Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05

by Today We Choose Faces

  For a little while, I refused to accept it. Whoever-— whatever—he was inside, Black had added to it four of my own demons, three of whom I did not know. As one of the clones, there was no reason why he could not. But the thought that he might had not occurred to me, until then. Unprepared as I was, it came to me as a greater shock than anything that had happened recently, including my deaths and the disruption at Wing 5.

  I leaned against the doorframe, keeping an eye on the corridor. Automatically, I found a cigarette and lit it. I had to think clearly and act very quickly now.

  Locate him. That came first.

  All right. He could be anywhere. He could still be around, or he could have returned to the House. The first thing, then, was to check with the Bandit, to see whether he had done anything recordable yet as Winkel. A negative there, and the second thing would be to commence searching Wing Null for him.

  Dimly aware of Glenda's troubled presence, I returned to Comp. I did not note her reactions to the bodies this time, but she remained at my side.

  But I did not query the Bandit. When I crossed over to it, my gaze was drawn downward to a red light that winked within the map of Wing Null that was laid beneath the clear surface of the countertop. It indicated that a hatch had been opened. If this was not a trick meant to distract me, then it meant that my quarry could have gone outside, onto the surface of the planet itself. The chronometer showed me that the hatch had only been opened about four minutes earlier.

  "Damn him! What does he want?" I said, my mind racing.

  Then I made my decision and seized Glenda by the hand.

  "Come on! We are going back next door again. I have to show you something. It is urgent."

  I took her back to the central console in Files. Fetching out my stiletto, I used it to chip away the blob of solder at the base of pin one. Then I turned to Glenda and realized that I was still holding her hand. Her eyes moved from the machinery to the blade to my face. I put the weapon away and lowered her hand, released it.

  "I want to ask a favor," I said. "It is extremely important and I do not have time to explain what it represents."

  "Go ahead and ask," she said.

  "I am about to leave this place and go outside. I have no idea how long I will be out there, though I only intend it to be a brief while. When I return I might be confused, incoherent, injured. That would be the point at which I would need your assistance." I slapped the chair. "Should this occur, I want you to get me into this chair, even if you have to trank me to do it." "With what?" she said.

  "I'll give you a trank gun in a minute. If I seem in any way disturbed or—altered—get me into the chair and lower this hood over my head." I pushed it with my hand. "Then throw these switches—the entire row beginning at the left and taking them in order to the end. Everything else is properly set. Then all you have to do is wait until this blue light comes on. When that happens, pull this pin all the way out of the board. That's all." "Then what happens?"

  "I do not know—specifically, that is. But it is the only treatment I can think of for what might occur. I have to go now. Will you do it if it seems necessary—if I am dazed, bewildered?"

  "Yes. If you will promise to answer my questions afterward."

  "Fair enough. Please repeat the procedure back to me." She did, and I hurried her outside once more. "I will take you to a comfortable place near to the hatch," I said, "where you can wait, and view the surface outside. You will be able to see me depart and return." I wondered about that light, though, and decided to show her how to opaque the window if it became necessary.

  "... One other thing," I added. "I may not be me when I come back."

  She halted.

  "I beg your pardon," she said.

  "My appearance could be different. Well, I could be another person."

  "What you are saying then is that I force the next person I see under that machine, whether he likes the idea or not."

  "Only if he seems confused, disturbed .. ."

  "I'd think anybody would be if you tried to force him under that thing."

  "It won't be just anybody. It will be me, in one form or another."

  "All right. It will be done. But there is one other thing."

  "What?"

  "What if nobody comes back?"

  "Then it is all over," I said. "Go home and forget all about this."

  "How? I have no idea where we are, let alone how to get back."

  "In the room of the dead men," I said, "low, and to the left of center on the far wall, there is a small green panel which controls the transport system. It is fairly simple. You would be able to figure it out if you had to."

  I steered her into the lounge then, and she drew back against me, uttering a small cry. The window had been transpared. The moon was out of sight now, but a pale light suffused the landscape, indicating that the second moon—slower, larger, brighter—was already up, but blocked from our view for the moment.

  "That is not just a picture. That is a real window, isn't it?" she said.

  "Yes," I said, pushing her gently forward, passing around and fetching her a trank gun. "Do you know how to use one of these?"

  She was advancing toward the window. She glanced at the gun, murmured, "Yes," and kept going, as if mesmerized. I crossed over, picked up her hand, placed it on her palm and closed her fingers over it.

  "I have never seen the outside before—really," she said.

  "Well, look all you want. I have to go now. There is a simple on-off switch to the left there, under the frame. That's right. That will opaque it for you, if you want."

  "Why would I want to? It is beautiful."

  "There is an optical phenomenon—a blinding light— which comes and goes. You will want to opaque it if it comes."

  "Well, until that happens, I am just going to look. I—"

  "Then goodbye for now. See you again soon."

  "Wait!"

  "I've waited too long already."

  "But I saw something move out there. It could have been a man."

  "Where?"

  She pointed in the direction of the ruins.

  "Over that way."

  I did not see anything moving and she said, "Gone now," and I said, "Thanks," and left her standing there, looking out, wondering whether she was conscious of my departure.

  I made my way on up the corridor to the recess that held the hatch. It was actually a series of three doors, offering various degrees of resistance and forms of protection. All three were undogged, and I passed through quickly, pausing only to check out the pistol.

  It was cool, and the smells of the night came into my nostrils—damp, and tinged with the faint halations of growing things. In a moment, the feeling of novelty faded. I had been outside a few times before—long ago—and the impressions were not unfamiliar.

  I quickly adjusted to movement across the irregular surface and struck off in the direction of the ruin. The silence was occasionally interrupted by little chirping noises, whether by bird or insect I could not tell. I passed through small pockets of fog whenever the ground dipped appreciably. The stones were moist and slippery. In clear spaces I had a shadow, so strong had the moonlight become. Turning, I could see the huge, white orb in its entirety, fat above my fortress now. A few wisps of cloud fled before it, but the sky was otherwise clear and blazing with countless stars. I was taken then by a series of peculiar feelings that began, I suppose, with something of doubt and apprehension.

  The stellar panorama had something to do with it— those stars we had tried to make somehow obscene—as well as the still, stark landscape through which I moved, alone now for the first time in ages, outside the House, pursuing the most enigmatic individual of whom I had knowledge, in the direction of those puzzling ruins. It was unusual that I should think along these lines. The ruins had not been puzzling to me up until then. They were simply there, and that was it, a fact which also contributed to this odd moment's introspection. The possibility then occurred to me that peculiar
things which did not normally strike me as puzzling were probably things about which I had once known something, and like a sword in a stone the edge of my curiosity was blunted at a subconscious level.

  How many things had I known and forgotten? Would any of them be of value to me now? Was I rushing to my destruction by pursuing a man who knew almost everything that I knew, plus several lifetimes' experience of which I knew nothing? Possibly. But I thought I had this encounter worked out. The thing that bothered me was that he should be able to see it, too.

  And why choose this place as our battlefield? It had to do with the ruins, I knew. I realized then that I was somewhat afraid of them. Why?

  If only I had pulled more pins . ..

  I moved ahead, ready for an ambush but doubting one would come, yet.

  Not a sparkle, not a glimmer emerged from the ruins. They were still, their shadows only just now beginning to retreat from the moonlight.

  My footfalls came soft, muffled. My breathing seemed the loudest thing about me . . .

  The ground rose, then dipped again, and for a moment I had a very clear view for a good distance. He was nowhere in sight, though. There came a breeze, cool, light, and the fogs diminished, were gone, as I made my way onto higher ground.

  I was aiming to kill a man in the name of pacificism, harmony, fraternity, and to maintain the integrity of the House. That his intentions toward me were also lethal was fairly obvious by now. While I was uncertain as to the principles involved, it was apparent that he disagreed with me on the question of cloistering humanity. This was sufficient reason to remove him, so far as I was concerned. However, while with anyone else I would simply have dismissed him as misguided, his persistence and occasional ingenuity had aroused my curiosity as to his reasons.

  I had no doubts as to the correctness of my own beliefs, that human nature could be altered, that man could be forced to evolve morally. As I made my way about a small, scummy pool at the center of a crater, I did, for a moment, wonder why. It was not a questioning of the notions, simply a sudden curiosity as to where I had obtained them. It seemed that they had always been a part of my mental equipment. This being so, it struck me that with all those pulled pins Black and I now shared an ancestry with which he should be by far the more conversant. Such being the case, it would seem he should have acquired the proper philosophical attitude. There were several possibilities . . .

  Either he possessed an overriding imperative to the contrary, he had been changed, or our early past was sufficiently ambiguous for him to live without altering his attitudes.

  It may have been that all three were to some extent correct. The nature of the former was presently as unknowable to me as the ultimate source of my own sentiments. I mean, I was aware that my own notions were rational without necessarily being logical, that is to say, deductive. They were a part of my mental—"tradition" I guess is the best word. Say his feelings were as strong, and I suppose it was possible that the accumulations of four lifetimes dumped upon him by the pulling of the pins might not have swayed him over to my way of thinking. Still, there had to be some effect ... It was like guessing at the results of a test wherein two virtually unknown chemicals were to be mixed and heated, though.

  The third thought was what troubled me, as it touched on something of a sore spot I had but recently developed . . .

  Namely, the possibility that my past was not so firm a thing as my present. Supposing there was actually something there to comfort and abet him? The reason for the partial suicide by means of the pin with each succession of the nexus was more than personality adjustment for a permanent meshing. It was also intended as a progressively civilizing act, a further paring away on each occasion of those elements best classified as antisocial, in keeping with the evolving temper of the times. My present state of being was evidence of the effectiveness of the system. I was capable of things which I knew would have caused Lange or Engel to writhe, to recoil with revulsion, possibly to pass out. For the moment I was glad of this, because of the man I pursued. But although I felt myself a necessary evil, I regretted the necessity. The means were vindicated only because Black was an anachronism.

  But what things lay behind the other pins? That was what troubled me. I knew what I had been until very recently, and I knew what I had become. The return had been a comfortable and natural thing, and I absorbed and dominated my later selves quite easily—as if they had been but brief moods. All the unsacrificed portions of Jordan were part of my memory; the rest I knew through the interface darkly when, at times of crisis, he became my personal demon. Offhand, I would say that he was a trifle meaner and more unprincipled than I. By extension, then, might not the even earlier versions of myself lend support rather than contradiction to whatever made Black run? I had been lifting myself by my own bootstraps, step by painful step. But what if I had not? What if there had been no overpowering will to improve my condition, and no effort? Black and I were of the same flesh. I did not understand how or why, but we were. And this was what made me apprehensive. The only real difference between us was an idea, or an ideal. And, as facets of the same person, we were still willing, in a completely literal sense, to kill ourself over it. The feeling that gripped me at that moment was not unlike the one that had taken Engel as he fled by ranks of jangling phones. Only I knew that if I answered, the voice on the other end would be my own.

  Peering ahead, I picked my way among haphazard heaps of shattered stone. I contained my feelings, partly suppressed them, kept alert. He could be waiting in ambush at any point.

  I passed a small crater within and about which the rocks had been fused. Almost immediately after that, the ground took a turn upward and I picked a broken course up the long incline, shards and splinters of some mineral glittering underfoot. Abruptly, I came to a high point beyond a stand of boulders, from which I could see the ruins about three-quarters of a mile distant.

  I sought cover immediately and studied the prospect It was still and clear in the moonlight, with no apparent movement anywhere, except for a few small flying things that dipped and darted quickly by. There was no light from within the ruins. I watched for a brief while, glanced back at the dark bulk of the Wing with its one small square of illumination, turned my eyes ahead once more.

  Then I saw him.

  Advancing quickly, he had just emerged from a jagged declivity that lay like a broken lightning bolt halfway across the plain. Dodging among rocks, he continued on toward the ruins.

  I was after him immediately, racing down the slope, skidding and slipping, dislodging gravel. No need for stealth now I knew where he was. I broke into a run at the first opportunity. It appeared that he was indeed making his way toward that smashed fortress, and I felt a sudden need to reach him before he got there. I felt more troubled that he was heading for it than if he had been laying a simple ambush. His knowledge of the past being greater than mine, I feared that he knew to seek something within that might give him the edge in our coming conflict.

  Down, then up again. There were no more major dips the rest of the way. It was all uphill, pocked, fused, cracked, strewn with rubble. Running became impossible before very long, but I pushed myself to my limits and gained on him. How long before he became aware of me?

  Minutes later, it did not matter. I was closer to him than he was to the ruins. And the first couple of times he looked back he missed me somehow. I was gasping by then and very conscious of the rushing of blood in my temples. I slowed. I had to.

  He caught sight of me shortly after that, stared a moment, turned and broke into a run. Cursing, I followed at the best pace I could manage. We were still too far apart to bother shooting at each other.

  For a little while then, it was a question of hoping for him to tire quickly while I tried hard not to myself. If I could just hold up a little longer, he might become convinced that this was the way it was going to work. I wanted him to decide that running was not going to get him where he was headed in time, so that he might as well turn and
fight and get things over with, one way or the other.

  He looked back again, and although it pained me I put on a burst of speed. We were almost within hailing distance. He faltered slightly, hurried again.

  Slowly, things cleared a bit, steadied. It seemed my second wind was on its way. I began to feel that I would hold up. When he looked back about a minute later that was apparently his conclusion, too.

  He veered to the right, making for an area of large stones and small rubble. Great! I did the same. I was not about to play it slow and careful when I was wearing body armor.

  I had my pistol ready before he disappeared behind the nearest boulder. I swung wide as I passed it, but he was not there. He had kept going, and the first shot came at me from a stand of stone about a hundred feet away.

  I held my own fire as I charged his position, waiting for him to show himself again, as he pulled back that first time. I was not going to waste a shot on that skimpy a target at that distance.

  He did, at about fifty feet, and we both fired. I felt the impact on my chest armor, and my own shot ricocheted off the stone.

  I kept running and we both kept firing. This time he did not retreat. My armor stopped two more of his shots, I believe. Then he jerked with one of mine. For a moment, my hopes rose.

  We each got off one more shot, though.

  It came as a blinding pain in the left side of my head, and I stumbled. My pistol fell from my numbed fingers.

  I could not permit it to end that way. I thought that I heard a metallic click near to my head. Turning, I saw the tops of his shoes. My right arm was completely useless, but I could not let him simply stand there, reload and pull the trigger again.

  I grabbed at his ankles with my left hand, and I caught one. The left, I think. He tried to pull free, but I was able to maintain my grip. Then he tried to kick me with his free foot, just as I jerked at his ankle and rolled myself toward him.

  He went down.

  I let go, and with my left hand I managed to get the bent stiletto out of my jacket.

  It was too far to his heart or throat, though, and he was already moving again. The only thing I could see was to try severing the artery in his leg nearest me with the one slash I might be able to make. I might be able to throw myself on him and hold him down while he bled to death. Then only one ordeal would remain.