Greg Bear - Blood Music

“They’re disputing?”

“Something like that” He pulled the robe back on and went to the window, peering through the curtains as if looking for someone. “I don’t have anything left but them. They aren’t afraid. Edward, I’ve never felt so close to anyone or anything before.” Again, the beatific smile. “I’m responsible for them. Mother to them all. You know, until the last few days, I didn’t even have a name for them. A mother should name her offspring, shouldn’t she?”

Edward didn’t answer.

“I looked all around—dictionaries, textbooks, everywhere. Then it just popped into my head. ‘Noocytes.’ From the Greek word for mind, ‘noos.’ Noocytes. Sounds kind of ominous, doesn’t it? I told Bernard. He seemed to think it was a good name—”

Edward raised his arms in exasperation. “You don’t know what they’re going to do! You say they’re like a civilization—”

“A thousand civilizations.”

“Yes, and civilizations have been known to screw up before. Warfare, the environment—” He was grasping at straws, trying to restrain the panic that had been growing since he arrived. He wasn’t competent to handle the enormity of what was happening. And neither was Vergil. Vergil was the last person Edward would have called insightful and wise with regard to large issues.

“But I’m the only one at risk,” Vergil said.

“You don’t know that Jesus, Vergil, look what they’re doing to you!”

“I accept it,” he said stoically.

Edward shook his head, as much as admitting defeat. “Okay. Bernard gets Genetron to reopen the lab, you move in, become a guinea pig. What then?”

“They treat me right. I’m more than just good ol’ Vergil I. Ulam right now. I’m a goddamned galaxy, a super-mother.”

“Super-host, you mean.”

Vergil conceded the point with a shrug.

Edward felt his throat constricting. “I can’t help you,” he said. “I can’t talk to you, convince you, can’t help you. You’re as stubborn as ever.” That sounded almost benign; how could “stubborn” describe an attitude like Vergil’s? He tried to clarify what he meant but could only stammer. “I have to go,” he finally managed to say. “I can’t do you any good here.”

Vergil nodded. “I suppose not. This can’t be easy.”

“No,” Edward said, swallowing. Vergil stepped forward and seemed about to put his hands on Edward’s shoulders. Edward backed away instinctively.

“I’d like at least your understanding,” Vergil said, dropping his arms. “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.” His face twisted into a grimace. “I’m not sure how much longer I can face it, face up to it I mean. I don’t know whether they’ll kill me or not. I think not. The strain, Edward.”

Edward backed away toward the door and put his hand on the knob. Vergil’s face, temporarily creased with an agony of worry, returned to beatitude. “Hey,” he said. “Listen. They—”

Edward opened the door and stepped outside, closing it firmly behind him. He quickly walked to the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor.

He stood in the empty lobby for a few minutes, trying to control his erratic breathing. He glanced at his watch: nine in the morning.

Who would Vergil listen to?

Vergil had gone to Bernard; perhaps Bernard was now the pivot on which the whole situation turned. Vergil made it seem as if Bernard were not only convinced, but very interested. People of Bernard’s stature didn’t coax the Vergil Ulams of the world along unless they felt it was to their advantage. As Edward pushed through the double glass doors, he decided to play a hunch.

Vergil lay in the middle of the living room, arms and legs cruciform, and laughed. Then he sobered and asked himself what impression he had made on Edward, or on Bernard for that matter. Not important, he decided. Nothing was important but what was going on inside , the interior universe.

“I’ve always been a big fellow,” Vergil murmured.

Everything

—Yes, I am everything now.

Explain

—What? I mean, explain what?

Simplicities

—Yes, I Imagine if s tough waking up. Well, you deserve the difficulties. Damn very old DNA finally waking up.

SPOKEN with other

—What?

WORDS communicate with *share *body structure *external *is this like *wholeness WITHIN * *totality *is EXTERNAL alike

—I’m not understanding, you’re not clear.

Silence inside for how long? Difficult to tell the passage of time, hours and days in minutes and seconds. The noocytes had screwed up his brain clock. And what else?

YOU *interface * *stand BETWEEN *EXTERNAL and INTERNAL. Are they alike.

—Inside and outside? Oh, no.

Are OUTSIDE *share body structure *alike

—You mean Edward, don’t you? Yes indeed…share body structure alike.

EDWARD and other structure INTERNAL similar/same

—Oh yes, he’s quite the same except for you. Only—yes, and is she better now? She wasn’t well last night.

No answer to that question.

Query

—He doesn’t have you. Nobody does. Is she all right? We’re the only ones. I made you. Nobody else but us has you.

A deep and profound silence.

Edward drove to the La Jolla Museum of Modem Art and walked across the concrete to a pay phone near a bronze drinking fountain. Fog drifted in from the ocean, obscuring the cream-plastered Spanish lines of the Church of St. James by the Sea and beading on the leaves of the trees. He inserted his credit card into the phone and asked information for the number of Genetron, Inc. The mechanical voice replied swiftly and he dialed through.

“Please page Dr. Michael Bernard,” he told the receptionist.

“Who’s calling, please?”

“This is his answering service. We have an emergency call and his beeper doesn’t seem to be working.”

A few anxious minutes later, Bernard came on the line. “Who the hell is this?” he asked quietly. “I don’t have an answering service.”

“My name is Edward Milligan. I’m a friend of Vergil Ulam’s. I think we have some problems to discuss.”

There was a long silence on the other end. “You’re at Mount Freedom, aren’t you, Dr. Milligan?”

“Yes.”

“Staying down here?”

“Not really.”

“I can’t see you today. Would tomorrow morning be acceptable?”

Edward thought of driving up and back, of time lost and of Gail, worrying. It all seemed trivial. “Yes,” he said.

“Nine o’clock, at Genetron. 60895 North Torrey Pines Road.”

“Fine.”

Edward walked back to his car in the morning grayness. As he opened the door and slid into the seat, he had a sudden thought. Candice hadn’t come home last night.

She had been in the apartment that morning.

Vergil had been lying about her, he was sure of that much. So what role was she playing?

And where was she?

Gail found Edward lying on the couch, sleeping fitfully as a chill freak winter breeze whistled outside. She sat down beside him and stroked his arm until his eyes opened.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi to you.” He blinked and looked around. “What time is it?”

“I just got home.”

“Four-thirty. Christ. Have I been asleep?”

“I wasn’t here,” Gail said. “Have you?”

“I’m still tired.”

“So what did Vergil do this time?”

Edward’s face assumed a patent mask of equanimity. He caressed her chin with one finger—“Chin chucking,” she called it, finding it faintly objectionable, as if she were a cat.