The Cosmic Puppets (11 page)

For a moment the golem paused. Mary let it stand at the entrance of the hole while she turned her attention briefly back to her regular body. Already, the regular body was getting stiff and chill. It was a cold night; she couldn't sit there on the ground, in the shadows.

She stretched her arms and legs, knotted and unknotted her muscles. The golem might be inside the barn a long time. She'd have to find a place to stay. Maybe one of the all-night cafes on Jefferson Street. She could sit drinking hot coffee until the golem had done its business. Maybe have some hot-cakes and syrup, read a discarded newspaper and listen to the jukebox.

She moved cautiously through the bushes, toward the field. The cold made her shiver and pull her jacket around her. Having two bodies was fun, but it was really too much trouble to be worth

Something dropped on her. She brushed it quickly off. A spider, from the tree above.

More spiders fell. A sharp pain seared across her cheek. She leaped wildly and slapped at it. A whole torrent of gray swarmed through the bushes and across her feet, up her jeans and over her body.

Rats. Spiders fell on her neck and shoulders in great heaps, into her hair, down the front of her shirt. She shrieked and struggled frantically. More rats; they sank their yellow teeth into her silently. She began to run, blindly, in aimless panic. The rats followed; they hung onto her. More leaped to catch hold. Spiders scurried over her face, between her breasts, into her armpits.

She stumbled and fell. Vines caught at her. More rats threw themselves on her. Swarms of them. Spiders fell soundlessly on all sides. She writhed and fought; her whole body was alive with pain. Gummy webs draped across her face and eyes, choked her and blinded her.

She struggled to her knees, crawled a few feet, then sank down under the load of biting, gnawing creatures. They burrowed into her, dug for her bones, through her skin and flesh. They were eating her body away. She screamed and screamed but the web-stuff choked her voice off. Spiders swarmed into her mouth, her nose, everywhere.

Rustles from the dark bushes. She felt, rather than saw, the glittery twisting bodies come spiraling toward her. By that time she had no eyes, nothing to see with and no way to scream. It was the end, and she knew it.

She was already dead, as the copperheads slid moistly over her prone body, and sank their fangs into unresisting flesh.

“Stand still!” Doctor Meade ordered sharply. “And don't make any noise.”

He emerged from the shadows behind them, a grim figure in his long overcoat and hat. Barton and Christopher halted warily, as he came up behind them, a massive .45 clutched in his fist. Barton let the tire iron hang loosely, ready for anything.

Shady House loomed up ahead. The front door was open. Many windows were yellow squares; the patients were still awake. The large fenced-in yard was dark and gloomy. The cedars at the edge of the hill swayed and rustled with the cold night wind.

“I was in my station wagon,” Doctor Meade said. “I saw you coming up the slope.” He flashed his flashlight in Barton's face. “I remember you. You're the man from New York. What are you doing here?”

Barton found his voice. “Your daughter told us to come up here.”

Meade instantly stiffened. “Mary? Where is she? I was out looking for her. She left half an hour ago. There's something going on.” He hesitated, then decided. “Come inside,” he ordered, putting his gun away.

They followed him down the yellow-lit corridor, down a flight of stairs to his office. Meade locked the door and pulled down the blinds. He pushed aside a microscope and a heap of charts and papers, then seated himself on the corner of his coffee-stained oak desk.

“I was driving around looking for Mary. I passed along Dudley.” Meade's shrewd eyes bored into Barton. “I saw a park on Dudley. It wasn't there before. It wasn't there this morning. Where'd it come from? What happened to the old stores?”

“You're wrong,” Barton said. “The park was there before. Eighteen years ago.”

Doctor Meade licked his lips. “Interesting. Do you know where my daughter is?”

“Not now. She sent us up here and went on.”

There was silence. Doctor Meade peeled off his overcoat and hat and tossed them over a chair. “So you brought the park back, did you?” he said finally. “One of you must have a good memory. The Wanderers have tried repeatedly and failed.”

Barton sucked in his breath. “You mean—”

“They know there's something wrong. They've mapped out the whole town. They go out every night, with their eyes shut. Back and forth. Getting every detail of the understrata. But no dice; they're lacking something vital.”

“They go out with their eyes shut? Why?”

“So the distortion won't affect them. They can bypass the distortion, all right. But as soon as they open their eyes it's all back. The fake town. They know it's only an illusion, an imposed layer. But they can't get rid of it.”

“Why not?”

Meade smiled. “Because they're distorted themselves. They were all here when the Change came.”

“Who are the Wanderers?” Barton demanded.

“People of the old town.”

“I thought so.”

“People who weren't completely altered by the Change. It missed a number of them. The Change came and left them more or less unaffected. It varies.”

“Like me,” Christopher murmured.

Meade eyed him. “Yes, you're a Wanderer. With a little practice you could learn to bypass the distortion and nightwalk, like the others. But that would be all. You couldn't bring the old town back. You're distorted to some degree, every one of you.” His eyes were on Barton as he continued slowly, “None of you has a perfect memory.”

“I have,” Barton said, understanding his look. “I wasn't here. I left before the Change.”

Doctor Meade said nothing. But his expression was enough.

“Where can I find the Wanderers?” Barton asked tersely.

“They're everywhere,” Meade answered evasively. “Haven't you seen them?”

“They must start out someplace. They must have organized themselves together in a particular location.”

The doctor's heavy face twisted in indecision. An internal struggle was going on. “What happens when you find them?” he demanded.

“Then we reconstruct the old town. As it was. As it still is, underneath.”

“You'll throw off the distortion?”

“If we can.”

Meade nodded slowly. “You can, Barton. Your memory is unimpaired. Once you get hold of the Wanderers' maps you'll be able to correct—” He broke off. “Let me ask you this. Why do you want to bring back the old town?”

Barton was appalled. “Because it's the real town! All these people, houses, stores, are illusions. The real town's buried underneath.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe some of these people prefer the illusion?”

For a moment Barton didn't understand. Then it came to him. “Good God,” he whispered softly.

Doctor Meade turned away. “That's right. I'm one of the distortions, not a Wanderer. I didn't exist before the Change; not like I am now. And I don't want to go back.”

The thing was rapidly clearing for Barton. “And not just you. Your daughter, Mary. She was born since the Change. And Peter. His mother. Miss James. The man in the hardware store. All of them. They're all distortions.”

“Just you and me,” Christopher said to him. “We're the only real ones.”

“And the Wanderers.” Barton let his breath out in a rush. “I see your point. But you did exist in some form before the Change. There was something; you didn't come out of nothing.”

Meade's heavy features were gray with pain. “Of course. But what? Look, Barton. I've known for years about this. Known this town, all these people, were imitations. Fakes. But goddammit, I'm part of this distortion. I'm afraid. I like it this way. I have my work. My hospital here, my daughter. I get along well with the people.”

“The imitation people.”

Meade's lips twisted miserably. “Like it says in the Bible, ‘We see as through a glass, darkly.' But how does it hurt me? Maybe I was worse off, before. I don't know!”

“You don't know anything about your life before the Change?” Barton was puzzled. “Can't the Wanderers tell you anything?”

“They don't know. There's a lot they don't remember.” Meade raised his eyes imploringly. “I've tried to find some clue, but there's nothing. No trace.”

“There'll be others like him,” Christopher said. “A lot of them won't want to go back.”

“What did it?” Barton demanded. “Why did the Change come?”

“I don't understand much of it,” Meade answered. “A contest, a struggle of some kind. With rules. One hand tied behind the back. And something got in. Forced its way into this valley. Eighteen years ago it found the weak place. A crack through which it could enter. It's always tried, eternally. The two of them, eternal conflict. He built all this—this world. And then it took advantage of the rules. Came through and changed everything.”

“I have a good idea.” Meade crossed to the window and let up the blind. “If you look you'll see them. They're always there. They never move. One at each end. He's over this way. And at the other—it.”

Barton looked out. The shapes were still there, as Meade said. Exactly as he had seen them from Peter's ledge.

“He comes from the sun,” Meade said.

“Yes. I saw him at midday. His head was one vast ball of shining light.”

“It comes from cold and darkness. They've always existed. I've pieced together things, here and there. But there's so much I don't know. This struggle here is only a small part of it. A microscopic section. They fight everywhere. All over the universe. That's what the universe is for. So they'll have a place to do battle.”

“A battleground,” Barton murmured. The window faced the side of darkness. Its side, bleak and frigid. He could see it standing there. Immense. No limit to it. The thing's head was lost in space. The numbing emptiness of deep space. Where there was no life, no being, no existence. Only silence and eternal wastes.

And He—from the boiling suns. The hot flaming masses of gas that bubbled and hurled up streamers and ignited the darkness. Fiery shafts that penetrated the void, reaching, groping, pushing back the cold. Filling the emptiness with hot sound and motion. An eternal struggle. Sterile darkness, silence, cold, immobility, death, on one hand. And on the other, the flaming heat of life. Blinding suns, birth and generation, awareness and being.

The cosmic polarities.

“He is Ormazd,” Doctor Meade said.

“And it?”

“Out of darkness, filth and death. Chaos and evil. Seeking to destroy His law. His order and truth. Its ancient name is Ahriman.”

Barton was silent a moment. “I suppose Ormazd will win, eventually.”

“According to the legend, He will triumph and absorb Ahriman. The struggle has gone on billions of years. It will certainly go on several billions more.”

“Ormazd the builder,” Barton said. “Ahriman the wrecker.”

“Yes,” Meade said.

“The old town is Ormazd's. Ahriman laid this layer of black fog, this distortion and illusion.”

Meade hesitated. “Yes.”

Barton tensed himself; it was now or never. “Where can we make contact with the Wanderers?”

Meade struggled violently. “I—” He started to answer, then changed his mind. His face sagged into gray decision. “I can't tell you, Barton. If there were some way I could stay as I am, keep my daughter as she is

”

There was a brisk knock on the door. “Doctor, let me in,” a woman's voice came sharply. “Important news.”

Meade scowled furiously. “One of my patients.” He unbolted the door impatiently and slid it aside a crack. “What the hell do you want?”

A young woman pushed quickly into the room. Blonde-haired, thin-faced, pale cheeks flushed. “Doctor, your daughter is dead. We were informed by a night-flying death's-head. She was caught and destroyed on the other side of the line. Just beyond the neutral zone, near his work chamber.”

Meade shuddered; both Barton and Christopher reacted violently. Barton felt his heart come to a complete stop. The girl was dead. Peter had murdered her. But it was something else that made him move quickly to the door and slam it shut. The last piece had fitted in place, and he didn't want to waste any time.

The young woman, Doctor Meade's patient, was one of the pair of Wanderers who had moved through the porch of the Trilling boarding house. He had finally found them, and it was about time.

Peter Trilling kicked at the remains with his foot. The rats were feeding noisily. Quarreling and fighting and snapping at each other greedily. He pondered a while, a little dazed by the suddenness of it. After a time he wandered aimlessly away, arms folded, deep in thought.

The golems were excited. And the spiders didn't want to go back to their jars. They buzzed and scurried all around him, gathered on his face and hands, raced after him. Countless faint whines pierced his ears, a growing chatter of golem and rat restlessness. They sensed a major victory had occurred; they were eager for more.

He picked up a copperhead and automatically stroked its sleek sides. She was dead. In a single swift stroke the whole balance of power had changed. He dropped the snake and increased his pace. He was approaching Jefferson Street and the main part of town. His mind raced in wild turmoil; thoughts came faster and faster. Was this really the time? Had the moment finally come?

He turned to face the far wall of the valley, the towering ring of mountains against the black sky. There it was. Standing there, arms out, feet apart, its head an infinite sheet of black emptiness that stretched eternally, a universe of silence and quietude.

The sight of it sent the last traces of doubt from him. He turned and started back toward his work chamber, suddenly eager and impatient.

A group of golems hurried excitedly to him, all clamoring for his attention. More streaked toward him from the center of town. They were terribly upset; their piping voices echoed as they swarmed up his clothing.

They wanted him to see something. They were afraid. Angrily, he followed them back into the town. Down dark streets, past rows of silent houses. What did they want? What were they trying to show him?