Below the surface. Did nothing actual lie at hand? Did everything have to turn out, eventually, to consist of something else entirely? He felt weary—and resigned. Evidently this remained so. Whether he liked it or not. Delusional as this might be, obviously it was not acting in conformity to his wishes. Not in the slightest.
“What can you tell me,” he said, “about Freya?” He set himself, braced against the possibility of horrible, final news; he waited with cold stoic anticipation.
“Chrissake, she’s fine,” the eye-eater answered. “Nobody got her; it was me they got. Blew me to bits, they did.”
“But,” Rachmael pointed out, “you’re alive.”
“Somewhat.” The eye-eater sounded disenchanted. “You call this being alive? Well, I guess technically it’s being alive; I can move around, eat food, breathe; maybe, for all I know, I can reproduce myself. Okay, I admit it; I’m alive. Are you satisfied?”
Rachmael said hoarsely, “You’re a Mazdast.”
“Hell I am.”
“But my paraworld,” Rachmael said bluntly, “is Paraworld Blue. I’ve seen the Aquatic Horror-shape, Matson; I know from firsthand experience what it looks like.” He plunged on, then, ruthlessly. “And you’re it.”
“Almost.” The eye-eater sounded placid; he had not disturbed its potent calm. “But you yourself noticed crucial differences, son. For example, I possess a multitude of compound eyes; high in protein, they often provide me—in time of dire want—an ample diet. As I recently demonstrated. Shall I display this neat faculty once more?” It reached, then, two pseudopodia toward its recently regrown optic organs. “Very tasty,” it intoned, now apparently engrossed in furthering its meal.
“Wait a moment,” Rachmael said thickly. “I find your appetite offensive; for god’s sake, wait!”
“Anything,” the eye-eater said obligingly, “to please a fellow human being. We both are, you realize. I am, certainly. After all, I’m the quondam owner of Lies Incorporated; correct? No, I am not a Mazdast; not one of the primordial Ur-inhabitants of Fomalhaut IX. They constitute a low order of organism; I spit on them.” It spat, decisively. In its mind there was no doubt; it detested the Mazdasts. “What I am,” it continued, “is the living embodiment of humanity and not some alien creep-thing that nature was inclined to spawn on this far-flung, rather degenerate crypto-colony planet. Well, when Computer Day arrives, all that will be taken care of. You included, you odd life form, you. Heh-heh.” It giggled once more. “Now, that book I loaned you. Dr. Bloode’s book. It seems to me that if you want to catch up on the very vital facts pertaining to Newcolonizedland, you really ought to con it thoroughly. What you want to learn undoubtedly lies within. Read it! Go on! Heh-heh.” Its voice trailed off stickily into an indistinct torrent of mumbled amusement, and Rachmael felt a surge of doubt, overwhelming doubt, that this was—at least now—the man he had known as Matson Glazer-Holliday. He sensed its innate alienness. It was, beyond doubt, nonhuman. To say the least.
With dignity, he answered, “I’ll read it when I have time.”
“But you’ll enjoy it, Mr. ben Applebaum. Not only is the volume educational, but also highly amusing. Let me quote one of Dr. Bloode’s quite singular Thing-isms.”
” ‘Thingisms’?” Rachmael felt baffled—and wary. He had a deep intuition that the Thingism, whatever it was, would not be amusing. Not to him, anyhow, or to any human.
“I always enjoyed this one,” the eye-eater intoned, its saliva spilling from its mouth as it writhed with glee. “Consider: since you are about to read the book, here is Thingism Number Twenty, dealing with books.
“Ahem. ‘The book business is hidebound.’ ”
After a pause, Rachmael said, “That’s it?”
“Perhaps you failed to understand. I’ll give you another gem, one more particular favorite of mine. And if that fails to move you . . . Oooohhh! That’s a Thingism! Listen! ‘The representative of the drayage firm failed to move me.’ Oooohhh! How was that?” It waited hopefully.
Baffled, Rachmael said, “I don’t get it.”
“All right.” The eye-eater’s tone was now harsh. “Read the book purely for educational purposes, then. So be it. You want to know the origin of this form which I have taken. Well, everyone will take it, sooner or later. We all do; this is how we become after we die.”
He stared at it.
“While you ponder,” the eye-eater continued, “I’ll delight you with a few more Thingisms of Dr. Bloode’s. This one I always enjoy. “The vidphone company let me off the hook.’ How was that? Or this one: ‘The highway construction truck tore up the street at forty miles an hour.’ Or this: ‘I am not in a position to enjoy sexual relations.’ Or—”
Shutting his ears, ignoring the prolix eye-eater, Rachmael examined the book, finding a page at dead-random. The text swam, then set into clear focus for him.
A zygote formed between the indigenous inhabitants of Fomalhaut IX and Homo sapiens gives us evidence of the dominant aspect of the so-called ‘Mazdast’ genetic inheritance. From the twin radically opposing strains arises what nominally appears to be a pure ‘Mazdast,’ with the exceptional reorganization of the organs of sight, the cephalopodic entity otherwise manifesting itself intact and in its customary fashion.
“You mean,” Rachmael said, glancing up from the book, stunned, “that when you say you’re Matson Glazer-Holliday you mean you’re an offspring of his and a—”
“And of a female Mazdast,” the eye-eater said calmly. “Read on, Mr. ben Applebaum. There’s much more there to interest you. You’ll find that each of the paraworlds is explained; the structure of each is displayed so that the logic constituting each is clearly revealed. Look in the index. Select the paraworld which most interests you.”
He turned at once to Paraworld Blue.
“And Freya Holm,” the eye-eater said, as Rachmael leafed shakily through the volume for the cited page.
“You wish to find her; this is your primary motive for coming here to Fomalhaut IX. Possibly there’s an entry regarding Miss Holm; had you thought of that, sir?”
Huskily, with disbelief, Rachmael said, “You’re kidding.” It was impossible.
“Merely test out what I say. Look under Holm comma Freya.”
He did so.
The index informed him that there existed two entries regarding Freya. One on page fifty. The second further in, deep into the book: on page two-hundred-and-ten.
He chose the earlier one first.
Freya saw, then, into the grave and screamed; she ran and as she ran, struggled to get away she knew it for what it was: a refined form of nerve gas that—and then her coherent thoughts ceased and she simply ran.
“It details,” the eye-eater informed him, “Miss Holm’s actions on this side of the Telpor gate. Up to the present. If you want to know what became of her, simply read on. And,” it added sourly, “what became of me.”
His hands shaking, Rachmael read on. He had now swiftly turned to the later citation on page two-hundred-and-ten; before his eyes danced the black bug-like words, details of Freya’s fate here at Newcolonizedland. He held, read, understood what he had come for; this, as the eye-eater said, contained what he wanted.
Facing the deformed entity which she had once known as the human ‘wash psychiatrist Dr. Lupov, Freya whispered ashenly, “So the transformation is arranged by means of your techniques and all of those damned gadgets you use to keep people thinking along the exact lines you want. And I thought it was a biological sport; I was so completely convinced.” She shut her eyes in deep, overpowering fatigue. And realized that this was the end; she would go the way of Mat, of Rachmael ben Applebaum, of
“What way?” Rachmael demanded, lifting his eyes from the page and confronting the creature before him. “You mean become like you?” His body cringed; he retreated physically from even the notion of it, let alone its presence here before him.
“All flesh must die,” the eye-eater said, and giggled.
Almost unable to hold onto Dr. Bloode’s volume, Rachmael once more turned to the index. This time he selected the entry:
ben Applebaum, Rachmael
And again read on. Grimly.
To the sharp-featured, intent young man beside him, Lupov said, “I think we can consider Reconstruct Method Three to be successful. At least in its initial phase.”
Jaimé Weiss nodded. “I agree. And you have the alternate versions of the text available? As the other persons are brought in?” He did not take his eyes from the vid screen; he missed nothing of the activity that at slowed-velocity passed before the magnetic scanning-heads of the replay deck for his and Dr. Lupov’s scrutiny.
“Several are ready.” It did not seem urgent to Lupov to have all alternates of the text which Rachmael ben Applebaum now read available at the same time; after all . . . certain changes in the other versions might be indicated, depending on which way ben Applebaum jumped. His reaction to this text—in particular the part dealing with his own “death”—would come in any moment, now.