I didn't know whether Jordan sincerely believed that we could be converted to Pan worship; or whether he had some planned P.R. purpose for hanging on to us, or whether he was just keeping us on ice. To tell the truth I didn't especially care. I was about at the end of my psychological rope: just too many traumatic things had happened to me in too short a time. I told myself that Jordan had had me over a barrel by possessing Alia as a hostage, but I was nonetheless filled with bitter shame and chagrin at the way he had opened me up like a clam. I could have reminded myself that Jordan was a much older, more experienced man whose particular genius lay in the ability to manipulate people into serving his ends. But instead I allowed myself to be demoralized. I was feeling my calendar age, the confidence of pseudomaturity gone, feeling adolescent for the first time since I'd been fifteen.
My only consolation was that I hadn't spilled that last secret which would have made utterly certain Jordan's victory in the battle for the hearts and minds of surviving mankind. But almost, I wished I had told that secret to the Council. I had decided—correctly, I still believed—that they would use the knowledge for the wrong ends just as surely as Jordan would. But possessing it might have evened the odds in the coming crisis in their ideological struggle with Jordan.
Crying over spilt milk, yeah: I did a lot of that during my first day of fasting. About the only thing I did that didn't fall under that heading was futile—I tried to escape. There was no guard immediately outside the exit from our prison-cave, and the tunnel beyond it was mighty dark. I figured I would see a guard silhouetted by light behind him better than he could see me, and tried tip-toeing out into the tunnel. The darkness covered sight, and extreme care covered sound, but there was nothing I could do about smell. Before I'd gotten ten yards up the passageway a bullet came spanging around the gentle curve of the tunnel from the darkness ahead, whined past my ear like an angry bee and went through a really amazing number of ricochets inside the cave where Alia waited before spending itself.
I followed it, in a similar hurry. Alia was shaken but unhurt.
That was my only quote constructive act unquote. After water had been fetched for us by a grinning Agro, Alia and I spent the rest of that first day sitting together in silence and thinking about soyburgers and hamburgers and ham with brown sugar and pineapple gravy and mashed potatoes with butter and carrots and rice and turnips and parsnips and buckwheat and lentils and cabbage and steak and onions—oh god, onions—and apple pie and chili and milk and beer and garlic and honey and ice cream and beets and corn and pancakes and eggs fried in bacon grease and drip coffee and squash and peppers and cheese and trout in lemon sauce and bananas and chocolate and peanut butter and strawberries and peas and stringbeans and cauliflower and lettuce and molasses and broccoli and celery and radishes and tomatoes and spinach and tofu and popcorn and bread and chapatis and cornbread and beans and raisins and peanuts and cashews and walnuts and almonds and peaches and pears and plums and grapes and cherries and wild raspberries and blueberries and a big heaping steaming bowl of oatmeal with maple syrup. We made love repeatedly that night, but sating one hunger only stoked the other.
On the morning of the second day (according to our biological clocks) even thinking about food was intolerable, so we talked. I told her more about Wendell, and a lot about what had happened to me during those years she and I had been keeping out of touch. She told me of her own experiences during those years (including the straight of what had happened with Tommy Ostermyer), and we spoke, as lovers will, of what fools we had been to wait so long.
"Isham," she said suddenly, "there's something on your mind that you aren't talking about—something you didn't tell Jordan."
I said a filthy word with considerable volume. "Good old Isham Stone! If he's not around to tell a secret to, you can always make it into a musical and take it on the road. Thirty-six point Times Roman lettering across my forehead. Fuck!"
She moved closer and put a hand to my cheek. "You're wrong, Isham. There's nothing written on your poker face—anyway, with your complexion, it'd have to be written in chalk. What Jordan read was the handwriting on the wall, there for all to see. What I read is the writing on your heart—which only I can see. You needn't tell me your secret."
"I don't see why not. Pan never created hidden microphones, as far as I know, and nobody's in smell." I was considerably mollified, and I needed to share my burden. "It's a secret I didn't dare tell your father or the Council, the most potentially destructive piece of information I know, and I can say it in three words:
"Muskies are plasmoids."
She made a puzzled noise. "I don't understand."
"Hmmm. Look, do you know about the four states of matter?"
"Four? I thought there were three."
"And here I thought Dr. Mike was giving you kids an education. Okay. For centuries it was thought that there were only three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.
"Then about twenty or thirty years ago, someone remembered the silly superstition of the ancients, who spoke of earth, air, water and fire. Fire doesn't fit under the heading of solid, liquid or gas—it's a fourth thing: a plasma. So is ball lightning. Plasmas are ionized gases . . . you savvy `ionized'? Good. It was the understanding of the existence of plasmas that made those last exploratory efforts with fusion power possible, just before physics went to hell with the rest of the world. Because plasmas have certain qualities that gases don't have. One of them is that they can be affected by electromagnetic fields. For fusion reaction you need such uniformly hellish temperatures that you can't let the target matter contact the walls of a container—heat loss at the fringes kills the reaction. So you use a plasma, and suspend it within an electromagnetic field, to oversimplify it enormously.
"Well, Muskies are plasmoids—masses of ionized gas held together by a self-generated magnetic bottle."
"Then Muskies can be affected by electromagnetic fields?" Alia interrupted. "That's why you couldn't tell Papa and the Council—because you were afraid they'd use EM as a weapon against the Muskies?"
"Close, but no cigar. Right now, using hot-shot, you can kill a Musky that's at the limit of your olfactory detection range—EM alone wouldn't make that much difference. But the reason I couldn't tell the Council about Wendell's attempts to contact High Muskies with EM, the reason I concocted that ridiculous scheme about building a balloon, was that I didn't dare let them suspect that Muskies are plasmas rather than gases, didn't dare let the concept come into their minds. Men have thought of Muskies as living gas-clouds for years, and it had to stay that way.
"Because plasmoids show up on radar."
She gasped as the implications struck her.
"Plasmoids," I went on, "were one of the phenomena that the Air Force dug up to explain flying saucers, years and years ago. That theory differed from weather balloons and thermal inversions and such only in that it was correct. It simply never occurred to the Air Force that the plasmoids were sentient."
"Oh, lord," she whispered. "That increases detection range from a couple of hundred yards of smell to . . ."
"Miles, baby. Lots of miles. If the Council learned that, in its present state of mind, there'd be such a Musky pogrom as would likely make peace forever impossible. Conceivably the Musky race could be exterminated—Wendell thinks EM of the right type and frequency will disrupt a Musky quicker'n hot-shot. Radar-aimed, that'd be pretty unbeatable."
"But . . . but . . . Isham, my mind is spinning, but . . . why mustn't you let Jordan find out? He's fanatically opposed to any kind of technology. He knows nothing about how to reactivate radar, or run it if he did."
"He's a `practical man,' " I quoted. "He'd learn. That knife at his hip was Sheffield steel, and that carbine that blew off Shorty's scalp was government issue. He's willing to compromise to an extent—he thinks it's only for the time being."
"But how could he learn something so complex?"
"There are quite a few military installations and airports within walking distance, and lots of libraries, public and private. If necessary he could kidnap all the Technos he needs. He's got two already," I added bitterly.
"Then . . ."
"So he becomes the world's most efficient Musky-killer. Then who are the Saviors of the World: Technos or Agros? Our popularity declines by an enormous percentage, and the bottom falls out of the hot-shot market. Bye-bye Fresh Start."
"But Fresh Start has much more to offer the world than just ammunition. Medicine, commercial power . . ."
"Baby, the man who rids the world of Muskies can name his own price. All we have to offer folks is brotherly love and convenience. Hate wins hands down."
"Oh God, Isham, this is terrible. You mustn't tell Jordan. You . . . you shouldn't have told me."
I took her by the ear, smiled fondly (and invisibly) and said softly, "Don't be a jerk. I'd watch you flayed alive with our baby inside you before I'd spill this secret—and you'd do me the same favor."
I felt her nod. "Yes, I would. Thanks—for the second time—for trusting me."
I shook my head. "Don't thank me. It's not as if I could help it."
And after a remarkably short transition we were making love again. The sharing of the secret had brought us even closer than plighting our troth, and making love was only the symbol. But there was nothing else about it that was "only"—I took most of the remaining skin off my knees, and didn't notice till hours later.
The next few days were very disjointed; our emotions went through vast manic-depressive cycles, that only occasionally coincided. After a time the manic part stopped happening so much.
The overriding keynote at first, of course, was hunger—a hunger such as neither of us had ever experienced or imagined before. Then we woke from our third or fourth sleep with the sharp, clear awareness that we weren't much hungry for anything at all—except intellectually. Our bellies had given up caring whether or not they ever got filled again, and turned to meditations of their own.
It didn't make me feel much better. I don't know about Alia, but I passed the silent times I had previously spent daydreaming of food in mourning. Just mourning, for anything and everything. I mourned my failure to outsit Jordan. I mourned my failure to get through to the Council. I mourned my failure to protect my woman and our child. I mourned my failure to realize my love for her until it was too late. I mourned my lost arm.
I mourned for my father.
I mourned Wendell's unjust loss of honor and heritage, and the loss of his only friend—me. I mourned the loss of Civilization, which I had never known, and all it had promised for the future. I mourned the end of the world, which seemed to me only days or weeks away. I mourned the inability of man to rise above his own attachments and stupidity. I mourned the cussedness of fate.
Once I actually howled aloud, beating my fist against the rock floor. Alia held me and rocked me, but neither of us spoke.
Three more "days" passed in this fashion. Time did not pass; it tailgated. On the sixth day Alia and I began to see great subtle interrelations in everything we knew, began to perceive previously unseen universal patterns and cosmic knowledge which stupefied us by its sudden obviousness. It seemed that all of a sudden a switch was thrown and we understood everything that had ever puzzled us about the Universe and its workings. We babbled joyously of it for awhile, then realized the inherent folly of speech and fell silent. We achieved satori.
This did not dispel my grief. But it seemed to make it a grander, subtler thing, the awareness of Cosmic Irony. There was an Olympian detachment to my perception of the magnificent tragedy that was life.
On the seventh day we began having visions.
It was in fact while I was in the middle of a stupendous eight-color four-dimensional hallucination that the situation suddenly changed.
The hallucination in question was a breed of pageant, in which all my friends and enemies were represented. But the last one through the door was out of uniform—he'd forgotten to wear his body.
It was a Musky, and my nose said it was really there.
The rest of the procession, which had been doing a sort of zero-gravity snake dance around the cave, faded as though a heavy fog had rolled in. I rose from lotus, went to the only remaining full five-gallon bucket of the four Jordan had provided us, and plunged my head into the water. The Musky was still there when I finished spluttering, so I sat down again and reached for the undermind. It was very very near. Four's corin' heaven years and I was under.
I won't go into the exact conversation, as I did with the one I had with the Sirocco Name. Some of the concept-units we used can't be crammed into a single English word, so it wouldn't be accurate anyhow.
Briefly, we swapped Names, and I learned that his Name was called Zephyr. He told me that he had a message, and it took me quite a bit of time to learn the identity of the message's sender, a question that began as a conversational formality. The concept is not a simple one—to a Musky. I would, of course, have assumed the message was from Wendell, but I was groggy and got involved in the slapstick semantic business of asking the question. And so I learned that the message was not from Wendell. It was from Dr. Mike.
The message was "Come at once."
I started to explain the difficulty of this to the Zephyr spokesman, but reflected that his presence here unmolested put that difficulty in considerable doubt. Undermind perception told me that his entire Name was within the immediate vicinity. I got rustily to my feet again, discovered that I could walk if I compensated for a tendency to float, and shook Alia from a slumber that I was too dopey to perceive as ominously deep.
"Alia.''
"Go away. Lemme sleep."
I pinched her in an awful place, and she yelped. "Wha . . . whassat?"
"Get your toothbrush and your comic books. We're checking out."
She blinked. "Yes, Isham." If the presence of a Musky unsettled her, she didn't show it. Probably congratulating herself on what an imagination she's got, I thought dizzily. Maybe she's right.
We were not fired on in the tunnel. It opened, after what I vaguely estimated as a quarter mile, onto a comparatively enormous cave, the size of a prosperous farmer's barn. Three male corpses and one female lay around it like sacks of grain, their faces the characteristic blue-green of someone who has breathed a Musky. The smell of death was not too bad yet. I giggled at them. The Musky led us down a much bigger tunnel to a much bigger cave. Along the way I saw occasional terrified people staring at us from side tunnels that were blocked by hovering Zephyrs. None spoke. I found none of this remarkable.
The new cave was enormous. Daylight came through a great beamed door in its far wall. There were eight corpses here, two with the front of their skulls blown away—Faceless Ones who hadn't survived the operation. The air stank of fried Musky. I thought that last hallucination was a noisy one, I thought, and giggled again. The giggle got louder, and kept on getting louder, and it might have gone on forever if I hadn't tripped over my feet and smacked my face on the rock floor.
That cleared my head—which was as well, as it turned out. One of the people huddling against the far wall, ringed in by Muskies, was Jordan himself. He glared at me with a ferocious bloodlust that his white mask didn't begin to hide.
"Mighty funny, ain't it?" he boomed. "Seein' my people lyin' dead at your feet. Fat city for traitors and Uncle Toms. You Musky-lovin' sonofabitch, I get loose an' you lose that other arm an' your balls. I'll eat your baby, boy!"
For a moment I marveled at his courage in the face of what must have been his most persistent and recurring nightmare—I wouldn't have believed any Faceless One could be capable of speech in the presence of so many Muskies. But my admiration was tempered by practical considerations.
"Not a chance, Jordan," I hollered back, disgusted at how thin my voice sounded beside his. "I'm just like you: a practical man. You're just too powerful to live—and too dangerous an enemy to leave behind me." I sat down and began smoothing out my conscious mind, refining my thoughts to a gestalt essence that I could carry into the undermind. It was surprisingly difficult to reach the undermind state, but I was getting close when a hand slapped me sharply in the face.
"No, Isham!"
I shivered hugely like a sleeper awakened with ice water and forced my eyes to track. Alia's face was before mine, a drawn, tangle-haired scarecrow face stained with anger and urgency. Muskies hovered at her shoulder like angry bees, a terrifying spoor, but she ignored them utterly. "You can't!" she shouted, shaking my shoulders. "Oh, you damned fool, haven't you learned anything? Are you still the same bloodthirsty shithead I turned my back on six years ago?"
And as I blinked, Jordan sprang through the cordon of Muskies around him and yanked her away from me by the hair.
I extricated myself from the full lotus and went for him low. He was big, but I was skilled.
And half-starved. Fast as he was at drawing that long knife, I'd have beat him otherwise; but instead I must pull up short and watch the shining blade caress my Alia's throat. He held her oddly, face-up across one knee, as though he were about to lift his veil and kiss her. "Who the man on top now, boy?"
"You can lose the other half of that face mighty easy, ugly man."
"Sky-devil come near me, I put my nose on hers, an' you bet your ass I'll hold my breath longer'n she can. Now call your dogs off, or I cut the roast."
I cudgeled my brains, trying desperately to think, to function, to pull a scheme or trick or double-cross from my terrific combat computer. I came up dry, utterly at a loss. Collaci'd have my ass. Hot-shot hero.
End of the road.
"All right, Jordan. God knows your word is worthless, but I guess I haven't got any choice. You win."
"I'll let her live, boy. You too. Hope for you both yet."
I didn't bother answering that one. I sank back into lotus, and began again the extended mantra that led me into the undermind state. It was easier this time, but I was too heartsick to wonder at that.
I felt the cave vanish, and then my body, and then my thoughts themselves. My identity refined itself to a kernel, in a place unrelated to space and time. Scattered about me in that place were the Zephyr Muskies, all pulsing in an identical sequence that was, somehow, the name of their Name. The "color" of the pulsing was the "feelings" that were going through their "mind," a clumsy analogy-series that is the best English has to offer.
The emotional sum conveyed was extreme confusion, with an undertone I could not identify. In effect, they were puzzled by the inexplicable delay, by this odd detour I was taking on the way to New York. The emotions produced were clearly unpleasant—why didn't I get on with it?
I informed them that the trip was off. Sorry, fellas. Something came up—you go ahead without me. I'll be along when I can.
They rejected this flatly.
I attempted to explain that I was not unwilling but unable. The reply was oddly like an echo—my projection seemed to bounce off them and return. Were they refusing communication? Why?
I tried again, and then again. The Zephyr Name would simply not hear of delay. The journey was to be made, at once. I was baffled by their intransigence—this was not the lack of understanding I had encountered so many times before with Muskies, but a willful refusal to understand.
I gave up. I could not command them to go, and I dared not bid them attack Jordan. So I had to ignore them. I figuratively jettisoned my weight-belt and kicked for the surface.
Random dots resolved into a picture again, the weight of air pressed reborn flesh, distant roaring became local sound, and the stench of fear, hate and death was everywhere. Jordan was glaring at me with expectant triumph, that cut off as he saw my expression.
"No good, Jordan. They won't listen. They don't care about Alia—but they want me to go with them, now, and they won't take no for an answer."
He growled. "Lyin' motherfucker, I told you what'd happen! Watch your woman die." Alia's eyes were wide, but she made no sound.
"Kill her if you have to. Then you'll be twice my size with a full belly and a knife in your hand, and I'll pull your brains out through your eyesockets. Either way, these damfool Muskies won't leave until I do." My voice was flat and dead, and his forehead wrinkled as he read my sincerity. I think he was recalling that I was Collaci's star pupil.
"You too far gone to bluff," he said at last. "I guess the sky-devils don't do what you say at that. What happen now?"
"Beats the piss out of me. As soon as they figure out that you're what's holding me up, you and Alia will die. I guess I walk."
He turned it over in his mind. "I guess you do."
"I'll be back, Jordan. She'd better be alive—and unharmed—when I do."
"Don't worry, boy. I got plans for this here lady. Be seein' you."
Muskies were swarming angrily, projecting for the first time a concerted mood-pattern that impinged on conscious thought. It was impatience, with an overtone of menace. I understood why ghosts had so terrified mankind for centuries—sweat broke out all over me, coldest in armpits and groin. "Maybe not," I answered cheerily, "but we'll meet again. Bye-bye, Alia. I'll be back for you when I can."
"I know," she said quietly, smiling at me from her awkward position across Jordan's thigh. "Take care."
I nodded, got to my feet and walked from the cave into daylight, followed by a phalanx of Muskies.
It was a chilly day, clouds moving south overhead. The trees were achingly green, and the purple of lupines around the mine entrance stabbed at eyes that had seen only black for a long week. The world was so intolerably beautiful that I spared it a full two seconds as I turned from the road that led into the cave-mine, and headed for the nearby forest. By the time I reached its cover I had finalized my plans as well as I could. Speed was essential—the only possible assets I had or was likely to get were surprise and audacity. A quick smash-and-grab had at least a slim chance of success. I began circling north so as to hit them from an unexpected direction.
And ran into a wall of Muskies.
The damned things would not let me by. Intangible individually, in the mass they formed something through which I could not pass, cohering by a means I didn't understand. Whether the constraint was physical or psychic I don't know—but in my weakened condition I lacked whatever kind of strength it took to push my way through. I battered at them with my body and my mind, raving and cursing in English and Swahili, but it was useless. They were gentle, but insistent—I was to go south or not at all. No more detours.
After ten minutes of concentrated effort that left me aching in every cell I gave up and staggered, sobbing with frustration and rage, through the forest, heading for the Big Apple.