By Furies Possessed Page 14

  “I—I’ve quit my job,” I said, pitching my voice into an awkward impulsiveness. “I can’t go on with it.”

  “You feel guilty? Is that it?”

  I nodded gratefully. “Yes.”

  “You want to join the Church?”

  I looked at the floor and made myself sheepish. “I … don’t know. I mean, eating.…”

  “It still bothers you? That much?”

  “It’s not something I can accept overnight.”

  “But you want to?”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve got to see. I’ve got to find out.”

  “Whether you can go through with it, you mean?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  She reached out her hand and touched my wrist. The significance of that gesture was not lost on me. “All right,” she said.

  It was a strange sort of conversation; it reminded me of sessions spent with shrinks. I kept my guard up, since it had occurred to me the girl might be looking for flaws in my story. But at the same time I felt a need to talk to her. It had been a long time since I’d been with someone I knew I could talk with—since Dian, in fact. My need to talk didn’t sit too well with my fear of becoming trapped in an inadvertent lie; I was pretty uncomfortable, all through the trip.

  We talked about what had happened to Lora; I’d wondered how she felt about it. “What must happen will happen,” she said, philosophically. “We all play the roles assigned us.”

  “Yeah?” I wondered. “Did Bjonn assign you that role?” I was wondering if she’d been planted there, waiting for me to leave the house and find her. Had I been goaded into nabbing her? Or had Bjonn—warned by Dian’s knowledge of the Bureau—simply guessed I would take someone, and made her handy?

  “No one gave me the role,” she said, smiling a little. “It simply became mine by necessity.”

  I shook my head. “Tell me something I can understand,” I said. “That sounds like dogma of some sort.” Actually, it sounded a lot like something Veronica had told me. We all perform; life is just one continuous show.

  “You have to come to terms with yourself,” Lora said, a little enigmatically. “You’ll see.”

  “You think I will?” I wondered that myself, half fearfully, half hopefully. I was starting to believe my own phony role.

  “You need to,” she said. “You’re groping. I can feel it in you. But you’re—you’re fighting it.”

  I changed the subject. “How’d a lawyer like you ever get hooked into that Church?” I asked.

  She laughed. “It is absurd, isn’t it? I was a serious young lawyer, you know. My speciality was Tax Credit Deductions for members of The Guild of Plastic Artisans. I spent five years, buried in printouts from the files of the tax courts of Bay Complex, and came out of it with what I thought was a permanent squint, a positive aversion to sunshine, and a specialty that would serve exactly two hundred and thirty-seven men within my licensed area.” She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “What a ninny! However, it just happened that one of my clients was the son of old Dr. Benford, and when his father donated his house to the Church, Jim Benford—my client—decided I should handle the tax-credit declaration. So I met the old man, talked to him, and decided that if the Church was responsible for the way he glowed with good health, then just maybe it could do something for me. Which it did—including a free trip to Lima!”

  “You were waiting for me, though, weren’t you?” I said.

  “No. It was all your idea, Mr. Dameron. You can’t shift responsibility to someone else.”

  “I was upset,” I said. “Bjonn was pretty nasty.”

  “I don’t believe that.” She put her hand on my arm to forestall my interruption. “That’s just the way it seemed to you, that’s all. You were very upset. I gather, from what I’ve heard, that you were involved with Bjonn, and with Dian too, earlier. I can understand the emotional undertones which must have been involved. But when you came storming out of the house, I had no idea you were there, or who you were even. Nobody put me there just for you to find.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m not. I was worried, but I needn’t have been. They were very nice to me; they didn’t hurt me at all. Oh, I see! You still feel guilty about it—about what happened to me. Don’t you?”

  I massaged my temples with my fingers. “I guess I do,” I said. “You were pretty cool to me when I approached you, back there in Megayork.”

  “I was unsure of you.”

  “You aren’t now?” I held my breath unconsciously.

  “No,” she smiled. “I know what you are, now.”

  I wondered how she meant that.

  Another rented car took us on the final leg. It was dusk when Lora gestured at the glowing windows of the house on the hill, and I pulled off the opposite side of the road and parked. Two other cars were parked ahead of mine this time.

  We climbed the path, our way lit by tiny glowing lamps, like fireflies frozen in stasis. It had a strangely magical effect, as if by climbing this crooked path we were leaving behind the mundane world and entering a new world of seclusion and mystical contemplation. Complete rot, I kept thinking, and yet the feeling haunted me. The autumn night was growing chill, and we’d shivered a little when we’d crawled out of the cocoon of the car, but up here where the winds should be pushing the damp cold even more readily through our scant clothes the air was quiet, scented with summertime, and if it weren’t for the throb of fear I felt in anticipation I might have become completely a part of the other-worldly atmosphere.

  The door was an open invitation, the interior of the house warm and beckoning. I followed Lora hesitantly, dreading the confrontation that must come.

  Perhaps twenty people—all ages, both sexes—were sprawled in robes upon the cushions of the church-like room where I’d met Bjonn and Dian before. But neither Bjonn nor Dian was there now.

  A stocky young man with short, curly blond hair rose from a cushion near the door, and extended his hands to Lora, smiling all the while. They said nothing that I could hear, but embraced, almost passionately. I turned away from them and let my eyes wander slowly around the room while I waited for the prolonged greeting to end.

  As my eyes met those of others seated about the room, they seemed to look up at me and then nod a silent greeting. But no one else rose; no one else said anything at all. I turned back to Lora and the young man to find them engaged in a long, mutual oral kiss. I felt the heat of the blood which rushed to my face, and turned away once more.

  “Tad.”

  The voice was very low, very soft, but it startled me as much as would have a tap on my shoulder.

  “Dian!”

  She had come up from behind me. Now she reached out to tug at my arm with one hand, a raised finger to her lips. Still gesturing for silence, she led me out of the big room and down a long hall. My last glance back at the doorway of that room showed me Lora and the other still locked in each other’s arms.

  Dian led me into a small room that had once served a previous owner as a study; most of its old furnishings still remained. She seated me in a comfortable chair and took another. “They’re in meditation,” she said, nodding back the way we’d come. “It’s best not to disturb them.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’m surprised to see you here again, Tad,” Dian said.

  In the soft light she seemed to glow, almost as if from within. “Did you wish to see Bjonn again?”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “But that’s not why I came back.”

  “Why did you come back, then?”

  I leaned forward. “I quit my job,” I said.

  “They sent you here?” she asked.

  “No, no, I quit the job,” I repeated. “The Bureau. I walked out. Like you did.” I shrugged again. “Well, less dramatically.”

  “Did you?”

  “Don’t you believe me?” I worked hard to get a throb of honesty into my voice. Infiltrate the Church—sure! Easy as�
�what? Breaking a leg?

  “I’m not sure I do, Tad;” Dian said. Her voice seemed less controlled, a little less certain. “Why should you quit the Bureau? It was your whole life, wasn’t it? The Bureau—and space?”

  I screwed my face up into a grimace of sorts. “Yeah, but if you know that much, you know the rest.”

  “They wouldn’t let you into space,” she said, nodding. “And finally … you gave up?”

  “Things have changed since you left, Dian,” I said. “You don’t know how Tucker chewed me out about your disappearance. He’s still burned about it.”

  She sighed. “I can imagine. Poor Arthur. It must have been a blow….” She stared past me, her eyes distant, reflective.

  “Well, anyway, there was a lot of friction,” I said. “I could have stayed on—hell, I could’ve held out to retirement—but it would have been bad, every single day of it.” (One corner of my mind spoke up about then: And you think you’re making this up? It sure wasn’t much to look forward to.) “So I quit.”

  “Why did you come here, Tad?”

  I stared at her. “You know that,” I said.

  She dropped her eyes and I thought I saw her blush. It might have been the lighting. “Will you join the Church, Tad?” she asked, low-voiced.

  “I… don’t know,” I said. “You know why.”

  “The ritual,” she said. “You’re afraid to eat with us.”

  I nodded.

  “There’s no way to avoid it, you know,” she said. “Not if you want to join us.”

  “I know,” I said. “But—well, could I just hang around for a while? You know, just to kind of get used to the idea a little more?”

  “Perhaps you should not try so hard, Tad,” she said. “We don’t ask people to overcome basic objections to our ritual; not when they are as strong as yours. Perhaps you should try something else, somewhere else.”

  “Don’t you even want me to join you?” I asked.

  She gave me a grave smile. “Of course I do, Tad. But some things don’t happen just because I’d like them to. I wanted you to join us a long time ago. Do you remember that?”

  I did. “I couldn’t help that—my reaction, I mean,” I said. I didn’t even like to think about it.

  “Just so,” she said, nodding.

  “But maybe if I, you know, hung around for a while, I could, umm, overcome my reactions some. I’ve been fighting it you know. I have thought about it.”

  She sighed. “I can’t throw you out,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Ask Bjonn,” I suggested.

  “I can’t. He’s not here just now.”

  “Oh.” If he wasn’t here, could they hold their Sacrament of Life without him? “Will he be back soon? Could I wait?”

  She nodded, slowly. “He’ll be back in two days,” she said. “I’ll have a room made up for you.”

  My room was on the third floor, up under slanting eaves, and had an unpolarized dormer window that looked out upon a starry night. Down the hall was a curious little room which Dian pointed out to me on our way to my room. Inside was an anachronistic Old evacuation unit, a bowl with faucets for running water, and, a more recent addition, a ‘fresher cubicle. It was a curious mixture of inappropriate appliances. I experimented with it after Dian had left me in my room, sneaking almost guiltily down the hall, and carefully locking the door. (Dian had said meditation would continue for another two hours, leaving me with very little to do during that time, so I wasn’t really worried about someone walking in on me. I’d asked about the meditation, too—since it really didn’t fit with what I knew to be the facts about this alien-parasite cult. She’d told me only that it was a necessary cleansing process for new recruits.)

  I found myself unable to use the evacuation unit, since I had no food tube with which to replenish myself, and my body had been well trained never to relinquish what it could not replace. That reminded me; there were no eating cubicles here. Just what was I supposed to live on?

  But I used the ‘fresher to good advantage, ran the water in the bowl over my hands just to enjoy the sensation of openly running water, and went back to my room, falling asleep on top of my bed, fully clothed.

  I had weird dreams, and in my dreams I found myself constantly arguing with or fighting a strange female whose identity was unfathomable. At times it seemed she was my mother, but then again she seemed to be manipulating me as Veronica had, while yet again she was, perhaps, Lora or Dian. When I saw her face, it was a face I’d never seen before. My final and most lasting memory was that she had drugged me in some way and was dancing about me, unwinding a bolt of cloth in her hands and wrapping it around me. It grew tighter, more constricting, and I was struggling against it, sweating, and—

  Something—I didn’t know what it was at first—woke me up. My clothes were twisted around my body and were tight and uncomfortable. My face felt sweaty and greasy. My feet were very hot in their bootlets.

  Then I heard a board in the hall creak, and I realized I’d heard a similar sound before—that it had been what awakened me. The door rattled as someone turned its knob, and then it swung open, the light from the hall silhouetting a slender body in half-transparent robes.

  I sat up as she came into the room. I reached out and fumbled and found the old light switch.

  “Hello, Mr. Dameron.” It was Lora, and she was carrying a covered bowl of some sort.

  “Uh, hello,” I said. “Must have dozed off, I guess.”

  “Did I startle you?”

  “No. That’s all right, you didn’t wake me up.” Well, not precisely. “I didn’t intend to fall asleep,” I added.

  She nodded, very seriously, and sat down at the foot of the bed. “I brought you something,” she said. “It occurred to me that since you don’t—wouldn’t—umm, eat with us, that, well….” She flushed. “Maybe it would be easier for you here.”

  I stared at her with surprised gratitude. I’d been wondering how I’d be able to eat, and she’d brought some food up to my room. “Thank you, Lora,” I said. “That was very nice, very thoughtful of you. I am hungry….”

  “It’s mine,” she said earnestly. “J wanted to do it.”

  I didn’t understand her. Not yet. “I’ll take it down the hall,” I said, intending to create an impromptu eating cubicle out of the little room with the appliances.

  “I’d rather you did it here,” she said. Then she uncovered the bowl.

  She thrust the bowl at me and I took it automatically, my fingers closing over it before I’d even noticed the smell, like dry earth and musty, or my eyes had registered the obvious fact that this was no bowl of algae gruel, soup, or stew.

  Then I looked at it. Then I saw it.

  It was alive.

  Dead-white in color, amorphous in shape, jelly-like, moving, pseudopods forming and dissolving in it. Fetid-smelling. Warm.

  I dropped it. The dish fell to the floor and the—thing— flopped from it, squirming. “Oh my God, my God!” I said, leaping to my feet in shock and horror. “Oh sweet God!” I brought my boot heel down hard on the squiggling thing and felt it squish slimily underfoot.

  “Oh, no! Oh, stop.” the girl cried. “Oh, don’t—please don’t!”

  She threw herself on me, sinking to her knees, her arms tightening on my legs as I stomped the alien parasite, shock still erupting in my stomach, bile thick in my throat.

  “Get off me!” I shouted at her as I ground the white slime into a paste on the floor, still kicking at it. I grabbed a bunch of her hair in my hand and yanked her head back. “Get away from me!” I screamed, tears running down my cheeks.

  “Killer!” she cried hysterically, “murderer!”

  I kicked her in the face, and she fell away from me with a low moan.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I’d blown it.

  In one moment of blind panic, I’d thrown out all my chances for infiltrating the damned church.

  I stared at the girl, lying on the floor, her
hair loose in the drying chalky film that had been the parasite, blood trickling from her nose. Yeah, and I’d blown it on the parasite, too—on my chances for taking out a live parasite, free of its host. My pulse hammered in my head, and I had trouble seeing clearly. I’d blown it and all that mattered now was to get out.

  I went to the door and peered out. I didn’t see anyone. If nobody had heard us, me stomping on the floor and Lora screaming at me, if nobody was curious enough to check us out, maybe—just maybe—I had a chance.

  I wondered if they might know when a parasite was killed. Hell, I didn’t know anything about the damned creatures—just that they extended their own nervous system through the body. Were they telepathic? Did they stay in communication directly? Or was it all through the host-creatures? It seemed important to me, right then, to know. It would give me some idea of the odds on my escape.

  I tiptoed down the old hall, keeping to the side, where the boards seemed to creak less. Then I went down the stairs. The top flight was narrow and walled in and turned corners. The lower flight was wide, bannistered, and straight. I made both of them and was in the main hallway before I had my first encounter.

  It was the blond guy who’d greeted Lora so passionately. He came out of the meditation room just as I was abreast of the door—we almost collided.

  “Oh, hello there. You’re the new fellow, right?” He thrust out his hand. “I’m Jim Benford.”

  I didn’t want to take his hand. I didn’t want to touch him. In the half-light of the hallway his posture, his expression, even his words seemed titled and odd: alien. Somewhere inside this man a white blob the size of my fist had anchored itself, spreading ganglion-thin pseudopods throughout his body. I might even be touching the ends of several such nerve-like white threads if I shook his hand. My mind recoiled.

  But I did it. I took his hand, giving it only the most minimal quick squeeze. I nodded, and told him my name.

  “Stepping out for some air? It’s lovely out on nights like this—so crisp-smelling, you know,” he said. He gave me a shrewd look. Had Lora told him what she planned?