"All right," Morwin agreed. "Let's."
What the hell does he want with it? he asked himself. He was never especially introspective or aesthetically inclined in the old days. Now he wants a highly personalized work of art created for him. Could he have changed? No, I shouldn't think so. His taste in decorating this place was as abominable as ever, and nothing has changed since last I was here. He talks the same as he always did. His intentions, plans, desires seem unaltered. No. This has nothing to do with his sensibilities. What then?
He watched Malacar inject a colorless fluid into his arm.
"What is the drug you took?" he asked.
"A mild sedative, somewhat hallucinogenic. It will be a few minutes before it takes effect."
"But you haven't told me yet what thing I am to look for--to attempt to induce, if necessary--for the work."
"I'm making it easier for you," Malacar told him, as they reclined upon their couches before the globe they had erected. "I will tell you--via Shind--when it is ready. Then all you will have to do is hit your controls and capture it, exactly the way that it is."
"That would seem to imply a moderately strong element of consciousness on your part. This invariably interferes with the strength and clarity of the vision. That is why I prefer to use my own drugs, sir."
"Don't worry. This will be strong and clear."
"How long do you feel it will be before it occurs just as you would have it?"
"Perhaps five minutes. It will come in a flash, but it will remain long enough for you to activate your controls and impose it."
"I will try, sir."
"You will succeed, Mr. Morwin. That is an order. It will be the most difficult one you have ever attempted, I am certain. But I want it--there, before me--when I awaken."
"Yes, sir."
"Why don't you relax for a while? Make whatever mental preparations you do?"
"Yes, sir."
_Shind?_
_Yes, Commander. I am watching. He is still puzzled. He is wondering now why you want it and what it will be. Failing to arrive at any conclusions, he attempts to dismiss these questions for the moment. Soon he will know, he tells himself. He tries to relax, to follow your order, now. He is very tense. His palms perspire and he wipes them on his trousers. He regulates his breathing and his heartbeat. His mind becomes a more peaceful place. His surface thoughts diminish. Now! Now... He does a thing with his mind that I cannot follow, understand. I know that he is readying himself for the exercise of his special talent. Now he does indeed relax. He knows that he is ready. There is no tension in him. He allows himself the joy of reverie. Thoughts arise unbidden, vanish in like fashion. Wisps, rag-tails, highly personal, nothing strong_ ...
_Continue to follow him_.
_I do. Wait. Something, something_ ...
_What is it?_
_I do not know. The globe--something about the globe_ ...
_This globe? The one we made?_
_No, the globe seems only to have served as the stimulus, now that he is relaxing and there are free associations ... This globe ... No. it is another. Different_ ...
_What is it like?_
_Big, and with a backdrop of stars. Inside_ ...
_What?_
_A man. A dead man, but he moves. There is also much equipment. Medical equipment. The globe is a ship--his ship. _B Coli__ ...
_Pels. The dead doctor. Pathologist. I've read some of his papers. What of him?_
_Nothing to Morwin, for the thing is gone now from his mind, and the wispy thoughts have come again. But there was something there for me. --My dream-thing. The thing of which I warned you, the thing that I said he would bear--this is it, somehow. Or connected with it_.
_I will find out_.
_Not from Morwin, for he does not know. it is simply the fact that there is knowledge you will gain in connection with Pels, and that he has brought into your presence a thought of the dead doctor, which menaces you. I-- Commander, forgive me! I am the agent! Had I not told you of my dream of weeks ago, discerned its key just now and told you of this, also, there would be no danger. The way to trouble is through Pels, not Morwin. Better I had remained completely silent. --Simply avoid anything connected with the dead doctor_.
_Strange. A very strange twisting. But we have uncovered the information we desired. We can deal with it later. Let us get on with the "dream_."
_Wait. Let there be no later. Dismiss Pels from your thinking and never recall him_.
_Not now, Shind. Now you must help me seek through your brother's memories_.
_Very well. I will assist you. But_--
_Now, Shind_.
Then he was there again, moving along aisles of that library, the brother-thing's mind. In it, everything the creature had experienced, from vague pre-birth feelings through present awareness, lay before him. He sought the sad, sore spot he had come upon earlier. Locating it, he drew nearer. Shaken, at the pain-death-fear nightmare-place, he forced himself to bore deep within it. It was a dream Tuv had had earlier, but the preservative quality of the memory made it hang there, like all the others, in the gallery of his agony. It was a corkscrew-twisted blot, with two streamers like writhing legs, the whole penetrated by spark-lines, as from the tail of a green comet; there was a faint lightening near its bottom, featuring a vague, facelike area--suggesting no creature Malacar had ever known--the horrid face-place, lying at that instant between life and death, red tears emerging in all directions therefrom, falling into the blot and beyond, into a faintly silver landscape of crystal or of thin-flamed silver fire. Into the center of this thing, from out his own memory on such matters, Malacar cast the main stat-map of the CL, each sun so faint--like cells in a dying body! The whole took but an instant, and Malacar said, _Now, Shind!_ and heard Morwin scream. But he also heard the jets come alive.
He realized then that he was screaming too; and he continued to, until Shind pulled him out. Then blackness, like lightning, struck him.
The world called Cleech fell away at his back. Within a matter of hours, he would be outside that small system and able to enter subspace. He turned from the console and fetched a long, slim cigar from a supply he had taken from the dead man's counter, there in the dead men's space port.
It had been much faster this time, had gone through a larger area almost immediately. What had it been? He had not even recognized the condition. Could it be that he had somehow become a breeding place for new diseases?
He lit the cigar and smiled.
His tongue was black and the sclerae of his eyes had grown yellowish. Very little healthy tissue was now visible upon him. He had become a discolored mass of sores and swellings.
He chuckled and puffed smoke until his eyes fell upon his reflection in the dampened screen to his left.
Then he stopped chuckling and the smile went away. He put the cigar aside and leaned forward, studying his face. It was the first time he had seen it since-- How long ago? Where? Italbar, of course. Where it had all started.
He regarded the lines, the places that looked like burns, the dark ridges that crossed the cheeks.
Something inside him chose, at that moment, to close its fingers about his stomach and squeeze.
He turned away from the screen, his breath quickening. Suddenly, he found that he was panting. His hands began to tremble.
My appearance need not be so extreme to achieve the desired effect, he decided. Three weeks in sub before I reach Summit. Might as well go into remission and clean up a bit.
He located the cigar and continued to puff on it. He placed his left hand where it was out of sight. He did not look back at the screen.
After he had entered hd, he turned on the forward screen and regarded stars. Centered about a point directly before him, they moved in long, burning spirals, some clockwise, some counterclockwise. He hung there, absolutely still, and for a time he regarded the universe as it moved about him.
Then he reclined the seat, closed his eyes, folded his arms and followed the long trail he had not taken since before Italbar.