Frank Herbert - The Eyes of Heisenberg

“Calapine,” Svengaard said, “if you won’t help him, release me so I can do it.”

She leaped to obey, filled with gratitude that she could give this hideous responsibility to another.

The restraining shells fell away at her touch. Svengaard leaped down, almost fell. His legs and arms tingled from the long confinement. He limped toward Nourse, his eyes and mind working as he moved. Mottled yellow in the skin — most probably an immune reaction to pantothenic acid and a failure of adrenalin suppression.

The red triangle of a pharmacy outlet glowed on the wall at his left above the benches. Svengaard stooped, picked up Nourse’s writhing form, began climbing toward the symbol. The man was a sudden dead weight in his arms, no movement except a shallow lifting of the breast.

Optimen fell back from him as though he carried plague. Abruptly, someone above him shouted, “Let me out!”

The mob turned away. Feet pounded on the plasmeld. They jammed up at the exits, clawed and climbed over one another. There were screams, curses, hoarse shouts. It was like a cattle pen with a predator loose in the midst of the animals.

Part of Svengaard’s awareness registered on a woman at his right. He passed her. She lay stretched across two banks of seats, her back at an odd angle, mouth gaping, eyes staring, blood on her arms and neck. There was no sign of breath. He climbed past a man who dragged himself up the tiered benches, one leg useless, his eyes intent on an exit sign and a doorway which appeared to be filled with writhing shapes.

Svengaard’s arms ached from his load. He stumbled, almost fell up the last two steps as he eased Nourse to the floor beside the pharmacy outlet.

There were voices down behind him now—Durant and Boumour shouting to be released.

Later, Svengaard thought. He put his hand to the door control on the pharmacy outlet. The doors refused to open. Of course, he thought. I’m not an Optiman. He lifted Nourse, put one of the Optiman’s hands to the control. The doors slid aside. Behind them lay what appeared to be the standard presentation of a priority rack—pyrimidines, aneurin…

Aneurin and inositol, he thought. Got to counteract the immune reaction.

A familiar flow-analysis board occupied the right side with a gap for insertion of an arm and the usual vampire needles protruding from their gauges. Svengaard tripped the keys on the master flow gauge, opened the panel. He traced back the aneurin and inositol feeders, immobilized the others, thrust Nourse’s arm beneath the needles. They found veins, dipped into flesh. Gauges kicked over.

Svengaard pinched off the return line to stop feedback. Again, the gauges kicked over.

Gently, Svengaard disengaged Nourse’s arm from the needles, stretched him on the floor. His face was now a uniform pale white, but his breathing had deepened. His eyelids flickered. His flesh felt cold, clammy.

Shock, Svengaard thought. He removed his own jacket, put it around Svengaard, began massaging the arms to restore circulation.

Calapine came into view on his right, sat down at Nourse’s head. Her hands were clasped tightly together, knuckles white. There was an odd clarity in her face, the eyes with a look of staring into distances. She felt she had come a much farther distance than up from the floor of the hall, drawn by memories that would not be denied. She knew she had gone through madness into an oddly detached sanity.

The red ball of the Survey Globe caught her eye, the egg of enormous power that did her bidding even now. She thought about Nourse, her many-times playmate. Playmate and toys.

“Will he die?” she asked. She turned to watch Svengaard.

“Not immediately,” Svengaard said. “But that final burst of hysteria… he’s done irreparable damage to his system.”

He grew aware that there were only muted moans and a very few controlled commands in the hall now, Some of the acolytes had rallied to help.

“I released Boumour and the Durants and sent a plea for more… medical help,” Calapine said. “There are a number of… dead… many injured.”

Dead, she thought. What an odd word to apply to an Optiman. Dead… dead… dead…

She felt then how necessity had forced her into a new kind of living awareness, a new rhythm. It had happened down there in a burst of memories that trailed through forty thousand years. None of it escaped her—not a moment of kindness nor of brutality. She remembered all the Max Allgoods, Seatac… every lover, every toy… Nourse.

Svengaard glanced around at a shuffling sound, saw Boumour approaching with a woman limp in his arms. There was a blue bruise across her cheek and jaw. Her arms hung like sticks.

“Is this pharmacy outlet available?” Boumour asked. His voice held that chilled Cyborg quality, but there was shock in his eyes and a touch of horror.

“You’ll have to operate the board manually,” Svengaard said. “I keyed out the demand system, jammed the feedback.”

Boumour stepped heavily around him with the woman. How fragile she looked. A vein pulsed thickly at her neck.

“I must concoct a muscle relaxant until we can get her to a hospital,” Boumour said. “She broke her own arms—contramuscular strain.”

Calapine recognized the face, remembered they had disputed mildly about a man once—about a playmate.

Svengaard moved to Nourse’s right arm, continued massaging. The move brought the floor of the hall into view and the tumbril. Glisson sat impassively armless in his restraining shell. Lizbeth lay at one side with Harvey kneeling beside her.

“Mrs. Durant!” Svengaard said, remembering his obligation.

“She’s all right,” Boumour said. “Immobilization for the past few hours was the best thing that could’ve happened to her.”

Best thing! Svengaard thought. Durant was right: These Cyborgs are as insensitive as machines.

“Si-lence him,” Nourse whispered.

Svengaard looked down at the pale face, saw the broken veins in the cheeks, the sagging, unresponsive flesh. Nourse’s eyelids flickered open.

“Leave him to me,” Calapine said.

Nourse moved his head, tried to look at her. He blinked, having obvious trouble focusing. His eyes began to water.

Calapine lifted his head, slid under him until he rested on her lap. She began stroking his brow.

“He used to like this,” she said. “Go help the others, Doctor.”

“Cal,” Nourse said. “Oh, Cal… I… hurt.”

“Why do you help them?” Glisson asked. “I don’t understand you, Boumour. Your actions aren’t logical. What use is it to help them?”

He looked up through the open segment of the Survey Globe at Calapine sitting alone on the dais of the Tuyere. The lights of the interior played a slow rhythm across her face. A glowing pyramid of projected binaries danced on the air in front of her.

Glisson had been released from his shell of restraint, but he still sat on the tumbril, his arm connections dangling empty. A medicouch had been brought in for Lizbeth Durant. She lay on it with Harvey seated beside her. Boumour stood with his back to Glisson, looking up into the globe. His fingers moved nervously, clenching, opening. There was a streak of dried blood down his right sleeve. The elfin face held a look of puzzlement.

Svengaard came in from behind the globe, a slowly moving figure in the red shadows. Abruptly, the hall glared with light. The main globes had gone on automatically as darkness fell outside. Svengaard stopped to check Lizbeth, patted Harvey’s shoulder. “She will be all right. She’s strong.”

Lizbeth’s eyes followed him as he moved around to look into the Survey Globe. Svengaard’s shoulders sagged with fatigue, but there was a look of elation in his face. He was a man who’d found himself.