Orson Card - Wyrms

"He killed them, then," whispered Kristiano.

"No," said Angel. "No, they're humans, they're not from Imakulata. They can live without the mindstone.

The crystal steals their memories, but it leaves them shadows. They don't die when the crystal is gone. They just-forget. Everything. But it's still there, the shadows are there in their brains, and as long as they live, they stumble now and then over some of the old information, quite by chance. They may even find some of the pathways, recover some of their identity. I don't know. It doesn't kill them, though. He lets them all die a natural death."

"Prisoners, till they die?" asked Will.

"No. Not really prisoners. They love him."

"Thank you," said Strings. "I've done evil, but not as evil as I feared."

"Never evil," murmured Kristiano. He touched Strings's hand. "Good heart," the boyok whispered. The old gaunt smiled and nodded.

"You were different," said Will to Angel. "He didn't take your mindstone."

"He needed me to go back out into the world. To cause Patience to be born."

"What was your wisdom?" asked Will. "What was it you studied, that made him call you?"

"I studied new life. The way young organisms grow, from the genetic cells in the parent's body to the final maturation of the living child."

"Not just organisms. You studied humans."

"All there is to know about the growth of the human infant, fetus, embryo, egg, and sperm-I know it. I knew it then."

"He didn't take your mindstone-but you taught him."

Angel shook his head. "No."

"Yes," said Will. "If he wanted to gather information vital to destroying the human race, he'd have to know what you knew."

"Oh, yes," said Angel. "But I didn't teach him. I studied him. I examined the cells he had developed within himself. Ready to combine with the vigorous new human genes that Patience would bring to him. He wanted to be sure that he was ready. He wanted to know that his offspring would do all he wanted them to do."

"And what does he want them to do?"

"Oh, I don't mean their careers, or anything like that.

I only studied them to predict their growth patterns. He has done marvels. His incredible genetic molecule-it can change itself. His own body makes new hormones, and those pass into his gametes and cause them to change.

They lack the human component as an active feature. But they're there, anyway, though no human traits are dominant.

I was able to stimulate artificial growth, cloned life from his sperm alone. It never lived longer than a few minutes. I don't work miracles."

"What did you learn?"

"In those few minutes, they did what human zygotes do in six months. It's why they died. He had jiggered them so the individual cells reproduced at an incredible rate. My nutrient solution was too poor for them. I pumped it into them; they grew visibly in front of my eyes, and then they withered and died. It frightened him.

For a moment he made me want to kill myself."

"He's sterile, then?" asked Will. "His children will die in the womb?"

"No. Not now."

"What do you mean?"

"I told him what they needed. To grow slower, that's what I told him first, but he said no. He wants his children to be adults within hours, minutes-then they can eat his mindstone, you see, and know all that he knows, and walk out of the birthing place knowing everything."

"He talked to you?"

"I dreamed of it. He made me desire it, too. To see them grow so fast, and live. So I told him that his children must have a yolk. A source of material and energy so rich that they'll have enough to grow at that incredible rate. He can't have as many children as he would have, but they'll be adults within an hour. He's afraid for them, he knows he can't protect them. So from his own body he'll produce a very dense, very rich yolk, which he'll implant along with his sperm-"

"In Lady Patience."

"Do you believe in God? Pray for her, Vigilant."

"So the children will be few."

"The children had better never be conceived," said Angel. "Or they'll come down out of the mountain in an hour, able to communicate with each other as the wyrms always did. Not the feeble thing the geblings do. The ancient wyrms were one self. No matter how many bodies his mate brings forth, Unwyrm will have one child.

And if they do take over the earth, they'll be a single entity, knowing all things that each one knows. If any survive at all-"

"None will," said Will.

"I'll see to that," said Sken. "I'll see to the little monsters."

"Monsters?" said Angel. "Yes, you see to the monsters."

"Strings," said Will. "How fast can you get us up the mountain to Unwyrm's lair?"

"Outside Freetown, the Miserkorden have platforms that rise most of the way. If Unwyrm doesn't try to stop us, we could be there in twelve hours or so. If we leave here at dawn, we'll be there by nightfall."

"You can bet the others won't have it so easy," said Will. "It won't do to face Unwyrm unrested. Strings, is there somewhere here that we can sleep? Just for a few hours?"

"You've paid for this box," said Strings.

"I suppose we wouldn't be the first to stay all night."

"You'd be the first who slept." Strings smiled. Kristiano laughed.

"Sken," said Will, "I'll stand a two-hour watch. Then you wake for the next two."

"I had hoped for more sleep than that," she said.

"It's all we'll get. And you, Angel-you might as well sleep straight through. You may think you're an invincible assassin, but I've been a soldier in my day, and my body count is at least as high as yours."

"I told you, he isn't in me anymore."

"I just warned you in case he came back." Will smiled.

"You mean you're not going to kill him?" asked Sken.

"That's right," said Will.

"And will you take me with you?" asked Angel.

"I've known Unwyrm's call," said Will, "and I feel no contempt for those who succumb to it. God has some good purpose in mind for every soul that's born. You have a right to try to redeem yourself. But I promise you, I'll kill you in a moment if I see that Unwyrm has you again."

"I know," said Angel. "I want you to."

"He does," said Strings.

"Four hours," said Will. "At dawn we'll head for the top. We're not much of an army, but with God's help we'll be more than Unwyrm can handle."

"How do you know God doesn't want Unwyrm to win?" asked Angel.

"If he wins, we'll know God wanted him to." Will smiled. "Reality is the most perfect vision of God's will.

It's discovering God's will in advance that causes all the trouble."

"The fate of mankind is in the hands of a fanatic," said Angel. "As usual."

"YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT MORE EXERCISE ON THE BOAT," said Ruin.

Patience could hardly speak for panting; Reck was doing scarcely better. Only Ruin seemed tireless as they ran along the narrow street.

Despite Ruin's greater endurance, it was Patience who had chosen their route so far, dodging among the buildings, climbing over roofs and scrambling up ladders and trellises. Reck and Ruin had little experience with urban scenery; they had no sense of where blind alleys might lead, or what buildings could serve as inadvertent highways to the next level. Patience, however, had spent years climbing over, under, and through the many palaces and public buildings of King's Hill, which in some areas was as densely populated and overbuilt as Cranning.

The soldiers were shouting behind them, but a curve in the road that skirted a jut in the cliff's face hid them from the soldiers' view. Patience saw an open gate into a small garden on the cliff side of the road. She quickly scanned the area for possible escape routes. The garden was beside a two-story house, which led upward to a stone retaining wall built against the cliff face. The wall no doubt supported a road on the next level up. A sewer pipe protruded a couple of meters below the lip of the retaining wall; to avoid having the waste from above pollute them, the builders on this level had connected it to a thick masonry drainpipe that carried the wastewater down to a collector barrel. Until now, there had always been ladders or stairs or elevators connecting the different levels, but apparently these two states were feuding, and the sewer connection was the best they had seen so far. To Patience, it looked like a highway to safety.