Galactic Pot-Healer (20 page)

It will rise, Joe Fernwright said, when you are recovered from your injury, the damage done to you by the Black Cathedral.

“What?” he said, listening. Other voices joined Joe’s.
When you are stronger. Wait until then
.

I must make myself stronger, he realized. Time must pass, authentic time over which I have no control. How can they know this when I do not? He listened, but heard no voices; they had quieted into silence as soon as he ceased striving. So be it, he decided. I will rise to the surface alone, and some day, not long from now,
I will try again
.

And once again, he decided, I will absorb you. All of you. Once more you will be parts of me as you are now. All right, the voices squeaked. But let us go; prove to us you can release us. I shall, he told them. And let himself rise to the surface.

Cold night air plucked at him and he saw feeble, distant stars.

On a wild shoreline, with nocturnal water birds striding about, he deposited the strident voices, he disgorged all of them, those whom he had incorporated, and then he lunged out again into the water—an aquatic world which was now safe: he could stay here forever and not be endangered by any hostile force. Thank you, Joe Fernwright, he thought,
but now no answer came; internally he was again alone. So he spoke the words aloud, and, as he spoke, felt lonely. For a time he had been inhabited. But … it would come again, the warm, interior babble.

He examined his wounds, made himself comfortable in a half-submerged position, and waited.

Shivering, his feet in sandy mud, Joe Fernwright listened and heard Glimmung’s voice. “Thank you, Joe Fernwright.” He continued to listen, but there was no more.

He could see Glimmung, as the big creature lay a few hundred yards from shore. He would have killed us, Joe thought. And himself, too. In trying to bring up the cathedral. Thank god he listened.

“That was too close,” Joe said to the other creatures near him, deployed here and there along the sandy beach. And especially to Mali Yojez, who huddled close to him, trying to get warm. “Much too close,” he said, half to himself. He shut his eyes. Anyhow he let us go, he reflected. And now it’s just a question of walking until we come to a house or a road. Unless he tries to get us back.

But that did not seem likely. Not, anyhow, for some time.

“Are you going to stay on Plowman’s Planet?” Mali asked him. “You know what it means; he’ll reabsorb all of us who stay here.”

Joe said, “I’m staying.”

“Why?”

“I want to see The Book proved wrong.”

“It’s already been proved wrong.”

“I mean finally,” Joe said. “Once and for all.” As of now, he thought, it could still be right…because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after. I could still kill Glimmung, he realized. In some indirect way.

But he knew that would not happen. It was too late. Like many things, it could not now be recalled. The Kalends were doomed. Their power was gone.

“But The Book was almost right,” he said. Obviously the Kalends played the percentages. Generally, in the long run, they were correct. But in given instances—such as this—they were wrong. And this was important; this had to do with Glimmung’s literal, physical death and the literal, physical raising of Heldscalla.

In relation to this, final events, such as the planet falling back into the sun from which it had arisen, did not really matter. They were too remote. In the final analysis the Kalends might be correct; their prophecies had to do with cosmic trends such as the laws of thermodynamics and terminal entropy. And, of course, Glimmung would eventually die. So would he himself. So would they all. But in the here and now Heldscalla waited for Glimmung to recover. And he would. And—the cathedral would come up from the water, as Glimmung planned.

“We were a polyencephalic entity,” Mali said.

“Pardon?” Joe said.

“A group mind. Except that we were subordinate to Glimmung. But for a little while—” She gestured. “All of us, from at least ten star systems; we functioned as a single organism. In some ways it was exciting. To not be—”

“Alone,” Joe said.

“Yes; it makes me realize how isolated each of us normally is, how cut off. Separated from everyone else … in particular separated from other life. That ended when Glimmung absorbed us. And we were no longer individual failures.”

“It ended,” Joe said, “but it’s begun again. As of now.”

Mali said, “If you stay here on Plowman’s Planet, so will I.”

“Why?”

“I like the group mind, the group will. As they say on your planet, this is where the action is.”

“They haven’t said that on Terra,” Joe said, “for close to a hundred years.”

“Our textbooks were very old,” Mali said contritely.

Loudly, to the group members as they stood here and there, Joe said, “Okay; let’s get started back to the Olympia Hotel. So we can get a hot bath and some dinner.”

“And then sleep,” Mali said.

He put his arm around her. “Or whatever else,” he said, “that humanoids normally do.”

Eight twenty-six-hour days later Glimmung asked the group to assemble under the hermetically sealed domes of the heated, illuminated staging center. The robot Willis checked the list as each arrived; when they had all come he notified Glimmung, and, collectively, they waited.

Of them all, Joe Fernwright had been the first to arrive. He made himself comfortable in one of the sturdy chairs and lit a cigarette made from Plowman’s Planet grass. It had been a good week; he had seen a lot of Mali, and he had become friends with Nurb K’ohl Dáq, the warmhearted bivalve.

“Here’s one they’re telling on Deneb four,” the bivalve said. “A freb whom we’ll call A is trying to sell a glank for fifty thousand burfles.”

“What’s a freb?” Joe asked.

“A kind of—” The bivalve undulated with effort. “A sort of idiot.”

“What’s a burfle?”

“A monetary unit, like a crumble or a ruble. Anyhow, someone says to the freb, ‘Do you really expect to get fifty thousand burfles for your glank?’”

“What’s a glank?” Joe asked.

Again the bivalve undulated; this time it turned bright pink with effort. “A pet, a valueless lower life-form. Anyhow, the freb says, ‘I got my price.’ ‘You got your price?’ the interrogator interrogates. ‘Really?’ ‘Sure,’ the freb says. ‘I traded it for two twenty-five-thousand-burfle pidnids.’”

“What’s a pidnid?”

The bivalve gave up; it slammed its shell shut and withdrew into privacy and silence.

We’re tense, Joe said to himself. Even Nurb K’ohl Dáq. It’s getting to us all.

He rose to his feet, then; Mali had entered the room. “Here,” Joe said, getting a chair for her.

“Thank you,” Mali murmured as she seated herself. She seemed pale, and, when she lit a cigarette, her hands shook. “You should have lighted that for me,” she said to him half jokingly and half accusingly. “I guess I’m the last to arrive.” She glanced around the chamber.

“You were dressing?” Joe asked.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I wanted to look right for what we’re going to be doing.”

Joe said, “How does one dress for polyencephalic fusion?”

“This.” She rose to show him her green suit. “I’ve been saving this. For a special occasion. This is a special occasion.” She reseated herself, crossed her long, trim legs, and smoked vigorously; obviously she was deep in thought: she hardly seemed aware of him.

Glimmung entered the room.

His form was new to them; Joe studied the prim, bag-shaped entity and asked himself why Glimmung had imitated this particular form of life. To what star system is this indigenous? he wondered.

“My dear friends,” Glimmung boomed. The voice had not changed. “First, I want you to know that I am fully recovered physically, although psychologically a trauma remains, making my memory erratic. Second, I have had tests run on all
of you, without your knowledge and at no inconvenience to you, and I have the data which tell me that you, too, are physiologically in top form. Mr. Fernwright, I want to thank you especially for halting my premature efforts to raise the cathedral.”

Joe nodded.

After a pause the bag-shaped object reopened its slitlike mouth and continued. “You all seem very quiet.”

Getting to his feet Joe confronted Glimmung. “What are our chances of living through this?”

“Good,” Glimmung said.

“But not excellent,” Joe said.

Glimmung said, “I will make a compact with you. If I feel my strength waning—if I feel I can’t make it—I will return to the surface and disgorge you.”

“And then what?” Mali asked.

“And then,” Glimmung said, “I will go back down and try once more. I will try until I can do it.” Three morose eyes snapped open in the center of the baglike shape. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” the reddish jelly supported by a metal frame said.

“You are really only concerned with that?” Glimmung asked them. “Your personal safety?”

Joe said, “That’s right.” He felt odd, saying it. By this he had voided the dedicated atmosphere which Glimmung had brought with him; instead of the joint effort the individual lives had become paramount. And yet he had to do it. It was the consensus of the group. And, in addition, it was his own feeling.

“Nothing will happen to you,” Glimmung said.

“Assuming,” Joe said, “that you can get us up to the surface in time. And on dry land.”

Glimmung, with his three centrally located eyes, regarded him for a protracted interval. “I did it once,” he said.

Examining his wristwatch, Joe said, “Let’s get started.”

“Are you timing the universe,” Glimmung asked, “to see if it is late? Are you giving breadth and measure to the stars?”

“I’m timing you,” Joe said truthfully. “We have polled one another and our decision is to give you two hours.”

“‘Two hours’?” The three eyes gaped at him in disbelief. “To raise Heldscalla?”

“That’s right,” Harper Baldwin said.

For a time Glimmung reflected. “You know,” he said at last, “I can force polyencephalic fusion on you, on all of you, at any time. And I can refuse to release you.”

“It won’t come to that,” the multilegged gastropod piped up. “Because even in fusion we can refuse to help. And if we don’t give you that help you won’t be able to do it.”

The baglike entity swelled with pompous rage; a Luciferous sight: the indignation of an forty-thousand-ton creature contained by this frail vessel. Then gradually, Glimmung ebbed; he slid by degrees into comparative calm.

“It is now four-thirty in the afternoon,” Joe said to Glimmung. “You have until six-thirty to raise Heldscalla and get us back on dry land.”

Extending a pseudopodium, the baglike creature brought a copy of the Book of the Kalends from its pouch; it opened the volume and studied the text carefully. Then, thoughtfully, it closed the book and put it away in its pouch once more.

“What does it say?” the sharp-faced middle-aged woman asked.

Glimmung said, “It says I can’t do it.”

“Two hours,” Joe said. “Less than two, now.”

“I will not need two hours,” Glimmung said, drawing himself up in dignity. “If I haven’t done it in one hour, I will give up and deposit you back here.” Turning, he stalked from the chamber and out onto the newly repaired wharf.

“Where do you want us?” Joe asked him, following him out of the hermetically sealed, warm region, into the late-afternoon cold.

“At the water’s edge,” Glimmung said. He sounded angry but at the same time contemptuous; the group’s conditions seemed to have enlarged his determination.

Joe said, “Good luck.”

The others flew, crawled, or walked out onto the wharf, now; as Glimmung had requested, they lined up at the water’s edge. Glimmung surveyed them one last time, then descended the wooden ladder into the water. At once he disappeared beneath the surface; only circles of water and bubbles marked the place where he had gone. Possibly forever, Joe thought. He—and we—may never come back up.

Standing close to Joe, Mali said, “I’m scared.”

“It won’t be long, now,” the plump woman with tangled baby-doll hair said.

“What’s your specialty?” Joe asked her.

“Slabbing rock.”

After that they waited in silence.

Fusion came to him as a monumental shock. And, he discovered, it came to the others the same way; the frightened babble of their composite voices washed over him—their voices and then the overpowering presence of Glimmung, his thoughts, his desires. And, Joe realized, his fears. Beneath the anger and contempt there was a core of anxiety that had not been evident before fusion. Now they all knew it…and Glimmung was aware of their knowledge; his thoughts altered as he deftly sought to evade their scrutiny.

“Glimmung is scared,” the matronly woman declared.

“Yes, very scared,” the timid little fellow piped.

“More,” the quasiarachnid said, “than we are.”

“Than some of us are,” the immense dragonfly answered.

“Where are we?” the red-faced heavyset man demanded. “I’m disoriented already.” Panic filled his voice.

Joe said, “Mali?”

“Yes.” She seemed very near him, close enough for him to touch. But he had no manual extremities; like a worm in
a cadaver he found himself, as before, rigidly placed within the magnasoma that was Glimmung. Separate motion was impossible, for any of them. They existed as mentational entities only … a weird sensation that he found unpleasant.

And yet—once again deeply augmented. Multiplied by all the others and, more than anything else, by Glimmung. He was helpless and in addition he constituted a supranormal organism whose potentialities were beyond calculation. For Glimmung, too, there had been a radical enlargement; Joe listened carefully to Glimmung’s cerebral activity and marveled at the new acuity of it…acuity and power.

They dropped into the depths of the ocean.

“Where are we?” Harper Baldwin said nervously. “I can’t see properly; I’m too far in. Can you see, Fernwright?”

Through Glimmung’s eyes Joe saw the shape of Heldscalla grow before them. Glimmung moved rapidly, wasting no time; evidently he took the two-hour limit seriously. Reaching out, Glimmung sought to embrace the cathedral; he discharged, in a split second, his entire fund of energy in an attempt to hug the cathedral in a grip which could not be broken.