Venture science fiction.., p.184
Venture Science Fiction: The Complete Fiction, page 184
The boy backed away till he touched the rail. He looked back at the water, and there was a momentary flicker of life behind his eyes, then the blankness descended again.
“Here.” Tom shoved the clothes forward. “I’ve got to get back to the wheel.”
Hesitantly, the boy took the clothes and Tom turned and hurried to the wheel. Without even asking Hartsdale, he checked the compass and the stars, saw the lights off Montauk, and revving up the motor. headed back toward port. He switched off the cabin light, leaving the group in semidarkness. At the stern Hartsdale approached the boy gently, showing how to pull the pants on and button the jacket.
“The poor kid is shocked,” he told Alice. “Who knows how long he’s been in the water. But he’ll snap out of it. Won’t you, son?” He smiled at the boy, and slowly, awkwardly, the boy smiled back.
Alice stared at him as the boat throbbed ahead, and finally she said, softly, “God, he’s handsome. But he scares me. There’s something missing.”
The rest of the trip was made in silence, except for the roar of the motor and the shuddering of the deck. At the Port of Egypt dock Tom secured the boat while Hartsdale helped the others off. Once on the dock the boy hesitated, staring uncertainly back at the boat and then to the water, to the wide, dark expanse of the bay. His hand touched his chest and moved uncertainly down his body. Then he lifted his hand and stared at his fingers, spreading them and flexing them.
“He’s still shook up,” Hartsdale said confidently. “Come on, Alice. Help me get Mike back.”
But Mike shook off their arms. “I can walk, damn it! Just let me get away from that—fish.”
Left alone for a moment, while Tom tended to the boat, the boy followed the faint, unfamiliar tendrils of thought that wandered into his numbed brain, that probed out tentatively from the man that had cowered so long within the shark.
As a shark, his man-consciousness had been half withdrawn, half forced back into the shadowy, almost unconscious fringes of sanity. There it had waited, taking no part in the savage, predatory life of the shark; but for a while it had received stimuli, impressions, sensory perceptions; and it had been aware, frighteningly aware of all the days spent in the green hell of the sea.
When faced with death from anoxia on the floor of the boat, instinct for survival had taken over, and the plastic flesh had become a man again, an air-breathing creature. But it had not become a specific man. Jack’s own identity was too deeply buried for that. It had become a concept of a man, a perfect model of a man borrowed from some recess of the shocked, controlling mind still cowering in the neural caverns of the skull.
Now, slowly, tentatively and fearfully, the mind came back, and the empty, perfect body changed and shaped itself to the blueprint of Jack Freeman.
Awareness, consciousness, whatever constitutes the whole of the man crept back slowly. Jack, staring at his hand, first became aware of the awkward tightness of his pants. He loosened the belt buckle with a sigh of relief and then stared around him.
Memory washed back, confused and filled with terror, dominated by the remembrance of tearing blood-soaked mouthfuls of flesh from the whale’s side. Then the other parts of memory fell into place, his fall from the bridge, the moment as a bird, the change to a shark, the fight against the line and the gaff, and finally the floundering terror of choking to death on the deck of the boat.
“Hello. Any better now?” He heard Tom’s footsteps and turned, searching desperately for something to say, some rational explanation.
But he was saved the trouble. Tom looked at him in the light from the bar, then glanced beyond him. “Sorry. I thought you were the other one, the kid. Did you see a kid standing here?”
“A kid?” His voice was hoarse.
“In a jacket like yours.”
“Oh, yeah.” He gestured vaguely. “Down at the end of the dock there.”
“Thanks.” Tom turned and started off, then looked back curiously. Jack held his breath, turning his head so the light caught his face. Instinctively he knew that it had changed, was his own now. Tom shrugged and walked on.
He had accepted Jack as someone else. The similarity of clothes had puzzled him, but if they searched and didn’t find the boy, then found him wearing the boy’s clothes—what would they do?
He stood there chewing his lip uneasily. Was there any story he could tell to convince them? What would they think when they couldn’t find the boy? They had seen a boy, a young man on the boat. In a little while they’d start searching for him, probably notify the police.
He had to get out of here! Without stopping to think, he ducked into the shadows of the restaurant. Behind, there was a low, brick wall, and beyond that a parking lot with about six cars.
If only the keys had been left in one! With his heart hammering, he slipped over the low wall and checked the cars nearest to it. The doors were all locked. One by one he tried the rest. One was open, but there were no keys in the ignition nor on the overhead visor. He checked the open glove compartment; still no keys, but a battered billfold yielded several credit cards and a five dollar bill. He hesitated for a moment, then pocketed the five dollars and replaced the billfold.
He raced across the parking lot and jumped the low wall on the other side, landing on a patch of sandy beach. Without stopping, he ran up the beach until he had to slow to catch his breath, then turned away from the water, crossed a sandy, weed-grown lot, and came out on a road stretching east and west, lit to a silver sheen by the low, bright yellow of a half-moon.
10
HE STARTED WALKING abruptly. Direction didn’t matter. He’d come to something, to someplace eventually. Before long he passed a sign that read: Greenport—Riverhead 21 miles. He had to be on Long Island, maybe 70 or 80 miles from Manhattan. He began to shiver, suddenly aware of the cold, but more frighteningly aware of what had happened. Memory began to return, and with it a mounting hysteria.
He had leaped from the George Washington Bridge. He remembered every moment of the fall, and the change—but why? Why had he changed? Because he had willed it. The answer was as simple as that. That old joke, he had changed his mind partway down. He had wanted to survive, with all his heart and mind, out of fear and terror. And survival was only possible if he could fly.
Why not an airplane? he thought hysterically, and then stopped, shaking his head and fighting down a wild urge to laugh. He had changed into an awkward bird, too big and heavy to fly, but enough of a bird to break his fall, to save his life.
And then he had changed again, when drowning was inevitable, to a fish, again in order to survive, to save his fife. Could he believe that? Did he dare believe it? Was he still sane?
He began to walk once more. The third change had been back to a man, and again it had been a matter of survival. All right then, there were ground rules to the game, and where there were rules, there was sanity. Something has happened to you. You have changed again and again, from man to beast and back. That you must accept as true. But why? Why had it happened?
He plunged his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the cold. There could only be one answer to why. Because of the treatment in Montreal. He had been given DNA. What had DNA done to Stiener’s rats? It had changed the rate of growth of their tumors. Could it also cause him to change? A fleeting memory came back, Steve looking at the cages of wild rats, looking at an empty cage. She had said something, some hint, dimly understood and now hardly remembered. He had a moment’s mental image of a rat changing to a snake, sliding through the bars of the cage. Could DNA do that?
DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. It was the stuff chromosomes were made of. That much he knew, and chromosomes were the blueprints from which the body was built. In every microscopic cell of his body he had enough DNA to blueprint the construction of an entire man. He remembered that from an article he had once researched. But more than a man? A shark? A bird? A wolf?
He stopped on the lonely, deserted road. Let him change now, then. Into what? A horse? He was too small for that. Surely no amount of change could add weight to his body—or take it away. That was why the bird hadn’t been able to fly. A deer then. As a deer he could race alongside the road and eat up the miles.
A heady exultation filled him and he closed his eyes, willing himself to change with all his strength, willing himself to be a deer till sweat stood out on his forehead—and he opened his eyes to find himself still a man.
He walked on slowly. What were the rules, the ground rules? Only to save my life. That of course had been the key. For some reason, when the chips were down and it was a matter of life and death, he could change, but not like this, not walking along a deserted road, not by simply willing that change.
The yellow headlights of a car behind him threw his shadow ahead of him at the same moment that he became aware of the car’s noise. His first instinct was to plunge into the bushes and hide, but reason took over. Why hide? He had done nothing wrong. What was he guilty of? Lycanthropy? Piscanthropy? Was there even a word for it?
He turned and faced the oncoming car, and lifted his thumb in the traditional hitch-hiker’s query.
There was a milk train out of Riverhead at three A.M., due to arrive in Manhattan at six. That left plenty of time for a cup of coffee at the all-night diner across the street from the station, but when Jack tried to eat a sandwich with his coffee, he had a sudden vivid recollection of his last meal, of the pack of sharks spiraling up to tear slabs of meat from the struggling whale calf, and his throat tightened in disgust.
In the train he sat in an almost empty car, huddled in the corner of a wide seat. Sleep was impossible, and yet his body was so physically tired that every motion was agony.
He shook his head in fatigue and bewilderment, and in the dark mirror of the train’s window his reflection shook its head back at him. He stared at the reflection, seeing himself for the first time since the change, but darkly in the black mirror of the window, distorted and only half real, parts highlighted out of proportion and other parts fading into blackness, unreal and vague. From an old nursery rhyme he remembered the lament of a woman whose skirts had been cut off by a robber. “This is none of I!” He repeated it softly.
Abruptly he stood up and hurried back through the train to the men’s room. He had to see himself in a real mirror. He had to know what he was, who he was, what he had changed back into.
Inside the washroom he shut the door and, trembling, turned to face the long mirror over the sink. He could see his entire body here, down to his knees, and he stared at his face first, hungrily, searchingly.
This was the face he remembered, the face that had stared back at him over the years from his shaving mirror—or was it? The features were the same, and yet . . .
He touched his eyes and frowned. There was something wrong. What memory do we carry of ourselves? Is it the man we see in the mirror today, or the man we saw yesterday, a week ago, a year, ten years ago? There were no wrinkles around his eyes, none of the lines he knew should be there, but had never seen, never really noticed. How old was this face staring back at him? He had been in his forties. Surely this face in the mirror was hardly thirty! And his body . . .
He unbuttoned the denim jacket and stared in horror at an exquisitely muscled chest, a chest like that of an idealized museum statue. He unbuttoned his pants and dropped them, then looked at his genitals. He had gone through life circumcised, yet this body he was wearing—that was the only term for it, wearing—this perfect, sculptured body, was uncircumcised, unmarred in any way. His appendectomy scar was gone. The hair that had covered his chest was gone, and all the excess fat and flabbiness had disappeared. Even the skin texture was different, younger.
He buttoned himself up numbly and shakily made his way to his seat. What had happened?
Panic began to bubble up within him, and he forced down an urge to scream. There are ground rules, he whispered through clenched teeth. Learn them and understand them. He had to do it to save his sanity, to hold on to the terrified part of his brain that wanted to scuttle away into a distant corner of his skull and hide, wait it out . . .
“You changed to save your life,” he whispered. “You changed in stress and terror. All right. Somewhere in your chromosomes, nature has put down a blueprint of every species that man has evolved through. You know—some instinctual part of you knows, some sense you are unaware of turns to that blueprint automatically for change.”
It made no sense, and yet, if it were true, it would explain what had happened. There was the blueprint of a man among all the others, not necessarily of him as a man, of the him he had developed into, but of an ideal, perfect man at the peak of maturity. He had been a perfect wolf and a perfect shark, why not a perfect man?
But what about the bird? He almost smiled as he remembered the awkward, great-winged bird beating the air in vast sweeps above the Hudson, and then the smile turned to a grimace. The bird had been far from perfect, a mistake and a ghastly one. There was still the law of conservation of mass. He had been a huge wolf, 170 pounds of wolf, and a small shark in the pack—170 pounds of shark. Some of those pounds had burned off in the long journey through the ocean, and now he was a trim, lean man of about 150.
Oh, Christ! He twisted in mental agony. None of it made sense, ground rules or not, DNA or not, it was all too fantastic to accept! How could he sit here like this and calmly try to spell out the processes of change? Why wasn’t he screaming in shock? Or was that too part of the change?
But at Penn Station, leaving the train, he brought himself up short and stared ahead wildly. Then what about the cancer? Had that too left him? Was he free of it? Dear God, was he free?
He ran up the platform taking the steps two at a time, and he raced out to the entrance to flag a cab. He was filled with a wild sort of exuberance. He would live now. He was sure of it, positive!
He had two dollars left from the five, enough to get home. In the cab he leaned back and closed his eyes, but he was smiling. It had to be true. It had to be!
11
AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, Clifford woke before dawn and lay in bed, watching the room brighten with a cold, grey light that filtered in from the city streets. He had relived the evening with Rhoda and Steve again and again during the night, wondering how much was truth and how much deception.
That telepathy trick. He had seen similar stunts, all clever and all almost foolproof, but admittedly, none quite like this one. There had been no paraphernalia or codes. The truth was that he hadn’t wanted to accept it, or Steve’s wild story, but he knew that in spite of his reluctance, he believed in both.
Why? Why should anything that fantastic still have a ring of truth?
The answer lay with Anna, he realized as the first cold sunlight touched his windows. He had believed Anna, and believing her, he must accept the fact that Jack had actually changed into a wolf, that whatever Steve had done to his chromosomes had caused that change.
Believing this completely impossible situation, it had been easy to believe the rest. One foot into fairyland, he thought wryly, and the entire trip becomes a possibility. The telepathy, the league of pale-eyed women, and above all the plot to change Jack genetically.
Abruptly he jumped out of bed and headed for the shower. Somehow, when Jack returned, he had to head him off, warn him. When Jack returned! Didn’t he mean if?
He spent the early morning in his studio, trying to lose himself in his work, but his mind kept wandering back to the girls, and then to Jack. What had happened to him? What did they intend to do to him?
Finally, at eleven o’clock, he threw down his pencil in disgust and shoved his hands into his pockets. The work would just have to wait. He had to do something, anything, but he couldn’t stay cooped up here. Maybe he ought to see Steve again and find out exactly what she intended. No, not Steve. She hadn’t given an inch last night and she wouldn’t now. But Rhoda. He was sure she would listen, that he could convince her.
Convince her of what? Just what did he want them to do, or not to do? What was he afraid of? Was it simply to leave Jack alone? To let him spend the last days of his life in peace, not as some impossible stud for a group of telepathic women? Or was it to tell him the truth, to let him know what they had done and what they intended to do.
But it was more than that. Steve had hinted that Jack’s change to what they wanted was only possible under stress. Were they capable of putting him in a situation where it was change or else—or else what? Death? Disaster? Rhoda wasn’t, he thought, but Steve was surely capable of it.
He called Jack’s number again, but there was still no answer. Not that he believed there would be. It was too long since he had last seen him. Something had obviously happened, and he ought to report the whole matter to the police. They had routines for hunting missing men.
But if Jack was still alive, if for some reason he had deliberately chosen to disappear, would he want him to go to the police? But what possible reason could he have for disappearing?
He shook his head and sighed. Suppose the girls had lied and they had been in touch with Jack all along, putting him through whatever wild tests they had dreamed up. Suppose he was with them right now, and in danger?
Damn it, he had to know. Not only for Jack’s sake, but for his own if he were to have another peaceful moment. He looked at his watch. Almost twelve. Steve would be at the medical school, but Rhoda was probably at home—wherever that was.
He called the medical center and asked for personnel. He was trying to contact Dr. Douthright, he told them, did they have her address?
“I am sorry,” the secretary said regretfully, “but we don’t give out home addresses.”
“Oh.” Clifford cast about frantically. “I hate to write to her at the school . . .” He let a wistful note creep into his voice, and took a gamble. “Westchester covers a lot of territory.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then, uncertainly, the secretary said, “I think she’s in South Salem, but I’m not sure and I really can’t give the address out. I’m sorry.”
