The Morgan Construct pauses. A fraction of a second later, its wing panels begin to vibrate.
COMMENT: …CONSTRUCT DESIGN DEFECT. RESONANCE POTENTIAL IN INORGANIC CONTROL CIRCUITS. VULNERABILITY TO ACOUSTIC/ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING. NO SAFETY LEVEL ESTABLISHED. OVERLOAD AND SHUTDOWN…
IMAGE: …the Construct begins to shake. A crackling sound from the body cavity, a violent series of random jerks. The latticed wings twist. (OVERLOAD) A final shudder. The Constructs frame locks to a fixed position, floats in silence to the forest floor. A dozen Tinker components fly across and enter the body cavity…
COMMENT: …NO PERMANENT DAMAGE. IMMOBILIZED FOR STUDY OF CONSTRUCT MENTAL PROCESSES AND PATHOLOGY.
IMAGE: …beside the quiet form of the Morgan Construct, the pursuit team members huddle. The whole group lies motionless in the dark forest depths, every external sensory input damped to lowest levels…
COMMENT: …THE TIME OF WONDER, THE TIME FOR INTROSPECTION. SO WE BECAME NIMROD, SO WE ARE NIMROD. NO MORE CAN BE GIVEN, TO ONE WHO IS NOT YET A POOLED MIND. FAREWELL.
Chan lay supine on damp leaf mold. Knowledge of his surroundings bled back into his mind. It had been as intense as a bolt of lightning, and as short-lived. He had abandoned his own body for hours, yet no time had passed. He and Leah still held each other close, her lips still brushed his cheek.
He took his first breath in an eon, lifted his head, and stared around him. Nothing. The forest was dark as ever. Only a trace of remembered after-image seen through the Angel’s sensors told him where the other team members had been. He fancied a brief whirring of tiny wings, twenty feet away, then he and Leah were alone.
Chan allowed his head to fall back to the damp, soft cushion of leaves. His brain was jellied and contused, with the familiar agony of a bad session on the Stimulator. It was better to lie in silence, to feel but not to think. Thinking was pain.
“Chan.” It was Leah’s calm voice again, wakening him, whispering in his ear. “Chan, it was hard on you, but we knew no other way. You resisted fusion. The only way that we knew was to take you by force, when emotion was strongest and you were unguarded. We are sorry it had to happen that way.”
Chan said nothing. “We are sorry,” said Leah again. “Here is a promise: It will never happen that way again. It was not done to use you, only to bring you quickly to union.”
“Who are you?” Chan did not think he had spoken those words, but the body that lay alongside his, touching now from breast to thighs, jerked in reaction.
“You know who I am.” The voice in the darkness was puzzled. “I am Leah.”
“No. Not any more. You are Nimrod. What happened to the Leah that I knew?”
“Ah.” A sharp, indrawn breath of comprehension. “Nimrod, yes. But truly, I am still Leah, no less than I ever was. I am more, because I am part of Nimrod also.”
“My Leah has gone.”
“Gone? Rubbish!” Leah’s voice lost its dreamy, far-off tone. “What are you talking about, gone? I’m right here, the same as I always was. She slapped her hand hard on his bare chest, making him start at the unexpected blow.
“Who do you think did that to you, if I’ve gone?” she went on. She lifted herself up and leaned over him, her sharp elbow digging into his shoulder. “If you think that I’m some sort of illusion, or just a part of something else, then you’re wrong — dead wrong. I m still me. I still think, I still breathe, I still laugh, and I still love. Get that into your thick skull, Chan Dalton.” She slapped his chest again, harder than ever. “That’s me doing that to you, not Nimrod. When I first spoke to you today, that was me. When we made love, that was me. If you don’t understand that, you’ve got rocks in your head instead of brains. You were merged, and now you’re not. Do you feel any less, because we were fused?”
Chan shook his head slowly in the darkness. It was Leah all right, beating up on him, just like in the old days when he had been bad. “I don’t feel less. I feel different.”
“Different, and more.” Leah was not leaning over him any more. He knew that she was standing up. “Remember this, Chan. I’m still all that I ever was. I love you as much now as I did back in the Gallimaufries, when you were all I had, and I was all that you had. We have both changed since then, and you have changed more than I have. But remember one thing, when the time comes for you: Humans are the most difficult element. We form the pacing tactor for everything. So when it happens, relax. Thanks to what happened here, you’re halfway along the road.”
“The road to what?”
“You’ll see. Very soon.” She bent over, to give him a final soft kiss on the cheek. “It was all necessary, and it was wonderful, too. Better than I’d ever dreamed it might be.”
Chan heard light footsteps, running away across the soft carpet of Travancore’s surface. As he sat up, a faint light came bobbing towards him, weaving its way through the high cover of the creepers. It was S’greela, moving rapidly with the tubby form of Angel tucked under two mid-limbs. The dark nimbus of Shikari breezed along close behind.
“You are safe?” said S’greela.
Chan was ready to grumble at her: he might be safe enough now, but he was also exhausted, scraped by creepers, covered in dirt, wet, wild-eyed, naked, and mentally battered. Where had the others been, for God knows now long?
He could not say any of it. He had found an instruction in his mind, something that Nimrod had slipped there along with the high-pressure information flow. It was waiting, a time bomb that had just ticked its way down to zero.
Chan lay back on the dark soil. S’greela and Angel moved close, to touch him. Shikari swarmed in to cover and connect them. The first stir of interaction began. Chan felt his way inward, following the flow of the stream. There it was. The others were ready, had been ready long ago.
Leah is right. We humans are the most difficult element.
The others laughed their reply. Chan closed his eyes.
And opened his mind.
Contact began, immediate and powerful. The surge of current passed through every cell of his body, sending Chan off on a tidal wave of pleasure and satisfaction. It was the cozy feeling of the pursuit team, sitting together late at night, amplified a thousand times, a million times, a billion times. Four minds re-oriented … meshed … settled into mentality mode. Saturated. Contact was complete.
Chapter 36
First there was the naming of names. The new mentality decided quickly. It would be Almas, a name for a mind as clear and hard as diamond.
Second came the data transfer. The information flow from Nimrod to Almas was rapid. The primary, secondary and tertiary files that Nimrod had loaded into Chan occupied the new mentality for less than twenty seconds. At the end of that time, Almas knew all that Nimrod knew of mentality origin and nature.
The quaternary data file was the smallest in volume, but it had been nagged by Nimrod for special attention. Almas began the review.
It found a record of the first hours following Nimrod’s own formation, interleaved and overlain with Nimrod’s analysis. The record structure was designed to guide the new mentality through a multi-channel flow, a hyperweb of facts, conjectures, and conclusions.
The naming of names. The mentality that in separation had been Team Alpha was filled with excitement and pride at the miracle of its own creation. It was Nimrod. Nimrod existed as a fusion of will, information, desire, and understanding.