Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 (16 page)

 
          
 
What it came down to was that I was going to
have to violate several directives in order to follow another one. It was a
matter of judgment. If we were to mesh now, I believed there would be
considerable disagreement, but I was the nexus, the sole heir to Engel's final
experiences and the only one in a position to take action. The decision was
mine to make and I had made it. *

 
          
 
Bravo! We finally have someone with some sense
in the driver's seat!

 
          
 
"It was none of it your doing,
old-timer," I said.

 
          
 
Of course it was! All the way!

 
          
 
"Well, I am not about to argue with you
over it. It makes little difference now, and will make none whatsoever in a
short while."

 
          
 
Perhaps.

 
          
 
"What do you mean *perhaps'?"

 
          
 
Let us wait and see — in a short while.

 
          
 
"You have no better idea of what will
happen than I do. Well, not much better."

 
          
 
I suppose you are right. Shall we go and find
out?

 
          
 
"You have waited this long. You can
damned well wait until I finish my cigarette."

 
          
 
All right. Enjoy your brooding. You don't even
under-stand what you are looking at.

 
          
 
"I suppose you do?"

 
          
 
Better than you.

 
          
 
"We'll see."

 
          
 
We will.

 
          
 
The night was sufficiently illuminated for me
to make out several large craters in the distance, their outlines softened by a
low growth of dark vegetation. Staring hard, I could also discern the outlines
of the great, ruined, fortresslike building at the foot of the hills. The
prospect fascinated me. Maybe I was going to learn some more about it . . .

 
          
 
Enough! There were so many things! That ruin .
. . How many hundreds of times had I seen it? Through how many eyes?

 
          
 
Rising, I mashed out my cigarette in a nearby
tray, turned, and left the room.

 
          
 
My excitement was high by the time I reached
the Files vault. I commenced the delicate, complicated and potentially fatal
manipulations of its lock mechanism.

 
          
 
A quarter of an hour later, I had it open. I
entered and the lights came on. Several moments later, the door closed and
relocked itself behind me.

 
          
 
The room ran back about forty feet at the
middle and was around sixty across. Its rear wall was concave, curving about
the operating area, which was raised a foot or so above the floor. A lap-level
countertop ran along the entire wall, extending out for perhaps thirty inches.
Mounted above it were bank upon bank of control assemblies, sweeping outward
like wings from the central board and its console. The massive control chair
was swiveled in my direction, as if waiting.

 
          
 
I took off my jacket as I walked forward,
folded it, placed it on a shelf. Then I seated myself, turned to the console
and began warming the thing up. It took about ten minutes to ready it, what
with checking out systems and activating subunits in their proper sequence. I
was glad of this, for the activity fully occupied my attention for a time.

 
          
 
Finally, though, the lights were arrayed in
the proper order, and it was time to begin.

 
          
 
I opened the cabinet to my left, swung out the
hood on its long, heavy arm. I ran several quick checks on it, also. Perfect.

 
          
 
I fitted it over my head, lowering it until it
rested upon my shoulders. There was an opening about the eyes which permitted
me to see what I was doing. I activated the mechanism which caused it to check
me out.

 
          
 
There was a vibration as its innards rotated
to align themselves with whatever they deemed salient portions of my cranial
anatomy. Then there came a tightening as pads moved into place against my
skull. There followed a small jolt and a few traces of moisture. The anesthetic.
As it was vibrated through the skin, some of it was blocked by my hair. That
was all right, though. I did not want to shave or wear a wig. I could stand a
little runoff down my neck.

 
          
 
I do not suppose that anyone enjoys
contemplating the violation of his innards, least of all the interior of his
skull. Whatever one's knowledge and experience, thinking about feelings gives
rise to emotions. It need not even be necessary that the feelings actually
occur. Within a very brief span, however, the blue indicator flashed before me
and I realized that all of the necessary filaments had succeeded in painlessly
penetrating my scalp, skull, dura, arachnoid and pia mater, worked their ways
into appropriate areas of my brain and formed themselves into a network capable
of performing the work they had to do. And I was still gnawing my lower lip.
Thus are we hoist by our own f orebrain.

 
          
 
The machinery was ready. Now was the time for
the standard procedure employed by each new nexus. Now was the time for me to
go back through my/our/the mind and systematically erase all those portions of
Lange and Engel which I felt to be in conflict with my own personality and to
excise their memories dealing with things before my own time. Now was the time
for the sacrifice, the partial suicide, the jettisoning of the excess baggage,
of the things which served only to clutter the mind, create conflicts, make
life less tolerable. As no one knows how much the human mind can hold,
somewhere along the line we decided not to tamper with its limits. I believed
that to be the reason. Somewhere, back in the dreamtime, the decision was made.
To the best of my knowledge, we had always proceeded on the basis of this
rationale, and since the family was still around, it had always proved effective.
Until now, of course. Now was the time for Lange and Engel to depart—to become,
perhaps, autonomous complexes, or personal demons in the underworld of my
subconscious.

 
          
 
Now, however, the threat to our existence was
foremost in my mind, and I wanted to be larger, not smaller, to know more
things, not fewer. Preserved in memory and ringed round with a directive not to
erase, was the notion that, as an emergency procedure in a time of great peril,
the dead might be resurrected. I did not believe it had ever been employed, and
of course had no idea what the result might be. That it would be more than
memory, though, was obvious. Still, I felt myself a very definite and very real
me, despite being partly Lange and partly Engel. The situation warranted
drastic action.

 
          
 
I became very conscious of my heartbeat as I
turned my attention to the patchboard with its seven pins and spaces for many
more.

 
          
 
Each pin, the life of a nexus; each, a
generation of our kind skewered there like an invisible butterfly . . .

 
          
 
My palm was moist as I reached forward.

 
          
 
A pin was inserted in the master board each
time the process of erasure was completed. To draw one would be to undo the
work of a predecessor, to cause his predecessor to live again within me.

 
          
 
What was I doing? I was supposed to be here to
insert pin eight . . .

 
          
 
My hand began to shake.

 
          
 
This was wrong! It was ridiculous even to
consider . •.

 
          
 
My hand grew steady, continued to move
forward. I tried, but was unable to halt it.

 
          
 
I watched with a peculiar fascination, as it
moved across the board, settled upon its target and withdrew pin seven.

 
          
 
I was not at all certain what it was I had
expected. A clash of cymbals? A mind-riving jolt, followed by unconsciousness?
Something dramatic, I guess.

 
          
 
It was, however, more than anything else, like
waking up in the morning, memories of the previous day gradually hefting
themselves above the horizon. A mere clearing of the head, revealing what had
been there all along. A gallery of familiar pictures.

 
          
 
Old Lange . . .

 
          
 
Of course. It had been an instance where we
had posed as being our own son. It was only chance that the nexus passed from
one Lange-identity to another. And there had been others in the mesh, long
forgotten, but with me once again, as if they had never been away.

 
          
 
I was now the demon who had been addressing
us. I was Engel, Lange, Lange Senior and those things the older Lange had
retained of his predecessor, a strange mind I would almost have called alien
minutes earlier: Winton. But regarding him as his successor had seen fit to
preserve him, he did not seem all that different. What was it? What was
happening? My accumulated memories now ran back for over a century, but it was
more than a matter of timespan and quantity. The sense of differentness that
accompanied the reavailability of all this experience was ... qualitative. Yes,
that was it. And what was the quality?

 
          
 
That is something you cannot truly appreciate
in your present state.

 
          
 
Powerful. There. Him. Winton. For a moment, I
was too dumbstruck to reply. The knowledge had always been present, but I had
not taken the time to consider it—that in releasing Lange's demon and absorbing
him, I would come up against the older, earlier interface, with the demon of
whom I had previously known nothing capable of addressing me from behind it.

 
          
 
You needed what you have now, he was saying,
as a point of departure. You are smarter and somewhat stronger for what you
have obtained, but it is not sufficient against Mr. Black. To understand, and
to possess the ability to do something about it will require the pulling of pin
six. Do it now.

 
          
 
Determined. And strong. He was. In his
insistence. That was what made the decision for me. I wanted that
determination, that strength.

 
          
 
That is why, before I could marshal the
arguments against it, I moved my hand several inches upward on a diagonal and
pulled pin six.

 
          
 
Yes! Yes, as the fogs rolled away and my
memory reached back for perhaps a century and a half, it was not only the
recalling of vast quantities of experience that moved me. The memories
themselves, still, were dreamlike and not especially charged with emotion. It
was a tightening, a toughening of attitude that came into me, that reassured me
as to my own ability to deal with the present situation. And more, more than
that . . .

 
          
 
I had hardly begun sorting out my reactions,
let alone considering the matter which had elicited them, when Birnam Wood
began to shuffle its feet, so to speak.

 
          
 
The feeling. God, the feeling ... It was like
flood waters suddenly welling behind an ancient dam. I felt the gathering
might, I was uncertain as to the fortifications.

 
          
 
Yes, you were weak and you have been
strengthened. But now is not the time to stop. Reach out and take it all. You
need every weapon you can get your hands on right now. You will face an enemy
who is also strong. For this reason you must be more fully yourself. Pull pin
five and restore me within you. I will show you how to deal with Mr. Black.

 
          
 
"No," I said. "Wait," I
said. "Wait • . ."

 
          
 
There is no time. Black's position grows
stronger with every moment you delay. Do not discard the tool that may cut the
diamond, throw away the stone that may be key to the arch. You will need me.
Pull pin five!

 
          
 
My hand moved toward it, but I feared I might
have gone too far already. There was no way to gauge the strength of the entity
that would then urge me to pull pin four, and then three—and all the way back,
to the beginning, unbuilding the painfully erected edifice, undoing centuries of
collective effort to achieve moral evolution.

 
          
 
I share your sentiments, I agree with your
principles. They are all of them useless, however, if you are no longer
available to further them. You require my knowledge of specifics in order to
defend yourself properly. Therefore, as the day the night... Pull pin five!
Now!

 
          
 
The muscles in my arm began to ache. My
fingers were curved and stiff, clawlike.

 
          
 
"No!" I said. "Damn it!
No!"

 
          
 
You must!

 
          
 
My hand jerked, my fingertips touched the pin.

 
          
 
I had gone too far too fast. I was way off
balance in every department of my mind. He might be right,
Jordan
—I suddenly knew that to be his name. He
might be right. But I was not going to have him pressure me into it. I was not
even certain what I had just become. To release another unknown within myself
was tantamount to lunacy.

 
          
 
Of course you are uncertain. But you must also
realize that your hesitancy jeopardizes the others, as well as the girl . . .

 
          
 
"Wait!"

 
          
 
Then the anger came, deadly. I, James Winton,
had blotted him out, sacrificed him, broken him with my will. Now this pitiful
ragtag, tail-end self was trying to order me about!

 
          
 
Slowly, I clenched my right hand into a fist.
Then I slammed it down against the countertop.

 
          
 
"No!" I said. "I have what I
need."

 
          
 
You are a fool!

 
          
 
I raised my hand, very deliberately, and
pressed my thumb against pin five.

 
          
 
Silence.

 
          
 
Trying not to think of anything, not to sort
out any thoughts or feelings, I shifted to a motor level of activity and began
the process of disengaging myself from the equipment.

 
          
 
Finally, the pressure let up on my head and
the lights indicated that the hood might be removed. I did this, returning it
to its cabinet, then shut down all units and departed Files, sealing the place
carefully behind me. I moved along the hallway to Comp and began the unlocking
procedure there. Then I returned to my den, for the time-lock mechanism on Comp
had a little over ten minutes to go.

 
          
 
I flopped into the chair, lit another
cigarette and stared out into the night. The moon had traveled a detectable
distance in the brief while I had been away. The shadow patterns had shifted
across the landscape, revealing more evidence of ancient devastation as well as
additional vegetation. The prospect was considerably more familiar to me now
than it had been earlier, though I still did not understand the nature of the
carnage. A war, perhaps? There was something even more intriguing and
disturbing about the ruins at the foot of those stark hills now . . .

 
          
 
My ruminations were cut short as I stared at
that wreckage. It seemed as though there had been a movement.

 
          
 
I rose and crossed to the window.

 
          
 
Again, something. A glint . . . Yes, there was
a flicker of light back within the collapsed walls. I continued to watch, and
it came again, several times. I tried timing the flashes, but there did not
seem to be any special pattern to them.

 
          
 
Then there was a blaze, as though a beacon had
been swung quickly across the wracked landscape and fallen directly upon me,
where it stopped.

 
          
 
I raised my arm to shield my eyes against its
brilliance, and with my other hand I felt for the control and darkened the
window once more.

 
          
 
I sank back into the chair then, some small
part of me surprised that I was not especially disconcerted by the phenomenon.
The feeling quickly passed. Nothing that strange about the light, really. It
had undergone periodic bursts of such activity for generations. I had just
forgotten—or, rather, just remembered—about it. Yes, it seemed something
mechanical that was occasionally disturbed, underwent a brief spasm of
activity, lapsed into quiescence again. One of the so what? facts of existence.

 
          
 
Or was it? Oh, hell! I had more pressing
matters demanding my attention.

 
          
 
Like, who was I? I realized I was no longer
the same individual who had come to Wing Null. And it was not a loss, but a
gain. That was the way I felt about it But what was the gain?

 
          
 
I felt more Winton than Karab, to be truthful
about it. But it was as if this had always, really, been so, and the other was
but a temporary phase, a life-laboratory I had employed for the conduct of
certain experiments. And the necessity was now upon me to abandon this research
for a time, in order to deal with larger matters which had arisen to trouble
me.

 
          
 
Lord! how naive I had allowed myself to
become! I smiled at my prissy latterday selves. Their fears. Their qualms.

 
          
 
On whose shoulders did they think they stood?
Who had bought them the right to indulge their precious squeamish-ness? Who had
provided the opportunity for them to exercise their higher instincts, as a band
of anonymous humanitarians and benefactors of the House? Within the present
generation, the time of Lange, they had stopped a plague, prevented several
large-scale disasters from being far worse than they were, promoted several
productive lines of medical research, discouraged three programs of scientific
inquiry which could have led in an undesirable direction, guided the computers
and politicians toward several sound decisions concerning population control,
aggression-surrogation and areas of emphasis in education, aided in the
development of new amusements, saw the crime rate decline even further and
assisted numerous groups and individuals in times of distress. But why had they
had this opportunity to indulge in what, to some, might seem officious
intermeddling, to others, altruism? Their way had been paved with thought,
sweat, sacrifice and more than a little blood.

 
          
 
On the other hand, it had all been worth it.
Strange, to think of myself simultaneously from two temporal perspectives. But
they were merging, merging even as I thought them, and I felt considerably
enriched therefor.
Jordan
's perspective would be even broader, I
knew. I had some of his memories, and I knew that he went back a long while.
Perhaps I had been hasty in dealing with him —

 
          
 
No! The line had to be drawn somewhere. What I
now possessed seemed sufficient. There was a solid, important reason for
everything that we did, I knew that. I did not need all of the specifics. Based
on my present knowledge of myself, I had faith in all my earlier decisions. I
believed that I had never suppressed arbitrarily, that there was a reason for
each partial suicide. To undo everything as an exercise in academic curiosity
would be an act of madness.