How lonely he had been.
He is smiling and thinking of Astrid when his next patient wanders into his office. It is a young man he has seen before, one of those pompous Rakehells. The young man looks confused. Stubble covers his chin and his forehead where his artificial widow’s peak is growing back in. With him is a slim young woman. She is one of the Engineered, judging from her hair. She wears a simple coverup and no makeup. She is very pretty, though there are dark circles under her eyes.
He glances down at the panel attached to his desk. Cadell Tichener. With a quick tap he calls up Cadell’s chart.
“Good day, Cadell,” he says, studying the chart. “It’s been a while since we last saw each other, hasn’t it?”
Cadell ignores him and begins to walk toward one side of the room. The woman grabs his elbow and maneuvers him toward the chair in front of Edward’s desk. “Here you go, sweetheart. Sit, sit.”
He drops into the chair, looking distracted. The woman remains standing.
“How are you, Cadell?” Edward asks. “Still having trouble with that knee?”
The woman clears her throat. “I’m Amarantha Kirton. I’m the one who brought him here.”
“I see,” Edward says, though he doesn’t understand why that should matter. Then, looking at her face closely for the first time, he nearly drops the chart. “You’re the one who . . .” He shuts his mouth abruptly.
“I’m the one who what?”
Edward feels his face flush. He turns back toward Cadell, tilting his face as far from Amarantha as possible to hide his confusion. “Nothing,” he says quickly. “I was thinking of somebody else. What’s the matter with Cadell?”
Now it is Amarantha’s turn to be flustered. “He’s been . . . He isn’t . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Look at his neck,” she says finally.
Edward walks around the desk. He places one hand on Cadell’s shoulder and firmly lifts his chin with the other. A deep red scar with yellow edges runs across his throat. “Would you mind if I touched it?” Edward asks Cadell.
“He’s not talking,” Amarantha says, her voice uneven. “That’s why we’re here. There’s something wrong with him. He hasn’t said a word in almost two days.”
Edward runs his finger gently along the scar. “What happened to him?”
“He was trying to . . .” Again at a loss for words, Amarantha puts her fingers to her forehead. “There was a fight. A clop got his shockstick around Cadell’s throat, and he wouldn’t let go.” Amarantha shudders at the memory. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t let go. Of course Cadell was struggling; the clop was holding him so tight he was lifting him off the ground! His face was so red it was almost purple. Sparks were flying off the stick. The clop didn’t let go until Cadell stopped moving.”
Amarantha covers her eyes with her hand and leans against the desk. Cadell watches her with a quizzical look on his face.
Edward puts his hands on either side of Cadell’s jaw. Cadell flinches at his touch, then relaxes. Edward turns Cadell’s head from side to side. He pulls out a light and shines it in his eyes, watching the pupils contract.
“Has he ever been execrated?” Edward asks quietly.
Amarantha lifts her head and looks at him. “Why?”
“It can cause deep neural damage, but sometimes the effects don’t present until a second trauma. Oxygen deprivation, for example.” “He was execrated when he was sixteen. It was years ago, before I met him.”
Edward puts his hands on Cadell’s temples. On either side, just above the ears, he can feel a small lump where the microwaves burned him. “How long was he execrated?”
“I don’t know. Not long, I think, because it wasn’t a serious offense. He was an actor.”
“Mmm.” Edward’s mother took him to plays when he was a boy. The fear of being caught was part of the pleasure for her. But the audiences were rarely punished — there were too many of them. It was the actors who suffered for their art. Edward had never thought about them much before now.
He performs a series of tests. There is little he can do in cases like this. His equipment is so meager, and he has to wait such a long time to use the more expensive equipment, but there are simple procedures he can perform that tell him what he needs to know. The results of the tests are exactly what he expected.
He takes a deep breath. “Amarantha,” he says, “I’m sorry, but Cadell’s condition is very serious. I’ve seen these symptoms before in people who have been execrated, and they indicate a profound change in Cadell’s mental state.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“It’s called dissociative autism. Execration causes emotional as well as physical pain. That’s why it’s so effective. But sometimes it has adverse long-term effects on the brain. The neural damage actually affects the way Cadell perceives reality. His personality and reasoning are unchanged, but his intellectual and emotional interpretations of that data are transfigured. He sees and hears what’s going on around him, but he . . . well, you could say he thinks it’s all happening to somebody else.”
“What can we do about it?”
“No one has ever been able to reverse it. We don’t even know exactly what’s wrong in Cadell’s brain. Nobody knows how execration works. It was discovered by trial and error.”
Amarantha reaches out and grabs Edward’s hands in hers. Her fingers are cool and dry. The tips are rough with small callus pads. “Listen,” she says. “I need to help him. I need him back. And he needs me. Together, we’re both so much better than we are apart.”
Uncomfortable with this unsought intimacy, Edward looks away. He is unsure whether he should try to disengage his hands from hers or not. “I’m sorry,” he says. “A hundred years ago — even fifty — I think maybe something could have been done for him. But today . . . the most sophisticated equipment has all been reduced to scrap.” “You’re not listening to me!” Amarantha’s tiny hands squeeze Edward’s. He is astounded by her strength. “Before I met him, I didn’t know what life was. Now I know. It starts with him, and then it goes on forever.” She squeezes tighter. “I’ll do anything to bring him back. What can I do?”
Edward looks at Cadell, who has taken the atomizer from Edward’s desk and is turning it over in his hands. Edward says, “I wouldn’t recommend hoping for . . .”
“It’s not a question of hope. Tell me what I can do.”
As gently as he can, Edward pulls his hands free from Ama-rantha’s. Her eyes follow him intently. Her irises are such a pale green they are almost yellow. She is so young, he thinks. Too young for this. “Talk to him,” he says. “Keep the connection between words and things alive in his mind. There’s a slight chance he might be able to grow new neural pathways in his brain.”
She listens to the advice carefully. Her face is very solemn. If she is aware of the truth — that the things that Edward is saying are only reassuring lies — she gives no sign. For her sake, he hints at possible treatments and a chance of remission, but in his mind he has already given up on Cadell.
When Amarantha and Cadell are gone he picks up his panel and writes simply, “Traumatic autism. Prognosis: negative.”
EPIPHANY
Second Son hurries down the hallway, stumbling past the Scrutators, shrugging aside those who wish to talk to him. His face is flushed, and his breathing is quick and shallow.
Suddenly Dancer is standing in front of him, hands on her hips, blocking his path. He tries to dodge around her, but she moves with him. She grabs him by the shoulders.
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Out of my way!” he shouts, trying to squirm free of her grasp.
“I need to talk to you.” Her voice is low and serious, almost sad.
“I don’t have time. My eyes have been opened. I need to see!”
“Stop babbling and listen to me! We lost the vote.”
Second Son blinks, taking it in. Then he resumes his struggle. “It doesn’t matter. I
t hit me in the library. All of a sudden. I know what to do now.”
“We need to talk.” She loosens her grip. “We need to plan. This is our future we’re talking about.”
He ducks and slips under her arm. “No, it’s not. Not anymore.” She lunges after him, but this time he is too quick. He runs down the hall as fast as he can, not looking back.
Finally he reaches the rotunda. He punches in the security code to enter the sensoriums. He does not hesitate; he activates the emergency entrance code to the Master Sensorium. He clambers up the stairs and into his father’s chair. This one is softer and wider than his own. He spins it around, hitting buttons as he turns, keeping his eyes on the cyclorama above him.
The lights dim. Moving pictures slide across the interior of the dome, criss-crossing one another. Occasionally they change direction abruptly, or disappear as Second Son manipulates the controls.
“Intersection,” he whispers to himself. His eyes dart from one image to another. “Intersection. Connection.”
The pictures move more quickly now. A wide grin grows on Second Son’s face. “Intersection. Connection. Connection!” he says, louder. He starts to laugh.
The pictures move still more quickly. His eyes follow them effortlessly. “Intersection. Effect. Cause.” Second Son’s chair spins like a top. His hands flash across the controls, calling up images from across the Hypogeum, from the past and the present. The depth of his vision is limited only by the time it takes him to strike the next key.
The moving images multiply and engulf him in a mad frenzy. Second Son watches them all, his face bathed by their flickering light. Tears are streaming down his face, but his eyes continue to flit furiously from one image to the next, drinking them all in.
“I see it all now, Father,” he shouts, spreading his arms wide. The pictures whirl on their own accord now, out of control. Still his eyes swallow them all. “I thought you were lying, but everything you said was true! I see it, Father! I see it all!”
THE STORY
“Do you really think we can find him this way?” Brax asks. With his long stride, Brax is able to maintain a leisurely pace and still keep up with Kitt Marburg’s hurried steps.
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I’ve got to find out what’s going on. Something strange happened on the roof that day, something the other clops won’t talk about, and I aim to find out what it was.”
Brax looks down at her. Reflections of the hallway lights flow across his black visor. “Perhaps the Winnower was killed or captured. He did say he didn’t expect to elude them forever.”
“No. If he was dead, I’d know it. Don’t ask me how, I just would.”
She comes to the door she has been looking for. She rings the buzzer. There is no answer. She waits, then rings again. Still no answer.
“He’s not home,” Brax says.
“He’s home,” Kitt replies sharply. “Can you jimmy the door?”
Brax moves closer and studies the lock. “Yeah, I can do it.” He pulls a small device from his pocket. “Is anybody looking?”
“Only about a hundred Scrutators.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Brax places the device over the lock. Lights on the device blink and a display panel races through a hundred thousand code combinations in the span of a few heartbeats. The lock clicks. Brax slides the door open and takes a step inside. He immediately recoils, turning his head and covering his nose.
Kitt pushes him into the room and closes the door behind them. The smell that Brax reacted to is familiar, yet foreign. Concentrated urine and excrement are the most obvious components, but there is another scent beneath them, more subtle and disturbing. Moving forward, she tries to ignore it, breathing through her mouth.
Walking around a large chair in the middle of the room, she sees the body. Security Officer Horsen is lying face down a little more than a meter from the chair. His eyes stare blankly to one side. Between him and the chair is a long smear of waste that has leaked through his tights.
Looking into those eyes, Kitt realizes what the hidden scent is. She has heard people talk about “the smell of fear” but until now she has never realized that such a thing actually existed. This man, this entire room, stinks of fear.
She kneels down beside the body and touches her finger to his neck, feeling for a pulse. Suddenly Horsen shudders and begins to breathe quickly. His left hand flails about. It connects with Kitt’s shoulder and grips the fabric of her coverup tightly, but his head still lies flat against the floor, grunting incoherently.
“He’s still alive!” Brax exclaims.
“I thought so,” Kitt says with a grimace. “That’s part of the punishment.”
Using only his left arm, Horsen pulls himself up toward Kitt. The rest of his limbs do not move, and his head still hangs limply from his shoulders. He grunts loudly, his voice wavering and cracking. A tiny spot of drool drips from his mouth.
Kitt turns toward Brax. “Well, just don’t stand there!” she shouts. “Bring him something to drink! Can’t you see he’s badly dehydrated?”
Brax stares horrified at Horsen a moment more, then runs to the kitchenette. He pulls a canister of bloodpop from the shelves and returns with it. Kitt grabs the can from him. She cradles Horsen’s head in one hand and pours the liquid into his mouth with the other. Horsen drinks it greedily, making inarticulate sounds of pleasure. When the can is empty, Kitt sets him down on his back. He stares up at the ceiling, breathing heavily. His skin is pale and wrinkled, like plastic wrap.
“What happened to him?” Brax asks.
“He pissed off a Deathsman,” Kitt replies. “I’ve heard of them doing this, but I’ve never seen it before.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t they just kill him?”
“Because to them death is a gift. They take away his eyes and his ears, his arms and his legs, but they leave his life. It’s their way of reminding us how important they are.” She stands and looks down at Horsen. “It looks like he’s been here for about two days. The Deathsman didn’t do a proper job on his arm, I think; that’s how he was able to pull himself out of the chair.”
“What should we do with him?” Brax whispers.
“You can talk as loud as you like. He can’t hear us,” Kitt says. “Pick him up. We’ll take him to the hospital.”
Brax does not move. He looks down at the shriveled clop. “Maybe we should just leave him,” Brax says slowly. “Maybe it would be more humane to just let him die.”
“Forget it.” Kitt turns toward the door. “I came here for gossip, and I’m going to get it. If he can’t tell me a story, then he’ll have to be one.”
THE SHADOW HEART
“So are you still talking to him?”
“Oh, yes. This one is special. He requires personal attention.”
The aspirant looks at the decrepit surroundings, determined not to show fear. His master is taking him on one of his walks though the promenades. Occasionally the aspirant can make out the remains of elaborate frescoes on the walls, ghosts of gay colors beneath a century’s accumulation of dust and detritus. Once the main thoroughfares of the city, the promenades have long since been completely enclosed, covered over by the foundations of newer buildings.
“But what about the others?” he asks, keeping an eye out for the gangs that prowl these wide, dark tunnels.
“They disapprove, of course.” The Deathsman walks with a jaunty but unhurried pace. In some way the aspirant does not yet understand, his master takes pleasure in this decayed and minatory environment. “And since I have so blatantly disregarded their wishes, I am sure there will be . . . repercussions.”
“Will they try to kill you?” the aspirant asks.
“No,” the Deathsman replies firmly. “I have broken none of the Laws. And I have brought neither disgrace nor danger to the Brotherhood. I am guilty only of a breach of decorum.”
“I see.” The aspirant is still confused, but he knows his master does not like it when he asks too many
questions.
They walk in silence for a while. They pass a shabby-looking man slumped against a wall. Around his neck he wears a sign that says “FAULTY CYBERNETICS. PLEASE GIVE.” As they pass him, a bright bolt of electricity arcs down his robotic arm, making his shoulders jump. The Deathsman pauses, keys a small donation into his ident, and kneels beside the beggar to touch idents with him. The beggar eagerly lifts his arm, but as he looks up into the Deathsman’s eyes he cringes. Though the Deathsman is dressed in civilian clothes, something in his face makes the beggar back away, cursing under his breath.
The Deathsman watches, his expression unreadable. The aspirant waits, silently, until the Deathsman wraps his cloak around his shoulders once more. He tosses his head to indicate it is time to move on.
They walk the dark promenade slowly, stirring little storms of dust behind their feet.
“Master?” the aspirant asks softly.
“Yes?”
The aspirant swallows hard. The dust down here is making his throat dry and itchy. “I have something I feel I should tell you.”
“Then tell me. There should be no secrets between us.”
“When it occurred to me that the others might come for you, I thought about your death. Your own death, I mean. You.”
The Deathsman nods. His long lips curl downward, but his pace does not slacken. “And?”
“I was dismayed by the thought. You are an excellent master. I would miss your tutelage. And I would be saddened by the loss of your companionship.”
“An aspirant who loses his master is put in a very difficult situation, it is true,” the Deathsman agrees, slowing to a halt.
“And yet,” the aspirant says, pressing on, forcing the words out before his fear can silence them, “I must confess that the thought of your termination was not altogether unpleasant. I envisioned the moment of your death. And part of me, somewhere, was content.”
The aspirant bows his head and closes his eyes, preparing for his master to strike him. After a moment, when the blow does not come, he looks up. The Deathsman is watching him. His face is expressionless, as empty as the crumbling walls around them. The Deathsman slowly exhales, and reaches out to stroke his aspirant’s hair.
Steel Sky Page 28
