The Man Who Never Missed (7 page)

“Lost, pilgrim?” came a deep voice from behind him.

Khadaji turned, to see a figure wrapped from head to foot in folds of gray cloth. Only the eyes and hands were visible in the gray cloud. The eyes were green and clear, the hands short-fingered and powerful looking, ridged with tendons and thick veins. A man’s hands. He must be hot under all that material, Khadaji thought.

Khadaji smiled. “Lost? No. I don’t know where I am, but I’m not lost.”

The man in gray laughed. “A zen answer, pilgrim, and perfect for a holy man. Have you been such long?”

“I’m not a holy man,” he said. “Until a few days ago, I was a soldier. Something… happened. I… saw something, felt something, somehow. A vision.”

The tall figure in gray nodded. “Ah. Relampago. You are blessed, pilgrim.”

Khadaji didn’t know the word; however, he was certain that the man was going to tell him what it meant.

He did. “The Cosmic Flash, the Existential Lightning, the Finger of God—Relampago. There are people who labor a lifetime hoping for that touch, sweating through postures and prayers and complex rituals.”

“I’m not sure that’s what happened to me—”

“Oh, it is, pilgrim. It shows. You are producing psychic energy like a kirlian flare. Anyone with any sensitivity could see it. Even a blind man could feel it through the pores of his skin.” The man in gray shook his head and Khadaji knew he was smiling, even though he could not see his face. “I’m the current Pen,” he said, “and this tent I wear marks me as a member of the Holy Order of the Siblings of the Shroud.”

“You’re a priest?”

“Close enough. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the designation is sufficient.”

Khadaji thought for a few seconds. “You said you were the current Pen. Is that a name or a title?”

“My name. Pens come and Pens go, and it is my lot to be the Pen of the moment. When I am gone, another will take the name and carry on. There is never more than one of us at a time.”

Khadaji understood. A week ago, it would have sounded weird, but now it made perfect sense. Though he couldn’t have said why, exactly, he knew it did.

“What can I do for you, then, Pen?”

Pen moved his hands so that the palms faced the sky. “It is I who is to do for you, pilgrim.”

“My name is Khadaji. Emile Khadaji.”

“Ah. Well, Emile Khadaji, I am, among other things, a teacher. Can you tell me of your vision?”

Khadaji smiled. He shook his head. “There are no words for the feeling,” he said. “The best I have come up with is that I felt and heard and saw and smelled and tasted a sense of… rightness. Of order, of unfolding as it should be.”

“Ah. And how did this vision come to be?”

Khadaji told Pen of the slaughter. He left none of it out. When he finished, the gray-robed figure nodded.

“Yes. It happens that way. Would you care to hear the psychology and physiology of the experience? The science of it?”

Before Khadaji could speak, Pen continued. “Oh. Excuse me, I forget my manners. You need new clothes, and food. When did you eat last?”

Khadaji considered it. “Three days,” he said. “Before the attack. I’ve been drinking water from public fountains, but food hasn’t seemed very important.”

The fabric covering Pen’s face shifted slightly. He had to be smiling. “Come, then, we’ll see to clothing and food and then we’ll talk.”

While it somehow seemed natural that Pen would do these things for him, Khadaji felt a sense of wonder about it. Before he could ask, Pen answered his question. “When one is ready for a teacher, a teacher appears; the same is true of students—when the right one appears, a teacher knows. The Disk spins and we are spiraled along to our proper places. It was no chance which brought us together this day, Emile Khadaji, but the twirlings of the Disk—for now, we are for each other.”

Khadaji nodded. He had never paid court to mysticism, he had been raised by atheist parents and shaped by a pragmatic military, but he was no longer the person he had been. He followed the bulky figure in gray because he understood, in some strange fashion, what Pen meant.

They sat in the shade, under a broad-leafed pulse tree in the court of an outdoor restaurant. Khadaji now wore a set of loose-weave orthoskins in a gray which nearly matched Pen’s shroud, and dotic boots custom-spun for his feet. He ate slowly from a plate of highly-spiced vegetables and sipped from a mug of splash. Arteries throbbed under the woody skin of the pulse tree a meter away. He watched them and listened while he ate.

Pen was talking. Lecturing. “The psychology of the religious experience has been well-researched and taped. There are many paths up the mountain—sensory deprivation or sensory overload—emotional response to stimuli or the lack thereof is common. Drugs, of course, from psychoactives to the more mundane depressants. Electropophy can bring it about, as can organic brain damage, lack or excess of oxygen, even sex can trigger it. And what it is, according to the science of man and mue, is a subjective mental state, somewhere to the left of hypnosis. A trick the mind plays on itself. A delusion, void of reality.”

Khadaji took another bite of the vegetables, then grinned.

Pen inclined his head slightly to one side. “And none of what I’ve just said matters at all, does it?”

Khadaji shrugged. “I know what I felt. I hear what you are saying. I understand it here—” he tapped his head with one finger, “—but that doesn’t compare to the way I feel it here.” He pointed at his belly.

“You are convinced of its truth?”

Khadaji nodded.

“Good. So am I. Science, alas, for all it has done for us, is sometimes short-sighted. A product of the monkey-brain, science is, and too concerned with numbers and equations and limits, at times. Today’s mysticism will be tomorrow’s science.”

Khadaji sipped at his splash. The mildly alcoholic drink did little to wash the hot spices away.

“You have told me of your vision,” Pen said. “You have glimpsed the Disk as it spun, the largeness of it, the lightness of it. But you saw flaws.”

Khadaji sighed. “Yes. It was not so much a sight as a feeling. Everything was right, but there was a kind of… wrongness, as well. About man.”

“A large painting is made up of many figures,” Pen said. “You can see it at a distance and get an impression of it, but you cannot know it until you look closer, at the small parts which form it. The study will take some time; it may lead you to many places. I can only guide you part of the way. Will you allow me to show you what I can?”

This was part of it, Khadaji knew. He had a sense of mission, of purpose so strong he had no choice but to go with it. He nodded again. “Yes,” he said.

There was a flat yard of thick grass trimmed short behind the building in which Pen had his rooms. Khadaji felt the that sink under his dotics as he walked on it, like a plush carpet. He turned and faced Pen, who stood two meters away.

“Before you can properly influence others, you must control yourself,” Pen said. “Body control is the easiest but it must be mastered. You are trained as a soldier, with weapons. And, I assume, some unarmed skills?”

“Oppugnate,” Khadaji said. “Military boxing, with hands and feet.”

“Good. Attack me, using your training.”

Khadaji hesitated. It was hard to determine Pen’s age from his hands and eyes alone, but he was easily old enough to be Khadaji’s father—maybe his grandfather. “I am still circulating bacteria-aug,” he said. “For another six months, until the colonies die, I will be considerably faster than an unaugmented human.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pen said. “Launch your attack.”

Khadaji shifted into a fighting stance, left foot forward, his left hand held high, his right low, fingers extended and stiffened, thumbs curled tightly. He edged forward slightly, keeping his legs wide for balance. He had been training in the unarmed combat for nearly six years; he was young, strong, and practiced. He didn’t want to hurt Pen, so he figured to snake in and tap the man lightly a couple of times and then back off. He kept his eyes impassive, focused on the entire figure, and held his breathing even, so as not to reveal his intent.

Pen stood quietly, looking relaxed, his hands by his sides.

Khadaji jumped suddenly, half again as fast as a normal man, and jabbed his stiffened hand at the other man’s solar plexus; it was fast, but not hard.

Pen pivoted, caught Khadaji’s wrist lightly with his thumb and forefinger and did a kind of two-step dance, ending in a twirl. Khadaji felt himself lose balance and start to fall. He twisted and managed to roll out of the fall, but he hit the ground harder than expected; it jarred his teeth together. He came up, spun, and crouched, to face Pen again.

Pen stood as he had before, looking unconcerned.

Khadaji considered the throw. Some sort of wrestling technique, rather than boxing. All right. One of the judo or jujitsu or aikido variants. Well. That could be handled. If he kept his weight centered and only used muscle-strikes, he could avoid being thrown.

He moved in, snapping his right foot up toward Pen’s groin, still fast but without real power, then stepped down and swung his hand around in a sweeping chop. His stance was solid, it was unlikely he’d be pulled off-balance at this angle.

Pen shifted, spun again and seemed to wave his hand past Khadaji’s shoulder with only a light touch. Khadaji went over backwards. He reached out to slap at the soft grass with both hands, but he still hit hard, on his back. It knocked the wind from him. He twisted to one side, rolling, and scrambled up, trying to inhale tiny sips of air. Maro’s sun beat upon him and he felt his face go hot. The air was heavy with moisture and sweat rolled down his neck and spine. This was all wrong. He was faster than Pen, he could feel that. Okay. The problem was in his attack. An initiated strike left one more open than defense, an attacker had to commit himself while a defender only had to wait. He would stand his ground and wait for Pen’s move, then.

The two men stood facing each other for what seemed like a long time to Khadaji. He kept his stance wide and powerful, his hands raised to cover himself high and low, and waited. Pen, meanwhile, simply stood in his neutral stance.

Finally, Pen moved. He raised his hands and clasped them together. He began to knit his fingers together in an intricate weave, crossing and uncrossing, locking and unlocking the digits in strange and complex patterns. Khadaji stared at Pen’s hands. What was he—?

Pen stepped forward, almost slowly, Khadaji thought. He reached out with one foot and kicked, a kick aimed at Khadaji’s leading leg, behind the knee. The younger man couldn’t seem to move in time to parry or block. Pen’s instep smacked solidly into Khadaji’s leg, lifting it high. For the third time, Khadaji fell, arms flailing. This time, he stayed on the grass. He sat up and stared at the other man.

Pen laughed, a deep belly rumble.

Khadaji shook his head. “I suppose I’m missing something funny.”

“Only a cliché,” Pen said.

“I don’t understand.”

“This whole scene.” Pen waved one arm to encompass Khadaji and the surrounding landscape. “The old martial arts master defeating the young student. It’s classic. Problem with clichés is, they get to be that way because they tend to be more or less valid. I couldn’t devise a better means to show you I have something you need to learn than the old routine. Sometimes older is better, it seems.”

Pen bent and extended a hand to Khadaji, then helped lift him back onto his feet. “The art is called sumito,” he said, “and the idea is to learn to control your own body, not defeat somebody else. When you can make your hands and feet go where you want them to, it doesn’t matter if you have an opponent or not.”

Khadaji shook his head. He had always been taught that muscle memory required specificity—if you wanted to learn to play nullball, you practiced in zee-gee; if you wanted to improve boxing skill, you boxed with a partner. Anything less was good only for general conditioning, not specific skills. On the other hand, Pen had been tossing him around as if he were feeble and brainless, instead of a trained and augmented professional soldier. Had to be something to what the man said. Had to be something.

Chapter Eight

KHADAJI STARED AT the floor. There was a strange pattern of footsteps drawn there, laid out like some madman’s dance. He looked up at Pen. “What am I supposed to do here?”

Pen smiled. “It’s simple enough. Walk the pattern.”

Khadaji shrugged. He began to step on the drawn figures. They seemed to be exactly the size and shape of his own feet. The first five steps were simple. He looked at the sixth with disbelief. “I can’t reach that one from here.”

“Certainly you can.”

“Not without twisting like a contortionist, I can’t.”

“Try.”

Khadaji tried. He kept his weight on his left foot while he stretched his right leg and attempted to twist his ankle to make his right foot conform to the diagram. He lost his balance and almost fell. “Can’t do it,” he said.

“No?” Pen motioned for Khadaji to stand aside. He stood at the beginning of the pattern and began to walk it. When he reached the sixth step, he simply did it. Khadaji wasn’t sure how. One second he was facing this way, the next second, that way. The man was shorter, had shorter legs, and if he could stretch that far, Khadaji should be able to also.

It took nine tries before he succeeded, but Khadaji finally made the sixth step. He looked at Pen and smiled.

Pen’s face was invisible within the shroud, but he did nod. “Very good. The seventh step?”

Khadaji looked down. Buddha! It was impossible, nobody could get there without falling! He glared at Pen, mentally daring him to do it.

Pen did. This time, he walked the entire pattern, almost a hundred steps. Ninety-seven, to be exact. It was a number Khadaji would grow to detest. In six weeks, he could manage to make it to step fifty. Sometimes. It was radically different than the oppugnate training he had learned in the military. It didn’t seem to make any sense.

During that time, Pen began to teach Khadaji other things. They hopped around on one leg. Sat motionless for long periods. Did stretching exercises which hurt him in places Khadaji didn’t even know he had. He was learning something, Khadaji knew. What, he didn’t know. But something.