Roger Zelazny - My Name is Legion

You see that I fail to see, I said, lowering my cup.

She refilled it, and then, The Chickcharny is built up over the water, she said, and a vision of it came clear, disturbingly real, into my mind. Like that, she said.

I do not drink strong beverages, I do not smoke, I seldom take medication, she said. This is not a matter of choice. It is a physiological rule I break at my own peril. But should I not enjoy the same things others of my kind may know, just as I now enjoy the cigarette we are smoking?

I begin to see ...

Swimming beneath the ashram at night, I could ride the mounting drug dreams of that place, know the peace, the happiness, the joy, and withdraw if it turned to something else ...

Mike ... I said.

Yes, it was he who led me to Kjwalll'kje'koothai'lll'kje'k, all unknowing. I saw there the place where they had found the diamonds. I see that you think it is near Martinique, since I was there just recently. I will not answer you on this. I saw there too, however, the idea of hurting dolphins. It seemed that they had been driven away from the place of their discovery, though not harmed, by dolphins. Several times. I found this so unusual that I was moved to investigate, and I learned that it was true. The place of their discovery was in the area of his song. He dwells in those waters, and others come to hear him there. It is, in this sense, a special place, because of his presence. They were seeking a way to ensure their own safety when they returned for more of the stones, she went on. They learned of the effects of the noises of the killer whale for this purpose. But they also obtained explosives, should the recording prove insufficient over a period of days.

The two killings occurred while I was away, she said. You are essentially correct as to what was done. I had not known they would take place, nor would my telling of Paul's thoughts ever be admissible in any court. He used everything he ever got his hands or mind around, that man, however poor his grasp. He took Frank's theory as well as his wife, learned just enough to find the stones, with a little luck. Luck, he had that for a long while. He learned just enough about dolphins to know of the effects of the sounds of the killer whale, but not how they would behave if they had to fight, to kill. And even there he was lucky. The story was accepted. Not by everybody. But it was given sufficient credence. He was safe, and he planned to go back to, the place. I sought a way to stop him. And I wanted to see the dolphins vindicated, but that was of secondary importance then. Then you appeared, and I knew that I had found it. I went to the station at night, crawled ashore, left you a note.

And you damaged the sonic, broadcast unit?

Yes.

You did it at such a time that you knew Paul and I would go down together to replace it.

Yes.

And the other?

Yes, that too. I filled Paul's mind with things I had felt and seen beneath the ashram of the Chickcharny.

And you could look into Frank's mind as well. You knew how he would react. You set up the murder!

I did not force him to do anything. Is not his will as free as our own?

I looked down into the tea, troubled by the thought. I gulped it. Then I stared at her.

Did you not control him, even a little, near the end, when he attacked me? Or, far more important, what of a more rudimentary nervous system? Could you control the actions of a shark?

She refilled my teacup.

Of course not, she said.

We sat for another silent time. Then, What did you try to do to me when I decided to continue my investigation? I asked. Were you not trying to baffle my senses and drive me to destruction?

No, she said quickly. I was watching you to see what you would decide. You frightened me with your decision. But what I did was not an attack, at first. I tried to show you something of the dreamsong, to sooth you, to put you at peace. I had hoped that such an experience might work some mental alchemy, would soften your resolve ...

You would have accompanied it with suggestions to that effect.

Yes, I would have. But then you burned yourself and the pain pulled you back. That was when I attacked you.

She suddenly sounded tired. But then, it had been a very busy day for her, all things considered.

And this was my mistake, she said. Had I simply let you go on, you would have had nothing. But you saw the unnatural nature of the attack. You associated it with Paul's raptures, and you thought of me, a mutant, and of dolphins and diamonds and my recent trip. It all spilled into your mind, and then the threat that I saw you could keep: alluvial diamonds and Martinique, into the Central Data Bank. I had to call you then, to talk.

What now? I asked. No court could ever convict you of anything. You are safe. I can hardly condemn you. My own hands are not free of blood, as you must know. You are the only person alive who knows who I am, and that makes me uncomfortable. Yet I have some guesses concerning things you would not like known. You will not try to destroy me, for you know what I will do with these guesses if you fail.

And I see that you will not use your ring unless you are provoked. Thank you. I have feared it.

It appears that we have reached something of a standoff.

Then why do we not both forget?

You mean, trust each other?

Is it so novel a thing?

You must admit you are possessed of a small edge in such matters.

True. But it is of value only for the moment. People change. It does not show me what you will be thinking on another day, in some other place. You are in a better position to know that, for you have known yourself far longer than I.

True, I suppose.

I, of course, really have nothing to gain by destroying the pattern of your existence. You, on the other hand, could conceivably be moved to seek an unrecorded source of income.

I can't deny that, I said. But if I gave you my word, I would keep it.

I know that you mean that. I also know that you believe much of what I have said, with some reservations.

I nodded.

You do not really understand the significance of Kjwalll'kje'koothai'lll'kje'k.

How could I, not being a dolphin or even a telepath?

May I show you what it is that I am seeking to preserve, to defend?

I thought about it for a time, recalling those recent moments back at the station when she had hit me with something out of William James. I had no way of knowing what manner of control, what sort of powers she might be able to exercise upon me if I agreed to some experiment along these lines. However, if things got out of control, if there was the least feeling of meddling with my mind, beyond the thing itself, I knew a way to terminate the experience instantly. I folded my hands before me, laying two fingers upon my ring.

Very well, I said.

And then it began again, something like music, yet not, some development of a proposition that could not be verbalized, for its substance was of a stuff that no man possessed or perceived, lying outside the range of human sensory equipment. I realized then that that part of me which experienced this had its place temporarily in the mind of the statement's creator, that this was the dreamsong of Kjwalll'kje'koothai'lll'kje'k, that I witnessed/participated in the timeless argument as he improvised, orchestrated it, drawing entire sections of previously constructed visions and phrasings, perfect and pure, from a memory so vital that its workings were barely distinguishable from the activities of the moment, and blending these into fresh harmonies to a joyous rhythm I comprehended only obliquely, through the simultaneous sensing of his own pleasure in the act of their formulation.

I felt the delight in this dance of thought, rational though not logical; the process, like all of art, was an answer to something, though precisely what, I did not know nor really care; for it was, in and of itself, a sufficiency of being, and if one day it were to provide me with an emotional weapon at a time when I would otherwise stand naked and alone, why this was one of the things none has the right to expect, yet sometimes discovers within the recollection of such fragments of existence cast by a special seer with a kind of furious joy.