The Mind Pool

Chapter 35

Night in the Gallimaufries had been dark, but there were always at least a few lights. And there was always plenty of noise — usually too much. Nothing in Chan’s experience had prepared him for the close, silent and enveloping darkness of Travancore’s abyssal forest.

Leah’s voice had spoken to him, and then a second later it was gone. Its reality drained away into anechoic blackness. Chan longed desperately for another word, for a single spark of light.

Finally the gentle voice came again, near enough to reach out and touch. “Chan?”

“Who are you — what are you?” Chan’s voice cracked, a thin reedy voice that seemed to come from beyond his body.

“I am Leah.”

“You cannot be.”

“And I am also not-Leah. There is something that cannot be explained. It must be experienced. Relax. Lie quiet. Do not struggle.”

There was a steady rustling, as of Tinker’s wings, just inches away from Chan. Something touched his arm, then moved along his chest. He tensed, and tried to writhe away from it.

“Don’t be afraid.” The words were breathed close to his face. He felt warmth on his cheek and his neck. The scent in his nostrils was achingly familiar, forever-familiar: Leah.

Something warm and soft was placed on his stomach.

His clothing was loosened, cut away, eased from his unprotected body.

Chan struggled against his bonds. It would do no good to cry out. If any or the other team members had been able to help him they would already be calling to him, asking where he was. The forest around him was as still as the grave.

His clothing had been taken, leaving him naked and defenseless. Another touch came on his chest, different but equally soft. It moved lower. There was a strange little laugh in the darkness above him.

Chan’s chest felt a warm breath, and soft lips. Gentle fingertips were drifting gently across his midriff and wandering slowly down his abdomen. The caresses became more intimate. Minutes ago Chan had been terrified and feverish to the bone. It seemed impossible that in these circumstances he could become physically aroused, no matter what the stimulus. But it was happening. The scent of Leah was like a drug, lifting him away from his own body.

In the darkness the succubus above him slid close. Chan felt warm flesh pressing on him. He could not move, to resist or to encourage the embrace. The fragrance in the air was stronger, mingled now with an unfamiliar musk. As he became more aroused he felt an urgent breath along his neck, and an increased tension in the body that moved above him.

“Relax,” whispered Leah’s voice. “This is as it should be. Don’t try to resist. Let yourself flow.”

Beyond his control, Chan s body was moving along its own road, drawn by the action of the partner silent above him. She moved more strongly, lifting him irresistibly towards a climax. Chan shivered and shuddered, straining upward to match the unseen pressure.

The critical moment was nearing. Nearer. It came, and his partner groaned, flexed hard against him, and cried, “NOW!”

There was a roar in the darkness, a whirr of invisible wings. Chan, in the moment of most intense ecstasy, was buried under a pressing clutch of tiny bodies. They swarmed over him, covered his eyes and ears, blocked his mouth and nose. Chan, still straining upward in climax, could not breathe.

He was choking.

He writhed, uselessly. The agony of asphyxiation was deep in his chest. He shuddered to draw a last breath, knowing that he was dying, dying … dying on Travancore.

And in that moment he could breathe again — breathe, even though his nose and mouth were still covered.

He could see, but not through his eyes.

He could hear, but not with his ears.

Chan had left his body, sucked away into a no-man’s-land of non-identity. With one set of ears he listened to the ultrasonic song of jungle creatures, sending their far-off calls at frequencies far beyond human senses. With one set of eyes he studied the microwave emissions from the forest floor, tracing the faint dark swaths that told of water beneath the surface. With other eyes he saw the bright thermal outline of two coupled humans, the woman kneeling astride the man. He was surrounding them, feeling them from every side, their bodies warm to his antennae. He was filled with multiple sensations. The soft forest floor on his back, the legs gripping tight around his thighs, the damp carpet of mold under his (her?) knees, the exciting touch of a body (Chan’s body!) pressing up against her. Closeness. Warmth of touching.

“YOU ARE WITH US,” said the same soft voice. But now it was inside him. “YOU CAN UNDERSTAND, DO NOT LISTEN. FEEL FOR US.”

The world went silent. For a few moments Chan felt an intolerable level of input. He was drowning in a torrent of emotions and memories. Then the data stream steadied, the pattern cleared. He found himself swimming deep in the middle of a single consciousness, like a fish in a clear, cold stream. Within that stream, and part of it, were the other swimmers. He could sense them: The cool, observant Angel, smiling at him, allowing him for the first time to see the form of the mysterious Singer within (but it was not the Angel that Chan knew). The Tinker, the master-linkage, good-natured and tolerant conduit to serve the whole group, surrounding them all like a warmer current (but it was not Shikari, the Tinker that Chan knew). The great, benign form of a Pipe-Rilla, crouched close enough to arch above both Chan and Leah. The love and kindness shone out from her (but she was not S’greela, the Pipe-Rilla that Chan knew).

And there was Leah.

It was Leah. No matter what illusion the Morgan Construct might be able to create within a human mind, Chan was sure that it could not do this. The consciousness touching him was filled with memories that only he and Leah shared. She was deep inside him, even though he could see her, still sitting astride his body and smiling down at him. She was naked, and her skin glowed — with a color that Chan had never seen before. He realized that he was seeing her through the Angel’s thermal infrared sensor.

Tinker components were fluttering at his bonds, loosening them. Leah squatted back on her haunches, took Chan’s hands, and helped him to sit up. She was smiling at him. As she moved close and kissed him on the mouth he felt a new stirring of multiple pleasures — in himself, in her, and in the other three members of the group.

She put her arms around him, and they hugged each other close.

“They told us you were dead,” he murmured. “They said that you met the Construct, and it destroyed you. We believed them, believed that Nimrod had killed all of you. I should have had more faith. You killed Nimrod.”

NIMROD? The feeling through Chan’s body was like an intense electric shock, yet its current was bright laughter, direct in his mind, CHAN, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. NIMROD COULD NOT KILL US. WE COULD NOT KILL NIMROD. CHAN, WE ARE NIMROD.

No more words, but in their place images and raw information, an intense, mind-stretching torrent. WE MET THE CONSTRUCT. WE WERE AFRAID. AND WE CHANGED. SEE THIS (FEEL this, KNOW this). Everything at once, an explosion of parallel data inputs bursting inside Chan’s head …

IMAGE: …the Alpha Team is frozen in position. Above them, floating down with all weapons ports open, the Morgan Construct.

Too late to flee.

This is the moment for Ishmael the Tinker to fall apart in independent components, for Angel to stand useless and immobilized, for S’glya to seek futile escape in the bounding leaps of a terrified Pipe-Rilla.

The group coalesces…

FUSION: …every component of Ishmael flies to a new position, embedding Leah, S’glya and the Angel within the Tinker’s extended body. After a split-second of chaos, combination takes place. Instead of a pursuit team of individual members, a single mentality exists…

IMAGE: …the Morgan Construct is ready to obliterate everything. Weapons ports are glowing with impending energy release, while the air shimmers with electromagnetic fields. Ionization forms a violet-blue nimbus around the broad head and latticed wings…

EVALUATION: …the Mentality formulates and reviews a score of options. It holds within it the structure of the Morgan Construct, together with all the separate and combined capabilities of the pursuit team…

ACTION: …the option is selected. A tone, loud and pure, emerges from the communications box on the Angel’s midsection. At the same time a second note, precisely placed in pitch, phase, and volume, comes as an octaves-higher scream from S’glya, and a higher overtone from individual Tinker components.

The Morgan Construct pauses. A fraction of a second later, its wing panels begin to vibrate.

COMMENT: …CONSTRUCT DESIGN DEFECT. RESONANCE POTENTIAL IN INORGANIC CONTROL CIRCUITS. VULNERABILITY TO ACOUSTIC/ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING. NO SAFETY LEVEL ESTABLISHED. OVERLOAD AND SHUTDOWN…

IMAGE: …the Construct begins to shake. A crackling sound from the body cavity, a violent series of random jerks. The latticed wings twist. (OVERLOAD) A final shudder. The Constructs frame locks to a fixed position, floats in silence to the forest floor. A dozen Tinker components fly across and enter the body cavity…

COMMENT: …NO PERMANENT DAMAGE. IMMOBILIZED FOR STUDY OF CONSTRUCT MENTAL PROCESSES AND PATHOLOGY.

IMAGE: …beside the quiet form of the Morgan Construct, the pursuit team members huddle. The whole group lies motionless in the dark forest depths, every external sensory input damped to lowest levels…

COMMENT: …THE TIME OF WONDER, THE TIME FOR INTROSPECTION. SO WE BECAME NIMROD, SO WE ARE NIMROD. NO MORE CAN BE GIVEN, TO ONE WHO IS NOT YET A POOLED MIND. FAREWELL.

Chan lay supine on damp leaf mold. Knowledge of his surroundings bled back into his mind. It had been as intense as a bolt of lightning, and as short-lived. He had abandoned his own body for hours, yet no time had passed. He and Leah still held each other close, her lips still brushed his cheek.

He took his first breath in an eon, lifted his head, and stared around him. Nothing. The forest was dark as ever. Only a trace of remembered after-image seen through the Angel’s sensors told him where the other team members had been. He fancied a brief whirring of tiny wings, twenty feet away, then he and Leah were alone.

Chan allowed his head to fall back to the damp, soft cushion of leaves. His brain was jellied and contused, with the familiar agony of a bad session on the Stimulator. It was better to lie in silence, to feel but not to think. Thinking was pain.

“Chan.” It was Leah’s calm voice again, wakening him, whispering in his ear. “Chan, it was hard on you, but we knew no other way. You resisted fusion. The only way that we knew was to take you by force, when emotion was strongest and you were unguarded. We are sorry it had to happen that way.”

Chan said nothing. “We are sorry,” said Leah again. “Here is a promise: It will never happen that way again. It was not done to use you, only to bring you quickly to union.”

“Who are you?” Chan did not think he had spoken those words, but the body that lay alongside his, touching now from breast to thighs, jerked in reaction.

“You know who I am.” The voice in the darkness was puzzled. “I am Leah.”

“No. Not any more. You are Nimrod. What happened to the Leah that I knew?”

“Ah.” A sharp, indrawn breath of comprehension. “Nimrod, yes. But truly, I am still Leah, no less than I ever was. I am more, because I am part of Nimrod also.”

“My Leah has gone.”

“Gone? Rubbish!” Leah’s voice lost its dreamy, far-off tone. “What are you talking about, gone? I’m right here, the same as I always was. She slapped her hand hard on his bare chest, making him start at the unexpected blow.

“Who do you think did that to you, if I’ve gone?” she went on. She lifted herself up and leaned over him, her sharp elbow digging into his shoulder. “If you think that I’m some sort of illusion, or just a part of something else, then you’re wrong — dead wrong. I m still me. I still think, I still breathe, I still laugh, and I still love. Get that into your thick skull, Chan Dalton.” She slapped his chest again, harder than ever. “That’s me doing that to you, not Nimrod. When I first spoke to you today, that was me. When we made love, that was me. If you don’t understand that, you’ve got rocks in your head instead of brains. You were merged, and now you’re not. Do you feel any less, because we were fused?”

Chan shook his head slowly in the darkness. It was Leah all right, beating up on him, just like in the old days when he had been bad. “I don’t feel less. I feel different.”

“Different, and more.” Leah was not leaning over him any more. He knew that she was standing up. “Remember this, Chan. I’m still all that I ever was. I love you as much now as I did back in the Gallimaufries, when you were all I had, and I was all that you had. We have both changed since then, and you have changed more than I have. But remember one thing, when the time comes for you: Humans are the most difficult element. We form the pacing tactor for everything. So when it happens, relax. Thanks to what happened here, you’re halfway along the road.”

“The road to what?”

“You’ll see. Very soon.” She bent over, to give him a final soft kiss on the cheek. “It was all necessary, and it was wonderful, too. Better than I’d ever dreamed it might be.”

Chan heard light footsteps, running away across the soft carpet of Travancore’s surface. As he sat up, a faint light came bobbing towards him, weaving its way through the high cover of the creepers. It was S’greela, moving rapidly with the tubby form of Angel tucked under two mid-limbs. The dark nimbus of Shikari breezed along close behind.

“You are safe?” said S’greela.

Chan was ready to grumble at her: he might be safe enough now, but he was also exhausted, scraped by creepers, covered in dirt, wet, wild-eyed, naked, and mentally battered. Where had the others been, for God knows now long?

He could not say any of it. He had found an instruction in his mind, something that Nimrod had slipped there along with the high-pressure information flow. It was waiting, a time bomb that had just ticked its way down to zero.

Chan lay back on the dark soil. S’greela and Angel moved close, to touch him. Shikari swarmed in to cover and connect them. The first stir of interaction began. Chan felt his way inward, following the flow of the stream. There it was. The others were ready, had been ready long ago.

Leah is right. We humans are the most difficult element.

The others laughed their reply. Chan closed his eyes.

And opened his mind.

Contact began, immediate and powerful. The surge of current passed through every cell of his body, sending Chan off on a tidal wave of pleasure and satisfaction. It was the cozy feeling of the pursuit team, sitting together late at night, amplified a thousand times, a million times, a billion times. Four minds re-oriented … meshed … settled into mentality mode. Saturated. Contact was complete.