Newlin probed mercilessly. "Tell me. Why did you bring me here? It was
not only to save me from the hunters. Even I guessed that. Why?"
Poised, slender, defiant as a sword, Songeen met and parried his attack.
"I cannot tell you that."
Newlin took her rebuff gracelessly. He was a son of Chaos, a man of the
brawling, violent Solar breeds. His temper was short, his words and
actions direct. He saw challenge and answered in kind.
"Then take me to the Masters."
Fear and fury blazed in her eyes. "They have not sent for you. I cannot
take you to them like this. You are mad. You will live to regret this.
Why, why?"
"I'll tell you. You said I could be decontaminated. You said I could be
cured, that I could stay here--afterwards. I want to stay now. Is there
a way. Can I be cured?"
"Of the madness, yes. But it is a fearful way. Do you know how all
lunatics are treated? How they are cured, if at all? In your own
asylums, do you know how madness is treated?"
"Yes, I know," Newlin answered roughly. "By shock treatment. I suspected
something of the sort, all the time. Am I right? Is your treatment
similar?"
Songeen nodded, her movement a shimmering echo of the forest's mirrored
quivering.
"Similar--but not the same. The shock used is different. More intense
and terrible than insulin or electrical shock. Could you survive such
treatment?"
Newlin snorted. "I don't know. I'm just crazy enough to try. I won't say
I like this place--your world or the nuthouse entrance to it. But with
you, I like it better than any other place without you. I think I'm in
love with you."
Worms of pale light flared and writhed in her eyes. Something shifted,
the oddments of woman-flesh shredded from her. Like a transparent
mannequin of glass, she stood. Inside her, luminous organs squirmed
visibly. Like a dream-woman, she stood just outside the boundaries of
sanity. But like a dream-woman, she was beautiful, immortal, desirable.
"You've said it," she murmured. "Now that you see me as I am, do you
still want me? Say it again, now, Spud Newlin, say it in your new
knowledge of the things as they really are."
* * * * *
Newlin hesitated, made his choice. Wandering, ill and alone, terrified,
in the forests of nightmare--he chose. Madman's choice.
"I love you, Songeen. Take me to the Masters."
Nightmare wavered. A hand, oddly shaped, sought his as the witchfires
burned low and faded from the sky.
"I can take you now. It is not far, and the Masters are waiting. I have
warned you. If, after that warning, you still ask to stay, they will
grant your wish. It needed only your free choice. I am glad you have
chosen, but shock treatment is a dangerous chance. Are you sure you love
me--enough?"
"Songeen!" his mind pleaded. "Wait!"
She heard his wordless cry, and waited, opening the glowing, pure
citadel of her thoughts to him. She gave no answer in words or glowing
thought symbols. She waited.
"No, I haven't changed my mind. I want to stay. Maybe I can learn to
like your world. I want the decontamination--the shock treatment. I'm
scared, but I want it, no matter how it hurts. I want to stay here--but
not if you're not here. I want to be with you--Hell, Venus, or even
Callisto--I want to go with you. I love you. If my love is part of my
madness, don't cure me. I haven't asked you, but I'd like to know. Do
you love me?"
Songeen was silent. In the glittering forest of crystalline tree forms,
jeweled birds sang wild riots of bubbling, bursting notes. Darkness
gathered swiftly in the dense air.
"Didn't you know?" Songeen chimed, matching the bird-notes. "Our names
are already enrolled in the Great Book. It was custom here, our mating
rite. It was the only way I could bring you. I did not tell you,
because--"
She stopped, then continued. "Because I had to be sure of you. Because I
wanted you to have free choice. Now you must share all my tasks, my
responsibilities. Before, the task was mine alone. Now we must share it.
You and I are selected--"
"Selected for what?" Newlin broke in.
He could not see her for thick darkness. But he sensed eery tension of
movement, and emotion flowed to him from her mind.
"For the great task, the last and greatest of all. We must go back
together. To Hell. To the system you sprang from. It is for us to
release to them the ultimate weapon. The deadline is close, as I told
you. Other races grow desperate, now that your system's isolation is
breaking down. Pressure for interstellar expansion is extreme on all of
Sol's planets. The technicians work full time at the problems, and they
will solve it, soon. We have until then, to kill or cure the patient.
"Other powers and weapons have been released to them in the hope that
mounting responsibility would bring sanity. Atomic power was turned into
dangerous toys, implements of murder. We gave them knowledge of atomic
fission and fusion, and they use the knowledge to butcher and destroy
each other. We tried all the minor shock treatments. They have failed.
The time has come for the final treatment. The major shock. We--you and
I--must give them the ultimate weapon."
* * * * *
Newlin knew his humanity. He protested. "But why? If they have misused
everything else. Why give them something still more hideous? Why give
them means for further destruction?"
Her answer pulsed through darkness which glittered like black crystal.
"Because it is the final experiment. The last hope for your people, your
system. We cannot help them beyond that. They must choose for
themselves, as you did. We must go back to Earth, this time. And it is
our task to give them the final treatment and test. The ultimate weapon.
Gravity displacement. Once used, it is the end. Planets will be wrenched
from the Sun, electrons from their parent nuclei within the very atoms.
It is the same force. The choice is theirs--kill or cure. Sanity or
destruction. You and I will stay, try to guide and help, advise, but not
interfere. Like you, your people must have free choice.
"We must stay with them, and share whatever happens. This is their shock
treatment--and yours. We will share it together. But come, the Masters
are waiting. I will take you to them."
"Together!" said Newlin, awed. "You will stay with me and share my--our
shock treatment!"
"Together, always--now. It is a small price to pay, whatever happens,"
murmured Songeen.
Her hand drew him close, and she led him outside the zone of crystalline
murmurs. Darkness leaned closer, solid, tangible. Ahead, was a great and
terrible light.