Dirge

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  "No, Major. It is my job not to."

  Chapter 15

  He was tall and bronzed, regal of posture and sleek of muscle, faultless of demeanor and enchanting of smile. Wherever they went, heads turned; men out of admiration, women from a plethora of confused but animated emotion. In other words, he was a typical Pitarian male, no more or less spectacular than any other of his kind. Walking alongside him Nadurovina felt slighted, but not overawed.

  His name was Dmis-Atel. A tertiary assistant from the southwest branch of his embassy, he had flown to New Ireland at the request of the authorities there to pay his respects, it was said, to a survivor of the Treetrunk bloodbath. Protesting that no such survivors were known to exist, the Pitar had been informed through the most secret channels that this was most probably the case, but in the event it was not, it would be gracious of them to bestow their guileless commiserations in person. And in the far more likely event that it was a clever falsehood being perpetrated by certain unscrupulous individuals for amoral reasons of their own, perhaps a perceptive Pitar could shed some light on the matter by examining it from a nonhuman perspective.

  Once the situation had been explained to them thus, the Pitar did not hesitate. Representative Dmis was placed by his embassy on the first available aerial transport and charged with rendering whatever sympathy or service he could in the matter, as the occasion might demand. Rothenburg had met him at the airport and escorted him to the hospital, where he had been taken in hand by a calm, unruffled Nadurovina.

  "I am anxious to see this person."

  The Pitar moved with effortless, graceful strides that gave him the appearance of flowing over the floor. One was tempted to bend low for a look at the bottoms of his feet to see if they were actually touching the ground. The Pitar did everything effortlessly and well. Nadurovina was no more immune than her friends to the spell they cast. Only her innate professionalism allowed her to maintain a greater degree of detachment. Did they also slaughter the innocent effortlessly and without strain?

  "He does not know that you are coming." They turned into a corridor through double doors that shouted Restricted Entry--Authorized Personnel Only and headed for the lift. Every step of the way, hidden scanners were examining every aspect of their bodies, from the material of their clothing to the contents of their digestive systems. Specific instruments searched for explosive components in their bloodstreams and toxins in their saliva. By the time they reached the corner room on the northwest end of the fifth floor they had been subjected to as thorough a noninvasive analysis as contemporary technology could contrive. This despite the fact that Nadurovina and her associates were fairly certain that the Pitar would not make an attempt on the patient's person. To do so would amount to an admission of guilt or, at the very least, a stain on their saintly mien that would be difficult to wash away. Armed and highly trained personnel would be close at hand in any case, ready to intervene at the slightest provocation.

  The Pitar did not give indication of being under any unusual stress, but then, the Pitar never did. It was difficult for the most perceptive at the best of times to tell what they were thinking. They never lost their temper or burst out in uncontrolled laughter. Like their physical appearance, their demeanor was always perfect.

  They were alone in the lift. Nadurovina knew that a battery of observers was waiting in the room next to the patient's, with dozens more cemented to remote monitors and pickups. Every movement of the visiting Pitar would be scrutinized, every word deconstructed, every shift in expression analyzed.

  The door loomed ahead. The Pitar looked over and down to smile gently at her. "Are the guards for us or for this individual?"

  "For him. As you can imagine we've been very interested in what he's had to say about the destruction of his adopted homeworld."

  "And what has he said?" The Hellenically perfect countenance betrayed no concern, the body movements no agitation.

  The military psychiatrist smiled back. "You can ask him yourself." After identifying herself and her guest to the guards, they were allowed to pass. "I think you'll find him an interesting subject."

  Still no visible reaction. Why should she have expected anything different? Opening the door, she entered first.

  Mallory was sitting up in the bed with Tse in a chair at his side. It was a tableau that had become intimately familiar to Nadurovina over the past week. In that time the patient had put on weight and regained lost muscle tone. Much could be attributed to the attention he had received from the nurse, whose devotion to the single patient whose care she had been charged with looking after exceeded anything that could reasonably have been expected.

  Here it was. The moment of confrontation. She could feel the eyes behind the multiple pickups glued to their screens, watching, waiting.

  "Good morning, Mr. Mallory, Ms. Tse. I hope you do not mind; but I have brought a guest." Stepping aside, she bequeathed to the man in the bed an unobstructed view of the visitor.

  Mallory's eyes shifted. He saw the Pitar. As importantly, the Pitar saw him. Nadurovina was not above holding her breath, ready to intervene, spring aside, or call for help as the occasion should demand. She did not know exactly what to expect. No one did. In their intense discussions prior to this moment she believed that she and her colleagues had imagined and discussed every possible scenario.

  They were wrong.

  "A Pitar." Mallory's voice was calm, controlled, absolutely devoid of fear or panic. "Here." His gaze shifted to the psychiatrist, and he did something even more remarkable. He smiled. "Another of your tests? A little experiment, maybe?"

  "Dmis is a member of the delegation that is headquartered on Lombok," she explained. "He is a real Pitar, not an actor made up to look like one."

  "I can see that." Did his tone darken ever so slightly, or was Nadurovina reading into it one of the things for which she and her associates were searching? "I know what a Pitar looks like."

  She tensed but made no move to interfere when the alien moved toward the bed. Outside, beyond the wall, she knew that the strike team of armed commandos would have reacted to the alien's approach by automatically advancing to another level of readiness. To her relief he halted at the foot of the bed.

  "So. You survived the disturbing incident that overwhelmed Argus Five."

  "That's right. I did." Mallory met the alien's inscrutable gaze without flinching. "I saw what happened there."

  The Pitar made a small, almost imperceptible gesture whose meaning no one in the room comprehended. "My people are very concerned about what took place."

  Mallory's mouth set in a tight line. There was no trembling, no quivering that Nadurovina could see. A glance at the readouts of the instruments that monitored the patient's vitals showed little change, certainly not enough to be considered significant.

  "I'll bet they are."

  "What did you see happen there, man?" Seated next to Mallory, Tse listened quietly to the conversation, one hand resting on the patient's forearm. Reaching up, Mallory affected an air of mock forgetfulness.

  "I'm not sure... Oh yeah, it's coming back to me now. Let's see. Your people were there." Once more the mocking smile. Did the Pitar stiffen? Again, the psychiatrist couldn't be certain. Being in the room, standing to one side and observing, was like watching a chess match with living pieces.

  "Yes, that's right. Your people. I recall it quite clearly. They were killing everybody. Destroying anything and everything that might record or otherwise indicate what they were doing. Your people are real thorough. Real thorough motherfuckers."

  Nadurovina felt compelled to play the role she had assigned herself. "Please, Mr. Mallory. Dmis is a diplomatic representative."

  "That's kind of a contradiction, Doc. There's nothing diplomatic about the Pitar."

  The alien's expression did not change. He seemed more fascinated than upset by the patient. "You are a very imaginative person, Mr. Mallory. Very inventive. The Pitar do not kill except in self-defense. I am no physician, b
ut I think the dreadful experience you have obviously suffered must have at least temporarily unhinged your mind. Why my people should figure prominently in your delusions I cannot think, but it is not very flattering."

  "I'm not delusional. It wasn't delusion. I know what I saw. Your people attacked without warning, trading on friendship acquired through five years of joyful, kindly contact to achieve complete surprise. You slaughtered anything on two legs. It didn't make any sense to me then, and it doesn't make any sense to me now."

  "Ah," Dmis murmured, "an admission that confirms the diagnosis."

  "No, you don't understand. What doesn't make any sense to me is what you needed with the reproductive organs of human females. I saw them being removed with surgical precision from one woman after another and carefully packed away in what I believe now to be cryogenic containers. What do you do with them? Eat 'em? Venerate them? Use them in some kind of unimaginably barbaric conceptual art? Tell me, diplomat Dmis. I'm really curious to know."

  "As am I," the Pitar replied. "Curious to know what sort of human mind can invent such absurdities."

  Nadurovina interrupted. "If this is upsetting you too much, Dmis, we can leave."

  "No, no." The alien did not appear in the least perturbed by the accusations that were coming from the bed. "It is interesting. As do all of my kind, I want to know as much as possible about humans. Even their mental aberrations. This is a useful occasion."

  Mallory nodded agreeably. "Useful for me, too. See, I want to know all about the Pitar, because it will help me to understand how better to kill you."

  "I have to tell you, Mr. Mallory, that I understand what is happening here and that I truly sympathize. With ongoing care of the quality you are obviously receiving I am certain that your condition will improve. Meanwhile, I am intrigued by your misconceptions." He smiled over at Nadurovina. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

  "Yeah," Mallory declared without hesitation. He proceeded to describe an act that was an anatomical impossibility, even for the limber Pitar. Nadurovina choked slightly, but the alien took no apparent offense.

  "Another elaborate fantasy. Naturally, Mr. Mallory, you have proof to underline and support your fantasies. Images of this imaginary assault, perhaps, or voice records, or a corroborating witness."

  "No," the man in the bed muttered. "You know damn well that I don't. If I did, you wouldn't be standing there grinning like an underfed Buddha. You wouldn't even have been brought here. Somebody would've shot you on sight." His smile widened. "I'd gladly do that myself except that where my mental state is concerned plenty of these'specialists' happen to agree with you, or at least are willing to consider the possibility. I could get up from this bed, right now, and put my hands around your blemish-free throat and squeeze until all the life leaked out of you." For the second time, Nadurovina tensed.

  "I do not think even if you were healthy you would be physically capable of such a feat," the much taller Dmis replied calmly. "As it is, you are weakened from your misfortune, and I am considerably larger and stronger than you."

  "I can see that, but you've never experienced the kind of strength that uncontrolled fury can give a human being." He glanced at the anxious psychiatrist. "Don't worry, Doc. Much as I'd like to I'm not planning on leaving this bed for a while. Not even for the sheer pleasure of feeling a Pitarian neck under my fingers." He turned his attention back to the alien. "I'm saving myself, you see. I want to kill many more than just one of you."

  Dmis looked to his escort. "I hope Mr. Mallory is receiving appropriate medication for his condition. It would distress me to think that he might one day attack someone else, perhaps believing that they were Pitar."

  "I can assure you that his treatment regimen takes all possibilities into account," Nadurovina told the alien, succeeding in answering him truthfully without committing herself to any specifics.

  "This has been most interesting." The Pitar leaned slightly over the foot of the bed in Mallory's direction and beamed benignly. "When you have invented some proof to give support to your expressive delusions, you must see to it that I am notified. It would be educational to continue this discussion. In the absence of anything additional, however, I must return to my mission and make a report." Stepping back, he turned his full attention to the psychiatrist.

  "I would like to be kept informed of Mr. Mallory's progress, as a matter of personal interest. It is distressing to see any sentient being slide so far into fantasy. But it is quite understandable. Among my kind it is also common to build a mental wall around a terrible experience as a way of dealing with the consequences. In the absence of truth, the patient has invented elaborate imaginings to avoid having to deal with a large, threatening blank spot in his memory. I am sure that with time and your good offices these delusions will gradually begin to fade away."

  "I'm sure he will continue to improve," she replied noncommittally as she gestured toward the doorway. The Pitar preceded her into the hall.

  Nine and a half hours later Irene Tse burst from room fifty-four in panic. From behind her and within the room came a cacophony of instruments shattering and furniture breaking. Above it all rose an inhuman howling, the piteous shrieks of an unhinged mind teetering on the razor edge of sanity.

  Nadurovina was interrupted in quarters where she had just sat down to dine with her husband. Tearing back to the hospital at velocities that threatened to send her vehicle spinning out of control, she blew through the entrance and past startled hospital personnel in her race to reach the building's top story.

  Shoving her way through the crowd that had gathered at one end of the floor, she espied Tse and ungently forced a path to where the nurse was sitting. Though the psychiatrist was not in uniform, the medtech who was attending to the nurse recognized the officer and gave way.

  Trembling, Tse was holding her face in her hands. Blood from a deep scratch had welled up to stain the upper right sleeve of her duty blouse. Settling in behind her, the medtech began to treat the wound.

  Nadurovina had no time for niceties. "What happened?" Reaching forward, she grabbed the younger woman's wrists and roughly pulled them away from her face. "Look at me, nurse!" Tse's tear-stained face lifted to meet the psychiatrist's.

  "I... I don't know. It just happened. One minute everything was fine. I was just clearing away the dinner tray when it happened."

  Nadurovina glanced in the direction of the room but was unable to see anything but surging, swirling bodies. If it was this confused and chaotic now, she reflected, what must it have been like ten minutes ago?

  "When what happened? Talk to me, nurse. Was it... Did the Pitar...?"

  "Pitar?" Blinking, Tse reached up and rubbed at her eyes with the unstained sleeve of her uniform. "What Pitar? There are no Pitar here." Realization penetrated the younger woman's understanding as Nadurovina heaved a vast sigh of relief. Despite every precaution, despite all the round-the-clock, state-of-the-art security, there was always the possibility, the fear, that if the aliens were guilty of Mallory's charges or if they had simply taken a severe disliking to him they might somehow manage to get to him. Evidently they had not.

  On the other hand, their apparent absence and lack of involvement in whatever had taken place in the hospital room meant they were still, in the eyes of uncommitted justice, as innocent as Dmis had claimed.

  Tse was babbling quietly. "He just went crazy. One minute he was finishing the last of his ice cream and passing me the tray, smiling and happy, and then..." The slow shaking of her head was visible evidence of her disbelief. "It was like a bomb went off inside him."

  "Is he... all right?" With her initial concerns allayed, Nadurovina could afford to be more compassionate.

  "I guess so. I don't know." The younger woman's expression pleaded for understanding. "I tried to help, tried to calm him down, but it was like he couldn't hear me. He started throwing things, breaking things." As if still not believing it was there, she reached up to feel the cut the medtech had just finished b
andaging. "I ran, both to protect myself and to get help." She looked toward the room. "It's been quiet for a little while, so I guess they got him calmed down. I hope... I hope they didn't have to hurt him."

  "He's had the best people the staff of this hospital can boast attending to him on permanent rotating duty." The psychiatrist tried to sound reassuring. "I am certain he will be all right."

  "What do you think happened, Doctor?"

  "I don't know, either, Irene. But I can hazard a guess. He has experienced a delayed psychological reaction to the Pitar's visit. You saw how calm he was in the alien's presence. It was the last thing I would have expected, whether his story is true or not. Somehow he held it all in, kept perfect control of his reactions and emotions. Then I expect he tried to forget all about it. And he managed to do it - until his system could not take any more. When you told me it was like a bomb went off inside him you were probably closer to the truth than you realize." She shook her head.

  "People have this belief that fusionable material contains the most explosive type of energy." Reaching up, she tapped her forehead. "Myself, I have always believed it was trapped in here." Her expression somber, she knelt to face the shaken woman and put a comforting hand on the other's knee. "If you would like to be relieved of this assignment, I will see to it that the order is cut."

  Tse swallowed and wiped at her eyes again. "No. I'll stay on."

  Silently pleased, an admiring Nadurovina straightened. "Your devotion to your job is commendable. I will make sure that you are properly compensated for your dedication."

  Tse looked up at her. "I'm not staying on because I'm devoted to my job."

  Nadurovina hesitated only briefly. "Oh. So that is how it is."

  The younger woman nodded. "That's how it is."

  The psychiatrist's mouth tightened. "I don't approve. It is not professional."

  Tse responded with an awkward, choking laugh. "You're telling me. I didn't plan it, you know. I had no idea anything like this would happen."