The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (65 page)

“He could break down at any minute,” said Ren. “You mustn't let…”

“Shut up!” ordered George. He pushed a white button on the panel in front of him. A grinding sound came from overhead, was replaced by a whistling roar.

Saim put a hand on Ren's shoulder, pushed him back into the cabin. “Go strap yourself down! See that Jeni's all right!”

“Here we go!” yelled George. “Look out for ground fire, and keep an eye peeled for their air cover.”

The big machine jerked upwards, lurched, then rose smoothly out of the chamber. The walls slid past. Then trees. They lifted over treetops into a dove-grey sky.

Saim felt panic begin, closed his eyes tightly.
This is natural,
he told himself.
The sky is not just the place of birds.
Exultation seized him. He opened his eyes, looked out of the windows.

It was already dark on the ground, but up here in the sky it was still light. This was like living in two worlds at once.

“We're flying,” he whispered.

Jeni's voice lifted from the cabin: “Saim! We're in the sky!”

He heard the terror in her voice, called back: “It's all right, Jeni. I'm here.”

“I'm frightened,” she whimpered.

Ren's voice came from the cabin. “Don't look out of the window, Jeni. Here, swallow this.”

Saim turned, watched what George did to command the machine. Yes. Just as the manual instructed. The knob there for adjusting fuel. The big handle for tipping and turning the machine. Saim let his hands rest on the wheel, felt the movements. And suddenly the whistling of the turbine, the muted thump-thump of the rotors seemed louder.

Ren's head lifted through the cockpit door. “You must head north across the wilderness plateau, Jorj,” he said. “That is the way to ó Katje's.”

George lifted his hands off the wheel, looked around at the gathering darkness beneath them, at the people in the cockpit, at the robe he was wearing.

“Jorj?” said Saim. “Jorj?”

The strangeness,
thought George. It was a whirling sensation in his mind.
The terrain's all different. Everything's different.

Ren put a hand on Jorj's arm. “Jorj?”

The helicopter began to tilt left.

Saim gripped the wheel, righted them.

George said “It's all … I don't … where are we?” He rubbed his palms across his eyes.

“It's as I warned,” said Ren. “Jorj had regressed. Help me unstrap him, Saim.”

But Saim was too busy controlling their flight. He waved Ren's hand away from the fuel control knob. “No! Don't touch that!”

“How am I going to get him back where I can examine him?” Ren felt exasperation, knew that the drug he had taken and the medical emergency were suppressing panic.
They were in the sky!

“Sit on the floor between us,” ordered Saim. “Don't touch anything. Get Jeni to help you.”

Jeni's head came through the door. “What's … Saim! You're running the machine!”

“You saw me do it in the cavern!”

“But that was different! You…”

“Here!” commanded Ren. “Stop that chatter and help me.”

“Yes, of course.” She was immediately all contrition.

Saim concentrated on flying the machine, Ren and Jeni dragged the simulacrum from the adjoining seat. George was slack-jawed and staring. Empty eyes. They frightened Saim as they swept out of his line of sight. He felt dampness beneath his palms.

There was full darkness in the sky now with the moon just lifting above the horizon. Saim saw village lights below to his left and far away to the right. Controlling this machine felt so … natural. His hands seemed to know what to do. He reached out, turned a switch. The panel glowed a dull green. Another switch. Yellow light came through the open door from the cabin.

“Thanks for the light,” said Ren. He came through the door, slid into the seat George had occupied.

“What landmarks do we look for?” asked Saim.

“Where are we?” asked Ren. He spoke with a drugged dullness.

“North of Council City. I can see some village lights, but I don't know what villages. The wilderness plateau's ahead.”

“ó Katje said two peaks with a lake between them,” said Ren. “And a burn scar like a cross on the northern peak.”

“How far?”

“She said five days on foot from Council City, but near an overtrain route.”

Saim glanced at his instruments. “We could be there in only a few hours.”

“Saim,” said Ren, “how do you keep your sanity? I know that when this tranquillizer wears off I'm going to be hysterical.” His voice lifted slightly from its dullness. “We're in the sky!”

A masculine groan sounded from the cabin behind them. Jeni called, “He's awake, Ren.”

Ren shook his head, swallowed. “Does he seem all right?”

“Yes. But he's awake.”

“Just keep an eye on him. See that he remains quiet.”

George stirred on the stretcher, feeling the bands across his chest and legs.
My name is George,
he thought.
I must remain quiet.

*   *   *

“So you're George,” said ó Katje.

George leaned back in his chair, stared around the little room where he had awakened. He liked the way this woman said his name. It sounded
right,
not like the mushed-out consonants the others used. He could even hear a faint echo of the first
e.

“Is that your name?” she asked. “George?”

She spoke Haribic. George answered in the same tongue. “That's my name.” The words came out a little stiffened. Haribic was difficult at times.

The woman shifted to Ancienglis, and again he had that feeling of rightness about the way she spoke. “Is there more to your name?”

“Yes. I'm Major George…” The words trailed off into emptiness.

She turned to Ren standing behind her. “Is he all right?”

“Oh, yes.” Ren stepped forward. He felt a great diffidence in ó Katje's presence. It was much more than the usual conditioned reverence for Priest or Priestess. “He does this frequently, ó Katje,” said Ren. “Whenever his thoughts have led him into a blank area of mind.”

What are we ever going to do with him?
wondered ó Katje. She studied the simulacrum. There was a roughness to his features that one seldom encountered in people.

“George,” she said. “George?”

George looked at her, slowly focusing. Woman in a blue robe. Long black hair tied in a silver loop at the back. Odd crooknecked staff in her hand. Thin face dominated by green eyes.

My name is George,
he thought.

I could call ó Plar and dump the whole thing into his lap,
she thought.
But that would be tempting his ignorance of our hiding place. If he learns we have the simulacrum. No. The
accident
must be maintained.

And she sensed that ó Plar could have no better solution for this Elder than she could find for herself. The creature looked so helpless in his rugged way. So attractive, really.

Ren said: “Perhaps you should question him, satisfy your mind about the fear detectors.” And he thought:
How odd, this awe of her. Could she have her staff tuned to some strange new frequency?

“What about these fear detectors?” she asked. “We found no such records or devices in this cave complex.”

“But they exist, ó Katje.”

“I still would like to have seen these devices and the records of them for myself. I think it odd that you should have burned everything.”

“I didn't want it discovered that I'd restored…” He nodded towards George.

She looked at George, back to Ren, thinking:
How strange this Ren is.
“Were you so ashamed of what you'd done?”

Ren's shoulders stiffened. “I didn't think it wise to broadcast that I'd violated a
kabah
room.”

“I see.” She nodded, feeling a brief constriction of her conditioning. It passed quickly and she thought:
ó Plar was right about this Ren. An odd variant on the renegade pattern. A
new
kind of accident.
“Perhaps there'll be similar devices and records here,” she said. “We'll look for them.”

“And we must act quickly,” said Ren. “The danger…”

“So you say.”

“You don't believe me?”

“I didn't say that. But you must admit you have other reasons for wishing the Millennial Display cancelled.”

“You sound as though you side with the Priests on this.” And he wondered:
Could Saim be right not to trust her?

“It's one thing to follow an accident that breaks with taboo,” she said. “For the sake of knowledge, of course. It's quite another thing to try to destroy the very roots of…”

“Accident?” He stared at her.

She fingered the slim central ring on her staff, and Ren felt the ripple of nervous disquiet that always preceded a heavy taste of displeasure.

“Please,” he petitioned her.

“I would hate to return you to a full course of conditioning,” she said. And she thought:
We'll have to do it, of course. As soon as we've exhausted our need for his
accidental
talents.

Ren paled. “ó Katje, I…”

“It doesn't please me to have to emphasize my words with the staff,” she said.

“Of course, ó Katje.” He found that he was trembling. There were dim recollections in his mind of a full course of reconditioning. Darkness. Fearful twistings of semi-consciousness. Terrors!

ó Katje looked down at George. “Now, Ren, tell me your purpose with this simulacrum.”

“Yes, ó Katje.” He stilled the trembling. “It seemed logical. The bones were intact and in a wonderful state of preservation because of the gas.”

“Gas?”

“From a weapon chamber.”

“Ah, the inert substance, the preservative.”

“Yes. There'd been some sort of accident to the chamber. And there was only one set of bones. I knew from medical use of the simpler tanks that the
kabah
tank could reproduce a cellular pattern in its full stage of…”

“This is all very interesting, dear Ren, but it's confined to
methods
when I'm more interested in your purpose.”

“Yes, of course.” He found that his right eyelid was twitching, rubbed it. “Purpose. I felt that we could restore many of the old habit channels in such a being—the compulsives, certainly, and the overriding repetitives—and from them gain clues to the working of the ancient devices.”

She spoke through a haze of inhibitory shock: “And you restored such channels?”

Ren missed the stiffness of her voice, said: “There are signs. I think we're on the verge of a breakthrough. If we once restored his full name, perhaps…”

“How could you?” She almost screeched the words.

He stared at her. “ó Katje, what's…”

“The pains of such recall,” she said. “The recollection of his actual moment of death!”

“But ó Katje, it's not exactly memories we…”

“A quibble! Have you no inhibitions at all?”

“ó Katje, I don't…”

“That which the Lord has taken unto Himself completes the Circle of Karma,” she said. “You've not only invaded this domain, you…”

“But you
knew
this, ó Katje!”

“There's a difference in knowing an abstract idea and seeing the very substance of it,” she said.

“Simulacrum,” said George.

They turned, looked at him.

“Simulacrum?” asked George. All this talk-talk between the beautiful dark woman and the doctor. It had dawned on George that simulacrum referred to himself. And in his Educator-memory was a definition:
Sham. Something vague and unreal.

“I'm no simulacrum,” he said. “I'm real.”

ó Katje drew in a trembling breath. “And that, Ren, is the thing which overshadows all else. He is real. He is real. He is real. And you would have him recall all his past, all his name, all…”

“My name?” said George. “It's Major George…” His thoughts shot out into the emptiness. There was no mindhold here, no place of orientation. But he knew he had been here before. There were faces, words, names, sensations.

Somewhere distant and subdued he heard a woman's voice. “You see, Ren? Have you any idea how constricting the inhibitions of a Priestess can be? Have you even the faintest conception?”

But that was away somewhere. This place in his mind, this was
here.
And there were old, familiar-feeling things. So many faces. And insistent voices: “And don't forget to bring home a dozen eggs. We're having omelet … Daddy, can I have a new dress for my birthday?… If you're the last man in the missile post and condition red is signalled, what is the procedure?… But I've got to know what's happened to my family! I've got to know!”

Within his mind, George stared at that last speaker, recognizing the face.
It was himself!
He was like a puppet standing in front of a visiphone, shouting into it at the uniformed man on the other end.
Man? Sure—Colonel Larkin!
“Pullyourselftogetherman!” the Colonel was yelling. “You're a soldier, you hear? You have your duty to do! Now, do it! Fire Betsy and Mabel! At once, you hear?” The Colonel paled, clutched at his throat. “May Day, you fool! People are dying like flies out here. The Ruskies have sneaked in a…” The Colonel supported himself on the phone stand. “Major Kinder, I order you to do your duty. Fire Betsy and…” He slumped out of sight.

George pushed himself out of the chair. He saw a tall woman, a figure in another world. She stepped aside.

Fire Betsy and Mabel.