I was able to get Hic to the sewer manhole before the drug hit me. He was still carrying Twink on him but I didn’t object. I wasn’t going to break up a beautiful friendship. We went down into the sewer and started crawling toward Union Carbide when the Codeine-Curarine bombed me.
What it does is splinter the psyche. I was fifteen, twenty, fifty people with their memories and hang-ups; dreaming, angry, thrusting, frightened. I was a population. If the Extro network was aware of me it would have as much trouble sorting out who I was and what I was up to as it would have with Hic-Haec-Hoc. Codeine-Curarine is deadly fatal, but not for a Moleman. However, a lot of Shorties shoot it for that one last kick.
The one percent of the realsie me led us through the sewer, counting yardage until we came to the approx. spot. Out the burner and cut hatch through top. Not bad. Plastic conduit N far off. Ear to. Rushing wind. Exhaust from Extro complex air-con. Burn. In. Crawl. La mia mamma mi vuol bene. Einen zum Ritter schlagen. Oh, Daddy, I want to die. L’enlevement des Sabines. Shtoh nah stolyeh? Hold on thar, stranger. Una historia insipida. Your son will never walk again. How do you feel about that? Merde. Agooga, agooga, agooga. Like sing out dulce Spangland.
Knock/oh jazz/head/oh jazz/against grille/this is the consequence/look/of ill-advised asperity/computer complex below/arte magistra/empy W?/Vrroom/grille must go/give me liberty/too strong for me/or give me/out burner/burn/or give me W?/pull grille back/slide out and drop ten feet to floor followed by gorill who probably/sholem aleichem/wants to mug me/look around look around nothing in complex W? H?
Look at gorill. Look familiar. Punch-drunk fighter. One percent me now becoming ten percent. Very nice edge, Capo Rip always said. Who? Rings a bell. I’m dying, Egypt. N, can’t kill a brother. A what? But going to kill one now. N. The Extro. Kill the Extro. Si. Oui. Ja. Kill the Extro. Hic, kill the Extro. Why we’re here. Hic, with your bare hands; rip, tear, break, smash. Hic, kill the Extro. That’s it over there, center. And Sequoya came out from beyond the Extro. Suddenly I was all me.
“Hi, Guig,” he said pleasantly. The three cryos came out and joined him, emitting their radar music. They were wearing maladroit homemade coveralls.
“Hi, Geronimo,” I said, trying to match his genialdom. “You knew I was coming?”
“Hell, no! We picked something up from the conduit through cable crosstalk but it sounded like a hundred bods. You?”
“Y. Then you can read our minds?”
“Y. How’d you turn yourself into a mob?”
“Codeine-Curarine.”
“Brilliant! Listen, Guig, I’ve been plagued by lunacy from the Extro ever since I came up. You?”
“N.”
“Who’s that with you?”
“Oldest member of the Group. Hic-Haec-Hoc.”
“Ah, yes. The Neanderthaler. What’s that cape-thing on his back?”
“A creature we brought back from space.”
“No! You don’t mean to tell me—”
“I do. Highly advanced exobiology for you to research, if you can persuade Tycho to let you keep it.”
At this moment the broadcasts began their regular carousel of commercials, and the complex filled with men, women, girls, children, doctors, lawyers, cartoon characters, all selling something. It was bedlam and it drove Twink mad with curiosity. It took off to examine the host, but since they were only three-dimensional illusions Twink kept flapping through them.
“I’ve been waiting for you for ages, Guig.”
“Didn’t you know where I was?”
“Not after Mexas City.” He hesitated. “How is she?”
“Fine. Still angry with our naughty brother.”
“She has a temper.”
“Why wait for me here, Chief?”
“I had a lot of work, weeks of it, debugging a program for the production of hermos here on Earth. And I knew you’d show up, sooner or later.”
“D’you know why?”
“To make a deal with me and the Extro.”
“Including the Rajah?”
“Who?”
“Ah! Then you don’t know his identity yet. The renegade killer who’s joined forces with the Extro to use you. He’s murdered Poulos. He nearly got Hillel. I’m probably next.” I turned to Hic and made forceful signs and grunts. He got the idea again, at last, and headed for the Extro. The Injun was perplexed.
“What’s all this, Guig?”
“Not a deal, a hit. We’re going to take the monkey off your back. We’re going to kill the Extro.”
He let out a yell that scattered the frightened cryos and made a dive at Hic, who was attacking the panels and fascia of the damned machine with his powerful hands. I made a dive at Guess, tackled him knee-high, and pulled him down.
There was no need for Sequoya to defend the computer; it had heard everything I said and was defending itself. Lights were shattering, with the fragments aimed downward; the air-cond blew up, more shrapnel; electronic locks on doors and software files burst and barraged us, circuits shorted and high-tension cables came sizzling down. Then the satellite computers were sacrificed. They began to blow up, and it seemed that the Extro would sacrifice every human in the complex, too.
An animal howl from Hic cut through the darkness and dementia. Guess and I froze and stared. One panel had been ripped from the Extro and we saw a lion within, glaring at us. The commercial carousel cast a confusing kaleidoscopic light on it. After a moment I saw that the lion was standing on its hind legs. After another I saw that it was a man wearing a lion mask. And then I realized it wasn’t a mask. It was a deformed face.
“Oh God! The big L.”
“What, Guig? What? What?”
The Chief and I climbed to our feet. “Lepcer… The final leonine stage… It… He…”
He shambled out of a dim clearing in the Extro that looked like a small camp walled with electronic units. He was crook-gaited and spastic, yet with ominous power; the strength that comes with loss of control and the agonizing hypersensitivity of terminal Lepcer, the honing of the senses that precedes final anesthesia. And he stank. He filled the center with his big L. Hic-Haec-Hoc whined and disappeared.
“So many years since the spa, my dear Curzon,” the Rajah said, poised and courteous as ever. His voice was hoarse and broken, but still singsong. My mind squealed and darted, trying to escape what had to be faced.
“And this, of course, is the latest addition to the beautiful Group. I was beautiful myself, once. Can you believe it, Dr. Guess? Yes, I know you. I have been watching you from the shadows for some time. I have been watching the entire Group. Give Dr. Guess my name, Curzon. My name and rank.”
It took all my courage to speak. “His Serene Highness, Prince Mahadeva Kauravas Bhina Arjuna, Maharajah of Bharat. The Group calls him the Rajah.”
“Delighted, Dr. Guess. I do not offer to shake hands or smite palms. Royal princes do not so greet commoners. It might be permitted to kiss my hand, but the touch of my skin is loathsome, even to myself. My dear Curzon, you did not tell him that I am also the avatar, the transfiguration of Siva on Earth.”
“I didn’t know, sir. Apologies.” My heart was watery but I was not to be outdone in poise. “So the renegade is really you, your Serene Highness. I could not believe it when Hillel told me.”
“Renegade, Curzon? Only a Jew unbeliever would say that. God, Curzon.” Abruptly he bawled, “God, Curzon. The divine Siva. We are Siva!”
I was convinced at last. Lepcer was the missing factor. The big L had turned an exquisite into a malignant enemy; stalking, lurking, destroying, literally a lion. This was the animal Long Lance had seen in the salt caverns. This was what had spooked the cryos and was deranging the Extro.
“I congratulate you on your choice of a hiding place, Rajah,” I said. “Your command post at the center of action? No one would ever dream of looking for you here. How did you make room for yourself in that damned clutter?”
“Discarded a few units, Curzon. It was less than a prefrontal lobotomy for the Extro, although it protested. Why is your pulse chattering, Dr. Guess? Are you fearful of Siva? Deny nothing. I hear it. I see it. A god senses all; everything is known, and this is why Siva’s destruction and creation are received with humility and love. Yes, humility and love for my destruction and regeneration of the void.”