Iris

by William Barton

  There was a noise and she looked up, jumping slightly, fearful that it would be John, come to try for her yet again. What would I say?

  The slim form of Demogorgon stood there naked, in his sleek nonmuscularity somehow the perfect image of a human being. There was nothing about him that bespoke his history and his current secrets.

  "Hello, Beth," he said. "Can I come in?"

  She nodded. "Hello, Dem ... uh ... Jana? Yes." She felt the hated confusion welling up. How do I deal with this?

  The man smiled, walking toward her, and she found herself almost mesmerized by his slow stride. "It's hard, isn't it?" he said. "Call me Li-jiang. That's the name my parents and playmates had for me when I was a little . . . girl. After the break." He laughed softly.

  "OK." She felt slightly breathless. She had been thinking very depressed thoughts, and she needed a diversion. "Li-jiang. Is that your real name?"

  "No. My birth certificate read Hu Hua -hung. Changing names has always been a common pastime in the Sinified Orient . . . Mao Ze -dong. Ho Chi Minh . Chiang Kai-shek.

  All made up, just like the names I used. It'd be pretty coincidental to have a Chinese revolutionary leader really be named Hair Enrich-East, don't you think?" Li-jiang was grinning. "Did you know that caesaries means 'a head of hair' in Latin? Very inscrutable."

  "Very. I can imagine it, though. It's no more fantastic than having a French national hero being named Charles de Gaulle. Did Le Gros Legume make up his cognomen too?" Beth wondered at the course of their conversation. He's putting me at my ease, she thought. He? She? Ohhh . . . Li-jiang was sitting at her side, still smiling, eyes shining with an eerie light, something of a reflection from Iris. He was running his fingers gently across her thigh, using just the right pressure, just the right feather touch, and Beth was horrified to notice that he had the beginnings of an erection. Demo? No, Jana. This can't be happening!

  She clutched at his fingers, stopping their gentle, persuasive motion. "Demo, ah . . . Li-jiang. Please. What . . ."It was hopeless. The situation was making her totally inarticulate, gagging her from within. From nowhere, images from the depths of Centrum overwhelmed her. She saw all the times that this body had knelt before Sealock, begging for some kind of human response. She saw all the times that it had been taken advantage of, used and then sent away to suffer in silence. She felt like crying for him. The memories led to other images, the old, horrible scenes from Sealock's life, the whirling miasma of impersonal sexual contacts, the life-views that took such a narrow focus, zooming in on close-ups of women's bodies, yawning moist chasms of red flesh, ready receptacles for an insensate lust. She felt sick, and said, "Please. I can't."

  Li-jiang'sface, still smiling slightly, flattened out, then twisted with an evident dismay. "Beth. I ..." He turned away for a moment, then returned to stare earnestly at her, eyes projecting some overwhelming emotion. "God, Beth. Please don't turn me away. Not now."

  She felt a cold remorse, some being from deep within showing her stop frames from that last falling descent through the Illimitor World, and all the things they'd learnedtogether. She thought of Demogorgon, then of Jana, and reached out to embrace Li-jiang, shaking.

  John stood in the open doorway, undetected, invisible, watching the animals mate. Think about it, he told himself, consider it carefully and let the old emotions be pushed far, far down, where they ought to be. It might be moisture that was welling up in his eyes, but nothing spilled over, and everything could be denied. Watch her recede.

  Taken as an absolute, what they were doing looked foolish. From the outside, there was none of the transcendent glory, no physiological overrides to stop the mind. He watched their rubbings and listened to them gasp, saw them burst into an athletic sweat, saw their faces become unintelligent, begin to gape and stare. It should have brought on a natural revulsion, but he felt that curious emptiness begin to fill him up once again. Talk to me, a voice whispered in his brain, but there was nothing to reply with. Self-conversation facilities can fall mute.

  He pressed his cheek to the cool plastic liner of the doorway and watched, never quite aware of the things that were boiling below the event-horizon of his consciousness. Beth and Li-jiang moved against each other, grappling like gentle wrestlers, stroking, breathing, whispering to each other in what looked like some kind of planned cadence. Beth wrapped her legs around the man's slim thigh and ground herself against his flesh, cooing absurdly.

  John felt a silent rage well up swiftly and then recede, consciously pushed back down into his depths by a desperate, rational hand. I could hate them, he realized, astounded. I feel almost . . . betrayed. Why is that? The hatred came back up, moving fast to avoid his clutches, and he was riven by its dense, boltlike quality. It seemed that Beth was hurting him purposely, in the most effective way, by now doing what he had wanted of her. He briefly imagined himself strangling the man's dark, slender throat. Deja vu plucked at him.

  Where have I experienced this before? He cycled back into his newfound memories, taken away from the tableau of man and woman, not quite hearing the sweet, awful words that Beth was whispering now. I was in that room, talking to Ariane, back at the beginning, she seemed so nice and straightforward, I ... No. This isn't. I'm not remembering something from myself. Who? It came. He was Brendan, pressed flat to an outer wall of the chamber that contained them, hating and imagining for all that he was worth. Images of Ariane and John coupling in the room, invisible eyes focused on sliding, horrid genitalia, words of love and devotion whispered in the darkness, close to the traitorous wells of inhuman, uncaring ears.

  He looked out of his own eyes again, watching Beth and Li-jiang make love with an uncanny joy and happiness written large enough to perceive on their bodies. I would never have minded like this before, he thought wonderingly, so why is it this difficult now? I was always in favor of a free access, everyone with everyone, within the limits of some conceptual naturality . This is bad; I ... I love her and want her for myself. I ... He suddenly thought about Brendan and swam back through that recurring scene that seemed to be the man's worst-ever moment.

  I see, he thought. We did nothing together, that night in that room, but his mind supplied all the images that it needed to generate those emotions, to feel so bad. He loved her more desperately than I ever loved Beth, or anyone, and every moment that took her away from him was a moment of agony to be endured. Every experience that she had without him was an experience lost to him, an agony to be endured. Love leaves its own special scars, I guess. I thought Beth and I were closer than Bren and Ariane could ever have been. Her denial of me seems that much more profound. We know each other. It's silly, he realized, inexcusable, but . . . human. Now what do I say? I'm sorry? To whom? Beth?

  Brendan? Everyone? Maybe it doesn't matter. This hurts too much.

  Li-jiang'spenis, slimed with ichor , withdrew from Beth's body and the two embraced fiercely, laughing. They broke apart after a while and looked into each other's faces, smiling uncontrollably, and John turned back into his room, hoping that they didn't hear the soft whisper of his feet on the floor.

  Brendan Sealock sat alone in front of the quantum conversion scanner and its attendant communication system, working. All indications had it that the experiment had been successful, and telltale signs on the various wave fronts seemed to say that the various subunits of Centrum, Bright Illimit, and Demogorgon were up and running. Krzakwa had gone away repeatedly during the course of the labor, drawn by some mysterious magnetism that was invisible to the other. Now he seemed to have departed for good. Sealock worked on through his cranial taps, whispering into the void, trying to reestablish communications with Demo in whatever guise he might manifest now as the primary controller function in Centrum.

  It was a little bit like sitting in front of an old-time radio, a desperate air traffic controller, clutching a microphone, staring out of a stone tower into a fog-locked night, calling, "Flight X51A5, this is Mystery Lake Tower. Come in, X51A5. Do you read me? For God's
sake, are you there, boy? Come in!" Brendan smiled faintly at the image. He's out there somewhere.

  He scanned through the channels, seeing all the activity, trying to find the one that would let him talk to the man within again. At the moment of turnover, Demo's personality had been snatched away from him, rushing off to take its place somewhere within Centrum's complexity.

  A bright light grew out of the mazy world that he searched, pulsing with insistent ruddy glow, calling his attention. He tapped onto it and listened. It said, "Hello, Bren ," in a strange voice, an unknown one.

  "Demo?"

  "This is BI GAM/Red SRA 051B:08R0:A0N7."

  "Oh." Visuals came on now and the face floated in front of him: it was his own, projected in reverse of its mirror image, real and so faintly alien to him. "Can I talk to Demo?"

  "The Master is engaged in Assembly setup and is currently dealing with the Interpreter SRAs . He sent me to communicate certain things to you in his stead."

  Brendan felt vaguely disappointed, knowing he'd wantedto talk to the Arab, no longer caring about why. Still, this was probably better than nothing. "What things?"

  "A preliminary survey of the working propulsion equipment in Iris indicates that most systems are functional. The power plant converter is, of course, still functional, and proves capable of using the lower Iridean atmosphere as fuel. The photon drive grid projects above the lithosphere and should be fireable , though it is currently immersed in dense, fluid hydrogen. We intend to light off shortly."

  "You're going to fire off the engines?" He had a sudden memory of the thing they'd done to Aello , visions of fiery chaos, and thought of Jana. "What if the planet explodes?"

  "Then it explodes. We're prepared to take that risk. This communiqué is a friendly warning to you all; it is a chance for you to place yourselves out of harm's way."

  "What are the chances of success?"

  "Odds of failure are calculated at 1:2027.048."

  Brendan felt himself relax. All things considered, the chances of it working were pretty good. This would be something to see indeed. "OK. We'll begin our preparations immediately."

  "Very well . . ."

  "Wait a minute!"

  "Input Queue NMI received. Proceed."

  "Why are you doing this? I thought just being in control of a Bright Illimit-dominated Centrum would be enough for him."

  "Long-term survival under those circumstances would have been a chancy thing. We mean to revive the mission. Enough submodules of Centrum itself survive to make that decision imperative."

  "I see." He thought about it. It was probably a wise choice; Demogorgon would be giving himself a good reason to go on existing. And fantasies grow best in the hothouse climate of real adventure. "How long do we have?"

  "Depending on the condition of the Uplink command system and how much rewrite the light-off procedures take, forty-seven hours, plus or minus eighteen minutes." Brendan could have laughed—a week ago he would have.

  They would have to get Deepstar reassembled more or less overnight. "I'd still like to speak with Demo."

  "At the moment, impossible. Call me on this wave interface after the light-off procedures are up and running. We may be able to manage it then. End transmission."

  "Good-bye."

  The ruby light pulsed once, then went out, and the world within Iris withdrew from his grasp.

  Brendan walked across the moor by the pool, his feet drifting, lightly touching the surface, propelling himself along with a minimum of effort, immersed in the complexities of now and then. Things had changed, and with them himself, and with him the others. Are the changes great ones? Do I really feel different? Do they? What have we all become? Something new? I wonder. Are we really different or is this just another masque? Perhaps we are just fooling ourselves, rationalizing away any responsibility for feeling any pain, our own and that of each other. I know now that I am capable of lying to myself. I saw that facility in other people all along, and saw it in myself . . . but I thought I was different. I thought that, so long as I recognized the capacity for self-deceit in myself, it was all right to do it. The lies and fantasies were OK, just as long as I recognized them for what they were and paused every now and again to laugh at myself, to be embarrassed at my own silliness. Perhaps I was right, and this is just that little refreshing pause, that little sense of the "I" in me being renewed.... Or maybe I'm still lying to myself. Again. He walked on, immersed in a steep practicum of rumination, considering himself, both the natural being and the thing revealed by a forced march through his own past. I always used the memories, he mused, to wash away the terrors of any current hour that had grown too dense, too strong for me to handle easily. I reviewed myself mercilessly. He snorted, mirthless laughter emerging from his nose to echo in the silent, ersatz land. I did nothing of the sort! I used my memories in a self-serving way to absolve myself of any feeling I might have had about anything. Is that bad? Perhapsnot. A human being must have a means of survival, at all costs. Perhaps my greatest flaw lay in my lack of generosity toward others. They needed their lies and it was small of me to sneer at them. How much of that was unnecessary flaw and how much grew from my own needs? Did I serve a useful function in the midst of the others? I wonder if I really needed to . . . who am I to judge and who are they to judge me? Would I be happy in an existence divorced from all human needs, left to float my own way in a solitary jungle of thought?

  He stood still for a while, drifting to a slow stop. Do I really need to consider myself as relating to other people, or is this all foolishness, self-torture? Maybe I've been right all along. Perhaps I should go with my old feeling, continue as I always have until death eats me up. Another bit of snide self-derision at that. No sense letting that poetic imagery louse up a fine bit of introspection. Those sorts of conventions are the ways people begin lying to themselves, whenever they find it necessary. He felt like remembering then, and did, wondering if all the quietness, the need to forgive and forget and move on, were just a slow healing process, a recovery from the shock of his long fall through Centrum. When I emerge, will I be what I was before? What will that be? Am I sane or mad? Does it matter?

  Memory struck.

  Brendan Sealock stood atop the barrier wall of the Summit Garden of Prometheus Tower, the thousand-meter-high monad that stood astride St. James, looking out across the world, his land, hair blowing in the wind, fluffing it out so that each strand found a new position. He was barefoot, clad in a pair of blue bathing trunks and a white tank top emblazoned with the scarlet logo of Blood Street Skull, the music ensemble whose partisans had been terrorizing Long Island for the last few weeks. The wind was cool and pleasant, in a summery sort of way.

  From here, from this vantage point, the world should have been green and beautiful, but it was ugly. The great towers ofthe eastern boroughs of New York Free City stood high in the west, growing out to meet him, steel and plastic monstrosities that glittered in the morning sun, throwing back rays of light, little flashes to catch his eyes. To the north, on the Connecticut shore, the low, sprawling outriders of a lawless Boston Megalopolis glared at him, layer upon endless layer of repulsive, antique buildings. In the south, the Atlantic Ocean was steel gray, and dead. The surface winds were calm and the sea was a worthless mirror.

  There was a distant, echoing rumble from the northeast, and Nantucket Cosmodrome threw up a small rocket ship, a silver speck that climbed atop a spike of smokeless flame, narrow-swept wings that rode into the sky, accelerating, dwindling, as the man-made thing went to connect with low Earth orbit and the opening tendrils of the Deep Space Transport Network.

  He looked down at the earth, far below. The square height of the shiny building gave him an odd, dwindling perspective. It looked like a triangle set on its apex. Small at first, he told himself, and then ever larger. The land was green about its base, another park, looking ridiculously small from a height, a narrow ribbon of jungle, then the concrete warrens of an older town.

  I think,
he realized, that I could jump from here. He imagined the wind whistling in his ears, the windows flashing by, the ground approaching, specks turning into people, looking up at him, mouths open in little Ohs of horror, scattering from the point of explosive impact, flinching from a splash of blood, crying out as they were wounded by bits of flying bone. I would become a gory crater in the ground. He knew it wasn't so, of course. There was terminal velocity to consider. I'd turn into a big, messy cross in the grass, nothing spectacular. Another asshole, trying to fly, flapping his arms and screaming to the end. He turned to go away, to return to the woman who awaited him in the garden, waiting to collect him body and soul, to carry him off as a trophy, into the hinterlands. He went, shivering.

  In the future another Brendan considered it dispassionately and thought, At least I'm free of those things now. Resurrection gives life its own special sweetness, at least for a little while. And continued ... The old-time Brendan walked through the halls of Tupamaro Arcology, padding forward on the balls of his feet, snarling deep within himself. I'll find them, he thought, and he did. He came upon them in a nexus garden, crystal fountain cascading up to the ceiling at back, standing before its watery beauty, holding hands and watching the liquid rise and fall, endlessly, mindlessly. Their fingers were intertwined and their hips were pressed together, warming to the touch of other humanity, preparing for their coming act of betrayal.

  Brendan shouted, "Ariane!"

  The couple sprang apart, loosing their close-held grip, and spun about to stare at him. The woman smiled and waved. "Oh, hello, Bren ," she said. "Come and join us. This is nice."

  "Nice?"It was a strangled word, gagging him, catching in his throat and making him inarticulate all at once. The planned revilements, the angry accusations faded, sinking down into a night of unrationality , and only action remained. He took a few quick strides forward and seized the small, brown-haired man, a coworker of hers he'd met before, grappling him about the neck. There was a brief, startled squawk, and then the man left his feet, flew through the air, arms whirling wildly, and splashed into the fountain. He jumped up, streaming water, spluttering, and waded out. He stared at Brendan for a moment, standing in the midst of a growing puddle, and then fled in squishy shoes, disappearing from the room and from their lives.