Гарднер Дозуа - City Under the Stars

The longer he stared at the thing, the more convinced he became that it—or something within it, but most likely the building itself—was staring back at him, studying him, analyzing him. Making plans.

It was making plans for Hanson specifically because he had the key within him. Delgardo believed in little healing machines because little healing machines were something a man could believe in and almost understand. But Hanson knew better. The truth was not only stranger than a man might believe, it was stranger than a man could believe. Somehow the key was protecting him and, for whatever unfathomable reasons, Delgardo as well.

Periodically, Hanson would remember with a sudden rush of dread and loathing that was almost a seizure, the moment the key had seized him, a metal rod bursting out of Boone’s dead chest, unfolding several joints, and then plunging into Hanson’s chest, passing through skin and muscle and cloth as if they didn’t exist, sinking out of sight within his body and leaving no trace of its existence behind.

Since then, it had always been with him, although sometimes when it was quiet inside him months and months would go by without him thinking of it at all. It was the key that had enabled him to pass alive through the Wall of the City of God, it was the key that had enabled him to seize control of the City for a critical moment, it was the key that had enabled him to shut down a section of the Wall, thus giving birth to the present they lived in now, it was the key that provided his limited “immortality,” that had cured his Crab, that kept him seemingly the same age no matter how much time had gone by, maybe by creating and replenishing the little machines in his blood that Delgardo believed in but more likely by some other process, one he would never be smart enough to understand.

Throughout all the interrogations he’d endured at the prison, through all the torture and pain and mutilation and horror and humiliation, the one thing he’d never mentioned about his trip inside the City of God was the key. Sometimes it seemed as if the key itself was somehow keeping him from saying anything about it, since when they were ripping his fingernails out with red-hot tongs, and he was trying to come up with anything he could say to make them stop , and he tried to tell them about the key to see if that would please them, the words disappeared from his throat somehow, and he found himself unable to speak them no matter how cruelly his interrogators abused his flesh.

Thank all the gods that might exist that he hadn’t told them, he thought now. If he had, then Overton would have written it down in his notes, and Delgardo would know about it. And if Delgardo knew… He was an intelligent man. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out that it was the key inside Hanson’s body that was replenishing his health, that was the real origin of Hanson’s “immortality.” And he wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to rip it out of Hanson’s body and claim it for his own.

And suppose that Delgardo did claim the key? Suppose that made it possible somehow for him to somehow seize control of the City?

That mustn’t happen.

There was no way that Delgardo would relinquish the godlike power that Hanson had once refused. No, he would use it instead. Use it for his own ends, to achieve his every selfish desire and grandiose wish. He’d extend his power to affect the world outside the Wall, as Hanson had declined to do, shape it however he wanted, bend it to his will. His use of the power would grow more and more extravagant, until, with his ego, he’d try to make people worship him as a god. Which in a way, he would be―a vain, petty, cruel, ruthless god.

Most of his life, Hanson had passively drifted with the tide, doing what he was supposed to do, asking no questions, making no trouble. Even him being back in the City again was the result of being swept along by the tide of someone else’s will; Delgardo had willed it, Delgardo had made it happen. All he’d done, however reluctantly, was do what he was told. Only twice in his life had he ever initiated and taken decisive action, when he’d killed Oristano the foreman, and when he opened a section of the City of God to the world. No, not even twice, because he’d been swept along on a tide of rage and pride and despair when he’d killed Oristano, unable to stop himself, hardly aware of what he was doing until it was over; there had been no planning or foresight involved, no conscious decision. So then, only one time in his miserable life had he ever decided to do something on his own, something that was his own idea, and had the will to actually make himself do it―when he’d taken down the Wall. That hadn’t turned out exactly as he’d hoped that it would. But at least he’d tried. At least he’d taken action.

He couldn’t afford to be passively swept along any longer. He had to do something, not only to get out of this situation and save his own life, but to keep Delgardo from making the world an even more horrible place than it already was.

He had to do something .

But what?

The soaring golden structure continued to leer down at him, silently, mockingly. At last, with a shiver, Hanson turned his back on the thing and trudged into the center of the camp, to reserve himself a place on the ground before the newly built fire and wait for food to be cooked and served.

That night, Hanson dreamed of his wife, Becky, carried away in the White Winter all those unhappy years ago. She was young and beautiful, with the dewy blush of youth on her skin, the way she had looked when he first met her and seen in her everything he’d ever wanted or dreamed of. After she died, he’d locked away all memories of her in the deepest recesses of his mind, but they leaked out from time to time still. Looking at her, he began to weep for all they had once had and all he had lost forever. “Hanson,” she said. “This can’t go on. You’ve got to fight back.”

“I know, Becky, I know, but… I can’t. I just can’t.”

“You’ll be judged in the Cathedral. If you love me, you’ll—”

But abruptly, he found himself in the military cemetery, searching among the graves for the body of his dead wife, unwrapping the canvas from corpse after corpse and searching the faces for her features. One canvas wrapping moved slightly as he approached and, suddenly filled with the certainty that she was after all still alive, he ripped open the cloth. Rats swarmed out, black and diseased, and when he flinched away in disgust, the corpse beneath them opened its eyes and was his old friend Boone, whose lipless mouth grinned madly and said, “Now it’s your turn to die. Ha! See how you like it!”

Nobody talked about it in morning, but from the sour expressions on their faces, Hanson was sure that he wasn’t the only one who’d suffered nightmares. After a cold breakfast, they broke camp and resumed their cautious march into the City. They hadn’t gone more than a mile when Hanson realized that Sergeant Barker had matched strides with him and they were walking abreast. Quietly, without looking his way, Barker said, “Stop baiting Delgardo.”

“Eh?” Hanson did not look at Barker either but continued walking along, scanning the City ahead, looking for trouble.

“Standing up to his kind don’t get y’nothing but trouble. He’s the commander. He’s got the law on his side, he’s got guns on his side, he’s got me on his side. You got nothing, an’ a man with nothing had best keep his head down. Hear what I’m saying?”

“Ai.”

“’Nuff said, then.” Barker slowed his pace, drifting back along the line. It touched Hanson that the sergeant would be looking out after him like that, though he doubted it was done out of any altruistic impulse. Men like Barker believed in keeping things calm, in damping things down before trouble had a chance to flare up. Hanson doubted very much that Barker could prevent the trouble that was brewing between him and Delgardo. But he admired him for trying.