Within a Crimson Circle

Aragorn Books

Within a Crimson Circle

Photo Courtesy of NASA

A young man walks down a boardwalk and passes into a dream. But how can he know that the greatest enemy he will face, is himself?

Please note:

This book makes use of various rock

and progressive rock lyrics under the

Fair Use clauses of the United States

and no profit is made from their use.

If anything, it brings attention

to the rich lyrical tradition of the times,

and makes these recordings more profitable.

Any copyright holder, producer or performer who does not

wish his or her lyrics to appear in this work has

only to contact me, and they will be removed

immediately.

-Christopher Leadem

Aragorn Books

WITHIN A CRIMSON CIRCLE

to Patty Bartlett

Suggested Musical Background
For reading and/or afterthought

A) Chapter 2- “Alaska,” from the U.K. album by U.K., Polydor, 1978 (BMI). First four and a half minutes, then fade.

B) Pinball Lizard- “Pinball Wizard,” by The Who, from the original version of Tommy, MCA Records (BMI). Recorded for Decca, 1969.

C) Three Dimensional Chess- Entire first side, the U.K. album by U.K., listed above. Highlight “Thirty Years.”

D) The Bad Man- “Behind Blue Eyes,” from the Who’s Next album by The Who. MCA Records, 1971 (BMI).

E) David- “Warszawa” and “Art Decade,” from the album Low, by David Bowie. RCA, 1977 [TMK(s), Registered, Marca(s), Registrada(s), RCA].

F) Tessa of Troyan- “Promenade,” “The Sage,” and others, from the Pictures at an Exhibition album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, adapted from the original score for piano by Modest Mussorgsky. Atlantic, 1972 (BMI).

G) Final Insert- “The Great Gates of Kiev,” original score by Mussorgsky, orchestral arrangement by Maurice Ravel. Preferred recording: The Philadelphia Orchestra, Ricardo Muti conducting. Capitol Records, 1979.

life’s the same

i’m moving in stereo

life’s the same

except for my shoes

life’s the same

you’re shaking like tremolo

life’s the same

it’s all inside of you

- Ric Ocasek, The Cars

Chapter 1- The Machine

It was cold that night; the summer seemed to have forgotten itself. The boardwalk was emptying rapidly, as those booths and arcades that had not already done so began to close up for the night. By ten o’clock the strip would be deserted and I would be alone, again. One last burly man, his hairy arms moving grotesquely beneath the greasy folds of a dirty tanktop T-shirt, stood adamantly within the plywood frame of his record Wheel-of-Fortune booth, gesturing all comers to try their luck, blaring the music of The Cars through cracked and overloaded speakers. He turned his horrid gaze on me. I waved him off, much to his discontent, and kept going. A group of gulls to my right seemed to laugh at it all, filling the air with their mocking cries as they fought among themselves for scraps of garbage on the beach. The darkness seemed complete, with only Time to keep it all in motion.

I wrestled with a difficult decision. I couldn’t decide whether to smoke some hash, become slightly asthmatic and lie on the beach feeling sorry for myself, or just go back to my motel room, utterly broken and defeated. Time was running out on my self-proclaimed ‘writer’s paradise’ vacation, and once more I really hadn’t done that much of anything. I had come to Ocean City hoping to gather ideas for short stories, maybe put them together later into some kind of novel. The plan had been to hang out in local bars studying the characters, to get wasted and go to the arcades, to meet beautiful women and make love on the beach. All very inspiring stuff - the only trouble was it hadn’t happened that way. Sure I had gone to the bars, gotten high and played pinball. I had even met a fairly decent-looking chick. But there had been no depth to any of it, no reason why anyone other than myself should relate to it in any way. Worst of all, at times it had felt so empty that I wanted to crawl inside a hole and die: just another midnight fantasy that had sounded good at the time. I couldn’t go back to the motel room, not feeling like this. I kept walking.

All I could do was try to think it through. I was no fatalist, waiting for the walls to come crashing in on me. At twenty-two I’d had enough experience to know that such feelings wouldn’t last forever. The disturbing thing was that all my nagging little fears had begun to seem like reality - the only reality. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I couldn’t just shake it off and say, “It’ll be better soon, when I’m older and on my own. I’ll call the shots then, you’ll see.” The future was now, and at the moment it didn’t look very promising. The sheer reality of my physical existence seemed to loom up all around me like some grave and certain knowledge I could no longer ignore. The inescapability of it all was frightening.....

I heard music playing somewhere up ahead of me, vaguely familiar. What stood out most in my mind was the excellent fidelity. Even at that distance (I estimated about two hundred yards farther up the boardwalk) the individual tones sounded almost three dimensional, the colors bright and clear. I listened intently..... King Crimson! Someone was playing the opening passage from “Circus,” strangely appropriate. I listened to the words in a sort of deep, melancholic trance. King Crimson never failed to move me, though the emotion it brought was intense and often confusing. The words:

Night: her sabled dome scattered with diamonds

Fused my dust from a light year

Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon

Strung my warp across time

Gave me each a horse, sunrise and graveyard

Told me only I was her

Bid me face the east, closed me in questions

Built the sky for my dawn.....

The music blared - premature crescendo. I had to find out where it was coming from. Almost mystical the way it called to me. I wasn’t even angry with myself for having given in to the thought. I had nothing to lose.

“What the hell? Bring on the show.”

Dreamlike.

A tiny man, dressed oddly in a tight-fitting three-piece suit, dark forest green with gold checkered vest, stood leaning against a brass and iron railing in front of what had to be the strangest arcade that I had ever seen. Not that it would have been unusual elsewhere. The brightly carpeted walkway leading back to a sharp U in the railing, then following a flight of steps downward to some lower-level chamber, could be seen at any shopping-mall theater with its viewing rooms below. But I happened to know that as recently as the day before there had been nothing beneath the boardwalk at this point but empty beer cans and dirty sand. True it was farther north than I usually wandered. Still, I was almost certain.....

The dwarf looked up keenly as I approached, tugging thoughtfully at his short, red-brown beard as if I were someone he should recognize. Then, and for no apparent reason he began pacing back and forth across the bleached-gray boards just beyond the entrance, turned pale and shadow by the fluorescent glow of lights from within. As he paced he shot quick, inquisitive glances in my direction, his coal black eyes seeming to glimmer with the light of some dark knowledge or intelligence.

After several awkward moments of this (for me) he stopped suddenly, looking over at me with an expression I shall never be able to put into words. Let it suffice to say that an eerie, creeping smile came over his taut and high-boned features. He turned and retreated swiftly into the carpeted sanctuary, entering a glass-faced ticket booth at the back of it. Through the glass I could see him tinkering with some kind of electronic control panel. He threw a switch, maybe several, and the broad speaker cabinets to either side fell silent.

He reemerged presently and came towards me, stopping roughly some three feet away. He now donned the green, hard-felt hat that he had fetched out with him, giving him the appearance of a darker and more mysterious version of the leprechaun.

“Heard the music, did ya?” His voice was thick and cockney. “Thought you’d come and see it for yourself?” See it?

“Well yeah. I mean I guess so. Not too many people play King Crimson anymore.” At this his brows seemed to rise involuntarily, like those of a puppet, or an evil man touched by a pleasure he half shunned, half longed for.

“Aye, that they don’t.” He cocked his head slyly and gave me a wink. “What say then, laddy? Care to give it a go? Take a chance? Never know until ya try.” His manner had become that of a carnival barker. I couldn’t imagine why.

“But the sign says you’re not open yet.” A wide white banner hung down from the ceiling read plainly:

MacPherson’s Crimson Gallery, Open to the Public August 12

“Ah, but that’s for everyone. And you’re not everyone, now are ya?”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Let’s not be playin’ games, shall we lad? I’m giving you the chance to see something that no one else has. Now are ya game, or aren’t ya?”

“Well, how much does it cost? And what’s down there, anyway?” The questions seemed natural enough.

“Cost?” he scoffed. “Why it don’t cost nothin’ - nothin’ but Time.

And as for what’s down there, you’ll never know if ya stand here all night jawin’ with me.”

This concluded, he stepped back several paces till he stood just-so beside the railing. Then, tucking his right hand against his waist he bowed low, and with a great sweeping gesture of the same arm, gently rose and beckoned me forward. I hesitated for a moment, questioning his motives, then shook my head and began to advance. Passing him I half turned, as if to go back.

“Oh, hell. It’s not like I’ve got somewhere else to go.”

“That’s the spirit, laddy. Courage like that ‘ll take a man far in this life.” He made no attempt to hide his sarcasm. I reached the U in the railing. I turned to my right.

The stairs were not carpeted, as they had somehow appeared from outside. I descended slowly through increasing darkness. The only light was that which came from above and behind me, fading steadily, and a faint orange glow that seemed to emanate softly from an unseen source far below. And as I continued downward, my eyes straining to adjust to the failing light, I found that the railing at my fingertips had begun to pull away gradually---away from the straight line I was attempting to draw with the stairs. Reaching out with my left hand I discovered that the opposing wall (stone, I think) was also deserting me.

Soon there could be no doubt. The corridor was growing wider and more uncertain. Was it possible that it actually led somewhere?
It suddenly occurred to me that I was being led (or was leading myself) deep underground, that I had trod somewhere in the vicinity of thirty steps, and was still only halfway..... Halfway where? To that I had no answer.

I thought very seriously about going back. For all I knew the whole thing could be some kind of bizarre trap, with unnamed rogues and murderers waiting silently for me at the bottom. It seemed a foolish apprehension, but I had an odd and instinctive sense of foreboding that wouldn’t go away. Only curiosity kept me going, and even then much more cautiously. I looked and listened carefully, making as little noise as I possibly could.

The stairs ended abruptly, onto the bare-earth crest of a small rounded hill leading downward. The jagged outline of a broad arching gateway, only hinted at from above, could now be seen clearly some forty feet below, illuminated by the hazy orange glow from within. But as this lay at the very bottom of the sharply bowing incline, what lay beyond remained hidden from view. A narrow cobblestone path led down to it.

Looking around me I tried to get a rough idea of my surroundings, but was baffled by the deep and irregular shadows that hung over everything like a thick and smoldering woolen blanket. I couldn’t see the ceiling above me. The light from above had now wholly vanished, and the misty, red-orange glow from beneath seemed reluctant to share its light beyond the boundaries of the arch.
To my left was stone - a definite horizon. To my right was only shadow, a vague, dimensionless void beyond the final, tight-iron curlings of the ornamented railing. The staircase had reached a width of thirty feet.

I hesitated once more. What in Heaven’s name had I gotten myself into? Taking several tentative steps out onto the path, I felt more than heard the sudden rustle of angry dogs behind me. I ran forward in a burst of instinctive panic, then whirled so as not to be run down from behind. I turned too quickly, slipped and nearly fell. I caught myself on one knee, legs splayed, looking back.

There I saw two spike-collared Dobermans straining mightily at the end of long chain leashes, lashed together to some common fixture hidden in the deeper darkness beside the railing. They snarled and lunged at me savagely, eyes burning with the conditioned hatred of trained attack dogs. I had outrun their abbreviated charge by less than six feet. My momentum had carried me down the first curving angles of the slope so that now I looked up at them, faintly reflective silhouettes against the unyielding darkness. Straining together in an attempt to get at me, their glossy black bodies seemed to merge and become one in the illusory, half-light glow from beneath. Their heads stretched out to either side, teeth bared and horrible, they formed an oppressive resemblance to the mythical Cerberus I found a little too real for my liking.

One thing was certain: I couldn’t go back now if I wanted to. Their long chains allowed my two captors more than enough leeway to block the stairs completely, sealing off the only exit I knew. I was trapped. Trapped. Shaking my fist futilely at the dogs, now becoming quieter, I turned in frustrated anger to face what lay ahead. My legs trembled slightly from the unused adrenalin as I walked, each step bringing me lower and nearer the entranceway. I could see a little further past its Gothic, cave-like arch with each advancing stride. Reaching the bottom, I looked inside with a feeling of carefully subdued awe and disbelief.

Total unreality.

A great cavernous expanse opened impossibly before me, a massive, domed chamber fully a hundred meters wide, forty high and sixty across. In its center a lesser, oval shaped knoll rose gradually, housed in relative symmetry by the arching, irregular, tinted and watercolor dome. Apparently unsupported, it swept across view like a giant rippled wave of glowing orange red---the perfect science fiction sky. At its ringed, uneven horizon stood a rocky and unnatural landscape. Wrinkled and porous blue-gray mountains rested quietly in miniature, time-lined and scarred as if by countless centuries of erosion, skirted at the base by swirling clouds of colorless mist that caught, swallowed, or reflected the light from above in a sullen, pulsing and thin-fingered sea of auburn, burnt orange and pale.

The knoll remained a short distance ahead of me, separated from where I now stood by a steep and narrow ravine that opened out sharply across the path, beginning and ending in low overhangs twenty yards to either side. Filled with the same dense fog, it also radiated an intense, blood-red glow of its own. Its color shown full in my face. The abyss was spanned by a stone and wood-planked bridge, cut-boulder sided and bowing gently from beneath. I headed towards it as if in a dream, spurred on by irrepressible curiosity and wonder. The first plank sounded softly beneath the weight of my shoes.

The knoll! How can I possibly describe it? Should I say that it was split into roughly equal halves by the recessed cobblestone path that wound through it? that dense, surreal foliage sprang up out of soil and stone in a perfect and unnatural harmony? that it brought to mind visions of a stark and alien sea floor, raised and set in motion by invisible waves of wind? These are only words, based on association with rational experience. They can’t begin to convey the overpowering sense of awe and astonishment, the feeling that I had entered a separate reality so bizarre, so complete unto itself that the ‘real’ world would never again be the same. Everywhere their unwilling gaze halted my eyes were met by unlikely impressions they could not accept. Here! Wet-black shafts rose and curled in diminishing thickness all around me, looming like the magnified hair-follicle forests of a human arm. Tiny grass plants and flowering weeds became equally surreal, towering to impossible heights - an insect’s world brought to life. Great green pods opened like massive jaws atop pale translucent stalks, tightly wrapped in darkling violet vines and contrasted by the painted coral formations, pink and razor-sharp, that lingered at the base of each like thick and matted pubic hair.

Nor was everything beautiful; far from it. Even the simplest display, a circle of rounded stones on a bare, hard-earth clearing by the side of the path, contained a strong element of ugliness and despair. Dried blood was upon them, a human skull, ancient and morose, lay half submerged in their midst, pierced through the top by an arrowhead, its shaft long since rotted away. The skull was very small, very real, belonging to a child.

But even as I stared at it in anguished disbelief, already a part of my mind perceived the reason for it. This was not a blow meant to cripple, but only to wound, and open the eyes: a call to sympathetic action. And everywhere the ugliness seemed on the verge of becoming too intense - many of the greasy, hair-follicle shafts were embedded in deep, infected pores, weak and liquid, oozing a foul, yellow-green puss that trickled thickly across surrounding patches of lumpy and threatening blackheads - one became aware of, sensed the presence of, a strictly followed code of artistic restraint. It was almost as if the creator (whoever he was) had endeavored to shock and startle, to explode preconception, but had no intention of deliberately hurting or demoralizing anyone, by placing in the heart creeping fears that did not already dwell there. In short, each separate exhibit (for lack of a better word) seemed to state that its master was capable of a far greater intensity: that he had known the gruesome and the desperate, but chose out of personal character and stubborn self-discipline to refrain from the needlessly absurd or pointlessly fatalistic. I could feel it very clearly. I was sure.

If you could only have seen it! I have cursed myself a thousand times since for not remembering..... I felt a sudden and irrationally strong urge to meet this second Creator, this unknown: the enigma behind the fantastic. I found myself walking faster, down the far side of the knoll and out the back of the dome through a smaller arch I hardly noticed. It wasn’t until confronted by a five-directional fork in the path, now becoming smoother, that I stopped to gather my thoughts. I had to remind myself that I was still trapped, here against my will. I remembered the dogs.

This second chamber, not nearly so large as the first, was in truth little more than the rough and uncut, parlor-like entrance to the five exhibitions that lay ahead. The path now followed its five, straying offshoots to an open pentagonal wall-face of vastly differing facades, each cut by a single, unobstructed doorway.

I studied them carefully. Each was crowned by some kind of explanatory sign and constructed accordingly. From left to right I read the following inscriptions:

Chamber of Horrors, Swords and Sorcery, The Machine, The Lotus, and Science Fiction Worlds. I’ll not comment on the two pairs to either side of center, as I entered none of these, but will continue my narrative instead with a description of that which lay dead ahead. A plain white marble face bore cut and gold-lined letters that read simply, somewhat ominously:

“The Machine.”

Chapter 2- Musical Dreams

A warm yellow light shone gently from within, peering out through the keyhole doorway with the fresh and tireless hue of an early morning sun. Quiet, calculated sounds could be heard inside - metal on metal lightly touching, the steady, patient breathing of a craftsman at work. I stepped through the doorway and into the light, was met by a six-sided room slightly deeper than wide. Two walls of blue crystalline velvet, tinged green at the edges by the light from above, angled out like opened arms to either side. These were met at the mid-point of the room by two more, which narrowed again towards the back of the enclosure. The fifth wall, in front of me, was formed by the half paneled, half fiberglass face of some kind of shallow, unlit recording booth. The sixth wall, pierced, stood behind me.
The focus of the room seemed to be upon the large, throne-line apparatus that stood at its center. Mounted on an octagonal platform of complicated machinery, it brought to mind a wide, reclining barber’s chair, though with sharper, more symmetrical lines, or a padded operating table in three sections folding forward. It tilted back almost fully, facing the sky.

Only there was no sky. The ceiling above it was high, but not infinite, rising in a series of shadowed tiers from light into darkness. I thought at once of the multiple, cross-beamed scaffoldings above the stage of an indoor theater. Two rows of black encased lights shown down from a height of twenty feet. A metal framed and yet singularly detached dome of milk-white translucent screens, billowing up from the bottom and joined without visible seams (a base diameter of roughly twelve feet), was suspended on chains just below the double row of stage lights, directly above the throne. Mounted to the dome’s ribbed outer shell, were three large movie cameras or projectors, their supporting shafts equally spaced around the thick, padded ring that enclosed the pale hemisphere and formed its base. The three pointed inward upon the screens, unobstructed by three arching struts that rose from the ring and were joined at the crown of the structure. The entire apparatus was supported by four supple chains that reached up to separate pulleys among the scaffoldings, and could be lowered (apparently) directly onto or over the reclining throne, covering and engulfing it completely.

From the far side of the chair I again heard the curious tinkering sounds of the mechanic, remembered I was not alone. Skirting its smooth and dark painted base, I turned a corner and nearly tripped over two legs and a torso that projected out from an opened panel in its side. Supported by a wheel-sled, half submerged like the body itself, I looked down upon a grasping and turning human form. I didn’t know what to do.

“Hello,” I said finally, still very unsure of my welcome. A work-suited upper body appeared, followed by a head and two shoulders. A man, late thirties to early forties, black hair and close-cropped beard, round wire-rimmed glasses looked up at me calmly, perhaps a bit distracted, like the artist taken from his work by mandatory attention to everyday affairs.

“Ah, so you’re what the dogs are about.” British inflection with traces (I thought) of a south of London accent. “I’m almost done here, lad. Be with you in half a moment.” I nodded assuredly, but wished he hadn’t mentioned the dogs. He reappeared presently, wiping his hands with a cloth after putting away an assortment of small hand tools, then rose to greet me.

“The name’s Williams,” he said, offering me his hand. “Lucas Williams, call me Luke: owner, inventor, and curator of all that you see.”

“Not MacPherson?”

“Oh, goodness no. At least I hope not. The original MacPherson’s been dead over five hundred years, victim of a curse if you believe the legend. No, I just named the place after his castle in Scotland - quaint little estate off the Culloden Moor, supposed to be haunted..... So. What brings you to our humble gallery tonight?”

“Your man upstairs said there was something down here I should see.”

“Collins sent you down? How odd. Did he give a reason?”

I squirmed uncomfortably, victim of my own frustration. “I don’t know, maybe he likes me. I just wish he’d have done something with the dogs first. They nearly took my head off.”

“You mean he didn’t take in their chains before sending you down?” Genuine anger flushed in his face.

“I guess not.”His brows drew together into thick folds, showing years of hard work. “Please accept my apologies. He’ll hear it from me, I assure you.” What else could he say? “But try to understand. He’s a good man in his way - ideal for my purposes - he just gets bitter sometimes. I don’t think he really meant to hurt you.” He looked at me. “His life hasn’t been easy.”

“And mine has?” I hated myself the moment the words left my mouth. His eyes bored in on me strangely, like those of a lone wolf, goaded to senseless violence by the pack. He started to answer harshly, refrained.

“I’m sorry, then. There’s nothing more I can do.” He turned and retreated slowly toward the back of the chamber.

“No, wait. Please. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything.” He turned and studied me again. No words of mine can describe the deep aura that followed his movements - full pain and love welded together without a joint.

“What is this thing, anyway? It looks pretty intense.”

With this his defenses softened, as if I had said something right. I was glad. “Actually, the chair by itself is useless. It’s only when combined with the rest of the room that it becomes what it is.” His sweeping gaze took in everything: the dome, the recording booth, even the walls.

“What does it do? All together I mean.”

“It serves a double purpose, actually. It picks up and records the mental engrams of the person wired in, his or her ‘dreams’ as stimulated by the machine. Then it plays them back, along with the music that inspired them, for anyone who’s willing to open themselves..... And it’s done, finished, nothing more I can do with it.” Something drew him back in thought. “I’ve refined the refinements ten times over, and still.....” He sighed darkly. “All dressed up and no place to go.”

“What do you mean? What’s the trouble?” It sounded impressive enough to me.

“The trouble is that it’s a lengthy, expensive, and somewhat illegal process to hook someone up to be recorded. I had hoped to use it on
myself. I have. But all I keep getting are very elaborate scenarios without a thread of story-line or plot to tie them together, to give them meaning. I’m a visual artist, you see, not a writer. My subconscious expresses itself in forms and images, however detailed. And I want it to be so much more than that.” He threw out his hands and looked to the sky that wasn’t there. He laughed bitterly. “I even tried wiring Collins’ sleep. You can imagine what that was like.” Fear of failure took its place alongside the rest of his features.

“But you’ve recorded your own dreams as well?” He nodded. “And you can play them back on the screens, along with music?”

“Yes.” He looked grim.

“Well, just judging by your work back there (I threw a thumb over my shoulder), I wouldn’t say it was a total loss. At least---” My tardy mind stopped in its tracks. What if - No. Why not?

“Wait a minute. I’m a writer. I’m not saying how good, but I’ve been at it for several years.” What was I doing? “And my dreams usually follow a pattern, especially when I‘ve been writing, or reading a lot.” I had painfully vivid and well-constructed nightmares.

His eyes again bored in on me. They took on the same peculiar glint as those of the dwarf..... For a single, uncanny moment the two formed a striking resemblance. How absolutely strange. He didn’t smile.

“No, I’m afraid I couldn’t.” A pause. “I’d like to take you up on it, I really would. I’d even thought of hiring someone. But you’re so young.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Now I felt goaded.

“A lot.”

“For example?”

“Listen, lad, it’s not a put-down. I just don’t think you know what you’re trying to get yourself into. When I said the machine records musical ‘dreams’ I was speaking figuratively. You wouldn’t be asleep at all, just isolated in a separate reality. You’d be detached, it’s true, but without the protection..... There’s really no way to explain it. Just understand this. The machine can be very intense - it doesn’t hold anything back. More accurately, it doesn’t let you hold anything back. I wanted the playback to be the total experience, so that’s the way I designed it to record. And I hope you know by now that life can be a frightening prospect without some illusion, some protection from the self.”

“What makes you think I’m so full of illusions? Or that if I saw myself too closely I couldn’t handle it?”

“We’ve all got illusions, son, the best of us. We need them. It’s no accident that our minds, of which we only use a small fraction, have trained themselves to reduce our experience to terms and symbols we can deal with: that we can use and understand. Just look at the world’s religions. Not one of them can stand up to the concept of an infinite Universe fifteen billions years old, or look Death square in the face without flinching. So we fall back on myths and legends that speak of magical kingdoms of afterlife, or simply console ourselves with the belief that the spirit is eternal. And that’s natural enough. People have been clinging to the spiritual as a shelter from mortal fear for as long as men have been men, and not always for the worst.” He hesitated, then said in deepest earnest:

“It’s a cold and lonely tight-rope that the true pioneer faces, with nothing above or below him, nothing behind, only forward, and that the height of uncertainty.”

“And yet you’ve done it.”

“Yes, but very carefully, and within well defined limits. And I’ve had forty-two years of knowing myself to prepare, to have some idea what to expect.”

“And you don’t think I’m ready?”“No, I don’t. And on top of that, some of the drugs and techniques I use to help achieve the dream state are strictly illegal, and rightfully so. They can absolutely devastate a person who’s not ready for them, who doesn’t understand what’s happening, or know how to react. Even then there’s no guarantee.....”

“What drugs? Specifically.” I thought I had a pretty good idea.....

“I use a preparation serum which contains, along with certain chemicals to make the brain waves recordable, a combination, in measured doses, of LSD, sodium pentathol, and specially synthesized histamines. I can’t scientifically explain the histamines, but you can imagine that the other two, when combined, can be very. . .direct.”

“I’ve done acid twenty-five times,” I said defiantly. “I’ve run the full range of emotions, and never tried to hide from the things it made me feel. I don’t do it anymore because..... Well, just because. That’s not the point.”

“Son, please.”

“Lucas, I listened to you. Now please, listen to me. I’ve spent the last eight years of my life just trying to figure out who, and what the hell I am. I’ve run up a lot of dead ends, and yes, burned myself out more than once. But that doesn’t mean I stop trying.

“You want to talk about frustration?” I continued, the words pouring out. “Just try coming out of the American suburbs with an overdose of ideals, and absolutely no idea how to apply them. Try finding yourself a total outcast at eighteen, because you wouldn’t throw away everything you believe in to become a slave of the almighty dollar. Then try moving from place to place, from bad to worse, because your father has all but disowned you. Try topping an evening of frustrated writing with a trip to the hospital because the inescapable dust had triggered your asthma, again. Try walking down the streets of Philadelphia and telling yourself it’s all right, there is a God.

“I can’t say it; I probably couldn’t even write it. The point is that for the last four years I’ve given it everything I had, and more than a little I didn’t, and I’m still nowhere. I’ve had to fight like hell just to stay alive. I need something, desperately. I need a break. The publishers aren’t going to give it to me - they’ve made that painfully clear - and neither is my father..... And every woman who is initially drawn to me, because I am different, treats me like dirt in the end. Because for all their talk of wanting a sensitive and caring man, what they really want is an aggressive provider who treats them like shit, but gives them the fantasy of wealth and power.

“You talk about fear; I’ve known my share. But I’ve also known something far worse. Emptiness. Dull minds that can’t think or feel are killing this country. Screw that, they’re killing me. Lucas - Luke. I need this chance. I hadn’t realized how much. Of course I’m scared. But I’ll deal with my fears the same way I always have..... I need you, Luke. And maybe, just maybe, you need me too."

He remained quiet a long time, lost among his thoughts. One way or the other, he seemed to feel personally responsible. Rare as it may be, there is no underestimating the compassion of a man who truly sees another human soul before him. He looked up at me, pensive, then spoke.

“You know the story of Icarus?”

“Yes. He flew too close to the sun.”

“And that doesn’t dissuade you?”

“No.”

... “All right, then. We’ll try.” I must have smiled. “But understand this very clearly. If we start, we finish. And you trust my judgment, all the way.”

I lay back in the Chair, arms raised slightly by supporting rests. The angles of the Machine had been set. The vinyl was soft, thick and smooth, like the hide of some impregnable mammoth. I had chosen my musical background from the extensive collection of quarter-track tapes that the man kept in a vaulted room behind the booth, and lay waiting for further instructions. My skull had been ‘wired’ with the countless electrodes needed for recording, and fitted with a retaining cap that channeled the multitude of colored wires, housed a pair of supremely high fidelity headphones, and contained, above the temples, an ultrasonic sound-sending device, the purpose of which was not entirely clear.

Luke sat facing me in the recording booth, leaning over the sloped shelf of intricate panels before him. I watched him amidst reflections through the glass, running his fingers nimbly across the maze of dials and levers as he spoke to me through a headset. After several preliminary tests, he asked me if I was ready for a trial run. I said yes, speaking through the tiny microphone at my chin, saw him take off the headset.

From his stool, he reached back and over to a small refrigerator recessed into the wall, opened the door and drew out from it two singular injection vials, syringes, and a small, translucent plastic cup, filled with a dark thin liquid. I had almost forgotten. The door of the booth opened and he came toward me. Stopping by the side of the Chair, he lay down his burden on a tray that folded out from it, and gestured for me to push back the headphones. I did, and he spoke to me directly.

“Are you very sure?” he asked.

“Positive.”

“Then may your God go with you. I can’t.”

With this his manner became business-like, almost cold. He gave me the liquid to drink, a radioactive isotope to make the brain waves recordable, then rolled up my sleeve. He shook the first vial, turned it upside down and inserted the needle. The rubber offered no resistance.

“I want the same dose you give yourself.”

“That’s what you’re getting.” He gave me the first injection. He lofted the second vial, inserted the syringe, and gave me the other.

“These will take some time to start working. Just lie back and try to clear your mind. If you begin to feel dizzy, take a few deep breaths and the feeling should pass. We’ll lower the dome in eleven minutes (he checked his watch), and give you the trial run. You’re on your own now, lad.”

The dome was lowered over me slowly, somewhat ominously, as Lucas reduced the light from above to a mere candle flame. I watched him for a fleeting moment at work over the illuminated panels, the only light he allowed himself in the booth. The indirect glow of their half-shielded tubes now cast him in an entirely new, almost Satanic aspect, turning his ruddy features pale, and gathering together deep wells of shadow about the eyes and forehead. Then the dome, like a giant hand, covered me completely. I saw nothing, heard only my own, unsteady breathing. The drugs had begun to take effect. My body felt numb, my head detached. But that was all. I heard his voice through the headphones.

“Are you feeling the sodium pentathol?”

I nodded, then remembered myself. “Yes.”

“And you feel all right?”

“A little woozy.”

“That should pass. Are you ready to test the visual?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” I was eager, anxious, and more than a little scared - nothing new.

“Close your eyes.” I did. “Just a second.....” I heard nothing, but felt the Machine come to life, undeniable. “Now. Open them.”

I opened my eyes to the noiseless, indecisive colors of my subconscious. Vague and unresolved images danced in confused dimension upon the screens, blurred and out of focus at first, then suddenly sharp and clear. A bumping, sliding mass of watercolor purples and pinks, still unresolved, was broken by a single cell-cluster of gold and spectrum-splayed oils directly in front of me. Unfortunately, this was ringed at the edges by a smoke-like halo of the queerest shades of yellow and white that I had ever seen: a shield wall as it were, disconcerting and unpleasant. I tried to ignore it.

“Okay,” came the Voice. “I’m going to start the music, make some adjustments, and put you about halfway under. You’ll be able to maintain full consciousness, this time. But don’t be afraid to close your eyes. You’ll see the same thing in your mind. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“All right then. Just relax, and don’t try to force it.” There was a pause while he cued the tape. “Ten seconds.”

The music began - heavy, droning synthesizers. At first I felt nothing unusual, only smiled inwardly at the rightness of my first choice: Alaska, by U.K., raw and powerful. I closed my eyes easily, naturally, surrendered to the sound. It didn’t take a machine to visualize.....
I felt a subtle pressure about the temples, a slight pulsing from within. A gland pumped liquid from beneath my jaw and the LSD hit me all at once, incredibly pure. The chair seemed to fall back suddenly, down through a deep well without color. I opened my eyes with a start, found that the screens with their indecisive projections had vanished. I drifted instead through the vast coldness of Space. I was overcome by a moment of mindless, animal fear. I shook my head, and saw the image breaking up.

“Don’t fight it,” came Luke’s warning.

“No, I’m sorry. I won’t.” I closed my eyes again, hard, tried to gather my courage. The weightless descent continued, the chair pitching first backward, then forward, then spiraling down like a leaf cut loose from the tree. When at last the dizzying motion relented (in truth it had lasted little more than twenty seconds) I seemed to float upon an invisible sea, without matter or substance. I couldn’t feel my hands. I hardened myself and opened my eyes, this time without reservation.

Never was a single act so stunningly rewarded.

The view amidst stars was overpowering, making the most awe-inspiring Grand Canyon sunset (I had never seen one) seem small and dim by comparison. I could see the chair, my hands, edged in gold. But the dome was gone. I sat upon the throne like God in his heaven, looking out on the vastness of Space, deep and dark and perfect. Stars shone, bright pin-holes of light in impossible numbers. Dusty, fire-colored nebulae streaked across the sky. I became acutely aware of the music, not as something external, but as a fully dimensional and integral part of all that I saw, all that was: Eternity’s Breath.

The music changed abruptly, as did the scene before me. A blinding hoop of silver-white light split a gap between stars, and through its inner blackness passed a fleet of war-like ships, gray and ominous. They broke into multiple attack formations and swept down upon the blue-green planet below. Ships rose from its surface in a desperate defense---an aerial dogfight of colossal stakes and proportion. Ships dove and swirled, burst into silent flame. A squadron of the Enemy broke through and.....

I was back in the dome, alone, confused.

“What happened?” I spoke to no one in particular, not remembering. A voice came back, familiar.

“I faded you out at the end of the piece. That was only a warm-up. Don’t worry, there’s plenty more to come. Save your strength.”
I couldn’t answer right away, feeling a dull and uncertain amnesia. Though fully conscious throughout, I had genuinely forgotten a part of myself, substituting instead the world that my mind had created on the screens. I looked around me. Slowly I remembered the dome, the man, then myself. I rubbed my eyes gently (for the last several minutes I could not remember whether they had been opened or closed), then spoke.

“How did I do? I mean, did you get everything?”

“The recording is fine, but it’s still too early to tell. I haven’t put you all the way under yet. There’s no way of knowing how your mind will react without limitations.”

I answered his caution with uncharacteristic confidence. “Only one way to find out.” In truth I didn’t feel that cocky. I didn’t really ‘feel’ that much of anything, just the passive acceptance of another drug-related experience, perhaps a mild disappointment, like waking from a dream. I still felt numb.

“All right,” he answered. “I’ll set you up for the next one.” He was quiet for a time while he worked. “You know,” he said presently, “there’s a saying in my country. ‘For most men there is a fine line between courage and foolhardiness, but for dreamers the line does not exist.’ You’re either very brave or very naive, and I can’t for the life of me decide which it is.”

“Maybe I’m both.” The LSD echoed the sentiment.

“Maybe you are..... The next one’s almost ready. Take a few deep breaths, this one’s all the way.” I did. I heard him cue the tape. “Ten seconds.”

The music began again.

__________________________________________________

I went under more quickly this time, more completely. I had barely closed my eyes (of my own volition) and accepted the sound when I felt the chair fall back through the same, lightless passage. I passed into a deep, crimson circle. My reality changed, as all outside it was denied me.

I lay on a couch in front of a large television in a small house. My consciousness rested inside a body I did not recognize, but the surroundings were doubly familiar. I rose, for some reason painfully, and turned off the set. I felt anger, restlessness and a ruthless, driving hunger.

I threw on a coat, opened a door and stepped outside.
A car waited at the curb - my car. I turned the key and drove a familiar street, growing wider. It continued to grow until it had merged with the world to become a streetlight-in-the-Night, four-lane working class amusement park, divided by a meridian. I cruised past hot-rodded thrill cars, like but unlike my own, pushed together under signs in front of stores, bars and pizza parlors. It was cold, but teen-age girls still sat on the polished hoods, as their boy-friends kissed and fondled them, smoked cigarettes, or tried to look hard. They made me think of children.
I pulled up in front of glass doors, stepped through the car and went through them. The dream (and somebody spoke and I went into a dream) became real.
It was December, 1977.

Pinball Lizard

Ever since I was a young boy,
I’ve played the silver ball.
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all.
But I ain’t seen nothin’ like him
In any amusement hall . . .
That deaf dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pin ball!

God, I felt awful. Another Friday night and what was I doing - buying beer in the same goddamn 7-Eleven. And with the flu yet, that was real smart. One more night like this and I’d be sick for a week.

“No, I refuse!” I scolded myself, putting the six-pack back on the shelf. “If I’m going to get drunk it might as well be with Jack Daniels. At least that way I’ll kill some of the germs in my throat.” As ridiculous as the thought had been, for me it was logical. Closing the moisture-covered glass door, I turned and started to leave.

But then I noticed an unfamiliar pinball machine over in the far corner, back behind the magazine rack in the cubbyhole where the old one had been kept. Walking towards it I saw that it was one of the new, computerized versions - highly advanced, and bearing no brand-name logo I could recognize. Being a hard-core pinball addict with a pocket full of change, I knew I wouldn’t leave until either myself or the machine had been beaten utterly. Reaching into the front pocket of my jeans, I pulled forth a crumpled wad of quarters and ones, placing them gently on the unscratched surface of the table. Though callously irreverent toward many things, new pinball machines were not one of them. Then, like any other good player, I began to study the machine.

Two main bumpers at the top, two more recessed just below them. . . electronic flippers. . .high-scoring plastic tabs on both sides. . .pussy-chute on the left. This one’s going to take some getting used to.

It was only then that I noticed the girl on the face-plate. I usually didn’t waste much time drooling over the half-naked bodies that had all but become standard equipment on the newer machines. This was a rare exception. That girl was beautiful: I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It struck me that the artist must either have been a genius (which I doubted), or gotten the most incredible model in the world to pose for him. I remember thinking how out of place it all seemed - the beautiful girl and the new, highly sophisticated machine. What in God’s name were they doing in this forsaken place?

Without realizing it, I found I’d been staring at the girl’s body for five minutes straight. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t a pervert or anything. Actually it was just the opposite. I looked upon sex with the same reverence that a priest might hold for the Madonna, or a professional racer for his car. It was something I had never quite been able to put into words. All I knew was that whenever someone like Lynda Carter came floating across the TV screen (as she had earlier that night), or walked past slowly and out of my life, something happened to me - emotion so powerful it hurt. It was the same feeling I had now, staring uncontrollably at the perfectly shaped breasts of the illustrated woman in front of me. Dressed in a long gown of finest satin, low-cut and half open down the front, slit well above the thigh from below, she had me so mesmerized I almost forgot where I was. It took the painful body-aches of the flu to bring me reluctantly back to reality.

God, I felt terrible. And not just physically, but emotionally as well. Things had really gotten depressing. My life was a wreck, my job the pits, and now to top it all off, nothing but the flu to look forward to all weekend. Twenty-six years old, and I was still no closer to my dreams than I had been seven years ago. Actually, it was a wonder that I still had any dreams left. Something about growing up in Levittown---a lower middle-class suburb built around a steel mill - wasn’t exactly conducive to romantic illusions. All I really wanted was a woman who’d stand by me: someone who gave a damn whether I lived or died.

Hurt and disgusted, I put two quarters in the slot and pressed gently on the metal-red play button. Waiting for the scoreboard to clear, I decided to give myself heart and soul to the machine, and forget about the lover that I still had yet to find. Pulling back on the lever, I let the first ball go.

As the silver globe skated smoothly up the chute, I began to try and analyze the individual quirks of the machine, and devise a winning strategy. Every good machine rewarded a certain approach; this one was no exception. Even before I lost the first ball I had it pegged: that machine rewarded sheer desire, nothing else. The electronic flippers eliminated all but the most calculated subtlety, while the powerful springs of the new bumpers kept the ball moving at a furious pace. Some of my more conservative pinball buddies might have said it was a crock, and not even finished the game. But as I continued to improve, I knew that they were crazy. I made love to that machine. Game after game I played to its strengths, ignoring its weaknesses. For what it lacked in subtlety, it made up for in consistency. It offered so many different ways to score! With the help of those incredible flippers I was making saves I couldn’t believe, keeping the ball moving at breakneck speed. At the end of each play the computerized scoreboard would add up the points with invigorating, alien sounds.

But as I began to feel in total control of the machine, I had the strangest sensation that the girl on the face-plate was watching me - cheering me on, as if wanting to see me do well. Granted, I had the flu, but this was really getting strange. Stopping to look up at her, I saw that she now wore the face of a passionate woman, on the verge of being completely seduced. As I stared into her earthy blue eyes, they seemed to be trying to lead my gaze downward, down to the mystical, shadow-edged outline of her breasts. From there I was lost. The most disturbing thing was that I hadn’t remembered that expression at all when I first began to play.

Stepping back from the machine, I looked long and hard at her face. Then. . .I don’t know if it was my imagination or what. . .but I could have sworn that the expression changed again. Seeming to sense my apprehension it became serene, almost apologetic. Shaking my head, I put in my last quarter for the night.

“I gotta go home and lie down,” I told myself. “And no more drinking whiskey with the flu.” Pushing the play button one final time, I leaned wearily over the table and waited for the scoreboard to clear.

But then I noticed a flashing message I hadn’t seen before. It read simply: “Points needed for Paradise- 750,000.”

“Now what the hell does that mean?” I asked myself, irritated. And then, “I haven’t got time for this bullshit.” But somewhere, deep down inside, I felt challenged. It was as if the girl, the machine, and for that matter the world, had just come up to me and said, “Okay, McCauley, let’s see what you’re made of.” As tired and sick as I was, as ridiculous as the whole thing seemed, I knew I had to get those 750-thousand. I just had to.

“All right, chick,” I muttered, not sure exactly who I was talking to. “You want to see pinball, I’ll show you what a little good-old-fashioned human desire can do.”

Seven minutes and seven-hundred-thousand points later, I stood on the verge of success. I had already gotten four free balls, and still had two more left to pick up the necessary fifty-thousand. I was reading the machine well, and felt certain I could beat it.

“Piece of cake,” I thought, but I really should have known better. The only certainty in pinball was that there was no such thing as an easy game. Bad luck could strike at any moment, and usually did. As I let the first ball go, I just couldn’t believe what happened to it. I knew I hadn’t hit it just right, but this was ridiculous. The ball seemed to take a sour bounce off the rubber backstop, rolled lifelessly between the two bumpers, and came sliding sarcastically straight down the middle. I tried desperately to change its direction by jamming the machine to one side, then tip it off one flipper and onto the other, but it was no use. The ball just rolled through and was gone: zero points.

Stepping back from the machine, I tried to regain my concentration. I had to get those 50k. I just had to!
Approaching the machine for the final play, I felt my heart pounding uncontrollably. Every muscle and joint I had ached with fever and fatigue. My mind was exhausted. Pulling back precisely on the lever, I let the last ball go. Oblivious to my surroundings, I followed it with almost maniacal intensity, silently counting the points as they came.

Seven-hundred and twelve. . .seven-twenty. Seven-hundred twenty-eight . . .seven-thirty-five, thirty-nine. . .forty-two.....

Seven-hundred and fifty-thousand! I cried inwardly, clenching my fists in the air. I did it, you mother! I did it!

But then I stopped. Something was wrong with the machine. The lights and flippers went dead. And as the ball rolled slowly through the lifeless player’s box and into the bottom of the machine, I felt my whole body tingling with an electric sensation that made me bolt stiffly upright, locking my arms to my sides. I tried to move away, but found that I could not. The store began to fade in and out around me. The thought occurred that I might be dying, but I shook it off as impossible.

The next thing I knew the store was gone. I felt a moment of intense dizziness - my flesh became cold and hard - then a sudden rush of movement like being fired from a gun, or sucked up through a tube with incredible velocity. My arms and shoulders ached as from swift and constant friction; my heart was a soft lump of clay at the bottom of my chest. I could see nothing, hear no intelligible sound. It felt as if I rocketed skyward at unfathomable speed, but in the chaos and confusion I couldn’t be sure about anything.

Gradually my velocity (if you could call it that) began to deteriorate. I felt the same intense dizziness, and this time it seemed to last a bit longer. But this feeling also passed, as light and color began to blur and take shape around me.

Then all unpleasant sensations ceased, and I found myself standing upright in some sort of wide, circular chamber. And there in front of me, clad in the same crimson-silk raiment and surrounded by a myriad of consoles and computers, stood the girl from the face-plate of the pinball machine.

Scanning the room in disbelief, I saw nothing I could identify as human, only curving walls of polished metal, and alien devices whose function I couldn’t begin to imagine. Turning back to the girl, I released the tension of the moment in the only way I knew.

“Well I don’t know about you, Dorothy; but I get the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

She smiled. “No, we’re not in Kansas. Or Pennsylvania either. You’re no longer on Earth at all.”
No longer on Earth? I nearly lost it. What in Hell was going on?

“Please don’t be alarmed,” she said presently, seeming to know my thoughts. “I won’t hurt you. All I ask are a few minutes of your time. I’ll try to answer whatever questions you have. Then, if you wish, you’ll be returned to your home immediately.”

I found myself completely at a loss. There was nothing in all my experience that gave me any clue what to do next. I started to answer back, but stopped when I realized I wasn’t making sense. I had tried to ask three or four questions at once, and all that came out was gibberish. Finally I broke the logjam.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “Where are we and why did you bring me here? What do you want?” I had tried to sound threatening, or at least self-confident, but under the circumstances I really don’t think I succeeded. She only looked at me ruefully - a not unkind, but somehow distant expression.

“Don’t be afraid,” she repeated softly, earnestly. “Please, just give me a little of your time.”

“All right,” I said finally, not knowing what else to do. “All right. Just tell me what you want and let’s get on with it.” At least I sensed that she was alone, and had made no attempt to restrict my movements. The fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen didn’t hurt. But more than that, something in the honest melancholy of her eyes, aroused my curiosity in a way I couldn’t deny. She seemed old beyond her years, and for some reason I felt sorry for her.

“Please,” she offered, once more knowing my thoughts. “Follow me.” She tried to take my hand, but I wouldn’t let her. Then I was sorry I hadn’t. She looked up at me quickly, as if hurt, then withdrew the expression with equal suddenness.

“Look, I didn’t mean anything.....”

She didn’t answer, but walked instead toward what appeared to be a wide, rectangular viewing screen, mounted securely against the subtle bow of a far wall. In front of it stood two high-backed swivel chairs, rising from the floor in a single, sweeping motion before the computerized console that apparently powered the device. I hesitated for a moment, then followed.

“But why Earth?” I insisted, rising to pace the floor nervously. “What possible characteristics could you hope to gain from us?” I had listened to her story, but still didn’t quite understand. And as she spoke, sensuous and hypnotic, I kept hearing voices inside me that didn’t seem natural. I thought at first it might be the slow awakening of conscience, but even before I had time to consider this, another, stronger impulse jumped right in behind it, reassuring and saying, “Yes, yes that must be it.” I wanted to believe her, but..... No. I still didn’t trust her.

“Look,” I said, feeling unusually defensive. “If there’s one thing you should know about the human animal it’s that we’re born suspicious. If you want me to go along with this you’re going to have to do a lot more than just run a few pictures by me on a screen. I want to know exactly what it is that’s wrong with your people, who they are, and why you chose me for this ‘experiment.’ And whatever you’re doing to my head, you’d better stop. You won’t get anything from me that way.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied, distracted. “It’s the machine. I don’t like it either.” She reached out a hand to shut if off, then drew back suddenly. Her face went taut as with pain, and she winced and drew both hands trembling to her forehead. The fingers worked unsteadily to massage her aching temples.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to answer your ques - ” Again she cringed, sinking together like a crumpled shirt.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” She was trembling all over, as if on the verge of some kind of seizure or mental collapse. Not understanding, not trusting, I got angry.

“Listen, what is this? You bring me here, play games with my head, then act like you’re dying.” She didn’t move. I began to worry about her in spite of myself. Finally she spoke.

“All right,” she said weakly, without hope. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just try to understand. Don’t leave me here. . .please.” She pivoted in the chair to face me. Her eyes were red-ringed and glossy. This was no act. She began to cry softly.

I couldn’t understand it. She looked like a little orphan girl whose only friend had just been taken away from her. Then. . .I don’t know if seeing her despair brought out a similar emotion in myself, or whether I just couldn’t stand to see someone so beautiful in so much pain. . .but I found myself just wanting to hold her, to tell her not to be afraid. A part of me fought the urge, but a stronger part refused to be denied. Finally, feeling awkward, I moved closer and gently grasped her shoulders. Brushing the hair out of her face, I tried to make her look up at me. She turned away, but not angrily.

“Hey, come on,” I urged quietly. “Just tell me what you really want; maybe I’ll help. But I have to know the truth - there’s no getting around it.” Putting my hand beneath her chin, I forced her to look up at me. Then I kissed her quickly and tried to make her smile.

Her answer came not in words, but in unpremeditated action. She seemed to struggle inside herself for a moment, torn between discipline and need, then cast aside all defenses, rising from the chair and embracing me desperately. Returning the affection, I rocked her slowly from side to side. Her face was wet against my shirt. The feeling was overpowering.

As we stood there together, warm and silent, it suddenly occurred to me that I was exposing her to the flu, a virus for which she might not possess an immunity. But then I realized something that had slipped my mind in all the confusion. I didn’t feel sick anymore, not in the slightest, and hadn’t ever since finding myself on her ship.

“Did you do something to me before you brought me here?” I asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the tranquility of the moment. “About the sickness I mean.”

She nodded, stepping back to wipe away the tears. “I knew you were hurting, so I sent your body through a cell-analizer before having the molecules renormalized. It identified the cells native to your body, destroying those that didn’t belong.”

“Well then,” I questioned her. “Why not just do the same thing to yourselves, and wipe out the disease that’s been killing you?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.” She hesitated. “True, if this were my natural form, and the disease were only a virus, I could do it very easily.” She stepped back still farther, looking directly at me.

... “What do you mean this isn’t your natural form?” I was still feeling the warmth of the moment before, but it was fading fast.

“You wanted to know the truth,” she said dryly, staring at the floor. “The truth is I’m not like you. I assumed this form so you would find me attractive.” She looked up quickly, afraid of my response.

“Oh, I see.” Anger and shame rose together. “So you’re not really human at all. You just fly around space changing your shape to seduce alien men. You don’t care about me. The whole thing was just an act.”

“No,” she pleaded. “You’re wrong, I do care.”

“Sure you do. How many times have you said that before? This is probably just some sick little game you play, complete with tears and phony emotion.”

“Game?” she burst angrily. “Is it a game to want to be alive? To care about a dying race? Is it ‘sick’ to spend half your life preparing for a single voyage, that takes three years in Space just to arrive?” She was not only crying now, but trembling badly as well. “Is it sick not to want to see one in three of your offspring born a mindless animal?” She leaned against the chair for support. “And then to be spurned by the one human I thought I could be with, without feeling ugly and ashamed. . .the one person who made me feel something more than self-pity and despair.” She had lost all control.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. How was I supposed to know?”

She started to walk away, but then doubled over suddenly. I thought at first it might be an act, but when she fell to the floor in obvious agony, I threw away any such notion. Rushing to help her up, I saw that her skin had become strangely discolored, hanging down from her forearms in scaly folds like those of a reptile. Her eyes rolled back into her forehead.

“What’s the matter?” I pleaded. “What can I do?”

“Just help me to the table.” Her voice was weak; her arm dangled limply in the direction of a padded upright stretcher, hinged to two fangs of silver metal rising out of the floor. Behind it, as everywhere, stood a complex and unreadable apparatus. I helped her over to it, and she struggled to strap herself in.

“What do I do!” I said frantically, facing the console like an ignorant child.

“Don’t touch it,” she managed. “Just stand back.” Upon her telepathic command the entire wall whirred and came to life. The stretcher angled to horizontal as a spherical portal opened in the wall behind it. Extending up out of the floor, the curving tusks carried her head-first into the opening. Her flesh was instantly bombarded by thick waves of intense, multi-colored light. Her feet disappeared into the patterns.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted. “What’s happening?” No answer. Whether she lived or died, she was oblivious to my exhortations. I had to shield my eyes from the blinding glare.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the metal tusks began to retract. The object of my apprehension reappeared. Reaching its resting point, the stretcher brought her back to vertical. Her eyes opened slowly, and she looked over at me with the hint of a forced smile.

“What the hell was that all about?”

“I’ll be all right now,” she said. “For a while at least.” Unstrapping the harness, she still leaned heavily against the stretcher.

“It takes a great deal of mental energy to maintain this form,” she explained. All emotion had gone out of her voice. “When I’m under stress, it’s more difficult.”

She went on to tell me the rest of her story, as if it was expected of her, without once looking into my eyes. She’d start and then stop, hiding now and again behind veils of heartless objectivity. But I guess that was just her way of telling me the truth without feeling naked. I pitied her the task, but never once interrupted, or showed any sign of the sympathy I felt. I had to be sure.

“I come from Triscallidor,” she began. “A planet of the star system Ghana. My people, like yours, evolved into an intelligent race from the more primitive creatures that came before us. Unfortunately, our intelligence was not accompanied by the nimble appendages you humans seem to take for granted. We had no hands or fingers with which to mold great civilizations from the dust, only claws for climbing, and reflective scales to protect us from the sun.” She hesitated. “We are basically reptilian, most nearly resembling the iguanas of your South American rain forests..... Do you want me to go on?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Since it wasn’t in our power to shape and use tools for the body, we learned instead to develop greater capabilities of the mind. This began with simple telekinesis, and eventually led to the powers we now possess. It is through one of these - the selective rearrangement of cells and cell tissue - that I’m able to stand before you now, physically human. We do not do this for sport. . . but because of the very real danger of extinction to our kind. We do it because we have to.

“You see.” She squirmed uncomfortably, then hardened. “In the many millennia it took for us to raise ourselves up from the animal world, the parasites that invaded our bodies were also able to evolve. By the time we had mastered the foundations of medical science, they had woven themselves into the very essence of our physical being. And though we eventually found a cure for most of them, the deadliest still remains. The process isn’t quite that simple, but it’s known as the Inverted Fission Disease. It’s a pestilence that has baffled our greatest scientists for a thousand years.” She halted once more, trying to find the right words.

“It’s very hard for me to say in your language,” she continued. “But the heart of the problem is this. The disease is made up of bacteria so complex that they’ve learned to mimic our body’s own cells, slowly replacing them with their own. The process is painless, physically, and usually doesn’t begin in earnest until late middle age. But in recent years the age of affliction has fallen lower and lower. Its victims don’t ‘die’ as such, but we become once more the unwakened animals from which we evolved. The families left behind have little choice but to release their loved ones back into the wild, where they live out the rest of their days..... One in three of our offspring are born already overtaken, and the number of adults afflicted to some degree has risen to nearly eighty percent.

“You asked about the cell-analyzer. We’ve tried it, along with countless other procedures. Nothing seems to work. Most of our scientists now believe that the only real hope lies in genetic research. One phase of this includes the gathering of alien genes in the form of semen. . .which are later transformed into those compatible with our own. We are able, with the help of special instruments, to restructure the genetic patterns of the chromosomes in such a way as to incorporate them into our own DNA, while retaining the strengths and immunities we wish to pass on to our young. What all that means is that we try, through carefully controlled inter-breeding, to strengthen our offspring, in the hope that someday they’ll have a greater chance to fight back - have more to look forward to than the mindless oblivion we face.

“Every female, when she comes of age, must make the journey to the life system of her choosing to accomplish this, her only true mating. There we study the ways of its inhabitants closely, alter our form to match their own, then proceed in whatever way seems best. That is how I devised the ball machine you played, along with other devices like it, to separate the weak from the strong, the desirable from the undesirable. That is how you were chosen.

“You asked why I chose Earth. The answer is simple. Scouting ships that had come here years before, spoke of a hardy (though somewhat barbaric) race of intelligent beings, stubbornly aggressive, indomitably strong. I felt that after so many years of vainly trying to find a cure for the disease, the thing we needed most was the desire to continue fighting it. Though many negative things can be said of your people, your will to survive is unquestioned. You are determined to endure.” She looked up at me quickly, her eyes flickering hope one last time, then fading.

“As I watched you battle the machine, I knew you had to be given the chance. As sick and alone as you felt (I scanned your thoughts), you gladly accepted the challenge placed before you, fighting off sickness and despair with a passion I felt very deep in my heart.” She stopped. Her eyes, like mine, were glazing with hesitant tears.

“That is why you were chosen, to help me if you would. That is why I still care what you think of me.”
I just stared at the floor. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure I’d understood everything she said, but one thing seemed obvious.

“I must be the biggest fool alive,” I said.

“What do you mean?” I have no words to convey my emotions in that moment, or what I felt from her. I spoke in low, broken sentences, unsure, unaccustomed to such a pure and spontaneous outpouring.

“ ... I mean. . .there I was. Sick and depressed in the most miserable place I know. I’d just spent the whole night feeling sorry for myself, feeling cheated because I’m twenty-six years old, and alone. When you..... God.

“So what happens? Some kind of miracle brings me to the deepest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. That’s right, even if you’re not real.”

Now she was looking right at me.

“And what happens when I meet you? I don’t trust you, because you have feelings, because you care about something other than yourself. You took away my sickness and asked me to make love. . .when making love is one of the few things I can still believe in. And I make you feel dirty for caring, or ever having thought..... I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

“Look, I don’t know how to say this right. But if you’ll still have me,

I’d like to try. Having a child, anywhere, with you..... I know I’m not a very good person sometimes. But I have feelings too.”

When I looked up she was smiling, the first real glow I’d seen in her face all night. “Do you really mean it?” she asked, half laughing and half crying.

“Sure I mean it.”

She hesitated, then ran up and hugged me so fast I nearly fell over. It felt good. Real good.

“There’s only one more thing I need to know.”

“What’s that?” she asked cautiously, stepping back in my arms.

“Are you going to enjoy this?”

“Yes. Yes.” She held me so tight I knew she meant it.

Reaching over, I lifted her in my arms, jostling her once to be sure my grip was secure. Looking down at her, I saw that simple joy had replaced intensity in her deep and shining sapphire eyes. She was perfection, in every way.

“I take it you’ve got some better place for this.”

“Of course,” she answered, beaming. “I’ve got a room down the corridor just like a honeymoon suite on Earth.”

“I should have known,” I said, walking towards it.

I should have known.

________________________________________________

“How’d I do?” I was feeling rather pleased with myself. A different voice answered.

“Awh, the perfect Friday night fantasy---wet dream with a moral.” Apparently Collins had joined him in the booth.

“Some of your images still aren’t coming in clearly.” This time it was Lucas. “Is there any way we can bring you into the next one more slowly, play the music longer and make some adjustments? That should also give you more time to get a feel for the thing, give it more depth.” Always the perfectionist. I admired him for it.

“Sure. What’s the next cut?” My earlier fatigue was gone. I still felt warm and shadowy glimpses of the dream, but also a clear knowledge of where I was in the room.

“Thirty Years, by U.K.”

“Have you got the album recorded in sequence?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not just play the first side all the way through? That should give us about a fifteen minute lead-in. Or is that too much?”

“No, no, that’s perfect. We’ve got time.”

“Okay, let’s do it.” I felt ready to go all night.

Luke said nothing. He had been changing the reels as we spoke. Again he cued the tape.

Three Dimensional Chess

Chasing rainbows far, a lifetime

Left to go

Shadows from the sun, run into traces

Of faces you thought you saw

But never seem to be much more

Their echoes of the days gone by

And someone else will have to try

To light the stars,

in your sky.

All the things you planned, just

Sand castles washed away

On tidal waves of tears, the fears

Overpowering

Your complex dreams just slither down

Drowning, in murky pools

Or smashed and dashed on Peril’s course

Divorcing prematurely thoughts of lasting love

In your life.

“This is insane,” I told myself. “One more citation and I’m grounded for a year.” But still I couldn’t stop. Everything had gotten too crazy; I had to get away. Mounting the cockpit of ‘Julie’, my newly purchased F-80, I sealed myself in and started the engines.
Pressing the automatic door opener to a friend’s private hangar, I listened vaguely to the dull roar of jets and the dry creaking of roller gears and hinges as the folding structure rose, the sounds of both muffled by the steel and vinyl walls of the ship’s inner causeway. I checked the gauges, made minor adjustments. Door fully open, I let up on the brake and glided easily out onto the runway. The white light of the hangar fell away quickly to a pale and icy blue, grew darker as the door closed behind me, and I found myself once more gratefully immersed in the cold and dark silence of night. I turned the ship to face the long stretch of synthetic pavement. Starting down the runway with the jets at full throttle, I set the wingfins for steep takeoff angle and headed restlessly for the star-shot perfection of unlimited airspace. Nose up, wheels off, I was free.

I watched the altimeter closely. I wasn’t that worried about direction - I had never needed the help of instruments to find my way in familiar airpaths - but the angle of ascent had to be perfect. The ranges of the Cheyenne tracking station and the smaller substation at Salt Lake all but overlapped, leaving only a narrow corridor that swept like a curving staircase between them. If either of them picked up on my position it was all over. They’d scramble a couple of fighters and that would be that.

Damn FAA. What right did they have telling me where I could and couldn’t fly? With three years combat experience in Africa and two more in Asian reconnaissance, I could fly circles around the damn lackeys that made and enforced those idiotic regulations. So I didn’t know that much about space. What was there to know? If I wanted to risk force-shield reentry that was my business. It was my ship.
“My ship.” The words sounded so good I almost forgot how mad I was. I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that it was really mine. And no run-down old Air Force surplus either, but a sleek new Rockwell F-80, with mercury-ion potential. God, I loved that thing. So I was up to my ears in debt trying to pay for it; sometimes you have to go all the way. No one could ever accuse me of being timid. At thirty-three I’d seen more of life than any one man had a right to. And I’d paid the price: a tired mind and a worn-out body. My life was completely out of hand, some insignificant demigod’s idea of a bad joke.

Angling the ship back slowly to compensate for thinning atmosphere, I found myself almost wishing I was back on Madagascar, flying anti-guerilla patrols across the mainland. Gone were dark memories of death and destruction. All I could see was the way the sun came up across the Indian Ocean, and the incredible beauty of the African landscape as it rolled on endlessly beneath my wings. Strange how the mind remembers only the good.....

As I neared the breakaway point I could feel the jets yielding gradually to rocket-assist. The switch was automatic; I didn’t have to do a thing. I simply waited for the fuel-feed dials to tell me when the change was complete, then loaded up on the auxiliary thrusters and powered away into Space. Almost there.....

Now. What a feeling! Every time was like the first - leaving

behind the earth and all its sorrows, into a world without pollution or overcrowding, free from plastic hype and phony emotions. I quickly overcame the strange chill of fear that always accompanied this ecstasy, and thought no more about it.

I let the lox-burning engines sustain a bit longer than usual. I’m not sure exactly why. The upper console showed the ion thrusters ready for use; it wasn’t as if I had to. There was just a greater sense of being in control with the loud and violent old-style engines, something frightening in the quiet, super-efficiency of mercury-ion propulsion. Indeed, with the double row of blue-burning discs sealed up in the tail, the ship seemed quite whole without them. Turning the recessed handle that retracted the protective metal plates always felt a bit like stripping away the sacred mystery of clothes from a true and trusted lover. The ship never felt quite as innocent or pure. I did it anyway, shrugging off my foolish apprehension. I told myself that Julie wasn’t just another extra-altitude fighter (minus the missiles), but was also capable of limited deep space exploration. Nothing wrong with that.

Waiting for momentum to stabilize, I shook my head, reached for the console and put on a tape: Beethoven’s Ninth. It was an old recording, but I didn’t care. The new synthesized music made me sick, anyway. If Bach ever heard what those damn computers were doing to his music, I swear he’d come back from the dead to haunt us.

Don’t think, I reminded myself. I didn’t come here to think. Set a course; it doesn’t matter where. Just get me the hell away from earth. I checked the navigation computer quickly, punched in the appropriate numbers, and surrendered the controls to automatic. I took a stress pill and waited for the ion discs to take over. Watching the upper console, I heard its warning tone sound and saw the digital read-out start the count.

10. . .9. . .8. . . Everything so automated. All I have to do is push a couple of buttons and the ship flies itself. Kind of scary.
Contact. Heavy g-forces, diminishing slowly into steady momentum. Nothing more to do, I lay back in the reclining weightlessness of the seat and wrapped the retaining net around me like a blanket. I turned up the volume on the tape and let the music take me. All my worldly troubles now seemed little more than a bad dream from which I was finally waking. Beethoven, you’re great. To hell with the world. To hell with life.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep (to put it mildly). I somehow realized in the middle of a dream what I had done. I tried to wake myself, but found that I couldn’t. The stress pill was keeping me down. I felt a sudden surge of terror like the unexpected coming of death. I struggled with all my will, knowing the danger was real. Finally, fighting the drug with everything I had, I broke free and went for the controls. Throwing off the net like an unwanted burden, I turned in total disbelief to examine the automatic pilot.

“No!” It was supposed to have controlled my trajectory, sounded an alarm after two hours, and released the controls to manual. It was a feature I’d paid extra for: two thousand extra to kill myself. How had I missed the alarm? It didn’t matter now; I had to figure out where I was. The clock on the auto-pilot showed I’d been drifting blindly for nearly four hours. In desperation I turned on the viewscreen.

“Dear God, this can’t be happening.” I had run a full sweep, and except for the white-light fire of the sun, the screen showed only stars. Trying to control a runaway panic, I turned the ship slowly around. Pointing her nose directly at the sun, I booted up the deep space program and tried to get a fix on my position.

“God, what an idiot!” I rebuked myself, fumbling from one screen to the next. “I had to fly directly away from the sun.” What was I trying to do, run away from it? All I had accomplished was to put myself on the dark sides of both earth and moon. Staring stupidly at the viewscreen, I knew my chances of finding them by sight were one in a million. If I had drifted at all from my original course (which was much more likely than not), they would appear as nothing more than two crescent slivers of light on or near the sun’s horizon, or as sun spots so completely indistinguishable..... I wouldn’t have been able to find them if my view screen went to Amp 30. It didn’t.

I had done all that I could. By calculating the distance I had traveled before the steering jets cut off, factoring in drift time, former course, and positions of the visible planets relative to earth, I had reversed my course as nearly as possible, and prepped the ion thrusters for the ninety minute burn that I hoped would bring me closer to home: the Earth, that I had never loved or appreciated as I should..... My plan was to get close enough to make visual contact, triangulate and go from there. I figured I had enough fuel to try it twice, maybe three times.

“What a joke,” a voice said inside me. “With my navigation I’ll be lucky to die somewhere close to earth.”

“You shut your damn mouth!” came the answer. “I’m not giving up, not while there’s still a chance.” Dear Jesus, what have I done? I don’t want to die. I wanted to weep with fear. Oh, that’s just great. Hemingway would be real proud of the way you’re holding up under pressure.

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

I knew right then I had to stop thinking or I really would go crazy.

I tried to fight my fears by remembering other tight situations I’d been in. But how could any fear on Earth match this one? Somehow, in spite of my selfishness, I knew that it could. I thought of my father’s parents: terminal cancer, both of them. One watched the other die slowly, then..... I had to find something to hold on to. What was it Tolkien had said? Something about courage.

“Courage is found in unlikely places.”

Yes, that was it. Somehow just saying the words made me feel a little better. I was still scared, as no combat pilot should ever be. But at least I felt that someone else had known the same hopeless, driving fear. World War I, the trenches.....

The count for ignition had started. Nothing else to do.

Two hours, time to check the screen (as if I’d done anything else for the last ninety minutes). Amplification 5, wide sweep. Amp 10..... Amp 12.

Nothing in sight, again. I was desperately short of fuel. Soon I’d have to switch back to auxiliary, for all the good it would do me. The lox tanks held barely enough to clear the ship of Earth’s gravity, then get me back in. I tried sending a distress signal on the radio. I could hear the faintest crackle of voices on the other side, but knew my signal didn’t have to power to reach them. I didn’t even know which side of Earth the orbiting SAC* station was on. I knew the NASA moon base was out of reach. And I didn’t dare try to contact the Chinese, not the way things were.

*Strategic Air Command.

I was utterly lost. For the first time in my life there was no way out. For the first time -

Suddenly I remembered the long-distance laser adaptor I’d been given by a friend, as repayment of a debt. Stolen from an Air Force supply room, it increased the search radius (supposedly) to 200 million miles. Strictly illegal, I had never expected to use it. But Lord have mercy, I was going to use it now.

Unbuckling the flight harness, I threw it off and turned toward the back of the cockpit. Using my arms to control weightlessness, I guided my stumbling limbs eagerly down the narrowing fuselage to the small storage compartment at the back of the ship. Thrusting my upper body through the oval doorway, I loosened the covering tarp just enough to reach underneath without sending everything flying through the room. Reaching under it like an impatient child, I soon found what I was looking for. I lifted it gently, careful not to jar it in any way, then restrung the canvas and made my way back to the cockpit.

I strapped myself back in, lashed the long and shallow unit to the seat beside me (only one), connected the cables to the laser tracking unit and hoped to hell it would work. Never calibrated, I knew it wouldn’t be very accurate. But right now it didn’t have to be. All I wanted to see were two little blips: Earth and Moon. I turned it on, watched the scope closely as the sweep-line made its first full rotation. Still not warmed up.

“Work, damn it. Work!” The line became clearer and brighter. Once around..... I adjusted the angle of projection. Again. Again.
“What the hell was that?” A roughly spherical streak a yellow-green at the very rim of the arc, a smaller shadow figure beside it, barely visible.

“Earth, it’s got to be. Earth!” Turning the ship slowly and carefully in the direction indicated by the laser, I switched on the view screen and hit the button for sun-filtration, pointing the camera dead ahead. Amp 8. Could it be hidden against a sun-spot? Where the hell -

There! A dark speck against the upper rim of the sun, unnatural reflection around it. Turning the ship one last time, I carefully made my calculations, allowed myself to breath, and locked in the course that would take me home.
Earth! The feeling was overpowering, like nothing I’d ever felt before.

What a sick and empty letdown. I felt more lost than ever. To have experienced such elation, being awed and overwhelmed at the sight of earth, the thought of a second chance at life. To have come so close to death and despair without breaking. . .only to realize that the same problems I had tried to run away from would still be waiting for me when I returned. My job (which helped no one, including myself) wasn’t going to get any better, and I couldn’t quit so long as I owed payments on the ship. Such a bitter irony that my ship, the very symbol of the freedom I’d fought so hard to hold on to, was now forcing me to compromise my life almost more than I could bear. I thought for a moment about selling it, but the impulse quickly vanished. I just couldn’t face the prospect of living day to day without some hope of escape, however temporary. Then, as if the dam holding back my fears had suddenly burst, a horde of ugly images and memories came flooding back into my brain like demons from Pandora’s box.

I saw massive ‘modern’ cities, domed and sterile, full of empty-headed women scouring steel and glass shopping malls for mannequin make-up and clothes. I saw body-rotted businessmen crammed into fast moving conveyor cars, scrambling like rats to be on time for work. I heard trashy, uninspired disc-dancing music blaring from the singles bars, throbbing countless scores of mindless young to meaningless motion. I saw work machines and computers, hospitals white as death, wall-sized TV screens aching with cheap thrills and easy sex.

Sex.

All these things I saw, and though I knew them for what they were---the mind’s unfair exaggeration of the truth---that little scrap of information did nothing to comfort me. Enough of it was true to almost make me wish I’d been left in space to die. I looked again at the blue-green Earth. It used to be so beautiful.....

And on top of everything else, my sub-space fuel was almost gone. I knew that as soon as I locked into orbit I’d have to go begging to SAC just to get enough liquid oxygen to safely reenter. There would be a lot of questions, and more than likely a double citation. What an incredible drag.

But then somehow, in the midst of my despair, thoughts of my wife Catherine came filtering in through the darkness. I began to remember the long, intimate nights when we were first married, and the warm mellow days that always followed. I think it was the one time in my life I hadn’t felt like a cornered animal, a lion in a cage. Such real and satisfying days. The fact that we were now separated didn’t seem to matter. The memories would always be there, and maybe..... Just maybe.

And in this new light I tried to reevaluate my life, with the faintest glimmer of hope like a light at the end of the tunnel. Things were pretty rough right now, but I’d always managed to get by somehow. There had to be a way to work it out. There had to be. I began to feel a little better---my desire was slowly returning. If only Cath would forgive me. Why did I ever leave her? I knew why. What a damn fool.

Catherine.

* * *

I couldn’t believe it. I was back in the pull of Earth’s gravity, safe and sound, and damned if I hadn’t been touched by a stroke of pure genius. I suppose I had known all along about the orbiting Russian strategic weapons station, but my mind hadn’t heard what my instincts were trying to tell it. Now the message came in loud and clear. If I was just devious enough, I might be able to get the fuel I needed from the Russians, without the humiliation and possible legal hassles of going to SAC.

I really don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I even knew where the Flying Russky (as we at Lockheed called it) was: somewhere over the Bering Strait. It was supposed to be classified information, but there were people in upper management who knew nearly everything about it - except its nuclear capability. And why not? With the government contract we had designed and built over half of it, and helped launch it, in pieces, into Space. The U.S. was so anxious to counter the growing Chinese threat..... I really wasn’t that much on politics. All I knew was that with the completion of our ‘Star Wars’ defense system (along with its pirated Chinese counterpart) all the missiles left over from the Cold War were essentially useless. Useless unless they could be launched from almost directly overhead, descending at incredible speed, and (with the new mirroring technology) neither deflectable by the orbiting ruby-laser stations, or destructible by ground-launched missiles. That we had helped build and launch the station, and now provided support personnel for the Russians, our former enemies, as a counterbalance to the Chinese, our former friends...... Well, let’s just say the Chinese fully deserved the swift kick in the ass, but were none too pleased when it came.

I was aware of the risk in approaching the station, but I figured the worst they could do was blow me out of the sky: a quick and painless death. The usual voices of caution and restraint tried to make themselves heard, but as usual I ignored them. My martial instincts, drummed into me at the Academy and galvanized by combat, had never fully left me. It was a challenge, and God help me, I was really beginning to enjoy myself. Now all I had to do was find it.

Suddenly I didn’t feel so brave. I had four air-to-air missile launchers staring me right in the face. Whatever I decided to do here, I knew I’d better do it right. I picked up the mike - Universal Channel 1. Here goes nothing.

(in Russian) “Emergency break, Channel 1. I am an unarmed American reconnaissance vessel. Ship in distress; request American translator.”

The reply (also in Russian) was hard and demanding. “American reconnaissance, identify yourself. Give your government clearance code, followed by ship number and the purpose of your mission. Over.”

“Negative, Russia One. Negative, I do not understand.” I understood a lot more Russian than I wanted to just then. “Repeat: ship in distress, urgent, request American translator.” I figured if I could just get another Joe on the line.....

There was an agonizing interval of silence. One of the missile launchers drew a tighter bead on my ship..... Finally a voice came on the other end, equally harsh, but undeniably American. In English:

“Okay, hot-shot, you got your American translator. This better be damn good; we got the best shooters in Russia just itchin’ to blow you away.” The voice was that of a black man, who by his native inflection might also have served in Africa. It was vaguely familiar, but so aggressive..... I couldn’t place it.

I was completely stumped. I didn’t know what to say. I had kicked around some ideas as I approached, but the hard edge in this man’s voice didn’t bode well for bullshit. Then, and I honestly don’t know why, I decided to tell him the truth.

“This is Lieutenant John Jensen, U.S. Air Force, retired. Am out of fuel and desperate. The recon line was a crock; I just wanted to talk to another American.”

The voice on the other end changed so dramatically it startled me. He laughed out loud. “Hot Rod Jensen, I should have known! Old Fish Face never did make you a captain, now, did he?”

... “What?”

“Come on, Johnny. It’s me, Larry. What the hell you doin’ way up here in Air Natasha?”

“Larry Jones?” I couldn’t believe it. We had served together for two years in Zambia.

“Well it ain’t Superman, chump. Hang on a second, John, I gotta clear you with the boss. The Russians won’t trust you for a second. But they trust me, as far as they trust anyone.” After a second interval, his voice returned.

“That’s a copy, Hot Rod. I just told ‘em the truth: that aside from bein’ a stone killer you’re the biggest Air Force fuck-up of all time, and been busted more times than Nabakov's been laid.”

I was so relieved that I too began to laugh. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to do it with the microphone off. “Larry, you saved my ass. What the hell are you doin’ on Russia One?”

“It’s a long story, brother.” His voice became less personal, as if his mind was returning to more pressing matters. “Seriously, though, what do you need?”

“I got lost way out and ran out of fuel. I couldn’t go to SAC: they already want to skin me alive.” His irritation was obvious.

“John-boy, you’re gonna kill yourself someday, you know that?” This wasn’t like him. I wondered what was wrong. “All right, Johnny, I’ll see if I can get you a tank o’ gas. But we gotta do this fast. I got seven fighters overdue for refueling. Hold on.” A short pause.

“Okay, buddy.” His voice was almost sorrowful. “Bring it in to number 4.”

The missile launchers were lowered, and one of the bay doors began to open. I adjusted my rotation to align more perfectly with that of the massive, spinning structure, then eased my way in slowly, beginning to feel that maybe there was some justice, after all.

Larry met me at the fueling dock. I leapt down from the cockpit in one easy motion, landing lightly in the two-thirds gravity. We shook hands warmly, looking at each other like something from a high-school yearbook.

“God, I feel old.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Aw come on, it hasn’t been that long. You do look a little worn-out, though. So what have you been doing with yourself? What’s happened with you and Cat since the wedding?”

“We moved to Colorado, and did all right for a while.”

“What do you mean, ‘For a while?’”

... “We’re separated.”

“What?” He couldn’t hide his frustration. He had introduced us, and known her since childhood. “Johnny! I don’t believe you sometimes. She was the best thing ever happened to you. How could you just throw it all away? Damn!”

Any other time, with anyone else I’d have been angry. But he was right, and probably the best friend I’d ever had.
“I don’t know, Larry..... What’s wrong with me? I swear I don’t know.”

His manner softened. If anxiety and a short temper were unusual for him, then guilt, and admission of weakness, were equally unlikely in me. “Maybe you’re just too tough for your own good..... Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

He turned and said something to the ground crew, still eyeing me suspiciously. His Russian was flawless. Their leader nodded, waving his technicians’ attention back to the ship. They began to refuel it as Larry led me toward a steep electronic staircase.

We rode the stairs ‘upward’ through the immense, double-wheeled station, toward the center of the outer hub which served as its functional head. We passed numerous airlocks and passages, angling out and away into long corridors of brushed aluminum and plexiglass. About halfway up we passed a sullen projection of steel, sealed off by a door much more heavily armored than the rest. It was fitted with two separate voice-code analyzers, retinal and fingerprint scanners, and one very clearly worded warning:

Priority One Clearance Only
Unauthorized Persons Will Be Vaporized

“Sky Kings,” said Larry, in answer to my unspoken question. Sky Kings were top of the line American missiles, armed with multiple nuclear warheads.

“How many? ... Sorry.”

“I don’t even know; that’s how tight security is. But it’s got to be substantial, or the Pentagon wouldn’t have me so far up Natasha’s dress. I’ll tell you this: those fuckers are unstoppable, and any one of their sub-missile warheads can take out a metropolis the size of Chicago.”

“Somebody’s playing some pretty powerful games.”

“You’re telling me? I’m gonna level with you, Johnny. When I first got this assignment I was psyched. It was a big step up. But now..... I just don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s hard to explain unless you’d been here. All kinds of weird shit is happening: phony messages, defense drills nobody called for. It just doesn’t feel right. And now we got those seven fighters missing--- Overdue.”

“You mean the intercepted message from the Kremlin, the one that made Hagan look so bad?” There had allegedly been a message sent from Moscow to its embassy in Washington, suggesting that the Americans had been duped into building the station as a defense against the Chinese, when all along the Russians had had their own plans for it. The denials from the Kremlin had been vehement, but the incident aroused creeping suspicions nonetheless.

“You got it,” said Larry, “that and one other. One that didn’t make the news.”

“Can you talk about it?”

“Well. A couple of days ago we got a coded memorandum from Russian Space Command, telling us to be ready for an unscheduled
defense drill. Only trouble is, no one seems to know who authorized it. And when we tried to trace the memo. . .no computer record anywhere. We’re talkin’ old KGB guys, and they know their shit. Then out of the blue the Kremlin decides to let the order stand. I don’t know who’s behind all this, but I tell you from the gut, it doesn’t feel right.”

“You sure you’re not just getting paranoid?”

He sighed bitterly. “I don’t know. The whole thing’s got me climbing the walls.” We had reached our destination. Larry shut off the staircase and gestured toward a hallway on the right. “There’s a conference room just ahead.” We walked a short distance, entered a gray-paneled room with a long table surrounded by chairs. “Sit anywhere. I’ll get us some coffee.” He moved to a panel, pushed a button, and returned with a steaming pot and two cups.

“So tell me,” I started. “How’d you pull Russia One?”

“Right after Zambia - you know. Transferred to Air Force Intelligence, eventually got posted in the Moscow embassy. The Russians are pretty cool, so I boned up on the language, culture and history. I was willing to drink, and even fight with them. They respected that, so when the station was launched and Washington insisted on an American observer, Nabakov asked for me. The Pentagon put me through security checks you wouldn’t believe, but aside from street troubles as a kid, they couldn’t find any reason to deny his request. So here I am. I keep an eye on ‘em for Washington, try to act as a mediator when there’s a dispute.....

“Man, let me forget all that for twenty minutes. What’s the deal with you and Catherine? I thought you guys were perfect.” He always did have a way of coming to the point.

I struggled with myself for a moment, unable to understand the intensity of what I was feeling. God, I’m tired. Maybe I really was going nuts - something that happened in deep Space. But it wasn’t just that; it was everything. Why can’t I control it? Tears were welling inside me despite every effort to stop them.

“We were. It’s my fault. I just got scared. I felt like I couldn’t give her what she needed. Then I felt myself getting old..... I ran away. . .from the best thing that ever happened to me. Maybe you should have let that Mig frag my ass….. I could kill myself for hurting her.”

Seeing my genuine anguish, and no more able to deal with it than I was, he tried to change the subject. “Easy, man. It’s your life..... Hey. You haven’t seen my kids.” He pulled out a bill-fold, opened to a picture of his wife and children. “The baby’s Michael, and the little girl is Fran.”

I was crying. I couldn’t help it. “They’re beautiful.”

He looked over at me, puzzled. “What’s eatin’ at ya, Johnny? We faced death every day in Zam-Bam, and never once backed down..... You’re not gonna let my favorite ace go down without a fight?”

I couldn’t answer.

“You still love Catherine, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not call her and tell her?”

“I can’t. Not after what I’ve done. I don’t deserve it.”

“Hey. Nobody deserves nothin’. You get what you can pay for, and hold on to..... I’ll call her myself.”

“Don’t.”

“I don’t want to hear another word. Did she go back to Taos?”

I nodded helplessly. He turned a pivoting phone-screen toward him. He got clearance, spoke with the Russian operator, and made the connection. The call tone sounded once, twice. Catherine answered, but the screen remained blank.

“Hello? Larry! How are you? I heard about your promotion. Congratulations.”

“Yeah. I was gonna write you, but..... Listen, Cat. I gotta ask a favor.”

“Sure. What is it?”

He hesitated. “Johnny’s here with me. He got lost way out, nearly killed himself by the looks of it. He’s tired, and all beat up inside. You know I’d never tell you what to do, but I got history with both of you. Hell, Cat. Will you talk to him?”

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“Okay, Larry. Thanks.”

He turned the screen towards me.

“Hello, Johnny..... Are you all right?” As if sensing my anguish, she turned on visual. Seated before her dresser in a soft robe, hair wet from the shower. For all her human flaws (and mine), she was so beautiful.....

I couldn’t answer, strangled by emotion. In all my soul there were only two words.

“I’m sorry.”

She looked down. “Don’t think about it now.”

“I have to, Cath. It’s my fault, all of it. I love you so much, I never stopped. I just..... I’ve never been this close to anyone..... I got scared, and I ran.” I turned away, broken and bitter and ashamed.

... “Come see me,” she said quietly.

“What?” It wasn’t possible.

“I have to see you to know how I feel.”

“I will. I’ll come soon..... God, I love you.”

“... Goodbye, John. Give Larry my love.”

The screen went blank. After a time I closed my eyes and breathed deep, like a diver long trapped beneath the ice.

Catherine.

“What’d I tell you, chump?” He slapped me on the back hard enough to make the point. “This time you go to the wall with her, or I don’t want to know you.”

His words were broken off as a dull, musicless tone sounded from an intercom on the wall. He rose and went toward it, pushed the com button.

(In Russian) “Jones. Go.”

“Report to the bridge. Seven fighters have appeared on tracking.”

“Ours?”

“There is no way to tell. They will not answer our signal.”

“On my way.” Then to me. “Johnny, I gotta move. The crew should be done with your ship by now.”

“You think it’s a drill?”

On our way out the door: “Only one way to find out. But whatever it is, I gotta be there to see it.” Drifting away. “You go back to Cat, that’s an order.”

“Thanks, Larry. Take care of yourself.” He was already too far down the corridor to answer. I retraced my steps to the stairway, pushed the lever and began to descend. The rhythmic drone of a battle stations alert sounded dully all around me.

I reached my ship just as the fueling ladder was being rolled away. As I mounted the cockpit, the man Larry had spoken to retreated into a pressurized control booth. With my hatch fully closed and the ground crew dispersed, I gave him the thumbs up. The double doors opened slowly, and I fired up auxiliary thrusters. He cleared me for takeoff, released the wheel locks, and I powered easily out into the black. I had barely begun to stabilize rotation when the sound of Larry’s voice came over my helmeted headphones.

“Johnny?” He didn’t sound right. “Have you got any kind of laser scrambling equipment?”

“I can put out a double image, that’s about it. Why?”

“Those seven fighters just jumped into attack formation.”

“Part of the drill?”

“I don’t know. Listen. Would you get close enough to our positioning buoy to ditch their tracking, and hang tight for a while? We got no more fighters, and I’d feel better a lot better if you did.”

“What kind of bullshit is that? How are you supposed to defend something this big with only seven fighters?”

“You think that’s bad, you should see our shields. One good hit from
a sub-nuke missile.....”

“Why?” I said, exasperated.

“Oh, it’s all fucked up. Uncle wants us to be strong, but not too strong. They got our asses hangin’ real good right now.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll sit tight. But if it is a drill - and I hope for both our sakes it is - tell them not to fire on me. Dying right now would really suck.”

A pause. “Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

“Supposing this is. . .something other than a drill. Have you got the speed to break away and get a signal through to SAC?”

“God damn it, Larry! If you’re that worried about it maybe you should send a signal, now.” His indecision spoke volumes.

“I can’t. We’re supposed to be combat ready. Oh. . .fuck the Kremlin. It ain’t worth dyin’---” Before he could finish an incredibly loud radio jam sounded in my ears.

“Aahh!” I tore off my helmet. There would be no message now. Whoever it was had just blocked all long-range communication. I adjusted the modulation on my headset, put the helmet back on.

“Larry.” The static was so thick I could barely hear his reply, sent with full power from less than five miles away.

“Yeah, John. Still here.”

“Why would the Yings attack the station?”

“As a sign of defiance, or worse.”

“What could be worse than being blown out of the sky?”

“Bein’ just the first part of the killing. I don’t want to think about it unless it happens. I gotta clear, Johnny. They’re gettin’ too damn close.”

“Larry!” He didn’t answer, but at that point I really didn’t care. I switched on my viewscreen, and studied the sky to the south.

I felt a sick crawling in the pit of my stomach. They were Chinese. I knew they were. The fighters were authentic enough; they were even trying to fly like the Russians. But the way their leader dipped before a turn, the way the pack swarmed around him, well-trained puppets on a string.....

“Larry get your shields up it’s is the real thing!”

He didn’t answer. The Chinese split into two groups, attacking from either side. The first missile exploded silently against the station’s shields. Another. I watched in total disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. They dove and swirled like angry hornets.

Something was wrong. Either the Russians had better shields than they thought..... Christ. They’re not trying to destroy the station; they’re trying to capture it! But why? “Why!”

They had seen me. I don’t know why I thought they wouldn’t. I just sat there like a fool. What could one unarmed jet do against the cream of Chinese air strength?

A part of me couldn’t react. Thank God another part still could. Almost without thinking my hands went for the controls: power and evasive action. I headed straight for them, to cut down the angle of their missiles, then pulled the nose straight up. As they scrambled to follow I did a 180 and headed straight downward, down toward the safety (I hoped) of atmosphere. Maybe if they see I’m a civilian.
No dice. They knew they had to stop me. In my rear viewscreen 106

I saw their leader pursuing, along with two others. The rest resumed their attack. I knew the only way to save Larry (and myself) was to outrun them: get close enough to U.S. airspace to elude the jam and get a signal through. I was a witness, though to what -

“God damn it, why me!”

My maneuver had worked only partially. I had a jump on them, but not a substantial one. My only hope was that their imitation Migs weren’t as fast as the real thing. If they were I was dead and buried.

There was no time for angled re-entry. I had to take her straight in - crazy and dangerous, but at the moment my only real choice. I sent full power to the forward shields, set the hull cooling systems for maximum, and tried to prepare myself mentally for the roughest ride of my life.

I was through. Pulling the ship to level at 100,000 feet, I checked the rear viewscreen for signs of pursuit---two fighters, one above left, one directly behind. Things were happening fast, but there was little doubt who they were: the leader, and one other. Tracking also showed scattered debris ten or twelve miles up. One of them hadn’t made it through. For the first time I seemed to fully understand what this meant. A human life was ended.

“Christ, what a time to develop a conscience!”

They were closing. I shut down what remained of rocket-assist, gave full throttle to the jets and leaned hard into the after-burners.

The ship jumped. I whirled and spun downward, nearly out of control.

“What the hell - ” It was the Russian fighter fuel! I hadn’t asked for leosene, but had gotten a potent batch nonetheless. I pulled out of it slowly, startled, but grateful for the extra speed. Now to hell-dive for real. I quickly got my bearings - the Aleutian Islands, 96,000 feet - then veered right and downward. Downward.

Spinning like a top, G-forces sucking the blood from my head, all sanity and equilibrium lost, I struggled to keep myself from passing out. I had bet my life the Chinese would follow me in less severe spirals, keeping me in sight and waiting for me to break out of it. After what seemed an eternity I slowed my rotation, reversed to the left and pulled out. I checked the altimeter woozily: 40,000 feet.

The next several minutes I remember only vaguely. Dizzy and shaking, hot and disoriented, I knew only that one of the pursuing jets was closer than the other, by luck or by skill being the nearer when I broke. Julie was wide fucking open, but they were gaining on me steadily. Probably young, the way he flies.....

But as surely as I knew that they were closing, all I could do for a time was try to keep my stomach inside me, wait for my head to clear, and try to figure out who and why and where the hell I was. Coming up on the Northwest Territories. 38,000 feet. Two miles behind me.

A warning tone flashed on the console, brought me back. A missile went sweeping past. Why did he miss? Had he forgotten to activate heat-seekers? Not likely.

The red light flared again. This time I was ready. I released my first scatter pod - five metallic spheres designed to attract and detonate..... The second missile sailed harmlessly past. No heat-seekers? Why? The answer startled me.

“He must want me to get away. Damn kid’s got a conscience - doesn’t want to be part of it.” Part of what? A sudden burst of flaming metal put an end to his bravery. Realizing his intentions, the wing-leader had fragged his own man to get a better shot at me.

“Ruthless bastard!” Rage hit me so hard I almost turned on him in spite of myself. “I’ll ram him out of the sky!” I thought of Larry. I thought of Catherine. I swallowed my anger and veered to southeast. I had to make the Canadian Rockies and hope he didn’t know mountains the way I did. The stage had been set. I had no choice. I only wished to God someone would tell me why.

My left wingflap was damaged, my scatter pods were almost gone. Still, I had him where I wanted him. The long arms of the Rockies reached out to me like a lost lover. American airspace was within striking distance. All I had to do was hang on. I reached the western slopes and tried to dive in low.

The ship wouldn’t do it. The automatic radar. Damn! It wouldn’t let me go lower than a thousand feet without manually overriding the attempt. Grabbing a screwdriver from the toolbox beside me, I forced the unit from the console, tore out the wires and dared my enemy to do the same. Until I remembered that Chinese jets had no such safety device. A human life, even one of their own, held no such value for them. Probably why they were able to call our bluff in Vietnam. They were the reason we couldn’t cross into the North, and win that fucking war.

“But you won’t catch me here. This is where I learned!”

I swooped so low I even scared myself. But I could read the rise of a peak like no one else. At first he tried to stay high, aiming his missiles down at me. The attempt was futile: he couldn’t even get off a shot the way I was moving. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two Canadian fighters, apparently scrambled to find out who we were. But they didn’t have the speed to touch us.

“Thanks anyway, guys.” At least it must have made my opponent think. I was no longer the only witness to aggression, and the Canadians were sure to notify SAC. I did everything I could to make his dilemma more pressing. I sped south and east with everything Julie had, taking chances I never would have.....
He came in low after me. He had no choice. His skill and determination were frightening. Our shadows raced across the snow like dueling eagles. Pressed to the supreme effort, I flew as I had never flown, compensating for the damaged wingfin like an animal that had lived with a similar wound all its life.

“Just don’t get cocky,” I cautioned. Even as I did so the warning light flashed red. I released the pod with literally no time to spare. The impact of detonation was so close that it lifted the back of my ship like so much wind-tossed balsa. I was nearly hurled against a rockface. I banked out of it, pulled the nose up the instant I had control, and missed the crest of the peak by less than twenty feet.

My last pod was gone. Julie was no warship; I had only gotten them as a precaution. Now I was completely naked. I rammed forward the throttle and ran for my life. I dove and swirled, rose and cut, a rabbit on the run. A rabbit. I shook with the fear of a hunted animal.

At first I couldn’t be sure. Was he fading, or was it just..... No. Yes! He’s losing ground. I increased magnification on the rear viewscreen. “He’s out of missiles!”

I looked ahead of me. Montana was in reach. So beautiful. Tears of relief, and the unexpected joy of living, stung my eyes. The setting sun consecrated the Earth below. I sobbed aloud at the sight of it. It was over. I had won.

“Powell Base tower, this is a Code Red emergency. Patch me through to General Thurmond at once.”

... “What?”

“I repeat, this is a Code Red emergency. Lives are at stake, come on!”

“Who is this? If you were Air Force you’d know I can’t put you through to the General without coded clearance.”

I had never heard such menace in my own voice. “You listen here, tower rat. I am a fully armed F-80, less than one hundred miles from your current position. The Chinese have attacked Russia one, and if you don’t put me through to somebody, and I mean right now, I’m gonna blow your tower flatter than a snake under a tank-tread. Now, mother-fucker!”

... “Just a minute.” A pause.

“Colonel Ziegler, here. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is there’s a squadron of Chinese fighters blowing the hell out of Russia One. I was there. It was me the little bastard chased halfway across Canada. So if you don’t want Uncle’s trillion dollar station and all the dirty little toys inside it to fall into enemy hands, I suggest you do something to stop it!”

A much briefer pause, then. “I’ll check on this and get back to you. Drop down to channel two, and stay coded.”
“Get on it. I got friends up there.”
“Copy.”

His voice was gone and I switched my radio to Air Force Channel 2. I backed off on the throttle and slowed the ship to Mach 1. I still had one more place to go.
I took off my helmet and tried to stretch the tension from my neck. Julie was pretty beat up, and so was I. Nothing permanent, I hoped. If only Larry was okay. I took a mild stimulant to stay awake, and waited for Ziegler (whoever the hell he was) to get back to me. Perhaps twenty
minutes passed, in which I found it hard to think about anything.
“Breaker, USAF Two. Ziegler calling civilian F-80, do you read?” Now that I was able to take it in, his voice was aged and gentlemanly - southern.

“Jensen here. What’s the story?”

“The Chinese broke off their attack a few minutes before you called. We were able to contact the station directly. You understand that anything further is classified, and that as a former Air Force pilot---”

“The oath of secrecy still applies,” I said impatiently. “What happened?”

“All right, then. The station is damaged: five injured, two dead. We’ve got help on the way, both Russian and American. It looks like they’re going to make it.”

“And Larry?”

“Special Envoy Jones suffered a broken shoulder and a mild concussion, but is remaining at his post.”

“He’s a tough son of a bitch,” I said proudly.

“Yes, he is. He said to say thanks. I’d like to say it too, son. You saved lot of lives today.”

“Not enough, it seems.”

“I’m not just talking about Russia One now, Jensen. I’ve just spoken with the Joint Chiefs. Based on our own intelligence, and what your friend was able to tell us, we think we know what the Chinese were up to..... Don’t go spreading this around, son, we’d only have to deny it.”

“Who would believe me?”

“Maybe no one. But my career is on the line just telling you.”

... “What are you talking about?”

“You really don’t know, do you? Do you have any idea what you stopped, just by being there when your country needed you?”

“I didn’t do it for my country.” I realized as I said this it wasn’t quite true. “Tell me.”

“World War III, Jensen, and against the wrong enemy. Hundreds of millions of lives..... Here’s what we’ve got so far.”

As I listened in stunned disbelief, he went on to tell that it was the Chinese who had sent the intercepted message to the Russian embassy in Washington, raising suspicions as to Nabakov's real motive in accepting the station. That seed planted, they set up the Russians for their attack on the station: calling for the phony defense drill, then through a highly-placed defector, convincing the Kremlin to let the order stand. We’d been underestimating their intelligence capabilities for years.....

“Go on,” I said, as if waking from a dream.

“All right. Then the Chinese attack, sending in their fighters, to be followed by boarding parties from a waiting destroyer. Once inside the station they’d have killed the remaining crew, taken control of the station, and fired the missiles.”

“At who?”

“At us, don’t you see? That way we think it was the Russians, and before the smoke clears we launch a devastating counter-strike, wiping out their population and industrial centers, along with every missile they’ve got.”

“Sweet Jesus. Then the Chinese attack us?”

“No. They wouldn’t have to. They’d have gotten what they wanted: the effective elimination of their northern enemy, and the near depletion of our nuclear arsenal. They could force a new treaty, on their own terms, and expand into devastated Russia once the radioactive fallout had passed.”

I remained silent for a time, physically incapable of taking in all that he had told me.

“That’s insane.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that. But as I get older..... All war is insane, son, and its terrible price can only be justified by a great and desperate cause: like stopping Hitler, and the Axis Japanese in World War II.” He sighed, then continued.

“But we all had our dirty little hands in on this one. Hank Hagan (the American President) trying to scare the Chinese like some bully in a schoolyard fight. The Russians, trying to get an edge on the Chinese, and regain the old feeling of military dominance..... But the Chinese are undoubtedly the worst. We’ve all pondered nuclear Armageddon at one time or another. But they tried to do it.

“We can all thank God,” he concluded, “and a disgruntled Yankee fly-boy, who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

... “Well then let me ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“How can you know all this and not go crazy? How can you still be part of it?”

“We’re not all monsters in the upper ranks, Jensen. A lot of people like myself work very hard to try and prevent this sort of thing from ever happening. Politics is beyond our reach. All we can do is serve our country faithfully, and hope that cooler heads prevail. Sure it scares me sometimes. But that’s the part I’m able play, so I do it the best I can. You ought to know, now, that one man can make a difference. You think about it long and hard. Someday you’ll thank God you’re alive, and had the chance to do what you did.”

“I am,” I said weakly.

“It’s all right, son..... Listen. Is there anything I can do, for you?”

I nodded, then remembered myself. “Can you get me clearance to land at Pedersen, no questions asked? I was going to try to make Taos, but I’m wasted. Maybe ask them to do some repairs on my ship? I’ll pay for it,” I ended lamely.

“No need. You’ve done your part, now we’ll do ours. If they have to rebuild it from scratch, I promise you, it will be done.”

“And the citations?”

“You’ve got a clean slate with the Air Force, son.”

“Thanks,” I said wearily. “Thanks a lot.”

“Say. I had a Jensen at the Academy ten or twelve years back: a real cocky kid, used to call himself Hot Rod. That wouldn’t be you now, would it?”

Freaking Blue Shoes Ziegler. That’s where I’d heard his voice before. “No,” I answered honestly, free of my ego at last. “Hot Rod Jensen is dead. This is somebody else.”

... “I’m sorry to hear that. All right. I’ll let you go. Maybe see you around some time.”

“I’d like that, Shoes. Take care of yourself.”

“Johnny!”

“Gotta go, Bob. Lieutenant John Jensen, over and out.”

__________________________________________________

Again I was back in the chair, somewhat dazed.

... “Does that always happen?” My head felt numb, my body drained.

“Does what always happen?”

“It got so intense. I think I felt his fears more deeply than he did..... And now I’m so tired.”

“That will happen sometimes in the first person, when your mind becomes the dream instead of watching it.”

“Is there any way to change it, make it less. . .direct?”

“I can hold your full consciousness back a bit longer, while the dream has time to develop on its own - increase the chance that you’ll be outside, looking in. That doesn’t necessarily make it easier.”

“What do you mean?” His tone, in answering, I thought a bit sharp.

“I told you before, the Machine doesn’t hold anything back. It’s going to keep getting more personal, more intense, and there’s nothing either one of us can do to stop it.”

“Unless you want to give it up now,” came the dwarf’s sneering reply.

“Before we run out of tears and happy endings.”

“No.” I couldn’t understand why Luke let him taunt me. I got angry. “All right. You want one without tears, you got it.”

“I wouldn’t say that - ”

“Lucas, let’s go. I’m tired of waiting.”

“As you wish.” I heard the subtle hiss of the tape. Strange I hadn’t noticed it before.

True to his word, Lucas held me back longer, let the dream begin on its own. And true to his word, it wasn’t any easier. I found myself alone in a dark cell, alone with a man I did not, could not know. And yet I knew him - he was my murderer. I was a ghost on the wall, a trapped spirit, a guardian with something terrible at stake. The fearful sensation of floating, bodiless, was soon more than I could bear. As if in a nightmare I tried to wake myself. As in many of my own, I could not.
I heard a key being fitted in the ancient lock. I was afraid. As was the spirit.

The Bad Man

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man,
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes.
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated,
To be fated
To telling only lies.

But my dreams, they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be.
I have hours, only lonely:
My love is vengeance
That’s never free.

“Wait here on the outside,” said the old man. The guard turned the key roughly in the rusted lock, then slowly pulled open the heavy, iron-hinged wooden door. Stepping through the opening it left, the mystic entered the cell. The door was closed hard behind him.

He stood atop a ledge of ancient stone. Three steps led down from it to the musty floor of a dank, Turkish prison cell. Searching the dimly lit stone walls, his eyes, with some reluctance, took in the tall, wild-eyed man sitting in a far corner on a bed of piled straw. Shrouded in veils of alternating torchlight and darkness he sat motionless, staring into space, into some void that only he could see. Dark and curling hair hung lightly about his shoulders, tinged with gray. Black moustaches added grimly to the already harsh and high boned features of his face. Cloaked in the battered garments of faded royalty -pale, bluish eyes - he formed a strangely unnerving silhouette. The old man descended the stairs.

“You are Vlad Tsepesh?” he asked sincerely.

Only then did the Impaler seem to acknowledge his presence in the room. He studied the robed figure briefly, then returned his distant gaze to whatever morbid place it was that his mind had taken him.

“My name is Lazarus,” the man continued. “I am a member of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. Does that name mean anything to you?” Again the Impaler reacted slowly, as from a distance. When emotion did return to his face, it was bitter and raging.

“Are you then a priest? Sent to comfort and absolve a dying man? Pale blasphemer! I would rather rot in hell.” His voice, though weak, was terrible and cruel.

“But I am not a priest,” said the old man firmly. “And I would not speak so lightly of things beyond your understanding. The afterlife may indeed be all that remains to you.”

“Why have you come?” The words were spoken coldly, but Lazarus fancied he caught the faintest trace of a plea for deliverance. Fears of Hell must indeed have plagued the madman, impaling him in turn upon a stake of unrelenting anguish.

“I have come to give you one final chance to make a peace with your past, that the lessons of this life might not be wholly wasted. I come with the power of the Eye. You will see yourself as you are, without mercy. Beyond that I can promise you nothing.”

With this the Impaler studied him more closely. “Do what you will,” he said after a time. “I do not fear you.”

All was silence, as the mystic tried in vain to read the bitter maze of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

“Very well,” he said finally, the life no longer in his hands. “But first, do you freely confess to the brutal and needless killing of a thousand innocents, men and women who knew no more of your sufferings than you did of theirs? That your wrath was spent foolishly and without purpose, however justified your longing for vengeance may have been?”

“However justified? You speak the words as if they mean nothing! You, you blasphemous - Do you know what it is to have hot iron put to your flesh? Or to see the ones you love put to death before your eyes, the victims of the plots of men with hearts and lusts no greater than those of the rats of this dungeon? I kill because I have been killed. I slaughter their dreams as they have slaughtered mine!” The attack was fierce, but short lived. Vlad Tsepesh knew that he was dying. “How can you understand these things?”

“Only God has the right to judge,” said the old man quietly, moved by the power, even in death, of the madman before him. “I do not judge. And yet I must have an answer.”

The Impaler’s voice grew deadly calm. “Yes. I killed them. And a part of me is very sorry I did.”

Lazarus hesitated. His voice was too even; did he speak the truth? “Very well. That is all I ask.” Reaching into an inside pocket of his long, weather-worn garment he pulled forth a small, rectangular mirror. Moving as with a purpose to the far wall, he placed one edge on the floor, leaning the other gently against the stone. Stepping back he reached into his cloak once more, this time extracting a small crimson hand pouch, filled with finely ground silver powder. He looked back once more at the man he wished to forgive.

Pouring the contents of the pouch into his right hand, he fell to one knee, the hand uplifted, and began a long prayer in Latin. His eyes were closed hard and his limbs trembled, as if from supreme exertion. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he repeated one of the verses over and over.

“Amor omnia vincet,” he pleaded. “Amen, amen. Amor omnia vincet.”
Rising stiffly at prayer’s end, he drew himself up to his full height and brought the hand containing the powder slowly toward his pursing lips. Then, in an explosion of shimmering color he released a deep breath and blew the powder swiftly into the air. The cloud it formed hovered there before him, silver and gold in the torchlight, then began to swirl hypnotically above his head. Becoming still it remained there, waiting.

“Look into the glass,” he commanded. Unawed, the Impaler complied. He had known magicians and their tricks before. His eyes, reflected once in the tiny mirror, looked directly into those of the mystic.

“If you wish to turn away you must do so now.” The Impaler said nothing, but only glared at him disdainfully.

The wizard raised one hand high above him, into the midst of the cloud. Then brought it down again suddenly, hurling the glittering dust against the wall which held the mirror. Splitting apart at impact the cloud swept across its entire face, spreading out from the center in a web of silvery silk. Lazarus stared with full intensity into disbelieving eyes. The mirror began to grow. Vlad Tsepesh tried to turn away. His startled gaze, now locked upon itself, grew in proportion along with the glass.

The mirror continued to grow, larger and larger, until it had mingled with the dust and spread out to cover the entire face of the prison cell wall. In a heartbeat the image was changed. The Impaler’s eyes, now wide and stark, looked back at him in giant replica, no longer a reflection, the glass no longer glass, but as a gray and solid like-porcelain mosaic.

Slowly Lazarus approached the giant eyes. Drawing an invisible line with his trembling forefinger, he divided the image vertically in two. He took a step back, clapped his hands sharply together, and the left half bolted suddenly, crashing in sharp and white-edged pieces to the floor. His task completed, the man collapsed to his knees and fell forward. Exhausted and unconscious, he left the madman alone with his past, to atone for his sins, or be lost in oblivion.

At first he did nothing. Left wary by a life of constant treachery, much of it his own, he trusted no one.

But here, now, alone and desperate, he felt himself stirring with emotion. Cautiously, and with an effort he rose. Studying the remaining eye from a distance, he saw that all movement had ceased. It no longer seemed ominous, nor even alive. Moving closer, he also saw that the shadow-black pupil appeared too large, out of proportion. Coming closer still, he discovered that it was not part of the mosaic at all, but some sort of dark tunnel, leading inward. Running his hand along the rim of the opening, he felt a great conflict rising within him.

Obviously this was the choice: to trust what seemed an uncertain magic, entering the passageway, or to remain behind without hope, left to die in the presence of a shrouded old man.

That a gesture of peace had been made at all surprised him immensely. For as long as he could remember (though his memory was far from perfect) no one had freely offered him anything, that had not first been taken by force, or the prelude to some seditious act of betrayal. The very nature of it all puzzled him in a way his mind could not accept. Was this the work of God? For if there was a God then there was also a Hell, and vengeful retribution for sin. Eternal damnation. How many times had those words been pounded into him since childhood?

Shaking his head violently he cast aside all such useless thoughts. The final hours of his life were at hand; a decision must be made. The quickness with which that answer came, whatever the source, surprised even himself. With only a moment’s hesitation he lifted one knee, pulled himself forward, and entered the portal.

The tunnel was dark and cramped at first, smooth across the bottom but lined along either side with deep and invisible cravings that piqued his open hands as he passed. He moved on all fours, weak and unsure. Slowly the gray, unlit passage grew higher and wider. Spying a light somewhere up ahead of him, he quickened his pace. Finally able to stand, though hooked and hunched like a Dali Jew, he walked the remaining distance with caution. And as the tunnel opened out into a small, square-stoned chamber, he discovered the source of the light.

Two black medieval torches were mounted securely on either side of the wall-face that confronted him, illuminating what appeared to be the end of the passageway. A thick and powerful iron-studded door blocked his path, an enormous steel ring hanging down from its mount in the center. Above this, carved and painted upon the ancient oak, he found inscribed his own, self-chosen coat of arms, with one exception. To the right of the shield where the winged serpent should have been, was carved instead the head of a wolf on the naked body of a man. A tear of blood flowed down the side of its dazed expression, dripping slowly, alive.

His spirit ached. Something in the pain of its eyes, pale and blue, made him turn away. His conscious mind told him to turn and flee before it; but his mind was no longer in control. Spurred on by irrepressible emotion, he struggled with himself, with the door, forced it open and stepped past into the other side.

He was met by a long corridor that stretched out before him beyond the edge of sight. He took a few tentative steps forward, felt the doorway disappear. He whirled to see the ghost of his father sealing it with a musky, milk-white substance as it faded out of reach. A female voice whispered in his ear. His father sneered. “No choice, no escape.”

The corridor was made of stone, supported by unwilling wooden beams that ran like so many arched gallows off into the distance. Between the beams, on either side of the passageway ran two long columns of parallel doors, facing off in opposing pairs across the hallway. Some were opened, others shut tight. All lay before him, his past.

He moved uncertainly to the first door on his right, ajar. Yet as bizarre the apparition that met him there, what he saw did not startle him. He saw a woman in a chair nursing her new-born son, weeping softly as she rocked him back and forth. Dark clouds gathered above her in the room. She held the child close, trying to protect him. The woman was his mother. He had forgotten how sweet and how sad. He backed away and continued, understanding.

He passed by many doors before he dared to look again. But even as he walked, he felt some measure of his weakness beginning to fade, falling from him like the agitated dust of despair. He knew not the source of his reprieve, but accepted it gladly, beginning to feel perhaps some small hope of redemption. Feeling many other things besides.

Cautiously approaching an open door on his left, he was heartened by what he found there. Instead of a cell, or even a room, he was greeted by a field of tall grass and wildflowers that swept to wooded hills on a near horizon. The sun shone high and new on that place as he entered, following a path to a stream. There in a clearing just ahead of him, two young lovers wrestled playfully in the grass. Again he knew the scene, the girl. The sight of her, not so very much more than a child, cut him deeply till he bled. They could not see him, nor did they try. The Impaler watched in silence, knowing the past could not be changed. Rolling out and away from their lovers’ grasp, the girl sat up on her knees and looked back at the young prince lovingly, her face aglow with the magic and innocence of youth.

But then the countenance changed, reflecting deeper, more earthy passions. Vlad Tsepesh was stunned, even as he had been, by the fearful power of that expression. His world seemed to hang upon a thread.
Lowering her hands seductively to the front lacing of her bodice, the girl loosened the strands and opened it slowly, exposing the crown of her breasts as she did so. Heart beating faster, she slipped her fingers beneath the folds of woven cloth, and with a certainty unbecoming her age, seized the corners of the gown and pulled them shamelessly down over her shoulders. And there she stayed, her fair hair and skin glistening softly in the wind and sun of Spring.

“We mustn’t.”

She rose, moved closer, and knelt beside him. She stroked his face once, twice, then took it to her chest. The young man turned away.

“It’s all right,” she assured him, moving closer still. “My brother says that if two people are in love and plan to marry, it is only a small sin. And he is soon to be ordained.” Vlad Tsepesh turned away.

“I cannot marry you.” He walked back towards the door.

“But why? What do you mean?”

“And I cannot make love to you.” Their voices faded.

“But why?” Because I’m impotent. “I don’t believe that..... Vlad, come back. What’s the matter with you, don’t you love me? Vlad. What’s the matter with you.....”

He reached the door and stepped beyond, closing it hard and final behind him. Weak with despair he leaned listlessly against it, sliding in a sorrowful heap to the floor. Such a fool. Dropping his head into his hands, he tried, but could not weep. As bitter and unholy as the feeling was, it was the purest emotion He had known for many years.

His moment of meditation ended abruptly as he heard a loud crash directly in front of him. Looking up, he was shocked by a terror-drawn face that started out at him through the iron barred window of the cell across the hallway. The face was so riddled with fear that at first he did not recognize it. Once again it was his own.

The face pulled back suddenly, as if violently seized from behind. Vlad Tsepesh rushed to the doorway. Finding it locked, he peered helplessly through the opening, cursing and hating and fearing at once. Two Turkish dungeon guards were shackling the thin hands of a prisoner high above his head and before him on a post. One tore away his tunic, exposing a pale and naked back; the other drew back to the smoldering coals of a blacksmith’s fire. An iron core, like the severed head of a great bolt, was turning slowly red in its center. A hard man withdrew it with mighty tongs and glowered sullenly at his victim, whose head contorted wildly in an attempt to look back across its shoulder.

“You cannot do this to me!” it screamed. “I am brought here by deceit and without trial! You shall all pay dearly for this!” Incredulous, the nearer of the guards actually laughed.

“Here is your trial, Christian. I am priest, and he is magistrate.” He threw a thumb across his shoulder. “But mind your tongue, and be careful of that one. He has no love for those that kill his brothers. He lost two in the northern Jihad; it might go hard on you.”

The grim man approached. There was a scream as hot iron melted flesh.

The madman drove away from the door, seeking escape. He began walking farther down the corridor, faster. The sounds of pain still drove him. He waved his arms wildly, attacking the air. Something in his mind had snapped. He swerved from side to side. He shouted uncontrollably.

“Why have you brought me here? What do you why are you hurting me! Who are you to feel such a thing, so cold?” He shivered without reason. Lesser minds have called it insanity, but it was not.

He calmed himself, mastered. He was grim and horrible. The emotions of a lifetime seemed to race and run together, first sorrow, then pain, then bitterness and hatred. Soon all that remained was the hate, hating everything that lived or breathed without sorrow and loss.

“They will pay for what they have done to me. How they will pay!”

He had quite forgotten the corridor; his life now seemed real, and in the present tense. The passage became a familiar hallway. The doorways became irregular, staggered. A broad double-door opened ahead, on one side only. A peculiar sound caught his step: familiar, twisted. He craned his neck oddly, like a murderer at his pleasure.

He moved to the opening; the sound was there. He looked inside. Men writhed in agony, their tortured, crying moans mingled absurdly with the clockwork music of minstrels.

He entered the chamber. It was large and long, his royal dining hall. All who saw him enter shuddered with fear. For a moment the music stopped, but one sharp look from the Harlequin (there were many) and it began again. Men and women were spread about the room. There were minstrels and servants. The guests were high in the air in a circlet around the edges, surrounding at their distance a long table set for the feast. Some were impaled through the base of the spine, others through the mouth or anus. All hung grotesquely down over sharpened wooden stakes, with sandbag weights tied at the end of thin ropes to their arms, legs and neck. All were pulled slowly to their death. One man, pierced through the side, had somehow fallen and lay groveling on the floor. But no one seemed to notice.

The Impaler strode boldly to a massive, carved oak chair at the head of the table. The heads of six wolves, stuffed, were mounted to the back of it on either side, with glass eyes that looked out unseeing. He sat down among them.

“Girl! Bring me my wine.” A frightened peasant girl, little more than a child, glanced up at him quickly, then ran from the room. She returned a moment later with a large goblet, filled. She placed it before him. He lofted it once in the air, a stolen chalice, then drank deeply. He waved it to the gallery.

“I drink to you - ”

But he never finished the toast. His eyes swept the room in disbelief. Each living corpse bore the same face, the same features: His. Fire burned in his stomach. He had just been poisoned.

“No!” A driving pain attacked the base of his spine, a sharpened crucifix of agony. He bolted stiffly forward. “No!” He threw aside the table and rushed out into the hallway, the corridor.

For the second time that night he was jolted by a loud crash, as all the doors behind him blew open with a crack. From out of their dark recesses poured an incalculable horde of twisted and dripping apparitions that turned to face him with evil intent. They started towards him.

“NO!” He rushed down the corridor, found his way blocked by a great, smooth-faced wall, impenetrable as Death. Two unobstructed doorways were mounted flush against it to either side. From the opening on his right poured a brilliant and blinding white light, reaching out to him like the unbridled rays of the sun. To the left was only darkness, a perfect black-hole that swallowed all light like a carnivore. The white, now yellow, streamed like liquid across him, across the hallway, but fell like water over a fall at the lip of the door of Darkness, pouring ever down into an insatiable pit.

The madman searched wildly for some other way of escape. There was none. The time of his death was at hand, and no desperate act of cunning would push it away. The horde drew closer, vengeful. Suddenly he found himself naked. He shrieked like a tortured bird. They were closing.

He faced the door on his right. It was warm, but he was naked. The left was cold, but there he could hide. Gentle whispers beckoned to him from behind the wall of light, one the voice of an old man. To the left was deepest silence.

Almost upon him, a stumpy and skinless corpse reached out to touch his leg. A part of his mind proclaimed, I have lived in darkness long enough! But even as it did so he let out a cry and leapt into darkness.

“Satan, my life!” And all was silence.

* * *

Lazarus stood as before, then knelt in the straw beside the body, feeling very old and useless. He closed the lids painfully: there was no peace in that face, even in death. Tragedy was too good a word. A human life, and all its victims, had been utterly wasted. He rose stiffly and
went to the door.

The Jailer would not let him out.

__________________________________________________

Tessa of Troyan

I carry the dust of a journey
That cannot be shaken away
It lives deep within me
For I breathed it every day

You and I are yesterday’s answers
The earth of the past

Come to flesh,
Eroded by Time’s rivers
to the shapes we now possess

Come share of my breath and my substance
And mingle our streams and our times
In bright infinite moments, our reasons
Are lost
In our rhymes.

Ryan descended slowly from his tower, using the stairs. No reason to be early: it would only give his accusers that much more time to look upon him disdainfully before the mahldi called them in before the Council.

What an impossible situation, he thought bitterly. How had he let it happen? He knew how. One look at the young female and his scientific discipline had absolutely melted. Warnings of non-interference and cultural purity had meant little to him then, still less once he got to know her.

There were, of course, the obvious differences in physiology and background. But to the son of a planetary geologist, constantly moving from one system to the next, the differences had not been overwhelming. He found the larger eyes, sloped forehead and soft golden body fur attractive, the overall appearance not in the least alien or disconcerting. It had taken Tessa a bit longer, but so passive and understanding was she that the barriers between them had quickly broken down. His mind became gentle and anchorless just thinking about it. How could he know then the severe consequences of the affection he held for her?

Reaching the final stair, he stepped reluctantly out onto ground level. He shook his head once, as if for courage, then strode sullenly across the clay-brick floor and out through the rounded doorway. Pressing the shut-off button for the heat-shield from a small unit strapped to his hip, he waited for the last remnants to disperse, then stepped beyond its boundaries and made for the crawler. Seconds after he passed it reactivated automatically. The elaborate defense system seemed unnecessary only to those who had never seen a sahdab, the large wolverine-like predators that hunted openly in the stalk forests just beyond every clearing. There was always the assurance of local superstition - that the creature would not attack a warrior who had slain one of its kind in combat, and wore the conquered breastbone on a strand of leather about the neck. But Ryan, intelligent young man that he was, much preferred the certainty of heat-shield and laser pistol. He had reached the crawler.

He ascended the platform leading to its open cockpit, admiring in an annoyed sort of way the subtle workmanship that had gone into making it resemble an enormous, six-legged spider. It had been one of the bizarre conditions of the research and trade agreement with the Troyans that, “No hauling or transporting of goods save that provided by beasts of burden,” would be allowed on the surface. Thus, the crawler. In truth, both he and his father had bent over backwards to appease the local tribes. And things had seemed to go fairly well until.....

“Until,” he said out loud. What an awful word.

As the crawler pulled away from the platform in jerky, horse-like movements and made for the hills beyond, he found himself looking back bewilderedly at the events of the past two months, trying to make some sense of the seemingly senseless Troyan system of values. The attempt was futile. What kind of ignorant, archaic society could demand such total aggression of its men, such total passivity from its female members? And their violent rejection of anything foreign; what were they so afraid of? In a way he was more worried for Tess than for himself, but had managed, with difficulty, to keep this thought from his mind. That is to say, he had tried.

But as he drew nearer the village - several clusters of high, circular dwellings scattered throughout the short-cropped clearings of the valley - he was no longer able to override the protective instinct within him. Breaking off to the left, he abandoned his designated course and made for her father’s tower against the northern hillside. He had not quite covered the necessary five hundred meters when a moving shape on the ground below caught his attention. It was Tessa. She had seen him coming. A deep sigh of relief passed through him as he saw she was alone. He turned without hesitation and made for their meeting place by the river. He knew that she would follow.

Shrinking the black-metal body of the crawler down among its legs, he hid it as best he could among the thick, translu-green growth of the forest. He leapt from the cockpit and strained his eyes for any signs of pursuit. He found none. Indeed, the very forest itself seemed perfectly lifeless and still, like an empty stage waiting for players. Ryan wondered only if the drama forthcoming was to be a comedy or a tragedy. He reemerged into the clearing of the bank, waiting impatiently for his lover.

She turned a final corner of the path, gently lifting then ducking gracefully beneath a soft and flexible branch, releasing it once more to swing easily back into place. He studied her fluid figure for a moment as she approached, mesmerized all over again by the short tawny mane and soft golden body fur, covered only by the slotted skirt of tanned leather, then ran to meet her. Her large fawn eyes were wet with tears.

“What is it?” he asked softly, stepping back from their tender embrace. “What’s wrong?”

“You should not have come. They will find us, they will never stop.....” She faltered.

“Tessa?”

“They have condemned me to die.”

“What?” He took a step back, overwhelmed. “Well that’s one death sentence they’re never going to carry out,” he said bitterly. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

“But where will we go? Where could we ever be safe?”

“My father said he’d wait with our ship on top of Mayu, in case things got ugly and we had to make a run for it. It’s all right, Tessa. They can’t follow us into Space.”

“But my father’s honor.....” Her eyes pleaded.

“I’m not leaving without you.” He took her hand and led her away. She offered no resistance.

For all its virtues - five meter ground clearance, large freight capacity and surprising agility - the crawler was not very fast. Ryan continued northward in a state of mind somewhere between watchful readiness and subdued panic. Troyan warriors were not to be taken lightly, especially the Banshi of Shahkti peninsula, Tessa’s tribe. Even with the crawler, fully armed, he could not hope to hold off more than five or six for any length of time. They would keep coming, relentless, until either he or their entire number had been completely snuffed out.

He had seen them in action before. An invading tribe from the west had had the misfortune of trusting itself to the strength of greater numbers. The Banshi had been awesome, fighting with a skill and determination that would (he imagined) have shamed even the Nordic berserkrs of medieval Earth history. Their zeal and lack of fear were terrifying. But was it really lack of fear, or the mystical combination of love, fear and hatred that drove them, seeming to pull down strength and courage from the skies, and from the very heart of their beloved planet? He began to admire them again in spite of himself.

But as he drew near the summit, all such thoughts were driven sharply from his mind. Black smoke rose from the top of Mayu.
“No!” It was a cry that seemed to burst forth of and by itself, without his consent, echoing once before dying amidst the vastness of uncaring landscape. He pulled furiously at the controls, forcing every last bit of speed he could muster. They reached the rocky incline. The crawler pitched back and climbed on, undaunted. They cleared the final bluff. They reached the top.
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#
He was taken to the central village of the Shahkti. The different clans within the tribe were loosely joined except during times of war or religious ceremony. Then they became one body, inseparable, joined together by common purpose in a way that was difficult for the outsider to comprehend. Indeed, everything about the Banshi now seemed to him strange and unacceptable. But their unity was undeniable, their courage in battle unquestioned.
He was taken to a small cell within the outer walls of the Coliseum. So it was true, he was to be part of some barbaric ritual. He had little doubt that it would be some form of combat, or sacrifice. The numbness that sorrow had brought began to yield slowly to thoughts of self-preservation and fear. How had he let himself be taken so easily? What about Tessa? What about his father? Sullen anger rose within him, and it was well that it did. He would need it, and in plenty, before the day would let him rest---one way or the other.
He was left alone in his cell without a word. After what seemed a long time a single warrior pulled open the ancient door and stepped inside.

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Ryan recognized him at once. It was Bahku, older brother of Tessa. He said nothing, but opened his hand to reveal several gnarled roots of the gimji plant. He took Ryan’s hand, turned it over, and placed them in his palm.
“What do I do with these?” Ryan asked, searching for some sign among the stern and hard-fur features of his face.
“Eat them or you will die.” There was no emotion in that voice, only statement of fact. This could be an act of compassion or malice; he would never know. The men of Troyan were utterly unreadable.

He woke suddenly, aware that something was terribly wrong. His first glimpse of the cell did nothing to comfort him. The aged and time-lined walls leered and swayed, alive with malicious movement. Hallucinations danced across everything he saw. His heart pounded. He fought hard to remind himself that he had been drugged, in preparation..... Preparation for what? Or had he just been poisoned? Liquid fear surged through him.
He rose from the floor and shook himself hard, as if trying physically to rid himself of the demon in his veins. The effort was wasted---if anything the drug grew stronger. He took a deep breath, searching his mind for some point of reference among the fevered insanity. Was it possible that Bahku had deliberately poisoned him? He doubted it. Slow death by underhanded means was not the way of the Banshi, nor was pointless suffering. What was it then, some kind of test? One thing only seemed clear: if he did not compose himself quickly, master his fears, he would lose all control.
With this realization, however blunt, came a certain measure of inner
calm. At least he could see some reason for his anguish. It had to be a test ---a test of mental strength and endurance. The drug (if such a thing is

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possible) seemed well satisfied with this response: its symptoms became less severe. He also found that it no longer robbed him of physical strength. On the contrary, he felt his limbs coursing with restless vigor. He sat down slowly and tried to reason it out. The movement of the walls diminished. He thought of many things. His mind was put to the test.
It is not easy to define the things that Ryan Soltzen feared. For his were not the tremblings of lesser men, afraid of foolish, irrational voices inside them. Thoughts of fatalism and futility did not unnerve him, nor did images of his own inevitable death. And having lived much of his life confronted by the vastness of Space, he was not troubled on sleepless nights by sudden stark realizations of his own mortal frailty and insignificance. The concept of Infinity didn’t bother him at all. Mindless worries over illness, mental breakdown and despair---these were beyond his control, and therefore meant little to him. He shook them off daily without further thought. Ryan Soltzen was a fighter. So long as there was a reason to struggle he would never give up. Even the Troyans seemed to sense this. Why then..... Why?
But Ryan's fears were of a kind that went deeper, based on harsh

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reality. For his were the fears of a young man who tried hard to understand
the reason for all things but could not, who made a sincere and prolonged effort to live each day in a positive and forthright manner, but was still mercilessly riddled by doubt and confusion. When submerged, he considered his anxieties nothing more than the normal pangs of a boy becoming man. But when, at times like these he was forced to confront them they arose with impossible strength, unbearable, like the constant resurgence of a wound never properly healed.
And as much as he sometimes wanted to, he could find no shelter in warm and innocent childhood beliefs, nor bring himself to trust his fate to any unseen God-force of light and justice, nor even to Nature itself. And he feared---more accurately he dreaded, deeply dreaded---the thought of never finding a home, of living his whole life without ever knowing love, or a reason to keep trying. He feared loneliness, with the hollow sting of a child who had lost his mother at an early age, while retaining a father who had tolerated, but never truly loved or understood him. And he wept without tears for a thousand other tragedies as well: for all the people and places he had become attached to, needing them so badly, only to find they were

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nothing more than glimpses of a world that would never be his. And if the truth be known he feared himself, the stranger he saw in the mirror.
Now, unable to do otherwise he confronted his fears, and it hurt. He thought of finding Tessa, of falling in love with both she and her mystically
beautiful planet, only to have both pulled so violently from beneath him. He thought of Ernest Hemingway, of the brutal and heart-crushing ending of A Farewell to Arms. It all became too much. And though it is one thing to write these words on a page, or to read them from the safety and detachment of a healthy mind, it is quite another to feel them, truly feel them, doubled and trebled by the drug, believing that if he did not overcome them he would die, or at the very least, be unable to survive whatever trials still awaited him at the hands of savage and inscrutable barbarians, and a Deity bent on his destruction. His limbs began to tremble.
But somehow through the confusion, so loud, the reason for this moment became clear. Something of the Troyan religious philosophy had come to him from out of the day, and from the heart of his despair. A saying from the Tabla:
“Singularity of purpose may save a man when all else betrays him.

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235

voice was once again stoic and implacable.
“Yes.”
“Remove your upper garment.” Ryan slipped off his smock, letting it fall to the floor. Bahku helped him roughly into the armor-vest, a sleeveless, tight-fitting wrap of thick leather inlaid with bronze. Next came the shield, a roughly conical disc, its off-center crest lined along the arm ridge with parallel rows of sharp metallic teeth.
Lastly Bahku handed him the sword, hilt first. His head was turned slightly as Ryan received it, veiling half his face in the growing darkness of the room. Ryan saw the remaining eye glimmer suddenly, as if smote from within by a single tear of uncontrollable emotion. He could not imagine its
source.
“Bahku?” he questioned, closely studying the taut, alien expression. “Isn’t this your sword?” The warrior turned to the guards at the door.
“Leave us! I demand the right of counsel for my friend.” His friend?
“You are given ninety heartbeats, no more.” This third voice came from an unseen form somewhere beyond the others, and carried with it the solemn tone of authority. The door was closed. The warrior’s words to him

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were stern.
“Ryan. It is my sword you carry. Use it well, it has never failed me. Fight long and hard, and do not heed the voices of despair. Do not surrender; and for fear of your life, do not let the blade be forced from your hand.”
“But who am I to fight?”
“I can say no more. They will come for you soon. Prepare yourself!”
“Bahku? ... Why?”
“My sister loves you. Is that not reason enough?” The door was reopened.
“The time is come, young one. Bahku, return to your father.”
“As you command.”
Bahku left the cell for the last time. Ryan stepped out into the hallway, where he was met by the proud form of a Banshi chieftain,
distinguished by the long crimson robe and birdlike, ohker skull headdress. He was flanked on either side by his two sons, and by the two torch-bearing sentries. They were not of Tessa’s clan. The leader said nothing, but pointed with his spear the direction that Ryan was to follow. Led by the

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guards, he proceeded.
The first corridor soon gave way to another, angling sharply left and then descending. Some seventy meters below, crisscrossing bars of iron cut broadening lines of shadow across the pentangular image of a gate, cast inward on the ground by the fading rays of a late summer sun. The arena lay beyond.
Higher and wider, this second corridor was more than empty distance between two points. It was the rock-hard dirt pathway trod by every Banshi warrior who had come of age for a thousand years. Nor was it unpeopled. Whether a standard part of the ritual, or something added on his behalf, Ryan turned this last corner to find himself confronted by two long rows of warriors in full battle dress, their backs to the stone, looking up at him with expressions as many and varied as the weapons and costume they bore. One thing only did they have in common, and it was this detail which puzzled him most intensely. For though they numbered close to three hundred, the entire Banshi fighting machine, he saw that each individual wore on a string of leather about his neck the breastbone of a sahdab. And aside from the fact that he had never heard of them being worn except for battle or the

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hunt---never indoors---he would not have believed that each in his turn would have found the courage to face and slay one of the dreadful beasts, or that the Banshi as a whole could take the superstition so seriously.
So it was that Ryan began to understand the grim task that awaited him. For as he filed slowly past each opposing pair, looking first left and then right with a feeling of forced admiration, he saw each soldier in turn look directly at him, make some sort of gesture referring to the necklace, then go on to show him the wounded limbs and gaping scars that had paid the price of acquisition. Ryan was silently awed. For even against the likes of a Troyan male, fierce and determined, the sahdab were not to be underestimated. He had seen them pull down game fully twice their size, equally strong.
But the final blow was yet to be delivered. Coming to the flatted entrance of the gateway, he saw to his right a single warrior, not more than five feet tall, his left arm severed at the elbow, a deep scar running unmercifully across his face, who glared up at him with a look of fierce pride Ryan was sure would burn a hole straight through him. He guessed (correctly) that the warrior could not have lived more than seven Troyan

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cycles, roughly sixteen years on Earth. He was sixteen years old, and wore about his neck the breastbone of a sahdab, no smaller in proportion to his body than that worn by any of the others.
Ryan felt an ache in the hollow of his chest. His throat went dry. He tried to say something, but could not find the words. The Gatekeeper pulled open the iron grid, left half first. Ryan turned to the chieftain.
“Am I to fight the sahdab as well?”
“Do not misread my words,” he answered plainly, “for I bear no evil will against you. But you must know that I can tell you nothing. If the Spirit speaks to you, you will live. If not you will die.”
There was nothing more to be said. The two sons of Tacitus led him into the arena.
#
His right leg was fastened to a chain, joined at the end of its ten foot length to a pillar of stone which stood at the very center of the Pit. High walls rose above its circular recession. A gathering of some five hundred Banshi looked down at him from long rows of curving benches, huddled together according to clan, solemnly discussing the necessity and possible

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consequences of such a battle. The waning sphere of Morgoth, largest of the Troyan moons, added its pale and soulless light to that of staggered torches as it shone down silently among them. The night was cold and clear, the stars piercing, pitiless.
Ryan stood at the center, tested his footing, the radius of the chain, the weight and agility of both sword and shield. It was not that violent emotions didn’t churn inside him. He simply realized that it would not help his cause to give in and feel them now. He was not a fool. He would not be denied his chance for freedom, no matter how desperate the road which led to it. And if the truth be known his father, by chance or design, had raised an exceptionally strong and well disciplined son.
He stood now in contemplation, hard and grim, some forty meters before a second five-sided gateway. Its interior was cloaked in shadow, and no sound could be heard from within. The sahdab, like the drug in his veins, waited for its chance to spring. Ryan knew that when the iron grids swung open, the black intimidation of both would be hard to suppress.
A creaking sound to his right made him start and narrow his eyes. A recessed doorway had been opened in the wall. Hope and love and fear

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surged through him as his eyes met the familiar form of his lover, walking toward him from of the shadows of the Wall. She was dressed in a gown of sacrificial white, a garland of yellow flowers atop her soft, angelic mane. She came to him innocent, leaned forward and gently kissed his temple.
“Tessa. Are you all right?” She nodded her assent.
“I am deeply moved by the honor you do me.....” She stepped back, trembling, afraid herself of the things she was feeling. She took several
steps toward the Gate.
“Tessa, what are you---”
The iron grids swung open. The Beast emerged, seething with calculated rage. It did not try to escape, but headed straight for her.
“Tessa!” The crowd watched intently. The gimji rose to new heights inside him. He strained toward her till his ankle nearly broke from the strain. Its iron shackle was tainted with blood, but still the Chain prevailed.
The creature stood squarely upon her, one massive, knee-bent forepaw on either shoulder, its powerful, bear-like jaws held inches from her face. Through curling lips it snarled threateningly, glaring down at her and thrusting so close that warm saliva dripped into her eyes.
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Tessa remained perfectly still. Terror and Death stood full upon her, yet still she did not move. Nor did she cry out. She was willing to die for the one she loved.
Ryan watched in a state of shock and disbelief. Why did the sahdab hesitate? Could it really..... The legend was true! It refused to slay the female who offered no resistance. Some deeper instinct withheld the blow that hatred so violently called for.
This accepted, an entirely new emotion now filled the young hunter. His woman was in danger.
“Sahdab!” he cried, in a voice so loud it seemed to usher from many
throats at once. “Release her! For it is I and not my mate who stands between your death and freedom.” The crowd was silent. The Spirit was at work. Ryan could not know that he had spoken, almost verbatim, the words uttered by countless warriors since time unremembered.
The sahdab was unimpressed. Backing away from the girl, it now turned the full weight of its malice toward the hated man-thing. Only then was Ryan given a clear view of his opponent. And though the drug still distorted its features, racing lines of burning gold across each stalking

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movement of back and shoulders, the stark image that confronted him was equally unnerving. It stood fully three and a half feet at the shoulder, four at the haunches, six in length, its compact, wolverine body rippling with hard-muscled strength. It contemplated him only briefly, having encountered the Banshi and their weapons before, then charged.

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becomes possible.
At first he fought for Tessa---for their life together---then for himself. Love gave way to Fear. Fear yielded Anger. Rage mingled with Love to form Courage, then was broken back to Fear. Courage and Fear warred inside him, strong as the physical combat. And as the battle became more intense and the drug’s effect more pronounced, he felt her memory fade to a whisper of smoke in the darkness of his mind. His own life became nothing more than broken images of unending pain and false hope. Weakness and Despair were the only reality, waiting silently at the bottom of all illusion, a naked sword of truth. Soon all that remained was the fighting, fighting on without reason, fighting because a million years before some lonely primate had fought, refusing to yield up its spark to death and the Void.
And against such a Foe! Its power was awesome; its constant and varied attacks reached out at him like the hand of Death itself. A hundred times despair overtook him. A hundred times he battled back, not knowing
how or even why he did it. Tessa was a shadow. Did she really exist? Did he truly love her?

Teeth snapped shut into metaled vest. Hot, angry breath seared his

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bleeding chest. He tried to pull away, striking wildly with both sword and shield. The creature released him, then charged again.
Fully twenty minutes their battle had raged, neither opponent able to break the will of the other. Ryan’s arms and shoulders ached from the weight of his weapons. He could barely stand.
Pain! A gash to his left shoulder, just below the neck. Two inches nearer and the sahdab would have him. He slashed twice at the ribs. Twice more. Then began to thrust. Finally the Hell-beast relented, drawing back only far enough to plan its next assault. And still the fighting went on.
The sahdab was quietly stunned. In its animal way it had reasoned that Ryan was not a Banshi, and therefore could not understand the tenacity with which he fought. Physically it knew he had to be almost spent. But there was something terrible in the way he clung to life, the way he held on. And what of the female, so willing to die for him?
But if the sahdab was temporarily stopped, Ryan was desperate. It was no longer a question of will. His body had nothing left to give. Seeing the tremor of weakness in his eyes, the sahdab rallied. It stalked slowly left, watching him intently. No longer able to follow his foe around the axis of

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the chain, Ryan watched helplessly. Seizing its chance the creature veered

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saw the sahdab, nearly upon him. He locked his arms together like a Samurai, hard as forged steel, and with a surge of desire that shook his
whole body, raised up his sword and caught the sahdab square in the chest. The force of impact broke his right arm, but the mighty creature fell beside him. And with a last convulsive effort he extended his legs, feet against the pillar, twisted his upper body and sent the blade spinning into its heart. The sahdab. . .was dead.
Ryan looked once to skyward, his features drawn gray in exhausted sorrow and anguish, then fell weeping and bleeding face down in the dirt.
Tessa ran to him at once, tearing strips from her gown to nurse his many wounds. He lay as one dead, his right arm twitching in involuntary spasms of pain.
A flash of shadow was seen against the torchlit wall as a single warrior leapt down from the gallery. Rushing past the two lovers it violently seized the hilt of sword, still embedded in flesh, and flung the heavy carcass onto its back. Withdrawing the blade, he tore greedily at flesh and tendon until the conquered breastbone was forced out. Bahku lofted it defiantly to the crowd.
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this place. But for what you have done I will try.” He worked on the young man’s shoulder as he spoke, applying a salve which neither comforted nor stung, but cleansed the wound and slowed the bleeding.
“On our world, for as far as a man may wander there is hardship and danger. Many times, when even he is young, he is confronted by doubts and fears which seek to overwhelm him. In his darkest need, as I know it must be in other worlds, a man may cry out to his God to deliver him. Perhaps providence will hear him. But perhaps it will not. This is why.
“A man must know what he has inside himself. He must know as surely as the sun will rise that he will always endure. Here, now, the strength and knowledge you have won will never desert you. You have met Sahdab, and his knowing of the world is greater than you guess. And though you will one day die, as all flesh must, it is a death of the body only. The demon of Darkness can no longer torment you with visions of Fear and self-doubt..... Do you hear my words as I say them?”
“But why Tessa? She could have been killed.”
“This trial was not for her, nor did any man force her to enter. What she did was for love of her mate, and to soften the fire of hate within

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Sahdab. For to see that a woman will die, he must know something of the man. He must know there is goodness within.” He looked over at his daughter proudly, then back to the young hunter.

“One called Ryan. Do you still wish to be one with my flesh?”
The young man nodded, warm tears stinging his cheeks. Again he heard the sound to his right. He said nothing, only choked back a sob, as his father emerged from behind the same doorway---alive.
Alive.

I woke with a start. My head wouldn’t let go of the dream.

“What the hell happened?” I was angry, hurt and afraid. I knew the danger signals of my mind. This was no joke.

“If by that you mean, What caused the dream? you did. I told you at the beginning---”

“But why didn’t you stop it?”

“That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“But how was I supposed - ” I couldn’t move my hands. They were bound to the sturdy arm-rests by thick leather straps about the wrist (for some reason I had stopped thinking of my body as my own). My ankles were similarly bound.

“Lucas, what is this? You’ve got me strapped down like a psycho in shock-treatment.”

“Tic-tic-tic. As a psycho in treatment - as a psycho.” The dwarf.

“Damn it, Luke! What are you trying to do to me?”

His voice was calm.

“You were beginning to thrash around a bit, so I sent Collins under to strap you in. You would have torn the wires loose in no time.” My first panic subsided.

“Well, all right then, undo them.” A pause.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“What?” My second began.

“I think we’d better leave you that way for the next one. I’ve been previewing the tape. You might hurt yourself.”

“Why, what’s my next choice?”

“David Bowie.” I felt an icy hand solidify in my heart. I don’t know why, but I was terrified.

“Well, can I change it?”

“You have to ask?”

.....

“Okay. Okay. Just give me a minute.” I wasn’t halfway through, and already I wanted to quit. My pride surged up, against my better judgment. I wasn’t going to be laughed at.

“All right. All right, let’s go.”

My heart wasn’t in it, and maybe that was good.

Again I went under slowly. Whether by some action of Lucas’, or because of my own reluctance, I hovered in a kind of lymphatic state between dream and awakening. I don’t know how long this lasted, or at what point I finally did cross the line: only that I was deeply aware of the music for a considerable period. When the dream came, it was fully and sharply detailed.

I sat at first in a large amphitheater, which blurred and became a sinking, half-circle classroom. The outlook was not promising. I sat alone near the back, facing an elderly and eccentric professor, who spoke keenly on the subject of “Certain Psychological Traumas Associated With Uncertain Homosexuality.” My fellow students (if you could call them that) sat in the same chairs, facing forward.

Only their heads were reversed, and they had no faces - eyes or ears. It was then, half prompted by their stupid indifference, that I surrendered and began to follow the words. The eccentric chalked the board as he spoke. After several scrawling sentences, the scene changed again.

David

It’s hard to tell black from white
When you wake up in the middle of the Night

- Peter Gabriel

There are three things need be known about David Welborne from the outset:

1) He was a gifted artist, whose special forte’ was the painting of poignantly disconcerting portraits.

2) He was an epileptic. Though not prone to violent seizures, he tended to black out (he would say white out) during times of emotional stress, staring blindly into oblivion.

3) He was a confirmed, if unsure, homosexual.

It was one of those difficult mornings, trying to shake off the fear of the night before. He sat quietly by his easel, beneath the brickwork arch, looking out over the courtyard. Four large fir trees bordered a hopelessly symmetrical fountain; small brown birds fluttered among their branches. A modern statue of a three-legged man stood beside it. Many bodies were sprawled around it.

It pleased him sometimes to sit there (though he knew it wasn’t real) among such impossible scenes of youth and health. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Not a scab or sore on any of them---a western college. It was a long way from Greenwich Village, the White Death. He shuddered at the memory. His right arm twitched. Oh God.....

“Hi! How much for a drawing?” He tried to come back.

“What? I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, fine. What did you want?” Her eyes were upon him.

“The price of a portrait?” Her arm pointed to a random series of sketches pinned to a bulletin board, leaned against the brick.

“Six fifty.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

“If you want junk, there’s a guy downtown - ”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I just meant that you must be very confident. These are very good.”

For the first time he looked up at the female voice. A pretty girl, maybe nineteen, looked back at him. Her hair was the color of straw; her skin was light. She sat down. “Will you do one for me?”

“Yeah, sure.” He drew back the cover of the sketchbook, lifted a charcoal, and half instinctively began to shape a face.

“What’s your name?” His eyes still wouldn’t focus.

“Jill, what’s yours?”

“David.” He studied the face carefully when he could. Such total innocence. After a time he felt a little better.

“So where have you been hiding all your life?”

“Is that a line?”

“Hardly.” He almost laughed. “No offense.”

“No offense?”

“Relax, will you? Tense people are hard to draw.” He smiled broadly---she still looked pensive.

“Listen, Jill. I’m sure you’re very attractive. I’m just the wrong person to ask.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. I don’t have sexual relations with women.”

“You mean you’re gay?”

“If you want to call it that, yes.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. Look back this way just a little.” He touched her chin.

“You really are?”

“I really am.”

“And you’re not ashamed of it?”

“No. Why should I be?” He might have been insulted, but she had so obviously been sheltered. And the sound of her voice pleased him, held his thoughts.

“You’re very pretty.” A token gesture.

“Thank you.” She studied him with a discerning eye. A curiosity, maybe something else.

“You could be good looking if you wanted to. I’ve watched you before.” She spoke the truth.

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” He looked up at the sun, which had just broken from behind a cloud.

“Because under all this beautiful facade,” he gestured with his arm, “is a naked razor waiting to take us all out. You can’t run from it, only push it away. And I won’t try to cover it up. If any of these cattle should happen to see it in my face or in my work, so much the better. At least they’ll know what’s coming.”

She looked back at him in disbelief. He had spoken the words so calmly. “You can’t really believe that. How could you believe that and still live?” She thought of the philosophies of Nietzsche and Sartre.

“Maybe I don’t.”

“But you said - ”

“What difference does it make what I said? What difference does it make what anybody says?” He had grown angry - a weed in the grass. “Have you ever been to Bolivia? Or for that matter New York City. This whole thing,” again he waved, “is just one big, unfunny joke. All over the world people are starving and dying, while the ‘educated youth’ of America sit here in this mirage and tell each other what a wonderful thing humanity is.” He hurried himself, made a mistake. Jill looked hurt.

“Look, I’m sorry. I had a rough night.” He handed her the sketch. She paid him. She still looked hurt.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” She didn’t know what to else to say.

“I don’t know.” He folded his easel on the ground.

“Listen. Jill.” She had started to walk away. She turned. “These five minute charcoal jobs are bullshit. Come by my room sometime and I’ll do you a real portrait, no charge.” The offered surprised him. She turned her head slightly.

“Really? Maybe I will. Where do you live?”

“1665 Vine, upstairs. Just walk in. I’m the door closest to the front.”

“Will you be there tomorrow around seven?”

“Probably.” Where else?

She hesitated for a moment, came closer and touched his arm. “Good-bye.” He watched her walk away.

The two sides of Vine Street were like day and night. On the one, a line of well kept sorority houses, stone, was spaced now and again by the recessed, prestigious and well-gardened homes of the wealthier professors. Western ivy clung to the faces of both, giving them a safe and sheltered look. The windows and ledges were freshly painted.

The east side, looking up at the mountains, was old and unkempt, poorer dwellings left to disintegrate and die as they would, owned by the elderly, leased to the young. Ivy clung to these as well, but here had a different, less homey effect. More than once the city council had tried to have them destroyed, but lacked the funds to put anything new in their place. Ancient and rusting fire escapes crawled around their sides like stalking pythons. David liked it.

Jill had no trouble finding the house. She herself lived in 1690. A dilapidated screen door was easily pushed aside, and dusty stairs led to a short hallway. It was just beginning to get dark. She knocked on the door nearest the street. No one answered.

The next day she was on her way to class - Literature 200. She passed by his room, saw an open window. She puzzled for a moment, then turned off the sidewalk and climbed the two front steps. The same screen door, the same wooden stairs. She walked the hallway, still in darkness, aware of her own sounds in the stillness. Again she hesitated. She knocked at the door.

“David?”

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Jill.”

“Jill? Just a minute.” There was the sound of soft shoes on the bare floor. David opened the door.

“I came by last night but you weren’t here. I thought maybe you didn’t want to see me.”

"Not at all.” He did look uncomfortable. “I just had to be somewhere else.” He looked very tired. “Come in, come in. I was just finishing.”

She entered a high, V-ceilinged room, dusty but spacious. Two mattresses on the floor made a bed. There was a chair at a table, a stool by a tearing couch, a refrigerator that looked like an unwilling survivor of the great Depression, but that was all. Canvases were his furnishings, dozens of them, leaned against fading wallpaper. There was a small loft by a double window, two windows at either side of the main level. She walked with him to the center of the room. There was a large canvas, used, on a large easel. She stopped. A bizarre painting of a woman clothed in climbing black-snakes, surrounded by a fire (she was chained to a post, the links cutting into her breasts), met her eyes.

“Oh.” She was quite taken back. The detail was exquisite. He took it down and placed it against the nearest wall.

“Do you still want a portrait?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes I do.” He motioned toward the couch. She stood very still, absorbed. “That’s Blondie, isn’t it?’

“Her name is Deborah Harry; but yes, that’s her.”

“How did you ever..... I mean, how did you paint her like that?”

“I’m afraid I had to do a lot from memory.” He seemed rather numb. “I saw her on TV last night at a friend’s. I still can’t get those eyes: the shadow of the heroin grave, under beauty and success..... Her eyes just tear me apart.”

Finally she noticed him. He looked terrible, even by his own standards. “You look so tired. Haven’t you slept?”

“No. I wanted to get it right, but I can’t.” He seemed on the verge of tears.

“David? David. I’ll come back another time.” He shook his head. “I promised you.”

“No, really. I’ll come back tonight if you want. You should get some sleep.”

“All right.” She turned to leave. “Jill?”

“Yes?”

“Please come. I’m scared.”

“I will. I will, it’s all right.” She herself was terrified. “I’ll be back around eight.” She left the room. He followed, closed the door. Then turned to face the empty room.

Jill did not go back that night, nor the next day, nor even the day after that. She found her emotions were running much too high, and she wanted the chance to sort it all out. It seemed that David had unwittingly become the focal point of a conflict that had been building inside her for several years. And nineteen is such a difficult age.

It must be said in her defense (I suppose) that she had, in fact, led a sheltered life, even by the kindest definitions. She had been born in a hospital, weaned in a nursery, secluded in affluence, and taught in suburban schools. She had lived all her life in the same town, and still did. Her father was a professor and long-standing member of the board at the University, so that the only real suspense many of her peers had known - where they would go to college - was also denied her. Her parents, well-off if not wealthy, had always, as role models, set the careful and controlled tone for her existence. They had been better than average administrators, giving her piano lessons at ten (as a sideline only, her father made sure of that), braces at thirteen, and dating privileges when she began showing signs of maturity. And they appeared happy enough as married couples go, if her tendency to drink, and his to stare, be overlooked. It seemed unlikely that either one would soon be seen flying through a window, though you can never tell. After all, they had done such a good job of raising their two daughters, and had comfortable retirement and grandchildren to look forward to. Jill’s older sister, twenty-seven, had married at twenty, and by all appearances vanished from the face of the earth.

But even a sheltered mind cannot be kept from wandering, and Jill’s was more astute than most. Her father’s library was full of books, some very good, kept for various reasons, seldom read.

But Jill had read them: Dickens, Hawthorne, even Poe. And Shakespeare always did have a way of making her restless, and hungry for things she could not even name - most notably love (and sex, though nice American girls don’t call it that). It was during the height of one such period of unrest (Twelfth Night) that David had appeared, sitting by his easel in the courtyard like something from a half remembered dream, a refugee from Mordor, something. She had watched him several times from a distance, and sat close enough by, once or twice, to catch whatever words of wisdom might fall from his lips. It was during one such sitting that he had first confirmed her suspicions: he was nothing like the line of droll, college door-knobs who kept asking her out. He was at work, oblivious, as always, sketching some sorority prom queen or another, when the Olympian oaf had noticed a small ink-and-watercolor drawing among the sketches on his board - a beached whale, harpooned. “Oh,” she had said, sounding pleased. “I’m glad to see you’re against hunting whales. I think that’s just awful.” His reply: “Well I’m sure they’ll all bleed a lot easier just knowing that.” Miss America had looked at him strangely, but he only smiled, short and quick, and all in all she seemed to survive the encounter without ruffling a single bleached hair on her head.

Resolution.

Jill walked towards him now, unafraid. She pushed open the door, scaled the stairs, and without hesitation knocked on the door. He answered, this time in person. “What do you want?”

“A portrait.” She spoke with authority.

“I don’t do free portraits anymore.”

“I know, that’s why I talked to my father. He says he’ll pay you seventy-five dollars for a good one, ‘something nice’ for the den.” He studied her for a moment in a different vein. She had obviously made up her mind about something.

“Come in.” She did. “Something nice for the girl with the golden smile.” He gestured toward the couch, now partly covered by a blanket. “Why don’t we just pretend you’re lying nude under a waterfall.”

She said nothing, but went to the couch (a bit low), and sat down and crossed her legs. He got a fresh canvas, set it in place, and began mixing his colors. It was all very awkward. The first move seemed to be up to him.

“Seriously, how do you want this?”

“You can just imagine a background like that and do it?” He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Fifteen seconds. “Why don’t you just try to get comfortable, put your legs under you, and I’ll think of something.”

“All right.” She changed positions several times on the couch. It was not uncomfortable, so long as you worked around it. She wondered if he was the same way.

She glanced over at him, still all business. At least he looked a little better. He had shaven, and put on a clean shirt. His eyes, though dark and intense, didn’t look quite so desperate as they had..... She began to weaken. He spoke.

“Do you mind music? It helps my concentration.”

“No, not at all.” He set down his things and moved to a stereo, small but efficient. She hadn’t remembered seeing it before. He put on an album. He moved back into place.

As he worked she looked around her in the room. Two other additions she hadn’t seen before: something about the height of a man, covered by a sheet, and an enormous portrait hung high on the wall by the door, of David Bowie.

“I don’t remember these.” She pointed.

“I just had them shipped from New York,” he said flatly. “City. You must have heard of it.” She winced. She couldn’t take his coldness any longer.

“You hate me, don’t you?” He looked at her, and his face softened.

“No Jill, I don’t hate you.” After a time. “If anything. . .I probably like you.”

“Are you angry that I didn’t come back? I would have; you just scared me so badly.”

“Hey, what do I care? I showed some emotion and you ran away. I’m getting used to that.” She felt so many things.

“David?” Her eyes were not quite right. “Oh.” She wasn’t as strong as she thought she was. She rose from the couch, went over and hugged him tightly. In a moment she was crying, wet and warm against him. “I’m sorry.”

David didn’t know what to do. He stood very still, his arms at his sides, looking forward. He took a deep breath. There was something in the corner of his mind.

“It’s okay. I’m not angry.” He meant it. “How could I be angry with you?” She stepped back and looked up at him.

“David.” Her face was wet. “I need you so badly.” Again she clutched him blindly, desperately. He blinked hard, shook his head.

“Jill? You don’t..... I mean. You don’t have a crush on me or anything?” He had never felt so awkward, or so weak. “I could never.....

I mean. I’ve never been able to be with a woman.”

“I don’t care, I don’t care. I just want the chance to be close to you.” Sobbing, child-like, “I’m so alone.” He lifted his head to skyward - the man who fell to earth.

“Alone.”

She backed away again and wiped her face with the back of her hand. David set down his things. At that moment something moved at the window behind her. He sighed and smiled gratefully.

“Jill. Come over and sit down. There’s someone I want you to meet.” He touched her shoulder and led her back to the couch. She saw nothing through downcast eyes. She sat down. A small cat, little more than a kitten, watched them intently from its perch on the sill, moving its tail instinctively in response to individual perceptions. David lifted it gently, then sat down beside her.

“Oh, she’s beautiful.” She reached out and stroked its yellow head, striped with brown. Its legs and underside were soft white.

“What makes you think it’s a she?”

“Oh, I don’t care what it is.” She laughed a little through the tears.

“Well, you’re half right. He is beautiful. I found him in the alley behind this place when I first moved in. Gave him half a can of tunafish and he’s been coming back ever since. Poor thing was starving.”

“Here?”

“Yes. It happens. I’m sure he could have been taken in by somebody, for better or worse---probably end up in a laboratory, perpetuating some damn researcher’s job. But fortunately for him he learned early. I think at one time he must have been abused very badly---he doesn’t trust anyone.” She motioned towards him, and David handed it to her. She rolled it over and cradled it like an infant, stroking its soft belly with her finger.

“He trusts you,” she said. It gave a short mew, and she let it climb over her shoulder and back behind them on the couch.

“I know, that’s what I’m afraid of. It would be one of my few regrets..... Oh, never mind.” She looked back at him, feeling very much like Viola. She put a hand to his shoulder, leaned against it.

“Jill. You know this will never work.” She backed away and looked at him sidelong, then bowed her head sadly. The tears were gone, and it still wasn’t right.

“Jill.” Again she sobbed. “Jill.”

And then he did a very foolish thing. He kissed her. It was only meant as reassurance, but was a kiss nonetheless, followed by another, open-mouthed. The man of steel was bending.

He pulled back for a moment, looking pensive, but there was only love and gratitude in her eyes, so innocent. She touched his neck, brought him back. Again he kissed her, and again, without thought or reservation. Soon they were lying on the couch, so soft. His hand strayed across her sweater, touched a breast, soft and round. She smiled, and purred beneath him like a kitten.

They stood together by the door. It was getting late.

“I just want you to think about one thing, very seriously.”

“What’s that?”

“People have a tendency to change, especially at your age. That’s not a put-down, but I have to say it. Tonight was beautiful; I’ve never felt so relaxed. But tomorrow, who knows? You might meet someone you like better, someone more like yourself. Or you might just decide you want to be alone for a while. There’s still a lot you don’t know about me, and the intensity might be more than you’re willing to handle. I frightened you once. It could happen again. And, I’m very vulnerable right now.” He spoke in deepest earnest. “I might start to depend on you.” She pondered this for a moment, then responded with words that sought to allay his fears.

“Well. I know that nothing lasts forever; and I guess a lot of what you say is true. But I know what I feel, and I know that I trust you. David, I feel so much when you touch me. It feels so right just knowing that you need me. I only wish there was some way I could make you believe.” She paused a moment, put on her best serious voice. “I know that whatever happens, you’ll always be very special to me. And I’ll always be there if you need me.” Again he sighed.

“All right, Jill. I believe you mean well. I guess that’ll have to be enough.” She kissed him and held him tightly.

“Good-night. I’ll stop by tomorrow after class.” She receded down the hallway. David was left with his thoughts.

2

It was a brisk and clear autumn morning. The sky was deep and blue. A cool north wind hurrying down from the mountains flushed color in the cheeks of a young girl, and swirled the brown and fallen leaves about her on the sidewalk. Three days had passed. She walked again towards his room, a feeling of warmth and satisfaction in all her thoughts. Today, somehow, she must make him see as she did the beauty of God’s creation. Their meeting now seemed in itself a kind of miracle, a masterful stroke that had brought together two lonely people in need. Life must indeed be rich - dark, fertile soil waiting only for the seeds to be planted.

David, in contrast, sat on his stool studying a half finished portrait. It was nice - simple and pure like its subject - but lacked something definite, some concrete statement that went beyond appearances. In a way, and in a part of his mind he wished he could leave it as it was: a pretty girl in a summer dress, a single white flower amid flowing hair the color of wheat in a field. It would be easier, and probably safer. Certainly Jill would be satisfied. But experience told him that nothing, not even the girl, was ever as simple and detached as it first appeared. No, he needed a harder, more realistic approach. He took a knife and slashed the patronizing likeness.

Jill gazed happily at the front of the house. For all the things it lacked (paint, grass, protection from rust), it had one thing that none of the wealthier homes from her side of the street would ever have - honest character. She met the screen door like a friend, pushed it open and stepped inside. Strange music drifted loudly down from David’s room. At first when she knocked, no one answered.

David sat on the wood floor in front of his stereo (small but efficient), the speakers turned toward him, deep in thought. An idea had begun to form in his mind, but it was incomplete. Something disrupted his attention. Jill was at the door. He lifted the tone arm from the record and went to greet her.

“Hi, hi, hi there.”

“Well ‘hi there’ yourself,” she said smiling. “Do you think we can finish it today? It’s so nice outside. Have you picked out a background?” She entered the room as if it were her own.

“Yes to both questions, but no to the one you didn’t ask.”

“What question is that?”

“Will it be the same painting?” She turned her head, more than slightly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re going to have to start from scratch, try to find something hidden. You’ll see.” She looked perplexed, but agreed after she heard his explanation. In a strange sort of way she was flattered. And after all, she did trust him.

David took and arranged her on the couch, sitting sidelong, legs together, knees bent, feet pointed as if for swimming, toes lightly touching the floor. He put her hands together and set them gently, face downward, on the thigh farthest from the easel. He then instructed her to look up and back at an angle that put her chin slightly less than parallel with the shoulders, and to concentrate her gaze on a fixed point (as it turned out, the portrait of David Bowie). He told her to look straight at it, and let herself feel whatever the music (also Bowie) conjured inside her.

The idea was this. She was to be the mythical mermaid sitting on a dark stone by the sea, torn between the desire for her natural home, and the love she felt for a strange kind of man she had known upon the narrow shores of sand. Not that he told Jill everything. She knew only that she was to be herself, sitting motionless on the stones of a shallow inlet, looking up at the encircling sea cliffs and pondering the mournful cries of the gulls that wheeled and glided among the upsweeping winds of its heights. David was no fool. He had reasoned that by having her concentrate on the music and likeness of Bowie, an integral part of himself he had never been able to explain, he would see just how far into the well of his life she was willing to go. He set the needle back on the record, and moved quickly into place. The sketch had been made upon the canvas; his colors had already been mixed. He worked now very fast, trying to be ready for that split second when the honest soul would peer out from behind its mask of flesh, a certain glint of eye or wisp of sorrow in the brow, that he would capture with canvas and paint.

Jill sat peacefully, watching the portrait. It was easy work for one so young, whose mind and body both functioned without flaw. She had never taken much notice of it before, and so was not aware of the complex web of Pictures that David had set lurking in its background, as if following in the wake of the man. He (Bowie) stood with legs spread, arms wide, da Vinci’s perfect man, arrayed as one of the fictional Spiders From Mars. She had not realized before how odd and disconcerting (to those who did not understand it) that face could be - pale skin beneath pale make-up that flushed the cheeks red, shag of orange hair shocked back as by a laser blast, or set by a journey deep through Space. And those eyes - the one badly discolored, victim of some act of childhood violence - that always seemed to look beyond what they saw, as if searching for something that could never be found on this earth.

And the music, too, set her thinking, in ways that were strange to her. It was all so bizarre, yet at the same time familiar, like something from a past life, or a future. Something.

David stood silent at his distance, working away. The speakers would not rest. Ever and again they repeated their slow, solemn procession of synthesized Gregorian lines, intermingled with rhythms discomforting in their simplicity, that nonetheless never seemed to enter the mind quite the same way they approached. After a time its spell began to work. Like something from another planet, or deep under the ground, the throbbing hum of some lost and forgotten colony of Subterraneans, reverberating in hollow halls and rising through hidden passages to echo freely in the open emptiness of David’s room.

It was then that she began to see the pictures. Roughly nine minutes had passed. “Weeping wall,” he said quickly, during a lull. Then the music returned and he said no more. Her eyes were drawn to a series of pale shadows, some a darker shade of gray, that seemed to linger in a furtive place behind the Man’s legs, a section of canvas that somehow carried the illusion of sinking behind, as if falling from sight and memory. But not too far; not if David could help it. Some kind of temple wall, beneath overcast skies, riveted with bullet holes, something. Old bearded men in black hats stood mourning (if that is the right word) for loved ones lost - an endless dismay at their betrayal, and the nameless Horror suffered at the hands of ‘civilized’ people of the North. There was a razor there, no question. She thought to turn away, but conscience, or something deeper, held her gaze. She was aware suddenly that the music, too, was mourning, and more than that, chanted its sorrow in Hebrew verse. She looked back at him.

“The Holocaust.” An infinite sadness filled her. He made several quick strokes. Someone knocked at the door.

“No-o-o.” Jill sat upright on the couch. The expression was gone. David stepped back and turned down the music.

“Who is it?” he demanded irritably.

“Well who do you think it is?” said a voice. It opened the door.

“Mark. What do you want?”

“What do I want?” He entered the room. “What do you think - Oh, what have we here? So this is my competition.” He looked Jill up and down with a polite but cold expression, if such terms can apply to one so obviously wired. Jill returned his gaze, looked upon a slender, cocaine-eyed young man of indeterminate age, with longish hair and a square-cut beard. His clothes were worn, but not old: he was not poor. Nice enough, in his way, but she wondered why David hadn’t told her - Spoken of him.

“Jill. This is my friend, Mark.”

“Ah, so we’re friends now? So formal.” With that he began a sort of slow, sauntering circle, a walk around the room. David turned back to Jill, to his work.

“Let’s try to get the pose back, anyway,” he said, with a soft look like pleading in his eyes. “He’ll be gone soon enough.” Jill tried to act unruffled.

“Okay.” She got back into place.

“There’s some downs in the drawer if that’s what you’re looking for.” Mark didn’t answer. He continued his slow, unconcerned browse around the room.

“So, young lady.” His voice carried just a trace of an effeminate lisp, still not wholly unfriendly. “How does it feel to be involved with such a gifted, artiste?” He was stoned. “I mean, just being in the presence of all this,” he waved. “Talent. My, my, my.” He passed by the picture of Bowie. “I suppose I should be jealous.” He moved to the sheet-covered statue, for so it was now revealed. Two white limbs protruded from beneath the crude coverlet.

“But I guess I don’t have to worry too much, do I David?”

“Cut it out, Mark.” David stood motionless, his lower jaw set. The other was now directly behind him. “I mean, after all, he can’t cheat now, can he?”

David whirled. For a moment the other cowed, but then a sort of fierce desperation grew in his eyes. But this flare also subsided, falling back into the jelly of his emotions. “Hey, why should I care? Two can play at that game.” He began to run his hand up the sheet. As he did it took the shape of a male thigh.

“Damn it, Mark! What do you want from me? I told you I was sorry. You’ve got to get your head together, alone, and I can’t help. You know that.” The other was defiant.

“What do I know? That you’d rather be seen with some pretty little college twit? You can’t hide from me, David. I know you too well. This is what you are, and what you’ll always be!” He started to draw away the sheet.

“Get out.” The voice was dispassionate but final.

“You can’t make me - ”

“Get out! And get your shit together fast or don’t come back! You’re no better than they are. You’re worse. You won’t even try.” The words sank slowly through the mire, and stung. At last his emotions solidified: despair. He looked as if he would weep, then ran out the door, or fell out.

David stood as one who had just expended the last of his strength unwillingly, and without much righteousness or hope of success. He threw his brush to the floor.

“Damn it.” He shook his head, but could not hold back the flood. Tears flowed at last. Jill sat for a time, transfixed, unable to react. Then she rose and went to him.

“David.” She gently grasped his shoulders. “It’s all right. Let me help you.” Much to her surprise he turned without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her like an abused child, clutching to a single friend it feared to lose. She returned the embrace, deeply moved. But still he was much taller than she, and had to stoop to take comfort, even then. He held on for a time, then sloughed off her and fell to his stool.

“It’s no use, Jill. There’s still so much you don’t know. Run away while you can. I’ll..... I need you too much already. You’ll get scared, you’ll run.....” He wept into his hands.

But Jill would not let him go. She moved closer and lifted his hands to her face. She kissed them. David was utterly lost, an angel fallen from grace, a man beneath the water. He collapsed to her chest like a frightened child.

“It’s all right. It’s all right, you can trust me.”

A minute passed, she stroking his head with her eyes losing focus. “Let’s go for a walk.” He shook his head. “Come on; it’ll do us both good. Things don’t seem quite so bad outside on a beautiful day.” He surrendered.

“Okay.”

Leaving the house they walked slowly, arm in arm through the gravel of the alleyway behind it, till they came to a place Jill recognized. Taking him by the hand she led him along the cement banks of a shallow stony creek till they came to a place where it crossed under the road. There in the shadow of the bridge they stopped, sitting on the dirt path that sloped down from it, surrounded by overhanging trees. David lifted up tiny stones and threw them in the current. He was very much afraid. It was peaceful there, but the staggered sound of cars passing over the bridge shook him to the marrow, as both acid and epilepsy scored him again and again. He trembled imperceptibly. Worst of all, he could not feel himself where he was. He rubbed his hands hard in the dirt, to remind himself that he was still alive. Jill watched helplessly, not understanding.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” she said finally. I’m sorry I had to be there to see it. Did you. . .did you love him?”

“No.”

“I hope I didn’t do anything.....” He touched her arm.

“No, it’s not you. But please keep talking.”

“What should I say?” She would have given anything to know what was happening.

“It doesn’t matter. Tell me about yourself, your childhood. Anything that comes to mind. If I can hold on a little longer I should be all right.”

“Okay.”

Feeling awkward, but sensing his need, she began. She looked around her for inspiration, then spoke shyly of forests, music, and childhood dreams. Slowly, very slowly, the sound of her voice brought him back. Frighteningly close, but he seemed to be holding his own. He kissed her hard in the middle of a sentence. At first he was quiet, and only stared deeply into her face.

“Thank you.” Then he moved away, still not recovered. “I’m sorry I had to put you through that.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Soon. . .some time when it’s not so close. I have to go back to my room and get some pills.”

“David, no.”
“These are a prescription, Jill. I’m an epileptic.” He threw another stone into the creek. “Anxiety and stress bring it on. And I’m afraid I made it worse not so long ago. . .it will never be long enough. . .doing some drugs I probably shouldn’t have..... I just get this way sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was at once both sympathetic and annoyed.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand..... Walk me back?”

She thought to herself for a moment, glanced at him sidelong. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we both just blow it off and go to the mountains?”

“But I don’t have a car.”

“I do, or I can get one. I’ll bring some wine and some food and we’ll just forget about everything.” He tried to smile.

“All right. But I’ll have to take it easy.” He still felt weak.

“I know. Meet you in front of your house?”

“Sure.” She squeezed his hand and rose and walked away. Beyond hearing. “I love you.”

They spent an easy afternoon on the side of a hill, eating and drinking and lying together on top of cool grass in the shadow of pines. A single blanket was their refuge, and David drank of her long and slow, like a dying tree at Spring thaw. He wept on one occasion, and slept now unknowingly on the pillow of her legs. Jill sat quiet and thoughtful, leaning back with her hands spread against the hillside, looking down into the valley from which they had come, and studying his weary expression.
She felt so many things as she watched him there. But one, even as he had said, was fear. But fear has its basis in instinct, she thought. The same self-protective reasoning that makes a woman cling to a strong man undeserving, may also send away a weaker soul she truly loves. She could not remember the source, but the words came back clearly enough. Psychology. Now as she looked at him, it seemed that her first impressions had held the most truth - a refugee from Mordor, or Beren come down from lonely mountains in despair. His countenance, also, was etched with the marks of a war unseen. His face, even then, spoke of city streets and stark alleyways, of starving dogs and knife-fights, of running and hunting and hiding - sirens in the night - and victims bleeding softly in the snows of Manhattan. And she saw there something else, to her much more terrifying. She saw a world that no hand of God would ever reach, a world without comfort or release from suffering, a world alone. She saw the bottom falling out. The faith upon which her life was built, lay shaken to the roots.

But she looked up, and the pines were still behind her, the fertile valley below. And David was there with her. Some kind of peace, based on a deeper understanding, was trying to find her. But it was incomplete, and the road which led to it long and hard. For there on the ground before her lay one who had tried: a warrior who could claim no victory, a seeker of truth who had found no answer, and come to no reward. Was life so unfair, or was he too unyielding? Was this the end that came to all who followed unerringly the path of their dreams? Or was there some flaw in him, some blindness or arrogance that kept him from the light that would save him? Already she felt him slipping away, and she knew, instinctively, that he feared her.

Not that the pattern of her thoughts always ran along such well oiled grooves. She lived, as did many, according to simple feelings and beliefs that required few words and little pure thought. And one of the most fundamental of these, upon which all the others rested - the belief that life was ultimately fair - had been sorely tested. For a brief instant she was taken by a small and selfish impulse, under the guise of self-preservation, to reject him and push him away, back into the cold and hapless world he had fashioned for himself.

No. What was she saying? She loved him, and he needed her desperately. She gently brushed a dark lock of hair from his forehead, and put a hand to his chest. She rocked herself slowly to fight off the gathering cold and cried quietly, trying not to wake him.

But the siege had been laid, and unless she possessed greater strength than she showed, she would not long endure it.

That night, David’s room.

Jill returned after a long and tiring Sunday dinner (And what about your schoolwork, young lady?). David smiled as he opened the door and found her there. His own defenses had been badly weakened. She came in and he kissed her with all his heart’s attention. She looked at him and smiled. He spoke.

“If you can last another forty minutes I think we can finish tonight. I’ll still have to work on the background and do some shading, but I can do that on my own. You feel up to it?” He took her coat and hung it in a closet.

“Sure.” In truth she was very tired. She went to the couch halfheartedly and arranged herself as before, then turned to look for the portrait of Bowie. To her surprise she found that he had moved it. In its place was a photographed poster, old but intact, of genuine sea cliffs beneath a blue and white-clouded sky.

“Different music too,” he said from a distance, guessing her thoughts. “I’ve tried you too hard already.” As he set the needle to a different record, it seemed to her that the whole character of the room had changed: early Genesis. It had been cleaned, straightened, and partially rearranged. The bed had been made, and an aging carpet laid beside it. And now, with the shutters drawn and the curtains closed and two old-style radiator heaters working away, all was warm and soft. She sighed---she had come to an unexpected refuge. At least he was not unyielding. He moved into place and began to work, speaking now and again as if consciously trying to ease the burden of her heart. David wasn’t blind.

But in spite of his efforts she soon tired. Between David and school friends and studies she had not found time to sleep properly. A weariness such as she had seldom known crept over her, a fatigue as much of mind as of body. And it was getting too warm beneath her sweater. Apparently David was not over-fond of the cold.

It wasn’t long before the young man sensed her mood. He set down his things and went over and sat down beside her. He put his arm around her.

“What’s wrong?” She put her head to his chest.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been getting so tired lately. And sometimes I feel so empty.”

“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “Why don’t we forget about tonight. You should go home and get some sleep. Fatigue always makes things seem worse than they are.” Her hand fondled his ribs.

“Or we could do something else.”

“What’s that?”

“You could make love to me.” She held her breath, afraid of his answer.

“I could try.” She looked up at him with bright and gleaming eyes.

“Do you mean it?”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just to be that close to you and touch you, and feel you touching me.” She jumped up, and all weariness left her. “It’ll be fun, you’ll see.” He smiled in spite of himself.

“Maybe it will be at that.” She took his hands and lifted him off the couch.

David’s ‘bedroom’ consisted of two mattresses stacked on top of each other in a corner beneath the overhanging loft. As Jill led him towards it she felt giddy, like a little girl rummaging through secret trunks in an attic that was forbidden her. And to know that this place was David’s, secure (with the door locked) from all intrusion, theirs alone, made the openness of the place and the act all the more appealing. She sat down on the bed, and there he was before her, washed and new and clean-shaven, like a schoolboy trying hard to fit in. David. So strong and yet so vulnerable. She put her arms around his legs and held him tightly. He stood motionless, as one in mild shock; but his insides were stirring with emotion. She drew back, her hands on his hips, looking up at him.

“Is there anything you can do for a couple of minutes while I get ready?”

“Sure.” He went to the door, locked it, then sat on the stool by his easel. He was nervous and yet, for the first time, not afraid. After several minutes he turned and saw her lying naked beneath the covers, soft golden hair just brushing her bare shoulders, gazing back at him peacefully. The possibility that nothing would happen had only put her at greater ease. And to know that he had no expectations of her..... For the moment, at least, she was sure.

He walked towards her slowly, and with a final deep breath, sat down beside her on the bed. She put a hand to his shoulder, and one to his hand.

“It’s all right.”

“I know.” He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the floor. Still surprisingly calm he reached over and took off his shoes and socks, turning sometimes to look at her. Then at last he stood up, and with a strange lack of reluctance, unhooked his belt and slid out of his time-worn jeans. He slipped into the bed beside her, drawn to her flesh as much for warmth as anything. Oh, but it did feel good - so soft and yielding. He put one arm around her, and slid his leg between hers. All done innocently, and without much conscious thought. And then, quite naturally, he kissed her.

But Jill was much more instinctively aware of her place in the encounter. She kissed him long and deeply, with all the feeling she could muster. Gently stroking his buttocks she urged him closer still. His phallus, now somehow upturned, rested its base against the crown of her vagina. She turned her hips subtly and rubbed against it, neither hard nor soft. But then, overcome by desire she reached a hand between them and stroked the faltering shaft with the side of her palm - too soon. David rolled back and away, ashamed, thinking their moment of warmth gone forever.

“I’m sorry, Jill. It just won’t work.” She turned sadly and rested her head against his neck.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly, torn between compassion and loss.

But even as she did so her fingers crept stubbornly toward his abdomen, easing ever nearer the mark. David kissed her: such a loving child. Her hand reached his vitals, swept below. David quivered at the touch, sure his heart would break. Without thinking she cupped her fingers and ran them gently, so gently, up the length of his penis. He rolled back his head involuntarily and let out a trembling breath.

And wait! It wasn’t possible: his sex was growing hard. He wanted to hold his breath and stop the world, afraid the spell would break. But there was no time. Again the silky fingers shot back his head. She in her innocence and familiarity had done what he thought no one, man or woman, could ever do. He groaned and unconsciously writhed his hips beneath her.

“Oh, David.” She thought she would weep with joy. But now he rolled on top of her, trying, trying to find the softness that would make the magic real.

“Let me help you.” She reached down and slowly, lovingly guided him in. And still all was not secure. One slip..... She helped him in a second time. And now David’s own instincts took over. He moved closer, so carefully, and gently pumped: once, twice.

And then the world was his. Like a caged animal set loose he made love to her, first soft and loving, then strong and supple like a panther. His hand touched her naked breast, and he thought he would die of the rightness and pleasure. Jill caressed his neck with her tongue, and purred beneath him like a kitten.

She did not go home that night. He told her many times that he loved her.

3

“Tell me the worst thing that ever happened to you.” Again they were in David’s room, she browsing disinterestedly through her zoology book while he worked on the background of her portrait, now nearly finished.

“You don’t want to know.”

But the truth is she did want, she needed to know. Fires started quickly are often the first to die down, and she was not at all sure she still loved him.

“David, please. I have to.” He set down his brush, clenched and unclenched his hand. Now more than ever he feared to speak of it.

“If you know, you know all the way,” he said.

“Please tell me.”

“All right.” He stopped his work, took down the photographed sea cliffs and rehung the huge canvas of Bowie. He went to the stereo and put on the same disquieting album he had played to her six days before. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, looked once as if he wanted to put on the other side, then relented. Beneath his breath: “Not yet.” He set the needle once more to ‘Warszawa’.

He returned to the center of the room. “You have to get back into position.”

“I thought you said you were done with that part.”

“Not if you want to know everything.” His words were edged in steel.

“All right,” she said quietly, wondering suddenly what sleeping demons she had woken. Again she assumed the mermaid’s posture, gazing at the thing she did not understand. David reverted to flesh tones and eye-lines, projecting clearly over the lowered music. At first he worked and spoke with authority. He was trying to be brave. But he soon gave up all pretense of working, or knowing, or understanding anything. His voice and heart both sank, but he went on. As he lowered his brush the girl turned and watched him; but he seemed to have altogether forgotten her presence in the room, and only stared blankly straight ahead.

“I was at a party in the Village, one of those bizarre, two-storied apartments full of drunk and drugged-out people, dressed like ravaged peacocks. Some rich punk-rock producer used to throw them every couple of weeks, and you could find just about anybody there - artists, gay millionaires, undercover cops. I used to go to them to relieve tension and laugh a little, maybe think I wasn’t so strange. I had a friend I used to take, my best friend, Jamie. We’d get wasted and sit in a corner and get off on the impossible absurdity.

“Then one night I had an idea. I went back to my apartment and got an album - the one that’s playing now - and four hits of purple microdot I had just scored. Jamie and I thought it would be great fun, to watch the people’s reactions. We dropped the acid as soon as I got back, and hung around the halls waiting to get off. Then we stole in quietly, and when no one was looking we put on this record. . .the other side. But after a time it was blaring away and no one seemed to notice.

“I started getting too high: for some reason the music was upsetting me. I had taken two hits about an hour before, and the hallucinations were turning ugly. I felt as if everyone in the room was naked and transparent, with parchment skin. And their inner organs had all been turned inside out. I saw images in my mind of razor blades slicing across inverted tracheae, and blood spurting..... It was horrible. I should have left then and there, but. How could I know.....

“Finally the side ended, and I thought the worst was over. But then some big drunk dressed like a cowboy yelled, ‘Hey, that was wild. Play that thing again.’ So they did. I felt shaky, and suddenly realized it wasn’t just the acid. My epilepsy was coming on as well. I tried to shake it off but my eyes kept losing focus. And then, something in the acid. . .everything started going white. It wasn’t bad at first, just a vague sort of mist, white shadows where the darkness should have been. I could still shake my head and clear it away.” He paused, visibly shaken. Jill wished he would stop.

“But then everything, everything went white. I stood up right where I was; Jamie was over in a corner somewhere laughing. And the room was gone, just gone. I seemed to be standing between two horizontal planes suspended in Space, the white floor and ceiling of an infinite chamber without a single shadow. But I wasn’t alone. Two long columns of marble statues were mounted on Greek pedestals in front of me, reaching away out of sight..... All the time I tried not to panic, hoping it wouldn’t all be bad. And it wasn’t, at first. The statues closest to me were intensely beautiful, like something no living man should see. Only. They started going pale, and faded to a color like milky crystal. I. . .I was on a pedestal too, not touching..... And they started to fill from the bottom with blood. When it reached up to the eyes it leaked through, and trickled down those beautiful faces like tears. And they all looked at me, as if it was my fault.....

“I turned away, then suddenly turned back. I could hear the music again at a distance, horrible and distorted, rushing toward me from behind them like an oncoming wind. And even as the thought came to me I knew it was a wind, knocking down everything in its path to get to me: my death. The statues were frozen now, pure red glass like a ruby, only brittle. They exploded in front of me as the hurricane came on, and blew a thousand splintering pieces into my face. I screamed. I was caught in a shower of broken glass, cutting, burning, tearing me apart. I screamed.....”

He looked down, feeling some pressure or physical presence, and saw Jill holding him tightly about the arms. “David, stop. I’m so sorry. Don’t hurt yourself any more.” He shut his eyes and swayed, nearly fell. He steadied himself.

“The next thing I knew I was in a hospital, strapped to a bed. They wouldn’t let Jamie in to seem me.” He finally returned the embrace, though feebly. “Two weeks later some City shrink told me I should go somewhere far away, and my regular doctor agreed. They said I had made my epilepsy worse, and that I had to get away from the memories and anxieties of the city. They smiled and tried to be optimistic. So I came out here. I really don’t know why.” Jill held him tight and wept bitterly. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

When she came back to herself she led him to the bed and lay down beside him and swore, swore she would never leave him utterly alone. David could do little but to lie back and trust, and drown in the flood of her affections.

But the gig was up. Three heartless days followed for her, during which she tried hard both to cling to her fading love for David, and to hide from him the growing feelings of doubt and insecurity that lingered like waiting shadows inside her. And all the while she felt tired and empty and alone. Her father continued to badger her at home, applying the subtle and cross-purposed pressures that only a concerned parent can. It goes without saying that he did not approve of the young artist (he had never met him), and that he used all his influence to make his daughter’s dilemma more pressing. She suddenly found herself in the throes of an increasingly demanding schedule. Schoolwork increased, as did extra-curricular activities. Sleep was never enough, friends began to make greater demands on her time, and old boyfriends appeared out of nowhere. How much of this was her father’s doing (life is hard enough) it is impossible to say. But it seemed apparent that the long siege had become a subtle and relentless frontal attack. And she was not - the truth hurts - a strong person.

In the end she did what was probably the easiest and most natural thing for her to do. She hardened. She buckled down to her work, was firm with schedule and friends, and stopped day-dreaming in empty classrooms. David was lost; he would have to make it on his own. Of course she would not be blunt with him. He was still a good person, who had taught her a lot. And he needed her friendship desperately. She decided to phase him out of her life gradually, by degrees. Yes, that would probably be easiest and best. And life would go on. Tra-la.

David, in the meantime, continued to go through his seemingly incongruous transition. He had begun to trust more, to let nature take its course. He was less bitter, and had taken to walking outside along the path by the tiny stream. Sometimes Michael (he had given the cat a name) would follow, though always at a distance, and always much more warily than he. His epilepsy, though not noticeably better, had at least not gotten any worse, and he was learning once more to deal with its symptoms. Twenty-five years had not been spent in a vacuum, and he had always dealt with it fairly well as a child. Of course the LSD didn’t help anything, tending to cast strange mind echoes and fearful deja-vu over peculiar and unrelated events. But here, too, David’s mind was much stronger than most, and he had had a life of relative hardship to prepare.

Even his artistic style began to change. For the time being he had given up the intense and shocking portraits that been his trademark, vying instead for hard-life landscapes of the city, and not all entirely ugly. Ghetto scenes, clothes-lines strung between tenements, black girls in bright dresses jumping rope on the sidewalk, an occasional street-fight (he still had a conscience), all superimposed upon visions of World War I - the trenches, wisps of gaseous cloud trailing through the mud and barbed wire of No Man’s Land. Stretchers carried by men with dirty faces and no hope in their eyes. And bodies. Many bodies.

Thus he prepared himself subconsciously for perhaps the greatest trial of his life: the battle against Fear, the attempt to reassert himself as a living entity, a being alive in the world. Not that he was particularly confident, or put it to himself in such grandiose terms. In his heart he knew that it would be a desperate fight, and that the hope he had found would not long avail him. If only it would give him a start.....

It was here then that he made his great mistake: he was counting much too heavily on the continued help and support of the girl. He had let his affection for her soften his judgment, and failed to consider her continued maturation. Not that he was entirely blinded. He knew they wouldn’t last forever, and had no illusions of having found the perfect mate. And he should have been more cautious, but..... She meant so many things to him. She was the redeemer, the one who had brought him back into communion with the good things of life. She was childhood and innocence, one pure heart among the world that could be trusted. She was something to believe in, something to fight for, a second wind, a flower in the desert that had led him to a stream. In his all-consuming thirst he had let the Waste Land deceive him. He had bought a mirage.

So came a time when for a period of days he saw her very little. He was not overly concerned, attributing their lack of intimacy to his new job at the record store and her serious preparation for the coming mid-terms. And still when he saw her they touched, they embraced, they made love. She did seem a bit distant at times, but that could be anything. He knew it wasn’t easy for her. Perhaps she just needed some time alone to think. He was not possessive.

But at last the seeds of uneasiness began to grow inside him. He tried to ignore them. They would not be suppressed. His stage had been set, though by whom he did not know.

It was Saturday morning, David’s day off. Jill spent a little time with him, then left. He was somewhat distraught, but she promised to come over that night and talk. He went back to his room.
There was not much for him to do. He decided then to work, for seven hours if he could, on an old portrait he had never finished. Its subject and technique were important only in that they dated back to one of the darker periods of his life. The idea was to go back, relive, and hopefully overcome, the fears of that time. Jill would be coming over soon and they would talk, and make love, and forget about the world outside. For a while.

The work began to get tough. More than once his eyes blurred, and in the split second of lost focus some gruesome apparition would appear over the familiar lines of the portrait. But he was used to this. He sat down on the couch and rested, then waited. Where was Jill? Her debate (how had she let herself get talked into that one?) was supposed to end at eight, and the bus ride from Fort Collins shouldn’t have taken more than forty minutes. It was now ten o’clock. He began to feel genuinely uncomfortable. He went back to work and tried to fight it off.

He started to get emotional, a feeling inseparable from his epilepsy. He tried to supplant that emotion into his work. He was partially successful, but not in the way he had hoped. He was doing the face of a friend, and the more detail he put into it, the more sorrow and hopelessness he found there. And it was all honest, not self-indulgent bullshit. “Jamie.” He wondered silently if he would ever see her again. It hurt him to do so, but still he kept at it.

Finally he could go no further. He put away his things and checked the time. Eleven-thirty. He went up into his loft and looked out through the double window. From there he could see the front of the house, or at least the hedge and the driveway that led up to it. After a time he saw her mother’s car enter from the road with two people in it. One of them was Jill. He plugged in his phone and waited. No one called him.

It was twelve o’clock. He knew she was probably asleep, but was much too ill at ease to wait another day. He called her. A tired, worn-out voice answered.

“Jill? You had me worried when you didn’t call. Is everything all right?”

“No. No, David, it isn’t. Things are all screwed up at home and I’m exhausted..... Listen, I’m too upset to talk right now. I’ll see you tomorrow if I can. I have to get some sleep.” She hung up the phone.

David slowly set down the receiver, feeling like yesterday’s fish. His epilepsy would not be held back any longer. His right hand trembled uncontrollably. He lay down on the bed and tried to calm himself. He could not. He considered taking a couple of downs, decided against it. I’ll see you tomorrow, if I can. I’m too upset to talk. What was wrong? Why wouldn’t she confide in him? He had never been completely sure he loved her; but despair, and the thought of losing her, made a terribly compelling case. He forced himself to think of what was right, but could not contain his anxiety. He rose, went to the phone, and called her again. Her voice, in answering, was irritable.

“Hello? David. I told you I’d call tomorrow.”

“No you didn’t. You said you’d see me tomorrow, if you could.”

“So? I also said I was exhausted. You didn’t seem to believe that either.” Finally he lost control.

“Believe? What am I supposed to believe? You promise to come over and talk things through, then don’t even call to say you’re not. You say things are all screwed up and you’re too upset to talk. You say you love me, you say you need me, and two weeks later I can’t fit into your schedule. I’m not blind, Jill. I don’t have to hear it from you to know you’re having doubts. You haven’t really been with me for days..... I spent the whole day trying to fight off my fears and not go crazy. I spent the whole night working like a dog because I believed you would come, and things would be all right again. What are you trying to do to me?” His voice was badly shaken. “You’re killing me. You’re killing me.” He wept.

She was silent for a time, torn, but at last her darker side turned away. She was sorry, and knew in her heart she should have handled it differently. Her softer self replied.

“David? I’m sorry. I haven’t been myself lately. I’ve had to grow up a lot in a short time; I guess I forgot that it’s hard for you, too. Will you forgive me?”

“Yes.” What else could he say?

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning around eleven. We have to talk anyway. Will you be there?”

“Yes.”

“Try not to worry. I haven’t forgotten the things that I said. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

She put down the phone and sank into the bed, pulling the thick covers around her. She stared for a time at the ceiling, and cried a little herself.

David was calm again, putting the last touches on the portrait, when Jill knocked at the door. He opened it. She came inside. He went to embrace her as he always did, but she would have none of it. She broke away and moved to an empty space in the center of the room.

“What’s wrong?” Her face was set.

“You can’t have these kinds of expectations of me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean like last night. You can’t just assume I’ll always be there. I have a lot of things on my mind right now and I don’t need this kind of guilt.” Her face was a study in bad forensics.

“I don’t have any more expectations of you than - ”

“Let me finish. It’s over, David. I’ve got my own life to take care of, I can’t keep living yours. Maybe last night was just something that had to happen.” His mind reeled at the pathetic irony.

“Of course it had to happen; your father’s been setting it up for weeks. Think about what you’re saying, Jill. You’re practically reading from his script. You know he hates me. He’d do anything to break us up.”

At last she was genuinely angry. “Maybe he does. But that doesn’t mean I don’t make my own decisions. You have to survive just like everybody else.....”

“.....I love you.”

She went to the door.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

She left the room and never came back. But as she walked through the darkness of the corridor she heard a voice inside her.

“Don’t give up. Please God, don’t let him give up.”

A bitter week followed for David, perhaps the hardest and cruelest he had known since the time of the White Death. As if on cue his epilepsy surged again, and left him with little strength or desire to fight back. Years of physical tribulation had inured him to much, but this dull and empty anguish, coming as it did at what he thought would be the end of a long road, was a bitter pill to swallow. For three days he could not function and never left his room. He asked for time off from his job, which he got. And somehow, after four days of idleness, he went back.

Time passed, as it has a way of doing, and as the second week came and went, David found that he was still alive. He had spoken to Jill on the phone (his call) and she was at least conciliatory, if not warm or open. And as the hollow sting of rejection wore off he realized, quite unexpectedly, that he still had a little hope left. But he did still love her.

His job, also, had gotten a little better - the music didn’t seem to bother him as much. He knew a few people now, real, if not particularly interesting, and had even found a small gallery which agreed to display his work. No one bought anything, of course, but why start caring now? And at last his affliction grew tired and died down. He felt all right.

* * *

The sun came slowly over the arc of the world, raising a gold and dirty haze as it sent long probes through the mesh of massive buildings in search of tiny spaces on the ground. The streets of Manhattan lay in an uneasy slumber. Had the sun been capable of tears it would certainly have cried, looking down as it did among the huddled masses of derelicts that shivered in alleyways its warmth would never reach. And the Winter was only just beginning.

Other things it could not see, but surely must have felt. Dying junkies, mere shadows of youth, crawled bleeding across tenement floors; old, neglected women lay writhing with cancer in the basements of lofty hospitals; prostitutes, victims from childhood, took their own lives, and none too efficiently at that. Cats starved and dogs died and puppies roamed the streets without expression in their eyes. Poets wrote and artists painted, but the City never changed.

David rose in the morning as well, aware of the Darkness. It came to him as a cry far off, but one which would never be silenced. He felt it in the marrow of his bones, a dull, unending chill. He vowed then, as he had many times in the past, that one day he would go back, to stand at the front and do what he could. He tossed uneasily, but could not sleep. It was five in the morning. He rose and went to the window, touched the glass. It was cold - too cold for a walk. He turned and looked for Michael, but he was nowhere to be found.

Again it was Saturday. He worked a little, read part of a book, put on a record and paced the floor. A dangerous impulse had come to him, and he wanted to weigh all the factors. His better judgment warned against it. But this driving restlessness..... And his pride. He finally did go for a walk. He called for Michael but could not find him. He called a friend long distance. Time went slowly by.

At last he could bear it no longer. It was either fight back or concede utter defeat. He went to the top drawer of a cabinet, opened it and took out a small foil pouch pushed way in the back. He uncrumpled it and looked inside. It was still there. His nerves raced a little. He took a deep breath and shook his head, then paced the floor again.

Was it too soon? Or would it always be too soon, with no way to fight it and no way to bear it? His anger began to burn, and the paralleling rise in fear only stoked the flames hotter.

He punched his open hand with his fist. Now! Just once he was going to stand up to it. Just once he wasn’t going to back down. He put the foil to his mouth, hesitated for a moment. Then ate the acid. One hit of high-quality purple microdot, left over from the night with Jamie. It was eleven o’clock. He returned to his room after stopping at the record store and speaking with the owner of the gallery. He had begun to get off, and knew now what he must do. Without further hesitation he went to his stereo, took out the album and put on side A - the other side. He went up into the loft.
He sat looking out through the double window as the music drifted up palely from below. It was not so much the content as the memories that were dangerous, the remembrance of a time when horrible fears had proved true. He stayed very still, breathing deeply with eyes closed, and after several minutes, found to his surprise that he was holding up fairly well. The voices of desperate courage were strongest inside him. The music began to slur and slow motion only occasionally. The LSD continued to rise, but at a tolerable level.

Aahh. A burst of twinge like a hollow needle being stuck into his brain. He felt dizzy, shook his head, and survived the blow. Hanging on was very tough, but he was doing it. The rising fear could not surpass his determination. I’m just a little bit afraid of you. He was like a surfer on a tidal wave that pushed him higher and higher, to dizzying heights from which Icarus would fall. So deep in your room, you never leave your room. He shut his eyes again.

When he opened them for the third time he was peaking. Strange and brittle whispers brushed his ears like shredded bamboo rakes. He looked out.

He was doing it! His mind and body were still one. He looked out on a world that perhaps would never beat him so badly again. He was doing it. Always crashing, in the same car. It was only music, and music could be gotten used to, desensitized against. Experience warned him that he was being too hopeful, lowering his guard. He knew it, but for the sake of morale let it happen. At least now he was not sexually incompetent. Maybe there really was someone out there to share his life. Sometimes it gets so lonely. A deep sob of joy smote his heart.....

A car on the road caught his attention - a yellow-green Porsche. He knew it, though he had never seen it. It pulled into the gravel in front of Jill’s house, using the hedge as a screen against eyes from within. A young man got out on the driver’s side, closest to him. Jill had spoken of him: well off and good looking but shallow, an empty shell of gold. Jill got out on the other side. He watched breathless as the aggressive one went up to her, wrapped himself about her like the serpent about Eve. He kissed her long hard and deeply, and she offered only token resistance.

David sat there numb. Something collapsed in his chest. A wall caved in. Breath still would not come as he moved his hands across her. He rose, and stood like an animal dying of shock. He could not feel the floor beneath him. The Apollonian figure gave her a last, knowing look before getting back into the metal phallus. It drove away.

That it was not wholly as it appeared is of little consequence. That she wanted only reassurance matters less.

David turned heart pounding and could not even cry. He descended the steps without touching them. He tried to elude the stroke. He tried to tell himself it was all right. But he was not. There was a piece of broken glass in his heart.

He looked once to the portrait of Bowie, as for deliverance. But there was no help there, only despairing eyes that looked everywhere into ugliness. White mists began to gather in the room. A crack of pale light appeared in the middle of the floor, a widening chasm. It was over. He was quiet now, knowing it could not touch him.

He went to the refrigerator and took out a small white box. He removed from it a vial filled with clear liquid, stolen from the hospital. He went to the drawer and took out a syringe. He walked softly to the stereo and removed the record, searched briefly for another. He found what he was looking for: dying music.

He went to the statue and withdrew the covering sheet. There in diminished glory stood a copy of Michelangelo’s David, damaged in shipping. “And what you’ll always be.” The words of the Harlequin danced about the edges of his grave. No slayer of giants this - half its face and genitals had been broken and fallen off, leaving it marred and ugly and without the heart to fight. He sat down on the floor by its insufficient base and loaded the syringe. He took off his belt and wrapped it tightly around his left biceps. He placed the end in his mouth and pumped the arm until the veins stood high and clear upon it.

And here, in spite of all that he knew, he broke down and wept. The belt went loose and his head dropped.

Through heavy sobs came the faintest urge to try again..... The very thought was too painful to bear. He hardened himself, restrung the death-sling and injected the morphine. He listened for a moment to the sounds of despair before releasing the tourniquet. Peter Gabriel, the angel:

I took the old track
The hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
They were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
And as the nails sunk in the cloud
The rain was warm and soaked, the crowd.

Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye, to flesh and blood
If again, the seas are silent.....

At last he could bear it no longer. He freed the bitter taste of leather from his mouth. The poison mingled with his blood. A soft snow began to fall in the room as he walked alone through Russian hills in winter. He felt a cold and lingering sadness, but no longer any pain, as his spirit slipped away unprepared.

So it was that Michael found him, lying stiff and cold on the bare wooden floor. And though it may be romantic to assume that the young cat did not understand, that it licked his face in forlorn confusion and remained beside the body for several days, such is not the case. It understood perfectly: both friend and food were gone. It left him there after only a short time, looking back once with a dull glaze like unfeeling loss in its eyes, then slipped through its hole in the crawlspace and never returned. It died two hungry years later, killed in a fight by a larger Tom.

Jill was upset, but she survived.

_______________________________________

“Let me go, Lucas, please. Let me go.”

I was almost in shock myself. Many of the incidents and all the emotion had been taken from my own life. I felt like a frog pinned down in the tray, waiting for the scalpel to incise my scream of pain.

The LSD and histamines owned me heart and soul. My body shuddered, trying to be rid of them. An image came to me then, a memory. I was a phantom at the edge of the world, looking over the brink into gray mists and desolation. And between myself and the living world there stood waiting, black and threatening, a clump of shadow: the Demon, the Foe, invincible. I opened my eyes but the darkness remained. I was the desperate, wakened animal, cornered by Death.

“Let me go, Lucas, I can’t make it. Let me go!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean?” I was frantic, pulling at the retaining straps till my muscles knotted and my skin rubbed raw. There was no sympathy in his voice.

“First, if you don’t calm down you’re going to hurt yourself very badly. And second, we agreed to take it all the way.” Half my wits returned, though reluctantly.

“But how was I supposed to know? God, Lucas, the last one nearly killed me.” I wept without tears. “How could anything be so cruel?” Silence.

“It was an honest story, well told.”

“Honest? It was brutal..... Why does the truth have to be so unrelenting?”

“Because if there is a way to avoid the truth men will find it. Sometimes the only way to reach a heart is to leave it no way of escape.”

Then I remembered. This wasn’t some demon bent on torment. It was Lucas.

“Do I have to go on?”

“Could you stop now, not knowing?” I was overwrought, and quite irrational. He was right.

“I love you.”

For the first time that night the dwarf was silent. A pause.

“Be that as it may, you’re not finished yet. You can’t just leave it here.”

“I know.”

“Are you ready to continue?”

“In a minute.”

“It must be now.”

“I said, in a minute!”

“Well,” came the voice. “At least you’ve learned something.”

After a time. “All right. Let’s go.”

Music.

I recognized the music at once, perhaps the most poignant I had ever known: Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s adaptation of “Pictures at an Exhibition.” As I fell into the music, Mussorgsky’s own words, though vaguely and imperfectly remembered, came back to me with the ring of undying truth. “I strive only to express life in all its facets, both the glorious and grotesque, without flattery or debasement, that I may look into my own melancholy soul, unashamed.”

I felt very weak as I continued to go under. It was no longer the chair, but my body which sank into the unknown depths, alone and unprotected. I felt very clearly the fears of Death and broken life, but also a desperate courage so strong that I dared not resist it. The dream began to form out of the ecstasies of my youth, matched against the horrors of early manhood.

I knew myself and the Machine well enough by now to know where they were taking me: into the Pit, to face the deadly Foe. The character took over. I was a man, still young, who had done nothing wrong, committed no sin, who in fact had done many things right, but was forced at the end of all endurance to fight yet again for his life, for his very existence.

I was afraid.

I understood.

_________________________________________

Tessa of Troyan

I carry the dust of a journey
That cannot be shaken away
It lives deep within me
For I breathed it every day

You and I are yesterday’s answers
The earth of the past
Come to flesh,
Eroded by Time’s rivers
to the shapes we now possess

There were, of course, the obvious differences in physiology and background. But to the son of a planetary geologist, constantly moving from one system to the next, the differences had not been overwhelming. He found the larger eyes, sloped forehead and soft golden body fur attractive, the overall appearance not in the least alien or disconcerting. It had taken Tessa a bit longer, but so passive and understanding was she that the barriers between them had quickly broken down. His mind became gentle and anchorless just thinking about it. How could he know then the severe consequences of the affection he held for her?

Reaching the final stair, he stepped reluctantly out onto ground level. He shook his head once, as if for courage, then strode sullenly across the clay-brick floor and out through the rounded doorway. Pressing the shut-off button for the heat-shield from a small unit strapped to his hip, he waited for the last remnants to disperse, then stepped beyond its boundaries and made for the crawler. Seconds after he passed it reactivated automatically. The elaborate defense system seemed unnecessary only to those who had never seen a sahdab, the large wolverine-like predators that hunted openly in the stalk forests just beyond every clearing. There was always the assurance of local superstition - that the creature would not attack a warrior who had slain one of its kind in combat, and wore the conquered breastbone on a strand of leather about the neck. But Ryan, intelligent young man that he was, much preferred the certainty of heat-shield and laser pistol. He had reached the crawler.

He ascended the platform leading to its open cockpit, admiring in an annoyed sort of way the subtle workmanship that had gone into making it resemble an enormous, six-legged spider. It had been one of the bizarre conditions of the research and trade agreement with the Troyans that, “No hauling or transporting of goods save that provided by beasts of burden,” would be allowed on the surface. Thus, the crawler. In truth, both he and his father had bent over backwards to appease the local tribes. And things had seemed to go fairly well until.....

“Until,” he said out loud. What an awful word.

As the crawler pulled away from the platform in jerky, horse-like movements and made for the hills beyond, he found himself looking back bewilderedly at the events of the past two months, trying to make some sense of the seemingly senseless Troyan system of values. The attempt was futile. What kind of ignorant, archaic society could demand such total aggression of its men, such total passivity from its female members? And their violent rejection of anything foreign; what were they so afraid of? In a way he was more worried for Tess than for himself, but had managed, with difficulty, to keep this thought from his mind. That is to say, he had tried.

But as he drew nearer the village - several clusters of high, circular dwellings scattered throughout the short-cropped clearings of the valley - he was no longer able to override the protective instinct within him. Breaking off to the left, he abandoned his designated course and made for her father’s tower against the northern hillside. He had not quite covered the necessary five hundred meters when a moving shape on the ground below caught his attention. It was Tessa. She had seen him coming. A deep sigh of relief passed through him as he saw she was alone. He turned without hesitation and made for their meeting place by the river. He knew that she would follow.
Shrinking the black-metal body of the crawler down among its legs, he hid it as best he could among the thick, translu-green growth of the forest. He leapt from the cockpit and strained his eyes for any signs of pursuit. He found none. Indeed, the very forest itself seemed perfectly lifeless and still, like an empty stage waiting for players. Ryan wondered only if the drama forthcoming was to be a comedy or a tragedy. He reemerged into the clearing of the bank, waiting impatiently for his lover.

She turned a final corner of the path, gently lifting then ducking gracefully beneath a soft and flexible branch, releasing it once more to swing easily back into place. He studied her fluid figure for a moment as she approached, mesmerized all over again by the short tawny mane and soft golden body fur, covered only by the slotted skirt of tanned leather, then ran to meet her. Her large fawn eyes were wet with tears.

“What is it?” he asked softly, stepping back from their tender embrace. “What’s wrong?”

“You should not have come. They will find us, they will never stop.....” She faltered.

“Tessa?”

“They have condemned me to die.”

“What?” He took a step back, overwhelmed. “Well that’s one death sentence they’re never going to carry out,” he said bitterly. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

“But where will we go? Where could we ever be safe?”

“My father said he’d wait with our ship on top of Mayu, in case things got ugly and we had to make a run for it. It’s all right, Tessa. They can’t follow us into Space.”

“But my father’s honor.....” Her eyes pleaded.

“I’m not leaving without you.” He took her hand and led her away. She offered no resistance.

For all its virtues - five meter ground clearance, large freight capacity and surprising agility - the crawler was not very fast. Ryan continued northward in a state of mind somewhere between watchful readiness and subdued panic. Troyan warriors were not to be taken lightly, especially the Banshi of Shahkti peninsula, Tessa’s tribe. Even with the crawler, fully armed, he could not hope to hold off more than five or six for any length of time. They would keep coming, relentless, until either he or their entire number had been completely snuffed out.

He had seen them in action before. An invading tribe from the west had had the misfortune of trusting itself to the strength of greater numbers. The Banshi had been awesome, fighting with a skill and determination that would (he imagined) have shamed even the Nordic berserkrs of medieval Earth history. Their zeal and lack of fear were terrifying. But was it really lack of fear, or the mystical combination of love, fear and hatred that drove them, seeming to pull down strength and courage from the skies, and from the very heart of their beloved planet? He began to admire them again in spite of himself.

But as he drew near the summit, all such thoughts were driven sharply from his mind. Black smoke rose from the top of Mayu.

“No!” It was a cry that seemed to burst forth of and by itself, without his consent, echoing once before dying amidst the vastness of uncaring landscape. He pulled furiously at the controls, forcing every last bit of speed he could muster. They reached the rocky incline. The crawler pitched back and climbed on, undaunted. They cleared the final bluff. They reached the top.

The ship was in flames, a broken hulk. His father was nowhere to be seen. He leapt down from the crawler at full height. It sank down in pre-programmed response behind him.

He searched frantically among the debris. His mind raced, rejecting the obvious: nothing could have survived such an explosion.

He sank to his knees in despair, rolling back his head and weeping bitterly. His father. . .was dead.

He heard a voice behind him. It was Tessa.

“It’s might fault, Ryan. I should not have been so weak.”

“Damn it, Tessa!” He whirled, remaining on one knee. “Don’t you ever get angry? They killed---” His voice broke. “They killed my father.” His head sank lifeless to his chest.

Tessa waited for a moment. . .then went to him. Taking him by the shoulders she drew him slowly nearer, her breasts gently enfolding the side of his face. Stripped of all pride he turned in to them meekly, into the shelter, not quite animal, not quite spiritual, that was, even then, infinitely greater than any refuge he had ever known. Seven warriors came up out of the bush, took him by the arms. He offered no resistance as they led him away, to death, or worse, he did not care.

He was taken to the central village of the Shahkti. The different clans within the tribe were loosely joined except during times of war or religious ceremony. Then they became one body, inseparable, joined together by common purpose in a way that was difficult for the outsider to comprehend. Indeed, everything about the Banshi now seemed to him strange and unacceptable. But their unity was undeniable, their courage in battle unquestioned.

He was taken to a small cell within the outer walls of the Coliseum. So it was true, he was to be part of some barbaric ritual. He had little doubt that it would be some form of combat, or sacrifice. The numbness that sorrow had brought began to yield slowly to thoughts of self-preservation and fear. How had he let himself be taken so easily? What about Tessa? What about his father? Sullen anger rose within him, and it was well that it did. He would need it, and in plenty, before the day would let him rest - one way or the other.

He was left alone in his cell without a word. After what seemed a long time a single warrior pulled open the ancient door and stepped inside.

Ryan recognized him at once. It was Bahku, older brother of Tessa. He said nothing, but opened his hand to reveal several gnarled roots of the gimji plant. He took Ryan’s hand, turned it over, and placed them in his palm.

“What do I do with these?” Ryan asked, searching for some sign among the stern and hard-fur features of his face.

“Eat them or you will die.” There was no emotion in that voice, only statement of fact. This could be an act of compassion or malice; he would never know. The men of Troyan were utterly unreadable.

He placed the first in his mouth, chewing hard. Bits of salivary juice, laced with the herb, were set free across his tongue. The taste was dark and bitter, but not unbearable. Bahku turned and went to the door. Reaching it he hesitated, as if unsure. Then without turning, he spoke.

“It is well that you came back for Tessa. Had you gone straight to the Council as you were instructed you would have both been killed.”

The warrior left the cell. Ryan lay down on a mat on the floor. Time passed. Weary and worried and no longer able to care he fell into an uneasy sleep. The drug began to take effect.

He woke suddenly, aware that something was terribly wrong. His first glimpse of the cell did nothing to comfort him. The aged and time-lined walls leered and swayed, alive with malicious movement. Hallucinations danced across everything he saw. His heart pounded. He fought hard to remind himself that he had been drugged, in preparation..... Preparation for what? Or had he just been poisoned? Liquid fear surged through him.

He rose from the floor and shook himself hard, as if trying physically to rid himself of the demon in his veins. The effort was wasted - if anything the drug grew stronger. He took a deep breath, searching his mind for some point of reference among the fevered insanity. Was it possible that Bahku had deliberately poisoned him? He doubted it. Slow death by underhanded means was not the way of the Banshi, nor was pointless suffering. What was it then, some kind of test? One thing only seemed clear: if he did not compose himself quickly, master his fears, he would lose all control.

With this realization, however blunt, came a certain measure of inner calm. At least he could see some reason for his anguish. It had to be a test - a test of mental strength and endurance. The drug (if such a thing is possible) seemed well satisfied with this response: its symptoms became less severe. He also found that it no longer robbed him of physical strength. On the contrary, he felt his limbs coursing with restless vigor. He sat down slowly and tried to reason it out. The movement of the walls diminished. He thought of many things. His mind was put to the test.

It is not easy to define the things that Ryan Soltzen feared. For his were not the tremblings of lesser men, afraid of foolish, irrational voices inside them. Thoughts of fatalism and futility did not unnerve him, nor did images of his own inevitable death. And having lived much of his life confronted by the vastness of Space, he was not troubled on sleepless nights by sudden stark realizations of his own mortal frailty and insignificance. The concept of Infinity didn’t bother him at all. Mindless worries over illness, mental breakdown and despair---these were beyond his control, and therefore meant little to him. He shook them off daily without further thought. Ryan Soltzen was a fighter. So long as there was a reason to struggle he would never give up. Even the Troyans seemed to sense this.

Why then..... Why?

But Ryan's fears were of a kind that went deeper, based on harsh reality. For his were the fears of a young man who tried hard to understand the reason for all things but could not, who made a sincere and prolonged effort to live each day in a positive and forthright manner, but was still mercilessly riddled by doubt and confusion. When submerged, he considered his anxieties nothing more than the normal pangs of a boy becoming man. But when, at times like these he was forced to confront them they arose with impossible strength, unbearable, like the constant resurgence of a wound never properly healed.

And as much as he sometimes wanted to, he could find no shelter in warm and innocent childhood beliefs, nor bring himself to trust his fate to any unseen God-force of light and justice, nor even to Nature itself. And he feared - more accurately he dreaded, deeply dreaded - the thought of never finding a home, of living his whole life without ever knowing love, or a reason to keep trying. He feared loneliness, with the hollow sting of a child who had lost his mother at an early age, while retaining a father who had tolerated, but never truly loved or understood him. And he wept without tears for a thousand other tragedies as well: for all the people and places he had become attached to, needing them so badly, only to find they were nothing more than glimpses of a world that would never be his. And if the truth be known he feared himself, the stranger he saw in the mirror.

Now, unable to do otherwise he confronted his fears, and it hurt. He thought of finding Tessa, of falling in love with both she and her mystically beautiful planet, only to have both pulled so violently from beneath him. He thought of Ernest Hemingway, of the brutal and heart-crushing ending of A Farewell to Arms. It all became too much. And though it is one thing to write these words on a page, or to read them from the safety and detachment of a healthy mind, it is quite another to feel them, truly feel them, doubled and trebled by the drug, believing that if he did not overcome them he would die, or at the very least, be unable to survive whatever trials still awaited him at the hands of savage and inscrutable barbarians, and a Deity bent on his destruction. His limbs began to tremble.
But somehow through the confusion, so loud, the reason for this moment became clear. Something of the Troyan religious philosophy had come to him from out of the day, and from the heart of his despair. A saying from the Tabla:

“Singularity of purpose may save a man when all else betrays him.

Hold fast to the task which confronts you, burning with the power of desire to be free.”

Singularity of purpose. Infinitely true. But how to apply it here and now? That answer, too, came more easily than he would have imagined. He had to calm himself, master his fears, then struggle through the trials that awaited him - do whatever it took to win freedom for both himself and his beloved. He couldn’t let the drug overwhelm him. He couldn’t let the Troyans stop him. He couldn’t let the gods of Hemingway.....

But for now he had to shut himself off, save his strength. Proclaiming courage was one thing; executing it in the face of danger was quite another. He remained seated, his heart on fire but his mind calm. Thirty seconds passed. Ninety. Forty minutes passed and still no one came for him. Finally he heard a key being fitted in the lock. The door swung open. Bahku entered the cell, carrying with him an armored vest, sword and shield. At least two more warriors could be seen beyond the doorway, carrying torches and peering in at him intently. Bahku drew nearer as he rose.

“One called Ryan. Are you ready to do battle for your life?” His voice was once again stoic and implacable.

“Yes.”

“Remove your upper garment.” Ryan slipped off his smock, letting it fall to the floor. Bahku helped him roughly into the armor-vest, a sleeveless, tight-fitting wrap of thick leather inlaid with bronze. Next came the shield, a roughly conical disc, its off-center crest lined along the arm ridge with parallel rows of sharp metallic teeth.

Lastly Bahku handed him the sword, hilt first. His head was turned slightly as Ryan received it, veiling half his face in the growing darkness of the room. Ryan saw the remaining eye glimmer suddenly, as if smote from within by a single tear of uncontrollable emotion. He could not imagine its source.

“Bahku?” he questioned, closely studying the taut, alien expression. “Isn’t this your sword?” The warrior turned to the guards at the door.

“Leave us! I demand the right of counsel for my friend.” His friend?

“You are given ninety heartbeats, no more.” This third voice came from an unseen form somewhere beyond the others, and carried with it the solemn tone of authority. The door was closed. The warrior’s words to him were stern.

“Ryan. It is my sword you carry. Use it well, it has never failed me. Fight long and hard, and do not heed the voices of despair. Do not surrender; and for fear of your life, do not let the blade be forced from your hand.”

“But who am I to fight?”

“I can say no more. They will come for you soon. Prepare yourself!”

“Bahku? ... Why?”

“My sister loves you. Is that not reason enough?” The door was reopened.

“The time is come, young one. Bahku, return to your father.”

“As you command.”

Bahku left the cell for the last time. Ryan stepped out into the hallway, where he was met by the proud form of a Banshi chieftain, distinguished by the long crimson robe and birdlike, ohker skull headdress. He was flanked on either side by his two sons, and by the two torch-bearing sentries. They were not of Tessa’s clan. The leader said nothing, but pointed with his spear the direction that Ryan was to follow. Led by the guards, he proceeded.

The first corridor soon gave way to another, angling sharply left and then descending. Some seventy meters below, crisscrossing bars of iron cut broadening lines of shadow across the pentangular image of a gate, cast inward on the ground by the fading rays of a late summer sun. The arena lay beyond.

Higher and wider, this second corridor was more than empty distance between two points. It was the rock-hard dirt pathway trod by every Banshi warrior who had come of age for a thousand years. Nor was it unpeopled. Whether a standard part of the ritual, or something added on his behalf, Ryan turned this last corner to find himself confronted by two long rows of warriors in full battle dress, their backs to the stone, looking up at him with expressions as many and varied as the weapons and costume they bore. One thing only did they have in common, and it was this detail which puzzled him most intensely. For though they numbered close to three hundred, the entire Banshi fighting machine, he saw that each individual wore on a string of leather about his neck the breastbone of a sahdab. And aside from the fact that he had never heard of them being worn except for battle or the hunt - never indoors - he would not have believed that each in his turn would have found the courage to face and slay one of the dreadful beasts, or that the Banshi as a whole could take the superstition so seriously.

So it was that Ryan began to understand the grim task that awaited him. For as he filed slowly past each opposing pair, looking first left and then right with a feeling of forced admiration, he saw each soldier in turn look directly at him, make some sort of gesture referring to the necklace, then go on to show him the wounded limbs and gaping scars that had paid the price of acquisition. Ryan was silently awed. For even against the likes of a Troyan male, fierce and determined, the sahdab were not to be underestimated. He had seen them pull down game fully twice their size, equally strong.

But the final blow was yet to be delivered. Coming to the flatted entrance of the gateway, he saw to his right a single warrior, not more than five feet tall, his left arm severed at the elbow, a deep scar running unmercifully across his face, who glared up at him with a look of fierce pride Ryan was sure would burn a hole straight through him. He guessed (correctly) that the warrior could not have lived more than seven Troyan cycles, roughly sixteen years on Earth. He was sixteen years old, and wore about his neck the breastbone of a sahdab, no smaller in proportion to his body than that worn by any of the others.

Ryan felt an ache in the hollow of his chest. His throat went dry. He tried to say something, but could not find the words. The Gatekeeper pulled open the iron grid, left half first. Ryan turned to the chieftain.

“Am I to fight the sahdab as well?”

“Do not misread my words,” he answered plainly, “for I bear no evil will against you. But you must know that I can tell you nothing. If the Spirit speaks to you, you will live. If not you will die.”

There was nothing more to be said. The two sons of Tacitus led him into the arena.

His right leg was fastened to a chain, joined at the end of its ten foot length to a pillar of stone which stood at the very center of the Pit. High walls rose above its circular recession. A gathering of some five hundred Banshi looked down at him from long rows of curving benches, huddled together according to clan, solemnly discussing the necessity and possible consequences of such a battle. The waning sphere of Morgoth, largest of the Troyan moons, added its pale and soulless light to that of staggered torches as it shone down silently among them. The night was cold and clear, the stars piercing, pitiless.

Ryan stood at the center, tested his footing, the radius of the chain, the weight and agility of both sword and shield. It was not that violent emotions didn’t churn inside him. He simply realized that it would not help his cause to give in and feel them now. He was not a fool. He would not be denied his chance for freedom, no matter how desperate the road which led to it. And if the truth be known his father, by chance or design, had raised an exceptionally strong and well disciplined son.

He stood now in contemplation, hard and grim, some forty meters before a second five-sided gateway. Its interior was cloaked in shadow, and no sound could be heard from within. The sahdab, like the drug in his veins, waited for its chance to spring. Ryan knew that when the iron grids swung open, the black intimidation of both would be hard to suppress.

A creaking sound to his right made him start and narrow his eyes. A recessed doorway had been opened in the wall. Hope and love and fear surged through him as his eyes met the familiar form of his lover, walking toward him from of the shadows of the Wall. She was dressed in a gown of sacrificial white, a garland of yellow flowers atop her soft, angelic mane. She came to him innocent, leaned forward and gently kissed his temple.

“Tessa. Are you all right?” She nodded her assent.

“I am deeply moved by the honor you do me.....” She stepped back, trembling, afraid herself of the things she was feeling. She took several steps toward the Gate.

“Tessa, what are you - ”

The iron grids swung open. The Beast emerged, seething with calculated rage. It did not try to escape, but headed straight for her.

“Tessa!” The crowd watched intently. The gimji rose to new heights inside him. He strained toward her till his ankle nearly broke from the strain. Its iron shackle was tainted with blood, but still the Chain prevailed.

The creature stood squarely upon her, one massive, knee-bent forepaw on either shoulder, its powerful, bear-like jaws held inches from her face. Through curling lips it snarled threateningly, glaring down at her and thrusting so close that warm saliva dripped into her eyes.

Tessa remained perfectly still. Terror and Death stood full upon her, yet still she did not move. Nor did she cry out. She was willing to die for the one she loved.

Ryan watched in a state of shock and disbelief. Why did the sahdab hesitate? Could it really..... The legend was true! It refused to slay the female who offered no resistance. Some deeper instinct withheld the blow that hatred so violently called for.

This accepted, an entirely new emotion now filled the young hunter. His woman was in danger.
“Sahdab!” he cried, in a voice so loud it seemed to usher from many
throats at once. “Release her! For it is I and not my mate who stands between your death and freedom.” The crowd was silent. The Spirit was at work. Ryan could not know that he had spoken, almost verbatim, the words uttered by countless warriors since time unremembered.

The sahdab was unimpressed. Backing away from the girl, it now turned the full weight of its malice toward the hated man-thing. Only then was Ryan given a clear view of his opponent. And though the drug still distorted its features, racing lines of burning gold across each stalking movement of back and shoulders, the stark image that confronted him was equally unnerving. It stood fully three and a half feet at the shoulder, four at the haunches, six in length, its compact, wolverine body rippling with hard-muscled strength. It contemplated him only briefly, having encountered the Banshi and their weapons before, then charged.

Ryan raised his shield. Their bodies met, only the sharp teeth of the arm-ridge keeping the animal from crushing him with its full weight and strength. As it was he was knocked down to one knee, as the ravening jaws sought a way past the shield, and to the flesh it longed to rend. Only by putting his full strength against it, and digging the teeth into its tough, leathery hide, could he keep the gnashing teeth from his body. And though he tried to hack at his foe with the sword, it was equally adept at eluding the blade. The creature backed away, then charged again. Again.

Ryan met each new onslaught with surprising perception and skill, though he had little time to wonder. It was not possible that he know how to counter the Beast, yet somehow he did. He heard his thoughts, whatever the source, barking out their instinctive commands. Protect the face and throat, slash at the underbelly, don’t risk a deep thrust until a piercing of the heart becomes possible.

At first he fought for Tessa - for their life together - then for himself. Love gave way to Fear. Fear yielded Anger. Rage mingled with Love to form Courage, then was broken back to Fear. Courage and Fear warred inside him, strong as the physical combat. And as the battle became more intense and the drug’s effect more pronounced, he felt her memory fade to a whisper of smoke in the darkness of his mind. His own life became nothing more than broken images of unending pain and false hope. Weakness and Despair were the only reality, waiting silently at the bottom of all illusion, a naked sword of truth. Soon all that remained was the fighting, fighting on without reason, fighting because a million years before some lonely primate had fought, refusing to yield up its spark to death and the Void.

And against such a Foe! Its power was awesome; its constant and varied attacks reached out at him like the hand of Death itself. A hundred times despair overtook him. A hundred times he battled back, not knowing how or even why he did it. Tessa was a shadow. Did she really exist? Did he truly love her?

Teeth snapped shut into metaled vest. Hot, angry breath seared his bleeding chest. He tried to pull away, striking wildly with both sword and shield. The creature released him, then charged again.
Fully twenty minutes their battle had raged, neither opponent able to break the will of the other. Ryan’s arms and shoulders ached from the weight of his weapons. He could barely stand.

Pain! A gash to his left shoulder, just below the neck. Two inches nearer and the sahdab would have him. He slashed twice at the ribs. Twice more. Then began to thrust. Finally the Hell-beast relented, drawing back only far enough to plan its next assault. And still the fighting went on.

The sahdab was quietly stunned. In its animal way it had reasoned that Ryan was not a Banshi, and therefore could not understand the tenacity with which he fought. Physically it knew he had to be almost spent. But there was something terrible in the way he clung to life, the way he held on. And what of the female, so willing to die for him?

But if the sahdab was temporarily stopped, Ryan was desperate. It was no longer a question of will. His body had nothing left to give. Seeing the tremor of weakness in his eyes, the sahdab rallied. It stalked slowly left, watching him intently. No longer able to follow his foe around the axis of the chain, Ryan watched helplessly. Seizing its chance the creature veered

suddenly back to the right, cut off his angle against the chain and leapt full in his face. It was all the exhausted fighter could do to raise his shield in mock defense. And as the full four hundred pounds came crashing into it, he was left no choice: it was either surrender the shield or lose his arm. It fell crashing to the ground beyond his reach.

The sahdab backed away in cautious triumph. It saw the man in a last act of desperate courage take the hilt of his sword in both hands, back against the Pillar, fall to his knees and await the inevitable charge. He was finished. The sahdab summoned the last of its strength, seething with confidence, and rushed toward him like an angry tidal wave. Crush him! Kill him!

But somehow in that moment of darkest doom, of death and oblivion, Ryan achieved the immortal, and like the first impossible heartbeat of the nameless God, defied every law of nature and physics, creating something where nothing had been before. Energy. And from the strength it gave he spawned in his own cause the second and greatest of miracles. Life.

A cry arose within him. He saw Tessa weeping softly in dismay. He saw the sahdab, nearly upon him. He locked his arms together like a Samurai, hard as forged steel, and with a surge of desire that shook his whole body, raised up his sword and caught the sahdab square in the chest. The force of impact broke his right arm, but the mighty creature fell beside him. And with a last convulsive effort he extended his legs, feet against the pillar, twisted his upper body and sent the blade spinning into its heart. The sahdab. . .was dead.

Ryan looked once to skyward, his features drawn gray in exhausted sorrow and anguish, then fell weeping and bleeding face down in the dirt.

Tessa ran to him at once, tearing strips from her gown to nurse his many wounds. He lay as one dead, his right arm twitching in involuntary spasms of pain.

A flash of shadow was seen against the torchlit wall as a single warrior leapt down from the gallery. Rushing past the two lovers it violently seized the hilt of sword, still embedded in flesh, and flung the heavy carcass onto its back. Withdrawing the blade, he tore greedily at flesh and tendon until the conquered breastbone was forced out. Bahku lofted it defiantly to the crowd.

“Behold the work of a Banshi warrior!” he shouted, voice trembling with emotion. “Let no man call him less, or he shall taste the sting of my sword!” A cry of, “No man!” erupted from the stands. The Body was one. Ryan had been accepted.

An aging chieftain emerged from the recessed doorway as the gathering dispersed. Tessa’s father approached them. Ryan, with the help of his daughter, had managed to raise himself to a heavy leaning sit against the pillar. Komingus produced from his garment a single iron key. Going down on one knee, he unshackled the young man’s leg. Ryan looked up at him bewildered, utterly spent. His jaw shivered with narcotic weakness as he tried to speak.

... “Why?” And then, as if this was not enough, “Why do you hate me?” The aged one shook his head, but there was no malice in his eyes.

“I do not hate you, Ryan. How could I hate the flesh beloved of my own?”

“Then why?” He made a vague gesture with his shield arm, taking in the trial, the arena.

“It is not easy to find the words, young one, because you are not of this place. But for what you have done I will try.” He worked on the young man’s shoulder as he spoke, applying a salve which neither comforted nor stung, but cleansed the wound and slowed the bleeding.

“On our world, for as far as a man may wander there is hardship and danger. Many times, when even he is young, he is confronted by doubts and fears which seek to overwhelm him. In his darkest need, as I know it must be in other worlds, a man may cry out to his God to deliver him. Perhaps providence will hear him. But perhaps it will not. This is why.

“A man must know what he has inside himself. He must know as surely as the sun will rise that he will always endure. Here, now, the strength and knowledge you have won will never desert you. You have met Sahdab, and his knowing of the world is greater than you guess. And though you will one day die, as all flesh must, it is a death of the body only. The demon of Darkness can no longer torment you with visions of Fear and self-doubt..... Do you hear my words as I say them?”

“But why Tessa? She could have been killed.”

“This trial was not for her, nor did any man force her to enter. What she did was for love of her mate, and to soften the fire of hate within Sahdab. For to see that a woman will die, he must know something of the man. He must know there is goodness within.” He looked over at his daughter proudly, then back to the young hunter.

“One called Ryan. Do you still wish to be one with my flesh?”

The young man nodded, warm tears stinging his cheeks. Again he heard the sound to his right. He said nothing, only choked back a sob, as his father emerged from behind the same doorway - alive.

Alive.

________________________________________________

The chair returned and there was music all around me, no longer an enemy. My bonds were loosed and the screens were drowned with color---some crowning touch by Lucas. I sat quiet and at peace, both drug and fears contained, and watched and listened. Mussorgsky’s “Great Gates of Kiev.” Images of such power and majesty appeared before me that I knew they must be the creator’s own. I watched as mountain fortresses loomed up against the clouds, mighty pillars wrought by giant hands, Islands which had withstood the onslaught. I saw valleys swathed in grass and violet wildflowers, swords raised in triumph, stars and winds and sapphires, joined together in harmonies I could now understand.

But all of this, grand and glorious as it was, could never mean as much as the three simple words he spoke to me during a lull. I heard them through the headphones.

“Well done, lad.”

If I hadn’t been exhausted I would probably have cried. As it was I could only remain very still and drink it in, long and deeply, and wait for the final chords. They came, and in spite of all I had seen, I was moved.

But as the sound faded and a gentle calm settled over all, I saw an image on the screens I had not expected. A face began to appear, soft and lovely, though still at a distance and still unsure. It drew slowly nearer, into focus, until I almost thought I knew it. A girl, a woman, with knowing and compassionate eyes, long hair very beautiful. I saw her, and truly felt something. I felt…..

Chapter 3: Shores of Sand

.....something cold against my leg. I woke with a start, and to my utter bewilderment found myself sitting on the beach, half slumped against a jetty, the risen tide of dawn licking at my pant legs. I sat in numb and empty shock, unable to move. I looked down, saw the long-extinguished hash pipe lying loosely in my draggled palm.

A dream? It wasn’t possible. It had been so real. Without rising I looked up at the boardwalk. There between Kelsey’s Bar and the Gigolo Arcade where the Gallery should have been, was only inverted empty space, nailed plywood and 2x4’s covering broken windows at the back of it.
I couldn’t react. I stared dumbly, without emotion. Only one consolation could I find: I hadn’t actually done any more acid -

“I must be insane!” Frustrated rage clenched my fist around the pipe as I struck out at the wood in anger. I hit a pylon, withdrew the hand suddenly, wincing from the pain. My wrist.

I gingerly unbuttoned the shirt sleeve and rolled it back. My wrist was red, rubbed raw by the retaining strap of the Machine. As if afraid the spell would break I hurriedly pushed back the other sleeve, just enough.

And there it was, fading quickly but undeniably there. The same wounded band of red.

I sat there for what seemed a long time, feeling neither good nor bad, beaten nor triumphant. I watched the sun continue to rise, the tide receding slowly, the flight of the gulls. Then looked back at the commercial sleaze my country had allowed itself to become. I looked out at the sea, still blue and green, then back at the dirty haze rising over a blemished landscape, and wondered which was true. I wondered which would last. I thought of Ryan, and of David.

I’m right in between.....

A girl, maybe thirteen, came running barefoot along the beach with her dog, some kind of shepherd. As she ran she threw a long driftwood stick which it chased with bewildering eagerness. She saw me and waved, unabashed.

The dog soon spotted me as well. It rushed toward me, the long piece of driftwood in its mouth. Plantings its forepaws in the sand before me it stopped abruptly, dropped the stick and stared at me with bright, impossible eyes. It barked impatiently, wanting me to join in. I took a deep breath.
I rose, letting the pipe fall from my hand. There wasn’t room for both. I picked up the stick and threw it as far as I could. Where it landed was beyond my control.

Music and Lyrical Credits

Opening passage taken from the song, “Moving in Stereo,” from THE CARS album by The Cars, words and music Ric Ocasek and Greg Hawkes. Copyright Lido Music (BMI) and Oversnare Music (ASCAP), 1978.

Chapter 1: “Circus,” from the LIZARD album by King Crimson, words by Peter Sinfield. Copyright 1970 E.G. Music Ltd. (BMI).

Chapter 2: “Alaska,” from the UK album by U.K., Music by Eddie Jobson. Copyright Polydor, 1978 (BMI).

Three Dimensional Chess: “Thirty Years,” from the UK album by U.K., words and music by John Wetton/Eddie Jobson/Bill Bruford. Published 1978 E.G. Records Ltd. (BMI).

David:

a) Opening Quote: “White Shadow,” from the PETER GABRIEL II album by Peter Gabriel. Copyright 1978 Cliofine/Run It Music Inc., Atlantic 1978 (BMI).

b) Musical references: Side Two from the LOW album by David Bowie, words and music by David Bowie and Brian Eno. Copyright 1977 RCA, [TMK(s), Registered, Marca(s), Registrada(s), RCA].

c) Lyrical References: Side One of LOW album by David Bowie, lyrics by David Bowie, copyright as listed above.

d) Dying Music: “Here Comes the Flood,” by Peter Gabriel, Copyright 1978 Cliofine/Run It Music Inc. Preferred recording: the EXPOSURE album by Robert Fripp, published by E.G. Records LTD (BMI) Polydor 1979.

Tessa of Troyan: “The Sage,” from the PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, adapted from the piano score by Modest Mussorgsky, lyrics by Lake/Frazier. Copyright 1971 E.G. Records (BMI).

Personal Recommendation: THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY album by Genesis. Copyright 1974 Atco Records (ASCAP).

This book should not be construed as an endorsement of illicit drug use. David is not an entirely fictional character, nor are the ravages of LSD.

Peace,

Chris