Veil

Chapter 25

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Veil . . . ?

He is pure blue flight, a sensation unlike anything he has ever experienced before, awake or in dreams. He is surrounded by a brilliant, electric blue, he is the blue, and when he looks at his hands, he can see through them. He is his hands, for there is no differentiation of limbs, body, mind, and organs, as such. There are no fixed reference points, no sound, only the conviction that he is traveling at great speed. He is approaching death as Sharon manipulates his life processes through drugs and electricity.

As Veil continues to stare at his hand a pinpoint of light suddenly appears in the blue beyond the palm. He puts his hand to his eyes and the light arcs through him, flashing down his spinal cord. He explodes and is reassembled, floating weightless, before a shimmering white radiance that he knows is the Lazarus Gate. No longer flying, he senses that he can now move where he wants, as in his dreams, simply by willing it. He wishes to go through the Lazarus Gate, and he does so without hesitation. There is a flash of blinding light and a great, booming chime sound that he feels in his head, heart, stomach, and groin.

Jonathan Pilgrim, naked like Veil, sits in the middle of the infinitely long corridor, which is bounded by walls of swirling gray. The former astronaut throws back his head and laughs when he sees Veil. Pilgrim is whole; there is no wound in his chest, and his eye and hand have been restored to him.

They embrace, and the fluid warmth Veil feels flowing through him is at once intensely sensual but transcends sexuality, raw emotion that pierces to the core of their common humanity, an affirmation of all things that human beings, male and female, share. It is pure love. They kiss, then step apart.

"How about that, sports fans?" Pilgrim says with a broad grin. "Some ride, huh?"

"Indeed," Veil replies, bursting into laughter that erupts from his throat as a variety of chiming sounds that bounce off the surrounding walls and cascade down around them like sparks. "I've never taken that particular route, but I've been here before."

"Of course. Now you can understand why I got just a little bit excited when I saw the work that you and Perry were doing."

"Yes."

"I've been kind of hanging around here waiting for you to show up."

"I know. How do you control it?"

"Haven't got the slightest idea, my friend. It just seemed like a good idea, so I decided to do it. I guess second-time visitors accumulate a certain amount of long-term credit here, if you will. I feel like I can stay or go back, as I choose. I could have come back and told you about this place."

"I already knew about this place."

"Yes and no. You didn't know that two people could actually be here together, and that those people could communicate."

"Neither did you."

"Ah, but I suspected from the beginning. If I'd tried to convince you back there, wherever there is, you'd have thought I was crazy—which you started to think, anyway, after our last conversation."

"So now I think we're both crazy."

"Ha!" Pilgrim shouts, producing a deep, satisfying chime sound that reverberates deep in Veil's belly. Then he suddenly grows serious, although he is still smiling. "Thank you for coming, Veil. Doesn't it feel goody

"My guess is that you and I are pumping one hell of a load of endomorphins, Jonathan. We're drugging ourselves; it's kind of a farewell gift from life."

"Let go of that kind of negative thinking," Pilgrim says with a hint of annoyance. Suddenly he laughs again, leers mischievously, and wriggles his fingers in the air. "Wouldn't the Russians give something to know about this?"

"Any intelligence agency would."

"Absolute, stone telepathy with stereo music, a light show, and all in living color."

"Almost living, Jonathan. You have a tendency to forget that little problem."

Pilgrim, still leering and wriggling his fingers, continues as if he hasn't heard. "Can you imagine what the world's spy masters would want to do with this place?"

"Yes, I can. Jonathan—"

"They'd make up their little plots, then try to recruit Lazarus People as spies. Around the world would go the Lazarus People, at least in the spy masters' minds. The Lazarus People would work diligently, nine to five, all week at their nefarious little deeds, and then—yes!—all meet here on Saturday morning at 0500, Greenwich Mean Time, for a conference. I love it! Beats blind mail drops, huh?"

"Except that a person would have to be three-quarters dead in order to attend this conference. That's tough duty, Jonathan. Also, this is one conference we don't know it's possible to walk away from."

"A piece of cake. Sharon's done dozens of computer simulations. She got you here, didn't she? She'll get you back."

"I'm definitely counting on it."

"Not to worry."

"What worries me is the fact that I don't even have a distant relative who remotely resembles a computer simulation."

"It wouldn't work," Pilgrim says, suddenly serious.

"Uh, what wouldn't work?"

"The espionage scenario I just outlined. Lazarus People don't care about spying, and they won't lend their efforts to anything that might harm another human being. They can't be manipulated, and they'll just jerk around anyone who tries. Unfortunately, people would try. This place would become an obsession to any 'outsider' who even suspected its existence."

"Yes," Veil replies simply, remembering the network of caves.

"Great harm would be caused. Any information having to do with near-death studies would be classified. Hospital records would be searched, Lazarus People rounded up. Idiots."

"Jonathan," Veil says evenly, "I've got a flash for you. I'm not convinced this is happening."

Pilgrim frowns. "What are you talking about? You're experiencing it. That's why I waited for you to come to me."

"I don't know what I'm experiencing. A rush of endo-morphins from my brain as I approach death, yes; that accounts for the ecstasy we feel, and that all Lazarus People report. As for the rest, it could all be a hallucination. I expected, I wanted, to meet with you, and so my dying brain may be indulging itself in a little wish fulfillment. You could very well be a hallucination, and I may be talking—thinking— to myself. There's only one way to prove that this is really happening."

Pilgrim turns his back to Veil, and when he speaks, his tone is almost petulant. "You're too heavy, Veil. You and I share what may be the greatest discovery about humankind in the history of humankind, and all you can do is talk like a goddam lawyer. Or a detective. I don't care if you are a detective; it's unbecoming."

"I'm not a detective, Jonathan," Veil says with a sigh. "I'm a painter. You have no idea how tired I get of explaining that to people; it ranks right up there with trying to convince people that I'm not a CIA agent."

There is a long pause, then Pilgrim asks quietly, "How can I convince you that I exist, and that this is really happening?"

"Come back with me and we'll compare notes. We'll go into separate rooms and write down our detailed recollections of this conversation. You're a scientist, Jonathan; you know it's the only way."

Again there is a long pause, during which Veil waits patiently, staring at his friend's back.

"How's Sharon?" Pilgrim says at last.

"More than a little pissed at both of us."

"I can believe that." Suddenly Pilgrim turns back to Veil. He is grinning once again, but the expression seems forced. "Oh, I almost forgot. Don't you want to know who the fucker is who shot me?"

"I already know. Ibber."

Pilgrim raises his eyebrows slightly. "How do you know?"

"Process of elimination, to begin with, combined with accumulated circumstantial evidence and an important slip on Parker's part. The more I thought about it, the more it always came back to the fact that it was Ibber who did my initial background check. Now, a standard check by someone who was only an Institute investigator would have turned up nothing but the garbage that the Army and CIA had strewn about. Granted that a good investigator would have smelled the garbage—something Ibber dutifully reported to you because he couldn't discount the possibility that you could have baited a trap for him. But Ibber was much more than just an Institute investigator; he was KGB, and the KGB file on me certainly hadn't been tampered with at all. All the KGB saw in their file was Veil Kendry before the Fall. Whatever they'd heard about the breach between the CIA and me, they weren't willing to buy it. Red warning flags popped up all over the place."

"What about the similarity between your paintings and Perry Tompkins's?"

"Then you know Ibber was spying on the hospice, using Army personnel?"

"The thought occurred to me at about the time he was squeezing the trigger. I'm a bit slower than you are."

"I'm not sure Ibber or anyone else from the compound who was sneaking into the hospice ever saw Perry's paintings; if they did, they wouldn't know what to make of them. They may have checked out a few chalets, but I'm sure they were far more interested in Sharon's files and the computer data. Ibber probably figured that you'd grown suspicious, and I was being brought in, through contacts you might have with the CIA, to do some general housecleaning."

"Why didn't he have you killed in New York? Why wait until you got here?"

"I'm not sure. He may have been afraid that I was closely guarded, or he may simply have considered the Institute a safer, more controlled situation. Also, he may have wanted to size me up in person, see how I reacted to him."

"Have you told anyone else?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Ibber will kill anyone who looks at him the wrong way. I have to handle him myself."

"Well, you're pretty damn vulnerable right now. You're taking one hell of a big chance, my friend."

"I'm counting on Ibber thinking that I'm still holed up somewhere over in the Army compound."

"What did Parker have to do with it?"

"He said that he wasn't going to let you in. Well, Ibber also had access to the compound—so why not mention Ibber?"

"Ah, yes. I told you Parker was a fuck-up."

"If I'm right, Ibber is a bit more than a KGB agent who managed to penetrate your Institute. I think he's a KGB agent who managed to become a high-ranking Army officer in charge of that entire military installation in the valley. I was certain Parker was reporting to someone, and that someone was faking phone calls and feeding phony information to Parker just to make sure Parker would end up letting me die. It had to be Ibber, which means that the U.S. Army has a very fat KGB mole sitting on its collective face."

"Do tell," Pilgrim says in a somewhat cryptic tone.

"Then again, there's more than one spook running around over there. Someone arranged to spring me—who, and why, I don't know."

"Do tell."

"I must say that you don't sound too surprised."

"Don't I?" Jonathan says with a smile. "Go ahead; I want to hear what else you've been up to."

Veil studies Pilgrim for a few moments, but Pilgrim merely stares back, the same enigmatic smile on his face. Finally Veil shrugs, continues. "After I'd roamed around over there for a while, I realized that the safest and fastest way out of the compound would still be through a gate that Parker opened for me. I was hoping that turning myself in after having escaped might finally get the man's attention. But by then Ibber had already shot Parker."

"Parker's dead?"

"Yes."

"Parker was a fool," Pilgrim says softly, "but I'm sorry to hear that he's a dead fool."

"It meant that Ibber was in a panic, and for good reason. It had to have taken years for the Russians to maneuver Ibber into a position where he was both a DIA operative and your chief researcher."

"Well, the Army will have to take primary responsibility for Ibber; they had him first. He was strongly recommended to me by some friends in the military. Now I realize that my friends were probably being pushed by the DIA, because the DIA wanted to have their own man in here. Who turns out to be a KGB agent. That's a big ho-ho-ho on them, isn't it?"

"My concern is making sure that Ibber doesn't get the last laugh, Jonathan."

"Actually, I've been more than a little suspicious of Henry for some time. When that Mamba tried to kill you the morning after you'd arrived here, I decided it was past time to do some serious checking into Henry's background; not easy, since I didn't want to tip off the military that I was suspicious, and then have them tip off Henry."

Veil nods. "With Parker dead, I figured that Ibber would come after you—and maybe Sharon—next. If I was caught and killed inside the compound, there was still a chance he could cover his tracks."

"Where's Ibber now?"

"I don't know. Either on his way to Moscow, if he thinks he's totally blown, or looking for me. I'm sorry I couldn't get back sooner; I'd have saved you some pain."

"Do I look like I'm in pain?"

"No. As a matter of fact, neither of us has probably ever felt better. I understand things a bit better after coming here the hard way. It's no wonder Lazarus People no longer fear death."

"Death is love."

"I understand, Jonathan."

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm glad Madison got off his ass and told his man to spring you from that cage."

Veil feels a sudden stiffening of his spine, as if a wire running through him has been tugged. "How did you know about the cage? And where did you get that name?"

"From you," Pilgrim says easily.

"No. I never mentioned the cage, and I never mentioned anyone named Madison."

"Orville Madison," Pilgrim announces with a certain smugness. "Once your controller, and now a big—and very hidden—man in the CIA's nasties department, third in the chain of command behind the Director of Operations. You can bet your ass that I started some tongues to wagging when I called Langley's listed number, asked for Madison by name, and outlined his connection to you."

The wire pulls even tighter. "Jonathan, how?"

"Still think this is an hallucination, my friend?"

"How?"

"You sent out a cry for help, and I heard you . . . probably something to do with this place and our affinity for each other, although I haven't given it a great deal of thought. Yesterday, the thing you wanted more than anything in the world—except for a drink of water—was for Parker to call Orville Madison and have Madison verify that you couldn't be a KGB agent. Parker wouldn't listen; I did."

"My God," Veil whispers as the wire suddenly goes slack.

Pilgrim chuckles. "A new wrinkle, huh? It seems that in certain situations, with certain people, you don't have to come to the conference room to use the telephone. I'll tell you that it impressed the shit out of me. Incidentally, I also picked up the name, Lester Bean, but I sensed that Madison was more important. He was CIA, and he was the man I went after."

"Did you actually talk to Madison?"

"After a time, yes. He didn't have much choice. When they tried to put me off, I told them I was going to tell all sorts of old but juicy Veil Kendry stories to The New York Times. Madison came on the line."

"What'd he say?"

"Not a whole hell of a lot. Mostly, he just listened. I described the situation here, and shared my suspicions about Henry. I told him the Army had you, you were close to dying, and you needed help. After I finished, he said he'd take care of it. He warned me never to mention the call or the conversation, and never to call him again for any reason. Then he hung up."

Veil pauses, thinking. "The telepathy works even away from here," he says at last.

"Yes and no. After all, what we're sharing is one hell of a lot more than telepathy—whatever that means. The message from you was a good deal less. It was like a distress call that only I could hear, something which made me consciously uneasy but which I couldn't grasp consciously. Just as one has to view your paintings out of the corner of the eye, I picked up on what you needed out of the corner of my mind—when I was momentarily distracted by something else. Also, as I mentioned, the fact that you and I have a very special affinity probably had something to do with it. Identical twins often sense what happens to each other; you and I are twins in a different way. For want of a better expression, I'd describe us as astral twins."

"Still, it means that Lazarus People may have very special potential that nobody, except you and I, is even aware of."

"Lazarus People, and weirdballs like you and Perry Tompkins—yes. But clues, like the fact that Lazarus People tend to recognize each other without a word being spoken, have always been there. What's new is what's happening between you and me right now, this incredible oneness. We're not only proving that this state of consciousness exists, but that it can be maintained for periods of time far beyond the brief flash that Lazarus People have with the near-death experience. We're also showing that the state can be entered into, and controlled, by scientific means. I'd always suspected it, and I knew it when I saw the paintings you and Perry were independently producing. You were the key, Veil, the one person I needed to prove it."

"We haven't proved anything, Jonathan. This could still be my hallucination."

"Your escape from that cage wasn't an illusion; neither is this."

"I could be making up both ends of this conversation."

"Do you really believe that?"

"No," Veil says after a pause. "I do believe this is happening. But we still haven't made it back."

"I told you it would be a piece of cake. How much time did you tell Sharon to give you before she pulls you back?"

"Fifteen minutes, but I find I have no way of relating the quaint notion of fifteen minutes to what's going on here."

"I know what you mean; we're thinking to each other, and thought is one hell of a lot faster than talk."

"How much does Sharon know?"

"Before you accepted my invitation to come to the Institute, there wasn't much to know that she wasn't an expert on. After all, near-death studies is her field. I'd been here only once before, at the time I crashed in my plane. You came here all the time, in dreams, and Perry . . . well, the images began to come to Perry when he started dying. I've shared a few of my general speculations with Sharon, but that's all. She's always believed that the sighting of the Lazarus Gate is attributable to trauma and brain chemistry run amok in some people. She's certainly interested in the aftereffects of the near-death experience in Lazarus People, but she believes it's strictly a psychological phenomenon. Of course, she's standing over us right now, worried as hell, but she's convinced that we're stone-unconscious."

"I'm not so sure," Veil says thoughtfully. "Seeing the Lazarus Gate pattern on the monitor next to your bed may have made a believer out of her." He pauses, laughs. "Also, you've got the silliest grin on your face I've ever seen."

Pilgrim grunts. "Do I? Well, you'll have some stories to tell Dr. Solow, won't you?"

"Ibber suspected big things, obviously," Veil says seriously.

"Oh, yes. I'm sure that the hospice and what Sharon was doing in near-death studies has been uppermost in Ibber's mind from the very first day he reported for work, and his bosses must have hit the ceiling when I wouldn't grant him access to the hospice. His job had no connection with what Sharon was doing, so he couldn't argue the matter. But he had to have been pissed. Monitoring near-death studies would have been his number-one priority."

"Why so?"

"Both the Russians and Americans have always been officially interested in parapsychology, which is a category near-death studies fits into. Our Navy at one time funded a study to see if it was possible to communicate telepathically with submarine crews. But the Americans have always been unenthusiastic dabblers compared with the Russians. The

American government has never shown the slightest interest in Sharon's work."

Once again Veil thinks of the marked caves in the mountain and the hundreds of man-hours, undoubtedly expended on Ibber's orders, it must have taken to find the route to the hospice. "The Russians are certainly interested."

"Sure they are."

"The Russians must have a near-death studies program of their own."

"If they do, they've kept it a secret. But they certainly have thousands of individuals who've had a near-death experience, and the changes that take place in what we call Lazarus People wouldn't have gone unnoticed. It's impossible to say what they make of it, or what they've done about it."

"Maybe they've already sent somebody through the Lazarus Gate—or two people at once, like us."

"I doubt it. We've interviewed Lazarus People from all over the world, and I'm the only person I know of who's actually gone through the gate, seen what's here, and then come back. Then there's you, with your dream-paintings. The Russians don't have you. Indeed, you may be absolutely unique—and you proved to be the necessary catalyst. You have to know— or strongly suspect—that something is there before you search for it, especially if the search carries a strong risk of death. I doubt that the Russians would have risked killing people just because some individuals reported seeing a portal of light and felt terrific about it."

"But the Russians must be interested in more than the changes; they do suspect there's something here."

"Obviously. Otherwise, Ibber would have been as disinterested as Parker. They want to know what the military or population-control applications may be. They're fools."

"Why fools, Jonathan? My guess is that this experience transcends time and distance; if someone else from anywhere in the world were to be sent through the Lazarus Gate at this moment, we'd have company. And communication here transcends language. We're communicating with pure thought, which we happen to hear as music. It seems to me that the espionage capabilities look pretty damn good."

Pilgrim laughs and shakes his head. "You still talk like a detective, and you still don't get it."

"Get what?"

"You're not a Lazarus Person, Veil, so you don't feel precisely what Lazarus People feel, and you don't know what they know. Still, I don't think that anyone has ever been able to control or manipulate you. Well, Lazarus People can't be manipulated, because this experience brands a message very deep into the heart and soul. The message is that we—all of humankind—are one, literally. Birth and death are parentheses around lives that should be as happy, full of meaningful challenge, and as free from pain as possible. That's all. Everything else is an illusion."

"War isn't an illusion, Jonathan. Neither are bullets, bombs, torture, and a few thousand other things I could mention, including bad guys like Henry Ibber."

"Those things aren't illusions, but the assumptions that lead to their creation and use are. You don't shoot off your foot because it's infected, and you don't shoot off your neighbor's foot because your foot is infected. A Lazarus Person—any Lazarus Person, of whatever race or nationality—understands that his neighbor's foot is his foot, and he won't cooperate in any activity that is hostile to other human beings. You don't accept that, do you?"

"I accept what you tell me about Lazarus People, because you should know," Veil replies evenly. "I don't agree with your thinking."

"You behave as if you do."

"No, I don't. That's your illusion, Jonathan. I leave people alone if they leave me—and the people I care for—alone, but I assure you that I will shoot Henry Ibber's ass dead if and when I find him. And I won't confuse his ass with mine."

Pilgrim shrugs. "As I said, you're unique. It amazes me that you've been here so many times, and yet you still don't feel the oneness of human beings."

"All my life I've felt alone, Jonathan. What I've discovered in the last few days is an intense friendship with you and Sharon, and with Perry Tompkins. But Ibber's not my friend, any more than his ass is my ass. You see every human as being a part of some single, great organism or entity; I see every human as being essentially alone. That's the difference in our viewpoints."

"So be it," Pilgrim says with a sigh. "Anyway, speaking of Ibber, whatever he and the Russians may have thought we were up to, or were afraid we were up to, he sure as hell got an earful at that meeting you called. For the first time, he understood how important you were to me—in a way he'd never suspected. He saw that you were a catalyst, understood that you were the key to all sorts of mysteries the Russians were trying to solve. And he'd almost knocked you off."

"I'm sorry about that meeting, Jonathan."

"What's to be sorry about?"

"It brought matters to a head, and it eventually got you shot."

"Ah, but you're here and we're having this little musical chat as a result of that meeting. Who knows if I'd ever have gotten you to cooperate with me if Ibber hadn't reached the wrong conclusions, jumped the gun, and sent his man after you? Unexpected events and disrupted plans can often provide their own rich rewards."

"Indeed," Veil says softly as he thinks of Sharon. Suddenly he feels sadness soaking into his ecstasy like a stain.

"After that meeting, Ibber was probably tempted to shoot himself for screwing up my plans, which he could have monitored. But it was too late, Now you were trying to flush him out, and he may have known that I was suspicious of him. We had ourselves one very nervous KGB operative; if, with you, I was able to put something important together that he couldn't monitor, it would be his own damn fault."

Veil nods. "So he became defensive; his attention shifted to making certain that you couldn't use me for whatever experiments you had in mind. The possibility of you making some kind of breakthrough that he didn't know about was an outcome he couldn't afford."

"That sounds right."

"It's why he was so anxious to have me die in the compound." Veil pauses and again feels his spine stiffen. "It's why he'll eventually come here, to the hospice, if he isn't on his way back to Moscow."

"Let's hope your fifteen minutes are up soon," Pilgrim says easily. His eyes are half closed now, and he seems unconcerned. "I know you're anxious to get back and tend to all your illusions."

"Yes."

It is some time before Pilgrim speaks again. His eyes remain half closed, and he appears sleepy. "If you already knew that Henry was the bad guy, as you put it, why did you come here?"

"To bring you back with me," Veil replies simply. "I thought you understood that."

Pilgrim opens his eyes, dreamily shakes his head. "No, Veil."

"Your wound is serious, but you'll live—if you want to."

"I know. But why bother? There are too many illusions back there."

"This is an illusion!" Veil snaps, his voice ringing out as deep chimes that echo in the gray, swirling mist of the walls. He takes a deep breath, continues more quietly. "It's just an instant before death, a moment you and I have managed to stretch out. Full of illusions or not, life is what being human is about, not this giddy bullshit. When your body dies, the lights here go out and you're gone. Then you'll be nothing, Jonathan; nada."

"We don't know that," Pilgrim says in a somewhat defensive tone.

"Know it, Jonathan. Believe it. Sharon's right; this experience is just a momentary painkiller to help some of us, and maybe all of us, along the way when the time comes to die. Your problem is that you got hooked. Don't throw your life away. Come back."

Pilgrim again closes his eyes, says nothing.

"You can fight it, Jonathan," Veil continues softly. "You did it once before; you fought like no human being had ever fought before. My God, nobody had ever been this deep into death, beyond that flash of light, and returned. You did, because at that time you understood that life is all there is. Now I want you to use the same will and guts you had then. I understand that you wanted me here. Okay, I came; I'm here. Now let's stop horsing around and both get back to where we belong. Sharon has to bring me back, because she had to fill me full of shit to get me here. All you have to do is will yourself to wake up. Do it."

"You don't understand, Veil," Pilgrim says dreamily. "Here I'm a whole man. I have all my pieces, and I'm not half exhausted all the time. I'm happy here. Aren't you?"

"Sure—but then, I tend to be a happy drunk. The difference between you and me is that I know when I'm drunk."

"You were pretty damned impressed with this experience a short while ago," Pilgrim says. His voice, his music, is suddenly bitter. "Why are you belittling it now?"

"I'm not belittling it, Jonathan. I haven't forgotten that the only reason I'm alive right now is because my cry for help somehow echoed through this place to you. I find the experience profoundly moving. I'm just trying to get you to see all that it is—and isn't. Sharon and I have a better fix on this geography than you do."

"There's love here. And Peace." Pilgrim's voice has once again become distant and dreamy. His upper body sways back and forth, as if caught in a breeze only he can feel.

"Maybe that's because you're a loving, peaceful man, my friend. It might be different for other people."

"I'm so tired back there, Veil . . . I'm tired all the time."

"I understand. But if you stay here, you're going to end up dead tired, in the most literal sense. This is one nap that's going to last forever. Your work isn't finished; in fact, it's just begun."

"So . . . tired."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to sleep when you wake up, in a matter of speaking. You've found the Lazarus Gate, found a way to go through it and—I sincerely hope—survive. Together we haven't even begun to explore the implications for humanity. This is certainly no time for you to retire."

"Your . . . work now."

"No way, Jonathan. Don't try to lay off your responsibility on me. I'm a painter, remember? In fact, I don't think I'll ever do another dream-painting, because I understand now that they're about death. There are other things I want to do, subjects that are about living." Veil pauses and smiles gently at the other man. "If you'll pardon another atrocious pun, I've learned enough about death in the past few days to last me a lifetime. Please come back with me."

Pilgrim does not return the smile. "Good-bye, Veil," he says softly, then abruptly turns and walks into the mist to Veil's left.

Although Veil now suspects that the walls that he has always feared to look at may actually be death, boundaries around a last thread—corridor—of existence, he now unhesitatingly turns and peers directly at the spot where Pilgrim has disappeared. Then he steps through.

Instantly he is assailed by chimes of every conceivable pitch and timbre, sounds that swirl within his head, chest, and stomach like the gray in the walls. This is not the music of speech; always, he thinks, these chimes have meant danger. He knows that he is in grave danger now, but it is impossible for him to make any emotional connection with the concept of danger; he can only sense and note it intellectually, for he is filled with ecstasy to the point where he is actually weeping with joy.

Around him is nothing but solid gray—except for Jonathan Pilgrim, who stands before Veil with his body glistening like dew at sunrise.

Both of them, Veil thinks, are but a glimpse out of the corner of the eye away from death.

"It's an ocean," Pilgrim says in a hoarse whisper that is filled with awe. "Everything in the universe exists in the ocean, but human beings are so heavy that we're powerless to do anything but spend our lives trudging along the bottom." He sobs with ecstasy. "Except in dreams and death."

"Jonathan, there's nothing here. Nothing." He will not yield to it.

"Only as we approach death do we begin to rise toward the surface. It's so sad, Veil. So sad."

Danger. Danger.

"Veil," Sharon whispers in his ear, "I love you."

Veil turns and finds Sharon, naked and unutterably beautiful, standing at his side.

Danger.

"It's so easy to say that here," the woman continues. "I love you, I love you."

Pilgrim begins to dance, whirl, and giggle. Veil will not yield to it. Sharon reaches for him, but Veil steps away a short distance.

"What's happened, Sharon? Why are you here?"

"What?" Sharon giggles. "Did you think I was going to let you two guys have all the fun? After all, you're walking around in my field; I'm a professional, and you two gentlemen are just dilettantes. I was back there watching the two of you with your matching grins and brain-wave patterns, and I just decided there was no way I was going to be left out."

Danger.

"How did you get here, Sharon?" He will not yield to the giddiness that pounds at his stomach, making him want to howl with laughter.

Sharon shrugs and again grabs for Veil, who again steps out of the way. "Henry's maintaining us," Sharon says, cocking her head and smiling coyly at Veil as she cups her breasts. "He came in a few minutes after I put you under; he said that Jonathan had given him a key to the cable car after the meeting, and he'd come over to check on Jonathan's condition. Everything's all right. Really. It turns out that the procedure can be simplified. I explained to Henry what was happening, and what I wanted him to do. He's a physician, so he's as qualified to run that equipment as I am. The anesthesia and drugs are being automatically monitored. All Henry has to do is read dials and flip a switch in five minutes." She pauses, spreads her arms out to her sides, throws her head back, and utters a shrieking laugh. "Voila! Here I am, guys! What a trip!"

Veil turns to Pilgrim, who shrugs and flashes a broad grin.

"Uh-oh," Pilgrim says, and giggles.

Definitely endomorphins, Veil thinks, painkilling chemicals a hundred times more powerful than morphine, naturally produced by the brain, coursing through their systems.

"Come to me, Veil," Sharon whispers. "Make love to me."

"You're a dead duck, buddy," Jonathan says, "so you may as well enjoy what's left of the ride and oblige the lady. Go for it."

Pilgrim is right, of course, Veil thinks. Ibber does not have to bring him back to find out what is happening, for the KGB agent now has all the data he needs to enable the Russians to duplicate the experiment. He is indeed one dead duck, probably with only a few moments of life left to him while Ibber double-checks the dial readings and drug mixtures, and perhaps runs some simple blood tests.

Then Ibber will take care of some other business. He will destroy all the files. He will destroy the hospice. He will destroy the people in the hospice.

There will be a lot of dead ducks flying through the Lazarus Gate on this day. But Veil doesn't care. With nothing else left to do, he has finally yielded.

Now Veil gives in to the laughter exploding through him, then steps toward, into, Sharon. Their minds and bodies meld into one entity that is sexual love; they writhe as one in a prolonged orgasm that Veil feels must go on forever, until Sharon begins to disintegrate

"Veil"—Sharon sighs in an agonized whisper—"I hurt."

Veil separates his mind from Sharon's, but continues to hold her in his arms as she sags. Her flesh is melting away, exposing bone that glows iridescent green, like something radioactive, sick.

"It's because you don't belong here," Veil says. All ecstasy and laughter is gone now, but he must still fight for control against a giddiness that has suddenly turned nauseating. "It's the reason some end up Lazarus People, but most don't. You shouldn't have joined us, Sharon; you can't survive here."

"Veil, I love you. The real reason I came was because I couldn't bear the thought of you dying without ... I hurt a lot, Veil."

The disintegration of Sharon's flesh continues, and Veil knows that he will soon be holding nothing but a glowing skeleton. Then that, too, will disappear. Desperately, he looks around him, finds Jonathan standing close by, wide-eyed now with horror.

"Jonathan! What can I do?!"

Pilgrim shakes his head. "I don't know, Veil."

"Veil," Sharon whispers, "it hurts too much. I think I'm . . . going to go away now."

"No!" Instinctively, Veil holds Sharon even tighter to him, then wills energy to flow from him into her.

Slowly, Sharon's body begins to form again, even as Veil begins to feel himself growing weary. And he is in pain.

"Sharon, concentrate," Veil continues. "You have to hang on; hang on to me. Don't think about anything else but our love, and don't move. Stay just as you are."

"Yes," Sharon answers dreamily. "I want to stay like this forever. With you, Veil, my darling. I don't hurt anymore. Do you?"

"No," Veil lies.

"Don't let go of me."

"I won't." He must fight now to keep his eyes open, and he wonders if his own flesh is melting away as he feeds his life to Sharon. He turns to Pilgrim. "Jonathan, are you all right?"

"Yes," Pilgrim answers in a hollow voice.

"She can't survive here. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"Then help me."

"I don't know how."

"Think, goddam it! I don't know what that fuck Ibber is up to right now, but Sharon is going to die unless he pulls her back!" "The three of us are going to die, anyway, Veil. You know it. Ibber isn't going to pull anybody back."

"But he hasn't killed us yet! I'm losing it, Jonathan. I'm going to die soon, no matter what Ibber does or doesn't do. When I die, Sharon's going to die—and she's going to be in a great deal of pain. You have to go back. I know you have a chest wound; I know that you're going to be in a great deal of pain. But if you'll just wake up and reach for that switch, you can—"

"No, I can't," Pilgrim replies woodenly. "I already thought of that and I tried. Ibber understands; he has me hooked up with the two of you, and he controls me just as much as he controls you. I'm sorry."

As Veil has been speaking to Jonathan, Sharon's flesh has again begun to melt. "Sharon, I love you," Veil says, squeezing her. "You're letting go. Don't. I can't hang on to you if you don't want me to."

"You're . . . dying because of me; you're taking my pain. I feel it. I'm going away now."

"Sharon!"

"Call Perry," Pilgrim says abruptly.

Veil, exhausted as he channels more energy into Sharon's life, can only shake his head and mumble, "Can't hear . . . don't understand."

Pilgrim moves closer and shouts in Veil's ear. "Call Tompkins!"

"What? Call him?"

"Whatever you did when you were in the cage and got through to me, do that with Perry. The two of you have an affinity."

"Jonathan, I don't know what I did!"

"Well, do something! Think at him; focus your thoughts on him. Get him to come to the hospital."

"Ibber will kill him."

"Ibber's distracted right now. Besides, you forget; Tompkins is dying, anyway. He would consider it an honor and privilege to sacrifice his life for you and Sharon." "He'll just get himself killed. Ibber's not the kind of man you sneak up on."

"All Perry has to do is get to that switch and send the recovery shocks through the two of you. Then it will be up to you, Veil."

"Veil, I have to go," Sharon whispers. "You're hurting so much ... I feel your pain."

Veil shakes his head, torn by conflicting needs and desires. "Jonathan, God knows what kind of shape I'll be in when I come out of this!"

"I don't care what kind of shape you're in, my friend; I'll still put my money on you. It's the only way I can think of to save the two of you."

"But I can't ask—!"

Suddenly a light as bright as the Lazarus Gate appears to their left. It throbs like a breathing thing at its white-hot center, burning a hole through the death-gray.

"Veil—!"

"I see it!"

"Take Sharon and go!"

Holding Sharon tightly to him, Veil focuses all his will and energy on moving toward the light. Then Sharon's flesh begins to melt. He channels energy into her, but then feels himself slowing. For a fleeting moment, battered by desperation and exhaustion, he wants only to close his eyes and sleep. Die.

"Veil?" Sharon is smiling up at him. "Let me go."

"No! We're all going through. Hang on, Sharon. Concentrate!" He struggles toward the throbbing light, but his legs will barely support him. He feels as if he is sinking into a mire as deep as eternity. All of his strength is being drained by Sharon. "Jonathan! Help me!"

But Pilgrim has already come up behind him. He wraps his arms around both Veil and Sharon, and pushes them forward.

As they approach the gate, Veil hears the high-pitched hum of electricity. Now he sucks in a deep breath, tenses, leaps headfirst toward the blinding core of the light.

Pilgrim's hands release their grip on him.

"Jonathan!"

"Good-bye, Veil." Pilgrim's voice sounds as if it is echoing across a great distance. "Good luck. You don't need a half man with one eye, a hook for a hand, and a bullet hole in his chest."

Holding Sharon to his chest, Veil slowly tumbles through the gray toward the light. "Jonathan! We need you!"

"Good-bye, my friend."

Veil enters the light. Electricity crackles and dances over his flesh, pierces his brain and shakes his bones; the current becomes a knife slicing across his soul, tugging at Sharon, separating them.

He cannot hold on. Sharon is slipping away from him, being taken.

Veil twists through his pain, reaches back, and desperately gropes in the electric-white. But Sharon is gone. He throws back his head and screams with rage, frustration, and loss. He claws at the place in his heart where Sharon had been only a moment before.

Then he collides painfully with a hard surface that he knows must be.