“You had time.”
“I thought they were going to be able to save you,” I said lamely. “They got there so quickly.”
Fazio laughed harshly. “They did try to save me,” he said. “I’ll give them credit for trying. Five minutes and I was on that floater and they were sending tracers all over me to clean the synsym goop out of my lungs and my heart and my liver.”
“Sure. That was just what I figured they’d do.”
“You promised to finish me off, Chollie, if I got nailed.”
“But the paramedics were right there!”
“They worked on me like sonsabitches,” he said. “They did everything. They can clean up the vital tissues, they can yank out your organs, synsym and all, and stick in transplants. But they can’t get the stuff out of your brain, did you know that? The synsym goes straight up your nose into your brain and it slips its tendrils into your meninges and your neural glia and right into your fucking corpus callosum. And from there it goes everywhere. The cerebellum, the medulla, you name it. They can’t send tracers into the brain that will clean out synsym and not damage brain tissue. And they can’t pull out your brain and give you a new one, either. Thirty seconds after the synsym gets into your nose it reaches your brain and it’s all over for you, no matter what kind of treatment you get. Didn’t you hear them tell you that when we first got to the war zone? Didn’t you hear all the horror stories?”
“I thought they were just horror stories,” I said faintly.
He rocked back and forth gently in his gravity cradle. He didn’t say anything.
“Do you want to tell me what it’s like?” I asked after a while.
Fazio shrugged. As though from a great distance he said, “What it’s like? Ah, it’s not all that goddamned bad, Chollie. It’s like having a roommate. Living with you in your head, forever, and you can’t break the lease. That’s all. Or like having an itch you can’t scratch. Having it there is like finding yourself trapped in a space that’s exactly one centimeter bigger than you are all around, and knowing that you’re going to stay walled up in it for a million years.” He looked off toward the great clear wall of the lounge, toward giant red Betelgeuse blazing outside far away. “Your synsym talks to you, sometimes. So you’re never lonely, you know? Doesn’t speak any language you understand, just sits there and spouts gibberish. But at least it’s company. Sometimes it makes you spout gibberish, especially when you badly need to make sense. It grabs control of the upper brain centers now and then, you know. And as for the autonomous centers, it does any damned thing it likes with them. Keys into the pain zones and runs little simulations for you—an amputation without anesthetic, say. Just for fun. Its fun. Or you’re in bed with a woman and it disconnects your erection mechanism. Or it gives you an erection that won’t go down for six weeks. For fun. It can get playful with your toilet training, too. I wear a diaper, Chollie, isn’t that sweet? I have to. I get drunk sometimes without drinking. Or I drink myself sick without feeling a thing. And all the time I feel it there, tickling me. Like an ant crawling around within my skull. Like a worm up my nose. It’s just like the other guys told us, when we came out to the war zone. Remember? ‘Kill yourself fast, while you have the chance.’ I never had the chance. I had you, Chollie, and we had a deal, but you didn’t take our deal seriously. Why not, Chollie?”
I felt his eyes burning me. I looked away, halfway across the lounge, and caught sight of Elisandra’s long golden hair drifting in free float. She saw me at the same moment, and waved. We usually got together in here this time of night. I shook my head, trying to warn her off, but it was too late. She was already heading our way.
“Who’s that?” Fazio asked. “Your girlfriend?”
“A friend.”
“Nice,” he said. He was staring at her as though he had never seen a woman before. “I noticed her last night too. You live together?”
“We work the same shift on the wheel.”
“Yeah. I saw you leave with her last night. And the night before.”
“How long have you been at the Station, Fazio?”
“Week. Ten days, maybe.”
“Came here looking for me?”
“Just wandering around,” he said. “Fat disability pension, plenty of time. I go to a lot of places. That’s a really nice woman, Chollie. You’re a lucky guy.” A tic was popping on his cheek and another was getting started on his lower lip. He said:
“Why the fuck didn’t you kill me when that thing first jumped me?”
“I told you. I couldn’t. The paramedics were on the scene too fast.”
“Right. You needed to say some Hail Marys first, and they just didn’t give you enough time.”
He was implacable. I had to strike back at him somehow or the guilt and shame would drive me crazy. Angrily I said, “What the hell do you want me to tell you, Fazio? That I’m sorry I didn’t kill you ten years ago? Okay, I’m sorry. Does that do any good? Listen, if the synsym’s as bad as you say, how come you haven’t killed yourself? Why go on dragging yourself around with that thing inside your head?”
He shook his head and made a little muffled grunting sound. His face abruptly became gray, his lips were sagging. His eyeballs seemed to be spinning slowly in opposite directions. Just an illusion, I knew, but a scary one.
“Fazio?”
He said, “Chollallula lillalolla loolicholla. Billillolla.”
I stared. He looked frightening. He looked hideous.
“Jesus, Fazio!”
Spittle dribbled down his chin. Muscles jumped and writhed crazily all over his face. “You see? You see?” he managed to blurt. There was warfare inside him. I watched him trying to regain command. It was like a man wrestling himself to a fall. I thought he was going to have a stroke. But then, suddenly, he seemed to grow calm. His breath was ragged, his skin was mottled with fiery blotches. He collapsed down into himself, head drooping, arms dangling. He looked altogether spent. Another minute or two passed before he could speak. I didn’t know what to do for him. I floated there, watching. Finally a little life seemed to return to him.
“Did you see? That’s what happens,” he gasped. “It takes control. How could I ever kill myself? It wouldn’t let me do it.”
“Wouldn’t let you?”
He looked up at me and sighed wearily. “Think, Chollie, think! It’s in symbiosis with me. We aren’t independent organisms.” Then the tremors began again, worse than before. Fazio made a desperate furious attempt to fight them off—arms and legs flung rigidly out, jaws working—but it was useless. “Illallomba!” he yelled. “Nullagribba!” He tossed his head from side to side as if trying to shake off something sticky that was clinging to it. “If I—then it—gillagilla! Holligoolla! I can’t—I can’t—oh—Jesus—Christ—!
His voice died away into harsh sputters and clankings. He moaned and covered his face with his hands.
But now I understood.
For Fazio there could never be any escape. That was the most monstrous part of the whole thing, the ultimate horrifying twist. The symbiont knew that its destiny was linked to Fazio’s. If he died, the symbiont would also; and so it could not allow its host to damage himself. From its seat in Fazio’s brain it had ultimate control over his body. Whatever he tried—jump off a bridge, reach for a flask of poison, pick up a gun—the watchful thing in his mind would be a step ahead of him, always protecting him against harm.
A flood of compassion welled up in me and I started to put my hand comfortingly on Fazio’s shoulder. But then I yanked it back as though I were afraid the symbiont could jump from his mind into mine at the slightest touch. And then I scowled and forced myself to touch him after all. He pulled away. He looked burned out.