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Awkward trifaced thing maneuvering into Paul’s way.There was humor in that self-image, even in extremity: that was Rafe-mind, steady and self-amused.
I love you, Paul thought to their amalgamated self over and over again, without reservation, without stint; and got it back, Rafe-flavored. He wanted Jillan too; felt her fear, her reserve against all their wants: it was all too absolute.
Me, she insisted, me, myself, I, I, I—even while she moved her limbs in unison with them. There was pain in that.
“We need you,” Paul whispered, desperate. He knew, of a sudden, knew what privacy in Jillan this union threatened. She shielded them from her own weapons, from rage, from resentment, every violence.
“You’re our defense, Jillan; Rafe’s our solid core; me—I go for himwhen I can get at him. But I need what you’ve got—all of it, hear—no secrets, Jillan-love.”
“No one needs all,” Jillan flung back at them both. “But that was always what you asked.”
It stung, it burned. It took them wrathfully inside itself and taught them privacy.
No one,thought Jillan-mind, with a ferocity that numbed, no one can ask myself of me.
Our shield,Paul whispered to Rafe, in the belly of this amalgam they had become. Give way. Give up for now. Let Jillan have her way.
There was outrage left: memories of Fargone docks, of Welfare and Security.
You asked it.That was Rafe, in self-defense.
I never asked. You made up your own mind what I should be.
His arm was broken. He had never talked. He never would.
There was terror(Jillan now) in the dark, hiding there, dodging a drunken spacer who had a yen for a fourteen-year-old, a kid without ship name to defend her—she eluded him, hurled invective at him; shook, afterward, for long, stomach-wracking minutes.
Grandmother had a number(Paul-mind, in self-defense) which all lab-born had.
“Why don’t I?” he had asked, wanting to be like this tranquil model of his life. He touched the number, fascinated by it. He could see it forever, fading-purple against Gran’s pale mine-bleached skin, against frail bones and the raised tracery of veins under silk-soft skin. It was one with the touch of Gran’s hand, the softest thing he knew; but she had wielded blasters, shoved rock, had a mechanical leg from a rockfall in the deep. Her eyes, her wonderful eyes, black as all the pits, her mouth seamed and sere and very strong: the number brought back that moment.
“You don’t want one,” his mother said, harshly, as harshly as she ever spoke to him. “Fool kid, you don’t want one of those.”
“Your gran’s lab-born,” a girl had said once, seven and cruel as seven came, the day his gran had died. “Made her in a tank. That’s what they did. Bet they made a dozen.”
He had cried at the funeral; his mother did, which reassured him of her humanity.
But perhaps, he thought even then, she was pretending.
“None of her damn business,” Jillan-mind insisted of that seven-year-old, with a great and cleansing wrath; and Rafe was only sorry, gentler, in his way. “Stupid kid,” he said. There was no doubt in them of humanity; the memory grew clean, purged; “She loved you,” Rafe-mind said, confusing his own half-forgotten spacer mother with the daughter of lab-born gran. Heknew; Jillan knew; there was no doubt at all in them, why a woman would work all her life and hardly see her son—to leave him station-share, the sum of all she had, her legacy. Merchanters knew, who had bought a ship with the sum of their own years.
They progressed; limbs began to work.
Rafe’s suffering in this—a stray thought from Paul, shame, before the man who was so godlike perfect, feeling his horror at the shambling thing they had become.
Shut up, Jillan said, severe and lacking vanity, as she had killed it in herself years ago (too great a hazard, on the docks, to look better than one had to, to attract anything but, maybe, work. One had to look like business; and be business; and mean business; and she did.)
Use what you’ve got.(Rafe-mind, whose vanity was extreme, and touching, in its sensitivity).
You can’t get pregnant,Jillan hurled at him, ultimate rationality; and caught his longing, his lifelong wish for some woman, for family—
Vanity serves some purposes,Rafe-mind thought, recalling it was his smoothness, his glib facility with words that got them what they had: he had bent and bent, so Jillan never had to— A room in a sleepover, an old woman gave it to me—I took even that. Even that, for you—
She felt the wound, shocked. Her anger diversified, became a vast warm thing that lapped them like a sea.
Mine,she thought of them, and saw Paul-shape ahead of them. Wailing went about them. Worm nudged their flanks, little jolts of pain too dim to matter.
“Paul,”Worm said, slithering about them, round and round; and the creature before them lingered, murkish in its light. Limbs came and went in it. The face changed constantly.
X
You’re a copy,” Rafe said to Marandu/Jillan’s faded image.M
“Yes,” Marandu said. The hands, drawn up to the breast, returned to human pose; Marandu/Jillan grew brighter and more definite, with that unblinking godlike stare.
“Computer-generated,” Jillan said in self-despite.
“Or we are the computer,” Marandu said, turning those too-wise eyes her way. That stare, once mad, acquired a fearsome sanity. “We’re its soft-structure. Its enablement. We’re alive individually and collectively. We’ve been ru
“And the enemy,” said Paul. “The enemy: what is it?”
“It’s Kepta, of course,” Marandu said. “It’s Kepta Three.”
“Be careful,” <> said to <>’s counterpart: </> had come very close now, to the center where <> had invested <>self. “You know what <> can do.”
At this </> hesitated. “Fool,” </> said. “Make another <> and watch it turn on <>. </> did.”
“It was <>y nature then,” <> said. “Perhaps <>’ve grown.”
“Only older,” </> returned, gaining more of <>’s territory. </> extended a filament of </>self all about the center, advanced Paul-mind and = = = = in their attack. The passengers huddled far and afraid, in what recesses they could, excepting ((())), who had forgotten who had killed ((())), long ago; excepting entities like [], who ranged themselves with </>. “<>’ve grown older and less integrated, <>. Give up the center.”
“</> are long outmoded,” <> said in profoundest disgust. “<> learn; <> change. Come ahead and discover what <> have become.”
</> shivered then, in the least small doubt </> circled and moved back.
“Attack,” [] raged, the destroyer of []’s own world. “Take it!”
But </> delayed, delayed to think it through in Paul-mind. </> had fallen once before into that trap, <>’s mutability.
Therefore, </> used Paul—to learn what <> might have gained from <>’s latest acquisitions; to be certain this time that </>’s strength was equal to the contest. <> collectedthings of late. <> modified <>self in disturbing ways, and was not what <> had been.
</> circled farther back, with more and more agitation, sent out more and more of </>’s allies to scour the perimeters.