A black, bloated body (Melinda) floating
Damn them to Hell!
Morsfagen attended to removing the mutant from the room and going through the procedure I had suggested.
"Are you sure of yourself, Sim?" Harry asked. He sounded as if he wanted me to quit. But we both knew that was impossible. Only Child could develop the ultimate weapon, a weapon that would make war obsolete. I had to go in there until he formulated it-possibly urge him into it if he was unwilling. But there was no backing downnot with the world and Melinda hanging on everything that transpired in this room.
They brought Child back in ten minutes. He was tranced and be was drugged.
The world was heavy on my shoulders and Death was walking with me and like a cat with cotton feet, I went quietly, quietly, quietly
Like a ghost in an old house, I went without form.
Like the breezes of spring, I walked softly.
There was no echo of my steps, and the labyrinth was wanner than usual. The walls were actually unpleasantly hot to the touch, a strange change from the clinging cold that had infested the place. I rounded a bend and saw the Minotaur sitting on his haunches, unaware of my presence.
He was reading a leather-bound Bible, completely absorbed in whatever the verses had to tell him.
Slowly, so as to disturb nothing, I passed. He never looked up.
Pasiphae, here is your unholy child.
Minos, your labyrinth is ugly. It needs a paint job and some common comforts.
Theseus, keep your weapons girdled to your hip, for there will be no killing of a sad and unpretentious Minotaur.
The pit was a tangerine color, pulsating with mind-heat which coursed upwards, washed the rim, flowed down the stone corridors, evicting the leeching cold. The center of the pit was a fierce white dot.
I reached out and grabbed the nearest thought. It was a weapon. But it was nothing that could cure the world's ills, no ultimate dragon as I sought.
A formula to cause ratlike mutations in unborn babies
A beam that could dehydrate living tissue, make a living body into a dry, dead corpse in seconds
There were many of the G association thoughts, several different progressions of them which led toward one distant point whose nature I could not quite ascertain an inordinately large number of G thoughts. I was interested in exploring their source and their destiny, but they did not seem to be what I needed.
Then I found it. A stray thought, the ultimate weapon.
F Field Force Field capable of stopping all entry by anything, including air, permitting neither bombs nor bacteria passage Field
I latched onto it and gently nudged it toward the main stream, toward the waterspout. The ultimate weapon-the weapon to make weapons obsolete.
I thought I was being subtle, but I was underestimating Child. There was a clacking of hooves behind me.
"Get out!"
No. You don't understand.
"It's you who doesn't understand!"
He pounced. I stepped quickly aside, struck at him, and sent him flailing over the brink, into the pit
Far out at sea, the Force Field Theory was shot up the waterspout. Soon it would be spoken in a dark room, taped, transferred to paper, and sent by special messenger to those who might put it into practice.
Sighing, I turned to go. But with a low, animal grumble, the walls of the labyrinth began to sway and the floor to shake and buck.
From somewhere down in the pit, there was a scream, a deafening ululation which spread throughout the caverns, echoing and re-echoing. Clutching the edge of the pit, the Minotaur was pulling himself onto the earthen ledge. I could see that it was not the Minotaur who screamed, but I could not see anyone else.
What is it? I asked above the noise.
His eyes were wild. He opened his mouth, and I watched horrified as snakes came slithering forth.
I kicked him. He fell back into the pit, all the way to the churning bottom this time.
When I turned back to the caverns, the ceiling caved in before me, dirt and stones spilling over my shoes. And there was no longer an exit. I wasn't going to get out!
I turned to the sea and saw the waterspout dying, withering. There was no hope in that direction, either. No hope! And the situation was so ironic, like Jesus finally sealed into his tomb. But I had given up that delusion, hadn't I?
What, for crissakes, is going on? I yelled above the constant screaming from the pit. Then it occurred to me that I might find the nature of the disaster by latching on to a stray thought. I reached out into the turbulent river and found all of them starting the same way:
G G GGGGGGGGGG leadingG to Grass rollinG over the hills to G G GGG God God God like a tornado whirlinG across the Glen, relentless, relentless GGG GGod GGod GODGODGOD random what purpose? trap Him like the wind to find His purpose, find my purpose GGGGGGG
I realized the nature of it then. Child's purpose in life had been shattered when he met me-just as mine had been shattered when I encountered him. He could no longer pretend to himself that he was the Second Coming, the virgin birth. But he had no mechanical psychiatrist to treat him and could find no woman to love or who would love him. He was so restricted in his physical existence that he had to turn to theory and intellectual search to find an answer.
GODGODGODGOD trapped in a cavern to tell answers GGG
I followed the thoughts to their end; I was swept along with them against my will. I never should have listened in the first place. It was the ultimate theory, and he had proven it beyond a doubt
He had tried to contact God.
He had found the whereabouts of the Supreme Being, the plane of existence upon which He lived.
He asked what meaning there could be to life and to the chaotic world in which man lived. And he was answered; he solved his problem.
He asked what was at the center of creation. And he found out.
And now I was trapped down there.
There were three of us.
Child, Simeon, and God.
And we were all three quite insane.
TWO
Humanity Restored
I
Trapped within the convoluted miasma of Child's mind, I eventually lost all consideration of what was real and what was not. Here, in the fascinating chiaroscuro ruins of his subconscious mind, the shattered mental analogues were every bit as concrete as the world I had known outside of Child. The stones were textured by the weather as they were in the world beyond; the trees had as many leaves of as many different shades of green as any I had seen before; the wind was not a constant, but changed from bitter cold to almost suffocating warmth, and was moderate more often than not. There were birds and a wide variety of land-bound animals, which, though subtly different or wildly mutated from their "real" parallels, were always believable, detailed and rich with color and habits. At first, I catalogued the differences, the fine points of distinction between the real world and this analogue of Child's interior, but that only made me melancholy, unsatisfied, and soon had me acting like a manic-depressive. I realized that, if this were to be my home for the remainder of my days, I would have to forget the other world I had known. And for my own peace of mind, I would also have to forget that when Child died, we all died, trapped here inside him. It was bizarre, but it was my new reality and required my swift adaptation.