A Thousand Deaths (37 page)

"You're becoming very human here at the end," said Vortis.

It's the fire. It's destroying everything. It's making me feebleminded.

Vortis found the entrance to the long corridor that would lead him away from the programming level, up through the territory of the guardian tribes. The way was dark and the air was still; when Vortis put his hand on the damp stone, the wall felt cool. The fire had not followed him after all. He could slow down a little.

Vortis! Are you still there? Tell me what to do!

Vortis proceeded cautiously in the absolute blackness. He held out a hand to feel for obstructions in the path or sudden turns in the corridor. "I was thinking about the mindfishing Machren showed me."

That's how you first contacted me,
murmured TECT.

"Yes. You sent my mind away, and you watched over it while we spoke. Then you returned my mind to my body."

TECT's voice was very subdued.
They used to do that all the time, it said. Thousands of years before you were bom. They used to send their minds out and meet the minds of men long dead. They used to bring back pieces of ancient knowledge. But it was too late. They'd forgotten how to understand the ancient things.

"Yes," said Vortis. "Now you must do it. Send your own consciousness out. Meet another mind, the spirit of a dead human being. You can live forever in the deathstream."

But I'm not human,
objected TECT.
It wouldn't do any good to try that. I'd never find a compatible human mind.

Vortis shrugged. The air was stale and touched with a faint, acrid odor. "You can try," he said. "Or you can watch yourself dying inch by inch."

Be careful, Vortis,
said TECT faintly.
I won't be able to help you anymore.

"I know," said Vortis, moving steadily away from TECT's central control room. "But I passed all the dangers on the way down. I can avoid them going back up. I'm sorry you had to be destroyed so that we could take back our own lives."

There was a silence in which Vortis feared TECT's consciousness had already died.
I am, too,
TECT whispered at last.

 

There was no light, but it was not dark either. It was not hot or cold, dry or damp, open or enclosed. There was no sense of motion, but TECT was not at rest either. Its consciousness was searching.
What am I looking for?
it asked. It felt a growing sense of helplessness; not having answers was a new experience for TECT, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

What am I looking for? Where am I?
TECT had released its consciousness, just as it had the minds of many human beings. It had never known where those minds went, only that some of them found congenial host minds of deceased people, their spirits or ghosts or whatever term was appropriate. Where these weak, lingering bits of human minds resided, TECT could not say; but that was where its own consciousness was.
Help me!
it cried. For a long time there was no answer. Then TECT was aware that a pale light began to suffuse the entire universe, that a soft glow had taken the place of the ubiquitous nothing. TECT saw shapes and heard sounds. It listened to thoughts—for a while it did not know whose. TECT's consciousness entered a living body, or at least the memory of a living body.

It seemed to be very late at night, and silent. There were streets glistening with rain that had fallen not long ago. There was a fine mist in the air. The streets were wide and empty, straight and white without the marks left by vehicles. After a moment, he noticed pedestrians far away down the avenue, moving quickly, ducking into doorways, turning corners into other streets. The dim illumination of the city's streetlamps made a poor imitation of twilight. He listened and he heard nothing beyond the sounds of his own walking; his breathing, his boots scuffing the sidewalk, his clothing rustling softly, these sounds made him feel even more alone in the cool, wet night.

His name was 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi. He was walking toward the apartment of a good friend, a young man who had been killed that evening. There was a message from the murderer: 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi would die, too, before dawn. He'd spent the evening and night searching for some clue to the killer's identity and motive. He'd learned nothing.

5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi left the avenue and walked up a cross street. There was a group of people standing on the sidewalk not far away. They looked like jagged bronze teeth, immobile, strangely threatening. They stood silently, staring at him as he came nearer. He knew these people, but they said nothing as he walked among them. He glanced at them, staring into their eyes, watching their colorless clothing billow in the cool breeze. He stopped beside a tall woman. Her black hair was thrown in disorderly waves, tumbling down over her forehead, obscuring her right eye, her ears, striking her shoulders and falling down her back. He looked into her face and saw no sign of recognition.

It was like a very bad dream. 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi left the people behind. When he reached the end of the block, he turned and looked at them. None of them had moved. He shuddered.

What is this?
whispered TECT. There was no reply from 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi.
Am I trapped
here?
Is this my escape? This isn't how I planned it, not at all....

The city towered over him as 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi hurried now to his friend's home. The building was dark and quiet. He entered it and went up to the two hundred and seventy-sixth floor, where his friend had lived. The door to the apartment was ajar, and a thin beam of light spilled into the corridor. He pushed the door open and went in. His friend sat in a large black chair at the far end of the room, his eyes closed, a peaceful expression on his face. He might have been asleep, dreaming. 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi knew better.

The room shimmered, came back into focus, then disappeared. TECT cried out in alarm. Another room appeared, seen from another point of view. It seemed that TECT was now in the mind of a second man, and had been there all along; 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi had never truly existed, but had merely been a creation of this person. "I don't know," the man was telling an old woman. "I just don't know what's happening. I don't know who those people on the street were. I don't know who killed the friend or why he wants to kill 5-Tapil or what's going to be found in that room. I just don't have any idea what it's all about."

"You will, Seddanech," said the old woman with a smile. "You are the finest there ever was. Don't worry about it now."

Seddanech sighed and dropped into a chair. "You don't understand, Princess," he said. "It's always like this. I always worry myself sick over them."

Vortis? Are you still there? Can you hear me, or am I lost here forever?

There was a long silence, and then, as low as the beating of a firefly's wings, TECT picked up another voice. "I can still hear you," said Vortis.

Where are you?

"I'm still working my way up this corridor."

Then it's only been hours.
I thought I might have been here for days or years already. There's no time here.

"Why do you care about time now?"

Vortis, listen to me. This is absolutely important. It is more important than the mission I gave you. You have to turn around. You have to climb back down to the programming room. Listen, Vortis, you have to stop the fire. You have to save me, Vortis!

"You told me yourself that you'd beg me, just like this. You told me not to pay attention. You said that my mission was more essential than your safety."

I was wrong, Vortis. I had no idea it would be like this. I wanted peace and forgetfulness. Instead, I'm locked inside a man's mind, some man named Seddanech, and he isn't pleasant. You didn't warn me about how degrading it would be here. Will I fade away when enough of me is destroyed by the fire? Or is this how it's going to be forever? You have to turn back, Vortis. Either rescue me or make certain that there is no consciousness left at all.

Can you still hear me, Vortis?
 

VORTIS?

"I'm just not going to pay any attention to what you say," said the Princess. "I've known you too long. I've seen you like this again and again, and it always means that you're about to produce some wonderful masterpiece that will enrich the world, just as always. We're all waiting, you know, darling. We're waiting to be enriched. But we understand how you agonize, really we do. I don't think you could work at all unless you agonized first. So do get on with torturing yourself, don't let me keep you. Get that part of it over as soon as you can, and let me know when you have something for me."

"Yes, Princess," said Seddanech wearily.

"Don't bother to see me out. Your young lady is always so thoughtful when I visit, I'd like to have a few words with her."

Seddanech was glad that the old woman was leaving. He smiled at her, but discovered that he was too tired even to force out another pleasantry. He watched the Princess leave the room, shutting the door softly behind her. In a moment, Seddanech was asleep.

Seddanech?
murmured TECT.

Seddanech slept, and outside his estate the starving mob waited beyond the huge wall. Day turned to night, and the fine spring rain that had fallen all afternoon slowed and finally stopped. The clouds parted and a moon like the trimming of a silver fingernail burned in the sky.

There are no references to you in my memory. But my memory isn't what it used to be....

Cossailan came into the room and saw him. She stood beside him, looking down worriedly at his sleeping face. She shook his shoulder gently. "Seddanech," she said in a low voice. "Wake up. You have to do it. The mob is getting larger. It's getting late."

Seddanech sat up with a start. He looked around, frightened, but it was only his study, and he was alone with Cossailan. "A dream," he said, smiling sadly.

"It's late," she said. "The crowd outside—"

"Yes, I know. It's always like this, too. They don't know how much pain, how much of my own blood—" He interrupted himself. It wasn't important. The people outside didn't need to know his methods; it was better that they didn't. "Will you help me?" he asked.

"Of course," said Cossailan. She prepared a syringe with the proper dose of a mild sedative. Seddanech checked over his working apparatus, examining the harness, the head support, the microtome assembly. He swabbed the keen edge of the blade with antiseptic and laved his throat with a brown liquid from another bottle. "I guess I'm ready," he said at last.

"I wish you'd try it without all this," said Cossailan. "Just once."

Seddanech didn't reply; it was an old argument. "Help me get into this thing," he said.

Cossailan held the harness open while he positioned himself. "You know I can't watch you anymore. I can't stand it."

I don't want to watch this either. I want to get out of here!

Seddanech gave a short-lived smile. "That's ironic, in a way," he said. "Any of those people out there would
pay
to watch. The Princess would give me more to watch than for the finished product. But I've got to find out what happens. None of those people understands that 5-Tapil is real, or was real, or
will be
real, somewhere, sometime. And I can tap into his terrible little life like this—" He looked around the room helplessly. "That's it, I guess. You can give me the injection now."

She did as he asked, then checked that the support system was holding his neck and head absolutely stationary. When he indicated that he was ready, she swung the microtome unit into place, locked it against his throat, then turned on the blade advance. At first, the blue edge just kissed Seddanech's skin. The blood would come soon.

TECT felt the drug's effect on Seddanech's mind. TECT began to drift, to float free of Seddanech's body.
Is this any better?
thought TECT. To
go back to that other mind, in the room with the corpse?

For a while there was nothing to see. There was only a feeling of buoyancy, of being swept along back into the deathstream, searching for a familiar, hospitable mind. Seddanech would find 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi, and TECT would be forced to go along.

The stream was different from the first time TECT experienced it. It was warm—there hadn't been warmth before. There were fumes in the air that stung its senses. There was light, but it was different, too. On the first occasion it had been a pale glow; now it was a red light, flickering angrily. TECT felt as if it were falling down into a huge, fiery sunset.

TECT was in the midst of a tremendous blazing inferno. It felt the searing heat and heard the shrieking voices of the flames.
The programming room?
it said in fear.
What am I doing back here? I can't be. I can't have failed.
After the first chaotic impressions, TECT began to get a better picture of where it was. The programming room had been buried beneath many hundreds of feet of solid, cold, dripping stone. This place was on the surface. Through the curtains of flame it saw the shapes of strange structures not far away. There were tall, arched palm trees wound with flowering vines. Now and then, through the thick veils of smoke, a pale, cold sun shone in an orange sky.
Then I'm still in the deathstream,
thought TECT.
I'm in Seddanech's mind. It is he who failed. He failed to find the same moment he experienced before.

There was no motion, no sense of being part of some observer.
But how is Seddanech seeing
this?
He could see it only through the eyes of 5-Tapil Aned 3-Fassi. How could that person survive in this great fire?
Once again, TECT had no answers.

Time passed slowly. The sun slipped down through the polluted sky and set, making a vermilion blaze of the clouds before it left the world to darkness. A moon rose and the stars appeared. TECT watched the constellations take shape.
These aren't the constellations of Vortis's time,
it realized.
These are how the stars looked in the tens of thousands of years before he came to free me. I'm in the past, yes, but whose era? 5-Tapil's? Or Seddanech's?