Gray Matters (17 page)

“Did you really escape? It seems impossible. When were you born?”

“Sagittarius, twenty-one sixty.”

“I’m just four years older.” Itubi laughs. “Part of me anyhow. Yet you look so young, Oona.”

“The final hatchery lifespan estimates were for five hundred to six hundred years.”

“But, I’ve seen old men—”

“I know. Some of them from the Depository wither and die within a decade of getting out. Spend all their time fasting and praying. I’ve watched hundreds. No one seems to care. By living alone I escape close attention. These new Depository products are not suspicious of solitude as long as you act industrious or spiritual.”

“Are there no others like us?”

“I’ve looked, and waited … nearly two hundred years. In all that time, you’re the first. The ones that return from the Depository are sexless. Not their bodies, of course, they all have fine healthy hatchery bodies. Something’s been done to their minds.”

“Liberation,” Itubi mutters.

“But you weren’t Liberated. You’re the runaway.” Oona smiles, pleased with the thought of Itubi evading the machines. “You’re famous. I heard all about you in the village before … before we met. I knew you were different, but I never, never guessed that you’d be fertile. The Breeding Facility must wait for the final operation to sterilize the males.”

“Then it’s just an accident. Swann’s oversight.” Itubi shakes his head. “Can it really be so simple?”

“There is nothing more simple than life, Obu,” she says. “Miracles included.”

Vera spreads an even film of coconut oil across Philip’s back. Her smile congeals when the electric buzz of his wrist alarm interrupts the placid afternoon. She caps the bottle, wiping her hands on the towel without a word.

“I’m sorry,” Quarrels says, propped on his elbows. “It couldn’t be helped.” He avoids her eyes. “I know I gave my word, but it’s not as easy as all that. God knows how many regulations I’m breaking by just being here.”

“You’re not going,” she says.

“I have to. Next time it will be different.”

“Never mind next time! You’re not going.” She drops the towel and walks quickly up the beach toward the tent. Quarrels watches her disappear inside and makes up his mind. This is the end. No more lies or compromises; he is tired of subterfuge and considers applying for therapy sessions to strengthen his resolve. All dreams must end in waking, he thinks, standing up as Vera comes out of the tent carrying the double-barreled Holland & Holland.

“Turn it off,” she commands. “Whatever it is that you do,
do it!”

“It’s automatic, Vera. The controls are set back in the Depository.”

“I don’t believe you.” She stops a few paces away in the sand and aims the shotgun at his face. “I mean it, I’ll kill you if you don’t turn it off.”

Quarrels laughs. He looks straight into the upturned muzzle. Vera’s eyes are no less threatening. “Such cheap Hollywood theatrics,” he says. “You can’t kill me, Vera. This is only a merge; it’s as unreal as the movies. You can’t do in memory what you haven’t done in life.”

“But it’s true, I killed a man, my first husband. With this same gun. It’s as easy as turning off your alarm. Now hurry up or I pull the trigger!”

“I believe you would, Vera, but it’s still no good, even if you have a dozen victims to your credit. You may be a killer, but I’ve never been killed, so your threats are meaningless.”

“I’m warning you, Philip.” As she speaks, a mysterious light begins to play on his skin. “Philip!” The light flickers like little tongues of blue flame.
“Turn it off!”

“Goodbye, Vera.” The entire surface of his body is lambent. Radiance begins to blur his features. “I applaud your performance.”

“Stay with me,” she pleads.
“Please!”
The light is incredibly bright. Vera’s scream is lost in the roar of the shotgun’s blast.

Tauriq the Healer receives Oona’s astonishing news calmly. Only his eyes betray his momentary amazement. He takes both her hands in his grasp and returns her steady gaze. For a long time neither speaks.

“And what of the stranger?” Tauriq asks, breaking the silence.

“Obu,” Oona corrects him.

“Yes, Obu. Does he share your happiness and peace?”

“No, his Ego is too strong. His pride gives him no rest.”

“I met him once in the village. His hostility is unmistakable. And yet, I sensed something vital in him, a life force more beast than man. I understand how it must have happened, Oona.”

The Weaver laughs. “You sound as if I have a disease, Tauriq,” she says.

“Perhaps it is even more serious than that. How long has it been?”

“Two months.”

“It’s time I had a look at you.” Tauriq opens his shoulderbag and sorts among his instruments. “I’ve helped many mares to foal, but this will be my first childbirth.” He removes a steel speculum and adjusts the calibrated spreaders.

Oona slips out of her loose cotton clothing, standing naked in front of the Healer. Above their heads, broad orange sunflowers nod in the afternoon wind.

Obu Itubi is drunk. He stumbles down the jungle trail, cursing the shifting weight of a sackful of avocados slung over his shoulder. What sort of work is this for a man who’s fathered the world’s first child in a hundred and fifty years? No, longer than that. The Reproduction Centers were started three centuries ago. Nothing but hatchery babies in all that time and he, a man as important as Adam, is sent to pick fruit in the forest like some paltry menial.

It’s the woman’s fault, with her loom and her house and that damned garden. The beatific Weaver! Well, he’s had enough of being a lackey, running her errands. And for what? Cast-off clothing and tasteless vegetarian meals! Obu trudges forward, his beer-blurred brain tabulating a long list of complaints and injuries, not the least of which is the cooling of Oona’s passion. She hasn’t shared her bed with him since telling him she was pregnant a month ago, acting chaste as a vestal nun whenever he chances a caress. One would think she’s harboring an immaculate conception in that proud stomach. But he remembers how she sweated and scratched and screamed his name in the night, damned if she didn’t. And he’ll be damned if another night goes by without the hump and thrust of love. No more sleeping in a hammock outside, as if he was no better than the goats she keeps. Some goat! Why, he’s the mightiest ram in all the world.

Itubi staggers out of the woods, delighting in his newly discovered goathood. Yessir, the Universal Ram! He laughs and cavorts, swinging the sack in a wild circle that sends him spinning off his feet into the tall grass. Why wait for nighttime for his tupping? Oona’s farm is just over the next hill. Why not sneak around the back way and take her by surprise, like he did the first time? A proper goat plan.

Itubi abandons the sack of avocados. They’ll keep until he returns. Emboldened by alcohol, laughing his hircine laugh, he lopes through the waving grass, a copper-colored satyr all musk and gonad. What luck, finding the fallen-down remains of his lean-to under the pear trees, his brewpot still full and fermenting. Sober, he might have second thoughts about so rash an enterprise as rape, but strong drink happily obscures any lingering scruples and keeps the fantasy lamp of courage in full flame.

At the stone wall enclosing the upper meadow, Itubi drops to his knees and crawls, hidden from view until he reaches the barn. From here it’s a short run to the house. He peers around the corner and sees Oona with another man, her clothing discarded at her feet. The stranger fondles her naked breasts. He whispers secret words into her ear. She is laughing as she reclines on a bench under the brazen sunflowers. Still laughing, she spreads her legs. The wicked-looking speculum gleams in his hands.

Itubi steps inside the barn, desperate and reeling. The sound of Oona’s laughter goads his fury. A row of wooden tools hang from pegs driven into the stone wall, a lethal array of scythes, grubbing hoes, hay forks, and rakes. It takes only a moment for him to make his choice. Gripping the long-handled flail like a club, Itubi starts from the barn, his bare feet cat-silent on the packed earth of the farmyard. The stranger is bending over his woman, savoring the delights of those open thighs. He doesn’t hear Itubi’s approach or see the fleeting shadow of the upraised flail as he poises to strike.

Vera hurls the shotgun aside and hurries to where her lover’s body lies sprawled in the sand. She knows he is dead and the moment of horror she felt while pulling the trigger is gone, replaced by a curious calm. There is no grief, not even the beginnings of guilt. She is troubled only by the sharp echo of the weapon’s report still ringing in her ears. A sense of awe at having caused such terrifying damage is as near as she comes to true emotion.

Because the range was too close for the pattern to spread, Quarrels took the full charge straight into his face. He lies on his back, arms spread, his head burst like an overripe melon carelessly dropped in the field. Vera is astonished by the quantity of blood puddled in the warm sand. The foxfire phosphorescence no longer emanates from his body and, in spite of the suntan, his flesh assumes a ghastly pallor.

“Dead fish only glow at night,” Vera mutters, kicking sand at the fat bluebottle flies that have appeared almost magically about the corpse. Quarrels is hers forever now. He will never go away again.

A man’s life is his own if he causes no harm to others.
The Law Speaker’s recorded words issue from within the Sentinel. All the Elders of the Qaf tribe have gathered in the Weaver’s garden, summoned by the flying silver robot towering above their heads. The cloth-draped form of Tauriq the Healer rests on a bench under the sunflowers. One of the Law Speakers holds the bloodstained flail. Oona stands, watching silently, off to the side.

“There is no need for such reminders,” the Law Speaker says. “I recall the words I spoke.”

My apologies, Enlightened One,
Y41-AK9 replies via communicator.
I do not wish to dishonor you, nor do I care to use this sorrowful occasion to further my own wishes.

“We are in your debt for bringing us here. Your warnings might have prevented this loss. The fugitive must be returned to the Depository. He cannot escape from the island. All of the tribe will assist you in the search.”

He is more dangerous than any animal. Care must be taken so that no harm comes to your people.

“All caution will be exercised. We employ nets and darts tipped with a paralyzing anesthetic. Our hunters are extremely accurate with the blowgun. The runaway will be captured alive.”

If it can be managed, the Depository will be grateful. The Sentinel contains cranial facilities adapted specifically for the return of the resident. But, if the lives of any of your men are endangered, it is the wish of Center Control that the subject be destroyed.

The Medical Authority is puzzled. In all their records there is not another case like this one. A Level II Auditor, the only resident of that category born in the twentieth century, is the subject. His medical history file reads:

Number:
C19-LTR85 (266-07-83)

Name:
Philip Randolph Quarrels

Sex:
Male

Class:
not applicable

Born:
8-19-1940

Cerebrectomized:
3-23-1990

Filed:
10-10-2362

Occupation:
Astronaut; pilot

Ego Rating:
67.459

Health:
Excellent

Previous Illness:
None

The Medical Authority is notified after the subject failed to meet his auditing schedule and did not respond when signaled via communicator.

The resident’s brain is currently undergoing intense laboratory examination. Although tests indicate that the cerebral cell tissue is alive and the neurons respond to electrostimuli, no wave patterns can be detected on the micro-encephalogram. Even in the deepest of comas the subconscious still emits a feeble pattern. Clinically, the subject is alive; and yet, according to all known diagnoses, the brain is that of a dead man.

It is very mysterious. No trace of disease or cell damage can be found. No symptoms of psychic trauma are discovered. A playback of the subject’s files reveals nothing. Previous to the discovery of the subject’s condition he had programmed a series of memory-bank epistemology lectures. Curiously, nothing of the content of these lectures has registered in the conscious or unconscious mind of the subject. It is almost as if he had been someplace else when the files were programmed. Center Control has instructed the Medical Authority to continue its investigations.

Obu Itubi cowers in an impromptu burrow he scooped from the hillside with his bare hands. He is raw and dirty his hair matted and caked with clay. The cuts and scratches from scrambling blindly through thorn-sharp jungle undergrowth have begun to fester. Ticks and lice torment him. It is damp in the burrow and Itubi is cold, cramped, and utterly miserable.

He hasn’t eaten in two days. To avoid observation, his plan was to forage for food only at night, but, without a moon, the darkness under the trees was like a bandage tied over his eyes and it was all he could do to feel his way back to the safety of his burrow, a helpless hungry mole. He tries not to think of Oona or of his comfortable life in the whitewashed house. Regret is an insidious poison and Itubi has need of memories considerably less toxic than the image of the slender Tropique weaver who carries his child in her sloping belly. He concentrates his thoughts on the monotonous aisles of the Depository and determines to appreciate even what harried freedom is left to him. Better to live in the ground like a cornered rat and die a free man under the open sky than be sealed away in that computerized mausoleum with several billion other zombies.

Sustained by his angry thoughts, Itubi has no intention of dying. Killing an innocent man may have cost him a chance for domestic happiness, but as long as he has the strength to resist, he is not going to give up his freedom because of a drunken mistake. Itubi knows that he is not safe on the island. Escape means stealing a boat and for such an undertaking he needs nourishment. The risks of starvation are greater than the danger of exposing himself. If he’s cautious, an hour’s foraging should enable him to stockpile enough fruit to last for days.