Barry Malzberg - Phase IV

“They will have to learn that we have made up our minds—”

“Would you like something?” Kendra said. “If you want—”

“Please,” I said. I had gotten it into my head that Hubbs had something approaching an answer. Was it his delirium or mine? Who was to know.

“He’s trying to say something!”

Hurt, she went back, still holding the towel.

“We will have to tell them,” Hubbs said with terrible clarity, “that we are willing to pay the price. They understand who we are, what we are doing; and we will make them know that humanity itself will not suffer—”

“I’m going to play the radio,” Kendra said. She must have been slightly delirious herself. Understandable, understandable; everything comes together. “Music will make him feel better,” she said. “If only we can have a little music—”

She put on a console that was resting on an overhead shelf. I turned to tell her that communications were broken, that we could hear nothing, but was overwhelmed by the noise pouring out from the radio. It was the sounds of the ants. I could hear cilia cracking, the fine, slow, high beep of their communication.

“What is that?” I said and reached toward her.

“It’s only music,” she said. “It’s—”

I decided that she had gone insane. I reached out and hit her across the face, gently, but with enough sting in the follow through to leave a slight imprint. She gasped, backed away from me.

“Don’t you hear that?” I said. “Kendra, don’t you—”

Understanding came into her face. Something crumpled in her expression, and she heard the radio. “Oh, my God,” she said. “It isn’t music. It’s—”

“Of course it is,” Hubbs said. He had come off the couch and was standing there, weaving drunkenly. “How do you think that they were able to pick up on us?”

“Oh, my God,” Kendra said. She dropped the towel and turned toward the door.

“Not so fast,” Hubbs said. He was clearly delirious. He raised a hand and Kendra stopped. “Who did this?” he said. “Who set up the radio?”

“Hubbs—” I said.

The ant noises were louder yet. They moved up and down the scale of pitch, F-sharp major, I thought with lunatic precision. They sounded quite cheerful, considering the point of origin.

“You lousy bitch,” Hubbs said. “You set us up for this. You did it, didn’t you? Until you came to the station everything was fine. We had them on the run. You’re their agent.”

Kendra’s hand was against her cheek. “No,” she said. “No, that’s not so.”

I knew that this was not so. I reached an arm out toward her.

“Don’t listen,” I said. “He’s crazy. He’s sick. He’s—”

“You’re crazy,” she said. “You’re both crazy! You’re both crazy!” She turned and ran from the room, stumbling against a wall. Hubbs reached toward her, but I restrained him. I could hear her shrieks all the way down the hall, and then a door slammed.

“Let me at her,” Hubbs said wildly. “Let me at her now. I am not helpless. I will not be humiliated. I will not allow humanity to be vanquished by a group of ants. I am humanity’s representative, and they cannot do this to me.” He broke from my grip with maniacal strength and stumbled toward the shelf on which the radio was perched, still singing crisply away. He reached out a hand, seized the trembling wire.

He pulled it and the radio fell.

It fell to his feet, exploding with a fierce crash, little sparks and dazzling intimations of flame pouring from it, and Hubbs screamed with the heat and the impact, the scream turning into an ah! of satisfaction as he kicked the radio toward the wall. “Now!” he said. “Now let’s see if they can trace us!” and he lost his balance, a flame of illness going through him, collapsed against the shelf… and upset about twenty thousand dollars’

worth of technical equipment. Wires, tubing, coils, computer leads, burners, jars, dials, indices, thermometers fell from the shelf and exploded on the floor in a shower of translucence. Hubbs looked down at this with a slightly bemused expression, seemed almost clownish. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that.” Then something caught his attention on the floor. “Ah,” he said. “Aha!” He dropped to his knees, heedless of the glass splinters… and began to crawl.

I knew he was mad. Of course he was mad. But his insanity at that moment was no greater than my own. I could only think: wouldn’t it be strange if Kendra were indeed the agent? Then the madness went away like a blanket ripped off as I saw what Hubbs was doing.

There was, somewhere in the coils and splinters on the floor, an ant speeding through, probably from the radio, which was still sputtering.

Hubbs reached forward, his face alight, and then with a terrific scream brought his fist down on the ant. “I’ve got him!” he said. “ I’ve got him now!” His face distorted, and I reached to pull him from the wreckage, hopelessly bellowing Kendra’s name, needing someone to take the burden of madness with me, and suddenly she was there. She had not fled into the desert after all. Together the two of us, struggling, were able to lift Hubbs to his feet and carry him out of the laboratory, down the corridor. “Look,” Hubbs whispered to me. He raised his hand slowly, then opened it fully. In the palm, I could see the pearl of a blood spot.

“I got him,” he said. Then he looked at Kendra. “I got him,” he said again. “Don’t you see? I got him. You aren’t the enemy. He is. Deeply apologize. Regret my terrible error. Most unscientific of me, really….”

And then he fainted quite neatly in her arms. I laid him on the floor while Kendra went back to the laboratory to get the cloth and the water, still fixated, no doubt, on the thought that if Hubbs could be brought back to his senses we might all, somehow, obtain release. She returned as I was leaning over him. Hubbs now prostrated on the floor, his eyes closing again. “I’m sorry,” she said and put the water down. “I’m sorry.”

She reached toward me and for one blank instant I thought she was going to touch, had no idea what madness had possessed her (were we going to copulate on this floor before Hubbs, howling screams of defiance to the ants?), and then she had turned, she was running, she was moving down the hall again and once more that sound of the slamming door.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Hubbs said in delirium on the floor. “All wrong, all wrong. Sorry—”

“Enough,” I said. “Enough, enough.” Enough of Hubbs, enough of ants, enough of delirium; I got up swaying and went down the hall, found the door where Kendra had bolted inward, and opened it to find her in the emergency access, sobbing against a wall, her body tilted in a crooked position. Like the field mouse. I reached toward her and touched her shoulder blade. She quivered once like a bird and then was still.

She came against me, her face into my chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so sorry.” And I said it’s all right, it’s all right, meaningless, stupid babble I am sure, the things we can say to one another only when the situation has gone beyond words, and finally she was quiescent against me, and I could feel the slow pulse in the back of her neck as I rubbed it gently.

“Just hold me now,” she said. “Just hold me.”

I held her.

Otherwise, there was nothing at all.

“I want to apologize if I was irrational during the day,” Hubbs said. He was sitting on the pallet, and although he looked devastated, the fever had gone. He reached out, touched Kendra’s hand once, then turned toward Lesko. “I’m sorry. Everything has gone wrong.” He took a small sip of water, finishing the glass; Kendra took it from his hand and went into the galley for a refill. Lesko could hear the sound of the tap running; at least that was still working. Although God knew what if anything the ants had done to the chemistry… .