“Why tell me this? I know it!” -
Mons said, “You must help, you must understand. Immortality is an accident of the genes. A mutation. Once in a thousand years, perhaps, or ten thousand, a human is born immortal. His body renews itself; he does not age. Neither does his brain. But his mind ages—”
She said desperately, “Tyrell swam the pool of rebirth only three days ago. Not for another century will his mind age again. Is he—he’s not dying?”
“No-no. Nerina, the pool of rebirth is only a symbol. You know that.”
“Yes. The real rebirth comes afterward, when you put us in that machine. I remember.”
Mons said, “The machine. If it were not used each century, you and Tyrell would have become senile and helpless a long time ago. The mind is not immortal, Nerina. After a while it cannot carry the weight of knowledge, learning, habits. It loses flexibility, it clouds with stiff old age. The machine clears the mind, Nerina, as we can clear a computer of its units of memory. Then we replace some memories, not all, we put the necessary memories in a fresh, clear mind, so it can grow and learn for another hundred years.”
“But I know all that—”
“Those new memories form a new personality, Nerina.”
“A new—? But Tyrell is still the same.”
“Not quite. Each century he changes a little, as life grows better, as the worlds grow happier. Each century the new mind, the fresh personality of Tyrell is different—more in tune with the new century than the one just past. You have been reborn in mind three times, Nerina. You are not the same as you were the first time. But you cannot remember that. You do not have all the old memories you once had.”
“But—but what—”
Mons said, “I do not know. I have talked to Tyrell. I think this is what has happened. Each century when the mind of Tyrell was cleansed—erased—it left a blank mind, and we built a new Tyrell on that. Not much changed. Only a little, each time. But more than twenty times? His mind must have been very different twenty centuries ago. And—”
“How different?”
“I don’t know. We’ve assumed that when the mind was erased, the pattern of personality—vanished. I think now that it didn’t vanish. It was buried. Suppressed, driven so deeply into the mind that it could not emerge. It became unconscious. Century after century this has happened. And now more than twenty personalities of Tyrell are buried in his mind, a multiple personality that can no longer stay in balance. From the graves in his mind, there has been a resurrection.”
“The White Christ was never a killer!”
“No. In reality, even his first personality, twenty-odd centuries ago, must have been very great and good to bring peace to the worlds—in that time of Antichrist. But sometimes, in the burial of the mind, a change may happen. Those buried personalities, some of them, may have changed to-to something less good than they were originally. And now they have broken loose.”
Nerina turned to the door.
Mons said, “We must be very sure. But we can save the Messiah. We can clear his brain, probe deep, deep root out the evil spirit . . . We can save him and make him whole again. We must start at once. Nerina—pray for him.”
He gave her a long, troubled look, turned, and went swiftly along the corridor. Nerina waited, not even think lug. After a while she heard a slight sound. At one end of the corridor were two priests standing motionless; at the other end, two others.
She opened the door and went in to Tyrell.
The first thing she saw was the blood-stained knife on the table. Then she saw the dark silhouette at the window, against the aching intensity of blue sky.
“Tyrell,” she said hesitantly.
He turned. “Nerina. Oh, Nerina!”
His voice was still gentle with that deep power of calm.
She went swiftly into his arms.
“I was praying,” he said, bending his head to rest on her shoulder. “Mons told me ... I was praying. What have I done?”
“You are the Messiah,” she said steadily. “You save the world from evil and the Antichrist. You’ve done that.’
“But the rest! This devil in my mind! This seed that has grown there, hidden from God’s sunlight—what has it grown into? They say I killed!”
After a long, pause she whispered, “Did you?”
“No,” he said, with absolute certainty. “How could I? I, who have lived by love—more than two thousand years—I could not harm a living thing.”
“I knew that,” she said. “You are the White Christ.”
“The White Christ,” he said softly. “I wanted no such name. I am only a man, Nerina. I was never more than that. But . . . something saved me, something kept me alive through the Hour of the Antichrist. It was God. It was His hand. God—help me now—“
She held him tightly and looked past him through the window, bright sky, green meadow, tall mountains with the clouds rimming their peaks. God was here, as he was out beyond the blue, on all the worlds and in the gulfs between them, and God meant peace and love.
“He will help you,” she said steadily. “He walked with you two thousand years ago. He hasn’t gone away.”
“Yes,” Tyrell whispered. “Mons must be wrong. The way it was. . . I remember. Men like beasts. The sky was burning fire. There was blood. . . there was blood. More than a hundred years of blood that ran from the beast-men as they fought.”
She felt the sudden stiffness in him, a trembling rigor, a new sharp straining.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
She thought of ice and fire, blue ice, blue fire.
“The big wars,” he said, his voice stiff, rusty.
Then he put his hand over his eyes.
“Christ!” The word burst from his tight throat. “God, God—”
“Tyrell!” She screamed his name.
“Back!” he croaked, and she stumbled away, but he was not talking to her. “Back, devil!” He clawed at his head, grinding it between his palms, bowing till he was half crouched before her.
“Tyrell!’ she cried. “Messiah! You are the White Christ—”
The bowed body snapped erect. She looked at the new face and felt an abysmal horror and loathing.
Tyrell stood looking at her. Then, appallingly, he gave her a strutting, derisive bow.
She felt the edge of the table behind her. She groped back and touched the heavy thickness of dried blood on the knifeblade. It was part of the nightmare. She moved her hand to the haft, knowing she could die by steel, letting her thought move ahead of the glittering steel’s point into her breast.
The voice she heard was touched with laughter.
“Is it sharp?” he asked. “Is it still sharp, my love? Or did I dull it on the priest? Will you use it on me? Will you try? Other women have tried!” Thick laughter choked in his throat.
“Messiah,” she whispered.
“Messiah!” he mocked. “A White Christ! Prince of Peace! Bringing the word of love, walking unharmed through the bloodiest wars that ever wrecked a world oh yes, a legend, my love, twenty centuries old and more. And a lie. They’ve forgotten! They’ve all forgotten what it was really like then!”
All she could do was shake her head in helpless denial.
“Oh yes,” he said. “You weren’t alive then. No one was. Except me, Tyrell. Butchery! I survived. But not by preaching peace. Do you know what happened to the men who preached love? They, died—but I didn’t die. I survived, not by preaching.”
He pranced, laughing.