hand.
“I am Kelly,” I said.
“No games,” he snapped.
“This isn’t.”
He looked at me closely. “Maybe you had better ex-
plain.”
So I told him about Child’s investigation into the nature
of God. He did not seem moved by the discovery that the
universe held no purpose, that God is insane and always
has been. Perhaps he did not believe me. I rather think
that was the case with the doctor and the nurse and the
guard by the door. But there was a crisp, cold gaze there
that said Morsfagen did believe—and not only that he
believed, but that he had come to the same conclusions
himself some time ago, though he had simply lacked the
proof that Child had managed to obtain. There was no
room for God in Morsfagen’s life, I realized. He had
always operated outside a belief in heaven and hell and
retribution for sin.
I carefully avoided mentioning that I had absorbed
Child’s energy, that he would never regain his body. If
they thought that all could soon be returned to normal,
they would be more eager to see me back in my own
flesh, wherever it was kept.
When I was done, I asked: “How much time has
passed?”
“A month,” he said.
It was startling, yet it could have been worse. I had
steeled myself to accept the word “years,” and this was a
blessing by comparison. A lot could have happened in a
month. But Melinda might still be free, might still be
waiting. Harry would be alive. My house would not have
been sold to creditors. Yes, there was still time to regain
normality.
“I want my own body,” I said. That was the first step to
that normality.
“Perhaps,” Morsfagen said.
I looked around at the others to see whether they
understood the cruelty in that tease. None of them seemed
to pay any attention. Perhaps part of their jobs included
paying no attention to such things.
“What is this—perhaps?” I asked.
Child’s voice box made the words seem sinister when
they were actually spoken in fear.
“Perhaps,” he said, his face impassive, “it would be
better for all of us if no one outside of this room ever
discovered that you have regained sanity and are ready to
return to your own body. It would be less trouble to get
you doing work for us. We would not have to pay you
anything. All in all, perhaps it would be a wise idea.”
The nurse paid no attention. But her pleasant face
mirrored her tacit agreement with Morsfagen.
The doctor took my pulse, listened at my chest with a
stethoscope, checked my eyes and ears, ignoring what
transpired around him.
The guard, by the door, had Morsfagen’s impassive
look.
I was alone.
Except for Child’s intellect, which had expanded my
own. There was a cunning about me now that I had not
possessed before. Morsfagen would think he knew me:
fast on the cutting remarks, but low on cleverness. But
that had changed, and I was now every bit as devious as
he.
“One problem,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve told you that it took me this full month to shake
loose of my own madness and to free myself from Child’s
insanity. I nearly lost my mind again trying to find a way
through his subconscious landscape. You scanning all this
so far?” He indicated that he was by saying nothing.
“Now, if I’m trapped in this frame, welded so closely to
his mind, I’m going to succumb to his insanity again—and
this time it will be permanent. I couldn’t stand the ordeal
of recovery again.” In that whispered, deathlike rattle of
Child’s, the words took on even more sincerity than I had
tried to give them.
Morsfagen looked doubtful. It was almost as if he could
sense the change in me, sense the expanded awareness and
cunning. But he could not take the chance that I was not
telling him the truth, and he knew that I had won. He was
going to have to console himself with the fact that at least
he now had me in full mind for future use; if he tried to