POWERS. PERHAPS THEY ARE NOT AS ALL-ENCOMPa.s.sING AS THOSE OF THE CHRIST MYTH,.
BUT THEY ARE SUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO NURTURE YOUR DELUSIONS.
YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SEE A PURPOSE TO.
YOUR LIFE, SO YOU CHOSE TO CAST YOURSELF.
IN THE ROLE OF A SAVIOUR. IT SERVES A DOUBLE PURPOSE: FIRST, IT REINFORCES ALL YOUR.
CHRISTIAN MORES, ALL THE THINGS THEY.
THOUGHT YOU SHOULD BELIEVE AS YOU WERE.
RAISED (THOUGH THEY WERE AS INTERESTED.
IN SUPPLYING YOU WITH MORES THAT WOULD.
KEEP YOU IN LINE AS MUCH AS THEY CARED.
ABOUT YOUR HAVING A CHRISTIAN UPBRINGING); SECONDLY, IT GIVES A PURPOSE AND.
MEANING NOT ONLY TO YOUR LIFE BUT TO THE.
ENTIRE UNIVERSE WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS.
UNEXPLAINABLY CHAOTIC TO YOU-THE WARS.
AND THE SUFFERING, THE REST OF IT.
I am thirsty.
IN A MOMENT. I MUST FINISH WITH THIS FIRST.
YOU SEE MORSf.a.gEN CASTING DICE, FOR HE.
DESPISED AND ONLY USES YOU FOR HIS OWN.
ENDS. THE CLOAK SYMBOLIZES YOUR LIFE,.
YOUR PURPOSE, YOUR INDIVIDUAL IDENt.i.tY.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A HINT OF THE FUTURE IN.
YOUR DREAM, A MOMENT OF CLAIRVOYANCE,.
AND YOU SHOULD BEWARE THE MAN.
Go on.
YOU SEE CHILD AS A THREAT TO YOUR NEATLY BUILT THEORY. HE IS ANOTHER VIRGIN.
BIRTH, OF THE ORIGIN THAT YOU ARE OF. YOU.
REALIZE THAT HE HAD BUILT THE SAME SECOND-COMING THEORY TO EXPLAIN HIS OWN.
PURPOSE IN THE WORLD. YOU UNDERSTAND.
THAT SINCE HE HAS MET YOU, HIS LIFE PURPOSE HAS BEEN SHATTERED AND THAT HE IS.
HUNTING FOR ANOTHER ANSWER. YOU DON"T.
WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT YOURSELF. YOU.
DON"T WANT TO HUNT.
THE WOMAN, MELINDA, IS ALSO A THREAT TO.
YOUR PURPOSE (OR, RATHER, TO THE FANTASY.
PURPOSE YOU HAVE CREATED FOR YOURSELF).
CHRIST COULD NOT FALL PHYSICALLY IN LOVE.
WITH A WOMAN. BUT YOU HAVE. ADMIT IT. THIS.
IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE. LISTEN AND KNOW.
THAT YOUR PURPOSE IS TO LOVE AND COMFORT.
AND TO BE LOVED IN RETURN. OTHERWISE, YOU.
FACE ONLY SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Could that be a purpose, though?
IT IS THE OLDEST PURPOSE. WASH YOURSELF.
CLEAN OF FALSE PURPOSES. ALLOW ME TO ESTABLISH A SERIES OF PERSONALITY TAPES TO.
REINFORCE YOUR FALTERING SENSE OF REALITY AND TO SUBDUE THIS CHRIST SYNDROME.
THE REASON YOU LIVE IS TO LOVE. SO IT IS.
WITH MOST HUMAN BEINGS. DON"T SEARCH.
FOR A LARGE PURPOSE, FOR MORE COMPLEX.
MEANINGS, FOR THE WHY OF THE WORLD OR.
THE REASON IN HATE AND WAR. BE SATISFIED.
THAT YOU KNOW YOURSELF. IT IS A WISE MAN.
WHO KNOWS HIMSELF.
WE WILL PROCEED WITH THE HEALING.
NOW*.
VII.
The following morning, as I stepped out of the elevator near the top of the AC complex, Harry intercepted me before I had taken more than four steps toward the room where Child waited for another session. His round face was drawn, pale, and lined with heavy creases that had not been there before. He looked as if he had not slept all night. A cursory examination of his rumpled clothes and withered shirt collar was proof of that. He grasped my arm, digging his fingers in until it hurt, and steered me across the corridor to an unused office, pushed me inside, followed, and closed the door behind us.
"Cloak and dagger?" I asked. It was amusing to see him engaged in some melodramatic play like this. Yet also terrifying. If Harry Kelly thought there was a need for caution, there most a.s.suredly was. Normally, he had the greatest respect and confidence in due process, even in these days. Many considered him a Polyanna. Now Polyanna was scared, and nothing short of an ogre could have managed that.
"Look, Sim, lay off the arrogance with Morsf.a.gen. Say yes sir and no sir and thank you sir, and help me get his temper down. No smart cracks and no more antagonism.
I haven"t ever asked you much, but I ask this. Listen, son, it might mean everything we"ve worked for if you can"t keep yourself in check."
"I can"t stand the man," I said.
"Neither can I."
"What"s happening?"
"The situation is worse than any public communications are reporting it. The Chinese and their j.a.panese advisors have set up a command post on the Russian side of the Amur River. Only maybe a hundred yards" worth of invasion, but they refuse to move backwards on request. On the Chinese side, troops have been ma.s.sing for four days.
A special spurline was laid down, and troop trains are running in on the hour from the main tracks that pa.s.s east of Nunkiang, through the Khingan Mountains."
I took it all in. I"d never been much on geography, and I must have looked rather blank, for he flapped his arms in despair and started on me again.
"On the other side of the border there, the Russian towns Zavitaya, Belogorsk, Svobodnyy, and Shimanovsk lie in a straight line, each within striking distance of the other. Zavitaya contains a missile complex trained on several Chinese population centers. Belogorsk is the site of an extension of the Khabarovsk laboratories, dealing with the problem of lasers. It"s the place where the news has been coming from lately-about the possibility of the equivalent of a death-ray. The entire area has become, in the last ten years, a strategic one. If the Chinese can sweep it, they can isolate that arm of the Soviet Union.
Toward this end, portable nuke facilities have been moved in on the Amur, pointed toward Zavitaya."
"War," I said. "But we"ve had it before. And we"ve been expecting it now for fourteen years or more. Why does this mean I have to brown-nose Morsf.a.gen?"
"I received an interesting telephone call from a judge who was a friend in law school, back in the age of the dinosaur. He reported that Morsf.a.gen has been asking around about the possibility of impounding you-just like they tried years ago."
"We already won that case."
"That was in peacetime. What Morsf.a.gen wants to know is whether the looming war will make a difference."
"Law is law," I said.
"But in time of national crisis, it can be suspended.
And the word that the general got, my friend tells me, is that he can pull it off. It will be nasty, dirty, replete with complications-but possible. He"d much rather work with you the way it now stands. But if you drive him to the wall or anger him more than his limit of tolerance, he might decide that its worth a risk to his career. He might try it."
I didn"t feel well. I wanted to sit down, but that would have been a sign of weakness. I knew Harry was just barely holding up now. There wasn"t any use to make it worse for him. "What"s your considered opinion?" I asked.
"The same. Only I think it"s more possible for him to succeed than even his own advisors told him."
I nodded. "We"ll play it cool, Harry. We"ll play it so cool that there will be icicles hanging from the walls. Let"s go."
He breathed a sigh of relief and followed me out of the empty office, down the hall, through the door, and into the hex-walled room.
"You"re late," Morsf.a.gen said, consulting his watch and scowling at me as he waited for the thrust of my tongue.
Maybe he had decided one more witty remark on my part would be the weight to push him to action.
I didn"t give him the chance. "Sorry," I said. "I got held up in traffic."
He looked genuinely perplexed, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and ground his teeth together. It was almost as if he would have preferred being insulted to being treated civilly.
I had come to AC only for the money this time, not to demonstrate my super-humanness, my Christlike talents.
The therapy the mechanical psychiatrist had given me had worked deep and had taken root. But with a few more paychecks in my pocket, Melinda and I could be vagabonds for an eternity, running from the ugliness, the filth, war, and the people who made it. I thought of the future in the context of the two of us, though I could not yet know how she felt, whether her interest in me matched mine in her. But from a life of pessimism, I had suddenly become optimistic, and I refused to consider any but the brightest of possible futures.
Child was tranced. His mouth sagged slightly, and his twisted teeth could be seen beyond. His hands trembled against the arms of his chair, even though he was asleep.
They administered the drugs while I watched, then stepped back to allow the freaks to converse in the way only we could understand.
I parachuted from the room, down into the labyrinth, not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday and not today*
Hooves clacked on rock, the sound like splinters of flying gla.s.s.
There was an outline like a child"s scrawl, not nearly so definite and real as the day before. Whether he was losing power to refute my presence or merely planning some deception to put me off my guard, I did not know.
There was the vague odor of musk, all the textures of dark hair that fell like night mists, but all of them merely hazy crayon lines.
"Get out!"