play for full stakes and keep me locked in Child’s body, he
might very well wind up with nothing. And military
careers are not built on blunders.
“Bring him along,” he ordered the doctor. “We’ll let
him have his body back.” He smiled at me, but it was not
a pleasant smile. “But you’d better cooperate, Kelly. It’s
time of war now, and that rules out your brand of
frivolity.”
“I understand perfectly,” I said, not without a touch of
sarcasm.
“I’m sure you do.”
And he left the room.
Minutes later, they wheeled me into the corridor to
keep my rendezvous with my own coma-ridden flesh. . . .
All the while, I gloried in the thought that I was swiftly
getting the upper hand and that before they realized what
had happened, I would be in my former position of
dominance. There were two minds’ worth of energy within
me, plus the complex intellect of Child now amplifying my
own. They were mere men, I told myself, and they stood
no chance at all.
I did not realize that I was making the same mistake
that I had made twice before. In the old days, I had
convinced myself that I was a god of sorts, the Second
Coming, and my life had been disastrous because of that
fantasy. In Child’s subconscious, I had eagerly sought to
be transformed into the mythic images of Tibetan wolves,
into something transcending humanity, and that might
have cost me my mind and my eventual recovery. And
now, as I was wheeled down the corridor, I again looked at
myself as more than a man, as a minor god soon to prove
his power. Because I had never allowed myself to associ-
ate with “mere men,” I did not understand them, or
myself. And my latest delusions of grandeur were bound
to lead to ultimate disaster….
And did…
II
My legs were cramped, and even a slight bit of move-
ment made my shoulders ache, for the staff had not been
exercising my body with the proper degree of enthusiasm
during the month it had been vacant. I felt weak, and my
stomach was a hard knot. Having been fed intravenously
for some four weeks, the stomach had shrunk and felt like
a clenched fist in there, squeezing my guts. Otherwise:
fine. And since it was such a delight to be housed in my
own flesh once again, I was willing to overlook the little
aches and pains of readjustment to life. I didn’t complain,
and I tried not even to grimace.
Morsfagen seemed disappointed by that.
They wheeled Child’s carcass out of the room. It would
continue to live, though it would never exhibit intelligence
again. It was a husk, nothing more. I still had not told
them, for I was still not free of the AC complex and out
of their immediate reach. Morsfagen would not take kind-
ly to such a trick, and I didn’t want to be around whenev-
er he discovered it.
I showered, washed away the weeks of sickbed smell.
The hot water seemed to loosen my cramped muscles, and
dressing was only half the ordeal I had expected. When I
slipped into my jacket and checked my reflection in the
mirror, Morsfagen said, “Your shyster is waiting down-
stairs.”
I held back the witty reply designed to demolish him,
for I knew that was exactly what he wanted. He was
searching for some reason to slap me down, either with
his fists or with a preventive detention arrest. Why we had
hit it off so miserably from the start, and why our hatred
for each other was now twice what it had been, I didn’t
know. True, we were altogether different types, but the
antagonism we felt for each other was deeper and more
unremitting than a mere clash of personalities.
“Thank you,” I said, leaving him with nothing to at-
tack. I walked to the door, opened it, and was halfway
into the corridor before he replied.
“You’re welcome.”
I turned and looked at him and saw that he was smiling,
that same cold smile of hatred which I had grown used to
by then. He had said “you’re welcome,” but not with any