Jerry Sohl I, Aleppo

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

to cut off Cassoit's hand at the wrist. Cassoit pulled his hand away so that
the blade missed it by a mere millimeter. Cassoit backed away, regarding
Aleppo with surprise and alarm.
"You've gone mad!" Cassoit hissed.
Aleppo lunged, Gail screamed from the open doorway, Cassoit sidestepped,
Page 59
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
opened a door and closed it behind him. It was the door to
Cassoit's lavatory, Aleppo saw in the brief glimpse he got of it. He was so
angered by Cassoit that he wanted to run the bolo through the door and break
it down, but he suddenly realized that killing Cassoit would not be killing
Project Ephialtes, so he tried calming himself, which his anger and
frustration made difficult. Finally, he strode out through the reception room.
Gail had abandoned her post at the desk.
Aleppo hurried his steps. He was in for it now. He had to finish his tasks in
a hurry or it would all be over: the people in the dream lab would be alerted
and they would be waiting for him. That would never do. Still, no one knew for
sure he was going to the dream lab, and that was all to the good. As he moved
down the corridor to the front doors he stuck the bolo through his belt and
buttoned his white jacket over the handle. The blade was visible, it was so
long, but there was no way he could hide that.
First he would cut off the life support system, for Gary. After that he would
kill them one by one, Max Easton, Sam Nevis and the girl, Kathleen
Keegan. He would hide the blade so that he could do away with Gary first.
Then he would pick up the blade and complete the job with the others.
They would be expecting nothing, and that was good. Aleppo was feeling
buoyant. It would be so good wielding a blade again, feeling it slice flesh
and cut through bone, and it would be real and not in somebody's dream!
There were advantages to being alive after all. But his place was back in the
Consciousness Pool and not here. He would do what he had to do and then
return.
He was actually running by the time he got to the dream lab building.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"He's changed!" Kate said when she took her first look at Gary. She, Max and
Sam had rushed into the laboratory to find it the way they had left it. "He's
seeing me!"
It was true. Max and Sam moved to the tank and peered inside. Gary was very
much alive and well and he was gesturing with his hands and he kept twirling
about.
"I wish he'd stay still," Kate said. "Why is he doing all that?"
Max said, "I think he's trying to tell us something."
"Well," Sam said, drawing up a chair to watch Gary, "we'll never learn what it
is unless he stays in one spot."
"Kate," Max said, "does he seem to be Gary?"
Kate nodded. "Yes, he does. I don't understand it. How can Gary be in two
places at one time?"
Max said he didn't think he could. "I think one of them is Aleppo."
"Which one?" Kate asked in a shaky voice.
"I don't know. I wish there were some way to tell. If Aleppo is the one that
was in the hospital, he has all of Gary's memories to draw on. He could fool
anyone. We'd never be able to tell if he was Aleppo or not."
Sam nodded to the figure in the tank. "What about our friend here?"
"What I don't understand is why he changed," Kate said. "One minute he looks
like he's in suspended animation and the next here he is waving his hands."
"Look," Max said, drawing up a chair beside Sam's. "Maybe it would be better
if we stopped talking and tried to figure out what he's trying to tell us."
Kate was too nervous to sit down. She was worried that Gary/ Aleppo had left
the hospital room. Where had he gone? Why hadn't he come to the lab? Maybe he
had come! Maybe he'd come and done something to
Gary! She turned to say so to Max, but Max was concentrating heavily on
Gary.
She forced herself not to think about the missing Gary. Maybe that is what the
Gary in the tank was trying to tell them, that Aleppo had been there.
Page 60
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Gary kept pointing and Max said, "I think he's pointing to the table."
Kate said, "Wait a minute," and got a tablet of paper. She wrote on it
TABLE and showed it to the Gary in the tank. Gary nodded wildly and pointed to
the ebony table. She wrote EBONY before TABLE. Gary nodded
even more excitedly.
"What about the table?" Sam asked.
"I don't know." Kate turned and looked at it. "It's there and it's not
changed."
"Maybe he's saying that the other Gary was here and did something to the
table," Max said.
"I was thinking that, too," Kate said. "Maybe the other Gary got this one out
of his doldrums."
"He doesn't like our just talking," Max said, shifting his chair closer.
"Let's watch."
Gary pointed at Kate.
"Me?" She turned to Max. "Why should he point to me?"
"Ask him."
She wrote WHY ME? and showed it to him.
Gary mouthed "table." Kate said, "He wants me to get on the table. Do you
think that's it?"
"It seems to me," Sam said, "that he wants you to do a little dreaming."
Gary had just made the motions of putting on the molecular probe helmet and
injecting himself with a phantom syringe.
They sat watching him in a welter of uncertainty. Max said, "if what was in
the tank was Aleppo, then it would be bad for Kate to get on the table. On the
other hand...." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podstrony