The Gates of Eden: A Science Fiction Novel (14 page)

I paused, and looked around to see what effect the speech was having. They weren’t rolling in the aisles, but they weren’t throwing rotten vegetables either.

“You’re the ones with the canny tricks,” I told them. “You do the best froggy carnivore I’ve seen since the Natural History Museum in London. That one was just a model, though; the real ones became extinct millions of years ago. Only you’re not going to become extinct, are you? The amphibians of Naxos have figured out a way to keep on going. Who needs cleidoic eggs when you have the kind of adaptability
you
have, hey? Shapeshifting and intelligence, too—conscious control of bodily form. I bet it took you a long, long time to cultivate that little trick. I bet you’re clever, too, but you’ll never become civilized. You don’t need fire to cook your food because you can alter yourselves to digest what the hell you like as easily as you please. You should investigate the wonders of stone, though. It’s useful stuff.”

They were watching me as if fascinated. I had the crazy idea that I ought to keep talking, in case their fascination gave way to something that would be the worse for me.

“You see in me,” I told them, “the very acme of Earth’s evolutionary process. A human being, phenomenally intelligent and knowledgeable, able to organize the crossing of the great labyrinth of outer space—not personally, you understand, but I am here as ambassador for the entire race. For myself, I am but a humble toiler in the realm of science—a gleaner in the fields of knowledge, trying to pick up the scraps that my ancestors left behind when they sowed the great harvest of wisdom in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries...sorry, I mean
reaped
the great harvest. You’ll have to excuse me—I’m not quite up to my best. My feet hurt. I’m not an outstanding specimen of my kind, I suppose, but I am an Englishman, which might mean that I am in some distant sense related to Shakespeare. It’s said that if you go far enough back ancestral lines get so tangled up that everybody now alive is related to everyone then famous. England and Shakespeare are, from the viewpoint of aliens a hundred and fifty light years away, of little enough consequence in the cosmic scheme, but he could write speeches better than I can.... This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle.... This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars.... This other Eden, demi-paradise.... This fortress built by Nature for herself.... Against infection and the hand of war....”

I found myself laughing, and didn’t know why.

This other Eden...demi-paradise.

It suddenly seemed so very amusing. But I wasn’t thinking about England. Not any more.

They were tired of my performance now. I could see it in their eyes. They wanted to get on to the next act. I wondered what it was. Then one of them stepped forward from the mass. It may have been the one who first approached me, but I couldn’t tell. When I saw what he was carrying, I felt like screaming.

Instead of screaming (which wouldn’t have helped) I dragged Harmall’s transmitter from my pocket and started yelling into it.

“Harmall! Fix on this and get me the hell out of here! The bastard aliens have got me and they’re going to kill me. I’ll transmit now and start again. I’ll keep going as long as I can.”

I transmitted the message and opened the channel again. I kept pressing the buttons, one after the other, recording a few seconds of meaningless noise and then transmitting. I wanted the beeps to be flowing into Harmall’s receiver, to give him the best possible chance of getting a fix on my position.

If he could.

If he was listening.

If he wasn’t, then I was finished.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The thing the alien was holding was some kind of switch. Not a light switch...switch as in “long, flexible cane”...switch as in riding whip. He didn’t look as if he did a lot of riding.

I tried to get to my feet, to move away, but I didn’t have a chance and he knew it. The gleam in his eyes no longer signaled curiosity or intelligence, but cruelty. He was going to cut me up and he was going to enjoy it.

I got halfway to my feet, and then hurled myself forward, aiming to butt him in the soft white belly. I got a whistle out of him as he failed to dodge quickly enough, but the whole maneuver probably hurt me more than it hurt him. He stuck a knee in my face and I felt the cartilages in my nose grind as blood spouted out.

Then the blows began to fall, and there was nothing I could do but roll up into a ball and try to fend them off as best I could. I tried to take them on my arms, but he was going for any fleshy bit of me he could reach, and he didn’t care
what
I did. The damned thing whistled as it cut through the air—a sound that could have been a syllable in their crazy language.

I felt the cloth across my back tearing, and I felt the blood soaking it through.

Now I was screaming. It wasn’t doing any good, but there was no way I could help it.

My clenched fist, though, was still clicking and clicking at the buttons on the little metal thing, sending forty messages a minute out into the void. All anyone listening would be able to hear in the split-second recordings was a much-interrupted howling. I only hoped that they wouldn’t take it for a mechanical fault.

As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. I was sprawled out, face down, still conscious. As before, the moment the torn flesh was no longer being tormented, the pain somehow became
ordinary
. It was well-nigh unbearable, but it was
ordinary
. I could think again—I could even act, if I could find enough strength in my body to lift my head.

I tried, for no better reason than to demonstrate my defiance.

I looked up, at the faces peering down at me, trying to focus on their eyes.

I tried to say something to them.

“You...,” I began. I was planning to insult them if I could only find the right word.
“You....”

And then I had to stop, because I saw something that was absolutely beyond belief, so astounding that it
had
to be the product of deranged consciousness. My thoughts froze, and I tried to focus my eyes.

I tried....

and I saw....

and it was
real
!

It was

You! Lying on your back staring up at the pale white ceiling, feeling oh so heavy as if your limbs were made of lead, and you wonder what the problem is and why you can’t move your eyes at all...until suddenly you realize that you’re dead, and you’re lying naked in your coffin.

The only lights are six black candles, and you hear the murmurous voices of the mourners getting closer, and you know they’re coming to see you, to stare and sneer at you as you lie there past recall. They’re dressed in black, with tall black hats, and their faces seem long as they float into view from the periphery of your field of vision. They look down at you like vultures contemplating their next meal, and they mutter away in such fast, low tones that you can’t understand a word they’re saying, except that it’s all about you and it’s nothing good.

The tears are falling, and you can feel them soaking into your skin, but you can’t tell whether they’re real tears or tears of blood. They ooze into your flesh and make you feel unclean, making you swell up like a bloated bladder...rich pickings for the ghouls.

You can hear the music now—the missa solemnis played on a penny whistle, and the faces draw back as you begin to move on down the aisle of the great cathedral, whose vaulted ceiling replaces the plain white one, drawing your gaze higher than you ever imagined possible and dazzling your sight.

You never imagined that you’d be able to eavesdrop on your funeral, and you feel that you might be guilty of some especially pernicious voyeurism. You shouldn’t be there, though wherever else you should or might be is beyond the power of your imagining. Above the sound of the music and the muttering voices—or perhaps beyond those sounds—there is another noise that isolates itself and seems louder and softer at the same time. You can hear it, but you’re sure that the congregation can’t. it’s a sound for your ears only.

It’s the sound of sobbing.

Someone is crying...crying as if the world were ending, and there’s nothing you can do.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

It’s not even because you’re dead, because being alive wouldn’t make the slightest difference. It’s a sickness that afflicts the whole world, a plague that rots more than flesh, that eats its way into the heart of everything, a cancer consuming the whole universe, gobbling up the stars.

The funeral seems unnecessary, somehow, as though the world wished you on your way a long, long time before...as though you didn’t need to die.

The colored light that filters through the cathedral windows is growing dimmer now, as night falls quickly. The voices fade away, and the music reaches its final plaintive phrases before bursting out again, no longer a celebration of human tragedy but a mocking dance which you recognize as the final movement of the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, which you know so very well, where the demons and spirits enjoy their lunatic dance in celebration of the triumph of evil.

The ghosts come out of the walls, no longer afraid of the twilight, but there’s something pathetic about their capering and you know there’s no need to fear them, because you’re of their company now and they can’t be anything but welcoming anymore. If the devil himself were to greet you, you wouldn’t be afraid, because you knew—you always knew—that you belonged to him, and that hellfire would be your just reward. You’re filled with a feeling of relief that it’s all over....

Except, of course, that it isn’t.

There’s still the blood. it has to be let out. You know that it’s only a simple thing, like the lancing of a boil, but there’s something about the idea that makes you cringe and sweat, something that fills you with a terror so limitless it strips you of your intelligence and leaves you whimpering like a puling animal. It has to be done, but it’s the worst thing in the world, by comparison the healing fires of hell are the gentle breath of the sun.

The suffocation is mounting in your throat; your mouth is full and you’re slowly being strangled.

The blood is coming.

is coming....

is coming....

And suddenly, insanely, dream is replaced by delirium, and heat is searing my eyelids. I struggle to open them, and the sky is burning red.

It can’t be!

But it can, and it is, and red fire is everywhere, and instead of the dream carrying me away to hell, wakefulness has brought hell into the world. There is not only the sight of burning but the sound and the smell.

And the sound, too, of rifle fire.

I realize that the red flame is the flame of phosphorus flares, colored for blood and danger, and that the rifle fire is scattering the demonic forces, slaying the vampires and consigning their dust to damnation.

I wish that I could move, but the pain is too much to bear, and even triumph cannot lift my flesh as it lifts my spirits. I am not dead, but I am very, very weak.

Nevertheless, I know it as I fall back into the well of darkness, far from the grasp of wicked dream.

I know it: I am saved.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I woke up once more before the reinforcements arrived from the dome, bringing morphia to take away the pain. It was the pain that woke me, I think.

Angelina Hesse was sitting over me, with the flare gun in her left hand and the rifle in her right. It was evening, and the light was fading. She was frightened, knowing that if night fell, they might return.

She saw my eyes open.

“Hello Lee,” she said.

“Harmall got my message?” I said.

“He got them. I must have reached the first spot less than an hour after you left it. When they got the second fix...I got here as quickly as I could. The party from the dome will be here any minute.”

I twisted my neck to look beyond her, at the nearest of the bodies. It was no longer recognizable as something humanoid. The milky pink stuff had oozed out, and the whole form seemed to be half-dissolved.

“It’s not pretty,” she said.

“I suppose I don’t look much better.”

“You’ll be okay,” she told me. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, and your skin is a mess. They did their best to flay you alive without the benefit of a knife. But you’ll live.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then I whispered:
“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, tiredly. “It doesn’t make any kind of sense that I can see. Other worlds...alien ways. They’re preneolithic savages, Lee. We can’t expect civilized behavior.”

“If Harmall got the message,” I said, changing the subject, “does that mean he’s no longer a prisoner on the
Ariadne
? Or is the war still going on?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“This
must change things.”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “Take it easy, Lee. Help will be here in a minute. Let it ride.”

The effort of speaking had become too much for me anyhow. I lapsed back into delirious semi-consciousness until the rescue party did arrive, but it was a quiet delirium, washed back and forth by an
ordinary
pain.

Once I was sedated, of course, I lost all track of time, and did not mind it in the least. The dreams which morphine brings are, in my experience, sweeter by far than those which wait in sleep. When I finally did come round again, there was nothing left of the agony but a dull sensation which, though far from comfortable, became unbearable only when I moved.

I was lying on my stomach in a cot, in what I took to be a small sealed-off section of the dome. Angelina—without a sterile suit—was sitting by the bedside, while Zeno, more discreetly packaged, was working with the aid of a small desk computer.

“Are we sterile,” I inquired, “or are we not?”

“We’re in the lab section of the dome,” she told me. “My suit was torn while I rushed to your rescue. There seemed little point in resealing it or trading it in for another. Anyhow, you needed a transfusion of whole blood, and I was the right type.”

“How am I?” I asked. My voice sounded thick and my tongue was furry. Zeno abandoned his screen and pulled his chair over to the bedside.

“Not so good,” said Angelina. “You have a lot of flesh to regenerate. You can do it, but it takes time.”

“They beat me up pretty comprehensively, hey?”

“Yes,” she said, “they did.”

“What’s the state of play with Juhasz’ Grand Plan?”

“Ticking over,” said Zeno. “He’s waiting to see if you develop any infections. If you don’t, he’s going to figure that it’s safe.”

“He’s going ahead, then?”

“It seems that way,” said Angelina. “Not that we have access to his most secret thoughts, you understand. The existence of the indigenes doesn’t seemed to have changed his mind.”

“The HSB?”

“Still out, as far as we know.”

Nothing much seemed to have changed.

“Lee,” said Zeno softly, “can you tell us what happened? We need to know. It’s all rather confused, from our point of view.”

I had a drink of water, and then told them what happened—how the aliens first appeared, changed shape, roughed me up as they marched me across country, dumped me on the floor of their rough abode, and finally set out to beat me to death.

“Think carefully,” said Zeno. “At the very end—what was going on?”

I thought carefully.

“I was thumbing Harmall’s damned transmitter, trying to signal for help. I remember being on the ground, trying to get away from the switch. I remember looking up. I saw....”

I’d raised my hand, as if to point at something, and the gesture just froze. My jaw stuck, and I was hung up there, in mid-syllable, for what must have been fully half a minute. I was aware of the fact that they were staring at me, but I just didn’t know how to go on.

“...something,” I finished, very weakly. “I can’t remember what I saw.”

“What about the last message?” asked Zeno, his voice still very gentle.

I tried hard to remember. “I think I said: ‘They’ve got me and they’re going to kill me...I’ll transmit now and start again...I’ll keep going as long as I can.’ All you’d have gotten after that would be the much-interrupted sound of screaming.”

I didn’t like the way they were both looking at me.

“That’s not what I mean,” said Zeno. But Angelina gestured him into silence, and looked at me even more intensely.

“That’s when you blacked out?” she asked, forming the words carefully.

“That’s right,” I said. “Anything else that came over must have been the sound of them conversing among themselves.”

She turned to Zeno and said, “Have you got the tape?”

He moved back to the desk. I watched him as he retrieved a small playback machine from the work surface.

When he sat down again, he turned it on. I heard again the last words I’d spoken—the last words I
remembered
speaking. Then there was the long series of on/off transmissions, with nothing recognizable coming through. That went on for three minutes or so. Then, surprisingly—to me—there was another substantial transmission. It lasted some forty-five seconds. Most of the noises were stuttering, barking sounds that were more like the grunting of a pig than a human voice. It sounded as if someone were trying to form words but choking as he did so, unable to force out more than the odd consonant. In the middle, though, one word formed clearly. It was unmistakably the word “vampire.” Then, as the stuttering grew even more desperate, there was a thrice-repeated syllable that I took to be “damn.” Finally, the voice trailed off into an eerie screech; the single vowel sound “Eeeeeeeee!” growing higher in pitch like a feedback scream in a public address system.

Afterward, Zeno switched off the tape.

“That’s me?” I asked.

“No one else was there.” This observation came from Zeno.

“What does it mean, Lee?” asked Angelina.

I swallowed hard and said, “I don’t know.”

“When I came into the clearing,” said Angelina, levelly, “they were no longer beating you. They were crouching around your body, almost as if they were fighting to get at you. I thought at first that you were dead, and they were fighting for the meat. But it wasn’t that—they weren’t jackals at a kill. They weren’t trying to suck your blood, Lee—they were trying to touch you with their fingers. You lost a lot of blood, Lee—and lumps of flesh, too. Somehow, they ingested most of it, but not through their mouths. But this was later—it must have been fully ten minutes
after
you sent that last message. Do you think that...whatever you saw...has something to do with that?”

I shook my head, and lowered my eyes. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t remember.”

There was a long pause, while Angelina and Zeno looked at one another to share their puzzlement.

“Look, Lee,” she said. “As regards the aliens, Zeno and I think we have it all pieced together. We think we know what happened, but for the moment, it’s all speculation. It’s an
a priori
argument with no real foundation in what I actually
saw.
I think we might prove it to Juhasz, given time, but it’s just possible that you can prove it for us, by giving us the missing piece. We aren’t sure, but we think you may have seen something vitally important. I don’t want to lean on you too hard when you’re in this sort of state, but if we’re right, this planet isn’t ever going to be colonized—not the way Juhasz wants to do it, and not any way Harmall might want to do it either. It’s dangerous in a way that neither of them could have anticipated, and in a way that neither of them will be willing to believe. I don’t think we have the time for a slow and steady investigation. I think we may all be in deadly danger. We need you to remember, Lee—and remember spontaneously. It’s the only check we can possibly have on our theory.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her, “but it’s no use. I can’t remember.”

Angelina turned again to Zeno, and said, “We’ll have to tell him.”

Zeno shook his horny head, and said, “Not yet.”

She thought for a moment, then said, “Okay.” She turned back to me. “Why did you go into the forest alone?” she asked. “What happened to your sterile suit? The aliens didn’t take it off you, did they?”

I didn’t answer.

Eventually, she said: “You can’t remember that, either, can you, Lee?”

I rested my head on my forearms, and said, “No.”

“What
do
you remember?”

Again, I couldn’t find an appropriate answer.

“Do you remember anything that happened after we set up the tent?”

It was out now, and there was nothing that could be done about it. My answer was flat and emotionless. “I don’t even remember setting up the tent.”

“Have you had other blackouts like that?”

“Not here.”

“Elsewhere?”

“Sometimes.”

“New Year’s Eve,” said Zeno suddenly.

It was only a guess, but I conceded the point. “That was the first in a
long
time,” I said. “I never lost so much as a minute since I came to Sule, before then. Nightmares, yes, but no memory loss.”

“Nightmares?” echoed Angelina. “Do you have a lot of nightmares?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

“Did you have a nightmare the night before you went off on your own?”

“Yes,” I said. “And...when they were hitting me...maybe after they stopped...I was hallucinating. I was dead, and listening in at my funeral...it started odd, then got crazy.”

“Was there a vampire?”

“There’s always the vampire,” I told her. “But not that kind. Suffocating...I don’t know. Something strange. Inexplicable.”

“Did you ever see a psychiatrist about these nightmares?”

“Of course not. Do you think they’d have let me out into space if they’d known—if
anyone
had known?”

“Maybe they’d have been right not to,” she suggested.

Curiously, I’d never thought of that before. For the moment, she’d run out of questions. I didn’t see where all this was getting us. Apparently, neither did she, because she said as much to Zeno.

“I think we might help him to remember,” said Zeno.

I wasn’t sure I liked that. I’d known that it was what they were driving at all along, but it seemed more sinister now. As though they wanted to make me remember
everything.

“Shall I tell you what happened?” asked Angelina. “Before you decided to strike out on your own, I mean.” The tone of her voice suggested that it was something
she
didn’t particularly want to talk about. By now, though, we were all party to some idiotic tacit conspiracy, and I knew that it would all have to come out. As much of it as
could
come out.

“Go on,” I said sullenly.

“I tried to seduce you,” she said, and stopped.

“What!
”

The exclamation seemed to fall upon the empty air. She didn’t respond, though she must have felt that we were both expecting her to. She looked from one to the other of us, and said: “Well, what do you want—a blow by blow account?”

Nobody said a word.

“It’s not as if anything much was going to happen,” she said. “After all, we were wearing plastic suits, for God’s sake! But it was the last chance we were going to have to enjoy any privacy. I wasn’t looking for much...I just wanted you to—hold me, I suppose. Talk to me. Exchange expressions of devotion. It’s not unnatural, you know. Hero and Leander, remember?”

I received this peroration in silence. I still couldn’t remember a damn thing.

“And if you say,” she began, “that I’m old enough....”

“Shut up!”

We’d been talking very quietly, and the way I yelled then cut across the conversation like a bolt of lightning. But no one seemed to respond. It was as though we’d moved into territory where something like that no longer counted as surprising.

“At the party,” said Zeno slowly, “back on Sule. The last time I saw you was when you were talking to a girl—one of the new techs who came in with the Christmas shift. From Astronomy, I think....”