“Oh God! The big L.”
“What, Guig? What? What?”
The Chief and I climbed to our feet. “Lepcer… The final leonine stage… It… He…”
He shambled out of a dim clearing in the Extro that looked like a small camp walled with electronic units. He was crook-gaited and spastic, yet with ominous power; the strength that comes with loss of control and the agonizing hypersensitivity of terminal Lepcer, the honing of the senses that precedes final anesthesia. And he stank. He filled the center with his big L. Hic-Haec-Hoc whined and disappeared.
“So many years since the spa, my dear Curzon,” the Rajah said, poised and courteous as ever. His voice was hoarse and broken, but still singsong. My mind squealed and darted, trying to escape what had to be faced.
“And this, of course, is the latest addition to the beautiful Group. I was beautiful myself, once. Can you believe it, Dr. Guess? Yes, I know you. I have been watching you from the shadows for some time. I have been watching the entire Group. Give Dr. Guess my name, Curzon. My name and rank.”
It took all my courage to speak. “His Serene Highness, Prince Mahadeva Kauravas Bhina Arjuna, Maharajah of Bharat. The Group calls him the Rajah.”
“Delighted, Dr. Guess. I do not offer to shake hands or smite palms. Royal princes do not so greet commoners. It might be permitted to kiss my hand, but the touch of my skin is loathsome, even to myself. My dear Curzon, you did not tell him that I am also the avatar, the transfiguration of Siva on Earth.”
“I didn’t know, sir. Apologies.” My heart was watery but I was not to be outdone in poise. “So the renegade is really you, your Serene Highness. I could not believe it when Hillel told me.”
“Renegade, Curzon? Only a Jew unbeliever would say that. God, Curzon.” Abruptly he bawled, “God, Curzon. The divine Siva. We are Siva!”
I was convinced at last. Lepcer was the missing factor. The big L had turned an exquisite into a malignant enemy; stalking, lurking, destroying, literally a lion. This was the animal Long Lance had seen in the salt caverns. This was what had spooked the cryos and was deranging the Extro.
“I congratulate you on your choice of a hiding place, Rajah,” I said. “Your command post at the center of action? No one would ever dream of looking for you here. How did you make room for yourself in that damned clutter?”
“Discarded a few units, Curzon. It was less than a prefrontal lobotomy for the Extro, although it protested. Why is your pulse chattering, Dr. Guess? Are you fearful of Siva? Deny nothing. I hear it. I see it. A god senses all; everything is known, and this is why Siva’s destruction and creation are received with humility and love. Yes, humility and love for my destruction and regeneration of the void.”
“God in heaven!” I burst out. I was shaking. “Where is the regeneration for Fee, Poulos, Hillel’s arm, my home. Our—”
“Alas, not the little girl. I regret I did not destroy her. That was before my advent. The Greek, yes; a beautiful death. The Jew escaped me, but not a second time. No one escapes Siva twice.”
“Alas, not the little girl?” Sequoya repeated in a choked voice. “You regret you did not — ! Alas?”
“Humility and love, Dr. Guess. It is the true worship of Siva.” Suddenly he raged in the Chief’s face. “Humility and love! I am the all, the one, the destruction and regeneration, and the linga is my sacred symbol. See! See with humility and love.”
He displayed his enormous, rotting symbol. We backed away in revulsion.
Abruptly the rage was replaced by sweet reason. “You will love me even as I destroy you, for I am the maker of miracles by virtue of the penance and meditation of fifty years.”
“You’ve suffered from Lepcer for half a century, Rajah? I—” But I was stammering so badly that I had to stop.
The lion head nodded graciously. The lion face almost smiled. “It is permitted to address me by that name, my dear Curzon. Siva is only one of our thousand names. Above all, we prefer Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer. So we are most often idealized in sacred images.”
He uttered a croaking, sawing song, “Ga-ma pa-da-ma pa-ga-ma ga-ri-sani-sa-ni ga-ri-sa…” This in a slow 4/8 and 3/2 rhythm. Then faster, “Di na a na di na a na di na a na ka a ga a ka ga dhina na dhina na dhinagana…”
And he danced to it; solemn ritual stances, quick jerking movements, then pauses for poses; around us, around the Extro center, through the broadcast bedlam, through the debris and the crackling sparks of the shorted cables. He danced his cosmic dance with the convulsive frenzy of a spasmic rubber doll with arms, legs, hands and feet that seemed to crook the wrong way and flung their own debris. Each time he jerked his head left and right, tatters of hair scattered. Nails dropped off his fingers and toes. Each gasp for breath sprayed blood.
“This is the horror that’s been using me?” Sequoya squeezed out.
“With the Extro,” I mumbled. “They’ve been going steady.”
“I’ll take the goddamn machine. You take the damned god.”
“Wilco. Give the word.”
We were both in a fever. The Rajah swept up to us. “Dhina na dhina na dhinagana…” The lion face glaring at us as hypnotic as the dance. The rubbery arms swung wide with tremendous power and knocked us apart.
“Now!” the Chief exploded, stumbled to the Extro, and began tearing at it. The burner was slung around my neck and I swung it forward to make the hit. It had to be a brain or heart shot. Siva was posturing before me in a sacred pose, arms high, hands cocked down, but there was a katar in one hand, sidebars protecting the sides of the wrist, fist clenched around the crosspiece, and the broad blade punched down at my heart. All that hypnotic singing and cosmic dancing for this one moment.
I was absolutely confounded, but the burner saved me. I’d swung it before my chest and the katar plunged through it and muscle-deep into me. The burner shattered, blew widdershins, and I went over backward with the Rajah all over me; one blunted hand crunching my neck, the katar thrusting at me like a goring bull. I thrashed desperately, trying to escape a severed throat or a split heart. I couldn’t yell to Guess for help and I was blacking out when I was released as unexpectedly as I’d been attacked.
There was the Rajah, squirming and hissing in Hic’s hands. Hic loyal? Helpful? Coming to my rescue? Imposs. It must have been the instinctive hatred and loathing that makes so many animals turn on their sick and rend them. Hic transferred his powerful grip to the lion head, held it firm, and whirled the body in the air in a tremendous circle around the neck. There was one crack. The Rajah’s neck was broken.
I gimped to my feet again, staring. Hic had hit the wrong target, and yet it was the right one. Only I saw that there were two bodies. The other was Sequoya, with Twink wrapped around his head. Much later I reasoned that its electrotropism must have been attracted by the powerful combination of Uncas and the Extro; particularly after the frustration of the shadow broadcasts.
A strong voice spoke. “That’s enough, Curzon. He’s dead. Get that thing off.”
“Dead? No. I wanted—” Then I looked around in bewilderment. One of the cryos repeated, “Get that thing off.”
“But — but you can’t talk.”
“We can now. We’re the Extro. Get the thing off Guess. Quick, Curzon. Move!”
I pulled Twink off the Chief.
“And no more demolition. Don’t let your friend start again.”