. "What happened?"

He told me the gory details, about the dead guard and Brent. Like everyone else on Helios Station, he seemed more confounded by these incomprehensible deaths than by the fantastic birth that had preceded them.

The walls of the station have been plated with gold, the corridors are thronged with tourists, with students come to study the disciplines implicit in the Equations, disciplines that go far beyond the miraculous transformation of my hand. Souvenir shops sell holos of the Spider, recordings of the White Dragon Cycle (now used to acclimatize children to the basics of the Equations), and authorized histories of the sad events surrounding the Spider's emergence. The pleasure domes reverberate with Alex Dulambre's drifts, and in an auditorium constructed for this purpose, Reynolds' clone delivers daily lectures on the convoluted circ.u.mstances of his death and triumph.

The place is half amus.e.m.e.nt park, half shrine. Yet the greatest memorial to Reynolds' work is not here; it lies beyond the orbit of Pluto and consists of a vast s.h.i.+fting structure of golden light wherein dwell those students who have mastered the disciplines and overcome the bonds of corporeality. They are engaged, it is said, in an unfathomable work that may have taken its inspiration from Reynolds' metaphysical flights of fancy, or -- and many hold to this opinion -- may reflect the Spider's design, his desire to rid himself of the human nuisance by setting us upon a new evolutionary course. After Brent's death I thought to join in this work. But my mind wasnot suited to the disciplines; I had displayed all the mastery of which I was capable in dispensing with Brent.