It was the best qualified of its race for the job ahead, a creature of vast patience, tact, wit, gentleness, diplomatic skill, culture, and erudition—all the commingled powers had agreed on that, just as they agreed that it was the turn of its race to reach out and bring a benighted alien race out of the darkness of provincial ignorance and into Civilization, just as their own race had been so contacted and assimilated into the galactic community thousands of years before. It had been so proud of that, of the responsibility it had been given. But now, it was unraveling in madness and pain, and could feel its rational mind dissolving, and could do nothing to stop the process. It felt its higher functions failing, and automatic systems taking over.
The ambassador’s race was an ancient and intensely civilized one. Long eons ago, even before contact with the communities of the stars, they had put aside their predatory origins, overridden them with a thousand culturally programmed safeguards. They no more felt the age-old archaic urges than a human felt the need to brachiate.
The urges were still there though, whispering in the blood, at the very bottom of the brain, as they must be in every corporeal creature who has evolved from a lower—or at least a more basic—form of life.
One by one, it lost reason, memory, personality; it knew the horror of losing everything that made it itself, and knowing it was losing it, and being unable to stop the process. At last, it would lose even the knowledge that something had been lost, except for a vague trickle of unease at the back of its consciousness. It would be reduced to survival programming, the underlying atavistic ancestral memory whose human equivalent would be the reptilian hindstem.
From the depths of pain, it had a last fleeting moment of clarity in which to mourn its own passing, and then most of its brain went down.
Glowing like Lucifer falling, it tumbled from the sky, down to the Earth below.
The car battery shorted out. There was a puff of acrid black smoke, and then it was free. Instantly, it reacted. Instinct hurled it away from there, away from the trap that had almost killed it, though the window, out into the night.
Outside, alone in the darkness and the swirling snow, with the Northern Lights still a vaguely troubling presence on the horizon, an uneasy prickling sensation that it could now control, it came to the full realization of what it had done.
When she got over the initial shock of hearing the creature speak, Alma Kingsley quickly picked up the ax, bringing it awkwardly around in front of her body so that she could get a better, two-handed grip on it, resting it on her shoulder, ready to swing. She backed away two steps, felt her rear foot bump into the wall, and started to edge sideways again, moving away from the wall a bit (even if it did mean moving a step or two toward the monster) so that she’d have room to swing the ax overhand at the creature if it rushed her, a woodchopper’s stroke. Couldn’t let it pin her against the wall…
Kill me, it said again.
She hesitated. She had been figuring out how to do just that, or the best way to try to do it, anyway, deciding that she’d better rush it and try to get a good swing in at it before the big ax grew too heavy for her tired old arms to hold up effectively, do it right now, before she lost her nerve…. But it kept putting her off her stride by speaking to her; she hadn’t known that it could talk.
It wasn’t “talking” at all, actually—the words seemed to print themselves in her brain somehow, faintly superimposed on reality, like the afterimage of an object you can sometimes see after you close your eyes. But she had no doubt that it was really happening, or that it was the creature who was “speaking” to her.
Go ahead, it said. Do it now. I won’t try to stop you.
She came forward a couple of steps, and then stopped, hesitating, wary. This was some kind of trick. It was trying to lure her closer so that it could strike at her, maybe counting on being fast enough to be able to dodge any blow of the ax she might get off at it. When she got close enough, it would attack….
It will not be difficult, it said persuasively. My physical component is really quite fragile. If you strike at the center of my being hard enough, with something sharp or heavy, that will kill me. That tool you have in your hand will do nicely. I perceive that the handle is made of wood; that will insulate you from any shock. You’ll be perfectly safe.
“You weren’t so concerned with my safety a few minutes ago,” Alma Kingsley said harshly. “When you were trying to kill me!”
I was insane then, it said. I have been insane for a long time. But I am insane no longer. The shock that you administered to me has re-integrated my functions. I am sane now.
“How nice for you!” Rage pulsed through her, and she tightened her grip on the ax. “You unspeakable bastard!”
It shivered convulsively, and she jumped back a step, thinking it was about to attack. But it didn’t move forward. I know what I did, it said. I am ready to atone.
“Atone?” She found herself laughing, harsh, cawing, jagged, ugly laughter that tore her throat. “You killed Jennifer! And Desmond! And…and that poor girl!” To her shame, she found she couldn’t summon up the young woman’s name, although she got a flash of her vapid, cheaply pretty face. “Damn you, you even killed my dog!” Tears sprang into her eyes and she blinked them fiercely away. She couldn’t allow it to distract her, let it put her off her guard. As soon as she did, it would strike.
I know what I did, it repeated. That’s why you have to kill me. It was swaying slightly from side to side now, as if in agitation. Kill me! Strike now! Get it over with. I won’t fight you. I know I deserve to die.
She tried to say something but the words tangled themselves in her throat and wouldn’t come out. Her head felt as if it was going to explode, and she was shaking all over. “You’re right about that!” she managed to rasp, panting with rage. “You deserve to die a hundred times over!”
It was shaking too, as though stirred by the same inner wind. I know that, it said. I can’t live with the guilt and the shame. I was sent here on a mission of peace, to bring you the gifts that would allow you to live as civilized creatures, without war, without want and poverty and hatred. Instead, I killed everyone I met! It swayed violently. There could be no worse failure! No worse betrayal of everything that I believe in! Kill me!
She raised the ax. Images flashed through her mind: Jennifer, her face gray and blistered and burned…Iago collapsing in a pathetic jumble of furry limbs…the girl, the roadhouse pickup, smiling vapidly although amiably as she dug a fork into her eggs…Desmond waving his hands and talking expansively, self-importantly…. She was crying openly now, tears running down her face, breathing in harsh gasps through her mouth, but she didn’t lose sight of the monster, in spite of the tears. She squeezed the wood of the ax-handle until her hands ached. Abruptly, fiercely, she rushed forward, swinging the ax as far back as she could, ready to bring it crashing down.
A step or two away, she stopped, hesitating, the ax swung high in the air.