A Jungle of Stars (1976) (3 page)

As Savage said this, he was aware that, the longer he stalled, the longer he avoided the fate spelled out for him. The isolation in which he presently found himself was caused by the Voice, and could just as easily be lifted. He tried to imagine the horror he had fought only ten times (a hundred, or a billion, perhaps?) more powerful. The Voice was right. He couldn't stand that off very long.

"What's happening to you is part of a process of nature as normal as the birth and death of a star, or the falling of leaves," the Voice explained in a tone reminiscent of a lecturing college professor. "It is as universal as the laws of motion, or gravity, or thermodynamics. Ultimately, the Synthesis produces a massive collective intelligence of enormous power -- the collective power of God, as you might comprehend Him. Not all get to this point. Most races die out too soon, or external factors intervene. For some reason, no two worlds' maturity periods ever overlap."

"So what has this to do with you?"

"My race has passed to yet a higher synthesis, which even I cannot fathom. Only two individuals of the race are left, each incomplete, each weak in comparison with the whole. Both of us are driven to our duty, which must be fulfilled before we can join our people."

"Which is?"

"To ensure that the next synthesis occurs in time to stop the chaos that threatens always from without! To perpetuate, to keep the wheels of nature moving smoothly!"

"But what has all this to do with me, now?" asked Savage, puzzled.

"My brother is a part of me. We are a product of the same synthesis.

Yet, it has been a long time, and without the greater synthesis to support us, we have devolved. We have become parasitic, material, and, as we have continued our separate lives, quite different personalities." The Voice became grim. "There is a war going on, Savage, and I am looking for volunteers."

Savage's mind whirled. Had the circumstances been any less bizarre, he would have dismissed all this as madness. Perhaps it was -- he hadn't considered that. The Voice interrupted his thoughts.

"The world lies below you, Savage -- and above, and all around. It's your world and your destiny, and you shouldn't make light of it. We were a glorious people, Savage -- and well yours might be, too. To be a part of that is the greatest glory that anyone can ever experience. We have that in common, my brother and I; we have both been at the pinnacle, in the company of, and part of, God -- though we have fallen and are forever denied that again. We are both in Hell."

"So what do you offer me if I refuse that Earthly destiny?" Savage asked, knowing he would take any offer -- and knowing the Voice knew it, too.

"You can't go to Hell, Savage, because you've never been in Paradise.

The nature of what I shall do is such that you will be denied both. You will be forever in Limbo, never knowing any other experience, danmed but never really knowing how much so. You would be condemned to live forever, and, as you will someday know, that is a true form of damnation."

Savage felt excitement well up inside of him. Condemned to live forever.

But to live! To get out of this! And yet -- Faust must have felt the same, and the Devil was the Father of Lies.

"What will I owe you in exchange?" he asked warily.

"Service, for as long as I might require it. I was attracted to you, as to the others I have recruited and will recruit, by the strength of your mind and of your will. By the force of the hatred that allowed you your victory, however temporary, over those that lately sought to consume you.

"While we have talked, I have taken a readout of your mind, your past, your personality and potential. You are certainly one of the men I need to aid me. You are a soldier. You were once a detective, before you were activated from your reserve unit. You are strong, far stronger than you know, and you are dangerous. I will realize those things you did not even know you possessed, and I will make you even stronger. And yours might -- might -- be the mission that wins the war. There are others like you as well, many others.

But -- I deny the glory of death to no man, for I could not do so even if I could guarantee his loyalty. The choice must be yours and freely made. Beyond this place -- in death -- is every mind of world history, from the one who discovered fire to the latest genius to pass on -- and Hitler, too, and Stalin, and Genghis Khan. You can be part of them and their mission. Or of mine. You alone must choose."

"You know."

"Say it!"

"I'll work for you. I will accept your offer and abide by it."

"Very well. Restoration is a difficult thing -- and a limited one. I must work with what I have, and not with what once was. Your body lies now in a morgue in Saigon. awaiting embalming and shipment to the United States. I can rearrange the molecules properly to make yon live again, none the worse for wear -- indeed, better than before -- but I can work only with what I have; I do know where restoration can be done, and we'll get you there in due time.""What are you talking about?" Savage asked nervously.

"McNally put a single M-16 bullet into your upper back, which shattered just about every bone in your torso. Child's play. It's a repair problem only.

But the enemy sniper got you after that. Your right hand is still in the jungles of Area Five-C."

Savage paused for a moment. "So you can make me whole with what I've still got, but you can't regrow the hand."

"That's about it. Although, of course, after I'm through with you, should you lose the other one, it'll come back. Later on, I'll get you to a place of master biologists many light-years from here, where the hand can be replaced in a moment. . . But the injury will answer some questions, albeit weakly, about your recovery -- and it'll get you out of the Army and home, where I need you."

"Okay, I think I can live with it," Savage told the Voice, and somehow the remark sounded flip and funny, which it wasn't at all.

I can live with it, he had said. Or not live without it.

"Very well. It is done. The process is already in motion, and I have other things to attend to. I will contact you when you are ready."

"But how will I know you?" Savage asked, almost calling after the Voice.

"To whom will I go?" He almost said: "To whom do I belong?"

"I call myself The Hunter, for that's as good as any, more descriptive of what I am and far less enigmatic than my brother's name, The Bromgrev, the meaning for which has escaped everyone. The Savage will recognize the Hunter: there is destiny in those linked names." The Voice paused for a second, then concluded, "It is ended. I shall see you in time."

Savage was alone once again, but now there was a change. He sensed that he was returning, going back, even though the term had no meaning. He also sensed the others, rising from their incubators and going to join this new, metamorphosed creature he knew surrounded him.

His world picture had been drastically changed. The Earth was one of many planets, perhaps millions, circling their suns, incubating components for the truly superior evolutionary creature of each world. Mystics through the ages had glimpses of the truth, but they could not comprehend -- or did not want to comprehend -- and misinterpreted what they had seen.

But there were still holes. Just what did these -- gods -- do? If the metamorphosis occurred repeatedly in nature, it was necessary to survival. But whose? And against what did it guard?

He would have time to ask the right questions now, he mused. All the time in the world.

There was light, but everything was blurry. He ached like hell, his right arm throbbing as he had never known before, his every cell screaming at what had been done.

He blinked repeatedly, and the scene came into focus, along with the fetid smells of the dead and its grisly contents.

He was in a human meat locker, stored with the rest of the dead until they could be prepared and shipped home by Graves Registration.

His lips felt dry and cracked, and he could not seem to generate any saliva in his mouth. Even so, he managed some movement, painful though it was

-- and managed to croak out one word in such a way that, if any had been able to hear in that terrible room, there would be no mistaking its intent.

"McNally," he said.

3

THE PAIN SUBSIDED gradually.

He was suddenly aware of the cold, and be struggled to get up. A stabbing pain went through him as he tried to rise by balancing himself on his right hand, and he fell off the little table on which he lay and went sprawling onto the floor. Pain tore through his back, rump, and the underside of his left arm. He shook his head violently from side to side to clear it, and looked at his left arm.

Parts of the flesh had been ripped away where his newly warmed body had touched the cold metal table. He stared at the damaged area for a little while. He couldn't take his eyes off it.

Slowly, methodically, and visibly, the skin was regrowing over the injured area. It reminded him somewhat of the stop-action photography of a plant opening and closing. As the skin repaired itself, the pain subsided, then vanished completely. Soon only a few flecks of dried blood remained to show that any damage had ever been done.

His back and rump no longer hurt, either.

So that was how it would be.

A sudden, sharp, incredibly intense pain struck him in the middle of his back, so severe and unexpected that he cried out in agony. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. He heard a tiny noise of something hard striking the floor. He looked down and stared at it.

It was a jagged, spent M-16 bullet.

Reaching out with his right hand, he was intending to pick it up and for the first time became fully conscious that all was not the same. Like his arm and backside, the skin had grown over the area where his right hand had been.

Only it wasn't there, his hand. Merely an ugly-looking stump, ending almost exactly at the wrist.

He exhaled, his breath causing tiny crystals to form in the air. The Hunter had said he could be taken to a place where he might get a new hand --

no, grow a new hand, he'd said. Until then, it was something that could be lived with.

He got up and threaded his way through the stacks of bodies on their metal shelves until he reached the door. A thermometer at its side read 25°F.

He felt the bitter cold, but it didn't seem to be lethal, just uncomfortable.

His internal body heat, he realized suddenly, was being kept at a high level.

Where did the energy come from?

If from himself, it would be bound to do damage at some later time -- or run out.

This was Power. For the first time, he realized the enormity of the forces with which he bad allied himself.

He found the edge of a wheeled cart and sat down to think for a minute.

The word "alien" came to mind -- not the greenscaled monsters of the science-fiction covers, but "alien" in its purest form. As rational, conversational, and human as the Voice had sounded, it was none of these.

'You can think of me as God. . . an angel. . . or the Devil,' this thing called The Hunter had said. But it had admitted to having far less than God's powers or omnipotence, and angels were surrogate humans. The Devil had always been the most human of all. And God created Man in His own image.

Alien.

He must remember that, always.

He decided to get out from among the corpses, if he could. He got up and examined the door, not even noticing the same flesh-tearing sensation when he rose. He knew now. that it would go away.

The door had a bright red handle and there had at one time been a decal superscription next to it in typical military fashion, but the wording had long since worn away. He pulled down on the handle. The door swung open and he fell out into the hallway, a blast of warmth bathing him.

A young soldier was walking up the hallway with a sheaf of papers in his band as Savage plunged out the door and collapsed, half in and half out of the locker.

The soldier suddenly stiffened as if shot. He stared at the apparition that had just come plunging out of the dead locker at him. His eyes were wide, staring.

"Oh my God!" he said, and screamed for help.

Men poured out of nearby labs and offices and ran down toward Savage and the still-immobile soldier.

Savage felt suddenly sick, dizzy, cold, in pain, miserable. He groaned and passed out, oblivious to the hands turning him over, lifting him up, and carrying him to the examining table of a nearby autopsy room.

He passed into a deep, dreamless, almost coma-like sleep.

He heard the sound of a radio playing acid rock. The electric guitars seemed to be keeping time with the pounding in his head. He turned and moaned in agony.

"Hey! Doc! I think he's coming around!" someone yelled, and there was the sound of feet running up a tiled hallway toward his room.

For a few seconds, he thought he'd had the damnedest nightmare in all creation. He opened his eyes to a typical gray-and-white military hospital room. Quickly, he lifted his right arm up and out in front of him. The hand was still gone.

A young man in medical whites entered, followed by a simiiar man with sergeant's stripes on his white sleeves. The first man came over and stood by Savage's bed, looking at him. The sterile hospital smell, ever-present, was suddenly permeated with the odor of foul sweat and bad tobacco. The doctor had obviously had a bad night.

"Are you awake?" the doctor asked pleasantly. "Can you hear me?" He was almost drowned out by the radio playing in the next room. Realizing this, he turned to the medic and said, "Get them to shut that damned thing off, will you?" The medic disappeared and soon they heard loud talking in an angry, argumentative tone, muffled by the walls and the radio. Then all was peace and quiet, except for some loud cursing from next door.

The doctor had not taken his eyes off Savage since he'd entered the room. Savage almost managed to focus on the doctor; he still felt lousy, which, if memory served, wasn't supposed to be in the script.

"Sheeit," he managed, more to himself than to the doctor, who smiled brightly at the comment. Savage noted that the two of him were merging more and more into one distinct figure.