Mercenary

by Piers Anthony

  I spun to the side, and the scene obligingly shifted, sliding past me laterally, vibrating; when I stopped, it continued more rapidly, carrying the monsters along. But this was dizzying. I clapped my eyelids down; the clang as they slammed closed echoed loudly across my skull and set the jelly of my brain to vibrating. That was worse than the monsters, so I reopened my eyes, cautiously so the orbs would not burst loose from their sockets in the vacuum, but it was all right; they were contained. Now I saw my hand before my face, outlined in double contours without and within, so that it was at once skeletal and ballooningly fat. The contours tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, sextupled, until I blinked, reminded of something by that last description; I had been in quest for a woman. Then the multiple lines vanished, replaced by solid colors, red contrasting sharply with green, blue with orange, yellow with brown. But underneath remained the hand, the empty hand, proffering what was more horrible than anything it could have held. I wrenched away again, trying to scream, trying to blot it out.

  And a man loomed before me, but the sounds he uttered were unintelligible, a meaningless roar. I peered into his face, but it was blank, devoid of soul. As I looked, I saw a progression of features on him: human, ape, feline, reptilian, with staring eyes. I realized he was but a shell, an incubus, a golem of no account. I shoved him aside, and he moved with strange lightness, as if he were canvas filled with foam, and I went on to the next, and he, too, was nothing. I continued past a crowd of them, until I came to the master-entity, a monster in vague man-shape, foul smelling. I saw it take hold of a man and crush him in a bear hug so hard that flesh pulped under the skin, so that he was rendered into a shapeless mass. Then the monster sank a hollow fang into the top of the victim’s head and sucked out the multicolored juice, and the skin-sac shriveled as the substance was depleted. When the bag was empty except for the rattling bones, the monster blew foul air through its tooth, inflating the sac until it was as turgid as a space suit in a vacuum. The man was restored as a soul-empty shape, a balloon, a doppelgänger who moved about among the others who did not notice the change. Who accepted it as an ordinary person.

  Now the monster came for me, for I still had juice in me, and I could not flee him. There was blood all around me, pooling on the floor, spattered on the walls. Evidently some had leaked from the victims of the monster while they were being squeezed. I didn’t want to step in it, knowing it would somehow destroy me, but the monster was reaching for me. I was too frightened to think straight or even fight, knowing I was doomed.

  Words came through from the confusion of notes and blood. “Hope... Hope... Hope... Hope...”

  I paused, seeking the source. “Who calls me?”

  “Repro. Repro. Hope, you have been drugged. Drugged! Do you understand?”

  “Drugged,” I repeated. It did seem to make sense.

  “Hallucinogenic, evidently. Are you in a vision?”

  “Vision,” I agreed. I was not surprised that I could talk to him. At the moment, nothing surprised me.

  “We don’t yet know what drug it is, so can’t neutralize it. But I can help guide you through the vision till it passes. I have had experience with hallucinogens. Just listen to me, and all will be well. Do you understand?”

  “Understand.” Then I essayed a more relevant thought, as my mind was quite clear, regardless what my senses were doing. “There’s a monster here, about to squeeze me to a pulpy mass, suck me dry, and blow me up again as a doppelgänger. I can’t flee it; there’s blood spattered all around.”

  “That sounds like the boraro,” he said after a pause for thought. “An ancient spirit of South America associated with the jungle and with visions. I have encountered him in the past. He carries a quartz crystal to make him fierce. Do you see that?”

  I peered at the monster. Sure enough, now I saw the bright crystal held by one paw. “I see it.”

  “If you can take it away from him, he will not attack you.”

  “Take it away from him!” I exclaimed. “I don’t dare get close to him!”

  “Then give him milk and honey; that will pacify him, and you can escape while he’s eating. Both milk and honey have a seminal character, so are potent in magic. The boraro loves potency. He is a manifestation of a person’s repressed instincts, so—”

  “I have no milk and honey!” I cried as the monster took another step toward me, bear arms extended, sucking-tooth ready. He seemed larger and fiercer than ever.

  “Then you must fight him.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Now listen to me, Hope,” he said. “This is your vision, and you have power. You merely need to know how to use it. You are in your vulnerable human form now; you can change it to something the boraro can’t hurt. In South America, the jaguar was very strong. Change to a jaguar.”

  “A jaguar? A feline animal? I can’t-”

  “Yes you can. I know how these things work. I have been there before you. Just—change. You can do it if you try.”

  The boraro took another step toward me, his pulp-squeezing arms almost enclosing me, and suddenly I was a jaguar. I was on four lithe feet, and my limbs were finely muscled, my torso lean, my senses keen. I felt exhilaration and strength.

  “But beware,” Repro’s voice came. “The jaguar embodies death.”

  I ignored him. I leaped at the boraro, and he fell down, terrified, no further threat to me. I charged on through the jungle, exhilarated. This was my alter ego, my true self; now I could act out my deepest desires with impunity.

  I sniffed, winding female. Ah, yes, I could not touch the flame-forms, but there were others. I followed the currents of the breeze, zeroing in on the scent I wanted. I found a hill and entered a tunnel in it, going down into the subterranean world where the females were lurking, hiding. I burst into a great nether ballroom where women were dancing. I took hold of the nearest and spun her about, and she was made of flesh and her eyes were alive, but she screamed with terror.

  I realized what was wrong. “I have not come to consume you,” I told her. “See, I am really a man!” And I resumed human form, confining as it was, giving up the jaguar alternate.

  But still she flinched away. “I am not really a woman, she told me. “I am a deer in human form.”

  I stared at her and realized it was true. There was a doe-eyed, furry quality about her. She had fled the hunters and concealed herself in this manner. All the dancing women were animals. Still, she was female, and flesh, and that was what counted. I drew her into me hungrily. She tried to resist, but her efforts were ineffective, for she was not a fighting creature. This was, as Repro had pointed out, my vision, and I had power.

  “I will do it,” another female said, interceding. I looked at her, and she was full and beautiful. She had taken the form of Juana. I let the deer-woman go and turned to her. I had always liked that particular form.

  “This way, jaguar,” she said, and led me to a separate chamber within the mountain, where there was a bed. I wondered what kind of animal she was in reality but did not ask, lest her present attractive form be lost. Perhaps she was a female jaguar.

  Then all was immersed in the colors, sounds, odors, and touchings of hallucination, and I lost myself in the raptures of pollination and closeness and warmth, and finally slept.

  When I woke I was in my own room, and Commander Repro was sitting by my hammock. I was back in the mundane world. I felt tired but not ill. Had it been a dream, rather than a vision?

  Repro saw me stir. “Over, sir?” he inquired.

  I nodded. “What happened?”

  “You were dosed with a potent hallucinogen,” he said. “It sent you on a several-hour trip. I don’t know when it began, but it was well advanced when I was summoned. I tried to talk you through it, for that often helps, but lost you.”

  I remember,” I said. “I changed into a jaguar and went rutting after—” I paused. “Maybe you had better tell me just what happened next.”

  “You charged into the enlisted women’s
barracks—”

  “Oh, no! I thought it was a subterranean cavern filled with, er, animals.”

  He smiled. “In human form. I have been there, too. Fear not. Juana was there, and she took you in hand.”

  “Some hand! I—”

  “I explained about the drug,” he said. “The girls understand. They are amused. And Juana—was glad to do it. Your secret will not escape this ship.”

  Probably true. My personnel were loyal to me and to the unit. “I should apologize to—”

  “No need. They rather enjoyed the episode, once they realized what the problem was. Your new bodyguard, Heller, was alarmed, however; every time he approached you, you yelled about the monster. He figured you hadn’t forgiven him for past offenses.”

  “I didn’t recognize him,” I said.

  “What we must do now is discover what the drug was, and when and how you were dosed. I think we know who is behind it.”

  “Kife,” I agreed. “Heller warned me that something was in the offing. But how could dosing me with a hallucinogenic drug—?” I had had to explain about the key to my staff, so they could be alert for QYV.

  “Some of these drugs are addictive,” he reminded me. “Generally, the more potent the effect, the greater the addictive potential. Some are primarily physiological, some psychological, but once you’re hooked, you’re hooked. I happen to know.”

  An understatement! Suddenly I understood. “If I were to become addicted to a rare drug, and Kife was the only source—”

  “You would do almost anything to assure your supply. The key would be only the beginning. You would become the creature of the supplier. There are nameless drugs today that put to shame anything known historically. Believe me, you do not want to go my route. That is why it is essential that we run this down immediately. We must eliminate the guilty party. A single dose should not habituate you, but a very few repetitions could. This appears to be the most potent hallucinogen I’ve seen, considering that it leaves no measurable residue in the body. You can bet that Kife uses only the best.”

  I saw his point. He was the expert here, and now I was selfishly glad he was an addict. His guidance had indeed helped me get through the vision. “This wouldn’t by any chance be similar to what you—?”

  “No. Mine is not hallucinogenic. It merely enables me to function. I am on it now.”

  Just so. I had never inquired into his addiction, because if I ever officially learned of it, I would be required to discipline him— a pointless exercise. I knew he would die if deprived of his drug. Only in this privacy could the subject be mentioned at all, and only now was he trusting me with this confirmation. My staff had given him the song “Beautiful Dreamer,” but there was nothing beautiful about it. Commander Repro was on a spiral sliding slowly to Hell, and the best I could do for him was to try to implement his dream of the perfect unit, and use it to extirpate both piracy and the drug trade from the face of the Solar System. Certainly I did not wish to join him on that spiral.

  We reviewed my activities immediately prior to the episode in detail, and concluded that the drug must have been slipped into my food. These chemicals could be tasteless and colorless, so potent that a few milligrams did the job. Therefore we launched a rapid private investigation into both the food supplies and personnel associated. With excellent computerized records and Commander Mondy’s insights, we were able to accomplish in hours what once would have required weeks.

  Food and personnel were clean. We had to assume this had been a one-shot deal, leaving no trace. It was frustrating, but we were stuck. QYV was indeed a slick operator. But I felt no compulsion to take more of whatever drug it was.

  Then I had another vision. This time the geometric and color patterns were fleeting, and I proceeded directly to the action. I became the jaguar, hunting prey. The colors about me formed a rainbow, and that converted to a huge python, and that became a bolt of lightning that returned to thunder and rain. The rain fell so heavily that it formed a huge, branching river, and I saw that rivers, like snakes, were both male and female. The mouth of the river was its female orifice, and to ascend by that mouth was to indulge in symbolic copulation. I did this and saw the water nymphs swimming; I resolved to catch one for my own, but she eluded me, being more versatile than I in this medium, and so the jaguar had no woman.

  Repro was there again when I came out of it. “Must have been a smaller dose this time,” he said. “That’s fortunate; your intoxication was not as intense.”

  I agreed, relieved. Not only had the duration been less, so had the intensity of the experience. I had enjoyed it but felt no strong compulsion to return to it. I remained unaddicted; but where had the drug come from?

  My food had been monitored this time, just to be sure; there had been no drug in it. We searched everything, and tested the water I had last drunk: nothing. We had the air ducting gone over and the rest of the life-support apparatus. Nothing.

  “Maybe it was only a flashback,” Repro said doubtfully. “That does happen. Many of the visual effects are the result of phosphenes, subjective images that originate within the optic system itself. It’s a common phenomenon, and phosphenic patterns appear in many art forms. Drugs stimulate them, but they can occur spontaneously. Many hallucinogenic drugs produce phosphenes of geometric motifs; these are not true visions, but an intermediate form.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed uncertainly. I was deeply disturbed by this demonstrated ability of QYV to penetrate our defense.

  Next day I had another vision. This time I entered a quiet jungle glade where natives were playing flutes formed from bones and the shells of snails. This was a haunted spot, dangerous to visit, because spirits of slain animals were present. When I intruded, the spirits of those animals turned on me and riddled me with tiny arrows: their vengeance for being hunted. “But I’m not a hunter!” I protested. “I’m a refugee!” Then they faded away; I knew that none of this was real, and I snapped out of it.

  When I told Repro, he was perplexed. “That was a vision, not a phosphene,” he said. “Yet very mild, almost a daydream. You must have been dosed—”

  I shrugged, and touched one of my healing scrapes, which were not after all the wounds from tiny psychic arrows. The medicinal salve had really helped.

  Salve? I had used it three times.

  “Test this salve!” I exclaimed.

  That was the answer. The salve had been heavily laced with an extremely rare, potent, highly addictive hallucinogenic drug whose chemical description was meaningless to me but caused Repro to whistle, shaken, as he reviewed the lab results. “You have had three doses; you should be addicted now. This stuff is like a shot from a laser cannon!”

  “I’m not addicted,” I protested. “I have no craving for it.”

  Indeed I was not. There are ways to test for drug susceptibility, and Repro knew them, and we used them. I was now immune to this particular drug. My system was developing antibodies against it, protecting me.

  “I never heard of that before,” Repro said. “Apparently you cannot be habituated; your body treats addictive drugs like disease and fights them with increasing effectiveness on repeated exposure.”

  Just as my mind was able to tune in to the natures of other people, rapidly enabling me to protect myself against them. And my emotion had developed a block against the shock of threats against my life, so that the horror of death had not caused me to suffer from post-traumatic stress in the manner of Mondy. I had not before realized that there was a physiological component of my talent, but it made sense. I was blessed with an unusual, subtle, but quite useful system.

  It developed that I remained vulnerable to other types of drugs. My immunity was only to this specific one, and to a lesser extent to closely related drugs, and it did take time to develop. We found that I had used the salve before, but only irregularly and in very small amounts, so that the full effect had not been triggered and I had suffered no visions. But my body had gotten a head start on defending against it.
Otherwise, my second and third major episodes could have been far more intense than they were, though I still could not have become addicted.

  Repro shook his head. “I wish I had your immune system.”

  “I wish I could share it with you.” But, of course, I could not.

  We agreed to keep this matter private. We couldn’t even discover who had doused the salve; it had been part of my private supply for several months. Evidently QYV had set this up as a sleeper, knowing that sooner or later I would use it. That had been correct, and only my unusual body chemistry had prevented this insidious ploy from being effective.

  But QYV might now suppose that I was addicted. Quite possibly I could turn that supposition to my advantage when the right time came. Mondy was the one who perceived how: “Have Commander Phist put in a requisition for some of the components of that drug,” he suggested. “We cannot duplicate it precisely, but this will suggest we are trying to. Kife will get the message and may come forward with an offer.”