The Mind Pool (52 page)

Behind Godiva, the door to the quarantine chamber was opening wider. Mondrian and Brachis had a first clear view of the corridor outside. Both men took a step backward.

Nimrod was there, moving into the doorway. For the first time Chan had a clear view of a mentality without being a part of it. Even to him, it was a terrifying sight. The forms of Leah, S’glya, and the Angel stirred feebly within the swarming, smothering mass of Ishmael’s components. Long purple-black tentacles of Tinker elements writhed away from the main body. They extended into the room, reaching out toward the locks of the closed chambers. As Chan watched, the whole mass gave a jerk and moved closer. The door holding Chan a prisoner slid silently open.

“Out of the way, Godiva!” Brachis had his gun raised, sighting for a clear shot past the woman standing in front of him.

“It would be foolish to shoot.” The voice of Leah Rainbow spoke from the depths of the vibrating mass. “Godiva is right, Luther Brachis. We can help you. And we did not enter her mind—
because we could not.
May we tell him?”

Godiva was nodding, still staring up rapdy into Brachis’s face. “Tell him now. He is my love, and it is time.”

“We could not bring Godiva Lomberd to union, Luther Brachis, although we tried. Because
Godiva is not human.
”

“Godiva. Move!” Brachis did not seem to have heard the mentality, but the hand holding his gun was trembling. “Out of the way, let me get a shot at it.”

Godiva edged in closer, reaching up to place her hands on his shoulders. “Before Nimrod spoke with me, I could not tell you. My prime coding did not permit it, and I wondered if you would ever know. But they are right. I am not human. Luther, let them help you.”

“Don’t touch him!” Mondrian was staring at Godiva with sudden comprehension. “Don’t touch him any more—and don’t say what you are.”

“I must. Before I could not, but now I must.” Godiva’s arms went around Brachis’s neck. “Luther, you are my love. And I am an Artefact.”

Brachis tried to pull away. “Godiva, don’t say that. Don’t ever say
anything
like that.”

“I must.” She clung to him, moving as he moved. “I am an Artefact. And the Margrave of Fujitsu was my maker.”

“You can’t be. You helped to
save
me.” The hand holding the gun was white-knuckled and trembling. “When the Artefacts were attacking me, you didn’t help
them,
you helped me.”

“Of course I tried to save you. I could never kill anything. Fujitsu created me, in the vats of his Needler lab. But I was made for love, not death. I love you, Luther.”

She tried to reach up and kiss him. Brachis was pulling his face away out of reach.

“Feel pity, Luther Brachis, not anger.” It was Leah’s voice again, emerging from the middle of the Tinker swarm. “She became Fujitsu’s instrument, but not from choice. When the Margrave was alive, her only program was to watch you, and stay with you, and love you.
When he died, that program was not cancelled.
But his death also triggered her programing as a source of information for other Artefacts. They were able to follow you, to know your actions. But feel Godiva’s misery, as we are able to feel it. She loves you, yet she could not help providing information that might harm you. When you came to Travancore, she rejoiced—because she knew that no other Artefacts could follow you here.”

Tears were trickling down the flawless skin of Godiva’s cheeks. “It is true, Luther. Forgive me. I could not tell you what I was doing, no matter how much I loved you.”

“Love. Making money for Fujitsu, was that your idea of love?” Luther Brachis averted his face from Godiva, as again she tried to kiss him. He stared out over her shoulder. “Damn your soul, Fujitsu, wherever you are.” His voice was quiet, apparently unemotional. “You wanted your dues, and you took them. You win, Fujitsu. You win.”

He pushed the muzzle of his gun into Godiva’s soft belly and pulled the trigger. The explosion was muffled to a soft, harmless-sounding thump. But the shaped projectile blew a fist-sized hole right through Godiva’s opulent body.

She stared up into Brachis’s face and smiled a dreamy and loving smile. She stood up straight, arms raised in supplication; and then she fell. Even in dying, there was a strange grace to her. Luther Brachis stared down at her body and drew in a long, sobbing breath.

Mondrian alone foresaw what might come next.

“Luther! No!” He jumped forward to grab at Brachis’s arm. The other man glanced at him, and almost casually began to turn his wrist. Mondrian pulled as hard as he could, but the arm movement did not slow. As the weapon came to point at his own head, Brachis stared down at the tumbled and bleeding form in front of him.

“I loved you, Godiva,” he said quietly. “I really did.” He fired the gun point-blank at his own forehead. A spout of blood and brain tissue jetted from the back of his skull. As he fell he pulled Esro Mondrian with him.

Chan started forward! Mondrian was beginning to pull free, clambering to his feet.

And so, amazingly, was Godiva Lomberd. She held her hand to her back, where bloodied internal organs showed at the gaping exit wound, and she weaved where she stood. But still she began to move forward, to where Luther Brachis lay.

“Godiva Lomberd, do not try to lift him. That effort will kill you.” It was Leah’s warning voice. But Godiva was bending and putting her arms around Brachis, while blood streamed down her dress.

She shook her blond head. “We do not die easily, my kind. Not even . . . of sorrow.” Already she was standing again, Luther cradled to her chest while one hand supported the back of his shattered head. Then she was hurrying out of the quarantine chamber.

Chan started after her—and realized that while they had all watched Godiva, Esro Mondrian was vanishing through the other door.

“Follow him!” said Leah’s voice. “With Brachis gone, Mondrian alone knows the Link sequence to take this ship back to Sol.”

Chan hesitated. Follow Mondrian—but Nimrod was still united, Angel was too slow, Shikari was disassembled. “S’greela!” Chan called to the Pipe-Rilla. “Come on. It’s up to the two of us.”

He ran out of the quarantine chamber, and at once found himself in the labyrinth of the Q-ship interior.

“Which way?” asked S’greela. She was bounding along at his side.

Chan had no idea. Before he could speak, a long tendril of Tinker components came streaming into the corridor. “Follow Ishmael,” called Leah’s muffled voice from far behind.

Nimrod at least must have some idea of where Mondrian was going. Chan and S’greela ran along behind the moving Tinker column, down one corridor and along up two short flights of stairs.

“The main Q-ship control room,” cried S’greela. She was ahead of Chan. “He is here.”

Chan ran through to join her. Mondrian was at a main panel, throwing switches. As Chan and S’greela entered, he spun around to face them.

“Get away from me, or we all die. I have initiated a Q-ship destruct sequence, and I alone can stop it. You have three minutes to surrender and place yourselves in sealed quarantine chambers.”

“Stay back,” cried S’greela. “He means it, he will do it. We must do as he says.”

“Wait!” called a voice from far along the corridor. It was Angel, creeping along as fast as the root system would permit.

“S’greela, you have to help Angel.” But before Chan’s command could be carried out, a blizzard of Tinker components appeared in the corridor. They crowded to lift and push Angel towards the control room.

When Angel reached the threshold, part of the swarm at once flew across to cluster thickly on Mondrian. Another group flew to settle on Chan and S’greela. “Quickly!”

Chan did not know who had cried out. Already the mentality was awakening, faster than ever before. Chan felt Almas reaching out toward Mondrian, and then the shock of contact.

CAN YOU REACH HIM? It was Nimrod, faint and far-off, connecting in through the Ishmael/Shikari link.

WE ARE TRYING. There was a long moment of probing, as the mentality sought to feel into a resisting mind. WE CANNOT.

Chan felt the full impact of that surprise and alarm. Mondrian’s mind had risen powerfully against them, stronger than Almas had believed possible. The mind pool was recoiling from the intensity of the emotion that it had encountered.

WE CANNOT BRING HIM TO UNION. The news flowed back to Nimrod. THERE IS A BLOCK, IMMOVABLE, PERMANENT, DEEP-SEATED.

CAN YOU BYPASS IT, AND REACH THE ABORT PATTERN FOR Q-SHIP DESTRUCTION? Nimrod’s message carried its overtones. The other mentality was moving towards the control room, but in the united form its pace was too slow.

IT WOULD DESTROY HIM. IT IS BURIED BENEATH ALL ACCESSIBLE LEVELS.

Now S’greela and Chan had joined Shikari to hold Mondrian. He did not resist physically, but his mind boiled and burned, rejecting all contact with the mentality. Almas tried again along a new path. Chan felt the union’s repugnance as it came to the seething undercurrent of Mondrian’s mind.

ONE MINUTE, said Nimrod. YOU MUST FIND THE ABORT PATTERN FOR Q-SHIP DESTRUCTION.

WE ARE STILL TRYING. IT CANNOT BE REACHED.

“Should we destroy Mondrian?” That was Chan, struggling to remain within the mentality, and yet provide an individual input to the mind pool. “His destruction might yield the abort pattern.”

NO—NO—NO. The gale of disapproval almost swept Chan away. He felt the shocked reaction from the other team members, as he struggled to pull back farther from the mentality.

He faced a terrible choice. He needed the mind pool to help him, at the same time as he needed to act independently from it. Chan channeled his energy and reached deeper, burrowing his way into a matrix of emotion that struggled furiously to resist him.

He made no progress.
Mondrian would not yield.

Chan thrust about in uncontrolled surges, and at last felt the first random contact with the memory block. It was like a dark, confined presence in Mondrian’s brain, sealed off from everything around it. Chan pushed deeper, using the full power of the whole mind pool. He knew what he had to do. But could he bring himself to do it, against the resistance of all the others?

Now.
He used the edge of his own worst memories to cut into the naked, delicate fiber of Mondrian’s mind. The darkness resisted for one more moment, then shivered to pieces.

The block was gone. But as Almas reached past Chan to pick up the abort command and Mattin Link sequence from Mondrian’s mind, Chan himself was caught in a mental explosion. Mondrian had been forced to look at the horror of his own distant past. The scream of pain and mental anguish blew Chan out of the tortured brain and far away into a sea of fading consciousness.

The mentality caught Chan and cradled him. But Mondrian’s intellect was flickering and dimming, a quenched ember of mind that sank rapidly to nothing.

“Safe. We are safe,” said Chan.

“Death. We are Death,” said an echo. Then Chan was sinking into a maelstrom of bottomless terror, knowing it was
his
terror, knowing it was only the faintest shadow of what he had found inside Esro Mondrian.

“Death. Death?” said the echo, closer and louder.

But now it could not touch him. For at last Chan had let go, and been sucked all the way into the whirlpool.

Chapter 40

The transition came at the hundred and twentieth level of the warrens, and it came suddenly. Above that point were the signs of success: fashionable apartments, bright lights, beautiful people, high rents, and easy access to the Link points. Below Level 120 a traveller found only dark hell-holes, fugitives, and failure.

Chan approached the apartment cautiously, walking light-footed along the trash-filled corridor with its grimy walls and solid grey doors. Reaching his destination, he placed his hand on the ID unit and pressed. The light glowed. He was allowed through into the coffin-like outer hall and stood there, patiently waiting.

It took a long time. The woman who opened the inner door was tall and stooped, with long, unkempt hair. She peered out into the tiny dim-lit half and stared at Chan with tired, bleary eyes.

He nodded. “It’s me, Tatty. May I come in?”

She did not speak, but she turned and shuffled through into the apartment. Following her, Chan saw the purple of Paradox shots along both of her arms. They went into a tiny living-room, where Chan sat down uninvited on a hard chair and stared around him. The place was a clutter of clothes, dishes, and papers, the result of many weeks of casual living with no attempt to clean.

She sat down opposite him on a ragged hassock and stared up at his face. She nodded slowly. “You’ve changed, Chan. Just like they said.”

“We’ve all changed.” He sat stiffly, hands on knees.

“I heard the rumors. The Gallimaufries are full of them. How you and Leah went out to the far stars, with Esro Mondrian and Luther Brachis and the aliens. How you were changed, and caught a super-being, and it killed to save itself. They say it will make everything different, out there and back here, too.” She rubbed at her eyes.

“We’re not sure of that, Tatty. At first it seemed we were dealing with something superior, something that had us beat in every way. Now, we’re not so sure. We can sometimes do things, us humans, that the super-beings don’t seem able to do.”

It was equally true, whether he was talking of the mentalities or the Morgan Constructs. And not only humans. The Pipe-Rillas and the Angels had their own special powers, their own reservations about the mind pool mentalities. Only the Tinkers, advocates of all forms of Composites, were unreservedly in favor.

“Any way,” he went on, “the Stellar Group ambassadors have laid down the rules. There will be no risks taken. The new beings will be kept in a protected environment, along with the captured Construct, until they are completely understood.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“I don’t know. There were casualties on Travancore, but I’m not sure who was to blame.”

“I heard.” Her eyes were glassy. She was bottoming out after a Paradox high. “Esro, and Luther Brachis, and Godiva.”

“You heard the . . .
other
thing about her?”