Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 6

"There you have it. Explicit enough even for you two Scheissphysiker. A single dimensional translation confirmed, together with the rubberband-effect withdrawal hypersnap. Your overmodulated h.e.l.l-load must have finished Felice off. Probably the Little King as well. The PC equivalent was in the seven hundreds, for Christ's sake."

"We had vague intraconcert perception of some kind of mental fusion," Cordelia Warshaw insisted.

"Felice never fused to Marc," Manion stated. "For my money, the d.a.m.n girl's dead as mutton." He addressed himself again to the command mouthpiece, erasing the a.n.a.lysis and calling up a heavy artificial i-mode carrier. It was tuned to a certain mental signature with a precision none of the others could have achieved.

"You there in the armour! Do you hear me?"

The all but worthless scanner showed that someone inside the black ma.s.s did.

"Tell these fools who you are. I've called up an EK ident.

All we need is one conscious thought sequence."

From the speaker came a crackling stutter. The visual flickered. The a.n.a.lytical display said: ID UNCONFIRMED.

Patricia Castellane took the microphone. "Marc, it's Pat.

Communicate with us. Use either the mechanism or your fa.r.s.ense. We must know whether your mind is still integral.

Please, Marc!"

The speaker rustled, a breath stirring dry leaves. The screen said: ZH? JE? [PHONEME AMBIGUOUS] And the a.n.a.lysis: ID UNCONFIRMED.

Dr. Warshaw, working at the backup terminal said, "We need more than that."

"Marc, we want to help you," said Patricia. "Just speak to us."

A buzz fading to a hiss. ZH? JE? SS? [PHONEMES AMBIGUOUS] ID UNCONFIRMED.

"Ask him for his name," said Warshaw.

As if speaking to a young child, Patricia asked, "Quel est ton nom, cheri?"

JE SU? SOO? SU? JE SUIS = "I AM." [FRENCHAMERICAN DIALECT] "Ton nom! Quel est ton nom, mon ange d'abime?"

JE SUIS LE TENEBREUX = "I AM THE DARK ONE.".

[FIGURATE USAGE? CF. POEM 'EL DESDICHADO' BY GERARD DE NERVAL (PSEUD. LABRUNIE, GERARD, 1808-1855).] "Gotcha!" exclaimed the psychotactician. The metallic accents hung in the air. On the screen the glowing words persisted, and confirmation of the mental signature shone in the lower righthand corner: IMS POSITIVE: REMILLARD, MARC ALAIN KENDALL 3-602-437-121-015M.

Gerrit Van Wyk was blubbering. Ragnar Gathen turned away, expelling a great sigh. Diarmid Keogh and his mute sister exchanged lightning thoughts with Steinbrenner and readied the cephalic envelope of the emergency life-support equipment.

JE SUIS LE TENEBREUX LE VEUF L'lNCONSOLE LE PRINCE D'AQUITAINE A LA TOUR ABOLIE ABOLIE ABOLIE CYNDIA MY G.o.d CYNDIA DON'TAlexis Manion laughed. Patricia Castellane gave an inarticulate cry and dropped the command microphone. Pseudospeech reverberated inside the dark-boned chamber: MA SEULE ETOILE EST MORTE! CYNDIA ... MON LUTH CONSTELLE PORTE LE SOLEIL NOIR ... J'AI DEUX FOIS VAINQUEUR TRAVERSE L'ACHERON FOR NOTHING. THE b.i.t.c.h IS DEAD JACK. SHE'S RUINED ME BUT SHE'S DEAD.

Diarmid Keogh's PK hastily scooped up the fallen mouthpiece. He cut off the armour audio, letting the screen continue its mad flickerings, and initiated the divestment routine. The helmet hoist sent down its cables. Clamps latched onto the ma.s.sive blind casque. Its dogs clicked open and it rotated a quarter turn. Liquid seeped from the juncture with the body casing, then gushed out in a small flood. The dermal lavage drainage had failed and Marc might be drowning.

Steinbrenner swore. "Activate the d.a.m.ned hoist! But easy.

G.o.d knows what's under there-"

Images!

They poured forth as the thought-opaque helmet lifted and the operator's head was uncovered: sights and sounds and feelings and smells and tastes, normal and distorted, concrete and fragmentary, evanescent and smas.h.i.+ng. Memories. Hallucinations. Terrors. Ecstacies. The archetypal ragbag of the deep unconscious: mental cacophony, nightmare broadcast fortississimo, wide-open emotional stops shrillingblaringhissing above bourdon thunder-bellow. The whole wrapped in a web of incandescent pain.

Marc stop! they all screamed, crushed by the hurricane.

There was silence.

The head above the cerametal collar lifted slightly. Deepset grey eyes opened, showing enormous pupils. The silver-streaked curls dripped greenish fluid onto the forehead, where it mingled with blood from tiny wounds st.i.tched by the withdrawn cerebral - electrodes.

"They're all dead," he said in a normal voice.

[Images: Snow Christmas lights sleigh Dobbin Cantique de Noel bra.s.s plaque Mount Was.h.i.+ngton dim in blizzard mad old man holding longhaired cat.] Patricia came closer. "Who is dead? Felice and Aiken Drum?"

"Cyndia and Jack and Diamond." The familiar smile lifted one side of his generous mouth. The bruised-looking eyelids closed.

[Images: Blue-white scintillating point of disaster. Mindwhisper: It's finished BigBrother now you must magnify too like it or not adieu dear Marc scent white pine fading gemlight crash of Unity triumphant.] "No significant trauma above the neck seal," Steinbrenner was saying. "The carotid circulatory shunts are intact and the helmet apparatus seems undamaged. Negative the cephenvelope, ready the body bag. You getting any joy on the deepredact, Diarmid?"

"He seems to be sustaining his autonomic system consciously." Keogh shook his head. "Very bad, Jeff. Dierdre says there's metabolic evidence of severe external trauma to the trunk and limbs. You know he's self-rejuvenating-able to handle any ordinary injury. But this time the angiogenetic programming is faltering from overload."

"We've got to get this body armour off," Steinbrenner said, "and see just what-"

"Wait," said Marc distinctly. His eyes opened again.

[Overwhelming scent of pine.] Steinbrenner and the two Keoghs froze.

"I'm sustaining refrigeration ... lavage ... in lower-body casing. When I exit the rig ... I must go switch-off to sustain my vitals. No communication. But first I must tell you-"

"Let us help!" they all exclaimed.

"No. Listen. Our experiment was a ... qualified success.

Felice is gone. Unfortunately, Aiken Drum is not. He's badly damaged. No doubt his healers will put him together again in due course, as mine will me."

"But what happened to you?" Patricia cried.

[Images: Blazing female shape materializing in midair.

Armoured form high on its carriage wrapped in astral fire from the neck down. Refrigeration and life-support labouring inside the ultradense cerametal as the demonic power seeps through the impermeable, attacks the inhumanly strengthened body within.

Femoral circulatory shunts and neuroceptors burned away, the entire sustenance load s.h.i.+fted to the carotids. Ice-blood and chemical amniotic fluid preserving internal organs, major skeletal units, and musculature. Psychocreative torch of the frustrated monstermind playing over vulnerable body surface, burning away all dermal elements to a depth of four millimetres, destroying hands and feet and external genitalia utterly. Then, unable to complete the Jackforming, forced to withdraw.] The genes!

"Safe. Don't worry. Three months in the tank and I'll be as good as I ever was."

The brain!

"I diverted my entire creative flux to my head the instant that she struck. My brain was saved ... most of it. Managed to force her out of the armour. Episode ... took less than half a second. Fortunately, shock is delayed in such cases. I was able to retain control of the metaconcert until we funnelled the final blast. Then ... diverted all energies to self-sustenance."

The eyes in their cavernous...o...b..ts glazed and the watchers flinched from a new transmission of agony. Marc's mind steadied. The old magnetism and rea.s.surance flowed out to touch each one of them with confident warmth.