The Mind Pool

Tinker components were fluttering at his bonds, loosening them. Leah squatted back on her haunches, took Chan’s hands, and helped him to sit up. She was smiling at him. As she moved close and kissed him on the mouth he felt a new stirring of multiple pleasures — in himself, in her, and in the other three members of the group.

She put her arms around him, and they hugged each other close.

“They told us you were dead,” he murmured. “They said that you met the Construct, and it destroyed you. We believed them, believed that Nimrod had killed all of you. I should have had more faith. You killed Nimrod.”

NIMROD? The feeling through Chan’s body was like an intense electric shock, yet its current was bright laughter, direct in his mind, CHAN, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. NIMROD COULD NOT KILL US. WE COULD NOT KILL NIMROD. CHAN, WE ARE NIMROD.

No more words, but in their place images and raw information, an intense, mind-stretching torrent. WE MET THE CONSTRUCT. WE WERE AFRAID. AND WE CHANGED. SEE THIS (FEEL this, KNOW this). Everything at once, an explosion of parallel data inputs bursting inside Chan’s head …

IMAGE: …the Alpha Team is frozen in position. Above them, floating down with all weapons ports open, the Morgan Construct.

Too late to flee.

This is the moment for Ishmael the Tinker to fall apart in independent components, for Angel to stand useless and immobilized, for S’glya to seek futile escape in the bounding leaps of a terrified Pipe-Rilla.

The group coalesces…

FUSION: …every component of Ishmael flies to a new position, embedding Leah, S’glya and the Angel within the Tinker’s extended body. After a split-second of chaos, combination takes place. Instead of a pursuit team of individual members, a single mentality exists…

IMAGE: …the Morgan Construct is ready to obliterate everything. Weapons ports are glowing with impending energy release, while the air shimmers with electromagnetic fields. Ionization forms a violet-blue nimbus around the broad head and latticed wings…

EVALUATION: …the Mentality formulates and reviews a score of options. It holds within it the structure of the Morgan Construct, together with all the separate and combined capabilities of the pursuit team…

ACTION: …the option is selected. A tone, loud and pure, emerges from the communications box on the Angel’s midsection. At the same time a second note, precisely placed in pitch, phase, and volume, comes as an octaves-higher scream from S’glya, and a higher overtone from individual Tinker components.

The Morgan Construct pauses. A fraction of a second later, its wing panels begin to vibrate.

COMMENT: …CONSTRUCT DESIGN DEFECT. RESONANCE POTENTIAL IN INORGANIC CONTROL CIRCUITS. VULNERABILITY TO ACOUSTIC/ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING. NO SAFETY LEVEL ESTABLISHED. OVERLOAD AND SHUTDOWN…

IMAGE: …the Construct begins to shake. A crackling sound from the body cavity, a violent series of random jerks. The latticed wings twist. (OVERLOAD) A final shudder. The Constructs frame locks to a fixed position, floats in silence to the forest floor. A dozen Tinker components fly across and enter the body cavity…

COMMENT: …NO PERMANENT DAMAGE. IMMOBILIZED FOR STUDY OF CONSTRUCT MENTAL PROCESSES AND PATHOLOGY.

IMAGE: …beside the quiet form of the Morgan Construct, the pursuit team members huddle. The whole group lies motionless in the dark forest depths, every external sensory input damped to lowest levels…

COMMENT: …THE TIME OF WONDER, THE TIME FOR INTROSPECTION. SO WE BECAME NIMROD, SO WE ARE NIMROD. NO MORE CAN BE GIVEN, TO ONE WHO IS NOT YET A POOLED MIND. FAREWELL.

Chan lay supine on damp leaf mold. Knowledge of his surroundings bled back into his mind. It had been as intense as a bolt of lightning, and as short-lived. He had abandoned his own body for hours, yet no time had passed. He and Leah still held each other close, her lips still brushed his cheek.

He took his first breath in an eon, lifted his head, and stared around him. Nothing. The forest was dark as ever. Only a trace of remembered after-image seen through the Angel’s sensors told him where the other team members had been. He fancied a brief whirring of tiny wings, twenty feet away, then he and Leah were alone.

Chan allowed his head to fall back to the damp, soft cushion of leaves. His brain was jellied and contused, with the familiar agony of a bad session on the Stimulator. It was better to lie in silence, to feel but not to think. Thinking was pain.

“Chan.” It was Leah’s calm voice again, wakening him, whispering in his ear. “Chan, it was hard on you, but we knew no other way. You resisted fusion. The only way that we knew was to take you by force, when emotion was strongest and you were unguarded. We are sorry it had to happen that way.”

Chan said nothing. “We are sorry,” said Leah again. “Here is a promise: It will never happen that way again. It was not done to use you, only to bring you quickly to union.”

“Who are you?” Chan did not think he had spoken those words, but the body that lay alongside his, touching now from breast to thighs, jerked in reaction.

“You know who I am.” The voice in the darkness was puzzled. “I am Leah.”

“No. Not any more. You are Nimrod. What happened to the Leah that I knew?”

“Ah.” A sharp, indrawn breath of comprehension. “Nimrod, yes. But truly, I am still Leah, no less than I ever was. I am more, because I am part of Nimrod also.”

“My Leah has gone.”

“Gone? Rubbish!” Leah’s voice lost its dreamy, far-off tone. “What are you talking about, gone? I’m right here, the same as I always was. She slapped her hand hard on his bare chest, making him start at the unexpected blow.

“Who do you think did that to you, if I’ve gone?” she went on. She lifted herself up and leaned over him, her sharp elbow digging into his shoulder. “If you think that I’m some sort of illusion, or just a part of something else, then you’re wrong — dead wrong. I m still me. I still think, I still breathe, I still laugh, and I still love. Get that into your thick skull, Chan Dalton.” She slapped his chest again, harder than ever. “That’s me doing that to you, not Nimrod. When I first spoke to you today, that was me. When we made love, that was me. If you don’t understand that, you’ve got rocks in your head instead of brains. You were merged, and now you’re not. Do you feel any less, because we were fused?”

Chan shook his head slowly in the darkness. It was Leah all right, beating up on him, just like in the old days when he had been bad. “I don’t feel less. I feel different.”

“Different, and more.” Leah was not leaning over him any more. He knew that she was standing up. “Remember this, Chan. I’m still all that I ever was. I love you as much now as I did back in the Gallimaufries, when you were all I had, and I was all that you had. We have both changed since then, and you have changed more than I have. But remember one thing, when the time comes for you: Humans are the most difficult element. We form the pacing tactor for everything. So when it happens, relax. Thanks to what happened here, you’re halfway along the road.”

“The road to what?”

“You’ll see. Very soon.” She bent over, to give him a final soft kiss on the cheek. “It was all necessary, and it was wonderful, too. Better than I’d ever dreamed it might be.”

Chan heard light footsteps, ru