Part 4

"Try not to change too much," Songeen pleaded. But her voice joined the clattering crystalline tumult which raged about him. He was cracking. He could feel the seams in his mind giving way.

Like a great, floundering beast, he charged toward her. Forms of brittle crystal shattered at his touch. Shattered into sound and pain. The forest-forms changed color, echoing his violence. New vortices of movement converged upon him. Perceptions expanded and radiance showered about him, through him.

The hovering, dancing crystal notes were now visible. Beads of light, dripping from a sky of light. They were sound a color, bright, bursting bubbles of sound. Their rhythmic tempos increased, murmur swelled into insistent roaring and the jangling of insane dissonance. Vitreous grotesques shimmered like a forest of aspens quivering in wind and sunlight. Glassy fragments of splintered sound poured in floods from sky and ground. Trampled grass gave way under his feet in brittle crunching, and the brush shivered at his touch, dissolving into chill slivers of slashing sound.

Blood was dripping. The forest changed color, as if crimson stain spread through it. Hellish glare was a roaring torrent of musical color. Red stains spread swiftly, dying the crystal columns, the glassy sward, seeping into the reeling brain.

There was blood. The taste of it in his mouth, the hot, salt smell, the sound of its dripping. He swam in seas of ruby light, crashing and plunging wildly, sinking into its crimson depths. Red light thickened around him, deepened, smothering.

The darkness was red, fire-shot, roaring....

Then pain and timeless darkness.

Newlin awakened slowly, to ugly tension in his mind. Shadows like beating wings disturbed his memory.

The churning light and sound were gone. He drifted idly, body and mind coming softly to rest upon a bank of soft grass.

Someone knelt beside him. Someone cried softly, to the same murmurous rhythms of the crystalline forest. Without opening his eyes he sensed this, and knew also that he was still within the eery precincts of the maze. He opened his eyes, painfully.

This time, there were tears, glistening and falling slowly, glistening like crystal dewdrops in sunlight, and falling in softly tinkling shower like spilled jewels.

"Songeen!" he cried.

"Yes," murmured a tympany of glass bells, "I am here."

It was Songeen--almost, again, as he remembered her, almost human. It was Songeen, small, delicate, unreal, but sweetly feminine--almost human. It was Songeen, but with something added, changed, oddly blended into both form and personality.

"I tried to save you," she murmured. "I tried, but could not reach you. My knowledge is incomplete. I thought you were weak, confused, too frightened and disturbed to be changed easily. But you were strong, and your violence was a challenge to it. Only the Masters could understand. They saved you--not I. They intervened in time."

"The Masters!" Newlin glanced round, quickly, warily. "They are here?"

"Not here--now. But they saved you. I did not know all the dangers. They--not I--"

"Saved me from what--death?"

"No--worse. And now they say you must go back. At once. The Masters urge haste."

* * * * *

Newlin tasted bitterness on his lips. "Orders from headquarters. Well, I've been kicked out of better places--but few more interesting. Too bad I forgot my brass knuckles."

Physically, he tried to rise. Every bone and muscle ached. But it could have been worse. He seemed intact. Hints of vagrant color rippled over his visible skin, but he sensed neither pain nor menace from them.

Songeen bent over him. Her arm supported him in sitting position. It was unnecessary, but the sensation of contact was pleasant. He yielded to her ministrations and looked about. It was still the forest, crystalline, murmurous--but now muted. The same glary, unpleasant light beat down from the same impossible sky. Storming, eery colors flowed infinite mutations of form through the crystal spectres of the maze. And the tinkle of myriad glass wind bells held a maddening overtone.

He had thought, somehow, that it would be different. That it would have changed, subtly, as had Songeen. But from a brief survey, nothing had changed. The tumult had faded, become bearable--but identity remained.

Disappointed, he rose slowly, and felt her strong arm clasp about him. He felt clumsy, off-balance, but not weak. If anything, he was stronger. Stronger, and more cleanly, clearly alive than he had felt before.

"Come," urged Songeen. "I will take you back to the portal."

"Back--to that?"

Newlin struggled with the futility of words. He was not sure what he wanted, let alone what he wanted to say. That insinuating crystalline clatter got inside his brain, scattered thought.

Songeen caught a stirring of rebellion in him and sensed his mental confusion.

"Don't fear the hunters," she said. "There are other doorways, and you can issue onto some other planet, if you wish. Try not to think, or even feel."

Her voice penetrated the uproar of his mind, stilling troubled waters, blanketing other sounds. For seconds, it seemed to elevate him to some remote, lofty plane where life was serene, uncomplicated. Detached, he drifted with his own alien thoughts. Through senses other than visual, he watched his stumbling progress at her side as the girl threaded a pathway through the maze. Through senses not normally his own, he was aware of the utter strangeness behind this forest and its crystalline mysteries. He recognized the girl as part of the strangeness.

Dimly, he sensed some cosmic reluctance in himself, and was disturbed by his trend of thought. Faintly, he was aware of bodily movement and the crowding feel of shadowy aisles about him. But he was more aware of the girl, of her physical presence, and of the unrest she inspired in him.

Songeen! He had known many women on many, strange worlds. But none like this, none ever so strange, so wonderful, so terrifying. He had wanted her, yes. But only for an hour of passion, at first. An hour of the blinding futility of trying, in her arms, to forget the crowding ugliness of life. He had not cared if the women he knew had souls, or if he had. Souls were unfamiliar, vague, and he would not have known one if he encountered it. Soft, white bodies, glowing like pale witchlights in the darkness. Yes, he had known many such. He had known many women, loved none.

Newlin had not spoken, not in words. But Songeen heard, by some subtle sense that was part of this abnormal forest.

Her laugh was a soft tinkle of breaking glass. She did not speak aloud, but word-symbols of thought poured from her mind. Newlin was aware of them, springing suddenly into his own brain, but he knew they came from her.

"Many women, yes. But none like me. If you loved me, it would not be for this body. It is not what you think. I hold this substance, this form, only by power of will. It is mine only for a short while more. My flesh is not like yours, subject to different laws of form and movement."

* * * * *

Newlin answered her, but now in words. His voice sounded like a note of strained sanity in such a place of nightmare.

"I never learned love in the sense you mean," he said. "Nor had I thought of you again, in that way--after Monta Park. You were too alien for me. I understood that. Too alien for any kind of love I knew. You were--repulsive."

In silence, then, thoughts blocked out, Songeen guided Newlin. She seemed aloof, withdrawn. They filed slowly amid towering masses of smoky crystal. She led, drifting like a smoke wraith, before him. Newlin picked a cautious pathway over treacherous, unstable footing. He followed, bemused, and reluctance grew into agony of mind.

What was wrong with him? He grappled with himself, and strains grew into open rebellion. What did he want?

Near the portal, sensing it or another like it, he balked.

"Songeen!"

At his call, she glided back, phantomlike. "Yes?"

"You're in trouble here, aren't you? Because of bringing me?"

Shoulders as translucent as thin ivory shrugged. "No matter."

"But you are?" Newlin insisted, as if it mattered suddenly to him.

"Yes," she granted softly. "But do not alarm yourself. Only misunderstanding. I will explain my motives. They will point out my error. There is no punishment here."

"You're not telling everything. What is wrong?"

Her moonfire eyes were troubled. "Nothing you can help."

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.