Morgo said, “I have been meditating over the possible effect my presence will have on your Mr. Gram and his cronies. First of all, they will discover that I cannot die, and that will frighten them. They will see that I can grow, if fed properly, and in addition I am able to make nutritional use of almost any substance. Third—”
“A thing,” Provoni said. “You’re a thing.”
“A thing?”
“That’s what it’s all about.”
“The psychological effect, you mean?”
“Right.” Provoni nodded somberly.
“I think,” Morgo said, “that my ability to replace sections of living organisms with my own ontological substance will frighten them the most. When I manifest myself smally, as say a chair, consuming the actual object as a source of energy—this event, in miniature, so they can understand it, will panic them. As you have seen, I can replace any object with myself; there is no viable limit to my growth, Mr. Provoni, as long as I am fed. I can become the entire building in which Mr. Gram works; I can become an apartment building of five thousand people. And”—Morgo hesitated—“there is more. But I will not at this time discuss it.”
Provoni meditated. The Frolixans had no specific shape; their historic method for survival was to mimic objects or other living creatures. Their strength lay in the fact that they could absorb creatures, become them, using them as fuel, and then abandoning their empty husks. This process, like that of cancer, would not easily be uncovered by Gram’s detection-police apparatus; even when the transformation process reached vital organs, the imitated creature could function and survive. Death came when the Frolixan withdrew—ceased to provide counterfeit lungs, heart, kidneys. A Frolixan liver, for example, could function as well as the authentic liver it replaced . . . but it declined to remain once it had devoured everything of value.
Most frightening of all was the Frolixan invasion of the brain. The human—or other invaded organism—suffered from pseudo-psychotic thought-processes which he did not recognize as his own . . . and he would be correct; they would not be. And gradually, as the brain became absorbed and replaced, all of his thought-processes would be Frolixan. And at that point the Frolixan abandoned him, and he ceased to be, utterly empty of psychic content.
“Fortunately,” Provoni mused, “you’re selective in your choice of hosts, since you have no interest in or intention of populating Earth and bringing to an end the life of humanoid organisms. All you’re going after is the governmental structure.” And once that’s done, he mused, you will retire.
Won’t you?
“Yes,” Morgo said, listening to his thoughts.
“You’re not lying?” Provoni asked.
The Frolixan let forth a cry of pain.
“All right,” Provoni said hastily. “I’m sorry. But suppose—” He did not finish, at least not aloud. But his thoughts jumped to the ultimate conclusion: I have sent a race of murderers to Earth, to destroy everyone equally.
“Mr. Provoni,” Morgo said, “this is why I, and only I, am here with you: we want to try to settle matters without a physical conflict . . . as would happen when my brothers arrive—happen then because we will not call on them unless needed for open warfare. I will negotiate a basic change in the establishment of your planet; that establishment will agree. In the news item you monitored, it mentioned that the concentration camps have been opened. They are doing it to placate us, are they not? Not from weakness on their part but from their desire to avoid an open fight, to present a united front. Your race is xenophobic. And I am the ultimate foreigner. I love you, Mr. Provoni;I love your people . . . insofar as I know them through your mind. I will not do what I can do, but I will make them know what I can do. In your mind’s memory-section there is a Zen story about the greatest swordsman in Japan. Two men challenge him. They agree to row out to a small island and fight there. The greatest swordsman in Japan, being a student of Zen, sees to it that he is last to leave the boat. The moment the others have leaped out onto the shore of the island he pushes off, rows away, leaving them and their swords there. Thus he proves his claim for what he is: indeed he is the finest swordsman in Japan. Do you see the application to my situation? I can outfight your establishment, but I will do so by not-fighting . . . if you follow my thought. It will be in fact be my refusal to fight—yet showing my strength—which will frighten them the most, because they cannot imagine such power held but not used. Had they it, they would use it, your government. Your New Men, who to me are like the buzzing of flies. If I am obtaining an actual picture of them from your mind; if you do in fact know them.”
“I should know them,” Provoni said. “I’m one of them. I’m a New Man.”
Chapter 18
Presently Morgo said, “I knew. Hints of it, and your knowledge of it, have leaked into your conscious mind. Especially during sleep.”
“So I’m a double renegade,” Provoni said starkly.
“Why did you break with your fellows?”
Provoni said, “There are six thousand New Men on Earth, ruling with the help, such as it is, from four thousand Unusuals. Ten thousand in a Civil Service hierarchy that cuts everyone else out . . . five billion Old Men with no way—” He lapsed into silence and then he did a surprising thing: he raised his hand, and a plastic cup of water floated directly to him, depositing itself in the grip of his hand.
“You are an Unusual, too,” Morgo said. “A t-k.” He added, “That I did not guess.”
Provoni said, “As far as I know, I’m the only fusion of New Man and Unusual. I’m a freak, splitting off from other freaks.”
“How far you could have gone in the Civil Service; consider, as you must have, what rating you could score.”
“Oh, hell; I was double-03. Not overtly, but when I had tests administered to me sub rosa. I could have challenged Gram. I could have challenged any of them.”
“Mr. Provoni,” the Frolixan said, “I do not see why you failed to work from within.”
“I couldn’t dislodge ten thousand civil servants, from G-1 to double-03, all the way up to the Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety and Council Chairman Gram.” But that was not the reason, and he knew it. “I was afraid,” he said, “that if they found out they would kill me. My parents were afraid when I was a child. All of them, New Men, Unusuals . . . and the Old Men and Under Men. I could harbinger a race of super supermen; if it became public the upheaval would be vicious and I would”—he gestured—“disappear. And they would begin to watch for others like me.”
“It never occurred to anyone that a person might emerge who comprised both types,” the Frolixan said, “That is, theoretically. Before they tested you.”
“Like I said, my tests were private. My father was at a G-4 rating, as a New Man, and he secretly arranged for the tests, after he saw my t-k ability and knew, in addition, that I had Nodes of Rogers sticking from my brain like pencil stubs. It was my father who made me wary, God rest his soul. You know, these great planet-wide and inter-planet-wide wars break out, and everyone is supposed to be thinking of the ideologies involved . . . whereas in actuality most people simply want a good, safe night’s sleep.” He added, “A statement I read, literature on a pill. It said, in fact, that many persons who were suicidally inclined really wanted a good night’s sleep and they thought they’d find it in death.” Where are my thoughts taking me? he wondered. I haven’t thought of suicide in years. Not since I left Earth.
“You need sleep,” Morgo said.
“I need to know if my third message is getting through to Earth,” Provoni said gratingly. “Can we really reach Earth in just six more days?” Ghosts had begun to haunt him: fields and pastures, the vast floating cities on Earth’s blue oceans, the domes on Luna and Mars, New York, the kingdom of L.A. And especially San Francisco, with its quaint, fabulous, old-time BART “rapid transit” system, built back in 1972 and for sentimental reasons still used.