Read Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 Online
Authors: Today We Choose Faces
“What is that?"
"I would like to buy a drink."
I gestured at the table.
"Go ahead. The unit is underneath."
He shook his head.
"You don't understand. I can't do it.
Directly, that is."
"What do you mean?"
"Doctor's orders. My account is flagged.
If I stick my card in that machine and ask for a drink, Central will order it
not to sell me one when it runs the automatic credit check."
"I see."
"But I'm not broke. I mean, I have cash.
Only, that thing has no use for cash. Now what I had in mind was this: If I
could find someone who would buy me a drink on his card, I could reimburse him
in cash—hell! I'd even buy him a drink, too!—and there would be no real record
of my having done it."
"I don't know," I said. "If
your doctor does not want you drinking, I'm not sure that I want to be
responsible for something that might not be good for you."
He nodded.
"Oh, the doctor's right," he said.
"I'm hardly the picture of health. Just look at me and you can tell that.
It's no fun being in the shape I'm in. They keep me alive, but I'd hardly call
it living. A little physical discomfort tomorrow is not too high a price for a
stiff bourbon on the rocks. It won't kill me." He shrugged. "And even
if it would, it would not matter to anyone. What do you say?"
I nodded.
"It's not illegal," I said,
"and you are the only real judge of what is important to you."
I inserted my card in the slot.
"Make it a double," he said.
I did, and when I passed it to him he took a
long, slow sip and sighed. Then he set the glass down, fumbled inside his
jacket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes.
"I'm not supposed to have these
either," he said, lighting one.
We sat in silence for perhaps a minute,
sorting out our private feelings, I guess. Strangely, I did not resent the
intrusion on the solitude I had gone so far to achieve. I felt sorry for the
old man, doubtless alone in the world, waiting around to die, finding pretexts
to go off from whatever rest facility housed him and cadge an occasional drink,
one of his few remaining pleasures. But it went beyond sympathy. There was
animation, defiance, strength in his deeply lined face. His dark eyes were
clear, his mottled hands steady. There was something comforting, almost
familiar, about him. I was certain I had never met the man before, but our
meeting here, this way, gave me an odd, irrational feeling that it had been
somehow prearranged.
"What have you got there?" he asked,
and I saw the direction of his gaze. "Feelthy pictures?"
My face grew warm.
"Well—sort of," I said, and he
chuckled.
He reached halfway toward them, then met my
eyes.
"May I?" he asked.
I nodded.
He picked them up, leaned back with them. His
shaggy brows dropped toward a squint and he cocked his head to one side. He
stared for a long while, his lips pursed. Then he smiled and placed them back
on the table.
"Very good," he said. "Very
good pictures." Then his voice changed. "See Earth and then
die."
"I do not understand ..."
"It is an old saying that I just made up.
'See
Venice
and die.' 'See
Naples
and die.' 'May you die in
Ireland
.' Many places once took such pride in
themselves that they considered a visit there to be the greatest thing in anyone's
life. At my age, one can be a bit more cosmopolitan. Thanks for letting me see
the pictures." His voice hardened. "They brought back many memories.
A few of them were even happy ones."
He took a large swallow of his drink and I
stared at him, fascinated. He seemed to grow larger, he sat more erect.
It was not possible, though. It simply was not
possible. But I had to ask him.
"Just how old are you, Mr. Black?"
Part of his mouth grinned as he snubbed out
his cigarette.
"There are too many ways to answer your
question," he said. "But I see what you are really asking. Yes, I
have seen the Earth—actually, not just in pictures. I remember what things were
like, before the House was built."
"No," I said. "That is
physically impossible."
He shrugged, then sighed.
"Perhaps you are right, Lange," he
said. He raised his glass and drained it. "It does not matter."
I finished my own drink, setting the glass
down beside the photos.
"How is it that you know my name?" I
asked him.
Reaching into his pocket, he said, "I owe
you something."
But it was not money that he withdrew.
"See the Earth," he said, and,
"A rivederci"
I felt the bullet enter my heart.
How—?
The music was swirling all about me, pumping,
throbbing, and the lights were changing color faster and faster. Then it was
time for me to come in on the clarinet. I managed it. Shakily, but
sufficiently.
Before too long there was applause.
Weak-kneed, I got through the bows. Then the bandstand darkened and I followed
the others down.
As we moved around back, Martin's hand fell on
my shoulder. He was the leader, stocky going to fat, three-quarters bald, heavy
pouches under his pale, watery eyes. A very good trombone player and a nice
guy, too.
"What happened to you up there,
Engel?" he asked me.
"Stomach pains," I said. "Must
have been something I ate. They were pretty bad for a couple minutes."
"How are you feeling now?"
"A lot better, thanks."
"Hope you're not getting an ulcer.
They're no fun. Something been bothering you?"
"Yes. But it will be over soon."
"Well, that's good. Take it easy."
I nodded.
"See you tomorrow."
"Right."
I moved away quickly. Damn! I had to find a
collapsing place in a hurry. Every second counted now. Damn! How could I have
been so complacent, so blind? So stupid! Damn!
I slapped my instrument into its case, changed
clothes in record time and ignored or avoided everyone and everything that
might slow me as I made for the beltway. I got over into the fastest lane and
began some evasive traveling. I switched belts at nearly every intersection. I
jackpoled down three levels and walked until I was fairly certain I was not
being followed. Then I took to the belts again and worked my way toward the
Living Room.
My sense of urgency was enormous by then, and
I knew that I was near to the edge of hysteria. A small, hot core of anger was
the only thing that kept my panic in check. Something I did not understand had
reached me and struck me, twice. Then, almost without my realizing it, the
anger was there, and I could feel it growing. It was strange and it was strong.
I could not recall whether I had ever felt so before. I must have, since I
recognized it and embraced it so readily. Whatever, it seemed to buoy me a bit.
Perhaps it was this, that in its incipience had served to prevent my collapse
this time around. I felt the slow beginnings of a desire to reach out and
punish my murderers—for purposes of a personal accounting, rather than in the
interest of justice. Though I recognized the aberrant nature of the impulse I
did not seek to straitjacket it with self-discipline, for I had to have
something to sustain me.
... And it was not an altogether unpleasant
feeling.
Now the faintest of smiles quirked the corners
of my mouth upwards. No, it was not a bad thing to be angry. It was a natural,
human feeling. Everybody knew that. It almost seemed a shame to waste it on
aggression surro-
I stepped down into the Living Room and walked
through section after section. People sat, stood, reclined, talking, reading,
napping, listening to music, viewing tapes, and there was always a quiet nook
for someone who wanted to be alone. I hurried across the soft carpeting,
rounding corner after corner, passing through a great variety of periods and
styles, hoping I would not encounter anyone who knew me.
Luckl
A small, deserted alcove, dimly lit ... a fat,
green chair that looked as if it might recline ...
Sure enough. It did. I turned the light even
lower and leaned far back. There were two entrances to the place and I could
keep an eye on both, though I was certain I had not been followed.
The first thing I did was try to relax and
decide who I was. It is gratifying that the nexus-mesh occurs so smoothly. You
always wonder, I guess, what it will feel like. Then it happens and you still
do not know. You only know that it worked.
I knew I was not the same Mark Engel I had
been before the old man shot Lange. I was Lange, but Lange was also me. I mean,
we were us. We had merged, more or less, with the shifting of the nexus, when
his body was destroyed. It did not require a massive adjustment, since we had
experienced the same phenomenon on a temporary basis countless times in the
past. Now that it was for keeps, there were a number of things I had to do to
tailor the arrangement, so to speak. But they would have to wait. We should
have acted right away, after the first murder. Lange had dragged his heels,
though, and it had proved fatal. I did not approve of his postponing an
important action, regardless of his mental condition. I could feel this
tendency warring with my own resolve even then. That part would be
sacrificed—soon—when I inserted pin eight.
Although the identity situation would
ordinarily have precedence, it would have to take second place this time
around.
About three centimeters behind my eyes, that
is where I seem to live. My mind, my consciousness ... I tightened and relaxed,
tightened and relaxed, there in my home. A mental heartbeat, a mindbeat . . .
Then it was all diastole, and thoughts the mindblood flowing uncontrolled ...
Then we were there and together—Davis, Gene,
Serafis, Jenkins, Karab, Winkel and the others. Suddenly, I was all of us and
we were all of us me. There was little hesitation as everyone slipped into
place, recognizing the new position of the nexus. A good, comfortable, familiar
feeling.
I saw through many eyes, heard many sounds,
felt the weight of all of our flesh. It was as though we were one body, our various
limbs in all of the Wings. All but two, that is. And in a very special sense we
were but one body.
In a timeless moment, we were all of us aware
of the conscious contents of all of our individual skulls. It was a brief
eternity of realization, a plasmic state of being wherein our temporary
surrender of individuality caused all of us to grow, instantly, by the sum of
the new experiential units which had come to be since our most recent meshing,
perhaps a month earlier.
There was fear, and my surprise at the fact
that there was so little anger other than that which I had brought to the
meshing. My anger was countered by an attitude of mild reproval, tempered by
the awareness that I had just received the nexus and had not had time to make
the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, the anger might have been washed away,
submerged. As it was, I saw that they also feared any reaction that might
affect me before my new personality had solidified. Good. I felt the same way
about it
The first death had been that of Hinkley, in
the Library, Wing 18. We knew that it had occurred in cubicle 17641, his
private living quarters there, as we had all become instantly aware of his
terminal impressions. He was with us still, but he was unable to supply any
clues as to the motives or identity of his slayer. We had all reacted
differently to the death, in keeping with our private temperaments, but none of
us had any notion as to the reason for the killing and no one had done anything
about it yet. As for Lange's/my body, it still lay in the Victorian drawing
room of the Cocktail Lounge of Wing 19, unless the old man had done something
with it.
. . . And nobody recognized Mr. Black. No one
knew him from anywhere. I assigned myself the task of running the search for him,
as I would have access to the necessary equipment very soon.
Davis
was in the Library, Wing 18, keeping an eye
on cubicle 17641. He had already seen to it that the quarters were shown as
vacant and the phone switched to automatic answering. It was decided that he
should not enter yet, but continue his watch until Serafis could get there.
Serafis was a medic and could file the necessary papers showing death from
natural causes. Then the body would be taken to Winkel's funeral home and
disposed of quickly.
Lange was a problem, though. It was not only
that another natural-causes certification by Serafis would look peculiar,
coming from a different Wing and so soon after Hinkley's—but Lange had just had
a very thorough checkup and had been found to be in good condition.
It was decided that Winkel would go after the
body and dispose of the evidence while he was at it. He was in a position to
make the pickup look legitimate if almost anyone else came upon the scene. The
body would then be transported to Wing Null, causing it to vanish from known
existence. There it would be frozen, until we decided upon its most suitable
disposition. In the meantime, we would have Lange put on leave from his
employment and use his card for transportation, meals and occasional small
purchases, so that he would continue, officially, to exist.
All available evidence would of course be
gathered for our own private investigation of the killings. The fear that we
felt was very strong. It had to be more than coincidence that two of us had
gotten it as we had, and we were unable to come up with any guesses as to the
reason which were not absolutely chilling. The exercise was somewhat futile, so
we agreed to break the mesh for the time being and get on with the necessary
actions immediately. I was to proceed to Wing Null, to make the adjustments
needed for a permanent arrangement between Lange and myself.
I blinked away the shadows of their thoughts
and rose quickly. I brightened the light, paced off a few tentative steps,
reevaluating myself now that I was me once more-Well, almost me.
As I saw it, someone was out to destroy the
entire family. The motive was immaterial. The fact that the only two murders in
recent times should be of family members was sufficient. There were not that
many of us around. It indicated, to me, that what we had thought the best-kept
secret in the House had somehow been found out—at least in part. Mr. Black was
doubtless waiting, planning to strike again. I would begin seeking him from Wing
Null as soon as I had taken care of my other business there.
And when I found him, what?
I pushed the question aside, still unwilling
to consider the answer my anger was offering. Later, later ...
And again the fear ... Not only my distress at
the thought that death might be waiting for me anywhere now—but the Lange/me
fear of the partial suicide we were now constrained to commit. You are not
supposed to look at it that way, any more than you consider the removal of a
throbbing tooth to be a small death. But there it was, and we had to go do it
now.
As I left the alcove, thinking along these
lines, I do recall it passing through my mind that if we were capable of doing
it to ourself ...
I did not retrace my way through the Living
Room, but traveled a circuitous route in the other direction, coming at last to
a slow, narrow side-belt which I rode for a time. A flat, towering partition
lay to my left, covered with an abstract design, dark-toned and seemingly
endless. To my right were great, semi-lit sections of the Living Room, resting
people haphazardly distributed within.