Jack L. Chalker - The Run To Chaos Keep (The Quintara Marathon , No 2)

For the late
Catherine C.L. Moore,
who showed us how its done
over fifty years ago.

HE WAS SOMEWHERE DEEP IN A DARK WELL, neck deep in blood, the stench everywhere, reaching out, clutching at anything in order to climb out. But the well was filled with monsters and unspeakable things; he reached for what felt like a limb and found that it was instead a severed arm. Tentacles oozed from the sides and tried to wrap themselves around him, and wherever they touched, it was like acid, burning his flesh and filling the claustrophobic enclosure with the added stench of burning flesh.

Bloody faces also lined the walls: familiar faces of comrades from past expeditions whod died, often in horrible ways. Some were calling.

Hello, Jimmy! Knew youd get here sooner or later! Give you a hand? And then a disembodied, bloody hand would shoot out and grab his throat and begin to squeeze...

A new headTris Lankursmaterialized out of the ooze and opened its eyes and looked at him and said, Sorry. Lost my head a while back. Now I lost my body, too. This provokes a fascinating quantitative problem for a rationalist, you know, particularly when one is a machine. Its because Ive got brains, you see. And, with that, the top of his head popped off and the brain, which seemed both real and made of some kind of metal, began oozing out of the skull and enlarging itself until it threatened to fill the airspace remaining and choke him.

Sweet Jesus! Have mercy on me! he screamed, or tried to, but the blood, as thick as porridge, moved into his mouth and made him choke on the words.

Father McGuires voice suddenly came to him from a great distance. Im sorry, but Jesus isnt in right now. However, if you leave your name and your identification number, and if you didnt desert Him and break your word to Him, Hell get back to you sooner or later...

Jimmy! It was Sister Margaret, floating there as radiant as always. She reached out her hand to him and he reached for it, but when he touched her, her body began a rapid and loathsome decay, until it was but a rotted, bloated, obscene corpse, covered by masses of living, squirming maggots that began to drop off her and onto him.

<Jimmy! Jimmy! Come out of it, Jimmy! Ive done all that I can to minimize shock, but there are limits! You must wake up!>

Thats all I needed, he groaned in his horrible torture pit. Even here I cant get rid of her!

<Cmon, Jimmy, you bastard! Fight it!>

Oh, shut up, Grysta! he moaned, but then he noticed that, when she talked to him, the horrors moved back a bit, the blood level went down.

<You jerk! You dummy! You asshole! You took a stun hit full in the chest from close range! You wake up and now or youll go where you already seem to think you are!>

She kept at him, cursing, cajoling, threatening, and, slowly, feeling like he was in deep ocean water and fighting his way to the surface, he finally came to consciousness.

What... ? he said aloud, still confused and disoriented, and not a little bit shaken.

<You got shot, stupid! They left the null on the trail and he nailed all of you with a heavy stun before you knew what hit you!>

How long have I been out?

<What do I look like? A clock? Pretty long, I think. Several minutes.>

How do you know what happened?

<He came up after he nailed all of you. Lankur wasnt all the way out so he had to hit him again. I didnt really see him, but I felt his presence and I heard him come up and heard the extra shot.>

Jimmy struggled to a sitting position and groaned. This hurt, hurt worse than he could remember ever hurting in his whole life. He was shaken, too; the visions of his delirium were still very much with him and seemed very, very real.

He went over to Molly first, not only because she was his responsibility, but because he hadnt the slightest idea how to judge the condition of a Durquist or a cymol, so there wasnt much he could do about them until they came around.

At first he was afraid she was dead; there seemed even less than usual in that pretty mind. But when he pulled her to a sitting position, supporting her, and kept saying her name over and over she smiled slightly and began coming around. Finally she opened her eyes, shook her head rapidly from side to side, and groaned at the sudden pain and dizziness. Jimmy? What happened?

We all got shot, he told her. Come on! On your feet! I know just what you feel like, but the more you move around, the quicker it wears off.

He got her up, then looked next at the Durquist. The creature was limp, and, in its environment suit, flattened by total relaxation, he looked less like a living being and more like some deflated carnival balloon.

Durquist! Snap out of it and get in motion! he yelled through the intercom. Come on! Up and at em!

<Just a few more minutes. Mother,> the Durquists mind responded.

Mother my ass! the telepath snapped. I may be host to a Morgh, but Ill be damned if Im gonna be Mommie to a Durquist!

Feeling almost back to normal except for a headache and some tingling in the extremities, Jimmy and Molly tried to raise the Durquist, and at least resulted in shaking him. Broad tentacles flexed, the eyes popped up, and the Durquist said, I am really beginning to regret coming along on this trip.

Well, time to see if the one who talked us into it is still among the living, or whatever cymols are, McCray responded.

Functional, came an eerie, emotionless voice in the intercom that caused them all to look nervously around. Restoring biologic interface. Checklist running. Completed.

Tris Lankur suddenly sat up, then slowly got to his feet, but in a jerky, nonhuman way. In the suit, the impression of not a human being but a mechanical man was almost absolute.

Well, Ill be cursed! swore the Durquist, staring. He really is a robot!

I am directing biological interface manually, said Lankur in that weird, mechanical voice. I am functional, but direct linkage to biologically stored data not fully operable.

He got real problem, Molly commented needlessly.

Jimmy couldnt help but think of his nightmare and of the metallic, swelling brain of the pilot.

Status reports on other units? the cymol asked.

Were all rightI think, Jimmy told himitwhatever. Youre the one thats worse for wear.

Second shot produced some tissue damage and electrical linkage shorts, the cymol explained. Essential data intact, but am unable to access Terran simulation mode. Pre-cymol mode memories, habit patterns, not present.

<Jeez! Lookit the way he moves!> Grysta commented. <Hes a real walking corpse now!>

Jimmy found the sight of the cymol stripped of his humanity to be very unsettling, but there were more pressing matters. How functional overall are you? he asked. Can you make the distance? Can you fight if you have to and hit what you aim at?

Full control. Limits and reflexive actions impossible to predict, but no random or uncontrolled actions will occur. However, sensory and tactile feedback to brain is not functional at this time.

You mean you cant feel pain? McCray asked him.

I mean I can feel nothing. But the biological unit appears to function as I direct.

<Uh-oh!> Grysta commented. <Anybody bring any diapers? Otherwise hes gonna get pretty ripe real soon!>

As usual, Jimmy ignored her. Durquist?

It will have to do, the Durquist responded. It is particularly painful for me to see him in this condition, since I was with him for so long, but, from a practical sense, its far better than broken legs or puncture wounds or the like. What about our treacherous priests?