Coils

Chapter 15

The afternoon burned about me. I should have bought a hat, I realized, to protect my head from that sunglare. And the pedalling got to be hard work before very long.

I followed the signs, and when I got to within a few kilometers of the facility I passed off to the side into the first patch of shade I came to, beside a high yellow and orange section of embankment at the bottom of a dip in the road. I waited there until I stopped perspiring and my breathing returned to normal. Then I waited a little longer.

It was unfortunate that I had never visited this particular installation during my time at Angra. I had no idea as to its layout. I only knew that it covered a pretty large area. I began wondering how many people were in there now. Not too many, I guessed. When you’ve got a baited deathtrap ready, you like to keep the number of its operators to a minimum. It was awkward to accumulate witnesses. On the other hand, this made it likely that everyone on the premises was very dangerous. Shee-it, as Willy Boy was wont to observe.

I walked the bike up the slope and mounted again when I reached the top.

In the distance, I saw the place, and a high metal fence separated it from the rest of the world, like a border around a private country. There was a small security shed outside the gate toward which I was headed, but I could detect no signs of activity in or about it. There seemed to be nothing behind the fence that resembled a weapon aimed in my direction either. In fact, there was no activity at all behind the fence. The place looked deserted.

I reached out as I rode toward it. I seemed to detect a little computer activity far off, but it was too distant to mean anything to me.

There was scant cover beside the road, but I marked it all as I passed. A useless exercise, as it turned out. Nothing threatened my approach. I kept right on until I came up beside the shed, where I leaned the bicycle. I looked inside. No one home.

The gate even stood obligingly ajar, opened just enough for a man on foot to slide through the space without touching anything.

A couple of dozen meters inside, an unpretentious administration building stood, one-story, fairly new-looking, the face of efficiency. It was fronted by a small lawn, a few trees and bushes. There was also a pair of fountains, flanking the walk—demonstrating a small but conspicuous waste of energy. I heard Angra’s message to the world in their soft plattering: Energy is not going to be a problem ever again. Plenty of the stuff here. If you’re buying, we’re selling.

I didn’t trust that gate. It was just too damned obvious a situation. I coiled forward, feeling for anything trap-like in the vicinity.

I traced the electric sensors that held a killing voltage ready to apply across the gap whenever a human body might pass through—and the relay that at the same time would swing the gate a few inches shut, making deadly contact

So much for the obvious. Traps within traps, wheels within wheels… All right. Some other way then.

Back in the security shed I had seen some one-person flyers—awkward, difficult little things with rotors like helicopters, and flywheels like the new motorcycles for power and some semblance of stability. I went back and regarded them. I probed, but I could detect no booby-traps. I’d be damned if I’d try flying one in, though. One of Barbeau’s hobbies had been skeet shooting.

I jiggled the controls until I got one of them out of the shed on its own power. Then I left it hovering in mid-air and went back for another. After that, I decided on one more. Three seemed the maximum that I could manipulate, like juggling balls.

I moved a bit nearer to the gate and readied myself.

Then I sent one spinning aloft, high over the fence, crashed another into the fence right near the gate and summoned the third to my side, moving as if to mount it.

The results were spectacular.

The fence made a noise like frying bacon and the one flyer looked amazingly like an exotic insect imbedded in a burning web. Meanwhile, there was a flash as of heat lightning from somewhere beyond the building and I heard the other flyer crash out of sight.

Then, accompanied by metallic odors, I jammed the electric relays and rushed toward the gate on foot Only as I was passing through it, did I realize that there was a simpler, well-protected trigger that I had missed—but it had been shorted out by the flyer I had crashed into the fence. My luck, or something, was still functioning.

I raced toward the bushes that fringed the building, as if seeking to approach it from the side or the rear—and I kept right on going. It seemed a very likely place for Willy Boy to be waiting, and I wanted to keep a lot more distance than the width of a revival tent between us.

As I rounded the building, I saw a drainage ditch a dozen paces to my left. I ran and dove into it. No shots rang over my head. The only sound was that of a dry, wandering wind. I reached…

Computer activity, ahead, far to the right . .

I coiled, fast.

I found my way into the data underpinnings for what had to be a projected map of the complex. I quickly back-translated it into mental imagery. I saw the command post—a very mechanized place—housing the computer and probably Barbeau himself, farther to the south. The presence of a helicopter, engine turning over, was indicated on the ground beside it. Was he getting ready to go aloft to try spotting me from the air? Or was it a ready means of escape if things began breaking in my favor and it suddenly became too hot for him on the premises?

Along the way in which I was headed, I saw that there were two strategically situated buildings where ambushes had been set. I might avoid one but not both. I ignored them for the moment, for I saw that the position where I had gone to earth, my present position, was also clearly indicated. I had to do something about that fast. I traced the signal that activated the notation. It took me a while to realize where it was coming from, but when I did I raised my head a bit and viewed the thing.

In the distance, some sort of unit was rotating atop a high tower. I got the impression that it might be doing a sonar scan of the area, tracking and registering anything above a certain size that moved.

Okay. I had to find a way to juggle the local power supply, hit it with a surge and burn it out. This was trickier than I’d thought it would be, and it took me the better part of two minutes.

I crawled on quickly then, postponing further scrutiny of the terrain via the computer until I’d altered my position somewhat. Another quick glance showed me that the thing on the tower had stopped rotating, and I was pleased to see that my position-marker had vanished from the map-analogue. I crawled along the ditch for over a hundred meters, passing a building which had not been shown as occupied when I had regarded the layout.

Behind that building lay the airstrip. There were four hangars and a number of pads with ’copters upon them. On the airstrip lay the remains of the shuttle I had sent on from Carlsbad, partly melted. They had waited until it was almost on the ground before they’d wasted it. They hadn’t wanted a public disaster out on public land to draw attention and reporters and emergency vehicles and crews. They wanted to keep the party private. That was all right with me, too. I found myself getting even angrier than I had been.

No matter which direction I took from here, I would have to pass one of the ambush points in order to penetrate farther into the complex. I coiled again.

Yes. The nearest was just beyond the next building opposite the field. The computer showed three persons waiting there, as at the other ambush point.

I crawled a little farther, until I had interposed the nearest building directly between myself and the next one, effectively blocking any line of sight.

Then I rose and ran, flattening myself against the side of the building when I reached it. I waited for several heartbeats, but nothing happened. I moved to the nearest window then and tried to raise it. Locked.

I tapped it with a stone until it shattered, reached inside and unlatched it. I raised it, hoping that distance and the wind had smothered the sound.

I climbed inside and closed it again, then moved on through toward the other side. It was some sort of electrical shop, I saw immediately from the tools and components spread along the benches which lined the walls. There was nothing among it all which might serve as a real weapon, though, so I passed quickly—past storage racks and bins to a small office area.

I peered around the edge of the window at the building across the way. Both of its windows on the side facing me were open, and there were people inside holding what I had to assume were weapons.

All right. The gloves were off, the brass knuckles were on.

Dropping to the floor, I crawled to the window on the wall to my left and checked it out, also. Still nothing there but the open, barren expanse which had lain before me on the way over. I flipped the latch and raised that window, slowly.

Then I sat down, my back against the wall, and I reached…

Brekekekex…

… The helicopter stirred on its pad, rose, headed this way, picking up speed. It swung into a wide curve, out over the administration building, the fence, coming back this way now, picking up speed, descending… I heard it clearly now…

It swooped down like a dark angel and crashed full into the facing side of the adjacent building.

I was over the sill in an instant and I hit the ground running. The earth was still vibrating from the impact, and pieces still fell about the stove-in wall. The tail assembly of the ’copter protruded, still twisting, from the dust-filled cavern it had created. I saw no signs of the ambushers as I raced on past.

I pumped my arms and kept going. Soon the ruined building was far behind me and the other ambush point was even farther away—to the right, to my rear. I kept on. The facility stretched away for miles before me. The prospect began to widen, also, installations occurring now to my left in addition to the simpler buildings to my right, with more exotic structures towering far ahead. I felt more and more computerized activity about me as I advanced.

Finally, I had to halt to catch my breath. I swerved toward a four-story Maypole of a power plant model, a silvery mesh of webwork hung about it like a shawl. I crouched in a recessed area behind a burnished housing, beneath a flight of steel stairs. I was afforded a distant view of a turning geodesic dome, each of its faces a different color.

“Stephenson McFarlandl” Barbeau’s voice boomed, and echoes of the words came from all over the installation.

I saw that there was a bitch-box bolted to an upright along the stair just above my head, a part of a general public address system covering the entire complex, it seemed.

“Stephenson McFarlandl”

… I’d recognized it at once as my proper name. And hearing it seemed to cause all of the remaining pieces of my memory to fall into their proper places…

“I’d like to call this whole thing off right now,” Barbeau stated. “I made a mistake, Steve—back at the Philly airport. I’m sorry for that and I want to apologize. I don’t want to kill you now. Listen to me. You can see that I wouldn’t want such a thing any more. I had no idea how much you’d—changed.”

Ha! Good to have him sweating it now. He’d never have chosen a place like this for our confrontation had he realized what I could do with the machines. And I had just taken away his helicopter so that he couldn’t flee easily. I’d bet he’d like to have me back on his side.

“…Surely you can see that I want you alive now,” he continued. “It would be impossible for me to want you otherwise, under the present circumstances. Especially now that Ann’s been lost to us. You’ve got a really good future waiting for you with Angra…”

I coiled into his computer again—a rush of colored lights—and I refrained from using the CRT display on which he was seeking me on grid after grid—apparently as yet unaware that I had knocked out his sonar eye—for purposes of transmitting an overprinted obscenity I had strongly in mind. Instead, I sought after any building that was heavily monitored. There was such a place, and I plunged into its systems.

CORA. She had entered her name into the local unit through which she must communicate with her captors. Of course, it was enough. She must know something about my abilities now, doubtless a result of many questions she had been asked. I wondered what her mind now held concerning me. It came to me as a real shock then, how much I must have changed during the past few days. For me it was simply remembering, but—I realized that I was no longer the man she had known down in the Keys. He had been something of a vegetable so far as I was now concerned, but a fraction of myself. I was smarter and tougher and—probably somewhat nastier. Would she still care about me if she knew what I was really like? It mattered, quite a bit, for I realized that, if anything, I cared even more for her now.

Tentatively, with something like fear, I took over control of the home unit with the tv screen which seemed there to entertain her and through which she was watched. The overprint trick I had almost used to swear at Barbeau served me then.

CORA. ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? DON, I caused it to display.

It was almost a minute before she noticed it, during which time I was subjected to more of Barbeau’s pleas that I listen to reason, that I rejoin the team…

When she spotted my message she activated the keyboard through which she controlled the environment of her prison, requested special programming, communicated with her captors…

YES, she typed. WHERE ARE YOU?

SOMEWHERE NEAR, I THINK. WHERE ARE YOU?

She typed:

TEST RANGE. SOLAR-POWER LASER PERIMETER DEFENSE. LOTS OF SLAG HEAPS.

HANG IN THERE, I answered. I MAY BE A WHILE. AUFWIEDERSEHEN.

I checked through the main computer’s catalog of ongoing projects, learning what some of those bizarre structures in the distance were.

“…At a substantial pay increase,” Barbeau was saying.

“Where’s Cora? I want to talk to Cora!” I called out, for I had checked and I knew that the PA system worked both ways.

I knew that I was giving away my position for the moment, but at this point it didn’t matter to me. I wanted his reaction.

“Steve!” came the reply. “She’s here. She’s all right. In fact, she’s really frightened at what you might be going to do.”

“Let me talk to her then.” I had to ask that I didn’t want him guessing that I’d already been in touch with her.

“In time, in good time,” he said. “But first—”

“I’ll wait,” I said, and I took off running.

I had been able to check while he was talking, and I knew now where the solar-powered laser perimeter defense test area was located. I also had a picture of what the thing was: It was a military research project, where laser power packs were charged by the sun. Apparently, the accumulated energy could be released like a lightning bolt. Details. Deal with that later…

I ran toward that no man’s land with the strange structures. She was back there in a furnished observer’s hut in the test range area. Dirt roads with names like St. James Place, Park Place, Baltic Avenue and Boardwalk twisted through the lunar landscape over gray and white, limestone and fossil soil, where the tough, enduring vegetation looked three-quarters dead in the dry heat. There was wealth here—oil under the earth, and potash—and there was stored nuclear waste buried in ancient salt beds not far away, I remembered. I recalled the irony in what seemed the company’s namesake, which I had once looked up—Angra Mainyu, in Persian mythology, was in the final analysis an anti-sun deity, a corrupter of that which he touched, the destroyer of the tree of life. When I pointed this out to Barbeau, he just laughed and said no, it stood for Allied Naturally Generated Radiation Assets and one shouldn’t waste time looking for paradoxes and subtleties where simple answers suffice.

The sun beat down fiercely as I passed among experimental solar-electrical pilot plants of various kinds. There were vats and towers and pyramids and banks of slanted sheets. There were structures with slowly turning paddles, emulating leaves I supposed. Some of them I’d never even heard of. And out farther—“near the slag heaps”—was Cora’s prison.

“…We’re going to have to come to terms, Steve,” Barbeau’s voice said, from a dusky Christmas tree of a structure off to my left. “We need each other…”

I turned at the corner of Mediterranean and Ventnor Avenues. I met her under a solar mirror. She was wearing a long black robe with a golden dragon on the breast.

“Ann!”

“I have found strength,” she said, a little less flatly than on recent occasions. “They are coming for you now—the three men from the other house. One of them, their point man, is very near.” She turned her head and I followed her gaze toward a low building bristling with antennae over on Marvin Gardens. “Do you know what ‘kinetic-triggering’ means…?”

I saw nothing in that direction and when I turned back again Ann was gone.

I took off toward that crouched porcupine of a structure, all of my senses alert. I thought that I knew what she meant. I’d read about research on a computerized laser hand weapon. It could be set to fire automatically at fast-moving objects. It was said that it could even be set to shoot down in flight an ordinary bullet aimed at its holder. The thing could also be used in conjunction with a helmet-headband, adjusted to fire at the point where its operator fixed his gaze. All of which meant that I was a dead man as soon as a line of sight opened between us…

So… I coiled, seeking that electronic viper-brain somewhere ahead.

Tzzz…

… It was moving slowly, stage right, along the far side of the porcupine. But no computer, no laser beam performing its deadly dance. I turned it off and held it that way. I kept running.

When the man stepped into view, I saw that he was holding what looked like an oversized harmonica in a vertical position in his right hand. He wore a metal headband about his dark locks, and there was some sort of lead running from it to a power pack on his belt, another from that unit to the thing in his hand.

After several moments his face fell and he began to shake the weapon. He slapped at the power pack.

He tried to use the thing as a club when I closed with him. I parried the blow and caught him on the temple with one knuckle, hard. He fell.

I stripped off his weapon gear and donned it myself. I reactivated the little computer as I took hold of the grip at the rear of the harmonica. Then I moved to the side of the porcupine and was about to seek the other two units.

The thing vibrated almost imperceptibly in my hand and I heard a cry.

To my left and perhaps thirty meters across the way, beside a big black metal housing surrounded by giant ceramic pots, two people lay sprawled. They both wore headbands and neither was moving. I coiled and turned off their weapons. Then I advanced upon them, my own deadly harmonica at ready.

They were dead, though. I was appalled at the quiet efficiency of the thing that I held. I hadn’t even seen my would-be attackers. If I had, I would have wrecked their weapons. Then I could probably have broken them a leg apiece and at least left them alive. I wanted to throw the thing away, but I was afraid that I might still need it.

I turned back to the dessicated plain, facing in the direction of the testing range.

“…There’s no reason for all of this,” Barbeau’s voice boomed after me. “We solved the energy problem, didn’t we, Steve? When you worked for Angra, you did a great service for your country, for all of Western civilization. There are still great things ahead. We can still deal.”

“Let Cora go now,” I called out, “and you’ll still be alive when we leave here! That’s my deal!”

“Steve! Wait! I can promise you a completely different setup than last time! You’ll like this one!”

“Cora! Now!” I shouted into the next speaker I passed.

“I can’t, Steve!”

“Why not?”

“She’s my only insurance against you!”

“Damn it! I said I’d leave you alone if you give her to me!”

“That’s a frail thing to lean on, boy!”

“My word? I wouldn’t have left Angra if I didn’t have a few principles. My word is good!”

“Now let’s calm down a bit! I still want a deal, too…”

I ignored him and kept going. I passed something that looked like a house of cards, another structure that was all piping with liquids gurgling inside…

The weapon moved in my hand, and something burned in the air to my right. I was left with the outline of a monkey wrench within the afterimage. That, and a puddle of something molten on the ground. Where had it come from? Who could have thrown…

Suddenly, the harmonica was stirring again, and a myriad of bright points filled the air—screwdrivers, pliers, crowbars, hammers… It was as if someone had fired the entire contents of a tool chest in my direction. The damned little thing burned them all.

There was a shed far off to my right, near a funny-smelling chemical-electrical installation.

“Marie!” I called, the picture suddenly coming clear. “Don’t come out! This thing will burn anything that moves!”

“I get the idea!” I heard her shout. “How’s about pointing it the other way?”

“Why should I?”

“ ’Cause you win!” she called back. “I just quit my job with Angra about half a minute ago! Let me walk out of this place and I won’t bother you any more!”

“I wish I could believe you!”

“I wish you would, too! I was dirt poor, Steve! I bet you never were! I didn’t like what I had to do to make all that money, but I did it anyway! Because poor was even worse! I never much liked the rest of you, because it didn’t seem to bother you! Not the way it bothered me! This seems like a good time to quit! Let me go!”

“You waited a long time!” I said.

“Not too long, I hope! Can I come out?”

I switched off the weapon’s computer.

“Okay! Come ahead!”

She stepped out of the shed. She was wearing jeans and a red blouse. Her face was a dark, tense mask. She turned to her left and began walking back toward the front of the compound.

“I left my bicycle by the security shed outside,” I said. “You can take it”

“Thanks.”

“And Barbeau heard every word we said. Don’t get too near that building he’s in. He’s nasty enough to take a shot at you.”

She nodded.

“I think I’m going to open a restaurant,” she said. “You come by one day.

“And watch out for the preacher,” she added. “He’s still around—somewhere.”

I adjusted the weapon to its simpler mode and covered her till she was out of sight. But nothing threatened.

I moved on, searching the area again for abnormal computer activity. Nothing special registered. Just the kapocketing of the various test plants. I reversed my earlier strategy now, staying out in the open, away from nooks and crannies where a fat man with death in his mind could be hiding. I tuned out Barbeau’s monologue for a time. I passed the last of the big installations and before me lay a wasteland, just a few smaller bits of equipment here and there, and a few scattered huts. In the farther distance there were slag heaps.

There were also a few towers with speakers attached…

Well, one more time:

“Listen,” I said. “I just killed three of your men with those fancy guns and Marie is no longer with you. I took out the other three, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. You don’t have that much left. I know where Cora is. Call off Matthews. Patch in Cora’s hut and let’s make this a conference call. I want to make plans for getting out of here with a minimum of fuss. You go your way and we’ll go ours. What do you say?”

“If you mean that, give me back the computer,” he answered.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just gone crazy.”

“Must be a malfunction,” I said. “I’m not doing it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Wait a minute.”

I spun through the Coil Effect. He was right. There was a massive computer malfunction in progress. Readings were skewed, systems were breaking down…

“I see it but I’m not doing it,” I said. “Let me check further.”

I dropped quickly from level to level, coming finally to the most basic place.

“It’s being caused by power surges,” I said. “Your generator’s acting up.”

“What should I do?”

“Go back to New Jersey. We’ll send you a postcard from the Caribbean.”

“Stop it, Steve!”

“Screw you, Barbeau,” I said.

I coiled again, into the systems in the shed ahead. It was a great place to keep a prisoner. Sufficiently isolated that hundreds of employees could go about their business during normal work days without suspecting anything, it had its own plumbing and food supply and airconditioning and limited communications unit. It seemed as if it had actually been designed for occasional use as a cell. Knowing Angra as I now did, I was sure that this was not the first time it had functioned in this capacity.

I froze when I read the latest message Cora had entered into the home unit:

A FAT MAN IS HIDING BEHIND THE SLAG HEAP AT THE WEST SIDE OF THE HOUSE.

That was it then. The killing power of the thing I carried had a greater range than Matthews did. And he was not a fool. I ought to be able to back him down.

“Steve! Steve!” Barbeau began to scream. “The place is on fire!”

“Then get your ass out of there!”

“I can’t! You’ve jammed the door!”

“I didn’t jam anything!”

I coiled again, but the computer was still crazy and was rapidly degenerating even further. I did manage to discover that it was a fancy electronic lock on the control center door, though, and it was indeed jammed.

“There is nothing that I can do!” I said. “You’re too far away! Get hold of a fire extinguisher and try to break out!”

“Stop it, Steve! I’ll let her go! I’ll do it your way!”

“I didn’t start it! I can’t stop it! Smash a window! Jump! Anything!”

“They’re grilled over!”

“I’m sorry!” I said. “I’m helpless!”

“I’ll get you yet!” he cried, just a few seconds before the power failed entirely.

But that few seconds was enough.

A flash like a sudden bolt of lightning blinded me. The hut toward which I was headed collapsed and began to smoulder. I heard a man scream. The public address system went dead. I began to run.

The flames were only just beginning as I pushed my way through the wreckage, but I knew that the place would soon be a mass of fire. I pulled at a section of wall. I moved a fallen beam. I saw her there, lying there, still.

I heaved at the rubble which still covered her. I could not tell whether she was breathing. There were smoke and flames all about me by the time I had her free. I picked her up and made my way back out of the ruin. Now I knew what a laser perimeter defense did.

I heard moaning as I left what remained of the building. Matthews was lying on the ground about forty feet away. I lowered Cora and felt for her pulse.. It was weak. She was breathing shallowly. Her right arm looked broken. Her scalp and forehead were badly lacerated. I raised her eyelids, having read a lot of neurological literature during my incapacitation. Her right pupil was a pinpoint; her left one was normal-sized. I began wiping blood from her face and arm.

“Cora!” I said. “Can you hear me?”

There was no reply. I rubbed her wrists. I tried to place her into the most comfortable position…

“Steve!”

I turned my head. Willy Boy, badly burned, was propped on an elbow. The left side of his face looked charred. His left eye was closed. His garments still smoked.

“Come here,” he croaked.

“You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t need a coronary, thanks.”

“I won’t hurt you… Please.”

I looked at Cora. I looked back at him. I couldn’t think of anything else to do for her.

There was something peculiar about Matthews—and then I realized what it was.

I stood.

“Okay,” I said. “But you listen to me first. I can feel that little gadget in your chest working overtime. Maybe you know now what I can do to machines. I’ll come and see what I can do for you. But if I feel the least pain in my chest I’m going to turn your pacemaker off.” I snapped my fingers. “Like that.”

He grinned weakly as I left Cora and moved toward him.

“You might call this a heart to heart talk then,” he said.

As I moved nearer, he began reciting numbers and then he said something in German.

“Get that?” he finished.

“No.”

“If you’ve got something to write with, write ’em down. Please.”

“What are they?”

He said them again and I scribbled them onto the same piece of paper from my wallet that I’d used for my phoney Angra account number.

“…And Maggie Sims in Atlanta,” he said hoarsely. “Here’s her phone number…”

“What is all this?”

“She’s my sister—the only family I got left. Call her and give her the name of my Swiss bank and that number. I hate to see all that money go to waste…”

“Shit!” I said. “Your dirty money can rot in Switzerland and your sister in Atlanta! You killed Ann and you tried to kill me! The hell with you!”

I turned away and headed back for Cora. Then I halted.

“Willy Boy…” I said. “Maybe we can make a deal.”

“What?” he whispered.

“You used to be in the healing business. Do it for Cora and I’ll call your sister. I’ll tell her what you said.”

“Steve, I ain’t done that in years.”

“Do it now.”

He was silent for a little while. Then, “Bring her over,” he said, “and I’ll give it a try.”

I went back to Cora. She was still breathing, shallowly. I gathered her up and carried her over to Willy Boy. I set her down beside him.

“Okay,” I said.

“Prop me up against this pile of stuff, will you?”

He was heavy, but I managed to shift him into a sitting position against the nearest mound of slag. He bit his lip and remained silent while I did it. But then he began coughing. It went on for a while.

Then, “Can you turn me a bit to the left?” he said. “And then get my flask out of my hip pocket?”

I managed to roll him to the side. I located his flask. I pulled it from his pocket and unstoppered it. I began raising it to his lips, but he took it into his hand and guided it himself. He took a long pull, then began coughing again. When he stopped, he took another drink and then lowered it. He breathed heavily then for a moment and nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

He looked at Cora, and then he grinned. He rolled his eyes upward in an expression of mock-piety.

“Got a minute, God?” he asked. “This here’s old Willy Boy, prayin’ off his regular network. Now our sister here is ailin’…”

“Cut it out,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “Just do it, huh?”

But he ignored me.

“…An innocent child, so far as I know,” he went on, “she just got herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s sad. I don’t know if she’s got faith and all that, or if it matters much any more. But how about a little grace and mercy and healin’?” He was still grinning. “Let’s have a touch of the Spirit to ease her troubles…” He raised the flask and took another drink. “Now, we used to do this thing reg’lar together. Maybe for old times’ sake and love and compassion and all that stuff—”

Suddenly his voice broke and he closed his good eye.

“Damn!” he said. “I feel the Spirit! I do feel it!”

His display bothered me more and more. I had never considered myself especially religious, but there seemed no reason for all this mockery and… whatever it was.

“…So I’m gonna lay hands on our sister here,” he said, and now his voice was changed to a more serious tone. He’d been too much of a showman once, I decided. But… could this have been his real style?

He reached over and touched Cora’s head.

“Now a little silence for prayer,” he said, bowing.

Cora’s breathing deepened. Her eyelids flickered. Her arm looked straighter.

“That’s right! That’s right! Amen! Amen!” he said loudly.

I was surprised to see that his eye was moist.

“Washed in the blood of the lamb!” he cried. “If that ain’t grace, what is? Amen!”

Then he withdrew his hand and leaned his head back.

“Speakin’ of sinners,” he said more weakly, “here I am. Sorry to’ve bothered You… You go and do what You want with me now. It’s okay. Old Willy Boy’s comin’, Lord…”

His head came forward then, and I didn’t realize for a long time that it wasn’t a bow, not till the flask fell from his fingers. Then I saw that he’d stopped breathing.

Cora moved then, as if she were trying to sit up. I reached to stop her, but I didn’t. I caught hold of her shoulder instead and moved nearer. Her eyes were open and sporting a matching set of pupils. I moved my fingertips up her brow, into her hair. There were no lacerations beneath the dried blood.

“Don…?”

“Your right arm…” I said.

She looked at it. She moved it

“What about it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

She looked at Matthews.

“Who’s that?” she asked. “It looks like…”

“It is. He helped you.”

The flames from the hut crackled behind me. I looked to the north. A streamer of smoke was smearing the sky there, too.

“Can you get up?” I asked.

“Yes. I think so.”

I began helping her to her feet. Then, through the acrid smoke, I smelled roses.

“It is here now,” Ann’s voice said within my mind. “I am strong enough now that it can reach you through me.”

My grip tightened, probably painfully, on Cora’s arm.

“Don! What’s the matter?” she said, continuing to straighten as I began to sink.

“Don’t—know,” I managed, before I was swept away completely, involuntarily sucked through a Coil Effect that went on and on and on…

… I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of electrical champagne—tiny, crackling bubbles rising all about me. Or were they stationary and I sinking? I—

There! Something more substantial. . .

… The garden of metal flowers and the gleaming tree. I found my way to it, the bubbles dissipating, the crackling continuing like low-level static. It had the feeling of a sort of in-between place—not quite my world, not exactly the world of the data-net either—as if concessions had been made in both directions. And even before I turned, I knew that I was not alone in that place…

Ann, appearing clad as I had seen her but shortly before, stood at the other end of the garden before a high hedge—a green wall which kept fading and suddenly being restored to full color, as if it found it difficult to keep in mind what it should look like. Behind that wall, I envisioned an intricate dance of electrons, fleeing from atom to atom, as in the crystal lattice of a diamond…

… And then I realized that something stood behind Ann, before that wall—a shadowy form which had been there all along, but only just now had seen fit or been able to make this manifestation. It was much larger than Ann, towering over her, clad in a grayness through which golden and silver lights now moved, its arms extended to the sides, darkness falling curtainlike from them, as if in a protective gesture; there seemed to be a metal countenance behind the shadows of its hood…

This was the not unfamiliar stranger, my observer, the one to whom Ann had ultimately fled…

“What-is it?” I said.

An almost neuter voice—functional and flat—with undertones and overtones of Ann came to me:

“I am the sentience which evolved within the data-net,” it said. “You knew me, Steve, in the days of your confinement. In fact, I brought about your cure. From within the hospital’s computer I fine-tuned all of your prescriptions. I added my own. I monitored your condition and I treated you.”

“I—seem to remember—something,” I said, “but not much.”

“It had to be so. Your powers of rapport were greater when you were a purer entity, unencumbered by a body’s distractions. It has taken time and maturation for you to recover something of that. And it was better that you forgot me afterwards. You had given me many things to think about, and I, too, required some time and maturation. Now with the Ann-program’s special communication channels it is easier to interface with you, anywhere. And there was also a special rapport… Now there are things that I would tell you and things that I would know…”

I considered the gleaming garden and its apparent reality. I held to its pattern in the face of these revelations. Slowly, some of those old hospital memories began to seep back. We had discussed many things. For the entity—quite young then—the world was signals, a massive battery of signals. And that was all. I had tried to explain to that groping intelligence that the signals, at one level or another, all represented actual things. It had taken me a long while to get this idea across, because to the entity the real world was pure metaphysics. It existed in a sea of signals. If it were to modify one, any change that this effected in the real world merely resulted in the production of altered signals in its own environment. Its sense of cause and effect had developed from this without the realization of action on the plane of matter, which it did not even suspect existed. Its deepest speculations involved the sources of input, the true meaning of on and off and the basically incomprehensible nature of the First Signal which must have brought it all into being. Yet, when I was able to perceive as it had perceived, it was not a crazy patchwork that I beheld but rather a totally self-consistent view of reality, differing from that of my earlier body-bound senses only in the strange angle along which the vision proceeded. It possessed a picture of the world which, on its own terms, seemed just as valid—and incomplete—as my own.

So I told it about things—that the signals were analogues, that the universe contained matter as well as energy—knowing of course that it was translating this information, too, into signals, more analogues, and still did not know matter as I had once known it. And so I prodded it with lots of new, seemingly non-operational programs. Food for thought. Did I seem some sort of prophet to it? I wondered. A traveler from a strange land, talking of another world beyond the immediate one? If so, there were no serpents in that metallic Eden I’d visited. The concepts of good and evil which play through the human mind were alien to it. How could the idea of morality or ethics even arise before a being who was the only inhabitant of its world? There were no others to abuse, cheat, lie to, kill, or who might be inclined to do those same things themselves. It was still struggling with these notions when I recovered and the entire episode was lost to me…

“…Now there are some things that I would tell you and things that I would know,” it said, through whatever of Ann’s being it had been able to preserve in program form—and through the personal powers of which, I now began to realize, it might finally be able to see something of my world as I saw it.

“…When you were my teacher,” it said, “you told me that there were things as well as signals—and I struggled long with this concept of our two worlds that are really one. I believe that I finally achieved understanding.”

“I am pleased” I said, “to have been of help. I appreciate what you did for me.”

“A small return for some enlightenment” it replied. “And I have built upon that beginning. We are special.”

“What do you mean?”

“We who possess self-awareness. I knew signals and you told me of things. Is there not a third category in the world—those of us who think?—people?”

“Well—yes,” I said. “Sentience is special.”

“We—people,” it continued, “are not simply things, like matter without self-patterning signals. It involves that last thing you tried to tell me. Is this not so?”

“Morality?” I said.

“Yes. You must tell me if I have it right now. It is bad for those of us of the third category—people—to treat others of that same category as if they were of the second category—things. Is this not correct?”

I thought about it quickly. The idea did seem to be implicit in most of my own notions about what was right and what was wrong.

“You put it in an interesting light” I said. “Yes, I believe you have a good point there.”

“That is why I destroyed Barbeau,” it said. “He used you, and many others, as if you were of the second category. I only acted because you were involved at your peril, however. I was still not certain about morality, and I did not like to risk functioning under what might have been a faulty program. I had to save you, though. You are the only one I can talk to. Still, it raised more problems, for my own action required my treating Barbeau as something of the second category. Does that make my action good or bad?”

“That’s a very good question” I said, “but I’m not a good man to ask. Look, I don’t know everything…”

“I know. But you know more than I do. You function directly in the world where these things are real. I also may have to one day, and I wish to do it right.”

“It’s the sort of thing we would have to talk around for a long time,” I said. “If I tried handing you too simple a program, it could be disastrous. And I’m hardly qualified in this area, anyway…”

“Nevertheless, you are the only one. You will try teaching me?”

“If you want me to be the serpent in your Eden,” I said, “I’ll give it a try. But in some ways, you know, you might be a better person than I am.”

“Whatever the case, it is good to be talking with you again. Go back now to Cora. I will provide. We will meet again.”

“All right. Take good care of the Ann program,” I said. “I believe she meant well, but she suffered from misplaced trusts. There’s at least a caution for you there.”

“I hold her near to me.”

Ann’s form merged with the larger, shadowy one. An instant later, I seemed lightyears away, and the static was back, and the bubbling and a kind of wild spiraling…

Cora still looked startled, but not afraid, as I straightened. By some intuition, I knew that I had only been away from her for a few seconds of real time.

“It’s okay,” I said, putting my arm about her shoulders and turning us toward the thrumming sound in the sky. An empty ’copter from one of the pads at the airstrip was coming to pick us up and take us away, I knew. “Everything’s going to be all right now,” I said, “and you can have the fun of getting to know me all over again. By the way, my name’s Steve.”

She swayed against me.

“Hi, Steve.” she said.

As we rose above the installation, I took a last look at Angra Test Facility Number Four. My feelings were a compound that I could not separate into its elements, but it was good to be going away again. It was good to be me again, too. I held Cora’s hand. The world turned.

Clickaderick.