At last the torture stops. The torturer goes upstairs for a c.o.ke. Jonathan is left alone, astonished, horrified that his friend, his hero, could do such things to another human being. The priest, his eyes watery and bloodshot, must know that his end will not be long in coming. He fixes his gaze on the boy who has crept forward, his own eyes tearing with pity. Words pour in a torrent from the priest"s parched mouth.
"Young man, they"re going to destroy humanity for your sake, yours and the girl"s. Turn against them!
Accept Christ! Please, listen to me. Your friend Jerry is evil, your uncle is evil, they are creating... death ...they are Satan"s ... oh ... Satan"s friends." Then the eyes roll and the head sinks forward, the chin touching the oozing, flayed chest.
No, that isn"t a memory. You"re imagining, spinning tales around the biology experiments that shouldn"t be here.
You"re hysterical.
With an effort Jonathan pushed the mad imaginings out of his mind. Again he regarded his sophisticated instruments, the ones that were familiar. They could sense and record brain waves; that"s what they were all about. If he could find out where a thought like the one he had just had was physically coming from in his brain he could easily tell whether it was a memory or not.
Jonathan went over to the cubicle, took the complex, wire-covered sensor helmet in his hands.
How was he going to work the controls while wearing this thing? Its cable wasn"t long enough.
Jonathan cursed silently. Without an a.s.sistant there was no way he could use the equipment.
And the alternative was not at all desirable.
At CalTech they were experimenting with a certain drug. It could be inhaled like cocaine, but it had no euphoric effect. On the contrary, it stimulated the brain"s deepest memory centers and caused an almost incredible flow of vivid recollections.
This was N, alpha doporinol 6-6-6, a complex triumph of the biochemist"s craft. It was synthesized from naturally occurring brain chemicals. So far the cost was eight thou-sand dollars an ounce. There were a few grams of it in the refrigerator. Jonathan had been asked to duplicate some of CalTech"s experimental results but he had shut the lab for the summer before carrying out the work.
He went to the refrigerator. It was not your ordinary Frigidaire. This refrigerator was bolted to the floor and had a combination lock. Some of the drugs kept there, tranquiliz-ers and such, were much in demand on college campuses. Others, like 6-6-6, were valuable.
Back behind the bottles of Valium and Quaaludes were foil packets with hand-lettered labels. Jonathan took out the packet of 6-6-6. The crystals inside crunched like sugar when he opened the foil. Ideally, the drug should be sus-pended in a saline solution and introduced to the nasal membrane via an aspirator. But Jonathan did not have time for that. He measured out a moderate dose, four grains, on the sensitive laboratory scale. Then he ground it fine with pestle and mortar. He poured it from the mortar to the flat of a spatula and raised it to his nose.
He inhaled.
There was a gentle, pleasant aroma.
Jonathan felt no change. He went into one of the subject cubicles and lay down on the couchette. Still nothing.
Why do there have to be bars on my window, Mother?
The boy"s voice was so clear and real that Jonathan jumped up.
That had been him, Jonathan t.i.tus Banion, as a child.
Bars? Had there been bars on the windows of their old apartment? He didn"t remember it that way . . .and yet he did.
We"ve got to keep them out, to keep them away from you. The bars are against them.
This was uncanny. It had been her voice, but she wasn"t here.
He could see the walls of the bedroom in which she had said those words. But he didn"t recall wallpaper like that, with moons and planets and rockets on it.
But where, then, did this memory come from?
The old man from the hallway came around the end of a lab bench. His emerald eyes flashed. Beneath the fluorescent lights his skin was powder-gray. He looked dead. Hallucina-tory phenomenon, of course.
Jonathan blinked his eyes, but he could not make the illusion disappear. The old man spoke. "You must not try the door to the past, Jonathan. It"s dangerous for you. Terribly dangerous."
"Who in h.e.l.l are you? How dare you come into my lab!"
The man shifted and wavered, half mirage and half real. Jonathan blinked but the image remained vague.
In an odd way the old man seemed to fit among these recollections. "Danger," the old man said, "danger in these memories!" Then he was swinging a red lantern and Jonathan knew that this time he was an hallucination. NYU maintenance person-nel didn"t carry such lights. The real watchman was proba-bly off sleeping under the stairs.
The false one symbolized a powerful barrier in Jonathan"s mind against the very act of remembering.
But how? A barrier like this didn"t just come out of nowhere. It had to be created. As wild as it sounded, almost the only explanation was that a highly sophisticated hypno-tist had been at work on him.
Then what of those other imaginings a moment ago-the Inquisition, the tortured priest? "They"re going to destroy humanity for your sake, yours and the girl"s." Hadn"t the priest said something like that?
But there isn"t any reason to destroy anything for us.
He sat up on the edge of the couchette and rubbed his sweaty face. Bits and pieces of memory were still breaking through the hypnotic wall, induced by the powerful action of the drug to move toward a surface they could not quite reach.
Like a crust formed on lava, his mind shifted and cracked, and where it cracked the searing ugliness beneath drove him buck.
This was not his doing. He was not amnesiac; somebody had intentionally set out to conceal his past from him. And this somebody had a great deal of skill. Hypnotism was a gross craft. To practice it with such delicacy was right at the limits of modern technique, perhaps even a little beyond.
He could feel a t.i.tanic struggle building in him between the drug and the barrier. Frantic, sweating, dizzy, he lurched out of the cubicle. There was no antidote to 6-6-6; he should never have taken it without controlled supervision.
The room was hot, terribly hot. He had to have water. But the least movement sent him slumping and reeling with dizziness. His head pounded, waves of nausea staggered him.
So you want to know why we protect you? Look, then, my boy, look at the work of the Inquisition that seeks you! that seeks you!
He was surrounded by a rising wall of flames. He was being touched by them, and their touch was hideously painful. He was attached to the stake by an iron collar.
His hands were free; he tore at the iron. He kicked the logs until sparks flew up around him. Outside of the flames he could see a great and gaudy crowd, men and women and children. Along the edges of his pyre little boys roasted potatoes to sell to the mob. And the mob chanted: "Evil, evil, evil! Satan"s child, save yourself!"
But I"m not Satan"s child! I"m-I"m . . . something else.
He looked up into the royal enclosure, to one pale female face, her skin like milk, her eyes crystal-green, her hair as blond as a sunlit cloud. From her eyes there flowed cooling love. She was composed, but he knew how deeply tragic she felt.
As the flames rose around him and he died in torment he fixed on those eyes, and saw in them the triumphant secret: Our nights were not in vain, my senor, for I am with child. There will be another Our nights were not in vain, my senor, for I am with child. There will be another generation. generation.
Jonathan lurched against a bench, knocked a computer to the floor with a crash and a cascade of shattered electronic chips.
As he collected himself he realized that the fire wasn"t a dream any more than the tortured priest was a dream. They were both memories.
But what kind of memories? And what sort of a monster would have them?
The priest was recent, but that fire had burned a long time ago.
In the fire there is exaltation; the pain is your triumph.
How dare you preach to me, Lucinda, when I have to endure the stake!
Martyred husband.
O Lucinda Pantera, you are the image of my dreams, the woman who has always been beside me.
Angel Lucinda.
Angel Patricia. You are also Patricia, and all other women I and my ancestors have loved.
Seeking the edge of the future, we go on. By breeding the two lines together again and again, age by age, millennium by millennium, we are creating a masterpiece. by age, millennium by millennium, we are creating a masterpiece.
A masterpiece of evil. Something far darker than man-kind. Something unenc.u.mbered by impulses toward the good. masterpiece of evil. Something far darker than man-kind. Something unenc.u.mbered by impulses toward the good.
Something unspeakably monstrous!
Jonathan was on the floor. "No!" His mouth was dry, his face smeared with tears. "No, it mustn"t be!"
He could almost see it, almost smell it, and it was hideous and stank of rotted flesh.
And it was in this room.
Danger, the old man wailed, the old man wailed, danger! danger!
The bits and pieces of the shattered computer had cut into Jonathan viciously. He touched a gash on his palm, tasted his blood.
Something was crouched just the other side of the lab bench, breathing softly. Jonathan was so frightened he liter-ally could not move.
It was the thing thing humankind with its inquisitions and perse-cutions has been trying to prevent through the ages. humankind with its inquisitions and perse-cutions has been trying to prevent through the ages.
The anti-man, ugly where man is beautiful, bad where man is good, the very essence of evil.
But it wasn"t on the other side of the lab bench, not really. That was only his imagination, it had to be.
Yes, but your imagination is still dangerous! It"s trying to make you stop thinking these thoughts.
"I won"t stop thinking. I remember the anti-man. It"s been bred over thousands of years. And it"s-"
He looked at his own hands, turned them slowly over and over in the merciless fluorescent light.
Cro-Magnon was bred out of Neanderthal and destroyed Neanderthal. h.o.m.o sapiens was bred out of Cro-Magnon and destroyed him. In the same way the anti-man will destroy what you call out of Cro-Magnon and destroyed him. In the same way the anti-man will destroy what you call mankind. It is only following nature"s law. There is nothing bad about it. mankind. It is only following nature"s law. There is nothing bad about it.
"It"s Satanic! h.e.l.l"s answer to the creation of G.o.d!"
h.o.m.o sapiens is a defective species, and like all of nature"s mistakes, it is going to become extinct.
You of all people should love the anti-man. You will be its father.
Jonathan felt his skin beneath his jeans, the slight damp-ness of his crotch pressed by his briefs. In him was a new species?
You have already learned more than you should. Now you must be made to forget. You will confront the thing behind the bench, and it will tear these past few minutes from your mind. confront the thing behind the bench, and it will tear these past few minutes from your mind.
"No!"
I think yes. I think yessssss.
The voice in Jonathan"s mind became one with the breath-ing behind the lab bench. It merged into the hissing, terrible and loud, of something primal and big. Then came a slipping, sliding sound, weighty rubbing against the floor, and the black gleaming head of an enormous snake appeared around the corner of the table. It had coppery scales and eyes like yellow-green stones.
In them was not the savage blankness of the reptile species. Instead there was something far worse-burning, unquenchable rage mixed with the self-mocking irony of great intelligence.
It came elegantly along, its huge body sweeping in great loops. Jonathan was utterly revolted, and yet also fasci-nated. Nothing, not even the threat of death itself, could tear him from those staring green eyes.
But 6-6-6 isn"t supposed to be a hallucinogen. Sloppy testing, California. This is an effect you didn"t mention in the protocols.
The serpent had coiled into a great shiny ma.s.s of scales just in front of Jonathan. It reared its head until it was level with his own face.
It was so very real, even to the snake mites running along the edges of its mouth. Jonathan drew himself up from his p.r.o.ne position. The snake rose almost magically, facing him, staring at him over a s.p.a.ce of mere inches.
He stood fully erect. Impossibly, the snake had now risen up out of its coil, still face to face with him.
"What are you?"
I guard your memories. I live inside you. guard your memories. I live inside you.
"My G.o.d!"
Back and forth it swayed, back and forth. Its eyes regarded Jonathan evenly. He realized that, in spite of all the fear it evoked in him, there was great beauty in it. He stretched out his hand, palm up. The huge head laid itself in his palm, and the membranes over the eyes slid down, giving them a milky green appearance.
An invisible claw seemed to take hold of his arm, to make him draw the head closer and closer to his own sweating face. Up close it was terrible to see, the face of a snake with such extreme intelligence in it that it seemed more than human. Much more. Satan would create such a face.
With a snap of its body the snake plunged its head between Jonathan"s lips, forcing itself into his mouth.
He could feel the hard, cold scaliness of it, was made to gag as its tongue tickled the back of his throat.
His helpless gagging enabled it to jam itself farther down, to fill his gullet. Now the thickness of the body distended his lips, com-pressed his tongue, made his jaws click. Fear and loathing shot through him. He threw himself back, grabbed at the heavy, surging coils. As the snake worked its way down into him he clawed at its slick flesh with frantic hands. He couldn"t breathe, could barely make a sound. He could feel the head probing against sphincters as it made its way deep into him, past his esophagus and into his stomach. The deeper it got, the faster it went. Huge ma.s.ses of coils began sweeping past his s.n.a.t.c.hing, batting hands.
Then it was gone, only the tail tickling his throat. He felt as dense as thick paste, hideously full. His stomach was distended, his belt broken, his pants torn open. And the coils could be seen surging and billowing beneath the skin of his belly.
Heavily, he sank to the floor. He was utterly, completely revolted. As a teenager he had tried LSD.
Compared to this the lysergic illusion was a mere daydream.
All at once a terrible cramp doubled him over. He retched, spattering the tiles around him with flecks of blood.
He lay a long time, groaning, wanting to give way to nausea, unable to do so.
When at last the sensation pa.s.sed and he could straighten up, his belly was no longer distended. He had not only swallowed the demon snake but somehow absorbed it. Now It was part of his body, of his soul.
There had been something else, some memory.