Roger Zelazny - My Name is Legion

He leaned back against the workbench. He shook his head.

I was suspicious of you, he said, but you had the diamonds for proof. You came across them awfully fast, I'll admit. But I accepted your story because of the possibility that Paul's deposit was really somewhere quite near. He never told me where it was, either. I decided you had to have either stumbled across it or followed him to it and known enough to recognize it for what it was. Whichever way, though, it doesn't matter. I would rather do business with you. Shall we just leave the whole thing at that?

If you will tell me about Rudy and Mike.

I don't really know any more than what you've just said. That was none of my affair. Paul took care of everything. Answer one for me now: How did you find the deposit?

I didn't, I said. I haven't the least idea where he got them.

He straightened.

I don't believe you! The stones, where did they come from?

I found where Paul had hidden a bag of them. I stole it.

Why?

Money, of course.

Then why did you lie to me about where you got them?

You think I'd come out and say they were stolen? Now, though ...

He came forward very fast, and I saw that he had a large wrench in his hand.

I jumped backward, and the door caught him on the shoulder as it snapped inward. It only slowed him for an instant, though. He burst through and was at me again. I continued my retreat, falling into a defensive position.

He swung and I dodged to the side, chopping at his elbow. We both missed. His backstroke grazed my shoulder then, so that the blow I did land, seconds later, fell near his kidney with less force than I had hoped for. I danced back as he swung again, and my kick caught him on the hip. He dropped to one knee, but was up again before I could press in, swinging toward my head. I backed farther and he stalked me.

I could hear the water, smell it. I wondered about diving in. He was awfully close ...

When he came in again, I twisted back and grabbed for his arm. I caught hold near the elbow and hung on, hooking my fingers toward his face. He drove himself into me then and I fell, still clutching his arm, catching hold of his belt with my other hand. My shoulder smashed against the ground, and he was on top of me, wrestling to free his arm. As he succeeded in dragging it away, his weight came off me for an instant. Pulling free, I doubled myself into a ball and kicked out with both legs.

They connected. I heard him grunt. Then he was gone.

I heard him splashing about in the water. I also heard distant voices, calling, approaching us from across the islet.

I regained my feet. I moved toward the edge. Then he screamed, a long, awful, agonized wail. By the time I reached the edge, it had ceased. When Barthelme came up beside me, he stopped repeating What happened? as soon as he looked down and saw the flashing fins at the center of the turmoil. Then he said, Oh, my God! And then nothing.

In my statement, later, I said that he had seemed highly agitated when he had come to get me, that he told me Paul had stopped breathing, that I had returned with him to the dispensary, determined that Paul was indeed dead, said so, and asked him for the details; that as we were talking he seemed to get the impression that I thought he had been negligent and somehow contributed to the death; that he had grown further agitated and finally attacked me; that we had fought and he had fallen into the water. All of which, of course, was correct. Deponent sinneth only by omission. They seemed to buy it. They went away. The shark hung around, waiting for dessert perhaps, and the dolphin people came and anesthetized him and took him away. Barthelme told me the damaged sonic projector could indeed have been shorting intermittently.

So Paul had killed Ruby and Mike; Frank had killed Paul and then been killed himself by the shark on whom the first two killings could now be blamed. The dolphins were cleared, and there was no one left to bring to justice for anything. The source of the diamonds was now one of life's numerous little mysteries.

... So, after everyone had departed, the statements been taken, the remains of the remains removed, long after that, as the night hung late, clear, clean, with its bright multitudes doubled in their pulsing within the cool flow of the Gulf Stream about the station, I sat in a deck chair on the small patio behind my quarters, drinking a can of beer and watching the stars go by.

... I needed to stamp CLOSED on my mental file.

But who had written me the note, the note that had set the infernal machine to chugging?

Did it really matter, now that the job was done? As long as they kept quiet about me ...

I took another sip of beer.

Yes, it did, I decided. I might as well look around a bit more.

I withdrew a cigarette and moved to light it ...

When I pulled into the harbor, the lights were on. As I climbed to the pier, her voice came to me over a loudspeaker.

She greeted me by name, my real name, which I hadn't heard spoken in a long while, and she asked me to come in.

I moved across the pier and up to the front of the building. The door stood ajar. I entered.

It was a long, low room, completely Oriental in decor. She wore a green silk kimono. She knelt on the floor, a tea service laid before her.

Please come and be seated, she said.

I nodded, removed my shoes, crossed the room, and sat down.

O-cha do desu-ka?' she asked.

Itadakimasu.

She poured, and we sipped tea for a time. After the second cup I drew an ashtray toward me.

Cigarette? I asked.

I don't smoke, she said. But I wish you would. I try to take as few noxious substances into my own system as possible. I suppose that is how the whole thing began.

I lit one for me.

I've never met a genuine telepath before, I said, that I know of.

I'd trade it for a sound body, she said, any day. It wouldn't even have to be especially attractive.

I don't suppose there is even a real need for me to ask my questions, I said.

No, she said, not really. How free do you think our wills might be?

Less every day, I said.

She smiled.

I asked that, she said, because I have thought a lot about it of late. I thought of a little girl I once knew, a girl who lived in a garden of terrible flowers. They were beautiful, and they were there to make her happy to look upon. But they could not hide their odor from her, and that was the odor of pity. For she was a sick little girl. So it was not their colors and textures from which she fled, but rather the fragrance which few knew she could detect. It was a painful thing to smell it constantly, and so in solitude she found her something of peace. Had it not been for her ability she would have remained in the garden.

She paused to take a sip of tea.

One day she found friends, she continued, in an unexpected place. The dolphin is a joyous fellow, his heart uncluttered with the pity that demeans. The way of knowing that had set her apart, had sent her away, here brought her close. She came to know the hearts, the thoughts of her new friends more perfectly than men know those of one another. She came to love them, to be one of their family.

She took another sip of tea, then sat in silence for a time, staring into the cup.

There are great ones among them, she said finally, such as you guessed at earlier. Prophet, seer, philosopher, musician, there is no man-made word I know of to describe this sort of one, or the function he performs. There are, however, those among them who voice the dreamsong with particular subtlety and profundity, something like music, yet not, drawn from that timeless place in themselves where perhaps they look upon the infinite, then phrase it for their fellows. The greatest I have ever known ... and she clicked the syllables in a high-pitched tone ... bears something like Kjwalll'kje'koothai'lll'kje'k for name or title. I could no more explain his dreamsong to you than I could explain Mozart to one who had never heard music. But when he, in his place, came to be threatened, I did what must be done.