Robert Silverberg - Shadrach in the Furnace

But why all this morbidity ? Strange, considering how healthy I feel. Tremendous surge of vitality since the aortal transplant. I thrive on surgery. I should get some sort of organ work done every week. Change kidneys the first of every month, new spleen on the fifteenth. Yes. Meanwhile, healthy though I am, death plays games with my soul as I sleep. I think that it is an amusement, a delicious sport, to toy with fantasies of death. We require some tension in our lives to relieve that unbearable onwardness of existence. That flow of event, day following day, sunrise, noon, sunset, dark, it can be crushing, it can stultify. And so. The delight of dwelling on the end of all perception, that is, the end of all things. There is joy in thinking about the dismal. Especially though not exclusively as it applies to others. There is a German term, schadenfreude, the joy of gloom, the pleasure to be had from the contemplation of the misfortunes of others. This sorry century has been the golden age of schadenfreude. We have known the ectasy of living at the end of an era, we have shared many blessed moments of decline and collapse. The shelling of the cathedrals in 1914, the English troops dying in the mud, the Soviet massacres, the first great economic disaster, the war that followed it, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the time of the assassinations, the toppling of the governments, the Virus War, the organ-rot, so much to weep about, though of course always it was others who suffered more than one’s self, which makes the weeping sweeter; nine dark decades and I have tasted them all, and why not now achieve a bit of interior distance and turn the principle inward, why not weep for the death of Genghis Mao? There is more pleasure in mourning than in dying. Let me in fantasy savor my own lamentable passing. How much I regret my going! I am my own most grief stricken mourner. I love these fantasies; I feel so exquisitely sorry for myself. But am I in fact dying ? I summon Shadrach. He tells me my morning readings. Everything normal, everything healthy. I am a phenomenon. I will not go from the world today. Long life to the Khan! Ten thousand years to the Khan!

Belá Horthy seeks him out in a corridor on one of the lower floors of the Grand Tower of the Khan and says, pretending not to be looking at him, “Frank tells me that you intend to stay here.”

“For the time being,” Shadrach says. “I need to think.”

“Thinking is useful, yes. But why do your thinking in Ulan Bator?”

“It’s where I live.”

“For the time being,” says Horthy. He swings around and looks straight at Shadrach — boldly, daringly. His wild hyperthyroid eyes arc veiled with concern. He must be one of the conspirators too, Shadrach realizes, and that doesn’t seem terribly surprising at all. Horthy says softly, “Run, Shadrach.”

“What’s the use? They’ll catch me.”

“Are you sure? They haven’t caught Buckmaster yet.”

“Aren’t you afraid to say things like that? When there might be—”

“Scanners in the walls?”

“Yes.”

“Everything gets scanned. Everything gets taped. So what? Who can run through all the tapes? The Citpols are drowning in data. Every spy-channel is choked with rivers of conspiracy, most of it insane and imaginary. There’s no filtering system to eliminate the useless noise.” Horthy winks. “Go. As Buckmaster went.”

“Useless.”

“I don’t think so. I advise running. I strongly advise running. You know, some people think better when they’re on the run.”

Horthy smiles. He takes Shadrach’s hand for a moment. As Horthy walks away, Shadrach calls after him, “Hey, are you part of it too?”

“Part of what?” Horthy asks, and laughs.

May 28, 2012

More dark dreams. I went down to Sukhe Bator Square and found they had erected a statue of me in the center of the plaza, a colossus, at least a hundred meters high, made of bronze that was already developing a green patina. My arms outspread in benediction. My face looked awful: wrinkled, cavernous, hideous, the face of a man five hundred years old. And the statue had no legs. It ended at mid-thigh, Genghis Mao on stumps, but the statue floated in mid-air, as though the legs had once been there but had been chopped away and the statue had remained at its original height. There was an old workman, sweeping up faded flowers, and I said to him, “Is Genghis Mao dead?” and he said, “Dead and gone, they sent the pieces back to Dalan-Dzadagad, and good riddance.” The pieces. They sent the pieces back. I don’t like this. There is too much death in my head these days. The game has lost its savor. I must take steps.

After breakfast I decided to make an inspection of the project laboratories. When preoccupied with death, drop in on those who would help you live forever. Wise idea. Immediately felt better. First personal visit in months. Should go more often.

Called on Phoenix first, the dainty Sarafrazi woman in charge, marvelous eyes, beautiful face. Terrified of me. Showed me her monkeys, her bubbling vats of chemicals, her pickled brains in bell jars. Optimistic forecasts from her, delivered in tense throaty voice. She’ll make me young again, so she claims. Am not so sure of that but told her to keep at it. Paralyzed with awe, she was. I thought she was almost going to kneel as I left. Went from there to Talos. Came in unannounced, but the Lindman woman cool as ice anyway. The report is that she’s Shadrach’s new lover. Can’t understand what he sees in her. Something about her mouth I don’t like, spoils her face. Looks like the mouth of some ferocious gnawing creature. She’s got a plastic Genghis Mao in her lab, very large, nothing finished below the waist, fust framework there, no legs. No legs. The Genghis Mao Memorial Statue. “Finish the legs,” I told her. She gave me a peculiar look. Told me the legs were the final job, more important now to get the internal engineering done. Knows her own mind, won’t take nonsense from me. Even if I am Chairman of the Permanent Revolutionary Committee. I Genghis II Mao IV Khan do command — no. Her robot can wink, smile, wave its arms. Gonchigdorge was with me and said, “It’s just like you, sir, a remarkable likeness,” but I can’t agree. Ingenious but mechanical. I wouldn’t want it to succeed me, I will not terminate Project Talos, not yet at any rate, but I don’t think it’s going to be able to produce what I need.

Went on to Nikki Crowfoot’s lab. Avatar. Ah! Yes!Beautiful woman, though tense, depressed, withdrawn, these days. Guilty about Shadrach, I imagine. She ought to be. But she remains a loyal servant of the Khan. Is this a good thing? “When will you be ready to make the transfer?” I asked her. She said, “It’s just a matter of months. ” I felt such a surge of excitement at that that Shadrach phoned from upstairs to find out if I was all right. Told him to mind his own business. But I am his own business. Anyway, Avatar gives me hope. Soon I will put on new healthy flesh. Before the first snows come I will speak to the world with Shadrach’s lips, I will breathe the air with Shadrach’s lungs.

Entering the Project Avatar laboratory unannounced in midafternoon, Shadrach is confronted immediately by Manfred Eis, Nikki Crowfoot’s chief assistant, who emerges out of a maze of equipment and strides purposefully toward him like Thor on the warpath, halting with a crispness just short of a heel-click.

“We are very busy just now,” Eis announces, making a challenge out of it.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“’You have come because — ?”

“A routine inspection visit,” Shadrach answers mildly. “To check on progress. I haven’t been here for a while.”