THE CHOICE I JUST MADE
1563 4D
The ship came to rest once more, its control room centering as before in the great chamber. Andrew scanned the panorama that embraced him. The walls ran waterfall in blue-gray, resolved themselves into a verdant descending range of hillsides that strode into a great hazy distance; birds large and small scribed arcs across a blue-blazed noonday sky.
Gullinder roused himself. “So this is where the ship belongs.” Others stirred, came alert, sat and stood up to face each other again.
“You can’t hold this ship against us by yourselves,” Frintar said. “Aliens or not, we’ll be waiting. Some of us have waited a long time, and we will find the right time. Why not work out fair terms with us before this all turns to war again? You yourself told me that the aliens are dying. What will you use for leverage when they’re gone?”
“Regardless of your stirring expressions of support for the downtrodden,” Gullinder put in, “you will find the governing and operating of the world a far more difficult task than you think. You will need the expertise of those who have done the work before you.”
A face behind Gullinder emerged sufficiently into the light for Andrew to make out its features more clearly. A bland, businesslike man’s face, expressionless, eyes watchful and clear, focused levelly on Andrew himself.
It was Arlen‘s torturer, Progarnes.
Andrew recoiled in his chair, even as he tried to conceal his shock. “What is he doing here?”
“Who?” Gullinder looked interested.
“Him!” Andrew pointed. How had this man been here this whole time without being obvious? Progarnes smiled.
“He is a trusted associate of mine,” said Gullinder. “He has completed a very difficult assignment, and I wanted him with me.”
“He works for you?” Andrew berated himself for not noticing, starting to shake. “He’s a, he—“
“Andrew.” It was Nazrelo. “We know.”
Andrew seized the stem once more; as it stabbed into his flesh, he spat, “Now I know one change I will make.”
Be careful! Turiosten‘s voice awoke, shrilled.
The ship reeled; the walls canted; the humans sprawled senseless. Andrew sought the wound in his heart and found it; the walls cascaded blood and slime and flame. He lunged through innerspace, through burning trees and grasses; scorched animals, their pelts lit with sparks, careened in every direction.
Arms took him firmly; Turiosten and Onnhasshakh and Arhnhashokha, Jeddin and Ezzar, all gathered him in and held him as he strained and fought, driving the ship deeper and deeper into crimson and infra scarlet umbrance: light devoured by heat.
“You’ll destroy us!” Ezzar.
“Let me— he’s— I’ve got to—“
NO. Onnhasshakh spoke, her voice making the space itself around them quail and ripple; Andrew froze. Choose one of these; it is all I will allow. The cusp is past, the knot is gone. In this, there are no more uncertainties. Have you forgotten what I showed you before?
“You can’t stop me,” Andrew said. “Not this time.”
“Andrew!” Ezzar shouted, “You’ll kill us all.”
“I’ll kill them, not you.” The air thickened to molten metal, choking him. The others reeled away from him, gagging and thrashing, and vanished; he stabbed further in to where he was iron itself, beaten and twined, imprinted in the forge, and with a snap the heat and closeness vanished.
He stood now alone in the great chamber, and vengeance thrilled his limbs, and the criminals were brought before him and thrust into the hundred electric arms of Trenzil.
“You are destroyers and enemies of the world. Die now slowly and in pain.” He reveled in the sick horror in their faces.
He reached into a low cabinet and withdrew a clear spherical flask with a long neck. The sea-green fluid within it moved and shivered, viscous, plastic and yet somehow thin and free-moving.
“This will turn your skins to lace and tumors. I anoint you now with slow death.” He paused and looked up at the portrait on the wall. The artist had portrayed him well — when he was done with these creatures he would ask for a portrait of them as their flesh fell free. He stood before the military woman, her face graying with fear. She would be the first — it would wrench the men’s hearts.
“Andrew,” she whispered.
He raised the flask over her head.
“Andrew.” It was not Frintar; it was Ezzar.
He flung the flask away, snatched her from the trenzil’s coils, and stared, horrified, at all the others: Jeddin, Jirinai, Torre, Raffina, Nazrelo and Marande, even Grendel, gripped in steel. “Sakha‘n s varrin,” he said, and the trenzil let the others go.
Shaking, he turned his back on the scene, and walked to the great doors, bulging red with heat, dripping white-hot metal from their crevices. Expecting death, he forced them open. Heat engulfed him.
Before Andrew in the red gloom lay sticky orange threads of spiderweb, each strand leading off into a furred treelike thicket of fine-fingered cilia. He controlled himself, reached out, handled them; one warmed in his fingers, singing to him, and he said, “This, then.”
It is a change, but it will do. Let’s get rid of these puffed skins, before I decide to break my law again. Turiosten vanished.
They returned from innerspace to the chamber. Andrew loosed his grip, and the assemblage awoke. An unfamiliar man’s face had replaced that of Progarnes; its owner stared closely at Ezzar, then, along with the others of the government and corp party, looked at each other; they were the pale color of andros.
Amazed, Andrew subvocalized to Turiosten, How did you do that?
Just some basic chemistry.
“A filthy trick. We will not leave here without concessions from you,” Gullinder tried, slapping both palms on the table.
“Your… position is delicate,” Jirinai said. “I suggest you not compound your problems with further bluster.”
“You hold power now,” Gullinder conceded, “but you will not last.”
Andrew snapped back, “As you see, we can change many things with little effort, even the lines of time. I was perfectly willing to choose a worldline without you in it — only the ones you call alien convinced me otherwise. Why not cooperate? You can only lose if you refuse; too many know what you have been doing, now.”
“I will speak for my part,” Frintar responded. “We will prepare a proposal for your review. You may do what you wish with it.” She shot a glare at Gullinder, whose mouth started to open; he shut it. “Who will join me in this?”
Several heads on either side of her turned, turned back, nodded.
Andrew, Jeddin and the rebels exchanged nods.
Jeddin said, “Agreed. Contact us when you are ready. We will call you. We wish to confer here privately now.” Jeddin indicated the great doors; Gullinder, Frintar and the other officials filed out. No more words were spoken until the last escort soldier had left; the rebel guards boomed the doors shut.
Tensely at first, then heartily, Andrew and the others laughed.
“What is that?” Andrew pointed to the curtained, head-sized box on the wall.
“One of Arlen‘s toys, probably.” Jeddin went to the box, drew the curtain aside. A sleeping face, lifelike and fully-sculpted, showed itself.
“That’s art work.” Torre stood, went to the box, studied it, fingered the knobs underneath. “I wonder what these do.” He twisted the left knob a little.
The eyes opened. “Yes?” It was Progarnes.
Andrew jumped from his seat. “That man! He— but— Wait. Is that the choice I just made?”
Yes, said Turiosten.
“Then we’re rid of him.”
No. Just one of him.
“Are there so many?”
Always, there are enough. Gullinder will find more. Now all of you must work to stop them, without becoming like them. It is unending labor, the price of your short lives.
“Then we will.” Andrew stood, walked up beside Torre, and with trembling fingers turned the knob back; the face of Progarnes calmly closed its eyes in sleep. Andrew drew the curtain shut. “Let’s get to work. Send for food.”
At that moment he remembered the tall Director he had seen across the table. “Oh, there is one of ArCorp‘s people I want to talk to. Torre, please send one of your couriers to ask Director Mentrius Adrili to join me here. We’ll use one of the side chambers.”
