There was no need for words—they said good-bye with smiles. For the last time, they gazed into each other’s eyes, creating the interlace.
Gillian felt his Paratwa emerge from the meditation chamber into the hot noonday sun of the clearing. Crescent webs sparkled in the humid air. Their Cohe wands lashed out at the nearest soldiers, bringing death, cutting a swath of destruction through the ranks of the fighters until hundreds lay dead.
But there were too many—thousands—with reinforcements arriving constantly. And Gillian sensed, in those final moments, that these human warriors fought with a determination bred of deep hatred for the Paratwa.
Catharine’s shield twisted the wrong way; a powerful blast penetrated her side portal, lifted her off the bloodstained grass...
Gillian screamed as that terrible moment returned—his death, the slaying of his Paratwa, and he knew that he had descended to the very core of his pain. The interlace, ripped in half, disappeared, and a golden inner light, with the intensity of a thousand suns, impossible to perceive yet impossible to ignore, overwhelmed him. And then something hit him from behind and the golden fire choked, became embers of gray; dissolution.
* * *
Silence.
Rome watched Gillian emerge from the pain. Tension seemed to have disappeared from him. The gray eyes looked sharp and clear, free of madness. But his hands were still flashing across the keyboard. In some unconscious way, he was still responding to the program.
Nick spoke tentatively. “Are you ... all right?”
Gillian stared at Nick and for a moment, the midget met his intense gaze. Then Nick turned away.
“I’m sorry, Gillian. I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry...”
“Stop blaming yourself.”
Nick raised his eyes.
Gillian looked at the midget and perceived his own tragedy from a new perspective.
“Don’t feel guilty, Nick. You did what you had to do. You saved my life. Back then, I could not have survived the pain. You gave me a chance to function as a singularity, a chance to become something more than a tway, to acquire the strength to someday face my truth.”
Nick grimaced.
Rome frowned. The screen still flashed questions and Gillian’s hands continued to answer them. He appeared to be completely unaware of the process.
Gillian shuddered with excitement. Released from the agony, he felt as if he had been reborn; his mind drifted in a clear stream of new thoughts, each thought waiting to be snagged and examined.
Flexing! That’s what started it!
Eagerly, he turned to Rome. “My flexing urge came back. It was Sirak-Brath. That Colony reminded me of Earth, triggered my hidden needs. And the boy. Jerem...”
Gillian shook his head, amazed that he could have been so blind. “Jerem Marth brought my emotions to the surface. He triggered feelings in me that I had suppressed since Catharine died.
“As a young Paratwa, I learned a special way to flex. Rather than hold back the urges until they threatened to burst out, I was taught another method—to allow the flex at periodic intervals, four-hour intervals. That’s what came back to me. Jerem triggered feelings in me that I could neither acknowledge nor restrain. He forced my mind back into the old contours. Those four-hour flashes of memory precisely corresponded to my old flexing urges!”
Nick spoke softly, without looking at Gillian. “Yes, that’s what it was. The real you coming back.”
Gillian shouted, caught in the throes of another insight. “Grace—she reminded me of Catharine! When Grace was killed, it was like Catharine dying all over again. That’s what threw me over the edge! All the pain began to come back—I couldn’t handle it.” He shook his head. “No wonder I went mad.”
A sudden sadness washed over him. “Grace helped me to take the final step. It was through her death that I was able to ... return.”
He felt sudden anger. He remembered the men of the old Earth Patrol Forces, whom he had trained and taken into battle against the Paratwa; men who had fought and died under his leadership; men who had been, for a short time, his friends. And he remembered yesterday: the Skeibalis Inn—Grace, Aaron, and Santiago.
E-Tech shaped me into a weapon to be used against my own kind—to hunt and kill Paratwa. Back then, I had no choice. I thought I was avenging my parents; as a Paratwa, I never had parents. The woman I thought to be my wife was actually my tway. My real enemy was not the Paratwa—it was the humans.
But I have changed. I have truly experienced life in both worlds. I have been Paratwa and I have been Gillian—not merely a separated tway, but a human, alone and unique. And now the choices I make will be of my own free will.
Haddad caught Gillian’s attention. “What was your real name?”
Gillian answered with a smile, “Why, it was Gillian, of course. As tways, we used other names, but Gillian and Catharine were our secret names, known to no one but ourselves.”
Rome frowned. “I believe the Pasha was inquiring about your Paratwa name.”
Gillian looked down at the keyboard. Abruptly, he became aware that his fingers were still typing. I’m still running the program!
He felt a mixture of shock and amusement. He turned to Nick, “It appears that this program has a sizable number of mnemonic cursors. I don’t seem to be able to stop.”
The midget had recovered his poise. He answered calmly.
“You can’t stop until you run the entire sequence.”
“How long is that going to take me?”
“About six hundred years.”
Gillian laughed, then realized that Nick was not joking. “You’ve designed a shortcut, I trust.”
“Of course. Just answer the Pasha’s question.”
Gillian smiled. “I thought I did answer it.”
“No,” Nick corrected. “You were asked what your real name was—your Paratwa name. You did not respond.”
Gillian scowled. He felt as if they were toying with him.
“Think about it,” said Nick. “Consider why you can’t remember your name. Consider that this program will take six hundred years to run and that there is no way for you to stop the sequence, nor escape from this terminal. You’re trapped. Gillian. Until you allow yourself to remember everything, you’re a prisoner of this machine.”
Gillian tried to stand up, tried to slide his chair away from the terminal. He could not. His hand, slapping against the keys, prevented any escape. No matter how he tried, no matter what thoughts he filled his mind with, he found that he could not move away from the terminal.
He grinned. “Nick, this is crazy.”
“Your name,” prodded the midget. “Tell us your name.”
He frowned. “Honestly, Nick, if I could remember, I’d tell you. But I don’t recall ever having a Paratwa name.”
“Then sit there for six hundred years.”
Gillian chuckled. “You’ve put me in another impossible situation, Nick. I obviously can’t sit here for six hundred years.”
He stopped. The inner voice returned. That’s not true. You can sit here for six hundred years.
And he knew it was the truth.
Six hundred years. The figure itself seemed to possess some meaning. Six hundred years—it’s a number that was once important to me.
He spoke slowly, the words coming to him as if out of a dream.
“I ... can ... live ... for ... six hundred years.”
His muscles quivered. He felt some deep spirit come to life—a cellular passion—winding through him, full of growth. His awareness registered the sensation, conceptualized.
The earlier part of the program unlocked my experience of Catharine’s death, the killing of our Paratwa. But E-Tech had much more to hide from me. They had to disguise my life as well as my death. That required a deeper narcosis. The very essence of my existence—my true identity—had to be buried.
“I can live for six hundred years.”
He remembered. The truth did not come as a flash of agon
y; it was more like coming out of a long sleep. He simply woke up.
The mnemonic cursors recognized the return of Gillian’s full consciousness. The program shut down. He pulled his hand away from the keyboard and stood up.
Rome, Haddad, and Begelman stared at him with confused expressions. Only Nick understood.
Gillian shook his head sadly. He spoke slowly, as if out of a dream.
“My breed had special gifts. We were more than just mere Paratwa. We were an experiment in cellular protraction, a defiance of entropy. Our minimum lifespan, barring unnatural causes of death, was estimated to be six hundred years.”
Begelman’s eyes widened. Haddad shook his head in disbelief.
Rome recalled Nick’s warning. There’ll come a day when you’ll learn everything. But on that day, you just might wish for the relief of ignorance.
The day had come. Rome understood. There was only one possible explanation. “You were of the Royal Caste,” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Gillian. “I was Empedocles of the Ash Ock.”
O}o{O
On Rome’s office monitor, the Lion of Alexander appeared older and less dignified than he had this morning, in person. When the Lion spoke, his weathered skin crumbled into a moving mosaic, a rough gridwork of deep creases and mottled flesh, dancing across shallow cheeks like ancient cornfields in the wind. Removed from the Lion’s presence, Rome suffered even greater difficulty trying to fuse the Costeau’s youthful voice with his mannequin of a body. Speaker and words would not blend properly, remained two distinct entities.
“You ask much of us,” uttered the Lion. “I would have to assemble our tribunal and the clan leaders, present your request. Such action would take time. I have just now arrived back home; other clan leaders still remain out of colony. In any event, the clan might consider your request an invitation to our own genocide.”
“You must convince them otherwise,” said Nick. “And you must do so with haste.”
The midget stood beside Rome, his tiny hand clutching the leather arm of the desk chair. Office lights had been dimmed, shade panels darkened to their maximum effect, the glass wall made opaque to the Irryan night.
On the screen, the Lion shrugged. “You cannot guarantee that my people will not become scapegoats.”
“It’s a possibility,’” admitted Nick.
“What you have told me thus far, this fantastic story—the Church of the Trust as a force of destruction, Bishop Vokir as a Paratwa of the Royal Caste, a new race of Paratwa being bred under the Earth...” The Lion hesitated. “Even if these things are true, I could say that they are not the problems of the Alexanders.”
“Yes, Harry, you could say that.” Nick wagged his finger at the screen. “And we both know you’d be lying. Through Bishop Vokir, Codrus commands Reemul. It was the bishop who gave the order to murder and torture eleven of your clan. It was the bishop who was ultimately responsible for the deaths of Grace and Santiago.
“We need your help and we need it quickly. I’m afraid this Paratwa rampage is almost over. Codrus has what he wants—E-Tech officially responsible for the Paratwa investigation, the Guardians and La Gloria de la Ciencia disgraced. We believe Reemul will be sent on one more killing spree, some final atrocity that will arouse the ire of all the Colonies. Then the Jeek’s death will be faked and the real Reemul will be returned to stasis.
“We must raid those three Earth temples without delay.”
Rome added, “E-Tech cannot become directly involved in this raid. I would have to go before the Council and obtain permission for such a constitutional violation. And as Nick explained, there’s a good chance that Vokir’s tway sits on the Council. If the bishop gets even the slightest hint of our suspicions, whatever lies within those temples could well be placed beyond our reach.”
The Lion shrugged. “E-Tech could launch such a raid without Irrya’s permission.”
“True enough. But if I chose to send E-Tech troops, the chances are high that the bishop would be forewarned. Many of my people belong to Vokir’s Church. They might feel compelled to alert him. In addition, an action of this sort lies beyond the normal activities of E-Tech Security. I’m not sure we could pull it off.”
The Lion smiled thinly. “You mean to say that your people are not skilled as raiders, like the Costeaus?”
Nick interrupted. “Rome did not mean it as an offense.”
“I’m aware of his meaning. No offense is taken. But you must realize what an extraordinary position you would be putting my people in. If you are wrong—if the bishop is innocent and there is nothing hidden within those temples—the Guardians would have reason to launch an all-out assault against the Alexanders. I suspect that Councilor Artwhiler even entertains such an idea.”
“He probably does,” said Rome. “There is no doubt you would be taking a great risk. If the raid doesn’t succeed, the Alexanders will become scapegoats. And E-Tech will not be able to do much to prevent that. I fear that we’d be too busy explaining our own involvement. We would suffer just as badly as you.”
The Lion’s flesh crinkled in anger. He shrank away from the screen. “You would suffer? Indeed! And what would be the price of your suffering, Rome Franco? Would E-Tech have to bury its dead in the poisonous ground of a forsaken world?”
Nick started to reply, but Rome placed a hand on his shoulder, urging him to remain silent,
This man will tolerate nothing less than bare truth. I am not dealing with a councilor or a senator now—men who are accustomed to the speech of politics, the subtle manipulations and deceits. I am speaking to a Costeau.
He gathered his thoughts and met the Lion’s gaze. “I was being callous. I apologize.
“But I won’t apologize for suggesting that others risk their lives in this cause. I am the leader of E-Tech and it is my responsibility to end this threat. I will use whatever means at my disposal to accomplish this, including sacrificing the lives of Alexanders.
“These Paratwa comprise a grave menace, not just to the Alexanders and E-Tech, but to every human being alive, and to the future of humanity.
“As individuals, the Paratwa were ruthless, with a total disregard for human life. But organized under the Ash Ock, they were truly frightening. Those of the Royal Caste were—are—dedicated to the enslavement of our species. They are the enemy. They must be stopped.”
Rome felt himself shaking, possessed by an anger that he could only dimly comprehend. Words seemed to fly from his mouth; harsh sounds, alive with a force of their own.
“And when I say to you that I would sacrifice your people, I feel a hatred of myself, burning inside. Because it makes me like them—like the Paratwa and like the humans of the pre-Apocalypse and like all the other men and women throughout our history who ran away from their own pain and suffering, who gave up their own feelings, in the name of conquest, or progress, or civilization, or a better world for tomorrow. I despise myself for having to decide who lives and who dies! I despise the forces that conspire to strip me of my humanity!”
Rome stopped, out of breath. He caught Nick staring at him, the small face flushed with compassion. On the monitor, the Lion had grown very still.
Rome shook his head. “This thing is necessary. It cannot be ignored.” He stared into the ancient eyes. “We need your help.”
The Lion spoke calmly. If he had been swayed by Rome’s passion, he did not show it. “I will see what can be done, Rome Franco. I promise nothing.”
The Lion broke the connection. The screen went blank.
Nick patted Rome’s arm. “I’ve never heard you speak so well.”
“I don’t often get the chance. There don’t seem to be too many people willing to listen these days,”
“There’s me.”
“Yes, there’s you.”
Not for the first time, Rome was aware of the ironies of the situation. Runaway technology, in the form of the Paratwa, was now being perceived in a harsher light. The Colonies were crying out for E-Tech to
put on a new mantle of leadership. Yet through E-Tech’s seeking of new technological limits, Codrus—if that was indeed who they were dealing with—was allowed to widen the scientific gap. As E-Tech became stronger, the Paratwa gained ground, came closer to their ultimate purpose—the conquest of humanity.
It must end. The Paratwa must be crushed, once and for all.
He sighed. There were other, more immediate problems to face. “How’s Gillian?”
“Better. I was with him before I came up here. He’s still ... contemplating ... his new existence.”
“Did you talk to him about assembling another team?”
“It wasn’t the time.”
Rome nodded. A man who had just been awakened to the fact that he was once a Paratwa of the Royal Caste, with a lifespan of six hundred years, certainly had much to think about.
Six hundred years. That was the hardest part for Rome to accept. What greatness the pre-Apocalyptics were on the verge of! Through their science, they had answered one of humanity’s oldest fantasies. They had discovered the fountain of youth—a way to extend the span of human life.
If they had only discovered a way for humanity to live in peace with itself.
He thought about Codrus—this unknown Ash Ock—and about his manipulation of the ICN over the past two centuries,
Codrus didn’t have to go into stasis from time to time. He didn’t have to emerge into new eras, begin a fresh climb to positions of control. He’s been alive the entire time, existing within our society since the days of the Apocalypse.
What long-term goals these Ash Ock must possess! Their incredible manipulations, the whole concept of sapient supersedure, none of it now seemed so difficult for Rome to accept. A creature with a lifespan measured in centuries would be capable of the most profound insights, be undeterred by plans that might take hundreds of years to fulfill.
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