The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (106 page)

“The host must submit without reservation,” the Tegas commanded.

“I submit,” Carmichael agreed.

“Then where are you?”

“We're all in here together. You're in command of the flesh, aren't you?”

The Tegas had to admit he was in command.

“What do you want, Joe Carmichael?” he insisted.

“I've told you.”

“You haven't.”

“I want to … watch … to share.”

“Why should I let you do that?”

Vicentelli and his control capsule had brought the host flesh now to a drop chute. The chute's field gripped the Carmichael flesh, sent it whispering downward … downward … downward.

“Maybe you have no choice in whether I stay and watch,” Joe Carmichael responded.

“I took you once,” the Tegas countered. “I can take you again.”

“What happens when they resume the interrogation?” Carmichael asked.

“What do you mean?”

“He means,” the Bacit intruded, “that the true Joe Carmichael can respond with absolute verisimilitude to their search for a profile comparison.”

The drop chute disgorged him into a long icy-white laboratory space. Through the fixated eyes came a sensation of metal shapes, of instruments, of glitterings and flashings, of movement.

The Tegas stood in capsule-induced paralysis. It was a condition any Tegas could override, but he dared not. No human could surmount this neural assault. The merest movement of a finger now amounted to exposure.

In the shared arena of their awareness, Carmichael said: “Okay, let me have the con for a while. Watch. Don't intrude at all.”

The Tegas hesitated.

“Do it!” the Bacit commanded.

The Tegas withdrew. He found himself in emptiness, a nowhere of the mind, an unseen place, constrained vacuity … nothing … never … an unspoken, unspeaking pill of absence … uncontained. This was a place where senses had not been, could not be. He feared it, but felt protected by it—hidden.

A sense of friendship and reassurance came to him from Carmichael. The Tegas felt a hopeless sense of gratitude for the first other-creature friendship he'd ever experienced. But why should Carmichael-ego be friendly? Doubt worried at him, nipped and nibbled. Why?

No answer came, unless an unmeasured simplicity radiating from the Bacit could be interpreted as answer. The Tegas found he had an economy of reservations about his position. This astonished him. He recognized he was making something new with all the dangers inherent in newness. It wasn't logical, but he knew thought might be the least careless when it was the least logical.

Time is the enemy of the flesh,
he reminded himself.
Time is not my enemy.

Reflections of meaning, actions, and intentions began coming to him from the outer-being-place where Carmichael sat. Vicentelli had returned to the attack with induced colors, shapes, flarings and dazzles. Words leaped across a Tegas mind-sky: “Who are you? Answer! I know you're there! Answer! Who are you?”

Joe Carmichael mumbled half-stupefied protests: “Why're you torturing me? What're y'doing?”

Shake-rattle-question: “STOP HIDING FROM ME!”

Carmichael's response wiggled outwards: “Wha'y' doing?”

Silence enveloped the flesh.

The Tegas began receiving muted filterings of a debate: “I tell you, his profile matches the Carmichael identity with exactness.” … “Saw him change.” … “perhaps chemical poisoning … Euthanasia Center … consistent with ingestion of picrotoxin … coincidence…”

Creeping out into the necessary neural channels, the Tegas probed his surroundings for the emotional aura, found only do you understand? Remain unmoving, no pain. Move—pain.”

Tegas permitted his host to take a deep, quivering breath. Knives played with his chest and spine.

“To breathe, to flex a wrist, to walk—all equal pain,” Vicentelli said. “The beauty of it is there's no bodily harm. But you'll pray for something simple as injury unless you give up.”

“You're an animal!” the Tegas managed. Agony licked along his jaw and lips, flayed his temples.

“Give up,” Vicentelli said.

“Animal,” the Tegas whispered. He felt his Bacit half throwing pain blocks into the neural system, tried a shallow breath. Faint irritation rewarded the movement, but he simulated a pain reaction—closed his eyes. Fire crept along his brows. A swift block eased the pain.

“Why prolong it?” Vicentelli asked. “What are you?”

“You're insane,” Tegas whispered. He waited, feeling the pain blocks click into place.

Darting lights glittered in Vicentelli's eyes. “Do you really feel the pain?” he asked. He moved a handle on the console.

The host was hurled to the floor by a flashing command from the control capsule.

Under Bacit guidance, he writhed with the proper pain reactions, allowed them to subside slowly.

“You feel it,” Vicentelli said. “Good.” He reached down, jerked his victim upright, steadied him.

The Bacit had almost all the pain under control, signalling proper concealment reactions. The host flesh grimaced, resisted movement, stood awkwardly.

“I have all the time I need,” Vicentelli said. “You cannot outlast me. Surrender. Perhaps I may even find a use for you. I know you're there, whatever you are. You must realize this by now. You can speak candidly with me. Confess. Explain yourself. What are you? What use can I make of you?”

Moving his lips stiffly as though against great pain, Tegas said: “If I were what you suggest, what would I fear from such as you?”

“Very good!” Vicentelli crowed. “We progress. What should you fear from me? Hah! And what should I fear from you?”

“Madman,” Tegas whispered.

“Ahh, now,” Vicentelli said. “Hear if this is mad: My profile on you says I should fear you only if you die. Therefore, I will not kill you. You may wish to die, but I will not permit you to die. I can keep the body alive indefinitely. It will not be an enjoyable life, but it will be life. I can make you breathe. I can make your heart work. Do you wish a full demonstration?”

The inner whispers resumed and the Tegas fought against them. “We can't escape. Trapped.”

The Bacit radiated hesitant uncertainty.

A Bailey thought: “It's a nightmare! That's what!”

Tegas stood in wonder: a Bailey thought!

Bacit admonitions intruded: “Be still. We must work together. Serenity … serenity … serenity…”

The Tegas felt himself drifting off on waves of tranquility, was shocked by a Bacit thought-scream: “NOT YOU!”

Vicentelli moved one of his console controls.

Tegas let out a muffled scream as both his arms jerked upward.

Another Vicentelli adjustment and Tegas bent double, whipped upright.

Bacit-prompted whimpering sounds escaped his lips.

“What are you?” Vicentelli asked in his softest voice.

Tegas sensed the frantic inner probings as the Bacit searched out the neural linkages, blocked them. Perspiration bathed the host flesh.

“Very well,” Vicentelli said. “Let us go for a long hike.”

The host's legs began pumping up and down in a stationary march. Tegas stared straight ahead, pop-eyed with simulation of agony.

“This will end when you answer my questions,” Vicentelli said. “What are you? Hup-two-three-four. Who are you? Hup-two-three-four…”

The host flesh jerked with obedience to the commands.

Tegas again felt the thousands of old languages taking place within him—a babble. With an odd detachment, he realized he must be a museum of beings and remembered energies.

“Ask yourself how long you can stand this,” Vicentelli said.

“I'm Joe Carmichael,” he gasped.

Vicentelli stepped close, studied the evidences of agony. “Hup-two-three-four…”

Still, the babble persisted. He was a flow of energy, Tegas realized. Energy … energy … energy. Energy was the only
solid
in the universe. He was wisdom seated in a bed of languages. But wisdom chastised the wise and spit upon those who came to pay homage. Wisdom was for copyists and clerks.

Power, then,
he thought.

But power, when exercised, fragmented.

How simple to attack Vicentelli now,
Tegas thought.
We're alone. No one is watching. I could strike him down in an instant.

The habits of all that aeons-long history inhibited action. Inevitably, he had picked up some of the desires, hopes and fears—especially the fears—of his uncounted hosts. Their symbols sucked at him now.

A pure Bailey thought: “We can't keep this up forever.”

The Tegas felt Bailey's sharings, then Carmichael's, the mysterious coupling of selves, the never-before engagement with the captive.

“One clean punch,” Carmichael insisted.

“Hup-two-three-four,” Vicentelli said, peering closely at his victim.

Abruptly, the Tegas felt himself looking inward from the far end of his being. He saw all his habits of thought contained in the shapes of every action he'd every contemplated. The thoughts took form to control flesh, a blaze of energy, a
solid.
In that flaring instant, he became pure performance. All the violent killers the Tegas had overwhelmed rose up in him, struck outward, and he
was
the experience—overpoweringly single with it, not limited by any description … without symbols.

Vicentelli lay unconscious on the floor.

Tegas stared at his own right hand. The thing had taken on a life of its own. Its movement had been unique to the moment, a flashing jab with fingers extended, a crushing impact against a nerve bundle in Vicentelli's neck.

Have I killed him?
he wondered.

Vicentelli stirred, groaned.

So there'd been Tegas inhibitions on the blow, an exquisite control that could overpower but not kill, the Tegas thought.

Tegas moved to Vicentelli's head, stooped to examine him. Moving, he felt the torture skin relax, glanced up at the green-glowing construction, realized the thing's field was limited.

Again, Vicentelli groaned.

Tegas pressed the nerve bundle in the man's neck. Vicentelli subsided, went limp.

Pure Tegas thoughts rose up in the Carmichael neural system. He realized he'd been living for more than a century immersed in a culture which had regressed. They had invented a new thing—almost absolute control—but it held an old pattern. The Egyptians had tried it, and many before them, and a few since. The Tegas thought of the phenomenon as the man-machine. Pain controlled it—and food … pleasure, ritual.

The control capsule irritated his senses. He felt the aborted action message, a faint echo, Bacit-repressed: “Hup-two-three-four…” With the action message went the emotional inhibitions deadly to Tegas survival.

The Tegas felt sensually subdued. He thought of a world where no concentrated emotions remained, no beacons upon which he could home his short-burst transfer of identity.

The Carmichael flesh shuddered to a Tegas response. The Bacit stirred, transmitting sensations of urgency.

Yes, there was urgency. Androids might return. Vicentelli's fellow rulers might take it upon themselves to check the activity of this room.

He reached around to his back, felt the control capsule: a flat, tapered package … cold, faintly pulsing. He tried to insert a finger beneath it, felt the flesh rebel. Ahhh, the linkage was mortal. The diabolic thing joined the spine. He explored the connections internally, realized the thing could be removed, given time and the proper facilities.

But he had not the time.

Vicentelli's lips made feeble writhings—a baby's mouth searching for the nipple.

Tegas concentrated on Vicentelli. A ruler. Tegas rightly avoided such as this. Vicentelli's kind knew how to resist the mind-swarm. They had ego power.

Perhaps the Vicentellis had provided the key to their own destruction, though. Whatever happened, the Tegas knew he could never return into the human mass. The new man-machine provided no hiding place. In this day of new things, another new thing had to be tried.

Tegas reached for the control capsule on his back, inserted three fingers beneath it. With the Bacit blocking off the pain, he wrenched the capsule free.

All sensation left his lower limbs. He collapsed across Vicentelli, brought the capsule around to study it. The removal had dealt a mortal blow to the Carmichael host, but there were no protests in their shared awareness, only a deep curiosity about the capsule.

Simple, deadly thing—operation obvious. Barbed needles protruded along its inner surface. He cleaned shreds of flesh from them, working fast. The host was dying rapidly, blood pumping onto the floor—and spinal fluid. He levered himself onto one elbow, rolled Vicentelli onto one side, pulled away the man's jacket and shirt. A bit of fleshly geography, a ridge of spine lay exposed.

Tegas knew this landscape from the inward examination of the capsule. He gauged the position required, slapped the capsule home.

Vicentelli screamed.

He jerked away, scrabbled across the floor, leaped upright.

“Hup-two-three-four…”

His legs jerked up and down in terrible rhythm. Sounds of agony escaped his lips. His eyes rolled.

The Carmichael body slumped to the floor, and Tegas waited for the host to die. Too bad about this host—a promising one—but he was committed now. No turning back.

Death came as always, a wink-out, and after the flicker of blankness, he centered on the emotional scream which was Vicentelli. The Tegas divided from dead flesh, bore away with that always-new sensation of supreme discovery—a particular thing, relevant to nothing else in the universe except himself.

He was pain.

But it was pain he had known, analyzed, understood and could isolate. The pain contained all there was of Vicentelli's identity. Encapsulated that way, it could be absorbed piecemeal, shredded off at will. And the new host's flesh was grateful. With the Tegas came surcease from pain.