The nurse brought me water, which I gulped eagerly.
The chips of ice rattled against my teeth, stung my gums.
But it was all quite good, better than expensive wine.
"No more water, no more anything until some questions are answered," the general said.
"Yes," I replied.
"What has happened to Simeon Kelly?"
For a moment, I was surprised. Then I realized that they had no way of knowing this wasn't Child who had awakened. It meant that there were other things they could not know, things which would give me the upper hand.
"I am Kelly," I said.
"No games," he snapped.
"This isn't."
He looked at me closely. "Maybe you had better explain."
So I told him about Child's investigation into the nature of God. He did not seem moved by the discovery that the universe held no purpose, that God is insane and always has been. Perhaps he did not believe me. I rather think that was the case with the doctor and the nurse and the guard by the door. But there was a crisp, cold gaze there that said Morsfagen did believe-and not only that he believed, but that he had come to the same conclusions himself some time ago, though he had simply lacked the proof that Child had managed to obtain. There was no room for God in Morsfagen's life, I realized. He had always operated outside a belief in heaven and hell and retribution for sin.
I carefully avoided mentioning that I had absorbed Child's energy, that he would never regain his body. If they thought that all could soon be returned to normal, they would be more eager to see me back in my own flesh, wherever it was kept.
When I was done, I asked: "How much time has passed?"
"A month," he said.
It was startling, yet it could have been worse. I had steeled myself to accept the word "years," and this was a blessing by comparison. A lot could have happened in a month. But Melinda might still be free, might still be waiting. Harry would be alive. My house would not have been sold to creditors. Yes, there was still time to regain normality.
"I want my own body," I said. That was the first step to that normality.
"Perhaps," Morsfagen said.
I looked around at the others to see whether they understood the cruelty in that tease. None of them seemed to pay any attention. Perhaps part of their jobs included paying no attention to such things.
"What is this-perhaps?" I asked.
Child's voice box made the words seem sinister when they were actually spoken in fear.
"Perhaps," he said, his face impassive, "it would be better for all of us if no one outside of this room ever discovered that you have regained sanity and are ready to return to your own body. It would be less trouble to get you doing work for us. We would not have to pay you anything. All in all, perhaps it would be a wise idea."
The nurse paid no attention. But her pleasant face mirrored her tacit agreement with Morsfagen.
The doctor took my pulse, listened at my chest with a stethoscope, checked my eyes and ears, ignoring what transpired around him.
The guard, by the door, had Morsfagen's impassive look.
I was alone.
Except for Child's intellect, which had expanded my own. There was a cunning about me now that I had not possessed before. Morsfagen would think he knew me: fast on the cutting remarks, but low on cleverness. But that had changed, and I was now every bit as devious as he.
"One problem," I said.
"What's that?"
"I've told you that it took me this full month to shake loose of my own madness and to free myself from Child's insanity. I nearly lost my mind again trying to find a way through his subconscious landscape. You scanning all this so far?" He indicated that he was by saying nothing.
"Now, if I'm trapped in this frame, welded so closely to his mind, I'm going to succumb to his insanity again-and this time it will be permanent. I couldn't stand the ordeal of recovery again." In that whispered, deathlike rattle of Child's, the words took on even more sincerity than I had tried to give them.
Morsfagen looked doubtful. It was almost as if he could sense the change in me, sense the expanded awareness and cunning. But he could not take the chance that I was not telling him the truth, and he knew that I had won. He was going to have to console himself with the fact that at least he now had me in full mind for future use; if he tried to play for full stakes and keep me locked in Child's body, he might very well wind up with nothing. And military careers are not built on blunders.
"Bring him along," he ordered the doctor. "We'll let him have his body back." He smiled at me, but it was not a pleasant smile. "But you'd better cooperate, Kelly. It's time of war now, and that rules out your brand of frivolity."
"I understand perfectly," I said, not without a touch of sarcasm.
"I'm sure you do."
And he left the room.
Minutes later, they wheeled me into the corridor to keep my rendezvous with my own coma-ridden flesh
All the while, I gloried in the thought that I was swiftly getting the upper hand and that before they realized what had happened, I would be in my former position of dominance. There were two minds' worth of energy within me, plus the complex intellect of Child now amplifying my own. They were mere men, I told myself, and they stood no chance at all.
I did not realize that I was making the same mistake that I had made twice before. In the old days, I had convinced myself that I was a god of sorts, the Second Coming, and my life had been disastrous because of that fantasy. In Child's subconscious, I had eagerly sought to be transformed into the mythic images of Tibetan wolves, into something transcending humanity, and that might have cost me my mind and my eventual recovery. And now, as I was wheeled down the corridor, I again looked at myself as more than a man, as a minor god soon to prove his power. Because I had never allowed myself to associate with "mere men," I did not understand them, or myself. And my latest delusions of grandeur were bound to lead to ultimate disaster
And did.
II
My legs were cramped, and even a slight bit of movement made my shoulders ache, for the staff had not been exercising my body with the proper degree of enthusiasm during the month it had been vacant. I felt weak, and my stomach was a hard knot. Having been fed intravenously for some four weeks, the stomach had shrunk and felt like a clenched fist in there, squeezing my guts. Otherwise: fine. And since it was such a delight to be housed in my own flesh once again, I was willing to overlook the little aches and pains of readjustment to life. I didn't complain, and I tried not even to grimace.
Morsfagen seemed disappointed by that.
They wheeled Child's carcass out of the room. It would continue to live, though it would never exhibit intelligence again. It was a husk, nothing more. I still had not told them, for I was still not free of the AC complex and out of their immediate reach. Morsfagen would not take kindly to such a trick, and I didn't want to be around whenever he discovered it.
I showered, washed away the weeks of sickbed smell.
The hot water seemed to loosen my cramped muscles, and dressing was only half the ordeal I had expected. When I slipped into my jacket and checked my reflection in the mirror, Morsfagen said, "Your shyster is waiting downstairs."
I held back the witty reply designed to demolish him, for I knew that was exactly what he wanted. He was searching for some reason to slap me down, either with his fists or with a preventive detention arrest. Why we had hit it off so miserably from the start, and why our hatred for each other was now twice what it had been, I didn't know. True, we were altogether different types, but the antagonism we felt for each other was deeper and more unremitting than a mere clash of personalities.