Robert Silverberg: Thorns

Duncan Chalk had been studying the tapes on the pair for three days, giving the project nearly his undivided attention. It seemed to him now that he knew Minner Burris and Lona Kelvin as thoroughly as anyone had ever known them. It seemed to him, also, that the idea of bringing them together had merit.

Intuitively, Chalk had known that from the beginning. But, though he trusted his intuitive judgments, he rarely acted on them until he had had time to make a more rational reconnaissance. Now he had done that. Aoudad and Nikolaides, to whom he had delegated the preliminary phases of this enterprise, had submitted their selections of the monitor tapes. Chalk did not rely on their judgment alone; he had arranged for others to scan the tapes as well and prepare their own anthologies of revealing episodes. It was gratifying to see how well the choices coincided. It justified his faith in Aoudad and Nikolaides. They were good men.

Chalk rocked back and forth in his pneumatic chair and considered the situation while all about him the organization he had built hummed and throbbed with life.

A project. An enterprise. A joining of two suffering-human beings. But were they human? They had been, once. The raw material had been human. A sperm, an ovum, a set of genetic codons. A whimpering child. So far, so good. A small boy, a small girl, blank planchets ready for life’s imprint. Life had come down hard on these two.

Minner Burris. Starman. Intelligent, vigorous, educated. Seized on an alien world and transformed against his will into something monstrous. Burris was distressed by what had become of himself, naturally. A lesser man would have shattered. Burris had merely bent. That was interesting and praiseworthy, Chalk knew, in terms of what the public could gain from the story of Minner Burris. But Burris also suffered. That was interesting in Chalk’s own terms.

Lona Kelvin. Girl. Orphaned early, a ward of the state. Not pretty, but of course her years of maturity were still ahead of her and she might ripen. Insecure, badly oriented toward men, and not very bright. (Or was she brighter than she dared let herself seem to be, Chalk wondered?) She had a thing in common with Burris. Scientists had seized upon her, too: not grisly alien Things, but kindly, benevolent, impartial high-order abstractions in white lab smocks, who without injuring Lona in any way had merely borrowed some unnecessary objects stored within her body and had used them in an experiment. That was all. And now Lona’s hundred babies were sprouting in their gleaming plastic wombs. Had sprouted? Yes. Born already. Leaving a certain vacuum within Lona. She suffered.

It would be an act of charity, Duncan Chalk decided, to bring this suffering pair together.

“Send Bart in here,” he said to his chair.

Aoudad entered at once, as though rolling in on wheels, as though he had waited tensely in an anteroom for just this summons. He was gratifyingly tense. Long ago Aoudad had been self-sufficient and emotionally agile, but he had broken down, Chalk knew, under the lengthy strain. His compulsive womanizing was a clue to that. Yet to look at him, one saw the pretense of strength. The cool eyes, the firm lips. Chalk felt the subsurface emanations of fear and edginess. Aoudad waited.

Chalk said, “Bart, can you bring Burris to see me right away?”

“He hasn’t left his room in weeks.”

“I know that. But it’s futile if I go to him. He’s got to be coaxed back into public. I’ve decided to go ahead with the project.”

Aoudad radiated a kind of terror. “I’ll visit him, sir. I’ve been planning techniques of contact for some while. I’ll offer incentives. He’ll come.”

“Don’t mention the girl to him just yet.”

“No. Certainly not.”

“You’ll handle this well, Bart. I can rely on you. You know that. There’s a great deal at stake, but you’ll do your usually fine job.”

Chalk smiled. Aoudad smiled. On one, the smile was a weapon. On the other a defense. Chalk sensed the emanations. Deep within him, ductless glands were triggered, and he responded to Aoudad’s uneasiness with a jolt of pleasure. Behind Aoudad’s cool gray eyes uncertainties revolved. Yet Chalk had spoken the truth: he did have faith in Aoudad’s skill in this matter. Only Aoudad himself did not have faith; and so Chalk’s reassurances twisted the blade a trifle. Chalk had learned such tactics early.

Chalk said, “Where’s Nick?”

“Out. I think he’s tracking that girl.”

“He nearly blundered last night. The girl was in the Arcade and wasn’t properly protected. Some fool fingered her. Nick was lucky the girl resisted. I’m saving her.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Naturally, no one recognized her. She’s forgotten. Her year was last year, and today she’s nothing. Still,” Chalk said, “there’s a good story in her, properly handled. And if some ignorant grease gets his hands on her and stains her, it ruins the story. Nick should watch her more closely. I’ll tell him that. You see about Burris.”

Aoudad quickly left the room. Chalk sat humming idly, enjoying himself. This thing would work. The public would love it when the romance flowered. There’d be money to reap. Of course, Chalk had little need for further money. It had motivated him once, but not now. Nor did the acquisition of greater power please him much. Despite the customary theories, Chalk had attained sufficient power so that he was willing to stop expanding if only he could be sure of holding what he had. No, it was something else, something inner, that governed his decisions now. When the love of money and the love of power are both sated, the love of love remains. Chalk did not find his love where others might find it, but he had his needs. Minner Burris and Lona Kelvin could fill those needs, perhaps. Catalysis. Synergy. Then he would see.

He closed his eyes.

He saw himself naked, afloat, gliding through the blue-green sea. Lofty waves buffeted his sleek white sides. His vast bulk moved easily, for it was weightless here, supported by the bosom of ocean, the bones for once not bowed by gravity’s pull. Chalk was swift here. He wheeled to and fro, displaying his agility in the water. About him played dolphins, squid, marlin. Alongside him moved the solemn, stupid upright mass of a sunfish, no midget itself but dwarfed by his shining immensity.

Chalk saw boats on the horizon. Men coming toward him, upraised, grim-faced. He was quarry now. He laughed a thundering laugh. As the boats approached, he turned and swam toward them, teasing them, inviting them to do their worst. He was near the surface, gleaming whitely in the midday light. Sheets of water cascaded from his back.

Now the boats were near. Chalk pivoted. Mighty flukes lashed the water; a boat sprang high, became matchsticks, dumped its flailing cargo of men in the brine. A surge of muscle carried him away from his pursuers. He blew a great spouting geyser to celebrate his triumph. Then he plunged, sounding joyously, seeking the depths, and in moments his whiteness vanished into a realm where light was not free to enter.

“You should go out of your room,” the visitation suggested gently. “Show yourself to the world. Meet it head on. There’s nothing to fear.”

Burris groaned. “You again! Won’t you leave me alone?”

“How can I ever leave you?” his other self asked.

Burris stared through layers of gathering darkness. He had fed himself three times this day, so perhaps it was night, though he did not know and did not care. A gleaming slot provided him with any food he requested. The rearrangers of his body had improved his digestive system but had not made any fundamental changes in it. A small enough blessing, he felt; yet he still could cope with Earthside food. God knew where his enzymes now came from, but they were the same enzymes. Rennin, pepsin, the lipases, pancreatic amylase, trypsin, ptyalin, the whole diligent crew. What of the small intestine? What the fate of duodenum, jejunum, and ileum? What had replaced the mesentery and the peritoneum? Gone, gone, all gone, but rennin and pepsin somehow did their work. So the Earthside doctors who had examined him had said. Burris sensed that they would gladly dissect him to learn his secrets in more detail.